Pendejo Time - Unc Music (Ft. Kyle AKA SmilingStrange)

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

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Yeah, the whole time. I was just telling Kyle, he was talking about he had a, well, first of all, welcome to the show. Instagram music, I guess, comment, critiquer, commenter? You know, man, I think the only way to say it is just I'm unk. That's what the kids like to call me. Okay, yeah, unk. Okay, music unk. Kyle, aka Smiling Strange on Instagram.

Kyle Ross It's Ross we have the little E at the end My grandfather stopped saying Rossi Because he wanted to anglicize it or whatever So we have a little fancy extra E ROSSEC Oh nice oh yeah A little bit

That's good We were just talking about the different music scenes And I was trying to explain that He was saying Portland's never really got out of the Built to Spill Modest Mouse thing And then Austin I was saying like Even though I don't play this kind of music

like there's a lot of uh for like the past since i've been here there's a lot of bands called like whiskey it's a lot of like whiskey shaker whiskey whiskey whizky shivers shivering shiver me tim shiver it's a lot of uh delirium trimmons related names like uh like the shivery shakes the shakes and oh i'm they're just trying to reference the fact that if they stop drinking alcohol their hands start shaking that's basically the whole genre You know? And the whole, the whole thing is about, a lot of the music is like about like, like, uh, oh, the way, the way you're, uh, her underwear was piquature jeans, banana, like, it's just, it's really funny

because it's like, I didn't even know that stuff was still big, but I'm in a bubble, right? I'm in like the, I'm in like the hardcore slash like, slacker rock slash emo bubble, but then I'll go to like, I'll just go to like a club. Like, there's this place called Continental Club and they have a lot of blues and, like, soul. And it'll be like a packed house for like a, yeah, like a shiver me timbers band. And they'll, the leads, it'll be good blues into the singers. Like, I can see her lacy underwear, do them black jeans. And you're like, I don't, ew.

I don't know, man. I'm just, maybe I'm one of those, like, I'm becoming a prude in my old age. But I'm just like, we don't got to be doing all this. You know, I got to get my mom credit on this. She always would make me watch these old, like, Tennessee Williams play movies or whatever. and she's like, I liked it better when you had to like wink, wink, wink, nudge at the sexuality stuff. You just kind of hint at it, right? If there was like, there's some censorship. If you just say, like, I'm looking at her panties and I'm getting horny, that's like not an elegant sentence.

But like, if you have to hint that like in polite society that like I think you're sexually attractive, but you're not allowed to say any of those words, they end up getting more poetic with it. You know, it's like Shakespeare was written so that it could be like he could talk shit about everybody in the court. He was horny. and he wanted to talk shit about all the people that were in polite society, but he had to, like, make up all these plays. And that, you know, so I get some pro-censorship on that point, you know, it's like, don't, I don't know, I don't want to hear you actually be horny, but just, like, reference it in a, in a fun,

interesting way. You're supposed to be an artist, you know? Yeah. I think the, I think it's like, what's the, you know, like, uh, meet me in the bathroom. That's what she said. I don't mind. Like, that's, that's fun. But then it's like, I don't know.

Yeah, leave something to the imagination. Yeah, come on. You know? But yeah, that's pretty much, that's been the defining thing. All the venues are dying here. I got to say that. A lot of them are dying. They died everywhere, man.

And being turned into cocktail, elevated cocktail lounges and speak easies. Orges parking garages. that's pretty much it like Mohawk is still here Stubbs is here but it's like it's now Live Nation bought it so it's like there's nothing

Oh yeah yeah You know They're real worried about Stubb live nation up here in Portland They're like moving into a venue And there's like it's in classic Portland fashion There's a million flyers around town For different protests

Because we can't have one protest We have to have like 15 different protests, but nobody's happy about it. But there's nothing we can do to stop it. It seems like I don't really know. I want to be one of the pro live nation protesters. It's like they actually, it's kind of fucking cool to organize together and make a big, big website that works for everybody. You know what I mean?

Yeah, it's actually really. I've been heavy on ticket master for a long time now. I like the way they set everything up with that. You get to see an aerial view of the venue. and really get an idea of where you'll be sitting, you know what I mean? You get to have an interact with scalpers in real time. And that's worth a $25 convenience fee in my book. Just being the guy that's sitting there going, hey, the convenience fee, it's actually,

that's paying good people. That's good, hardworking Americans making that convenience fee. Yeah. We need to support it, you know? Yeah. I think, hold on. Before we continue, Kyle, I believe you're, I don't know if you're clipping. It sounds like you're like coming in and.

out on the mic. Oh, okay. Let me, uh, may need to reconnect. Yeah. I've heard on other podcasts have done that it does that, but it doesn't come out in the recording.

Oh, in post. Okay, it might just be the, that's fine. Fuck it. If that, I think it's just you're going to have to deal with it being annoying. Oh, that's fine. Sorry. Uh, no, you're good.

I, the, um, the ticket master thing is like, I, I, it feels like one of those things that I can't believe that the right wing guys haven't coalesced around it to support it because it is one of those things that sucks so bad that no one likes and the right wing media sphere guys love to like taken ostensibly what you think is a universally hated thing and be like actually here's 10 reasons why this thing is actually good but i haven't seen take that's too i think a testament to how bad it is that nobody likes it like absolutely nobody you know everybody like it's it is completely dog shit

Well, one time we, this is unrelated to this book, but when you told me you were from Portland, me and Thomas, we booked a, we booked the best tour of all time, the best stand-up live podcast tour of all time. And we gave ourselves plenty of leeway, and we dealt with a very, very reliable individual. And we did a cool venue in Seattle. Seattle went good. And then we went to Portland, and we found out that the guy who had booked us, booked I think it was called the state

It's like a 250 Cedar theater Theater And at that time Nor now were we working with it We're like a hundred Max 110 maybe Standing Room only

A couple times right And we get there And the bar's running The lights are on And they've got all the seats out And everybody who's at the show to see it Is at the bar And it's like

What do you what time of 14 people Oh baby It was one of the most bizarre experience. I think 11. Yeah, yeah, 11 including us. It was, and I was at, people were like... The best was, there was a guy who, because, you know, the whole venue is a theater.

And when it's completely empty, basically, you can hear everything that's said from any part of the theater. Yeah. And this guy was kind of trying to play it off to his girlfriend who was really, really, you mad that he had taken her. He was kind of saying it's more of like a live experience. Kind of more like

you know, anything could happen. Yeah, yeah. And it was just us. And also we were sitting down the whole time. Like we were doing a Q&A for an amazing film we had made except we had done nothing. We'd done nothing.

We'd done nothing impressive. Yeah. Including the show itself. The show was very bad. I don't think, I think we've blamed the circumstances is a lot. We also, though, we also did not put on a good show. We were also incredibly hung over. Yeah. Well, because... And just green and sweating, bad. And I thought, you know what?

