Dictators Can’t Kill Art with Joe Haskins at Bacetti.

Tanner: Cheers, man. Thank you for coming out. So what did you get? I think it was the...

Joe: What did I get? The menu's... Oh, wait, here it is. So this one is the Hubert Meir. Meir. Two?

Tanner: I think I ended up getting the Monzoni. Monzanne. I can't pronounce that. I might be pronouncing it right. Might be pronouncing it wrong.

Joe: Check that, check that. Yeah. All right, that's really good though.

Tanner: It almost looks like a cocktail. Like it should be a cocktail. I think that's the thing — they don't do cocktails here.

Joe: It kind of has that complexity to it. It's different flavors coming out. Try it if you want.

Tanner: I think I'll work that into my second round.

Joe: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there you go, yeah. But I was thinking… last time, did we just do bottles of... Were we ordering bottles of wine? I honestly don't remember.

Tanner: We did. A lot of bottles of wine

Joe: I remember aspects. Highlights. We did get a bottle.

Tanner: So the last time we were here, we were here with, what, six people altogether?

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: Six or seven. And we just blitzed through the entire menu, it felt like. At least, the entire dessert menu.

Joe: Yeah. With certain people bowing out all the way to the dessert where the entire dessert menu was ordered, and then everybody but you and I bowed out. So we ended up with a table full of desserts.

Tanner: I ended up taking some of it to go and waking up later in my hotel room kind of drunk and just so surprised there was dessert waiting for me.

Joe: It's the best surprise. Treat yourself.

Tanner: I was like, drunk Tanner is paying dividends to future drunk Tanner.

Joe: Excellent. Yeah. That's the way to do it. Have it lined up.

Tanner: Well, let's see what we want to do for appetizers. I mean, you can't go wrong with Focaccia.

Joe: Yeah. Focaccia, definitely Focaccia.

Tanner: I'm a little bummed they don't have it, and I get it, because it's seasonal, but the Prosciutto Melone.

Joe: Yeah. That was, yeah, okay, now that's coming back. I completely forgot about that!

Tanner: Because we thought that was, what, the Italian translation for Post Malone the rapper.

Joe: Yeah. Which is hard. That's a hard meat. It was a good dish. Well, Focaccia. Maybe one other dish, do you think?

Tanner: Yeah.

Joe: For an appetizer.

Tanner: Because you don't want to just go with all carbs for the first appetizer.

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: Let's see. Supplì Verde with basil, spinach and mozzarella looks good. And then they've got this little salad on the other side.

Joe: Yeah, I'd be down for either of those.

Tanner: Okay, you want to call it? Let's start with the Focaccia and the Supplì Verde .

Joe: Yeah, perfect.

Tanner: Okay. Yeah.

Joe: So Marin and Lauren are heading back, currently, I think, probably driving back now. It looks amazing what they showed me. Just all the previews. They took the pole out there. Yeah, the X-pole. And so it's just like dunes and then the pole. It looks amazing.

Tanner: So Lauren flew down to do a photo shoot with Marin?

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: They went to Imperial Dance, right? Where is it?

Joe: No, well, they went out to the desert. So, okay, Lauren flew into San Diego. Marin met her down there. And I think the plan was, I don't know if this ended up happening, but another model who was going to meet them, who I think Lauren just discovered, or maybe it was a friend of a friend, I don't know the story, so they were heading out to the desert. I'm not sure which part. And stayed in Airbnb overnight, and then today they were shooting.

Tanner: Got it.

Joe: At the sand dunes. Got a picture, I have to show you. Because I'm really excited to see...

Tanner: Right, let's see this. Oh, wow. Oh, Jesus.

Joe: So I think they're going to do something amazing.

Tanner: Oh my God.

Joe: I kind of just love this as an image too, and nobody in it. It's very...

Tanner: Yeah, just the blue sky, the just infinite sand dunes and just a pole.

Joe: I'll let your imagination fill in. It's powerful.

Tanner: A pole out in the middle of a desert.

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: Where does it lead?

Joe: A conductor for the imagination. I like it.

Tanner: Imagine you tap and it makes a boom sound.

Joe: Yeah, yeah.

Tanner: Just missing that little spring at the joint, tying it to the ground.

Joe: So do you know that story? We took that X-pole camping with us. This was somewhere further north, Northern California. With quite a few people. We rented, it was private grounds, but we rented the entire grounds. I think we had 30 people.

Hostess: Think you're ready for stuff or still need a little more time?

Tanner: I think we're ready for our first round.

Hostess: Okay, yes.

Tanner: I think we'll do the Focaccia and the Supplì Verde to start.

Hostess: Yeah, great. Did you want to add the honey butter on?

Tanner: Yeah.

Hostess: Or on the side.

Joe: You want to do it? On the side.

Hostess: On the side.

Joe: On the side, yeah. Yeah, perfect. Thanks. So, yeah, we had about 30 people in these campgrounds and we set up the pole because the premise, it was going to be a talent show. And everybody would surprise one another with their talents. So this was Marin's surprise. And little did I know I would join the show because we were missing a crucial part, which is always the case, was a tiny... I think it was a tiny Allen key, and then a pin that was missing. So we had everything else. The base was set up, the pole was there. We just didn't have this crucial... So the remedy was for me to just hold onto it on the base, straddling, just on my back, and just hold the pole. And she danced. And she did it.

Tanner: Oh, wow.

Joe: Did the entire routine. And I'm there, this footage-

Tanner: You're just hanging on for dear life, making sure this pole doesn't topple over, supporting it for everyone.

Joe: Yeah. Legs swinging above my head, just keeping it sturdy, you know? And it worked, so it was great.

Tanner: I feel like I would have taken the creative way out if I participated, be like, I can't do any exhibitionist stuff. I don't have any skills. I’d just try to whack the pole, try to make some dissonant music with it.

Joe: That's going into weird territory. Industrial music. That would be good. That would be good.

Tanner: I take a jagged rock and strike it, but not too hard to break it, but enough to make a nice boom sound.

Joe: Yeah. And you're invoking the caveman mind.

Tanner: Yeah.

Joe: Which would be great.

Tanner: The caveman would be very excited by the pole, I think.

Joe: Rewarded, and with the rock. It's a primitive...

Tanner: We went from rock 'n roll to rock 'n pole.

Joe: Yeah. That's true. That's terrible. Yeah.

Tanner: That's super cool. I'm excited to see what they do. I'm excited to see the photos for that.

Joe: Yeah, yeah. Definitely. I will say that the initial phase for that pole, we didn't go straight to me just straddling the pole. I tried to cut up beer cans and use the aluminum and just make something to fit and wedge in there, but it wasn't strong enough. Aluminum's not strong. So, yeah.

Tanner: I think my last trip also got part of it ruined by not having an Allen key so what happened was I went out, actually to the desert again, to do a self-portrait series. I had my tripod, all my gear with me. I was doing some pretty intense hiking so I got this adapted mount for my camera where it hooks onto your backpack so you can just slide it in, slide it out, off your shoulder. And that hooks in with an Allen key. So I set that up before I left home and then forgot to bring the Allen key. Then I get to the photo shoot part, so I'm setting up my tripod, setting up my gear, out in the middle of nowhere basically, and I realized I have the little adapter stuck in the bottom of my camera, let me just pull it off so I can mount it on my tripod, and I realize I don't have the Allen key with me. And it’s not a compatible mount with my tripod.

Joe: Oh, that's terrible. That's terrible.

Tanner: And I'm trying every which way.

Joe: In the middle of nowhere, there's no other option.

Tanner: There's no other option.

Joe: These cases whenever an Allen key is needed, you cannot buy one.

Tanner: Yeah. Yeah. And it was one of those where I just said fuck this, I'll come back later and do it. I tried every which way, just brute force, trying to twist this thing off, but me in my infinite wisdom, — I just had to screw it on so tight I can't take it off. And even when I did get an Allen key I'm spending so much torque into it to pull it out and it's just stuck on there.

Joe: Classic. Classic. Yeah.

Tanner: I even tried like let me just kind of balance it on the tripod, kept falling over. I'm like, this thing's just going to break in half.

Joe: That's always the case. Or I will have every other Allen key except for that size and a complete set except for that fucking size. And metric and standard. Both missing the approximate one that almost fits, and the one that actually fits.

Tanner: Oh, yeah.

Joe: And for some reason I still try every Allen key, you know?

Tanner: The ones you get from Ikea are the worst because they all require Allen keys and their Allen keys and their heads are just slightly different than every other Allen key ever fashioned.

Joe: Yeah. Plus they are like one inch long.

Tanner: Yeah.

Joe: So there's no leverage and you're just fucking, like, yes. It's true. It's like infant size hand size. Their engineers are all tiny hands.

Tanner: Jesus.

Joe: Let me get a photo of this food menu.

Tanner: Yeah, do it. I'm going to hit the restroom.

Joe: All right.

Hostess: Any other decisions or shall I check back?

Tanner: I think we're trying to figure out what we want from this column, this column, this column, this column.

Hostess: There's a lot of good things to choose from.

Tanner: I think we're trying to figure out how to get, assuming we split stuff, trying to maximize how many options we get.

Hostess: Yeah. How hungry are you?

Tanner: Pretty hungry.

Hostess: Are you hungry? Yeah, I'd recommend... So you have that and you have a Suppli. Getting maybe... Do you want to do pizza, do you think, or do you want to do pasta? Or both?

Tanner: I'm kind of leaning towards both, assuming we can split the pasta and the pizza at least.

Hostess: Yeah. Yeah, maybe just do one, one, one, or two, one, one.

Tanner: Ooh, okay, that could work.

Hostess: Yeah. Or a salad…

Tanner: Yeah, because we haven't got anything green just yet.

