Latest / Hey BigHead: The Vegas Local Podcast / From Rolling Stone to Vegas Unstripped with Eric Gladstone | 328

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From Rolling Stone to Vegas Unstripped with Eric Gladstone | 328 · Hey BigHead: The Vegas Local Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Much better, Brian.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well done.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, I've been traveling.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm tired.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: You legit legged?
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Where have you been?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've been Texas, California, and Florida as of yesterday.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: You sound like that Johnny Cash song.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've been everywhere, man.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a rough five days.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just say that.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you're here.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's all that matters.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back, boys and girls, to another episode of Hey Big Head.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: For anybody that's been following us, following our journey along for the past 50 plus episodes that we've had, you've noticed that we've had a wide eclectic group of guests from Jonathan Jostle, CEO of the Plaza, Stephanie Rosenthal from the movie Casino, Vegas Poly C, Chef James Treese.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: They've all been fantastic.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the ones I haven't even named are also phenomenal.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: But this one, this guest that we have here tonight might have one of the most unique backgrounds and resumes that I think I've ever come across, my team and I have ever come across when we do a research on who's coming on the show.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: The man who has brought you the Feast of Friends and the wildly successful Vegas Unstripped, Eric Gladstone.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the show, brother.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: How about that for an intro?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great intro.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to send that to my mom.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: We're just going to have a clip of just the intro.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's all she's going to watch anyway.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's fine by me.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: That works.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, listen, I'm I'm glad you're here because I feel like a majority of the people here in Vegas uh definitely know you from Feast of Friends and Vegas Unstripped, but there's so much more to your story.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you've you've covered obviously the music side of things.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: You've covered the entertainment, the food, the nightlife, and just Vegas culture.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: When you and we're gonna dive into all of those, when you look back into all the journeys and paths that you've been on, does it feel like one long story or does it feel like multiple lives that you've lived?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: No, uh it it the second uh I've always described it as chapters.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: I always think of my life uh in chapters, and and uh it just seems to have developed that way uh for a few different reasons.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I've lived in a bunch of different places, I've lived on both coasts, I've you know had different relationships, I've had uh different professional experiences and even industries, and and and the way I got into the food industry was completely unpredictable and I never saw it coming, but I'm I'm thrilled to be here.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it's funny, um, I was just watching The Mandalorian on Memorial Day and um flashing back to interviewing John Favreau on uh his first film, Swingers.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, um, so yeah, um I did that, you know.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it's just it's just trippy to see where he's gone, and it's kind of amazing, yeah.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: You're so muddy and you don't even know it.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: For all those Brian, have you seen Boogie Swingers?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes, Vegas tie in there, too.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, exactly.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I've I've watched that movie in an ungodly amount of times.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's a classic, but that's that's a credible.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: By the way, what did you think of Mandalorian, by the way?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I thought it was a brief I'll put my film reviewer hat back on, actually, because I've done that too.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh it felt to me like a blow, like basically a season of The Mandalorian compressed into one film.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: It just started, you already knew who he was, it ended like this isn't over.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: That's all it was.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: It was just one big episode with probably a bigger budget.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: It was great, totally enjoyable, nice ride, but just like okay, yeah, carrying on.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Temper expectations.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Go in thinking that it's just another season of the Mandalorian, it's season four or five or late.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: On a big screen with popcorn.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll be fine.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll be just fine.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: You have a very you have a very unique secret power that I don't even think you're aware of.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Is you're always the one, you always find something.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: What's that?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Is it is it visible?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's visible.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody can see it, but you always find a way into finding the the right bands or the right restaurants or whatever it is before they blow up.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: I I feel like one of your extremely talented uh powers, like I said, is is being able to do that.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a secret to that?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Is it just luck?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like how do you find these bands and find these restaurants before an interesting question.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um I don't uh it's a good question.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'll I'll say part of it is luck, I guess.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: But but you know, um I uh you know I came up musically, culturally in in punk rock, and punk rock was ahead of the curve and a new wave was happening at the time, and it just felt really exciting to find things that were different, and I think that might have tuned my brain towards uh looking at what's different and who's trying to do something new and what are they trying to do, something new, and at the same time looking at what's missing here and what what what's really needed.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I think those attributes just just lean into looking at the people that who are trying to push the limits, you know.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh so yeah, I I am I am definitely probably now more than ever really looking towards like what's next, what's in the future, what has kind of sustainability, what's gonna you see trends come and go, and you think, okay, I get it, I see that trend.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: What's what's gonna withstand a trend?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, yeah.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, I you have you you you laid up so many follow-up questions I'm gonna ask.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited for this episode.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: This is gonna be great.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but let's let's take it back a little bit.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: So you were in you got into music journalism in like the 80s, 90s, is that right?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, 80s, yeah.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: High school.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm old, guys.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm that's my secret power, is I'm old.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: Wait, hold on.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: How old are you for three?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I just turned 61.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: Are you shitting me?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Good for good for you.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say Brian and I are both 41, but 61, you I thought you were right around us.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, in my head, I'm still 35.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: So there you go.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: That's all that matters.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: As long as you don't feel 61, you don't look 61, you're fine.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: I guess that's the secret.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: But um, yeah, I got into music journalism in high school in the 80s, uh, rolled right into it in college, um, really learned on the job at my college newspaper.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: Shout out to the Ruckers Targum.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: Shout out to Ruckers.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: It was an independent newspaper, it was not controlled by the journalism school.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, because it predated the journalism school.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: So it really was just a job at a newspaper that you happen to be able to get by being a student.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so I mean, I was an editor there and I edited a 16-page supplement every week for a year uh for my junior year, and and I mean it was just like honestly on the job experience, and I'll give a shout out.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: There's a bunch of experienced people who came out the same time I did, but I'll give a shout out to Nick Nick Gillespie, who's uh one of the editors at Reason Magazine, Big Libertarian Magazine.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: He was one of my mentors there.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and yeah, really helped me get started.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, we just I just kind of like started doing it.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's pretty cool.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: You're a man that's not short of uh of opinions.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: You're definitely, I don't feel like you're you're one that really holds back.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and even though you're not in music journalism currently today, right?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: What's your opinion on where music journalism today compared to where it was back then?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because now there's social media, now there's availability.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone can be a journalism, be in journalism, regardless of whatever industry it is.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: How do you feel like it is where it is today compared to where it was when you were?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't look at a lot of it today, to tell you the truth, so it's probably not a fair thing for me to comment on, except to say that basically when music journalism was at its height, it was at its height because it desperately needed to exist in order to communicate to people what music was out there and what music they should care about.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that led into a type of music, you know, the rock and roll basically of the time that had to kind of have a reason for being.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, it wasn't going to engage you in a way that music journalism would do, if that makes sense.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like uh you can't, and believe me, I tried.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: You can't write music journalism about like I don't, you know, kind of like certain kinds of dance music, and some people are gonna skewer me for this because I know dance music writers, but I don't really think you can tell that story about a music about an artist that just likes to like put cool beats together.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I tried to do this, yeah.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm not I'm speaking from experience.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's not interesting, you know.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's interesting to read about artists that have passions and that have personalities and that have challenges, you know.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's what that's what made rock journalism or music journalism in general be what it was when it needed to exist.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: But now there are so many other ways of communicating what music is about.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: Simply, you can go on your phone and just listen to the music.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, rock journalism existed at a time when you couldn't do that.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: You couldn't even, there was a, you know, you used to be able to way back when you go into a record store and they'd play the record for you.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: But then there was this whole phase from sort of like the 60s onward through most of my you know growing up.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: You can listen to the record.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: You want to listen to the record, go buy it and take it home.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: So, but now you can listen to almost anything in a second.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: So, why does journalism music journalism need to exist?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: Sadly, I'm just I'm I'm I'm and I didn't make it to happen this way.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't really need to exist the way it needed to.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: I know it carries on, but I feel like it carries on in the way that a lot of journalism carries on right now in the post-internet age.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, which is that, and I've been a freelance writer, so I know what I'm talking about.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of articles exist because someone's got to write about something.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: I gotta write about something if I want to get that check.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: What can I write about that an editor is gonna say, oh, we can print that, people will react to that.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's how the cycle happens now.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's not happening because someone needs to know about this news.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's happening because someone is saying, someone will react to that, and someone else is saying, I need to get paid for doing something.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: And journalists are even more poorly paid now than they were when I was trying to do it.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: They're paid almost exactly the same as what I was paid when I was trying to do it decades ago, which is rough.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: Pathetic.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's rough.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely terrible.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Did you like it better when musicians weren't as available?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Or they they weren't as able to not necessarily available, but like now you can go on Instagram and you can, you know, if whoever so and so is doing a live and they're getting they're getting ready and they're you know talking about whatever they're thinking about.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Do you did you like it better when they weren't as available and a little bit more mysterious?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um I thought you were gonna say when they were less available to me, and the answer to that is no.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, of course not.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: I really like journalism when I when I could spend some time and get to know the artists, and when it started to change is a lot when it started to kind of die for me.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: When it became like, oh, we'll put you on a Zoom call, and I'm like, or an email.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: Can we do an email interview?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: How about no?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's how about new.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: And uh but but but yeah, I do think that I do think that there's uh some kind of balance.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: I think that there's some artists that there's a threatening uh there's a threat to overexposure.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um but people seem to consume this stuff and they seem to be okay with it, you know.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I can say it's enough for this artist or that artist, but if other people are just eating up literally anything they do, I guess it works, you know?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: You wrote for The Rolling Stone, right?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote a little bit for Rolling Stone, yeah.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I wrote a little bit for Spin Magazine.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: Nice.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote a lot for Alternative Press.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I wrote a lot, uh, a decent amount for MTV Online when that was a thing.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I actually was the editor that created the first uh online music presence on America Online, if anyone remembers that.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and a lot of other stuff that people probably don't even remember.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Brian, can you do that that uh the sound effect for the America Online when you sign in, please?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh god, yeah.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, thank you.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: That'd be great.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um is it true that you wrote an article about corn and you weren't too crazy about it?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yes, quite actually, yeah.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: So the the feature that I wrote on corn was my first feature opportunity in Rolling Stone.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd I'd written Rolling Stone was really hard to crack as a freelancer, which is what I was at the time.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so I was just writing little bits and pieces in the front of the book and doing whatever I could do.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like, hey, you know, we need someone to go down.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh there, you know, it was like I was living in LA that go down to Orange County, interview this band.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: I need you to turn the story around.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: Will you do it?