Tomorrow - 227: The disgraceful Jake Brennan

Episode Date: February 20, 2021

This week Josh and Ryan have some thoughts on Nintendo's plan for 2021, the terrible tragedies in Texas, and the regional furniture store Raymour & Flanigan. Then we're lucky enough to chat with Jake Brennan of fascinating podcast Disgraceland and ask: what exactly did Meghan Trainor do to him? Enjoy episode 227, guys, gals, and non-binary pals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, and welcome to Tomorrow. I'm your host Josh Wittepulski. Today in the podcast, we discuss bass notes, Joe Biden's home invasion, and bad musicians. We've got a great guest. I don't always one minute. Let's get ready to do it. Well, Ryan, we're back. We made it.

Hello. It's a great, it's February. It's the week of February, someteenth. And and we're just living our best lives out loud. We're living out loud but very quietly in our apartments in our homes just quietly waiting for the vaccine to trickle down to us like sweet, sweet, the sweet nectar of the gods. Bob is waiting from Biden to Slide in through my bedroom window with a mask on and a vaccine in his hand and just inject me with it Just inject it right into me just put that vaccine right inside of me

Anyhow, but until that day arrives just masking double masking and not leaving the house just in a mask in a bed All blankets covering my entire body, face, feet, three more blankets on top of that, just for protection, then two masks, and then just waiting for the vaccine. I'm like you. Greatest, greatest nation in the world. We've done it. We've done it.

We've done it. We've done it. Although I got a new couch, which I really believe. I want to talk about, let's talk about the couch of some ways, one minute. I need to know the brand although I got a new couch which I yes, I want to talk about let's talk about the couch I'll just not waste one minute. I need to know the brand. I need to know the color. I need to know if it's a sectional Well, here's the thing Cindy Crawford designed it. Okay, Cindy Crawford couch. Just get a Google that real quick Cindy Crawford couch calm Okay, Cindy Crawford sectional west. So it's a West El down product. No, it is not I got it. Way fair

Raymore and again Raymore and flat again indeed. No, okay. I got a look at this. I mean Raymore Reak couch though. Are you talking about the metropolis microfiber sofa? No the Carrington Fuck oh Capitalism you you Todd tree or George or hold on I didn't even know where I oh Cindy. I love Cindy Crawford's hustle I know right I didn't know I didn't know this couch was Cindy Crawford's till it showed up I love this door. I looked at it. We fought between two couches. We settled on one I was very happy with that we finally picked one. We waited three fucking months for it to arrive.

Finally arrived and Cindy Crawford's face was on it. Can I just say, I'm just perusing the Raymore and Flanagan website right now, which is a, I believe it's a regional furniture seller. I don't think that if you're listening to this in California of Tony, if you've moved to California, you may not have Raymore and Flanagan there. I don't know if you do, but Raymore and Flanagan's a big box furniture seller, and they actually make, their furniture is actually pretty well made, unlike a lot of furniture you buy,

like, like, a wayfare furniture. Now, I don't, I'm not a big, I wouldn't, look, I'm not a Raymore and Flanagan guy, but they actually have some pretty nice stuff, and I'm just supposing it right now, they also have some crazy shit though. Like they have like normal sofas for regular people that look nice and then they have like a quadruple lazy boy sofa that is literally like four lazy boys pushed together. They're like leather. They're leather lazy boys. Literally nothing. They wanted to

sell us more than an arm rest that opens and oh, it's a freezer Yes, okay, honestly though. Yeah, but honestly That's a sick fucking idea and why don't why isn't there like a drawer? You can pull out underneath yourself. Oh, there's like some snacks some some cool to some chilled Seltzer's in there like don't tell me that isn't a good idea because it is You just gotta make it look good. I can't find what is the name of the what is the name of the some chilled celtars in there. Like, don't tell me that isn't a good idea, because it is. You just gotta make it look good. I can't find, what is the name of the,

what is the name of the, what is the brand, the, sorry, the line of the sofa? I'll send you a link, one time. What is it called? No, I don't wanna link our search for it. Carrington, is that what two ours? Two ours. Okay, Carrington, just the way it sounds in your head.

Carrington, here we go. Look at the whole line. Oh, this is very nice. Thank you, I got the very, let me tell you about the Carrington. This is a sofa. First off, it's got, and don't take this the wrong way, but it's got a Kardashian vibe to it in that. It does. It's oversized. There's some, there's some nail head accents, nail head trim accents, which I like, which I actually have on my headboard, though I've been meaning to get a new headboard long story. Because you know what, you don't want to lean back on a nail head is what it turns out

now. This is very like fancy. This is like the room in the house that the kids aren't allowed to go in. I wanted a lot of flair. I wanted the most dramatic couch that they had. And John was like, that's ridiculous. They're not practical and we're not spending money on that. So we've settled on this, which yeah, it's got my nail head

accents. It's got, you know, it looks like it's like an expat. I'll be honest with you, it looks pricey. And it's not my style. You know me, I'm a mid-century, very mid-century guy, but although I've kind of, I'm abandoning mid-century a little bit lately, but well, the reason I went with it was because

it would match some of the mid-century stuff that we have, it wouldn't look out of place, and the pillows that come on it that are totally rearrangeable, it's a very wide couch without the pillows, and you can just throw the pillows out or get new cases, it would have you want to be inside the room So my thinking was if I'm gonna be stuck with a couch for 10 years It should be it should match multiple styles

It shouldn't look like shit and I should be able to recustomize it and frankly It's a very comfortable and it comes with a five-year warranty, so I'm happy. I gotta say it's a really I mean I know I know it's a heavy couch, right? It's like really heavy. Extremely heavy. Yeah. I can tell by looking, this is the thing about Raymore and Flanagan, is that like it is a big box retailer for furniture, but they sell furniture that's like, honestly, like when you buy stuff on like Wayfair or Overstock, like there's a lot of places that sell tons

of furniture, even if you go to Target and get stuff, it's like very kind of cheaply made and light and like, you know, you sit back on it and like moves. It's fine for a year, not because it fell apart, but because you tripped one time and it snapped in half. Anyway, anyway, congratulations. I'm very happy for you. Thank you. You got to so far. It's great. I've been sitting in an office chair in my living room for three months. So this is really a game-changing moment for me.

I just want to be clear also, this is not a paid promotion for Freyburg. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I don't think they have the capital frankly. I don't think they're liquid enough to be doing that. They were so happy when I bought a couch. They were over the moon with each other. Why would think, I would think, Raymore and Flanagan has been, they've been having a very good time

because it feels like this is the time when everybody's locked down. They're like, we gotta get a new chair or whatever. Well, you know how I realized that they could keep their business going and they're probably fine, is that? I think their real business is putting people on financing plans for stuff.

And then, yeah, that's what I'm not working. And then, and then like ruining people's lives because they bought, because they bought like a bedroom set. Yes. That sounds right to me. That sounds right. So how about that Ted Cruz, huh? That's a cool guy. He's cool. Sorry. Not to do a hard shift. No, we haven't talked about Texas. I mean, it's, I mean, unreal. And frankly, couldn't, I couldn't feel more discouraged with our inability to catch up with Republican incompetence. If you don't live in the US and you haven't heard about this

in some capacity, Texas is going through a snowstorm and like a cold front, which sounds like not that big of a deal if you live in New York. But because Texas has Republican governors, they never prepared any capacity for needing heat in the winter or how to snow plow or what would happen to the homeless. And they just kept putting it off and putting it off because it seems like hard and not worth their busy time.

And they dismantled programs to read them for money. And now when a cold front comes in, I mean, is this what happened? Is this what happened, you know, millions of people are suffering starving and dying? Is this what happened several years ago with the hurricanes? Yep. I mean, isn't this like, it feels like every 18 months they get a hurricane and then they like, we're never seen it coming. Climate change isn't real, by the way.