If I, if I'm sober for this, I'm probably going to unlock a new level where I have this insane mental clarity. And I just didn't think of anything for two hours. I didn't have a single thought. And it was like, yeah, to Thomas's point, like, we had so much. fun in Seattle the night before we did a really cool venue. We were like, all right, we're going to be clear of heart and spirit. And I think all that happened was a polycule approach to Thomas or like two, two polycule members approached Thomas to recruit him. And then I talked to like a guy who like, I think he was like a roadie for the

butthole surfers or something. He was an old head. And then. Sounds about right. Yeah. And then I would go outside and, uh, Portland is the only Actually the only place I've been

Where Like I saw I like you see you The way that you hear Fox News talk about any American city I write all that shit off All of it's like exaggerated or embellished But I think I just came on a particularly hot day

Because I saw some guys in Chinatown They had like cordoned off the street And it was two homeless guys with what looked like Shalales, like the Irish clubs. And they were just absolutely beaten the shit out of each other. And the police were not getting involved. And they were like doing the de-escalation thing. But like it had already escalated.

Oh, yeah. So like they, I understand the de-escalation is like a good thing that works. But they would already, they were already beating each other's shit straight to fucking red mush. So I was like, I was like, okay, guys, I think if you were going to tase somebody, not that I condone it but now would be a time to like maybe deploy

some of the tactics that you readily deploy in other scenarios that don't call for them I guess I don't know yeah I mean Chinatown

out here that that is like ground zero of all that and I will say like the homeless issue in Portland it's a real thing and it's hard to get people

go downtown that live here that's what they were saying for shows and stuff like that we never we never book shows You know, me friends, my wife, we all play music, whatever. No one likes spoken shows downtown because no one's going to drive over there.

Not necessarily because the homeless, just our friends are lazy. And for some reason, the river represents an unpassable, like, blockade in the mental imagination of the Eastside Portlanders. That makes me feel good. Yeah. Because all the people who are at the show when I was like, I was telling them, I was like, we have like a massive listener base in this city. Like, it's actually one of the most popular cities. Yeah, over 15 people. Yeah, we're 50.

Oh my God. Doesn't. But they were, but no, seriously, like, it is one of our biggest cities. But then, like, everybody there said some version of what you just said. They were like, yeah, no one comes downtown anymore. Because, you know, it's a, it's an unfortunate tragedy, but it is a tragedy. It is the fentanyl crisis. One, A.

And then B, it's like, you know, I don't want to cross the, I don't want to cross the river. I don't want to do that. And even, it'll be like, like, fucking black flag will be in town. somebody cool and it's like ah what a ticket's ten dollars i don't want to cross my fine parking that's insane i'm not gonna do that and it's like you don't have to you can take public transportation i have a bus that goes from my road down the street from my house it goes straight downtown just drops me off i still don't take it you know yeah that's crazy as a texan guy whenever i hear you got you coastal elites complain about stuff i'm like you just spend a

fucking day in houston you'll fucking just uh just spend a day in the absolute hellhole that is that is Houston, Texas. There's not other people's fault that they didn't move there. That is, yeah. Like other people, like the idea of heading west and you land in Houston is pretty crazy.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah. Like, the ones who made it all the way west are rewarded. But anybody who didn't make it quite all the way west is, is cursed forever. Well, I feel like... If you hit California, if you hit,

I mean, Arizona is beautiful even. I mean. Yeah, but you're about to not be allowed to live there. Like the sun is going to make it where you can't live there. No, they're just going to, Under Armour is going to come out with a new thing where you can live there. It's going to be bad. Like an even colder shirt. Yeah, Under Armour is going to figure it out.

Yeah, they're going to get it. They're going to use all that stuff, Curry money. Yeah, we're going to make a shirt so cold that you can live. whenever I see like the like the low when the low is 100 and it's night you're like I know it's going to be a wonderful

you guys don't have too many of those over there but for like six months out of the out of the year that is how it is here that'll be like Houston or Austin? I'm in Austin now but I grew up in Houston Houston's worse because it's flat and it's like smells like shit

the whole like I've told Thomas Thomas and I have gone on this before over this before, but like, when people are like, yo, what's better? Texas or California, the only people who say Texas are people from Texas who have only been to Oklahoma or Louisiana. Like, it's everybody in my family that's like, I don't know how you can say California. We got music. And it's like, they've got music. It was pretty much invented in California.

Okay. They've got music in California. And, you know, well, we got the best food. And it's like everywhere has Mexican food. Like south of the Mason Dixon, like everywhere, everywhere's got good Mexican food. Well, we got culture. It's like, yeah, I mean, you can't Texas. Houston has rap that's okay.

It's, you know. It was like the ninth city to get good at rap. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's still a lottery pick, man. That's still a lottery pick, you know. Top 10. Houston came after like Rochester.

Chicago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. The thing with Texas is like, it's got culture. It's got one culture. It's got Texas culture. You know, there's only a couple of cities in America that actually have like multiple cultures. Texas culture is like drinking soda in a lunch here. Yeah, yeah.

Which is fine, but it's a, yeah, it's a very uncle based culture. It's a being red. Also, like a lot of when I, one of the things I do think that is charming about Texas, is when somebody gets really famous and they're from here, you are always kind of surprised. Like when you're like, like, West Anderson, people, like some people don't know he's from Texas. And they're like, oh, really?

I thought he'd be from like New York. And you're like, yeah, you would think that because he makes movies and he's been making them for 40 years. Same thing with like, you know, name, I don't know, fucking McConaughey or like, you know, a band that you like, you know, they're like, oh, they're like, oh, yeah, he's kind of a Texas guy, but you know who's not?

the Wilson brothers don't strike you not at all that yeah yeah they don't have I had no idea that Wes Anderson was a Texas guy to be honest with you I thought I just assumed he went to some fucking New England private school because he makes little boy he makes movies for fancy little boys right like that's yeah yeah yeah he was born in and we love him for it I love him I'm a fancy little boy myself you know I love Wes Anderson movies I haven't I haven't liked one in a while I think I just, I think once I stopped listening to Los Campesinos, I think I stopped being like a, like, I don't know. There was this like, I'm, uh, how old are you, Kyle, are you, are you? Oh, dude, I'm 36.

36 years old. Okay, so. I'm hardunk. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm, I'm entering early unk and I'm, you'll know what I'm talking about. Thomas, I guess you do too, because you're on the computer, but like, the fact that People are growing, like, the younger, younger zoomers, like my brother's generation has it so bad that they're romanticizing,

like fucking, um, you, me dancing, like the hold on now, youngster era, Los Camps. Like, they're romanticizing Phoenix. They're like, oh, my God. Oh, brutal. Have you guys, have you guys heard Listomania? Have you guys, like the little moustaches on the index finger? They were having so much fun and it's like, yeah, I mean, the housing crisis had

happened. Like we didn't, it wasn't, it was all a big. We were, we were, we were the disco era. That's what millennials were. Yeah. We were like, proceeded by a much cooler era with better music and better politics. We were the drug-fueled haze of dog shit. Like, our whole thing, the millennial thing was just that like everything clearly blew up, right? Like, the defining moment is like the 2008. They're basically just like, this is a giant announcement that like, hey, the economy is fake and it's broken. It's fake and it's broken. It's fake and it's broken. and what we're going to do is they're going to bail out all the old people for the next 20 years. They're going to have like fully restored luxury communism for the boomers.

