Adam Curry Jhansi devora Sunday April 11 2021 this is your award
winning give on nation media assassination Episode 1337 This
is no agenda feelin
broadcasting almost live from opportunity's own 33 here in the
frontier of Austin, Texas Capitol in the drone Star State
in the morning, everybody. I'm Adam Curry
and from Northern Silicon Valley where we're live to tape. Live
to tape. I'm John C Dvorak
buzzkill.
Live, we're doing live.
Happy leet
I believe man, big, big number. Big number three, seven,
a
big number for the show. This is the one that everyone wants to
be an executive producer of and I think you will be very happy
with that because we have a special while john and i are
still resting up and preparing for COVID 2021. Because, cuz,
you know,
you know that's coming. You want to let up on it.
This is unbelievable. So we're still on our break. And as we
were getting ready to record this we were looking for the
name of the executive producer who did this because he also did
John's stories and that aired now is this the last time we
took off? I think so. No one was so that was Episode 12 on
December 22 2019 so we've been going nonstop for over two
years. No, no,
that's 2019 2018
okay 2019 to go all the way for 20 so December All right. Okay,
there you go. So yeah, guess what you kind of 15 months Yeah,
right but about 15 months Okay, that was right. Well, good. We
deserve this time off. Are you enjoying yourself on your time
off?
Oh, yeah, I'm having the time of my life
to do clips
you are sitting at home by yourself on the on the interface
just hanging out in the chaise in the chaise shade now it's
been quite a while since I've heard this but we had john
stories, whichever we
give credit to our
Sir, sir. Good waffle. So Rubin walk. Yes,
sir. Yes, he shows.
I wanted to be syrup and waffles. That's why it's syrup
and was
waffles. Okay, that could be
syrup, syrup and waffle.
Yes, exactly. So he did these two shows together. So these are
the same era of anecdotes, we of course, we didn't tell as many
stories during 2020, because it was a year of the COVID.
We were listening to the biggest tale ever told.
And so yes, we don't need to do our own material. And so this is
the this is your collection of stories. And that we're going to
delve into and just non stop, I guess we'll take one break in
the middle. And then we were good to go.
All right, here we go my legacy in the first half the first
hour. Bear with me on this because this is this is should
have been thinking about a lot over the past couple days. So I
truly believe that in the not too distant future, maybe five
years, let's just make it easy on ourselves. In in five years,
there will be enough ubiquitous bandwidth around and, and
streaming capabilities that essentially will just have
digital radios. I mean, it's it's what d a b already is. But
it'll be two way. And so you'll be able to stream certainly
you'll be you can do that today over you know over your your
mobile phone. The price may vary depending on your plan and where
you live and all that shit. But bar the subways. You know, you
can probably I've done I chats with Pete with with Kj with
Chris Jacob on while he was on the train, you know, coming down
from from upstate New York, you know, so we can we can get a
stream out there. What if we had a stream that is essentially 24
hours a day, and we just keep adding to it? Right? So if you
drop in, you'll hear the conversation that eventually
you'll get up to a point that you've already heard and then
you're up to date. And when you check in again.
I think this is a good idea, by the way said that there's
there's a complication here, which is for example, we'll go
back to the by and large rant. Yeah, we have to make this work,
right. We'd have to actually document what we're talking
about in some logical way.
indexed sounds like
you have it. There you go. Sounds like work.
Oh, clearly. That's a non starter. So we have to think
this through a little bit more about the audience. I mean, can
we get your guy's Bubba, like that involve going
on now. But I don't know about Bubba, but he's just seems to be
like at his wit's end already. But I'm thinking this,
by the way, I'm not I'm not trying to poach your guys.
Gianna. I'm just saying,
I'll probably do it. But actually, there's another guy
that probably would do it for sure. But I don't want them
doing it? I think because what you brought up was the fact that
we like to package stuff because we're getting old and the kids
they like to do all this stuff themselves is to get a team of
volunteer kids. Yeah. You know, by our standards, kids, anyone.
Have them have them mashup shows.
Exactly. I think it'd be more than a few volunteers for that.
That reminds me, when I, when I entered the Dutch schooling
system, I was going to the International School of
Amsterdam for three years after we move that move that when I
was seven, and just to give you the full context of the story,
we had a week off from the iisa International School of
Amsterdam. And my parents sat me my sister's down Sunday evening,
guess what you guys are going to do tomorrow? We're like, well,
what are we going to do? You're going to Dutch school. Like
what? And I actually really, really spoke just a few words of
Dutch. So enter Dutch school, fifth grade, and within I think,
like two or three months into this into the, into the school
year, the teacher, he says, oh, here's a question that our
Americans did not this is a time when Americans were not very
loved in in Europe, Texas Instruments was coming over and
I walk on the street, they know who I was, and the kids were
like, you crazy Mexican, she'd go fuck yourself. I mean, that's
what I would get as a fifth grader. And then the teacher
says, Alright, here's one. How many. How many states does the
United States of America have in my hand goes up? Of course. It's
50 states and now. It's 52. You forgot Alaska and Hawaii? I
said, No, he was 48. And then we watch No, no. Can you don't even
know this? And he said he just was braiding me. And I was, you
know, I was already messed up. And then I remember calling the
American Embassy and recording it on, you know, one of those
little cassette recorders taking it into school. And even that
was a well, she was referencing an old an old Encyclopedia
Britannica. I could not get them to just admit that he was wrong.
Anyway, your next story.
Okay. Thanks. Now, this is like a music business story. Do you
know who Seymour Stein is?
The name rings
a bell but no. Okay. Seymour Stein is the guy who first he
legend in the music business started Sire Records and Sire
Records, you know, as many famous artists. But Seymour
Stein is really known for Madonna. He really took Madonna
into mainstream to the first big album whether and he was her.
Sire was her record label in the in the very beginning of our
career. And Seymour Stein is really I've hung out, hung out
with him, you know, back in the, I don't know, like mid 80s in
London. And just one of these really weird guys. Typical music
industry guys like he had a fish tank in his office with 100
pound a 50 was no 50 pound notes at the bottom of this aquarium
and they were Parana. Swimming in the aquarium is like you're
welcome to go you know grab the 50 pound note if you don't mind
your hand getting eaten by a Parana This is really one of
these guys, right? Hilarious. And, and his ex wife, Linda
Stein was also a legend in the music business. She was a
manager, famously of the Ramones and she was the most abrasive
woman you can imagine if she would, she just you know would
she would yell she would scream at people. She told Joey Ramone
Shut the fuck up. You know? When they were touring in England, he
was complaining about everything. He didn't like the
food and and she just said then get the fuck back to America,
you fucking these legendary. And it's funny because as far as I
know, Seymour Stein was gay If not, at least by but you know,
it was really weird. These two and of course, they did break up
eventually. So she was ex for a reason. So legendary woman
legend fact. As she had cancer and she had been operated on
cancer and she's This is a no just one of those famous stories
about her. So take it with a grain of salt. Four hours after
the operation, she was already on the phone yelling at someone
who fucked something up. Yeah, just just crazy. They found her
bludgeoned to death in her apartment yesterday in New York
on Fifth Avenue. Oh, really?
Yeah. As well as in in the news out here.
Well, well, there you go. But it's just it's one of those you
watch. The stories will come out I'm sure because, you know, lots
of artists dealt with her. So I'm sure people are going to be
talking about this. You watch. It's going to be an interesting
story. I'm I'm
sure that it'll, yeah, it sounds like something that's gonna
develop. That's interesting. And you know who
I mean? She is like, you know who, who really were her enemies
who would have wanted to do this or the answer is fucking
everybody. Everybody could have gone off on this woman at any
time and bludgeoned to death. Of course, you know, she's kind of
been out of the business for many years. So for this to
happen now, it's just crazy.
Late 70s, mid 80s, something like that
because I remember doc McGee who was he's now manager for Gene
Simmons, which is kind of sad. He's on that family jewels
reality show but he at the time was one of the biggest managers
in rock'n'roll. He was managing Motley Crue and Bon Jovi and
maybe even Ozzy Osborne, and he got caught smuggling 5000 pounds
of marijuana into Florida on his Learjet, which is like, I don't
know what type Lear jet it was, but that must have been heavy.
And so he didn't go to jail. But instead the judge said, Well,
I'll let you go. But as a part of your, your, your get out of
jail free ticket, you have to do a number of anti drug anti
alcohol concerts.
That's how you're gonna say he has to do reality TV.
Well, now this this is 1988. And that's how I wound up in Russia
actually, because they had the Moscow music peace Festival,
which he organized and this is before the wall came down. And
so we went on a plane from Newark, New Jersey with those
like Bon Jovi, Motley Crue Ozzy Osborne, we stopped in Germany
to pick up the scorpions. And then we did this shows like 10
days at Lenin Stadium in Moscow. But the funniest thing was this
plane which was a chartered plane, like a like it was like a
DC something like a cigar to really long and very
uncomfortable, particularly for that flight. Everyone was
hammered. She's like I said, this was the anti drug, anti
alcohol, Ozzy Osborne, I will not I will never rid myself of
him standing in the aisle because the laboratory was
occupied. And he's going Sharon, Sharon is someone new. And
Sharon, by the way was this fat little pudgy English chick with
bad complexion. And, and Ozzy couldn't get in the bathroom and
he peed himself right there right in the aisle. You know,
like a six year old a huge stain in the front of his pants. It
was just unbelievable. And that was the get out of drug free.
ticket that Doc mageba. Again, everyone's hammered the whole
way through. And then Bon Jovi's doctor on the way back was
handing out housie and everybody here, it'll help you sleep like
oh, help me sleep. I was messed up for two weeks. I was
suicidal. Almost. Two anyway, the point is, end users of drugs
are stupid, because the real game is up at the top there.
I will say it is so impressive when you see how the big
broadcast personalities I when msnbc launched and they were
over in New Jersey. This was with my previous company,
actually was before think it was on ramp. And Microsoft who of
course, were one of the partners with NBC. They they needed a
chat to to go along with some of their programming and I can't
remember exactly how but actually it was Denise What was
her name? Who was a Microsoft woman? I'm sure you know her
Caruso, I want to say does that make sense? Denise Caruso,
she was a journalist. Now.
I'm not sure nice. It was Denise something or other and she was
in charge of at the time it was Microsoft comic chat. Remember
that? We have these little avatars, right?
It's another thing that failed. Of course, they never stick to
these things as a problem. They couldn't
scale. This was the problem. So they couldn't scale it. And the
the team within Microsoft was really worried and they but they
wanted some form of
chat.
