864. - Tim Miller

All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Stateside with Kai and Carter, a new podcast from The Guardian. And they are using this podcast to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions that we all have about what's happening in the world. And they do it three times a week, Jason. Does that sound familiar to you? We don't really talk about, you know, a lot of international global news items and climates and cultures and sports and things like that. We do talk about fashion and wellness, but for everything else, Kai and Carter are a great place. All right, so who couldn't use more news? Listen wherever you get your podcast. or watch on YouTube. How long gone recording in progress, Chris Black. I have finally, mercifully put my two fat feet down on manhattan concrete jason even though it's a disgust it's a disgusting barber weather day it's raining it's windy i cannot wait to get out there and trek across the town uptown downtown midtown any part of town i'm willing to kiss the pavement today so you don't care where you're going as long as you're going honestly maybe i'll go to the bronx for the first time maybe today's the day in the in the rain fuck it fuck it fuck it fuck it Okay, so speaking of being smart, you're coming to me live from an iPad today instead of your normal laptop. Bro, fuck you. Look, this has nothing to do with my intelligence, all right? Now, look, I'll explain to you. I'll level with you as well as our listeners. I woke up today at 3.[redacted address], on TJ style, to drive to the Jacksonville Airport because it's like a little over an hour away from St. Augustine. Mm-hmm. And I got to the airport, and I thought I was slick. I got through. I was in and out, classic Chris style, no hiccups. The guy's got clear. It's not even an issue. Got no hiccups. And then my bag was, of course, pulled over to be searched, and they unpack it. And I realized that my trusty laptop sleeve that I've had for, I don't know, 12 years.

was empty. The leather was there, the structural integrity remained, but the valuable product that I needed was not where it should be. So I don't have a laptop, Jason. I left it. Sober guy left his laptop at the Airbnb. A tale not as old as time. We were DJing so late, bro. When's the last time you left your laptop somewhere? Never. Literally never in history of my life. But I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. You tell me why, and then I'll tell you why I think why. Okay, okay. Because I never want to see it again after what I've been through? Once you finish the book, I thought you'd just throw your computer away. Yeah, I wish I was finished. Actually, when I finish the book, I'm going to need you to be over here with your phone to smash the laptop with a hammer. I never want to see it again. Office space style. Last night, I packed all my stuff. I was really ready because I had to get up so early. And I did bring my laptop with me into the bedroom because at 9 p.m. was the Love is Blind reunion. Oh, wow. I probably made it through 10 minutes of the Love is Blind reunion before passing out. And then I believe that my trusty Apple laptop computer got covered up with a pillow. during the you know during my during my six hours and i woke i woke up and it was if it was out of sight out of mind and i was in a hurry and i left i left it right there in bed okay so i went right there right there when you say love is blind reunion aren't there like 900 seasons of it is it is it just the last season or is it all encompassing of the entire it's just this current season which is in uh denver and where none of the couples got married which is a pretty which is a pretty bad and i know you don't watch the show but you can understand how that would be problematic when the show is you're supposed to go blindly meet the love of your life and then marry them after two weeks and then when you see him and then so everyone you're like oh this is what denver bitches look like damn i'm sorry it's not gonna be like how does it

What is the percentage on other seasons of marriages? I don't think any of them. I think maybe three in history of the show have lasted until now. But I'm saying I would say out of six couples, I would say two to three usually. It's not that bad. We'll call it 37% overall. Denver definitely had some hogs. Definitely had some guys that should not be out in public, let off their leashes. But I did. Luckily, because I was so heartbroken about my laptop, I was able to finish it on my cell phone on the flight home. So I'm up to date. Don't worry. Jesus Christ. Don't worry. You can never talk shit on me watching anything on the plane, my little dumbass movies, when you're watching Love is Blind reunion on your phone. No, no. You have an iPad. I don't have an iPad. This is my wife's iPad that happened to be at home. This is not my iPad. I want to be very clear. I would never, I'm not saying never, but I would. I mean, you're at this point in your life with your computing needs where iPad Pro with the keyboard is going to set you free, brother. That's what this is. That's what this is, to be fair. But yeah, I mean, it might. I don't know, man. I don't know. I'm just glad I got to see the end of Love is Blind. I'm glad I'm back in New York. And I'm glad the apartment is coming together nicely. Your camera is doing the zoom in and zoom out as you sort of wiggle your body. See, there we go. We zoomed out. Pause. I wanted to turn this off, but I didn't know how, of course. So here we are. Yeah, if you do your body in like a Chris Brown kind of dance style, like there's something inside of me that needs to come out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Like your heart is beating out of your chest. I know that move. You've got to keep it in. I know that move. But you're coming to New York in just a few short hours, too. So I hope you need to pack your cheese yellow Arcteryx. I've got to pack my cheddar slicker. You've got to drape yourself in cheese, my bro. Do you think I need to bring a raincoat for sure? For shizzle? I mean, today, yes. I don't think actually for the rest. I think you'll be fine. I think you'll be fine. Unfortunately, my Halloween costume, which is probably what I was going to wear for the GQ Man of the Year and probably won't wear again, it's taken up a lot of space in my suitcase. So there's not much room for...

All of my raincoats and slickers and dusters and things like that. So you're going to come to New York City as a 40-something-year-old man, and you're really going to wear a costume. This is not a joke. This is not a drill. No, I mean, I feel like I've been a bit of a depressed curmudgeon the last few Halloweens. I'm not dressing up. I'm going to stay at home. If a trick-or-treater comes to the house, I ain't got no candy. We ain't home. I'm at the point where I would put a razor blade in Apple, no cap. I'm at the point where I'm willing to do something about this overpopulation. I get it. So you have a costume, but you're saying I want to lean into like I'm also I'm pot committed. Like I'm I'm coming out of pocket thousands of dollars to fly to New York for no other reason than to spend time with my beautiful wife. It's not and I'm going to be back there. I was there a week ago. I'm going to be back there in two weeks. so i'm like i'm i bought the ticket i might as well take the ride lean into halloween i don't think i'm gonna bring ecstasy but you know i'm gonna do i'm gonna have a fun time at least okay i want to create forever memories i would like to propose the idea that a fun time can be had by adults without having to wear costumes but i i don't want to yeah that's for 364 days of the year That's true. That's true. You have so much other time to create those memories. I'm happy. I'm going to be with you on Halloween. I, of course, will not be wearing a costume. Do something. Do something. Just wear a funky. Are you going to wear a statement T at the very least? I mean, I could wear a statement T, I guess. I don't have anything that feels Tame Impala appropriate. I don't have album one merch, you know what I mean, to pull out. So I could dress up like a lifetime fan, which is funny. Any Australian? Do you have maybe a Primal Scream tee? You got one of those probably, right? That could be something. I got a few of those, actually. I mean, I wish I had a Silverchair Frog Stomp. I think that would be. Maybe I could talk to it. I don't have enough time to get one of my vintage guys to find me the Frog Stomp XL. That's where you're wrong, mate. I'll have one. It'll be waiting for you at Barclays. I just saw the Chromio announced a DJ tour of Australia and the Flyer.

is the sexy chromio legs dripping and coming out of a Vegemite can, but it says chrom-o-mite. Chromio-mite. Yeah, which I thought was very clever. I thought that was very good. Do you think this was generated with artificial intelligence? No, it's definitely like graphic arts of some kind. I'm looking at it right now. Oh, yeah. It's good. So the legs. Oh, wow, look at this. Look at this. Australia's on the mind. I got to say, I got to say, oh, and it says the funk extract, probably made in Canada since 2004. Okay, those Canadians had to sneak that in, couldn't help themselves. I think the problem is, you know, in 2025, the average person in the world, they're going to look at that and say, is that doo-doo, baby? You know what I mean? I mean, it's pretty clear. If you have a brain and you see that it's Australia and a... that logo but you're right i think most people don't know that yeah you said if you have a brain no no yeah well and that's what well it's 40 australians definitely don't that's not what they're known for so it's gonna be my don't do that don't do that yeah i'm gonna i'm hopping on a plane as basically we're gonna finish this and then like in a half an hour i head over to lax and then i begin my fun editing process on the plane I'll be busting out loose in Brooklyn at the one hotel where we activated with our friends at New Balance. Carolyn said there seems to be a lot of basketball players there. And I said, I'm on my way, sweetie. Why did you even notice that? I don't understand. How do you know they're basketball players? Is the sauna unisex? Is the sauna unisex? So you're saying these guys are basketball players. I'm tall. I'm not a basketball player. How do you know? Did you ask them? Did you look them up? I don't want the answer to that question because she'll say, I know what your body looked like and their body looked different. No, come on. You're in your LeBron era, aging but still getting after it. No, I'm not upset with how I look, but I'm not.

