[upbeat music] Honey. It tastes just like it costs Influence on those for, but, um, my husband and I are $2,000 richer- Oh, thank God... and all we had to do was spend an entire day in LAX.
At the time I was like- The, the hourly rate on that is pretty good. No, it's not. Yeah. I was about to say it's not. Oh. Basically like
five hours into this I realized that, like, when I work for a large brand, my minimum consulting fee is $500 an hour. Um, so I did play myself, but- Mm-hmm... I didn't have to do anything. So,
you know, yeah, maybe it all does work, does work out. Yeah. That's, I mean, you know, you weren't, you didn't have to do much consulting, so I, I feel like it's okay that the fee was a little lower.
But, um- I didn't do any consulting. I spent my entire meal voucher in small increments. Um- What did you get? I did get some sushi. Okay. I know airport sushi- Airport sushi... is like rolling the dice, but- Yeah.
It's a little disgusting... I, I think the death drive just took over. Yeah. You were just kind of just like, "Either fly me out of here, or like, take me out in a casket." Take me out in a body bag. Yeah. That's right.
That's exactly right. Um, okay though. So the, the subject of your, of your talk, it was kind of like a, you know, one-woman episode of Tasteland, um, you could say. Yeah. Well, that's how I pitched it to them. Uh-huh.
Yeah. The, the famous- Months, months ago... podcast, Tasteland. Yeah. Yeah, before this was a glimmer in our eyes. Um- Yeah... I haven't seen the recording yet. In a sense, I'm also excited to see.
Oh, there's a recording? There will be, yeah. I'm also excited to see what I said. Yeah. Um, 'cause I am one of those people where I go on stage and just- Black out in the booth. Yeah, exactly.
Like, public speaking Daisy takes over. Mm-hmm [laughs]. Um, I know, I know that I brought a water bottle on stage with me and began with a reference to that Kanye West water bottle tweet. Mm-hmm. Um- Oh, on the plane?
Yeah... about what, what also involves planes and airports. Mm-hmm. Like, maybe everything does. [laughs] This weekend it did. Um, and then I asked, you know, the audience to babysit it for me. Mm-hmm.
But I did not sip from it at any point. Um- Yeah. Who, wait, so the... speaking of the audience, what, the, the crowd at this thing. So okay, so my understanding- Mm...
of what FWB Fest is, is it's like not really a music festival, it's not really a conference. It seems like it's kind of like a, an occasion where, you know, very online culture worker people come to link and build.
It's like a vibes fest. Yeah. So they have the music track and they have the sort of ideas track. Mm.
So it's a combination of speaking, you know, workshops, panels, and, and speaking, and then also the music at night, which- Mm. Okay... I don't go to a lot of festivals. Yeah. Me neither. Most festivals aren't like that.
Don't get that did. I think maybe it's close to how South by Southwest started before South by Southwest- Mm... became like much too sprawling and corporate.
And- Before it became a opportunity for the US military to sponsor indie bands. Right. Right. Um, Boeing X, uh- [laughs]... whatever. Um- Yeah... the dare, sorry. [laughs] Yeah. We were just talking about him.
[laughs] Sorry, buddy. Um- I like the girls who enlist. Uh, okay, anyways. Yeah. No, like what rhym- what rhymes with Palantier? Let's- Yeah. [laughs]... let's get into it.
Um, but I, um, so the target audience though, because FWB Club began as like this on chain community- Mm...
I would say if you took like the very small portion of people that are crypto literate that also are culturally literate and you sort of like skimmed them out at the top of the pool, that's who, that's who we're talking to.
Yeah. Um- Like you. Like me. Um, but I saw W. David Marks there. I saw Toby Shorin. Um, I did not catch our friend Ryan Broderick's speech, which I'm upset about. Oh, pity.
Um, nor did I run into him, so I'm very sorry, Ryan, if you're listening to this. Um, but I, so I started my talk with... My talk was a bit of a Franken-presentation. Mm.
I combined a couple of presentations I've done before, one for an audience of artists about how they might turn their studio practice, or how they might take advantage of the taste economy- Mm...
um, to make- How to like make their, make what they do a business. Yeah. Which I feel like is like the struggle.
Like, I feel like that's so many people I talk to for Creative Spotlight, it's like they either are like a great writer or they're a great business person, and there's v- vanishingly few people who are both.
Like, that's the problem. Yeah. I mean, I have like a, a list of people in my head who are sort of at the intersection of both, and I find myself reaching out to them- Yeah... often for solidarity.
[laughs] Wait, give me a- Or to complain... give me like one name drop. Who, who do you think does that well? Emily Sundberg- Oh, totally... is fantastic. Um, Maya Kosoff, fantastic.
Um, more people that I'm not thinking of, but those two definitely. Mm-hmm. Um, and I don't think it's surprising that they have their own business now and newsletters. Yeah. Um, so
and then the other presentation that sort of went into, fed into this presentation was a presentation I had done at Meta label for an audience of people that are interested in indie publishing.
But the piece that was new was I needed something to bookend it. Mm-hmm.
So I pulled in the cover of this book that I read when I was younger called The Search for Delicious by Natalie Babbitt, and she's more famous for writing Tuck Everlasting. Oh, okay.
So I actually was like, "Raise your hand if you read this book," and nobody raised their hand, and I was like, "Sweet, I'm bringing you a rare- You're making the taste... grail." [laughs] Yeah. Yeah.
But the premise of that book is basically, um, the king-The king of the kingdom wants to write a dictionary. He needs a definition for every word.