And we had a bunch of these hacker boys like with names like
rat boy. And I forgot. Alan Louie was one not that that's a
cool name. But I just remembered these guys. And they had
basically hacked together a very, very, very basic, very
frickin simple CGI script into an IRC, you know, proven
technology, right? Go figure. And so we had this really robust
chat based on IRC, which I did this date, obviously still can't
figure out. And so they hired us to implement this. And because
of that, we were we were invited to the opening. And you'll
recall perhaps that the big interview they had an opening
day was Tom Brokaw. Tom Bradshaw tomorrow, giants ruling
President Bill Clinton, and I sat in the control room and I
was blown away by the professionalism of this guy. So
he's got his earpiece in and he's talking he's having a
conversation and I believe he is listening to what the Then, you
know, President was saying, and so they're having a dialogue,
and the producer is continuously talking into his ear and giving
them cues. And then it's like, okay, Tom, we have 30 seconds to
commercial, while Brokaw is talking. And, and he's counting
down the seconds and broke off, fires off another question,
which he knows is only going to get a quick yes or no answer.
And he pulls back away from the president and hits the
commercial break right on the nose. And I still get goosebumps
when I think about that that actual sequence, it is unfreakin
real, how good these guys are. Well, so there's there's a
couple things I'll say here. Because I have been kind of
following the Osmonds over the past couple of weeks, mainly
because, you know, Marie was in Dancing with the Stars. And then
and I like that show that she passed out, right. So that that
kind of got her into the news. I know Donnie, in fact, I've raced
against him in a celebrity race in Denver. During the I was an
indie, an indie event, IndyCar when I was working for MTV, and
you know, and the guy's fucking serious. Yeah, he won the race,
by the way, he's, you know, I was impressed. He was, you know,
we're all out partying, and he was walking the track at five in
the morning, you know, finding the apex and all the fucking
person wanting to win, he really wanted to win. But I've been
following this and the only thing I can say is, you know,
for what they had 100 Osmonds on Oprah the other day 100 so you
know, even though they're Marie's dad had just passed away
a few days earlier, they still decided to come to Oprah show
which is fine, you know, but you know, what was the point? You
know, she was there plugging her dolls, which she sells on I
think QVC or the home shopping network which is I think really
her main source of income and I'm sure it does huge business
but when you you know you step back into the limelight you
know, it's like a fucking boomerang. I've seen this happen
it's happened to me many times you know, it comes back at you
and positive energy comes back fucking black and vice versa.
It's just it's just it's it's part of the beast, you know,
only it whips a lot faster than it used to. And the turnaround
time is quicker, and the ups and downs are severe. And this is
just what happens I think.
Here's a trend.
Boys in Britain with increasing rate do not want to French kiss.
You're kidding.
Yeah. And this is I had a whole conversation with my daughter
and a couple of her friends that were here in the garden today.
And it's
Is it because the Brits hate the French that much?
That was my question too.
But now like, we ate his fucking French
no more detailing.
It's called a freedom from freedom kiss now instead of
French kissing now, they're just not into it. It's in Believe me.
There are a whole bunch of other stuff because I you know, I did
get all the details. But now that they don't like French
kissing, it's going out of Vogue. Pun intended.
That's interesting. Yeah.
And so I've told my
daughters to Sociology I think behind that. I really
don't know. You know, the first thing I said is baby, maybe you
need a tic tac, you know, she's like, No, No, No dad, and then,
you know, her friend Liz and a couple of these girls say yeah,
more and more boys just they don't like it. They just said
the boys.
The girls don't one way or the other. Not the boys.
It's the boys who don't want a French kiss. That's kind of
trippy isn't it?
That's wild. I wonder if that what that trend is developing
here.
I have no idea. I personally I'm a I'm a big fan.
With French kissing boys. Yes, but the way you set it up
was to say I was open goal. That was around the time The Truman
Show came out. And and I was we were back in Holland. We just
moved back. And I got a call at like 1130 at night it was john
the Mall of Endemol. You know and the mall is no and the mall
the big production company. Most Famous for big brother. Okay,
yeah. Okay, worldwide success sold to Telefonica for several
billion. He called me Ron Lim 30 says Adam, Adam, Adam, come to
my office. I want to show you something. I'm like, Hi, that's
kind of weird. But he was already a pretty big television
producer like okay, so I go in he says, I got a mood tape for
you. Okay, I know what a mood tape is. He says it's it's kind
of biosphere meets Truman Show. And he showed me this tape and
it was literally they had it. It wasn't mood tapes, it was all
stuff cut together and voiceover to make it kind of looked like
it was real. Essentially, it was called golden cage. And the idea
was that, you know, we'd lock in 10 people, five men, five women
lock them up for a full year. The new And then whoever would
come out as the final person would be the sorry about that
would be the winner of
like a million euros or whatever. And, and that about
three months later became big brother.
And oh, okay.
Yeah. And I was right there at the very, very start. And it was
completely influenced and and I betcha that pieces of real life
were in that mood tape, I'm going to see if I can find it
because I have it somewhere. The original Big Brother mood table
and later actually, animal went on to create a golden cage,
which is like a really harsh version of Big Brother with no
better loving sex and getting drunk and shit on camera meant
that he tried to sell that in the states that wouldn't even
take it.
Our standards?
Yeah, boy, we sure do.
Please.
Some funny happened the other day. And I have to say that I
enjoy the show even more than I used to. Because these are the
two moments in my life at this moment to two times in my life,
that I hear everything perfectly and in a beautifully processed,
nice, rich sound.
Because yes, I thought you can say it's because you can go back
into the closet, boys
Hey, no.
So the hearing aids, I've gotten completely figured out I've got
them customized configured. And it's fantastic. But, but if you
want to be able to hear things you have to and it's very
difficult from it you have to learn to live with depending on
the situation you're in, if you're in a horribly filtered
sound, an example would be in, in the shopping mall. There's a
good example, we talked about the mall. If you want to be able
to hear what people are saying then you're going to basically
only crank up the mids and everything else has to go down
turn on the directional mics, which is one setting By the way,
you have to do that all on the fly. And they can hear everybody
when
they like this.
And otherwise, it's just too much noise that comes in anyway.
So I'm wearing these things I'm doing Wait a minute. Let's stop.
Right. Well, I mean, you're just you talking in vagaries? You are
in the mall? You've got the hearing aid right now it's in
your ear? No.
Oh, in the mall? Yes. Yeah. In the mall. It's not, not what I'm
doing. Now. No, no, no, no, what I'm doing the show the headphone
is on 11 which is why I hear everything perfectly. And it
sounds really good. And because there's a noise gate, there's
nothing else is being amplified when I'm not talking. So this is
this is the way I wish the world sounded like this to me all the
time. And I can go to I can turn on music and I can put it on the
music setting. No sound fantastic ever stopping?
What do you mean, you poke yourself in the eye? How do you
make the settings change?
I thought I told you this is so there's six settings pre
programmed. And you have a button on each unit. So I'm
actually it's an odd thing
is a big giant button. I find the button it has to be
miniscule. No, no, no.
So the way the modern hearing aids is not just something stuck
in your ear canal, you have the unit is hanging behind your ear,
then there's a copper wire pair that goes into really they call
it a receiver but it's really a tiny speaker. And that is in
your ear canal. So so the unit contains the battery, the
processing, and you can one button on each one. So if the
right ear volume goes up, left, your volume goes down. And
either button if you long press it'll change to a different
program and the little lady's voice or go music or Chicago
party or urban or universal. You with me?
Yeah, and I'm trying to visualize Okay, so you get a
little thing in the back of your ear that you can push a button.
Yeah. And you push it into your wait for the lady is because it
will have voices come through which is kind of cool. And tells
you what setting is all this lid off if there's
other cool things. For instance, if this doesn't happen with me,
but if you thought it wouldn't, if you lose one, then the one
that's still in your ear will go last mate
which is an odd message to receive you lose one. Well funny
you ask.
So we're up here on the 29th floor and I'm taking some
garbage some cardboard box to throw down the chute.
You're still using your little thing to stand on. A little
thing I stand on used to stand a little thing for a little
scooter thing.
No I'm just walking down the hallways that
happened to that thing I gave it away.
It is a deathtrap they want to die. So I'm walking down the
hallway I go to the garbage room. We Have two garbage shoes
one for garbage one for recycling. And so I'm I got this
box and it won't fit. And so I'm crushing the box it clips my ear
the hearing aid flips off. hits the box I try to grab it no it
goes down 29 floors I couldn't hear it more than five of course
and ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping like okay
wow that's what I call a freak accident Yeah,
so I immediately jump in the elevator go down like that you
jumped into shoot
I shot what I like I'm not shooting throw anything after it
because you know, even though I might mark where it is, you
know, I don't know what could happen it could have drawn Oh,
got caught somewhere it's it has a wire on it. You know, there's
a he can get caught in anything. So go downstairs, run to the
underneath the building. I can't find anything. One of the
maintenance guys appears and I tell him the stories like are
you sure you put in the right hand one said Yeah. And the
recycling you really sure so yeah, okay, good. And we go into
where the, these big containers are where all the trash dumps in
from the entire building. And I see what he was saying about the
regular garbage because it goes through a mulcher. And any, if
you're throwing something down that that tube, it's gonna get
mulched. But and there it is, there's the the recycle
container. And you know, it's up to my chest I'm looking in. It's
like, I can't see anything, I can't get in focus anything, the
maintenance guy hops in 30 seconds, picks it up. And it's
in the wire, the wire had dislodged from the little
speaker. So I'm like, Well, at least I have that part of the
unit. And they said, Oh, and there's this, he picked it right
out of the recycling. Wow. And the What happened then? Well,
first of all, when this took place, as I said, when it was
going think blink, blink, blink, blink down the chute, my other
egos last mate, to understand kind of how I can be useful. And
then when I had it in my hand and he gave it back to me and
went mate found.
Yeah, I can't imagine if you're a complete idiot, you don't know
you lost a mate that would come in very handy.
