852. - Gene Pressman

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? It's Chris Black. It is just before 9 a.m. here in Los Angeles. The sun is... gonna creep out soon them jeans was really good sun creeping over here are you in another are you in a closet in pasadena again pause uh no i'm in a i'm in a hotel room in west hollywood it's fine i'm not bigger i'm out of the closet finally okay welcome welcome how are you feeling yeah i'm feeling good i actually had a terrible sleep score yesterday it was tough i'm all fucked up so Luckily, I'm going to get on a flight that lands in New York at midnight tonight, and then I'll just go to the 9 Orchie and just sleep it up. Straight to bed. Hopefully. Oh, you'll be fine. No, I've been getting up at 5. to work out with Hunter at six, um, which is, leaves me a lot of day except I've been, uh, today I don't have to go to Pasadena. So today I'm, I'm, I'm out here. I'm freewheeling and we have, when you say it leaves you a lot of day, I thought you were a busy guy. I got a lot of emails that you got to get back to you, Chris, if you want me to send them over again. No, I just don't want any of those people to come on our show, but the, the, um, Okay, well, you have to tell me that, though. See, this is the difference between you and I. If somebody emails me 20 times and I'm not interested, I'm not responding. It's a waste of time. You've got to get the point. What if you already said you're interested, though? I probably was just lying to get you off my back, but I can look into it. Okay, well, that's also bad. The two emails that were quote-unquote urgent from you have been responded to.

It's not really an urgency. It's more of a just, you know, it's a yes or a no. I get too many emails to respond to people trying to come on the show if they're not. of interest but i'm saying my point is of all this is that when you are done with the gym at 7 a.m yeah it just feels like you've done a lot if it's nice to have it out of the way is what i'm trying by the time lunch comes around it feels like dinner right you feel you've lived two days you know what i mean not to go mark walberg mode uh but uh you know you know what i mean it's like when you're done it When you're done at 7, there's no traffic out there. It's just such a nicer time of day to be doing that sort of thing in Los Angeles particularly. Because in New York, you do it that early. You're walking down the streets. It's kind of creepy. If you're walking around downtown... before before six it just feels eerie because there's no one on the street here there's never anyone on the street you know what i mean you're in your car it's fine it feels it feels normal but walking or walking around when it's dark at 5 30 just feels funny so la does early morning better than new york oh yeah i always say that because no one here no one here has a job And since you are not really a breakfast eater anyway, it doesn't matter if the bacon, egg, and cheese is available at 5.15 a.m. or the coffee is available that early. Well, I do have to bring – I mean, that's why I stock my own chameleon in every hotel room I can because I usually get up too early for coffee. Even in Austin, that hotel had a great coffee program. 7 a.m., that's as good as it's going to get, but it's a little late. Depending on what time you re-rise. Heaven's a little tough. I agree with that. I think Starbucks is closing 14 locations daily. But I believe they do open at 6. That is the standard for a reason. I've got to get my protein foam in before. Otherwise, what's the point of going to the gym? I saw Dan. I saw Dan posted his protein foam review. And he's like, it tastes good. He's like, it's sugar and air. How could it not? But what is the protein? I only have heard about this a little bit. I mean, obviously, it's self-explanatory.

Is this a sign of real peak protein? I think what I've noticed is that things that already have protein in them, they're either being rebranded as this is the protein thing. Cottage cheese has just always had a bunch of protein, and now it's like have some more of your protein cheese, I guess. People used to eat cottage cheese because it was low-calorie, and some people liked it. And then it would fill you up. And now people just buy these tubs of cottage cheese, rip the lid off like a wild dingo, and just dry scoop their creatine powder into it and rub it on their body and underarms or something like that. They're not really enjoying it the way they need to be. It's like... just eating goo on a jog you know yeah that's i mean i i see what you mean like they these these long time protein providers see the uh uptake in the marketplace and the and the kind of copy that goes along with it and they've done a quick rebrand a pivot if you will right to sort of get which is smart yeah definitely like when everything was like oh this this uh corn on the cob is gluten-free or like you know like oh this apple juice is vegan it'll say it on the label and you're like yeah no fucking shit no fucking shit this apple juice is vegan unless you count the bugs that had to die you know i don't i then those lives can't be we can't resuscitate those dead bugs something to think about no we can't but but i think also lastly with certain ingredients where they're like what if you know i'm sure the the starbucks banana foam already had you know like four grams of protein in it just naturally stock and then certain foods you can just add the powdered protein or the powdered whatever to it and it doesn't really and they just keep adding the powder until it starts tasting too goofy and then they pull it back and we got to 15 grams that's not bad you know what I mean because there's a line yeah of course of course I mean you don't want anything to taste like protein

If that makes sense. If it's not meat, basically. You know what I mean? You don't want anything that's not real to taste like. The taste of protein. I like that. But you know what I mean? I feel like we've all had that in some sort of smoothie probably before where it feels like something's wrong here. It's a little chalky. And it's usually due to the powder, the protein powder. Unless I'm drinking down a nice cowboy colostrum, which I've been whisking in. It's funny. Have they paid us yet? Because you're really shilling for them, and I don't know if they've paid us yet. They have not paid us yet, but what I liked about them, I mean, obviously it's just a funny thing, you know, like I'm enjoying my colostrum today, but because it has like a cowboyish, cowgirlish feel to it, you know when all these beverage products come with like the little electric whisk thing to like whisk up your shit? They got one that's kind of like the F-350. You know when you get the tattoo guns now where it's like a big fat boy? They've done a man-sized version. They got more horses under the hood to whip up that pow-pow. Damn, that's really funny, actually. That's smart and on-brand, even though I still don't. It's American-made, brother. I don't know what it does, but it sounds like it's for people who... um you know go to jackson hole or live in austin and that's a good market for that kind of product i feel like yeah colostrum is so important for my daily routine uh okay let's see here do you want to talk about theo vaughn yeah i was who's talking about this today going through it yeah i mean it's it's it's it's not good so like i remember like maybe like a week ago Something like that. With today's timeline, it could be four months, it could be four hours, I don't know. Sure, sure, sure. I think the literal White House or the U.S. government posted a video on social media. Oh, yes, yeah, yes, yes. And they used footage of Theo Vaughn against his, you know, without his approval, basically saying like Theo Vaughn is, you know, he also wants to round up the brown people and get them out of the country.