I remember we wrote a story for the outline and it was like, you know, basically people who don't, who like say this stuff isn't a problem and don't take, you know, don't actually take precautions to keep people safe should be like, how accountable for crimes like against, you know, with the damage and the deaths that happen. And Tucker Carlson's show was like,

we'd like to have this writer come on and talk about how he thinks, governor should be held accountable as criminals for not preparing, getting their people prepared and their states prepared for these types of things. And we were like, no, fuck you, nobody goes on Tucker Carlson, only dummy's gone, Tucker Carlson.

And, but it reminds me of the same thing, which is like, it's like, there really should be consequences if you ignore the science and you ignore reality and you let people die and get sick and get injured because you just don't give a shit about them. When it's your job to actually give a shit about them, you know? Like, I think there's a problem like that, we don't define the job of being a governor

or being a senator from a state as having to actually work for the people who live there. I mean, I think the Ted Cruz thing is the most perfect, the most perfect example of Republican political philosophy that you can imagine. His state is in a crisis. People are without power. They're freezing.

They're dying. They don't have food. And he took a trip to Cancun to fucking vacation. You know, that's the Republican party. Like in a nutshell, really, I think, like when the, when coronavirus was ravaging America, Donald Trump's agenda had nothing to do. He didn't give a shit about it. He was out to lunch. He was playing golf. That's that is the Republican party.

But you know what you vote for. You know what scares me more? He's gonna win next time and he'll probably win with an even bigger margin. He's not gonna win. I don't know who Oh Ted Cruz. Oh, Ted Cruz might because I don't know people are I don't know who Oh Ted Cruz Oh Ted Cruz might because I don't know people are There's like people are fucking morons. That's America people are are willfully ignorant of what's being done to them I don't know how you can I don't know how you can look at that just that in a vacuum forget about everything else What what would it take A man it's like you your house, okay? So Texas is, it's a cruise is house, right? That's where, that's where his stuff is.

That's where the, he's like, I gotta take care of my house, right? The storm hits your house, the windows blow in, the living room is flooded, and you're like, I'm going on vacation. Like, who doesn't understand this very clearly? You know, dude should be passing out water, dude should be touring the destruction. The guy should be doing press conferences about how they need relief.

You know, he should be doing, just say whatever, do something. Not don't go on vacation. I mean, Aito is currently calling seniors and seeing if they're okay. Let me be clear, I'm not saying you should be. Aito is not an elected official by the way. Just to take crucial take crucial should be able to take a vacation.

Okay. I mean, I personally wouldn't during a pandemic, but hey, you know what? You do you. But take sedition as Ted Cruz should be allowed to take a vacation. I'm just saying not postponing your vacation when there is a crisis happening in the state you represent to the rest of the country is fucking nuts. It's like the wackest, most brazenly shitty thing I can imagine doing. You know, anyhow, but it's indicative of the Republican party. All I can think is like, you know, how would this be different with different leadership?

Would it be different? I don't know, but you have to wonder, maybe it's time to think for people like in Texas to think about like, I don't know, maybe everything's going great with Republican leadership. Maybe it's like, hey, you know, what can you do? I guess the way everybody explains this way is like,

hey, you know what, crazy stuff happens. We can't, you know, nobody can help with this weather stuff. Ted Cruz isn't responsible for what happens with the weather, but it's like there is a way to be prepared for something or not prepared for it. I just feel like it's huge to see because one of the largest, most economically powerful states and the largest, most economically important economy

in the world, and you can't find a couple dollars for a snow plow I'm starting to think like like these are choices. They made right like they didn't they decided they wanted an independent power grid that would be completely Unbehold into federal regulation. They chose that to save money or to make money for their friends and This is the consequence of that. And, you know, I would be, I agree with you that like, I wish that someone this would sink in and someone would be like, fuck the Republicans.

Like, I wish that this would snap into place for somebody, for anybody in that fucking party. But I also think like, it's really hard for us to lecture them when fucking Gavin Newsom is walking around. It's really hard, because to lecture them when fucking Gavin Newsom is walking around. It's really hard, because Gavin Newsom has done all the same shit, but, you know, he's a little less bad, and he says the right things.

So he gets a big giant fucking pass from the fucking, I'm sorry to say this, but from the fucking Nancy Pelosi demographic, everybody gives those people a pass, and so it makes it really hard for us to be like, well, Ted Cruz is incompetent because then it just becomes this like, what aboutism of the worst things about our party. And it's when we have some tolerance for that level of incompetence, like, frankly, I do think if you're an elected official and there's a rise in natural disaster

or just any kind of violence, any kind of rise in deaths, that's like over 500%. Yeah, you should have to go to court. I'm not saying you should go to prison because I don't really know what happened. But in that case, you should go to court and a jury of the people who died and their families like like the people from that population should be the ones to

decide. Like, you look at all the things Trump did and then like Republicans on a panel get to be like, I think we should give him a pass. And then like they pan op ads being like, I didn't want to give him a pass because he did the wrong thing. But you know, we have to cause he's rich. It should be everybody who was affected by Trump's actions should be the ones to decide what happens to him.

And you know, I'm, there's no, I can't sit here and make a legal argument for this, I can't tell you like exactly how I would introduce a bill and make this happen because I just think our system is so fucked that like, I don't want to be this person and I avoided being this person for four or five years during the whole Trump beginning his run and then you know attempting to overthrow the government and eventually walking out with his tail between his legs, I never became this person but I'm starting to feel

a little like, everything's just fucked. I don't know how to pull out of a spiral where Biden is arguing against himself to lower the amount of student loan debt forgiveness we're doing, or that we're in a pandemic, and you can go on the national stage every day and say everyone deserves a free vaccination because nobody deserves for COVID to come out of nowhere and ruin their life Also, I'm charging you full price for lymphoma treatments Like it's really fucking hard to thread that needle and to get people to understand what the fuck you're talking about when you're

Talking out both sides of your mouth and I don't know how I don't know what to do I'm at the end of my row like we gave Democrats everything We turn everything out hold on second, hold on a second. There are things that are changing. I mean, you have to, you cannot be like, it's all bad. I mean, I hear what you're saying. I get the anger.

I just have no water. I just have no water in Texas. The people in ice prisons have no water. And the federal government, it's like, let's get rid of ice. But you're talking, but you're, no, but you can but the you can't we can't be like hey why isn't why don't we get rid of ice today because of this situation that have just happened you have to remember this this on that by the way i'm not saying democrats

there are a lot of democrats that support ice okay because there are but what i am saying and i'm like not something to make it's about ice for a second but i will say you can't a'm you can't Biden cannot change today What has been going on for 10 years because of Republican leadership or whatever like I mean he may not change it at all like That's all I'm saying I'm not saying he he doesn't want to I'm not saying there won't be an attempt I'm saying seems like nothing's changing and it didn't seem like a ton changed. It didn't seem like a ton, substantively changed in the places where we quote unquote got victories in the midterms

and it doesn't seem like a ton has changed. My life day-to-day life in New York is not that much better under Cuomo than someone's life. Oh, well Cuomo, don't even give me started on Cuomo. The Cuomo's actuals are burning their shirts right now it's just it's really hard it's really fucking hard it's really just it all i'm saying is i'm not saying that there are people good intentions or that democrats aren't smarter or more competent i'm saying things are so bad

that like i you know i'm just at this point like i got to make sure i have enough dvd sets case the internet goes down i'm listening i mean it's not great it's not great no one is like, I gotta make sure I have enough DVD sets in case the internet goes down. Oh listen, I mean, it's not great. It's not great. No one is saying that it's a great situation. But I mean, the textus thing is years of rot.

I mean, it's so much rot in so many different ways, and I think there's just like, you know, there's just, it's gonna take some time. It's gonna take some time. Like, the reality is that, I mean, even if they do, even if they do all the right things, it's gonna take time. And it's frustrating. I mean, it's really frustrating.