He cannot come up with a definition for delicious, so he sends out, like, this young squire to survey everyone,
and everyone is so, you know, in their feelings about feeling strongly about what the definition of delicious should be that it almost leads to a civil war. And so I was trying to use that as a way to say, like,
taste is entirely subjective. Mm-hmm. We don't even necessarily have a definition, um, and we're not gonna come to a definition through this presentation.
But then I ended with the book a- again and said, "But now you potentially have a framework to come up with your own definition." So that was fun and made me wanna reread that book. Um- Yeah. That sounds really fun.
Sounds like a good book. Yeah, it is a good book. Um, you know, I got a little bit into the history of taste, and I was pulling on, um, some writing that my friend Ruby Thawle focused on. Mm-hmm. Um, who...
Ruby was also there, ran into them. Nice. Um, [smacks lips] but basically, like, Ruby traces, um, that moment of, like,
industrialization in Britain and Europe when consumers went from being, like, default rich people- Mm... to this new class of consumers that was basically, like, the bourgeoisie. Mm-hmm.
So all of a sudden, like, within this new class of consumers, there began to be, like, these lines drawn between who has taste and who doesn't, and it was because it was still, like, the 1800s, 1700 to 1800s, obviously we had to attach some morality play to this.
Mm-hmm. So I put, like, up a virgin/chad meme, and the virgin was, like, wretched commercial spending. Uh-huh. And the chad was virtuous consumption.
Um, [smacks lips] and then I talked about how that sort of, like, carried over into, um, the American colonies at the time, that, like, a lot of these early... You know, we had The Federalist Papers as a- Mm-hmm...
precursor to, like, writing the Constitution, Declaration of Independence. The conversation about taste was not separate from the conversation about, like, what makes a good citizen in a democracy. Yeah.
They were, like, completely parallel, because the biggest question around taste at the time, which again has these, like, moral and religious overtones, is, like, is it innate? Mm.
And they were asking, like, at the same time, is democracy innate? Is being a good citizen innate? Are human rights innate? And then at the same time- Mm-hmm... they're asking, like, is taste innate?
So I think that that's a really interesting thing to highlight, because taste has always had these sociopolitical, um, ramifications and been part of- Yeah...
the same debate about what does it mean to be, like, not just a consumer, but a citizen. And I didn't stay on that too long, but that was, like, kind of the little, the brief history thing- Yeah... that I gave.
I think, well, I...
That, that's really interesting, 'cause I w- as I was, like, thinking about what I was gonna talk about today on this episode, I was thinking about how taste, like, is a civic duty, because you have a responsibility...
I'm thinking now of, like, when... The people I interview for Career Spotlight, where they're like, I often ask people, "What do you think your responsibility is to your audience?" Um, and I think...
I don't know, maybe most people don't really have an answer. Like, they've never thought about that.
But I think when you have an audience, um, you know, you do have a responsibility, because, like, if people are listening to you, if your opinions, like, w- you know, whatever media you consume ultimately shapes you in some way, even, even if it's in, like, opposition, right?
So I think, I think it is a civic duty to, like, be conscious about your taste. I don't know. But you said you didn't linger on that too long. Do you, do you, do you think it is- Well, I mean-... a civic duty?
Should I read the Gay Chingy tweet? Please do, yeah. I, I don't think I can say it as well as- It was so well [laughs] articulated by Twitter user Gay Chingy. The Gay Chingy, actually. Excuse me. So okay.
"Let people have fun is almost always used to the effect of let tasteless morons go out without having to know they are tasteless morons, which is so odd.
Should be used more to the effect of bring Quaaludes back into worldwide production with ready access to me and the homies." Yeah. So I think that that's definitely a comment on the state of our civic life. Mm-hmm.
Um- Let people have fun to... I feel like when I... I, I can't help but think of let people have fun as being, like, about, like, uh, Marvel movies and, like, young adult books.
I mean, I think pe- they would be having more fun if they were on Quaaludes, but- [laughs] Yeah... this actually, this does- Watching a Marvel movie... um, really well dovetail with W.
David Marx's presentation- Mm, okay... which drew heavily on his book Status and Culture, and I've interviewed him about that book in the past.
But the thing that really stuck out to me and I think a lot of other people in the audience, um... Well, my husband primarily [laughs] 'cause- Yeah... that's who I talked about,
about it after is, like- Your most vocal critic and fan. Yeah. Well, they were sitting next to each other during- Okay [laughs]... the presentation.
I was like, "Well, two people that I most want to impress in this audience." Mm-hmm. Um, but this idea of kitsch where, um, like David explains how kitsch isn't necessarily, like, bad art.
It's art that doesn't offer anything new. It's derivative. Um, and his presentation I would say was primarily about cultural stagnation. I actually emailed him ahead of time and I was like, "I'm gonna talk about taste.
Are you gonna talk about taste?" [laughs] And he was like, "No, I'm talking about cultural stagnation." I was like, "Great," 'cause they complemented each other, but we weren't- Very well... on the same beat.
Um, but when you have, when you create the conditions, like, which we sort of arguably have now, like thinking of Marvel, where everything is a franchise- Mm-hmm...
um, and you're creating more kitsch than you're creating new stuff- IP is, is kitsch. Yeah. Really, I mean, the first time it's created, no, but I think- Yeah...
when it takes on the aura of IP, it's already sort of post-kitsch, that if... Kitsch isn't, like, you've created something terrible. Mm. Kitsch isn't necessarily like, um, you know that movie The Room? Yeah.
Which is, I would say, more like camp. Mm.