Well, I don't know what it's like to be completely deaf, or
very, very deaf and that these things are only marginally
helping somebody so maybe, I don't know. You know, when you
run out of gas in your car, and I've had this happen, I ran out
of gas once in the Lincoln Tunnel. And that by the way, on
a Friday afternoon,
never tell you the story. You must have been the bad vibes a
digital exists. hanging over your head,
I tell you the whole story that it's hilarious. So these were
the days I had a 1972 and a white night 1982 Rolls Royce
silver shadow to which I bought secondhand, beautiful British
racing green, you know, great car, I drove it in New York
every single day I drove 80,000 miles I put on that car. And of
course, it's ridiculous. You know, I think I paid 70 grand
for it at the time when I had money. Boy, good old days. And
so I'm coming out in New York on a Friday afternoon. You have to
understand that in New York. And this is MTV days. Friday
afternoons, the Lincoln Tunnel is jammed. Because of course,
the the Jewish population of New York all tries to get out around
three o'clock in the afternoon to get home in time for for the
gods of the
Hamptons and out of town. Well,
the Hamptons is not through the Lincoln Tunnel.
Right this the other way,
right. But, but basically all tunnels and bridges are jammed.
And so I'm like,
Is it going to Yeah, they're going to Jersey. Joyce home?
Yeah,
the Jersey Shore. So and I know there's a gas station on the
other side on the jersey side, right. I can make this I can
make this Oh, and it conks out in the Lincoln Tunnel. On a
Friday afternoon. I'm wearing my MTV guy, leather jacket, my big
Adam Curry hair.
Let me tell you the douchebag of the day they rent a story about
this. They threw stuff at me people were throwing their paper
cups, like you a whole MTV douche bag.
And then because they literally have to close off one. One lane
and then the truck has to come through to push the car works.
Yeah,
actually, they come out front for hours and turn around. No.
They they push
me towards the jersey sides. They push me all the way out.
But I never again. And that's also when I decided fancy
looking cars is not good. Because you can't when it draws
attention to you never got me late either. I'll
tell you that.
I'm just remembering something. So Kleiner Perkins always had
smokin hot receptionists
they had some beautiful women in the front
receptionist and I forget the was a young woman forget her
name. Did you know we'd also be waiting we have to go there
every week and have you
always have to wait.
You have to meetings like just oh the board means I'll show up.
We're doing a show the damn charts against him, we're
spending your money well, and I would always hang out talking to
her. And she was kind of cool. She was snowboarder, whatever,
but it's just, he was good looking fun, interesting, good
jokes, and always be hanging out there anyway. And then as
Kleiner Perkins had these Christmas parties and stuff, and
I got a call from Ray lane One morning, say I say, Ray, what's
gone? Well, there's a complaint for sexual harassment, really.
And it was this receptionist, and she had this whole list of
people who had propositioned her and it was clear that what
became apparent is that she had a history of doing this
accompanies and she pretty much gone to Kleiner Perkins, and it
saw people out and at one point, she had asked me, Hey, you want
to go get high? I'm like, Nah, man, I got a I got a I got a
meeting here and No. And but that came back in some
complaints that I wanted to smoke illegal drugs with her.
And this was a ray lane, senior partner was reading this to me
over the phone say, This is insane, right? What's going on
with this? So they were targeted. And, and with anybody
that had like, I guess they had like, as a detective, because I
saw the old you know, but this guy showed up before this
complaint came in this guy showed up and he was like, a co
receptionist. It was very strange. So they brought him in
as the as people were starting to suspect something. And
he was no one's gonna notice that.
We're there to trap her. And she apparently had done this to
other companies.
Yeah, so business should really figure out what companies have,
you know, as especially a good looking woman, you can get jobs
pretty easily. And that those position
I was offended, you know, I would never ask someone to go
smoking, knowing me
know that the girls asked you like what happened in that case?
I never heard anything else after that. But it's a weird
place. It's a weird place.
The reason why I'm sensitive about this is because I once
said something in the Netherlands for almost 30 years
joking. And I didn't obviously, I didn't make a joke. But what I
would, because they sat me down, you know, I had to apologize. It
was a big deal. Well, let's
hear this story. This by the way, this show I want to mention
to everybody out there who helps us show they contribute to the
show, and they donate to the show. And they they produce the
show and all the rest of it. On any given show. I've taught I
tell this to people, Adam, or myself would be fired two or
three times. Oh, yeah. In the normal circumstance, but since
we work for ourselves, and we produce the show, we have our
own infrastructure, there's nobody can stop us. We do a lot
of stuff that is that would get get us fired. But now we have it
an example that Adam is going to give us of him actually almost
getting fired over something. Yeah.
This must have been in 85 or 86. In the Netherlands, I was on the
official radio, in the Netherlands. And there was it
was a there was I'm trying to think what it was in relation to
But anyway, there was a news item. And in the news item was
something about some guys that well, you know, you see how it
had to do with Israel and Palestine or something like
that. I don't really ride have to look it up to remember the
specifics. Then he said no all you know, the reason why this
gets attention is you know, look at who's running the media in
America. And I commented and I said, Well, you know, he's got a
point there. You know, the the names you see on the credit
roles in Hollywood often end with Steen. And man, especially
the Netherlands, people lost their crap over there was one
one very famous singer. And she said, when he said that, I've
just remembered that the Nazis, jackboots walking down the
hallway while I was hiding. I mean, that's the kind of stuff
that happened to me. And I was really just, you know, been off
the cuff comment I learned, obviously. And then to see then
the, it's, I think it's the was called the CEO. I forget the
name that you know, like an ADL of the Netherlands, by Robbie
something or other. I mean, he started making statements in the
newspaper and they're calling from I was like, whoa, hold on.
I'll come over, let's sit. Let's talk about I really, please. And
the point was to jokes or offhanded remarks, propagate the
lies the lies that the Jews run the banks that Jews run the
media etc. So jokes like that propagate the lies even though
they're a joke I just don't understand why they're why the
past has given what are we not spoken about?
That comic book guy?
What we're gonna do is gonna give you the backstory on that.
Yeah. Anything you said we're going to talk about on the show?
Well, I got to be careful because if I say it wrong, then
he'll get really upset. Who's he? comic strip blogger. Okay,
his name is Jay something or other I don't remember his real
name.
But he's a fan of yours are what? He latched
on to the daily source code couple of years ago, and he
started in the comments, and he would just write these
outrageous things. You know, he really, as we would say, in
Holland, his heart was on his tongue. But you know, and he's
he's also coincidentally the guy that started this whole fuck you
Adam Curry business, because that's literally how he talks,
you know, and, and, and it was just really interesting to me.
And I googled him. And I found out that, you know, he had
worked at Nakia. And I guess he, he had a blog, and he was
basically posting on the blog, you know, about shit that suck
within the company. That's dumb, paraphrasing, I'm sure as to
what it exactly was. And so he got fired. And some say he got
kicked out of Finland. They get kicked out of Finland, you don't
want to cross nucky his path man, they are Finland, and, and
out of anger and spite. But maybe also because he felt there
was more future in the platform. He became a huge proponent of
Windows Mobile. And he started blogging and podcasting. He go
around to these MVP events, which I believe he's been banned
from now. And he was he would ask really straightforward
questions actually, journalistically. Great
questions. But his approach, of course, was very brash. And you
know, he did be the equivalent of going up to I saw a piece of
video done in the apple UK store with a journalist went up to
Phil Schiller and said, so, you know, is this going to be a
problem with anti competitive laws in Europe where you
basically have to buy something to get something else you tying
the phone to the, to the network, and then immediately
the PR people jump in and Schiller backs off? And you
know, that it's that kind of question straight to the point,
and good stuff. Exactly. Good stuff. And it freaks him out.
And I think he his appearance and the way he speaks he has his
Polish German accent and he's just the vocabulary. Yeah. So I
got really interested in the guy. And, and that, you know, I
think Jeff Smith made a jingle for him, you know, and then he
started calling in and, and he knows a lot of shit,
particularly about the European Union. And so, you know, he give
reports on that. And what
would like what what give us some examples.
An example like a pro.
Is he an EU basher?
No, no, no, he really believes in the EU, but he passed Yeah,
many EU basher now he
points out all of the all of the things that are wrong and that
are messed up. And you know, he's another guy that gets
stopped, you know, going into another country, and then he'll
record it and you'll say, Why do I have to show passport? Am I
not EU citizen? Which of course is a great way not to get
through passport control.
Yeah, that works. But he's
not he's a beautiful guy. And then he one time he came, you
know, we set up a date after years, we would meet at the UK
office and this video was on YouTube and I think on his site,
comic strip blog calm. He interviewed me about my mobile
devices. And it was so funny because then he he gave me a
PowerPoint pitch about what he wanted to do to work for pod
show you under like a consultant type role. And it was so funny.
It was the only pitch I've ever received in my life that
literally ended with a slide that says PS Fuck you, Adam
Curry. Oh, man, this is so beautiful. Ah, well, I can kind
of transition from this into the two central bankers came out on
the same day. And essentially said the same thing. The former
senate chief of the central bank of the Netherlands, the needle
on some bank. Now delink said, Oh, this Bitcoin. This is
nothing more than tulipmania except at the end of the day,
you had a tulip.
And I need to say something about that good line. Well, no.
Other people do this tulip thing. You know, that's just
crazy. Well, it's interesting that Beanie Babies is something
we all remember.
Well, I but I wanted I did some research on the tulip thing and
this it's a little different than the way we remember it. And
there's a book which serve under Helm had some scan pages somehow
he gave it to me. And in you know, this comparison,
essentially, whenever someone whenever there's a bubble, they
say, Oh, this like the Dutch tulip craze. And I think some
history is warranted about the what that actually was. I mean,
what do you the way you understand that john? Is Is that
it? The Dutch tulip craze was just people went crazy about a
non product and the bubble burst and that was it. I mean, do you
have any men who are very
popular and they were being bred to be certain way to certain
tools became very valuable. And then there was a shortage in the
market and then people began would happen when people began
to speculate on the bulbs. And once that happened that, you
know, it was it was doomed, but it was, well, that was a, it was
definitely a craze.
So that let me tell you what what actually happened. This was
not so much about the bubble as it was about the trading that
was going on. Now, this is the 1630s. There were hardly there
was there was no, CNBC, there were no newspaper, they had
pamphlets, which are kind of like flyers, and people would
print something up and hand it out. But what happened this was
the they had commodities trade in the Netherlands kind of
invented the stock market. And this was a part of that. Because
what happened with these, with these tulip trades, is people
were not taking possession of the bulb or the flower, just the
contract. And that was something that was new. And by the way, in
order to understand the history like this, you have to get the
Dutch texts which I am able to read. So it's kind of unique
that I can explain this to you because I read through the Dutch
copy of what really went down. So this was something that was
new, is people would buy a tulip and they would only get a piece
of paper that was you know, the bowl this?
