063. - Caitlin Thompson

All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Stateside with Kai and Carter, a new podcast from The Guardian. And they are using this podcast to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions that we all have about what's happening in the world. And they do it three times a week. Jason, does that sound familiar to you? We don't really talk about, you know, a lot of international global news items and climates and cultures and sports and things like that. We do talk about fashion and wellness, but for everything else, Kai and Carter are a great place. All right, so who couldn't use more news? Listen wherever you get your podcast. or watch on YouTube. Want to make a podcast? Spotify's got a platform that lets you make one super easily, then distribute it everywhere, and even earn money. We like that. All in one place for totally free. It's called Spotify for Podcasters. And here's how it works. Spotify for podcasters lets you record and edit podcasts right from your cellular telephone or your computer. So no matter what your setup is like, you can start creating today. Then you can distribute your podcast to Spotify and everywhere else, those other places that podcasts are heard. Video podcasts are also available on Spotify. And when you want to take conversations with your fans to the next level, Q&As and polls are the best way to get them talking. With Spotify for podcasters, you can earn money in a variety of ways, including ads and... and podcast subscriptions. And best of all, it's totally free. Zero catch. We've been using it ever since we started How Long Gone. And ever since I discovered Spotify for Podcasters, I feel like having the option of turning off the Q&As and the polls on the user dashboard has really helped boost my creativity and take it to another level. I highly recommend giving it a try. Download the Spotify for Podcasters app or go to www.spotify.com slash podcasters to get started.

Hello, Chris. How are you? Oh, what up, big dog? I'm pretty good. Insane morning that I can't really talk about, so I will just leave you hanging there. Okay, we'll have to talk about your insanity day offline. I love talking offline with you. I'm just in the middle of shipping out some more t-shirts. Ah, yes. The How Long Gone merchandise portal. The portal is pumping. I'm really starting to get the hang of shipping while also really starting to get sick of shipping. Well, that's the thing with skills, Jason. Once you get really good at them, you don't like them anymore. But that doesn't mean you should stop. Interesting. I mostly shouldn't stop so that you don't have to do it. Jason, look, I've been shipping t-shirts since before you were born. I'm very good at it, but I also don't have access to a printer right now. I don't mind doing it. I actually find it somewhat meditative. I do too, actually. I am actually kind of enjoying it. I am using lots of great resources thanks to my friends at the local Glendale UPS store. Nice. They love supporting the team. They're fans of the show, I'm sure. They're fans of the show. They love to maybe look the other way when it comes to exorbitant charges or free shipping materials being handed over without even thinking about it. Are they familiar with it? Do they just know Big Dog from the neighborhood? Or are you just a good customer? I think I'm just probably one of the only people that might be nice to them and treats them like a normal human being or something like that. Because when I come in, they're just like, what's up, bro? They're really jazzed. Maybe everyone in the neighborhood treats them like the hell. That's not how I like to conduct my business, though. It's funny you bring that up. When I was in Atlanta, I went to the local UPS store near my parents' house.

It was the most seamless and excellent experience in a realm that was usually terrifying and awful. And I complimented them. And then I realized, oh, we're helping out because of COVID. That's our son. Our son owns this franchise. His mom and dad were in there helping him. And the guy was probably 30. Damn. It was very cool. How the rich get richer. Speaking of the rich getting richer, let's talk about Jake Paul. I'm glad you brought that up. um i i have been you know jake paul is not somebody that i ever check for um well that's you that's your loss loser uh that's why you're not getting the that's why your big ass ain't getting invited to that fucking hype house and i am um yeah but once you arrive you're not going to do the cool stuff that i would do like engage in a game of beer pong or you know Take some shots of 1942 like it's nothing. That's the type of stuff that I'm going to be doing at Jake Paul's Calabasas Mansion. Whereas you will maybe be asking them what brand of water Jake has in the fridge and then turning your nose up at the result. Actually, I think what I would be doing is leaving with four new clients all with makeup deals from companies we've never heard of is actually what I'd be doing. But that's fine. Either way, I'm winning. So you would find four new clients and they would let you then manage their social media accounts, I'm assuming? Or is that one of the services that we're offering? Well, probably what I would do is I would manage their career and now I'd farm out the social media services somewhat a little less qualified like yourself to handle that side of the business. Damn, dude. Bro, it's an honor to be scheduling your Snapchats. bro like i think like i won't let you down man bro i mean this seriously i mean this like dead serious like it really means a lot to me that i get to press like send you know what i'm saying it's cool i get access to like this nine-year-old's dms and i can see like all the you know a peek behind the curtain and everything and it's it's fucking exciting man i think it's a good look

It is a good look because, Jason, we all have to start somewhere. If the mailroom at CAA is closed, then fucking cleaning Jake Paul's sniper rifle is a great job. What I want to know is because he got in trouble, I saw, because he's always getting in trouble for something. He had a big house party that had a forklift there, and then he would have drunk. college kids like hanging off of the edge of the forklift and then he would lift it up and and he would just fling their uh their 17 year old bodies around a backyard and then the you know the neighbors would complain about noise and then he who the neighbors he got no neighbors in calabasas and then he got in trouble because he wasn't paying he like owed millions in taxes Whatever, man. God. And then he got popped for looting or trespassing during the protest in Scottsdale, Arizona. Jake Paul is the Scottsdale of people, I would say. But what do you have to do to get the military to show up a tank of Marines, dozens of them? to pull up and basically bust your gate down and raid your shit with AR-15s, what are you doing to get that type of action? Is it going to be some crazy-ass shit? I've heard, yes. I've heard that he is possibly selling drugs and also possibly trafficking pornography underage. And you have heard these from your insider sources or is this page six gossip? How rock solid are these claims that you're making? Every claim I make is rock solid. That's a cornerstone of my brand. Can you reveal your sources is what I'm asking. This information is out there is all I'll say. Okay, okay. So he might be selling drugs, moving guns, and...

and i child porn i well i mean child porn in the way that it's like he might have sex with a 16 year old you know what i mean i don't i don't think but but what i think is actually happens with guys like this like white suburban guys no shots at myself or you um but i think he's like rich but it's like not cool enough anymore so he has this fantasy of doing something actually legal which is what he's doing now. I think having crazy guns and selling drugs when you don't need to is purely like a, I want to be someone I'm not, even though I'm rich. It's boring now. I need more. Do you think this, is this a classified disorder or is this something that's emerging right now? And will it be named after somebody like Lou Gehrig's disease or something? Will it be? Jake Paul disease. Because the other, he's not the first person to, Bieber and Chris Brown, bless his heart. These people are talented content creators who have millions of dollars and fans and all that stuff. Not good enough. They have to do crimes. They have to break the law. They got to be bad boys or bad girls or bad people just to get a thrill. He could be suffering from that. He's definitely suffering from that. He went to Japan and basically committed an unspeakable crime culturally. He was doing some graveyard pranks. Exactly. But Jason, as we both know, what's more thrilling than moving a fucking brick? You know what I'm saying? What's more thrilling than getting 18.5 for the low, tell him holler? You know what I mean? What is better than that, Jason? As a former drug dealer, I'm sure you could give us some insight. Yeah, the feeling of moving 16 zips across state lines and getting away with it is... You can't put it into words. By 16 zips, Jason means meeting a guy that looks like Logan Paul in a parking lot and giving him a bag of oregano for $100 in Huntington Beach.