Um, but he still came down pretty hard and said, "Look, we should punish kitsch or-"By which I don't wanna put words in his mouth, I think he was saying, like, really strongly disincentivize it. Mm-hmm.
Because if it becomes the predominant format, like, we- It's a death spiral for culture... it's a death spiral for culture, and it's a death spiral for the people who make their living off of culture. Mm-hmm.
Um, so all of those ideas I think I had heard him express before in various places, but he did a fantastic job pulling it together for this audience and pulling in more recent examples, including the Hawktua girl and- Oh, God...
her new line of sauces. So congrats, girl. Who's the, who's the team behind that? Like, doing that? Like, it's been... It was- Uh, Satan... I feel like- I don't... Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. Satan's helpers- Not Jim Lade...
out of LA. Not Jim Lade. I feel like, how... Wait, how long ago? Was Hawktua, like, two weeks ago now? I can't remember that far back... it feels like it was three months ago. I think Joe Biden- Yeah...
was still the c- the, the candidate when that happened. Yeah... so. He, I, he probably was. Um- I'm surprised Hawktua made it through the vibe shift. [laughs] Yeah. It's, I'm sure she'll be stumping for somebody.
She wa- I mean, that was the weirdest thing so far about that has probably been, like, her and RFK at the Nashville Crypto Convention. Oh, I don't even know that we can get into RFK- We, we, we should not...
the scope of this podcast. Should not. Um, okay. Kitsch, though. I think, uh, I don't know. When, when I think of kitsch then there too, it's like, I think the ultimate kitsch...
I've s- Okay, I've seen many of the Marvel movies, sure. I've not seen any of the Deadpool ones. But to me, R- Ryan Reynolds rubs me the wrong way. I feel like he's the definition of kitsch. It's, like, too self-aware.
Like, whenever I've seen, like, a preview of the Deadpool movies, it's like every line is, like, a reference to itself. Um, I don't know. Have you, have you encountered this? Yeah. I think
I've definitely encountered it, and I don't want to force transition you into our next topic, but, like, I think one of the reasons why local media and publications like The Village Voice were so powerful is 'cause they- Yeah...
employed people who did not create kitsch, who- Yeah... were coming- Who were too within the thing. They weren't- Right... commentating on it. Yeah.
They were coming directly out of scenes that were meant to create art that challenged people. Mm-hmm. And the critics of that art were also fluent in that language and were able to bring the reader along with them,
and we've definitely, like, lost some of that. I don't know if you wanna go into that now or later in the segment. I can talk to you a little bit more about Fast first. Later on, yeah.
But I ju- definitely wanted to talk about that parallel. Yeah. La- Do you wanna go into The Village Voice? Let's, let's do it. Let's do it. Okay. The thing that I sent you was, um,
a review of The Freaks Came Out to Write, which is an amazing new definitive history of The Village Voice by Tricia Romano.
Neither of us has, have read the book, but we o- we both read Alex Press's review in Jacobin, Jacobin, however y- you pronounce that. Far be it from me. Apologies. Yeah, far be it from you. [laughs] Yeah. All right.
Well, leftist credentials revoked. Um- [laughs] But there was a line that really stood out to me. Um, I think it's a quote from somebody, um, in the book. Mm. And I'm just gonna read it out if that's okay. Please do.
"It was as if the ragtag group of writers and editors knew everything and everyone. That's because they did. It's why they were hired. The paper-" Mm "...
prioritized experience, though not in the sense publishers usually mean."
So they prioritized experience in the subject these people would be writing about, whether it's restaurants or, you know, performance art, um, music. And then
later in the review, though, it talks about people from The Village Voice who went on to write for other publications, and I felt like the implication of that was that a certain percentage of what was written in The Village Voice and the talent that was cultivated was absorbed into the mainstream.
Mm-hmm.
Which is not necessarily a bad thing if being absorbed into the mainstream, um, is part of that cycle of challenging artwork that David talked about, which is the challenging artwork is created, the critic brings it, the smart critic, the good critic, brings it to the audience, who maybe is initially repelled by it, before it becomes absorbed into, you know, people's understanding of art or the world.
And, you know, you could use the example of, like, abstract expressionism, which of course the- Yeah... CIA was also pushing. [laughs] But,
you know, think about the first people that saw Rothko versus how we talk about Rothko today, which I feel like there was maybe a few months back a tweet trying to dunk on Rothko and, like- Yeah...
it was like the Avengers of normies assembling to defend Rothko, which- You could say this at any point in time. I feel like over the next- Mm-hmm...
last five years, I feel like every few months, there's, there's one of these, like, Rothko tweets.
And then, I mean, we, we were talking about this, I think, maybe last time or recently, where it's like the, my kid could do that conversation, but it's like, but they didn't, because it's about doing it first and not doing the derivative and not, like, following the instructions of the thing itself, right?
Absolutely. And you have, like, writers like Vivian Gornick, who got her start in The Village Voice.
Um, m- one of my mentors, Laurie Stone, um, was a theater critic for The Voice for a long time, and I wanted to read out something that she says in her book- Mm...
um, Everything Is Personal, about The Village Voice, because I think it's a really good encapsulation of The Village Voice as a scene, but also, like, what it felt like to be inside that scene.
And I know that she was interviewed by Tricia Romano. Mm. Um, so this is... I'm just gonna read out a paragraph from a review that I wrote of Everything Is Personal for the LA Review of Books.
"The Village Voice, where Stone built her reputation as a critic, poses as another unattainable character in Everything Is Personal.