Yes, by the way, I want to interrupt. Anytime you have some
new technology, that tape or some new mechanism, financial
mechanism that makes it look as though you can make a lot of
money. People jump on it because they see you Bitcoin is
probably, I think is a good example not to bring this up.
This part of it is
yes, this is exactly my point. So people were in it to make
money on the transaction instead of making money on the commodity
itself. This is this is where there was a big difference. Now.
There was a lot of trouble with these flowers, they were hard to
identify. There are a lot of mistakes being made and a lot of
fraud. But in 1936, one of these pamphlets, again, very few
newspapers, if any floated rumors that the state was
considering taxing the tools was an 1813 or 1630 1636. I'm sorry,
what did I say? You said
1936. But and by the way, if you notice what you said was 1936,
which is exactly Yeah, exactly.
400 or 300 years later. Yeah. Interesting. So 1636 one of
these pamphlets floated rumors the state was considering taxing
this trade, because they weren't really trading or buying
commodities. It was it was like a kind of like a transaction
taxes. What they were looking at to on February 3 1637, is when
the first bad auction took place in Harlan. And there were
essentially no buyers. On February 24. In Amsterdam, there
was a big meeting, all the traders got together and they
said okay, you know what, we've got to unwind all this. Every
trade after November 30 of snideness. 1636 can be unwound
for a 10% fee on the actual transaction. Of course, you
know, the big guys didn't really get hurt, though some of the
little guys got screwed. And so it's kind of kind of like a
bailout. One of the early bailouts. But why did this
happen? And all the tech say that there is a very clear
parallel of the plague. The plague, of course, in the 1600s
was like, no, it happened. But the peak of the of the tulip
mania trade coincided with the peak of the Black Plague where
30% of cities were literally dying. And in 1636, before this,
this bad auction 12 or 14 of the big tulip traders died of the
plague and their kids or their family or other people within
their organization took over the trade. So it's not that crazy to
think that when you have like the backup guy running the trade
or someone who hasn't doesn't know anything about this trading
at all, come into this and there's plague and people are
dying and people you know, it's it's a weird time. That that is
was really the impetus for this to fall apart not so much that
all of a sudden people realize that tulip wasn't worth
anything, which to this day is not true. A tulip is definitely
worth money. It just wasn't worth the kind of money they
were paying for it at the time. So the the crash really
coincided with the new people coming in, after the plague
wiped out the original traders and that's the part that is it's
iffy, at best to say that, you know, there's a bubble, it
always pops it always goes this way. It's it's overvalued. And
it's not the only comparison. That's fair, I think you're
right, is that it's a trade based upon the value of the
trade and what you can make and selling the ownership paper on
instead of the actual
speculation always causes these issues. Exactly.
They're going to hate me for saying this but I don't care. I
remember being invited and accepting the invite on Ray
lanes g five jet to fly from San Francisco to I think it was
Burbank. It was Burbank or no, it was the Long Beach and they
had the Tesla's It was like a huge elitist thing. It was like
lined up there's the E Bay guys playing like everyone's plane
was there. And they had seriously and they had Tesla's
and you would wait in line that drinks and everything and then
you'd get in almost like a
few drinks first. Yeah, like a carnival ride.
And you get in line and you get in line and then you step off a
little podium into the car and then you wait for the next one
to come along. And it was your turn. And then you'd ride around
the tarmac. They had a you know, like kotaki or they had a whole
party on the track. Yeah, and this was this was the investors
scam. And you know, this also got them the money, this huge
elitist thing. Did you go I told you of course I went
you crazy you drove the Tesla were you no good No, I
did not. I did not get in one. Why? I didn't want I don't stand
in line for anything. I did however fly autonomy.
There's a bunch of guys I fly with their private jets standing
in line
to ride a Tesla and then they were putting up on the board who
had bought one
led board
that is that's like something is fine at this like some of you
find down in Alabama. Yeah, yeah, we
got a pig for sale. We got a we got a pig right here. Big fat,
big fat pig. Now anybody wants to buy this pig? It's like a
name on the
list like the niqabs Auto auction. They do that too. We
gotta buy over here we got to buy so who was there that bought
one? No, everyone was there visa?
He bought one. Yeah, but you couldn't I don't think you can
fit in one of these things. It's an it's a it's a it's I know, I
don't fit in the Lotus,
Lotus body. This dinky. Now, but
I wasn't interested. I want the reason I wanted
to write free right and usually is more interested in the G phi.
I sat up front in the G five and it was so hilarious. And it was
with bloom and Marta. So it was like four people in the G five
which holds 20 people and how disgusting it is. By like Ray
lane by the way. He's a good guy. Yeah, like I'll ride in
your jet. So I flew, I flew jumpseat in the cockpit. This is
brand new. And this pilots are all cocky like a and Ray lanes
in the back. And I didn't see this. But now they're drinking
scotch and stuff. And he's like, I'm like, I don't need to wear
my seatbelt on my own plane. And they land. And for some reason.
The brakes were on lock when they landed. So the rear wheels
hit the tarmac and boom, the nose wheel slams down.
Apparently Ray Lang went flying through the entire cabin with a
Scott doll.
Yeah.
Those guys are like it was the whole thing was embarrassing. Is
it? Yeah, they're like showing off. Yeah, I got my license
like, hey, were
you propeller Boy, you had a copter boy, watch us boom.
almost broke the nose. The nose gear off. was a funny little
bit.
Let me see what I have.
Right now. We're gonna stop. You're gonna tell us about
podcasting. We'll get a request from one of our producers a part
of podcasting that is poorly told. Because by the history
books started in 2004. But it actually started in 2000. And I
went to New York, I had to go beat somebody up over some money
I was owed. And which is a true story, nother story for another
time. And Dave Winer was in New York at the time, I think he was
just in as for some conference, and I knew Dave Winer from radio
user land and the blogging stuff, and RSS. And I had
written this, this blog posts, you can still find an
archive.org, which is the the final yard I think it is. So
instead of the last yard just said the last mile, the last
yard and I had this concept in my head, which was, since at the
time, we only had modems that were there were cable modems
that they were always on. It wasn't broadband. It was no it
was it was more broadband than dial up. But it really wasn't
all that great. The cable infrastructure really sucked.
But you know, you didn't have to dial in. So it was always on.
And I had this idea that in order to create a good
multimedia experience, which we didn't have, it wasn't clicking
play, it was click, wait for 10 minutes, and then all of a
sudden they would play if it was video might take a little less
long with an mp3 file hard for people to imagine. But that's
the world we were in. I said why not? If since the computer is
always on, it's always connected to the internet, why not create
a little thing, a little program that runs in the background. And
when there's when there's a new a new video or piece of content
is available, it downloads it without telling the user but
when it has it on his hard drive, it pops up a message and
says hey, I've got something new for you here. And then you click
on it. It plays immediately which would give you a great A
great experience like oh, I clicked on something and said it
was new and it played immediately which was would have
been sorcery and magic at the time. And I presented this to
Weiner who scoffed at me. And and didn't kick me out because
like feeling whatever, you know, I think he thought it was, you
know, MTV boy Shut up. And but then I took his software, his
radio user land progress, pro scripting application, and I
created what I was talking about. And he looked at it, he
said, I now understand what you're saying, you have to
promise me one thing that was that the you never ever touch my
software again. Okay, I promised that. And that's when he came up
with the way to implement this, which was the enclosure tag in
the RSS feed format. And we were actually using this for three
years before podcasting came to be. But it wasn't until the iPod
happened that from in my head, it clicked like, wait a minute,
we can use this in conjunction with the iPod. Because I looked
at the iPod and didn't say jukeboxes. Everyone was saying I
said radio receiver, all we need to do is have a way for people
to subscribe. And we had that the RSS mechanism was
subscribed. And I built a little script and popped it over to the
to the iPod, and that was the birth of podcasting.
But I'm
going to show my school by donation to no agenda. Imagine
all the people who could do that. Oh, yeah, that'd be fun.
Wow, that's leet. The good stories, by the way?
Well, of course, I've had a rich life. What do you expect
a lot of show business stories more than I
have? That's for sure. So, in so many still to tell john so many,
I have not told
you that. But we have another hour to go with more.
This is true. This is true. This is true.
In the meantime, of course, we are on leet. Show 1337 which is
lead l e tn hacksaw. And we promised everyone is special
executive producer for the elite show. And we're going to have to
put together a list on 1338, a special elite, elite Elite
listeners. Yes, yes, elites that produced this show today
that well, we also have a like more options like 130 3.7 is is
that the idea? Or is it just is it gotta
be three
options? three options as usual. Good. I mean, I want I want to
lead key chain I want I want to have a challenge coin for this
episode.
It will tell you I'm sure you want a lot. But I it'll be it'll
be in the newsletter I did yesterday.
Nice. Well done. Well done. JOHN.
already done this in the can.
Again, thanks to syrup and waffles or syrup and waffles for
producing this episode. And it's quite a lot of work you put into
it. So that's highly appreciated. This is why we have
the best producers in the universe. And let's get right
into it. Second part of my stories here on no agenda, the
elite edition.
Yeah.
TV Oh,
tell me about?
Yes, off the grid for a moment here with no agenda show. off
the grid? Well, we break up with with big tech, and we're happy
about it. Very happy. I do have a couple stories too, that were
sent in a couple things to mention. And your review. Do you
recall on the previous show, we were talking about the device
the manager, the manager of devices at Google saying yeah,
you should probably disclose to guests that come over. If you're
using a Google speaker or Amazon Alexa, you should probably
disclose to them that these systems are listening all the
time.
Yeah, cuz they didn't sign the document. The EULA.
Right? And do you remember what? We made a recommendation of how
you could shame people into not having these devices?
Yeah, it was extreme, but it was a good idea.
So Brad, I
want to repeat it. I
producer producer Brad reports. Adam? The bud porn search
worked. That was my suggestion. Say Hey, Google, search for buck
porn. And Brad writes in Adam no frickin joke, man. You just made
my phone look up but porn. I was playing through a Bluetooth
speaker and you Hey, googled my phone into looking it up. I
couldn't believe it works. So after 15 minutes of browsing,
but porn, email you. So it does work. Excellent. Thank you very
much, Brad for that report. We almost didn't have a show
but happened there? I get protested by the kids now I'm no
No, no, no, I
had a full on overnight point of no return test drive in a
battery car.
I crapped out.
