Transcript
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So this one time I think I was in an airplane with a pedophile.
Speaker: So what happened was I was probably about seven, eight years old.
Speaker: I think we were flying to St.
Speaker: Bart's or Nevis.
Speaker: Fun fact, Nevis is where Alexander Hamilton was born.
Speaker: And the way the airplane worked was like a small little airplane.
Speaker: And like I was like too small to have my own seat or whatever.
Speaker: And so like the pilot was like, we refuse to take off because it's like he can't sit in his chair by himself.
Speaker: And I was with my older brother.
Speaker: So my older brother was with my mom or whatever.
Speaker: I don't know where the fuck my dad was.
Speaker: And this guy just volunteers to my mom.
Speaker: Like he goes like, yeah, he can sit on my lap or whatever.
Speaker: But like, yeah, dude.
Speaker: But back then it was just like,
Speaker: You didn't put up... You wouldn't have been weirded out by it.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: But now, you even say hello to a child, you go to jail for... I don't know.
Speaker: That's pretty creepy.
Speaker: Weird shit, man.
Speaker: It was weird as shit.
Speaker: In hindsight, dude.
Speaker: Yeah, this grown-ass stranger just offered for me to sit on his lap or whatever.
Speaker: What the fuck?
Speaker: Anyway, sorry.
Speaker: I would say that's very strange.
Speaker: Inaugural episode number one, where to find the best hookers in Baton Rouge.
Speaker: Why don't you start it off for us?
Speaker: I was going to say that I was going to start off with this is attempt number two.
Speaker: The first time around didn't go so hot.
Speaker: We sounded like absolute morons and decided to scrap the first episode and come back to it.
Speaker: So here we are.
Speaker: I wanted to start off the podcast with just talking about why one, why we wanted to do it and then to get into the creative art for the, for the logo.
Speaker: Um, so, I mean, the reason I wanted to do the podcast was because when we were out at college to get, well, one, you're just one of the most fascinating people to talk to because you're an encyclopedia.
Speaker: No, I didn't mean it in that kind of way.
Speaker: Um, but, but, uh, when we were,
Speaker: When we were in college and we drove back from Denver to New York, our going in or end of my junior year.
Speaker: What was that?
Speaker: I tried putting a tennis ball in my mouth and it ricocheted off the computer.
Speaker: Anyway, sorry.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: Continue.
Speaker: That's okay.
Speaker: And we were driving, I think it was the end of my junior year, end of your sophomore year.
Speaker: Yeah, it had to have been.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And we get in the car.
Speaker: So the drive is what, 30 hours?
Speaker: You do it over two days, 16 hours in the car each day.
Speaker: And we get in the car and you were...
Speaker: you were asleep because I think we left at 5 a.m.
Speaker: and you drooled.
Speaker: I think you had Oreos for breakfast and you drooled all over yourself.
Speaker: All your shit was disgusting.
Speaker: And then, but from the minute you woke up at, I don't know, 7.30 in the morning or eight, you spoke the entire 30 hour car ride.
Speaker: And I think I said- Motor mouth maybe.
Speaker: Five words.
Speaker: And so ever since then, it was just to me, it was always like, we just got to do a podcast together because it would be hilarious if we just
Speaker: you know, probably no one's going to listen to it and no one's going to like it, but we're going to have fun doing it.
Speaker: And that's all that matters.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: I think, you know, especially since I FaceTime me like three times a day, at least.
Speaker: I think you FaceTime me about six times a day.
Speaker: Honestly, you're probably right.
Speaker: My parents are concerned.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: They think we're dating or something?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Time to break the news.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And I just have so much to say.
Speaker: There's always things I want to talk about.
Speaker: And I think this is the perfect outlet to do it.
Speaker: So here we are.
Speaker: Um, I think, uh, so once we decided, you know, all right, we're going to do this podcast.
Speaker: I think the next thing we kind of focused in on was, you know, all right, we need a podcast name and a logo.
Speaker: And so I think for the name, you know, cause my nickname is junkie, you know, cause a play on words for my last name.
Speaker: Oh, we are.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: For those who don't know, his last name is Junquera, but not a single teacher in America knows how to pronounce that.
Speaker: So they'd always say Junquera.
Speaker: Not even a Hispanic Latino, which is a goddamn shame, I will say.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I mean, yes, it's a bizarre name.
Speaker: It's like from the Basque region of northern Spain, which is almost not even Spanish.
Speaker: But anyway, so yeah.
Speaker: So we came up with the name Junk Mail for the podcast.
Speaker: You know, like email, you know, like your junk spam mail, junk mail.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: And then as far as the logo, uh, Alex kind of sent me some templates as far as, you know, like trying to incorporate, you know, like my fucked up crazy mind, you know, just like some crazy, you know, like what is going on in junkies mind.
Speaker: And, uh, there was kind of this, uh, caricature kind of 3d drawing of like this, uh, brain being dissected.
Speaker: It's like this whole anatomy theme.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: It was perfect, you know, and we kind of reciting on the colors next.
Speaker: So we had the name, the general image and then the colors.
Speaker: And just by chance, you had sent me like this black and pink with like some neon green in there.
Speaker: And I was like, it reminded me right away of these famous album covers.
Speaker: Of course, there's Elvis Presley's first album.
Speaker: There is London Calling by The Clash.
Speaker: And then there's Katie Lang.
Speaker: If you look at those albums, it's this black main background with pink and neon green, horizontal and vertical.
Speaker: It's a super, super iconic album design cover.
Speaker: And just those colors kind of reminded me right away of, you know, the logo that you had sent me.
Speaker: So there's so many kind of things that just fit perfectly.
Speaker: And this is like, boom, all right, this is off to a great start.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let's keep this train rolling, you know?
Speaker: Well, I would say that's the perfect segue into part of the podcast because as you will do, you see one thing like a fucking color and you'll just go, oh my God, that reminds me of Elvis.
Speaker: That reminds me of The Clash.
Speaker: And then you'll talk about it.
Speaker: Okay, so obviously you're a huge – well, for anyone who knows you, they know that you're a gigantic Elvis fan.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And just music fan in general.
Speaker: So I figured what better way to start the first podcast than to talk about something you're passionate about to set the tone for –
Speaker: for the future so let's get into music absolutely so music um about a year or two ago i actually really started getting into vinyl records and i'm not one of those hipster douchebags who goes to you know urban outfitters or you know and wears like the doc martens like ironically with like uh big baggy pants and like oh my god like this is vinyl like uh like you can get a lot of vinyl at stores like that hold on some of those people really like music though
Speaker: Yeah, but I'm just an asshole and I just have formal opinions on people without getting to know them, judging a book by its cover basically.
Speaker: But anyway, you can go to stores like that, Urban Outfitters or whatever, and they sell a lot of vinyl.
Speaker: But where I differentiate from the pack is that I mostly go after the first pressings, the ones that were released.
Speaker: the year that came out.
Speaker: So yes, not to sound like a, a music snob here, but it's, it's really cool because not only is it a whole tactile experience, but it almost, it's almost like a time machine.
Speaker: It takes you back with the pamphlets that it came with, you know, with advertisements and like, whether it's from the fifties or sixties, it's like the actual stuff there.
Speaker: It has all the crackles, you know, in it.
Speaker: And it was, it's, it's just from a different era.
Speaker: But I have vinyl from,
Speaker: Anybody and everybody, like you said, you mentioned Elvis.
Speaker: All of Elvis' stuff, including his, what do you call it, some early stuff of his, and then his last album, which is actually really interesting.
Speaker: If you think about vinyl, the way it's presented, most vinyl, when you think of a record, it's like a black record, right?
Speaker: The color is black.
Speaker: But right before Elvis died in the late 70s, 1977, RCA was kind of experimenting with something, which is what they do quite often.
Speaker: For the people who are listening, what's RCA?
Speaker: RCA is a big, one of the biggest, it's still around today, one of the big music entertainment companies.
Speaker: It's like Columbia Records, RCA.
Speaker: I mean, they even made televisions and all that kind of stuff too.
Speaker: Like you've definitely seen them.
Speaker: Oh yeah, that company.
Speaker: The Strokes are still on their record level, I believe.
Speaker: Well, the Strokes suck.
Speaker: I saw them.
Speaker: I saw them not to, not a really quick story.
Speaker: So I went down to Nashville last summer to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Speaker: They're one of my favorite bands ever.
Speaker: And the strokes were going to open for them.
Speaker: So I figured I always wanted to see the strokes live.
Speaker: So I figured two birds, one stone.
Speaker: And Julian Casablanca was about to fall off the stage.
Speaker: That dude was so fucked up.
Speaker: I genuinely could not believe he was even able to stand.
Speaker: I don't know if he was on drugs.
Speaker: I don't know if he was on drinking or all of the above.
Speaker: But dude, like the next day I read about it on Reddit about how this whole tour that he did with the red hot chili peppers, everyone had noticed how screwed up he was.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: So it wasn't just you thinking, Oh my God, this guy is super fucked up.
Speaker: Like everybody noticed and,
Speaker: Yeah, the strokes, the strokes open for them for a lot of that tour in the US for most of the shows they did in the US.
Speaker: And all over Reddit and the internet, people were saying how yeah, Casablanca was just hammered the whole time.
Speaker: I couldn't believe how badly he was singing like it was a joke.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And honestly, pretty disappointing because I grew up being a fan of the Strokes.
Speaker: I wouldn't say they were my favorite band by any stretch, but I definitely enjoyed their music.
Speaker: And then to hear them live, it was pretty disappointing.
Speaker: Anyways, back to your story.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: Quickly to add on to the Strokes.
Speaker: I mean, it's a really – they have a really interesting sound.
Speaker: I mean, I think he went to Lycee Francais, which is the French school here in Manhattan.
Speaker: But his father actually –
Speaker: a lot of bad stuff came out about him is essentially credited with coming up with the modern conception of what a modeling agency is today.
Speaker: Like he was one of the big front runners, like a super, super famous guy.
Speaker: Like that was a total party legend got kicked out of, uh, I think he went to La Rose, which is the most expensive boarding school in the world.
Speaker: I think tuition is like a hundred equivalent of 140 grand per year.
Speaker: Julian or the dad, the dad.
Speaker: And he was expelled from there for like,
Speaker: banging a teacher or something like that, or something like that, I believe.
Speaker: I read that somewhere.
Speaker: So they're just old, old generational money.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: But it's a super international band.
Speaker: Like one of the people is Brazilian, I think, Moretti or whatever his name is Brazilian, I think.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: But it's a really interesting sound.
Speaker: But yeah, that totally sucks that he was super fucked up.
Speaker: Speaking to the point where you could not.
Speaker: Sorry, it's super fucked up and like disappointing that he was that messed up on stage that like it was it took away from the overall show.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I mostly I mostly felt bad for him.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because I was kind of like, dude, like get your stuff together.
Speaker: We've seen some cool show.
Speaker: Remember when we went to go see.
Speaker: the black eyed peas in central park.
Speaker: You and I remember that during a torrential rainstorm.
Speaker: Um, it was a free concert in New York.
Speaker: That was, that was, yeah.
Speaker: And they were like, the rain ain't going to stop us.
Speaker: And I just see like lightning and it was like, okay, we have to cancel this show.
Speaker: Like this is getting really unsafe.
Speaker: Well, wasn't, wasn't the show canceled the night before.
Speaker: I think it was.
Speaker: And then they rescheduled it because of the rain.