And I think that, to me, in my opinion, that was like the tipping point where he's like, maybe I'd done gone too far here and I need to, you know, take a long look in the mirror at what's going on. And then, you know, maybe he's back to using drugs and, you know, he's having a Lola Young mental health moment. The rumor is that he relapsed and then bombed so bad he had to apologize and then said he was going to kill himself. So it's pretty – it's pretty – Well, that's not the rumor. That's like what has been documented with video. Well, the relapse, no one – I mean, there's no documented video of him snorting coke. But, you know, as a former addict and current gelato addict, we all have a tipping point that makes us use again. You know what I mean? The fact that I want to just pat myself on the back for resisting... Fuck your shit, boy. For resisting a single bite of that pie at quarter sheets that Ryan O'Connell ordered because that shit looked... I was staring at it lustfully. My mouth was sweating looking at that pie. That was like being in the green room. and and the coke coming out you know what i'm saying that was too it was it was too powerful and then you got a slice to go he got a slice to go cord got the princess cake he was like it's delicious you guys are all you don't even like dessert and you're fucking taking it down i got a slice to go i was yeah i mean and that's a couple bites at home Of course, we have to eat our sweets in the morning to allow our body to fully process it and not sit on that. It would really affect my sleep score if I eat all that chocolate pudding before bed. Yeah, it's delicious. Shout out to Quarter Sheets. I would say it's known as a pizza joint as well as a desserts joint, but man, those salads and the appetizers are very well chef-crafted. I've been eating a lot of melon this summer. Dude, same, bro. Hold for applause, but that melon, there's some... pollen on it and it's swimming in the sauce and that was delicious you know delicious cut to the right size that was delicious i didn't know i didn't really know what i was getting into um but uh you know i actually went forced to make a choice between some sort of uh tomato dish and a and a savory melon dish i i didn't know myself that well but i was i instantly reached

for the savory melon you had some shit that you had never had before and it started changing the way you look at life it kind of changed my shit up yeah it changed my shit up and also last night at the at the failing horses those um those salads were amazing those were also very good sounds like a plus a plus so i've been eating i had goop lunch i had goop kitchen two days in a row great salads i went i went to echo park the worst neighborhood in america and had some delicious I hadn't been to Echo Park in a long time. What a fucking dump, man. I didn't realize it was, I didn't realize it, but it feels like it used to be so charming and it felt like you were really somewhere different. And now it feels a little junky, not, not junky, like needles, junky, like, like bad stuff everywhere. Does that make sense? Like, like weird, weird, bad stores and restaurants that shouldn't be open. And then of course the iconic glasses and quarter sheets, but I just don't. Yeah, I mean, every neighborhood has its diamonds in the rough, and there are multiple ones in Echo Park. But yeah, I mean, I agree. It's one of those places where once you turn 23, you have sort of outgrown it. You have aged yourself out of that community. And it used to be you could go live up in the hills and be in your 40s and start a family and have a dog named Cooper or Max. Everything is all good. You take the kids to roller hockey practice. And now, like you said, it's just kind of... I think it's gone through. It was like the cool artist neighborhood. It was cheap to live there. Cool people went there. And then time passed. It got bought up, commercialized. And then enough time has passed again. And that has turned into a third thing that is quite bad. But we have a guest here today. And it's time to chat with them. Yeah, our guest today is Gene Pressman. He's got a new book out. They all came to Barney's. They all came to Barney's, a personal history of the world's greatest store. The world's greatest store. I mean, you know, we'll talk about that. Is Target better? Was Barney's better? Who's to say, really? Who's to say? But we're going to get into it. We're going to get into it. We'll make some final decisions today on How Long Gone, that's for sure.

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 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? You know, especially when it's not, you know, from here, let's say. Give it a listen. Give it a listen. 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. Oh, this is huge for me personally. This episode of How I'm Gone is 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 a fucking... 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. And, I mean, 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. When life happens, your to-do list grows. Get ahead of it now and get $15 off your first task at TaskRabbit.com or grab the TaskRabbit app using promo code HOWLONG. 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. You're down in Florida, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. They got strong Wi-Fi down there for sure. That's a difference. I didn't realize you were in Florida. American Wi-Fi. What part of Florida? West Palm. Okay. Nice. Very nice. So you retired there? I guess to a point. If you have a six-year-old, I'm not sure you're retired. Hold on, bro. You got a six-year-old?

We're talking to a lifelong stick man, Chris. This is stuff that happens. I know, but it happens. I'm not going to ask your age, of course, but what is the gap in age between you and the mother of the six-year-old? 20 plus. Okay, nice. So you didn't have much of a choice then, it feels like. Maybe this was like, if you want to keep me on your arm, you've got to give me something that I want. Yeah, I mean... We've been together 28 years. Okay, okay. So it's not like it's a new thing. But, yeah, you know, women, they get into the clock thing. You know what I mean? The clock's ticking. So we were together for 10 years before we decided to get married. I didn't want to get married again. How many times have you been married? Just once? Twice is enough. So you're saying once and then now currently or two and then now currently? No, once and now. Okay, got you. Got you, got you. Okay, so two's enough. Did you lose your ass in the first one, or was it okay? Everything's fair. You know, they have laws, you know, so you have to. They have laws as a really cool response to that. Well, there are laws. I didn't really have much say in some of that stuff, but laws can be pesky. Okay, Gene, now that you're down in West Palm, Florida. Have you influenced the local scene? Do you see people wearing Drees and Yoji and all these brands from back in the day that you have sort of pioneered, or is it still kind of Tommy Bahama over there? Well, considering I'm wearing a white tee, which I always wear. Same. It's not about designer stuff. I don't see a lot of people wearing designer stuff today, to be honest with you. The prices are so stupid that it's ridiculous. It's just people that don't try hard versus the people that try too hard. You know what I mean? And that's not exclusive to Florida. That's everywhere. So when it's very sunny out, it definitely affects your brain somewhat. So you go down a different path, so to speak. You're saying some of your neighbors are a little fried from too much sun time.