Yeah, the zip means, you know, ounces in other places of the world. But in Orange County, it does mean a gram of mid. And it is in exchange for some type of like, money is not being exchanged. I'm getting like a nice assortment of like board shorts and some tanks and stuff like that. Bro, look, bro, look. I stole this shit from Hurley. I'll trade you for a bag of men. This may or may not have fallen off the back of a Volcom truck. We don't want to, you know, I don't want to get into the details, but yeah, it's new shit. I hate you. Yeah, so, I mean, do we want Jake Paul to go to jail, you know, federal prison for decades? Will that... What will that do for the world? Will that make other people think twice before they behave this way, or nothing will change? Bro, hell no. Man, hell no. White people wanting to commit crimes to feel cooler is too deeply embedded in our culture. Yeah. Like, Jake Paul, I mean, the reason it's so problematic is because Jake Paul doesn't need to do it. When you're committing crimes because you're destitute and you've been oppressed for 200 years, then... That, to me, is a very different situation than a white guy being like, look at these guns I got, baby. I sold, you know, it doesn't add up. It's not the same. It's not the same. Yeah, he doesn't have any kids at home crying all alone on the bedroom floor because they're hungry. And the only way to feed him is to, you know, sell a sniper rifle for a little bit of money to pay the Calabasas rent. No, that's what I'm saying. It's all depressing cosplay of him watching Goodfellas too many times. Do you think there's a decent chance that him and his team are excited about this in a way to spin it to get him some more street cred? Like he's looking forward to becoming a real actual criminal to get the respect from Kodak Black and people like that?

No one's ever going to respect a YouTuber. That's the bottom line. You could be like, oh, you make bank. That's cool. You're making a lot of money. But respect, I don't think, is a word that gets thrown around in the YouTube community that often. I don't think that he is necessarily going to get the respect. But he might think that this could be an opportunity to get one, to get respect. Yeah, I mean, he is dumb. So that is quite possible. And I think his team is like his parents. So who knows? Don't come for Team, what is it, Team 10? Tap 10? I think it is, yeah. I mean, honestly, we should know more about this stuff, but I don't care. No, not really. Well, as esteemed members of the media, I feel like this is an important subject that gets brought up a lot. Yeah, I mean, we don't want to know about it, but it's part of our job. Exactly, so that's what we know about. We know enough, I think. Yeah, well, I mean, hopefully he does get life in prison, and maybe we'll have some kind of cool party or celebration for it. Maybe he'll get suicided, you know what I'm saying? I'm going to get invited to a Hype House-style party before I leave Los Angeles. That's my only goal. Are you going to attend it, though? Hell yeah, baby. I'll put on my mask. I'm turning up. They're going to think that you're someone's dad, though. You know that? Bitch, I don't care. They don't need to know what I'm doing there. I'm the ops, baby. I'm just in there checking it out. You know what I mean? I need to know what these guys are doing. Undercover black. Yeah, I'm undercover, but it's for the culture. I would never call the feds. Are you going to tell people that you work for Instagram? No. Maybe. You're there to hand out beta testing accounts for Instagram reels? Dan, that's a good idea, actually, for us to go undercover. That's how we should go to Hillsong. We pull up in the Range Rover and say we're there from Instagram to introduce the church to real. We have an exciting opportunity for you and your parish. Hi, I am Jason, and this is my colleague, Chris. We have an interesting opportunity for your parish to grow its viewership on the platform Instagram. It's going to be like Jehovah's Witness, but we got Yeezys on.

Yeah, we come to your door, right? But we drip it. It's Jehovah's Fit Picks is what we are. That's a good idea. Damn, we're just giving this shit away. It's bullshit. I know. Co-host Jason, we do have a guest today, a friend of mine from the great city of New York. Her name is Caitlin Thompson. She is the co-founder of Racket, the best magazine about tennis that exists. And she also co-hosts the Racket Magazine podcast that is quite popular in the community as well. We were getting so many questions from you idiots about tennis, and Jason and I are merely amateurs. So we decided we thought it would be better to bring on an expert and just really grill her about the sport, the gear, what we should be doing as players. Just get some inside tips. Yeah, you asked for... a trusted source from big tennis and we deliver we deliver big tennis and and agassi said he would come on next week but he was like a little unavailable so caitlin is is filling it all right let's let's give her a call please okay i put a shirt on for you today pussy i'm glad we're recording that thank you for for finally putting a shirt on It's the least I could do. Because if I'm going to do that, you should be paying me $5 a month. It's a shame because I do really like capturing the organic moment where our host discovers that you record these shows with the titties out. But yeah, sounds good. Are you an actual long-term listener, Kaylin? I mean, as long as you've been around. That is pretty long. That is pretty long. What are we, like 40 episodes in or something, guys? Oh, I thought you said long-time listener. We're at 63. Oh, wow. I mean, I guess having a kid and a full-time job is my listening time. Chris has a full-time job, and I have a kid, and we're podcasting with him. It's no problem for us. Are you in New York? At this very precise moment, I'm in coastal New Jersey. My son is theoretically in an outdoor...

YMCA camp here all week where my mother-in-law has a little beach pad. However, there was a hurricane and it knocked out power. So we are here for no reason. If Jersey couldn't get any worse, now we got no fucking juice too, huh? It's pretty true detective season one. But power's out in New York too, right? It's like pretty bad everywhere. Parts of New York. I don't know. My wife is in the city because she runs an island in New York City and she can't really leave. I'm sorry, what did you just say? She runs an island? She does. That's a little bit of a flex, but she runs Governor's Island, which is kind of like an art. Got it. Yeah, I like that phrasing. That's a really nice way to put it. Yeah, I was wondering if it was going to be like an island records type of play on words, but Governor's Island, didn't they have like a music festival there or something a while ago? Governor's Ball. Governor's Ball, right. Gov Ball, bro. Gov Ball. I asked her why they didn't. They don't have it anymore? I think it's from COVID. Just kidding. I guess it turns out if you have an EDM festival, the deaths just pile up. Yeah, Jason knows as a member of the EDM community, Jason's very familiar with all the deaths surrounding the culture. Yeah, but our ravers are dying doing what they love. They're not getting fucking murdered. They're not getting shot. They are fucking overdosing on bad ketamine the way that they intended to do it. Exactly. We should all be so lucky. That's personal freedom at its best, in my opinion. That's what personal freedom really means. Yeah, my body, my rules. Ketamine overdose. Exactly. So how has the quarantine... Are you a teacher now? Yeah, that's a new skill that I added to my skill set. Mrs. T. Yeah, how is it going? I'll be honest with you. My kid is having the time of his life. How old is he? He's just turned six. So he's been in kindergarten for the last couple months. And now he's obviously in some sort of summer, I don't call it summer vacation. It's sort of, you know, time and definitions have sort of lost their meaning. But he is having a great time. He has the attention of two moms.

a grandma and an aunt, my sister who lives in the city. So he's like wall to wall adult attention, which as an only child who's like pretty nerdy, he's fucking like he's reading. He's so into it. Is this nerddom now? Is that something that you would fault yourself with? Or do you look at this as a positive? I mean, he has no, first of all, from a maintenance perspective, if you were to tell me when I saw the penis on the sonogram, I'll be totally honest. I was like, what the fuck? Because I don't know how to approach this mentally. Yeah, you want to smash that PP patriarchy. Penises? Penises in general? Or you mean a child with one? Well, I mean, more or less. The thought of a penis doesn't repulse me. in theory but more just like how could we possibly be having a boy this doesn't make any sense like that they did we got the wrong test result like kind of that feeling you know they do that for you it's like the way they would they would a womanizer you know hits 50 and finally has a child and it's a girl you know and it throws him it gives him a existential crisis about how he's treated women his whole life yeah god jesus christ deliver us the challenges that we need in life not the ones that we want Exactly. Then you carried me moment for me. Who raised who at the end? Who was raising him? So your child has many, many parental units, all female though. How are we feeling about that? And I don't mean that in a sexist way whatsoever. No, it's interesting. I do feel a way about it because I try to get him some male influence as often as possible. Is that why you wanted to come on this pod? That's the selling point. I think we're going to talk about that, right? Well, Uncle Chris is available at all times to talk about sneakers and women, you know, important stuff. From a male perspective. And he will throw the old, he will play catch or throw the baseball around if you can secure the Bottega Veneta catcher's glove. If you're looking for a bro-y activity. Well, I was asking because I was raised by all females and I did not turn out so great. So just a word of caution. Didn't you?