You know, I ain't LeBron. LeBron and I are like the same height, and he has, let's call it, 47 pounds of muscle up. There's some additional muscle available. There's some additional muscle available. Yeah, his back from behind looks less Mr. Burns-y. I saw a guy on Instagram that does like the little face in the corner thing, and he was talking about it was somebody making this crazy French toast. And it was these big slices of French toast. And he kept saying he ain't ever seen big back French toast before. And I have to say, that made me chuckle. Big Mac never gets old. That's the well. Big Mac is a... I want to use it more. I just forget, kind of, because it is... I feel like you could say it to a lot of people and they wouldn't know what you meant, which is a very powerful thing to have in your arsenal. Yeah, I mean, it is... I'm going to group that into a section of words and phrases that I don't like, which is... I'm too afraid to say fat or I don't want, I'm too afraid of offending someone. So I'm just going to say big backed. And then, you know, like there's so many people that say the word, the words, and you know, they're trying to say the N word or they're trying to say a slur or they're trying to say something transgressive, but they just, I say, I say that big back is funnier than that. I know what you mean, but I feel like it achieves. No, it is funny. Yeah. Something beyond. That's why I give it a pass. Something beyond. It takes it to a whole nother place, brother. Whole nother place. Heifers got sting big back. It's like, yeah, you got me. I've eaten. Big back. Quick, quick update on the Tesla from last episode. Did you find the body? There was no body inside, but it really was a neighbor's tweaker son. Wow, so you had a little bit of evidence that led you to this place. So I saw a tweaker son pull up in what appeared to be his parents' car, like whatever, a 15-year-old Lexus SUV. And when it pulled up, I could smell...

the engine and lack of care that it was being like you know when somebody pulls up and like oh you don't know how to drive too good i thought i thought i thought the whole point was you just sort of reset the hard drive and that thing was good to go you're saying i'm not talking about the tesla oh okay i'm saying the tesla was parked in front of my house i see i see i'm sorry Smashed up with the windows rolled down. He was borrowing a different car. I see. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I did not get a chance to spray the inside of the car with hose water. And all is forgiven. All is well. My shout goes out to their tweaker son. Hopefully he lands on his feet. Is the car still there? No. It's gone. Okay, it's gone. It's gone. Okay. Windows are rolled up, and it's gone. I don't want to toot my own horn here, but I said don't call the cops. Give this a couple days, and the situation will arrange itself. Let's not get the authorities involved. And I think that was the right course here. I'm glad I did the thing I don't normally do, which is ask for help. All right, we have a guest here today. His name is Tim Miller. He's from the Bulwark Network. podcast newsletter etc etc he's wearing a hot boys t-shirt and he has a poster about beans behind him i was gonna i was gonna talk to him about beans in china so let's give him a call this episode of how long gone is brought to you by a new podcast from the guardian stateside with kai and carter this is covering a lot of our bases jason it's a it's trying to slow down The news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what's happening in the world. And I know you particularly have quite a lot of questions. A lot of questions. But how often? Because we do this podcast three times a week and that's a sweet spot. How many times do they do? Three times a week. And I have a feeling just based on the platform and these talking points that they're maybe going to be covering different stuff than we do. That's just a guess. The Guardian is not some billionaire owned. They're not afraid to say what they want to say, brother. Yeah, Rupert ain't sniffing around in what journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman are up to over there at Stateside. But yeah, listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch it on YouTube. It's three times a week. And who couldn't use more news? Especially when it's not from here, let's say. Give it a listen. Give it a listen. Oh, this is huge for me personally. This episode of How I'm Gone.

It was brought to you by TaskRabbit. Oh, baby, let me tell you something. This is not a joke. I use TaskRabbit a lot because I can't do anything. You need some art hung? TaskRabbit. You need something put together? A cabinet? Got to reach that cheese grater on the top shelf? TaskRabbit. Anything you need, TaskRabbit can take care of it for you. How it works, TaskRabbit connects you with skilled taskers in your area. They can help you move. They can assemble furniture, repairs, yard work, mounting, and more. You can search for a tasker based on cost, skill set, availability, and past client reviews so you know exactly who's showing up and can have confidence that they know what they're doing because taskers have assembled over 3.4 million pieces of furniture, completed 700,000 home repairs. handled 1.5 million moves, and the numbers are just going up, Jason. Yeah, throw a little money at the problem. It's not so expensive, and that job that you really don't want to do is something that another person out in the world is very good at doing and would gladly do it in exchange for a little bit of money. So when life happens, your to-do list grows. Get ahead of it now and get $15 off your first task at TaskRabbit.com how long taskers book up faster, especially for same-day tasks. So book trusted home help today. That is $15 off your first task using promo code howlong with the TaskRabbit app or at TaskRabbit.com. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Squarespace. Obviously, Jason, you and I spend a lot of time on the World Wide Web, sort of our peers, our listeners, our friends, our colleagues, maybe even your parents if they're freaky. And if you're doing anything in the world, writing, taking pictures. I do topless boxing. You need a website. Exactly. A website that works, that does what it's supposed to do, that allows you to be creative, but also business-minded. Jason, there's one place to go for that, Squarespace. Yeah, Chris, I'm over here. I'm modifying calculators and putting Claude inside of them so you could cheat at school. And I just want a place where I could have everything all in one place. I can have the SEO tools.

So those future graduates can find me. And, you know, I'm able to accept, quote, unquote, donations for my services that might be gray area. You know what I mean? And then email campaigns. Hey, I got a new, you know, 2.3 version upgrade. Boom, boom, boom. Get the analytics going. Raise some money. You know, show your investor all of your cool analytics of what's going on. They're going to want to get in early. And we can use Blueprint AI to make your website look as professional. as your competition, if not more. So head to squarespace.com slash howlong for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code howlong to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. All right, Tim, what's really good, baby? What's really good? What's going on, y'all? Thank you for having me. I'm so pumped to do this. And I didn't really want to talk about beans in China. You guys are going to be my respite from all that, but we can do whatever you want. Okay, okay. Well, no, I mean, we're the fun stuff. If you have to go on Pod Save America, then we're a godsend. So I think that we can do anything you want today. Yeah, dude, listen to Pfeiffer and Favreau, you know, lecture me. All right. Give me talking points, strategies. I don't need that shit. I want to give you, yeah, I want to give you the platform to sort of, you know, kind of get into topics you're not normally allowed to talk about. You know, we're a platform for that. We're a safe space. But unfortunately, I think your straight offering across the table being basketball is one, it's not one, we're not the ones is what we're saying. You know what I mean? Okay, well, I am a homosexual. So we can do gay stuff, too. But my other straight offering is guitar music and hip-hop. So we could do that. Guitar music. College football. What about football? No, save the hip-hop for Charlemagne and save the college football for anybody else. But we got some common ground here. Okay, guitar music. Actually, Tim, I was in Florida for the last month, and I did find myself.

putting on college football in the background on a Saturday just because I like the action that's happening. I don't care about who wins or loses. The pageantry, though, the colors, the chanting. Everyone's trying so hard. What is your team? LSU. LSU. Oh, yeah, because you live in Baton Rouge? Yeah, I live in New Orleans. No, I don't live in Baton Rouge. Are you kidding me? As mentioned, I'm gay and I've got a black daughter. I'm not living in Baton Rouge. We love my friends in Baton Rouge. But we visit them for the football games and for the girls' basketball games. No, I don't live up there. You're saying they have girls' basketball in Baton Rouge. That's big. Hell yeah. No, hell yeah. They're good. The team's good. Angel Reese. Okay, so for our listener, we have an international audience just like you do. LSU, Louisiana State University, and you mentioned Baton Rouge, a city there. where the idea of going there with a black daughter and being gay is a no-no zone. Could you explain exactly why? It's just still pretty red in Baton Rouge. It's a college town, so there are good people. I've got a couple of my buddies from college who live there, so I don't want to smear everybody from Baton Rouge. I'm just saying that, you know. Having a daughter, she's playing sports. She's trying to get into soccer and basketball herself. I'm sure we can find a good school for her there where everybody would be very welcoming. Then you start to get out a little outside of Baton Rouge. You start to compete against the other teams. I think that she might be exposed to some comments. I'd rather keep her in the bubble here in New Orleans. I can't wait until your ass has to go to Baton Rouge for a fucking... women's basketball, middle school basketball game. Have you considered blackface wearing the stands? So, no blackface, I don't think anymore, except for at the Zulu parade at Mardi Gras down here. Blackface is encouraged and allowed. I think it's the only time where blackface is still allowed. Not for me. They love a loophole down there in Nala. Yeah, they do. It's not for me. Okay, but Zulu is the traditionally black Mardi Gras crew. And if you want

