The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► If the talk show was like your bowel movements, you'd have to go see a doctor, right?

00:00:04 ◼   ► I mean, because this is...

00:00:05 ◼   ► This show is like something like the haunted house that the Kiwanis puts on.

00:00:09 ◼   ► They're like, "Put your hand in the bowl.

00:00:11 ◼   ► It's eyeballs and brains and beetles."

00:00:14 ◼   ► Whereas Dithering is literally like a professional show where you can like bank on it.

00:00:19 ◼   ► You know, Tuesday morning there's going to be a 15 minute and 0 second episode waiting

00:00:24 ◼   ► for you in your podcatcher, you know?

00:00:26 ◼   ► There you go.

00:00:27 ◼   ► It's great, but part of the deal was, "Okay, I love the idea, but how about this?

00:00:31 ◼   ► I don't want to deal with any of the publishing details."

00:00:36 ◼   ► And Ben was like, "That's great.

00:00:37 ◼   ► I love doing it."

00:00:38 ◼   ► And I'm like, "You love doing it?"

00:00:39 ◼   ► That's a standard...

00:00:40 ◼   ► That's a standard God of Soul in my contracts right now.

00:00:43 ◼   ► I am offer only.

00:00:44 ◼   ► You can come to me and say, "Be on my podcast," but I cannot have to turn anything off to

00:00:50 ◼   ► do it and it must require no work.

00:00:53 ◼   ► So we do the Zencastr.

00:00:54 ◼   ► And the way that I do it, I'm not a Chrome user, but...

00:00:58 ◼   ► It's not on any of my machines anymore.

00:01:00 ◼   ► I removed it from every...

00:01:01 ◼   ► I've got Vivaldi, which is Chrome-ish, but it doesn't have all the nasties, the Chrome.

00:01:06 ◼   ► I use the Brave, which is Chrome without the nasties.

00:01:11 ◼   ► I don't know anything else about it.

00:01:13 ◼   ► I don't...

00:01:14 ◼   ► I don't...

00:01:15 ◼   ► Yeah, I use Brave for two things.

00:01:17 ◼   ► I use it for recording Dithering, which is amazing through the Zencastr, or at least

00:01:22 ◼   ► from my perspective is not having to deal with it when I'm done.

00:01:28 ◼   ► And I stay logged into Amazon through my business Daring Fireball account, which I seldom use

00:01:37 ◼   ► for posting the money-making affiliate links.

00:01:43 ◼   ► But that's it.

00:01:44 ◼   ► I don't use it for anything else, but it's kind of amazing.

00:01:45 ◼   ► But anyway...

00:01:46 ◼   ► Well, we got onto Zoom, and I don't have...

00:01:54 ◼   ► It would be very subtle for me to say I don't have a lot of affection for Zoom as a product

00:01:58 ◼   ► service, an app, or a company.

00:02:00 ◼   ► Oh, no, we accidentally installed another packet-sniffing thing that you can't find.

00:02:06 ◼   ► Oh, now you've created a WebRik so people can run Rails and mine Bitcoin.

00:02:11 ◼   ► You're like, "What?

00:02:12 ◼   ► My kid has to be on this eight hours a day?

00:02:14 ◼   ► Really?"

00:02:15 ◼   ► But to get to where you're...

00:02:17 ◼   ► And this is a constant conundrum in the world of even middling levels of security is you're

00:02:23 ◼   ► always doing what you can to latch the screen door.

00:02:27 ◼   ► But with Zoom, I turned on all the, "Don't let this start streaming.

00:02:30 ◼   ► Don't automatically do anything."

00:02:32 ◼   ► But then I have to click all this crap and say, "Now recording," and all that kind of

00:02:36 ◼   ► stuff.

00:02:37 ◼   ► So then we played with a different one.

00:02:38 ◼   ► Alex said, "Let's try this other one," because Dan and I were using it.

00:02:41 ◼   ► It's another one of those based in a web browser ones.

00:02:45 ◼   ► And John, I give my back.

00:02:47 ◼   ► As with so many things, it's like, "I like this service, but I hate this app."

00:02:51 ◼   ► You know, whether that's Dropbox or whatever it is, the service is great, but the way you

00:02:56 ◼   ► interact with this is so gross.

00:02:59 ◼   ► And so I won't mention the name Clean Feed, but we started using this one.

00:03:04 ◼   ► And it has a couple quirks.

00:03:07 ◼   ► You get an exquisite exactly two files that match if you remember to hit the button at

00:03:14 ◼   ► the same time, and otherwise you get drift.

00:03:16 ◼   ► Anyway, that's cool.

00:03:17 ◼   ► What it doesn't give you, though, is something I do that you'll get from me or Caleb and

00:03:21 ◼   ► you will get from me, which is I have my side, I have your side, and I have a side called

00:03:25 ◼   ► everything, which is like a reference track in case you need to fix anything.

00:03:30 ◼   ► It's just handy to have.

00:03:31 ◼   ► So first of all, you get these two files.

00:03:32 ◼   ► That's all fine.

00:03:33 ◼   ► Here's the thing, John.

00:03:34 ◼   ► It all happens in the browser.

00:03:36 ◼   ► If you close, there's no way to stop the call.

00:03:39 ◼   ► You just close the browser, and it's like this just feels really not Mac-ass Mac stuff

00:03:44 ◼   ► to me, which is fine, but also if you forget to save the files in the browser before you

00:03:52 ◼   ► close the window, they don't exist anymore.

00:03:55 ◼   ► You can't go get it from anywhere because it only existed, as far as I know, it might

00:03:59 ◼   ► have improved, but I never thought I'd have fondness for Skype.

00:04:03 ◼   ► So I don't, but it's the devil I know.

00:04:07 ◼   ► The Zencastr thing is pretty neat where they do save the files locally, and so whatever

00:04:13 ◼   ► catastrophe might happen, like let's say an accidental command-Q, while you're, you think

00:04:20 ◼   ► you're looking at Apple Notes or something while you're recording, but instead your browser's

00:04:25 ◼   ► frontmost, you command-Q or command-W, whatever, you close it, they've got you covered.

00:04:33 ◼   ► Is that local?

00:04:35 ◼   ► Is it locally?

00:04:36 ◼   ► Yeah, they've been writing an MP3 file locally throughout the whole thing.

00:04:40 ◼   ► But on the other hand, my thought is it makes me sick to think that a web browser is able

00:04:46 ◼   ► to do that, right?

00:04:48 ◼   ► That you just go to a website and it can just be writing an MP3 file the whole time, and

00:04:54 ◼   ► it's not the--

00:04:55 ◼   ► When Audio Hijack does that, it's what the doctor ordered, but there's certain kinds

00:05:00 ◼   ► of magic to which I am not attracted, because then I go, "Huh, how's it doing that?"

00:05:06 ◼   ► It's kind of weird.

00:05:07 ◼   ► I also think, and I think you're like me, and maybe it's an old person's thing, and

00:05:12 ◼   ► we just have this, however old you are, and if somebody who's older than me and you and

00:05:19 ◼   ► has even stronger feelings about the personal part of a personal computer to encapsulate

00:05:26 ◼   ► it, but the way that Zoom and Chrome update themselves and you have no option about it,

00:05:35 ◼   ► there's nowhere to dig--

00:05:36 ◼   ► And Skype.

00:05:37 ◼   ► Skype.

00:05:38 ◼   ► That was why Call Recorder, I think, finally threw in the towel.

00:05:40 ◼   ► Threw in the towel.

00:05:41 ◼   ► Was they couldn't keep up with-- There's not a P list, there's not a terminal command,

00:05:46 ◼   ► I'm not aware of any way to tell Skype, "Please stop updating."

00:05:50 ◼   ► Just stop.

00:05:51 ◼   ► Just tell me if you have to do it.

00:05:53 ◼   ► But people who accept that that's good, and there are people who will argue with you that

00:06:00 ◼   ► this is good because people don't update, they don't click through, they let their software

00:06:07 ◼   ► stagnate because it's not broken, so they don't want to mess with anything, which used

00:06:13 ◼   ► to be a sensible--

00:06:14 ◼   ► I have to harangue my family just to do basic iOS updates, because that's been a big deal

00:06:20 ◼   ► since the summer.

00:06:21 ◼   ► And I was like, "Hey, by the way, do your iOS right now, because there's something in

00:06:25 ◼   ► the wild that's a little janky."

00:06:28 ◼   ► And I'll tell my kid about some feature that would be perfect for her, and she'll be like,

00:06:32 ◼   ► "Well, she'll go and look, 'Oh yeah, I'm on iOS 7,' or whatever."

00:06:37 ◼   ► I like it that way.

00:06:39 ◼   ► But on the other hand, it's like, to me-- So I get the motivation.

00:06:43 ◼   ► I don't think that the people who implement these auto-update, no-option features, I get

00:06:50 ◼   ► what they're thinking, and they're thinking, "We know better than you because--"

00:06:53 ◼   ► That's a kind of enterprise approach.

00:06:56 ◼   ► It is.

00:06:57 ◼   ► It's an enterprise approach to personal computing.

00:06:58 ◼   ► But the problem is-- And maybe I'm wrong to draw analogies to the real world, but if I

00:07:05 ◼   ► woke up and it's the start of a day, it's Wednesday, tomorrow, I wake up and I look

00:07:13 ◼   ► at my keys-- And I only care, I have two keys.

00:07:16 ◼   ► I have a key to the house, and I have a key to a post office box, and I've got a little--

00:07:24 ◼   ► Success in life at a certain point becomes the fewer number of keys that you need.

00:07:29 ◼   ► I don't want to look like a jailer.

00:07:30 ◼   ► I'm very happy to have-- I have exactly two keys on my ring, and that is it.

00:07:35 ◼   ► I was very upset, though, when I got the PO box.

00:07:38 ◼   ► And I think you and I have talked about this.

00:07:39 ◼   ► You kind of have to have the PO box, right?

00:07:42 ◼   ► But I put it off for years.

00:07:43 ◼   ► Like a DMZ.

00:07:45 ◼   ► The two things that I procrastinated on for way too many years after clearly this was

00:07:51 ◼   ► going to be my career, this daring fireball stupid thing, was getting an actual LLC for

00:07:59 ◼   ► the business, which I did at this point, I don't know, 10, 12 years ago.

00:08:03 ◼   ► It's a long time.

00:08:04 ◼   ► I've had it for a very long time, but I still-- I was years late doing it.

00:08:08 ◼   ► And the second part was getting a PO box to get mail.

00:08:13 ◼   ► It annoyed me, though, because until then I only had one key.

00:08:16 ◼   ► One key just to the house.

00:08:18 ◼   ► And I could just put that one key in that little jeans pocket.

00:08:21 ◼   ► Oh, it's beautiful.

00:08:22 ◼   ► I still keep my keys in that pocket.

00:08:24 ◼   ► But two--

00:08:25 ◼   ► And your Levi's, like what they call the watch pocket?

00:08:27 ◼   ► Yeah, the watch pocket.

00:08:28 ◼   ► But for me, it's a keys pocket.

00:08:29 ◼   ► Over the years, that pocket has reflected many changes in my life.

00:08:32 ◼   ► It's been for guitar picks.

00:08:33 ◼   ► It's been for arcade tokens.

00:08:36 ◼   ► For a long time, it was for Imodium, as I'm glad I don't need as much anymore.

00:08:40 ◼   ► The watch pocket is a boom companion.

00:08:43 ◼   ► Speaking about irregularity.

00:08:47 ◼   ► Regular publishing.

00:08:48 ◼   ► You know, this is a-- I don't know how.

00:08:51 ◼   ► I'm just-- the centrifugal force of the pain in life somehow constantly leads me back to

00:08:57 ◼   ► bitching about technology, which is-- it's excruciating.

00:09:01 ◼   ► I'm really sorry anybody asked here.

00:09:02 ◼   ► But this has actually become a theme fairly often, including on today's Back to Work with

00:09:06 ◼   ► Dan, which is when you talk about the personal part of PC, I am entirely aware of the benefits

00:09:14 ◼   ► that come from somebody taking care of that stuff for me.

00:09:18 ◼   ► And like you say, especially if you're in enterprise, or as we used to say, a large

00:09:22 ◼   ► company, if you're in a large company, you need to know that your stuff's going to get

00:09:26 ◼   ► updated.

00:09:27 ◼   ► You know that the screensaver's going to-- there's all kinds of stuff.

00:09:29 ◼   ► No games allowed, whatever that is.

00:09:30 ◼   ► But the part that I think it's sort of frustrating when you do stop-- and this is an old person,

00:09:36 ◼   ► it's a problem to an old person.

00:09:39 ◼   ► You can look at that any way you want.

00:09:40 ◼   ► A computer is personal, right?

00:09:44 ◼   ► This is a very like Syracuse idea of like, I want my windows to do this and stop changing

00:09:49 ◼   ► that.

00:09:50 ◼   ► And you know, it's like you say with your keys, like, I never opened my silverware drawer

00:09:54 ◼   ► and find an ad for Viagra.

00:09:56 ◼   ► Like there's certain kinds of things where like-- or like I like that my smoke alarm

00:10:00 ◼   ► doesn't just go off or announce that like they got a good deal on crypto.

00:10:05 ◼   ► There's certain kinds of things where the benefit of it is that I never have to worry

00:10:12 ◼   ► that it has become something else when I looked away.

00:10:15 ◼   ► And it's that feeling of like, this feels less and less like my thing because you keep

00:10:20 ◼   ► like some kind of hectoring nanny.

00:10:22 ◼   ► You're constantly correcting me about how you want me to use this.

00:10:26 ◼   ► And there are benefits from that and security from that in some cases.

00:10:30 ◼   ► But in other cases, it becomes wildly, wildly frustrating, especially if you get, you know,

00:10:35 ◼   ► kind of ungraceful silent fails that don't have any troubleshooting.

00:10:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:10:39 ◼   ► Where I was going with the key thing is if I woke up and one of my two keys was new,

00:10:43 ◼   ► it was like new and shiny, like let's say my house key, right?

00:10:46 ◼   ► And all of a sudden, my Schlage, instead of being, you know, five, six years old and having

00:10:52 ◼   ► that sort of patina of an older key, it was a brand new shiny brass key.

00:10:58 ◼   ► I would be freaked out, right?

00:11:00 ◼   ► I'd be like, that's not my key.

00:11:01 ◼   ► What the hell happened?

00:11:03 ◼   ► And then if I went down and we had new locks on our doors, and maybe, you know, if I fished

00:11:09 ◼   ► through our physical mail, there'd be like a note that says, hey, we upgraded the locks

00:11:13 ◼   ► on your door to an improved security.

00:11:16 ◼   ► And the release notes are like, we're releasing regularly to get you up to the latest features.

00:11:20 ◼   ► And we've squashed some bugs and like, you know what?

00:11:24 ◼   ► It'll be like Greg writing notes for drafts.

00:11:27 ◼   ► Like really, can you tell me what actually happened instead of just going, we're improving

00:11:31 ◼   ► your GrubHub experience?

00:11:32 ◼   ► Like my GrubHub experience is like, is typically quite excruciating.

00:11:38 ◼   ► And like, you know, there's that update day where like whatever runs, whatever the chrome

00:11:42 ◼   ► of restaurant delivery services, and you see like nine updates from all of the apps in

00:11:46 ◼   ► one day, squashing bugs, it's excruciating.

00:11:51 ◼   ► But I, people would rightly freak the hell out if, without ever having agreed to it,

00:11:57 ◼   ► there was some kind of like door lock service that just replaced the locks on your house's

00:12:02 ◼   ► doors, and went into your pocket and like gave you the new key.

00:12:06 ◼   ► Like, people would rightly freak out.

00:12:09 ◼   ► Whereas maybe, hey, at least ask me if I would like this service, you know, and then let

00:12:14 ◼   ► me know.

00:12:15 ◼   ► But maybe I would opt into it at a level where you have to ring, you know, ding dong, ring

00:12:19 ◼   ► the doorbell, I'm here to change the locks.

00:12:21 ◼   ► It's...

00:12:22 ◼   ► And also because like, I mean, I don't, again, I don't want to pitch too much.

00:12:26 ◼   ► We had talked about, I think maybe talking a little bit about stuff people might be missing

00:12:30 ◼   ► that's really cool in the Apple world.

00:12:32 ◼   ► Like I have a few things I'm always sort of recommending to people that I've captured here

00:12:37 ◼   ► in your document.

00:12:38 ◼   ► But it's, it is beneficial to get updates that keep security and all that kind of stuff.

00:12:43 ◼   ► But if you've done virtually anything to improve the way things interact with each other, which

00:12:49 ◼   ► is in a lot of ways what we use these dumb things for, you know, your scripts break or,

00:12:54 ◼   ► you know, something I, I'm sorry, I'm going to say this, I, and I'll mention this later,

00:12:59 ◼   ► I love doing shortcuts via HomePod.

