So True with Caleb Hearon - Tara Raghuveer Returns

Episode Date: July 9, 2026

Welcome! This week’s guest is the brilliant Tara Raghuveer! Tara and Caleb talk dance floor etiquette, building empires, splitting time between New York and Kansas City, tenants rights, and much more! Join our Substack for ad free full episodes, early access to merch, our community chat, and more! https://calebsaysthings.substack.com/ Follow Tara! @taraghuveer Follow the show! @sooootruepod Follow Caleb! @calebsaysthings Produced by Chance Nichols @chanceisloud Visit https://Quince.com/sotrue for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too. Go to https://Audible.com/headswilrollseries to start listening today. So True with Caleb Hearon is edited and engineered by Nicole Lyons. Our social media manager is Virginia Muller. All episodes are filmed in The So Trudio at Legitimate Business World Headquarters in Brooklyn, New York. A Wave series. https://wavesportsandentertainment.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wave. Tell me what you're comfortable telling me about your heart and love and dating. Because you're new to New York. I'm new. You're spending more time in New York right now. You've not left Kansas City. You're much like me. You're splitting time.

I'm splitting time. Which is something, by the way, I don't have the financial means to do. I love it. I'll just say it. We're splitting time in different ways. Right. Oh, Tar, what's going on with you? What's going on with me?

It's a kind of gloomy Monday. It is. just in Chinatown. I almost canceled. You almost canceled. Gloomy is hard for me. I have three things I'm supposed to do today, and they all almost got canceled.

You don't like seeing your friends when you're gloomy? I love seeing my friends. I sometimes don't know how to be charming when it's gloomy. You're charming 100% of the time. What are you talking about? You've fallen right into my trap, sweetheart. Okay. Starting off on the right foot.

If you have any criticisms of me, let's get them out at the top. I don't want them to sneak in during the episode. Okay. If there's anything you want to take me to the mad about, major slum lord. Let's start there. Yes. I'm not a landlord yet, but when I am, my tenants are in trouble.

Yeah. It's happening. Well, because I want to maximize profit. Of course you do. And I don't care who gets hurt along the way. These studios keep getting nicer and nicer. Does that make sense? They keep getting paid less and less.

Right. I'm actually taking money away. I keep seeing you build this empire. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I'm taking money away from the staff. I am building my empire on the backs of hardworking people. Yeah.

Which is the American dream, by the way. It's what they've all done to get. get to the top. I grew up with nothing. I earned this. Sure. What's not clicking? Bootstraps. I see them all over you. You're wrapped in them. I have bootstraps everywhere. Yeah. Oh, no, no, no. I'm going to be ethical. I do like to text you though sometimes and just test the limits and see what I can get away with. Yeah, true. You're kind of testy in the text messages every once in a while. Every once in a while. I go, hey, this family on my box getting evicted. Could I buy that building ethically? Kidding. Guys, I'm kidding. I don't do that. What's your perspective? You know, more

people than you would expect hit me up for this kind of moral question every once in a while. I don't know how I became anointed as like everyone's like most moral friend. It's certainly not true. But I get hit with questions about this, that, and the other thing. Someone trying to secure some kind of unethical bag. Should I do it? And I'm literally always my answer is like, get your bag, sweetie. And people sort of know that they're coming to me and they're going to get that. But I would never, yeah, there are very few things. I think I would tell a friend, you cannot do that. Because ultimately, the problems with the system, you know?

I think you have a really good perspective. I think you are one of my, you're one of my North Stars, not because I think you're like, I think it's because of that. I think because you have a really clear barometer for like, you're not doing the like, look, there's a not small enough number of leftists that I am friends with and interact with in the world that are, like, you're not a good enough leftist if you don't prescribe to their every single definition of every single word and issue, and they want to, like, rake each other over the coals about it.

And you don't participate in that, and I don't participate in that. So I know when I come to you, you're going to give it to me straight. And if I got a no from you on a question, if I was like, hey, this thing came up, should I do it? And you said, no, I would really know. Like, that is not cool. Do you know what I mean? Totally. Totally. Purity is boring and incorrect and incompatible with living life.

And also, yeah, if you want people to take your opinion seriously, I feel like you can't always be, in the, you know, this is the only right way zone. You have to be, you have to like take someone's information in and give them feedback related to that situation. My hope is that people would actually take me seriously. If you actually were coming to me being like, this family down the street, they're getting evicted, I want to buy the building, they're also loud as hell.

I need them out of my space, whatever. I might be like, Caleb. That's so mean. And I would hope that you would take me seriously on that front, you know. I would. What are we going to do about these leftists, Tara? What are we going to do about these leftists? You call me in on a Monday to answer this question.

I do feel, I don't know if you feel this or not, but I feel that the people that are the most like that, capital L, capital T, like the most, like prescriptive, annoying, like unproductive, loud and hateful left people, they're also the ones doing the least. Yeah, almost every time. And I'm like, how do you not see this? Yeah, all the time, all the time.

I mean, I think we're in a moment where things are changing for the better. I mean, here we are sitting in New York City, Mamdanistan. There's, like, a lot of people of the left who have figured out how to get really big stuff done. And I think they're demonstrating that there could be another way. And I think I'm clocking people paying attention to that and moving in better directions than in the past. There's a little bit less infighting, a little bit less kind of keyboard warrior. It might just be that everyone got like locked out of their Twitter accounts by, you know, two-factor authentication or something. That's what happened to me.

Yeah, you're not on there anymore. Yeah, that's what happened to me. I can't see anything that's happening on Twitter. I can't tweet at all. So, you know, maybe people like me are just getting locked out of the kind of petty discourse. But I do think things are on the up. I think so. I'm seeing less.

The number is still not small enough for me. I'd like it to be as close to zero as possible of the kind of sentiments that annoy me. It's not my job to educate you being a big one. I have never fucked with that. I do not like that at all. Right. I think that is such a losing behavior. But yeah, there's less and less of it, and I feel excited by that.

Yeah, same. I think Mom Donnie has done a really good job of sticking to the fucking message. Sticking to the message and also he sees his job and I think good organizers and public people in general see their job as educating people. Actually, it's like being curious and educating people. That might be the whole point. And, you know, we've talked about this at length, but it's like you got to kind of a sort of, that most people are good and I think you and I are people who assume that most people actually share our values and our views on the world, but you've got to approach people with curiosity

and bring them in to your vision a little bit if you want to win. And I think that's the main thing, maybe the big evolution since we last sat and had a conversation like this is like, I think now that the left has started to taste a little bit of what winning tastes like, people are like, I want some more of that actually. And thank God. It's about time. Let's go. Let's win. That's the point. Yeah. And also, not just that most people should agree or do agree with our big points, but like really trying to delineate between the big points and the small points.

And being like, what really matters here? Like, do you need to be exactly like me? Do you need to talk the way I talk about everything? Do you need to, like, I've said many times, like, I don't really care if someone's like, yeah, I don't care if I get married. Like, I'm down with that. I'm legitimately cool with that. I'm like, rock on. I think we just need to, like, we need to get really serious about winning where we can win and going, that actually is a victory. Right.

That's a person who otherwise would be saying shouldn't be able to get married. It's not like the other version of them is that they don't say anything bad. It's like, no, we need to like win where we can win, get excited about the things we have in common and like, yeah, make it fun. I've been calling it inviting people to the party. Inviting people to the party. Everyone's invited to the party. Sure. We're having more fun over here.

Yeah. Our view of the world is way more fun. Yeah. It's more fun to hang out with like all the, like, I think about Casey Tenants all the time. And I go, all these neighbors that I know now that would have never been brought into my life. Yeah. Because you organized me are like, this is a more fun way to live. Yeah.