to ride on zulu as a white person you do have to do blackface and so i was invited one year and i respectfully declined i was like i appreciate your traditions but i you know that that felt like a stretch to me uh personally as a podcaster but that that's that's the only black it feels like a stretch to me just as a white person but podcaster sort of insinuates white person as any white person for sure i just meant like is an anonymous white person you know i don't know maybe defensible probably not for me i'd like to see the cross-section of of white person in 2025, who's going to be like, I am so secure with my lack of racism that I am no problem doing blackface when I was, when I'm asked to, you know what I mean? I'm familiar. I'm familiar with the, a friend of mine did a great photo series with them. And I was, I, the, it's, it's. really crazy looking like the out the whole thing is a real like there's a lot of time there's a lot of time and effort put into it it's very impressive i don't i avoid new orleans like the plague i don't understand it why i mean i don't drink i don't really like to eat so i don't know what there is to do there really well music he's sober and he doesn't like food with flavor um are you are you fully sober oh yeah i'm no i'm not gonna be a sober no i'm not Do you mean the country or the school? Or I guess both apply. Both? Fully sober? Okay. Well, music, we can take you to Frenchman Street. There's stuff to do. Well, what do you do for fun, then? Not much. That's kind of the whole thing. I limit fun as much as I can in my life. So, yeah, New Orleans is probably not for you. It's Twitter. Twitter, mostly. Which I could do anywhere. So, in theory, I could have a great... I mean, I've only been to New Orleans once, and it was just... I actually have been twice, and they're both dark. I think I could revisit today as an adult. My friend just opened a bar there. What's the bar? It's called The Bell. Oh, yeah, I checked that out. I was just there last weekend. It was great. Yeah, he's a guy from – this guy Brooks from Charleston. He's got a lot of great stuff in Charleston, but I want to go there to try that, but I don't know if I need to make a trip of it. I mean, I'm the opposite of sober. I'd be doing just about everything.

You really have to be a career drinker down there in New Orleans. I'm a little bit on the downturn with my drinking nowadays. It's such a drinker's town. I love getting a mint and julep down there in New Orleans. It's so nice. People are partying down here. There was a Reddit post about the podcast that made me laugh from one of the Borg listeners who was like, If you're an elder millennial middle-aged parent like me, do you drink as much as Tim talks about drinking? Or is that just a New Orleans thing? And I was like, it's just a New Orleans thing. Because the parents, man, the father-daughter dance at my kid's school is rowdy. I mean, the dads are getting wrecked at the father-daughter dance. And I don't think it's like that everywhere. But the tough part for me is I've got to wake up and pod every morning. i can't like weekdays i gotta behave you know and like you got people rolling through and like when they're coming through it's like it's their weekend away it's their you know they're on a work trip they're away from the kids they want to get loose and i just like i can't It's like living in Las Vegas. They're coming into town and they got something planned that you might not have. I like the idea, though, of a school dance ending with the underage daughters being the drivers, you know, having to get the dads kind of in the car. That's a cool kind of concept. That's definitely the scene. But you're from... Are you from... louisiana i know i'm from denver i'm from denver no i moved here so i grew up in denver so i that's nuggets and red rocks we could do as my straight stuff but um i grew up in denver with school in dc and uh it's kind of weird my best friend um from college uh is from baton rouge his wife's from new orleans and and we just like bonded and kind of did the rich kid thing where like we all go to concerts together and we travel to go see shows together they come to denver to ski or whatever it's like we kind of merged high school groups and so like we kind of have like a Louisiana Colorado like high school college group merger and so then after the pandemic um when I had to like

start flying to dc and new york more um i i in between i was just like denver's too far we lived in oakland for a while on the west coast i was like that's too far i can't do these red eyes it's killing me and so we're like let's try let's move to new orleans we got a bunch of buddies i got a bunch of buddies from college with kids my kids age here and it's been awesome we were like maybe we'll do it for a year and it won't take and it'll be you know too too rowdy but it's it's opposite man everybody's been so welcoming it's been awesome and it's easy for me to pop up from here to dc um and get back and you know so it's been great i just can't live in dc living in dc and doing politics is just like not an option it's just like it's just suffocating it's your whole life like you just can't yeah we were we were talking about that we we all we've done shows in dc the last couple years and we it does really we do really well there and it was um but i i just i always like to talk about how the people with power like it's not based on looks at all You know what I mean? In New York and L.A. Which is a concept we're not able to understand, really. In New York and L.A., it's kind of like, yeah, look, if you're an eight or above, we'll figure it out. You know what I mean? No matter what your position in life is. Uggos can only get so far in our strongholds. In Washington, D.C., the guy at the best table at the hottest restaurant had to get wheeled in there. You know what I mean? It's a different animal. It's a different animal. Uggos crush in D.C. And D.C.'s got good stuff. You can see good shows, good food. I always said to people, if you're a dentist, awesome. Move to D.C. It's great. You'll crush it. It's a good place to live. I like it there, and it's pretty. like the history is very rich and like the nine 30, all that stuff minor. It's very cool, but there is something about it where I feel like at least with, with how long gone listeners is that also everyone there does Coke. That's I do like that.

It is like everybody works on the Hill and everybody does come. Yeah, no shortage of that. Another good thing about D.C. is like it's like extremely well educated. I'm sounding like Trump now. It's like we love the highly educated. But like you can just meet a stranger sitting at the bar and like they do something kind of interesting. It's like, oh, you do African policy research or oh, you know what I mean? And maybe a little less so now in the Trump 2.0. But for a minute there. You know, strangers are interesting to talk to in D.C. versus other places. I'm the guy who takes money away from the parks. I'm actually I'm actually the head of construction for the United States. Actually, that's my job. So I just kind of oversee it all. I do all the diaper burning for other countries to make sure. Well, actually, speaking of Trump, you know, I was I was we've we've been watching him, you know, build this grand ballroom. And I'm starting to wonder, is Trump so straight that he's actually gay? You know what I mean? Like people are saying like, oh, the ballroom, it's a little bit of a gay thing for somebody like him to be doing. But I'm saying maybe he's so straight that he's. Trump is such a theater queen, dude. Trump would do so much better at, like, theater trivia, like, musical trivia than me. He would crush me. Like, he would destroy you at drag bingo, whatever the topic was. Yeah, he would absolutely destroy me. And, like, so, no, he definitely has some gay tendencies. And I think that, you know, in a different world. you know um like a populist lefty like pro-gay trump like could have happened it would have been a better world for us you know i think yeah oh yeah yeah i think a few i think this is one or two decisions go differently and that's where we would be yeah the racism was really what prevented like the central part five situation like really you know you'd have to win but like you know some of the like if you have more of like a populist left trump is doing like pardoning diddy I still think he's going to do that. We were talking about it on the last episode. Who's he more likely to pardon first? Ghislaine Maxwell or Sean Puffy Combs? I for sure did he, I think. He might do Maxwell in the dead of night because who the hell knows what's in those files. Only he knows.

And he's in there, like, a lot. What the extent is... And let me tell you, that was very Trumpian. He's in there a lot. A lot. He was mentioned in the files a lot, or else they would have come out. So you've got a lot of people around him that will, like, block the pen on that pardon. I think if he decides he wants to pardon Diddy, I think everybody will just kind of let that... just you do you i think he's so full of shit that i don't even like i don't believe that he actually believes the stuff that he's saying if that makes sense like i don't i don't know yeah i don't know if like you're just coming to that now 10 years in i'm just saying like with the with the like religion stuff specifically i'm just like bro i like what like i don't know i just i've started to i try not to pay attention then when i do i'm like oh wait this guy is just saying stuff because it works i don't think there's any conviction behind anything which is the key to being a politician or famous yeah this is what i'm saying like that it could have if it wasn't for the racism like it could have been a left populist trump because you know like he has a couple core things like since the 80s he's thought that the chinese and the japanese were screwing us right like and like we've got dumb leaders we're getting screwed bad deals you know so he was going to do tariffs not bad deals no matter what No matter what. And he just released a hat that says Japan is back. Is that right? Or something like that? I miss that. I'm not visiting the White House store that often. Do yourself a favor. Yeah. Anti-immigrant and pro-tariff. And that's kind of it. Besides that, it's just whatever the crowd was cheering for, he was into. And it just unfortunately turned out that the crowd that showed up wanted some really gross stuff you know like the muslim band thing he was just kind of that was a one-time trial at a rally i was working for jeb when that was happening and he kind of dropped out at a at an event