00:13:01 ◼   ► But for the second time, like in maybe this quarter, shortcuts have utterly shat the bed

00:13:09 ◼   ► on HomePod.

00:13:10 ◼   ► And all my, all my HomePod shortcuts that I made stopped working, which is all fine

00:13:14 ◼   ► because it just means I watch Hulu slower.

00:13:17 ◼   ► But what if you have an actual business where you've built shortcuts to run in that way?

00:13:23 ◼   ► What if you like the things that Tim said on stage and he did in a given June and you

00:13:28 ◼   ► said, I'd love to do that.

00:13:29 ◼   ► So, well, it'd be available in fall.

00:13:31 ◼   ► And then when it is available, like it might just, it might just poop itself egregiously

00:13:37 ◼   ► in the food court.

00:13:38 ◼   ► And then you tell your boss, you know, it's okay.

00:13:42 ◼   ► It's computers, you know, they're helping us.

00:13:44 ◼   ► It's not that personal.

00:13:45 ◼   ► It's an impersonal computer now.

00:13:46 ◼   ► Oh man.

00:13:47 ◼   ► All right.

00:13:48 ◼   ► Let me take a break here and thank our first sponsor.

00:13:51 ◼   ► Why not?

00:13:52 ◼   ► Right.

00:13:53 ◼   ► Tell me about something you like.

00:13:54 ◼   ► What's going on?

00:13:55 ◼   ► What do you got there?

00:13:56 ◼   ► Let me start by telling you about Linode.

00:13:59 ◼   ► Linode?

00:14:00 ◼   ► Oh, you guys know Linode?

00:14:01 ◼   ► You know Linode.

00:14:02 ◼   ► Linode?

00:14:03 ◼   ► Is it Linode?

00:14:04 ◼   ► No, no, no, no.

00:14:05 ◼   ► It's Linus Torvalds.

00:14:08 ◼   ► I think so.

00:14:09 ◼   ► It really should be Lean.

00:14:10 ◼   ► I don't want to be a dick about it, literally, but I think it probably should be Linode.

00:14:14 ◼   ► But, you know, they got plans to start it.

00:14:16 ◼   ► Like what if it started at like $5 a week?

00:14:18 ◼   ► Oh my God.

00:14:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:20 ◼   ► It's crazy.

00:14:21 ◼   ► Visit linode.com/thetalkshow and see why Linode has been voted the top infrastructure as a

00:14:26 ◼   ► service provider by both G2 and TrustRadius.

00:14:29 ◼   ► Look, I don't know who G2 or TrustRadius are, honestly.

00:14:34 ◼   ► Let me tell you this.

00:14:35 ◼   ► I host Daring Fireball at Linode, not because they sponsor.

00:14:38 ◼   ► I've been hosting there for years now before they ever sponsored because they're just...

00:14:43 ◼   ► It's just rock solid web hosting.

00:14:46 ◼   ► It's just tremendous.

00:14:47 ◼   ► They have award-winning support offered 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a

00:14:54 ◼   ► year to every level of user, including, you know, you get like the...

00:14:59 ◼   ► I think they call it the nano plan.

00:15:00 ◼   ► I think that's what you were talking about.

00:15:01 ◼   ► It's like five bucks a month and you need help, you get help.

00:15:05 ◼   ► You don't have to be like a big spender with a big quote unquote enterprise plan.

00:15:10 ◼   ► Get the basic plan.

00:15:11 ◼   ► You still get the great tech support and it is so easy to use.

00:15:14 ◼   ► They have a great web interface to all of their services.

00:15:19 ◼   ► It is why developers have been trusting Linode for projects, both big and small, since 2000

00:15:24 ◼   ► and three.

00:15:25 ◼   ► You can deploy your entire application stack with their one click app marketplace.

00:15:30 ◼   ► So if you need to install blah, blah, blah, you just go through.

00:15:34 ◼   ► There it is.

00:15:35 ◼   ► You say install this.

00:15:36 ◼   ► There it is.

00:15:37 ◼   ► You get it right through the web interface or you can build it all from scratch and manage

00:15:40 ◼   ► everything yourself with all the Unix nerdy goodness that you'd expect.

00:15:46 ◼   ► They offer the best price to performance value for all compute instances, including GPUs,

00:15:51 ◼   ► as well as block storage, Kubernetes, and their upcoming bare metal release.

00:15:56 ◼   ► You're just saying words now.

00:15:59 ◼   ► It looks like these all.

00:16:01 ◼   ► What are they win the vote for?

00:16:04 ◼   ► Trust Fund and Brand Buster?

00:16:05 ◼   ► Yeah, Trust Fund, Brand Buster, G2, Trust Radius.

00:16:10 ◼   ► Anyway, they make Cloud computing fast, simple, and affordable.

00:16:14 ◼   ► Go to linode.com/thetalkshow and create a free account with your Google or GitHub account.

00:16:24 ◼   ► Or you could just use your email address.

00:16:25 ◼   ► And when you do it by going through that URL, you get $100 in credit.

00:16:29 ◼   ► 100 bucks.

00:16:31 ◼   ► Hey, you know that ain't jump change.

00:16:33 ◼   ► That's a lot of money.

00:16:34 ◼   ► You know they're headquartered right here in Philadelphia.

00:16:36 ◼   ► I did not know that.

00:16:37 ◼   ► Are they part of cable toe?

00:16:38 ◼   ► Nope, nothing.

00:16:39 ◼   ► Well, not yet.

00:16:40 ◼   ► Oh, well, give them time.

00:16:41 ◼   ► Give them time.

00:16:42 ◼   ► Give them time.

00:16:44 ◼   ► But right now they're independent.

00:16:46 ◼   ► And their headquarters--

00:16:47 ◼   ► Television and microwave oven program.

00:16:52 ◼   ► I have yet to visit them.

00:16:53 ◼   ► They're very nice.

00:16:54 ◼   ► There's a couple of people there who I probably listen to the show.

00:16:57 ◼   ► John, John, a bunch of the things that I listen to, I happen to know are hosted on Linode.

00:17:02 ◼   ► Things like the incomparable.

00:17:03 ◼   ► There are people like our buddy Jason Stell.

00:17:05 ◼   ► They run their whole operation on Linode.

00:17:08 ◼   ► But their headquarters--

00:17:09 ◼   ► Get on Linode.

00:17:10 ◼   ► Their headquarters are in a section of Philadelphia that we call Old City, which is like lots of

00:17:17 ◼   ► stuff in Philadelphia.

00:17:18 ◼   ► Is that where Mac buys his cool sleeveless t-shirts?

00:17:22 ◼   ► Quite possibly.

00:17:23 ◼   ► Quite probably would be where Mac would buy his sleeveless t-shirts.

00:17:27 ◼   ► It is the old part of the city.

00:17:30 ◼   ► Guess where South Philly is?

00:17:32 ◼   ► It's south.

00:17:33 ◼   ► That's it.

00:17:34 ◼   ► And then--

00:17:35 ◼   ► You guys keep it real straightforward there, don't you?

00:17:37 ◼   ► Yeah, we just keep it real simple.

00:17:39 ◼   ► And who's you're not allowed to be taller than?

00:17:40 ◼   ► Is it William Penn, Ben Franklin?

00:17:41 ◼   ► Who are you not allowed to be taller than?

00:17:43 ◼   ► William Penn.

00:17:44 ◼   ► But they got rid of that in the '80s.

00:17:46 ◼   ► That's why we have real skyscrapers now.

00:17:48 ◼   ► But until, I'm going to say 1984, the city hall has a statue of William Penn atop.

00:17:56 ◼   ► And that was supposedly-- you couldn't build anything taller than William Penn's hat.

00:18:01 ◼   ► As long as Mike Schmidt's alive, you're not allowed to build anything taller.

00:18:04 ◼   ► That was the rule.

00:18:05 ◼   ► Right.

00:18:06 ◼   ► So what's called action, John?

00:18:07 ◼   ► Where are people supposed to go to get on the Linode?

00:18:09 ◼   ► Linode.com/the-talk-show.

00:18:10 ◼   ► There you go.

00:18:11 ◼   ► They got the article in there, which is nice.

00:18:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:15 ◼   ► Hey, oh, I always appreciate that.

00:18:16 ◼   ► I don't like to mention it too much anymore because I don't want to--

00:18:19 ◼   ► Well, you mention it when people don't.

00:18:20 ◼   ► And I think that's entirely reasonable.

00:18:21 ◼   ► They're just letters.

00:18:22 ◼   ► They don't cost anything.

00:18:23 ◼   ► Do you get a lot of printed catalogs mailed to your house?

00:18:30 ◼   ► Oh, John.

00:18:31 ◼   ► Oh, my god, John.

00:18:33 ◼   ► Yes, yes.

00:18:35 ◼   ► It makes our little sack that catches our mail groan.

00:18:39 ◼   ► And I don't-- first of all, we're liberal suckers.

00:18:42 ◼   ► So we get-- the ACLU, you guys, I love you, but it's a bridge too far.

00:18:48 ◼   ► It needs to stop.

00:18:49 ◼   ► The calls need to stop.

00:18:51 ◼   ► It's like--

00:18:52 ◼   ► Southern Poverty Law Center.

00:18:54 ◼   ► Well, but like, I mean, no shame no lemonade.

00:18:57 ◼   ► But hand to god, the ACLU has become like letting me know my car warranty is expiring.

00:19:04 ◼   ► It's bad.

00:19:05 ◼   ► And then I think I'm on some kind of podcast advertising sucker list.

00:19:09 ◼   ► Oh, that's me.

00:19:10 ◼   ► Yes.

00:19:11 ◼   ► Have you gotten bundle?

00:19:12 ◼   ► B-U-N-D-L?

00:19:13 ◼   ► No, I haven't gotten that one yet.

00:19:14 ◼   ► No, I don't think so.

00:19:15 ◼   ► Oh, it's like the Casper mattress, the blankets.

00:19:18 ◼   ► The blanket startup, John.

00:19:20 ◼   ► I don't know how that's even possible, but it is remarkable how many of the catalogs

00:19:25 ◼   ► I get.

00:19:26 ◼   ► You can easily tell which ones are meant for Amy.

00:19:28 ◼   ► Don't be sick of using a spoon that's not right for you.

00:19:32 ◼   ► Try Spooner.

00:19:34 ◼   ► That's S-P-U-N-R.

00:19:35 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:19:37 ◼   ► You know, there must be 700 companies that are vaguely competitive with, let's say,

00:19:44 ◼   ► like Athleada or Lululemon, you know, sort of women's--

00:19:49 ◼   ► Athleisure.

00:19:50 ◼   ► Athleisure, right.

00:19:51 ◼   ► And, you know, Amy has, you know, a lot of those type of pants and--

00:19:59 ◼   ► She works out a lot, right?

00:20:00 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

00:20:01 ◼   ► She works out like a mofo.

00:20:02 ◼   ► No, she does not run, but she does the--

00:20:05 ◼   ► Does she lift?

00:20:06 ◼   ► Oh, she lifts.

00:20:07 ◼   ► She benches.

00:20:08 ◼   ► Oh, I don't know.

00:20:09 ◼   ► Yeah, like 300 pounds.

00:20:10 ◼   ► She'd bench you.

00:20:11 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, easily.

00:20:12 ◼   ► Yeah, easy.

00:20:13 ◼   ► If we arm wrestled, she would just snap my arm right off.

00:20:15 ◼   ► I wouldn't even get involved in that.

00:20:17 ◼   ► No, I wouldn't.

00:20:18 ◼   ► It is weird, though, because, I mean, obviously there must be--seemingly, obviously, there

00:20:22 ◼   ► must be the kind of thing we always imagine, which is like you're on a list.

00:20:25 ◼   ► Like yeah, I mean, like I want to give St. Jude's all the money, but like somewhere

00:20:29 ◼   ► I think my name fell off the back of a truck.

00:20:34 ◼   ► And now we get so much personal email from President Biden and Vice President Harris,

00:20:38 ◼   ► and I literally, I run up the stairs so my wife can hear me coming, and I run in screaming,

00:20:43 ◼   ► and I say, "Stop what you're doing.

00:20:45 ◼   ► You just got a personal note from President Biden."

00:20:48 ◼   ► So you might want to just really, you know, time block some time to really get in there.

00:20:54 ◼   ► It is--my job in the house is the person who scoops up all the mail when it comes in.

00:21:00 ◼   ► Yeah, me too.

00:21:01 ◼   ► It's the--because it's the least I could do, right?

00:21:02 ◼   ► I mean, it's--

00:21:03 ◼   ► Literally, yeah.

00:21:04 ◼   ► Of all the little chores that somebody has to be responsible for, I--

00:21:08 ◼   ► You're coming up anyway!

00:21:10 ◼   ► It's minimal effort.

00:21:11 ◼   ► I'm the greedy bastard who picks all of the easiest ones, right?

00:21:14 ◼   ► Like oh, you know what else I do?

00:21:15 ◼   ► I take the garbage out.

00:21:17 ◼   ► Guess what's easy?

00:21:18 ◼   ► You know what's really easy?

00:21:19 ◼   ► Taking the garbage out on Sunday night.

00:21:21 ◼   ► It's--

00:21:22 ◼   ► You know where it goes, and it--

00:21:23 ◼   ► And I know where it is.

00:21:25 ◼   ► It's in our--we have a garage.

00:21:26 ◼   ► That's where it is.

00:21:27 ◼   ► It's already been wrapped up and deposited throughout the week.

00:21:30 ◼   ► It takes ten minutes, and you go out there and--but, you know, it--that way nobody else

00:21:34 ◼   ► has to worry about it.

00:21:35 ◼   ► But anyway, I scoop up all the junk.

00:21:36 ◼   ► I'm the garbage czar for our entire building.

00:21:39 ◼   ► I do--I'm the garbage czar for all garbage in the building, and I--when new tenants move

00:21:42 ◼   ► in in the other flat, I will tell them, "Just so you know, oh hi, nice to meet you.

00:21:47 ◼   ► Please don't smoke inside."

00:21:49 ◼   ► And I am the garbage czar, so I know which order the cans go in.

00:21:53 ◼   ► I know--I know which way the lids should go.

00:21:55 ◼   ► If they're in a different order, the czar ain't happy.

00:21:58 ◼   ► I love that job.

00:21:59 ◼   ► I treasure it.

00:22:00 ◼   ► And it's right--it's really right about at my pay grade, you know.

00:22:03 ◼   ► So--so there--there is no threat that Amy is gonna take over the job.

00:22:09 ◼   ► She doesn't want to, but she does get angry at me because what I will do is we'll get

00:22:14 ◼   ► twenty catalogs, and I think to myself, these--a lot of them are exquisitely well printed.

00:22:20 ◼   ► Some of the, you know, like--

00:22:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:22:22 ◼   ► --the clothing catalogs and, you know--

00:22:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:22:24 ◼   ► --like a nice--yeah, yeah, yeah, but like with a full bleed on really nice--not even

00:22:27 ◼   ► paper, almost like cardboard.

00:22:28 ◼   ► Yep, yep.

00:22:29 ◼   ► And then you gotta pay for the little tapey--tapey circles that like keep it closed and you open

00:22:34 ◼   ► it up and it's like a blanket startup, man.

00:22:37 ◼   ► Uh--

00:22:38 ◼   ► The, uh--I love their stuff.

00:22:40 ◼   ► They're not a sponsor.

00:22:41 ◼   ► I don't think they've ever sponsored the show, but American Giant.

00:22:44 ◼   ► They're the company that somehow famously, like ten years ago, Farhad Manju wrote an

00:22:48 ◼   ► article for Slate that was like the greatest hood he ever made.

00:22:52 ◼   ► Like, oh, that was--yes!

00:22:53 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:22:54 ◼   ► I think they might be based here because it was--they were constantly talking about--and

00:22:58 ◼   ► I got that ad, like a Taboodle ad all the time about how this was the, uh--this is the

00:23:03 ◼   ► hoodie nobody can keep in stock.

00:23:05 ◼   ► And it--once this article went off--and they're--they are made in America, you know, it's--they

00:23:11 ◼   ► are high--I love their stuff.

00:23:12 ◼   ► Yeah, they're based in San Francisco, yeah.

00:23:14 ◼   ► But once this article took off, they--their hoodie that the article was about was backordered

00:23:19 ◼   ► for like eight months because there was--and there was like nothing they could do about

00:23:22 ◼   ► it.

00:23:23 ◼   ► They're like, we're making a--

00:23:24 ◼   ► Sort of like you did with the Mack Weldon slippers.

00:23:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:23:26 ◼   ► You almost put them out of business.

00:23:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:23:28 ◼   ► Well, hold that thought.

00:23:29 ◼   ► Guess who's sponsoring this show?

00:23:30 ◼   ► Oh boy.

00:23:31 ◼   ► Oh boy.

00:23:32 ◼   ► Oh, we're gonna clean their clock today.