I will say, I will say, the one thing is the people of Texas have to want something different, you know. And of course, the Democrats that do exist in Texas have to work really hard to fight all the insans of voter suppression. I mean, remember, Texas is one of the first, when people started early voting. Texas is one of the first when people started early voting. Texas was one of the first dates where, and including Ted Cruz, Ted Cruz literally argued to start throwing people's votes away. Like, their argument was in the early, I feel like it's just almost like we've forgotten it because it's so much shit has happened. But in the early part of the pandemic,

or sorry, in the early part of early voting during the pandemic, they were basically like, well, we didn't all agree on these voting locations. So we think the votes, not just that we should shut down the voting locations, they were like, we think we should throw out the votes that were cast at these locations. Like, if you could just imagine what kind of person, what kind of politician you have to be to say, well, what we'd like to do is to take these legally cast votes and throw them in the garbage. You know? Like that's a really insane, that's

a really insane thing to think. I get, I think that Texas is indicative of a lot of places in America where the Republican leadership that has been in place there has been just taking a dump on the people who live in that state for decades and the people who live in the state either they can't or they won't for some reason break out of this destructive relationship. I'm not saying the Democrats will be a lot better, but they might be a little bit better. They might be like 5% better. I just don't want wanna just give it a,

just take it out for a walk and see how it feels. I just, maybe I'm just, I just, I'm tired. Like I don't, I don't know what to do at this point. Like I don't know where I'm supposed to be putting my money outside of mutual aid. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing to affect change or change people's minds, except like, you know, do my job and try to speak up when I see and just like, I'm tired. I'm fucking tired. And like,

I can't imagine what the people in Texas are feeling. How fucking defeated and exhausted. And I don't know how they're gonna feel even when this is over and they have to pick up all the pieces. And like, I guess, I don't know, I wish I could just be a sociopath and turn off my empathy and not feel anything about it or not want to fix it because I'm frustrated and I feel like, I feel like at least if the Democrats took power, obviously they did and it's nice. But at least I felt like I would feel like there was

something actionable I could do, or that at least I wouldn't need to be calling my representatives constantly and complaining about things. Like I just, I don't know. I think even if Democrats take Texas and they hold it for eight years, or you know, six years or 10 years, that even if they put everything back together, I mean, Republicans just come around and go, God, everything was bad, but those sad sacks made you do all this

work for 10 years. What if I gave your fucking rich friend some free money? And like, then we just end up back where we started. And I don't, like Americans are just, I'm sorry, they're just incompetent and they believe delusional things. And I don't know how to reason with like QAnon. And I'm just, I'm like sick of it. Like my entire adult life, I don't want to spend worrying about people who believe in like secret messages on fortune, telling them that Democrats eat babies

and that's why they don't have power. Like what are you talking about? We can't we can't prove that's not true I mean when you think about it actually And then let's talk about something nice. I'm sorry. Please. Oh my god. I'm we talk about Nintendo. Oh Is that nicer though? I mean I guess I My whole part of that okay, so Nintendo did a Nintendo Direct for the first time in 530 days

and announced some like new titles. They're bringing Skyward Sword to the Switch, okay. My whole thing with the Nintendo Direct was like, it's fine. Like there's more in there than I guess I see coming from Xbox or PlayStation in the next year, but like, they definitely have the Metroid Prime trilogy just like somewhere in their office, and they definitely could like turn around something bigger than Mario Golf as much as

the Mario Golf fandom is going to skewer me for saying that. I just, I don't know, I love Nintendo and I love the switch and when I saw every individual game I was like I would like playing that but Man, they're really resting on the fact that people have nothing else to do but by switches right now I mean also yeah, but also I'm starting to like I feel like the games are starting to I know that it's hard to argue like You know that there's no I Mean it's hard to argue that the switch isn't great or whatever the switch is great, but the switch is starting to show its age and some of these games,

like they showed like whatever this this um there's better graphics on my iPad half the time. Yeah like they should like the skyward sword is at the game that's like the remake of the Wii game it looks like a Wii game. Yeah it looks like a Wii game and I was like, but I was also like, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if this were the actual graphics of the game because like, you know, I play a lot of games on my Switch and I'm like, wow, this performs really poorly. Now that I'm like using next gen systems like the PS5 that I'm playing on my PC on a regular basis, like I was playing the Miles Morales Spider-Man game last night, which is like so impressive. I mean, I've been playing a ton of PC games on like ultra settings, everything, and it's

great. But like it really is impressive what they've done just in the first, you know, first few early games on the PS5. And like I was playing, I'm like, God, this is so awesome and interesting and there's so much detail and like, you know, there's scenes like when you're indoors where you walk around and it's like so detailed and interesting looking and it's like, you know,

I play like, and then I go back to my Switch and I'm playing like games and I'm like, this feels so last gen, like more than last gen and like they couldn't even do some of the things that I'd like to like play on there if they try right if you read their dead cells on your iPhone you get it in HD. Yeah, it's like like you can't even not a hard game to run. There's so many games that you can't like I was playing LA Noir which is a game from 2011 or something on my I've been playing on my switch and the performance is really bad. It's like, if it's doing 24 FPS, I'd be surprised.

Like, it's really bad, right? So there are all these types of games that you just can't even imagine. And like Breath of the Wild's beautiful, but like what could Breath of the Wild be if they had some real processing power? Controversal. Breath of the Wild's art style is very innovative

and it is still beautiful, but it's been eight to a million times. And frankly, that game doesn't look that good anymore. It doesn't. Sorry. It looks like shit, unless you run it in an emulator and crank it up to 4K. Yeah. I mean, it looks nice. It's a nice art style, but it's definitely not pushing the envelope. I mean, it just is like, I mean, to me, I see a lot of that stuff and I'm kinda like,

I see a lot of stuff and I'm kinda like, oh, like, they kind of are cutting corners in a bunch of different places. Like, I understand why they're doing this because if they tried to do something better than this, they'd have to cut all kinds of weird corners and it wouldn't work, you know? Like, I mean, sorry, they are cutting a lot of weird corners

because otherwise, like, the graphics would just like bog the system down. So I guess what I'm saying is it's time for a new switch. Switch pro. Switch pro. I'd love a switch pro. Super switch. Can't they do it now?

Isn't it possible? Yeah. I mean, what's the hardware? Stop there. They have definitely the money on hand. They have more than enough time to do a whole rollout in the rollout to Christmas. Like, they better, they just better.

Like, because I love the switch and I really don't like playing it lately. And I love Bowser's Fury, Greek game. But like, I don't like, like I look at it and I'm like, I gotta kinda like not think about it. And I don't wanna have to not think about it. I don't like, like I look at it and I'm like, I gotta kinda like not think about it. And I don't wanna have to not think about it. I don't know. When I pop on my Xbox and I play like an old Xbox game,

like Xbox one, Xbox 360 still looks better than what's happening on my Switch right now. And like, I mean, yeah, there's some places where it can look impressive, but it's very rare. I mean, I know I'm maybe, I'm in the minority. I don't know, know if people want this, but I just think like, wow, the new Mario games look so cool, but like, how cool could they look

if they could like do ray tracing? Yeah. Like, what kind of cool stuff could you do if you had the ability to like play with like reflections? I mean, imagine Metroid with reflections or ray tracing. I mean, I don't mean just like, I don't mean just as like a window dressing. I mean, imagine how cool it would be as like, I don't mean just as like a window dressing. I mean, imagine how cool it would be if like you could have a whole level that was like

based on using the reflections as a gameplay mechanic. Like, I just feel like they could do interesting things like those developers would come up with some really cool ideas utilizing new technology, but they're not going to because they're like, hey, like we can make like a really big bowser or whatever. Yeah. I don't know, I don't want to diss it. Anyhow, all right, listen, we have more stuff to get to. We have a great interview I want to jump into.

And then after that, we'll come back and we'll do some nice things. That sound good? Yeah, let's do it. Our guest today is Jake Brennan, the host of Discretsland, an Amazon exclusive podcast that explores the intersection of rock and roll and true crime. And we're very excited to talk to him. Jake, thank you for being here.

Yeah, thanks for having me. It's exciting to be here. So I think this is an interesting, you found a very interesting lane here, right? It's basically, you have to look back, and maybe you're looking at current artists as well. I mean, you are. You've got people who are active right now. But you're basically trying to find the worst moments or the most seedy suspicious moments in the lives of people that we know and love and listen to. Like for instance, you've got an episode about David Bowie. David Bowie, of course, recently died.