And everybody started going crazy. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, okay, we're going to ban Muslims now. You're saying it's like a band trying out a new song and the crowd loves it. You're like, all right, we're adding this to the set list. Yes. He road tested stuff because he road tests stuff that goes away. Greenland, for example, that's gone. We were doing the Greenland invasion for a while. And people were kind of into it when it felt subversive and fun. And then I was like, yeah, this is a little cringe now. People are kind of into Greenland. Invading Greenland. Now we're focusing on. Venezuela. Yeah, I guess. I think that's a Marco thing, though. I think he chooses these countries based on how fun it is for him to say them out loud. Venezuela. China had a good run. Venezuela is fun. Greenland, it wasn't so fun to say in a Trump voice. Yeah, that's a good point. I hope you get paid a lot of money for what you do, because I got to say, man, I just can't be bothered. Everybody's too stupid. I can't even begin. I can read a headline and get a little into it, but then once it gets into the level of understanding that someone like you has to have to talk about this. I feel like... is this is this unprecedentedly bad like you've been doing this long enough yeah like will it get worse from here how much better was it before how are you mentally holding up okay yeah a lot there i it is i look my job like having to wake up and and care about this every day is the hardest part of my job way worse jobs out there you know like i'm not weed whacking yeah yeah right i'm not cleaning toilets like a lot of people have shitty like i don't have a shitty boss right like so a lot of worse jobs out there than mine but like having to care is the hardest part like there definitely are some days like i wake up on monday morning and i'm like i gotta talk to bill crystal again this morning and i'm like i just can't it's hard for me to like open up the computer you know i just can't care about this um today because this is why we drink yeah yeah that's why i have to that's why i have to live in new orleans and do fun stuff on the side and drink i can't live in dc and have it be my life uh you know and part of the hardest part is like

i know these people it's like as annoying as this for you to watch it because it's like annoying and stupid i on a layer on top of that is like i know these people and like they're the dumbest people that i worked with right you know and so it's like you have to you have to so it's like combining your job is i have to pay attention to this stupid stuff and also I have to accept that like the worst people I ever encountered and the stupidest you ever encountered are now exceeding beyond their wildest dreams, succeeding beyond their wildest dreams. That's tough. And so I'm yogaing to deal with that. I'm doing some yoga and trying to just Ujjayi breath my way through that part. Will it get worse? Probably. And like the thing is, like it is all Trump driven, right? So we had this the range of outcomes for like 2025 through 2028. I was with Chris Hayes on election night. We were talking about this and he was just like, dude, the range of outcomes is insane. Like it's literally like Trump could just golf all day and status quo and nothing happens because he's just happy he's not in jail. Like or we could have nuclear holocaust. You know, it's like if other presidents had won, there's kind of a narrow band of like a good presidency versus a bad presidency like the Trump. Like the tail risk is so high. But then also he might just kind of decide he just wants to build his ballroom and he wants trophies. Like the South Korean guy gave him the crown recently and he likes trophies. He wants a peace prize and he wants to golf more and he's getting old and tired. Like that's kind of like the best case outcome, in which case we would be at status quo. But also like. He could deteriorate, get deranged. His numbers could start to go down. He could start to get worried that the Democrats get back in and try to put him in jail again. He starts laughing. You know what I mean? An 82-year-old guy in his last year who has unbelievable power and declining mental faculties, I don't know. I think 2020 is pretty bad. That's my take. But I guess what I'm saying is has he done so much damage?

that will it'll never be good again no matter who's in power yeah oh okay you mean even even even longer past that like if if the new obama is elected and we have that great yeah 2008 feeling all over again and everything's gonna be all good is that is it yeah is the wound unhealable i think it's on i mean there are elements that are unhealable so right like and look the immigration stuff's gonna get way worse just really quick on the next three years like they're like they're just yeah they're hiring the worst people in america right now to be you know to have power to go harass migrants and harass citizens on the street like you're you get a fifty thousand dollar bonus if you're like a sadist and don't have a college degree and want a new job and like don't really like brown people they used to just they used to just give those jobs and call it police but now they get a bigger title yeah better title now and more power and fewer fewer oversight you know no union guy checking you out you know to make sure you followed the rules um no body cams so that's concerning uh but then to your point like even if whatever whoever your your dream democrat is wins in 2029 like there's some elements of this that are just broke like you go sometimes like you make a choice in life and like you can recover from it like you can fix your life in certain ways but like there's some things that are permanent right you know i don't know you know what i mean like if you get drunk and get in a car wreck and like are paraplegic like you can't start walking again in the future you can still find meaning in your life in a wheelchair but like you you fucked your life and like we're in a wheelchair i guess is my point like we've hired the drunk driver he's in charge and like you know what do you do like cash patel is the fbi director they've put all these flunkies all over the government like how do you do you fire all of them i guess so right how do you get usaid back like you probably don't right because that's not popular like giving giving money to poor people in africa is not popular the next democrat doesn't want to waste any

political capital on that, right? Like the media environment that has got us here, like the right-wing echo chamber, it's only going to get worse with AI. And so, man, I'm not like a doomer, but I'm pretty pessimistic. I think things can get better. We can avoid the worst outcome. It's not inevitable that he becomes a dictator or whatever, and the baron is our next leader or whatever you think the worst outcome is. But there's some elements that we're not going to be able to give back about just kind of business as usual if you will have you considered leaving the country i know i'm like i'm like the leo character in wolf of wall street yeah i'm not fucking going anywhere no they can they have to pull me out um no i'm not going anywhere um i don't cool i i guess my buddy jbl who is considering leaving the country he goes i'm willing to be the first podcaster killed but I'm not willing to be the second. There is something to that. I'm not at the top of these guys' target list. I don't know. If Comey goes to jail, which I think their retribution efforts are trying now with Tish James and James Comey, I think that stuff's going to fail. I don't know. If Comey and Tish James end up in jail, then they start going after media members. I don't know. Who knows what the future holds. I'm not pleading. That's why we talk about TV shows and stuff. You know what I mean? Nobody's coming. Nobody's coming for us. We talk about pour over coffee and hot Pilates. I don't think anybody's coming for me. I don't know, man. Sometimes I didn't really like there's this New York Times article with like these professors that like moved to Toronto and they're like, we studied autocracy and we know what's coming. And now we fled. I was kind of like, man. Y'all are pussy. Yeah, if you're right, like, isn't it your obligation to fight? Yeah, good point. Like, it's not over. Like, it's not, we're not, it's not Hitler yet. Like, okay, like, yeah, I mean, we've got some Orban-y Hungarian flavor right now in our country for sure. But, like, you can go to Budapest if you want to right now and go and...

and speak your mind and live and travel there and travel back and not worry about the secret police coming for you know what i mean like autocracy is this word that people on my side like the anti-trump or democracy movement use but it sometimes i feel like it's it confuses more than it helps people understand right because victor orban is an autocrat in hungary and that's still a mostly pretty much a free country and like Kim Jong-un is an autocrat. Their people can't eat. If you criticize the little fat boy, you get killed. Autocracy is a huge spectrum. We're certainly in the fighting part of it now. You guys are just living your lives talking about pour-overs. In a country that is really in a dangerous autocracy, it's impacting you. It's impacting some people now. If you're a recent immigrant, if you're in a mixed family, if you're a trans person. So there's some people that are a threat now, but not white professors at Yale. You're fine. Yeah, they don't need to escape to Rosedale. They're going to be fine. You're right. I won't be jailed if I don't cry at an official funeral or whatever. You know what I mean? Yeah, there are some – I mean, again, if you're now trying – if you're dating somebody from overseas and they want to come visit you and they said some mean things about Charlie Kirk on Twitter, like that could affect your relationship, right? So there are little things that are mean things about Israel or whatever. So like they're – you know. Things are going the wrong direction, for sure. But, like, not fleeing level. Yeah. No, I'm anti-Flee. I love Flea the bass player. I'm saying Flea, F-L-E-E. Yeah. All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Quince. Jason, the temps are warming up. It's getting hot out there. Summer always changes how I get dressed. I need pieces that feel lighter, more breathable, and they're just easy but still put together. I don't want to look like a slob. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on high-quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Breathable linen and soft organic cottons. Well-made basics but without the luxury markups. That rare balance where everything feels elevated.

but still effortless. Yeah, Chris, linen season is here. I wore a linen blazer to dinner a few nights ago in the warm California sun. But, you know, you got that Italy trip coming up this summer and quality European linen pants and shirts. Upgrade that look starting at just $34. You know, if you get a nice linen suit, a little t-shirt underneath it, some chill shoes, you're looking good, but you're staying cool. The inside of your special areas are nice and dry as you turn up with your besties. So elevate that summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com slash how long for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns, even on a nice holiday now available in Canada. That is Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash how long. That'll get you free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince punto com slash how long. Hi Talk House Network listeners, it's your old friend Nels Klein from Wilco here. Wilco is touring this summer and we'd love to see you somewhere on the road. We're playing shows this June and July in Rochester Hills, Michigan, Chautauqua, New York, Lafayette, New York, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Vienna, Virginia, Forest Hills, New York, Portland, Maine, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Memphis, Tennessee, La Grange, Georgia, Charleston. South Carolina, Virginia Beach, Virginia, Wheeling, West Virginia, and Columbus, Ohio. Plus, there are even more dates, some with Willie Nelson that I didn't even mention here. So please go to wilkoworld.net to see the full list of dates. We'll see you on the road this summer. This is what everyone's talking about. Everything's on the table. This is what champions come to take. This is what everyone came to see. No do-overs. No second chances. No more Mr. Nice Guy. This is winner take all. The NBA Finals continue on ABC and the ESPN app. You mentioned AI, just how that's going to make things.