Not being racist and fucking like, uh, classist and like trying to always get one over on somebody and see how you can get ahead the most and how you can like isolate yourself from your community in the most like extreme ways possible. Not doing that stuff is the more fun way to be. And I do think the right is actually for a long time. been much more inviting to the party. I mean, like, every mofo is invited to a party on the right. They're not so concerned with consistency of belief, with sort of coherence and ideology. They're really just concerned with having a ton of people at the party. Winning. Winning. They're concerned with winning, first and foremost. And there's a lot of lessons, I think, to take from that. And frankly, how successful the rights project has been because they're not

purists and they're not alienating or sort of self-marginalizing or whatever. And I think the left could definitely take some notes on the front of like, let's all come to the party. You're all invited to the party. And, you know, coherence is important. And there's a limit on what we can learn from the right, of course, because they're willing to sacrifice a lot of values and people along the way. But I feel optimistic right now. I do too. I have, I feel optimistic for a while. Yeah. But it's always kind of hard to tell. It makes me feel better when you say you're optimistic because ultimately, I have come into a really comfy situation.

As we said, you're on your way to an empire. So I acknowledge that and I sometimes think like, oh, is my... Let's use some active language, Caleb. I have come into a company situation. You're exploiting labor. Exploited the labor of many people in order to build

my personal empire. I look forward to continuing it. But no, I sometimes think like, oh, is my optimism? just based on the fact that I have like a really charmed life. And I like to think no. I think maybe there's a part of it. There's a part of it. But you're in the world enough.

You're paying enough attention. I think you have a broad enough life where you know people who are really, you know a lot of people who are still really struggling. And you're in touch with a broader community than just your blessed and charmed community. As blessed and charmed as it is. Hey, blessed and charmed community. Hey, blessed and charmed. community. No, that's the question. Certainly

that because I certainly see times that I feel less stressed about things that I'm like, oh, that's because I have X, Y, and Z going on. I know that my personal optimism is certainly affected by the fact that I have, like, financial security and things like that. I can go to the doctor without worrying too much about it. Like, those things are

like huge gifts. I wonder if my, like, broader political optimism is based in something real or if it's based in my personal. And I, most of the time, I'm like, no, I think it's based in, like, real things that are happening. Mom, Donnie, Dany being one of them that I'm like, that feels insane to me. Well, I also think optimism, this has been coming up a lot recently because there was this

Jalen Brunson quote about imagining the worst case scenario, you can imagine the worst case scenario, but you have to do something about it. And people on the left were freaking out because they were like, oh my God, it's like Antonio Gramsci, this Italian communist. And Gramsci talked about pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will. And one of the ways I think about this in my organizing is like, we kind of have a choice between despair or delusion and optimism in times such as these can feel delusional and it is in a way it's a little bit delusional but the alternative is despair and what happens when you're despairing is you give up you shut down you close off you self-alienate you marginalize you and your community from

any desire to win or to find a better path forward so I kind of think we don't have another choice but to be optimistic. And then materially, I think there's some good, there's some good stuff happening right now that is, that's reason for optimism, even as there's, of course, like mountains of terrible shit all the time. Yeah, we know about the terrible shit. What's making you feel optimistic?

Ooh, what's making me feel optimistic? You know, I was remembering the first pod that we did. Thank you for having me back. Yeah. And we had just launched rent strikes, our first rent strikes in Casey Tennant's history. Which I don't agree with. Yeah, which you don't agree with.

As an aspiring slum lord. Yeah, you made an agreement, yeah. Yeah. We had just launched our first two rent strikes at a building downtown and a building in Independence, Missouri. And that building in independence, they stayed on strike for eight months. And they withheld $300,000 over the course of that eight months. It was a shitty building. There had been a lot of horrific things that had happened over time.

They withheld all of that rent. and then finally got to the bargaining table with their landlord in June of last year, and we won rent reductions, two-year leases, a schedule for major repairs, and they got to keep every cent of that money that they withheld. Which is life-changing. Which is life-changing. And that was just the beginning. So what's giving me optimism right now, what's giving me hope is, like,

that was the beginning of a whole new era for the tenant movement, and I'm not being dramatic in saying that. we're getting serious about our economic power, meaning tenants rent, right? The landlord can't pay their mortgage without our rent. So the theory is really similar to workers on the job. The boss needs your labor. That's how the whole economy functions. So we've gotten really serious about tenant economic power in the last couple years, and there's a lot of reasons. We should all be optimistic about that, because once we figure out how to flex that and flex that more and bigger and all over the place, it could be game over for these slumlords like you.

Yeah, like me and what I'm doing to my tenants. Also, I do want to say for anyone listening that isn't as familiar with all of this, like, there are probably a not insignificant number of people that listen to the podcast that are, I would say, not completely, like, organized or fully understand all of this, like what we're talking about. When we say that people are going on rent strike, these conditions are not like, we wanted a new AC and they wouldn't put it in. It's like, these are like unsafe, unfriend.

fair, like completely objectionable living situations that are, like, I just, I sometimes think that maybe people don't understand, like, they hear strike and they think, like, oh, you just didn't want to pay your rent because your landlord wouldn't do something you wanted. And it's like, no, this is actually like, bare minimum. People are extremely unsafe. Like, it needs to happen. It's, the conditions are really terrible. I mean, just two weeks ago, I was back home in Kansas City and leading negotiations with a union that I've been organizing with for a couple years, the North lawn tenant union in the historic northeast. And these buildings are just horrible. As we were sitting at the bargaining table, two of the women at the table with me had lost their electrical the day before.

No electricity in their home. In Kansas City, Missouri, United States of America in 2026. No electricity. They had to stay in a hotel who's paying for the hotel, the tenant union. But at that moment, we were at the table with the landlord. There's sewage backed up in the basement. There's all sorts of mold and critters and pests. There's no trash. There's no way to get mail delivered. There's a lot of immigrants in that building who can't get their visa documentation sent to the place that they live. I mean, it's really bad. And you're right. I think a lot of people in the sort of more normal sections of the rental market or whatever, they're not, they're not accustomed to this kind of treatment. And then there's a whole other swath of people who are not only accustomed to it. They're

sort of like numb to it. This is just what life is like if you if you live under a certain income in a certain community. So the conditions are bad and we don't we don't take we don't take any action lightly whether it's a rent strike or something else. We're not doing it for fun or for shits and giggles. We're doing it because our people's lives depend on depends on us taking that kind of action. Yeah. Yeah it's like also yeah I think sometimes people don't understand the full scope of what these landlords and rental companies are comfortable doing to people, particularly people they think they can get away with it. Like, like immigrant communities and like very poor neighborhoods where they're like,

oh, well, no one's really paying attention to what's going on over here. I really think it's an active choice that they're like, oh, no one's going to do anything about this. These people don't speak English. They're not organized. And then when the tenant union comes in and they are organized, I think it's a shock and they think they can still get away with it. It's really fun when they don't.

It's really fun when they don't. I do love that. But the psychology of some of these landlords is super interesting. Now I've been at the bargaining table with many landlords over the course of the last several years in particular. And it's really interesting. This guy just a couple weeks ago, he pulled up. He flew in from Chicago, pulled up. We were standing outside the building.

And first thing he said to me is he was like, I'm not carrying. You can frisk me. I'm not carrying any weapons. And I was like, bro, we invited you to a meeting. We sent you the full list of. attendees. We sent you an agenda in advance. We send, we go out of our way to really demonstrate we're coming in good faith and we want to end with some kind of agreement that's better for the tenants, of course, also better for all parties involved. Your asset is crumbling. The neighbors are

complaining. The city's involved. The tenant union is going to have to escalate if you don't fix your shit. So that's sort of our perspective. And it's super interesting to encounter someone in this immediate defensive posture, he knows he's not acting right. You know, he knows he's getting one over on people. So he comes expecting to be like attacked, right? So that's the beginning. And then we sit down and he starts kind of waxing poetic about his values and what's right and wrong.

He identifies as religious. He's mostly in the nursing home business, bad sign, by the way. Yeah, the exact kind of temperament. That's who you want in the nursing home business. I mean, it's like, and it's the same in every, in every little get rich quick scheme. It's like you're going to own a couple nursing homes outside of Chicago, a couple shitty apartment buildings in Kansas City. And that's how you get your, you're nut or whatever. But like, it's so interesting to encounter this psychology up close because he'll spill all these beans.