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, yes.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't even ask what it was.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, what is it?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: So it's this band called Corn.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I said yes, didn't I?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: What are you paying me?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, cool.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yes.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm sure they're lovely human beings.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: I do think that Jonathan Davis is somewhat of a thoughtful human being, but I definitely lost brain cells on that article on that interview, and it's not because we drank or smoked anything.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's so funny.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: I I loved corn growing up, man.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so I I'm so anxious of you.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: You're welcome.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for everything.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: I I did get corn in Rolling Stone.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: You did.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm far more proud of getting cool Keith in Rolling Stone magazine.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: You tell me about that.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh cool, do you know what Cool Keith is?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that was something that I pitched, and thank you, Jason Fine, for saying yes to because that he was so radical at the time.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and because he was doing uh uh uh an uh a project that crossed over, people were like, sure, you'll we'll do cool keith.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I can't believe I got cool Keith into Rolling Stone.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: Very proud of that.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: Very proud of getting Jesus Lizard in Spin Magazine.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'll take credit for that.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: Very proud of getting Shutter to Think in Spin Magazine and a few other places.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, my motivation as a journalist, as a music journalist was really to support the artists that I was passionate about.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: And it it's great when that works.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: When that the the challenge is when you've still got to write something and you're not finding things you're passionate about, sure, and you know you still got to pay the rent.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: And it got to a certain point, I got to a certain prominence as an or as a writer, where the bigger stuff is what you're given to write about, whether you're passionate about it or not.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: And look, my my hat is off to the people who've made a lifelong career of that and can be passionate about any kind of music or lots of different kinds of music.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I I've got lots of friends who do that.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I can't.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: I I I I just I mean, I'm okay at faking it.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: The corn article, which I think is actually out there, uh, example of that, being pretty good at faking it, but I was like, I don't want to, I don't want to do this.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, anyone can do it.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: You knew and not necessarily discovered, but you definitely knew them before they got big, the band Wien, right?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: And you wrote about them?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: I definitely knew Wien before they got big.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the last full-time job that Mickey had was a job that I got him in a record store we worked together with.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: Mickey's uh uh Dean Wien, um uh uh in Princeton in Princeton, New Jersey.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we worked at a record store together.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: I got him that job.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, um, if you see if you're a Wien fan and you see the reference to the color brown a lot, that comes from that job.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's uh it was very politically incorrect in its initial usage, and that's all I'm gonna say.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think ween mean that, but I'm just gonna tell you that.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: But yes, uh, so I knew them very well.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: I did see them performing with tape decks in living rooms at least once.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: I did see them in clubs with with the tape deck.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I saw when they first had a band and they called it the wean to differentiate it.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: And if you want to look at the video of Freedom of 76 and look on the sequence when they're coming out of the courthouse and a bunch of journalists and people are mobbing them, I'm in that scene.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know that's my claim to fame.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I want to do with you?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: I want to take like two or three edibles, put on a vinyl, and just hear stories about whatever stories you have to share.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds fucking amazing.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Just a Friday night, neither of us have to work the next morning.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: We're just listening to whatever.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do it.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do it.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Brian, you're in it too, whether you're in it, whether you like it or not.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then one more question about the journalism side.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: What is the most memorable or the I guess the the what the interview or the article that you wrote that's you're most proud of?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: So there's there's a few things, and and I'll I'll put in the shameless plug now.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: I did actually put them together during COVID into a book called Anything But Nirvana, uh, which you can find in Kindle through Amazon.com, and maybe you guys will be kind enough to post the link or whatever.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's uh it's it's a it's there's a lot of fun stuff in there, it's kind of the greatest hits and a lot of fun things.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: So it's certainly there's a few big things in there.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um a few things come to mind in particular.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: So the Smashing Pumpkin story was obviously a really huge story um that to a certain extent fell in my lap, but how I handled it, I think, was was pretty unique.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: Can you elaborate on that?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: So they were making Siamese Dream, and I was uh, and it was gonna be a cover story for alternative press, and it was gonna be the first story written on this.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: So they flew me first to Chicago to hang out with them there, and then they flew me to LA to hang out with them while they were mixing the record.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I just it was an incredible discovery.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: I figured out I I just it was basically Billy Corgan likes to talk.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: He's he's a big talker.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: He has his own podcast now, which I've listened to a bunch of, and he's very he's a really good interviewer for the most part, you know, when he doesn't talk too much about himself.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: But God bless him.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: God bless you, Billy Corgan.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, but but um but he just wanted to really unload a lot of what he was feeling.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: And we did we did bond and connect on a certain level.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like I I think that was definitely a thing.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, it was a very fractured band, and but that was the story where everyone found out that it was a fractured band.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone thought it was it was a real band, and it was not Billy doing everything, and et cetera, et cetera.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: And that was the story where it's just like not just Billy, but all of them made it pretty obvious that, like, yeah, this is not what you think it is, you know.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: And they didn't they didn't love that the story came out as it came out, but it's like there were no secrets, you know.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: They they all knew what was happening, you know.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I and I certainly didn't go in with an agenda at all.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean that wasn't the agenda I expected.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: So that was a huge story.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that took a solid month out of my life just focusing on that.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh easily could have turned into a book if I was if I was in a different era.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think I would have gotten a lot more recognized for it if I was in an era when there was social media.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um instead, I was pretty much nobody noticed, people just copied my story.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Was it early 90s?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is 93.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um like I said, guys, I'm old.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I still have the um the studio master tape that they gave me of the album.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: Which is pretty cool.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: That's pretty cool.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's pretty cool.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's pretty cool.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh so that was really a huge deal.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um interviewing the Beastie Boys was a huge deal because uh I definitely it was it was a great article to write.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: It was also a groundbreaking article to a certain extent because people don't realize that the Beastie Boys had fallen massively out of favor uh after Check Your Head, no, I'm sorry, after License to Ill.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: Paul's boutique was almost totally overlooked.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: It did go gold, but it didn't, it was really, really overlooked.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: Check your head, they had to fight their way back.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: I petitioned many magazines to write about Beastie Boys during Check Your Head and was turned down many, many times to write about the Beastie Boys because they were so out of favor.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: Finally, I got to write a cover story because my editor of Alternative Press, once Check Your Head blew up on MTV, said, You were right, Eric.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: So next record, you're doing that.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I so I met them in New York, which was like common ground because I I grew up outside of New York.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh so it was very familiar territory for me and them.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: We knew the we came up during the same kind of culture in the 80s.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then I met them again in LA Um at their studio, and that was a time when I was literally transitioning to living in LA, and I ended up living in LA two blocks away from that studio.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was a really important story to me because that relationship turned into my editing Grand Royal for three issues and eight months, um, which was a crazy time period.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: But so that was a really big deal for me.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: And then I guess the third one I would probably say was Beck, because I wrote several stories on Beck.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I was living in LA at the time, and we were living and we just kept running into each other in different scenarios, and so over during a certain period, we kind of got to know each other fairly well.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's not like we were brothers or anything like that, but pretty close in a in as close as I think you can get in a journalist artist kind of way without crossing that line.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I guess.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: What's he like?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he was at the time sort of humble and proud at the same time, uh a little bit of a savant.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: This is right around when loser came out.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: This is after Loser, this is O Dole.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I was in the studio during O'Dale, which is a pretty cool thing to say.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: Again, that's fucking awesome.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: It was pretty fucking cool.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Because I was also friendly with the Dust Brothers at the time.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: Again, Beastie Boys Connection, all that.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's just this is the world that I was in.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: So I got to do that.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: And then Into Mutations and a couple other albums, I think, after that.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: So really thoughtful guy, really increasingly interested in the studio and what he could do with it.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think people just sort of never expected him to do what he could do.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: He didn't necessarily have any kind of formal training.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: He had a lot of very random uh input in his life.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: But I think I don't know, overall a decent guy.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm I wouldn't say he's the best human in the planet.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't say he's the worst human on the planet.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: But I think overall a pretty good guy.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I, you know, yeah, I had a lot of really good, thoughtful, interesting times with him.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: Good.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I think what I think is fascinating about Beck is that he's still relevant today.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: And that's amazing.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: That's amazing when you think about that.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's crazy.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: I saw him at Brooklyn Bowl, like, I don't know, two, three years ago.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: How'd he do?
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: He's he's great.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: And he's got uh some of his original band with him.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's crazy.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's like Johnny Cash shit.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: You're not wrong.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: People don't think about that.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: He's not on some oldies tour.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: Is it him he's just still relevant.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: Is it him playing the same type of music that he's always been, or is he adapted to the city?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's him playing his newer music, and his newer music I think is as relevant as anything, and that's I think.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, maybe someone young will be like, oh, he's an old guy or whatever.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: But again, he's not on like the 90s uh nostalgia tour at all.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: And that's pretty cool.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: Same with Wien, right?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: I never would have thought Wien would have lasted this long.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: They're immensely talented.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, uh Mickey, especially, um insanely talented guy.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um but you know, I think they would think you're crazy to think that they what they're doing was last this long.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: I know he definitely was all he wanted to do with his life, but still, you know, it's awesome.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's really great to see that.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it really shows the talent and the the uh the skill that that they they have to be able to stay stay relevant.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's spot on.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: I I do want to touch on anything but button of honor, if that's all right.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Your your book that you wrote in 2021, I believe, is that right?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it was yeah, it was published in 2021.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Love that.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel like the 90s alternative culture was as great as it was, or is it just nostalgia now looking back on it, that we kind of well it yeah, it's funny.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, to look at when you go through different eras and you look at there's always some kind of nostalgia, right?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it gets weird when it's nostalgia for a time that you remembered in the original thing.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's like and you realize that nostalgia always makes things look different or shinier than they were, you know.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: Happy days in American graffiti were nothing like what the 50s was like.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: They were this idealized thing, you know, and on you know, and so on and so forth from there, you know.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh no, I was always, and this is what the book talks about.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: I I think the 90s were kind of like, you know, Dickens used to say the best of times and the worst of times, you know.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: They were really great in that it was the last kind of bastion of just like rock with that passion, rock when it mattered and it wasn't just sound.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, I think it's just sound now.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: And okay, fine, sorry.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you like certain bands, like I hear people repeating lyrics that they memorize, and I'm like, yeah, but this lyric doesn't mean anything.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't know.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: What does it mean?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: Who cares?