I disagree, Jason. I think you have a pretty good – I was being sarcastic. I think you have a pretty nice way about you, though. But I never thought about that because my dad was pretty – I mean my parents were like equally involved in my life in a way that I feel like doesn't happen anymore. In a good way. Yeah, yeah. I mean I have like – I had the most idyllic upbringing. Like I feel bad about it sometimes. You're like, I don't want to rub it in. Yeah. All of any Chris trauma is created by Chris himself. Uh, I can't even blame my parents on it, which is an interesting, an interesting, I think a lot of people cannot relate to that. Um, it's true. Although I should say like, after like the eighth year of therapy, you're kind of like, you're bored with your own therapist and yourself. It's your parents again. You're like, ah, I had this moment. Just throw me a curve ball where you're like, I can't. No, it was the clown that you like saw at the fucking state fair. Like that's where all this is. It has to be deeper. It has to be deeper. Are you, are you, you're not from New York though, right? Are you from, I know you lived in Montreal, but you're not Canadian, are you? You are. Why are you so mum about that? It's a good point. I have been having a lot of conversations with my wife about how we need to make a run for the border and I need to get them in as refugees. Except she refuses. You did not bless your bride with a green card or a passport? You can't. I could not. Why? I can only apply for her residency permit and then ultimately green card from within the state of Canada. We would have to be living there for her to get citizenship. Looks like it's time to get a nice little two-bedroom condo in downtown Edmonton. Exactly what I was thinking. The top of my list is Edmonton. That's the right latitude. That's the right latitude for where I really want to be. Calgary is available as well for you, I'm sure. But I just, you know, I don't think the scene's quite as good. I kind of like Calgary. Nothing is worse than Edmonton. Sorry, Edmonton stands out there. Yeah, I mean, I think if you had to pick, you would pick Calgary. Although, you know, our bro Tyler Brule is a little known fact from Winnipeg, which I feel like is the best.

Fun fact about Tyler Brulé. What do you know about Tyler Brulé? Have you had a lot of dealings with him or you just know him from his work? I mean, it's... I feel like we've... I hope... How to phrase this? I don't know as much as I'd like. Has society moved past the need for Tyler Brulé? Never. Is this... Is Tyler... Is he like a makeup personality or is that a drag name? Yeah, he's a famous drag performer from Edmonton. No, he is the founder and editor-in-chief of Monocle, which last week he writes this really kind of classically out-of-touch letter from the editor-style column every Sunday for their newsletter. He used to write that for the Financial Times, but he kept plugging his clients so they had to pull it. Which I think is sick, personally. Smoke them if you got them. If you got that kind of gig, come on. I agree. He wrote last week, he basically wrote a cop's rule. He basically told a story about the cops coming to some gathering they were having and being very nice to him and all his rich white friends and how we need to discuss how cops are not that bad. It's basically what my takeaway from it was. Is this a satirical column? No, no, no. His whole thing feels satirical because it's so out of touch. It's not. He doesn't possess sarcasm being a Canadian native. So sarcasm is very hard for us. That's true. Sarcasm is very hard for us to pick up. It's like a language that we just can't really get our brains around. I say this totally candidly. We can't do it. I have a hard time with sarcasm as well. Truly. So Tyler Brule, the story of him, and what I will share with you in the event that you don't know it, everything Chris said is also true. I would add his real name is Tyler Brule. Like Steve Brule. Yeah, like Steve Brule. The only thing funnier than being named Brule is to intentionally change it and add an accent mark on that E to make it a little bit more spicier. He added the little chapeau U and an accent on the E. His dad was Tyler, Mark Brule or something, who was like a Canadian football player. And they're from like...

You know, the middle of Canada is essentially like our, you know, like energy. It's like our Dallas. It's like our, you know, Oklahoma oil fields. It's not, you know, cosmopolitan, you know. I appreciate the level of reinvention that he has gone through. Oh, it's a complete Gatsby. So he, getting shot in Afghanistan in the leg, which some dispute if that even happened, creating wallpaper, moving to London. Not unlike Megan Thee Stallion. I think Tyler Brouillet actually might like cops because Tyler Brouillet has never spent any time in America. He's only encountering cops in Canada, London, and Geneva, where he lives now. No, he doesn't even live in Geneva. He lives in fucking St. Moritz. What are the cops doing in St. Moritz? They're not profiling you for driving while black. I can tell you that. No, the police force in St. Moritz is probably small and unfocused. I've been treated very well by the mounted police. I don't know what all the hubbub is about. I mean, I think you have a very good point there. But when you're the head of a gigantic media corporation, you should be able – I mean, I don't know what kind of workplace environment they have there, but it seems like the kind of place where you can't really tell him shit, you know what I mean, is the vibe. Because if Jason said some shit like that, I would crack – I would be like, bro, we can't do this. No, I don't know. This is bad for business. Yeah, we need no men as well as yes men. Yes, everybody does. Tyler Brerley does not have that. He has structured his entire company. I think he owns 50% of it. I mean, he is, he's doing whatever the fuck he wants. And for that reason, I am forced to admire him because he has a tremendous amount of chutzpah that I don't, I mean, he's incredibly out of touch, but I think maybe it's a, it's not sarcastic, but maybe it's a put on. I don't know. I mean, anything's possible. I can't tell. I mean, I love, I love the whole thing. I love that they. when everybody else was making websites, they were like, no, we're not going to do that. We're going to have a terrestrial radio station. You know, it's like, it's like that shit. And it works to some extent. And I think it's all, I mean, I think that time of Monocle being like this thing is kind of over now. It's settled into it just being like a good, solid business. I think the spike where it was like truly influencing things is over, but that's any, that's the way magazines, that's just how things work at this point. I mean, listen, we started the magazine because of Charlie Brulé.

Really? Racket. So yes, let's talk about the magazine. You are the co-proprietor of Racket. Co-proprietor. So David Shaftel and I, long-time friends, short-time entrepreneurs, founded this thing together. He serves as our editor and I'm our publisher like four years ago. And we did it after a lot of years of friendship. We used to like... watch tennis, play tennis. We would do kickboxing together. It was very butch, our relationship always. We would sort of go out and, you know, get drunk at Johnny's bar a lot. And one day I had read this thing and we'd love tennis. We love, you know, we would share stuff like, you know, on occasion you would read like Ashley Vance writing something amazing and like, you know, Grantland about whatever, Victoria as a rancor, like Wes Morris or, you know. A few writers here and there would tackle it or somebody would do an amazing, you know, like thing. And we'd be like, fuck, why isn't there like some center of gravity around this? I bet we could do something. What should that something be? And then I actually read about Tyler Brulé being all about that magazine life and being like, I don't care about your millions that are going to digital traffic. I don't care about your scale. I don't need it. We're going to make a print magazine and I am going to reach a hundred thousand people, but those hundred thousand people are all going to pay. 20 bucks for an issue of the magazine. And by the way, they can buy some $800 Japanese umbrella that I curated. And I was kind of like, this guy, that guy. He's on some shit. Yeah, no, I mean, I agree. I think that the, I mean, I do think that racket fills a void and I feel like traditionally tennis is like a sport and an activity that does have a higher net worth individual. Pun intended. that that would yes pun intended that that is willing to pay that price especially for something that they might not be able to that kind of information is not available anywhere else you guys stand alone to me i mean there's nothing that touches you and i think that is that is the true like that's when you really fill a hole in a market is what i'm trying to say yeah completely i think you know just total transparency like i don't think we're at all geniuses i'm shocked that nobody else is fucking with this honestly like nobody else has figured out the tennis