He'll confess all of this about his values and how he thinks about his business and whatnot. And then we'll get into the negotiation. Then when it comes time to get this guy to sign a document that basically just has him committing. to do the bare minimum for his tenants, he'll freak out. I saw the blood leave this man's face as he realized we had walked him down a path that we had walked him down. And so I, you know, my role as the negotiator in that moment is to kind of like turn up the heat, like raise the stakes in the moment where we need his signature. So I reference back to his values and his religion and the way he wants to run his business. And then all of a sudden he's like, well, now it's

getting personal and, you know, this is not cool. You can't, this isn't good faith. anymore. And I'm like, buddy, you told me this about yourself. Yeah. But this is so many of them is like they think they're very happy living miles and miles away from people that they're that they're exploiting. And it's important for us to remember when we're encountering them that they too want to think of themselves as good people. Right. And that's critical in a negotiation is you've got to see that in someone and then help call them into that as painful as the process can be for that man. Yeah, I can't tell what's worse. When someone,

like, it's certainly more rare when someone unabashedly is like, I do not care about being a good person. This is about profit and you need to get comfortable with that. When it's that or when it's, no, I think I'm a good person and it's okay what I'm doing. I can't tell what would be more distressing to me as like a human being to sit across from because both are so scary to me. I think I'm a good person and what I'm doing is okay certainly seems more common. I think most people doing bad think that they are good and they have their reasons and their

just like, well, that is so scary. Like, look at the way people are living and you own this thing. Like, that's crazy. Yeah. I don't know what makes me more. Yeah, I don't know what upsets me more. They're both troubling. They're both troubling. The other, the other version is like, I think people, you know, execs at these big firms that are buying up huge chunks of the market or whatever, they're so separate. They're so separate. They've obscured their ownership and their connection to the property so much that I think they've convinced themselves they're not even connected to what's going on on the ground. It's just, it's like numbers in a spreadsheet type stuff. And, yeah, I think that's the only way you could sleep at night is by really separating yourself.

But both, any way you slice it, it's bad. It's extractive. It's sad. I don't know how people, I don't know how people can like deal with themselves, look at themselves when they're involved in business like that. Yeah. Yeah, I don't either. that's why I don't think about it when I'm doing it Yeah, exactly, exactly. You've removed yourself, it's numbers on a spreadsheet. Yes. I actually tell these guys sometimes, I say,

you are a number on a spreadsheet. Right. I say that when I walk in the, just to remind everyone. Who's number one? On the spreadsheet, they're all across. It's basically the spreadsheet is set up to where at the very top, like A1 is me. Sure, of course.

And then there's just money signs and smiley faces on either side. Uh-huh. And then about 70 cells down, they are all equal on a plane. And it's like sad faces and like that kind of stuff. Sure. Okay. That's the spreadsheet.

And that's how the empire is built everyone. Pay attention. That's the technical spreadsheet that runs the business. You want to get like Caleb, build yourself a spreadsheet like this. You should start doing like get rich quick instructional videos or something. Transform the pod. I'm doing something so much more annoying, which is I'm privately talking to every podcaster I know about why they're not doing running their business correctly. I'm privately going, you're not paying your people enough.

This is embarrassing. There you go. Okay, King. So I'm actually doing something way worse. raising the bar in the podcasting industry. We love it. God, no one listens. We love it, though. We love it. That's my influence, by the way.

That is not your influence. Anything good you're doing, I'm just going to be like, that's my influence. That's my influence. I organized him on a dance floor years ago. That's my, you know, that's my boy. You have a lot of influence in my life. You do have a lot of influence in my life.

What do you think of me? Good and bad. What do I think of me? You go first and then I'll do you. Okay, here's what I think of you. A couple weeks ago. Tara. A couple weeks ago.

Don't make it time specific. A couple weeks ago, you called me on this podcast. Yeah. You had Serenian on, you called me on this podcast. You accused me of not falling through on a plan with you. Which one's my camera? And then I corrected the record, and you called me all sorts of names. You called me a charlatan.

Right. You called me a fake. In my defense, you're often... You called me a coniving brown vixen. It got racial. Caniving brown vixen? No, is my nickname for you. In fairness, that's something sweet we agreed upon a long time ago.

I didn't sign anything. I didn't agree to anything. Okay, what do I think of you? So I think, I mean, basically, I think you're fake as shit based on that interaction. Okay. Beyond that, though, I mean. Nicole caught all this. I think you're, I think you're a good friend.

I think you are, I think you're really thoughtful about where you're heading in in life. and you're ambitious, which is the thing I think is most fascinating about you. You're not apologizing for wanting to do the things you want to do, for having a big, cool, interesting life, for wanting your life to get bigger. Yeah, I love that you're kind of equal parts ambitious and thoughtful and deliberate about each step. And by now I feel like we've known each other long enough that I've seen you sort of,

your life has gotten bigger and bigger, and you're no less thoughtful, no less generous. So I mostly think good things about you, which is a little bit of a boring take to have on your podcast. Do you think, well, no, this actually did lead to something interesting, though. Do you think that, other than just you saying something sweet to me, which is nice, do you think that ambition and thoughtfulness are usually decoupled? Do you think those things are not typically together?

I think the world is not set up such that most people are able to be deeply thoughtful while also gunning for something, hustling for the next thing that they're going to achieve. And I think often, you know, people like sell out or get swept up in the life that they want and they lose sight of some of the things that matter to them or the people that matter to them. But I think you've seen that from a million miles away. And as your star has risen, you've been really thoughtful about not letting that happen to you. And, you know, one of the main things I've been thinking about related to you recently is I'm like, my king is taking care of himself right now.

Hello? 75 Caleb. How about have I not been checking in to be like, how's it going? You've checked in on 75, Caleb in a way that feels mostly loving, borderline hateful. What's the hate? Sometimes your accountability can feel like a knife. Oh my God. Comedy royalty, Kate McKinnon, returns as Queen Mortuana in Headsville Roll.

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Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash showtru for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash so true. No, I'm kidding. You're one of the most loving people I know. Oh my God. Okay. You're so good.

Say that straight to camera. You're so good at loving people. You really take care of everybody in your life. I'm shocked at the capacity that you have for love. You're so sweet. You're obsessed with power and women. in a way that I think is so inspiring. Thank you so much.

I love how much you want to defeat. I love how much you want to win, especially for people that you don't have to love as much as you do. It would be very easy for you to not care as much as you do about the things you care about, and I'm so grateful that you do and are because without you, I don't think I would be,

I think I would have stayed disengaged had I not become friends with you. I think I would have just stayed like where I was, which is like I donated a little bit of money every once in a while to a couple of things I believed in. I voted the way that I thought was correct. But really, after like 2016 Bernie situation, I really feel like I was not completely disengaged,

but I certainly was not engaged at the level that I am now, and that really changed when I met you. I think you have fundamentally changed my life. And hopefully, if there's any reason for me to be doing this job where I fucking talk every hour, every week for an hour about myself and whoever I'm with, if there's any good that comes from it, I hope that maybe it helps other people. see the world the way that we see it.

You know, that's so sweet. Thank you for saying all of that. You're like, and you're a conniving Brown Vixen. Yes. That underlies. That underlies everything. That sweet nickname underlies at all. But no, the thing that's really cool actually is because we're friends,

there's like a lot more and different kinds of people who are getting involved in the tenant movement than ever before. I told you that like I was at an event in Chinatown a couple weeks ago ago and on my way out the door, this person stopped me and was like, I went to union school last summer. Union school is this like big virtual training that we do to teach people how to organize their building and across portfolios. And I was like, wow, that's awesome. How did you hear about it? And the guy was like, I follow Caleb on Instagram. And I was like, that's my guy, bringing people in. Inviting people to the party. Inviting people to the party. The first time in years

that I felt that my being on Instagram was worth a single thing. Yeah. I'm I think it's nice. I think my job is a lot easier when I can view it as like an opportunity to, like, share my view of the world and hopefully, like, make people laugh and make people feel better about everything that's going on. And less like, I want more followers and more money. You know, that part makes me really ill. So it's nice to have maybe even, even if it's a false perspective, it's nice to have it, you know? The accountability is a knife line is really still sitting with me. So if you're going to just put that into the world.