00:23:33 ◼   ► Let's pick something real, real obscure that they probably don't have much.

00:23:37 ◼   ► But the, uh--the American Giant, they--now, I've ordered their products.

00:23:40 ◼   ► I love their products.

00:23:41 ◼   ► Are you familiar with the YKK zipper company?

00:23:44 ◼   ► Yes.

00:23:45 ◼   ► That's how you know it's well made.

00:23:47 ◼   ► Right?

00:23:48 ◼   ► So the Y--

00:23:49 ◼   ► I'm not gonna learn this from you, but it's my understanding that if you see a YKK zipper

00:23:53 ◼   ► in front of your business, if you--if you've got a YKK front in your junk, you know that's

00:23:57 ◼   ► a well-made garment.

00:23:58 ◼   ► John, here's the thing about a zipper.

00:24:00 ◼   ► A zipper is the kind of thing you don't think about until it's not working the way you expected.

00:24:03 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:24:04 ◼   ► Right?

00:24:05 ◼   ► It's like--it's like furniture in your life, but like a zipper has a sort of--I want to

00:24:09 ◼   ► say I'm--I don't read the trades.

00:24:11 ◼   ► I want to say like a locking mechanism, like on your fly, right?

00:24:15 ◼   ► Where like it'll kind of lock a little bit.

00:24:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:24:18 ◼   ► And you realize a good zipper does that until it don't.

00:24:21 ◼   ► And then all of a sudden, you know, you're in--you're all together, you know, with your

00:24:25 ◼   ► Y2K in your hand.

00:24:26 ◼   ► And a good zipper will take care of that for you, and you shouldn't have to think about

00:24:30 ◼   ► it.

00:24:31 ◼   ► And I'm just--I sent you a photo just now.

00:24:33 ◼   ► Yes.

00:24:34 ◼   ► Tom Bihn, maker of I think the best backpacks, totally uses a heavy duty Y2K zipper.

00:24:40 ◼   ► YYK, YYZ.

00:24:41 ◼   ► Look at that.

00:24:42 ◼   ► Look at that photo.

00:24:43 ◼   ► Isn't that a beautiful zipper?

00:24:44 ◼   ► Oh, I'll put that right in the show notes.

00:24:45 ◼   ► Okay, thanks.

00:24:46 ◼   ► Usually it's just for tabs.

00:24:49 ◼   ► Usually it's just for tabs.

00:24:50 ◼   ► But if you--I'm telling you, and I'm telling you, if you've never heard of this company,

00:24:54 ◼   ► and you'll think--this is what I thought when I learned about this, because I only learned

00:24:56 ◼   ► about this company, I don't know, five, six years ago.

00:25:01 ◼   ► But it's like that usual suspects denouement, you know, where it's like all of a sudden,

00:25:07 ◼   ► you know, they're like, "Oh, it was, you know, it was--that guy was always Kaiser Sose."

00:25:11 ◼   ► You know?

00:25:12 ◼   ► Zipper Sose all along.

00:25:13 ◼   ► Right.

00:25:14 ◼   ► And it's like, you know what?

00:25:15 ◼   ► I have noticed YKK on a bunch of zippers.

00:25:18 ◼   ► You don't think about it.

00:25:19 ◼   ► You don't think about it.

00:25:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:25:21 ◼   ► But it's always been in the back of my head that I've seen it, and I didn't even know

00:25:24 ◼   ► if it was a brand name.

00:25:26 ◼   ► I didn't know if it was like a--maybe like an ISO technical standard, right?

00:25:29 ◼   ► Like--

00:25:30 ◼   ► It's not like a size or something, you know?

00:25:32 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:25:33 ◼   ► I don't--yeah.

00:25:34 ◼   ► Right.

00:25:35 ◼   ► Like, you know, like--

00:25:36 ◼   ► But like, it's--you learn these tricks in life, and god, we gotta talk about something

00:25:38 ◼   ► else.

00:25:39 ◼   ► The--you learn this in life where like there's tricks.

00:25:42 ◼   ► Like, for example--and I'm just--I'm pulling these out of my ass, but like the YKK zipper

00:25:46 ◼   ► is an extremely good one.

00:25:47 ◼   ► Another one is like when you get a necktie.

00:25:50 ◼   ► I think I made Ben Thompson really mad twice.

00:25:53 ◼   ► One time I made fun of guys who were photographed in neckties, and he got so fucking mad at

00:25:57 ◼   ► me.

00:25:58 ◼   ► And then another time I did literally make fun of the word "enterprise," and he got mad

00:26:00 ◼   ► at me about that too.

00:26:01 ◼   ► Hey, Ben.

00:26:02 ◼   ► Um, the, um--but--but--neckties.

00:26:03 ◼   ► You know the thing about the number of threads?

00:26:06 ◼   ► You count the number of threads, and that's like how well it's made?

00:26:09 ◼   ► You can think about, for example, does this jacket have lining?

00:26:13 ◼   ► Or do these gloves have lining?

00:26:15 ◼   ► There's all these things that let you know how much care went into that.

00:26:19 ◼   ► And if you're an idiot like me, and you mostly just buy clothes on the internet, you

00:26:24 ◼   ► have to go somewhere.

00:26:25 ◼   ► It's nice to know that this one's probably nicer than that one, and you can tell by the

00:26:28 ◼   ► way the seam is done.

00:26:30 ◼   ► Or you can tell the quality of the extra buttons at the bottom.

00:26:34 ◼   ► I think the people in the know--if this was the 40s, Jon, we would know this stuff inside

00:26:38 ◼   ► out.

00:26:39 ◼   ► No, there's definitely something--you know, there's certain things where you--I'm never

00:26:45 ◼   ► gonna know the difference between a truly great men's suit and just a good men's suit.

00:26:52 ◼   ► Like I don't wear suits, I don't have an eye for fashion.

00:26:56 ◼   ► But you know, you can kind of learn with a couple of tips that you can keep memorized,

00:27:01 ◼   ► you can kind of know the difference between a truly ill-fitting man's suit, like the kind

00:27:07 ◼   ► our former president typically wears.

00:27:09 ◼   ► Like you--

00:27:10 ◼   ► Well, those pants were pretty big, weren't they?

00:27:12 ◼   ► What is--jackets?

00:27:13 ◼   ► They were like jenko jeans.

00:27:15 ◼   ► I mean, you get that photo of him and the North Korean fella, and they're both wearing

00:27:18 ◼   ► their stovepipe pants.

00:27:19 ◼   ► It's a hell of a look.

00:27:21 ◼   ► What's he got in there?

00:27:23 ◼   ► You know--

00:27:24 ◼   ► I thought it was fruit.

00:27:26 ◼   ► You know, but--

00:27:28 ◼   ► Yes, but you can tell.

00:27:29 ◼   ► I watched the second X-Men--or sorry, X-Men First Class, which is one of my favorites.

00:27:33 ◼   ► Oh, that is a good movie.

00:27:34 ◼   ► I think I might have a little bit of a thing for Michael Fassbender.

00:27:37 ◼   ► You know, I love him in Inglourious Basterds.

00:27:40 ◼   ► I love him in all those things.

00:27:42 ◼   ► He's wearing this--when he goes to see the guy in Switzerland, the guy with the fellings,

00:27:46 ◼   ► remember, he's wearing like a suit, and he's got like an overcoat, and he has so many suits,

00:27:49 ◼   ► and he's got a waistcoat, and I'm like, "God, and you're shaped like a narrow--you're shaped

00:27:55 ◼   ► like a inconsolata condensed letter V. You're exquisite.

00:28:01 ◼   ► Your entire body makes sense."

00:28:03 ◼   ► Now, I don't know if that's the suit of the Fassbender, but you do notice.

00:28:06 ◼   ► You notice when somebody wears something that looks--that's like what my friend used to

00:28:10 ◼   ► Chris--my friend Chris used to call the appearance in court suit, or the appearance in court

00:28:14 ◼   ► shirt.

00:28:16 ◼   ► Like something somebody got you out of lost and found so that you could meet the dress

00:28:19 ◼   ► code.

00:28:20 ◼   ► Well, they are like--if you--I know that these sort of establishments are a vanishing breed,

00:28:28 ◼   ► but if you enter an establishment with a requirement that men need to be wearing a jacket, sometimes

00:28:34 ◼   ► they'll have--

00:28:35 ◼   ► In New York City, there's like--you know, people dress so much more formally there.

00:28:39 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:28:40 ◼   ► People just wear suits all the time.

00:28:41 ◼   ► At least they used to in Manhattan.

00:28:42 ◼   ► Yeah, and I think they would give you a loaner jacket, which is really upsetting.

00:28:51 ◼   ► And depending on your circumstances, it might be--if it were just me and you, and we were

00:28:56 ◼   ► out and we went to, let's say, Let's Go Eat Here, and they came in and they said--

00:29:01 ◼   ► Yeah, go to House Primary.

00:29:02 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah, and they said, "We've instituted a policy.

00:29:04 ◼   ► You need to have a coat."

00:29:06 ◼   ► We would probably just look at each other and say, "Well, you know, we'll--noted for

00:29:09 ◼   ► the next time, but we'll just go somewhere else," right?

00:29:12 ◼   ► But if, let's say--

00:29:13 ◼   ► You're the jack-in-the-box.

00:29:14 ◼   ► But like, you know, if there's like a whole party who's already there, and you don't want

00:29:17 ◼   ► to be left out, and you're the only jerk who didn't have one, you'll just put their loaner

00:29:21 ◼   ► jacket on.

00:29:22 ◼   ► And otherwise, it's probably going to be a roomy fit, because, you know, a smaller man

00:29:27 ◼   ► can fit in a large jacket, whereas a larger man cannot fit in a smaller jacket.

00:29:32 ◼   ► So I do tend to think that the loaners, you know, tend to err on the side of roominess.

00:29:36 ◼   ► Right, you're going to get like a 44 wide.

00:29:41 ◼   ► Is that a size?

00:29:42 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:29:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:29:44 ◼   ► Have you ever been--when's the last time you were at a place where you ran into that sort

00:29:48 ◼   ► of rigmarole?

00:29:49 ◼   ► I mean, there are--this being San Francisco, and this being the pandemic era, I mean, you

00:29:58 ◼   ► know, we don't go out over much.

00:30:00 ◼   ► But when you do go almost anywhere in San Francisco, it's pretty cash.

00:30:03 ◼   ► Not least, I think, because of, you know, tourists.

00:30:05 ◼   ► Like those goddamn Germans, I feel so bad for them.

00:30:08 ◼   ► They come here in the summer, and they wear their short pants, their short nose, and I

00:30:12 ◼   ► feel so bad for them, because they have no idea that it's going to be 50 degrees every

00:30:15 ◼   ► day.

00:30:16 ◼   ► And--but I think it's pretty casual.

00:30:18 ◼   ► I'm trying to think of situations--I have to tell you, John, I've been to a few--I've

00:30:22 ◼   ► been to a fair number of really quite good restaurants in terms of cuisine.

00:30:27 ◼   ► I have not been to that many places where you really feel like--there's a place in Tampa,

00:30:32 ◼   ► I think I've talked to you about this place, I feel like I've talked to everybody.

00:30:35 ◼   ► Tampa, Florida, there's a place called Burns Steakhouse.

00:30:38 ◼   ► I don't think you have talked to me about this, but--

00:30:40 ◼   ► Oh my god, you've got to look this place up.

00:30:42 ◼   ► Run by a guy--actually, I went to Brady's Bits.

00:30:44 ◼   ► I went to military school with his son.

00:30:47 ◼   ► The guy's name is Burn Laxer, and I think he might have passed.

00:30:49 ◼   ► How do you spell "Burn"?

00:30:51 ◼   ► B-E-R-N.

00:30:52 ◼   ► B-E-R-N.

00:30:53 ◼   ► So not a Mr. Burn, it's a--

00:30:55 ◼   ► No.

00:30:56 ◼   ► But you--but this place--and I mean, I could just go on about this place.

00:31:01 ◼   ► They have their own organic farm, all of their seafood is live on-premises till they make

00:31:07 ◼   ► it.

00:31:08 ◼   ► They have--you can get a tour of their wine cellar, which is really--doesn't do justice.

00:31:12 ◼   ► But you'd go look up Burns B-E-R-N.

00:31:14 ◼   ► That's the place where you go in, and it really does have the whole flocked wallpaper sort

00:31:19 ◼   ► of--this looks, I don't know, like a sex worker place from Deadwood?

00:31:23 ◼   ► It's really pretty epic.

00:31:26 ◼   ► You expect Clementine to come up and say, "So much for a rind on you?"

00:31:31 ◼   ► All right, this is something too.

00:31:33 ◼   ► I know--

00:31:34 ◼   ► That's the kind of place where you've got to wear a jacket.

00:31:35 ◼   ► You've got to wear a jacket.

00:31:37 ◼   ► You're like me, I know you are, where you will peruse--I will peruse the in-flight--

00:31:43 ◼   ► What do you mean, for like the top ten steakhouse?

00:31:47 ◼   ► Yes, right!

00:31:48 ◼   ► And there's--

00:31:49 ◼   ► That and the plastic surgeons!

00:31:51 ◼   ► I always look forward to that.

00:31:52 ◼   ► They don't even put SkyMall in the pocket anymore!

00:31:55 ◼   ► They got the plastic surgeons, they got the orthodontia, right?

00:31:58 ◼   ► Lawyers, I think lawyers.

00:32:00 ◼   ► Lawyers are a big one.

00:32:02 ◼   ► And then there's always like a feature article, "The Top Ten Steakhouses in America."

00:32:07 ◼   ► And number one, you know I love a steakhouse.

00:32:10 ◼   ► And number two, I just love--it's bananas to me that it's one magazine that they print

00:32:18 ◼   ► thousands of copies of, put it in every single, you know, whether it's United's or American,

00:32:23 ◼   ► whatever, you know, every single American Airlines flight has this exact same magazine.

00:32:29 ◼   ► But they've got ten steakhouses from ten random cities around North America.

00:32:35 ◼   ► What percentage of people ever even go--like, what percentage of Americans have ever or

00:32:41 ◼   ► will ever go to Tampa, Florida?

00:32:43 ◼   ► Not me, I've been there.

00:32:44 ◼   ► I actually have been to Tampa.

00:32:45 ◼   ► I had to, yeah.

00:32:46 ◼   ► It's a lovely place.

00:32:47 ◼   ► It's, you know, it's--yeah, but like, the steak stuff is--obviously those are paid placements

00:32:53 ◼   ► and that's all fine.

00:32:54 ◼   ► Ditto for the surgeons.

00:32:55 ◼   ► But you're like, you're sitting there and you're like, "Oh, you know, we're gonna land

00:32:58 ◼   ► soon, I guess I'll--" I would always look at the SkyMall or the in-flight magazine like

00:33:02 ◼   ► kind of like after they made the announcement that we're going in, that is, by the way,

00:33:06 ◼   ► also the only appropriate time to talk to someone in the next seat.

00:33:09 ◼   ► You must be silent until then, because now at this point, you know, like, neither of

00:33:13 ◼   ► us is a lunatic and we have ten minutes till we land.

00:33:16 ◼   ► But I just imagine somebody like flipping through there and being like, "Huh, I've been

00:33:20 ◼   ► thinking about rhinoplasty."

00:33:22 ◼   ► And there is a photo of a guy with a stethoscope here.

00:33:25 ◼   ► He's in Boca Raton, Florida.

00:33:27 ◼   ► I should check him out.

00:33:29 ◼   ► He's one of the top ten, huh?

00:33:32 ◼   ► That's wild.

00:33:33 ◼   ► Right, I'm--

00:33:34 ◼   ► Do you ever wonder if J.D. Power's a jam-up?

00:33:36 ◼   ► I feel like it might be a jam-up.

00:33:37 ◼   ► You know, not to speak ill of J.D. Power, but when they talk about those awards, do

00:33:42 ◼   ► you ever wonder if that's one of those like, uh, like, uh, like, um, who has the list?

00:33:47 ◼   ► They just pivoted.

00:33:48 ◼   ► Uh, Annie's list or the list?

00:33:51 ◼   ► Angie's list.

00:33:52 ◼   ► Yeah, Angie's list.

00:33:53 ◼   ► Or Yelp.

00:33:54 ◼   ► You ever wonder if the J.D. Power thing, if maybe your Buick might not be as good as J.D.

00:33:58 ◼   ► Power says it is?

00:33:59 ◼   ► Does it feel like a paid placement a little bit?

00:34:01 ◼   ► Like getting a Webby or something?

00:34:03 ◼   ► Yeah, I always thought Zagat's was sort of fishy.

00:34:07 ◼   ► Yeah, but it's rustic and homespun.

00:34:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:34:11 ◼   ► But, you know, word of mouth is best.