They're going to get everything they ever want it. Full luxury communism for the boomers. Y'all can maybe do some door dash or something like that. And the millennial attempt at fixing this was like, what if we just choose to pretend we're having a really good time? What if we just like think ourselves into like dancing and having a... I'll shoot some hammer and put some parrot in a fuck with the stars. Yeah, yeah.

And that's a fucking banger. It's a banger. But then at some point, the Mali's going to wear off. You have to wake up. You have to go to work and your fucking dooredash job. And the zoomers, they're just like, we're just going to focus on the part where you wake up and you have to go do your stupid door dash job or something like that. And then the thing that's going to be fun is when the millennials that made it, right?

So like the boomers that made it. These are the ones that bought houses. And then the houses got big and whatever. For millennials, it was like that asshole bought a bunch of crypto because he wanted to buy porn and drugs. and he's going to be, he's actually going to be a millionaire, and he's going to be the one lecturing Zoomers on like, oh,

if you guys just pull yourself up by your bootstraps and buy Bitcoin like I did, which is just, it's a, the speculative asset bubbles just keep getting stupider. And so the NFTs and all that shit. Like, so we're going to have, uh,

unk millennials talking about like, well, if you guys had worked harder, you two could have been a Twitch streamer and make a bunch of money, which is thrown ham and homeless people on rainbet or pump. Exactly. Exactly. You know, you could have started a gambling company. Chat, chat, you want me to fuck this squirrel?

Chat, chat, should I eat this... Chat. Dude, the pumped-out phone streamers were literally like, chat, should I go up to this homeless guy and touch his ass? And all that shit, all the chat will be all Moldovan teenagers inventing new inwards, like in real time. Chat, chat, should I go over to this homeless guy? Should I fucking show him my butt?

And it's like, I mean, I think the whole, like, the world does idocracy thing is so hacked, but it's like, we're, we're... It's so dumb. It's even dumber than you thought possible. Like what Dax Shepard was watching on the TV, it was just a pair of feet, and they were, like, cutting a steak. Like, that is smarter TV than, like, when you watch,

I don't know, like, fucking some of the streamers, like, Dean the Great, like, his thing is getting knocked out. Or like, there's a guy who just gets knocked out on stream? Yeah, he goes up to UFC fighters, and he's like, I can take go bitch. And then they're like, what? And then they just snap his head in half. or whatever the fuck, you know.

Man, dude, we're cutting out the middleman for football. Football's going to lose a lot of its core audience when you can just watch one guy get knocked out instantaneously instead of having to, like, hope that somebody gets hit too hard that they don't remember algebra. That's how you just got to watch. You just got to watch combat sports. I don't think it's going to be necessary, though.

I do think that the, I do think young, the younger people, I like the, I think you had talked about it, but because the, because the, funds over, very similar to the death of glam rock and hair metal, because the fun's over, good guitar music is alive again. And so the younger zoomers are like, like, in the same way that like grunge killed all of the like, you know, fucking, uh, Friday night I'm going to pay my rent. I could hardly make it through like poison and motley crew.

Like the way grunge killed that, like, whatever's happening with younger people, musically speaking, is killing the like, you know, passion pit, sleepy hair. had great song but dog shit like it's over oh yeah we don't need to we don't need to do that anymore like you know like whatever it's over like dude what i love about the zoomers i've talked about this on uh on my like reels and tictox and stuff like that where it's like uh the zoomers inherited like the ethos of grunge music because their lives are as kind of shitty as gen x kind of pretended their life was going to be yeah like gen x these are movies and culture was like oh my god you could have a stable job where you work in a cubicle for the rest of your life.

And the zoomers are like, I would fucking kill to have a stable job where I worked in a cubicle for the rest of my life. And I had like a retirement plan. That sounds amazing. So like their music is just, I don't know, it's all the stuff that I liked about grunge, but coming from a place of people that genuinely have the complaints that Gen X, you know, pretended to have for the most part, you know. So I like, I'm big on the zoomers, on zoomer music. I feel like the fact that even I call it zoomer music is the most. unk thing that I can possibly do.

But I think the kids are all right. Their music they're making is, I like it better than the millennial stuff most of the time. Yeah, I really like the Mr. Hudson Freeman friend of the show. And I was an adamant. When the whole thing about geese dropped, I was like, we should have never taught people the word sciop. You guys don't know what that word means.

Like I, like, I, like, I know. And it also became some, I know, and everybody that's like, listen to the show. show that's the fan of the show is like jake you literally are the king of trivial pointless annoying conversations and i get that but like every fucking party i would go to for like that three week period after that article came out about chaotic good or whatever the fuck i would go to the bar and i would just hear like oh you well you heard that gase is a siop i i knew it and it's like no you did because that's not what that is that's not it's as a siop is like when the cia

convinced a bunch of people in the Philippines that vampires were real so that they could like disrupt their burgeoning communist movements like a band marketing themselves also people have this idea they've had it for a long time that all of their

favorite bands were discovered organically in a club somewhere where like an A&R guy was like this kid's really got talent he's going places hey kid come on we're going to sign the deal that hasn't happened in forever oh like that hasn't that doesn't That's not happened in forever.

All of you, all of your faves are plants. I'm sorry. Like, that's just the way that it is. It's like with that geese article, uh, it's like the sciop isn't a sciop.

It's just an advertisement for a PR firm. Like geese was popular. That article didn't do anything to, it just used the word geese to get other people to realize that the name chaotic good was attached to geese. Yeah. That's the fucking sci op is that that was an ad for a PR firm. And you guys talking about geese being,

a sciop, you're just crediting fucking chaotic good. I've seen Geese Live. Cameron Winter guys, he's charismatic. He's a charismatic guy on stage. That has always been popular. A young charismatic guy making interesting music has been popular in every genre

going back to fucking John Lennon, man. I get it. You don't understand the music maybe. You might not like geese, but like it's not absurd to imagine that people like this band with this, you know, handsome young guy who's very confident and makes really, I think it's cool music.

It's at least interesting, confident music. You know, it's like, I don't know. There's better examples of a sci-op out there than this guy. SOMBER. Yeah, shit. I don't know. Also, Teddy, here's my thing on the, on the, I don't know who Teddy Swims is. I woke up last week and he's the biggest guy in the world.

I don't know who this is. I've been hearing Teddy Swims on the radio for a couple years, I will say. And for those of us in the Teddy Swims fan base, those who are, been around since the swim fans yeah yeah yeah yeah all the all the swimmer yeah the swimmers yeah um yeah no he he's awesome um and he's talked about using a i i i i love that he's a white and looks like that. His hats. White guy hats can get so good sometimes.

I love the idea of that you could be big and famous, but like a certain level of famous where you can use AI, just nobody gives a shit. Because everyone else that... It's like if Farrell had never been a nerd. You know what I mean? And it's like, okay.

Yeah, he's making... He's making happy for a despicable me. That's fine, I guess. You know? It's the unfortunate realization that I had, like two years ago. And I don't, the whole America A, America B thing, like, I live in America B. Like, I would like to think that like, oh, the TV shows that I like, I like, I like, I like, everybody listens to it and all the stuff that I think sucks.