probably much worse for right-wing propaganda and everything like that. I've been noticing on Twitter, Homeland Security, WhiteHouse.gov, official accounts of our government. Sorry, bro, that's good. Posting some of the worst AI slop of all time. I love that. Like Donald Trump dropping dog shit from an airplane onto his enemies. You like that? I interviewed the dude, Harry Sisson, who's like a Democratic influencer, bro, who's the guy that got shit on. And I was like, and he used to say the same thing. People are like, are you worried they're coming from you? And Harry's like, dude, no, my engagement is through the roof right now. I just got a Yo Play deal. Somebody sent me some friends. They did an AI friends thing that's going around on TikTok. That's the worst AI slop shit ever. So there's worse shit than the White House. Yeah, I mean, there's bad AI slop all over the place. But I guess my hang up is like, what does it say about our country to the rest of the world that we're using our government PR outreach accounts to post, you know, Donald Trump, but his head is on like a transformer body. And he's like, you know, it's like, who is this appealing to? It's appealing to the eight-year-olds? People who like to have fun. That's what it is. People who have a sense of humor. That's what it is. I mean, it definitely demonstrates a lack of seriousness to the world. But I think we kind of passed that point when we elected our stupidest reality show host a second time. But then every country has stupid people. This is everywhere, so I guess it doesn't matter. I think that the AI stuff matters less to me. Trump goofing off, it's really unserious and I wish we could fix it, but I think that's one of the things that has inevitably changed now because the Zoomers, this is their life. They've grown up in this. It would seem weird to go back to Mitt Romney for them. The white nationalist stuff coming from the government worries me way more. I think that there are a lot of... Whoever is doing the digital...

strategy for the department of homeland security i think one day in their future will lie about the fact that they were doing that um because like no the only lie only lie if theo vaughn's pressing him backstage somewhere i think they're proud of it i think they're proud maybe i don't know man like doing snuff films with like asmr of like people in chains and then like it's crazy like 1930s white me like have you seen the department of labor memes they've been putting out the department of labor is putting out this like work america and it's 20 different like 1930s uh I'm blanking. What's that? What's the painter's name that does like the Americana paintings? Norman Rockwell. Yeah. Yeah. They're doing like Norman Rockwell shit with just brawny white guys. And it's like a blonde and it's a brunette. And then it's like a white guy in church and his wife is looking adoringly at him. And it's like, what? What the? And it's all just white. Not even one Asian in there. And I'm just like, it's just overtly like white nationalist agitprop. That's coming from our government. And the Department of War wants, like, we don't care about anything else going on in the world as long as our soldiers don't have a beard and are, like, hot-looking to me is what Hegseth seems to be after. Yeah. That and only that. Even though I have a beard right now, I would prefer my soldiers, like my baseball players, like the Yankees, and they're beard-free. Really? Yeah, let's keep it high. You're like Steinbrenner when it comes to your baseball players? No, Don Mattingly and that fucking mustache. You shave that shit. Trim those sideburns, Mattingly. Something that really gets my goat is the current mustache trend. The mullet mustache combo. And that feels like something that's taken hold of our service people. Dude, and you say that as a hat. As a gay, it's awful, man. It's awful. I went to a The Dare show. Hell yeah. Okay. And it's just like, everybody there has a fucking mustache and a tight shirt and huge pants. It's like, how am I supposed to tell who's gay anymore? Like, they all dress the same. And, like, the mustaches are horrible. I need to say this because, and Harrison's a dear friend of ours. We love him. But I didn't know this, Jason. Maybe you did that. Azalea Banks called him STD sound system.

which is really really good that's really good funny really funny she's she's revealed herself to be an awful person but when she hits she hits all right so you're saying you went to the dare in new orleans and you're saying i was in dc actually i happened to be in town but even worse okay you're in dc and you're saying you go to the show and you these guys all have the same haircut the same look and it used to be you know you got the the ear pierced or the, you know, the bandana hanging out of the pocket. I know if I'm fucking tonight. Yeah. So maybe a little too much equality at play. Yeah. Or the, or the jean size, like the jeans, like a, like, like in the arts, man. nobody had a mustache and if they did they were straight yeah yeah and if they were gay with a mustache i didn't want to kiss them anyway so it wasn't a problem right and then you could just do a gene analysis right it's just like well if you're in skinny jeans then then then this is probably a go maybe not but it's at least an open door that dad baggy jeans no so now but now all that is gone there's no difference like all they're all wearing huge pants and they all have a mustache everybody has a mustache okay so it's so like when you would hear you know people would say like oh well you know you you were you're asking for it dressed like that you're saying that to everyone like everyone can get it because they're yeah no i'm also saying you're asking for it but like in a good way like in a good way got it got it yeah of course of course yeah when it's guy on guy it's totally fine we we agree with that gay stuff doesn't count that's what we say on this podcast all the time oh really When it comes to crimes. Not in daily life. I've been assaulted by a man before. I don't need to see a therapist about it. And that's a privilege for me. He's not letting it define him is what he's saying. My college, my straight guy friends like just get totally ranked based on who can come to the gay bar, get their ass grabbed and like be chill about it. OK, you know, so you're saying you have some friends that are like, it's cool that you're gay. You're you're my boy. Yeah, but I can't I ain't going into the belly of the beast to get touched. I don't want anybody touching my butt. Yeah. And that and to be honest, it makes me wonder a little bit.

Like if there's a Kinsey situation happening. Doth protest too much. Yeah, it does make me wonder a little bit. Yeah, it's about half and half, I'd say. What do you say about the influx of straight people entering gay spaces? Horrible. Horrible, dude. No, we have a, like, I had a no girls, no girls at the gay bar after midnight. No girls at the gay bar after midnight. I'm sorry. What about straight guys? What about straight guys? No, no, no. If you're a lesbian, obviously, if you're non-binary trans, we'll be like, if you are a... A straight woman. Okay. Get the fuck out of the gay bar at midnight. You can say it. You can say it. I know what you're trying to say, Tim. If you're a fat, straight woman, get out of the gay bar. That's what you're trying to say. No clit in the pit. No clit in the pit. If you're a hot, straight woman. No, actually, I mean, I'm not above that, but I'm specific. Even hot women are worse, kind of, because they want to dance with you. They think you want attention. I'm like, no. They think they're above the wall. This is not your space anymore. We can come for happy hour. You know, whatever. Drag brunch, as you mentioned earlier. Fine. But, like, no. And it makes me feel sad. I forget who I was talking to. but like it makes me feel a little sad i was in la recently i was in um what the fuck is it on east side silver lake um and i went to the gay bar with a friend and it's just like it's like half women did you go to akbar akbar is akbar yeah it was like half women and i was like what's happening and and i think that like the women want to be able to go and dance and not get hassled right basically is it's just which i totally get in respect but then you should just have a straight women only bar you know you should have your space why can't they have their space Is that wrong? They want their cake and to eat it, too. They want to be able to look at hot, shirtless guys without being, you know, ogled by them and picked up by them. Part of life, though, is like, you know, hard choices, you know, sacrifices. I can't have it all. I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. Well, what can we do to create these safe spaces, you know, to keep them safe and free from these straight women?

Do we bully them? Is it a door policy? How do we keep them a pepper spray? Well, there was a bar in GC that had a no-heels policy, which I liked. That's pretty good. A no-heels policy is kind of like a soft ban on women. I like that, but I also am for shaming. I think shaming's okay. Welcome home, Tim. Welcome home. Drag that bitch out of here. No, not physical. Well, yeah, Ackbar is too much of a safe space for all sexualities nowadays. There's other darker dungeons that you can visit next time you're in town. Okay, yeah, and this might just be me being out of a game now a little bit. No, I mean, there's places that I hear. I remember so distinctly being with three. gay homies and they started talking about like clubs or bars there and it was words i'd never heard like words i'd never heard before yeah and i was like what do you got like what do you remember any of those words mama no it was literally like it wasn't basement it wasn't shit i've heard it was literally stuff that i was like i'm sorry what what is that and they're like oh what it's it's it's i think there's a level that we are not even aware of where it's really going down is what i'm saying is that a challenge for you guys it's like hat middle-aged men now doing a culture pod like trying to stay with it like or have you given up on that or are you just like are you just working harder or what do you do i'm i'm gonna die with it bro that's all i got i have no talent okay I have no skills. I'm online. We know about shit that we should not be knowing about as middle-aged straight men who are married. Good and bad. Actually, the stuff we know least about is probably sports, to be completely honest with you. That's probably our biggest blind spot. We don't know about NCAA shit, but if a cosmetic company just went public, we know the IPO. You know what I mean? That makes sense, though. You're saving brain space. Maybe I need to cut out one of my sports to add some brain space for what's the scene. I think the sports thing, in this realm at least, I feel like it's probably the most popular thing to talk about on this medium, as far as podcasting goes. Politics and sports. Politics and sports, the two things that we care about the least.