Speaker: They still do great, uh, concerts every summer in the park.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: believe it or not, in the 1960s, they used to do something called Schaefer Music Festival, which was basically in Central Park right next to Walman Rink, which was kind of a big, I think it was Trump Rink.
Speaker: It was some affiliation, like the hot ice rink there.
Speaker: I think he developed it or something.
Speaker: Right, right, right.
Speaker: But I mean, this used to be, I mean, the biggest names
Speaker: internationally, whether it was Chuck Berry, Rolling Stones, like jazz, rock, you know, soul, folk music, like out of control fucking names.
Speaker: You read them now and they were all together like a set list and they would do that every single summer or whatever.
Speaker: Like, can you imagine going to a concert back then?
Speaker: How crazy it was?
Speaker: Yeah, it would have been actually fun.
Speaker: Dude, we were walking.
Speaker: I was walking by Central Park or in Central Park last summer when they were doing one of those concerts.
Speaker: I think I think the Jonas Brothers were playing.
Speaker: You could hear it.
Speaker: Because it's so loud.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: That's wild.
Speaker: Yeah, we could hear it.
Speaker: We were on the west side.
Speaker: So we were walking down the bike path area because, you know, they have all the police barriers and whatnot.
Speaker: So you can't walk in certain places in the park.
Speaker: And we were on the west side and it was in the Great Lawn and we must have been in the...
Speaker: the seventies.
Speaker: So 10, 15 blocks South of the great lawn, um, 10 blocks, but you could hear it loud and clear.
Speaker: And it was clearly the Jonas brothers, but yeah, I mean, getting to see Chuck Berry and all those people at in central park in the middle of the summer, that would have been amazing.
Speaker: My dad was telling me a story, uh, cause he went to high school in Puerto Rico.
Speaker: So in 1972, I think it was, uh, they did a big concert called Marisol, which is basically sea and sun.
Speaker: Um, it was organized by this guy named Alex Cooley.
Speaker: Alex Cooley was based out of Atlanta, Georgia, and he did a lot of production stuff with bands like Leonard Skinner.
Speaker: Anyway, on the touring bill for Marisol was Black Sabbath fucking Ozzy Osbourne, who incredible stories about him, including one of the times where he almost...
Speaker: like was murdered because he pissed on the Alamo structure.
Speaker: They like the, the Alamo still not allowed back.
Speaker: And I think they might've like a few years ago, allowed him back, but yeah, like there, it's amazing how he wasn't like killed.
Speaker: Anyway, I was nuts.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, so black Sabbath, um, who, I think, um, Jose Feliciano, the guy does Feliz Navidad.
Speaker: There was a big, like a bunch of, uh, I think Jethro toll was there.
Speaker: Um, black Sabbath ended up because of like a,
Speaker: transportation issue, even though they were like the main headliners, they never appeared really.
Speaker: But this one guy who did appear on a show was an unknown at the time, ended up becoming a huge superstar.
Speaker: That guy's name, Billy Joel.
Speaker: Oh, really?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Like 1972 or whatever in Puerto Rico.
Speaker: Like who's this young kid, white kid, you know, doing all this music.
Speaker: Where did they do the show in San Juan?
Speaker: Yeah, somewhere in San Juan.
Speaker: And like it's like they show the outskirts, which is narrow, like this beach, whatever.
Speaker: It's like kind of a shithole now.
Speaker: But no,
Speaker: My dad was telling me he, uh, he remembers sneaking into this concert and they were all underage at the time.
Speaker: So they like climbed under a fence or whatever.
Speaker: And like you said, like the amount of people just like, cause it was in the seventies, it's like completely like ripped out of their gore, like stoned or like a tripping LSD, you know, just like girls, they trot their tops off, whatever.
Speaker: Like you can't do that stuff at concerts anymore.
Speaker: You know, like it says you don't do that stuff anymore.
Speaker: Well, I think at music festivals, a lot of people are doing a lot of drugs.
Speaker: Speaking of concerts, I don't know if you've heard about this stuff, dude.
Speaker: And this is going into one of my biggest hot takes, one of the artists who drives me nuts the most.
Speaker: Here you go.
Speaker: I cannot stand her.
Speaker: I'll say it right now.
Speaker: I think she's mid at best, all right?
Speaker: I'm talking, of course, about Taylor Swift.
Speaker: I think it is...
Speaker: I think it's scary, and I think it's disturbing.
Speaker: The freaky paranoia, the obsession, what do you call it, the Swifties?
Speaker: Oh, my God, oh, my God, Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift, oh, my God, people are driving themselves fucking nuts.
Speaker: They had at Nissan Stadium, hold on, in Nashville.
Speaker: It was...
Speaker: whoever her concert promoters are, and I don't know if she has any responsibility with this too, they essentially oversold, I don't know if they oversold a concert, but it was...
Speaker: it turned out almost a medical, something, multiple tragedies could have occurred at this concert.
Speaker: This was a couple of weeks ago, whatever.
Speaker: People were vomiting on each other, screaming and crying, like getting in prayer circles, like singing her songs or whatever.
Speaker: Like this, who does this?
Speaker: Like this is more like a cult than a person.
Speaker: What is this?
Speaker: Jim Jones in South America?
Speaker: Like I can only imagine, first of all, if you're,
Speaker: older than a high schooler what the fuck you're still listening to this music i'm your boyfriend you're my girlfriend all she does is write songs about guys she's broken up with on purpose all right and then she's given to the key to new york city oh my god my bonnet off from new york city this is great okay and then she's like music videos of her ever seen how cringe this shit is dude she's like oh my god looking at all like these teenage girls what
Speaker: they're freaking out dude there's another fucking music video of her like fake strumming his guitar like high-fiving some girl behind like a coffee table and like drinking out of this red cup it's like it's so cringe it's so unauthentic like who the fuck do you think you are and the fact that people are paying two thousand dollars for nosebleed tickets that some father paid 21 grand for like his
Speaker: daughter and our spoiled brat friends to go see this this this yeah because we're not spoiled brats if my child ever asked to spend over two hundred dollars for a ticket i'd say
Speaker: Get the fuck out of here, all right?
Speaker: That's what I would say.
Speaker: Like in some Italian voice, get the fuck out of here.
Speaker: You're not going to have $200 to give your kids to buy a fucking podcast.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't make $200 a year, all right?
Speaker: Secondly, I think that your hatred of Taylor Swift.
Speaker: Well, there's something else that really bugs me about her.
Speaker: And this you agree on as well.
Speaker: You agree on this as well.
Speaker: Just cut me off.
Speaker: Fine, fine.
Speaker: You say what you want to say.
Speaker: No, no, no.
Speaker: I want to hear it.
Speaker: All right, all right.
Speaker: There is a song of hers that she was like, you know, growing up on a farm.
Speaker: Mama didn't raise no whatever like that.
Speaker: And you look at her childhood home, dude.
Speaker: It's over a million dollars.
Speaker: It's a mansion.
Speaker: Her mom was.
Speaker: Remember, you look this up.
Speaker: What was her mom against?
Speaker: Her mom was like, please look this up.
Speaker: This is it infuriates me because it just drives to the point how unauthentic this chick is.
Speaker: It just it.
Speaker: Oh, it really grinds my gears.
Speaker: I will.
Speaker: And it's a shame because there's so much other tremendous music.
Speaker: She was born in West Reading, Pennsylvania.
Speaker: Amish country.
Speaker: Her father, Scott, was a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: And her mother was a former homemaker who previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Listen, I'm – listen, I can't say that she grew up country, whatever.
Speaker: I will say I think that your argument that people are obsessed with her is BS because –
Speaker: People were obsessed with Elvis back in the day.
Speaker: Yes, but that was starting a cultural revolution that actually broke racial barriers.
Speaker: You're telling me this chick is breaking racial barriers?
Speaker: That's not what I'm saying.
Speaker: That's not what I'm saying.
Speaker: But what I'm saying is also though, people were obsessed with the Beatles.
Speaker: People were obsessed with the Rolling Stones.
Speaker: People were obsessed with all these amazing artists who lived throughout time.
Speaker: Just because you don't like Taylor Swift's music, you can't just be mad at her because people like her music and obsess over it when you obsess over other people's music.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I just think she's garbage.
Speaker: It just upsets you because you don't like her music.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Yeah, you're right.
Speaker: I mean, yeah, I am.
Speaker: Am I being a huge asshole about this?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then the next part, which I would think as someone who loves music and performing as much as you do –
Speaker: She, listen, say what you want about her music.
Speaker: Say what you want about how she grew up, all that nonsense.
Speaker: Oh, that was, I tried to do a good burp.
Speaker: You can edit that out.
Speaker: Whatever.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: Continue.
Speaker: Say what you want about her music, but you have to respect the fact that she is doing four and a half hour long concerts.
Speaker: Dude, plenty of people have done that in a day.
Speaker: Plenty of people have done that.
Speaker: What modern artist today, what modern artist today goes on, does a world tour and does it every show for four and a half hours.
Speaker: When I saw the Chili Peppers, granted, they're significantly older than her.
Speaker: That's because the majority of modern artists are freaking pansies and they can't like, it's pathetic.
Speaker: So then you hate all modern music
Speaker: I hate the majority of modern music.
Speaker: There's a lot of groups.
Speaker: I still, I still, you know, respect, you know, I definitely respect there's, there's plenty of modern groups that I respect, but you know, I just think, uh,
Speaker: Oh, shit at a four-hour concert.
Speaker: Does it every night?
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: People would do that shit all the time, dude.
Speaker: They'd go from city to city without pampered luxury.
Speaker: But as someone who loves music, shouldn't you respect that?
Speaker: Shouldn't you be like, wow, she's bringing the old performance back to life?
Speaker: She's pushing the envelope.
Speaker: She's pushing other artists to actually do their jobs instead of just sitting and posting on Instagram and making.
Speaker: She develops a crippling cocaine addiction, then I'll respect her.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She's got to be a real rock star.
Speaker: She's got to OD on heroin.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: She been arrested yet.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: It's not real.
Speaker: Fake news.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Fake news.
Speaker: That's pretty funny.
Speaker: Anyway, going back to my vinyl, dude.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Um, it's majority of it's, it's all first pressings and some are like rare, some rare misprints, you know, like have a, as far as rare misprints of a Johnny cash album, it's a 45, it's not, it's not an album.
Speaker: It's just a 45 record, but it says J O H N N I E instead of J O H N N Y, you know, and this is still from suns.
Speaker: This is probably 1957, 58.
Speaker: Why was it still that way?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I guess whoever misprint.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: It's a total misprint.
Speaker: Um, I have, um,
Speaker: Is that worth more money because it's a misprint?
Speaker: I don't think it's worth that much money just because it was a pretty common record.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: I mean, I have... Was it misprinted that way?
Speaker: No, just that one song he did.
Speaker: So a 45 is basically just a single.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then a 33 or whatever is like that full album usually.
Speaker: So yeah, it's just a 45.
Speaker: So is it smaller?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I didn't know they had names.
Speaker: I just thought they were smaller and bigger vinyl.
Speaker: Actually, it's really funny because
Speaker: Earlier today, I set aside about maybe 45 different records that I have that I would consider unique and cool.
Speaker: And what do you call it?
Speaker: And they're all in the other room.
Speaker: So I'm trying to think now to top my head.
Speaker: So I have albums like First Pressing 1978 of Some Girls by the Rolling Stones, which was the subject of a US Supreme Court case with Jesse Jackson.