Everybody, and then you're like, no, no, no, no, no, like 18 million people watched Big Bang Theory. Like, oh, yeah. Millions and millions of people listen to all the Jilly Roll songs and all the Teddy Swim songs called fuck me I'm going to kill myself and I love pills like America A I'll convince myself that like I don't know I was I posted about the other day

and like people were like You know you're you don't even realize that like you Or Lowell like Unc doesn't realize that he's like in America B or whatever It's like no I get it that's the thing is it like I do live in a bubble where I'm like Oh this comedian or this band Is big and everybody knows about it them. And it's like, I know people who don't know who geese are. I know people who don't know, like,

like, they're like, oh, I haven't seen the Backrooms movie yet. Um, you know, I have family that's like, I'm really excited for the, you know, uh, John and Bubba go to the river, whatever the fuck. Like, I don't know, you know what I mean? Like, I'm really excited for that. And you're like, well, no one's watching this or people be like, hey, for example, there's this song called, um, I wish I could play it, but I don't want to get DC made. It's called the Hardway. and it's by this guy Cameron Whitcomb and I did not know who he was

and then like six months ago I started seeing nothing but that song and nothing but live performances of that song and it's the same thing as the jelly roll thing as the post Malone thing as the Teddy Swim sings where the song is like

I'm fucked up and I fucked everybody's life up and I'm a real piece of shit but I'm gonna make it and we're gonna make and I think that's the American A Zykeist right now. Like that is what it's like,

guys, I'm fucking addicted to opiates and I fucking crash my car and I can't, man, I can't get healthy. I can't get good and I'll never be good. But I am going to be okay. Like that is the, that's kind of nice.

It's been a long road and the road's going to keep being long. But I'm a cowboy and I'm a, and I'm a samurai and spirit. And I'm going to just keep on shoveling mud. That's what I do. I shovel mud. mud shoveler. Yeah.

That's a great stain song. Let's all be nurses together. You know what I mean? Let's all be nurses and EMT techs together. Yeah. Amen. It's real similar, actually, to the whole, like, millennial, like, hey, life sucks, but we're going to dance it away.

It's just, instead of dancing, you're just like, life sucks. I'm just going to fucking cowboy up or whatever. But all anybody's saying, though, it's just like, yeah, this shit, this shit sucks. This shit sucks. I don't, I don't, well, I guess what I'm surprised is how, how. far removed from it I am because by the time I find out about certain musicians or shows I'll be like oh this is a new show and then you find out that that

that musician has like 50 million monthly listeners or that show's been on for nine season and I just I should have no idea like they'll be like a guy like it'll be like Joey Bigbuck's in town and I'm like who the fuck is Joey Bigbook? And then I Google Joey Bigbook and he's like this new hicchop 808 country rapper like you know and he yeah he's huge he's been touring the country for a year and a half he's got like the number two it's like the ella langley chick chooses she choosing texas act whatever

i hate that shit but i didn't know i didn't know that she broke the record for the longest number one female billboard spot in like music history yeah that's what i discovered that song was when she broke it for longest number one i was like oh what the fuck is this song and then i heard it and got stuck and then it got stuck in my head for like three days and I was like, all right, I get it. You know? I didn't get it. I don't know. Oh, well, you know, I'm a dumb baby. Something gets in my head. It just bangs around in there and I sing it. Yeah, I'm a big dumb baby. I don't know. You know, that's really, you know,

if you want to talk about like the real sci-op on all these listening streaming numbers and stuff like that, it's like the ghost listens, right? So you got, right now you get a bunch of Waymo's driving around in San Francisco and they're playing some music off of Spotify all day, 24 hours a day. They're playing some playlist that somebody pays them to play because all those Waymoes are basically just bots, uh, counting the numbers of listens up over and over and over and over again. So a lot of the numbers, I mean, that's, uh, it's the nature of America. We're snake oil salesman. And so we built up this whole level of infrastructure built around quantifying the empirical data of like listens, views, attention, all that stuff. And then we immediately figured out how to fake all

of those numbers. And now we're living in the world where it's like, it's always, we're always like two or three years behind what's actually happening. It's like what's happening right now is we have an attention economy with all these metrics, but all of the metrics are being game constantly by everybody every single second of every single day. So none of those numbers, they meant something originally back before we knew how to game them. And then the second we figure out how to game them, all the numbers don't mean shit anymore. It's done. It's over. So it's all, you know, it's narrative control.

It's all narrative control. So you're going to see a lot of people that get famous. Also, the older you get, the less you are tapped into what is actually popular amongst most people. And, you know, when you see these guys, just like, how the fuck does this have 80 million listens? It's like, it's mostly fake. It's fine. The somber guy, I like, I like, I'm like, oh, he's maybe he's kind of big because he has that one Instagram sound. How do we go back to me?

Whatever. And then it's like, I see videos of him playing and it's like, there's 80,000 people here. I know. It's crazy. What the fuck is this? And then on the other side of it, me and Thomas are talking about this today. Way more people are listening to AI country called like Red Rooster number five, 612995. Like they're all made by like Southeast Asian teenagers like with like bot farms on their phone.

And these are this these are the same guys that make the YouTube. videos where like an old man in a wheelchair like takes on a hundred antifoot with one revolver. Oh yeah. Yeah. You know it's AI and you still watch the whole fucking thing because again, we're all dumb babies. It's okay. Every time I see one of those videos, I will say every time I see one of those videos, I will allow myself to watch as much as of it as I can handle because it is, Thomas, you were saying

like, where we were talking about this a long time ago, but I remember, like you get to a point with one of those AI rage bait videos where like the longer you watch it, the more it feels like doing whippets. We're like I do feel like my, like I'm my spirits getting corroded. Like my vitamin B is like, I'm getting vitamin B deficiency.

Like when the old man is like, the one thing that you youngsters don't understand is respect. And then like the gun changes in his hand to a different type of gun. And you realize the video has 10 more minutes and you're like, uh, like you feel your, you feel your bones softening.

Like you feel your, spirit, you know, like becoming acidic in a real time. I accidentally sent my girlfriend a video of an AI rabbi giving life advice because I had it on mute. So I didn't hear the, and it was like one of the lowest IQ things I've accidentally done. Like I just even like sent a little message like, this is actually pretty good advice. I don't know who this guy is though. And then she like played it with the sound on and it was like, listening to others can help.

your, it was like, yeah, it was just shit like that. But I remember I had some coworkers who were watching this video of like a, it was like an AI extremely old black lady. And she was like, I am 103 years old. Here are my secrets for good health and long living. Number one, never eat carrots. Their skin contains a bacteria that not even the highest level of heat can kill. number two

never drink water without lemon the lemon neutralizes the water preventing the acid it's shit like that where yeah yeah yeah and you'll just see people watching intently like oh shit damn she old as hell I better write this down the one that's really popular right now

that is I'm seeing in an it's always to sell like something like an American flag dog tag or like an American flag decal is it's a AI videos, and I read the comments, and it's all boomers that are like hookline and sinker. It's an AI video literally of like a fat kid wearing like a BLM fist shirt and a rainbow hair. And he goes up to like a grizzled veteran who's selling like peaches at the farmer's market.