In grieving The Voice, which shut down in September 2017, Stone again reveals her tenderness for the unreachable, past, present, and future."She writes of her days on staff, "I feel part of something I have never felt part of before, not even in the women's movement.
Everyone has more cool and swagger than me. No one wants to be in love with a sure thing."
Um, and then I ended up tying that to this quote from a book I absolutely love by Chelsea Hodson called Tonight I'm Someone Else, where she writes, "My love feels so good when I aim it at an untouchable person, but then I always touch them."
So what I like about this was even inside the scene, the people who were involved, and I also-- I have complicated feelings about scenes for this reason because I think- Mm-hmm...
everyone's always trying to get to the center, but there is no center. Yeah. It always moves the closer you feel to it.
So the closer you feel to being cool, the goalposts move again, and I think chasing after that can create a lot of weird behaviors, cough, Times Square. Um- Mm-hmm...
but I also think that tension produces really good art, right? Like, if you feel like it's your duty to earn your place, to impress, that- It's just this desperation that drives you.
Yeah, like nothing is a sure thing, nothing is a given. She's really talking about like being in love with her job and being in love with The Village Voice as like this...
Yeah, it was like almost like a lover in her life. Mm-hmm. And I think it's rare now for media to produce that. Like- Yeah...
I would love the people who are involved to Dirt- with Dirt to feel not a sense of insecurity because I really want everyone involved [chuckles] around Dirt to feel totally secure. Yeah.
But like a drive to, um, have a stake in this thing. Mm-hmm. And I think a lot of that passion goes away when you enter, well, the kitsch cycle, right? Yeah. Like, who's gonna feel like...
Nobody feels like kitsch is like a lover they're trying to impress, but like also when you're just trying to keep your job, it's really hard to be in love with your job.
Well, I sort of-- I mean, that's kind of what makes it hard, right? Is it's like when The Village Voice was at its peak, like when at the time, you know, the freaks come out to write when that book was written about.
Yeah. It's like there's like the, you know, the capital implications of that where rent was still like a few hundred dollars or whatever. You, you, you...
it was possible to like put your all into this, whereas now, like I think-- maybe like not even about New York.
I feel like for me, when I, whenever I think about media generally, it's just like a, a spiral, a drain down to New York, um, which I think is because I live in New York, and s- for like, you know, since I was a teenager, I was like consuming media about New York.
Um- From the farm. What? From the, from the farm? From the farm. No, I was- Francis is on the farm right now. We didn't- I am on the- We didn't fly him out... I am on the farm right now.
Um, it's which, you know, far, far from the, the towering skyscrapers of, of Ridgewood, Queens. Um. [chuckles] All right. All right. But, um, no, I, I, I guess what I'm thinking of is like I'm interested...
I'm, I wanna think about like other media outside of New York, like other local media.
Um, the person I'm writing about for this week's Creator Spotlight, this is [chuckles] this is not that far from New York, admittedly.
But I'm writing about this woman, uh, Amrina Lee, and her newsletter, Central Desi, which is like I think they... it's a little under three thousand subscribers, somewhere around there. She started it,
um, two years ago, and I think a lot of the people I talk to for Creator Spotlight are like these like, you know, creators who are making stuff about themselves for themselves.
Like it's, you know, even like Ryan Broderick, you know, like I love his newsletter, but it's a vo- it's from his voice, and it's like his point of view on, um, on internet culture.
Whereas this one, it's like it's less her writing about it.
She's like very much a serious journalist, um, taking like, like, ugh, the main thing she's done for the last year or so, about a year ago, she got an eighty-thousand dollar grant, uh, from the state of New Jersey to fund a fellowship.
So I think it was five young journalism fellows, and she edited them, and they wrote stories that were like about and/or relevant to the Desi, the South Asian, uh, diaspora in New Jersey.
So that's like where it's local to, and I think she has visions of it being like more about like more for and about the diaspora, like across the United States, et cetera.
Um, but where I'm going with this, like connection to like talking about The Village Voice, now people are so passionate about that.
Like, people, I think she and the fellows she works with are so passionate about this project because it is like an underserved media niche.
Like she, part of why she wanted to do it was because the local news in New Jersey like wasn't covering these stories.
There just was like, it's like f- somewhere between five to ten percent of the population of New Jersey is South Asian, but it's like far less than that where the story is being covered.
But going back to the funding idea, it's like the only way she could make this work was with grant funding, and she just got renewed for a one hundred thousand dollar grant. So she's doing it again, and it's working.
Um, but like she was about to quit and pack it up a year ago 'cause she'd been trying to do it by herself for a year, and like she's also employed full time, and like is a parent, and like does, you know, some freelance journalism.
And it was just like it was too much. But then she got this grant, and she started working with this other guy as a project manager.
Um, so that to me is like really cool as this like serious journalism by a community, um, about the community, like recreating and reinforcing the culture of this community and like, you know, making a canon of it.
But they're only able to do it because they got eighty thousand dollars in grant funding and then again a hundred thousand dollars. So- Well, I think local journalism is an excellent argument for,
um, journalism as a public good, that it should be- Mm-hmm... funded alongside other public goods.
I'm obviously not the only one to make, uh, that argument, and how it has been funded though is, um, I mean, Village Voice was kept afloat by like the back pages, right? Mm-hmm.
Um, and we might get into this later, but now we see, like there's an article in Wired about, um-You know, the sort of like dark web of like AI slop and OnlyFans listings- Mm-hmm... propping up
SEO traffic and then, you know, by extension, third-party advertising revenue on previously reputable websites. But I think it's important to acknowledge that like The Village Voice
was reputable, and there's no really debate that like, just like advertisements for sex work were always part of the local news and newspaper model. Yeah.