00:34:13 ◼   ► John, I'll put this in your document, but you gotta go look, even just look at the splashy

00:34:19 ◼   ► image on, uh, on Burn Steakhouse.

00:34:21 ◼   ► Don't you want to eat there?

00:34:22 ◼   ► Look how red it is.

00:34:23 ◼   ► Oh, man, that's, that's nice.

00:34:24 ◼   ► Look at that.

00:34:25 ◼   ► Oh, they have a section called "What to Expect."

00:34:29 ◼   ► Oh, my God.

00:34:31 ◼   ► Yes, and they, yes, okay, sorry, sorry.

00:34:33 ◼   ► Can I request a favorite server?

00:34:35 ◼   ► Are pictures allowed?

00:34:36 ◼   ► What can be done?

00:34:37 ◼   ► What is the corckage fee?

00:34:38 ◼   ► Can I request a favorite server?

00:34:39 ◼   ► It says here all Burn servers are highly trained and very competent.

00:34:42 ◼   ► However, if you have a favorite, oh, another thing, they have a steak menu that's chained

00:34:46 ◼   ► to the table.

00:34:47 ◼   ► Their menus are chained to the table.

00:34:49 ◼   ► They have a tome.

00:34:50 ◼   ► It looks like a Tibetan Book of the Dead, but for steer.

00:34:53 ◼   ► And, and, you know, you go and then, oh, and they do, oh, John, can we talk about Caesar

00:34:58 ◼   ► salads?

00:34:59 ◼   ► You know, the lie that we're living with the Arby's version of a Caesar salad is a goddamn

00:35:03 ◼   ► shame.

00:35:04 ◼   ► A very, a very tall man who looks like he maybe used to be in musical theater comes

00:35:08 ◼   ► up, he's dressed like a performing monkey, and he comes up and he makes you a Caesar-ass

00:35:13 ◼   ► salad right at your table.

00:35:14 ◼   ► He does the whole nine.

00:35:16 ◼   ► It's, it's, oh, it's, we gotta, you know what?

00:35:18 ◼   ► We gotta do this.

00:35:19 ◼   ► We should Patreon this.

00:35:20 ◼   ► I, I, you know, I love a steakhouse and my, my steakhouse, if I, if I were, if I were

00:35:27 ◼   ► rich on the side, if I had hit it rich, if I had, let's say, put all my money into Bitcoin

00:35:34 ◼   ► 10 years ago, and now I was a tech or a crypto gazillionaire, I would love, I would love

00:35:43 ◼   ► to hang it up and just start my own steakhouse and not even if I could just run it at break-even.

00:35:49 ◼   ► That's a terrible question.

00:35:51 ◼   ► It's the hardest thing in the world to run a restaurant.

00:35:54 ◼   ► Oh, I know.

00:35:55 ◼   ► But you know what makes it?

00:35:56 ◼   ► What makes it really hard?

00:35:57 ◼   ► Yeah, a passion project for you.

00:35:58 ◼   ► Well, what, I think what makes it really hard is staying in business.

00:36:02 ◼   ► Right?

00:36:03 ◼   ► If, let's say, if I were, if I were a hundred million dollars cushioned to sit on and I

00:36:09 ◼   ► could run a restaurant and, you know, let's say I lost a million dollars a year.

00:36:13 ◼   ► Well, I could, I could easily, you know, I could, you know, I don't have to.

00:36:17 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:36:18 ◼   ► So sort of like the way, there's a place in town, I think it's called Club DNA or DNA

00:36:22 ◼   ► Lounge.

00:36:23 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:36:24 ◼   ► And it's root, yeah, that guy who, he's still got a live journal.

00:36:25 ◼   ► He's the guy who used to be at Netscape and then he just started a cool club.

00:36:29 ◼   ► And he like gives people a break and stuff.

00:36:31 ◼   ► Or, or like you hear about with Robin Williams, RIP, but like he and his wife would like,

00:36:36 ◼   ► they never, just wasn't like widely publicly known, they certainly didn't promote it, but

00:36:41 ◼   ► Robin Williams and his wife would be, wife, they'd come in and go like, "Oh, you know,

00:36:44 ◼   ► our St. Jude's thing, we'd love to have it there."

00:36:46 ◼   ► And they'd be like, "Yeah, we'll take care of that.

00:36:47 ◼   ► Just, just come on in."

00:36:48 ◼   ► You could do that.

00:36:49 ◼   ► That could be you, but for Philadelphia.

00:36:50 ◼   ► Right.

00:36:51 ◼   ► And it would be a steakhouse.

00:36:52 ◼   ► Yeah, that's exactly the DNA Lounge.

00:36:54 ◼   ► The DNA Lounge that Jamie, and he of course is...

00:36:57 ◼   ► He's a text files guy, right?

00:37:00 ◼   ► No, no, no, he's not the text files guy.

00:37:03 ◼   ► It's a great club.

00:37:04 ◼   ► I was there for the, I was there with Matt Howey for the release of Mozilla 1.0.

00:37:08 ◼   ► He's, he's the guy though, Jamie Z is the guy whose gravestone will have the quote, something...

00:37:14 ◼   ► Oh, regular expressions, right?

00:37:16 ◼   ► Regular expressions, where there are some people when faced with a particular problem,

00:37:20 ◼   ► will say, "I know what to do, I'll use regular expressions."

00:37:24 ◼   ► Now you have two problems.

00:37:25 ◼   ► Now you have two problems.

00:37:26 ◼   ► Now you have two problems.

00:37:27 ◼   ► So good.

00:37:28 ◼   ► It'll be it.

00:37:29 ◼   ► You should, you should do that.

00:37:30 ◼   ► Would you call it Daring Fireball?

00:37:31 ◼   ► No, no.

00:37:32 ◼   ► Would Amy, would Amy Jane be involved at all?

00:37:34 ◼   ► Oh, of course.

00:37:35 ◼   ► She probably, she really wouldn't go near it.

00:37:36 ◼   ► Oh, no.

00:37:37 ◼   ► She could just be in, she could be the hostess.

00:37:38 ◼   ► Yes.

00:37:39 ◼   ► Like, no, no, no, but like a hostess as in like, you know, like Tandy Newton again in

00:37:44 ◼   ► Westworld.

00:37:45 ◼   ► Oh, I see.

00:37:46 ◼   ► She could be dressed up in some kind of like Diamond Horseshoe Revue outfit.

00:37:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:37:50 ◼   ► And entertain people in the lounge.

00:37:51 ◼   ► Oh.

00:37:52 ◼   ► Hello, gentlemen!

00:37:53 ◼   ► Yeah, she'd be the, she'd run the front of the house and then anybody.

00:37:55 ◼   ► Oh, that's so good.

00:37:56 ◼   ► Makes sure every regular always gets in and...

00:37:59 ◼   ► But don't, do not cross her.

00:38:00 ◼   ► She is a leader.

00:38:01 ◼   ► Do not cross her, right.

00:38:02 ◼   ► And then if you're on her good side, you could come in without a reservation, even, you know,

00:38:06 ◼   ► Saturday night you come in without a reservation.

00:38:08 ◼   ► But if she knows you, she would spot you at the door.

00:38:11 ◼   ► You wouldn't even have to, before you could even awkwardly ask, "Hey..."

00:38:15 ◼   ► Oh, she knows.

00:38:16 ◼   ► "Hey, I'm a regular, I know I don't have a reservation."

00:38:19 ◼   ► She'd already...

00:38:20 ◼   ► And you could have an area where you store jackets that fit the regulars.

00:38:24 ◼   ► So they could come in from, not golf, that's bullshit, let's say they were out playing

00:38:27 ◼   ► cornhole and they decided they really wanted a tasty dairy fireball filet or a baseball

00:38:32 ◼   ► steak.

00:38:33 ◼   ► I've seen you eat a baseball steak.

00:38:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:35 ◼   ► Right?

00:38:36 ◼   ► What did you get that one time we went out with Rands?

00:38:38 ◼   ► You got something asinine.

00:38:39 ◼   ► Was it Wagyu or Kobe?

00:38:41 ◼   ► You got something that was very, very weird.

00:38:44 ◼   ► Oh.

00:38:45 ◼   ► I know.

00:38:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:47 ◼   ► Where was it?

00:38:48 ◼   ► Did you get like the rarest of the rare?

00:38:49 ◼   ► Yeah, I got the...

00:38:50 ◼   ► I don't know if it was actually Kobe, but it was definitely Japanese A5.

00:38:56 ◼   ► Which is really what you want.

00:38:58 ◼   ► Kobe is...

00:38:59 ◼   ► The word Kobe, if it literally is Kobe certified, that's good.

00:39:03 ◼   ► But it's not magic, it's just a word that people know.

00:39:06 ◼   ► And it actually isn't...

00:39:08 ◼   ► It should have a serial number.

00:39:09 ◼   ► I watch a lot of teppanyaki and steak videos because I'm broken inside and I know all about

00:39:13 ◼   ► the serial numbers.

00:39:14 ◼   ► I'm on the show you.

00:39:15 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:39:16 ◼   ► They put the...

00:39:17 ◼   ► There's actually a certificate with like a hoof print.

00:39:19 ◼   ► I swear to God.

00:39:20 ◼   ► I've gotten it.

00:39:21 ◼   ► I've already gotten the certificate.

00:39:22 ◼   ► With much respect, sir.

00:39:23 ◼   ► You are about to eat a steer with a, how you say, master's degree.

00:39:29 ◼   ► I actually don't like it because the hoof print sort of puts a...

00:39:33 ◼   ► Yes.

00:39:34 ◼   ► It brings out the...

00:39:35 ◼   ► Fool on the nose.

00:39:36 ◼   ► Oh no, that's what it is.

00:39:38 ◼   ► It's a nose print.

00:39:39 ◼   ► That's what it...

00:39:40 ◼   ► Because the hoof...

00:39:41 ◼   ► Yeah, it is the nose print.

00:39:42 ◼   ► You could call it on the nose.

00:39:43 ◼   ► It's a Daring Fireball joint.

00:39:45 ◼   ► But would you have a drink special is my question for you.

00:39:47 ◼   ► Now I know you like your fella with...

00:39:49 ◼   ► What do you have?

00:39:50 ◼   ► Coins in the bar?

00:39:51 ◼   ► Who's that guy?

00:39:52 ◼   ► What's that guy?

00:39:53 ◼   ► What's that called?

00:39:54 ◼   ► Lee?

00:39:55 ◼   ► Hopsing Laundromat and his name is...

00:39:56 ◼   ► Hopsing Laundromat.

00:39:57 ◼   ► Now would you have a drink special at Club Daring Fireball?

00:39:58 ◼   ► Oh, absolutely.

00:39:59 ◼   ► I would definitely pay Lee to make at least, let's say, three drinks, two or three cocktails.

00:40:06 ◼   ► One brown, one white, and one whatever Lee wants to make.

00:40:10 ◼   ► Actually, he wouldn't let me tell him that.

00:40:12 ◼   ► Just cut the guy loose and can I just say, I don't want to give you notes on your place.

00:40:16 ◼   ► This is your passion project.

00:40:17 ◼   ► But could we also do a thing where the bartender doesn't explain the drink to me?

00:40:20 ◼   ► Oh, absolutely.

00:40:21 ◼   ► That would be forbidden.

00:40:22 ◼   ► It's like I need a hand signal for Lyft drivers.

00:40:24 ◼   ► Like, look, seriously, we really don't need to have a conversation here, especially about

00:40:27 ◼   ► black people.

00:40:28 ◼   ► But also when I go to your bar, please don't explain how you make the ice.

00:40:31 ◼   ► And like it's so important to me that we not have a conversation.

00:40:35 ◼   ► Absolutely not.

00:40:36 ◼   ► Although on the flip side of that, now you and my...

00:40:40 ◼   ► We've eaten here many times to the House of Prime Rib in San Francisco, which is a fabulous

00:40:43 ◼   ► place.

00:40:44 ◼   ► And it's sort of the canonical ideal of a steakhouse in some ways.

00:40:50 ◼   ► But I remember one of the first times I was there with you and we had to wait a little

00:40:56 ◼   ► bit for a table.

00:40:57 ◼   ► So I went to the bar to get a martini and I was told...

00:41:01 ◼   ► I tend to go vodka martini.

00:41:06 ◼   ► But I was told here at this establishment, you should definitely go more traditional,

00:41:10 ◼   ► get a martini made with gin.

00:41:12 ◼   ► And avoiding the whole argument...

00:41:13 ◼   ► Get a Boodles or similar.

00:41:15 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:41:16 ◼   ► Avoid avoiding the whole religious argument that a true martini is only made with gin

00:41:20 ◼   ► and a vodka martini isn't even a martini, which I don't believe...

00:41:23 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, saying vodka martini is like saying shrimp swimming pool.

00:41:28 ◼   ► That's not even a thing.

00:41:29 ◼   ► But whatever.

00:41:30 ◼   ► But you enjoy it.

00:41:31 ◼   ► You can order a Vesper.

00:41:32 ◼   ► I'll give it to you in a literal, like a pint glass with a lid that's actually two and a

00:41:38 ◼   ► half drinks.

00:41:40 ◼   ► Well, and also their martini glasses are my favorite in the world.

00:41:44 ◼   ► I don't know if they have like 10,000 of them still in storage.

00:41:48 ◼   ► Like how do they keep procuring them?

00:41:50 ◼   ► But you know exactly what I'm talking about where the stem is articulated.

00:41:56 ◼   ► It has like...

00:41:57 ◼   ► It's like an octagon shape instead of just being purely circular.

00:42:02 ◼   ► You're going to want that true grip system after you've had a couple of those.

00:42:06 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:42:07 ◼   ► It's the true grip system.

00:42:08 ◼   ► But I remember the first time I was there and you or Scott or somebody had told me...

00:42:13 ◼   ► Probably Simpson, yeah.

00:42:14 ◼   ► ...told me, "Don't get a vodka martini.

00:42:17 ◼   ► Get it with gin in."

00:42:18 ◼   ► And I said, "I would like a martini."

00:42:19 ◼   ► And he was like, "What type of gin would you like?"

00:42:20 ◼   ► And I don't even know what I told him.

00:42:22 ◼   ► I said, "Maybe let's just say..."

00:42:24 ◼   ► I said, "What's that one that's made with cucumber?"

00:42:26 ◼   ► I forget what it is.

00:42:27 ◼   ► I'm not sure.

00:42:28 ◼   ► I don't know that much about it.

00:42:30 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:42:31 ◼   ► I get Hendrix or a Boodles.

00:42:33 ◼   ► Oh, Hendrix.

00:42:34 ◼   ► But I think I said something else.

00:42:35 ◼   ► And he goes, "Oh, so you want a bad martini?"

00:42:37 ◼   ► Oh, whoa!

00:42:38 ◼   ► Whoa!

00:42:39 ◼   ► And I said, "How about this?

00:42:41 ◼   ► How about you pick?"

00:42:42 ◼   ► And he goes, "I like your style."

00:42:44 ◼   ► And then, you know, I don't even know what the hell he gave me.

00:42:46 ◼   ► It's the smartest thing you can say.

00:42:48 ◼   ► I don't care if we're talking about tacos, hand stuff, or martinis.

00:42:54 ◼   ► Just do the one you like.

00:42:56 ◼   ► And you will always mostly be happy.

00:42:59 ◼   ► That place is amazing.

00:43:01 ◼   ► It's just...

00:43:02 ◼   ► They were open a little bit for pickup during the pandemic, but I believe they are.

00:43:09 ◼   ► My wife knows how much I love that place, and it's kind of a special thing for us, our

00:43:12 ◼   ► family, too.

00:43:13 ◼   ► But they were booked...

00:43:14 ◼   ► At the time, she was trying to get a reservation for my late November birthday, which was probably

00:43:18 ◼   ► September.

00:43:19 ◼   ► They were, I think, booked through the end of the year.

00:43:22 ◼   ► That's crazy.

00:43:23 ◼   ► But that's great to know that they're thriving.

00:43:24 ◼   ► Well, can I tell you a very quick side story?

00:43:28 ◼   ► Oh, of course.

00:43:29 ◼   ► It's super quick.

00:43:30 ◼   ► Well...

00:43:31 ◼   ► And then I want to hear about something you like.

00:43:34 ◼   ► But House of Prime Rib is this place.

00:43:37 ◼   ► Some people would call it touristy, but it's just really fun, old school.

00:43:42 ◼   ► Their menu is comical.

00:43:44 ◼   ► The menu is basically how big a piece of prime rib do you want, and do you want corn or spinach.

00:43:50 ◼   ► And then they just bring you stuff, and they make a salad, and they spin it around, and

00:43:52 ◼   ► we all clap like we're at the fucking Olive Garden.

00:43:55 ◼   ► Anyway, that place is always so booked, and everybody loves House of Prime Rib.

00:44:00 ◼   ► There's a place, let's just say, in my neighborhood.