Hostess: No greens, except for the Suppli is green but not leafy green.

Tanner: Definitely leafy greens.

Hostess: So the pizza is very good. Pasta. But they're all really good.

Tanner: Okay.

Hostess: Yeah. I'll check back.

Tanner: Okay, thank you.

Joe: Second round?

Tanner: Yeah, I think we're onto figuring out what we want for round two, three, four, five and six. Make it a six course.

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: How hungry are you?

Joe: I'm pretty hungry. Yeah. Yeah. How about yourself?

Tanner: Same. I came prepared.

Joe: Okay, good. Yeah.

Tanner: I came empty, ready to be filled.

Joe: Good. Move on from that. I will... Family style, right? Family style?

Tanner: Yeah. Because we're able to split any of the pizzas and pastas. Ooh.

Joe: Thank you.

Tanner: Okay, thank you. Damn. Well, hot damn.

Joe: Damn. That's butter over there. If you want to capture it.

Tanner: Yeah, let's get it.

Joe: You want me to capture it? It's kind of like... It's crazy.

Tanner: Dude, it looks like a dessert already.

Joe: Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Tanner: It's like something I would get at a bakery at the end of the day and just wind down with it.

Joe: Yeah, I've never seen a Focaccia like a cinnamon roll, it's essentially what it is.

Tanner: Yeah.

Joe: All right. Let me dive in. Cut you a piece.

Tanner: Thank you.

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: Oh, it looks so fluffy.

Joe: Unless you want to just take a half of it.

Tanner: I'm down with that.

Joe: The half I didn't touch personally. Yeah.

Tanner: I'll pull this side off.

Joe: Yeah, yeah.

Tanner: That is fresh.

Joe: This one's real good.

Tanner: Oh my God. All right, I'm going to lather this bad boy up with butter. Yeah.

Joe: Yeah, that bakery we went to in San Francisco, really good, man.

Tanner: Oh, yeah.

Joe: What was it called?

Tanner: Arizmendi.

Joe: Arizmendi? Arizmendi. It's so good.

Tanner: Yeah, it's a good go-to.

Joe: It is, yeah. I'd never heard of it though. I mean, I've been to San Francisco so many times, just never... Yeah, never heard of it before.

Tanner: I think what ends up happening, kind of rightfully so, you can get to Arizmendi and everyone raves about Tartine, locals included, and it's good. It's definitely worth going to just for that, but there's also so many other options too that are, in my opinion, much better. But not to detract anything from Tartine.

Joe: Mm-hmm. Damn. Really good. It's nice.

Tanner: What's the taste of Focaccia?

Joe: The butter's nice on it with the honey. Yeah, sweet, fresh. Fresh rosemary. Right? Yeah. That's good. Oh, hot damn. The currants too. Kind of is dessert, like cinnamon roll-y, with the currants.

Tanner: It feels like it.

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: So the waitress came by, made a tactical decision for us.

Joe: Oh, good.

Tanner: Assuming we're as hungry as we are, she recommended something from this column, something from this column, something from this column, assuming you want to split something.

Joe: Yeah, let's do it.

Tanner: I got to be honest, anything from the pasta menu and anything from the pizza menu, every single one looks great to me.

Joe: Okay, great. Let me see. So I had this ongoing tooth issue which means I can only chew on one side of the mouth. Which has been hard. And it's been since January.

Tanner: Oh, fuck.

Joe: It's about three months.

Tanner: Is it something you can fix or is it something that clears up on its own?

Joe: Hopefully it's something that will clear up but I had two root canals done on the same tooth. A treatment and re-treatment. But then I either have to have this ongoing pain with it... I haven't got a crown put on it yet. But, yeah, I'm hoping it's just soft tissue damage, some nerve damage that will get better. Yeah.

Tanner: I hope so too.

Joe: Thanks.

Tanner: Teeth issues are fucking gnarly.

Joe: Terrible. Yeah.

Tanner: I had braces as a kid and I had this thing where they extend the pallet of your mouth. That thing went wrong, ended up fucking up one of my teeth in the back. And it was the worst pain I've ever felt in my life up until that point. It feels weird because your teeth feel very hard. It feels like the type of damage or pain you have where your skin will hurt. This very tough, hard thing feels like it's got soft all of a sudden. I's just on fire.

Joe: Fuck, that's terrible. Yeah. I'm reading about all different teeth disorders, and the nerves in the face and the mouth and everything. One of them was terrible, these kids having their wisdom teeth that are impacted, and then they get an infection in the gum that goes over the tooth, the pain is supposed to be immense with that as well. With any tooth issue, it gets to a certain point. But, yeah, I've definitely experienced weird sensations that I've never experienced before, painful sensations. Nerves, or, yeah.

Tanner: It's so weird because it's also your teeth are hard, they're enamel, but then you wonder why do they have nerve endings?

Joe: Exactly. Exactly. It's even if that nerve, those roots are taken out the tooth, the tooth is still in the bone and it's still surrounded by soft tissue that has nerves. So if that's bruised or damaged in any way, that tooth being pushed against it, it's going to hurt. So, yeah.

Tanner: The tooth stuff, it's not easy too because it's also... hen you also get into going to the dentist, and I feel like that hot take is... Dentists are masochists. You have to be a masochist to be a dentist. You're staring at someone with their mouth open, you can't talk to them for an hour, however long they're there, and then every interaction-

Joe: Or you do, and that's part of the masochism. Talking to them, knowing full well they can't respond.

Tanner: They're just giving some gurgling noise.

Joe: They're trying to and, yeah, that's painful. It's painful.

Tanner: I'm watching you suffer, you can't say anything, and then I've got this drill in your mouth. And that's all you can hear. And then the other side of it is any time I go to the dentist it's always, "Hey, you've been brushing great, all this is great, but you really fucked up over here." And I feel like if I went to the doctor there'd be a lot more empathy. "Hey, you injured yourself. Here's how you don't do that again." And not "Wow, what a moron, you stubbed your toe on the door?"

Joe: That would be funny. That would be funny, scared. The doctor taking on the dentist, you know?

Tanner: Yeah. And then there's always the very strange upsell, and I think this is just due to dental insurance being different from health insurance, being different from eye insurance. So I have all my wisdom teeth still-

Joe: Yeah, same here.

Tanner: ... The weird thing in my situation is from what I've been told, on a scale from one to ten for difficulty to remove, it's one. So you should just rip it all out. But because they're visible and they're not moving, they're fine, you don't have to remove it. So every time I go to the dentist they say, "Have you thought about removing your wisdom teeth?" I say, "No." If it's a problem, rip them out. Let's fucking do it.

Joe: Yeah. That is an upsell. They shouldn't do that. So that's interesting because I have... Of course, in this research process, Reddit's been involved. And I'll go down both the rabbit hole of people that have been patients, but also the dental, like the dentists just having a conversation with one another. And there is an overwhelming... It is definitely split, where they're saying, "Yeah, you should never extract, unless you need to."

Hostess: Are you ready?

Joe: No. Sorry.

Hostess: Not a problem.

Joe: Just a couple... Thank you. All right, shall we pick first and then we'll... Yeah, but no, you shouldn't touch them unless it needs to come out. Which is great to know that there are those out there.

Tanner: I've had that.

Joe: Save the natural tooth if you can.

Tanner: Yeah. I've got the second opinion and the second opinion was that, "Hey, if it's not bothering you, and they're not moving, you're good."

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: But if they do move, they're like, "Rip them out." I was like, "Cool, that seems pretty reasonable to me."

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: All right, but food though.

Joe: Let's do it.

Tanner: Fuck it, shall we just have a random pizza and a random pasta, like house choice?

Joe: That'd be kind of cool. I don't know about the beef, the tongue.

Tanner: The beef tongue. Okay, maybe a random pizza.

Joe: We'll just do it, what do they call it? Marin's going to kill me. The Japanese, where you go and you order and it's just the chef's choice.

Tanner: Oh, yeah.

Joe: Just bring you whatever. But it's like the choice cuts. You know? Fuck, can't remember what it's called.

Tanner: I'm down to try that with the pizza if we want to be ambitious for the night.

Joe: Yeah. Yeah.

Tanner: So we've got random pizza. I've got to be honest, for pasta the Strozzapreti looks pretty good. It's right there at the bottom.

Joe: Okay, gotcha, gotcha. I'm good for any of that, but not just the ones with the shellfish, can't do it. Allergic to that. You've got like oyster... Yeah.

Tanner: Yeah, let's skip the shellfish. Well, how about we do the Strozzapreti, random pizza and then she recommended something from this column, the Piatti.

Joe: Yeah. Damn, well, if she recommended something...

Tanner: Let's do it.

Joe: Yeah, okay. I like that. These are really good, by the way. Should have, you should dive into that.

Tanner: I'm going to work on that one next.

Joe: Okay, okay. But, yeah, so I think things are healing. It just takes time. Just something that Google doesn't tell you. You've got to dig deep. That's why you shouldn't Google.

Tanner: Yeah. I guess that's the downside to it sometimes. You're just thinking "All right, I know what my thing is but how the fuck do I handle the thing?"

Joe: Yeah. Yeah. And then you end up searching, it takes a while to find a human voice, the human interest. The experience. I don't just want the digital... You know? Yeah, so, but it's out there.

Tanner: All right. Well, let's do this food order, then I think that could be a fun segue to will AI take our jobs if the machines are rising up. Spoiler alert, I don't think they will.

Joe: No, no. But I would like to hear your thoughts on that. This is your work, you work within that. At least in close proximity to that world. Yeah.