People have been talking about how great, how wonderful his career has been, how inventive of an artist he was. But you kind of are like, remember when he was into like fascism and cocaine and- There's like a two-year-old girl. Yeah, yeah. So talk a little bit about how you arrived at this.

You basically are like, you're in a very, it's a spot where you probably are pissing a lot of people off, so talk about how you arrived at this decision, at this place. Yeah, I wanted to tell music stories and podcasting, and I just, there's a ton of podcasts as you guys know, so I was looking for a unique way in,

and I happen to have have my own slow boiling simmering obsession with true crime throughout my life. I mean I read Helter Skeletor when I was 15, Trimmer Capote's In Cold Blood, so I always sort of been you know into that stuff and I thought the stories I tell about musicians to my friends, you know, what I was in bands and we were in the van or we're backstage or out of party or whatever, it was always the sort of more interesting like holy shit can you believe Jerry Lee Lewis got away with murdering his wife type of story, you know, it wasn't like, let's do a deep dive about the B-sides on Ziggy Stardust, You know, it was more sort of stuff that interested me.

And I thought, well, if I can mix true crime specifically with music, then I'll have my own lane to tell these stories. So it's like, you know, I mean, how many, you know, 5,000 word thing pieces do I need to read on David Bowie and how great he was? Like, I know, I got the memo. You know, we all did.

To me, it's more interesting to talk about his career in his music through the drama that was going on behind it. And I do that by hanging his story on whatever or any artist's story on the crimes they either committed or have had committed to them. Why do you think that is that like musicians and crimes seem to go hand in, like I can't think of a musician who doesn't have some sort of shady business happening or like, you know, six degrees of Kevin Bacon murder. What is it about? Yeah, what is it about? murder. What is it about? Yeah, what is it about? One degree. What is it about? Musicians, is it that we treat treat them?

Like gods, is it that we that it the concerts are debaturists? Like locale like it's just so interesting and fascinating and when I listened to the studio 54 episode It felt like whatever it is about musicians that attracts seediness was hyper concentrated in that one specific building. Exactly. I mean it's a great question. There's a lot of answers to that question. I think, you know, if you look at, you know, musicians, a lot of musicians, to be the type of person that goes up on stage is driven to go up on stage in front of tens of thousands of people every night and exert that type of energy and manage that type of, and I don't mean this in a bad way, that type of narcissism that goes into that, that ego, that id, and then to deal with the adrenaline that you have flowing through you on a constant basis to operate at that level, you're a special kind of person

to begin with. And you got to that point, you became that person in large cases because of how you were raised. And how you were raised, if you look at people like James Brown or Ike Turner or Jerry Lewis or David Bowie to some respect, or John Lennon. These artists, I mean, John Lennon was abandoned by both of his parents. They were just like, see a dude, we don't care, we're out. Like that does something to you.

James Brown was raised in a whorehouse, disciplined by being hung upside down at a burlap bag, and beaten with sticks. Like that, that's the type of thing that causes you to become the greatest entertainer of all time. And along the way, you get in trouble because you're just not a normal dude. There's other shit going on in your psyche that does not go on within our own, our own heads and our hearts. We, we sort of judge these people as if they are functioning members of society, but they're anything but. And they have to be anything but to operate at the level and create what they create Right Right. Yeah.

Well, it is interesting. I mean, you're basically talking about, well, first off, everybody's broken in some way, right? Like, I think we all can admit that no one is, like, there's no normal, really. But like, you're talking about people who are really severely broken. I mean, in John Lennon's case, in James Brown's case, like, we're talking about real abuse, right? Like early in their lives.

Is it uniform for you that you, with every story that you tell that you find no matter who it is, at what level they're at, and what genre they're playing in? Because you've got stories that aren't just stray rock and roll their stories from all over the universe of music, like, I I mean Studio 54 is a great example. But do you find that that is the thread that there are these like these people come from backgrounds where there is abuse or where there is real like hardship that they come out of? Yes, absolutely. I mean, it's so prevalent that I've just stopped looking for it. It's because it's there and I don't want to be, you know, looking for it. It's because it's there and I don't want to be, you know, amateur psychologist or, you know, but it's pretty constant. I mean, I don't need to go into a deep dive,

researching Cardi B's upbringing before she ends up stripping and on a pole in Queens, like just the fact that she's doing that for a living before she becomes a the biggest star on the planet, quite frankly, the connections there. It's real. Like just the fact that she's doing that for a living before she becomes a The biggest star on the planet quite frankly the connections there. It's real like I don't really need to even explain it Like you can just see it when she opens your mouth and starts talking it is this hyper-watt entertaining personality and it's the same thing that causes her to like, you know take no shit So when she's messed with she's got a strike back and she's going to behave the way she behaves. And that also goes in, like I said before, into how they create their art. So I think that you, it's interesting you, we talked about the David Bowie episode a little bit.

You have an episode about Led Zeppelin. And Led Zeppelin, when I started, when I knew we were doing this, we're going to do this interview and I started thinking about that because what you described, I mean at the beginning, you're kind of the drive behind this is those stories that you want to share. Led Zeppelin's one of those bands that when I first came to them, you know, the story that I heard from a lot of my friends who had already been in the Led Zeppelin world was the story about the fish.

Like there's a story about they fucked some growth of fish. There was some really weird, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, some girl with a fish. There was some like really weird. Do you know talking about? Yeah, yeah, the shark. Yeah, the shark right shark. Sorry, which is like it's so bizarre and so out there and like you're like there's no way that's possible, but there's something so Just up you like you couldn't make you like you think well, how would you make that story up if you were making it up, right? And it's funny because like the podcast you know them sort of freaking out, David Bowie, which on the flip side is like, David Bowie was freaking people out. But how do you get to the truth of these stories, right?

The shark, I mean, the shark thing is made up. I mean, that was always my understanding as the people were making it up. Well, it's certainly exaggerated. It wasn't like they had a great white in a hotel room and then eight guys positioning it to get it. You know what I'm saying? Right. They were, that's because in my mind, that is what's going on.

It's like they got some of the roadies and stuff like. When I was in the fourth grade, I heard that story. That's what I thought, too. And then you look into it and you hear, you read 10 different takes on it from different people and you start to suss your way through to the truth. And what was going on in that case was they were staying at this hotel in Seattle, which you know, the hotel was directly above the bay, I guess, and, you know, someone in the road crew along with John Bonham got the idea that they should go grab some fishing poles somewhere and cast them.

And they did. And what they ended up doing was pulling up a three foot mud shark, land shark type of mud shark, right? That's it. Sand shark, I think, is the appropriate. Yeah. But, you know, small, you know, but, you know,

and then they got it in the hotel room, and they get, you know, screaming groupies, competing for attention. And one, I can totally see how that happens, you know? Like, the way I told it in my podcast was I just subverted it and I kind of took the piss out of it and made fun of the actual story because it's become such a lore that it's almost like I felt silly just talking about it, you know what I mean?

Because it, well, so ridiculous when you say it, like when I was just saying it out loud, I was like, are these words actually leaving my mouth because they sound both insane and stupid, you know? Like, of course, of course, that's not what happened, but yet that's a beat, that's what being a rock star is. It's being insane and being stupid. That's the criteria.

Right. So you're kind of like, well, maybe it, I guess it did happen. I mean, on that point, like, obviously, obviously your researching these all the time I would imagine, like, have you had, has there been a story, either one that's really well known or not, that you've gone and researched and looked into, and it's just completely fabricated? Like, I assume there have to be ones that are just well circulated but completely made up. Have you remember, are there any instances where there's a story like that that you've looked into? I mean, it's more the opposite where I've looked into things that I was going to do.