Mentally and physically. No, I'm not saying that. We'll call it pickled. Well, I'm just saying that it's easier down here for sure. I call it the bubble. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're kind of living in the tropics. It's sort of like a mini Shangri-La in a sense, so it doesn't suck. Yeah, no, no, no. You can pull out of a Bentley wearing white T-shirt and some shorts and some flip-flops and everything is all good. Whereas in Manhattan, the street is the runway, and you have to have a considered look, even if you go to the laundromat, you know? I got my guy over here. We got your kid right here, huh? Yep, there's Fred. Oh, Freddy. Say hi. Hi, Fred. See you later, buddy. Oh, too cute. Yeah, he's a good kid. So you named him after the Barney's restaurant, is that right? No, I named him after my father. I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding. Listen, I had a fight with them to name that restaurant after my father. What did they want to go with? Well, they were, at the time, the restructuring guys. I don't know what they wanted to go with, but I know what I wanted to go with. Obviously, they went with that. We can go into that later if you like. But no, it's being down here. There are a lot of bohemians down here and artists and a lot of cool people and people that I know from back in the Apple. And, you know, then Florida is also another part of the world, too. You know, I always say Florida is its own planet. Same way I think Texas is its own planet. There's a certain vibe that you're not getting other places. Yeah, Florida is definitely on its own planet. I think Texas is now going to its own universe. They've blasted off. They've taken it further. Yeah, they have. What's the difference? I've never understood totally.

Obviously, West Palm and then Palm Beach, is it a vibe difference? Obviously, it's an actual location difference, but what are the defining factors of the two? Well, West Palm is more low-key and more neighborhood and families, and Palm Beach is one fortress after another. So it's a completely different vibe. Listen, the island... physically at Palm Beach is very beautiful you know and you can the way they they laid it out you can take your bike over there and they have wonderful little trails they're on the intercoastal that you can go up and down on but Living there is a whole different scene. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, I think a lot of people who are listening are familiar with Palm Beach, Florida, because that's where Mar-a-Lago is, and then West Palm Beach, Florida is just over the bridge, and you're describing it as a bohemian cultural zone, and I'd like to know how that happens, you know? They're so close to each other. Well, you know, Palm Beach was always set up that way from way back. When Flagler's, you know, with the railroads, I mean, it's basically the same people that built Southampton in New York built Palm Beach. So they would have their, you know, winter homes. So and that hasn't changed over many, many years. It's completely different than Miami, which, you know, has exploded. I could never live in Miami. Yeah, there's probably a little less – I feel like there's less Latin flair in Palm Beach maybe than Miami. Well, yeah, but it's not so much – Miami is sort of a mixture of many cultures in a sense, which is a good thing, but it's just so overcrowded and overbuilt. If you're 20-something or early 30s and you still want to party, I guess it's a good place.

If you're an old guy like me who's already checked out of that place, you want something that's a little bit more peaceful. Of course, of course. Well, I guess speaking of tropical coastal living, let's move it to the West Coast, Orange County, where I'm from, and my wife, who also is from Orange County, and she worked at the Barneys Co-op at South Coast Plaza, Chris's favorite mall in the world. I was reading the book, and you were talking about going into that mall, and I totally forgot that the word Barney is a word that you would call somebody who's like a kook or like a dorky guy who can't surf, and then you take your big, beautiful, new, amazing store and stick it in the epicenter of that culture. Were there conversations about what are we going to do? Did you almost change the name to something else? Was it just, did it all work out? In fact, when I was writing the book, I found that out. I didn't know that prior. I actually learned a lot when I was writing the book, which was kind of fun. You're like, oh, no shit. I forgot about that thing that happened to me in my life. Yeah, including about myself. But, you know, that's a very beautiful part of the world. Thank you. And, you know, in those days, I think that those people were more sort of country club and very conservative and happy with their own little lives and didn't really understand fashion too much. I guess you'd call it sort of Ralph Lauren country if you wanted to. So it was a challenge bringing those kind of things in. It was a beautiful place and people were wealthy and were exposed to very high quality kind of things. So it was a teaching lesson, but we got there and we also opened a great restaurant there, which I think did very well. Do you remember what that restaurant was called?

Give me a second. Because I was asking my wife, and I think she worked there after. It was past her prom. Yes, it was next to the store, Jason to the store, but it was at South Coast Plaza. It was an Italian restaurant, and it was quite good, and it was always packed. That was a nice mall, by the way, a very nice mall. Yeah, very nice. It's where a boy became a man, me. I had a lot of firsts there. Yeah, I'm sure. Do you remember? The name of the owners? Of South Coast Plaza? Yeah. Simon? The Segerstrom family. The Segerstrom family, that's right. They were very nice. Believe it or not, there are a lot of malls that are independent outside the grasp of Simon. Primarily, that's the malls that we'd go to, against my better judgment, because I wasn't a mall guy, and I really didn't feel that Barney's... was meant to be in a mall, you know? Yeah. Are you still anti-mall? No. I mean, I go shopping very rarely. So, you know, if I have to go to the mall, actually the mall serves a purpose now because it has more things in it. So I can get it all done at once. Okay. So you're a white tea guy, but what about... What about the pants? What about the shoes? Do we have some more legacy pieces going on on your day-to-day wardrobe? Generally, I'm a jean guy, you know, tight knee lines. How tight are we talking? Not as tight as they used to be. Sure, sure, sure. You're saying fit it. You're saying fit it. We're not talking about the Led Zeppelin nut huggers that you were wearing back in the day. Yes. But they're tight. Okay, I got it. Yeah, but they're tapered. I still weigh the same as I always weigh. I didn't gain a pound, really. I'm in low 150s. Damn, okay. Must be nice, Gene. What's the secret there? He said low 150s. Come check me. I work out every day religiously.