I think the way that that's been transitioned to the web is a lot more, um, controversial, uh, but I also think like what made it controversial was a lot of like, you know, vice laws- Mm-hmm...
some of which were supposedly to protect the workers, but not really. Well, it, it's also like the visibility though, right? Yeah. Like sort of the separation, the visibility.
Like before it was like The Village Voice was a, you know, alt-weekly in New York that you could only buy in New York, whereas now- Yeah...
[clears throat] like I just went to thevillagevoice.com- Yeah, and like don't flip to the back if you don't want to see some titties. Exactly, yeah. Yeah.
But like now I've just, you know, typed in villagevoice.com and there's, uh... Oh, oh my God, it, it's, it's gone now.
A week ago s- so I, I typed, you know, the, the hamburger menu or whatever to see the different sections. Yeah. There's the front, the city, the culture. Mm-hmm. A week ago
or however, like a few days ago, there was also OnlyFans was the fourth thing there, and then there was like the alphabetical list of like 100 different types of OnlyFans. It's not there anymore. I believe you.
I believe you. Yeah. I [laughs] I sent you a screenshot of it. Um, so wait, that's actually really interesting. Why is it gone? Like did they read the article? Well, turned on the light and the bugs scattered.
[laughs] Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. Um, I'm sure, yeah, no, I'm sure there was some blowback around that. Um- Yeah... but like this comes up when people are like, um, the internet solved, solved for distribution of media.
Mm-hmm. It did not solve for monetization. Yeah. And I was at, um, like a roundtable discussion at Union Square Ventures a few months ago, and like Peter Kafka was there, and he was like,
"The news business was never making money." Yeah, that's the thing. Or if it was making money, it was around
this type of stuff of, you know, having a Backpages or having a sort of tabloid business to subsidize the more serious journalism. The internet did not solve that. Yeah. It got, uh,
you know, got journalism out to a bigger audience, it made it more accessible, um- But it also made the, the, the expectation that, you know, information is free. Oh, it also replaced print advertising- Mm-hmm...
which was lucrative, with digital advertising, which, um,
you know, at least to the extent that it relies on traffic and, you know, we could dig more into really specific, um, digital advertising for places like Airmail or Axios, but- No... we, we don't know how Axios is doing.
[laughs] They laid off a few people this morning. But- Yeah... you know, like I, there's digital advertising that's very targeted where you can be charging a lot, you know, enough to be a profitable business.
But the sort of like baseline third-party ad that you're gonna be delivered through like a widget, um, you know, is not competition for what Conde Nast was bringing in on those magazine ads in the September issue. Yeah.
So the internet, um, you know, it solved some problems, but it created new ones and it never really solved the problem of monetization, which I think Peter is really right to underscore because I think there were periods in which it gave the illusion that it had, but what we were really seeing was venture dollars pouring into BuzzFeed and Vice, who have now ruined it- Yeah...
for everyone. So thank you so much for your [laughs] billion-dollar valuation. Contribution to the culture.
Um, you know, it makes me make, it makes it a lot harder for me to make an argument for my very modest valuation. But, um, yeah, I think there was the illusion- Mm...
that monetization had been solved, but all that we were seeing was, uh, aspiration, distribution, and, um- And bets by venture capitalists...
kombucha, kombucha on tap falsely subsidized by the same people that brought you Palantir. Yeah. So thank, thank you. I, I have supped it. I have supped, you know...
[laughs] Let, let who has not sipped the free kombucha- Yeah. You were drinking the kombucha... at the Gorgon Spacecast the first ode. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we all did. Um, okay.
Wait, so a funding model, like another local media... Like I was just talking about this one where it's, it only works because it's grant funded and it's serious journalism.
Uh, one that's like very different, but just another person I've interviewed is this guy Ryan Snedden, who he is in Annapolis, Maryland. He has this newsletter called The Naptown Scoop. It's every weekday. Great name.
No, great. It's, I, I guess that's the local, you know, The Naptown Scoop. Um, he, it's like a lo- it's like a daily thing. I think each one is about 800 words, uh, and about half of the word count is events.
Um, it's like, uh, music listings, sports listings, um, there's not, I don't believe there was any original port- reporting. Like maybe it like highlights a few important stories in other outlets nearby.
But he, when I talked to him like six months ago, he had 18,000 subscribers to that, and he, he was making $200,000 revenue a year, um, because it was all local ads and there was like three or four, it depended per issue, but there was like three or four ads per, and it was all local businesses.
Um, and he kind of was operating it all. He had, um, I think one or two dedicated ad buyers, maybe one or two dedicated writers, um, but everything was like part-time. Um, you know, it's only $200,000 yearly revenue.
But that to me is like so different from the Central DC one where it's like that's very serious journalism, like one story a week, multiple writers, and then this is like a, you know, he's just like calling up all the different bars.
That's, uh, that's how he started, calling up all the different bars and venues and being like, "Hey, likeWhat, what are the, you know, what music is happening there for the next month?
And then putting it together, and then getting a guy who sells, like, multi-million dollar waterfront real estate listings to, you know, have, like, the marquee advertisement all year, where that guy can spend, like...
I don't, I don't, I don't know how much he's actually spending, but let's say he's spending, like, $50,000 a year to advertise in here, and, like, he makes that back in one sale, right? So, like, he only needs one sale.