And I've just sort of become scared of what's really there and what the real story is. And I just, I don't want to be anywhere near it. That was a question that I had for you that I have to ask who, anytime, any place is the scariest celebrity who a musician that you have researched that you just don't want to be alone with? I'll give you two vague answers to your very specific question. I was going to do an episode on a fairly well-known modern artist and a giant, massive, worldwide organization that this artist is affiliated with came at me and in no uncertain terms was like we're going to crush you if you do this. The other one I will say I'll be a little more specific on the other one.

I'll just say that a lot of people have asked me, a lot of listeners have gotten in touch and asked me to do an episode on Elliot Smith and after looking into it, I'm not going near it. Yeah, I mean, that's stories, that story's really, really sad. I mean, that's a really dark story. I mean, it seems like you're not trying to just bum people

out with these stories. I mean, these are stories that are kind of loom larger than life in some way. You know, like, Right, you're absolutely right. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. No, no, that's okay. I was just, I was just going to say, you know, it's, it seems like

one of the powers of the show is that you're taking people who are, who are these like massive, like there's very often, like almost no, you don't ever see the human side of it. And you're not exactly humanizing them, but you're kind of peeling back the myth a bit, which I think is, has a humanizing effect. But I do feel like an Elliott Smith is like, I think Elliott Smith is really humanized. And especially for people who really loved him, I feel like that's a totally different kind of story, right?

I mean, almost a different, for a different podcast. Yeah, it's very sad. And of course, you know, what really happened there is, for people to look into. But I will say there's these artists, I mean, some of them, you look at somebody like John Lennon, who I love, but who I am entirely conflicted about, who's just done some horrible, horrible, awful things.

And the narrative on him, the popular narrative on him, is it doesn't take into consideration any of those things. And they're just, they've been swept under the rug. And that's fine. I'm not trying to be like this gotcha type of storyteller or whatever, but that stuff to me is really frigging, interesting, the stuff that he actually did. But at the same time, the guy was gunned down senselessly

and murdered, you know, I had a point in his life when I feel like he was finally figuring out who he was and who he wanted to be. And then he's just gone. But all that, all the conflict leading up to that, between who that guy was, how he behaves, what the public perception of him was, there's a real tension there. And that's an extreme example of it, but that tension is there in almost every single one of these stories about all these artists. Well, isn't so much of this,

I mean, we get a narrative about, I mean, think about like you do an episode on Ozzy, you know, one of the things I heard, you know, as a kid growing up, one of the things people talked about was like, Ozzy ate a bat on stage or whatever. And that was like the prevailing story of Aussie Osborne was this one moment where you're like, this guy's so crazy and so evil that, you know, he like ate a bird or a bat or whatever it was on stage. And it's like, you know, there's no nuance in that whatsoever. There is no real person inside of that anecdotes that everybody shares.

And I feel like with John Lennon, I mean, the murder alone is enough to break our ability to see the nuance in that story, right? I mean, if he wasn't a beetle and wasn't the beetle and wasn't has didn't have this history of unbelievable contributions to the to the music world. That alone, right? That's enough. But then it's like the murder to your point is such a tragic, almost beyond belief moment

that all the bad stuff and all the nuance that might have been, that you might have understood about John Lennon gets kind of wiped away. I do feel like the part of your show is to reintroduce the nuance into the conversation, which I think in modern media is often, it's lost, right? I mean, don't you feel like these stories or stories that we should have heard a lot more about? Absolutely, and they're all out there,

and that's the, you know, it's, people always ask me like, God, I didn't know this like how did you how did you get this? I'm like dude, it's in his autobiography Man like it's there and there's something about I'm not talking about John Lennon specifically You know like in my head I have Rachel's right now because I just read his his autobiography And I'm just I'm just shocked at the stuff the guy copped to and at the time the autobiography came out It was you know right around the time he was you know You very mainstream very you know publicly admired and I get all that he should be lots of reasons that he should have been but You know the type of storytelling that I'm interested in and hanging my hat on is the type of storytelling that I like to hear which is

this hanging my hat on is the type of storytelling that I like to hear, which is this, you know, this, this meld of, of, just edge of your seat history, historic storytelling, like the high drama, high stakes. So, you know, like I said, I don't care about like deep diving, like the B-sides on Ziggy Stardust, like what I, what I care about is David Bowie being stared down by a cocaine Raged Jimmy Page in an apartment and their obsession with Satanism, you know Our oh, excuse me a cultism. So you know that that to me is more interesting and it's real and it happened and it's there And we don't we don't need the same narrative over and over again I mean, maybe some people who do who are just getting into this stuff for the first time

But for me like I said It's like it's like that Tarantino movie that came out last year once upon a time in Hollywood Like putting all those people we know in those situations and getting to actually like see you know what what What was happening, but also subverting history at the same time? That is really great storytelling and that's the stuff that I'm interested in, so that's what I do. Do you worry that we're running out of fucked up people in music? I mean, I know that we still have very tragic, you know, juice world for instance, like, you know, there's an artist who, a young, really exciting artist who came to a very untimely end.

Like, but, but that's more a story about addiction and a story about drug abuse and a story about things that really like a lot of people do. It's the not, they're not rockin' roll stories so much. You know, they're not like these larger than my stories. They're stories that I think a lot of us have encountered and have lived with and have dealt with. Do you, is there a shortage of people who are engaged

and just who are allowed, I guess, maybe, to engage in absolutely outrageous behavior? Because I do think, to your point, like you said, the autobiography you just read was written at a time or published at a time when whatever was being used as Ray Charles Is that right? Ray Charles, I believe, yeah, and the book came out in the I think mid 90s something like that Right, and like in the mid 90s when you go back and like watch TV from the mid 90s It's shocking what was acceptable to talk about it's like I think about that Sean Connery interview where he talks about hitting women

And you know, he says it like nobody should be surprised to hear it. And frankly, it's sort of handled in the interview like, well, I disagree with that, but of course, maybe sometimes you have to hit a woman. But do you feel like that we've changed? Has, I guess maybe there's a bigger question here. Are we running out of people who behave like this? Have our expectations of quote unquote stars change? have we evolved at all? Is there a

shortage of these kinds of stories? And maybe is that good or bad? There's a lot of questions in there. But I think it's a pretty big question. I think there's no shortage historically. Like it's just, it's, you know, it goes on and on. There's so much there. There's just, there's so much. know, it goes on and on. There's so much there. There's just, there's so much. As it pertains for future artists, as the question of plus of future artists, um, I think, you know, we're evolving as baked into your question here, we're evolving as a society. And, and kids, I mean, I have two little boys like kids are raised much differently than we were raised. They just are like, they're in it, we're better parents than our parents were.

And I'm not really trying to slight our parents. It was just the culture. Now you're right, you're definitely right though. But it was just the way the culture was. Like, you know, I was left alone. I was a latchkey kid. I could do whatever the fuck I wanted from pretty much the moment I woke up

to the moment I went to bed. So what I did was read about crazy rock stars, do drugs, and listen to rock and roll. And I think lots of other people who have become rock stars who are my age or who are older, those that had come from those upbringings where they were left alone and left to figure shit out on their own, and oftentimes it doesn't go well.

I mean, I don't know. Or like, would my kids into music, would he make a great rock star? Probably a pretty boring one, because he's got a pretty good childhood, you know? And I think that's the thing. Like, is that it? Is that what makes this so dark?

I mean, we talked about it before, but, you know, I mean, it's, I think about like post Malone. Like post Malone seems like he's not great, but like He probably didn't murder any but I mean he's like comes from like a rich family You know, much of this do you think is is like people nowadays In doing an imitation or a performance of the behavior of people who actually Were expressing some level of like trauma or

Erratic behavior or mental illness. Sometimes I look at Lady Gaga and she is a lot going on. In her personal life, there's some darkness there. Obviously she grew up upper middle class. So it's not that, you know, she wasn't in any danger of starving. But she has a sort of sorted backstory of her time in New York. People she knew who died right around the time she was about to rise to fame.