Tanner: I think my take is it feels like I definitely appreciate, and I've experienced this, the anxiety, I do something creative or I do something repetitive, and looking at a bot do the same thing I can do, to some extent, and I think you kind of nailed that with you're just saying, it still lacks that human element. It's good at working with what it knows but it's not good at… It's good at working with what it knows, but it's not good at feeling. And the feeling is how you find what you're looking for, and you have to go on that knowledge journey. The other side of it is I feel like it's going to be pretty common to be a tool that augments your existing toolkit for your creative professional life. You can say, "Hey, if you're a musician," you could say, "Hey, I'm thinking of maybe some sort of grandiose orchestral intro to a song, give me some ideas here." And you might want to fine tune that out but it might suggest something that you weren't even considering and it kind of augments your creative journey to find what you're looking for.

Joe: 100% it'll do that. Yeah. Yeah.

Tanner: I think you're still going to need... And this is kind of funny because it's like this dystopian hellscape, but like in Westworld, the latest season, and the last one unfortunately, they have this future where... Fuck, I'm trying to remember. Where you have everyone in their version of a matrix and they need to follow the storylines. And the storylines are all AI generated. But you still need someone to have that creativity of how do you put this person through a story. Like what kind of journey should they go on. And the AI's kind of fleshing out, okay, you're just defining point A, you want to go to point B, here's everything in between.

Joe: Yeah, yeah. Interesting.

Tanner: See, I think that's kind of where my mind goes with that, is it's going to be easy to fill in those blanks. But I think for the less creative aware, they might think the points in between are the biggest points, and they're not.

Joe: Yeah. Got some branches to go down with that. Interesting.

Tanner: Yeah. I've generally been playing around with a few AI tools to see... Like the audio transcribing I'm doing for this thing, see I can pair it with what I'll listen to, what the AI transcribes, and what I transcribe, it gives me a reference point to work from. But I'd still rather fill in the blanks because I know what I'm trying to say, I know what my guests are trying to say. And it's making its best guess. I still need to massage it a bit. But it's still way off to the point where me doing it by hand still makes more sense. But it's not a knock against the technology necessarily. It gets you a good starting point and fills in those points, the software says, "Oh, we're talking about this topic," and the guests are talking about something else. So if you're not a person, how do you know how to transcribe that tone into words?

Joe: Yeah. Right, right. That is interesting. Yeah, that needs fine-tuning. But there things such as the... You've seen the 24/7 Seinfeld, AI generated?

Tanner: Yeah.

Joe: It fucks it to some degree but it also does capture... I don't know if you'd say the personality, but certain phrasings, you know? It is there. And certain things. Which is interesting.

Tanner: Oh, yeah.

Joe: And also, I don't know if I sent it to you but there's a... I think it's called The Infinite Conversation. I sent that to you. And it's-

Tanner: Is that the one where the two chatbots are replying to each other?

Joe: Yes. Well, it's the, talking. And it's pretty spot on. But the voices too. It's bizarre. The accents and everything are there. And for the most part, like the first time I discovered that I was listening to it for two hours. I was like, "Holy shit." This is actually a conversation that they would be having. And I would say 90% of it made sense. There was 10% where it didn't and that just is hilarious.

Tanner: I'll listen to some people, I'm lucky if 10% of it sounds...

Joe: That's true. Yeah. That's true.

Tanner: There's some weird parts of the fucking internet.

Joe: Yeah. Yeah, that's very true. Yeah. But, yeah, it's interesting, man. I think it's there. It's evolving quick.

Tanner: It is. And if you look at the tech, it's been under-developed for the last five, ten years, and then it feels like in the past few months it's just really come out of nowhere and now it feels more accessible to everyone. It's not just this grandiose idea. It's also not this utopian thing, is it going to be this terrible thing that's like Skynet version two and kills us all. It's a tool and it's just sitting there and you're thinking "How do I use this tool?" And I think there's a lot of people, rightfully so, that don't think of it as just a tool. It's "Oh, you can imprint a personality on it." It's saying things that mimic what you would say, and actually ascribe that to it having some sort of personality.

Joe: Yeah. I love that, I've got to look up that Seinfeld thing again. Just because I loved it, it's like whatever bit, super low quality animation.

Tanner: I think it got taken down for a bit.

Joe: Oh really? Why?

Tanner: I think it was a terms of service violation because I think they got it to say something very racist.

Joe: Oh, I think I read about that, yeah.

Tanner: Sorry.

Joe: Yeah. Well, I definitely want to go down the record avenue at some point.

Tanner: You want to do it? We've started.

Joe: We can wait, we can wait.

Tanner: I feel bad, we've been dancing around this menu.

Joe: Yeah. Tip-toeing. That's all right. No, she'll be around soon.

Hostess: Go, I’m ready.

Tanner: I think we're ready, and I think we're going to be pretty ambitious. So we'll need your help.

Hostess: Okay. I love that.

Tanner: I think for sure we're going to do Strozzapreti for the pasta.

Hostess: Okay.

Tanner: But we want to go with a house choice or random pick for the pizza.

Hostess: Okay.

Tanner: And what's the other one? The...

Joe: The same thing with the... What did you order? Sorry.

Tanner: Oh, the Strozzapreti.

Joe: From this column we would also like a random. Whatever would complement-

Hostess: You just want me to surprise you?

Tanner: Yes, please.

Joe: We're open to it. Whatever from this column will complement what you pick from this.

Hostess: Do you want just the between these four?

Joe: I think so, yeah.

Hostess: Okay, just four. And just one of those?

Joe: Yes, please.

Hostess: Okay.

Tanner: To be honest, everything in the pizza section looks amazing. But if you had one super pizza with everything from it I would be like... I would definitely get that.

Hostess: Yes, the whole thing. I should try that actually. And do you have dietary restrictions or any of these?

Joe: No shellfish. That's the only thing.

Hostess: Okay. So forget about that.

Joe: Yeah.

Hostess: Okay, so we're going to do one of these guys.

Joe: Yes, please.

Hostess: And then dealer's choice then?

Tanner: Yes. Yes, please.

Hostess: Okay, sounds great. Take these.

Joe: Should we keep one, or no?

Tanner: Yeah, let's keep one.

Hostess: Did you want to do a salad or anything?

Joe: Yeah, some greens. Yeah.

Hostess: Okay, so I thought these three here, my favorite is the Radicchio.

Joe: Yeah. We were actually looking at that earlier, so we'll do one of those. Yeah.

Hostess: You'll do that one?

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: Let's do it.

Hostess: Okay.

Tanner: Thank you so much.

Hostess: You're welcome.

Joe: That's a good idea.

Tanner: Should try this more often.

Joe: Yeah. I like it. I like the dealer's choice. I've got to find out from her... Do you like sushi?

Tanner: I do.

Joe: Okay. There's a great sushi place we discovered, Little Tokyo. Took Marin us there for our anniversary. It's really fresh. I'd actually never had... I'm kind of new to the sushi. Yeah, Marin's kind of introduced me to that. My mom's not into it at all so I didn't grow up being exposed to it. But the first time having it where the fish melts in your mouth. It was tuna, the belly.

Tanner: Oh, that sounds amazing.

Joe: Next time you come into town, take you there.

Tanner: Maybe that can be the next installment of Dinner With Friends.

Joe: It's a great spot and big... Yeah. It's great how they've separated it because you've got the bar and it's literally... It's kind of like this actually where you have the one bar, but that's the sushi. You know, they're serving sushi there. And then you have your dining. It'd be good. It's a little more quiet. Be perfect recording.

Tanner: I love stuff like that where you get to be sort of consumed with the whole process of where they choose the food, how they make it, how they serve it. And you're in that realm however long you're there.

Joe: Yeah. Definitely. And for me, with the restriction, it's a little more like...

Tanner: Yeah, you've got to be a little more tactical.

Joe: Tactical with it. Yeah. But I love seeing people enjoy it as well. I love seeing Marin enjoy her cuts that I could never eat. It's good.

Tanner: Well, speaking of the story of food, I feel like we have to at least take a quick detour into why we're even eating at Bacetti.

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: So, if I remember correctly, it might be off by a couple days, but a year ago, almost to the day, I was here in LA for a going away thing for my friend, and we're thinking, "Hey, let's go somewhere every night I'm here and every night you're here." Unfortunately with his work, Monday's plans got punted to Tuesday, Tuesday to Wednesday, Wednesday to Thursday, Thursday to Friday. And he hit me with, "Hey, I'm just so busy I can’t make it” And I’m over here screaming "Motherfucker, we are going to do something. Going to get dinner. It's going to be fucking great, let's do it." And I was actually trying to find a spot Marin recommended eons ago, and I confused the area. And so I still haven't found that place she recommended but I was looking here where Bacetti is and felt like is the place. And the wine bar next door, Tilda, I thought they were the same thing. So I'm thinking, a wine bar would be great, let's go get wine after your work, and then we'll get food. So we get here and I realize, oh, this isn't the place I was thinking of but this seems to be way better. So we get here and I think, yeah, it was definitely Friday. We get here, I want to say close to 5:30. 5:30 on a Friday is a recipe for disaster. So we realize "Oh, let's go to the wine bar, let's get wine." We get our rounds ask for food, the food is the thing next door, which is Bacetti. Oh, they're two separate things not one thing. So we can't have food at the wine bar. So we do our rounds of wine, "Let's do the wine and we'll get dinner." We get to 7:00p.m. and we-

Joe: Sufficiently buzzed and ready for food.

Tanner: Pretty toasty at the end of it.

Joe: Yes.