So that was like- Mm... and this guy too, no journalism background. He's like a, he was an engineer in college, and then he, um, [smacks lips] after college he found the 6 a.m.
City Newsletters, which is, like, a big network of local newsletters now. Uh, and he started doing it.
So that is like, that's a funding model that works, but it works because it's, like, every single day, uh, ex- I mean except for weekends, and it's in a wealthy area, and he's catering...
His market is like 60% women, uh, mostly, like, older than 40, I think it was. So he's, like, he's catering to these wealthy middle-aged women who, you know, are going to maybe buy a house. So that's...
It's, you know, it's, it's a matter of, like, audience volume and, like, local advertising, advertisers he can work with. That's how you do it. You have to know your audience. And- Yeah... I mean, Dirt's been called...
Somebody called it the Village Voice of the internet, which made me so happy because in a sense that it doesn't really make sense because the internet is a collection of scenes, but- Mm-hmm...
you know, I like the idea and theory of the internet being its own culture that could theoretically- Yeah... have, um, have a village voice to delve into cu- also those cultural pockets.
But, you know, the one thing that I did for... I mean, if somebody wants to copy me, free idea, but I'm, I already did it. Um- [laughs] You know, like obviously- That'd be case to do it, yeah...
it's not available for me to, like, call up a bar and be like, "Do you wanna advertise in Dirt?" Because my audience is global. Yeah.
But, you know, one thing that I have done is, um, you- Esquire published an article by my friend Kate Dwyer about how hard it is for debut authors to market their books.
So I went through our entire email list and emailed everyone that works in publishing. I said, "We saw the Esquire article.
We wanna let you know that you can market your debut authors in Dirt, and not only can you market in Dirt, but if it's a debut author, it's, if it's their first book, I'll cut you a deal." Nice.
"And we're gonna run this, you know, this deal," you know, whatever. So, and that works. That's so sick. People bought, they bought ads for debut author books.
Um, and I think that's, like, an example of knowing your audience if, if you don't have the sort of like, Main Street small business- Mm... local opportunity available to you, and also, like,
I hate to say it, don't know how many of our readers are buying houses right now. [laughs] Yeah. Like, you have to meet people- Look, I'm a reader... where they're at... I'm nowhere near buying a house. Right. Well-
I should tell you... you have a farm, so. Yeah. Well, it's not my farm. [laughs] But it could be someday. Uh, I, I don't want it, I'll be honest with you. I want it. You want it? Well- Uh, Francis...
Well, so when I was in the airport... Look- Yeah... when you were in the airport, I wasn't taunting you. When I was- Uh-uh...
in the airport, you were sending me photos of, like, pancakes with fresh peaches and blueberries. Actually, Libby, it was crepes. It was crepes. Oh, God. Just twisting the knife.
[laughs] Um- See, that is, that is the thing. I, that's, that's the nice thing about being out here, is I'm eating very... You know, sun gold tomatoes off the vine. Yeah. Blueberry, you know, blueberries by the handful.
You know, they're spilling out on the floor. You do look a little blue, I'm not gonna lie. I do. [laughs] It's, it's the denim. We got, might have to do... Hey, Tom, can we do some color correct? Yeah.
[laughs] So Tom is our producer, right? His name's Tom. Yes, his name's Tom. Yeah, Tom's our producer, and now he's gonna become a character. Mm-hmm.
So if you guys are wondering why I'm not moving around so much this week. [laughs] You could move your hands. You know, it's anti-Italian discrimination, like you said. Yeah.
Well, I was told I need to stay afoot from my mic, and I'm trying to behave, but if I look like I'm not having a good time this week, that's why. And- Mm-hmm...
I, it made me think of when we were younger, my mom's trick to keep us in our high chair, she would put us in overalls, and then she would take the straps of the overalls, and she would, like, run them through the back- Oh, through the highchair?
... of the highchair so we were strapped. That's so smart. And so smart, and that's- Mm-hmm... I feel like I've mentally, I've, like, strapped myself to my husband's gaming chair. So- Yeah...
um, yeah, not moving around as, as much this week, but it is very difficult for me to express myself without my hands. Um, but- Is he a gamer? Does he just have the gaming chair? Oh, yeah. He is. I- He's gaming?
No, why would he have this? I mean, for ergonomics. That's, that's like a th- yeah, I feel like that's a thing, like, you know, people, work from home people will have, like, a gaming chair 'cause they're so...
They're built for- Sure, yeah... you know, sitting in for f- 15 hours on end. I mean, all of the above.
So, you know, I'm struggling right now, but seeing everyone shower Nancy Pelosi with praise for being a strong Italian woman is giving me the strength to- [laughs] To carry on... get through, get through today's ordeal.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, okay. Well, speaking about being on the farm, now I'm thinking about, like, the local, the local media here, right? Mm. Uh, and, like, when I was growing up, there was, there was two things.
There was the, like... [sighs] I think it was, like, a monthly thing that was like, you know... What it was it called when it's like a, like a... It, it was called The Journal.
Um, but, and then there was the, another weekly one that was, like, The Eye that was even more alternative. But, like, as a kid,
I would read the j- I would love to read The Journal, and usually I'd, like, you know, go to, like, the movie listings and, like, restaurant reviews. The typical, like, the culture stuff.
Um, and then sometimes I'd read one of the front page things. But now, like, at some point, I, [sighs] I don't know how long ago it, it was now, like seven or 10 years ago, it became...
Like, the, there's this online thing, The Lost Coast Outpost, that became, like- Mm... the main source, and that is, like, you know, the... I don't know. I want...