needs like a whole bunch of stuff because there's an underserved market and like yeah there are a bunch of rich people who will pay a premium for anything but also there's like a bunch of cool people who play the sport who kind of like it i mean look i'm seeing i'm looking at your instagram like who's speaking to you who's inviting you to events who's like curating you or designing shoes with you or doing that kind of stuff so we kind of saw the opportunity to kind of like hide in a monocle casing something that's a little bit more like a hype beast um you know and maybe that's a data reference but like you know the high snobs of the world and these places that are sort of transacting on culture and talking to a younger audience, like nobody has thought to connect the dots with that in this sport. Like tennis has us basically. And then like basketball has 400 of these. Yeah. Well, we've talked about this. I mean, you and I've talked about it because we've been friends for a few years and we've talked about business a lot. And I just don't, why to me, tennis is so ripe to be running. You know what I mean? Where the big sports corporations are pumping money into it and making great stuff. The barrier of entry is fairly low, I think, price-wise compared to a lot of sports for kids. So why do you think that isn't happening? Is it because of the traditional way people see it from afar that it's like a country club sport? Maybe. Although tennis, and this is one of the things that we try to hit hard. Cause like the truth is we don't want to be alone. We don't want to be like the only sort of, I don't want to call ourselves cool, but we want to be like among a brethren of people who are writing and creating and making cool stuff. Cause then it wouldn't feel lonely, but then also it could kind of prove the thesis, right? It could prove the market exists. So I think for us, like we, one of the things we try to hit hard is this notion that like, oh, tennis used to be fucking dope and it used to be basically free. Like the public tennis court boom of the seventies wasn't a bunch of people playing.

tennis in private clubs and all whites, right? It was like people getting out there after they like saw Jimmy Connors or like Chris Everett and, and buying, you know, Walmart rackets and, and just having a kind of doing it. And tennis is a little harder than a lot of sports. So it's not something that you can like super easily pick up, which Jason, Jason knows that all too well. Jason, I've been trying to get out there. Jason's a good player. Jason, I play, we play probably three or four times a week right now. It's true. I love what I'm hearing. But Jason's very tall, so he has an interesting approach to the game. He's 6'10". Jesus Christ. 6'9", 6'9". I'm sorry. I was giving the basketball height. Your friend, our mutual friend, Stretch Armstrong, known NYC DJ veteran, him and I are pretty much the same exact body and height. Wow. I mean, he's formidable. He's a good player, but more than anything else, he really uses his length in a good way. See, that's the problem, Jason. I am obviously a greater athlete, but Jason hasn't. His approach is just so different that it's hard for me to make headway. He can get to everything without a lot of physical work. Well, I think we're going to need to get on a court together. Absolutely. You would like to see me beat Chris in person is what you're saying. Sure. Yeah. But so you're saying, though, that the sport is, I mean, how can it be democratized? Like, how does that actually happen? Is it by people like us just playing and talking about it? Honestly, I think that's part of it. I mean, I think unlike most other sports, like tennis is in this weird little category. So the sport is hard. We just talked about that. But lots of shit's hard. You know, so like people figure it out. What I would say is kind of the bigger. question mark is like it's not big enough that everybody jumped on it was like oh shit there's a bunch of money we can make here and making it cool and making democratize and making all the merch and all the access is just a no-brainer and it's also not quite niche enough or new enough for people to feel like they discovered it right like ufc all of a sudden is like a thing and it's just people beating themselves up in a cage i am not you know i'm sure it's hard but like it was a new sport that happened in our lifetimes like totally that's rare i mean that's rare yeah

And like, I think for tennis, it's kind of been around long enough and people kind of wrote it off. But the truth is like the people who run the sport have zero imagination. So all it takes, and we've already seen, you know, and I think our existence is kind of speaks to this. Like all it takes is for a few people to kind of show like, Oh, this can work. Here's how. And then, you know, cause. I shouldn't say we're the only people in the whole space. Like there's now some podcasts, certainly a lot of companies that are like startups, whether it's clothing or shoes or merch or whatever, who are kind of recognizing the opportunity. There's a couple, they're on the up and like. All it takes is a little bit of a cohort, and then all of a sudden you go to the US Open and you look around the media room and it's not like a bunch of dusty guys from London, which is mostly what it is now, asking sexist questions of the players. All of a sudden it's like, oh, look, there's the guy from GQ, there's the guy from Deadspin, or the new iteration of Deadspin, or whatever it is. We're close to having that, actually. And I think when that happens, it's going to see its sort of... potential like i don't know that it'll ever be the nba but it doesn't need to be all it needs to be is this thing that people realize is fun and has always been on the right side of gender race and that's actually in a lot of ways like trans right like tennis has actually been pretty progressive and that's a cool thing about it and we can sort of beat the drum a little so why not i was gonna i was gonna say that i think that's something very interesting about tennis too is that i feel like And I don't think they get exactly the same shine, but I feel like women's tennis has always been very close in equality to men's as far as coverage goes. Yeah, probably out of any sport I can think of. The TV coverage is big. The stars, we know their names. We know what they look like. And to me, it actually seems very skill-based. There's one Anna Kornikova. You know what I mean? Where it's like, you're a sex symbol. We want you on the cover of FHM.

mostly merit based in a way that I feel like the WNBA, no one cares. No, no one does care. And I don't know why. Um, although I don't really watch basketball in any form, so I can't speak to it, but I can tell you like, part of it is like, see it, be it right. Like, so like, you know, tennis has had 20 years on most of these sports, like really soccer for women didn't come into their own until the 96 Olympians. So like, that's part of it, which is just like, how do you bake in enough sort of. runway so that eventually it becomes cool and competitive and there's enough but i think also like for women in any like tennis now gets like the fourth or fifth best athletes in america because it's hard and it doesn't necessarily have like the easiest road to hoe like if you're the hundredth best nba player or nfl player you are making millions of dollars if you're the 100 best tennis player you're barely breaking even and making 50k a year right yeah actually i i think that part of it is interesting nothing because no but i mean i think that the the the kind of the story of like the journeyman tennis player is something that I love. Like a guy, it's like being in a band that, that makes it later in their career. Like you, you put out four records and for whatever reason, the fifth record is the one that hits. And, but yeah, but making a living, it's like, I feel like tennis, the only, the top, top players are making millions of dollars in the way that like every basketball player is a fucking millionaire. Totally. So if you're a kid and you're a guy and you're a good athlete, you know, you're getting filtered out usually from playing tennis. So then, but if you're a woman, it's like, oh, well, I mean, in my case, I wasn't ever going to be good enough to play pro, but I knew I could get a free college education. And so tennis for me was like, oh, this is like actually a road. And I'm seeing people on my television who are making something approximating what a dude can make. And they're playing and sweating and, you know, to your point, merit-based, like they're, they're, they're busting their asses and it's entertaining and it's great. So I think nice, the sport, you know, and obviously we can talk about like how and why and who did it. Cause it was a lot of hard work in honest, exactly 50 years ago, like with the creation of the tour creation of title nine, these things are all related, but the truth is like, I've always grown up watching it. So it's been normalized for me. So now of course, like I would want.