No, no, no, I didn't crap out. But the former New York banker,
he needed to go to Galveston and I've always said, Hey, you know,
anytime you need my truck, can you take the truck? Leave the
Tesla with me? Yeah, so we, he calls me up says I gotta take my
kid to Galveston. And then the Tesla can't make it said, Well,
this week and I happen to be going to Bryan College Station,
which is 110 miles from Austin. Oh, yeah, no
problem. Go down round trip on the news.
No, no, sir. No, no, no, no, no, the Tesla will do really real
road performance about 180 miles.
No, no, that's not true.
Okay, I just did this.
I'm just telling you I seen the specs heard
on spec, she
was to believe you.
I got Ilan, I got it. I just gotta do you mind if I just run
through my experience? So we can just have a final a final final
on the battery car known as the Tesla.
Go. Okay.
So he's all worried He's like, Oh, you won't make it. So now
I'm staying overnight. Don't worry about a find a
place. Second. He owns the car. Yes. And he says you won't make
it when it's a known fact they do. 350 miles 350
miles? Which Tesla is that? A seven by tie all of them?
I don't know which one he has that s 90. I don't know which
model? I think.
I think that's the hot rod.
It's the hot rod. Oh, it's a hot rod. We already discussed this.
So I driven this before, but never done an overnight and he
was like, Well, you know, you get you got to charge it. And it
takes you know, eight hours like Dude, don't tell me anything.
This would be great for the show, or we won't have a show.
So let me try it out. He says okay, that's funny. Do that.
Okay, great. So I get in the car, and I driven it before. I'm
sitting now and he drives off in the truck. I'm like, I forgot
how to start this thing. That's how stupid it was, like, Oh, you
don't have to start it. You just got to put it into drive. I can
I was looking for a button. You know, like, my truck has a
button, you press the button, the car starts. So that's how
disoriented I was. But anyway, I remember how it works. I start
driving and he left me with about it said 200 miles on the
on the the range, the range meter. So I started driving. Now
this is a this is multiple roads. It's 290 7121. So
there's, you know, the roads aren't really great highways all
the way. And some surface issues which may you drive in a Tesla
on a on a poorly surface road. It's It's noisy. It's very
noisy. And I'd also feel like yeah, I think the tires are
something that's low profile tires.
A low profile tire, very
warm, very, very noisy. And I'd forgotten that you actually have
to keep your hand on the steering wheel when you do the
auto steer. And it says afterwards Oh, put your hands on
the wheel like Oh, okay. And I kept forgetting this because
it's just plugging along 65 miles an hour. It's deer in
itself. My God. I love this.
He gets some clip on hands.
Well, I'll tell you a couple of things. You don't want that
because these roads You know, sometimes there's a little
construction it splits off at least twice I had to really grab
the wheel and disengage because it would have taken me off into
the into the side of the of the drink. Yes, it's not it's not
that great. If you really don't you really don't want to take
but I did keep my hands off three times and then it goes
bing bing bing bing autosteer no longer available for this trip
you stupid slave he could put in jail and you get put into auto
steering jail pants to pull over you got to put it in park and
then you know then you can use the auto steer again. But I'm
telling you, john, no one should no one should rely on this auto
steer. Unless you're on a you know proper Highway near with at
least three lanes. You really don't want to do this. I'm
telling you three, two times that a really I would have gone
off three Dukes of Hazzard style. Anyway, so I get there.
Remember, I started out with 100 and a little under 200. I get
there I've got four ny has 35 miles left. It's 110 mile trip.
So already the battery things like your phone. You know it
tells you got a couple hours but then when you get right down to
it, you really don't
get 15 minutes.
Yeah. And I had to find a charger and just a hotel they
already met well, hon, but you'd already mapped it out. So this
was not a problem
no I had downloaded you gotta get a million apps you got to
get charged station you got to get Evie go You have to
understand what the different charging options are level one
level two and then the big conquer which is the
supercharger which pretty much only existed Tesla stores I
think
I'm out here in California
yeah i'm sure in California but not in Texas. Like Now luckily
This is Aggie land. This is a in Texas a&m, they got a big campus
and sure enough, there's a whole bunch of chargers but they're
all three miles away. Because it's it's a it's called a
station everything's three miles away. So I'm driving around and
chatting I ever been on campus in the weekend. And all the
gates are up and down. That thing's like a penitentiary.
Texas a&m is a is a fucking jail. Everything is a gate this
cameras looking at your license plate scanning you before you
can go in I finally find the garage after trying to pull into
one that that had a charging station but was only for
students. And now I'm down to like 15 miles you know, it's
it's a white knuckle I'm getting low battery warnings. It's we're
going to
shut to grade. The worst part of I just did all these electric
cars. Yeah, the white knuckle thing is the worst. Yeah, well,
I'm like, No, you can't look at a can of gas.
Hmm. So and it's given me these warnings and via which flash on
and off, they go away before you can really read them properly.
So we're gonna shut down stuff like what what are you going to
shut down and shut down the heated seats shuts down the air
conditioning is getting a little. Okay, finally, I'm in
the garage. There it is the charger. And now I really start
to realize what all of this entails because you have to have
you have to be a member of the charger network. So it's hold
your card, I don't have a card, I just want to charge I need
some power. And this is a level two. So it's usually no more
than 220 volts. And you jam that and it'll take, I think it gives
you 80 miles per hour that you sit there charging.
So let me get this straight. Instead of it accepting a normal
credit card, or American Express. Yep. It requires you to
actually be a member? Yes. Oh, wait, let me guess why? Because
it serves alcohol.
I think it would be for tracking purposes, you really don't feel
very free in this ecosystem. So now Luckily, well, you can
download their app. And we know what that means they get all
your information. And then you can sign up with your credit
card with your name. So now they have everything on me. I can't
just anonymously tap up or tank up or top up. I have to tell
them who I am. Then you can use your phone as the the near the
NFC near field communication. Click OK. And then you can
finally start and you put it in. And you know, I walked away and
of course I had to drop a pin. Tell Tina where it was she'd
come and pick me up in her car has her gas
car gas car,
or gas guzzler her horrible climate change causing vehicle?
So, you know, I don't know like, How do I know that? You know,
it's still charging. Yeah, what
happens if it craps out in the middle of the charge and decides
to stop? Well, the answer said Oh, well wait, wait, wait.
You're a member of the club and you've got this app. And so if
that happens, you're immediately alerted.
Possibly.
So I got enough charge. We still had to leave last night at 10
o'clock. See it's a good two hour drive certainly at night.
So it really only charged for six hours. So when we left I had
a I had 155 miles to go. I got in on like a penlight battery
charge pretty much into the into the garage that are placed in
downtown Austin. But you know, this car and also after two
hours of driving you don't want to drive this more than it can
do. You're tired. It's bad. It's you know, it's it's a sports
car. It's It's rough. You know, it's not it's not a smooth ride.
This is this product. I can't speak for all electric vehicles.
But this product that Tesla has got to be one of the stupidest
things ever invented and people who live nearby one people who
buy one or either virtue signaling have too much money
was
that Oh, there's that.
It's stupid. It's a stupid, it's stupid friend. This
is not the same report you gave us the last time.
I don't even know it's not your right. Maybe it's because the
car's been on the road for a couple of years. I don't know
maybe they did an upgrade. Maybe it was you know, the, you know,
sophomore experience like no, this it really was not a great
product in my mind. It's not great. It's not
like somebody they find the old clip of Adam going on and on
about the greatest thing ever and how that Hands Free is
fantastic or whatever it was a driver auto drive.
Yeah,
none of these complaints, none zip.
So we're going to go down route 35, which is you and we left
around for 334 o'clock. So traffic is building up and I 35
can get pretty gnarly. Let me tell you something. This this
car blew my mind with autopilot. I did not drive to New Braunfels
the car drove itself. Oh, that's nice come from stop and go
traffic, we were on the web browser were connected phones,
and the car is just driving by In fact, at a certain point, we
have to get off I 35. And I'm thinking, I wonder if it'll
actually just do that too. And that's how comfortable it felt
lane changes.
Click on I never drove one with that feature. Oh
my god. Now I'm very familiar with adaptive cruise control.
And with no with systems that keep you in your lane that will
kind of pop you back into the lane. But this was an absolute
mind boggling experience. Any car I have in the future, I want
this technology in it. You know what I did a reality show of our
family called Addams Family. In 2002, I think 2000 to 2003. And
we produce it all ourselves. So we had like one camera guy
living with this, I did a camera and had one editor everything
done on Final Cut Pro and it was broadcast every Saturday night
primetime. on SBS broadcasting in the Netherlands, you know, I
have the rights to that, you know, we could do first of all,
I want you to see it because I think you get a kick out of it.
Because even though it was completely unscripted, and
everything happened, everything you saw was chronological order.
You'll see that just by editing, we really made it into something
entertaining, and particularly editing to hit records, you
know, like soundtrack to your life type hit records, which I
should put that up online. Because I have the rights. You
should but I want to make everyone I want to make money
off of
it. Good luck.
So I'm shopping in this street, I'm going looking for some
shoes. And so I found some fun, you know, there's some, some
shop I went into, and I did some really cool looking pair of
shoes. And I feel great by didn't quite fit right. But the
guy gave me a lecture. So well, you know, this is one of the
last two shoe companies left in Holland that made these shoes.
And he went on and on with a lament about how many shoe
companies are used to mean I guess this goes back to the
wooden shoe days. He said that I guess there were hundreds at one
point Sure. And they've all consolidated down to like one or
two and they're about to go broke.
Well, and that's also part of a larger gripe in the Netherlands
is that they you know, they've been saying for maybe 15 or 20
years you know the government has basically put Holland into
the into the into the storefront window everything has been sold
they don't make anything new we were complaining about America
they don't make anything there was nothing being produced in
Holland anymore nothing zero you know except well banking and
that just got sold ABN AMRO, you know, sold to what was that?
Barclays?
I don't know. I didn't follow that.
Yeah, so that was the kind of like the last thing the
Netherlands has. And you know, and there's just no more
industry there. And it used to be a very industrious trading
based nation. No longer
I don't know what to tell you.
Nothing. So I don't really
I don't know why these countries believe. I guess you know,
they're all locked into this internationalism globalism and
they believe that they can get all their products elsewhere
cheaper in such a way that they never have to worry about ever
making them again, but Gee, if some you know, Hitler cropped
up, you know that in this day and age would be easy to do.
These countries would be a walk over, they wouldn't have to have
a blitzkrieg. No,
oh no, it would be. It would be very easy. The Netherlands Of
course in the Second World War capitulated within like five
days, they gave up their three rifles and two bicycles.