And he punches him in the mouth. And he goes, you're a baby killer. Death too. But the AI voice is always like way too articulate. And like the treble for some reason is always up. So it's like, you're a baby killer. You are a baby killer and I hate a death to America. I hate you, old patriot.

I hate you. And then the camera will like zoom in and the old patriot and he's like, oh, I don't know what's going on with this country. And then all the comments are like, whoever that young boy is, he needs to be locked away. Whoever that, lock him up with the, lock him up with the Aryan Brotherhood and see how he, like, they're threatening this AI boy with prison rape, which is like, like this is again like

like like it's like like like first of all this is not a real person but second of all like you find out that you click on the link that's in the I'll go to the account click the link and then it's like oh this is a drop shipper that's selling

like Trump license plate printouts and he's selling them from some place in like Bangalore but he's just making these videos because he is tapped in enough to like a American culture war to be like, oh, I just need to trick as many 80-year-old people as I can to buy these so I can like, you know.

I'm going to buy 75 of these to give to my grandkids. Oh, yeah. That's how old people are. They all really are. I'd better buy a hundred of these to give and hand them out of church. They'll love it. By the way. And then you never open the box.

They never open the box when it gets there. Old people love to have a fucking, an entire room of the, their house is unopened Amazon boxes. They have $1.4 million in assets and they'll like, they'll be like, people, as soon as your grandparents start to like be in their last couple years of health, they will start spending $70,000 a year on those dog tags. Yeah. I don't have rich.

My grandparents didn't have any money, but I know exactly who you're talking about. My friends or grandparents are like that. There's nothing a boomer. I mean, $70,000 in my family, honestly, is not a lot of money. It's a small amount. So I get what she means. But to me, it's always been an amount of money to just kind of throw around. No, it's like a buddy who will go in name because this show was just telling me that like his wife, their, the old, his wife's side of the family.

There's like a bidding war right now because the, all of the kids. are like, oh, grandma and grandpa are both getting on up there in age and they're both sick and they're going to die around the same time. Apparently, grandma and grandpa have been like, yeah, we did set aside the inheritance,

but I just, you know what? We're going to enjoy our final years. So they, like, pulled all the money out of the trust in the state and they've just been, like, going to Tahiti and Tulum

and, like, blowing the grandbabies college funds and, like, just blowing all the money that they had set aside for their kids over the last, like, 40 years. and the family's pissed because they're like, hey, we just had your grandchildren.

Like, we need help. Like, we can't afford the houses. And the boomers are like, I just don't understand how you can't afford a house. I mean, we just sold our second home. I don't understand how you can't. Well, I do respect that, though. I mean, you can't take it with you.

And I'll be honest, if you're waiting, if your come-up is your grandparents' inheritance, like if that's what you're holding out for, there's a little something in the culture called motion and you got to work on your motion you can't be waiting on an 89 year old man

for for help you know what I mean I think and I think it should be the government not grandpa I'm going to go

grandpa's role should be transferred to the government and he should be allowed to get a bunch of cocaine when he's 80 and just fucking explode himself in a hotel room. That's what my grandpa did kind of.

Only he just drank a bunch, he just drank a bunch of vodka like pretty much every day and watched Jersey Shore. It was so, go out. Yeah, he was like, I'm dying. And we were like, oh, that sucks. He was like,

my family was like, I told Thomas, my family was like mostly stupid and like didn't finish school. That's okay. It's just like salt of the earth people. My granddad was like, I don't know, kind of like one of those like, I fancied himself like a redneck book reading type guy you know and and I was like

grandpa why are you watching Jersey Shore and he's like oh I mean it's you know it's funer in hell drink six seven gin and a or like orange juice to watch that snooky in that mike I mean godly they just they just be yelling they throw and shit at each other

and I'm like this is a guy who like would like be like hey whenever you get older you know you can have my copy of you know the metamorphosis as our first edition I got up when I was in New York York working on the port and you're like but he got old and was just like I love rock of love I like this flavor flay fella like and I was like respect he retired and became an alcoholic and then just died and I was like that's so sick like had been sober for like a long time and was like

I'm done being an alcoholic seems like it sucks but becoming one is it's 69 become becoming one is a fun process oh yeah and it sucks when you feel yourself slipping into it because you go this is actually so far the best time in my life. But I'm going to have to take a step back from this amazing time to prevent further damage. I love, I think it was, like, Mullen said it, but like, it is one of the greatest feelings. I don't know if you're sober or not, Kyle, but like, uh. No, I still drink. It just fucking hurts all the time.

I was going to say, like, how the fuck is a 69 year old man starting when I drank a lot, it was back when you could drink and it didn't hurt your physical. body. But like I had a whiskey last night at a show and I woke up with a hangover this morning. One whiskey. Wasn't even that bad. It was a bullet. He's just, he was just, you know, full long. I thought you said you had eight whiskeys at first. No, I wish. I thought, I mean, I'll be honest, man. I think I would also, I'm 26. I probably have an eight whiskey hangover as well. No, shit. I had one. That's not fair either, by the way. There was a time and everyone's like when you would have eight whiskeys and you go, the next day you go, wait, I feel good as fuck.

Yeah, I'm tired a little bit. It's like, Going a long stretch without drinking, like falling off the wagon, man, that first one back is like, oh, wow. Like, I like, to your point, Thomas, like, when you're like, you're like, man, I've been going out every weekend and I've been having an incredible time with my friends. I think I, you know what? I think I'm going to have Wednesday sounds good. You guys want to do something on a Wednesday and you're like, man, becoming, getting fatter and drinking, and drinking a lot. People always like, when guys go through recovery,

I understand why. They have to convince themselves that every part about that, every part about being an addict or drinking or doing drugs sucked. They have to rewire their history and they're framing entirely to stay sober. And I get that.

These are stevo type guys. Like guys, I had been to a couple meetings back when I was like a pillhead. I told Thomas this before where you'll hear guys it'll be like, you know, your best day, uh,

what's it? your, uh, your worst day sober is better than your best day using. And I'm like, that is the dumbest shit I've ever heard in my, I used to go to Fiesta, Texas high on Oxy and ride the Batman ride.

And just fucking laugh, dude, just, oh my God. Oh my God. Like, just, oh,

it'd be a beautiful day, you know, like, but I was sober like when my grandpa died. Like, it's like when you, that first, that first couple beers.

back after a sober stretch is like, whoa, brother. It really reminds you that you're supposed to be drinking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Remember back in the day, you know, back in medieval times or whatever,

all anyone did was drink. They couldn't drink clean water because there was no clean water. Everything had bacteria. So it was all beer, all alcohol. I would have been getting the dirty, I would have been getting the water dirty on purpose. Oh, damn. Exactly. What the fuck. The sober people, people couldn't handle their liquor.