Tanner: But definitely craving food. And then we get to 7:00, we come next door and we ask "Hey, what's the wait time for about three people?" The hostess says about 7:30. Okay, that's workable, let's go back for another round, toast up a little bit more. And then we come back at 7:30, and then for the next hour and 15 minutes we get, "Check back in in the next 15 minutes." And every 15 minutes we keep coming back, we're four or five rounds of wine deep at this point, and we realize it's 9:00 p.m., no one is leaving the restaurant and opening a seat. And we're all hangry at this point, we're all wine drunk at this point. And we somehow, some way, make a reservation online for 9:15p.m. as a Hail Mary. There was one slot that opened. We get to 9:15 and they say, "Can you give us another 15 minutes? Your table's not ready.” "We've been waiting for two hours, no one's been leaving."

Joe: Since 5:30. Just brutal.

Tanner: Yeah. But in wine time it seems like a blip.

Joe: Yeah. Well, that's... Yeah.

Tanner: So then we end up abandoning ship and we realize we're not in with the cool crowd here. We end up going somewhere else. I can't even remember. I think it was just McDonald's at that point. Brutal.

Hostess: Would you like another glass?

Joe: Actually, yes, but it might be something different.

Hostess: Okay. I'll check back in five minutes?

Joe: Yeah.

Hostess: And you're doing okay?

Tanner: I'm still good.

Hostess: Okay.

Tanner: Thank you.

Joe: That's brutal, man.

Tanner: But I had a fucking grudge because...

Joe: Yeah, that's not good. And they should prioritize. In my opinion, if it's people on the waitlist or getting wine prioritize those, who're your paying customers.

Tanner: Oh, totally. Totally.

Joe: Just jumping over. It just makes sense.

Tanner: Yeah. But I really just think people weren't leaving their tables the whole time we were here. So there's no time limit, no one's leaving so no tables open up. But I had a fucking grudge because it's weird, "The food here looks fucking killer. Also, you ruined the last night dinner I could have with a friend over here." I have to come back and eat at this place. So I told Lauren about it, Lauren told Marin, Marin told you, and then I think Lauren came probably a month or two after me, she tried getting in with Marin and it was the same exact scenario. Made the reservation, they can't seat her. And then-

Joe: Marin, yeah, she was very pissed about that. She told me. And I'd never been here as well. I'd heard great things, food-wise. But, yeah, that was the only other thing that I'd heard. Yeah. Same thing.

Tanner: Oh my God. And then Lauren comes back with a grudge. And we're all "Well, we have this fucking grudge, and it feels like this white whale." But next time I'm back in LA I think it was around June or July because I'm doing that train trip around the Southwest, and I have to fucking come back and eat here. It'll be the last fucking thing I do. So I make a reso and I find out Lauren's in town again. "Hey, all of us that have a grudge that couldn't get in, let's just try to make a giant group dinner, see how many people we can get in, and just stay as long as we can, order everything family-style." I think we got, what, seven people?

Joe: Yeah, yeah.

Tanner: And the stars aligned. We went on our hero's journies on all these separate trips to somehow, some way managed, not coordinated at all, to all be in LA at the same time. Which is kind of neat because I think Lauren's friend was visiting from India too.

Joe: Yeah, yeah. Crazy. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Wow.

Tanner: Yeah.

Joe: I did know this. The story leading up. But you're putting it all together. Kind of mind-blowing.

Tanner: It's kind of crazy, and it's such a petty thing, but it's, "We want to try the food. We have to. We're the barbarians at the wall, we have to fucking mob over and see what's on the other side."

Joe: Yeah, it's a challenge at that point, yeah.

Tanner: Yeah.

Joe: To breach the wall. To breach the wall.

Tanner: Just move a brick out of the way so we can at least see what's on the other side. So, yeah, it was six or seven of us, and it's a night that still sits in my memory because it was, again, it felt like everyone went on their separate hero's journeys. We were all here uncoordinated. I didn't know you guys would be in town, I didn't know Lauren would even be here. I didn't even know Lauren's friend would even be visiting. I was just, "Hey, I'm going down to LA today." She said, "Oh, I'll be there too." I was wondering "How?"

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: And then we all congregate here and we all finally get in, it feels like it took all seven of us. Like you can't do it individually. You have to be here as friends.

Joe: No, no, no.

Tanner: Everyone all at the same time.

Joe: All powers combined. It's the Captain Planet approach. Yeah, took all of us, plus a friend from India. Yeah. Which was great too, because not knowing, I didn't know... I've never met them before as well. It's part of the fun I think, too. Oh, I do need that junction.

Tanner: Oh, yeah. It was definitely a good friend hang, meeting new friends, catching up with people. Just ordering the whole fucking dessert menu. Ordering basically the whole menu for all seven of us.

Joe: It was brilliant, yeah.

Tanner: So that, it's a night that I still fondly remember, and as we're going through that I'm like, the food was worth it, I'll be coming back. So I can get a reso.

Joe: Well, and thank you so much because I didn't know you were making the reservation here. I knew we were going to go somewhere. It was great. Great surprise. And just, yeah, great memories.

Tanner: Hell, yeah.

Joe: I don't think I will ever forget that. Especially the dessert. The desserts went down.

Tanner: God, maybe it was just adrenaline and just wine at that time but I was thinking, "I can't choose, the whole thing looks great." "What do you want?" "Yes, just bring all of it. There's seven of us here and there are seven things."

Joe: It was everything, and then two of something that we thought was... We thought it was espresso or something but it wasn't, it was a cake.

Tanner: Oh, yeah. I think that was the thing you got. You said, "I'm going to try the espresso thing." And it comes out in cake form. Remember, you said, "Why is it a cake? Why can't I drink the cake?"

Joe: Just one of everything. Like hard goods, and then two of one. Just hilarious. A random pick. Just amazing, fuck. Oh my God. All right. I need to decide if I need to go for another one of... I think I'm just going to stick with the same thing.

Tanner: Nothing wrong with that.

Joe: Yeah. Because that was good. It was good with the food, too.

Tanner: Yeah.

Joe: Excellent.

Tanner: Well, speaking of going on journey, one thing I'd love to talk to you about is I think the concept you shot me, “How Did You Get That Record”? Because I remember the last time I was over at your place you had this huge fucking record collection, and you pulled something out, and you told me how you got it. That's so fucking cool. So I want to go on that journey with you.

Joe: Definitely.

Tanner: What's a record you got that's just getting it has been a crazy fucking journey or experience, like you had to do something insane, like rob a bank, jump out of a plane…

Joe: Yeah. It's very hard to rob a bank these days too because there's so many cameras and, you know? Yeah, we could go down that avenue but there's so many records. And each has its own story. And even if it's down to, you know, the first one that sticks out in my mind is a collection of Cambodian rock 'n roll tracks. And it is on vinyl but it is actually the soundtrack to a music documentary. I'm trying to remember the name of the documentary now, but it was gift from Marin. She loved it. And we watched this documentary together and it's amazing how close... The documentary paints it, just how close to the hearts of the people this music was. And ties it in with this political history and the eradication of the music, and then how it came back. It's such a good documentary. God, it's coming to me. Don't think... Okay, yeah, it came back. And it's ironic. The title is Don't Think I've Forgotten.

Tanner: That's a good way to remember it.

Joe: That's the title of the documentary and the vinyl. This vinyl, it was a record store day release, about three years old, and it was a limited release and just couldn't find it anywhere. And I went on the deep crawl. I like hunting for things. And couldn't find it. Started...

Hostess: Green beans.

Joe: Thank you. Oh. Started reaching out to people on Discogs. Discogs has who owns a record, who wants to buy the record. So I went into the list of who owns it. Started reaching out to people, just sending them private messages. "Hey, do you want to sell this record?" And heard back from a couple of people, "No." Then one person said "No, I appreciate you reaching out but this is... I consider this part of my family's history. I will never sell this record," you know? So it was that kind of thing. But anyway, yeah, I ended up finding one and it was in Germany or something, which is always the case. The majority of the records that I hunted after have been from overseas. And they've always originated in the States, even though this was a Cambodian track, it was put out by a record label here in the States. And, yeah, ended up getting it.

Hostess: Green beans, that was the surprise. Do you like the green beans so far?

Joe: Thank you.

Tanner: Yes.

Joe: Green beans are great.

Tanner: They're hitting the spot and it was a pleasant surprise so far.

Hostess: Oh, good. Did you decide on another-

Joe: Yeah, I'm just going to do the same. Another.

Hostess: Same thing?

Joe: Yes, please.

Hostess: Okay.

Joe: Yeah, thank you.

Tanner: Thank you.

Joe: So, Don't Think I've Forgotten. Yeah. It's the lost tracks of Cambodia's Rock 'n Roll, something like that is the name of it. So great. And have you seen that?

Tanner: I haven't yet.

Joe: Documentary. You must see it.

Tanner: Now I'll go and watch it.

Joe: Don't Think I've Forgotten. Don't forget.

Tanner: Okay. String beans are super good.

Joe: Oh yeah. See olives as well? It's really good.

Tanner: This whole package is great so far.

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: The string beans are a really nice warm-up.

Joe: Yeah. Good selection.

Tanner: It's always fun going on those hunts for anything music related. I don't know if I have any physical media but the thing I love to hunt for are bootlegs from shows. So there's a few bands where I'll religiously seek out bootlegs because it could be a band plays the same set every night but a specific venue or specific place gives it that... Can't quite place it but it's just that different sound where you're feeling, "I can envision myself there." And it's not so much the audio quality but there's something about it. There's that little magic that gets picked up that you can't quite...

Joe: I completely agree.

Tanner: You can't scientifically quantify. You could if you knew what it was but just me as the listener I don't understand anything about audio other than some of it sounds great. You get that little bit of zest, that little bit of magic.