Speaker: He was really upset over the Rolling Stones lyrics.
Speaker: because it involved a certain race and wanting to have sex all night long.
Speaker: So he thought it was really racist.
Speaker: You can look it up.
Speaker: The Rolling Stones wanted to have sex with what ethnicity all night long?
Speaker: It said basically black girls want to get fucked all night long in one of their songs.
Speaker: I mean, that's a little... But that's tame compared to if you listen to songs by them like Honky Tonk Woman, which they don't do anymore.
Speaker: I mean, that's been covered by black artists as well.
Speaker: Speaking of black artists, I don't know if you heard today, by the way, Tina Turner passed away.
Speaker: And she was a tremendous talent.
Speaker: And yes, she, you know, if you ever seen a movie, eight mile during one of the rap battles, you know, when she goes and not stupid, like Tina Turner, when she got smacked up, you know, you're referring of course to Ike Turner, her husband, who Ike Turner was probably also, I would credit him as being one of the pioneers of inventing rock and roll.
Speaker: But they kept calling all the news media outlets kept referring to Tina Turner.
Speaker: Oh, she's a queen of rock and roll.
Speaker: Like I would highly disagree.
Speaker: I would say the queen of rock and roll,
Speaker: is either Mahalia Jackson or Sister Rosetta Tharp.
Speaker: Sister Rosetta Tharp was a black, openly lesbian singer.
Speaker: If you listen to songs like Didn't It Rain Last Night and strumming on an SG guitar.
Speaker: I mean, this is like Tina Turner, Little Richard, Elvis, all these people.
Speaker: They're considered the originals, but they, as kids, grew up listening to Sister Rosetta Tharp and Mahalia Jackson.
Speaker: And so when did she become popular?
Speaker: When did she start making music?
Speaker: So she was a black lesbian rock star in the 1940s?
Speaker: Well, yeah.
Speaker: Little Richard was arguably, I mean, I don't think he came out, but I mean, you have to be a moron to not realize the guy was gay.
Speaker: Flamboyantly gay in the 1950s and stuff like that, you know?
Speaker: And, uh, like if it wasn't for him, I mean, he opened a door for people, you know, not just straight artists, but people like, you know, Elton John, Prince, uh, Liberace, you know, who are, uh, which by the way, if you ever see this like Liberace thing, like after he died, it's like, they like later, they didn't say like in his autopsy, like he died of age, which he clearly did, but they said it was like some like heart malfunction.
Speaker: It's just like, who the fuck couldn't tell that who like was not like confused, you know, you can edit this out.
Speaker: This sounds really bad.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But going back to music, one of the albums that I have, oh, I have stuff from Otis Redding, First Pressings.
Speaker: Otis Redding was probably one of the greatest soul singers and pioneers of rock and roll.
Speaker: One of the records or one of the artists that I have the most records from, probably every single record from,
Speaker: I will argue right now is probably the most, if you have a Mount Rushmore of rock and roll, he's on there along with Chuck Berry, literature and probably Ray Charles.
Speaker: And also arguably one of the greatest country musicians, influential country musicians of all time.
Speaker: I'm talking, of course, let's see if you can get it.
Speaker: As a child, this person committed multiple crimes, such as stealing cars, ignoring segregation laws, which I obviously totally respect.
Speaker: trespassing, running away from home multiple times, unfortunately seeing his older brother dying in front of him, engaged in underage drinking as a teenager, committed multiple acts of major fraud, was suspended and expelled from multiple different schools, married somebody else without getting a divorce,
Speaker: And then that's not including you ever going to let me get a whole hunt.
Speaker: And it's not including, you know, marrying a 13 year old second cousin twice removed, which was not illegal in the United States or the United Kingdom.
Speaker: And as an adult, extreme drinking and drug use, multiple counts of attempted murder, including probably murdering one of his one of his wives.
Speaker: You have tons of domestic violence banned from one of the most famous entertainment venues, despite being one of the most influential figures in that music industry.
Speaker: multiple accounts of vandalism, being arrested multiple times, including at Graceland for having a gun in his trunk, brandishing a gun, driving through the gates of Graceland.
Speaker: I should know this because you've told me a million times, but I have no idea.
Speaker: Telling Cam Ercruz and audiences to kiss his ass and shut the fuck up.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: Sued by Studio 54.
Speaker: Sued his own daughter.
Speaker: One of his cousins is Jimmy Swaggart, the famous televangelist.
Speaker: The other one was Mickey Gilley, who was an urban cowboy with John Travolta.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Late in tax evasion, that's flood, which caused him to flee to another country.
Speaker: And finally, hold on, was the first person to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, recently inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and having performed with English scholars such as Brian May.
Speaker: You know who that is from Queen?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Mick Fleetwood, Sir Peter Frampton, Sir Tom Jones, Mick Jagger.
Speaker: and work with some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry like Sam Phillips, Jerry Kennedy, and the late billionaire Steve Bing, who Steve Bing worked a lot with like Leonardo DiCaprio.
Speaker: And I think three years ago, this guy was a billionaire, big media movie mogul personality guy, committed suicide when he jumped out of his like LA office building or whatever, like at the first second floor.
Speaker: Was he able to get wine seen or something?
Speaker: No, I don't know.
Speaker: But like, I saw the video of it, like,
Speaker: And it was really fucked up because you remember like the joke thing where somebody is about to do something and the African guys are the coffins.
Speaker: They go, dun, dun, dun, dun.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: During the pandemic when that came out.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: And I think he killed himself during the pandemic.
Speaker: So it's a video of basically, it's unmistakably, it's in LA and the body is coming out of a huge high rise building.
Speaker: It just before it hits the ground, you see the African guys go, dun, dun, dun, dun.
Speaker: So of course I am talking about
Speaker: Jerry Lee, as you would say, fucked up Lewis, came onto the scene around the same time as Elvis, which was very important because at that time, America was in an extreme sense, extreme state of social conservatism and racial segregation.
Speaker: And these guys basically knocked those doors down and said, to hell with that shit.
Speaker: This is what we feel.
Speaker: And it shook the entire world over.
Speaker: Jerry Lee.
Speaker: has an album called Live at the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany in 1964.
Speaker: So what's very important to note about Germany in the 1960s was it was still during communism.
Speaker: So you had West Germany and East Germany.
Speaker: Hamburg was part of West Germany.
Speaker: So that was like the non-communist side.
Speaker: Two years before the Beatles had done an album called Live at the Star Club, the same club which Jerry Lee later did.
Speaker: This is already after Jerry Lee had buried his 13-year-old cousin, basically was taken off all the radio stations,
Speaker: like which is crazy because he had the number one songs all over the country like he was on basically like the equivalent of Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel like he's being interviewed he was like up there with Elvis you know and then because he did what he did like overnight nope like social pariah you know banned from radio stations you know and basically became a country artist and one of the most successful country artists but
Speaker: During those years.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What's up?
Speaker: He was married seven times.
Speaker: Seven times.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So one of them was his cousin.
Speaker: One of them was a woman who was 13 years old.
Speaker: One of them.
Speaker: Sounds like a good guy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But listen, this is a great musician, but terrible person, right?
Speaker: So some of the most stuck up, stringiest music reviewers, like Rolling Stone, All Music, Q Magazine, this is what they said about it.
Speaker: In a five out of five stars review, Milo Miles raved in Rolling Stone that Live at the Star Club Hamburg is not an album.
Speaker: It's a crime scene.
Speaker: Jerry Lee slaughters his rivals in a 13 song set that feels like one long convulsion.
Speaker: It's not country, boogie, pop or blues, but showdown rock and roll with no survivors but the killer.
Speaker: Lewis combines his frightening precision with piano stomps and rolls and nonstop sneers and boasts.
Speaker: His self-references would not be matched until the rap years.
Speaker: He devours the songs with his sweet hellfire vocals spattering everyone with Jerry Lee's sanctified lewdness.
Speaker: Throughout, Lewis calls for his guitarist to add some excitement in the middle of the storm, but even at that point, a tuba would sound crazed.
Speaker: This might be the most exciting performance ever recorded.
Speaker: Words cannot describe, cannot contain a performance.
Speaker: The purest, hardest rock and roll ever committed to record.
Speaker: He sounds possessed.
Speaker: Heating the keys so hard it sounds like they'll break.
Speaker: And rocking harder than anybody had or since before.
Speaker: Compared to this, thrash metal sounds tame.
Speaker: The Stooges sound constrained.
Speaker: Hardcore punk seems neutered.
Speaker: And the Sex Pistols sound like wimps.
Speaker: Rock and roll is about to fire in a performance.
Speaker: And nothing sounds as fiery as this.
Speaker: Nothing hits as hard or sounds as loud.
Speaker: It is no stretch to call this the greatest lab album ever.
Speaker: How much longer is it a stretch to call it the greatest rock and roll album ever record recorded?
Speaker: It's up there.
Speaker: James record James Brown's great live albums, which I do actually have live at Apollo Theater here in New York City, 1963.
Speaker: But it just there's so many different reviews just talking about how loud, how we don't rationing it sounds.
Speaker: But dude,
Speaker: thinking about it, do you realize how pretty, like you don't see shit written about that.
Speaker: And this, and this is why people who would have hated the guy for what he did.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like had, I would have had no business even wanting to like listen to any of his songs, but this album is so fucking good and so influential.
Speaker: So there's that.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: That's part of music.
Speaker: And now I'm also into bands like, you know, I mean, I love the Rolling Stones.
Speaker: I love listening to like Latin music, whether it's when it was a social globe, I love listening to deep house, whether it's clap tone or this, uh,
Speaker: Spanish chick named Ana Tour.
Speaker: She's done some great, great sets in Ibiza, like some unbelievable sets.
Speaker: So, I mean, like my music definitely, it's not just purely like Elvis, Jerry Lee, Little Richard, who I will say for everybody who's so super woke and social justice now, I thought it was a disgrace how as soon as he died, everybody's like, oh, we loved you.
Speaker: We were always big fans of you.
Speaker: You know, you were such a hero.
Speaker: No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker: This guy,
Speaker: was the first openly and flamboyantly gay performer.
Speaker: But probably the up there is one of the hardest rockers of all time.
Speaker: I mean, this guy performed in front of presidents, kings and queens.
Speaker: He would have chandeliers in his hair.
Speaker: She would scream.
Speaker: This guy did so much cocaine that whenever he blew his nose, his membranes would come out onto the tissue paper.
Speaker: He would make $10,000 a night as a black man in segregated USA.
Speaker: And then $10,000 a night, he threw it all away.
Speaker: Literally, like he threw away all of his jewelry, everything.
Speaker: One night decided to become a preacher.
Speaker: He'd go back from religion to rock or religion to rock and roll.
Speaker: He was arguably the most influential character and did more than any other pansy has or since today.
Speaker: It infuriates me how people don't give this guy the respect that he that he that he deserves.
Speaker: They probably just don't know.
Speaker: I mean, the average.
Speaker: But it's just like.
Speaker: But that's like history, dude.
Speaker: But the average music fan doesn't have the desire, the want, the time to go in and read all these things about other people.
Speaker: So unless you're in school taking, you know, like music history classes or you're obsessed with music like you are, right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You're just not going to know about it.
Speaker: I would say most people who are like really know music, they probably know those things about him and would give him credit.
Speaker: I bet you Taylor Swift knows those things.
Speaker: Yeah, but instead of covering any of his songs, she's covered fucking like 99 problems.