Probably are the number one ways to dominate. We're doing it the hard way. We're doing it the hard way. And I appreciate you having me on because I was like kind of going through your past. And like, I don't know. I don't know if it's your most recent politics guest, but one of the ones which has been a while. This is you and Jake Tapper. Yeah, it was a little tiff. And, you know, because of your anti-cop actions. And I was kind of worried about that coming on. Like, my daughter's interested in being a firefighter. And I thought, I don't know, maybe these guys think all firefighters are racist or something. I don't know. It could be a problem. No, anyone can be a firefighter as long as they're not a woman. I think we can all agree with that, Tim, right? Yeah, what do you mean? They let women become firefighters? Dudes of all colors, backgrounds. I honestly forget. in my daily life that there are people who won't make fun of cops. I really don't. I forget that those people exist because I encounter them so infrequently. But you could tell, just like how you could tell when it's pornography or not, you can tell when a kid wants to be a cop because they're a good person who wants to be a good cop and make their community better. And you could tell when somebody wants to be a cop so they can have free reign to beat up minorities and people that they hate. And so you were just asking Jake to just kind of make sure which one he wants. I think it was a very, very good. I think it's hard to tell which way his son's leaning. It was a very well-timed joke. And I want to be clear. Jake has apologized. We've talked. He felt bad about it after I approached him. But he did feel bad about it. But I think that the real criminal here is is what's his name? Your guy, Jason. Oh, Scott Galloway. Scott Galloway was the one kind of poking him. Yeah, he was he was the one leading the charge. And he also the funniest part about the whole thing was they didn't say the name of the podcast and they had both been on the podcast. That was my favorite part. That's so that's pro on another level that I couldn't. My brain doesn't work like that. No, shut up. OK, well, that's cool. So I guess I'm saying is that was.

uh you know potentially a negative experience for you guys like dabbling into the politics so you know i'm happy that i overcame that no i like the politics space because it's like i it's i have no skin i don't give a fuck like you know you know what i mean like i i i don't um you have a little skin in the game sure yeah to me to me it was just like like going skydiving for the first time like for a very short amount of time where i would open my phone and be like oh cnn boom boom like wow this is getting kind of crazy And then it's over 48 hours later. This is a good, no, this is a good lesson about politics. Drama these days in the Trump era is just fucking ride it out, man. The, uh, the urban outfitters dude was on, um, I don't want to do the thing that Jake and Scott did to you. I think it was the semaphore podcast and not urban outfitters, American Eagle. American Eagle. I love, I love that they used. a picture of Sidney Sweeney to promote the middle-aged white guy who's the CMO or whatever of American Eagle. Genius move, genius move. Yeah, so anyway, so he goes on, and they're like, what was your lessons for the Sidney Sweeney, like, controversy? And he was just like, do nothing. Don't support the crisis comms industrial complex. Ride it out. And that was exactly right. Like, that dude was spot on about that analysis. Like, this day and age, man, just like, this stuff blows over. Just kind of either ride it out or, like, lean in to get more attention for yourself. Yeah. Like, honestly, like, the best thing you guys could have done was, like, try to get some, like, I was canceled by Jake Tapper attention. Because, like, that's how you sell stadiums now, man. Yeah, that's true. There was an email from Fox News. Oh. One of my friends in the industry was like, look, if you really want to do this, you can make, basically be like, I'll give you a comment, but you have to put me on the air. You know? And I was like. Yeah, I don't think I want to do that. I think I'm all set. I think I'm all set on this. I don't want to do a tight five with Gutfeld at 730 tonight. Yeah, but I think you're right. I think you're like the way the world moves now. I don't know what lasts. I can't think of the last thing that's lasted for more than 48 hours. Yeah, like this morning I woke up and I was like, oh, Trump is going to start testing nuclear weapons for the first time in 30 years.

Okay, well, time to walk the dog. And then in two days, we'll forgot about that, and it'll be another thing. Yeah, I woke up today. I saw Sidney Sweeney in a see-through dress at an award show. I heard about nuclear. Like, none of it's going to stick. Like, good or bad, it doesn't stick is what I'm trying to say. They can try to blur out the nipples in post, but we'll find the originals. You know what I mean, Tim? But it's with movies and TV and albums. It's like stuff just comes and goes. It's not like we were growing up. Remember Janet Jackson? I think it would be an equivalent of Sidney Sweeney thing. The Janet Jackson thing, like for years, the nips, like if you would have talked about her eight years later, you'd like had to mention the nips left. I'm mentioning it right now. 20 years later, however, 30, who the fuck knows when that was, you know, and it's genuinely affected her career negatively. Yeah. Like that's just not, that, that would not be the situation for a Sidney Sweeney. No, it's, it's, it's, it's good and bad, but I think when there's this level of, of sort of content being produced at all different levels, there's no way. There's no way for anything to stick. Remember Benson Boone? We talked about Benson Boone every day for three weeks. You did? I haven't thought about Benson Boone's little twink ass in years. On this show? What was the material? Yeah, because he was... Because he came out of nowhere. He's backflipping everywhere. He's fucking annoying. He sucks. We just made fun of him. It was a fun target to make fun of. Was he a plant? I don't really understand what people mean when they say an industry plant, but that's something people say. Industry plant, in my estimation, means that you have familial... uh connections in the music business or whatever the the hollywood you know like it's it's sort of it can also be like we signed you when you were 13 and groomed you yeah you didn't you didn't come up through the long system and gigging around town and touring either way for years you know got it like the like the lady whatever the opposite of lady gaga is he so he was obviously like auditioned to be on he was on like the voice or on american idol okay the way that things happen now is just different it's it's not about like

skill level it's about eyeballs so it's a different if you have like all these people are famous because they were on vine or tiktok that's because addison ray had the eyeballs first and they were like oh you can sing shit all right come on let's do it like it's not you know and that's fine i don't think that's necessarily bad but yeah that is not touring for five years in a van with eight guys you know it's a very different thing it's a very different thing some people have to decide that you're a pop star it's kind of not the other way around you don't I'm not doing the shows at the 930 Club on a Tuesday opening for blah, blah, blah when I'm trying to be the next. In some ways, it's not that different. I mean, like, with Louisiana Love, like, Addison Rae and Britney's rise was not, like, so different, right? It's true. It's true. I mean, Britney wasn't gigging before, like, she, like, hit a big... It's actually more similar because Britney was on TV and Addison was on YouTube, which is basically TV at this point. Yeah, I mean, you're right in that sense. I just don't... I don't know, like... like somber you know who's the new benson boone that is fake right is that a real like does that person exist or is that like an ai avatar that just gets into my tiktok he's a rare long twink he's very thin he's very thin so he could be confused as uh ai i just thought maybe that like i was being targeted with him because you know that Tends to be my genre of... That you would consume? That I would consume? Yeah, sure. Directionally speaking. And he's like... Directionally speaking. I meant on my For You page, but sure, in real life from time to time. Right, right. I have my pee, but... So I thought maybe it was just like... they're testing me and they're like is like you know like what if we what if we made him a what if we made him a singer would you be interested in i was like this is bad well but people like it like singing they'll go maybe what if he makes cookies is that more your speed i mean it's kind of it's like when uh when i give my dog bean a piece of chicken she's like what's the catch what's going on here are you gonna snatch me and take me to the vet you're when this when somber appears on your phone one day you're like okay what's the

Just tell me what you're after. AI is trying to combine your interests. We know you're into basketball and indie music and twinks. What if we created an artificial combo? There was a shaggy-haired white guy who's built like Wemby. Would you like this? The answer was no. I think this is Uncanny Valley. This doesn't feel real, but you're telling me it is real. Allegedly. I haven't met the guy in person, but... I think he does seem to be real. I know that his mom is hot. Hot, hot mom. Hot mom. There's some backlash. There's some backlash now because this sort of millennial woman went on TikTok and talked about how bad the show was. And he responded. But one of the things that she said, and I was talking to my friend Ryland about it, and we agreed, he makes his fans. bark like dogs when he on command and we both agree that that is unfortunately cool i did not know that i didn't know he did pup play the pup play is a little bit of uh that's a signal to your community isn't it i i was like i i making you having so little respect for your teenage girlfriends that you make them bark like dogs in the audience he's got the hassan piker shot caller He's wearing it every time poop. It's like when you go out to dinner with one of your, you know, a date and they've got the collar on and you're hitting it under the table and ooh, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly the same thing. Get a little spicy at Chili's. I'm interested in barking. You're like, okay, the more you say it, the better it's starting to sound. Okay, well, you were talking about the Denver Nuggets. Yeah. What are some of your favorite basketball players? And I'm not talking about their offensive rebounding abilities. We're talking about daddies only. Oh, Aaron Gordon. Aaron Gordon. He's so far above the competition. I had to Google this person. Zach Levine, probably. Aaron Gordon is beautiful on the court and off. Zach Levine is just more of an aesthetic thing. His play is not that great to watch. Tim has a type. Let's see what's going on here, Tim. You're saying you could look past his stats.