Joe: Yeah. Completely agree. And I know when Bauhaus did the '98 resurrection tour, some of the shows were recorded from the desk. But some of the shows were recorded and I can hear the audience and I don't know if that's being picked up from the mic on stage or if it's being recorded in a different way, but a great thing about it is they would press the CDs and they had them available to buy after the show. And they would do a run of... I think it was limited. I think it was however many hundred copies. And I loved some of those recordings because like you've said there's things in the tracks that are done or extensions of tracks or things added. It's just so good. But that's almost an official release, but it's the live gig.

Tanner: That's so fucking cool.

Joe: And only available in the city to those that've seen the gig initially. So a great souvenir.

Tanner: Yeah. If I went to a show and an artist did that, 100% I'd be just person number one in line right after the show, just getting that recording.

Joe: Yeah. Don't know if it's a cost-effective way, but they did it. People loved it.

Tanner: I would pay a good bit of money to make it cost-effective.

Joe: Yes.

Tanner: Because you can do the iPhone recordings but again, you don't get that bit of magic with the full-

Joe: ... professional recordings, but you don't get that bit of magic with the whole show.

Tanner: Right. And one thing that I loved hearing, which they captured in it, is the... and I think it's so important, is the music that plays before the band comes on stage.

Joe: Yes. Yes.

Tanner: And you'll never get that with an album. And talk about atmosphere. That sets the atmosphere. And with Nine Inch Nail’s 2018 tour it was especially those gigs, it was this kind of dark Eno-esque ambient kind of track, almost like steam. I don't know how to describe it. But then the booming heavy bass, so just building that atmosphere. And then when it breaks, it's fucking... gives me shivers thinking about it. And no other recording's going to have that.

Joe: The pre-show music, not the intro tape but the pre-show music the lights are still on, everyone's talking, everyone's doing a last minute beer run. That is the true mood setter. Because you can get the... let me play a playlist or something that's my artist influence and whatnot, but there's something about that ambient drone that gets... It's just there in the background. You know something's happening and you know something else is going to happen that's going to be really big, but you don't know when. It could be any moment. And what you're listening to is going to immediately segue right into that.

Tanner: Yeah. It's important. It is, yeah.

Joe: It's something that gets me, especially when it's so well done. And yet the one bootleg I spent forever trying to find, and I actually got it a few months ago...

Tanner: And is it on vinyl? Was it digital?

Joe: No. I guess I was too young to indulge in this, so I guess in the pre-internet days and maybe pre-sharing big files on the internet days, is you would get record stores that would do maybe 10, 11, 12th generation duplicates from cassettes or into vinyl, these very popular bootlegged... Almost like official releases for some bands. You get that generation degradation every time it's duplicated. And that part's kind of cool in some way because it's like...

Tanner: Yeah. It's got its own history too. Its own... Absolutely.

Joe: Because then it's not you're trying to get the actual bootleg, you were trying to get... with the first, second or third, the lowest generation possible duplication.

Tanner: Similar thing with books, especially Zines poetry world and shop books. Releases and...

Joe: But if we're going to talk about bootlegs, I'm going to talk about one of my prized possessions. So, this is back in the day, like Cold War era. This one I got from a guy in Russia, which now, with everything going on I'm sure they're not available. And I've only seen them available in Russia, I've never seen them for sale anywhere else. But during that time they'd outlawed importing music, selling music or anything. The only way you could get it on vinyl was through these dealers, and they were essentially similar to your drug dealer or whatever black market you're going to. And so they would steal old x-rays and they would make these bootlegs of these top hits at the time and then sell them. And so I have a skull x-ray and it's a Nina Simone track, and actually has written on in, Nina Simone. And it's super scratchy but it's one of these... I guess there's a slang term for them called ribs. They call them ribs. But they're so great. And I love that record, even though it's so hard, but just thinking that somebody back in that time, to hearing Nina Simone, went through all that trouble. The fact that it's on an x-ray. Something about that is super cool.

Tanner: Okay. You've got to walk me through that.

Joe Someone's skull. It's like...

Tanner: So it's originally x-ray image, like the imprint?

Joe: Yeah. Because you can groove. Just like vinyl, you are able to etch into the material.

Tanner: Oh.

Joe: Thank you.

Tanner: What is that? I'm like, "Is that shrimp?"

Joe: Looks shrimp-esque.

Tanner: I think this might be the salad.

Joe: Okay. Yes, you can etch very fine grooves, and that's why some of them would only last X number of plays. You play it 10 times and it's done.

Tanner: Wow.

Joe: And then a lot of the time, you're doing some research on it, if a dealer didn't have what somebody was looking for, they would oftentimes just go and change... just go write on it. "Are you looking for Nina Simone? Yeah, I've got that. Nina Simone. There you go," and it's somebody else. So they were listening to what they thought was... if they hadn't heard it before, what they thought was Nina Simone.

Tanner: Holy fuck, that's crazy.

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: Desperately ingenious, taking an x-ray image and printing grooves on it like with a record.

Joe: Yeah. And it was illegal, and it was illegal to access those x-rays to begin with, let alone sell them. If we're going to get persecuted for distributing music, let's just go mass on the illegality.

Tanner: Yeah.

Joe: But just the poignancy of they're living through a war, it's outlawed. The material itself is showing depictions of the inside of a person's body and the music is inscribed on top of that. That's so fucking beautiful.

Hostess: There you go.

Tanner: Thank you. I love that. So that's a prized possession?

Joe: I must show you that. I need to show you that.

Tanner: I haven't seen it.

Joe: Yeah. I have a picture but I'll just show you in person. I mean, the picture captures it too, but it's... And just getting it from the source. I love that they're not accessible everywhere.

Tanner: The fact that the thing has still persisted.

Joe: Well, I'm not sure that it has. The majority of these are from-

Tanner: Well, the copy you have.

Joe: I think that's from back in the day…. What is that?

Tanner: I don't know. I think this might be the random salad. The random thing we got from this column. I like the idea of saying, "Dealers choice," and then being hyper critical. Whatever it is, it tastes great. I'd just like to know what it is. The color on this. Wow. And I love Nina Simone. But then the alternative of someone requesting Nina Simone and saying, "Hey, do you have her music," saying, "Dude, it's someone else." Totally black market shit. Could you imagine that? You could spend a good majority of your life thinking, "This is Nina Simone," and then maybe some way, somehow, you're finally like... That's devastating. That's devastating. That's fucking devastating. Because there's two parts to it. You know it's not her then, and then there's the, "Well, who is this?" That's pre-internet, it's pre... You don't have Shazaam, you don't have Google, you don't have anything.

Joe: No, no, no. That's really good. It's good in combo with that, leading up to the pizza, it's brilliant.

Tanner: Oh yeah. I've been mixing this too.

Joe: Yeah. It's just funny. I'll look online and there's not a lot of information, really.

Tanner: Dude, I think these are fucking shrimp.

Joe: And the people that are aware of them are usually collectors.

Tanner: That's fucking cool, because there's not just the music itself, whatever's on there. You get that piece of history of someone's living through an oppressive time, they just want some art to get through it all.

Joe: Yes, exactly. Their survival tools.

Tanner: And even getting the art itself is just a painful illegal process to go and you can be persecuted for even just trying to do it.

Joe: Yeah. And there were guys that would bootleg them and go to prison. Yeah.

Tanner: Those dudes who do those bootlegs are fucking amazing.

Joe: Yeah. It would make such a good documentary or book. Documentary would be great.

Tanner: Finding those people, if they're even still around. Or relatives during the story of creating... It's got to be a thing, man. Fuck. If I had the resources, financial, I would make it. I actually have to talk to my dad about that. Not that exact thing, but when the Islamic revolution in Iran happened, there seems to be... There's probably some sort of starter kit if you're trying to take over a country and just be an oppressive asshole dictator. You ban the arts and whatnot.

Joe: The first thing, yeah.

Tanner: The first play, basically.

Joe: Subversive. Fucking get rid of it.

Tanner: Yeah. I think, in the first few years after the Islamic revolution, when Iran has been taken over in the early 80’s, the Shah's ousted, it goes from unelected monarch to unelected dictator. Dictator's worse than the previous guy 100-fold and he banned music. He banned the guitar. And he ended up rolling back the ban on the guitar. It's kind of a powerful thing. You try to ban an instrument, try to ban this expression of art. Even if it doesn't challenge you, it's so scary to you, just as an evil person, and then you can't ban it. You're able to oppress everyone else in every other which way. You had people's rights stripped away but you couldn't ban art, because they came back and you couldn't do it.

Joe: It's almost biblical. There's something about it. It is on that level, and for me... But it is almost, for me, it's something from the bible. It can not be eradicated. You know what I mean? It can be oppressed to such an extreme, but you can never get rid of it. That's really powerful.

Tanner: The backdrop to that, at least in Iran in the early 80s, you had people protest the dictatorship, for and against. The people against would just be executed or disappeared very creatively. And so you're able to snuff those people out and it's fucked up on so many levels, and then the one thing that perseveres is their expression through art that keeps carrying over. This is powerful.

Joe: It also reminds me of... the Taliban were confiscating cassette tapes, and what they would do is they would pull the ribbons out and they would string it up around a tree or around... And so you would get this visual of all these glimmering, glistening trees. Kind of beautiful image but of that kind of biblical evil. My pops did a music video to a song called The Trees in Silence Sing, and he recreated that with the tapes out in the middle of the desert. It's really great. And I love that. It's one of his more obscure tracks, and I love that track.

Tanner: I'll have to check it out.

Joe: Yeah. Trees in Silence Sing. Yeah.

Tanner: It's also probably a pretty... I don't imagine the Taliban did this intentionally, that would make them think 10 feet ahead of themselves, but it is a bit... sort of biblically powerful in that. Because it'd be one thing to throw away the cassette tapes, just burn them and whatnot, just incinerate them.

Joe: Right.