And then while she's famous, she has tons of health problems and she's drug issues. But a lot of her performance is imitating Bowie or imitating the stones or imitating Lymidana and or influenced by, I should say, not like she's doing a cover act. But how much of that like is Kesha Channeling Mick Jagger but isn't really Mick Jagger well

Kesha a Mick Jagger I could tell you It's I don't really not answer this. It's interesting because Gaga is she exists at a time when she can talk about these challenges She can talk about her legal health and her anxiety and it's almost like it's going to be welcomed. Like, you know, I mean, David Bowie could not talk about his brother's schizophrenia and his, the way he was trying to deal with his own identity and how he felt about his sexuality. It just wasn't, it wasn't really allowed.

It had to manifest through his art, not that it doesn't with Gaga, it does, but there's also, we just wasn't really allowed. It had to manifest through his art, not that it doesn't with Gaga, it does, but there's also, we just live in a different world where it's healthier in a lot of ways. So I feel like they're kind of better set up, but you know, I'm sure there are always be artists who feel like they have to live that quote-unquote rock star lifestyle as cheesy as that is, and live up to some expectation. But you know, the music industry is a much different place than it was 20, 30, 40 years ago. It was the freaking Wild West. And people, the labels were so starved, not that they are now, they were so starved for hits and cash that they

were permissive in this behavior. And we we're not we're not there anymore you know i mean sir behavior is allowed to go on but like labels are closer to tech companies now yeah right well i mean well yeah it no it's true i mean i mean but also there's been yeah i mean the point about what is okay to talk about i mean you talked about like you know day you said david bowie's brother had schizophrenia. I mean, was there even a way for David Bowie to talk to even describe what it was? Did he even have the language or understanding about that particular mental health issue that he could talk? You know, I mean, the whole construct has changed in the sense that we're actually more educated

about what drives people to do stuff. We have a better understanding. And I say this, I feel like the history will look back on this podcast and be like, listen to these people, they thought they were so enlightened. And yet, and yet we all ended up in a murder suicide while performing at a rock club. But BTS became a series of serial killers.

BTS has actually been doing serial killing the entire time. Yeah, I mean, but that's, but that's a different type of, I mean, you don't, you don't have an episode on, on, I mean, you could probably do it. Did you do NSYNC? I mean, that's pretty dark, right? NSYNC's got, there's a really dark backstory there. I was going to say like, then, but you know what, actually, and that was, we were going to talk about this. So, you know, the story of the moment right now is, is speaking of, of NSYNC is Britney Spears and the perception, the public perception of Britney Spears as told to us by the media

versus the reality of it is, you know, how much of that kind of, of what is happening with her right now is sort of what you get at with these stories. I mean, where you're sort of trying to find the real story. It's a huge part of it. I mean, I haven't seen that documentary yet, the British documentary, but I am a little aware of what's been going on there and what she's been faced with, and the whole thing with her dad, and all that. But I'm always trying to get it that thing behind the artist that isn't part of the narrative. You know, that's like, you know, I mean, I just wrote this Ray Charles episode and it opens with Ray Charles flying a plane.

Ray Charles was blind, but he flew a plane. You know, like he was, he owned a plane, he owned multiple planes throughout his career and one of them was going down and the windshield was frozen over with ice and he was, it was a small cessin' of that he was in with the pilot and he was a small cessinor that he was in with the pilot and he was assisting the pilot in landing the plane through air traffic control. But just the fact that,

you know, it's Ray Charles. That's nice. Before that happened and the way he was able to pull that off was he knew everything he could know about flying a plane just because he was fascinated with it, you know, and he was he was blind. My point, you don't you don't think that about Ray Charles. Right. No, definitely not. I mean, that's a crazy story. Yeah, so that's always what I'm trying trying to get at. I mean, the stuff about Brittany, I mean, that's pretty dark and it's, you know, it's, you know, in the moment, we have no way of knowing oftentimes what's happening. Now there's a benefit of hindsight and I mean, yeah, I certainly use that as fuel. Well, that's like kind of like there is some darkness to the...

I mean, yes, the reason the show is so entertaining and so delicious is the juice and the like, sort of like the heart pumping more like what is adrenaline feeling. But I think, you know, the Britney thing is interesting because like, it has now been exposed for being a very sad scenario of what we did to her and what was done to her by her family. But it's also like, there are outlandish parts of it, right? Like, there is a scene of Britney's life, which I think got made into a lifetime movie where her and Justin Timberlake had just broken up and they had like a dance off in an LA club and like got, and they were like backup dancers

got into a physical fight after with each other. And it's like, did that really happen? Yes, and it's so outlandish and as its own story, phenomenal. But a part of a larger picture, it speaks to the sadness and rot in like American culture and American life. And I wonder if you sometimes get a little jaded about having to sort through a lot of the like emotional and psychological detritus of these people and trying to like turn it into something that can be entertaining, but also like instructive. Like, are you, do you get exhausted by the like

emotional labor of it? No, not really, just because, I mean, like, are you, do you get exhausted by the like emotional labor of it? No, not really, just because, I mean, honestly, the thing you just mentioned, those moments of absurdity are so highly entertaining, even for me, and I come across them all the time, whether it's Bertie and Justin and LA club dance off or Ray Charles flying a plane, or John Lennon freaking out,

because Bruce Springsteen's getting played on the radio and he's not like that. It just blows my mind and I find it to be endlessly fascinating and it's a great counter balance to the weight of the emotional side of it. Yeah, I mean, I think what's interesting is on the Britney's, first of all, I've never heard the dance off story and that feels like that's gotta be a disgrace on that. Yes. But no, I do think like do you feel,

I mean, I guess it's a little bit piggybacked on what Ryan is asking, but do you feel like, you know, the media has been very complicit in the building of these narratives. And do you feel, you know, what's your responsibility here? I mean, in terms of obviously, you're kind of shedding light on things that people have known about but maybe not seen the full picture of.

But is there a responsibility that you feel as you're telling these stories to give people like a truer picture, I guess? I mean, is that one of the driving sentiments here? That you feel like where the media is essentially lying to people all the time about who these people are? Like making them into cartoon characters a lot of the time. Yeah, I have a kind of nuance for you.

I don't, you know, to say I feel responsible would be inflating the my sense of what I think I actually do. Like I'm just, I'm trying to make content that is highly entertaining, first and foremost. And my path to doing that rests on finding these stories that aren't well known. And often, and you hit the nail on the head with that Brittany Closie.

I mean, it's that absurdity. It just helps me do what I want to do. I don't feel like morally responsible or responsible in any other way. I think journalists have a tough lot of it. Journalism has changed like everything else in our society so much over the last few decades. It's funny if you guys are up on all the like the Maryland Manson and Army Hammer stuff that's going on. Very, very interested in both of those stories. So the interesting thing to me is,

I haven't really been following this as much as my wife has, but like every night I get like the new update, update from like, what's been going on on the internet from her second hand. And it's like, there's a lot of, oh well, Marilyn Manson said this in an interview and now they're pulling in and he's talking, or army hammer said this about like eating someone's rib in an interview and like it's like like to my point

This stuff is out there. What's a journalist gonna do though from you know, Rolling Stone or whatever and they're interviewing Marilyn Manson or Army Hammer and they drop some comment like that Right Is it is the journalist gonna be like oh? You know, maybe one in a hundred journalists would be like, oh, let's talk about eating the women again. Let's, let's dive into that, Mr. Manson. Well, I mean, I, it's like the open secret of Ellen's behavior.

I've been telling people for years. Everyone in comedy says, I was abused by it or I know someone who's abused by Ellen. And I've been saying it and nobody listened. So I just kind of was one of those things I knew about Ellen. Then it all comes out and I'm like, man, maybe I should have, I don't know. Well, it's hard because like, what was I going to do? What was the I random blogger going to do? Right. Exactly. The open secret thing is one thing. But I also think, I mean, you just touch on something that is real, which is like, I think now more than ever, so many of these people are handled by these huge,

this huge apparatus that protects them from those questions, right? And frankly, from a media that often doesn't want, like the good cover story is not the one about, you know, if you get, let's say, I mean, I don't know who would do the cover story on Marilyn Manson, he's maybe the wrong choice, but like,

let's use Post Malone because he seems like relatively relevant. You get the cover story of the Post Malone. His PR people are like, okay, here's what you can ask him about. Here's what you can't ask him about. There's plenty of opportunity for them to be like, the interview is over. And you know, you want to make GQ happy. Like, you're not going to go and ask Post Malone about, first of, I don't even know if Post Malone's done anything.