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, people still love the clash for a reason.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: People still connect to it because it's that passion is so real.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: So um I think the 90s were a super conflicted time in the music industry because people wanted to be authentic and people wanted to be legitimate and people wanted to be seen as doing it themselves, but they were but the machine was hard at work trying to make that look commercial, you know.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: So it was an incredibly conflicted time, and nobody wanted to kind of own up to that.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that's a lot of what I sort of explore on the fringes of the book, you know, is just like the idea of culture being so conflicted the whole way through.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Billy Corgan's probably the perfect example of that.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: You can tell he's conflicted all the frickin' time.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: He wears a t-shirt that says zero, you know.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um he's so conflicted, but he wants to be a rock star.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but then he's like, but being a rock star is stupid, you know?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: And he's both are right, you know.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's like being a rock star is great, and it's also incredibly stupid.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: You wrote the book when you were 20, 30 years older than you were in the in the 90s.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: When you took your first of all, how long did it take you to write the book?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it took me a while.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I spent a lot of time thinking about it, and then what I did was I went back and looked at my original articles, and then I tried to find the original sources, and I found that in a lot of cases I had sent in versions that were way too long and they were cut for space.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, well, this is cool.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: I can restore the original versions and offer more than just here's the things that were printed that are out of print, which was really cool.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: And in some cases, that was radical, like my Nick Cave interview was double in length, you know, which is pretty cool.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: That was also a really great interview.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and there's some other examples of that.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I tried really, really, really hard not to take, not to filter it.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: So there's tons of political incorrectness in it by today's standards.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: We love that, you know, and it's not because I was trying for it or not trying for it, but I was like, I'm not gonna change this language to make myself sound smarter or better than I was.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: This is just this is where my head was at at that time.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: So if I changed anything, I tried, or if I added anything, I tried really hard to just stay in what that moment was, you know.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: So looking back on it then, when you're you're writing now and you're looking back in the 90s and you're a little bit more well seasoned now, you have more experiences, a little bit more mature.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Did it change your viewpoint on who you were in the 90s or what you experienced in the 90s?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anything that you look back on like, oh, you know, maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought, or maybe it wasn't as good as I thought.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: Or maybe I should have tried to hit on more girls.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: Or maybe I should have tried to hit on more girls.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I was definitely a very, very typically insecure rock journalist.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god, yeah.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: Did you like almost famous?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh oh, I related to that so heavily.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: And here's a funny story on that.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: I related to incredibly heavily, really related to that.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: And when I worked for Us Weekly, uh, I got to inter that's when the movie came out.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: I got to interview Patrick Fugit and do a feature on him.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was really a trip.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: And he really, you know, he really kind of lived that, he really got into that that world and that and that and that story and what it was all about.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, he didn't just kind of like show up for it, and it didn't, you know, that that, you know, it was a it was a meaningful experience for him.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: So it was really trippy to do that.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: And we went record shopping and it was really cool.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's pretty cool.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: I remember him pulling out a, and I think it's in the story, pulling, we're flipping through, and he pulls out one of Carly Simon's uh covers, the you know, the one where she's like, you know, all there, and uh, and he's like, Wow, she's hot.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, this is amazing, you know.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: So uh really cool guy.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: So yes, I connected very, very deeply to that experience, and I got to do several things like that in the 90s, and it's you know, those as much as that's a Hollywood movie, it's not far from the truth, except if you add in hours and hours of this.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: Sitting, waiting.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: So much of that.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's so much.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: What are you listening to now?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh well, I might have to pull up my Spotify.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: What's your what's your top 25 or the 2025 top top most listen to?
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, geez, that's well, I don't even know how to do it.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: How many Taylor Taylor Swift songs are on there?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: What's that?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: How many Taylor Swift songs are on there, be honest?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh zero.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: Although I will say that I listened to Taylor Swift a lot when my daughter was younger.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I totally respect her as a songwriter and as a performer, and what she's done is amazing.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, I think um, yeah, uh she's she's great for what she is.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: She's a great, great pop star.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: She deserves everything she's got, as far as I could tell.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, let's see if I can think is there an Eric Gladstone playlist that we can share with our fan followers?
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: Depending on I'm trying to look at some uh Wolfman.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh let's see.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh artist called Oh He Dead, uh Madam Peru.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh these are all the new things that I've been turned on to lately.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um Wet Leg or Awesome.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: I like Wet Leg.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I like Youngblood a lot.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh just was listening to Punch Brothers.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I get I do get exposed to a little bit of new stuff.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh you typically go back to the old the the classic.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: I tend in myself to go Father of Peace, um, Soko.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going through this list that uh my ex and I put together um and pulling out the songs that she turned me on to, honestly.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: Pokey Lafarge rubber bucket.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: You said Soko, and it reminded me.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, and ask one more journalism question.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: Did you interview Yoko Ono?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: What was that like?
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's in the story, it's in the book.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it was on the phone, uh, unfortunately, but it was a really great interview, and I was really proud to do it.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: This is when Ono Box came out, which was the first retrospective of her music that had ever been done.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: And she'd never gotten any respect before that.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, a little bit um around the time when Walking on Thin Ice came out, but not very much.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: She still got made fun of.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: So this was her first retrospective, and I was really, really psyched to do it.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: And again, this was a scenario where I asked, I pitched this to so many different, so many different magazines, and they're like, no, no, no, no, no.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: Finally, one said, Okay, you got a half page.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's like 250 words.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: That is not a lot, not a lot at all.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, I don't care.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: I interviewed her and I went through the whole box with her and I asked her a lot of questions.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's the whole thing is in the book, it which it was never printed.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: There was the tiniest part of it was printed initially.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it was a really great interview, and I was very, very proud of doing it because I even during the interview, she says, Nobody's asked me about this stuff before.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I wasn't she wasn't trying to flatter me, she was just like, Yeah, no, no one wanted to talk about this.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's incredible.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: Literally, she was just like, and yeah, she's just like, it's amazing how for all the ways in which John and Yoko sort of like dealt with the media well, they also dealt with it really poorly.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh she she did not get, she could not get anywhere with getting any kind of attention for what she was doing.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the people that discovered her discovered her by accident, you know, discovered her influence by accident.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: And she you listen to so much of her music now, it's not all great, but there's a ton of stuff in there that you're just like, oh my god, like how could she even have put this stuff together?
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel like she got too much blame?
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_02: Or is it like that?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, of course she did, you know.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it everyone involved at uh with the Beatles says that as well.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: They understand why she got the blame, but especially in that environment, but they also say she got way too much blame.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know, everyone there was a d an adult.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, and also there's this weird sort of misogynistic thing where you think John Lennon can't think for himself either, which is just like what are you who are we talking about here?
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: John Lennon can't think for himself?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: I think he can think for himself.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: Miss that guy, and and you know, the day that he was shot, and I learned about it, is definitely still one of the darkest days of my life, and it uh has affected me as much as any other person that I've had in my life.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember the date?
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: I do.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: It was December 8th, 1980.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: Son again.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Brian, do you know who Yoko Ono is?
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I know who Yoko Ono is.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: I was at the bus stop going to high school with frozen eyebrows.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: In New Jersey?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: In Connecticut.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: In Connecticut, yeah.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so let's fast forward to how you got here to Vegas.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: Is it true that Robin Leach had some part in you coming to Vegas?
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_02: He had a huge part in it.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I had come to Vegas a couple of times to do V Random Stories for Us Weekly and visited here a couple of times, you know, on a personal level.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_02: Didn't mean that much to me.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, cool.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I was living in LA at the time doing music journalism, and and I had um I had helped my ex-wife open a restaurant uh that is actually still there and uh is actually mostly the same as when we opened it.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's called the Eden Dale.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: Go check it out if you want in Silver Lake.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'm very proud of having helped create that.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um then so I was transitioning, figuring out what to do.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: I got a job with America Online in Santa Monica doing their city guide travel pages for both LA and Las Vegas.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: So and I focused on Las Vegas, and they told me, I'll try and tell this story quickly.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: They told me, uh, oh, so we have this this content creator who's or whatever they called him, this this guy who's doing little videos for us for Las Vegas, and he wants to do a blog.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: This is 2006.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: He wants to do a blog, and so we're just letting him do it to keep him happy.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: They literally said, like, we're just letting him do this little blog to keep him happy.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, okay, and then like so you're the new guy, so you get to deal with this guy.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, I'm like, okay, who is this guy?
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: And they're like, his name's Robin Leach, and I'm like, Robin Leach?
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: D.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: Robin Leach.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: The Robin Leach.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: And they're like, yeah, his show's off the air, no one cares about him anymore.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I think people still care about him.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: Who said this?