Speaker: I've seen that shit.
Speaker: Like she's actually covered that song at one of her concerts.
Speaker: Like get the fuck out of here.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Hey man, yeah, why don't you take what?
Speaker: Well, let's let's put Taylor Swift in the Marcy project.
Speaker: See how long she lasts.
Speaker: Get the fuck out of here.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Marcy.
Speaker: So what?
Speaker: So I feel like I could be going on and on about music.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Elvis, the movie.
Speaker: I thought that was in his disgrace and abomination.
Speaker: One of the worst movies of all time.
Speaker: I like it was more.
Speaker: plot holes, inconsistencies, and just flat out untruths in that movie than in Amber Heard's testimony.
Speaker: That's what I have to say.
Speaker: That movie was horrific.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: That movie was, I mean, I was shaking my head so many times during the movie.
Speaker: This never happened.
Speaker: That never happened.
Speaker: This definitely never happened.
Speaker: Why aren't you talking about this?
Speaker: Why aren't you showing this song?
Speaker: Why are you using only 10 seconds of arguably one of the most important songs that defy
Speaker: Defined the era of the 1960s and was dedicated to Martin Luther King.
Speaker: And why would you use a shittier version of that?
Speaker: Like, it was a disgrace.
Speaker: Absolute disgrace.
Speaker: I would say I liked the movie from the perspective of someone who didn't really know a whole lot about Elvis because I definitely learned some things.
Speaker: Granted, whether they were 100% correct or not is obviously up for debate.
Speaker: But what I didn't like about the movie was the...
Speaker: the cinematography of it.
Speaker: It seemed really weird.
Speaker: It was always flashy.
Speaker: I felt like I was having a seizure seizure.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: That's exactly what I was going to say.
Speaker: I mean, that's typical Baz Luhrmann.
Speaker: You know, everything has to be like, boom, in your face, like you're reading.
Speaker: The sound and the music was good though.
Speaker: The sound was very good.
Speaker: No, don't get me wrong.
Speaker: And they added some, um, you know, a lot of modern twists to like Doja Cat doing a Hound Dog, which by the way, before anybody goes, well, Elvis, you know, he copied black music and he stole Hound Dog.
Speaker: Hound Dog was written by two Jews, Mike Stoller and, uh,
Speaker: What do you call it?
Speaker: Mike Stoller and Jerry Lieber.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And yes, it was first recorded by fellow Mississippi and big mama Thornton, who talking about people who are the real Queens of rock and roll.
Speaker: She should be up there as well.
Speaker: I don't know why she's nobody ever talks about her, you know?
Speaker: That's a shame.
Speaker: I was going to say too though, the music was really good.
Speaker: And the thing that really got me though for that movie that was really hard to... One, it was the cinematography because I felt like I was having a seizure.
Speaker: But then two, it was the Tom Hanks'
Speaker: accent was horrible it was so hard to listen to he is not good at accents listen don't get me wrong tom hanks incredible actor but apparently he's a real him in that major creep in real life apparently like there's there's been like allegations that that guy has done some weird shit what is he does he have any flight records on epstein's i don't know if he's been on epstein's private planes but uh
Speaker: I think it's related to that, like in a general sense, I certainly hope not, but even nonetheless, regardless of all that, cause this sounds like very hearsay, um, great actor, but God damn, he was terrible in that movie.
Speaker: And the whole point of that character, uh, Colonel Tom Parker, who that was a pseudonym, just like, you know, uh, Mark Twain or Nick Cage or Bob Dylan.
Speaker: Those aren't, those aren't those people's real names.
Speaker: Those are all pseudonyms made up names.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: He was originally from the Netherlands.
Speaker: He was an illegal immigrant who came to this country basically and worked in the carnivals, you know, and that's where he kind of got his show business, you know, experience with stuff for his resume.
Speaker: And then he but he was a very sure businessman.
Speaker: He had managed people like Hank Snow, which was one of the most iconic country real country singers, I will say.
Speaker: But there was, he never in real life, he would never use that.
Speaker: He had this whole fake Southern accent because the pressers were already, especially if we were in the deep South, they weren't very educated.
Speaker: So they were very suspicious people.
Speaker: So if you had a guy talking like this, like he does in a movie, they would have been like, no, fuck you.
Speaker: We're not gonna do business with you.
Speaker: We're not gonna have you manage my son's life and career.
Speaker: It's not gonna happen.
Speaker: It wasn't really revealed till around the time
Speaker: a couple of years before Elvis died, or if anything, after Elvis died, that he was an illegal immigrant from the Netherlands, you know?
Speaker: And that's part of the reason why Elvis was never allowed to travel.
Speaker: Yes, because he traveled with tons of medication and they had been busting other people like, I think it was somebody in the Who or whatever the band was.
Speaker: There had been a major drug bust with them.
Speaker: And so there was a big, you know, concern from a security standpoint because Elvis basically traveled with an ungodly amount of prescription medication.
Speaker: Like it wouldn't fly in other countries, even though there was a demand for him to be seen in anywhere from Japan to Saudi Arabia.
Speaker: And I think had he had gone abroad, you know, that he would have lived a couple extra years because it would have given him something to look forward to.
Speaker: But his manager, he couldn't travel abroad because his manager was an illegal immigrant.
Speaker: And if his manager had gone with him, he would never be allowed back into the country.
Speaker: So that's what I realized.
Speaker: Elvis Presley.
Speaker: He could have traveled anywhere in the world with all the drugs.
Speaker: I don't know, man.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I mean, in the last year of his life, I think his private doctor prescribed over 10,000 pills and vitals, like the syringes and stuff.
Speaker: And you can look up the exact... I mean, he would take stuff like Demerol, which is essentially for terminally ill cancer patients that just cannot handle the pain anymore.
Speaker: He would take that recreationally.
Speaker: Uh, doctor, did the doctor who prescribed them all this stuff, did they get convicted of murder?
Speaker: Well, not convicted of murder.
Speaker: They lost their license kind of very similar to what happened with Michael Jackson's doctor, but Elvis would also get it from different doctors.
Speaker: Like, even though his doctor would prescribe him tens of thousands of pills, you know, in the last year of his life, uh, if that was, if Elvis wanted a certain medication, cause he kept a medical almanac updated every single year on his bedside.
Speaker: So he knew,
Speaker: how to say, all right, I have this ailment and this is the symptoms I have.
Speaker: So he knew what to get for what thing.
Speaker: And he would purposely like put like, like a, he put like a, a inch hole, uh, a hole, like an inch wide in his foot, you know, just to get prescribed pain medications, whatever he'd go to the dentist all the time just to get pain medication.
Speaker: Um, yeah.
Speaker: And like if a doctor, he went to a doctor's office and a doctor was, you know, seeing somebody else, he'd go into the doctor's office.
Speaker: with a black duffel bag and just go into his drawer, fill a duffel bag up to the brim and just walk out.
Speaker: Like sometimes he didn't even know like what he was taking.
Speaker: He would just take like random shit or he would go to a doctor he'd never seen before.
Speaker: And the doctor was like, well, you're not my patient.
Speaker: I can't really prescribe to you.
Speaker: And he goes, you see, I kind of like outside.
Speaker: He goes, oh, that's a very nice car, Mr. Press.
Speaker: He goes, well, it's yours.
Speaker: So he had the doctors in his pocket, you know?
Speaker: So it wasn't just that one doc, Dr. Dr. Nick, he was getting it from.
Speaker: It was, it was, it's a very, very sad,
Speaker: thing.
Speaker: And you kind of see a lot of parallels today, you know, with the whole, you know, opioid prescription, you know, epidemic that's going on in this country that kills tons of people.
Speaker: Like you can just, cause I mean, you used to go to Florida, dude, and they would just have doctors sometimes flying from other countries and not even with the prescription, you could just say, yeah, I have back pain and it would give you a 90 day, a 90 count pill thing.
Speaker: And you can go from clinic to clinic, you know, and they're starting to shut them down now.
Speaker: But like,
Speaker: And that's just scratching the surface.
Speaker: I mean, it's just rampant.
Speaker: Did you ever hear about the Pill brothers in Florida?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: What is this?
Speaker: Oh, you've got to look this up.
Speaker: This is going to be the whole next episode.
Speaker: Oh, shit, man.
Speaker: I would love to hear about this.
Speaker: We're talking about medication.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: It's my Adderall thing and the shortage of that.
Speaker: Holy shit.
Speaker: Yeah, let me talk.
Speaker: Let me talk.
Speaker: Hey, hey, hey.
Speaker: Stop it.
Speaker: Don't you?
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So these two brothers, twin brothers,
Speaker: They ran the largest opioid pill mill in US history.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And they got cracked down on, I don't remember when it was, but it was like early on when opioids were kind of making a big, like, you know, being over prescribed by doctors.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: And basically they just, yeah, they just had this, this tiny little piece of shit shack in Florida where
Speaker: And they registered it.
Speaker: And it was called, I forget, there was some name for it.
Speaker: I'm blanking on what the name was, but it was known across the country by drug addicts.
Speaker: And people would just go there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they would get all these crazy opioids.
Speaker: And these guys were making money like you couldn't believe.
Speaker: There's a whole documentary about it called American Pain.
Speaker: It was on Netflix or Hulu or something like that?
Speaker: No, CNN film.
Speaker: So I don't watch that.
Speaker: I'm just kidding.
Speaker: That was a thing.
Speaker: I've never even heard of CNN films.
Speaker: But nonetheless, apparently these guys just had the world's – they were like the most successful drug dealers in America and it was all technically legal, although they ended up getting caught and going to jail and all that stuff.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Yeah, you should look it up.
Speaker: It's pretty fascinating.
Speaker: Damn.
Speaker: So what are you talking about?
Speaker: So music.
Speaker: So, yes, I think just in general, like what other what other stuff do I listen to?
Speaker: I listen to a lot of old country, like Jerry Lee Lewis, who I think has songs like if you listen to songs like middle age crazy, she still comes around to love what's left of me.
Speaker: What's made Milwaukee famous has made a loser out of me.
Speaker: another place, another time.
Speaker: I mean, those songs at the time were even considered hardcore country.
Speaker: But I mean, to me, it's when an artist, it's not only the tempo of the music, but it's the lyrics.
Speaker: And it's especially when it's from an artist who's actually walked the walk and talked the talk, you know.
Speaker: So like my big problem with country music today is that it's by a lot of people who have never really lived that experience, you know.
Speaker: and the lyrics or some of them are so cringeworthy, whether it's stuff by Luke Bryan, like core makes whiskey, a whiskey makes my girl a little frisky.
Speaker: It's like, he listens to songs like that.
Speaker: It's like, dude, what am I like?
Speaker: It's so bad.
Speaker: He could have lived that experience.
Speaker: Maybe his girlfriend drank some whiskey one night and she got a little frisky.
Speaker: I don't know, man.
Speaker: Maybe he put the, the, um, I was being a remedy in that whiskey maker.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Um, but so, yeah, I mean, even if it's not from a,
Speaker: Conway Twitty, I love a lot of his stuff, but there's obscure country albums like Brooke Benton.
Speaker: He does covers of Walk the Line, He'll Have to Go, which was by Jim Reeves, which is actually the last song that was ever recorded formally.
Speaker: And it was from Graceland because the last two years of his life, Elvis was too fucked up to actually physically go to a formal recording studio.
Speaker: So he basically brought the recording studio to his own house.