to go and, you know, get, get the next generation of kids. So I think part of it is that too, which is just like, you know, it's, it's about representation and again, making it cool. Like I want more people to play tennis cause I think it's cool. And I actually think it's sort of democratized in a way that's really, really, really great. And I think tennis teaches you a ton of stuff about, you know, getting your. you're out there alone. It's extremely pugilistic. Um, and I think again, you can play it when you're 90 years old or five. And I think that's, yeah, that's, I mean, that's also my kid play football. I can tell you that and like get CTE by 26. Yeah, no, that's not, I, I think that is the future for sure. As far as sport goes, but I do think out here, at least in California or in LA, I mean, the places that we, that we usually play are two. busy right now. Like it's too, you can't get a reservation in Griffin Park. You can't. And, and I think that is, it's also, you know, I think this moment should be harnessed because it is the socially distant sport. A hundred percent where it's an, it's interesting you mentioned that. So there's Vermont Canyon courts. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like every time we go out there, we're like meeting, we had two people, our creative director and one of our photographers just kind of like met each other cause they were wearing racket shirts. And then we like got. But neither of them really contributed to us before that, but they were fans and we got them. There's a group, there's communities that people feel like they can tap into. And now, to your point, yeah, of course, everybody should be playing a sport that's socially distanced and safe and allows you to get outside and not be confined within your four walls. Same thing's happening in New York. From what I can tell, it's happened in a lot of places. So I'm hoping the resurgence of the public tennis court kind of like... battler is is on the up because i think for me that was always what the sport was about like i don't give a shit who's ranked top 10 most people i know don't they couldn't even name any of the players do you need to follow the nba playoffs to like enjoy a pickup game no so why should you have to like why does tennis make you feel like you have to like

have the oh this is my string and this is my grip size and it's like it doesn't matter i can tell you you're not good enough for that to matter i'm not good enough for that yeah literally get a racket off the shelf and go run around that's interesting that you say that because a lot of listeners of this podcast ask us about gear and i'm like i don't fucking know guys i buy what i i just i buy what i like and maybe somebody told me about maybe i just like it like i go to the racket doctor i go on tenniswarehouse.com and i fucking buy i don't know yeah like i mean you're also nike hive so i feel like you're up on the latest releases. Look, I love to be up on latest stuff. The problem with Nike tennis that I find is I can't find it anywhere. It's hard to buy it. Unless you go to Nike.com, it's kind of hard to buy. And most of it is, I think Nike fell off in the tennis realm. and ceded a lot of ground to adidas to be totally honest but i feel like i do have some pretty good recommendations if you're ready for we don't talk about the stripes on this podcast yeah we don't talk about adidas i've actually seen you in the full palace adidas kit and it looks great on you and i will give you a pass for that because that's a special product but we are checks over stripes on this podcast it's a it's official i respect it what i would say that is more than anything else i recommend is get something that will make you feel boss. And for me, most of that is not tennis clothes. And unless you're wearing like marking sneakers, wear whatever fucking shoes you want. I am a big proponent in like, don't let the barrier to entry be some like sort of arbitrary thing. Cause like, I, let me tell you, nobody in tennis is dressing cool. Nobody, but I wear mostly skateboard gear. I truly like, patterson hooked us up with a bunch of merch and it's the most comfortable workout gear that i own so i mostly wear that when i play tennis um that that palace adidas collab notwithstanding truly and like i'll wear anything that makes me feel like i'm

Confident, basically. Excited to be out there. You know what I mean? And for me, that's nine cents of it because I just want people to sort of get off their couch. I mean, I could go real nerdy about gear and stuff, but I think the truth is your racket is not going to matter, although get something that doesn't feel too heavy. I got a lot of – my guy at the New York City establishment, this is like the Racket Doctor, although not quite as cool. If you're in LA, go to the Racket Doctor. If you're in New York, I go to – Sadly, Paragon Sports is one of our only options. And my guy there, Ari, who strings rackets, I'm like, hey, Ari, what's happening in here? He's like, oh, all these finance guys are buying this Roger Federer Wilson 97. And this thing is like about 1,000 pounds. And people who don't play tennis are trying to wield this thing. And I see them out of the court. Their arms are falling off because they think it looks cool. and they can't hold it. So I would say it's something that you can actually swing over your head. So Jason is fine with his Bape-Wilson collaboration racket. Yes! I mean, yes. Great. I make fun of him for it, but he's beating me. So I guess maybe he chose right. Well, you know, some people who are stronger than you, Chris, are able to wield the heavier rackets and you can get a little bit more torque on the ball. You'll pick it up eventually, I think. Jason, those twigs that you call arms, I don't see any strength in there, but you do have something going on. I can't figure out what it is. I think you just said it. It's torque. It's torque. What I find most valuable personally is the Thorlo tennis sock. whoa old school throwback that's my grandpa brand my dad wore those too but i wear them to run in and i just realized that running my feet are just so destroyed from running that like when i'm playing tennis i need to wear like a sock that's specialized to like make my feet feel good walk us through what what this sock feels like please chris well the thing about them is they're really thick like they're they're thick in a way that you're like this seems weird but then that padding really protects the toes and the heel when i'm just you know

just split stepping into a powerful backhand, you know, to the left baseline. I just need, I need the socks matter and they matter when I run. I realized that socks are a thing that people overlook. I think if you, if you're on your feet or you use your feet a lot for exercise, don't sleep on a squishy sock. Exactly. You don't, you're not put off by the triple reinforced toe and heel. In fact, that's the feature, not the bug. No, no, I honestly swear by it. I wear Thorlo socks to play tennis or to run. If I'm lifting weights and stuff, it doesn't matter as much. But yes, and they're only 11 bucks, which isn't that bad. I'm speechless. I mean, I feel like I haven't heard the name Thorlo since probably 1984. And the fact that you're keeping my business, hats off. Maybe you're not. It's crucial. I think it's a bigger thing in the running community, to be honest with you. I think that's where they have a stronghold. But my dad wore them growing up, so that's why I was so familiar with them. I think in the tennis world, they're probably part of the old guy's rule hive of the 60, 70, and up crowd who the joints are all fucked up and those thick boy socks really help them out. Oh, yeah. I can tell you who's rocking the Thorlo's in New York City. It's everyone 79 and older on the Central Park clay courts who get there at 6 a.m. and just squat on the courts for four hours. Those guys are rocking Thorlo's. I sense a little venom in your words right there. You know, if anything, it's jealousy because these guys have cracked the code. They wake up early, they get four hours on the court, they're in their Thorlows. I mean, they kind of hog the courts for the rest of us, but they're living their best lives and they're not spending a ton of money on a private club membership and they're keeping the sport alive in a way that I'm actually kind of like tip of the cap to you gentlemen. So if anything, I'm jealous that they have figured this out. What is your... What is your go-to, like what are the brands that you find yourself drawn to? Because that's what people ask us about all the time because I think we're so brand loyal in other ways that they want us to take a hard stance on tennis gear. Well, actually, also when you do that, can you guess just by our personalities what brand of rackets that we use? 100%. You're a yon-ex. Am I right, Jason? Wow. Is that true?

Yes. Wow. I feel like when we were getting our birth chart read, I feel seen AF. Yeah. I mean, you might be like head rising, but you're definitely. Okay. What, what are the, what are the characteristics of a Yonix boy? It's like a, it's like a missile. If you're a six, nine guy with a lot of torque and you're looking for a lot of action. then you're going to be drawn to that very unique square frame. All of the big men I know, including Stretch Armstrong, but another friend of ours, Vicente Munoz, who looks like he's winding up like a rubber band to like serve. They like the Yonexes. It feels like a very powerful racket that I feel like not very many people can actually wield. But also it's kind of an insider's choice. Like it's a bit of a deep cut, you know, like you wouldn't go to that first and foremost. Yeah. Wow. I mean. Couldn't ask for a better response. Thank you. Wow. I hope you feel seen because... I feel seen. I feel validated. I feel rewarded for... This representation is important. It is. It matters. And then loudmouth Chris, what racket do you think somebody like him would be using? I mean, I would hope. knowing his personality, that he would be smart enough to go with a head because I actually think those are the best. Oh, no. But you know he's not using the head. What did you say? I suspect you're with a Wilson. No, no, no. I'm a Babalot guy. Oh, shit. What are you doing with the Babalot, man? I don't know. I like it. We don't fuck with Babalots around here. Why not? Are you the team Babalot, the white one? Yeah. That's the only acceptable Babalot. Why do we not fuck with Babylon on this side? Did they get canceled? Did they pull their advertising or something? I'm trying to think of what the best ancillary is. It's kind of the... It's like the Toms. Damn. You're in... Damn. Toms shoes we're talking about. Yeah, I feel like you're like, you know.