He's actually very boring the more I think about it. But that's what makes a legendary the profile of like, Frank Sinatra has a cold, which is like a, fuck it if you're not gonna cooperate in like, you're myth making through like talking to me, then I will do it myself. And sort of blowing the doors off of it in a way that, you're really not supposed to when you're like,

write a profile like, there's a level of like access journalism, right? That that tells a certain story for the musicians that people get fed. And even though there's obviously more interesting angles right out in the open, it takes someone looking for those interesting angles rather than looking to just continue to venerate these people. You used to have that. You're talking about this permissive storytelling now, the myth making, where you used to have editorial outlets like Rolling Stone, even up until the 90s, where they were, I don't know what their

corporate structure was, but still from an editorial perspective, they were fairly independent. And in Spain and alternative press, you could get these stories. Now media has become so concentrated and so in working in tandem with these artists to kind of, I mean, they're all in it to, they all have an agenda. And if they don't work together, they're not going to fulfill the agenda. And we're just stuck in this in this thing. I mean I'm thankful that you know I get to do my type of storytelling because I launched independently and you know despite whatever media company I'm partnering with at the moment or I still have that independence to tell the story that I want to tell.

Jeff Bezos doesn't call you and say you got to kill that misfit story. Well, there's a reason he retired. He was like, I can't enjoy this knowing that I have got the power to kill these stories. I guess I have to step back so I could hear the Grand Parsons, the real story about Grand Parsons. Yes, exactly. But no, my point is is I'm not a journalist. I never have been.

I didn't want to pretend to be one. I didn't want to try to be one or whatever. But I kind of feel for these guys. Like, what are they going to do? It's hard to do anything or have any sort of like unique perspective or point of view unless you're being entrepreneurial, like frankly, know, frankly, like we are, or you have, you're doing this in a way where you can come at it with some independence. And not think you have to chill for, for whoever you're working for. No, I mean, it's true. Actually,

it's, you're, point of mind, ruin stones, really interesting because at the time when they were, they did used to do, the stories were like, holy shit, this person said something or did something in this story. And you're like, that's actually scandalous and people would talk about it, right? They would be, they would be, it would be a story, the story of, of that person would be a story in and of itself because of what Rolling Stone might have uncovered or another publication, but there weren't that many people doing it, right? Like, think about up until, you know, the late 90s, early 2000s, how many music magazines were there that would cover, deeply cover these artists,

and that would both offer them a global stage to be on, to be profiled, but also be still doing real hard journalism about them. I mean, there was a different kind of interview and a different kind of cover story for artists like that up until I wanna say the late 90s. And I think part of it is that obviously media has been blown apart in a million different ways.

But now there is, it's like, hey, if Rolling Stone doesn't want to do the cover story, there's like a thousand other outlets that have just as big, if not bigger audiences, that will play ball with you. And so in a way, what you're doing is is one of the only ways to actually get to the real story, which is like picking through, you know, the picking through all of the details and all the historic and archival stuff that it's out there to kind of piece it together, you know, in a way that often these people don't want to say, they don't want to say out loud. Right, right.

The other side of it is, I don't think they want it to go away either. I mean, they're happy with the myth and the bad storytelling, the myth making, the bad boy attitude, all that. You know, it's funny as you're talking, I was thinking like music doesn't have, on the journalism side, it doesn't have its Bob Woodward. You know, and I don't mean Watergate Bob Woodward. I mean, the guy, like, it doesn't have its Bob Woodward, you know, and I don't

mean Watergate Bob Woodward, I mean, the guy, like, I don't know how the hell Bob Woodward does it. Like, if I'm a president and Bob Woodward calls me, I'm not picking up the god damn phone. This goes back to, I mean, I, I've never read Bill Clinton's book and Stefan Opelus was like, I, I can't believe I fell for the Woodward thing. Everyone warned me against it, and I just like, I rolled over and just opened up like a book. You know what I mean? And there's no music journalist, or maybe there's an entertainment journalist

that I'm not thinking of, but there's no music journalist who can just like, get Mick Jagger on the phone, and get Mick to kind of like, you know, just tell stories he wouldn't tell, or cop to things or give access that he wouldn't tell. You know, the irony, just tell stories he wouldn't tell or or cop to things or give access that he wouldn't tell. You know, the iron, the great irony is that when Jan Wetter of Rolling Stone did that his biography with that writer, the writer did

exactly that to the guy who founded Rolling Stone. Like basically took all the shit he didn't want in the book and put it in the book. Right. Yeah. I don't know if that exists in it. I mean, there are people who do it and there are a lot of great journalists out there still doing this. I do think, I mean, there's just, there is a way now that the celebrity profile kind of works. There is a sort of like, expect expectation that you'll be edgy, just edgy enough, right? Like, I think that's kind of now, like Post Malone is actually, I hate to keep coming back to him,

but he's a good example because Post Malone is a guy who's like totally super commercial pop star, comes from like a good family, good background, you know, got his start doing like Nirvana covers and now is like, I'm a rap star, but like Post Malone, in interviews, you'll be like, well, he said some like kind of fucked up stuff, but it's not so fucked up that it damages or destroys his reputation. You know, it's like just enough to make you feel like maybe he's actually really an edgy

guy. And I think that's kind of become, in a way, like what you're exploring, there's a kind of more generic, you know, popular version of it that every artist tries to have a piece of now. I mean, almost like, Ryan, to your point about Lady Gaga, I mean, her narrative is like, she has this narrative about like, you know, her background, her upbringing, being able to be who she is. Like, she's obviously a, like in the LGBTQ plus community, obviously a huge star and has played that up as much as possible. But it is like sort of like, you know,

her struggle had to be part of the conversation about Lady Gaga. I couldn't just be like, she's really town and became famous, you know? So I feel like what you're exploring is now like a little bit of a generic part of every star's story that they've got some thing. It makes them weird or different.

It's why people go on American Idol and say, well, I'm so excited to be here because I have triple cancer and I was blown up and my mother left me at a bus stop and I've never heard music until today and now I am the greatest singer of all time. And they all go on there and do their performance of it because like you said, I think it used to be enough to be a really cool person to watch on stage.

And now through some of the selective myth making that rock stars and pop stars have wanted, they feel required to have this. It's so interesting. Yeah, it goes beyond, to me, you know, to cruising through Instagram, it goes beyond musicians. I mean, there's just like, I feel like there's this need to be vulnerable or this expectation I should say,

to show your vulnerability in a way where you can garner a way to relate to your audience, which, I mean, part of the 70s, 80s, 90s rock stars were, they were godly, you know what I mean, there was no vulnerability until Kurt Cobain came along and kind of crushed it all. And now there's almost an expectation to be that way. I'm not saying it's good or bad, I'm just saying it's, you know, to your point, it's different. Yeah, so listen, so we're, I hate, I don't know what it's like, I mean, dismiss with that, but we're a little bit over time. And I know you probably can't spend all day with us as much as

we would enjoy it. Um, before we go, I want to ask you, is there a, an artist that you've been, is there somebody that you've got that's kind of like your, you know, you're trying to find a way to crack it that you've always wanted to do a story on that you haven't found a way to do it? Is there like a Mount Everest for you of our list? A white whale, yeah, do you have one? Yeah, a little guy by the name of her, his name is Elvis Presley.