Speaker: So
Speaker: There was a camper trucks outside on his front lawn, like RVs.
Speaker: And they had like these massive cables going in and out of his front door.
Speaker: And like he had his band in his living room and that's where he recorded.
Speaker: So it was on Halloween, 1976.
Speaker: And then the following year, 77, he died.
Speaker: But the last song he did is called He'll Have to Go.
Speaker: And Tom Jones, who has been on Conan O'Brien, he's been on one of the guests of Britain's Got Talent.
Speaker: He's performed in front of the King, Queen of England.
Speaker: Sir Tom Jones, excellent.
Speaker: He's actually a subject of a John Mulaney joke too.
Speaker: He does one of the greatest covers.
Speaker: If you ever listen to a song, he'll have to go.
Speaker: Just beautiful.
Speaker: Songs like that.
Speaker: Middle-aged crazy.
Speaker: Just beautiful, beautiful songs.
Speaker: Or the 1979 cover of You'll Win Again, which is by Hank Williams Sr. Hank Williams Sr. Him and Jimmy Rogers are probably the fathers of country music.
Speaker: And then, of course, his son.
Speaker: Hank Jr. is a nutcase, but this can be a story for another podcast.
Speaker: His mountain accident in Montana.
Speaker: That is one of if you ever look up the details of this guy's mountain accident, 1975, Hank Williams Jr. Like you'll be shocked.
Speaker: It's horrible.
Speaker: He got attacked by a grizzly bear or something.
Speaker: He fell off a mountain, but we can talk about it on another podcast.
Speaker: But anyway, so that's country music.
Speaker: And then huge Rolling Stones fan.
Speaker: uh, you know, you hate the Beatles though.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cause I mean, the Rolex Jones are like real rock a roll to me.
Speaker: That's like, I don't like, I just never got behind them.
Speaker: I never liked their songs, you know, like, no, you don't like them because they, they outsold and outdid Elvis Presley.
Speaker: Well, sorry, Elvis was around for fucking 42 years and in the fucking Beatles, you know, um, I will say one thing I really do respect about the Beatles is their, um, Ringo Starr and George Harrison, um,
Speaker: were massive, massive Carl Perkins fans.
Speaker: Carl Perkins is probably the most genuine, not only father of rockabilly, but he wrote songs like Honey Don't, Blue Suede Shoes, Movie Mag, Put Your Cat Clothes On.
Speaker: He wrote so many songs.
Speaker: And in 1985, he did a show, I think it was in Austin, Texas or Washington, D.C., with Ringo Starr, George Harrison,
Speaker: Eric Clapton, Lee Rocker.
Speaker: And it's the coolest shit.
Speaker: I mean, there are these guys who grew up idolizing Carl Perkins.
Speaker: And this is a couple of years before Carl Perkins passed away.
Speaker: And they're just jamming out and doing these great songs.
Speaker: I mean, and it's rock and roll, rock ability to the core.
Speaker: It's so cool.
Speaker: I mean, John Lennon.
Speaker: John Lennon worshiped Chuck Berry.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, John Lennon said, quote, you know, without Elvis, there will be no Beatles.
Speaker: And he also went up to Jerry Lee Lewis and kissed his feet, like really strange thing.
Speaker: And Jerry Lee is like, what the fuck is this guy doing?
Speaker: And then after doing it, John Lennon looks at Jerry Lee and goes like, God bless you.
Speaker: Like if it wasn't for you, like I wouldn't be here.
Speaker: I mean, John Lennon was a weirdo.
Speaker: Yeah, he was a weirdo.
Speaker: He married Oko Ono, whatever her name was.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: What was her name?
Speaker: Yoko Ono.
Speaker: And then that video of John Lennon with Chuck Berry doing Memphis, Tennessee.
Speaker: And Bill Burr has a great bit about this, by the way.
Speaker: And then, you know, Yoko Ono just going like, you know, like screaming or whatever.
Speaker: And then Chuck Berry like gives her this look like, what the fuck is this chick doing?
Speaker: You know, just ruining, you know, a great moment between two of the biggest music icons of all time, John Lennon and Chuck Berry, you know, like it's so bad.
Speaker: It's so distracting.
Speaker: Like, even if she was in the background, maybe playing like the bongo drums, it would have been weird, but like, okay, I can get past that.
Speaker: It's not that distracting.
Speaker: The fact that she's like,
Speaker: audibly like making this weird noise looking like the girl from the ring, you know, like totally sketched out.
Speaker: I don't I don't know what her deal is, but they should have given her a triangle and put her in the back.
Speaker: But apparently I beat the shit out of her.
Speaker: Apparently, like he was like, yeah, he was a terrible person.
Speaker: It was a horrible fucking person.
Speaker: All these people seem to be terrible.
Speaker: Terrible.
Speaker: So that's the story, kids.
Speaker: Don't become rock stars.
Speaker: You'll turn into a terrible human.
Speaker: Oh, by the way, huge fan of The Doors.
Speaker: I think Jim Morrison, I mean, yes, he is a poet and he was brilliant.
Speaker: He read about philosophers and knew every single thing about literature.
Speaker: His father was actually a big Navy, a U S military guy.
Speaker: Um, I mean, in combining him with Raymond Zarek, you know, who was, I think a genius on the keyboards and, uh, Robbie Krieger and John Densmore.
Speaker: I mean, that is a sound that is arguably top three greatest rock and roll bands in my opinion of all time.
Speaker: What do you think about Akka Dakka?
Speaker: Akadaka, baby.
Speaker: ACDC, Akadaka.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: I think they have some tremendous songs.
Speaker: I actually have enough.
Speaker: I think it's a Canadian pressing of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.
Speaker: And that's the only album that does not feature the lightning bolt on ACDC logo.
Speaker: And there is a phone number in Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, which happened to be, it's part of the lyrics, which happened to be a random phone number in Australia.
Speaker: And people kept calling it like, and it got so bad.
Speaker: Like the person threatened to sue the band because it was as they just get all these crank calls or whatever it was.
Speaker: It's a great, great story.
Speaker: That is great.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I would say in my personal opinion,
Speaker: So I love listening to ACDC when I'm driving and it's a nice night out or if I'm working out.
Speaker: It's such good music to listen to.
Speaker: But I think I just go on Spotify and I hit play from the top and it plays based on their most popular songs.
Speaker: The first 30 songs you listen to, every single one of them is good.
Speaker: Not a single one of them is bad.
Speaker: It's all really, really good.
Speaker: It's all really, really good.
Speaker: They have so many great songs.
Speaker: It's pretty hard to believe.
Speaker: So that's music basically.
Speaker: I feel like I'm definitely missing stuff as far as especially like a lot of the records I have like bands and stuff like that, like unbelievably famous bands that I'm just totally blanking on.
Speaker: But anyway.
Speaker: Alex, you gave the crowd more than they asked for, so don't worry about it.
Speaker: There's two other major things I'm into.
Speaker: One of them I want to get through because there's a couple of quick bios I want to go through, and that's books.
Speaker: But you don't read.
Speaker: Which I don't read, which is incredible, you know?
Speaker: I have, I've been really, really into collecting antique and very famous first edition books.
Speaker: So just to list some of the stuff I have, I have a first edition of the cocktail party by a TS Eliot.
Speaker: And that's including the edition, uh, with the rare typo by Sir Alec Guinness, who was probably best known for being in star Wars, Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Chivalgo, the lady killers.
Speaker: He was a big theater guy before he went over to film.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: I have a first edition of Intruder in the Dust by William Faulkner.
Speaker: William Faulkner, of course, is the author of Sound and the Fury, which is considered the greatest novel ever written of all time.
Speaker: I have some like random.
Speaker: I did not know that.
Speaker: True.
Speaker: True first edition, not a book club edition, but a true first edition of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.
Speaker: Some random books in French from the 1800s about things like religion and metaphysics.
Speaker: Why do you collect this?
Speaker: Well, because I just thought those were cool.
Speaker: I got them from an antique dealer in Texas.
Speaker: But you can't read French.
Speaker: I studied French for a little bit in school.
Speaker: What is metaphysics?
Speaker: Metaphysics is...
Speaker: It's like a metaphysics, you know?
Speaker: Anyway, hold on.
Speaker: Actually, hold on.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: I actually took a college course in or a course in college at the University of Denver called 20th, 21st century metaphysics.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: And it was actually it was the hardest class I took in college.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: It was so hard.
Speaker: We had to.
Speaker: It was my freshman year.
Speaker: And we would have to read these papers or these books, man, that made no sense.
Speaker: Like it would take me 30 minutes to read five pages.
Speaker: It was so confusing and it made no sense.
Speaker: But it was actually really, really fascinating.
Speaker: And one of the things like you would just learn, like we'd study things like, are you, for instance, you are out junkie, right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And you're junkie in the moment, but it's getting weird now, man.
Speaker: If I cut off, like if I cut off your finger finger, are you still not key?
Speaker: I'm nine finger junkie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But are you still junkie?
Speaker: And it was like questions like that, that just kind of blew my name's Bob, but it's, but it's like, because if you cut off a finger and you're still junkie, that makes the assumption that you are
Speaker: something without your body, but then you also have to believe that your body is not you.
Speaker: It's pretty wild stuff.
Speaker: Anyways, that is pretty wild.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: See, you know, you don't know shit about metaphysics.
Speaker: I just gave you a history lesson on your French book that you don't know how to read.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I have a first edition of The Shadow and a Dial and other essays by Ambrose Bierce.
Speaker: Ambrose Bierce was probably the most famous horror gothic mystery American novelist of all time.
Speaker: And what's most interesting about this guy is he also he
Speaker: He was actively, he was a soldier in the civil war and he actively fought in, uh, like, I don't know how he didn't die, but like some, like a whole, like a slew of some of the most famous battles, like bloodiest and most horrific battles in the civil war.
Speaker: Towards the end of his career, he went to go study or do some reporting in Mexico.
Speaker: He disappeared.
Speaker: Nobody ever saw him from him again.
Speaker: But on his bedside carved into his wooden bedside table in Mexico was the phrase Croatoan.
Speaker: Croatoan was the same phrase.
Speaker: Have you ever heard about the lost colony of Roanoke?
Speaker: That was in the 1500s or 1600s or whatever.
Speaker: Basically, they set up this thing in Roanoke.
Speaker: And then the guy who was ahead of it left to go to England to come back to get more supplies.
Speaker: When he came back two years later,
Speaker: He found the entire colony deserted and on a tree carved in was a phrase Croatoan.
Speaker: So it's like this phrase, like nobody knows what it means.
Speaker: It was the same phrase was written.
Speaker: Same phrase was written in Amelia Earhart's journal.
Speaker: Like before she died, the same phrase was spoken by Edgar Allen Poe, like on his deathbed.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: It's all these really weird connections.
Speaker: Yeah, it's really bizarre.
Speaker: It's really bizarre, but look this shit up, dude.
Speaker: I have a first edition of a book by W.G.
Speaker: Brownlow.
Speaker: W.G.
Speaker: Brownlow was a governor of Tennessee during the Reconstruction era.
Speaker: He was a radical Republican against slavery, and he fought against the Ku Klux Klan.
Speaker: So it's just talking about his experiences, you know.
Speaker: But the book I have was actually part of the private collection of Paul Gallico, who was a screenwriter for the original series Poseidon.
Speaker: Remember the movie Poseidon?
Speaker: Yeah, great movie.