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, my editor at the time.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: Ugh.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_02: Shout out, Leah.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, she probably doesn't remember this.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but uh she's like, no, no one cares about him, but we're doing this to make him happy.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I really think people still people don't care about him, Eric.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_02: You got the job, sorry.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like, okay.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: So he was doing this blog, and he was kind of still stuck in the, you know, the old phase of Vegas, hanging out with Wayne Newton, and like, you know, Jackie Collins is in town, and so seriously, and his all his old lifestyles and rich and famous friends.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so I looked at a couple of his uh posts that he had done, and and he's like, Eric, be honest with me.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, look, Robin, I know your I was that a decent annotation from Beyond the Grave.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: I would have, I would have, I would have been able to name who that was if you didn't tell me who it was.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: So that's perfect.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: You did you did good, you did good.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I said, Robin, I know your past, I respect you a lot.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_02: He had done a lot, he'd done an amazing stuff as a journalist before he was on lifestyle as a rich famous.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_02: People don't realize that.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_02: You had an amazing career as a journalist.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: I really respect a lot of what you've done.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think of this?
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Here's the thing the internet is not interested in that generation.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I'm not, it's not it's not me telling you this, it's the internet telling us this.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_02: What is going on there that younger people are doing?
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, Well, there's all these nightclubs happening here, and they won't let any journalists in, but they'll let me in because I'm just because I'm friends with the presidents of the casinos and stuff like that.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Will they let a cameraman in?
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, What's going on?
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, Oh my god, all these celebrities are dancing on tables and they're being ridiculous, and it's insane.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, Yeah.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: Will they let a cameraman in with you?
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, I can take pictures and they won't say no to me.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Go.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, Eric, that's all you need to say.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_02: I got it.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_02: And we just it was like a light went on, and we started doing a gossip column about those, mostly about those clubs and entertainers that were a little more relevant and what was really happening.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: And with I'm very proud of this, within three months, we had a million hits a month on that column.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: And here's the thing, here's the kicker.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_02: AOL, we were doing this on City Guide.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_02: We weren't doing this on the entertainment pages, we weren't doing this on the news pages.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: So the entertainment department and the news department are like, is this?
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: What what are you doing?
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: And we're over here like, we're getting you a million hits a month.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: They're like, you're not getting me a million hits a month.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_02: So it was a real struggle.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh for, and this only this lasted less than short of a year.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it was a real struggle because we would struggle to get on the homepage.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_02: And when we got on the because it was like the main editor was like, damn right, we're putting Paris Hilton on a on a uh dancing on a table on the home page, and then news or entertainment was just like this is what happened.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: And and I ended up getting laid off, and I'm like, I don't understand, I'm getting all these hits, and they're like, Yeah, but not for what we're supposed to be doing.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, That blows my mind.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I still have a letter from Robin Leach that he sent to the president and all these people, basically telling him taking his hat off to me, which was really nice.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so at some point during that period, anyway, this has obviously gotten into a long story.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm okay.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Robin's like, Eric, when are you coming out?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, What do you mean?
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: You've got to come out to Vegas, I'll show you around, I'll introduce you, blah, blah, blah.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I go to my editor.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: Well, by the way, when do we go to Vegas?
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_02: And she's like, Well, you can go to Vegas anytime you want, but we we write this from here.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_02: This is not plenty of people do that now, too.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: Unfortunately.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: Keep dark secret.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I went to Vegas on my own dime, and I Robin Leach introduced me around the strip.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: Crazy.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_02: And imagine that kind of thing.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: This is my guy.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_02: Get him whatever he needs, which I don't think I ever took advantage of on because I'm an idiot.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_02: But um, yeah, he introduced me to all these chefs, all these people, all these VIPs.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_02: I walked around with him where he got stopped every 10 feet.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes he'd be very kind about it, and sometimes he'd be like, I'm trying to get somewhere.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like, but he wouldn't wear sunglasses or anything like that.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: And he was kind of hard to disguise anyway.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_02: So it was interesting getting to know him.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then once he introduced me around, I realized what an opportunity there was for journalism here.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so I started writing for publications here, still doing celebrity stuff.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_02: I did a lot of celebrity stuff here.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote uh, I think 18 cover stories for Vegas magazine.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh within a couple of years.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_02: Good for you.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_02: It was a lot.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I did a lot for Greenspan overall.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: I worked for a bunch of other publications and online things here.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then finally um I decided to move here because it was just ridiculous to be paying LA rent and doing most of my work here.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I would come here like twice a month.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_02: And stay on people's friends' floors and stuff like that.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so uh so finally I moved here.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then after I moved here, I realized that I kind of was feeling like I was done as a journalist anyway.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I got to that point where it's just like this is not gonna go anywhere better for me.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: So that's when I got an opportunity to switch over to doing social media for a PR company here.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: I got that opportunity, which I'm very grateful for, and then that built into everything I'm doing now.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: So what you're doing now is you're the head honcho at Feast of Friends, which What is a honcho anyway?
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just you.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's this is a honcho right there.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um explain to everybody what Feast of Friends is for the few people in Vegas that aren't familiar with.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of people not familiar with it.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh and we really aim to do everything marketing related, which is what's kind of sets us apart from other things.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh we obviously focus on PR and social media to a great extent, but we also do brand development, which we've done several times.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: We do a lot of brand design work.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we input on, we've done music playlists actually for a lot of restaurants.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we'll do kind of anything that's needed in order to develop in that.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: We've done a ton of websites, um, just kind of anything that uh a restaurant needs because we feel the whole concept is that it all needs to be one voice.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: And when you split it up into different people doing different jobs for you and they're not in the same place, you're never gonna have a consistent voice.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's almost impossible.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_02: And each one of those players is only gonna be interested in satisfying that one role that they have and not the big picture.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_02: So we're a big picture strategic company.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: You and you and Amy were a huge part.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to thank you for this and us getting uh Chef James Trees on the show.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_02: He was a fantastic guest.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_02: It was a great interview.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great question.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: He was fun.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: He was he was a good time.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um Yeah, I'm looking and I am very grateful for James uh for honestly giving me my start as an independent because he was as soon as he learned that I was I was thinking of going independent, he said, good, here's the check.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: You're hired.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: So how'd you guys hook how'd you guys meet?
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: How'd you guys get hooked up?
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_02: So we met, we we we had met a couple of times on various random circumstances, but didn't really mean anything until um um uh a food blogger kind of reintroduced us and and told me that James was uh thinking of moving back here.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I went to visit him when he was still at Superba in LA, and he said, Yeah, um it's about time for me to open my own thing, and I'm thinking of moving back to Vegas.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I almost, almost literally got on my hands and knees and said, Please move back to Vegas.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: Vegas needs someone with an outside perspective so strongly, uh, you know, that sort of standard level, and it needs that kind of push.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_02: And whatever I said, he was like, Yeah, okay.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then this it took about a year for him to get the project going, get it open.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: He opened it on a swing in a prayer, as he told you.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's all very true.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, he wrote me a check when he should not have written me a check, really, which I will never forget.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't realize that at the time, or I wouldn't have let him do it.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um how far along later till you realize that house?
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that this I didn't realize this until maybe a couple of years ago.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and this is this is this is 2018.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, wow.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um so uh so his belief in me, and I think he just saw a kindred spirit, you know, in what I said and realized that this guy is gonna give a damn.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and that's really the philosophy behind Feast of Friends, we don't take on everybody.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_02: We work with who we want to work with, which isn't meant to sound arrogant, it's meant to sound we'll work with who we're passionate about.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_02: If we can't get passionate about what you're doing, and if we don't feel we can make a difference, there have been many times where I've uh had something come to me and I've said, I don't you don't need me.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: Anyone can do what you need.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: And then I'm like, so I don't need to do it, you know?
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: You're surrounded by influencers left and right.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel first of all?
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: God guys, go away.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let me live.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh not necessarily just uh foodie influences, but just influencers in general.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_01: What are your overall thoughts on them?
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh do you guys use influencers with Feast of Friends?
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's been an interesting ride.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm also I'll also shout out now that I have the opportunity, please.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I was definitely one of the first PR guys to say we should work with influencers uh with my former um with my former agency at a time when people thought, who are these people that just want free food?
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, you don't understand.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_02: This is a valuable voice.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: What yours is media?
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_02: This is 2015.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and I'm still friendly with a lot of the people that that we did our first uh our first events with.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um they still work with me and they will come and we don't we have never paid for anything from influencers other than you know a trade.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um and that's that sounds weird because I I actually feel like they deserve to be paid for what they do.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_02: But most of our clients say, well, we want the ones who just want to authentically come here and we don't have because they're independents, we don't have that budget.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I feel weird about that because I do actually feel that you guys should they should be paid for what they do, some of them should be paid at least for what they do, you know, and and if they can prove that they move the lever, and some of them absolutely move the lever, um, they absolutely deserve to be paid.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but there's a lot of thoughts there.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's been an interesting experience.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: I always say I think that it's wrong to paint all influencers with one brush.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's fair.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh same as journalists, same as chefs, same as anyone in any walk of life.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so some are doing it for the love, some are doing it for the business opportunity, some of them are um uh, you know, yeah.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_02: Some of them use it as a shield for just having a company like my company, but acting like they don't have a company like my company.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_02: And how do you feel about that?
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have a ton of respect for that.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_02: I think you should just be outward with what you do.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I, you know, I'll I'll do shout-outs and I'll do posts someplace that I like, and I'm not even trying to solicit them.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_02: But so I have mixed feelings about that.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't think that's a great model, and I think it's gonna end up running its course.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think some people are doing it for the love of doing it, and that's great.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think some people are doing it because they want to make a living, and I don't disrespect that.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_02: What's wrong with making a living?
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think it is a very valid form of communication.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I do think that um the ones that are gonna survive are ones that are adaptable and that understand that um, much like this medium, it's not necessarily about your content, it's about you.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's about this is the Joe Rogan thing.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_02: Joe Rogan has any random schmuck on.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_02: People are not tuning him in for, oh, what's he got on today?