One thing I do need to hold you accountable to is I've been wanting you to write something about artificial intelligence. Yeah, artificial intelligence. And you have a lot of thoughts on AI, and I sort of don't understand why you haven't taken my call to write something yet. I have been creatively for about seven or eight months in a space that I could only describe as completely confused. I do not know what I want. I do not know what I'm doing creatively. Uh-huh. I don't know what I view this podcast as.

I don't necessarily view it as a creative endeavor on my end. You don't think we're making something right now? We are making something right now, certainly. We're always making something. Sure. But I don't view it as maybe like, I don't know, I view it as a separate thing. It feels like its own separate thing that I love and have a lot of appreciation for. And I'm really grateful for it.

I've learned a ton from it. Like, I love this podcast. But I don't view it as the same as writing or performing or the other things that I do creatively. And I can't even fully describe what I think the difference is. However, I do think I should write something. I just saw before we started recording

that Google and Google is giving a 24-75 million dollars to do like AI. They're being really stealth about the way they're describing it. They're like tools to help filmmakers. And so I'm like, that's a new thing. Not a new thing. That's a thing they're doing a lot with this AI stuff right now is they're trying to obscure it and being like,

well, we're not going to use it to generate the images on the screen. we're only using it to help filmmakers storyboard. And it's like, right, well, that's someone's job that just got lost. And that's one's brain and their whole thought process. And also, that becomes the image on the screen. Right. And also, when you storyboard with a theft technology, which is what generative AI is, it's a theft technology. All it can do inherently and definitionally is steal from reference images that were made by humans,

then theft is in the DNA and the foundation of your project. Regardless of if you generated the background of the fucking scene with genera, of AI. Theft is in the DNA of your project and it should make you fucking sick. It doesn't make them sick

they don't care. But I really, really, really don't understand why so many, like A24 is a great example of why fucking do it. What I need you to do is take those words you just said,

write it up and put it out. And the reason I keep pushing you on this is it has to do with what we were saying about the left before where the left can be like purist and exclusionary and whatever. The left can also be lazy.

And I've been feeling this about... Put your hands up. Yeah, put your hands up. The lazy left is present and accounted for. Everybody makes some noise. The lazy left is in the house.

My whole team is the lazy left. The lazy left, one, the lazy left. Two, the lazy left three. The spreadsheet is called the lazy left. The lazy left. And A1 is you, honey. Yeah, I only employ the lazy left and it starts at the top. Right, and A1 is you, and A1 is you.

But I think the left can be a little lazy about topics like AI. where there's such a knee-jerk like fuck AI, it all sucks, you know, anyone's cooked who's using chat GPT and whatever. And while I might agree with some of those sentiments, I am a little bit like there's some irony to me in us having that kind of view that's fundamentally about protecting our cognition. Right.

But then not engaging our cognition to actually have a grounded, interesting, nuanced critique. that's engaging with like the reality of what's unfolding around us. So this is why I'm pushing you. This is why I'm asking you, I'm inviting you to abandon the lazy left, maybe just for an afternoon. That's my family. And write up some of your ideas about AI.

Because I think you have such a unique perspective as someone who, yeah, whose life is the way it is. You create things for a living. You make people laugh for a living. You have something to offer the world that only a human can offer. and I think you're seeing things happen in the industry that you're also part of that people need to hear about. Yeah, you and I have talked to a lot about this

in the real world off these mics about how ironic it is that people are, you said a little bit about it, but that people are basically like the defense, the criticism of AI is that it's going to destroy our ability to think critically and put ideas together on our own and use our brains for what they were intended to do. and then so many people criticizing AI are just like,

fuck it wholesale. There's no reason to step out my argument. There's no reason to make the case because it's just bad and it's labeled bad and we shouldn't do it. And that inherently is a thoughtless, uncritical, uninteresting condemnation of the thing. Right.

Yeah, I do think that's interesting and I do have thoughtful things to say about it. I just, I get so... This more than most things right now, there are plenty of other things that make me feel this way, but the AI conversation more than most things right now, when I sit with it for too long, I get so sad and upset.

And like I'm just like, in a way that I'm like, it actually destroys my day. Like I'm unable to have the rest of my day. You're like you ruined my day just now. No, you haven't, but it could. Like I really could sit and think about it and just go like, what are we doing? I mean, I feel this way about so many things.

I feel this way about rich people that don't want to share their money. I feel this way about, of course, the AI stuff. I feel this way about, you know, like more obvious things that would feel like honestly stupid to even say out loud because it's so obvious. But I'm just like these things

and I'm just like, why? Why do we have to live this way? The AI shit, I'm just like, for what? Why do you need $75 million from Google A-24? Aren't you doing very well? Must you do this? Wouldn't it be way cooler? That's the thing.

No one's cool. No one's cool. And as you've often said, shit is cool because you do it, because you make it cool, whatever. Like, you know, my role as an organizer in this moment is to be like, instead of despair, Caleb, why don't we choose the delusion

that something could be better and that you might have a role to play and making something better? Did you just pout? At my camera. At your camera. Caleb Cam is a really important camera on the show. Is this my camp?

Yeah, Tar Cam. I should have been pouting there when you called me all those racist names. You can pout at Taram. Anytime I have to say something racist, you are allowed to pout at Tar Cam. Thank you so much for that permission. Yeah, you're welcome.

I'm a benevolent racist. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's what people are. were saying benevolent racist slum lord empire builder Caleb we should yeah we right there we should do like a freeze frame and like hearts like an eye love Lucy kind of like at that description of me yeah just edit all those nice things I said about you before when you're like what do you think of me cut all of that cut all of that

I think that be beautiful yeah cut all what's going on in your love life in my love life enough of this convenient organizing talk what's going on in your love you want me to talk my love life on the pot tell me what you're comfortable telling me about your heart and in love and dating. Because you're new to New York. I'm new. You're spending more time in New York right now. You've not left Kansas City.

You're much like me. You're splitting time. I'm splitting time. But you're... Which is something, by the way, I don't have the financial means to do. Yeah. Right.

I'll just say it. We're splitting time in different ways. Right. We're splitting time in different ways. I have a sublet in Crown Heights where the drinking water is not safe for me. Yeah. It's not safe for me.

So you and I, yeah, our lifestyles are so similar in some ways. And then so different. in other ways. Completely. And I accept any knowledge, but I will say part of both of our, like, attraction to New York at the time we got attracted to it.

Yeah. There are many things. Like, there were work reasons for both of us. There were whatever. But one big part was, like, my, I do not think the love of my life is where I've been spending most of my time and I need to switch it up. Yeah.

Yeah. My love life, I mean, it's a good question. You're actually the only person I would ever talk to about this in this kind of format. So I'm a little, like, flustered. I want love in my life. I'm a big romantic. I want big love, nothing less.

Yeah, Kansas City was hard for that. I would say it's impossible. It's near impossible. People sometimes are like, it can't be impossible. What are you talking about? And I'm like, no, no, no. Like statistically, there are just not that many people of a relatively age-appropriate range. in our worlds in any way.

Just when you get down to it, it's like there's like three people to date and the whole city and like, I went out with all of them. And seven years later, here I am. On July 16th, the Hawk lands on Netflix. From the mind of Will Ferrell. Oh, mama. I'm back. Comes a new original series.

Get ready, get ready. That's it. Did I stutter? When an iconic pro golfer. Lonnie. Parkin! takes one last swing at greatness. You were a big shot golfer. I still am a big shot golfer.

No one. Dad, I'm the Hawk now. Will stand in his way. That's how it's done. The Hawk, only on Netflix, July 16th. Yeah, so I'm open. I'm looking. I really like dating is the thing.

Yeah, I really like dating. I find people fascinating. I love to talk to people whose lives are completely different from mine. I have a lot of fun on dates. You and I have talked about, though, the struggle of being sort of conversational top. And that's tough on a date.