Speaker: It used to be a TV series.
Speaker: So that's where that came from.
Speaker: Wasn't the original a movie, though?
Speaker: I don't know if it was a movie or a TV show.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: Because they made two movies.
Speaker: They made a remake of Poseidon.
Speaker: With the guy like Turtle from Entourage, right?
Speaker: Hey.
Speaker: Was Turtle from Entourage in it?
Speaker: I swear to God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I didn't know he ever did anything other than Entourage.
Speaker: I think it's fertile at least.
Speaker: I have a first edition book, Pretty Miss Gaston by John Eston Cook.
Speaker: John Eston Cook came from a very wealthy Southern family.
Speaker: He fought under General Jeb Stewart in the Civil War.
Speaker: So that's from 1874.
Speaker: I have volumes one and two of Principles of Philosophy, System of Biology by Herbert Spencer from 1880.
Speaker: Herbert Spencer, if you ever heard of the term survival of the fittest, a lot of people associate that with being by...
Speaker: what did he call it?
Speaker: Charles Darwin, when in fact it was actually by Herbert Spencer.
Speaker: Upon reading Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species in 1859, in 1864, Herbert Spencer was the first to actually come up with the phrase, survival of the fittest.
Speaker: So it's a little interesting fact.
Speaker: Is survival of the fittest not in...
Speaker: origin of whatever the fuck?
Speaker: I don't think it is.
Speaker: Not word for word.
Speaker: Not that phrase.
Speaker: He talks about organisms being survival of the fittest.
Speaker: He doesn't say it.
Speaker: He just doesn't say those three words.
Speaker: The first person to coin the phrase survival of the fittest was Herbert Spencer.
Speaker: He got it from Charles Darwin's writings of the things that have bad eyesight end up dying.
Speaker: You're saying survival of the fittest without using those three words.
Speaker: Tomato, tomato.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Whatever.
Speaker: There's a couple of bios I want to go quickly through, which are super interesting, absolutely fascinating.
Speaker: Before that, I just want to list a couple more things that I have.
Speaker: I have an original copy from 1856 of William H. Seward's address to Congress asking for Kansas to be accepted into the union.
Speaker: This was really important because if you think about bleeding Kansas and like the caning,
Speaker: that and all the shit that led up to the Civil War.
Speaker: General, sorry, General Seward.
Speaker: William H. Seward was from New York, went to Union College and served as a secretary of state under President Lincoln.
Speaker: If you ever want to read something incredible, go to his Wikipedia and read how he survived his assassination attempt.
Speaker: It's an unbelievable fucking story.
Speaker: And this was on the same night that Lincoln was assassinated.
Speaker: So it was like, there was like three guys that went after one, a guy went after Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth.
Speaker: The other guy was supposed to go after Andrew Johnson.
Speaker: And the other guy was supposed to go after the secretary of state, William Ed Seward.
Speaker: Why don't you read these books?
Speaker: Because I have so many books to other read.
Speaker: But you don't read any of them.
Speaker: No, I don't, but I know all about them.
Speaker: by what you read about what they're about on yeah and i read about the authors so like it's a lot of the books i get are basically the version essentially but then i have like the actual book from the 1800s or the early 1900s and whatever um any of the pages sticky yeah which is
Speaker: We might have to edit that out, but actually, let's keep it.
Speaker: Let's keep it.
Speaker: Let's keep it.
Speaker: Now, some of the pages, I mean, they have a lot of foxing on them and tanning.
Speaker: Foxing is basically like the spots, like the brown spots you see.
Speaker: But I generally try to get books.
Speaker: Are they old people with liver spots?
Speaker: Books?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's like mold spots, essentially, in books.
Speaker: If you look up foxing.
Speaker: But yeah, when a book is over 200 years old, you know, that's what happens.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: I don't own any books that are over 200 years old.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: I have a first edition of a book called the Ruby of Kishmore by the great Howard Pyle.
Speaker: Howard Pyle was essentially one of the greatest illustrators in American history.
Speaker: Even Vince Van Gogh wrote in a letter to his brother, like, I'm fascinated by this guy's work.
Speaker: He did all the illustrations for like the original, uh,
Speaker: Merry adventures of Robin hood, um, King Arthur and his nights at a round table.
Speaker: Uh, and he has one book, uh, what do you call it?
Speaker: One of his, and he was also like a big painter.
Speaker: He did, uh, war paintings.
Speaker: And one of them is actually currently missing.
Speaker: It's on the FBI's list for like wanted, like missing photos.
Speaker: If you go to like missing paintings are somewhere.
Speaker: Yeah, honestly.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Actually, one of his pupils.
Speaker: Saudi Arabia.
Speaker: You'll like this, Alex.
Speaker: One of his pupils was one of the most famous painters in history who went to the University of Denver.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Alan Tupper True.
Speaker: He went to the University of Denver?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: When?
Speaker: Like in 1800s or whatever.
Speaker: Oh, back when it wasn't in the same location?
Speaker: Probably not.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, what do you call it?
Speaker: Howard Pyle died in 1911.
Speaker: So yeah, this was all shit.
Speaker: And that painting, by the way, that's on FBI's official database is the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Speaker: I'm going to go through three quick bios here.
Speaker: One of my favorite books I have is a signed copy by this guy named James Lezer.
Speaker: James Lezer, prior to becoming an author, served in World War II.
Speaker: And during World War II,
Speaker: He was on this aircraft carrier that basically was torpedoed.
Speaker: Not only did he survive that, but he was like thrown into the water because of the explosion on the ship.
Speaker: And he spent like 48 hours, like treading water and shark infested waters survive that.
Speaker: And then, uh,
Speaker: while in the jungles and fucking like Myanmar or whatever, he, uh, like there's some mail system that they'd give the troops.
Speaker: He was able to write his first book and send it in the mail back to his mom in England who got in touch with like, um, what'd he call it?
Speaker: With, uh,
Speaker: some publishers.
Speaker: I mean, this guy, like he got hit with shrapnel so many times.
Speaker: This guy was a fucking huge badass.
Speaker: So not as a surviving shark, a festive water, surviving his ship, getting torpedoed, surviving in a jungles, you know, surviving, getting shot at all that kind of shit.
Speaker: Um, that reminds me the last time we tried taping the first episode of the podcast, I told you about a book called unbroken, unbroken.
Speaker: Fuck.
Speaker: I still have to check that out.
Speaker: You gotta look it up.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: For anyone who doesn't know, it's about a world war two, uh,
Speaker: uh, American POW in Japan.
Speaker: Uh, the name of the, the guy was Louie Zamperini.
Speaker: There was an amazing, I think he, he must've written the book.
Speaker: He might not have written the book.
Speaker: People back then didn't write their own books because they had class, but, but, but, um, nonetheless, whether he wrote it or not, it's an incredible book about his story.
Speaker: And Angelina Jolie directed a movie about it.
Speaker: I never saw the movie, but I did hear it was trash.
Speaker: Jolie.
Speaker: But you would love it.
Speaker: You got to look it up.
Speaker: And for anyone who doesn't know, you should read the book.
Speaker: It's called Unbroken.
Speaker: It's about Louis Zamperini.
Speaker: He was a track runner for the United States.
Speaker: I think he ran the mile, if I can remember correctly.
Speaker: 440 time.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: What was his 440 time, huh?
Speaker: And what was it with pads on?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he...
Speaker: But anyway, so yeah, he ended up getting, I think he ran in the Olympic trials right before World War II and qualified, but then something, you know, because he had to go fight in a war.
Speaker: It's a crazy story, but yeah, Junkie, you'd love it.
Speaker: Look it up.
Speaker: Damn, bro.
Speaker: And then tell us about it on the next podcast because you'll do a better job than I will.
Speaker: No, no, no.
Speaker: You did a great job.
Speaker: So after doing all that stuff, he moved back to England and was a personal secretary to Lord Beaverbrook, the Canadian-British giant who served as Minister of War Production and Minister of Air Production all under Winston Churchill.
Speaker: This guy was a – James Leser, dude.
Speaker: You have to look at this guy.
Speaker: Total badass.
Speaker: Have you ever read about Winston Churchill?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, apparently he was the funniest motherfucker to you.
Speaker: He would say some outrageous shit.
Speaker: Dude, he was a wild guy.
Speaker: Yeah, dude.
Speaker: He would wake up in the morning and drink a bottle of champagne and smoke a cigar.
Speaker: Dude, what a pimp.
Speaker: He was nuts.
Speaker: But he was also incredibly intelligent.
Speaker: And nothing has ever come out about him being a weirdo.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Hey, man.
Speaker: That always makes you smile.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Let's hope nothing ever comes down about him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Another really cool book I have is from 1966.
Speaker: It's the first edition of a book called A Challenge to Science, The UFO Enigma by Jacques Vallée and his wife.
Speaker: Jacques Vallée was not only a UFO specialist, but he was essentially an internet pioneer, computer scientist, businessman, astronomer, and author.
Speaker: After receiving a master's degree in astrophysics as well as a bachelor's degree in math in the late 50s and early 60s, Jacques Vallée was awarded the Jules Verne Prize for a science fiction book, Le Subspace, in 1961.
Speaker: Jules Verne, of course, is the author who did a Round the World in 80 Days Award.
Speaker: and 2,000 leagues under the sea.
Speaker: Yeah, of course.
Speaker: 2,000 leagues or 200,000, whatever, is under the sea.
Speaker: The following year, this guy, Jacques Vallée, moved to the U.S. and studied at the University of Texas.
Speaker: War alongside fellow Frenchman in Harvard and Yale degree holder.
Speaker: I can't pronounce that guy's name.
Speaker: He helped
Speaker: create the first highly detailed international map of Mars for NASA.
Speaker: He went on to study all this UFO stuff, especially also with this guy named Peter Sturrock, who was actually 99.
Speaker: I think he turned 99 recently.
Speaker: So that guy's still around.
Speaker: He worked in Paris, New Jersey, and at Stanford.
Speaker: He studied plasma research.
Speaker: for the Institute.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's in his early eighties.
Speaker: Let's try and see if we can get him on the podcast.
Speaker: He was, you know, he was actually on a Joe Rogan's podcast and he's really, and he's, and he's has authored the forward part of the book about UFOs by Tom DeLonge, who's the lead singer of like one 82.
Speaker: So he's a really cool guy.
Speaker: I can get him on, but, uh, what do you want to join?
Speaker: Dude, this guy, um,
Speaker: Basically, helped develop this thing called Arapanet, which is an early version of instant messaging.
Speaker: It was done by his own company called InfoMedia.
Speaker: Speaking of companies, not only has Jacques Vallée done all that, but he's been a major figure in the venture capital field.
Speaker: He's been behind tons of companies from small healthcare boutiques to big tech companies like Electronics for Imaging, which are the creators of the CyberKnife, AOL, Intel, Cisco, and many others.
Speaker: all my big, I print that off of Wikipedia.
Speaker: That's actually what I have printed on my Instagram thing, which I'll go into later, but I've made notes for my, my own Instagram stuff.
Speaker: Um, but all this while mostly being a UFO specialist, like that's fucking it.
Speaker: So what does he spell?
Speaker: So creating like a instant messaging on the internet, creating, helping back companies like Cisco, Intel, AOL, like what a pimp creating the first internationally space, like detail map for, of Mars for NASA.