I'm actually really curious how big of an operation they have. But now that's, like, all, like, the, the live, like, [smacks lips] uh, bookings and stuff and, like, you know, original journalism too.
But I remember it feeling that it was so, it was so odd to me.
It must've been, like, sometime when I was in college, uh, it was, like, a decade ago, that, like, this became the local media, and it, it felt so strange to me that, like, my, like, small town,
you know, hometown, like, middle of nowhere Northern California coast now had, like, an online media-Portal, or portal's not the right word, but you know what I mean?
Like, it, it was like I always thought of this place as somewhere that was so, like, isolated from the world and from the internet, and that's partially why I wanted to leave. Um, but then it, you know...
That became, like, the, the sustainable model for local journalism here. I don't know if it's sustainable, but it's been going for 10 years, so. So you wanna hear a farm story that relates to The Village Voice?
[laughs] I do. So I saved this for you if we had time. So, um, when I read Alex Press's, um, [smacks lips] review, I remembered that Norman Mailer was actually one of the founders of The Village Voice. Oh.
Um- I had no idea. A few years ago, I was, um, [smacks lips] I was supposed to write this story, which I never ended up writing, um, about Norman Mailer. You've got time now.
And he was involved in, like, a hashish smuggling operation that involved running drugs, um, through a farm in Maine. Oh. Um, he- Wow, this is such a you story. Excuse me. It's just the Maine...
I'm, I'm pigeon- I'm sorry, I'm pigeonholing you. No, it's fine. I just, you know. [laughs] Sorry. Um, I can't be contained. See, look, I'm already starting to move. Uh... [laughs] I moved closer to the mic.
You almost got me there. [laughs] No. I would if I could. Um, okay. So, okay, so he had two friends, um, Buzz Farber and Richard Stratton, who were also involved in this. They went to prison. He did not.
And basically, [smacks lips] the, they really, like, the, the feds, whatever- Mm-hmm... desperately wanted to link Norman Mailer to this, but they weren't able to.
But, um, like, the theory is that, like, Farber and Stratton got worse, uh, sentences kind of out of retaliation for not being able to link Mailer. So I'm gonna take you through some- Thank you... of this story.
And this comes from, um, this comes from the pitch that I wrote about this. So I researched it a lot ahead of time. But basically, Bars Farber, Buzz Farber went to
s- prison for six years for conspiracy to import, actual importation and conspiracy to distribute hashish, which originally came from Lebanon.
Um, and Farber was working for this guy, Richard Stratton, um, who later wrote an autobiography called Smuggler's Blues: A True Story of the Hippie Mafia. That's such a good name.
Um, and both men basically got harsher sentences for their refusal to implicate Mailer. But in Farber's case, he actually did try to, [laughs] to get Mailer.
He wore a wire when he ate dinner with Mailer at Armando's in Brooklyn Heights, and they even know what they were eating. Oh. They said veal Parmesan and spaghetti al burro.
Um, and Stratton straight up refused to cooperate with the government. So he was arrested in Maine after buying out a farm that he co-owned with Mailer.
Um, [smacks lips] and he basically ran his smuggling business close to the Canadian border. They were, like, 60 miles from the border. Um, [smacks lips]
but there was, like, a lot of concern for Farber particularly because I think, I guess he had had a few, like, nervous breakdowns. Like, his mental health was a little bit more, um, [smacks lips] delicate.
They were concerned that he, like, would not do well in prison.
Um, so the reason I found out about this story is when I was working at The New York Review of Books, I found this letter from a bunch of famous people that was published in The New York Review of Books basically asking for his, for Farber's sentence to be commuted.
Hmm. Um, so they wrote a letter to New York Review of Books in 1987 decrying the injustice of his sentence. And, um, basically, this is a quote from the letter.
It says, "Buzz Farber has suffered and will continue to suffer, not only with remorse about his crime, but because of the government's continued hope that somehow, through the enormous pressure being brought to bear on him, they will be able to get Mailer and make much capital out of indicting and attempting to convict this innocent"...
at least to this matter. [laughs] Mailer was not, [laughs] was not a good guy. Another, another goody two-shoes. Internationally known literary figure.
And the signatories include Nora Ephron, George Plimpton, and Gay Talese. Um, and basically they think the government was targeting Mailer because of his stance against the Vietnam War- Mm...
and because he liked to attack, uh, Nixon. So there's some more stuff. I mean, ultimately, it's a really sad story because, uh, Buzz Farber committed suicide after he was released from prison. Oh, shit.
Um, and Mailer was really shocked by this. But Farber's daughter, Jennifer, who worked for Esquire, [smacks lips]
um, has written about this really, this whole situation as well, and basically, like, um, basically said that, like, Mailer was, like, totally in denial about how much of this and the ultimate outcome had to do with h- the him, basically.
Yeah. Um, I think he was kinda just like, "Well, my friends are in prison. This is, like, kinda badass. They'll come out and they'll write about it." Yeah. And, like, this is gonna kind of up their street cred almost.
Mm-hmm. And not, like, um, these people are kinda taking the fall for me and, you know, could lead to a lot of trauma.
Um- He was, like, looking at it more as, like, an opportunity for, like, raw material for writing rather than a real life being ruined.
Well, yeah, to quote Nora Ephron, who some- is kind of in this story a little bit in an adjacent way, um, I think he had an everything is copy mentality about it. Mm-hmm.
So, which I'm sure [laughs] is how he got into smuggling drugs in the first place. Yeah. Um, part of it. So yeah, that's, um, that's my tie-in between farms and The Village Voice. [laughs] Mm-hmm.