Damn. I can't have to drink my water drink water while watching the game man I really wanted to I wanted to watch grog Roll his Rock and drink water but now I got to drink beer and watch the grog race

I think about like all of our wasp ancestors and it's I'm like man life must have been so boring dude just just toiling and tilling for 15 hours a day like pulling potatoes out of the ground and I'm like no dude I've worked hard labor jobs and like if you got a nice

buzz on dude like digging a hole is awesome like Thomas was I'm talking about like sneaking away from like an old like my old home renovation job or like Thomas worked in landscaping sneaking off to crush like three beers and then your boss is like you're digging the hole today I'm sorry in your mind you're like let's go dig this fucker I'm I love drinking five beers and digging a hole for my boss like dude five beers I become the perfect surf like I'm the perfect fucking give me six tall Miller High Life tall boy around noon on a summer

Oh, just bake. Yeah. I'll dig the best hole, sir. My boss used to, if as an incentive to work late, because we got paid by the day, so it didn't really matter. If we stayed late, it wasn't really a

who thing for us. Yeah. He would just bring cases of Bud Light to drink as we worked, as an incentive to work late. And so then we would end up staying even after we had finished working to drink,

to finish the, beer, you know, because what are you going to do? Yeah, it's like the pizza party for the corporate roll. And so then, you know, everybody's having, like, working, you know, 13 hours in the sun or whatever. And then you have 12 beers. And then you remember that this week you're working like two hours from your house. He's just like, oh, my God.

I've made some of the, one of the worst mistakes in my life. And so then obviously, you know, with it being the Peaster, Texas area, you do take trains at home. You take public transit. Take the train and then a couple of buses to get home, which was always annoying. We have a – I always tell my fellow elites that we do have a train in Texas. It's one passenger train. It's called the Texas Eagle. And it notoriously sucks ass.

The only people that take it are like itinerant serious. killers like people who travel city like the the only who the take it are psychos I took it one time when my car was in the shop and to get from Austin to Fort Worth it took eight hours which is a three it's a three hour drive

but uh no on the way back sorry it took eight hours and the way there it took like five but uh people will be like yeah like people who again like every now and then you'll get somebody that's like Texas has public transportation you just don't use it and it's like yeah it's like a tonka truck

with like a, like, it's the, it's like a fucking, it's the worst train of all time. It's the shitty, it's like a tin can. Now you can get drunk in there. The cool thing about it is no one cares what you do into Texas Eagle, like at all. Like, it smells like piss. You can get a sleeper cabin and probably, you can probably kill somebody in there. Nobody gives a fuck. It's not like the trains in, like, parts of Chicago and stuff with a long distance trains and parts of the country.

I just want to have more trains because I like being able to get up and walk around a little bit But you know I remember I think the most nervous I make people around me is Like one of those core beliefs I have in my heart of hearts Is that like I think I'm better at driving Intoxicated than other people are And like not saying that I do it

I'm just saying that like my confidence level is I'm definitely No respect I respect right Especially once you start doing it work It really builds your confidence Yeah it's like I just I want a nice safe environment where I can go and test this theory against my friends and maybe like a Mario Kart style race event or I just want to see how good at parallel parking I am. You know, I just like, I want a nice safe.

That should be the adult playgrounds that we're building is a place where, you know, maybe you can go and see if you're good at it or not. Listen, I, I've pitched this to. That's a third place. That's the third place, you know. Our new bonding. We'll solve the male loneliness epidemic, seeing who can, uh, execute some, uh, fast and the furious maneuvers after a couple of.

years. I've pitched this to Thomas and I need, if anybody ever listens to this show, like, and you're just an anonymous benefactor with a bunch of money, I have an idea for a fake town called Booz Cruise. All the cars are governed at 40 miles an hour. All the telephone poles are wrapped in high impact density foam rubber. Like, um, there's real how, like there's facades of houses with like, like, like, like, like, lights and then, like families can be in there, like, like, fake families. And you can like, and you can, there's like a fleet of cars. If you want to, like cruise around and listen to fucking Allison Chain self-titled in like an old firebird that's got like an engine knock. You can do that.

Or if you want to get in like a BMW M3 and listen to the chain smokers, like whatever type of guy you are. Like you can get in the car and you can get as drunk as you fucking want. And yeah, all the curbs are made from like high density foam. The bushes, they're trimmed, but they're made from like a, I don't know, science is so advanced. Like if you crash into them, like you don't die. Like I know that we have the ability to make a theme park. where you can get as fucked up as you want and you can get behind the wheel of a car

that like, yeah, maybe it can't get above 40 miles an hour. Maybe that's the limit that we put on it. But you can just drive around like the neighborhoods and the towns and just listen to sludge factory or like fucking, you know, um, uh, I'm on, like on a plane. Like just pick a, I don't know, I'm a big grunge guy. So like I'm listening to pretty hate machine or whatever. And I'm just mad as fuck driving around town in like a purple Mustang.

And I'm just, you know i'm just losing my fucking mind that would be i like that uh in your drunk driving six flags here you're like yeah definitely make sure there's a family in the house so that if i do accidentally drive into the house i do like i want the full experience i want to like hit and have the little girl come out and be like mommy mommy pooped it up you know yeah yeah yeah the the houses are made like that fucking oh god oh god i fucked up Please don't tell anybody. Please don't tell it.

You gotta go to court, too. I have so much money. I have so much money. You wouldn't believe it. Yeah, the full room. I work with a powerful group of people. This will all go away tomorrow. Telling a girl you just killed her whole family in a drug driving accident,

I know very powerful people. This can all go away. This is all about to go away. Go back to bed right now. I am. I have to drive home and go get all the money I have to bring it to you. I have an ambulance in my house. Let me go get it.

I'll use it to take your family to the hospital. When you're a kid, you know, $1,000 is so much money. So you can probably bribe her with like $2,000. You know, you can be like, hey, I've got... I have $200 that can go straight to you. And I just got to wait until Friday, and it'll hit my direct deposit and I can pull it out. I'm just picturing, like, full-on mannequin. This can go away in two.

weeks when I get paid again. Oh my God, yeah. I want it. I'm just picturing a full on mannequin family that you got to go out and like you got bribe them. Then the mannequin police officer comes and has you do the sobriety tests and stuff like that, you know? They're all on tracks. You know, they pop up out of the ground. Exactly. Yeah. You know. It's a small world after all. Yes. Yeah. It's like Disney animatronics. Yeah. They do that forced perspective Truman Show thing though, where like you can reach the end of the map and it's just like a blue wall

and that's the only thing that's actually made of solid concrete. Like if you do try to break the fourth wall literally and figuratively speaking you like immediately die on impact. Yeah, you got to have some real threat there. You know, that's where the fun comes from. That's the, there are probably people listening to this drunk driving right now

and to that I say, no, no, no. Stop it. Stop it. These are past stories. The president is a different thing. We got away with it and you won't. The last time I drove drunk was... Also, I did not really completely get away with it. I'm being honest history. Legally speaking, I didn't.

Lessons have been learned. Yeah, yeah. I remember I was joking with my brother, but this, like, there was a stage in your life where... And sometimes that stage is older, sometimes it's younger. Luckily for me, it was younger, where you do it so much, you drive drunk so much that when someone gets a DUI

you're like surprised you like forget it's illegal you're like I work service industry and I was a bouncer and so I would get home from work at like four in the morning and all the door guys

all the bouncers we would stay and while we were cleaning the bar up we'd get drunk and the buses didn't run in Austin back then past two in the morning and Uber wasn't around so I only had one option which was drive

so you know I would drive home and then like I remember when I was like 19 and my buddy, like, just didn't come home to the apartment, back to the apartment one night. And, like, didn't come home for, like, a day. We were scared and what the fuck. And, like, none of the hospitals knew where he was. And so I finally had the bright idea to search his name and the Travis County inmate.