00:44:05 ◼   ► It's technically considered a pop-up.

00:44:07 ◼   ► But I think you're really stretching the definition of a pop-up.

00:44:10 ◼   ► My wife says a pop-up can be a place that's normally a restaurant, and it's just not there

00:44:15 ◼   ► permanently.

00:44:16 ◼   ► Three days a week, there's a place that opened not too far from here.

00:44:20 ◼   ► On Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, they basically do a House of Prime Rib style dinner.

00:44:28 ◼   ► They have only medium rare, they have only these sides, they have these ones, but you

00:44:32 ◼   ► show up, and for about a third of the price of House of Prime Rib, you get a roughly equivalent

00:44:38 ◼   ► Sunset District version of House of Prime Rib.

00:44:42 ◼   ► And it is the best.

00:44:43 ◼   ► Isn't that smart, though?

00:44:45 ◼   ► It's like there's that place in Chinatown called House of Nanking, which is a really

00:44:48 ◼   ► famous touristy Chinese place.

00:44:50 ◼   ► And the place is so popular that a place opened next to them that basically has the exact

00:44:55 ◼   ► same terrible-looking sign.

00:44:57 ◼   ► I'm saying you can benefit, and maybe you especially, with your new enterprise, maybe

00:45:02 ◼   ► you get parked next to some place really popular.

00:45:05 ◼   ► Or maybe not.

00:45:07 ◼   ► Maybe you're so picky about your readers, maybe you're the same way about your diners.

00:45:10 ◼   ► Maybe you want to vet them.

00:45:11 ◼   ► Do you have a feeling about that?

00:45:14 ◼   ► Do you want it to be exclusive?

00:45:15 ◼   ► No, not exclusive.

00:45:17 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:45:18 ◼   ► Y'all are welcome here?

00:45:20 ◼   ► But regulars get preference, and not because you're famous or anything like that.

00:45:27 ◼   ► You're just a regular person.

00:45:28 ◼   ► You're loyal.

00:45:29 ◼   ► You're very loyal.

00:45:30 ◼   ► And you're a good tipper.

00:45:31 ◼   ► And you're a polite person.

00:45:32 ◼   ► Oh, you've got to be a good tipper.

00:45:33 ◼   ► People don't tip enough, John.

00:45:34 ◼   ► Well, you know that's the number one way to get banned from opposing laundromat.

00:45:37 ◼   ► I mean, people...

00:45:38 ◼   ► Tell me more.

00:45:39 ◼   ► He doesn't have... he used to have the sneaker rule.

00:45:42 ◼   ► And again, that's sort of a dress code thing, right?

00:45:44 ◼   ► Yeah, sure, sure, sure.

00:45:45 ◼   ► But he had a thing for the first five years...

00:45:47 ◼   ► But it's also a way to filter out the snorks.

00:45:49 ◼   ► And it gives you a reason to say, "Hey, no golf cleats."

00:45:52 ◼   ► Yeah, no sneakers.

00:45:53 ◼   ► No sneakers.

00:45:54 ◼   ► And I'm pals with him.

00:45:56 ◼   ► And he would sometimes tell me, like, you know, there would be...

00:45:59 ◼   ► I won't drop any names, but there would be, like, professional athletes from Philadelphia

00:46:03 ◼   ► who would pop in late at night and were, you know, semi-regulars.

00:46:09 ◼   ► There were actually... for a stretch, there were a couple of the wives of the Philadelphia

00:46:14 ◼   ► Phillies who were regulars at HopSync.

00:46:19 ◼   ► But there was one time where one of the players showed up at, you know, like midnight.

00:46:22 ◼   ► You know, there's still two hours to go before last call, but he had sneakers and he wouldn't

00:46:26 ◼   ► let them in.

00:46:27 ◼   ► It was like no exceptions, even if you're, like, a Philadelphia Philly.

00:46:31 ◼   ► But he got rid of that rule on the fifth anniversary and said, "Okay, you know, this is untenable."

00:46:37 ◼   ► The world... he more or less admitted that sneakers are too common.

00:46:42 ◼   ► And maybe, you know, like with the... they're actually sponsoring Daring Fireball this week,

00:46:45 ◼   ► but like, Adams... there's sort of a...

00:46:48 ◼   ► Right.

00:46:49 ◼   ► Sneaker also, it's not as easy to eyeball...

00:46:51 ◼   ► Okay, so like, to paraphrase Raymond Carver, what we talk about when we talk about sneakers.

00:46:57 ◼   ► I mean, what are we talking about here?

00:46:58 ◼   ► Like obviously, you maybe don't want to wear your New Balance runners or your Keds, but

00:47:05 ◼   ► there are a lot of comfortable shoes that are not sneakers.

00:47:08 ◼   ► Like in school... see, they got around this in the manuals at my school where they would

00:47:11 ◼   ► say things about hard-soled shoes or this... you know what I mean?

00:47:14 ◼   ► They come up with all those kinds of things.

00:47:17 ◼   ► But do you think it's harmed the place?

00:47:18 ◼   ► Did the sneaker people get in now?

00:47:20 ◼   ► Yeah, they get in and it's not a problem, but...

00:47:22 ◼   ► Okay, cool.

00:47:24 ◼   ► But you still... like, no sandals.

00:47:26 ◼   ► So if you're a man in the summertime...

00:47:28 ◼   ► That should just be posted at the entrance to the United States.

00:47:33 ◼   ► You wear sandals in a room of your house, I can't get to.

00:47:35 ◼   ► That's the place you wear sandals.

00:47:37 ◼   ► If you wear those Adidas sandals, you should probably be indicted.

00:47:40 ◼   ► Nothing good has ever happened from a young man wearing Adidas shower sandals.

00:47:44 ◼   ► And most famously by Mark Zuckerberg, right?

00:47:48 ◼   ► That was all he wore for years and years.

00:47:51 ◼   ► That tells you all you need to know.

00:47:53 ◼   ► No shorts either.

00:47:54 ◼   ► You cannot get into hop singing with shorts.

00:47:57 ◼   ► But he's relaxed it.

00:47:58 ◼   ► But he does famously, and he has a wonderful Instagram account and Twitter account where

00:48:04 ◼   ► he posts this.

00:48:05 ◼   ► He keeps this database in an Excel spreadsheet of every single person who has ever been to

00:48:13 ◼   ► hop singing.

00:48:15 ◼   ► There is no way...

00:48:16 ◼   ► Oh, wow.

00:48:17 ◼   ► And people think it's pretentious.

00:48:18 ◼   ► It is weird, and it sounds like it's one of those crazy, fake, speakeasy places, right?

00:48:24 ◼   ► Like...

00:48:25 ◼   ► Oh, I hate those.

00:48:26 ◼   ► I know.

00:48:27 ◼   ► Or one of those guys who spies on you in a motel.

00:48:28 ◼   ► It's like, that's too many feet, man.

00:48:31 ◼   ► So there's a...

00:48:32 ◼   ► I don't know if they're still open.

00:48:33 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:48:34 ◼   ► There was a place in San Francisco, Bourbon and Branch.

00:48:37 ◼   ► Don't even...

00:48:38 ◼   ► Don't...

00:48:39 ◼   ► You mean with a password?

00:48:41 ◼   ► What's the password?

00:48:42 ◼   ► Library?

00:48:43 ◼   ► So Bourbon and Branch in San Francisco...

00:48:44 ◼   ► Did we go there together?

00:48:45 ◼   ► I think we might have.

00:48:46 ◼   ► I think we probably have been.

00:48:47 ◼   ► I know I went there with Simpson.

00:48:49 ◼   ► It's like a haunted house for unfuckable men in hats.

00:48:53 ◼   ► Yes, yes.

00:48:55 ◼   ► But the gimmick was, you had to knock on the door, they slide a thing open, and they go,

00:48:59 ◼   ► "What's the password?"

00:49:01 ◼   ► And if you don't know the password, they won't open the door.

00:49:03 ◼   ► But the password is just something you can Google.

00:49:05 ◼   ► I think it's library.

00:49:06 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

00:49:08 ◼   ► But it seems like that type of place because Hapsing has a gate at the front door.

00:49:14 ◼   ► And on a Friday or Saturday night, there's almost always a line of people waiting to

00:49:19 ◼   ► go in.

00:49:20 ◼   ► And he'll only seat as many people as there are actual seats available.

00:49:25 ◼   ► So there's no...

00:49:28 ◼   ► If the demand were high enough, there is no way to get in and stand at the bar.

00:49:33 ◼   ► You can't.

00:49:34 ◼   ► But it's nice, though, that way because then everybody has a seat and the tables are actually

00:49:39 ◼   ► not...

00:49:41 ◼   ► Even pre-COVID, spaciously located so that you can have a conversation with the people

00:49:47 ◼   ► who you're with and you can actually hear them.

00:49:50 ◼   ► It's very, very nice.

00:49:51 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

00:49:52 ◼   ► It's really wonderful.

00:49:53 ◼   ► I would love to go there someday.

00:49:55 ◼   ► But you do have to.

00:49:57 ◼   ► When it's your turn to come in, everybody in the party has to hand over their driver's

00:50:01 ◼   ► licenses.

00:50:04 ◼   ► It's usually him, but if it's not him, it's somebody else who works there.

00:50:08 ◼   ► And they take...

00:50:09 ◼   ► And he holds it for you or he inspects it?

00:50:11 ◼   ► No, he takes them inside.

00:50:12 ◼   ► He goes inside and then uses them as...

00:50:17 ◼   ► Looks you up in the database to see if you've ever been there before.

00:50:21 ◼   ► And logs it.

00:50:24 ◼   ► And that's how he keeps the banned list.

00:50:28 ◼   ► There are people who got banned...

00:50:29 ◼   ► It's like in a bodega where it says, "Don't take checks from this person."

00:50:33 ◼   ► Right, exactly.

00:50:34 ◼   ► Except he's got them in this Excel spreadsheet and he's posted screenshots of the spreadsheet.

00:50:39 ◼   ► Oh my God.

00:50:41 ◼   ► That's amazing.

00:50:43 ◼   ► But he will...

00:50:45 ◼   ► And if you leave a bad tip, he logs it and you come back.

00:50:50 ◼   ► And so...

00:50:51 ◼   ► Okay, now I'm coming around to this.

00:50:53 ◼   ► Okay, I see.

00:50:54 ◼   ► You're checked...

00:50:55 ◼   ► Maybe you tried to be a little bit of a jerk with the server or something.

00:51:00 ◼   ► Oh, absolutely.

00:51:01 ◼   ► You're out.

00:51:03 ◼   ► If he might come over and ask you to leave now, if you're rude to the server...

00:51:07 ◼   ► I love this guy.

00:51:08 ◼   ► Every time you talk about this guy, he sounds so cool.

00:51:11 ◼   ► Oh, that's just...

00:51:12 ◼   ► He sounds like a real original.

00:51:14 ◼   ► Oh, he's one of a kind, truly.

00:51:18 ◼   ► It's a remarkable place, but honest to God, I think at this point, seven, eight, nine

00:51:24 ◼   ► years, maybe it's getting close...

00:51:26 ◼   ► Eight or nine years that he's been open.

00:51:29 ◼   ► But the spreadsheet, he had that...

00:51:32 ◼   ► He knew he was gonna do that from day one.

00:51:34 ◼   ► The spreadsheet...

00:51:35 ◼   ► He had a vision.

00:51:36 ◼   ► Right.

00:51:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:51:38 ◼   ► But if you get...

00:51:39 ◼   ► You run up a $35 tab and you leave $37 or something like that, then it goes on your

00:51:47 ◼   ► thing and the next time you show up, he'll tell you you're not allowed in because you

00:51:52 ◼   ► left a bad tip.

00:51:53 ◼   ► Wow.

00:51:54 ◼   ► You don't have to tip exorbitantly.

00:51:57 ◼   ► You just leave your standard 18%, you'll be fine.

00:51:59 ◼   ► That's A-OK.

00:52:01 ◼   ► But you stiff the server with a bad tip, you'll never get in again.

00:52:06 ◼   ► And there's people who show up, he tweets about it, like somebody who got banned four

00:52:10 ◼   ► years ago, and they just figure, "Well, it was four years.

00:52:14 ◼   ► He'll never remember me."

00:52:15 ◼   ► Well, he does because he's got this spreadsheet.

00:52:17 ◼   ► He's using technology.

00:52:19 ◼   ► Now, it's probably really important that that always work.

00:52:24 ◼   ► Don't update my Excel if it's gonna screw up my sheet because I need to know who tips

00:52:28 ◼   ► bad.

00:52:29 ◼   ► The other thing, too, people love to say to him...

00:52:33 ◼   ► It's usually him at the gate, but when they get mad or angry that they can't get in because

00:52:39 ◼   ► of...

00:52:41 ◼   ► Maybe it's a man wearing shorts or somebody who's on the list as a bad tipper.

00:52:47 ◼   ► They'll say, "I would like to speak to the owner."

00:52:49 ◼   ► Oh, man.

00:52:51 ◼   ► You've just made his night.

00:52:54 ◼   ► He's waited all day for that.

00:52:57 ◼   ► Anyway, where I was going with this was in the mail today.

00:53:01 ◼   ► I got the Sharper Image catalog.

00:53:04 ◼   ► Have you looked at the Sharper Image lately?

00:53:06 ◼   ► No, but just off the dome, I thought...

00:53:12 ◼   ► The Sharper Image used to be a force of nature, especially once they started selling those

00:53:18 ◼   ► air filter things.

00:53:21 ◼   ► But then, I feel like they became like Yves Saint Laurent where I thought they were just

00:53:26 ◼   ► licensing their name because...

00:53:27 ◼   ► John, there's a whole end cap at our Walgreens that's Sharper Image stuff, which you would

00:53:32 ◼   ► not have seen in, say, the '90s.

00:53:35 ◼   ► They're still around.

00:53:36 ◼   ► Are they still making or...

00:53:38 ◼   ► They're selling actual stuff from a catalog?

00:53:40 ◼   ► Yep.

00:53:41 ◼   ► It's exactly the sort of stuff...

00:53:42 ◼   ► Okay, I gotta look this up.

00:53:43 ◼   ► I had no idea.

00:53:44 ◼   ► Anyway, I flipped through it.

00:53:45 ◼   ► And again, this is what drives my wife nuts with me going through because now I want to

00:53:48 ◼   ► talk to somebody about it because I flipped through and one of the items about halfway

00:53:52 ◼   ► through the catalog is the Bacon Express toaster.

00:53:57 ◼   ► It's a $60 product.

00:54:00 ◼   ► The code, if you want to look it up on their website, I don't know.

00:54:03 ◼   ► It's also curious.

00:54:05 ◼   ► They don't have URLs.

00:54:06 ◼   ► They have numbers.

00:54:08 ◼   ► It's product number 20...

00:54:09 ◼   ► This looks...

00:54:10 ◼   ► I see.

00:54:11 ◼   ► Yeah, the bacon, I'll put it in notes.

00:54:12 ◼   ► It's 207656.

00:54:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:54:14 ◼   ► Okay.

00:54:16 ◼   ► It gets five stars according to the one review.

00:54:19 ◼   ► It's a healthier way to cook bacon and other foods to delicious perfection.

00:54:24 ◼   ► Makes up to six strips of regular...

00:54:26 ◼   ► It cooks vertically, which is a whole paradigm.

00:54:30 ◼   ► It converts to a nonstick griddle for pancakes.

00:54:32 ◼   ► Indicator lights tell you when it's ready to cook.

00:54:35 ◼   ► Okay.

00:54:36 ◼   ► You think you want to get this?

00:54:37 ◼   ► Maybe for a second.

00:54:38 ◼   ► Oh, no, definitely not.

00:54:39 ◼   ► No.

00:54:40 ◼   ► See, I've had a lot of bad luck.

00:54:41 ◼   ► We gotta talk about something else.

00:54:42 ◼   ► I've had a lot of bad luck with cute breakfast things.

00:54:46 ◼   ► Like I'm the sucker who's bought a lot of those, the Michael Scott In Your Life, who

00:54:51 ◼   ► has...

00:54:52 ◼   ► I've bought stuff like basically an Egg McMuffin Maker, and it makes a shitty version of every

00:54:58 ◼   ► component of an Egg McMuffin.

00:55:00 ◼   ► But it's cute about it.

00:55:01 ◼   ► And there's some where you get rings and you build it like you work at Burger King.

00:55:04 ◼   ► It's so odd.

00:55:05 ◼   ► I think a bespoke breakfast maker is not generally a good idea.

00:55:11 ◼   ► No.

00:55:12 ◼   ► No.

00:55:13 ◼   ► But it's only 60 bucks, man.

00:55:14 ◼   ► You could get a few of these.

00:55:15 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:55:16 ◼   ► But I don't want to bring anything else into the kitchen.

00:55:17 ◼   ► I have a little cubby hole where I keep my...

00:55:20 ◼   ► I have a nice big...