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_02: Nope, I'm not gonna listen to that.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_02: No, they tune him in because they want to hear Joe about anything.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_02: So the people who understand that that it's about you, it's about literally creating your brand.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_02: They're the ones that are gonna survive.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I will say candidly, I don't think there's a lot of people here in Vegas, even the bigger ones, who have truly created a brand that's going to last.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not I'm not happy about that.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not I'm not saying ha ha or anything, but I don't I don't see it.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I wish I did see it.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, that it's actually a great point about the Joe Rogan thing.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that I didn't have any experience in podcasting or media uh at all doing this.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it shows.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good idea.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm totally kidding.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'm totally kidding.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_02: But uh you're doing a great job.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'm very flattered to be here.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um God, that's that was actually that was actually a good rib.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: I like good ribs.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: Jonathan Jocel, he he he's awesome.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: I asked him a question, and he goes, Can I be honest with you?
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: I said, sure.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: He goes, that's a really dumb question.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh my god, that was my famous, my my favorite jab I've ever gotten.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: In that posh South African.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, exactly.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_01: But the the Joe Rogan thing is building the the podcasts that are successful are the ones you're spot on when you kind of you build the the community and you build that authenticity of of why people tune in.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's what I'm I'm trying to to do.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: And but I'm also finding that it's it's it's hard.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's not it's not easy, and that's why not everybody's able to do it.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Vegas, I mean, we can go on a tangent about this too.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_02: Media in Vegas is really challenging.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, media in Vegas is not nearly as strong as it is in other cities.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um it just isn't.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you think it's lacking?
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_01: Which which parts?
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god, which which every every way it can.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_02: And not I'm not saying that the media that we have is terrible media.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm saying there isn't a lot of it.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: Whoops, don't lose my friend.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: Don't lose the yearmen.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_02: This was on my rider, just so you know.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_02: This is your safety.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: I insisted.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there isn't enough media here, and the media that is here, uh, I will say this the media that is here is too used to being afraid to bite the hand that feeds most of it.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh and and that's just not healthy.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_02: Healthy media is a mirror to what's going on, it gives you feedback.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_02: When you have feedback just saying this is wonderful and this is wonderful, and this is extra wonderful, and this is super duper wonderful, that's not that's not enough.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_01: I get that.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_02: Believe me, as a PR person, I love that.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_02: But the the the culture gets healthier when there's when when there's stronger and more feedback.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_02: And the other problem is that a lot of people will get into media as they'll try and do something like you'll do, and they'll they'll just not be consistent.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_02: They're not set up to be consistent because it takes a lot of dedication.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_02: It really does.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_02: This is not, as you know, the road to riches.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it isn't.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's got to be a labor of love first, and that's why a lot of things come and go here, and it's kind of groundhog day, and it's really challenging.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_02: I really do think that doing PR and marketing in Vegas, especially off strip, is harder than maybe any other place in this country.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_02: Spot on at least any other place of this size.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because you've constantly got Goliath punching you down, and you've got media, quite frankly, that are get excited about whatever Goliath wants to give them.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_02: They it's always news.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_02: They're always people are thrilled about anything that comes from any other city.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's weird.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_02: Other cities are really, really proud of what's come up here, come up in their own city.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_02: This city's like, oh yeah, that's great.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, look at this new thing that I've never heard of from another city.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_02: It must be great.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_02: Over and over and over again, we get that here.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_02: This is the thing that I wake up every morning to fight.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_02: This is the fight that James and I have been fighting since 2018.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_02: This is what Unstripped is about.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_02: And this is for the most part what you know, every client that I try and work with is connected to this somehow, you know.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: One more question before we get into Unstripped, that's that's a perfect segue.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: We have a lot of influencers that do watch the show, and you may or may not have worked them in the past.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_01: When all the unfollows.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_01: Fuck you, Eric.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_01: Fuck you.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_01: Fuck you in your journalism.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what's something that you look for when you are looking for a new influencer and somebody that you can partner with or at least work with?
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: What's something about them that helps you decide on yay or nay on them?
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh mostly attitude.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_02: Mostly attitude first, quality of what they're doing, audience obviously matters.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, feedback obviously matters, but attitude or or approach will win me over if you still don't have a huge following.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you're just like, if this content is gonna make my client look good, or I think my client is gonna, they're gonna get it.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_02: Because there's some influencers who are massive or YouTube followers who are massive, but they don't fit the vibe of the client.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just like, that's it's not, this isn't gonna be a win.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it doesn't matter that a ton of whoever's following you is gonna see it because they're not the type of people who are gonna go to this restaurant anyway.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_02: Or if they are, they're not gonna enjoy the restaurant in the way that the the the chef owner wants them to enjoy it, quite frankly.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_02: So all that needs to be considered, and it is more of a complex consideration than a lot of people think.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people who um kind of do it themselves think, oh, anyone who's got a ton of followers is great.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_02: I just want to see numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_02: And there's there's more to it than that.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_02: And there have been many, many situations, I hate to say this, many situations where they've gotten involved with influencers who've blown up their numbers, but they still end up going out of business.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_02: And no one wants to talk about that.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um they go out of business because there's not a real strategy behind that, and there's no and it doesn't help an uh a restaurant to be hugely popular for two weeks and then back to what they were two weeks later.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's not a strategy.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's a strategy for breaking someone's heart, you know, and back.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, that's that's where influencers aren't the whole picture.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's where they don't know everything.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's where chef owners who sometimes try and do it themselves, look, I don't know how to do everything that you do, that's for sure.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_02: But there's some things that I know how to do that you don't, you know.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_02: Nice spot on.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_01: All right, Vegas Unstripped.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_01: That was a fun event this year.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_01: This is your fifth year, sixth year, seventh year.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's our seventh year since 2018.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we've been annual, except we had to skip 2020 because of some bullshit.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and then 2022 we had to skip because uh there were so many severe labor and shortage issues still.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_02: And the whole premise of the uh event uh is that we want chefs to be able to do whatever they can do.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so many chefs were like, well, I'm not gonna be able to get this product or that product or so forth and so on.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, we're just not gonna do it.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, because that's not the spirit of the event is not just to do it for the sake of doing it.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_02: The spirit of the event is we want chefs to be able to truly do what they they want to do.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_01: Is it was this your baby?
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_01: Is this James's baby, or is this a merge of both of your babies?
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_02: It was definitely it was absolutely a meeting of the minds.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um it came about, and what's crazy to me is that the thing about that it actually happened five months after Esther's Kitchen opened, which is wild.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_02: And we thought of it three months before after it opened.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_02: I can't, I still can't believe that we did it.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um so basically, in strategizing, James said, look, it's really important to me.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_02: Hold on a second.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_01: Let it out.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, baby.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's that Perrier, that's what it is.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_02: We switched it up on you.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_02: Merci, maison.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so uh um uh there is nothing in that but water, by the way.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh and I'm deeply disappointed, I have to tell you.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um so uh yeah, so three months after um James opens, he's like, okay, so what can we do?
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_02: Jay Eric, what can we do to just support the off-strip scene?
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_02: Because people are not getting it.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_02: People are not understanding the value of the few people off-strip who are really doing some things.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_02: What do we do to tell this story?
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, okay.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_02: My thought is the big the biggest problem with with the off-strip scene at that point, especially, was people live in Henderson and they refuse to go to Summerlin.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_02: People live in Summerlin, they're not gonna drive 15 minutes to this place in the southwest.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's a whole thing they don't want to go north, yeah.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_02: So which is incredible because I've been spending time in other cities where you have to drive a half an hour to get anywhere.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_02: LA, it's an hour to get anywhere.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_02: Here, people are bitchy about 15 minutes and it drives me nuts.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_02: Our ancestors traveled days to get from point A to point B.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_02: We can't go 20 minutes down the 15.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_02: Give me a break.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_02: I get it for some nuts.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I said, basically, the problem is people will say, Oh, I've been to this restaurant, I've heard about that one, but I haven't gotten there.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_02: So the I said, if we really want to make a difference, we should put all of these restaurants in one place for an event that that um that sorry, I lost my train.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_02: One event so people can see, oh, there are all these restaurants I've been meaning to check out, and now I know what they're about and I want to go check them out.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, bingo, love that.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_02: He said, you know what?
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_02: We can just do it back here in behind Esther's.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, really?
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, yeah, I'll make them clear out the party line.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_02: It'll be enough room.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, are you sure?
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, okay.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_02: So he says, All right, so when do we do this?
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, boom, baby.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_02: Boom, baby, there it is.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Eureka.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so I said, When do we he said, when should we do this?
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, if you really, what makes sense to me is how Sundance and Slam Dance work, where slam dance is the punk rock festival that happens at the same time as Sundance Film Festival, where all the films that were rejected from Sundance go in this other festival.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_02: I've never heard of slam dance.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_02: Oh shit.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_02: Huge thing.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_02: So he's like, he's like, I love it.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_02: Especially since I got this letter from Uncorked, from Vegas Uncorked, telling me that I can participate if I give them$5,000.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like I've got$5,000 to give them, you know.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I hate them, and I absolutely love that idea.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then we talked about so many other food festivals that we'd experienced, him working them, me going to them as a journalist, some of which we realized were the same festivals.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_02: And in fact, I later went back and found a picture that I had taken of him at a Michael Mina booth.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't even know him.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, who's that guy in the back?
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's hilarious.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_02: So crazy, right?
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_02: Crazy coincidence.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_02: So, anyway, so we talked about all these other things.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_02: We're like, you know what?
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh chefs have to be there in person.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_01: Love it.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_02: That was one of our rule, one of James's rules.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_02: He his big rule was no sliders, because he's like, I'm sick of sliders at food events.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's so lame.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and chefs have to do an original dish for the event.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Really?
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_02: I like that.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna, I was like, will they do that?
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, I'll tell them they they gotta do it.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_02: So it was an original, you can put it on your menu afterwards, but it can't be on your menu beforehand.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so that made it super special.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, We're gonna, we're gonna um we're gonna pay them for their expenses, so they have no reason to say, I can't afford to do this.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_02: I said, All right, that was James's thing, and I'm really glad he did that.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, and you know, and we're just gonna do it to do it.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, and he said, and we'll whatever money's left over, we'll we'll give it away.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, Okay, cool.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't have a dime to do this event.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_02: I was and then he said, Okay, so when is owned corked anyway?