And there it's, there it was, you know, as John Mitchell the second. And I was like, ah, yeah, John Jr. Got to go get John out of. And then I told Thomas's story. We all were like, we're going to pull together the money and we're going to bail our friend out of jail. We're going to do the right thing. And we were all, like, opiate addicts. This is like 2014.

Like we were all like hardcore pillheads and cokeheads. None of us had any money. We were scrounging together like like literally like couch change to get pizzas to split. Anyway, we get to the jail and we're like, okay, it's his first offense. None of us really knew. We knew each other, but like, you know, your men. You don't dig too deep. We were like, okay, first offense.

I'm like Googling on my phone. Like his bill should be like $2,000 and then the bell bondsman will put it up. We just need to put up 10%. And we get to the jail. And the lady's like, oh, yeah, this is his second one. We did, like, she was, I can't really divulge information to the case, but I can tell you that his bond is a 10,000. And so, yeah.

Ooh. They see the percentage of his bill bonds are the, so you're going to need to come up with $2,500. We all walked out of the jail. Like, we didn't even, we didn't say, like, hey, can we talk to John? Like, can we get John on the phone and let him know, hey, your dad's coming. Like, dad's going to figure it out. We were just like, well, we don't have that. So good luck in jail.

bud and then he's like he got out like two or three days later and uh he was like uh we were like man we tried we tried to get you out we we we lied at first i don't know why we were like bro they wouldn't let us let you let you let you let you out and he was like what do you they wouldn't let you bond me out and we were like no man they wouldn't and then eventually we told me were like yeah we couldn't come up with two grand between like six different guys like that it's only joke where it's like how do how do a bunch of guys in their 20s not have eight hundred dollars between them like that was real we just didn't have it to give it whatever the fuck but the other thing too you said he got out in three days it's like i don't know that's like a thousand dollars a day i'm not

gonna do the math on it but you know come on man yeah he was uh he um he um he just like uh uh he got pulled over for drunk driving and then uh immediately uh apparently gave up the story goes like he was so fucked up the cop was like he the story goes cop pulls him over rolls down his window and And my cop was like, oh, you're swerving a little bit. And instead of being like, oh, man, because he was a Papa John's driver and he had his Papa John's thing on his car. Oh, hell yeah. He could have just been like, oh, dude, I'm trying to find this address.

He immediately, apparently, he was like, yeah, I looked at the body cam footage. They showed it to me. I was like, I'm fucked up. I'm drunk. You just get it away. Yeah, like, I was like, dude, you didn't try to be like, oh, man, I was trying to look at my GPS. I'm delivering, like, pizzas late night because he always carried his pizza bag with him everywhere.

Apparently, he was like, yeah, they showed me the box. Body cam footage. My lawyer was just like, yeah, I'm fine. He like literally the cop taps with the window. Drinking a night? Yeah, yeah, yeah, like a lot. Like just like so much. Yeah, yeah.

I'm really sorry, man. And the cop was like, all right, step out, you know? You know how this goes? And he's like, yeah, I'm just, I'm drunk as fuck, man. I'm sorry. It's just like, damn, you didn't even give it the old, like, you didn't even try to lie, like even for a little bit? The best is when, when they, have you been drinking tonight?

Thankfully, no. Thankfully, no Thankfully, no. Thankfully, thank God. And you take a deep, deep exhale there. Yeah, no, I haven't. Thank God. Because I would be really worried right now

if that had been the case. I'd be worried for you, officer, if I did drinking. If I smelled, I'm glad neither of us smells like bread. I love a, when you see, like, the guys, like, the body came where it's like, I can smell liquor on your breath because it's like, when my buddy's, smell like booze it's like it is it's like it's like an unmistakable it's not even like a lick i don't even know if it smells like alcohol it's just like it's just this kind of like rotting

sweaty smell i don't know it's like yeah yeah yeah where i'm like this doesn't smell like alcohol at all now beer you can't get rid of that no about a gum chewing like you know i don't know how many times i'm like i'm going to chew this spearmint uh gum and i'm going to put a zen in now i'm going to be daddy's just going to be a okay and then i'll ask my buddy in the pastor's seat, I'd be like, hey, no, homo, smell my breath. How do my breath smell? He's like, like, 18-course banquets that you just had. Yeah.

Yeah, sometimes you can smell the specific beer that they've been drinking. Like, shyness. You smell like Guinness tonight, actually. Oh, oh, to Guinness. Man of taste, yeah. Is that the champagne of beers I smell on you, having a fancy night, you know? How old I like. Oh, man.

Well, I remember there's a time of my life where I convinced myself that, like, I didn't smell like marijuana. but I definitely smelled like marijuana. Every time I thought to myself, I don't smell that bad. Definitely smelled so bad. That shit reeks now that I don't really smoke anymore. When you realize that your parents had just given up on you having a good life, that's always a nice feeling. It's like, oh, they definitely.

I'm like, wow, how did they never know? I was like, why didn't they trust that friend of mine? It was like, because he reeked of weed 24 hours a day. Every single moment in his life, that kid screamed. I'm high as shit right now. You know, it's like my parents read it because they can see and they can interact with him. and he was high the whole time. So they just,

they clocked him. I was, I was like, man, they're really good at this. It's the same thing with cigarettes where, like,

I didn't smoke for a long time and every now and then I'll have a cigarette or I'll buy a pack and then like literally give it away to a homeless guy after I smoke like three because I don't want to start smoking again. But like, I will,

I'll smell myself. I smoked like almost two packs a day for like a lot. I was like a pack and a half a day guy for a long time. And I was like, like people would be like, I smoke cigarettes. I'm like,

no, I don't. And then I quit. and now I have one It's a whole, the whole house stinks, dude I'm like, did I smell like this for like 15 years? Like, is this? Because I started smoking really young. I was like, is this how I fucking, there's no way.

That I stung like, the car smell, man. The car never gets rid of that smell. Oh, the car, no. I was like, no, it's fine. I cracked the window a little bit, you know? It's fine. I cracked it. You guys can't smell it, so.