I mean, you know, in the classic and the more famous category, like Steph is objectively handsome. Okay, so you're here first. Tim Miller, Team Lightskin is really what it's starting to sound like. Yeah, I didn't know you were a yellow-boned guy, but I'm glad to hear that. Okay, those are just the people that come to mind. I don't discriminate that way. So have you spent any time with NBA players? Not sexually. I just mean have you hung out with them in your life? Have you spent any time with an NBA player? No, not that I can think of. I've been watching Top 5 on Netflix. And what I notice about NBA players and all athletes of that caliber, and this would be hard for you in any sexual conquest, is that they're never alone. Ever. They're always with... you know a brother a sister a trainer a mom dad a coach a teammate like i don't know when these guys get five minutes to themselves i i don't understand how they like recalibrate i mean magic figured it out i don't know yeah i'm not it's a good question magic figured oh no they're fucking chicks i'm not saying that on the road oh you mean oh you mean if it's a dl situation yeah i should shout out jaw jaw's really hot um and he got he but he went to the strip club when he was in denver and that was he went to shotgun willies and that was where he brought out the gun and now he got into trouble oh yeah yeah so i don't know if i'm i don't know he's probably not not targetable i'm not trying to try i'm not trying to target dl guys like that's not for me i want everybody to feel totally respected by me if i met aaron gordon at a at a tipitina's he wanted to come see a concert uh i would not i would not do anything inappropriate yeah i'd not do anything inappropriate Your lips are sealed. Well, your lips are unsealed and then sealed after. Yeah. Oh, good. No, good. The world needs more people like you. We have to respect our down low homies. We do. And I got nothing but love for them. It's just not my cup of tea. Okay. Well, on this same realm of convo, I saw a clip and you said something I wanted to expand on. You said, all my fetishes are achievable by the human body. Yeah. Because you were talking about...

You know, some type of like anime style fetish porn where, you know, people are doing things that are not physically possible in the human realm. Yeah, the Canadian, these Canadian guys have a podcast. I don't remember what it's called. I feel bad not shouting about, but they're telling me about Vore. Uh-huh. I don't know what that is. I learned what it was from the clip. Okay, great. So wait, so we're all on the same page. No, we're not. No, we're on the same page and not knowing. They're in a different world. The Gen Alpha and the Zoomers are in a different world. They've gotten bored by normal fetishes. They're not interested in whatever, choking, spanking. They're interested in that, but they need to go further. It's just because they've grown up with porn on their phones. They need imaginary anime. porn and so they they've they've created this thing called vore which is like imagining that you that somebody's mouth can be unhinged and then they could eat your whole head yeah chris what was that book that we were reading oh i was about to say perfection that was in Like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And they were telling me about that, and I was like, I don't know what you're talking about, and that doesn't do anything for me. I'm not into fantasy porn. I'm not into what could happen in the magical forest between me and a unicorn man. I think the kids are different these days. No NBA fan fiction. No, is there NBA erotica? Definitely. You know, guys, I'm sure. I have so many, what's the word? I have a lot of different addictions to things I shouldn't. But porn is just not for me. I'm not like, I don't know. yeah i got nothing i don't know what kind of erotica is out there i know nothing about the erotica scene at all i'm like rather make it than watch it i'm with you brother addiction wise what do you think what do you think you could scale back on if you if you had to choose one one i mean my phone health healthy or unhealthy you know what i mean yeah i mean my phone would be the first one for sure um and then you know basically all the all the

Regular stuff. Narcotics. All the regular stuff. I could dial back in all of them. I don't know. I've already cut back on weed. I cut way back. I don't do weed anymore, basically. I was a really big pothead in college, and I basically don't ever do weed anymore. I get a show maybe sometimes, or one little baby hit while I'm watching a movie, but that's it. All the rest of them, though, I could... I'm sure I could dial back on and gain some bodily health. I was listening to an old episode of a podcast yesterday because I was in Florida and I'd run out of podcasts. And John from Pod Save America was on. Which one? The gay one or the straight one? The gay one. And he was talking about edibles like it was heroin. Like he was talking about edibles like it was crack. Him and Neil Brennan were talking about edibles like it was crack cocaine. And you just, you got to be careful you can get to. And I was like, who's going to tell this guy that it gets worse? Like it gets a lot worse. And I think you might be the guy for the job. I love those guys. They all were kind of nerds. So I hung out with Lovett back in the day when we were kids in our 20s. And, you know, he wasn't hanging at the gay bar like me. Okay, like, you know, he was more over in the corner, you know, and have a little, you know, whatever, like a little Cosmo or something, and I have one or two, hopefully I get flirted with, and, like, that's a night out for him. You know, we were on a different level, and so I understand why the 15-milligram gummy for Lovett is probably pretty intense, you know? Like that's it. I was just listening to it, and it was from a couple, I think it was a couple years old, but I was listening to it, and I was like, I haven't heard people talk like this about edibles maybe ever in my life or in at least a very, very long time. Well, I think just to push back a little bit, I think with the edibles, it has such a psychoactive effect on some people. Sure. If anyone does heroin, you see videos of someone's aunt coming out of surgery and they're hopped up on morphine, they're having the time of their life. Everything is all good in the wrong situations, in the wrong setting.

Five milligrams of an edible can send somebody to the loony bin, you know what I mean, if they're not mentally capable. Yeah, if they're bitch-made, I totally agree with you. And I am totally bitch-made on that stuff, by the way. I did some mushrooms. Speaking of STD sound system, I did some mushrooms at the LCD sound system show in New Orleans. Okay. And so like that, you guys know the crowd. It's just us. It's like us. It's just like that. That's why I don't go. That's why I don't go. Not because they're music. It's just the cool parents from school is basically who's at the LCD show. It's like cool in quotes, but yeah. Yeah, yeah, cool. You know, relatively. Sure. Relative. It's all relative. And then you've got, I mean, I don't live in fucking Greenpoint. Okay. You know, so like there aren't any parents, there aren't too many parents who are down the cool, who are on further along the cool music path than LCD. LCD is kind of like where you can get to, um, in the South. And, um, and so, you know, I took, I just, I didn't take that many months. I just took a little bit of mushrooms. So my friends were doing and I just, I'm bitch, man, my mind, I just, my mind is not strong, you know? So I started going to a bad place. I was enjoying the show. My mind is not strong. And I walk out, and it's just like three parents from school wanted to talk to me. Somebody who listens to the podcast wanted to do a selfie. And I looked at my friend, and I was like, get me the fuck out of here right now. I need to go hide in a dark room in a corner and think about my choices. You did the wrong drug. You got to do coke. You got to do coke in that setting. It is a coke setting. I guess I've just been sober for too long. I didn't think about the fact that you could be fucked up in some... fan wants to come up and talk to you oh yeah that didn't happen to you jason oh many times many times but i mean but it's rare that i'm uh you know out socially like that on on mushrooms it's usually something where i'm a little bit more maybe a little too down for the selfie

Well, yeah, I'll pose it to everyone. Same. I love the attention. Why are you doing a podcast if you don't want people to say hi to you at the airport? I'm down for all that. You hear that, Chris? You hear that, Chris? Well, I'd like to make money, but yeah. Yeah. Everybody else, though. Like, no, on Mushrooms, it's not. And it's the same with the gay bar rule. Like, after midnight, don't say you like my podcast and don't be a woman at the gay bar, you know? And if I'm on Mushrooms. That's just not your fault. That's a me fault. Okay, so Tim Miller, he does not accept the fuck a fan challenge, is what you're saying? No, no. Okay, these are good, hard, and fast rules. Do we want to do top five prescription drugs while we're on the subject of narcotics? Sure, I mean, if you guys want to. It's a recurring segment on our show that we ask certain people, and it seems like you're down for pill play. I seem like I'm down. Did you ask Jake Tamper? Not so much. He's going to say, I take my daily vitamin. One time I took Advil. Top five prescription drugs. I'm not really a big pill bottle guy. It can be recreational or just regular. I don't know if I can even get to five. The only drug I ever quit cold turkey was Xanax. In college, I was doing Xanax and drinking together. And God, I hope that my mom is listening to this podcast at this point. But if you are, it's time to stop. I would just wake up on somebody's couch and look around and be like, where am I? I don't know whose house I'm at. I don't know where my car is. And that's the type of blackout you don't want to do. So I just went cold turkey, no. No more Xanax. I had one bad experience in college. Whose dick is this? That kind of thing. Yeah, and I was in the closet then, so I don't think I noticed any of that. But just general bad behaviors. But obviously if it's so good that you have to quit it, obviously at the top of the list. Yeah, yeah. Valium is really good as a landing gear. That's nice, I would say.