This is quickly becoming my favorite podcast we've ever recorded. Just because I know how much that must be hurting Chris at a core cellular level. No. I've also seen Chris play tennis and he's a better tennis player than a Bobalot user would indicate. So I think it's time to level up, Chris. If anything, I'm seeing you for the person you are going to be. Your star sign is both a predictor. of where you are going as well as a document about where you've been and i think you're you're headed to better waters once you get rid of that bobble up you boycott the failing bobble lot team but i have a great i have great pink head grips on them too so it feels like i add a little personality you know I mean, what better place for those head grips on a new head racket? Okay, fair enough. All right, well, when we get off the pot, you can send me the connect to the head PR and I'll request. Yes, happy to. I had actually one more follow-up question to that. I was listening to you guys. I was listening to your podcast earlier in the week and you were making mention of being around New York City and seeing... all these people riding around in their bicycles with their tennis rackets in their backpack, and that was exciting and inspiring for you to see. And then you, I don't remember who made the comment, but saying that a lot of the people, of course, have two rackets in their bag. And you had some comments on that. And would you believe that Chris Black is a player that shows up to the courts with two rackets at all times? I will salvage Chris. Please tell me your unvarnished thoughts on people who have multiples of the same racket who are not professional players. I most certainly will. And as a matter of fact, if you go back and listen to that episode of the Racket Magazine podcast, I was talking about this with my co-host, Renee Stubbs, who is a six-time Grand Slam champion. And she...

made the comment that it's absurd to see people who are not basically professional carrying around more than one racket. And I took immediate umbrage because not only am I one of those people who brings more than one racket, I think people who only bring one racket to the courts are telling on themselves. Because they don't feel that they have the power to potentially break a string. is exactly right. People who bring one racket, it's all on that one racket. They don't believe in the torque that they possess inside of them. Exactly. It's torque. Maybe they don't play enough to be on the edge about one set of strings. Maybe they got one set broken in just the way they like, but that also means they're living on the edge because they're starting to fray a little bit. I have a follow-up question for you then, Torque Thompson. How many strings are you breaking on a weekly basis? I mean, let's be honest. With string technology where it is right now, Jason? Yeah. Not many. Not many, you say? Wow, I'm shocked to hear that. I mean, Monday I broke a string. This is just days ago. I got one out of commission. So thank God I brought two. Did you get it caught in the door or something like that? Or how did... What was it? A cat walked across it or something? That's right. They're so tight. I only use cat good, as you can imagine. And then I step on them, like Bjorn Borg, to get the tension exactly right. No, I was defending the conceit of bringing two rackets because I felt like it showed some dedication to the sport. Whereas Rene, who... can be a little dismissive of the recreational player was scoffing at how absurd it was. And so if anything, I was the voice of the people disabusing her of the notion that people needed to. The voice of the people who can afford multiple rackets that cost hundreds of dollars. No, she's not buying rackets, baby. She's in the industry. It's flow team, baby. It's flow team only. Walk us through maybe some of these perks of being tennis.

media elite what's going on that's right i mean there aren't as many as i'd like jason and i actually on a daily basis kind of take umbrage i'm like why am i not getting the hot lava nike releases of the issue for the air challenges why did i not get the palace kit soup to nuts when adidas came out with it you know like is there something cooler than racket i don't think there is uh i got a ball machine that was extremely cool damn that's pretty sick during this time Ball machine was dope. I really want, if we're going to swag out, one of the things I really want is kind of tennis related, but more just like athletic related, which is this hyper ice booties you can put all over your leg to circulate. Yes, yes, yes. For recovery. Are you a hyper ice or a Theragun user for recovery? Not for the low, low price of nothing. Let me tell you something. I eventually, I was told I was going to get a free one for like two years and I didn't buy one. And then I finally was like, fuck this, I'm going to buy one. And it's a must-have for a company. Really? It's changed my life. I use it twice a day. Jason's a big user as well. Twice a day? I use it way more than anyone, but usually on other people, not on myself. I give and I give. Between my girlfriend and my life partner, Chris Black, I spend a lot of time vibrating those fat-ass thighs of his. Well, I need you to get between my shoulder blades. I can't get that. So the rest of it I can usually get. But between the blades, I'm doing a lot of scat push-ups with my trainer. So it stays tight back there. You need a tight mid-back. decompress with an extremely high-powered specific massager, which I don't have to test. Exactly. Well, hopefully somebody hears that. Maybe Santa Claus will bring one this year. Listen, I was listening to another episode of your show, and you guys were – I think it was – you guys were –

starting on some sweet green and then lo and behold i see on jason i'm like wow this works you guys are really pushing well jason no jason's a known sweet green influencer for decade i mean since the beginning nothing to do with how long gone this is just no unfortunately that has nothing to do with how long gone and i end up paying for the salads more often than i would like i'm an independent food fluencer has nothing to do with this podcast specifically but it does not hurt it doesn't Maybe it's time to cross the beams. I'm just saying. Well, the problem is that as his co-host, I'm more of a, like, let's not eat guy. So it doesn't really gel. You know what I mean? Like the synergy isn't really there, but we're working on that. We're working on that. I want to follow up with something that you and I talked about a while ago, Chris, which is in the wellness space. So I don't think it's too much of a bridge too far, which is the Peloton versus SoulCycle tribal affiliations. Because as you probably know, Peloton is now on like a three-month back order for everybody who wants to cycle at home. But the SoulCycle bike isn't. Do you get one? Do I need one? Should we be even talking with this? Or are we done? We're out with this. I actually, I think I'm going to use Peloton for the first time today, actually. Because where I'm staying, there's two Pelotons in the gym. And I've never tried it. But as a former SoulCycle, I've done over 300 SoulCycle classes, embarrassingly, in my lifetime. I don't want to talk about how much that costs. But the problem is, and this is where SoulCycle fucked up, is that... It's not the brand for at home. Peloton is. SoulCycle is not that. It's just like no one even considers that to me. It's like Peloton only. And if it's on backorder, I'll just wait is the way it feels to me. Wow. Chris, you spent about $10,000 on SoulCycle. Sorry to interrupt. Carry on. Yeah, but I mean, look at me. I wouldn't buy a Peloton, I don't think. But I do think it's the blue chip brand of home.

I agree. It did feel like SoulCycle was a little too late, too little with that entry in the market, but I wanted to keep my brand loyalty because I too dropped a bunch of money on SoulCycle and my wife banned me when she figured out how often I was going. Well, I think the Peloton, I mean, the thing is that to me, I still think Peloton is like a fat, rich guy thing, you know, to like have. They're not athletes, are they? I mean, the people who use Peloton. I think Peloton, I like. It's fatties only. We know that. Yeah, I like spinning only as an alternative to running when my body is just feeling destroyed to get cardio that's like, I still get sweaty as fuck and feel good after, but it's definitely not the same as a run. It's a lower impact. Yeah, but I mean, honestly, to me, SoulCycle, it got to the point where it was kind of easy. If I didn't find the real teacher, I know there are teachers that are hard. I could do it and be like, I'm sweating and I feel good, but I could do that again. I would only do the hour class on the weekend. Wow. Okay. Chris was nationally ranked. I don't think I quite realized how nationally ranked at SoulCycle you were. So now I really need to reassess. I mean, this is literally the opposite of a flex because SoulCycle is so lame inherently. It is. It weirdly, it was something that I think also it was like, right. It kind of, I was doing it and then I kept doing it when I was getting sober and I think it really helped me. And it was like a program. I could go in there and do, I don't know. It just, I think I have a special feeling for it when I know it's actually lame. Oh yeah. Well for me, it filled a gap between like really intense tennis matches that are harder and harder to come by nowadays, just cause I'm like a mom who doesn't have that much free time. And then also like, I don't club. anymore. You mean, are you talking about Jason's industry of EDM? You're talking about ClassPass or you're talking about One Oak? It's a great point. Butter, really. Caitlin, we were at Butter on Mondays together. I didn't see you there, but we were there. I don't know. Maybe I was behind the velvet rope. I don't know how we missed each other. No, I was in the back with Mary-Kate doing coke, so I don't know. Must have missed you. Our ship's in the night. But I feel like I go get music into a large, sweaty room.