Tanner: Even just trash them. And I get trying to make a public spectacle like, "We can take this art from you."

Joe: Spectacle, yeah.

Tanner: But to wrap it around a tree and say, "This thing is still growing. You can have this expression of art and wrap it around this tree," and this tree provides some sort of safe haven...

Joe: I didn't even think of it like that. Yeah. Also, now it's in combination with something organic, because it's growing. It's almost a magical kind of... Yeah. A kind of transmutation of the tape from the medium of sound into the medium of vegetation.

Tanner: Yeah.

Joe: But it's still growing. That makes me shiver. You're right, yeah. And that's an unconscious thing.

Tanner: Because you know deep down... Let's hope deep down... Those are some evil motherfuckers over there. But I hope deep down there's some... The little bit of humanity that might be in there that's getting kind of squashed down as, "Hey, I can't even bring myself to destroy this thing."

Joe: That's very interesting. Yeah. Even being completely detached from that consciously. Wow, yeah. I just remembered one more detail on those x-rays that I was reading about, was that the hole was made at times with a cigarette, to burn the hole in the middle. Imagine this bootlegging machine augmented with a cigarette. Love that. And some of them are cut but they've been cut by hand so there's all jagged outlines.

Tanner: That's such a good personal stamp on it.

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: Love that. You've got to show me that next time.

Joe: I will. I will. I do love... I saw there's another one that I have. This is now just a flexi disc, what they call it. And I don't know how it was initially issued but it's by this guy named Cal Robinson, who was a musician and poet and writer. He passed away, I'm not sure when. Probably late '90s, maybe? Could be wrong on that. But he was an amazing vagabond artist. He would befriend great musicians. I think he had befriended Hank Williams.

Tanner: Oh wow.

Joe: And there's another artists, I'm trying to remember who it was. Somebody on that level of Williams, who would set him up with a record deal, with a meeting with a record exec. And he would just show up plastered, drunk, and they'd say, "All right, forget it," so he never had a major release. Somebody did put out some of his stuff on CD, which is great, but this flexi disc turned up on eBay. I'm not even sure that it says a label on it, but I'd never heard these recordings of him before and it's so great. And I really want to digitize it, send it to people. How this ties in... this kind of goes down another branch but... he was good friends with a writer named Todd Moore, who was a late poet, originator of the outlaw poetry movement. Tony Moffeit and him released books together. But Todd's fascination was with Dillinger, and he wrote and epic poem about Dillinger and it's really this... It's thousands and thousands of lines and it really takes you there. It's something special.

Anyway, he was good friends with Cal, and so in my journey of seeking out Todd's work, I've come into contact with many people who were also friends of Cal and would love those recordings, so I need to get them those. That's a whole nother avenue we can go down some other time, but Todd's work and seeking out those works, and the world of the small press, really, in the 90s. That's a whole nother world with all different... The spectrum of people. I talk to academics, somebody who's holding a position at the university. I talk to somebody that's been institutionalized, was institutionalized at the time that I was contacting them. I've talked to somebody where they're no longer in the publishing world and lost everything due to a fire.

Tanner: Oh Jesus.

Joe: Through to relatives where the person's not alive any more. Spoke to family people who are excommunicated from the world but still love to talk about it to those that show interest, but no longer have... Just so many. It's been great hunting that stuff down.

Tanner: I would love to see what that results in, because that is-

Joe: It results in a collection of works. Well, I'm building an archive. Anecdotally. It results in anecdotes as well, personal anecdotes, which are just recorded through the email exchange, and that's really great to hear people's history from them. But it's been pretty rewarding, where people are willing to share, or if not, sell some of the stuff. And I'm creating an archive of that. Photographing all of these. I'm putting them out there. I looked, on the hunt, not knowing what I would get as far as the art goes. And there's some power in that too, I think. Not knowing. Anyway, but to see them all together is something really great too. I think Todd would love that as well. That somebody's gone and pulled them together. And I hear great things from people that are discovering works that way. Another thing that I... having put it in those archives, there's some of Todd's working hand stream notes and how he lays out his chat books, and it's all done by hand. And sharing that with people.

Hostess: Here you go.

Joe: Oh, thank you.

Tanner: Perfect.

Hostess: Enjoy.

Joe: Awesome, thank you. Yeah. People have just loved seeing that working process. Jesus, that is so fucking... especially being by hand, is where the computer dominates now. That's like the analog, you know? So yeah.

Tanner: I guess that's sort of an important theme, is that you can have AI maybe do a thing for you, not necessarily in the cold sterile way but just lacking that very human touch that could change the meaning of a word.

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: That gives it that extra color and extra context.

Joe: Yeah. Absolutely, yeah.

Tanner: And I think seeing the handwritten notes and putting that into a sort of anthology, "What does that look like," that's fucking cool.

Joe: That's right. That's interesting you related that to that. But the same with the ribs, the bootlegs. I mean, the physical, the manifestation of those physically was due to a necessity pre-internet, but it's not to say that...

Hostess: Would you like another glass?

Joe: Let's do it.

Hostess: Okay. And this is the pizza.

Joe: Thank you very much.

Hostess: It's got the sausage, some chilies, spinach basil cream, and then some kale in there.

Tanner: That's perfect. Thank you.

Joe: You also did good pairing, especially the salad.

Tanner: Yeah, this has been a good segue. Yeah. It feels like a good food journey so far.

Hostess: I'm glad.

Joe: Thank you.

Tanner: Thank you.

Joe: I was just going to say that's not to say that that could never happen again.

Tanner: Right.

Joe: They cut the ties to the internet and you're back to... So, yeah.

Tanner: It's like a solar flare.

Joe: Yeah. That's history and that's a... That item is imbued with something that could never be replicated by AI.

Tanner: For me, I think it feels like it goes even deeper. I mean, first off it's like you're going through this discovery, but you're reaching out to people who maybe have not engaged in this in years or even forgot they had....

Joe: Very much so.

Tanner: ... access to this thing. And hopefully it would be, and it sounds like it is, they're sort of revisiting this with some nostalgia and some...

Joe: Oh, it is.

Tanner: ... like, "Oh my god, I was kind of entangled in this thing for part of my life and I get to..." Like, "Someone cares that that thing happened." It seems it goes kind of on both sides. It's "Hey, I'm shepherding people through this journey and now you're part of that journey too."

Joe: 100%. And it's funny because it does come full circle. I've had people contact me.

Tanner: Damn.

Joe: Asking me questions or being... Asking for information. And I couldn't be more happy to... Sometimes, I have doubles. There's another guy who's collected the word and he said, "Hey, will you sell me this," and I'm "Yeah, I have doubles." And I sell it to him at a price that's fair. And I'll always include extra... I love stoking people out. Yeah, it's always great.

Tanner: I think, on the other side of it, you called out if the internet goes out and something happens, you can't reach base, those sorts of things. I think, even taking it to the extreme...

Joe: Okay. I've got to...

Tanner: I think taking it to its extreme, it just takes one solar flare, just one poorly timed solar flare can knock out all that stuff. You're kind of a few steps away from not the stuff in a hell scape but kind of reverting to the caveman mindset but with access to all of the knowledge of all the cool toys and what they can do.

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: I think, to even kind of get through that sort of turmoil, we have to rely on the story tellers. Because you need people to tell the story of, "What was it before? What can come again?" And if you want to get a little creative with the survival mechanism of it, you're probably going to encounter some asshole guys who's going to try kill your whole camp, your whole group and whatnot. Wait. I don't have a skill, but the most powerful thing I have is just telling your story and celebrate you by yourself and have time to overthrow that fucker.

Joe: Yeah. 100%.

Tanner: Then get something more powerful, at least in the long term, than some weaponry, at least. Because that seems to be the other thing. Is he going to be this oppressive dictator? Powerful army, you can crush people, you can kill them, but you can't kill art. You can't kill the story.

Joe: That needs to be the title of the conversation. You can't kill art.

Tanner: Heck, yeah.

Joe: Yeah. I just got a pepper. This will be recorded. Fucking hot.

Tanner: Oh, I think I just got one too.

Joe: Chef took it as a challenge.

Tanner: Fucking hot peppers all over it. Fucking hell. Fuck.

Joe: Oh, that's spicy. Jesus. Didn't mean to insult the guy. He has the opportunity to use the hottest peppers he has. "Fuck it, I've been waiting forever to pull these little fuckers out." Behind glass. They break it.

Tanner: The customer request comes through.

Joe: Yes. Dealers choice, break glass. Just these peppers, hot peppers. Fuck. It's good, though. This has all been a good pairing so far.

Tanner: I'm glad, yeah. You let her take the reins.

Joe: I think we should do this more often. It all looks good. You tell me what you like? I'm going to leave you some string beans too.

Tanner: Thanks. Speaking of art and bootlegs and recordings, I saw God Speed You! Black Emperor last, last week, four nights back to back in San Francisco.

Joe: Yeah. And you sent me a thing. I'm so sorry, I don't think I replied to that specifically.

Tanner: Oh good.

Joe: That they were playing. There was no way I could've made it but it would've been great. They were playing fairly locally, but... Loved that clip you sent me.

Joe: Dude, it was- Well, that's what he said.

Tanner: Dude, it was amazing. So they did a five-night residency at The Chapel in San Francisco.

Joe: Crazy. It was filled?

Tanner: Filled each night.

Joe: Amazing.

Tanner: I couldn't make Monday because I was stranded up in Reno, so I was only able do the last four. But can't complain. The Chapel is a small 400-person room in San Francisco and it used to be-

Joe: In the Mission District?

Tanner: Mission District.