Yeah. Say more on the landing gear of it all as it pertains to the volume, please. I think kind of that's an if you know, you know situation. And then I guess number three would be Adderall probably, you know, just a little. And the other, the more positive story about Adderall from my college days is a GW. Like the other kids used to make fun of us all for having blue boogers. Because people are snorting Adderall so much at GW. Blue boogers is bad. Yeah, people used to make blue boogers jokes in college. George Washington smurfs. Yeah, smurfs. I was just thinking yesterday, I would probably be in a better place in my life if I enjoyed and used Adderall. I never really took to it. Yeah, that's probably it. I'm not an antidepressants person, really, or downers. um so i don't like what were the other popular popular nominees oh i mean we've gone it goes a lot of ssris with people yeah xanax is probably oxycontin did neither of you ever do oxycontin in the good in the in the bad old days uh yeah yeah yeah yeah chris is writing a book about it right now yeah are you yeah i was yeah that was my um Downfall is dramatic, but downfall. Can I hear about that? As far as drugs go. Just kidding. I mean, I'm sorry if you already talked about this in the pod. You can get it in 2027 from Simon & Schuster. No, it is awesome. No, I'm joking. I'm joking. Yeah, I mean, I was just addicted to OxyContin. Pretty simple. Yeah. And sort of in that era where it was very pop, like the news cycle liked it a lot. Yeah, like when we were in high school and college, like 05 or whatever? No, no, no, no, no. Later? Yeah, this is like when New York Times would send documentary photographers to West Virginia and Florida to talk about the pill mills and how it was ruining our country. Like 10 years ago or so? Yeah, 10 years ago. It was like pre-Fentanyl sort of era. I only did OxyContin once or twice in college when it was bad. I was on summer vacation for college one time.

And I did it with my friends. I guess it must have been a Saturday night because Sunday was church. And I wasn't really going to church with my parents that much. But from time to time, I would just to keep up friendliness in the household, be a good soldier, that kind of thing. And I just did it the night before and woke up and I was so fucking wrecked the next day. I walked into the kitchen and sat down and started drinking Gatorade. And my dad was walking down to go to church. He looked at me, are you going? And I was like, no, I don't know, can't go. And he looks at me, he's like, I don't know what you did last night, but it was not beer. And you shouldn't be, you should stop doing that anymore. It was just on my face. He just looked at me and was like, that is not a hangover. I was like, whatever you did last night is too hard for you. And my father was right about that. It was. Good parenting. I didn't ever go your past. That is good parenting. That is good parenting. When did you come out? I came out when I was, what, 24? So, like, a little bit after college. It was like an after-school special. I came out at Thanksgiving dinner, drunk, family drunk, everybody yelling about it. Me storming out of the house, walking to my friend's house, like full deal. So you're saying they weren't super happy with the news? Not super cool. They're great now, so I don't want to dog them. It was Catholic, man, really Catholic, like daily church-going Catholic. So it was a little bit of a surprise. Steep learning curve. Yeah, and I don't know. not to not doing like the mask for mass thing i have some very gay characteristics but like it wasn't obvious you know what i mean like i don't i don't think that i think they're caught i think they're blindsided a little bit um so anyway uh yeah i did that um that is late that is pretty late though that is pretty it was pretty late yeah it was pretty late um i thought i yeah i thought i could do it the other way i was like you know whatever i'd like a girlfriend it was fine and i like i went through a period of time where i was like i knew that i was i knew i was at least bi or whatever and i knew i was gay but i was just like man that seems hard like the family thing will be hard like it'll be tough to get into and then like once i pulled the band-aid off i was like what in the fuck have i been doing this was such a huge mistake you weren't doing your thing like quietly

No, I mean, like once or twice when black got drunk. Interesting. Wow. Yeah, really, like once or twice, yeah. Old school. And I guess I should be honest. Was that honest? Radical Candor is important on a podcast. I can really only think of twice. Was it with gay guys there? Yeah, with gay guys. Well, no, no, no. One time was with – the first time was like – it was a classic. Fresh from your dorm, bisexual roommate, got a tongue piercing. everybody's wasted and i'll and and and he is and like he's so excited about his tongue piercing and people are like do you want to kiss to see what it feels like and i was like yeah i'll kiss you to see what it feels like and everybody's like you wouldn't kiss another guy to see what it feels like i was like sure i would kiss the tongue piercing roommate that night went went further than tongue kissing let's just say went further than tongue kissing that night and um And then that was kind of a wake up call. But then I sent it back down. Like I sent it back down deep inside of me for a while. I was like, no, don't think about that. Don't think about that glorious head I got. And then I was so annoyed that my fucking college bestie, my aforementioned college bestie from Baton Rouge, when I came out like six years later, he was the one person that was like, duh. And I was like, what do you mean, duh? And he's like, everybody saw you fucking going and getting down on that dude in your door. And I was like, Well, why didn't you let me off the hook back then? I was like, why have you been? And he's like, I don't know. I thought it'd be rude to bring up. I was like, if you would have told me you knew. I had a suspicion you were gay when I saw you hooking up with a guy. Then you could have been like a sounding board all these years later. Yeah, that could have saved everybody a lot of time. Hindsight. Yeah. That's really funny. That's a good story, though. I like that. I like that. Old school. All right, Tim. Well, thanks for taking the time to chat with us. That is it. Dorm room tongue kissing is the end of the pod. You don't have any other Donald Trump takes you need for anything? You feel like you got it? I think we got it. We didn't do Oasis. Really quick, we didn't do Oasis. Can I do Oasis for one minute? Yeah, yeah. Oasis in Manchester was just, dude, it was unbelievable. Oh, you went to Manchester. It was unbelievable. It was the best thing. I was listening to your guys' post-Oasis show talk about it, and it was just...

It was I mean, like, obviously, it's cliche. It was just like biblical. I like everybody around me. I went to Chicago, too. It was fine. It was great in Chicago. But like the Manchester thing. everyone knew every word the little by little and all the deep cuts like everyone knew every word and sang every word people were throwing fucking beers on me and i did i had no piss uh that i know of but like everybody's bond the brits were so happy we were there like all my louisiana friends have more of an accent than me so hearing southern accents they're like you're americans like they're giving us like they gave us their bucket hats you know we were sharing cigarettes and it was just it was a communal Love Pest. It was really great. No, it really is. It was unbelievable. Unfortunately, I hate to get earnest, but it really is. It's something. It was so beautiful. It's like how it's supposed to be, and that just doesn't happen. So the only other way that you could maybe top that is Nebworth. Are you going to go? Should I? I'm so torn about it. yes probably i'm never gonna see i'm never gonna see them again i i was like that was that's as good as it's gonna be yeah i i see both sides of it i know i see both sides man i don't know um but uh i mean like on the one hand i almost went the next night like me and my i got a flight home the next day with me and my girlfriend we were just like we should just we should just do it again we should do it again we should do it again and then like uh it we walked the wrong way out of heaton park or whatever and And, you know, our backs were hurting by the time that we got home. So, you know, so we decided not to do it. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. On the one hand, never see him again. On the other hand, I was at the last LCD MSG show and I felt similar mixed feelings when they came back. I was like, it's never going to be better. And then every time I see them, they're awesome. And so I kind of. I don't know. I don't think there's any wrong way to go about it. I just think that it's a dealer's choice situation. Okay, last question, Tim. Musically, you're wearing a Hot Boys shirt. What song should I put at the end of this episode to represent Nola? Probably just Juvie, right? Just a little back that ass up or something? Any Juvie? I don't know. I mean, I need a hot girl if I'm in the Hot Boys shirt. I need a hot girl. I think that would be appropriate.

I need a hot girl. All right, classic. Okay, beautiful. Guys, I love you guys. I appreciate this. I'm sorry. I was kind of adding extra questions because, like, after this, I've got to go, like, talk about Marco Rubio or something again. So this was a gift for you guys having me. Godspeed. And when I make it to New Orleans, I'm looking you up because I need a tour guide. So I'll see you soon. Dude, absolutely, man. You have to come. All right? I'll see you soon. Or maybe. Who's in New York? I'm in New York. I'm in New York. You're in New York. Are you going to do geese? If I'm here, yeah, for sure. Okay. Well, message me. Maybe I'll see a geese. Otherwise, come on down to New Orleans. I appreciate it. All right, cool. Thanks, Tim. All right, man. Thanks again. I'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye. Later, bro. with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment. Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan, equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com.