through like people getting married now, which is like kind of on the wane because I'm 40. And, you know, so for me, it was like, oh, this is a really fun way to listen to some loud ass music in a room. Oh, I never thought of it that way. Me neither. That's a great point. And I think that I actually, the teacher that I loved who like we're friends now, he's the only one I ever found that had good music. No, no, no. This guy Parker. Oh, I liked Parker's classes. He did have good taste. I went to many of his classes. I'm sorry I didn't see you there. He would play shit. I was like, damn, this motherfucker really is on it. He's looking up. The thing about those guys is you want them to do a little bit of crate digging, but you really only want to hear the best of the hits, and that is what makes you an exceptional SoulCycle teacher. When you play the right Drake song, it might not be the newest one, but you play the best one, that to me is the real win. And also for me, the final cool-down song really is a chance to shine. Yeah, I agree. I went to one that played some kind of acoustic guitar mess, and I was like, never again. And the whole rest of the class I had loved, but that was the finisher, and I was like, we're not on the same page. No, I need Dua Lipa. Yeah, sure, like a slower Charlie XCX maybe, but certainly not like acoustic guitar. I don't want an organic instrument in my entire SoulCycle experience. I agree with you, and I know Jason hates organic instruments as an EDM influencer, so we know where he stands on that. No bongos in his soul cycle. But I do think the Peloton, I want to try, because a few friends I have that have gotten it, like my friend Emil is swearing by it. He's like, dude, I've lost weight. I feel amazing. This thing is really working for me. I can't figure out where I'm going to put it in a New York City apartment, but I'm closer than ever to convincing my wife that I need one. Well, I think you should kick your son out and make him sleep on the couch or whatever. Great point. His room. I mean, he's too young to know. He'll never. Yeah, he won't remember. I think we all have to make sacrifices, and this will be his. Yeah, exactly. Sacrifice is important. I forgot that you were a soul cycle, because at Barry's, the music is historically so bad. There's never been good music at Barry's Boot Camp in my entire life, and I've gone 200 times. How?

Because I just think SoulCycle is rhythm-based, so there's so much effort put into music, whereas Barry's is just like, we play music while you lift weights and run. Yeah, I think for me, one of the things, actually, when you guys, are you coming back to New York ever? Do you just live on the West Coast now? Jason, I know you're based on the West Coast, but are you done for New York? Jury's out. I'll be back. It's going to be later in the season, but I'll be back. Well, I'm asking for a specific reason because one of the things we've been doing all summer is we've been gathering people at our public courts on the Lower East Side sort of like under the banner of Racket because people who read our magazine or, you know, fuck with their shit in any way just like meeting each other a lot of times. And we kind of took over. We've been colonizing us at a sort of corner of the Lower East Side public tennis courts under the Williamsburg Bridge because they were supposed to. pull down those courts and totally, totally, um, bulldoze the entire East side park. But now that look, we got to get that sweet green in there. Come on. We got to get some great. So we've, so Dave, my business partner, uh, in addition to wrapping up the racket magazine book out August 11th on a Peter book, sold whatever books are sold. Uh, wait, wait, we'll go back to that. I didn't even know that was go ahead. Just bought a giant 1980s breakdance style boom box off of eBay. to take the tunes on the court up a notch. Wow. So now we have a little bit of everything. And we got DJ Stretch Armstrong, our mutual friend out there, who's been playing for us upcoming hits off of his new record. So it's actually kind of popping off. on a regular basis. And I want you to be a part of it because I think you'd really like it. And it's music-based. You're saying that's more fun than me and Jason playing alone at 3 p.m. in Glendale with a Beats pill playing Wilco. Okay? I mean, whatever, I guess. I mean, you say something. I was ready to endorse that until you said Wilco. Because they're like an instrument, man. I don't want Jeff Tweedy with a fucking guitar. If you're going to play me music, it's got to be beat-based. We don't listen to any music when we play because I want to hear Jason grunting when I'm making him run to the net. That's really what it's about. Wait, tell me about the book. That's very exciting. I love books. Yeah, so David, Maya, I love that you love books. Love books.

my co-founder just finished editing our first book, uh, with this very cool lefty, uh, house called repeater, which is based in London. Um, and it's basically the best writing from the first three years of the magazine. So it's all the hits, all the hits, just the hits, like the best, the best cream of the crop. Um, and he was really proud of himself cause he got Billy Jean King to give us an endorsement on the front cover, but then Stephen Malkmus. to get an endorsement on the back cover. Damn, that's big boy blurbs. Who's got the Malcolmus connection? I mean, apparently he found our magazine somehow. I don't know how. I could see Malcolmus being a player. Apparently he's a fanatic of tennis. We've got to get Malcolmus. I need to interview Malcolmus for the magazine. I think this is where this is going. Sold. When can you file? Don't talk to me like an editor. I'm getting triggered. That's really cool, though. That's exciting. So the book is out August 11th? The book's out August 11th. We got an Adidas collab coming the next couple weeks. I know it's a Chex, not Stripes household, so I won't. No, but you have a collaboration coming out? Yeah, we're reissuing these really old school shoes from the 70s called Forest Hills, which is where the US Army used to be. They can't look worse than the Jonah Hill Adidas, I'm assuming. I mean, the Jonah Hill Adidas are not number one, but you've got to assume you're dropping an iced coffee at the same time. Then they look cool. So then they look cool because that's really more of a walking one block in Soho kind of shoe. That's actually exactly what I look for in footwear. Like, how does this look on Prince Street only is where I'm thinking. With like V files in the background. Yeah, exactly. Cool. Maybe. You just get it. So you guys are reissuing a version of the, of the Forest Hills Adidas shoe. We got like some like kind of old school Stefan Edberg for the tennis nerds among us who get that Swedish deep cut, um, sort of like a warmup jacket and sort of some old colorways from the seventies. So I feel like we have, you know, we're, we're trying to make sure people look, tennis clothes suck. We are trying to in very small.

in incremental ways, change that. But listen, checks out there. Nike Hive, if you guys are listening, I mean, look, we're open to doing business. Yeah, as are we. Actually, today I got a Lacoste Concepts pair of collaboration shorts that are very nice. That new creative director at Lacoste is tearing shit up. Yeah, she's amazing. I don't know. They're just black shorts, but the... The Lacoste crocodile is like a reflective. They're nice. They're super simple, but I like what I actually wear them. They're a five-inch inseam. We don't like the nine-inch tennis inseam. No, no, no. We want to show as much quad as possible, but we need pockets for the balls, so it's a tough thing to find. Yeah, although I think tennis should embrace the shorter shorts. I think the first reliably – sort of accessible brand who does that will find themselves. Sergio Tacchino was kind of doing it. Lacoste are shorter than average. But these tennis guys, they like these long 2B shorts. It's embarrassing. I mean, I don't know if that's a nine inch inseam or if it's just like a no homo thing for the male tennis players that are just like, I can't show leg. But it's lame. There's probably a decent amount of that in play. But short shorts are having a peak moment right now for the fellas. Since the early 80s, I have not seen this many short shorts going on. And tennis was ahead of the game. Yes. So how dare we relinquish this moment? That's what I want to say. We need to give some credit back to big tennis and away from Patagonia for waving the flag of short shorts. It's true. I mean, although, look, until tennis ponies up and reclaims its heritage, I mean, Patabrini is going to have to own it, I guess. I don't know. I'm not pleased. It's no one's fault but Big Tennis' own. Tennis slept on their own creation, and I think, if anything, this should be a call to arms. The magazine comes out twice a year, correct? The magazine comes out four times, three times a year. How many? Four? Three. Yeah. Four. Okay, so it's quarterly.