I'm on an hour on that elliptical full bore. Really? Yeah. So you're saying balls to the wall in the elliptical for an hour. For an hour. Okay. It's like a dream for the joints. It is because I can't run anymore. I used to run marathons, but I might have no knees. That's funny you say that. You have a runner look about you, which I think that if you do it long enough, you kind of develop that and it sticks with you. Yeah, it does. I love eating, but I kind of watch what I eat. It's not a diet or anything, but I only eat when I'm hungry. So I eat in the morning, early, like 7 o'clock, and then I eat dinner. I don't ever eat lunch because I'm not hungry. And you don't seem like a snacker. No, I'm not. Lots of sweets, lots of chocolate at night. Like bad boy shit or like a couple squares of artisanal dark chocolate? Only dark chocolate. I hate milk chocolate. And dark chocolate with salt is really cool. I agree. I fucking agree, man. You're absolutely right. It is cool. Let's talk about working out because I know that that's a big interest of Chris's and I think we can all bond on this. Even when you had the office in New York, 70s, 80s, you built your own gym in the office. There were gyms at other locations of Barney's, some for public, some for employees only. When did you get the bug? No, actually, there was only one gym at Barney's. It was my gym, but I let people use it. It's nice. It's like when the CEO lets you use his bathroom. That's a nice treat. Yeah, I didn't have my own bathroom. You had different priorities. I got it. I had my own boxing ring. I didn't have my own shitter, though. I actually did have a gym and a bathroom and a gym. I boxed for a long time.

For almost 20 years, so we had a little ring in there, and we do a lot of running. You know, I don't know if you guys have boxed, but it's got to be the best exercise on the planet. Great cardio, full body. Yeah, and the road work to do it is really insane. You know, we're running every morning at like 6, doing about 7 or 8 miles, and then going back and lifting weights. and then hitting the heavy bag for like almost 40 minutes. That's brutal. Brutal. That's absolutely brutal. And so, you know, I did not karate, but the Muay Thai thing. Okay, a little Muay Thai. And my instructor got a little over-anxious and started hurting me. And I said that's enough, and I fired him, and I didn't do that anymore. When you start whacking with elbows. Were you talking shit to him, though, or do you think this is all in his own mind? I think that's part of the Muay Thai. Normally it's like I'm paying you to get hit, not the other way around, buddy. But I think with the Muay Thai, you want to get a little pain going. Well, what happened was I wore shin guards because it really, I don't know if you ever got kicked in the shin or kick someone in the shin and they're doing all the time. You have to build up callus in your bone. You know, it's like insane. You got to be pretty nutty to do that shit. And so I was a pretty good boxer and I was fast. And Muay Thai guys like use their legs like 90 percent of the time. A lot more power there. So you're starting to see what happened here. So we're screwing around and I. I think I whacked him once in the head and he just went nuts. And he jumped up in the air and he came down with his elbow right on my head, full force. And I said, dude, that's it. You're fired. Get the fuck out of here.

That was the end of my Muay Thai career. I didn't hire you to give me a head injury. I think that's a fair reason for termination. We had a safe word and you crossed the line. In fairness, I guess I deserved it. I'm going to agree that you deserved it, but his job is to know restraint. That's part of the job. It's true. I thought boxing was so much fun. because I had a lot of stress, and I just wanted to get it out, and this is the way to do it. Okay. And it was great. Well, how do you balance the going out to the club five nights a week and doing, I don't know what substances you're enjoying, but then waking up and hitting the heavy bag at 7 a.m.? That's what real men do, Jason. They sweat it out the next day. Okay. Well. I think that burning at both ends of the candle wasn't a lifetime aspiration, if you know what I mean. Sure, sure, sure. There's a limited window on that, is what you're saying. Right. It's a young person's sport, if you know what I mean. I did that in my 20s. New York in the 70s was absolutely insane. And I went to school with Rebel and Schrager, who started Studio 54. They were my fraternity brothers. That's a plug right there. Yeah, that started in 77. And I was unabashed in living there like six days a week for like three years. Yeah, I mean, telling a girl, I can get you into Studio 54 if you want to go over tonight after dinner, you know, good as gold. I didn't do that. In fact, I rarely ever went there with somebody from the opposite sex. I went with my buddies. You rarely brought Sam to the beach, is what you're saying. Yeah, I was going to say, did you leave with your buddies, though, is the real question. No, well, sometimes. 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. So do 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, you know, 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 2.3 version upgrade. Boom, boom, boom. Get the analytics going. Raise some money. 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 how long for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code how long to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. 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 episode is brought to you by Prime.

What if you had one more chance with the one that got away? Sam, you came home. Based on the best-selling novel from Carly Fortune. Every Year After follows childhood friends Sam and Percy as they reunite in the dreamy, nostalgic lakeside town of Berries Bay. Love can be hard to find. So if you're lucky enough to find that person, never let go. A Second Chance at First Love. Every Year After. Streaming June 10th. Only on Prime. Of course. I mean, nobody's batting 100. Yeah. Well, it wasn't nice if they also, you know, came with other people of the opposite sex. There can be complications. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. But anyway, the 70s were pretty wild, and that's when I was really going at it and also working. And then I just said I had enough of this shit. And in early 80s, in 79, I met this girl and fell in love with her. And the club scene, it was kind of coincidental that the studio also ended in 79. Yeah, yeah. And in 82, I got married and I moved to Larchmont. Hung out there, went to New York every day to work, but really didn't party and then had kids. Got very serious about building the company. Was the shift like culturally from the 70s to the 80s in New York pretty severe? Like, did you feel a difference in those decades? Well, the biggest shift was that people started making a lot of money. Okay. Everything that was talked about in terms of Wall Street and greed and all of that stuff was true. And obviously Barney's benefited a great deal from those customers. They were buying, you know, as I said in the book, arms full of Armani's. We brought Armani in 76. So after that, New York exploded and they were just spending money like no tomorrow. The restaurants were overpacked. All these young brokers, they were buying thousand dollar bottles of wine. And I guess the drugs were flowing.