Speaker: like dude what a what a what a fascinating dude yeah i know we got to get him on the podcast imagine i could talk to that guy for hours uh be more interesting than you do you kidding me dude i could jerk that guy off just to like listen to him speak we're gonna have to cut that out oh no that's great let's see jock that's your invitation we'll jerk you off both of us absolutely i have a book called uh sunk which is by a german uh japanese uh
Speaker: submarine commander who basically I think he sunk the U.S. Indianapolis, which was one of the most horrific incidents in the United States because the United States essentially they after their submarine got torpedoed, they sent out all these distress signals in our own country, ignored them and allowed our own troops to be treading water, getting eaten alive by sharks for like two days.
Speaker: It's a fascinating story.
Speaker: It's clearly during World War II.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: But like we sent out multiple distress signals like we've been torpedoes and we ignored them.
Speaker: Our own ship sent out distress signals and we ignored them and allowed people to be like...
Speaker: It's known as a real reason, right?
Speaker: It's never been a release.
Speaker: It's never been mentioned why.
Speaker: And the people there, I don't know if there's, I'm sure there's still some survivors of it, but like they're describing like getting eaten by sharks.
Speaker: And it's like, it's known as like technically the worst shark attack in history because of that.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Yeah, because they were covered in oil and blood and people were bleeding and stuff like that.
Speaker: And the sharks just went nuts.
Speaker: And yeah, so people like they would try to get in groups, huddle together.
Speaker: But like because people would be starving or whatever, they would like drift off the groups and then it would just sharks be a frenzy.
Speaker: Just go off that one person.
Speaker: It's horrifying, but it's a real, real story.
Speaker: There has to have been a real reason.
Speaker: And I think that commander of that boat and help.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I think the commander of that boat, if he didn't die or like of another one related to that boat, really famous U.S. Navy Admiral later committed suicide.
Speaker: So the book I have, the Japanese guy who sunk that the boat, that torpedo or that submarine rather, it talks about like that and like and he actually like defends the U.S. Navy Admiral who took his own life.
Speaker: I have a book called Diving for Sunken Treasure by Jacques Cousteau.
Speaker: That's from 1971.
Speaker: Jacques Cousteau was a legendary inventor, naval explorer, marine life expert, scientist, author, and filmmaker.
Speaker: He's best known for being co-inventor of the Aqualung.
Speaker: You know what that is?
Speaker: It's like that thing that helps you breathe underwater.
Speaker: He was a spy during World War II for the French Resistance.
Speaker: He set a world record in 1947 for diving 300 feet below the surface with the French Navy.
Speaker: The following year, he and the team explored a Roman shipwreck off the coast of Tunisia.
Speaker: This basically became the first underwater archaeology report.
Speaker: It is said through all of his films, he's won as many Oscars as Meryl Streep.
Speaker: And in the 1980s, he was actually able to convince Fidel Castro to release like 80 political prisoners.
Speaker: How many Oscars is that?
Speaker: It's a lot.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: But I think this guy is dead now.
Speaker: I mean, I would imagine he was alive during World War II.
Speaker: There's not many people that are alive today that were alive then.
Speaker: I have- Or at least that did things.
Speaker: Yeah, and then some books by people like Roy Chapman Andrews, who was a big archaeologist.
Speaker: He actually, prior to becoming the head of the American Museum of National History, he worked as a janitor there, which is pretty cool.
Speaker: It's always like you work your ass off.
Speaker: You can start from the bottom and get to the top.
Speaker: He was also a member of the renowned Explorers Club, which is on the Upper East Side.
Speaker: They do stuff with Nat Geo.
Speaker: They're always in international stuff, whether it's the Azores in Portugal or in Brazil doing all these documentaries.
Speaker: There's this guy in Florida right now.
Speaker: He's living in this thing underwater, but he's setting a world record for longest time living underwater.
Speaker: Was he on his house?
Speaker: I don't know, dude, but it was on the news.
Speaker: It was on the news, and they showed it in the back.
Speaker: There was an Explorers Club flag.
Speaker: like so it's like all these people i don't know underwater i don't know what it is i have to find it we can talk about in the next episode but it's it's i sing on the news the other week and then i have this book by david blaine right a magician uh uh forbid that ravens um by rolfe humphries who uh what do you call it a really really fascinating story about him i don't need to get into that
Speaker: And then just random stuff like spanning from the 19th.
Speaker: But I had stuff from whether it's Dr. Seuss from the 1930s and original.
Speaker: His the first book I think he ever wrote, which is I think was the 500 Caps of Bartholomew Cubbins.
Speaker: Or that could be the second ones.
Speaker: Wasn't he a creep too?
Speaker: I'm sure he was.
Speaker: But I have from 1938.
Speaker: I have a first edition of that.
Speaker: And then I have a first edition of stuff like Frog and Toad are Friends from 1970 and Where the Wild Things Are.
Speaker: First edition of that from the 60s.
Speaker: Did you ever read that one?
Speaker: When I was little, but not the first edition one.
Speaker: So just tons of books.
Speaker: I have a library.
Speaker: So whether it's stuff from the 1800s, stuff about fascinating military people, like scientists, all sorts of topics.
Speaker: How about all?
Speaker: So that's books.
Speaker: And then finally, the last thing I'm into, and this is something that you're super into again, are watches.
Speaker: So why don't you take it from there?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I love, I love watches.
Speaker: Um, well, it's funny.
Speaker: Beautiful input.
Speaker: You know, that was tremendous.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, you've been talking so much.
Speaker: I don't even really know what to say.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Um, I, to me, so I understand.
Speaker: So like everyone always asks, you know, who doesn't wear watches?
Speaker: They're always like, well, why don't you just look at your phone?
Speaker: And it's not really about the telling of the time.
Speaker: Although that's, I do like to look at my watch to tell the time or,
Speaker: especially I love that the date is on my watch.
Speaker: So the 22nd.
Speaker: So if like I'm writing notes for work or whatever it might be, I can just quickly glance at my watch and I know the date.
Speaker: It's honestly probably what I use more so than even the time.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But to me, it's more like a work of art, right?
Speaker: So a mechanical watch or an automatic watch, I should say the fact that someone was, the fact that it moves based on the movement of your wrist is,
Speaker: is just truly fascinating.
Speaker: Like it's a work of art that you get to wear around and then you get to show people and people like you and I who enjoy watches and the beauty behind it, like it's just, it's an incredible piece of engineering.
Speaker: How could you not love that?
Speaker: To me, it's way cooler than a fucking iPhone.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's a whole mechanical thing and the engineering that goes into it, the craftsmanship.
Speaker: There's no electricity.
Speaker: Not a single thing of electricity.
Speaker: It's all moving parts that keep time
Speaker: every day.
Speaker: Well, not all watches, right.
Speaker: But automatic.
Speaker: And obviously I like non automatic watches too.
Speaker: Um, but to me, automatic watches are really what I love.
Speaker: Um, and actually you're going to, you're going to call me a hypocrite because I'm, as you know, I, I'm not a fan of Rolex in any way, shape or form because of,
Speaker: Various reasons.
Speaker: Everybody has one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Everybody has one.
Speaker: You can't go, you can't walk into the store and buy one even if you have the money.
Speaker: It's like, hey, I'm trying to give you my money.
Speaker: Take it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: What company on the planet is like, yeah, you know, we don't want your money.
Speaker: Like it's just not.
Speaker: Well, Ferrari is kind of the same way, right?
Speaker: Don't you have to be on a wait list to get a Ferrari now?
Speaker: I thought like, isn't it?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Ferrari.
Speaker: Ferrari, to my understanding, if you want to go buy a brand new Ferrari, you either have to be someone.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like, you know, an influencer or some BS or yeah, you have to have bought,
Speaker: multiple like older Ferraris in the past, which is kind of BS.
Speaker: You can't just walk in there and be like, I want a Ferrari to have the money.
Speaker: Yeah, but again, if I had the money to buy a Ferrari and I went into a Ferrari store and they said, no, we won't let you buy it.
Speaker: I'll be like, okay, I'll walk down to Lamborghini because Lamborghini is going to let me buy it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But okay.
Speaker: All of this being said though, the, I gotta say a watch that I really, really, really do want is the Rolex sky dweller.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Have you ever seen it?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it looks like the date just, it's like, it has the same fate, not same face, but it has the same case as the date just for the most part, but it's their most complicated movement they've ever made.
Speaker: And so,
Speaker: It's a GMT.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's got like the semi-circle, the smaller circle within it.
Speaker: Smaller circle within it.
Speaker: And it's got the Cyclops eye date on the side.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: It's really cool.
Speaker: But then also, my favorite thing about the watch.
Speaker: It's a pretty busy dial, though.
Speaker: It is a pretty busy dial.
Speaker: Yeah, but I don't mind busy dials.
Speaker: My favorite thing about the watch, though, is if you look at the hour markers, there's a bunch of white lines.
Speaker: And then at one of them, there's a red line.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that tells you what month it is.
Speaker: That tells you what month it is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: The only, you don't have to change it for dates because it keeps the calendar correct.
Speaker: So it knows which months have 31 days, 30 days.
Speaker: The only month you have to change it is February because leap years.
Speaker: Well, it's a 42 millimeter case.
Speaker: That's a pretty big watch, but $15,650.
Speaker: Yeah, but you can never – that's the problem with Rolex.
Speaker: You can never get it from Rolex.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: And then it's going to be even more expensive.
Speaker: You have to buy it on the gray market.
Speaker: And on the gray market, they all cost like 29K for fucking stainless steel.
Speaker: It's nonsense.
Speaker: But it's a beautiful watch.
Speaker: And it's the only watch – I think it's actually my favorite watch right now, although I have a new favorite watch every other week.
Speaker: That to me right now is like a watch that I would really love to get one day.
Speaker: I think the big reason I kind of got into watches was it kind of started as a whole joke because I think it was over the pandemic or whatever.
Speaker: I was watching this video, some fucking rapper, you know, showing off his blinged out watches, whatever, and like just throwing tons of cash.
Speaker: It was like the most ostentatious, you know, but stereotypical at the same time, what some rapper would do.
Speaker: And I don't know if it was to you or to who I sent it was like a joke Snapchat and I had like three or four dollars in singles, you know, and I was like throwing them all over like some Timex that I had as a kid, you know, growing up or whatever.
Speaker: And I sent it to my older brother, I think.
Speaker: And he for Christmas, he gave me like his vintage Timex from like the 19 it was 1978.
Speaker: I think I think it was a Mercury or a Marlon hand wind or whatever.
Speaker: And I was like, oh, this is actually really, really cool.
Speaker: So I started doing all this research on the brand.
Speaker: And I was like, this is fucking unbelievable.
Speaker: Because, of course, when you think about the name Timex, you would have thought you would normally think, oh, some cheapo shit you can get at Walmart or whatever, which for the most part is very true.
Speaker: But if you look at its heritage and its brand history, it's absolutely fascinating.
Speaker: So it was founded in 1854 as a Waterbury Clock Company, which is based in Connecticut, you know, Waterbury, Connecticut.
Speaker: Um, it later became Ingersoll and us time Corp and then Timex.
Speaker: Um, it was really the first, uh, mass available and affordable pocket watches and wristwatches.
Speaker: So by like 1900s, their pocket watches cost a buck at most.
Speaker: Um, Mark Twain had several of them.
Speaker: Uh, and then, uh, world war two came around and they kind of produce like, uh, gyroscopes and like missile technology stuff for, you know, the United States army and allied forces was just really, really cool.
Speaker: Um, and I feel like a lot of companies also did that kind of shifted their attention more to help on the front lines.