On a date with like a straight man. Yeah. If you're a good talker, which you're like a better talker than me, so perhaps I'm not like showing my strongest suit here, but like relative to a lot of like straight men I'm out with sometimes. Yeah, it's tough. Like sometimes you can just like run some circles around someone.

I can entertain myself for hours. and then I come out of it and I'm like what was that even? And I could tee you up. That's the other thing is I can help you even be good at it. You're being boring. I can be like, I can, I know how to orchestrate the evening

to where it almost, I can fool myself into thinking that you were a fun person to talk to. Totally. And that's not something I want to do. I want to be like taken by surprise and like matched. Yep, yep.

But yeah, it's fucking hard. It's hard. I went on a date the other night with a guy who I was certain was not into it. Like, I was like, he can't be into it. He's being so boring.

He must be, waiting for this date to end. Sure. And I was like, that seems impossible to me, but it has to be his truth. And then after we, so as soon as I can get the check, I get the check, I pay, gentlemen.

And we leave. And then he initiates like a pretty serious makeout with me. Really? After we leave. And it was hot and I was really into it, of course. But I was like, wow. So something is happening where you thought this went so well that we should do a serious makeout on the street.

Hot, love it. But we need to take that energy. and turn it into five questions for me on the day. At least, minimum, minimum five. Minimum five. At least five good questions on the day. Minimum five. But I think the thing I'm getting from that story is like,

you rock this man's world. I know, but I don't want to. How is he going to, how could he find a question when you're in the middle of a dazzling performance, as you always are? Tara, trust, I have learned to leave space. Yeah. Because that was the other thing is I used to just like,

fucking, like, I'd be like, oh, I would feel successful. if I was able to do that. Yeah. And then somewhere in my mid-20s, I was like, you are doing yourself a disservice. You need to, like, give people real opportunities to rise to the occasion. Totally.

Because I want to be wowed. I want to be rocked. It's going to take a lot to wow someone like you and to surprise someone like you. And I don't know that you're going to find that in, like, a 25-year-old package. Let's get into it. Let's get into it.

A lot of 45-year-old gay men who are interested in dating someone 14 years younger than them, they're not looking for a fat guy. They're looking for a twink. Okay. And so I'm just saying, and I'm not, I am not making myself the victim. I have a wonderful, beautiful sex and dating and love life, okay?

Gorge. I love being fat. Everything's cool. I have gotten a little less fat recently. That was mostly an accident and a mistake. There have been no shots involved. A surgeon has not been spoken with. You're on the record.

No shots. I'm not doing Ozempic. You're not doing it. I'm not a quitter. What, can I ask? What happened? We'll leave it. But we'll at least leave in that I was kidding.

That I was kidding. I've got some friends on Osympic and they have really legitimate reasons to be there. For sure. Wait. So can I ask, why have you accidentally lost weight recently? Well, a lot of things have happened. Basically, I moved to New York. Yeah, walking. Walking. Walking.

You're in a calorie deficit constantly. Well, no. No. Because you wouldn't believe the amount of calories I can eat. But I am walking biking all the time. Yeah. And then what happened was last year, I was filming something like almost every day of the year. Right.

And so I wasn't eating after like 10 p.m. because I had to be asleep because I had a 4 a.m. pickup. Sure. So it was this weird thing with my schedule where I was like, my stomach can't be upset because I only have access to a porta potty on set with like the crew. Yeah. I'm not doing that. So I need to be like my stomach needs to be not upset.

And I also am not up late to be having late night food. Yeah. Those things happened. All in all resulted in me losing. Although I will say I just did Seth Myers and I for some reason looked at some of the comments, which is something I have gotten so much better about, but I briefly fell back down to Earth. And people, their comments were mixed.

The facial hair makes him look old and like a peto. The facial hair makes him look handsome and attractive. He looks like he's gained 100 pounds. He looks like he's lost 100 pounds. Gained 100 pounds is crazy. That's mean. That's mean and incorrect. I, for one, thought the facial hair was really cute.

You think so? I thought it like, well, you have a nice tan right now. And I thought it was sort of like grisly. It was giving a little bit like 45-year-old men. I'm here. I'm open for business, you know? And I'm saying, you look mature. If there, I am putting this on the record right now.

Put some inspirational music under this. Right. 45-year-old men. 30. The pot has really changed. You've got all these effects. 35 to 45-year-old men. 45.

I'd say North End is probably 45. We named an upper limit finally. I am 31 years old. It can't go higher than 45. It can go higher than that. If you are in the, if you are 27 to 45 years old. And you want to. sweep me off my feet, come around.

What would it take? What would it take for a man to really sweep you off your feet? Charm, questions, participation, making plans, being available at every moment that I want you available. Right. Having an interesting life yet being completely flexible to what I need. In the beginning, I was like, that's not too much to ask, sweetie. And then you kept going and I was like, okay, well. Dropping everything when I call.

Sure. If I call and you have plans and I say, I want to hang out tonight, you say, I will cancel everything and be there. Yeah. Except for sometimes when I do that, you have to not cancel and do your own thing so that I don't get turned off by you. Totally, totally. You have to innately understand the magic of that balance. You have to simultaneously be completely obsessed with me and also unwilling to bend to my demands.

Sure. I mean, my head is like filling with guys I know who might be perfect for this. Yeah. What am I asking the world here? No, not at all, not at all. Very simple, not at all crazy demands. That's what I'm saying. Yeah.

And you have to like, you have to fight with me about the checks sometimes. I'm always gonna pay it unless you're richer than me. Right? If you're richer than me, I'd love to know who you are. Right. But if you're, I'd have to go out with freaking Elon Musk or something. Whoa. You're getting it like that from the pod. Damn. Are boots okay on here, by the way?

No, that's fine. We love those. No, but if you're, if you're richer than me, sometimes I might let you pay. But if you're not, you need to at least fight about the check every once in a while. Put up an effort. I want some transparency on what you're making from this podcast. That comment was crazy. I'll tell you off camera. Off camera.

It's more than you think. And then... More than you think. And in the beginning, you're still like, when I'm asking you about, you know, casually being like, maybe you'll do an ad for the tenant union or one of our trainings or something, you're like, honey, you can't afford me. I would happily do an ad for the tenant union. You can't do a pro bono ad for the money?

You guys put on a big sale or a talent show or something. A big sale! And you get that money over here? I mean, I'll do what I can. Yeah, you guys pay me because I do a lot for you guys. Yeah, you do actually. And so I think the least you can do. You do. Pay the rate.

You do a lot for us. And I will say there's so much. People are always asking me to get you to do stuff. And I'm a good, I offered you this the other night. You were like out dancing and bumped out that people wouldn't leave you alone on the dance floor. And I was like, let me be your security. If I was on the dance floor with you, no one would be coming close. We'd be dancing.

Yeah. We'd be dancing. I know, I don't maybe physically give off the most intimidating vibe. Yeah. But someone catching my eye contact in the wrong moment who's not letting you dance, they're going to leave you alone. Keep in mind, we're sitting here because you bothered me on a dance floor. That's correct. That's correct.

But that was on my watch, that's the last time that's ever going to happen to you. Yeah, that was the last one. That was the last one. The buck stops here. Right. The buck stops here with me. With me. Hey, look, when it comes to me in love, I got a lot of it to give.

I'm a special guy. I have a big heart. Yeah, you sure do. I got a lot of things to give to somebody. Big heart, no shots. Big heart. No weight loss shots. I'm up on all my other things, though.

Extremely rich. I get tested regularly. I'm doing well financially. I'm ready to have kids in the next four to five years. Four to five years. Next 45 years, I'm ready to have a baby on the way. Ultimately, I want a couple. How do you think you are with kids right now?

They understand me and they respect me. Really? Yeah. And how do you earn their respect? Because I talk to them like adults. I don't think I've ever seen you with... Well, I've seen you with your little nephews. And you see how they fall in line.