00:55:22 ◼   ► I forget the name brand, but whatever Marco told me to buy, Coffee Grinder, which was

00:55:27 ◼   ► way too large for our previous kitchen.

00:55:30 ◼   ► And we moved like five years ago.

00:55:31 ◼   ► Now we have...

00:55:32 ◼   ► Well, you said like a big like freestanding burr grinder kind of thing?

00:55:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:55:35 ◼   ► It's the Barraza.

00:55:36 ◼   ► I forget what the hell it is.

00:55:38 ◼   ► But whatever.

00:55:39 ◼   ► It's whatever Marco told me to get.

00:55:40 ◼   ► Well, if it's Marco, I'm sure it's four figures.

00:55:41 ◼   ► But you wouldn't want to keep it out on the counter at all times.

00:55:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:55:46 ◼   ► Nobody has space for that.

00:55:47 ◼   ► But I have a little cubby hole and I filled it up with coffee stuff.

00:55:50 ◼   ► And that's all I'm allowed to bring into the kitchen because the rest of it is up...

00:55:55 ◼   ► You know, it's Amy's area.

00:55:56 ◼   ► You know, in the same way that she's not going to buy stuff to put into my office, right?

00:56:00 ◼   ► She's not going to buy like...

00:56:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:02 ◼   ► I don't go where you work and slap the iPhone out of your mouth.

00:56:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:06 ◼   ► Or she's not going to pick a new laser printer and just say, "Oh, I bought a printer."

00:56:09 ◼   ► And now...

00:56:10 ◼   ► Oh, boy.

00:56:11 ◼   ► We have words.

00:56:12 ◼   ► I don't like to be like this, but I am the COO of CTO things.

00:56:17 ◼   ► And if something is brought into the house in that instance without my input, don't even

00:56:25 ◼   ► get me started on the pre-lit Christmas tree we bought five years ago.

00:56:29 ◼   ► Because...

00:56:30 ◼   ► And like...

00:56:31 ◼   ► You know what?

00:56:32 ◼   ► I'm telling you what to talk about.

00:56:34 ◼   ► I'm going to learn about Sharper Image.

00:56:35 ◼   ► Did you want to tell me about anything else you like?

00:56:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:39 ◼   ► Let's take a break here and talk about our friends @MacWeldon.

00:56:41 ◼   ► I'm not going to lie to you, Merlin.

00:56:44 ◼   ► I jiggered the schedule.

00:56:45 ◼   ► It's that time of year.

00:56:46 ◼   ► It's that time of year.

00:56:47 ◼   ► I rejiggered the schedule to get this into the episode with you because I know you got

00:56:52 ◼   ► strong feelings about it.

00:56:53 ◼   ► Look, the holiday season is here and with it come the yearly questions of what do I

00:56:57 ◼   ► wear to non-ugly sweater parties?

00:57:00 ◼   ► How do I maximize my time savoring holiday moments and minimize my time shopping for

00:57:05 ◼   ► gifts?

00:57:06 ◼   ► Look, fear not.

00:57:07 ◼   ► Go to @MacWeldon.

00:57:08 ◼   ► M-A-C-K W-E-L-D-O-N.

00:57:11 ◼   ► They have all the answers, whether it's an office party, a party with family or friends,

00:57:14 ◼   ► or just a party of you, your couch, and a game on TV.

00:57:18 ◼   ► Oh, I love the football.

00:57:19 ◼   ► Mac Weldon has all the essentials to keep you stylish and comfortable throughout the

00:57:23 ◼   ► season and their innovative daily wear system has taken the hard work out of outfit planning

00:57:28 ◼   ► with pieces designed to work together for any occasion, saving you time, sparing you

00:57:33 ◼   ► any extra holiday stress.

00:57:35 ◼   ► Man, I love their stuff.

00:57:37 ◼   ► They've got these, uh, I'm not a sweat pant guy, but Syracuse had talked me into it last

00:57:42 ◼   ► year.

00:57:43 ◼   ► The Ace sweat pants.

00:57:44 ◼   ► Oh man.

00:57:45 ◼   ► Ace is a good pant.

00:57:46 ◼   ► That's a very good pant.

00:57:47 ◼   ► You know what?

00:57:48 ◼   ► And modern sweat pants, they don't really have that old, uh, 80s.

00:57:51 ◼   ► Can I literally beg you now to get started on this?

00:57:53 ◼   ► Because this is the bane of my existence.

00:57:55 ◼   ► I'm a man.

00:57:56 ◼   ► Listen, I'm a loud and proud man with a short rise.

00:57:59 ◼   ► You would not believe what I have to go through to get accommodating pants for my rise.

00:58:03 ◼   ► No matter what you do, I get joke pants.

00:58:06 ◼   ► I get pants that are too high, too long, and because I guess I'm a joke-sized man, which

00:58:12 ◼   ► is fine, but if you find a sweat pant that you love, you put a ring on it.

00:58:17 ◼   ► And the slippers, the shirts, the underpants.

00:58:21 ◼   ► Like I'm big on their shirts.

00:58:23 ◼   ► That's my big thing.

00:58:24 ◼   ► But also, they probably don't even have them in stock because you've destroyed the slipper

00:58:28 ◼   ► industry.

00:58:29 ◼   ► My friend Alex now calls the first time that they wear Macklemore slippers in a given year

00:58:34 ◼   ► because it's cold, slippy season.

00:58:36 ◼   ► Time for slippies.

00:58:37 ◼   ► Yeah, you did that.

00:58:38 ◼   ► You did that.

00:58:39 ◼   ► I'm telling you, the slippers are insane.

00:58:42 ◼   ► And I texted you, this is when we first scheduled this show a couple weeks ago, what I did is,

00:58:47 ◼   ► you know, we've had, you know, chalk it up to probably half climate change and half just

00:58:51 ◼   ► a fluke, but we had a sort of unseasonably warm October here in Philadelphia.

00:58:59 ◼   ► Slipper season started late for me this year.

00:59:01 ◼   ► When I went to the slippers, I opened up a new pair.

00:59:05 ◼   ► Oh.

00:59:06 ◼   ► Oh.

00:59:07 ◼   ► That's the thing.

00:59:08 ◼   ► You know you love it when you got one in the chamber.

00:59:09 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:59:11 ◼   ► You know, I've always got one now because they sell, the last time we talked about it

00:59:16 ◼   ► on the show, they sold out for weeks.

00:59:19 ◼   ► You bury the needle.

00:59:20 ◼   ► You, yes, you brought the whole company down.

00:59:22 ◼   ► And then all I heard for months is, "Where do I get the slippies?"

00:59:24 ◼   ► Where do we get the slippers?

00:59:26 ◼   ► I can't help you, you know?

00:59:28 ◼   ► But you know, you could go try the Pima long sleeve t-shirt that I have all of.

00:59:31 ◼   ► I have all of them.

00:59:33 ◼   ► You know what also is great?

00:59:34 ◼   ► They're white, just, this sounds crazy, but they build their clothes.

00:59:38 ◼   ► I don't know if they're cantilevered.

00:59:39 ◼   ► I'm not an engineer, John.

00:59:40 ◼   ► But the way they make their clothes is different.

00:59:43 ◼   ► You get their white undershirts, you tuck them in, they stay tucked in.

00:59:47 ◼   ► I know, right.

00:59:48 ◼   ► But they're not cute about it.

00:59:50 ◼   ► It's just normal clothes.

00:59:51 ◼   ► But I've been, you know, I'm 48 years old.

00:59:55 ◼   ► I've been wearing undershirts, you know, my whole life.

00:59:57 ◼   ► Undershirts are, they tend to, you know, you can tell when an undershirt is a couple of

01:00:02 ◼   ► years old and it's time to turn it into a rag, right?

01:00:06 ◼   ► You know, use it to...

01:00:07 ◼   ► Yeah, when the pits get yellow and waxy.

01:00:09 ◼   ► Yeah, and it loses its shape, you know what I mean?

01:00:11 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:00:12 ◼   ► It's all watered up all the time.

01:00:15 ◼   ► I switched to Mack Weldon white undershirts years ago, and I've never had to rebuy them

01:00:21 ◼   ► because they all still look brand new.

01:00:24 ◼   ► I can't tell how old they are, right?

01:00:26 ◼   ► They still look like the day they were, you know, and you know, I'm hard on an undershirt.

01:00:31 ◼   ► You know, I wear them to...

01:00:32 ◼   ► Are you?

01:00:33 ◼   ► Yeah, well, you go to a steakhouse and you work up a good meat sweat, you know.

01:00:36 ◼   ► That's true, that's true.

01:00:37 ◼   ► Or like, yeah, screenshotting some tabs.

01:00:39 ◼   ► That's the kind of thing that's really going to put a hurtin' on a Hanes.

01:00:41 ◼   ► Sorry, sorry, no, no, no, no shade, no lemonade.

01:00:44 ◼   ► Cut that, cut that, cut that.

01:00:45 ◼   ► No disrespect to the fine folks at Hanes.

01:00:48 ◼   ► No, no, no, no, no, no.

01:00:49 ◼   ► Whatever fruit is coming out of your loom, you do you.

01:00:52 ◼   ► I'm here to tell you, when you're ready to grow up and you don't have to dress like a

01:00:55 ◼   ► grown up, but you get to feel like a grown up because you're going to get clothes that

01:00:58 ◼   ► fit, they're extremely well made, they got cool ass zippers in them, and the stuff, it

01:01:03 ◼   ► really, really works.

01:01:05 ◼   ► I like their socks, I like it all.

01:01:06 ◼   ► Like I say, I'm a shirt man.

01:01:07 ◼   ► I just, in the sense that I've, you know, my welding blue is pretty fat right now, let's

01:01:12 ◼   ► just put it that way.

01:01:14 ◼   ► But their shirts are the perfect weight for how and where I live.

01:01:20 ◼   ► I don't feel like some kind of disused lumberjack, nor do I feel like somebody who forgot their

01:01:26 ◼   ► jacket on the first day of third grade.

01:01:28 ◼   ► I'm totally comfortable, and I can pass as an adult when I go into places, which is kind

01:01:33 ◼   ► of the whole idea.

01:01:34 ◼   ► I could wear it to your steakhouse probably.

01:01:36 ◼   ► Can I go into your steakhouse in a Mack Weldon shirt?

01:01:38 ◼   ► Would that be good?

01:01:39 ◼   ► Oh, absolutely.

01:01:40 ◼   ► Yeah, that's what we'd have a box of Mack Weldons all sealed.

01:01:43 ◼   ► Also, by the way, when you buy the new stuff, they come in the nicest packaging you've ever

01:01:47 ◼   ► found.

01:01:48 ◼   ► But it's not obtrusive.

01:01:49 ◼   ► It's not over much with the packaging.

01:01:51 ◼   ► Also, most clothes, I buy new clothes, I generally wash before I wear them the first time.

01:01:58 ◼   ► Mack Weldon stuff, it smells like freshly cleaned.

01:02:01 ◼   ► You know, the comedian Jerry Lewis was an unusual guy, and he had one aspect of his

01:02:07 ◼   ► life, well, there's a lot of aspects of his life to which I do not aspire, you know, having

01:02:12 ◼   ► a loaded gun in the bathroom and getting addicted to drugs and stuff.

01:02:16 ◼   ► Read The King of Comedy by Sean Levy, it's a very good biography.

01:02:20 ◼   ► But you know what I do love?

01:02:22 ◼   ► Jerry Lewis, he showed up somewhere to do a gig.

01:02:24 ◼   ► You know what's in his rider?

01:02:26 ◼   ► Fresh pair of socks.

01:02:27 ◼   ► Jerry Lewis, as a grown man, never wore the same pair of socks twice.

01:02:31 ◼   ► Now, I understand this a little bit wasteful, and like you should, you know, we give one

01:02:36 ◼   ► to, you know.

01:02:37 ◼   ► But like, if I could just have just sort of like maybe, well, they wouldn't say this,

01:02:43 ◼   ► but like an American Psycho closet.

01:02:45 ◼   ► If I had a closet that was just piles and piles and piles of Mack Weldon clothes and

01:02:49 ◼   ► bags, I wouldn't get one every time because they last for years.

01:02:51 ◼   ► That's the value proposition.

01:02:53 ◼   ► But like Nietzsche said, you know, it's a consolation to know that it's there.

01:02:56 ◼   ► I can rip into a new white t-shirt anytime, and that would, I would really feel like I've

01:03:02 ◼   ► arrived.

01:03:03 ◼   ► You get a steakhouse, I get a pile of shirts.

01:03:04 ◼   ► Anyway, they've got these gift sets for the holidays, and it's, they're fantastic.

01:03:09 ◼   ► What a concept.

01:03:10 ◼   ► One gift, it holds many gifts inside.

01:03:12 ◼   ► You can just go there, get somebody on your shopping list, one of their gift sets.

01:03:17 ◼   ► All you need to know is their size, and they get a box full of all sorts of cool stuff

01:03:21 ◼   ► for the holidays.

01:03:22 ◼   ► It's a great gift idea.

01:03:23 ◼   ► Plenty of time right now in early December.

01:03:26 ◼   ► You could still do it with limited edition color drops and a bevy of new releases.

01:03:30 ◼   ► The holiday gift sets are truly a perfect present for any guy on your list.

01:03:34 ◼   ► That's why Mack Weldon is one of my favorites.

01:03:37 ◼   ► And here's what you get.

01:03:38 ◼   ► You get 20% off your first order just by using this URL, mackweldon.com/the-talk-show.

01:03:46 ◼   ► They get it.

01:03:47 ◼   ► Classy.

01:03:48 ◼   ► They got the...

01:03:49 ◼   ► Classy, man.

01:03:50 ◼   ► Classy.

01:03:51 ◼   ► Enter that same, the code is the same thing.

01:03:52 ◼   ► The talk show, all one word.

01:03:54 ◼   ► Just take out the spaces, and you get 20% off your first order.

01:03:58 ◼   ► My thanks to Mack Weldon for dressing me and being, you know, I think that maybe that would

01:04:05 ◼   ► be the dress code.

01:04:07 ◼   ► Maybe we get them to sponsor the steakhouse, and then you almost...

01:04:10 ◼   ► You have to be wearing Mack Weldon to get in.

01:04:12 ◼   ► I'd say it would be a reason for them to really step up their game on the production of slippers.

01:04:17 ◼   ► If they knew everybody at the well-regarded Daring Fireball Steakhouse was going to be

01:04:21 ◼   ► wearing their slippies while they enjoy their baseball Kobe.

01:04:23 ◼   ► Thank you, Mack Weldon.

01:04:25 ◼   ► God.

01:04:26 ◼   ► I don't have to think about it, John.

01:04:28 ◼   ► It's a very, like, Steve Jobs, Marco, Elizabeth Holmes kind of thing.

01:04:32 ◼   ► I just don't want to think about clothes.

01:04:33 ◼   ► I'm only thinking about anything.

01:04:36 ◼   ► I know I grab one of these shirts and I'm going to be happy.

01:04:38 ◼   ► I don't, you know, and it's like the Steve Jobs thing where he had the exact same sweater,

01:04:44 ◼   ► the turtleneck thing.

01:04:46 ◼   ► You kind of have to be a little more self-confident than I am to just say, "I'm going to just

01:04:54 ◼   ► literally wear the exact same thing every goddamn day, including in public appearances."

01:05:00 ◼   ► You know, what's-his-name did the same thing.

01:05:02 ◼   ► Einstein had a favorite blue sweater and then he supposed--I don't know, this could be one

01:05:07 ◼   ► of the--you know, with Steve Jobs we know it's true, but--

01:05:09 ◼   ► And I think they're pretty good.

01:05:11 ◼   ► Didn't we find out that they're from Japan and fairly costly?

01:05:13 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, they're very expensive.

01:05:15 ◼   ► I don't think those are H&M sweaters.

01:05:18 ◼   ► No, no, there was some famous Japanese designer and he was like, "I like this."

01:05:23 ◼   ► And he was like, "I think maybe I'll just wear this every day."

01:05:25 ◼   ► And then he called them up and he was like, "I would like to buy all of your sweater,

01:05:29 ◼   ► you know, whatever."

01:05:30 ◼   ► And they're like, "No, how many do you want?"

01:05:31 ◼   ► And he's like, "I want them all."

01:05:33 ◼   ► But Einstein apparently did the same thing with a blue sweater.

01:05:36 ◼   ► But you couldn't--with California, you could wear that.

01:05:39 ◼   ► Not everybody can pull that off.

01:05:41 ◼   ► I have a project I'm working on called The Wisdom Project where I add bullet points about

01:05:44 ◼   ► things I've learned in life, and one of them is to generally avoid clothing that's more

01:05:47 ◼   ► interesting than you are.

01:05:49 ◼   ► And I think that also goes for just overall wardrobe, Weltinschong.

01:05:52 ◼   ► Be careful that you're not being too cute.