Speaker: Right, right, right.
Speaker: Um, but, uh, post world war two to 1950s and stuff like that.
Speaker: They, um,
Speaker: really were time X was super well known for their world famous stress tests and the celebrities that endorsed them.
Speaker: So they would put them like in the New York Harbor.
Speaker: They had pressure cookers on them.
Speaker: They had like a lobster claw, like trying to break it.
Speaker: And they wouldn't do really indestructible and they were super, super affordable.
Speaker: Like Rocky Marciano, the boxer was wearing one while fighting Mickey Mantle advertised one.
Speaker: I think Marilyn Monroe was advertised one.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But by the 1960s, one-third of all watches sold in the United States was a Timex, which is pretty insane.
Speaker: That is pretty crazy.
Speaker: They were fairly famous for having employed women, like all-women-run factories, and making watches specifically for women's.
Speaker: Their advertisements were super, super iconic.
Speaker: That ran for decades.
Speaker: And then what happened in the 1970s, which didn't only affect Timex,
Speaker: affected the entire watch industry was something called the quartz crisis, which in a nutshell was the introduction of quartz.
Speaker: So quartz is like the mineral quartz site that you see like in homes and apartments.
Speaker: It looks like Marvel, but it's not, you know, um, that stuff, um, actually is a much cheaper and, uh, uh, bigger mass market option to work with watches.
Speaker: So, um, the, the majority of mass, sorry, the majority of mechanical watches were basically phased out in favor of, uh, quartz, which is a much cheaper option.
Speaker: And so many watch companies kind of ceased to exist because they were their whole emphasis was on hand wine, you know, mechanical hand wine movements.
Speaker: Even the big luxury guys like Rolex and Omega had quartz models like Oyster Quartz.
Speaker: They had a forget the Omega model, which was a quartz.
Speaker: But and Timex kind of adapted to that, too, you know.
Speaker: Um, they had, uh, their huge queue line, which still exists today.
Speaker: They kind of revitalize that line.
Speaker: Um, and it's a shame because up to the 1960s and seventies, the, I would say 95% of all time X's.
Speaker: were either, or 100% of all Timex's were either made in the United States, Great Britain, France, or West Germany, you know?
Speaker: So like really high quality, or not for the price, very high quality for the price, you know?
Speaker: What are they made now?
Speaker: They're all made in China.
Speaker: They have some stuff that are made in Italy and the United States, but that's like their much higher end stuff.
Speaker: The other really cool way that Timex adapted to the whole quartz crisis was by coming up with something called Dynabeat, which is like an electric movement.
Speaker: which is essentially a hybrid style movement that looked like an automatic, but it featured a battery powered escape wheel mechanism.
Speaker: So the escape wheel is a mechanical link basically that provides impulses to the timekeeping element and regularly releases the gears to move forward, which in turn moves the watch hands forward.
Speaker: So it was basically, it looked like an automatic because the hands would go like fast.
Speaker: kind of sweeping yeah it was all electric uh power battery powered movements um and it basically had like 28 800 beats per hour um so it was very very advanced for the time you know um it's like a high beat movement which is you see that and now in like grand seiko high beat i was just about to say seiko grand seiko makes the most accurate automatic watch on the planet and you can go and buy it for what
Speaker: $7,000.
Speaker: $7,000?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And you could walk in the store right now and do it.
Speaker: Fuck you, Rolex.
Speaker: Unless you want to sponsor me and give me a Skydor.
Speaker: Then I love you guys.
Speaker: That's all like 1970s.
Speaker: And in the early 80s, Timex apparently created the first sports watch, which is the Iron Man, which is a very popular collab that they still do.
Speaker: It's a digital watch.
Speaker: But I feel like Casio might have come out with one in the early 80s as well.
Speaker: So that's 80s, 1990s.
Speaker: They also, Timex also invented something called the first connected smartwatch, which was called the data link.
Speaker: It was done in a collaboration with Microsoft.
Speaker: So basically, it used a digital mechanism to read information from your computer monitor and relay it back to your phone, back to your, sorry, to your watch screen or to your watch display, which is pretty cool.
Speaker: That was in the 1990s?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Microsoft.
Speaker: They had that technology back then?
Speaker: Which is crazy.
Speaker: Yeah, dude.
Speaker: um that is shocking dude uh one of the brands i think most famous trademarks is indiglo which is if you press basically the crown if you push the crown in the whole dial illuminates you know um which is like it's a whole backlight feature for the entire dial um so during the first attack on the twin towers in 1993 um somebody was wearing a timex that had indiglo on it and uh like they helped people like in the back stairwell like
Speaker: they kind of showed like a illuminated little path with their watch and help people escape kind of.
Speaker: So I guess you could say a time X help people escape.
Speaker: Um, and like I said today, some of their models are made in Italy and America, but they're mostly really cheap shit.
Speaker: So it's really unfortunate to see a band with such a brand with such, you know, tremendous history and prestige, you know, um, being, you know,
Speaker: Outsourced.
Speaker: Yeah, outsourced and really, really cheap.
Speaker: A lot of their stuff is... How do they do that?
Speaker: I don't know, man.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I mean, I guess it must... Obviously, it's more cost.
Speaker: But I fell in love with this whole vintage Timex thing, so it's gotten out of control.
Speaker: I have about over 120...
Speaker: vintage Timex's from 1950s, 60s, and 70s.
Speaker: Crazy dials.
Speaker: Mostly, yeah.
Speaker: I buy a couple of Seikos here and there.
Speaker: I didn't realize it was all Timex's.
Speaker: I have a vintage Zodiac from the 1960s too.
Speaker: Zodiac was huge because they kind of other than blank pen, I think they were really big on the dub.
Speaker: affordable diving or i don't know if you can say blank pan like the 50 fathoms now that watch is out of control expensive if you can even find it on the secondary market um but like zodiac was like with their um sea wolf like that was a really really popular dive watch in the 50s um but anyway uh yeah so all of my watches i mean they're all made in britain uh france west germany or in the united states they're and they still work i mean they're they're
Speaker: crazy to dial design some of them a lot of them are like the dynamic electric hybrid movements in the 1970s a lot of them are just you know pure mechanical hand wind stuff others are just straight up automatic movements you know but um they're really really cool i mean it's it's kind of niche because you tell people oh like i'm really into watches and you say timex it's like they look at you like what a fucking loser but it's like you really have to appreciate it that's true um i would say in new york maybe that's right right let's say outside it's like yeah i don't have time to tell people the whole
Speaker: the whole reason why I focus on time.
Speaker: It's not, I mean, you could cut that entire story that just took you 10 minutes to tell.
Speaker: You could cut that down to two sentences.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: My brother gave me an awesome vintage time X for my birthday or Christmas one year.
Speaker: And now I just love collecting time X's because I love the history of the brand.
Speaker: Hey, there you go.
Speaker: I like that, dude.
Speaker: Hey,
Speaker: KISS.
Speaker: Keep it stupid simple.
Speaker: You know who I learned that from?
Speaker: A professor at Daniel's College of Business, University of Denver.
Speaker: Little plug right there.
Speaker: Did you mean to say keep it simple stupid?
Speaker: What did I say?
Speaker: Keep simple it stupid?
Speaker: No, I said keep it stupid simple, right?
Speaker: No, you're saying keep it stupid simple.
Speaker: Yeah, KISS.
Speaker: K-I-S-S.
Speaker: Keep it stupid simple.
Speaker: No, you idiot.
Speaker: It's keep it simple stupid.
Speaker: What's the difference between...
Speaker: Oh, like you're calling it because you're being.
Speaker: Oh, OK.
Speaker: Well, it could also be like keep it stupid, simple.
Speaker: Like, you know, like I guess they both work.
Speaker: I've never heard it said.
Speaker: I think you're definitely right with your ears.
Speaker: I know I'm right, but I guess they both work.
Speaker: Eat my fucking balls.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So, yeah, man, we covered my big hobbies, music.
Speaker: books and watches.
Speaker: By the way, what are you wearing right now?
Speaker: Let's do a little wrist check.
Speaker: Are you wearing your Seiko with the orange dial?
Speaker: No, I'm wearing the Tag Heuer Racer.
Speaker: What are you wearing?
Speaker: I am wearing a 1968 or 1969 Timex Marlin hand wind.
Speaker: That's two hands.
Speaker: You got to get one of those Pan Am Timex.
Speaker: That one's real cool.
Speaker: Yeah, did I tell you?
Speaker: You can't get them anywhere.
Speaker: They're trying to restock them, but in the movie, what do you call it?
Speaker: The Aviator with Leonardo DiCaprio and what's that douchebag?
Speaker: Mr. Baldwin.
Speaker: Yeah, I hate that asshole.
Speaker: The one who's going to jail for killing that fucking person?
Speaker: Yeah, he should.
Speaker: He should, dude, yeah.
Speaker: i don't know i don't know how i don't know how it happened i'll tell you how it happened you held a gun you pulled the trigger and somebody died as a result of that that's how it happened fucking idiot um anyway anyway uh he is uh in the movie avator he plays juan trip who is the my one of my good buddies his step-grandfather um juan trip was the founder of panam airlines so boom
Speaker: I thought you were going to say something about the watch that he was wearing in the movie.
Speaker: No, but it's a Pan Am watch.
Speaker: You're saying the Pan Am watch.
Speaker: I thought you were going to say he was wearing a cool watch in the movie or something.
Speaker: Maybe he was.
Speaker: Maybe not.
Speaker: Go fuck yourself.
Speaker: Go fuck yourself.
Speaker: I think this is a pretty good time to wrap it up.
Speaker: What time's your flight, right?
Speaker: What time's your flight?
Speaker: When are you going to shut up?
Speaker: When are you going to let me go to sleep here?
Speaker: um we have to cut out that last lap that sounded really bad sorry no no please we have to no yes um but anyway so yeah so anyone who if you guys enjoyed the podcast uh thank you for listening if you didn't make it this far go fuck yourself yeah if you haven't killed yourself already you know if you got tired of listening junkie speak i did it a couple times too it's like the movie it's like the movie airplane you know when he's like telling them their story in the airplane it takes a lot like no
Speaker: old lady hangs herself the guy's gonna light himself on fire you know but we're gonna have the more episodes we come out we'll be more you know conversational sometimes it'll be a little more serious we're really gonna get into just kind of everything right that we find interesting which when it comes to dissecting junkies brain that's virtually everything on the planet outside of anything that ever had to do with school um academics are not my strong suit
Speaker: Although it's kind of funny because now I'm like super nerdy about stuff, you know, like very academic subjects, which is very short.
Speaker: But it's because we can get in this to another time on a different podcast, but it's because our education system doesn't teach people properly.
Speaker: Corporations, man.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: What was our sign off moniker that we were going to do?
Speaker: I don't know if we have a moniker, but I was just going to.
Speaker: What is a moniker?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Go to dictionary.com or marionwebster.com.
Speaker: Google that.
Speaker: But I was going to say, once again, this was episode number one, the inaugural episode, where to find the best hookers in Baton Rouge.
Speaker: And thank you for sticking with us.
Speaker: I'm sorry if it sounds funny, if we're talking weird, you know, this is our first episode.
Speaker: It's kind of a trial run, but we're excited to go to episode number two, which will be out soon, you know, and I just want to say again, thank you very much from the bottom of our hearts.
Speaker: We love you and go fuck yourself.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Thanks.