Oh, come on, that's two on the nose. No, no, who is that? I know the name Pressley. No, I hit I hit on him in my book, the opening chapter and the closing chapter are both on Elvis, the opening chapter is fat, Elvis, the closing chapter is skinny, Elvis. And I've always said to my last, the last episode of Discrease, and will be on Elvis Presley, then I will have left the building. But it's such a complicated guy and there's so much there and there's no real direct

criminality. I've heard a lot of stuff. I've had people call me direct sources and offer things to me. So I don't know exactly what the story will be, but I know I'll get there at some point. I'm just sort of waiting. I mean, that to me feels like it could be its own. That could be a whole other podcast just about Elvis. I mean, you know, he's pressing Elvis. Just disgrace land too. Do you point out anyhow? Well, listen, there's a million things I'd like

to ask you and you'll have to come back on and and and and then by the way, I'm the whole time we've been talking to him, I and belonging to that. I've been thinking about this person that you said that this like international organization was deploying against you. This, this star, this is a musician, right? That you're talking about is Megan trainer. It's man, Megan trainer, train and talk it on me. They're coming out. I just want to say it's great talking to you.

I'll see you. No, actually, this was great. You got to come back and do this again. Thank you so much for joining us. We have been talking to Jake Brennan. He is the host of Discretsland, a rock and roll true crime podcast available on Amazon music. You need to go and subscribe and listen to the show.

It's super fascinating. Run, don't walk. Yes, Jake, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it. Have a great one. So, you know, listen, a lot of nasty stuff going on, a lot of nasty stuff going on in the world of music, a lot of dirty, nasty, sexy, hot, exciting stuff happening. Anyhow, I think we got to, we should wrap up, right?

Is there anything else? Do we miss anything? Do we have we talked about Valentine's Day, you know, it's fine. Let's just go. Let's just wrap up. You want to do your night? Do you start? You do nice things and I'll do a nice thing and then the nice thing will be that to show is over we can get all with our lives. My nice thing this week is I had a lovely Valentine's Day and I got the chromatic Oreos, so that was great. But truly my consumerist and nice thing for the week is that I got a very prominent hardware modder to create me a N64, like handheld edition, like a like a like a squeezed into a

handheld in the shape of a Game Boy SP, Game Boy Advance SP. And it's beautiful and it's wonderful and it charges over USBC and all I do now is play Super Mario 64. What may I ask what kind of cost would be associated with such a thing? You'd end up spending a little north of a thousand dollars. Wow, wow. But that's bold. That's bold. I like it. I love it. It's a matter of fact. But I'm mentally ill.

So you considered that. I have considered it. I thought a lot about it, actually. My nice thing is this is so dumb. I have a dumb nice thing. I started shopping for fragrances. I have this clone that I wear. I'm not gonna name it

because I don't want the secret to get out. But it's a, it's something that my grandfather wore. It's actually not very easy to get because they basically stop creating like a version they sell in America. And it wasn't like, it's not super fancy or anything, but anyhow, but I was like, I like the way this smells

and I've been wearing it a long time. Are there other things that I would like that smell similar, but I haven't tried? I mean, what does it matter? I'm like never leaving my house. I mean, nobody cares about what I smell like, but I care, and that's enough, isn't it? Anyhow, so I started doing some like spulunking on,

there's like a really interesting, I mean, people have written about it and talked about it before, but there's just like a fascinating world of like fragrance review sites where people go deep. Like, like you think people who are into keyboards or nerds, like you should read some of the reviews of people who are into fragrances.

It's a whole other world. Anyhow, so I started sponking in there and I found a couple of things that I was interested in trying. I bought some like vintage, some vintage things, some testers, a couple of new things. And again, no reason to own these or use them because I never leave my home anymore. But I guess for Laura, it'll be nice, you know, maybe I'll smell myself once

in a while and be like, oh, I was going to hold over your head that you're putting cologne on in a pandemic. But I had a realization this week that I had just gone through a month of teeth whitening only to realize that by the time I see anybody, they'll be nice and yellow again. What was the point of that? It's cold. I'm sorry, it's cold. Did a pandemic like, is that a thing? Oh, no, I just heard you're like, I'm smelling it Zelda.

Like who do you don't care? Right, right. No, I nobody cares. That's my teeth white. Literally, literally anytime in the public, I'm wearing a mask. There's no reason to write on the street. Yeah, I know.

Oh, especially the teeth. This is a, for me, a man with a monstrous mouth, this to me is like Christmas. This is Christmas for people with bad teeth because I get smiles big as I want. Nobody can see the hideous vampire slash werewolf like situation going on inside my mouth. Anyhow, so yeah. So so so hopefully the next couple of weeks I'll be able to share with Tony

what is going on with me from a fragrance perspective. Oh, you're going to be blowing. You're going to be feeling and smelling gasoline. I'm that exercise. I can start of a personal. Listen, I love this smell of gasoline. I'm that actually sounds pretty good start of a personal. Listen, I love the smell of gasoline. You know what's funny is like we've taken, you know, obviously Zelda has been in the car where we've like put gas in the car and she's like, that smells good.

And we're like, he does smell good. It's not supposed to. It's not supposed to. There's no reason why it should. But for some reason, almost everybody I know is like gasoline spells great. It's awesome phenomenal. You know what doesn't smell good? It's so weird.

It never says smells good. Fresh cut grass. You liars. It smells like, now I'm fresh cut grass. No, no, no, fresh cut grass is wonderful. And by the way, by the way, the kinds of things as you're exploring these websites, the kinds of things you start to learn about

are all of the different smells that exist. Okay. Like, all the notes, like for instance, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you about my fragrance, my secret fragrance. I'm not going to share. A very pretty base note. Yeah, I want to tell you what the, yeah, let me tell you about what the, let me give you the base notes, by the way, is one of the websites that you can go on, basenotes.net. I love any type of content that you can tell. That's from the old internet. Like that's not it's got to

be a forum that it's basically a forum. Yeah, it's a forum. It has it's like one of these websites has been around for like 30 years and has all the crazy shit grafted onto it. It's both on WordPress that everyone who uses it hates it. Like they're all nightmare people who've been there for 30 years. Yeah, exactly, exactly. No, no, this is pre-wordpress. This is pre-wordpress. So top notes, Neuroly, don't know what that is. I can actually look it up.

Lemon, Petigrain, never heard of it. Heart notes, by the way, these are the way that they describe these. Top notes, heart notes, and base notes. Top notes, Neuroly, Lemon, Petigrain, or Petite grain. Not really sure how you, I guess it's Petite grain maybe. Heart notes, Cardamom, bass notes, Cedarwood, Oak Moss, and Vettiver, which doesn't that sound nice, doesn't that sound lovely. And so you learn all sorts of things about these individual sense. That's actually pretty simplistic compared to some of these things. But,

individual sense. That's actually pretty simplistic compared to some of these things. But anyhow, so that's what I that's a little something I've found to, I mean, shopping is America's pastime and it's absolutely as my pastime as of late. And I'm, you know, until I get vaccinated, I really can't do anything. It's winter in New York. It's so fucking cold and depressing. It's note another five inches today where we live. It's like there's really nothing to do now except wait, you know, I'm thinking about becoming morbidly obese just to get the vaccine sooner, okay? And honestly, I wouldn't need that much to do that much work because I've all been doing is eating since I've been indoors for the last year. So yeah, so I'm buying, you know, I'm buying expensive or sometimes cheap, last year. So yeah, so I'm buying, you know, I'm buying expensive or sometimes cheap, but hard to find fragrances and then just going to be spraying myself with them in the lane. Again, I'll be getting

into my bed under three layers, putting both masks on, waiting for Joe Biden to slip in and then inject the vaccine into me. But until then, I'm going to smell great. Under those covers. I think that's a good place to leave it. I love when men flip be a bad guy. I'm not going to be a bad guy. I'm not going to be a bad guy. I'm not going to be a bad guy. I'm not going to be a bad guy. I'm not going to be a bad guy. I'm not going to be a bad guy. I'm not going to be a bad guy. I'm not going to be a bad guy.

I'm not going to be a bad guy. I'm not going to be a bad guy. I'm not going to be a bad guy. I'm not going to be a bad guy. I'm not going to be a bad guy. the Sir Ridge Joe. Goodbye. Well that is our show for this week. We'll be back next week with more tomorrow, and as always, I wish you and your family the very best. Though I've just learned that Joe Biden has slipped into your family's home, but he does not have the vaccine.