No, that, that's a good... I think the everything is copy, that's... The, the way I take that sometimes is, like, doing it for the anthropology of it all. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Uh, which is, like, whenever I'm at, like, a diner in a weird place, as I was once like a year or two ago in a small town in Pennsylvania and they have, like, some weird thing on the menu, I, like, have to order it.
Where I'm like, "This is, you know, it's, I gotta do it for journalism's sake"- Yeah... "when telling the tale." That's how I feel about minting NFTs. And minting... [laughs] You know, I, I, I have two.
That's all I have. I unfortunately did not mint a dirt NFT. But, um,
yeah, when I said doing it for the journalism, it usually means, like, then telling it to you in a situation like this or, you know, just in other storytelling situations.
But, um, I did have a-Blue cheese hot wing omelet in, um, a small town in Pennsylvania. It was... I would not get it again. Mm. But it was not as bad as you think. I didn't think it.
I actually thought it sounded pretty good [laughs] to be honest. It sounds pretty good. Well, it was pretty good. So was it, um,
buffalo chicken, pieces of buffalo chicken, but also blue cheese as the sort of, like, cheese element of this omelet? It was not... No, no.
It was like blue cheese [laughs], it was like blue cheese wing sauce, like, poured on top of the omelet. What was in the omelet? It wasn't, like, blue cheese. Well, it's in, it w- in the omelet was, was buffalo chicken.
Mm-hmm. That was it. Shredded buffalo chicken in a buffalo sauce with the blue cheese [laughs], with the, with the blue cheese on top. No, that sounds great. Yeah. I love all of those things. I would eat that.
Exactly, yeah. They... Yeah, I think they go together. Okay. Um, before we wrap up, I do wanna, I wanna bring it back to FWB Fest- Mm-hmm... uh, one more time. Give me... What was, what was, like, the musical highlight?
We didn't talk about the music at all. Yeah, yeah, I realized that after, um, we moved on [laughs] from that- [laughs]... maybe prematurely. Um, the music was unbelievable. Yeah. It was so well put together. Like, kudos.
Um, you know, amazing balance between big acts and small acts. Mm-hmm. And I've heard, like, booking... So I might be wrong. This is what I heard. You know, somebody can write in and yell at me if this is wrong.
Coachella doesn't just have, like, a, um, exclusivity clause for that festival. They actually have a geographical- It's, like, hundreds of miles, right? Mm-hmm, which includes Idyllwild. Yeah.
So if you're running a festival in Idyllwild, you cannot book... They could not book anyone that was at Coachella. Mm.
So, you know, that's could be limiting, but I actually think it's an opportunity to curate a better, like, list. And, um, you know, they had a headliner each night. So the first night was Perfume Genius. Amazing. Mm.
My favorite act. Iconic. Second night, it was A. G. Cook. Um, I, I knew Soul Breaker as Cook's, like, best track. Mm-hmm. And Soul Breaker has this amazing, like, animated music video. Mm.
And I was shocked when I went to YouTube and it had sub, like, 200K views- Yeah... because it was incredible. And the graphics, it's almost like Studio Ghibli meets, like- It is. You sent it to me... cyberpunk.
I watched it. Yeah. Oh, I did. Yeah. I sent it to you from, from the airport. Yeah. [laughs] Um, so they had that going behind, um, A.
G., like, while they were performing, and then I was able to watch it again on YouTube. Um, Perfume Genius, I knew a lot of the songs. But, like, also smaller acts, Vérité- Mm... unbelievable performer.
I'm, I'm not familiar. Um, OK KAYA, who I realized after, like, I have a bunch of OK KAYA stuff, like, liked on my Spotify, but just didn't even- Mm... make the connection. Um, Tirzah was there.
Tirzah, like, performed in the dark, which was, like, an interesting [laughs] decision- Hmm... but I was into it. Just no lights on the stage. Well, minimal. It's like, the amphitheater, too, it's not, like...
My understanding is it's, like, a very, like, you know, layabout amphitheater. Like, a gentle, grassy slope, and there's, like, not very many people there.
So it's, like, everybody's kind of just sprawled out, has their own space. You're kinda just- Yeah... chilling, right? They had these, like, um, the beanbags that are almost like wind socks. Mm, mm-hmm.
So you, like, run and fill it with air and then twist it- I know those... and then lie on it. Yeah. Yeah.
Um, I think that there's a canopy over the amphitheater that's, like, a permanent fixture of this arts academy, which I, like, deeply regret not going to now. Mm-hmm.
Um, so yeah, it was be- very bucolic and not a ton of people there, not crowded, no line for the bathroom, which is, like... I mean, I think I would go to more festivals if they were like this. Yeah.
And also, like, a lot of people that, like, not gonna lie, I think they were on mushrooms and- Mm-hmm... you know, maybe... Well, we'll leave that open-ended.
But, um, you know, if you were theoretically on mushrooms, I think that that would be a very nice setting to experience mu- music in. Yeah, I imagine. Um, okay.
And if somebody came up to you, you know, theoretically- Uh-huh...
if somebody came up to you on mushrooms and introduced themself from your company Discord, you would still be able to maintain an entire conversation with them.
And have a- Because you will have d- done your dose correctly. Yeah, exactly. That's what it does. Um, okay. Yeah. I have some things I wanna say about music festivals, too, but I think we should save that- Oh, darn.
We're out of time... for next week. I guess- We're out of time... cheers. We'll see you next week. See you next week. [upbeat music] It tastes just like cake boss. [upbeat music]