You know, it was in the same time. The 70s was more artistic and more creative and more down and dirty. And New York was pretty much bankrupt and unsafe. And depending on what street you went down, you didn't know whether you were going to get mug raped or go into a cool club. And also, downtown didn't really exist then. I mean, believe it or not, Soho just started to come up. The West Village was more bohemian in those days. And the East Village, as I said in the book, was, you know, a bunch of artists that would pay $2.50 a month rent and all the rats they could chase. And Chelsea didn't exist at all. The only thing that was there was Barney. So Barney was kind of like the downtown anchor, you know. And then everything just exploded because downtown. was really the only place that young people could afford to live. So in those days, you really had cool clubs and little cool restaurants. And, you know, it was very European in a sense and a lot of fun to hang out. And you also had the great rock clubs. Yeah. You know, you had Phil Maury's. CBGB's. Well, that was, yeah, that was late 70s, yes. But you had a lot of the rock and roll clubs, and you also had a lot of where the artists went, Warhol and that whole group. And everything was near the store. So I would do this sort of pilgrimage every day where I'd walk. Barnage was on 17th Street. I'd walk down 17th Street going east past the bottom line and past all the other clubs. And then I would. past um Phil Maurice and in those days the the backstage door was always open and wherever act was playing that night would be playing practicing during the day and I'd go by and I I would hear this guy playing the flute and he blew my mind I think it was about 72 or something he blew or maybe even earlier uh he blew my mind and I never heard this guy and I snuck in and I I said I gotta buy a ticket and I went that night it was Jethro Tull and um

Of course, I became a Jethro Tolkien, but everything was a lot looser and easier, you know, in a sense, and way more free. But you're saying the 80s, once the money came in, things changed. Like, that's what really made the difference. Yeah, I think that everything that was a discovery in the 70s just exploded in the 80s. And then it wasn't so much of a discovery anymore. And then, you know, with each decade, it just got worse, in my view. I think that's probably fair. I mean, I wasn't there for those two, but, you know, at least in my lifetime, that's right. You know, I don't talk about it a lot, but somebody should write a book about the 60s because that was really the greatest hidden gem. That's where everything started, and the center of the universe was London. And I mean, London was the coolest place on the planet. And, you know, you had all the English rock stars and the cool rock clubs and the fashion was great. You know, the girls in the little leather hot pants and the short haircuts they had or the long haircuts. I'm sure you guys saw a lot of this. You know, there was great art scene. It was the great from from 67 to 73 was the greatest period ever in filmmaking. It was just a very cool place. Anything went. And it was very sort of the kids versus the establishment. You know, and it was the same way in this country, too, then in the 60s. It wasn't the two political parties were really the older generation and the younger generation. It wasn't about red or blue. You know, at odds. Yeah. And there was a lot of anger by the kids. And because of the anger, which is something missing right now, maybe it's starting to come back. I don't know. But no, they're angry. They're angry about having to wait in line for their matcha. But otherwise, I think it's, you know, the problem is that apathy doesn't bring great creativity, you know, and that's where the 60s really flourished. And the 70s is because there was a lot of anger. And so.

You had all these pissed off kids and they were just making great stuff, you know, whether it be music or film or art or fashion. And that went into the 70s. And then the 80s also, it continued because there's a lot of money. So it just got bigger. Do you know what I mean? I'm not sure it was better, but it definitely got bigger. But it wasn't it didn't diminish. It didn't diminish until the 90s. Once it got into the 90s, the first half of the 90s was still good. But then things started to slip. You know, the Internet came on. And then, I don't have to tell you guys, you know, as soon as the flip phones came, first you had those big monster phones. Then you had the flip phones. And then you had what you have now. And so, you know, that changed everything. I'm not saying anything you guys don't know or anybody doesn't know. But it really, it hurt. It hurt creativity. It made people lazier, stupider. Less social? Less hungry. But was it good for business in some ways, though? Well, the 80s were great for business. The 90s, if you recall, the early 90s, we had a terrible recession because always, always, I mean, history does repeat itself. Always at a certain point, maybe it's a 10-year cycle, but after this insane, spending of money and you know we live in a consumer society so after there was insane spending of money it just backfired and then you know the shit hit the fan and nobody was spending money and it got ugly and that was the early 90s so the people that had money and that's what's sort of unfair if you will for the most of the people living in this country the people that had money could do whatever they wanted and everybody else got hurt Until Bill Clinton came around. We won't get into politics, but I hope that this country doesn't go through that again. We're going to see. Okay, well, I wanted to talk to you about advertising. I know that Barney's had a lot of legendary advertising over the years, even back in the very early days and radio ads and things like that.

But at a certain point, it got to the level where other companies were hiring you guys to do their advertising. Yeah. And I wanted to see if you still kind of consider yourself to be a little bit of an ad man. Yeah. I'm not big on sayings or being pigeonholed into, you know, phrases. But I'm a visual guy. I think I'm a pretty good storyteller. So that's what advertising is, obviously. My grandfather was a brand marketer. The company was totally different back in the 20s. He came from nothing. He was a poor boy on the Lower East Side. And he had this small hole in the wall called Barney's. And in those days, downtown, nobody went downtown. As I said in the book, if they went down below 42nd Street, they were afraid they got a nosebleed. So he had to get people down there. And in those days, buying airtime didn't cost a lot of money. So he flood the market. It was all about radio. And he flood the market to the point where he was annoying the hell out of everybody. And he didn't care. And you heard Barney's on the radio 24 hours a day, every day. When you get in a taxi cab, all you had to say is, I'm going to Barney's. You never had to say the address, and they knew it. And he was revolutionary in so many ways. During the Lindbergh trials, Barney sponsored the Lindbergh trials on radio in 1949. He was the first retailer to go on television and advertise. I didn't know any of this stuff. I knew about the old ads, but I didn't know any of this stuff. I was asked to come down to do a lecture series at Duke many, many years ago, and then I decided to do my homework on it, and I was astonished that this was sort of our culture, our history. I was pretty impressed.

you know, bring the level of buying yourself and upgrade it. So he went through every great ad guy, as you say, every brilliant agency. And then finally, in 76, I brought women's in and I realized that these ad guys were brilliant at toilet paper and Purdue chicken and automobiles, but I'm not sure what they knew about fashion. We decided to start hiring magazine art directors and then eventually copywriters. And then I brought it in-house. And we really did great work. I mean, we had brilliant people there. And Barney's has always had, you know, it's not about me or the presidents. And we've had just so many brilliant people come through our doors. It's always been this wonderful collaboration, sort of like a club. And it was a lot of fun. We did great work, and we did very innovative work. I think we did risky work. Barneys is about a sense of humor, which I also think is something lacking today. 100%. Not with you guys. Not with us, of course. We're waving the flag, but a lot of people forget about humor and entertainment. I think the more serious you are, in a sense, the more you have to make fun of yourself. And people appreciate that. And it's a softer message, you know, and it's something that's built to last. So that's always been our message. And I remember there was a guy named Glenn O'Brien. He was the rock and roll critic, the music critic of Interview Magazine at the time. This was in 76 or 77. And I said to him. Actually, it might have been early 80s, and I said, Glenn, I knew him from around, and public access television was just coming on the market, and it was pretty weird staying, especially in those times. And Glenn had this TV show called Dance Party or something? TV Party. TV Party, thank you. And he knew the whole downtown scene, and he would invite his friends on, like Deborah Harry and Christine.