Yeah, yeah. They do kind of fall in line. You're a bit of a disciplinarian now that I think about it. Oh, we're not having tomfoolery. No. No, no, no. Because I, yeah, no. The kids are sort of, yeah, now that I'm thinking about it,

when I've seen you with those kids at Thanksgiving, yeah, they're sort of like falling in line with whatever you say, actually. You know, it's, they're, not enough, but there, it's, I think what it is is just being able to tell kids the truth. Like, there comes a point with the showing me your toys where I go, we're all done listening about the toys. Yeah. Take them back to the other room.

No one's really paying attention anymore, sweetie. Yeah, we're on the 17th minute of Legos. We've seen the Legos. What would you do about? about screens if you're a parent? None. No screens. They get none.

And they can't use mine either. They get none. You have some. How do you talk to them about that difference? I say you're not old enough for this. It's, it's, it's, it will hurt you. Stay off this. They're not getting their own screens.

Yeah. My kids are not having their own screens. They can have a phone when they get their driver's license. Okay. And it'll be a flip phone. A flip phone. They can have a flip phone when they get their driver's license. They cannot have social media.

Yeah. There will be no tablets. Huh. And I say all that as someone who doesn't have kids. Yeah. And I bet there's some parents listening right now going, yeah, good fucking luck, buddy. And I bet they're right. I bet my kids will have a screen the day they're born.

Okay. I bet I'm saying, right now, my intention. My intention is no screens whatsoever. My intention going in is no screens. The reality is probably they get a screen at the hospital. Okay. Okay. So the truth comes out.

Yeah. There's a lot of truth coming out today. Wake it up. Wake it up. Yeah, that's me. What were you, were you, did your mom say yes to you a lot growing up? we were extremely poor so she said yes when she could but it wasn't like there was a lot of opportunity okay i was asking for things i would say when i was younger i was asking for things that just weren't possible

what were your dreams what were you asking for to be rich to have more than we did mom can we be rich to wear a name brand clothes okay mom can i wear under armor she'd say well it depends on what goodwill has and i'd say disgusting gross they'd be so mad when she would come home with goodwill stuff yeah because it was never cool stuff it was like all the cool kids had like the new stuff yeah you know Yeah. And I look back now and I'm like, that was actually really cool. My mom rocks. But as a kid, you don't have like perspective.

Right. You're like, ooh, I want to be like everyone else. But she was trying. Like when you would say a dream to her, she'd be like, okay, let me try to figure out how to make some version of this happen. She would. And I will say she made sure I went on every school trip. Like there were a bunch of like we would go to Washington, D.C. Or we'd go to Orlando for like conferences and stuff and like competitions.

I went to every single one. And looking back, I'm like, we could not afford that. I don't know how she made it work. She certainly skipped some meals. Yeah. Yeah. crazy. My kids,

look, if the money stops flowing, they're not going to Orlando. If the money stops flowing. I'm not skipping any meals. They're not going anywhere. They're not going anywhere. Right. I will say an interesting thing to consider is like I grew up so poor and I feel like

it made me a good person. Like I like my values. And I'm like, whoa, I want my kids, I want to like replicate that for my kids somehow. I would like them to struggle. Yeah. You want to force them into poverty somehow.

Yes. I want to like, make sure they don't listen to any of these episodes or like see any of my lifestyle beyond like, okay, they'll live in my house. Sure. But I want them to think. But in that sort of like small and dusty area of the house. Yeah, and I want them to think we got it through some other.

I want to be like, oh, this was left to me or something, you know? This was left to me. And I don't want them to think we have money. Right. And they're going to public school. Yeah. Private schools. No private schools.

No private schools. No private schools. Really? What are you talking about? I think that's sick. This can go in your book of essays about politics in the world. Everybody go to public school. That I'm going to help you write.

Yeah. that we're writing right now. I wish. We need to write a movie together. Oh my God. You know I've been big on that. I would die to write a movie with you. We need to write a movie together bad.

Let's do it. Let's make it happen. Well, you know I have this. Call him. I have the shell of it. I have the shell of the movie already. It's the shell. Tell me.

Well, I can't tell you on here. Okay. A lot of my listeners are thieves and crooks. Oh, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of thievery in the K. K. Liberty? K. K. Liberty.

K. K. K. Lebrity. K. K. Latina. Congratulations. brought themselves into the comments and they get mad when they don't get mentioned now. Okay.

I haven't seen many other ones, but I'd love to expand. Klauation, I don't know. Kloations, I'd love to hear from you. Well, black K. Lebertys had a big moment recently. Really? And what do they call themselves? I think they just say, I'm black and I like Caleb. That was mostly what I saw. Yeah, they weren't really going for a name.

I'll say that. They weren't really trying to have their own name. All right. Hit the comments, everyone. Hit the comments. So, yeah, if you're a black Caleb band. So what brought them out? I was talking to Joe Sunday.

Okay. And she said, what is the demographic makeup of your fandom? And I said, I don't know, but I know that there are, I know that there are a lot of lesbians. Of course, I know that. Yes. And I said, there are a surprising number of straight men. Uh-huh. You would be shocked.

Yeah. And then I said, uh, somehow it came up whether or not I had black fans. I don't remember what the verdict was. But they let themselves be known. Yeah. My black fans made some noise. There's definitely some black fans out there. We once went to an event that was like a mostly black event.

And I feel like you got approached a bunch. That was the best night of my life. It was amazing. That was the best night of my life. Every, every cool, hot, well-dressed person in that room came up to me. And it may, I could cry talking about it because that meant more to me than anything. Do you ever feel like sometimes when you're out with a friend that you have really good energy with, the world kind of opens up for you? What do you mean?

I'm just saying, like, that night, that, like, best night of your life, I feel like maybe I contributed a little bit. Oh, I understand. Sorry, you're asking if... If, like, our connection was so vibrant. Yeah. people were kind of coming out of the woodwork to talk to you. Did I feel like that night really was about you? Yeah.

Yes. That's essentially what I'm asking me. I feel that all my nights are about you. Wow. I would do anything for you. Wow. That's so sweet. I hope you know and feel that.

I do feel that. Although we need to hang out a lot more, I think. Call me. For me. For the truth to really settle in. Call me. Yeah. Yeah. I'll call you.

You don't really call me. I call you sometimes. Nice. Please. The thing that's annoying to me recently about calling and texting you is like, it's still green. Android. Yeah, you still have an Android. Android. So is that an Android? Like what I'm looking at as an Android? That's an Android. Okay. Yeah. You're really committing. I'm loving it. Yeah. I'm getting put on no group texts at all. Well, we have a very famous and ongoing group text. Hasn't really been going lately,

hasn't really been going. Because I think we're all bummed out by your green text. I know. Everybody hates the green text. Look, that is one of the group chats that I'm sad to see go. It's a casualty in the crossfire. I'm like, damn, this is like a post-mortem on our group chat. It's not really. happening anymore and I hate that. Yeah. But if it means that I get left out of all these other ones that I want nothing to do with. Right. It was either this or change my phone number.

I'm getting put in too many things. What are people putting you into? Any fucking stupid thing. When you have an iPhone, people will put you in anything. Sure. A group text about lunch where people text that they're five minutes late. That's fine. Just come on.

The lunch text is ongoing? Like, what's bothersome about that? Yes, because then people think there was a connection formed in the group text. And sometimes there was or wasn't. But it's just too many texts. And people text you less in general when you have green text. telling you, iPhone, people do that thing all the time where they're like, oh my God, send. So the other day, send.

I was at the store. Send. Knock it off. Knock it off. People are sending less voice notes. People are... You don't want voice notes from your friends? When a lot of people think that it's okay to send you seven minute voice notes, it increases

your time on the phone. That's a lot. I love hearing from my friends. I am not complaining about being so loved and a part of such beautiful community. Yeah. I love that. We're going to have to find a different way to express that. ideally in person together.

I cannot be on the phone. The phone makes me sick. Yeah. And that being said, I'm on there. You are on there. You are on there. I treat my voice notes from my friends as a little podcast. You know, Katie and I have a long voice note back and forth.