I used to roll, I used to smoke cigarettes with the windows rolled up in my Crown Victoria. Like a fucking, literally like a series. killer and I remember like one night I had I didn't I was doing I don't know I was like doing some homework or something and I didn't go out one night so I went to

go pick my roommates up so I was like geeked out on Adderall I hadn't had any beers and I was like yeah I can come pick you guys up and it was like our first like month living together or whatever and I picked them up and I get them all in the car and I was like you guys mind if I smoke and they're like I don't know let me get one and so I'm handing the back

but I've already got mine lit and I'm smoking it and I haven't rolled any of the windows down and uh they're like are you gonna roll the window down and i was like no why and they were like it's just like i know that they had a thought of like who did i just did i move into that who did i just move in with like they were like we're rolling the windows down we're doing it but i was like why would you roll them down you can't the aces you got to listen to the tunes you got to get to smoke in the car it's a whole experience you know what i mean it's an atmosphere it's a me's on scene yeah me yeah yeah uh i was going to ask you Kyle uh uh Since you have kind of made a bit of a name for yourself on the music,

we were talking about albums. We were talking about Smashing Pumpkins. I just know it's probably a really stupid, difficult question to answer, but if you had to rock your top five of all time albums. Top five albums of all time? At the end of the episode, before we do our plugs and sign off. Oh, man. People have been asking me that forever.

ever since I started posting because one of my things that I thought to myself was like once I start making little videos about music I don't want to do numbers you know I wasn't okay like oh this is an out of 10 or whatever I don't fuck it dude I'll tell you albums that these are the ones that you can't really mark like best or worse but it's just like I don't know what my music taste would be if I hadn't encountered these albums because they kind of just shifted things on me uh huh simi's dream just being one uh really I mean the first one that I like really got into was Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club been when I was back in middle school. Very good. And then Simey's Dream opened up like alternative music for me. Uh, dinosaur

juniors, you're living all over me was the first album that I felt like was because my brother turned me on to Siamy's dream. So that was always kind of his album. But you're living all over me was the first album. I showed him as like the younger brother. Yeah. Yeah. Getting that nod of approval is huge. Uh, and that so that's like two. We'll do Mount Rushmore. So I'll do like top four, I guess. Sarton Pepper is Siamese Dream. Fucking. Living all over me.

Living all over me. Yeah. Shit, there's so many fucking albums. I guess like the fourth one would probably be All hail West Texas by the Mountain Goats. That's a good one. I love the mountain goats, man. Especially the early stuff when he's just playing on a boombox

and he's all jacked up on adrenaline. That's a good one. I think I'll probably go, Siamese Dream, pretty hate machine. Lonesome Crowder West Why There Are Mountains Symbols eat guitars And then my last one would probably be

As like an OG Modest Mouse head Probably Long Drive Modest Mouse is my favorite band So yeah Everything pre-2000s Isaac Brock was tapped into Like

He was doing just the perfect amount of Like heroin and PCP And keyboard music music and keyboard games I've told people before, which is like one more and more wild, I guess not wild, but one of my more takes that I like is like, I think like Lonesome Crowded West is in like the American canon in the same way that like Moby Dick is. Blood Meridian. And shit. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like these things that if you're like, if you're trying to understand, uh, the American West really. Yeah. In like the late to the late 90s, you know, early 2000s, this old genre, the turn of the millennium or whatever. Uh, you could sit there and like try to. explain it to people or you could just have them listen to the Lonesome Crowded West and it's like I think you're I think it captures it gives form to

a way that America existed you know it's a uniquely American product because it is like it's it's it's this amazing road trip album mostly because they don't know how to fucking end a song so many other songs just end because they just start cranking the volume down and that's such great road mix exactly yeah yeah And his voice back then is very similar to Billy Corgan's, like these guys that yell a lot in their songs. Well!

At a certain point, they lose the range a little bit. They like wear out their vocal chords. But in the beginning, Billy Corgan and Isaac, they both were able to do this very like sweet sing-songy thing and this very angry young guy voice. They kind of lost it eventually. But like when they were at their absolute peak, they could break your heart and fucking just yell at you at the same. in the same song and that range is just fucking perfect. It's an amazing album. Agreed.

Thomas, what about you? I know wheels on the bus. I know you were like a... Yeah. Off the top of my head, Best of Shaw Day and Sleep's Holy Mountain I'm thinking of

and then also I would do... Off rip, those are good ones. Probably something by Electric Wizard too. But with Electric Wizard, let me think. Let me just go... dope throne um

and then man what's that three yeah I would probably want to do an outlaw country

one two um let me think of what I've been enjoying lately um man I'm thinking

you know what I really like Wayland Jennings but I don't have a specific Wayland Jennings album that I really like um

I'll tell you an album that I've been listening to a lot lately and that's been um no I'm not going to do that one okay let's leave let's leave it at uh at those for now because I because otherwise I'm going to ramble a little bit no worries that's what the podcast maybe whiskey river by Willie um that's a good one and oh man and RXK nephew's new album that just I like that a lot too. I need to listen to that. The one where he's got his face over 50 cents.

Yeah. Oh, man. Well, Kyle, thank you for coming on, man. I really appreciate it. Is there anything that you want to plug? Yeah. So a couple things. I started posting online about a year ago,

primarily to get people to play a fantasy football app. It's called Clubhouse Fantasy Football, K-L-U-B-H-O-U-U-B-H-O-U-U. us e.g. The whole idea was just to make a game where it's easier to trade and do, uh, it's based off a fucking Mario card. The better you're doing, the harder it is. The worst you're doing, the easier it is. If you're interested in fantasy sports at all, please sign up. Uh, we're trying to get, uh, I think we got 240 spots. We have about 500 people signed up to play. So if you want to play, just fucking DM me. Um, but, uh, because of that, uh,

because of that, uh, I started making short form videos and then I started posting it under, uh, the name Smiling Strange because that was, uh, my Instagram. Instagram account at the time because I have a band called Smiling Strange, which is my own personal music project, but no one gave a shit about any of my music. I get it. It's weird. They do like hearing me walk around my neighborhood in Portland, Oregon and talk about music for about 60 seconds. Never, never more than 60 seconds I've learned. But yeah, check me out on Instagram, TikTok, Smiling Strange. I have my own podcast called a Hey Smiling Strange. I mostly just try to find people that I think would be interesting to talk to, comedians,

Mostly musicians, just people involved in a lot of like DIY projects. But, you know, new episode comes out every week. But yeah, check that out. And I don't know. I think that's it for plugs. Oh, yeah. Oh, let me to plug one more thing. My buddy's band, How Strange It Is, has a new album coming out this next month on Disposable America tapes.

I think that's like a Boston label or whatever. But it's a really good album. It's the theme song to my fucking podcast. and I've been listening to them play forever because my wife plays guitar and the band. But go check out how strange it is. Go check out their new album. Go listen to that shit.

Buy tickets to see me. Thank you for coming on, Kyle. Also, I appreciate it. Oh, yeah. Nice to meet you. Nice to talk for a while. Hell yeah. Thanks to have me, guys.

Jake, what you got going on? Oh, it's just a Florida show. If you haven't bought tickets yet, please buy tickets to that. And it was cool as fuck to chat music with you, Kyle. Thanks for coming on. And everybody give him a follow. What's your, the IG handle?

Is it just smiling strange? It's just smiling strange. I changed all my, uh, I used to have an online fucking name. I used to go by Costco online because everybody loves Costco. I still play. It's like my gamer tag whenever I play Super Smash Bros. 64. Uh, and shit like that. Uh, but now everything just says smiling strange because I'm trying to, I'm, I'm branding.

I'm like a brand guy now, I guess. Oh, brand guy. One of these days I'll make some money off this. I've made nothing off it so far. But one day I will. I think. I don't know. I don't know how it works. We'll get there.

Me neither. All right. Thank you guys. Peace. Thanks, y'all.