You know, Jean-Michel Basquiat. I don't know if Andy went on there. But he had very cool kids on. And, you know, he had this $1.98 beat-up couch. And the production was even less expensive than what I'm seeing with you guys right now. And it was an interesting show. You know, I think they were half-cocked all the time. So I invited them to the office. And he said to me, Gene, you know, I never wrote one bit of advertising. And I said, good, you're hired. He worked for us for 10 years and he was the most brilliant, again, using your expression, ad guy I've ever seen. Glenn wrote in staccato and he could capture a whole. paragraph in like three words. And then we had great art directors, and we worked with some of the greatest photographers in the world, I remember. Didn't you kind of discover Corin Day a little bit? Yes, Corin Day. We worked with Stephen Mizell early on, and I remember that in one of the early shoots, Mark Ballard, who was one of our great art directors, had to go out and rent him a camera because he didn't have a camera to do the shoot. So that was pretty crazy. But yeah, and so, you know, all of a sudden we were getting inquiries. You know, we love your ads. Would you do something for us? So it was the Morgan's Hotel Group. It was Vitamin Water, which. It was called something else at the time. Armani, Prada, she knows a lot of people in the fashion industry. And we decided to do their work. And it became sort of a profit center for us. It was great because then it started to pay for itself. And, you know, those things like that are all organic. We didn't plan on them. We did them because we believed in our work and we loved what we did because of that.

you know other things starting to happen that is pretty insane i mean i guess that in that time though a lot of magazines would do ads for brands you know what i mean which that makes more sense like they would if you're going to run an ad in gq or esquire they would design the ad you know so it would obviously appeal to their readers but you guys were basically operating as an agency i mean at that point yeah no we had it was an agency because you know we had to have the bodies so yeah yeah and it wasn't an inexpensive proposition so You know, bringing in outside income was really a good thing for us. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a really diversify. Yeah. I mean, why not do what you're good at? If people want to give it to them. The other thing about back then is there's very little organic thinking. It's always the cart before the horse. How can I make a zillion dollars? It's always about marketing before you build a product. You know, with us, it was always about if you build it, they'll come. And then you surround it with good marketing and some kind of physicality, whether it be a well-designed store or cool windows or whatever it is. But it always started with the product and building relevancy. And then if something became relevant, maybe it would become cool. I can't tell you. I wrote a book many years ago with another guy named Noah Kerner called Chasing Cool. And really the premise of the book was that too many companies were obsessed with how do I make my product cool? And we would sort of laugh in the board meetings because, you know, dude, if it's not in your culture, you could bring anybody you want from the outside, but it's just not going to happen. You've got to make something really relevant first. And then virally, maybe as word gets out, it will start getting cool. Barney's wasn't really about, for many, many years, about making it cool. It was just about making it relevant and buying beautiful things and making great quality. And, you know, again, having that sense of humor to go along with the message. And, you know, eventually it did start getting cool. As we changed the product, I started in 1975 when Saturday Night Live started, I started seeing those people shopping at the store.

When Armani came in, that changed everything. And all of a sudden, we store a lot of rock stars and celebrity types. And then when I brought women's in in 76, that changed the complete dynamic. And yeah, it became like a clubhouse. It did become cool. And of course, I really liked what I did. It was fun. Yeah, there's worse jobs out there. I mean, I think there was a... I mean, my move would always be to go on a Saturday and start at the top, you know what I mean, eat, and then just go all the way down. And that was the whole thing. Did you have a meal that you would get every time, Chris, or you mix it up? I would mix it up. I mean, I would go. It was also a place where you'd go with, like, your friend's parents, you know, when they were in town. But L.A. too. I mean, when I used to be in the music business, like, the William Morris office was next door to Barney's. Like, I would. valet at William Morris, do my little meeting, and then go over to Barney's and spend money that I just made and should have saved. Pop a couple Vicodin and see what's on the new arrivals route. Literally, pop a couple Vicodin and go buy some Agnes B button-down shirts that I don't need. That was the vibe. Agnes B was cool. We were her first customer in America. She really kind of started the contemporary market. designer but not too expensive and sort of utilitarian but still very downtown cool it did it felt it did feel like a little bit more european than maybe i was used to and that was probably the appeal of it you know especially at the time because i wasn't exposed to that that much so i didn't know what i was reacting to yeah but i think you're probably right did you read it barney greengrass in la at barney's yeah yeah yeah yeah Because Barney Greengrass in New York, I mean, I still dove there. It's definitely one of the greatest Jewish bellies on the planet. So that L.A. store, by the way, for me, and I built many stores, was the most beautiful store we ever built. Yeah, it was. Oh, I mean, you could see all the way up to the top. You know, it was like if you're standing on the bottom, you could look up. It was beautiful. Yeah, the vision of that staircase was I felt that, you know, we had a similar staircase, but much smaller in size.

in the downtown barnes. But the one in L.A., I just felt that, you know, the DNA of people that are from L.A., everyone thinks they're a movie star. So as they're sort of just walking down the staircase, they could feel good, wave to the crowd. Yeah, you feel like you're being debuted. You know, we made sure that each balcony was also open so that, you know, people would interact. you know, that's part of, that's part of the fun, right? Of shopping and the whole thing. You know, it's, it's not just the frogs. No, it felt, I mean, also there was, I mean, there was a time that was also, I feel like when I was going there a lot, that was the heyday of Us Weekly and Star and paparazzi photos. And that valet, that Barney's valet was the background in many, many paparazzi photos from that era. Yeah. Like a Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Lindsay Lohan leaving Barney's was a very, Somebody who's making money off of that. Not just you. Yeah. And also during that time when I would go there, I always love going to Barney's with like, like you said, your friend's mom is in town. Where are we going to go? You know, my friend and I were just, you know, we were hung over from the night before eating pizza for breakfast. You know, we're a couple of pieces of shit. Mom's coming to town. What do we do? Go to Barney's. And it would be great because you could just be a broke guy who's 23 and you would be able to go to the most beautiful department store in America and you never felt pressured that it was weird or you didn't belong there or like you had to buy something just to be in there. Like everyone was just cool and breezy and it was just a place that you could just go and hang out and a real third place or a third space, as they say, and that really doesn't exist anymore. You know, that restaurant. Believe it or not, one of the only restaurants in Beverly Hills that was high enough up that you could see the hills and have a view. And you had that big terrace outside because most of the restaurants there didn't have that. So that was kind of cool. By the way, just to sort of get the record straight, Barney's was never a department store. Sorry. No, no, no. People confuse it in a good way in that.