Joe: Yeah. Okay. Yeah

Tanner: I might be misremembering. It used to be a morgue and then they converted it to a church and then it fell to disrepair and then it got taken over and turned into a music venue. It being morgue, though, and it kind of being a gathering spot for congregation, it's like the acoustics aren't like something you'd hear in a church, but it kind of gives the same vibe as being in a holy place of congregation, which makes sense for seeing a band.

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: So it was great. It's like seven of them in the band. They've got all this gear. It's all their gear is kind of sprawling into the audience, the stage is too damn small, with that very just, "Fuck it. We'll show up. We'll play rain or shine or whatever, whoever needs us." And it is a fucking crazy awesome show. Every night a different set.

Joe: That's crazy too.

Tanner: Every night it's like a two-hour set. Their music is just so cinematic. It's just these big upswells and these huge moments and upswells. And then the other part of it is the crowd is... A lot of the people are the same the night, but every night has its own unique crowd. But everyone each night, as soon as that pre-show tape starts playing, just that droning ambient background sound, everyone shuts the fuck up. The only thing you can hear is a bartender maybe putting a glass out. No joke. And the band allows people to record their shows, so after the show you get that someone's taped the show, maybe using some professional gear but in an amateur setting or as a hobby or something, and you listen to recording, you can hear someone breathing. That's how quiet it is. And then...

Joe: That's so great, dude. San Francisco has some of the best crowds. You know?

Tanner: I'm a little biased and I'll agree.

Joe: Yeah, well, it's true man. It's true. LA, definitely, it's one of its shortcomings. You know? I mean, Jesus. Yeah. I went to see Weyes Blood with Morgan and Marin. And I've just seen her. Me and Marin went to see her at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, which you must go to. You haven't been...

Tanner: I've been to Big Sur but I haven't been there yet.

Joe: It's got a venue. Yeah, because I thought we talked about that before. But, I mean, Big Sur is amazing. That venue is incredible. And Henry Miller is he's a big influence for me as well. I'm constantly referencing. There's this book called On Writing and selections from some of his [Henry Miller] writings and then some of his talks and stuff. It's my go-to if I need a kindling. You know?

Tanner: Hell, yeah.

Joe: Even if I don't think I'm not working on anything, I go to that, and I'm immediately writing after reading two pages. Anyway, we saw her there and it was incredible. Big Sur is kind of a charged space. And she was aware of that and kind of communing with whatever was going on in the background. I had a full-on visual hallucination before the gig where I saw somebody standing in front of me. I was waiting in line and there's a big line. I'm waiting and I get up. We're at a gas station and I get up and it's my turn and I see somebody in front of me and I'm just waiting and all of a sudden snapped. And I'm looking. I'm looking at the gas station and I thought somebody was in front of me and I just said, "Oh, I'm sorry." I thought somebody was in front of me. No. There's nobody.

Tanner: Wow.

Joe: Yeah. So that was kind of strange. And then they offered for me to buy some weed.

Tanner: Behind the gas station?

Joe: And it was just the attendant's stash.

Tanner: Nice.

Joe: And I was like, "No." I think I said, "Whatever high I'm on right now, I think I would just continue to ride that." Because I get naturally high in Big Sur. There's something going on. It's just like... Yeah. Anyway. Weyes Blood here in LA, completely different. And people talking throughout, like catching up. Like, "So last week I had to take my car in for an oil change." This is during her set. She goes, "This one really speaks to my soul." Starts playing. "I had to take the car for an oil change and then I went and got a new purse down the street." I'm just like, "What the fuck is wrong with you?" It's one of my biggest pet peeves. Get the fuck out. You know? Yeah. So that's way different, completely different.

Tanner: I'm not a fan of indulging in the Los Angeles versus San Fran superiority, but I'll indulge in it now.

Joe: Same, yeah. You have to. Yeah.

Tanner: I definitely-

Joe: Take that high horse, man, and ride it.

Tanner: I'm going to ride in the sunset with this one. There's been times when bands play, it's like they always hit LA and SF most of the time when doing California. And depending on the band, I'll see them in SF and LA, so I get to compare and contrast the two.

Joe: Okay.

Tanner: And compare notes between the two. And it's always that. Like this-

Joe: Yeah, okay. Yeah.

Tanner: I think two years ago, yeah. No, this is before the pandemic. Yeah. So it's like late 2019, I saw Tool in Sacramento, Tool in LA. Sacramento was a festival, but it was like people were just there for Tool. Totally tuned into it. So I'm in LA back to back. I fucking love Tool. It's going to get me in trouble. I hate their fans, except the ones that I know. All my friends that listen to Tool are cool. All the ones that I don't know are assholes. I'm missing the punchline to this, for sure. But I think at this point it was my 15th or 16th Tool show. So you kind of get the lore that comes up and all that. The guy next to me at the LA show narrated the whole show to me and then to the woman next to him. And we were both not having it. I told him, "Dude, just shut the fuck up. This band is fucking loud. I feel my rib cage rattling and I can still hear you. Just shut..."

Joe: There's something wrong with these people. They're missing something in their brain and for some reason they all come to LA. It's like they're drawn here, magnetized. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's that same part of the brain that tells you not to go to LA. Maybe I'm missing a little bit of it too. You know?

Tanner: It sticks to me, because I've been to so many Tool gigs, even outside of California, and it's like every crowd and every place is totally different. But, God, the guy was... What got me the most was that dude was deep in the lore too. And what made it even worse for me was just, "Bro, you're a level 10. I'm level 12." And I hate that we have that discrepancy, but we're so fucking down the rabbit hole too at the same time.

Joe: That makes the sense. That makes sense though. You’re usually the loudest. It's like the cliche. The loudest person is the least informed.

Tanner: Yeah.

Joe: Although he was informed, but not as, you know.

Tanner: He was informed, but that was not the time or place to...

Joe: No, no. Right.

Tanner: ... to go on that explainer.

Joe: Mm-hmm.

Tanner: I think another fun one is always, same thing with Nine Inch Nails, I think 2018 they did a few dates in SF, a few dates in LA. So I did two in SF, two in LA. At least in that tour they always ended with Hurt. And that is a song you shut the fuck up for.

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: You're shot onsite if you start talking. SF, they play the-

Joe: Yeah, the same thing with Weyes Blood. It was that introduction, like she said. And all the songs are, but that in particular for her was poignant. This comes from the heart.

Tanner: Yeah.

Joe: This is my soul. You know? Some asshole is talking through it about an oil change. It's like if I ever did become a dictator, they'd be the only people that I would execute onsite is on that level. You know?

Tanner: It's the opposite of what we’ve talked about. If you stand in the way of the expression of art, just you're gone. It's bad news for you.

Joe: Then it would be a lot better place, yeah.

Tanner: I mean, it'd be a hell of a thing to campaign on. You, like me, every time you go see a show or see a band, if someone's talking, they're just out, they're gone. We're going to divert all the military resources, not going to go to war with anyone else, domestic or abroad, except these fuckers.

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: It's like that in nature too. I know it's complaining about being in traffic when you are the traffic, but it's like, God, I'll go out into a forest, I'm away from everyone, and someone will just be strolling through, just yelling at their top of their lungs. Like, "Oh, did you talk to Becky today? Her son finally got into preschool and it's just a whole ordeal." I’m thinking, "Love that for you. Love the celebration that just every living thing in a 200-mile radius can hear you."

Joe: Yeah. Amazing. And again, that could be... So I got the LA version of that, but I'm not going to say where I walk. I have some spots where I walk.

Tanner: You can remain private.

Joe: But I was walking and it's the same thing as you. Finally, I'm outside, I'm alone. This is amazing. Just nature in LA. Beautiful. Seemingly out of nowhere, I don't know where he came from, out of the bushes or some shit, a guy with a script reading his lines out loud. Out loud. And he passes me. I'm sort behind and I couldn't believe it. I almost said something. It was just me and him. He was just reading lines out loud on the walk. But I let him go. I stopped. Took a detour and just... It's just unreal. I feel like it's so LA. You're going to see the wild actor. Not the wild boar.

Tanner: Yeah, I think we get the SF version where it's the guy talking about his tech job.

Joe: Yes. Yes. That's Marin's pet peeve. Yeah.

Tanner: It's mine too.

Joe: It's hard to get away from, she finds. She finds. In a coffee shop or you know. Yeah.

Tanner: My go-to for that is, depending where you're at, I've done this a few times up in Muir Woods, for example, you have someone kind of walking by and is talking super loud, I always pull them aside and I shush them. I say "Watch out. There's a mountain lion on the trail and they're attracted to noise," and immediately it's...

Joe: That's pretty good. Smart.

Tanner: ... the fucking wrath of God was coming down. The color from their skin fades and they'll continue on the trail. "The mountain lion is fine but we'll shut up now."

Joe: That's brilliant. I'm going to keep in my back pocket, for sure.

Tanner: If you're saying "Hey, shut the fuck up," of course you're going to get in an argument. You're going to feel vindicated, rightfully so. They're going to hate you for saying it. But if you're, "Hey, I'm kind of concerned for you. There's a mountain lion up ahead." But they also don't question, "How did you get ahead? We're both on the same trail going the same way. How do you know what's ahead?" They never question it.

Joe: I mean, yeah, it's the imminent threat. You're not going to question. Somebody could have walked coming from the other way, you saw them and warned you. That's the best thing to do, because then you're passing it off. You don't have to explain anything else.

Tanner: Right.

Joe: But that's really smart. Yeah, okay.

Tanner: I think the opposite energy, and this is early in the pandemic days where it was you don't know if the air safe to breathe and if it's okay to be around people. I was hiking. Yeah, this is in Montana during that summer. Confusing fucking weird time, for sure.

Joe: Yeah, that was. And you're right. That was the apex of unassuredness, that you're not sure. And with a group of people too. And what the fuck do I do? You know?