And well more than two bicycles according to the Dutch, that's
all they do. is they still bitch about the fact that the bicycles
are never returned?
Yeah, they get off. Oh, God. That is, that is a joke. We
don't make any more in Holland,
john.
That is, that is no longer valid, culturally speaking, not
politically correct.
Why when did that change?
Well, as we all got older, you know, I've dealt with lots of
Germans my age and you know, there's this great the new
Germans, I'll just call them you know, the generation that has
now grown up that was you know, that didn't grow the grow grew
up whose parents were born during the second In World War
they're very reliable in general that have to say in business
dealings. They're pretty reliable. They're, they're
friendly. They're, you know, they do I like doing business
with them and they and they, culturally, they're, they're
quite rich, you know? So we just don't mess with them anymore
because now they're just our good neighbors and we you know,
and by the way what an economy You know, there's the
Netherlands when Germany sneezes the Netherlands you know catches
the cold
so the bicycle issue is, is off the table.
Yeah, we we do not know what now we do not say that anymore. Now.
Yesterday we went over to the Netherlands and just to have
dinner basically with my sister about the both of my sisters
their significant others and and the kids. And so we just got
back and I'm ready to get this new year's thing over with
already.
So what's where'd you eat?
This place called a veranda? Which actually, I have a better
dinner story, although this was fun, but this was kind of a
place where the kids could run around. Yeah, they're like,
between the ages seven and 10. So, you know, it's like, we
didn't go to an overly posh place. I did. However, with
Christina and Patricia and Christina's boyfriend do George
Jake. We went to Clifton house. You familiar with Clifton?
Oh, yeah. Okay,
so we went there. And we had because we've patrician I've
stayed there before. And we went to have dinner. And I was
already there. I was like, Okay, I'm going to order a really
awesome bottle of wine. Because I know Patricia will be, she'll
be into it. And, you know, I was sure I could, you know, between
the two of us, I could probably do a bottle of wine. I was
really gonna get a good one. And I'm looking at the, the, what do
you call it? The wine menu, the wine list.
It's the wine list. And I think if I'm not mistaken, that place
has one that looks like the Manhattan phone director.
It's amazing. And I saw it. It was 1953 Latour. I'm like, yeah,
I'm gonna go for this baby
gets the price. Can I get the price? Yeah.
Now you have I know the pound price. So you know, your
currency, my guess is
in pounds, I guess it in pounds. Now England and they would do in
America in the United States, I think we would probably that one
would be around 53 let Jordan run probably about 70 $500. Now,
I would think that in England, because they're closer to the
source and collect those wines. broadly across those kinds of
restaurants. I'm thinking that wine might be priced as low as
3000 pounds. And actually,
there were a couple of tours the there were two different ones
from 53. And one of them was 30 401 of them was 2400. So you
were awfully awfully close. In fact, right. I was right in the
middle. Yeah, right in the middle. But needless to say,
Patricia Lang, I don't feel like wine tonight. And then what do
you do? He's like, yeah, I'm not gonna drink a whole bottle of
wine. What do you say to him? You know, Jordan, no
problem.
I know. But you know, tell us give me a doggie bag and I'll
take it home with me. I don't want to just drink it by myself.
So I didn't do it. And I know it sounds incredibly bourgeois or
what is the word I'm looking for? Yeah, we're talking about
it. You know? 7000? decadent. Oh, yes. Thank you. We're
talking about a $7,000 bottle of wine, but it really was gonna be
my gift to myself. And didn't have to die. Yeah.
You could probably track that wind down on the open market.
$4,000. Maybe Really? Wow. Yeah.
Well, let's do that. Fuck it. When I come to San Francisco.
Let's track one down, Johnny boy. They tell you that. Laurie
Turner contacted me that I tell you about this story. Know,
Laurie Turner, better known as Lt. In West Virginia. When I
went to school, we had a radio station it was wi TB which
officially stood for we're in the basement. But of course, we
all knew it really meant we're into bong hits. And it was a low
power FM station. I was running the station within like three
months. But there was a DJ there who had and she was a I think
she was sophomore junior. I can remember Lori Turner and she was
kind of this you know, exactly the kind of girl I kind of like
a little tomboy ish. And she had to add, you know, this, of
course, was early 80s. So she had a little bit of streak of
pink in her hair. And, and she was a good jock. And I was, you
know, so we wound up having sex once and the next day. She said,
You know what? I think I'm lesbian.
story that very few guys would relate to anyone but
my daughter loves This story by the way, the only time I had sex
in college is the next day, you know, and I'm really digging
chicks.
So she and she dropped me a note. The other said, Hey, man,
never me. It's a lie. She said her name is different now. So
I'm not going to, but she's still in radio, and she's
managing bands, and she's still lesbian. was great, like, hey,
Lt. How you doing? My 18 year old daughter really likes that
story. So what happens is, you take your passport, you want to
fly to a different country. And let's say you want to go to the
United Kingdom, not a part of the Schengen agreement. So it's
not really Europe, you have to show your passport when you
enter. The note will pop up and say, Come with me. So you'll
have to, you'll have to go. And there's there's some language
here about what it actually is so seriously, delinquent tax
debt. So first of all has to be $50,000 or more, for which a
notice of lien has been filed in public records pursuant to
Section 6323. Or a notice of levy has been filed, which is
basically a wage garnishment.
Which I've had this happens, let's say hi just happened to
me. As everybody. Yeah. So it happens. And there's so they
pull the passport. So the State Department has to go through a
rigmarole. And then the guy pays because you've you know, your
pay, and then
then it takes forever. Remember, I went through this.
You didn't lose your passport.
No, I would have had this been in play. But I remember they say
we know it takes
forever. We don't know that it takes for I
do because I do. Because this happened to me. They said well,
we can't win. My name started showing up on the payroll of me.
VO or then Poncho in 2005. I was living in the UK. And they say
well, you Where have you been for since 1999? So Well, I left
the country. Oh, yeah. We can't find any filings. Do you didn't
file any you know, you don't have to pay taxes twice. But we
can't find any filings from you. So we're putting a lien and we
think that's about $2.4 million. Mr. Curry. And they kick the IRS
came into our get your attention.
They did the IRS came into our building with their guns.
Remember that?
I wasn't there.
Yeah, they came into their hands on their guns. Noted looking for
me table so we can't find us ever hear of Google? Idiot curry
calm ever think of looking for me online? And, you know, so
then I had to go through all that
reminds me of the time. Does it number of john devore. I said
are writers. Yeah, believe it or not. And so I get a call from
the IRS. Guys bs grousing at me says okay, just john devore.
Yeah, just Well, you're gonna give us our $70,000 I mean, when
you're gonna pay. And I said, What are you talking about? And
me, me, you know, kind of says, Yeah, your blah, blah, blah. And
I said, I don't know anything about what you're talking about
your john Dvorak. Right. So yeah. He and I said, and then I
just, I guess I got lucky. I said, Where am I supposed to be?
I said, you're in Kansas. Kansas City said no. I'm in Port
Angeles. Washington was where it was when I got the call. He
says, uh, I said, What's your social security? Now? I started
grilling him. What's the social security number you got there?
He said, Well, what's yours? And I told him, he says, oh, oh,
that's interesting.
Really?
Yeah.
Do you happen to know what another?
JOHN Dworkin, Kansas is mine agenda. Why did you go to
Kansas? But she called the Kansas guy. Yeah,
you know, that is not the only john Dvorak in the world. I
don't know why they got my name or why they called me but then
that was all sorry. And they you know, I have you said he's
sorry, just hung
over. My point is it took me almost half a year to get my
wage garnishment removed for them because that, you know, I
had to prove, of course, that I had been overseas and I had to
go through quite a quite a bit of crap. And meanwhile, you
know,
I came up with this number, this, this multimillion dollar
figure you weren't making that kind of money, and maybe Oh,
no, but they look at 10 years. They say we haven't you haven't
filed taxes
here in 10 years, plus all the penalties and everything is
crank crank this exactly make $100,000 a year and end up
having to pay a $2 million dollar tax bill, and then
something pay for
DJI and so then finally, they said okay, we agree and then
still took six weeks for them to actually because he had the
media couldn't just say, okay, we believe you know, they have
to wait for official notice. It goes through the payroll system
and all that. No, it's it's hosed. It's hosed. I'm not a fan
of Kennedy. on Fox because I worked with her and she was tos
douchey at MTV. She broke my ass. I should probably tell the
story Or
broke your ass. And
yeah was the MTV beach house, which was the first year of that
was fantastic was a great idea. Everyone was out in the Hamptons
and a huge mansion. And we're doing our shows from there. And
I think I was doing a segment with Kennedy on wave runners,
which are now mistakenly called jet skis. And I was doing my
segment standstill in the water. And she thought it would be
funny to ram her wave runner into me, when of course I'm not
expecting it from behind, and what happens I fall off, and I
fall on the edge of the wave runner with my ass. And it
actually ruptured the muscle. And so to this day, I have a
little little dent in my butt. Thank you, Kennedy. Christina is
on our way to Jordan right now.
Why
she signed up for this show. Oh, no. Yeah, reality show.
You have to go rescue her.
And the way it works is they they tell you on the day, you're
going to leave where you're going.
She's been doing this before.
Yeah, that was not a good experience. This is
where she went to Africa. Yeah. And it was all actors. Yeah, it
was all she thought she was living with a tribe this story
that is the funniest, most humiliating story. So
the idea was you should tell it should be fun. The It was like a
Celebrity Big Brother type. But you know, get out of the jungle
type things that the idea was the celebrities would go to
Africa and live with an African tribe for a week or 10 days. And
you know, Christina called me about his I felt really bad. The
most bad somebody think that look, I've traveled the world on
someone else's dime, grab the opportunity. Go, go go. What,
uh, how great is that? Um, so she's in there for a week. And
she's, you know, she's completely into it. Because this
is my daughter's like, this is so stupid, but I'll just get
into it. No matter what. And you know, she even had her boobs out
like all the all the other women in the camp and his hall and
firewood. And then then, like, near the end, all of a sudden,
they say, hey, surprise, we speak Dutch. And it was all a
big joke. And she was devastated.
Yeah, there wasn't anything.
It was a bunch of actors with a bowl crap, customs and rituals.
Yeah, that's true. That's so sad.
So now I think that's a great idea for a show. I think it
should have been done in the United States. Now. It failed
miserably. The
audience did not like it.
Because it was too big, too. It was too over the top. Well, you
can make fun of poor African slaves. You see this or
something like that? Yeah. Something like that. That would
never
do it. You take it out of Africa and move it into the ghetto.