It was big like a department store. It's a big-ass boutique. Well, it was a specialty store. And that comes from the men's roots. A lot of the men's stores were specialty stores. They weren't department stores. In fact, if you see the way that department stores treat their men's departments, they hide them away somewhere. And you have to go up five floors to get there or whatever it is. So that was a men's mentality. But there were stores in New York. I don't know if you knew them like Henry Bendel's back in the day. Yeah, of course. I guess for Dolph Goodman. Those are specialty stores. I don't know if I Magnum was considered a department store or specialty store. But they, you know, where Macy's or Bloomingdale's. Neiman's. Neiman's. Well, you know, it's funny. I think Neiman's and Saks back in the day probably were thought of as specialty stores. Department stores, the idea was they carried everything. Like you could get a refrigerator. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Get your yearbook photo taken. Who was your number one enemy, like retail-wise? Like who did you want to destroy? I don't know if I used the word destroy, but Bergdorf Goodman. That's what I was hoping. That's what I was hoping you would say. Bergdorf Goodman and Barney's had a nice little healthy competition. That's good for business. A little rivalry is good for business, I think, no matter what the business is. And then I think Neiman's Marcus later on, but not in the same way because Neiman's owned Bergdorf. part of the company. Yeah. I think it got to the point where it was our, we don't take any prisoners attitude that every big, every big store hated us. Sure, sure, sure, sure. When, when I would always see the barn shopping bag and other stores that really make me feel good, you know?

I didn't think about that. All right, so you're at Bergdorf kicking the tires and you see people coming through the door with the Barneys bag. You're like, that's right, bitch. That's exactly it. You know where to go first. Or you see a woman coming with like six Barneys bags over her shoulder and the whole thing. An impossible amount of Barneys purchases were made. Right, right. But, you know, it comes from that I guess my father and I always had a chip on her shoulder. Maybe me more so, but that we were downtown. Yeah, yeah. And we were always thought of as like the second citizen. And we really, that's what made us so hungry and have to fight for everything. And that's also, it's funny because the paradox of the whole thing is that my dad, when he wanted to upgrade Barneys from being a men's discount store, none of the better manufacturers in America would sell Barneys. He went to, you know, in those days, there were a lot of these sort of very conservative lines like Hickey Freeman, Oxford, Ralph Lauren, whatever. They wouldn't sell him. So it forced him to go to Europe. And the irony is the stuff in Europe was better. And when he went to Europe, they were so thrilled that a New York store would come and want to buy their stuff and bring it back to New York because a lot of those people had never even been in New York. opened their door, you know, happily. And that's how we found all these designers. And then slowly the American designers came around. And it's funny, in women's, I didn't want a lot of them then. But, you know, it's funny how that works. Again, that's an organic thing. It worked by accident. And, you know, my father just went to Europe and found all these great lines. And then, you know, I learned by osmosis. He was such a brilliant merchant. I mean, the guy was a genius, and I'm not saying that lightly. I mean, he would take me to Europe at a young age. He would expose me to so many things culturally, and I was a curious fuck. I'm allowed to say that, right? Yeah, you're allowed to say that. Okay, okay. So my eyes were always open.

And so I started going to Europe and I was I had long, super long hair and I look like a rock and roller. And I was dealing with sort of youngish to middle aged department store buyers who were, I think, set in their ways and very happy and established for their own businesses. So they weren't as hungry as I was. And I found all these young lions and I brought them back to America. You know, one thing led to another. It snowballed, and all of a sudden, we had all these great exclusives that you could only get if you went to Barneys. Then it just kept going. The great thing about Barneys is that company always changed. It was never satisfied sitting on its laurels. It had great curiosity. From my point of view, I get bored very easily, so I push people. to constantly find new stuff. And I think our customer expected it. And that was part of the charm, you know, and the fun of going there and finding new things. When I would go into focus groups, I hated focus groups. That doesn't surprise me at all. That doesn't surprise me at all. I am the focus group, bitch. Yeah, you know, focus groups. They're like, they're like accountants. They're 99% correct. They're a hundred percent useless, you know, because they tell you what you want to hear, you know, and we had to do things for ourselves. We had to, we felt that our customer didn't know what they wanted and expected us to show them, you know, and, and that's what they wanted where a lot of you, a lot of companies say, well, I got to give the customer what they want, which I think is kind of dumb. and self-defeating. No, people don't know what they want. Anyone can do that. You got to tell them. I agree with you. And you said, check out this new guy, Dries Van Noten. Yeah, Dries is a great guy. He just retired this year, which you know. And that's a funny story because we started buying men's and my wife at the time went to this men's show in Paris and saw these great white shirts. And she was an incredible merchant too. She said to him,

can I buy these for our women's? And he was just excited to sell us. So he said, sure. He says, well, can you also make me like 20 pencil skirts? You know, pencil skirts are a narrow skirt. He said, sure. And that got him into the women's business. And that's how it said. So again, it was all about being organic. You know, when people are willing to do things in those things, I think that's the other problem today. A little too rigid out there. Well, it's because. It's run by the accountants and every industry has like three people owning it, you know, and everything is just homogenized and consolidated. You know, if you look in the film industry, it's that way. If you look in the fashion industry, that way. If you look in the publishing industry. No one's taking chances. No one's taking risks. Everything is backed by user gathered data analysis. And then the whole thing is fucked out from the beginning. Yeah. And you've got to take risk. You know, sure. I mean, as a business person, you're not doing this for your good looks. But you've got to have a balance. So maybe 20 or 30 percent. Some people would say less, you know, is risk taking and the rest pays the bills. But you've got to have that magic mix. And that's what Barneys is about. People didn't know this, except they know it now, that almost 50 percent of Barneys women's was our own label, which is extraordinary in women's because women's is about fashion. You know, in men's, you can do that, obviously. Much easier. Because what are you talking? You know, a guy comes in, he likes his shirt, he buys 10 of them. Women don't do that. But we had our own design team. And the way I know that is because I hear that in the vintage market, in those days, we didn't call it vintage. We just called it thrift shop. But it got very chic now. But in the vintage market, which is huge today, everyone's buying vintage. The Barneys merchandise is like the first merchandise that fly off the racks. It's put up on such a high pedestal.