She's amazing on a voice note. I'm like a rambling idiot. I'm talking for 11 minutes. I'm walking around. I'm pacing. I'm washing my dishes. You're getting all sorts of background noise. And then there's some people like Katie who's like a professional at voice notes.

It's so coherent. It's kind of classically wise. She's got a lot of good advice for me. She's remembered every single thing I've said a week ago in my 11-minute ramble. It's beautiful. I'm not skilled, but I'm like energetic. I'll think of some good anecdotes and weave them in. I would say you and Kevin are, it's funny because our little four-person friend group is there's

many natural alliances. And one of the places that you and Kevin team up is on the long meandering kind of crazed voice note and Katie and I are very much the same in style where it's like tight like to the but all the little natural alliances that form are fun they are really fun you just made me think of one of our biggest rifts this year this calendar year so far I was really I was having a rough beginning of the year as you know I was in Minneapolis during the height of the federal occupation I had you were working for ice at the time right you were subcontracting for them for some reason and you Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's my get-rich-quick scheme, actually. No, I was there, I was there launching a city's-wide tenant union. I know, yeah. We were running a rent-strike drive. There was $107 million in lost wages at the time of this occupation. And I had been in India and, like, flew back early and flew right into it. And it was cold, and my skin was peeling. And shit was really hard.

And everyone there was, like, exhausted after basically two months of warfare. And then I came back to Kansas City after. all of that and lost a dear friend. So I was like, I was really down bad for a while and you were being so sweet. You like called multiple times. Oh, yeah. Left a voice note, left, you know, sent me multiple text messages. And basically I just want to also add some flavor to that and say that I was like, I was

really clocking in. I was like, Tara, I know you're going through such a hard time. I love you so much. Tell me, I want you to text me right now three ways that I can support. Like, is it sending flowers? Is it buying groceries? Like, what can I do? It was practical, it was caring, it was persistent.

And I was being avoidant. And I am sometimes. But, you know, I was like really down bad and not really getting back to anyone at that time. And then... Not a word from my friend. Yeah, not a word. Not a word from my friends. Actual weeks went by and like multiple unresponded to messages.

And then Kevin hit the group chat. This is crazy. He was on a drive. He hit the group chat and he said... Kevin Morby for those who don't know. Kevin Morby, for those who don't know, he said, can someone in the chat read out loud to me the menu for the Marriott in this town in Texas

that I'm going to tonight? He was driving and he wanted to know what was on the menu, so he thought it would be funny to ask, can anyone in the group chat send a voice note reading this menu out loud to me? And he had already asked Katie off thread, and she had been like, no, I'm absolutely not doing that crazy thing for you. Yeah.

Meanwhile, me, after weeks of avoiding Caleb, I want to say 20 seconds pass between when Kevin sent the text and then a three minute and 47 second voice note from Tara comes in somehow somehow she's already done it and this is

I click play and I'm thinking maybe the voice note's going to be like hey guys I just wanted to address that I like haven't really been getting back to anybody I'm okay thank you for checking in the voice note instead is so they've got flounder three ways they also had the craziest menu of all time it was like the most random

dishes and I was really, I was having a ball reading all of it. I read every ingredient. I was early off a phone call, Caleb. I was early off a meeting. I had a couple minutes to kill. It sounded like a fun, kind of zany way to spend a few minutes of my day. She's editorializing. Ooh, this one has a cherry wine reduction.

I'm like picking out things for Kevin that I think he would like. She's pairing wines. I'm telling him to sit at the bar for the best experience, you know. So I hit send and Caleb absolutely drags my ass in the chat. Yeah. Yeah. I think I said something on the lines of how fucking dare you. How dare you?

How dare you do this to me? And I said, I'm down bad. Like, I needed something fun in my life. I needed some lightness. I didn't want to tell you... Getting back to you was not sparking joy. I don't know what to tell you. I didn't want to tell you how to generously and sweetly take care of me.

I wanted to read to Kevin about the shrimp at the Marriott. Yeah. Okay? Made me sick. Yeah. Made me completely sick. It took us a while to bounce back from that. But we're back.

It took us a while, yeah. Think about 10 seconds. Yeah. It's so fucking funny. We're back. I couldn't believe it. I was laughing so hard. I was like, Tara, you must be kidding.

Really killed me. You feel bounced back? You feel good? I feel good. I definitely was in a sort of mojo deficit for a second there. It's crazy because I love my work so much. And I feel so called by it and motivated. And it's so cool.

I feel really, really lucky. There are so few people who I think get to walk around planet Earth with the kind of purpose that I get to feel. So I always feel sort of bad then also, you know, feeling less than amazing about how things are going. Because it's great. It's not only like purposeful, we're winning. It's like in that same bad season that I had earlier this year,

we like won the first tenant bargain agreement in the American South. I got to have like four big potatoes with an 80-year-old tobacco farmer named Pauline who I loved. You know, we transitioned the leadership of Casey Tenants and Jeney Manley took over and I'm so proud. So everything was going so well, but I was in a real mojo deficit for a second there. It's tough.

I mean, I lost a really dear friend. And I think when you're the type of person you and I are and our friends mean so much to us, yeah, that was like, that was a real hit. But I'm coming back and summer in New York is great. The Knicks are winning. Championships are following me around. Like you, I'm a fair weather,

fan and if the weather's fair the weather's fair I'm there if the weather's fair I'm there yeah if the weather's fair I'm there go Nix go Nix the chief started winning when you and I came back to the city too That's true yeah once we reinvested And they never called me and said thanks for that No I don't imagine I'll be on their call list anytime soon

They avoid me like to play You talk shit on them a lot Well they do stupid shit they do stupid shit They're ultimately an extremely racist franchise But you're a huge fan Yeah you love the coach you love the players You love football you love football more than you love basketball Yeah, they're not going to be inviting me to any games soon. They really avoid me. Every, every, like, person who has even stepped foot on a television set that's from Kansas City has, like, gotten a suite at their games. They don't talk to me. Mostly because I say they're fucked up Republican owners should stop begging the public for money when they're billionaires and they can pay for their own things. We can leave that in. And you did say that. I'm saying that all the time. Stop asking working people to pay for your projects when you're a billionaire. I don't care how much we like your little football team. And I do. I'm a huge fan. It's fucking inappropriate.

It's ridiculous. You should be humiliated. The whole point of being a billionaire should be that you can fund your dumb little projects. Yeah. I hate it. It pisses me off.

And yeah, I just don't like, I don't like it. I don't like that. Yeah. I mean, I can see why you're not getting invited. For sure. Cozy little seeds.

Not a fun guy to have at the party. No, not a fun guy to have at that party, but a very fun guy to have at our parties. Hello, a better party. A better party. Yeah. Imagine how fucking cool life would be for them. Yeah, we would all like them more

if they would stop doing that stuff. But I am glad you're doing better. Yeah. I'm happy things are feeling good. Mojo is in the right place. Mojo's up. I had a really, really funny joke to make earlier, and I'm not going to make it right now, but I just want you to remind me to tell it to you off camera.

Okay. It's a really good one. It's a joke at my expense? It's a joke about your circumstance. Okay. And I'll tell it to you later. It's a really, really good one. Everyone here's going to like it.

Yeah. Great. Tar, what's so true to you? What is so true to me? I think everyone needs a semi-stupid, creative endeavor in their life. Okay. I absolutely agree. You agree? What's yours?

Semi stupid creative endeavor in my life? What is mine, you guys? What is my semi-stupid creative endeavor? I was about to say the friendship bracelets, but you don't really, you're kind of, you're off, though. You were making friendship bracelets? There was a moment, there was a brief moment where I was making friendship bracelets. Interesting. And when was that moment?

That was during the time when you weren't texting me back. Oh, I see, I see, I see. I'm just kidding. Did you imagine? During that time that you were really, really sad and probably needed a friendship bracelet more than anything? Yeah. You didn't get one. Yeah, I didn't get one.