Yeah, that would work the deep south Appalachian because that
might be offensive to so it's hard to make it not offensive,
but it is funny. Yeah. You're going to tell us the Madonna
story.
Oh, the Madonna story. Jeez, I'm glad you reminded me.
Cavalia. You're wandering off. Like, like you were trying to
avoid it. Anyway, go on.
It's not now it's not all that big a deal. So the way it works
is you sit down in the press office in their little cubby
corner couch, so they can all listen in on the speakerphone.
Make sure not saying something horrible. Then suddenly show you
new the new vj is great. You know,
so much of this was not a live in studio interview.
This was with the well. No TV guy or the phone TV guys a
magazine. So it was Yeah, they were interviewing me about being
the new vj on the scene.
Oh, okay. All right, going.
And as you know, you've been doing this for because I've been
working in Holland and I'd met lots of celebrities. And so what
do you think of Madonna? Since she's not really that nice.
Well, hold on a second. Why would they ask that question out
of the blue? Because
MTV. No, it wasn't out of the blue. It's like, Okay, you've
been working in the television. You've been working in music,
television. You've met lots of people. You've done lots of
interviews.
So what do you think of that? Madonna?
Yes, it's not that nice. I thought they were gonna shit a
brick. And they'd like hit the mute button.
You can't say that.
He said if you say that she read the performance the video music
I want to Oh,
you know those handles those deals they would do?
Yeah, you were just you were you were being too honest.
Yeah, exactly. You don't want honesty? No, no, that was
foolery hire to be honest. It's not your job. Long thing wrong
thinking
occurred up at talking he had nice smile a lot. Boy
shut up and smile a lot. Boy. Exactly. It's exactly what it
was.
Sorry, they and they hated me. They never got pressed for me
again after that. I was not to be trusted with press.
Well,
it was a screw up.
Couple. No, it was honest. Yeah. It was it was such a double
standard. I don't want to get into it took a funny thing about
the about the game. Tony Henry is I guess he's an opera singer
English opera singer. And he was tasked with singing the national
anthem. So it was it was a game was here and think Wembley. And
so we sang the Croatian. Is it the Croatian a crow at Croatian
Croatian anthem crow. Crow at? Well, anyway,
I'd be the Croatian anthem would have to be
so he made a mistake in the lyrics. In front of in front of
80,000 people. So here it is a BBC report. He should have sung
Mila CUDA, c planina.
Which roughly means you know, my dear How we love your mountains.
But instead he sang mila cootie see plenty now. Which can be
interpreted as my dear, my penis is a mountain. Wow, that's
great. The funny thing is that the giraffe has no natural
enemies. Did you notice except except of course, man, a hunter.
The giraffe can can slice you in two. And it can actually rotate
its legs 360 degrees and just it literally will knock you into
pieces. The draft has no natural enemy, not the tiger and not the
leopard. Not none of that. They can they can kick the crap out
of anything.
Well, they got a lot of leverage. You know, I found this
out. David, tell you that story on the top half of a friend of
yours. I will give it in the morning for that.
There was a giraffe named after me at the Amsterdam zoo. They
noted the giraffe. The giraffe. Yes, sir. And so you know, it
was like a press thing. And I was doing the radio show in
Holland at the time. And they're like, you know, is it pressing
for the zoo? And like, we'll name it, Adam. And you come and
take a look and take some pictures for that. I'm like, Oh,
that's kind of cool, you know? And so but there's Adams mom.
And I go right into the video. We're hanging out in the cages
and everything. It's outside of the zoo hours.
Oh, and you are gonna go pet the little guy. No, no,
dude, I'm in the cage. And I'm the my producers taking a
picture of me. And I'm standing right underneath the baby
giraffes mother, which of course is no two storeys high. And like
maybe a foot away from it from its from its front legs. And I
look I see him with the producer taking the picture and I see the
zookeepers petrified. They're like, walk very slowly towards
us now. And I'm like, what they said, You are about to die. It's
a giraffe. And then they told me the whole story like you do not
get in with a giraffe. as cute as they are. They will kill you.
The day apparently the the douchebag elitist TED Talk.
conference, not the TEDx? No, no, the real one, the real one
that you paid 10 grand for is just filled with douchebags so
bad that women don't even want to go anymore. I mean, we're
talking about jump pouncing on women. cornering them, pushing
them up against the wall right you know, and seeing your tech
people you know, rubbing their mashing their hard ons against
women.
Ah,
it's disgusting.
It's totally disgusting.
And you know that that's exactly the people who are doing this
stuff because they've lost all control of reality. I've seen
this. I've seen it. You've seen it. I've seen tons of it.
douchebags. Unbelievable. The funny one though, is Gene
Simmons.
Kind of surprises me as a Gene Simmons married to Shannon tweed
the camera of the year.
Yeah, but you see he's not being accused of anything other than
being incredibly douchey. And I have my own story about that.
Because you know, he he basically is just he's rude. I
guess he What are you he was in for the fox, Fox Business News
studios, whatever is news to me and he offended members of the
team. And so he upset by saying hey, chicks sue me. But here's
the thing. I'll tell you. This is Gene Simmons. Anyone who has
met Gene Simmons for five minutes knows that this guy is
is like this and it's funny. He used to come into the the weekly
music meetings at MTV. When he was producing was he producing
and I was producing somebody wasn't it wasn't a kiss record
and the time I was the only vj in the music meeting. This is
where the payola occurred, although I didn't see any. And
he comes in with knee pads on jumps up on the table says, Who
do I have to blow to get this thing on the air? And I was
like, that was Jean. Yeah. All right, man. And you know what,
you know, they put it in rotation. That's how it works,
baby. You know it.
So we were talking about tea before he started the recording.
And I was wondering if the public might be interested in
some of our thoughts. Since you, you said that you move ever
since you moved to England, you've become kind of addicted
to the product.
Yeah, well, you know, there's the Dutch when I grew up in
Holland, they drink a lot of tea, but they drink it
differently than the UK here is, you know, it's really it's milk
and sugar, whereas I never would have ever considered putting
milk in my tea ever, before living here. But I found out
that culturally, that really works for me, you know,
essentially, if someone walks in the house and they've got a you
know, a bullet wound to the shoulder, the first thing
everyone says is, let's put a catalog, let's have some tea,
and everything will be okay. And and I just kind of fell into
that. And I love it. Now, I must drink at least during the day,
if I'm, if I'm, if I'm near, if I can make it myself, easily six
to 10 cups a day.
What's your preferred brand up PG tips, of course.
The NHS is such an expensive program granted the Euro, you
only pay $5 for no matter that is your copay for everything no
matter what it is for for medication, because I was in
this system. But I also remember right back, Christina dislocated
her knee. And she was you know, developing woman at the time she
was in, you know, in high school. And, and it actually
happened again, and so we shoot now let's go get a scan. And
they said, Sure, come back in eight weeks. And I like well,
but it seems kind of like no, there's a waiting list. Just
it's not priority and don't run in the meantime. Thanks. So I
took her private, I paid for it. And we walked into the same
place. There was no one there. They were just sitting around,
they took my $5,000 and did the scan the next day. So it's not a
very efficient system. It doesn't seem to now's
like a crock of crap to me now.
So now, we had multiple experiences with NHS, an
emergency epic appendectomy that did get taken care of pretty
quickly. Well, that's
a plus. But now
otherwise, I don't know. It seems like when you socialize
the medicine, the healthcare to that degree, you can get waiting
list and prioritization. It's the only way it can work.
Anyway, so I do have one print story. If you're interested. I
figured we'd share one with the no agenda audience. One, and
this relates to I think it was 90 9091 and I was in
Minneapolis, and I sent you the link for this earlier john. I
was it was probably one of the only three commercials for real
products back in the heyday when I was Mr. MTV guy. And one of
them was for Sam Goody music land, which no longer exists, it
doesn't exist anymore. It's gone. Right? I'm pretty sure
it's on. Yeah. And the big our records and the biggest store is
at Mall of America which of course is in Minneapolis,
but I didn't know that was not the biggest stores in Manhattan
at the time. And that's you know, that's where it was going
to be done. The store was huge. And so put together kind of like
a spinal tap where I'm pretending to be on a on a tour
or some fantastic tour and then you know how all these
commercials they always have to have like a slide so you can put
the current offers on it and so with almost like a completely
different voice in the commercial you hear
blank
like the bangles willy nilly,
you know like all these great people on tour with but it's
really it's the SAM Goody music land tour. Then you know, I'm
going around run around backstage and kind of like
Spinal Tap and this is the best concert I've ever been on. And
then I go to the stage, open the doors and then of course I open
into the into the store. And that's the stage or something
and it's in the show notes and it's one of the lamest things
you've ever seen.
Fits perfectly. It paid.
Not very much but it was. I think it was maybe
it was a buyout,
maybe $5,000. Maybe
it was you know,
not a good deal but back in the day anyway.
nor their movies by the
way. I love fashion. I love fashion shows. I
told you I went to the fashion show with my wife and Amsterdam
on this Sunday.
I had my suit on
with Juliet, that that suit. Yeah. Who was the designer you
saw? Was it just a bunch of Oh, no, no, it's just
it's one designer pulse filter. And Patricia works with him
every, every season on the show. And you know, what the model
should look like. And of course, I'm highly interested. Because
what I get to do is I get to hang around everywhere. And this
just naked models walking around is awesome. I'm not kidding.
Anybody. Yeah, it's not like they're posing, but they're all
really tall. And, and so I said, you know, excuse me, I just got
to hug you for a second. I know, you're feeling the same way.
Because you know, we talk to each other. And I always get it,
you know, I always get hug. It's great. But I really screwed I
really screwed up this time. Because my favorite favorite
model of all time, who always watched the pulse filter show
and it because all the mega superstars are big buyers or
celebrities. And of course, we're none of the above. They
get they sit right in the middle of the front row at the on the
runway. And so we're actually in an even better spot. That's like
two spots to the right. That's where the models make their
turns. They make their turn right in front of us. And she
always gives me john, I'm not kidding. She gives me the most
wicked look. I just like you know, it's like a fantasy. And
it's a game because you know, my wife and I laugh about it all
the time. Let's see if she gives you the look. Anyway, she after
the show. She's upstairs and she's,
you know, she's D.
Just taking everything off, essentially, you know, all of
our model stuff. And I said, Oh, you know, when's the divorce cuz
my dream has to finally come through. And she says, March 13
How did you know?
Oops. I felt so shitty.