01:05:54 ◼   ► You know, you might look more like a clown than you realize.

01:05:56 ◼   ► But that's why with the Mack Weldon stuff, like these Warm Net shirts are--again, call

01:06:02 ◼   ► the sponsor read over.

01:06:04 ◼   ► I'm just telling you, I don't know how they make it because it's t-shirt thickness, but

01:06:10 ◼   ► somehow because it's like a waffle knit, it's warmer than some of my actual sweaters that

01:06:16 ◼   ► I have.

01:06:17 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

01:06:18 ◼   ► And it fits better than most of my clothes.

01:06:19 ◼   ► Like, I tend to buy oversized clothes because, like I say, I don't like being aware of my

01:06:23 ◼   ► physical existence.

01:06:25 ◼   ► I mean, I have to deal with that with bathrooms to begin with.

01:06:28 ◼   ► But as far as my clothes, no thank you.

01:06:30 ◼   ► But for some reason, they're t-shirts.

01:06:33 ◼   ► This is probably enough.

01:06:34 ◼   ► Mack Weldon, you guys.

01:06:36 ◼   ► The talk show.

01:06:37 ◼   ► All right.

01:06:38 ◼   ► Before we move, though, I want to go back to the steakhouse thing.

01:06:43 ◼   ► I want to go back.

01:06:44 ◼   ► I'm serving your pleasure, Jon.

01:06:46 ◼   ► Here's the point.

01:06:47 ◼   ► My point is--and A, if I were sufficiently wealthy, I'd love to open a one-of-a-kind

01:06:53 ◼   ► steakhouse here in Philadelphia.

01:06:56 ◼   ► I don't want to have his chain.

01:06:57 ◼   ► You know, I don't want--no, I don't need the hassle.

01:06:59 ◼   ► I'm not in it for the money.

01:07:00 ◼   ► I would like one place.

01:07:03 ◼   ► But the other thing--and I've toyed with this.

01:07:07 ◼   ► I won't do it, but I feel like I could do it, is to write like a sort of a book about

01:07:12 ◼   ► steakhouses and/or like a website like a Zagat's, but instead of for all restaurants, literally

01:07:21 ◼   ► only for steakhouses.

01:07:23 ◼   ► And I guess--so not the typical sort of trip, but maybe along the lines of--what is it,

01:07:29 ◼   ► I got two first names, Rick Steves?

01:07:31 ◼   ► But like one of those like you do like a survey or--I imagine the kind of thing Kenji Lopez

01:07:36 ◼   ► Alt could do.

01:07:37 ◼   ► Oh, well, he's way too talented.

01:07:38 ◼   ► But you don't have like an insider view of something you care a lot about.

01:07:43 ◼   ► And like it's not something cute like wine.

01:07:47 ◼   ► It's stuff where like you can even talk about the overall--because this is--I mean, the

01:07:50 ◼   ► jokes are left around, Jon.

01:07:52 ◼   ► You care a lot about stuff that not everybody cares about, and I happen to share that.

01:07:55 ◼   ► It's one thing--one of the very few things I admire about you is the fact that you do

01:07:59 ◼   ► care about whether that's Ariel or Helvetica.

01:08:02 ◼   ► Or whatever that's going to be.

01:08:04 ◼   ► And I think that's cool about you is that you do have an internal barometer for whether

01:08:09 ◼   ► something is classy or whether something is tasteful.

01:08:14 ◼   ► And I think people who have strong opinions about that and can explain why that is, not

01:08:19 ◼   ► just go like, "I heard the 2018 Beaujolais is really quite toothsome."

01:08:24 ◼   ► Instead, like, you could actually talk about it in words that people understand.

01:08:27 ◼   ► You can explain why you didn't like that tab look.

01:08:29 ◼   ► And I think you could do that.

01:08:31 ◼   ► It doesn't have to be a coffee table book, but it probably shouldn't be an e-book.

01:08:33 ◼   ► I think you should get an actual book.

01:08:35 ◼   ► But you're right, though.

01:08:36 ◼   ► But that's the way my mind works, where I could never write a book about all of typography.

01:08:42 ◼   ► Never.

01:08:43 ◼   ► I don't have the eye for it.

01:08:44 ◼   ► But I could write about like a certain style of typography.

01:08:48 ◼   ► Like I have a type, to put it one way.

01:08:51 ◼   ► Right?

01:08:52 ◼   ► Like, they're like...

01:08:53 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:08:54 ◼   ► Or you could certainly do like humanist grotesque.

01:08:55 ◼   ► Like, that could be...

01:08:57 ◼   ► Right.

01:08:58 ◼   ► Like, isn't that kind of a whole thing for you?

01:08:59 ◼   ► I would be...

01:09:00 ◼   ► What's the Paris airport one?

01:09:01 ◼   ► What's the Paris airport one that I love?

01:09:03 ◼   ► Oh, Frutiger.

01:09:04 ◼   ► Yeah, right.

01:09:05 ◼   ► Adrian Frutiger, right?

01:09:06 ◼   ► Right, right.

01:09:07 ◼   ► His name in namesake typeface.

01:09:09 ◼   ► And it is...

01:09:10 ◼   ► That is an amazing...

01:09:11 ◼   ► Designed to be, I believe, De Gaulle airport.

01:09:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:14 ◼   ► Yep.

01:09:15 ◼   ► And it is...

01:09:16 ◼   ► Truly an extraordinary film.

01:09:17 ◼   ► It does certain things.

01:09:18 ◼   ► Like, it has those L's, lowercase L's with a little squiggle, which I don't generally

01:09:23 ◼   ► like, but is terrific for signage so that there's no confusion whatsoever that it's

01:09:28 ◼   ► a lowercase L.

01:09:29 ◼   ► There's a YouTube guy that I enjoy.

01:09:30 ◼   ► A guy from, I want to say probably Australia, that does a lot of stuff about typography.

01:09:34 ◼   ► And he just did a wonderful thing.

01:09:36 ◼   ► He actually contributed to Atkinson Hyperlegible, which is such an interesting face.

01:09:42 ◼   ► If you haven't checked into it, it's really, really cool for that reason.

01:09:45 ◼   ► But in his videos, he shows you, like, hey, for somebody who has this particular specific...

01:09:51 ◼   ► Like, don't just wave your hand and go, "I hope people who are blind can figure this

01:09:55 ◼   ► out."

01:09:56 ◼   ► No, no.

01:09:57 ◼   ► If you have...

01:09:58 ◼   ► What's the Don Knotts one that I don't ever want to have?

01:10:00 ◼   ► The one with the middle of your eye?

01:10:01 ◼   ► Oh, macular degeneration.

01:10:02 ◼   ► Yeah, macular degeneration.

01:10:03 ◼   ► Like, greatest fear in life.

01:10:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:10:05 ◼   ► Like, this is what your sign looks like to someone with macular degeneration.

01:10:08 ◼   ► For somebody with dyslexia, this is...

01:10:09 ◼   ► And that's why we put a tail on the L. Because this is not about being clever.

01:10:13 ◼   ► This is about making people hit their plane on time.

01:10:16 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

01:10:17 ◼   ► Well, I...

01:10:18 ◼   ► You could do that.

01:10:19 ◼   ► You should do that.

01:10:20 ◼   ► That'd be a good project for you when you retire.

01:10:21 ◼   ► The type one or the steakhouse one?

01:10:23 ◼   ► Well, I think both.

01:10:24 ◼   ► I mean, you could have an office there, I'm thinking.

01:10:25 ◼   ► Or both, right.

01:10:26 ◼   ► Yeah, you could have an incubator.

01:10:27 ◼   ► Here's the thing.

01:10:28 ◼   ► So, I am completely unsuited to reviewing restaurants in general.

01:10:34 ◼   ► Now, you can...

01:10:36 ◼   ► Let's say I went to visit you and you said, "Hey, there's..."

01:10:38 ◼   ► But you know what you like, but that wouldn't be your wheelhouse.

01:10:40 ◼   ► Right.

01:10:41 ◼   ► So, it's not like everywhere I want to go, I always want to go to a steakhouse.

01:10:45 ◼   ► I'm up for anything.

01:10:46 ◼   ► I'll go to any Korean barbecue.

01:10:48 ◼   ► I'll go to an Italian place.

01:10:50 ◼   ► I'll go wherever you want.

01:10:51 ◼   ► I'll go and I'll be a good spirit and try to pick something I enjoy from it.

01:10:55 ◼   ► But I would never think...

01:10:56 ◼   ► I could tell you afterwards whether I enjoyed my dish, whether I enjoyed the service, but

01:11:01 ◼   ► I would never think I could review the place.

01:11:04 ◼   ► Because I don't have a...

01:11:05 ◼   ► I can tell that I don't have an acute sense of what is good or bad or what's wrong about

01:11:12 ◼   ► it.

01:11:13 ◼   ► But I could definitely...

01:11:14 ◼   ► I can go to a steakhouse and have a meal at a steakhouse and I can tell you every single

01:11:18 ◼   ► thing that was good about it and exactly where they screwed up and what's wrong with the

01:11:22 ◼   ► place.

01:11:23 ◼   ► Right.

01:11:24 ◼   ► Yeah, I think I know what you mean.

01:11:26 ◼   ► Where it's like...

01:11:27 ◼   ► There's certain kinds of things where like...

01:11:28 ◼   ► And it's one problem with...

01:11:30 ◼   ► I mean, I love TV and movies and I love talking about it and I love suggesting things to my

01:11:35 ◼   ► friends and it's practically an obsession.

01:11:37 ◼   ► My friends make fun of me because I'm constantly like, "You've got to watch What We Do in the

01:11:41 ◼   ► Shadows or you've got to watch Yellow Jackets or whatever."

01:11:45 ◼   ► And in some cases, if it's somebody who has a similar taste and sensibility, I can very

01:11:48 ◼   ► much explain why.

01:11:49 ◼   ► And I feel like I've even gotten better at explaining it without spoilers.

01:11:53 ◼   ► So I mean, frequently I'll find myself saying things like, "Well, I know you like Synecdoche,

01:11:58 ◼   ► New York, and I know you like Edgar Wright, so you might want to check this out."

01:12:02 ◼   ► And that's all I'm going to say about that.

01:12:04 ◼   ► If you trust...

01:12:05 ◼   ► Not like me or my taste, but if you trust that we have enough similarity that you'll

01:12:10 ◼   ► take a flyer...

01:12:11 ◼   ► It was like, "That was me in The Leftovers with Syracuse," where he was like, "This show's

01:12:16 ◼   ► really weird.

01:12:17 ◼   ► You're probably going to hate it."

01:12:18 ◼   ► And now it just recently surpassed The Wire as my favorite TV show.

01:12:23 ◼   ► But when I'm on something like The Incomparable, I feel like such an idiot because I end up

01:12:27 ◼   ► saying, "I like Doctor Who," or whatever.

01:12:29 ◼   ► I can't break it down in a way that makes any sense in a way that an actual critic could.

01:12:34 ◼   ► Like David...

01:12:35 ◼   ► I mean, oh, God, David from Blank Check does movie reviews for The Atlantic.

01:12:41 ◼   ► He's like the king of the one-line letterboxed review.

01:12:45 ◼   ► He's so good at in eight words encompassing everything about how he feels about this movie

01:12:51 ◼   ► in a way that will help you understand whether it's something you want to check out.

01:12:56 ◼   ► And not everybody has that.

01:12:58 ◼   ► If I talked about that, I would just sound like a dope.

01:13:01 ◼   ► It's like, "I like when he time travels," or whatever.

01:13:05 ◼   ► I used to feel that way about my affinity for steakhouses because what could be more

01:13:09 ◼   ► basic than saying, "I like a big piece of hot..."

01:13:13 ◼   ► I like large portions.

01:13:14 ◼   ► "Large portions of steak with mashed potatoes and..."

01:13:17 ◼   ► Golden Corral, A minus.

01:13:19 ◼   ► "Martinis."

01:13:20 ◼   ► But not to spend too much more time on it, but my basic rules...

01:13:26 ◼   ► There is a difference between a place that happens to have steak on the menu and a steakhouse.

01:13:30 ◼   ► A steakhouse is a thing.

01:13:33 ◼   ► Part of the things are, number one, a steakhouse absolutely, positively must be able to make

01:13:38 ◼   ► a great martini.

01:13:40 ◼   ► It's table steaks.

01:13:42 ◼   ► You don't have to say...

01:13:43 ◼   ► You don't have to tell them not to put too much vermouth in or anything.

01:13:46 ◼   ► You just tell them what type of martini you want.

01:13:49 ◼   ► And pick your gin, pick your vodka, and you're going to get a great martini.

01:13:53 ◼   ► It is going to be ice cold.

01:13:55 ◼   ► If you get olives, they're going to be delicious.

01:13:58 ◼   ► They do this, and I love videos of street food and Asian and all that stuff, and all

01:14:02 ◼   ► these things we're talking about.

01:14:03 ◼   ► These people just do this all day long.

01:14:06 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

01:14:07 ◼   ► I really love process videos, and I like the ones of, "This is the place that makes the

01:14:11 ◼   ► fanciest hamburger in this city, and this is how they make the dough, and this is how

01:14:15 ◼   ► they do the things."

01:14:16 ◼   ► And it's like, all day long.

01:14:17 ◼   ► This is all they do all day long.

01:14:19 ◼   ► If that man or woman's job is to pour a perfect martini all day, they can probably even look

01:14:24 ◼   ► at you, they can knock on Gladwell you a little bit and go like, "Oh, I have a feeling you're

01:14:28 ◼   ► going to want less vermouth," without even having to ask.

01:14:30 ◼   ► They must have a nice selection of wine.

01:14:34 ◼   ► I'm not a wine drinker, but just because I'm not doesn't mean a steakhouse must have nice

01:14:40 ◼   ► wine.

01:14:41 ◼   ► But it also must be unpretentious, where they're not trying to sell you a $200 bottle of wine.

01:14:48 ◼   ► If you would like it, it's on the menu, it's there.

01:14:53 ◼   ► And you can always—this is one of the things that was like a revelation to me like 15 years

01:14:57 ◼   ► ago, like way too late in life—is I was so intimidated about wine, I just thought,

01:15:03 ◼   ► "Well, they have $200 bottles of wine.

01:15:05 ◼   ► That's what they want you to get in the $50 bottle of wine.

01:15:08 ◼   ► It must be garbage or something like that."

01:15:10 ◼   ► No!

01:15:11 ◼   ► And you can always just ask for the psalm.

01:15:13 ◼   ► The sommelier will come over, and you can just explain what you would like in very different—

01:15:18 ◼   ► You're not going to embarrass yourself if you say like, "Oh, it's our anniversary,

01:15:21 ◼   ► but we kind of don't want to spend more than $50."

01:15:24 ◼   ► And then he could be like, "Well, do you like this or do you like that?"

01:15:26 ◼   ► And that's the person's entire job.

01:15:29 ◼   ► And in the most unpretentious terms, where you don't have to—it's like frou-frou,

01:15:33 ◼   ► I don't even know what you're talking about.

01:15:34 ◼   ► It'd be like, "Do you like fruity?"

01:15:36 ◼   ► You know what I don't like?

01:15:37 ◼   ► I don't like tannins.

01:15:38 ◼   ► And he'd be like, "I got you.

01:15:39 ◼   ► This is it.

01:15:40 ◼   ► It's $45.

01:15:41 ◼   ► You're going to love it.

01:15:43 ◼   ► You got to have that.

01:15:44 ◼   ► You must have on the menu, you must have a wedge salad.

01:15:51 ◼   ► Just the—

01:15:52 ◼   ► Like a chunk of—a chunk of— iceberg or romaine?

01:15:56 ◼   ► Iceberg.

01:15:57 ◼   ► Well, you could do romaine.

01:15:58 ◼   ► Iceberg with like blue cheese, that kind of thing.

01:15:59 ◼   ► Iceberg, blue cheese, and it's got to be real blue cheese.

01:16:05 ◼   ► You can't just be—you can't put like—if you go to a steakhouse—

01:16:07 ◼   ► No, you can't just get a jar of wing sauce.

01:16:10 ◼   ► Well, if you go to a steakhouse, this is like a thing—you just know you're going

01:16:14 ◼   ► to have a bad meal.

01:16:15 ◼   ► You're new in town, you've gone to the—taken a guess, you go to the steakhouse, and they

01:16:20 ◼   ► say they have ranch dressing on the wedge salad.

01:16:22 ◼   ► Doesn't even matter if you don't want the wedge salad.

01:16:25 ◼   ► I'm telling you right now, you're doomed to—

01:16:28 ◼   ► Does it come with a toy?

01:16:29 ◼   ► Yeah, it's no good.

01:16:30 ◼   ► You know?

01:16:31 ◼   ► That's real.

01:16:32 ◼   ► And again, for Caesars, it's okay.