Tanner: Exactly. And then even that, I was hiking somewhere in Glacier National Park and I was thinking I don't know how to make heads or tails of anything. One plus one isn't equaling two. I can't figure this the fuck out. So I was wearing a bandanna on the trail and that's just the admission I don't know what fuck is the going on. I don't know how to handle the situation. This is a tool to get me through this for right now and we'll figure it out later.

Joe: Forget about it.

Tanner: And I remember I was on the trail and there was a group of people-

Hostess: One more?

Joe: Yes please.

Tanner: Heck, yeah.

Joe: Thank you.

Joe: Thank you.

Tanner: Fantastic. Thank you.

Joe: Forgot about that.

Tanner: It hasn't forgotten about us.

Joe: No. That was perfect though, too. It's not like I’m taking photos of this experience.

Tanner: Sorry for the flash.

Joe: No, it's all good.

Tanner: Dude, I remember wearing a bandanna on the trail and I had a group of people come up to me and this one woman... I swear to fucking God, it's not a fucking parody. She's wearing a Live Laugh Love shirt and a Trump Make America Great Again hat and I swear to God, this feels like when you have an NPC from a video game come up to you and just start harassing you. We passed each other naturally and she yelled, "Hey, what you wearing a mask for?" And I just fucking lost it, because the juxtaposition of the two together, and you're thinking, "Which way is this going to go? Which way is this going to go? Which way is it going go?" And it goes to, "What you wearing a mask for?" And I'm…. “You know what? To be honest, I'm kind of wondering the same thing. I can't square up what's happening, but just-"

Joe: Oh, my God.

Tanner: "... don't call me out on it." And I rehearsed my lines for this, because I'm thinking "You know what? Someone's going to be like, 'What the fuck are you doing?'"

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: And I pulled down the bandanna little bit and I said, "I'm trying to keep it on because the thing is people are recording nowadays. If you say something, they'll record you and put it on Twitter or Instagram or TikTok." And I'm trying to say this with a straight face without busting up.

Joe: That's crazy.

Tanner: "They'll record you and then those apps will use facial recognition technology."

Joe: Brilliant.

Tanner: "They'll find you. And they don't recognize you if you wear a mask." And instantly a light bulb went off and she's saying, "No way." And I was just like, this is so fucking bizarre because I-

Joe: You went to Q Avenue.

Tanner: Yeah.

Joe: You pulled out the Q card. You know what I mean?

Tanner: Yeah.

Joe: Yeah. That was crazy. That's fucking genius.

Tanner: You have to outcrazy the crazy. And I think it worked because she was thinking "I'm hooked. Tell me more." I was trying to move one. It was just weird. "Tell me more. You've given me new information that somehow makes so much sense. And I was here to just be a total asshole."

Joe: Yeah, I cannot believe... Just the vision of the Live Laugh Love coming into focus and then the hat and then the attitude is amazing. That's amazing. It killed me. It fucking killed me on the spot.

Tanner: Because I see the shirt first. I was thinking, "I've never seen anyone with that shirt." But I kind of love the saying on its own. And then I see the hat and I was like, "Okay. Kind of makes sense where I'm at." And then she's says "Hey." And I’m thinking, "Fuck, man."

Joe: That's incredible. Amazing. That response is ingenious.

Tanner: I had to rehearse it because that was, again, weird fucking times.

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: You're going into a spot where people are "Hey, everything is normal." I'm thinking "Hey, it could be, but on a personal level, I don't know what the fuck is going on. And I know you're going to give me shit for it. I might not give you for your thing, but you're going to give me shit for my thing." You have to rehearse these witty comebacks and just be prepared right there. Because to think up there's a government spying on you and the only way to prevent that is to wear mask and I'm deeply invested in this now, you have to get the lore and everything.

Joe: Amazing. Well, I got to bring it up. This is an addendum to...

Hostess: How's it going over here?

Joe: It's going well.

Joe: Working our way through but all great so far.

Hostess: Yay.

Joe: Yeah.

Hostess: Do you want to do another glass?

Joe: I'm good for now, but I'll keep that little bit.

Hostess: Keep that little bit?

Joe: Just in there, yeah.

Hostess: What about this one? You want me to take this one away or are you going to finish it?

Joe: I think we'll finish that one.

Hostess: Okay. And do you want to do another bottle of Pellegrino? Or do you want to just switch it up to more wine or tap?

Joe: Let's do another bottle of Pellegrino.

Tanner: Pellegrino please!.

Hostess: All right.

Tanner: Thank you.

Joe: Yeah. The follow-up from the narrator, the Tool narration man, it's kind of related. It's unrelated related. But I had a friend whose elderly parents were watching... I've never actually seen it... but they were watching Passion of the Christ. Have you seen that?

Tanner: Yes.

Joe: For the first time.

Tanner: Yes.

Joe: For the first time. The main character is...

Tanner: Mel Gibson.

Joe: Yeah, Mel Gibson. Right. And they go, they watched it. The next day they called him up, said, "You know, yeah, I thought the film was all right. It was weird that Mel Gibson was talking throughout the whole thing. I thought it was strange." They watched the director's cut with Mel Gibson's commentary throughout the entire film. They thought they made it like that. He's like, "Yeah, in this scene I was told to go to the left and had this guy lift me up," throughout the entire... Imagine watching the entire film.

Tanner: Oh, my God.

Joe: Not just the director's cut but commentary.

Tanner: And thinking that's how it was released in theaters?

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: Jesus.

Joe: The director saw that and said "Yes, this is the film." Thought that was amazing.

Tanner: I have something in that realm. So...

Joe: I love that.

Tanner: This has a wholesome ending but it's going to start off really bad. Are you familiar with Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist guy?

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: Okay. So you know his whole shtick, his whole everything.

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: So he was on YouTube for quite a while. And then I had a friend who discovered him while he was on YouTube by using it for the first time. Discovers the guy, just hits me with "Hey, have you heard this Alex Jones guy?" And I’m thinking, "Fuck, man." There's no way that's going to go in any good direction. Because the next thing is, "Hey, man, have you heard this Alex Jones guy?" And he just puts out something crazy he says and again I’m just "Fuck, dude, this is so down the rabbit hole." I didn't respond because how the fuck do you respond to that? How have you just discovered him? I feel like everyone knows him. The first time anyone logs onto the internet, you get your tour guide of the whole the good and the bad parts and just, "Hey, don't go over here. You got these crazy fucks. You got these people. You got Alex Jones. You got this guy. You got that guy." And to just "Hey, taking a stroll through the internet today. Just found this Alex Jones guy on YouTube." And he says, "No, he's saying a lot of good things." I'm just, "Fuck." I immediately change topics. I need to come back to this later, sit with it a bit and just think what I need to say. Because this is just, we just went from zero to a thousand real quick. So a couple months later I hit him up again and he brings it up. He says "Yeah, this Alex Jones guy." I said, "You know what? Send me a video. What are you seeing?"

Joe: What the fuck

Tanner: Now he sends me a video that it was a fan-created video. It was a music video of Alex Jones and it was all these sound bites he said totally cut up. The music video is him saying stupid stuff. It's all the chopped up words. And I watch him. This is kind of funny because it's obviously mocking the guy, but thinking... You're not going down the New World Order rabbit hole. You're not down to be the hateful-

Joe: Doesn't know that it's... That's so funny.

Tanner: But it's like music. It's parody. It’s making him say silly juvenile shit.

Joe: It's the same thing. It's like the same thing. Yeah.

Tanner: And I was so fucking confused for the whole day. Then I realized Alex Jones got banned from YouTube but what didn't get banned was all the parodies of him. So when he discovered Alex Jones on YouTube, it wasn't him. He was banned by that point.

Joe: That's amazing. That's fucked as well.

Tanner: It was all these parodies of the guy. So this dude was in a first-person version of the matrix of his own personal internet and his version of Alex Jones is just this parody.

Joe: Yeah.

Tanner: And it's not the dude. It's just people mocking him. And he's saying, "Oh, yeah, have you heard of this guy?" And I'm thinking, this gives us a whole different context.

Joe: That's incredible. That's incredible. I've never thought of that. Goes back to the AI thing too. Especially being simulations of the people and personality.

Tanner: Yeah.

Joe: That's hilarious. And a unique point in time that we're at to where that could be a thing as well you could extrapolate on, but it's just you being aware of who the original character is...

Tanner: Right.

Joe: ... versus him getting his, like you said, matrix version, and that causing a rift between you and him because you have such disparate understandings of who this person is based on the internet's filtering. That's fucking really interesting. Dude.

Tanner: Yeah. Because he's the kind of guy who would go down that rabbit hole.

Joe: Right.

Tanner: “Yeah, you know what? There's lizards in the government that are trying to mind control us every day. That seems pretty reasonable. That's real." It's like...

Joe: Again, I don't know, man. Have you ever watched the slowed down version? The glitching of the newscasters?

Tanner: Yes.

Joe: With the reptilian eyelids?

Tanner: Yeah.

Joe: I don't know.

Tanner: I know. I'm just going to say, if there's lizards in government trying to mind control people, they'd probably have us all just sunbathe 24/7. Just get on a rock and stay there. You know?

Joe: That's true.

Tanner: It's like the mandatory marijuana skit with Bill Hicks.

Joe: I know some people that do that. They're probably a lot happier than I am right now.

Tanner: Just chill on your rock all day. Nothing to worry about.

Joe: Oh, my God.

Tanner: Soaking up the vitamin D.

Joe: Amazing.

Tanner: Shit. By the way, these peppers are still fucking killing me.

Joe: Dude, yeah, I know. I'm going to have to drink more. Fucking choking on them too. All right.

Tanner: All right.