So we took her out together. I
feel worse when she starts calling.
Dude.
Not a problem.
I
said it right. I said it's okay. My wife is okay with it. We can
have an affair. It's not a problem. Patricia sitting right
next door.
I was funny.
The Benigno Boris Johnson, our new mayor is his ban as of June
1, this is going to be funny. He's banning open containers of
alcohol on public transport. Good fucking luck. I can just
see the poor train conductor trying to take it you can do a
lot of things. But taking a beer away from an inebriated Brit is
just not one of the things you want to have high on your list
to do.
Right, especially if he's Irish.
Thank you. Because I sit in first class on the train home
you know, like at 530 or six o'clock and man can people have
toasted toasted in first class? Yeah, well, they don't have
first class tickets, but they just come in you know, bargain.
And you know, and everyone just ignores them, right? No One No
one says anything. And they're like burping and shouting and
farting all over the place. And the conductor comes by and that
thing he's like, he takes one Look at him go like I'm gonna
fucking deal with these bozos. You know, hey, you shouldn't be
you shouldn't be here, gentlemen. Yeah, right. Now,
man, and wait and wait until we get some Liverpool fans on this
rain. Yeah, that'll be fun. But your beard on son? David, tell
you story when I flew to LA with Sean Penn. No.
So we're open for anecdotes on this. Yes.
This is back in the MTV days. Yeah, probably 8889. And there
was a fabulous, fabulous flight between New York and Los Angeles
and Los Angeles in New York. That's all it did twice a day,
called MGM Grand air.
Oh, yes.
That was an interesting plane. MGM Grand air was a 727 or 737
was a
was a toy. It was longer play. It was a toy. It was either a 27
is 27.
And you could only I think it was like 50 passengers. Of
course, MTV, you know, paid for this because they needed to get
me out there. It wasn't that much more expensive than a
regular ticket actually. And so it had a bar. It was all
captain's chairs. And then state rooms are like four or five
state rooms. We could sit three people on each side a table
could come up so you could eat the doors could close now I've
been in those ones before,
like a train like
a train. I've been in those ones before by myself. And it was
fantastic. I had this you know, because you can move the two
benches together. You have a huge double bed. It was great.
But this one time I'm in there with Sean Penn in the state room
with his brother, the one who died. And then Sean Penn's mom.
And it was weird. You know, because first of all, his
brother was his brother's name. I don't remember him. He was
drinking beer out of the can take his shirt off in the plane.
This is bare chested there. Isn't I mean, the mom was very
quiet and it was really odd. like Hey, how you doing? Hey,
you're the guy from VH one aren't you? Oh my God. Jesus.
VH one really hard. It must have been the greatest. Yeah, your
life. Yes. I
said yeah, that's me. Hey, what was it like being married to
Madonna? If you don't mind me asking, he said, hell hath no
fury.
Then Then we pretty much just looked at each other for the
rest of the rest of the flight. Very, very bizarre.
I went in I went to the North Pole once Have you ever been to
the North Pole?
You're kidding me. You went to the North Pole.
Yes. Would you like to hear the story?
Wow. Yeah, that's impressive is no I have not
been to the North Pole. Oh, this was with onramp before we before
we took it public and change the name to think new ideas. Ron and
I were running the company and we had a client Molson nice. And
when and that was a promotion. That we that we were we did it
with the agent with another agency we came up with called
the Molson ice polar beach party. And it was a contest and
it was 100 winners. And it would be it was a cool is a cool MTV
like contest, actually, 100 winners would go to the North
Pole for concert with Metallica actually was Metallica hole. So
Courtney Love, and one other band I can't remember. And we
and we did a cyber cast from the North Pole. And was pretty
interesting, because, you know, we the only way to do it is we
took a multiplexer. So we could take 24 phone lines, and
basically convert that into like, you know, 150 kilobits per
second or whatever. And we had that linked all the way down
from top to jacc talk, which is Northwestern territory. So and
you know, literally, like, you know, a couple miles inside the
Arctic Circle there.
Well, let's get back to the How did you get to the North Pole?
Ah,
well, it's a combination of many, many flights. And the last
one is basically an otter. So an otter is one of those airplanes
with the huge the huge inflated tires. And it's a it's a real
workhorse and it just it, you know, you can sit in it and kind
of like jump seats, but it's really meant for taking cargo.
And, yeah, so you basically land up on the ice near drilling
platform up there. And, and so it not being the dark period, it
was light for 24 hours straight, which was really, really weird.
And, of course, you're up there, you know, we had our crew, and
we were sleeping in the oil barracks,
if you will.
And you as as metallic as as everybody. And so you know,
we're looking at there's nothing to do, obviously. And so we live
in and it's dry, right? There's no alcohol is forbidden, but you
know, we figure we can probably figure something out. So we go
outside, and it's midnight, but you know, kids are riding around
on their bikes, and it's as if it were mid day. And some of the
kids come over and we're, you know, say hey,
let's back up a minute. There's a bunch of people at the North
Pole.
Well, it's not exactly on the North Pole, North Pole. But you
know, within I don't know, what is it? 50 miles? 75 miles? Yeah.
There's all kinds of villages.
thought it was pretty barren up there.
It was pretty barren up there.
Oh, okay.
No kidding. You know, the next town was several 100 miles. And
that was
a new Vic,
I think is what it was called.
Anyway,
I need to give a little background, my own personal
background in 1990 to 2005. We started pod show, and this was
with venture capital money, something I'll never do again.
But it was fun. With Kleiner Perkins and Kleiner Perkins.
They had a CEO weekend. And we all went to Pebble Beach. Which
was really, really a horrible weekend for me. Because of
course what everyone does at Pebble Beach is let's go
golfing.
Of course
Yeah. Well guess what? I can no go I don't golf. But they and
Ray lane that one of the general partner said, Hey, I got you
some shoes. You're coming with us. And that evening, during
that evening during the final
reading, by the way, you don't really need spike shoes to golf.
Well, I still have them though. I have golfing shoes.
Yeah. Okay.
So we're wrapping this all and this is this the CEOs from every
big Kleiner Perkins company you can imagine, right up to the
Google boys. And then all of a sudden and we have a special
award for Adam Curry. And I'm and I'm getting up out of my
seat. I'm like, wow, I got an award for the most strokes ever
at this golf course. He was the meanest thing anyone's ever done
to me.
It's cute.
Every all of Silicon Valley was laughing at me. But at this get
together I see
you You got humiliated. Yes, I did. You were the butt of a
joke. Yeah,
well, it's lamp All I did is I got I got super bucks. Whoa you
got
but it was fun. You make fun of the of the MTV guy would make
fun of the guy with Tourette's. Okay, thanks. I can't play golf
because I have Tourette's. All right, the cat is out of the
bag. I should have had my T shirt on. I have a new t shirt
I'm working on. Okay, Tourette's. It's what makes us
tick.
That's very cute. I think somebody else wrote that line.
Of course,
I think I wrote that.
That's the one thing that bothered me. You know, I
did this and it's still not on. What's the what's the TV? I'm
blanking out? Yeah, I did a Swamp Thing. I did an episode of
Swamp Thing. Hulu, right. And it so that episode is still not
it's it's a series previous to the series that they have on
there. Now, it's still not on Hulu. It's like one YouTube clip
of one brief little scene but was a half hour show. And it was
it was great. You know, who also was in it, Rick? Rick monetti
mulready monetti, who played Ric Magnum P. I mean, this is the
level of acting talent that was on this episode. And just
powerhouse stuff. And I'll never get over that in the script. And
of course, I wanted to change it. But you know, had no say in
the matter. That this rock and roll guy Nathan, this rock star
who's strung out on drugs actually uses the word blato.
Like,
this is so wrong. Yeah. And
you can see me you can see me though.
Like, how about big wasted
I couldn't get stoned is a lot of Blotto.
That's, I was Blotto man, like, no, no one ever say that in
their right mind. It totally ruins the whole episode. Huh?
But anyway, yeah,
played that character. And you had to say it.
Yeah. And I did. And I think I made it work. I made it my you
actually use the word blato in an acting piece of art. Uh huh.
It's worth it.
I Hulu, ar Hulu Go Go make that happened. Put that shit up.
I raced in a geo. Did you know Yes. MTV. We follow the the Indy
circuit one year. And it was one year they had the race in
Denver, the street race in Denver. And they had the
celebrity race. And it
wasn't a Grand Prix or IndyCar Grand Prix style. Well, it is on
the streets. It would be Grand Prix more than
well, Indy. Well, it was the cars or whatever. It was the
same cars.
Yeah. For you, you had a geo.
Yeah.
So this was like the guy, the drummer from white lion Johnny
Gill, you know? I'm sure one of the motley crew guys was there.
And I had the in car camera. I got to find that footage.
Because I of course, I went around the corner and crashed
into the wall and kept going. You did? Yeah. The stick shift
had come up about two feet. But otherwise it's still drove. But
the commentary because when you're in the car and you
skidding around, you hit the wall and you bounce off each
other. It feels like Wow, man, this was a spectacular thing.
You see the footage on TV. And the commentator is literally
like, what does it do? They go you know how slow it looks then
like what it looks like. I'm a grandma who's lost control. And
the guys who are gonna call the official race like, oh, there's
Adam Curry from MTV. Oh, okay. Yeah. Like one of those like,
Dude can't even hold on to the we'll go Oh, my god story.
There you go.
Yeah, now I know what stories to tell.
I know. I know why Tina married me. Like, he's fascinating.
You You know why she married you because she hasn't heard these
stories until now.
Why Believe me, I've taken her on vacation. So she never has to
hear these. That's the whole point. Good move. Play those
stories when we're not connected. That's much but don't
worry, babies. Just old stuff you don't need to hear. You've
heard
it all. It's already been on the show once.
syrup and waffles. Thank you very much for producing this
episode really enjoyed that a lot of work went into it and is
highly appreciated. And I'm looking forward to coming back.
I'm already How sick is this? I'm ready. I'm ready to come
back and kick some ass and get going with 1338. All right,
well,
I'm ready to so we'll be back for 1338
I'll step aside for the enthusiasm.
Sorry.
That's okay. A lot.
It's been a long 15 months is what it's been. Thank you all
everybody for producing this show. 1337 episodes long. I look
forward to the next one. We will see you then. Until then,
remember us@dvorak.org slash na in the morning everybody.
I'm Adam Curry.
from Northern Silicon Valley. i'm john C.
Dvorak. We return for the next show right here on no agenda.
Until then adios mofos such.org slash