01:16:35 ◼   ► People should enjoy what they want.

01:16:36 ◼   ► I'm not trying to shame anybody by anything, but an actual Caesar salad made table side

01:16:40 ◼   ► is going to be very, very different from what you're used to.

01:16:43 ◼   ► It's going to be very anchovy forward in a lot of ways, which I love, but not a lot

01:16:48 ◼   ► of other people do.

01:16:49 ◼   ► But it's kind of one reason I love these videos, whether it's process videos or teppanyaki

01:16:54 ◼   ► videos.

01:16:55 ◼   ► The beauty of these teppanyaki videos, especially the Aiden Films channel on YouTube, is a good

01:17:00 ◼   ► teppanyaki chef—and again, we're talking here about in America what we think of as

01:17:03 ◼   ► Benihana—but it's not—again, I'm using that word because it's become important

01:17:07 ◼   ► to me—it's not cute.

01:17:08 ◼   ► They're not trying to do jokey stuff and throw shrimp in your face.

01:17:11 ◼   ► But it's more like when you watch a good teppanyaki chef, it's very economical.

01:17:15 ◼   ► Every move is very economical.

01:17:17 ◼   ► And they cook, whether it's a slice of garlic or a $600 lobster, they cook every morsel

01:17:23 ◼   ► of food like it's the main dish.

01:17:25 ◼   ► And once you become aware of that phenomenon, you don't love getting a salad that's

01:17:30 ◼   ► lukewarm and has a bunch of like bagged sliced carrots on it.

01:17:35 ◼   ► And that sounds like where you could excel here.

01:17:37 ◼   ► You got your standards, you know what you want, and you know whether or not it worked

01:17:40 ◼   ► and how it could be better.

01:17:43 ◼   ► Every steakhouse has to have all the standards, right?

01:17:45 ◼   ► You got to have a filet, you got to have—

01:17:47 ◼   ► Martini wedge salad.

01:17:50 ◼   ► I would say you do not have to offer a Caesar salad.

01:17:53 ◼   ► A wedge is a must.

01:17:55 ◼   ► A Caesar is very typically offered.

01:17:57 ◼   ► It's a lot of work.

01:17:58 ◼   ► But if you do have a Caesar, it must be a great Caesar salad.

01:18:02 ◼   ► Has to be.

01:18:03 ◼   ► You cannot phone it in.

01:18:04 ◼   ► It cannot be something where it's already been pre-made and the cheese tastes like the

01:18:08 ◼   ► romaine.

01:18:09 ◼   ► It's got to be good.

01:18:12 ◼   ► French onion soup.

01:18:13 ◼   ► You don't have to have French onion soup.

01:18:15 ◼   ► Oh, that's nice.

01:18:16 ◼   ► That could be nice.

01:18:17 ◼   ► But you could have—but if you do have French onion soup, it better be fucking good.

01:18:21 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

01:18:22 ◼   ► Like a little crock with the cheese on top.

01:18:23 ◼   ► Oh, and it's got to be in the crock with the cheese on top.

01:18:27 ◼   ► It's like White Castle, like two out of three times gives me the trots.

01:18:32 ◼   ► Boys, it's never worth it.

01:18:33 ◼   ► Love, love the cheese crock.

01:18:35 ◼   ► That's a good-ass soup.

01:18:36 ◼   ► Maybe we'll get a flight of ammonium with it.

01:18:39 ◼   ► Again, now, let's say you get the French onion soup.

01:18:42 ◼   ► Yes.

01:18:43 ◼   ► And you've already placed your order.

01:18:44 ◼   ► You've got a steak coming as a second, your next course, and some side dishes, et cetera,

01:18:50 ◼   ► and so forth.

01:18:51 ◼   ► But they put the French onion soup in front of you.

01:18:55 ◼   ► And number one, they better give you the special soup spoon, right?

01:18:59 ◼   ► Because you can't enjoy it with a regular spoon.

01:19:02 ◼   ► You got to have the French onion soup or soup spoon, right?

01:19:05 ◼   ► It's more of a spherical spoon.

01:19:08 ◼   ► When you first break the seal on the cheese over the crock, if the whole thing just moves—

01:19:15 ◼   ► I think you should give me a grapefruit spoon just to get started.

01:19:18 ◼   ► If you can't just easily break through the cheese because the cheese is so nice and melty,

01:19:24 ◼   ► if it's sort of coagulated and the cheese on the top is sort of a solid and you kind

01:19:31 ◼   ► of have to like—you almost think to yourself you'd almost like to have a knife to cut

01:19:36 ◼   ► the cheese, right?

01:19:37 ◼   ► Right.

01:19:38 ◼   ► It's—the rest of your meal is going to be mediocre.

01:19:41 ◼   ► It's like it looks too thick and it's cooling off and it reflects—

01:19:44 ◼   ► Too thick, or maybe it had been made before and they just sort of heated it up.

01:19:47 ◼   ► Who knows what the explanation is?

01:19:49 ◼   ► If it's not a very liquidy cheese on top that is so easy that it, you know—and then

01:19:56 ◼   ► you can share your soup.

01:19:57 ◼   ► My wife will almost never order soup for herself, but she enjoys a few slurps of mine.

01:20:06 ◼   ► If it's a good soup, then she doesn't have to worry that she's going to take the

01:20:09 ◼   ► whole piece of cheese at once, you know, because it's—

01:20:12 ◼   ► Oh, I see what you're saying.

01:20:13 ◼   ► That's really awkward.

01:20:14 ◼   ► It's like a blanket hog but for French soup.

01:20:16 ◼   ► I get it.

01:20:17 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:20:18 ◼   ► Right.

01:20:19 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:20:20 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:20:21 ◼   ► Oh no, I'm sorry.

01:20:22 ◼   ► This busted-ass, you know, ivory hockey puck of cheese has caused me to do something disruptive.

01:20:25 ◼   ► I think you're on the right track.

01:20:27 ◼   ► What else?

01:20:28 ◼   ► What are some other ones?

01:20:29 ◼   ► What about the knives?

01:20:30 ◼   ► Do you have a strong feeling about the knives?

01:20:31 ◼   ► So I—you just want a nice knife.

01:20:33 ◼   ► That's what I say.

01:20:34 ◼   ► We have a place—

01:20:35 ◼   ► Yeah, a jokey outback, you know, buck knife kind of thing, right?

01:20:39 ◼   ► We have a place here in Philadelphia.

01:20:41 ◼   ► It's a very nice restaurant called Barkley Prime, and it's a one-off steakhouse.

01:20:49 ◼   ► I guess probably the most expensive in the city.

01:20:51 ◼   ► It's pretty ritzy.

01:20:54 ◼   ► You know, it's a nice once-or-twice-a-year thing.

01:20:55 ◼   ► They used to have a gimmick where they would come out and offer you, like, six knives,

01:21:02 ◼   ► like two from Japan, two from Germany.

01:21:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:21:07 ◼   ► What?

01:21:08 ◼   ► Is it a trick?

01:21:09 ◼   ► Is it like to find out if you're the Dalai Lama?

01:21:10 ◼   ► That feels like a jam-up.

01:21:11 ◼   ► Well, it's—

01:21:12 ◼   ► You've chosen poorly.

01:21:14 ◼   ► It's so over-the-top ridiculous that it actually—I think it plays not as pretentious,

01:21:20 ◼   ► but as just sort of fun.

01:21:25 ◼   ► But the funny part about it, though, is they'll come to the table.

01:21:29 ◼   ► Let's say you have a table for four, right?

01:21:32 ◼   ► You're out with another couple, and there's four of you at the table.

01:21:36 ◼   ► They come out with the six knives.

01:21:37 ◼   ► There's only one of each.

01:21:39 ◼   ► And so, like—

01:21:40 ◼   ► Oh, my God!

01:21:41 ◼   ► So let's say you do have—

01:21:43 ◼   ► It's like musical knives.

01:21:44 ◼   ► You have a very particular preference for, like, the one knife from Germany is your favorite.

01:21:50 ◼   ► Well, if somebody else takes it first, you've either got to—

01:21:53 ◼   ► So somebody beat you to the Henkel.

01:21:55 ◼   ► I'm not sure.

01:21:56 ◼   ► I would just take another knife.

01:21:57 ◼   ► That's me, personally.

01:21:58 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:21:59 ◼   ► I'm sure if you said to the server, if you said, "You know, I actually would like that

01:22:03 ◼   ► German knife, too," they would go get you another one.

01:22:05 ◼   ► No questions asked.

01:22:06 ◼   ► But the last—

01:22:07 ◼   ► If I were the server, I would say, "I'm sorry, sir.

01:22:10 ◼   ► Your wife wanted it more."

01:22:11 ◼   ► That's what I would say.

01:22:12 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a ridiculous gimmick, and I believe—I don't know if it was a COVID thing.

01:22:15 ◼   ► We went there once over the summer during our brief six-week period where everything

01:22:21 ◼   ► looked on the upswing COVID-wise.

01:22:24 ◼   ► We went back, and it was nice.

01:22:27 ◼   ► It's actually a nice place, too, where it was one of the few places in Philadelphia

01:22:30 ◼   ► where they had continued to pay their server staff through the whole thing.

01:22:36 ◼   ► So all the regular servers were still there, which is almost unheard of here.

01:22:41 ◼   ► Almost all of our places, we've lost our favorite servers because the whole thing.

01:22:46 ◼   ► But last time we were there, they did not do the knife thing.

01:22:51 ◼   ► They just gave us a regular steak knife.

01:22:52 ◼   ► And we didn't say anything.

01:22:54 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:22:55 ◼   ► I don't know what.

01:22:56 ◼   ► I don't know how COVID would have affected the knife gimmick.

01:22:59 ◼   ► Well, but it's—and certainly we could do a half-hour bit about this, but the whole

01:23:04 ◼   ► thing of, "Well, the reason we can't do that is because of COVID."

01:23:06 ◼   ► It's like, "Hmm, okay."

01:23:08 ◼   ► But there are some kinds of things where it absolutely makes sense.

01:23:11 ◼   ► But can I have one more?

01:23:13 ◼   ► I do have a couple more questions real quick.

01:23:16 ◼   ► But when you're done, I need to know about—well, I want to know how you're going to handle

01:23:19 ◼   ► some of the tricky issues.

01:23:22 ◼   ► Well, like what?

01:23:24 ◼   ► Well, I mean—and I'm not trying to shake you—chilled salad fork.

01:23:28 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, you got it.

01:23:30 ◼   ► Oh, absolutely.

01:23:31 ◼   ► And your steak—

01:23:32 ◼   ► Okay, I like that you passed.

01:23:34 ◼   ► Your steak will come on a plate that is dangerously hot.

01:23:38 ◼   ► You cannot—whoever, when they bring out your steak, it comes on a plate.

01:23:42 ◼   ► It'll make you sign something, probably.

01:23:43 ◼   ► You're talking about it really seriously.

01:23:45 ◼   ► You're talking about, basically, like a crucible.

01:23:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:23:50 ◼   ► And again, I always thought when I was younger and was on, you know, when I was poor, let's

01:23:58 ◼   ► say, I loved Outback Steakhouse.

01:24:00 ◼   ► I still do.

01:24:01 ◼   ► I'll go to an Outback.

01:24:02 ◼   ► I haven't been to one.

01:24:03 ◼   ► It's like Starbucks.

01:24:04 ◼   ► It's like people complain about it, but boy, you could sure do a lot worse when you're

01:24:07 ◼   ► visiting somewhere.

01:24:08 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, you could definitely do—you could do a lot worse.

01:24:11 ◼   ► And I'll tell you what—

01:24:12 ◼   ► It's really consistent.

01:24:13 ◼   ► Every time you get an Outback Steak, it is cooked to perf—you know, it is exactly what

01:24:17 ◼   ► you want.

01:24:18 ◼   ► They know what they're doing.

01:24:19 ◼   ► And the best cut there is the Outback Special.

01:24:22 ◼   ► And I don't know what exact type of meat.

01:24:25 ◼   ► I'm not a butcher.

01:24:26 ◼   ► I think it might be the—I don't know off the dome, but I have a feeling that might

01:24:30 ◼   ► be what some people call a club steak or where it's basically like the—you cut the cap

01:24:35 ◼   ► off of a ribeye.

01:24:36 ◼   ► Maybe.

01:24:37 ◼   ► And it's just sort of the fancy ribeye part in the middle.

01:24:39 ◼   ► I could be wrong.

01:24:40 ◼   ► But—

01:24:41 ◼   ► I agree with you.

01:24:42 ◼   ► And the seasoning's great.

01:24:43 ◼   ► I love the seasoning.

01:24:44 ◼   ► Also, as a general rule, not just steakhouses, but restaurants in particular, if the name

01:24:48 ◼   ► of the restaurant is on one of the dishes, that's what you should get.

01:24:51 ◼   ► And this—I remember you and Simpson telling me this, but I was like—when we went to

01:24:56 ◼   ► the House of Prime Rib, and I was like, "Well, what cut do I get?"

01:24:59 ◼   ► There's like the Princess Cut and the City Cut and the House—

01:25:02 ◼   ► There's Princess City English and—

01:25:05 ◼   ► House of Prime Rib Cut.

01:25:06 ◼   ► But then there's also—

01:25:07 ◼   ► Well, they have one called King Henry VIII.

01:25:08 ◼   ► King Henry VIII, which is—that's what you get.

01:25:11 ◼   ► Which is enormous.

01:25:12 ◼   ► The only time I've ever competed with you—unconsciously, I know you're very competitive, and I guess

01:25:15 ◼   ► I am, but there was one evening—I don't like to brag about it.

01:25:18 ◼   ► I don't like to brag about this, John, because it makes you feel bad, makes your listeners

01:25:20 ◼   ► feel bad.

01:25:21 ◼   ► But I think one night you were actually perhaps at first impressed and eventually appalled

01:25:25 ◼   ► by how much food I can eat.

01:25:26 ◼   ► Yes, that's true.

01:25:27 ◼   ► Remember?

01:25:28 ◼   ► Remember that night?

01:25:29 ◼   ► And you seemed a little bit like with the Cowboys lost or something.

01:25:31 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, I was—

01:25:32 ◼   ► And you were like, "Wow, you just had a dessert cut too, huh?"

01:25:34 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it was me and you and—

01:25:37 ◼   ► I can eat all the meat.

01:25:38 ◼   ► Sandy and Simpson and Marco.

01:25:40 ◼   ► Remember?

01:25:41 ◼   ► Marco was with us.

01:25:42 ◼   ► Oh my god.

01:25:43 ◼   ► My friend Ben, we went there with the—of all things—the MacBreak Weekly Pixel Core

01:25:47 ◼   ► group one time, and my friend Ben is—he's not vegan, but he's vegetarian.

01:25:52 ◼   ► And they look like—this is not a very woke thing to say, but it looked like he came in

01:25:57 ◼   ► wearing a fancy dress and holding a parasol because he's like, "What do you have that's

01:26:02 ◼   ► vegetarian?"

01:26:03 ◼   ► Marco has a photo of us from that night, and he has it—I think it's of all places in

01:26:10 ◼   ► his powder room off his office, but I was at Marco's house a while back, and there's

01:26:16 ◼   ► this picture of us, and everybody looks pretty happy.

01:26:19 ◼   ► I look a little glum, and that's exactly why, as I was a little depressed, because

01:26:25 ◼   ► I thought I could eat—

01:26:27 ◼   ► I bested you at beef?

01:26:29 ◼   ► At beef, right.

01:26:30 ◼   ► It wasn't even close.

01:26:31 ◼   ► It wasn't—

01:26:32 ◼   ► I won a rematch.

01:26:34 ◼   ► It wasn't even close.

01:26:35 ◼   ► It was like if we were playing golf, you would have had to spot—

01:26:38 ◼   ► It's affliction.

01:26:39 ◼   ► I'd love to say I'm proud of that.

01:26:41 ◼   ► There's other things I'd love to win at.

01:26:43 ◼   ► I'd love to win at being good to my family or the Lord or something, but I can eat all

01:26:49 ◼   ► the food.

01:26:50 ◼   ► It's really bad.

01:26:51 ◼   ► If we were playing golf instead of eating meat, I'd have to play from the children's

01:26:55 ◼   ► teas up front.

01:26:56 ◼   ► Oh, you go way, way up front.

01:26:59 ◼   ► But anyway—

01:27:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:27:01 ◼   ► Napkin folding?

01:27:02 ◼   ► How do you feel about you stand up and they fold your napkin?

01:27:04 ◼   ► Are you cool with that?

01:27:05 ◼   ► Do you like that?

01:27:06 ◼   ► You know, places where like you—I think generally I learned from Emily Post and Amy

01:27:10 ◼   ► Vanderbilt—you're supposed to put your napkin usually on your seat, I think, or something.

01:27:15 ◼   ► How do you feel about you go to, I don't know, take a pee or drop a deuce and they