I made my birthday invite last year, and that was really fun. What did you make? I, like, collaged all of the pictures from the previous year really thoughtfully. Sweet. Because basically, I was like, I can't trust anyone but me to get this right, because what I wanted to do was pick the craziest costumes and the most, like, representative of who was going to be at the party. Yeah. And I wanted anyone who looked at the invite to understand, number one, I'm safe to make a big costume choice. Sure.

And in fact, you must or you need to leave. Yeah. And number two, there is someone on this. invite that looks like someone I'd like to kiss or have a really long talk with. Okay. And so I very meticulously... A really long talk at the party. Oh, that's the kind of party I'm interested in. Get in the corner of someone and get into that talk. Yeah, dig in. So, I mean, there's an open bar and stuff as well, but I

planned every single part of the invite really meticulously. Yeah. It was really fun. That's so sweet. It was really fun. But do I have an ongoing one? I don't think so. Most of my free time has spent worrying about why I'm not creating. Right. Okay. Yeah. Okay. What is yours? We'll work on that. The zines? Yeah. I love. your zines. Yeah, my little zines. I've got a couple though. I mean, yeah, the zines are probably the most robust. But I like zines. I was going to say, I think

your invite thing is like a good, that's a good gateway to zine making. The reason that I like them is that it's just not serious. It's like, or I mean, of course they can be serious, but you don't have to be precious about it. The whole point is that it can be quick, it can be messy. I'm always making like a little like 90 minutes something on the weekends.

I'm working on a zine this summer about listening. Maybe you can submit a sonic journal. That could be a good push in a creative direction. You're like, what is that? Sounds horrible. What does that mean? I'm done. Sonic journal, it's like when you really listen for a chunk of time and then you kind of write about what you heard.

It's like a way of like, sometimes I do it when I'm on a trip or something. Because to me, it's a little bit more interesting than just being like, well, I did this. And then I did this. And then I did this. I'll be like, I woke up to the sound of dogs having a fight at 3 a.m. And I thought I was going to die. And then I heard these bells. And then I heard the gate open.

and it was such and such or whatever. That's a real morning in my life in India when I'm there. But yeah, maybe you should submit a little Sonic Journal to my listening zine this summer. I'm done. Cool. Put it on the record. I'll do it.

On the record. Wow. It's on the record. You're like, honey, you can't afford me. Well, it would be nice if you paid. You're profiting off of this scene. One of these days. Tar, do you want to play a game?

Okay. I know you're going to do really good at this one. And yeah, it's hot in here because it's summer and we don't have AC. It's really hot. Yep. Is this what you were yelling at your life? landlord about it earlier? No, it was something different, but that also should be...

In his defense, I agreed to the least when I knew there was an AC, so I can't really yell at him about that. Okay. But I was yelling him about something else. Put me in. If you ever need someone, you know I'm your girl. I do. You're good at a mean email, but I can write one of those. I am good at a mean email. I could lead some negotiations from you.

We could prep together. It's very intense. I've been... Oh, the mean emails I've been sitting to my building about trying to replace our door staff with an iPad screen. Yeah. I have been ripping into them. You're pro screen, I'm guessing. I'm pro iPad screen. I'm like, get them out of their quicker.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fire these people sooner. These people that you're paying, I don't want to see them anymore. Get them off the payroll. I care about your profit. Right. No, I'm doing, oh, I had such a good line in one recently. They basically are trying to pitch it as like an improvement to the building. Yeah.

And I said something to the effect of like, I don't know if you think we're stupid or if you just don't care. But of course, none of us are falling for this is better for the building. So if you're going to fuck us, why don't you just do it instead of lying to us while you do it? Right. Really getting nasty in the weeds with them about their messaging. Going point by point. Point by point. Any response?

They're responding to me professionally. Yeah. And then I'm responding and saying, thanks for your bullshit response. We both know those aren't your real feelings as a person. I'm getting into, because I'm pissed. They're trying to fire our friends.

Right. We love the door staff. Yeah. They say hello to us in the morning. They like welcome us into the building. They keep our packages. They are, this is their job.

Right. Oh, I'm so mad. An iPad screen? Right. What do it? So I'm going to read you 15. I'm going to read you 15 statements. You're going to tell me if what I just said was true or false.

Okay. Tara, if you get 10 or more correct, we're going to give you 50 U.S. dollars. 50? Wow. Are you ready? Yep. Shrek sold the most DVDs of any film of all time. False. False.

It was finding Nemo. Crayola's World Headquarters is in Seattle, Washington. False. False. Forks Township, Pennsylvania. The show MASH ended in 1979. True. False, 1983.

Oreos are vegan. False. True. Harvard University's official mascot is John Harvard. False. True. Saturn is the largest. Wait, no, no, no.

That's not. Okay, anyway, we'll talk. Real, yeah, okay. The official, it's like the crimson. You need to talk to Chance. Okay, Chance, we gotta have a discussion about this. Don't worry, you won't be the first person to come out to him like this. I've got the proof.

Saturn is the last, let's, at least once every other episode, someone goes, this is bullshit. And Chance goes, no, it's not. No, it's not. It's not, I have a computer in front of me. Saturn is the largest planet in our solar system. Oh, God, why don't I know this? True. false

I don't know I don't know anything about planets What's your answer? False False was Jupiter Kelly Clarkson's real name is Kelly Garber Um

True False it's Kelly Clarkson The Great Pyramid of Giza Is that a typo The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest Is that what it's called? The Great Period of Giza is the oldest of the seven wonders of the world

Giza Giza Geiza Giza It's Giza It's Giza You just haven't seen it written I think in a minute I think that's why.

Yeah. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest of the seven wonders of the world. False. True. The currency of Switzerland is the Euro. True. False. The Swiss franc.

Oh my God. The bumper sticker was invented in Kansas City. True. That is true. Okay. Eagles have the best eyesight of any bird. True. True.

The Ferris wheel at Coney Island is called the Wonder Wheel. False. True. Not all integers are rational numbers. Intigers. Jesus Christ. That's really mean. We're not math people. What the hell? Intigers, math, planets? Chance, Jesus. You guys were like, let's book her and make her look like an idiot.

What the hell is an integer? I'm going to say false. False, they are. Okay, great. The Battle of Midway was fought during World War I. True. False World War II. Australia is home to the largest cattle ranch in the world. I was born there, you know. I do know that.

True. It's true. Nice. How'd you do? Seven. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. That's beautiful.

That's completely beautiful. That's completely beautiful. Not $50. Do people win this? Not usually. Not usually. It's all in the house's favor. Are you ever shocked at how badly someone does?

Never how badly. Sometimes how well. How well, really. Not because it's not a thing of, it really is a thing of guessing. And sometimes someone will have, like, a really incredible run. Right. And I wonder,

sometimes I get really excited because I think maybe we're going to finally have our first ever 100%. 100%. I think the day that we have 100% we stop the show.

People are getting close to 100%? People get 11. Wow. Sometimes. That's amazing. Yeah. That's really amazing.

I'm not a fact scurly, as you can tell from that string of answers. Yeah. That's not what's bouncing around in my noggin. Yeah. You know?

Yeah. It's not fact. It's not really information. It's like ideas. I'm more of a vibes girl. I'm more of a vibes girl. Tara, tell people how they can support where they can find, all that stuff.

How they can support. You can support me right now by putting a fan in my face. Thank you. You can support the tenant organizing that we do by going to Tenet Fed on Instagram. That's mostly where we're active.

Tenet Federation.org. You can get involved in your local tenant union. We're organizing. Get this. Thanks to your help. because you did some posting on this. We got 686 applications for our union school this summer, which means that at a minimum,

we could be organizing in 15,000 units across the country by September. Crazy. So shit's getting big, actually. We're in our get big era. So, yeah, people should get involved. Get involved in your building. Get involved in your citywide union if there's one. Come to union school applications.

Sadly are closed this year. But stay in the mix with the tenant union federal. a.k.a. Tough. And if you live in Kansas City, obviously, Casey Tenants is the place to be. Shout out. Yeah. Love you. Love you. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me.