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, it's this is like March 7th.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's Mother's Day weekend, May 11th.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, Cool, let's do it.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, What?
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let's do it.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_02: Go.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_02: What do you need?
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like, uh so yes, we made the first event happen in seven weeks.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_02: How many people did you have attended?
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh shout out to Erica Bell, by the way, who was my first uh event producer.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_02: I'm grateful to her help.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_02: She really, really came through.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_02: Shout out to Erica.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh we had about 400 people paid, I think.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's right.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh or it might have been less than that.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh turnout for the first event.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, with seven weeks' notice, just selling it ourselves.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I can't remember the we didn't put it on Eventbrite because we hated.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm working with Eventbrite now, and I managed to negotiate their fees down to the lowest fees they've ever done with anyone.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but at the time I was like, I'm not making people pay these fees.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's in obnoxious.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_01: The the the customers paid the fees, you guys didn't pay the fees, or you both paid fees?
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, either way.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh the customer paid the fee, and I was like, I don't care if you're paying the fee and I'm not paying the fee, it's still obnoxious.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um so we did with some renting, so we we had nothing to work with, but we we found oh, that was the other reason we didn't work with Event right at the time, is because you had to the they didn't at the time they didn't give you the money until the event happened.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_02: We had to find a ticketing agency that would give us the money beforehand because we took the ticket money to pay for all the rentals and everything else.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_02: We had no money, we had no bank to put that on.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_02: Zero.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's so funny.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't have money, he didn't have money, you know, and we made it happen.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm very proud of that, and it was a really cool start.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, now we're eight years in, or sorry, that we just did our seventh, and you know, we're not leaving.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_02: Will there be an eighth?
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_02: There will definitely be an eighth.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_02: We're already planning it.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_02: We're also already planning other events that we're gonna start doing because weirdly, with kind of no experience in food events, chefs kept saying to us and say over and over, year after year, this is the best run food event we've ever been involved in.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, what are you talking about?
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's like there's professionals who do this, and they're like, Yeah, they suck.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_01: Are you gonna do anything differently for the uh the next event?
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, is there anything you learned this year or the past few years that you've wanted to do?
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_02: This actually was the smoothest year we've had.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_02: Shout out to Heather Vincent, my current event producer.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_02: She's amazing.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, this was the smoothest year where there was almost no, actually, and I'm saying almost no just because I always measure my responses.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_02: There was no negative feedback.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_02: There was kind of none.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we're gonna keep pure to our ideals because it works.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_02: Because in addition to that, yeah, we do take sponsors, but we limit what they're allowed to do.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_02: We try and keep it as level a playing field between the chefs as we can.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um so we don't like a lot of fruit-frou kind of promotion and stuff like that.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's like if you want to do that, you're gonna pay us.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna give that money to charity anyway.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh we only take sponsors that make sense.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you're not gonna see a Range Rover in front of this event.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I should say we might do other events where you might see a Range Rover, but we're not you're never gonna see in front of this event, you know, like Chase Bank or whatever.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's stuff that you see at all these other events sponsored by United Airlines.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_02: And anyone with the brain goes, why?
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, because they wanted money.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_02: There's no other reason.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I just don't like that.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_02: That gives me the ick.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_02: Do we still say that?
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_02: We do, but do you still say that?
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I've ever said it.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_00: I I highly doubt that.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're a grown man.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it yeah, sorry, I'm not a grown man.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Brian's more mature than either of you.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, clearly.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it gives me the ick to see that sponsored stuff that has nothing to do with the event.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah uh even though uh I went to uh South Beach Food and Wine and got a ton of great chocolate from American Airlines.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, guys.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, American Air.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'll take them.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm not gonna do that.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's just not cool.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, and and we don't need to, you know, I want to uh this event happened.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: For all the right reasons, and I never want to say this event isn't happening for the right reasons.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, we're pretty much staying pure to what we're doing.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_02: We're just trying to expand it.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_02: We'll get bigger, but it's funny because even with 30 to 35 chefs, you can't possibly eat all of the sh from all of the chefs.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man, I ate so much food.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_01: I I I I wish I I wish I wore my stretchy pants because I was bursting at the scene.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_01: The the uh the amount of alcohol that I had was was the perfect amount, but the amount of food really just it was great.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was lovely.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess if anything, I don't know.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's weird to think of expanding it to a couple of different days, but maybe that's the next step.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_01: Is it gonna be at Palms again?
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so far, Palms has been an amazing partner.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_02: They really, really have.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_02: So if it moves, it would have to have a darn good reason to move.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_01: Total side note, by the way.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_01: How do you feel about uh Caesars getting bought by uh Fertita?
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, that's the news of the day, right?
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, first of all, we kind of heard rumblings, so nobody should be that shocked.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_02: Secondly, I don't know.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think it's worse than Caesars has been the owner's current ownership of Caesars.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think it's gonna get worse.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Fertita obviously knows what he's doing in a lot of respects.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um I don't I'm not in love with the guy, I don't hate the guy, I don't have a strong opinion.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_02: He obviously is has God's money, you know.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'd rather see him invest in that than a lot of other things.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_02: I do think that that that group of properties has really lost its luster and lost its way in a lot of ways.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_02: I think they're far too dependent on these celebrity chef things that they keep rinsing and repeating on.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um was it just Caesars that he bought, or did he buy the group of other He brought bought the whole group.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_02: So good news for Harris, that's for sure.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_02: Wait, why is that good news for Harris?
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_02: Well, God, that's been the stepchild of their group for forever.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_02: That poor stepchild.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_02: That poor property just gets no love or attention at all.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah, uh, I mean, I think it's good news for uh we'll see what happens with Caesars.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_02: Caesars, you know, has really fallen to the middle, right?
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_02: Flamingo has really fallen to the low middle, right?
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what else do they own?
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_02: Brian?
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_02: Anymore?
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_02: Brian, you would know this.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_02: I I should not.
• 1:08:25
  SPEAKER_02: I used to know this stuff backwards and forwards, but I'm trying to remember.
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_01: Let's see how Planet Hollywood?
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_01: Is it Planet Hollywood?
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they own Planet Hollywood.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, uh Soul Belly, Miracle Mile, which isn't technically part of the Caesar property, but you know, shout out to them.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_02: Go to Miracle Mile.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_02: Miracle Mile, actually, now that I'm working with Soul Belly and I'm walking around in there, it's a decent mall for a mall.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_02: For a mall on the strip for sure.
• 1:08:47
  SPEAKER_02: Mall on the strip, sure.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, Planet Hollywood used to be a a pretty cool property, right?
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think anyone thinks of it as cool now.
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's a net positive.
• 1:08:57
  unknown: Good.
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_01: I listen, I hope it works out.
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh for for Vegas, for for just the locals and the teams of the big thing.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think he's I think he's as an owner, he seems to be very responsive to listening to the marketplace.
• 1:09:09
  SPEAKER_02: And that's always a good thing.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_01: A few more questions, and we'll get you out of here.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm in no rush.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, good.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_01: A lot more questions, then we'll get you out of here.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um excluding anybody.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody's gonna watch this whole thing.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody that knows me, that's for sure.
• 1:09:23
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, if your mom doesn't watch it, then there's a whole mom is definitely not watching the whole thing.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_02: Come on, mom.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's okay, mom.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_02: I get it.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_01: We can say anything.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_01: Your mom's not gonna hear it.
• 1:09:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um excluding any clients of yours that you've you work with currently or have worked with, and excluding anybody that was in Unstripped.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_01: Give me a restaurant that every Vegas local should check out.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Shanghai Taste, I've wanted to get into Unstripped for forever, and Jimmy and Joe know that.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh why do they say no?
• 1:09:56
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think they have the bandwidth.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, really?
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_02: And that's I I've I've had that challenge with a few Asian places that I've wanted to get involved.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, um Raku is another great example and another great shout out to all of the Raku properties, you know.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, they don't have the bandwidth, which which is really something that I've tried to figure out how do I how do we how do we do that?
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know, how do we thread that needle?
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh Yuzu, Kaiseki Yuzu and Omakasa Yuzu, former client.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_02: They're really great at what they do.
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_01: You're a big Asian food guy, huh?
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm an everything food guy, honestly.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh but but we're a big Asian food city.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_02: We are a huge Asian food city, and not every city has the kind of the diversity and the quality of Asian food that we have here.
• 1:10:47
  SPEAKER_02: It is one of the biggest and best things we have here.
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:10:51
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, in that sense of yeah, some of the best food in Las Vegas is Asian food, and there's so much of it that's good.
• 1:10:58
  SPEAKER_02: In that sense, yes, I'm a big Asian food guy.
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_01: You've dealt with musicians, you've dealt with chefs, some celebrities, some not, some all, you know, some successful.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_01: What's who's more difficult to do?
• 1:11:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I've found that there's a lot of celebrities, uh, similarities between musicians and chefs in that they're they're kind of artistic at heart, but also craftspeople at heart, and they want to be businessmen at heart.
• 1:11:23
  SPEAKER_02: And uh uh some are some can do all those things and some can't.
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_02: I I I don't need to say this to flatter him, but James is truly unique in his ability to balance all of those things.
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's very, very, very unusual, even with some of the most successful chefs you know that I've interviewed and spent time with, they are not as good as he is at balancing the the cooking, the the uh you know, the menu creation, the marketing, the branding, and all of the other stuff and the messaging, uh, and the obviously the economics of it, which is the hardest part.
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_02: He's really, really good at it.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_02: And if people wonder why he's so successful, um, I'll take a sliver of credit for it.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_02: But most of it goes to the fact that he's really unusually good at the business part of it.
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, most chef owners aren't that good at all.
• 1:12:17
  SPEAKER_02: And it because they didn't have the that's not who they are, they didn't have that training.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of people, there aren't a lot of like super smart business people in the food world.