It's kind of crazy. I've got a bunch of Barney's button-down shirts that I got from The Real Real or eBay or whatever. Like you said, it could be an Armani shirt. It could be a Xenia shirt. It's all the same and a great price. Same quality, same construction, same fit. It's all there. Again, in the book, They all came to bodies. I'll plug it once. In the book, we talked about the business of it. And when I first did it, I was afraid because I didn't want the book to be boring. But I think in the approach that we did it, it really was interesting for people that we did it for, you know, sort of altruistic, creative reasons that we went and made these things. Because, first of all, we went to the same factories that the designers went to. We could cut out the middleman. So we gave the consumers so much better price for the same quality. And we also gave them merchandise. I think there was a little bit more, say, modern, classic, not so trendy. So it was kind of built to last. And, of course, our margins didn't suck. So we had great markup. So I think everybody won. And that became a huge business, you know. And it sat alongside. The designer. Okay, well, yeah, like you said, the book, they all came to Barney, so everyone should go pick it up. Lastly, before we let you go, did you have a chance to read the newsletter that I sent you yesterday? Uh-oh. No, and I know you did your homework. Was I a bad boy? No, no, no. I mean, I just wasn't sure if you had any thoughts on it. Oh, you mean, oh, I know what you're talking about. You're talking about that review. That review. Yeah, you know. Look, first thing is when you're in this business, you're a target, right? You got to take the good with the bad. I didn't really take offense because I didn't find it written by a serious person. I think today people spend a lot of time trolling because I think it makes them feel bigger and stronger. For me, it's such a waste of time.

If you've got nothing nice to say, don't say it at all. There's so many better things to do. Take the high road. That doesn't mean I don't get pissed off. You're reviewing this review that somebody in San Francisco wrote of the book, and it was extraordinarily complimentary, especially to me. I was very appreciative of it. I'm glad that it was a long review, so I'm glad he took the time and the effort to write that. But I'm happy to say, you know, when I went into this project, it was a very Barney's kind of project. It was the same reason that I worked at Barney's, is that nothing made me happier than when people enjoyed Barney's and walked out with that shopping bag. felt good about themselves, and I felt the same way about writing this book. And I collaborated with a fellow named Michael, with Matthew Schneider, who's the food critic of New York Magazine. He's a brilliant writer. Yeah, friend of ours. Yeah, he's a terrific guy, and he got my voice. He's a good friend. He started out this lovely guy, and after three and a half years, he became this. sort of nasty, grumpy guy. You're contagious. You're contagious. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But no, no, he's great. We're very close. But it's the same experience with the book. You hope that if you like it, and you have to be honest with yourself when you're writing a book, the hardest thing is to step back and sort of make believe like you're the customer, if you will, or you're the reader. And don't try to embellish and really be objective and honest. I think if you're forthcoming and it's not always easy, people respect that and they want that. So I think we accomplished that. You can't please everybody and you're not trying to. But I was hoping that people would enjoy the read. And a lot of people sincerely have told me that they really enjoy the read. When I hear somebody.

reads it in a day or two days and can't, but that really makes me feel good because one of the things when I brought out my whip and was cracking it with Matthew, I said, staccato, staccato, you know, which means that you got to have a quick pace and can't be boring and it has to keep going on. So, and I, I, hopefully we, we stop. I do think that people are going to enjoy this book, especially younger people. I think it'll be aspirational for them, and I think they'll relate. And everybody wants to see a feel-good, good-time story, and I hope they don't think that I was too full of shit. And the amazing thing is I'm still vertical. I'm going to be 75 next month. Wow. For our listeners at home, Gene's a great-looking guy, full head of hair. He's on that elliptical, sweating it out every morning, having his cottage cheese and his honeydew melon for breakfast. He's looking great. Yeah, I will say this one last thing to you. Back in the day, in the 70s, when I was, for the most part, single, I knew a lot of attractive women. Sure, it's your business. It's a lot of work. And I had some cool friends. There were a lot of people that would kind of come up to you and want to hang out with you. And honestly, I wasn't trying to be rude, but I didn't have patience for it. I just wanted to do my own thing and sort of respect my privacy and blah, blah, blah. And so I think some people took offense to that. And maybe when I wrote this book. It was the same reaction. I don't know. But, you know, fuck them if they can't take a joke. Fuck them. Oh, okay. I like it. It doesn't always mean you're being a dick. No, it's like you can't give hangout tickets to everybody. You know what I mean? Amen. That's good advice. Thank you, Gene. We really appreciate it, man. The book is out. You can get it everywhere books are sold. And if you're not a reader, audiobook available on Spotify as well.

You do a little bit of the reading as well. That's good. And thanks for taking the time, Gene. If we're ever down in West Palm, we'll hit you up. Go grab a bite to eat, okay? I'm hitting the elliptical. We're going one for one. No, you guys definitely have to come down. Anytime. All right. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks, Gene. All right. Later. I'll hold the bags for you, Gene. Thanks, buddy. Talk to you soon, man. Thank you. Ciao. and pixelated scenes. With Quantum Fiber Speed, you're finally freed. Yay to you, the queen of stream. More binging and gaming. You're living beyond my dream. Downloads, uploads, all the things you can load. Every series, all the shows. With every gig, your legend grows. Quantum Fiber's love is true. Yay to you. Learn more at QuantumFiber.com. Limited availability, service, and select locations only.