• 1:12:25
  SPEAKER_02: There's a handful of them.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_02: There's probably maybe two dozen people who are like top business minds who happen to be involved in restaurants because top business minds think this isn't the best way for me to make money with my brain.
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it isn't.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_02: You have to get into restaurants because you're passionate about them, right?
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's fun and you feel good about it, and they bring people together and and it's you know, there's satisfaction in in what they do.
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that didn't answer your question at all.
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, look, I I was I was intrigued about your James answer though, because James, I knew of him, and I as a guest I met him because he he did his table touches uh at whatever restaurant.
• 1:13:04
  SPEAKER_01: But when he came on, that was the first time I actually able to have a conversation with him.
• 1:13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I feel like anybody that gets to know him, they'll have a different answer as to why they think he's successful.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_01: For me, I think he's successful because when he said this, he said people want to know how you get the gold.
• 1:13:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's by working your balls off.
• 1:13:20
  SPEAKER_01: And he just he works so hard.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I I feel like it's you you can work hard and not get the results.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you can work hard and not get the results.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's sure.
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_02: But there's it it that's it's his definition of working hard.
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's not anyone's definition.
• 1:13:37
  SPEAKER_02: And there's different what do you mean?
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_02: There's different types of working hard.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_02: You can work your butt off, you can slave away at the stove every day, you can put out a perfect dish every single time.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's not gonna get you there by itself.
• 1:13:49
  SPEAKER_02: That people aren't.
• 1:13:50
  SPEAKER_02: There are some scenarios where people might just gravitate to you.
• 1:13:54
  SPEAKER_02: This is not a city where anything is organic.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_02: No, very, very, very few places have gotten over the hump just just from organic success.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, mostly you've got to get out there and talk about it in one way or the other.
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_02: You've got to remind people that you're there one way or the other, especially years in.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, and I'll take pride in more in the clients that I've had for a very long time, like James, that can still stay relevant, that's still top of mind for people.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, excuse me, that's way harder than here's a new thing, because people love every single new thing.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_02: They love the new thing, you know.
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah, sure, work hard, but James's definition of work hard is also work smarter.
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_02: Keep an eye on all aspects of it, listen to people, never let your ego get in the way of a good decision.
• 1:14:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's so many things that he would what is work hard?
• 1:14:46
  SPEAKER_02: You should ask the follow-up would be what does working hard mean to you, James?
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_02: And he'll give you a long list.
• 1:14:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's not roll up your sleeves and get in the kitchen.
• 1:14:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's way more than that.
• 1:14:57
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, for sure.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Damn, we should have asked him that, Brian.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Why didn't you remind me that, Brian?
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get James back on just so we can ask him that's a question.
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're calling speaking of which, everything's new, and there's so many trends coming and going here in Vegas.
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me your trend in Vegas in the food industry that you're sick of, that you're just you're ready for it to die.
• 1:15:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, a lot of people have said Smash Burgers, so that's an easy one.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh, you know, Smash Burgers is the hot chicken of you know, last year.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_02: And there will always be a trend, and that's great.
• 1:15:31
  SPEAKER_02: I trends are fun, trends are great.
• 1:15:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think where trends get scary is people think that that's a mark of anything quality in what you're doing.
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the next trend that's coming out is steak frites, like that's a big deal.
• 1:15:46
  SPEAKER_02: Now, don't get me wrong, shameless plug, diamonds per provisions, steak fruits, which is 18 bucks, is amazing.
• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, and obviously uh High Stakes Vegas and Barber Wham also do great steak fruits.
• 1:16:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and there's other great steak fruits you can get in this town too.
• 1:16:05
  SPEAKER_02: So it's great, but I mean that dish has been around for 80 or 100 years.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_02: You're getting excited about it because your parents never taught you that this was a thing.
• 1:16:17
  SPEAKER_02: Your parents never taught you that this is a thing.
• 1:16:19
  SPEAKER_02: And by the way, Smash Burgers weren't invented five years ago either.
• 1:16:23
  SPEAKER_02: They've been making them in the Midwest for forever, and those places are still there, and they're like, what do you call it?
• 1:16:30
  SPEAKER_02: You're calling it a Smash Burger?
• 1:16:32
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever.
• 1:16:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's$12 or less.
• 1:16:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I've been to these places, and they're great.
• 1:16:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, Smash Burgers as a trend is gonna crest um um what am I sick of?
• 1:16:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm sick of uh what about the the trend of social media over food quality?
• 1:16:54
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, I was gonna say the performative aspects of it are just I don't think I'm sick of what seeing what other people are sick of in a way, you know.
• 1:17:01
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't, I don't I'm not like the pet peeve guy about things.
• 1:17:05
  SPEAKER_02: I'm more interested in what's what's everyone else's pet peeves, you know.
• 1:17:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh yeah, I think the excessiveness, okay.
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, let me edit myself.
• 1:17:15
  SPEAKER_02: Excessiveness is what I um what I'm sick of.
• 1:17:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the the the excess, the idea of, you know, I don't I'm not crying that buffets are going away.
• 1:17:27
  SPEAKER_02: Because I don't think they're a great way for people to eat anymore.
• 1:17:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's weird that we are in a a phase where we accept the fact that some crazy number uh in this country are obese, and we think it's cool to promote excess, you know.
• 1:17:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um supersizing got outlawed for a reason.
• 1:17:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 1:17:48
  SPEAKER_02: What?
• 1:17:49
  SPEAKER_02: Did it?
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean I I guess I haven't heard of I haven't heard of supersizing in a long time.
• 1:17:54
  SPEAKER_02: At least in some states, you're not allowed to do that, you know.
• 1:17:57
  SPEAKER_02: But we're getting back to this stuff, and I I see kids, I saw kids in the theater the other day holding these 32-ounce Cokes, and I'm just like, that's more than you should drink in a day.
• 1:18:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's ungodly.
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_02: And of soda, even less than that, you know.
• 1:18:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I even though I understand that all food doesn't need to be super healthy, and believe me, I indulge and I and I support indulgent foods a lot, I think that I would like to see more measure in what we're representing as eating.
• 1:18:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that excess is definitely should be on the way out.
• 1:18:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, it just bugs me, you know.
• 1:18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we know what's next for Vegas Unstripped.
• 1:18:36
  SPEAKER_01: What's next for Feast of Friends?
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_01: What do you want to be next for Feast of Friends in the next year or two?
• 1:18:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um we're trying to get better what with what we do every day, honestly.
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_02: And the the game is changing consistently.
• 1:18:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um the game's always been flexible, but now we're gonna be able to do it.
• 1:18:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh well, both, I guess, but more the marketing and PR game.
• 1:19:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh PR gets uh continues to be more and more challenging.
• 1:19:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um marketing tends to be there's all these different tools now that you can use to get attention and you must use.
• 1:19:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, uh Google and search different search functions and different social media and different ways of getting attention.
• 1:19:21
  SPEAKER_02: There are so many, and that's where I think maybe we're different from other agencies.
• 1:19:26
  SPEAKER_02: I hope, is that we really pay attention to so many different avenues and figuring out which avenue is right for you, you know.
• 1:19:32
  SPEAKER_02: But but the game changes all the time, and we're so we're always trying to get on top of that and be better at what we do.
• 1:19:39
  SPEAKER_02: And at the same time, I think uh uh my firm is finally ready to expand beyond Las Vegas.
• 1:19:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm looking at that, looking at some other markets that I think are underserved.
• 1:19:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because yeah, I've sort of realized that oh, we've kind of built some muscles trying to represent off-strip Vegas in a place that does not, you know, is like the last thing, you know, it's it's it's the hardest thing.
• 1:20:03
  SPEAKER_02: People still are telling the story that, oh, there's places off-strip to eat, you know, like it's a new thing.
• 1:20:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they're called they're still calling Esther's Kitchen a hidden gem.
• 1:20:16
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:20:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, and there's still journalists that still refuse to acknowledge that there's anything happening off the strip, which is really wild.
• 1:20:26
  SPEAKER_02: You're just missing out.
• 1:20:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:20:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but so so we've realized that we've gotten pretty strong at the game that we do uh because we've worked in one of the hardest places to do this stuff.
• 1:20:36
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, we're looking at some other markets to expand on.
• 1:20:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so that that I think is what's in the future.
• 1:20:41
  SPEAKER_02: Have you got your hands dirty uh with AI at all?
• 1:20:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's yeah, it's a necessity.
• 1:20:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's here.
• 1:20:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think we're gonna figure out what's what's good and what's bad about it.
• 1:20:52
  SPEAKER_02: I think when I see people using Claude or Chat GPT or whatever to create graphics, I'm just like rolling my eyes.
• 1:20:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like, guys, it's so obvious, and you do not realize.
• 1:21:03
  SPEAKER_02: I will say this side note.
• 1:21:06
  SPEAKER_02: For whatever reasons, I seem to be very tuned in on looking forward.
• 1:21:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so I'm really focused on looking forward.
• 1:21:15
  SPEAKER_02: So it's I I find that I'm always this this means that I I can tend to see potential in things or in people that they might not even see themselves.
• 1:21:27
  SPEAKER_02: And that's challenging sometimes.
• 1:21:29
  SPEAKER_02: But I can also uh see when something's a trend and that that trend is not gonna last forever, you know?
• 1:21:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um you think AI is a trend?
• 1:21:39
  SPEAKER_02: Well, overall, no, it's a tool that's here to stay and it's gonna change humanity.
• 1:21:42
  SPEAKER_02: And am I happy about that?
• 1:21:44
  SPEAKER_02: No, because I read a ton of science fiction when I was a kid, and it's dystopia.
• 1:21:49
  SPEAKER_02: So overall, no, I don't think it's a good thing for humanity because and I'm gonna you're gonna see me do uh my own little mini podcast or whatever on social media tomorrow.
• 1:22:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um people are more likely this.
• 1:22:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um take your time.
• 1:22:13
  SPEAKER_02: People will rather be lazy than be happy.
• 1:22:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm gonna expound on that on my own thing.
• 1:22:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's gonna be our opening for this episode.
• 1:22:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's okay.
• 1:22:24
  SPEAKER_02: People would rather be lazy than be happy.
• 1:22:29
  SPEAKER_02: And that points to why people won't drive 15 minutes to go to a restaurant that they heard was great.
• 1:22:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 1:22:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so AI feeds into your laziness.
• 1:22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, for sure.
• 1:22:41
  SPEAKER_02: It does.
• 1:22:41
  SPEAKER_02: And they would rather create a graphic that looks great from AI, but it's the guy's got six fingers and you didn't realize that, you know, or it's just looks the same as every other AI graphic.
• 1:22:53
  SPEAKER_02: And you can tell instantly that's an AI graphic.
• 1:22:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:22:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's plenty of tools that you can do to create images without using AI if you're just not that fucking lazy.
• 1:23:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's the passionate Eric Glass that I'm waiting for.
• 1:23:12
  SPEAKER_01: There, let's go, baby.
• 1:23:14
  SPEAKER_01: We're starting the whole episode over.
• 1:23:16
  SPEAKER_01: We're doing this together.
• 1:23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Eric, this was fucking awesome, man.
• 1:23:18
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, as our last guest in this studio, this was heavy.
• 1:23:24
  SPEAKER_01: This was a phenomenal.
• 1:23:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm moving in.
• 1:23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:23:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm never I'm not leaving.
• 1:23:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going anywhere.
• 1:23:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, Eric, this is awesome, dude.
• 1:23:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad that uh we're able to connect.
• 1:23:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad that we're able to sit face to face now.
• 1:23:36
  SPEAKER_01: This was this was awesome, man.
• 1:23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:23:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, enjoyed it.
• 1:23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, for sure.
• 1:23:40
  SPEAKER_01: Check out Feast of Friends.
• 1:23:41
  SPEAKER_01: More importantly, check out Vegas Unstripped, and we'll provide the Amazon link for anything but Nirvana.
• 1:23:47
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate that.
• 1:23:48
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 1:23:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
• 1:23:50
  SPEAKER_01: If I buy, because actually my my co-host that wasn't able to come here tonight, um I'm not insulted.
• 1:23:56
  SPEAKER_01: She she wants you to autograph uh uh a book, uh uh a copy of anything but Nirvana.
• 1:24:03
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna we're gonna buy a couple, and I hope that you well, I guess you'll just have to have me back in the news.
• 1:24:08
  SPEAKER_01: I guess if that listen, I'm I'm serious.
• 1:24:10
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna do the edibles.
• 1:24:11
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna pop some, we're gonna listen to some vinyls.
• 1:24:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna hear some stories.
• 1:24:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we're gonna be unfair.
• 1:24:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a vinyl guy, yeah, still.
• 1:24:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh absolutely.
• 1:24:18
  SPEAKER_01: What's your what's your go-to vinyl?
• 1:24:20
  SPEAKER_02: My what one vinyl vinyl?
• 1:24:23
  SPEAKER_01: One vinyl, the end of the world, dystopian.
• 1:24:25
  SPEAKER_02: Well, dude, it's pet sounds, obviously.
• 1:24:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's what?
• 1:24:28
  SPEAKER_02: Pet sounds, speech voice.
• 1:24:30
  SPEAKER_02: Come on, dude.
• 1:24:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's like that.
• 1:24:34
  SPEAKER_02: Not ween, not corn?
• 1:24:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I have Wien's first album that nobody has, that there's 500 copies of, by the way.
• 1:24:40
  SPEAKER_02: You really?
• 1:24:40
  SPEAKER_02: Live Wien.
• 1:24:41
  SPEAKER_02: You got some cool shit.
• 1:24:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I have uh What's the biggest flex of like an item that you own that nobody else has?
• 1:24:49
  SPEAKER_02: Shit.
• 1:24:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um I have a Beastie Boys tour book.
• 1:24:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um you mean vinyl music-wise, or um, I have uh I have one apron that's uh autographed by a bunch of great chefs.
• 1:25:04
  SPEAKER_02: I've got a few different cool autographs of of chefs and cookbooks.
• 1:25:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um I have a photocopy of the first check that James wrote for me.
• 1:25:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's pretty cool.
• 1:25:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um I don't know.
• 1:25:16
  SPEAKER_02: There's you got a whole music.
• 1:25:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm I'm very much on the if for anyone who's been to my house knows I'm I I I very much like how do I balance the pack ratness of my life and try and keep screened.
• 1:25:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not a pack rat, but I have a ton of shit that I've had.
• 1:25:34
  SPEAKER_02: I collect a lot of stuff.
• 1:25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:25:36
  SPEAKER_01: Eric Gladstone, thank you so much for coming on, man.
• 1:25:38
  SPEAKER_01: This is awesome.
• 1:25:38
  SPEAKER_01: It was great tough stuff.
• 1:25:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Brian, you got any last questions before we hit on out of here?
• 1:25:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm good.
• 1:25:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was a it was a very fulfilling episode, a lot of information.
• 1:25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Scratch that itch.
• 1:25:48
  SPEAKER_02: Just processing it all, huh?
• 1:25:49
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 1:25:50
  SPEAKER_01: He's just processing it all.
• 1:25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this is awesome.
• 1:25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Boys and girls, thank you so much for listening.
• 1:25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Check out new episodes each week on iVacquithead.com.
• 1:25:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, hold on, let's pause this music.
• 1:26:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hit us with it.
• 1:26:01
  SPEAKER_01: What do you got?
• 1:26:03
  SPEAKER_01: Why do you do this?
• 1:26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Why do I do this?
• 1:26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because the art of conversation is is something that I am passionate about.
• 1:26:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it's also it's a lost art form um that is dying.
• 1:26:15
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody's texting now, everybody's you know, email, whatever the hell they're doing.
• 1:26:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I just I love hearing stories of other people.
• 1:26:23
  SPEAKER_01: I I started this podcast, so Neon Boulevard is my digital marketing company, okay.
• 1:26:28
  SPEAKER_01: But I I wanted to have a podcast.
• 1:26:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, I have all these great business owners from uh SAT ACT prep company that was on Shark Tank to um a phone sex hotline.
• 1:26:38
  SPEAKER_01: And like the business owners, their stories were just so unique.
• 1:26:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, that'd be a great great way for me to still have phone sex?
• 1:26:44
  SPEAKER_01: You'd be surprised.
• 1:26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Some of you could hear some of the recordings, they're blowing my mind.
• 1:26:50
  SPEAKER_01: The wildest recording is uh uh an operator transforming into a werewolf, and that that did it for the caller.
• 1:26:58
  SPEAKER_01: But yes, so I I wanted to have a podcast talking to business owners, yeah.
• 1:27:02
  SPEAKER_01: But then the last thing I wanted to do after a 10-hour workday is talk more about business.
• 1:27:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it kind of turned into this Vegas local type podcast where we talk to you know decision local decision makers or local influencers or just yeah, people that are just in Vegas and talk about news and topics, and uh that I'm having fun with.
• 1:27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that we're having a good time.
• 1:27:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it's uh I I've done a lot of things that have failed.
• 1:27:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I know what failure looks like.
• 1:27:27
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the opposite.
• 1:27:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm getting such positive engagement, I'm getting such great results.
• 1:27:32
  SPEAKER_01: The team that I have around me is fantastic.
• 1:27:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Brian makes us look so good and so professional, so that's a huge, huge plus as well.
• 1:27:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's it's it's a good time.
• 1:27:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I get to I get to grow my.
• 1:27:49
  SPEAKER_01: Will they take it private then?
• 1:27:50
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what's gonna happen with Caesars?
• 1:27:52
  SPEAKER_01: Do you I think isn't Fertita?
• 1:27:55
  SPEAKER_01: I guess he's I don't know this answer.
• 1:27:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I listen, I th I thought he was public, but maybe I'm wrong.
• 1:28:02
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that Caesar, I think just like what you said, I think Caesar's is just kind of there.
• 1:28:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's not really you know blowing anybody's mind.
• 1:28:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think uh I think I think he'll make some some sort of significant pro positive uh swing towards where it needs to be.
• 1:28:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's not gonna be a game changer, but I think we're you know we're just in a weird spot.
• 1:28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Everything's new, and like you said, everything everything's excessive.
• 1:28:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, we'll we're just gonna have to wait and see what the next phase of Vegas is.
• 1:28:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:28:31
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm happy to be here.
• 1:28:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm glad to be part of it.
• 1:28:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad to witness it firsthand.
• 1:28:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad to have you know a good network of friends that are knee deep in it as well and kind of see their viewpoints on it.
• 1:28:42
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's gonna be interesting.
• 1:28:44
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm hopeful though.
• 1:28:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Vegas always finds a way.
• 1:28:48
  SPEAKER_02: It does, it does.
• 1:28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Somehow, some way, Vegas always finds a way.
• 1:28:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right on.
• 1:28:51
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 1:28:52
  SPEAKER_01: Boys and girls, let's hit that outro one more time.
• 1:28:54
  SPEAKER_01: Eric Gladstone.
• 1:28:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what's your what's your Instagram handle, by the way?
• 1:28:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because people are gonna love it.
• 1:29:00
  SPEAKER_02: I am at EC Gladstone on everything.
• 1:29:03
  SPEAKER_02: EC Gladstone on the street.
• 1:29:04
  SPEAKER_02: There's also the Feast of Friends on everything.
• 1:29:10
  SPEAKER_02: Big Stone script, also Biggestone script.
• 1:29:13
  SPEAKER_01: Love it.
• 1:29:14
  SPEAKER_01: Boys and girls, hey bighead.com.
• 1:29:16
  SPEAKER_01: New episodes each week.
• 1:29:16
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see you later.
• 1:29:18
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.