We have our next issue actually coming out in – what day is today? Today is – Two weeks. Two weeks. Two weeks. Very soon. We've got a book, a magazine, and some merch. Is there anything you can tell us about the next issue? We got an incredible cover by a music band poster designer called Aaron Lowell, who I think designed the new Muzz logo, that new band. He did our cover, and it looks dope. um, as hell, I think. And it's going to look good on your wall. And it's sort of an homage to the, um, uh, the essential worker. We love the idea of like people putting rainbows in their windows, which is something you saw a lot in New York. Kids would sort of tip the gap, um, out to the windows. Um, so we wanted something that looks a little bit like that. Um, and we're calling it the solitary pursuits issue. So we have a lot of stuff that sort of. talks about how interior tennis as a sport is because you're out there alone with your mind. So we got some photographs from Stefano Tsitsipas, who took a bunch of selfies, who's sort of the young Grecian sort of up-and-comer. We got Andrea Pekovic writing about being on vacation by herself in the Maldives. Somebody battling against a wall. Really the theme was like, whether there's a... pandemic or not tennis is a place where you can sometimes find yourself out there alone and maybe that's a bad thing but maybe it's incredibly i smell i smell a headspace collab i also yeah i smell yeah steven malcolm is reading racket headspace i see it from your mouths to god's ears gentlemen well that being said i i wanted to ask like for a magazine company nowadays like what are what is the breakdown in terms of revenue coming from Now that you're making money from selling the actual magazines, advertising, collabs, endorsements, you know, the podcast, like where does it break down? Like, you know, percentage wise, I guess, if you're interested in talking about that. Yeah, it's actually kind of interesting. We have, we started this thing as a labor of love because we loved print and we wanted to give people something, you know, in their hands that was tactile and that felt like something, you know, and we love Tyler Brulé as where we began the conversation. But I also, you know,

Hats off to Tyler Brulé. But I also think, like, for us, like, our mission is to disrupt tennis and make it cool. And what we found is that because we're direct to people who buy the magazine, because we are in their ears or, you know, hands with a physical product, we don't need to go through a platform. We don't publish very much on the internet. Like, we just don't believe in, like, finding our articles on Facebook as a good, like, user experience. So we don't do it. And so because of that, we actually have brands that come to us sort of to do advertisement, but that's not really what it is. It's kind of more like brand strategy because they're like, oh, you guys are doing cool stuff in tennis. Will you help us do cool stuff in tennis? So there's a bunch of stuff that takes, you know, sometimes months and years in the case of this Adidas thing. But it's like that's more about their effort to reclaim their story and heritage and talk about sort of where tennis goes and how it goes around the world and always has. Instead of being like, oh, this is a cool drop for a thing, we're going to splash it around everywhere. So for us, we find doing a little bit of strategy and storytelling around some of these things when we choose to is much more fruitful. And the other thing that we do a ton of that hopefully we'll be out in the world with is anytime we publish something in our magazine, it's sort of the seed for an idea. between narrative nonfiction podcasts and films and documentaries and stuff like this. The sport, as we talked about, doesn't have a ton of footprint everywhere. So we feel like somebody writes something amazingly cool about the tennis boom of the 70s and how Chris and Martina gave birth to the commerce and the pinup. in the eighties and all of a sudden that can be turned into a film, right? Like that's how we're thinking about it because nobody else is really doing what we're doing. We're not interested in like, Oh, this is who's ranked this, or this is what, you know, string to buy or, you know, Hey, this is like how to improve your backend. It's more like, Oh, this is like the whole culture around it. And since we're here alone, the revenue breakdown actually ends up being about a third, a third, a third between the magazine and sort of these collab slash strategy things. And then IP, which is really cool. Cause it means we can sort of,

you know, write our own destiny. I used to work for like big media companies for my whole career. I know you guys have had many, many, many run-ins with like what these big media companies do, how they act. And the truth is like, they kind of lost the plot a long time ago when they were like, Oh, we'll just give away our shit for free and assume that big audiences were meaningful. And the truth is they're not meaningful. Audiences are meaningful. And if people are onto your shit, then they'll come to your event. They'll buy your shoe. They'll buy your magazine. They'll support your podcast. And that tribe. And they like meeting each other and hanging out, whether it's on the Lower East Side of New York on a random Tuesday or at the Racket House in Palm Springs because we happen to pull some cool stuff together. Those two things are totally synonymous. And so to me, that tribe is really what we're trying to build because it means we'll succeed in our goal of making tennis cool. And the money kind of is attached to that in a way that is functional but hopefully not gross. No, I mean, I think... Yeah. I mean, I think what you, I mean, obviously we've talked about this before, but I think what you guys have going on is special. I think the, the film TV documentary stuff is a huge opportunity just on a, I mean, I think people devour that shit now in a way that hasn't always been the case. And even someone like me, who's not interested in sports really like watches 30 for thirties and that kind of shit. Cause it's just so good. And I think that the, the, the last dance is the ultimate explanation of that is like, that was like, a cultural thing. I mean, it's obviously the biggest athlete in the world, but it's also like, it was a cultural moment and it was insane. So I think the opportunity to do that for tennis and what the magazine does as well. And this is what's important is it's not a service magazine. It's a cultural magazine. You know, I think that that's what makes anything interesting is like, For most people, they need more context than just numbers and winners and losers. Completely right. And I think if you ignore that, some of my favorite magazines, and I know, Chris, we have a bunch in common. I'm thinking of Sarah Nicole Prickett's Adult Magazine. Yeah, classic. There are brands. There are storytelling outfits. I mean, look, what you guys are doing. Nothing is ever just about the thing that it's about. Hopefully, it's about life and the world and people and humanity. And not to get too earnest about it.

our shit is not about tennis. It's about like using tennis to talk about elitism, using tennis to talk about, you know, globalism, using it to talk about gender, whatever. And sometimes it's overtly political. And sometimes it's just like, look at some cool shoes in a cool place, but all of it hopefully weaves together to be like, Oh, I'm going to Trojan horse some ideas in here and make it about culture. And I think that's what the last dance did really effectively. Like, I don't give a fuck about Michael Jordan. I didn't like him when he was in my face all the time. I didn't really like the last dance as a, as a sports experience, but as a cultural experience, as a, as a commentary on like race, class, you know, the huge money making of sports in the, in the nineties and like really the emergence of like super superstars in that way. Like that was, it had so many things to say. And I think that like anything else, like you don't have to like, or fuck with sports to like the idea that culture is pervasive. But I think that's the reason that I'm attracted to music, athletes, fashion. It's the personalities that make it. That's what's interesting about it. You know what I mean? It's the friends that we make along the way, you guys. That's also true. That's also true. Good point, Jason. Do you think there's any chance that we have a Los Angeles chapter of these racket meetups? As soon as we can get on an airplane. Okay. Is that your preferred? I'm saying we can do a satellite version and just kind of get you guys on FaceTime. We can just send you our Venmo and figure out, I don't know how the financials work, but I mean, whatever. I'm sure the day rate will be very respectable, but yeah, we can organize it all for you. If Adidas wanted to sponsor it as something we could discuss, as long as I personally don't have to wear anything, it's fine. I'll let them know. Yeah, let them know. It's fine. Sooner than later, right? Yeah, it's not personal. You know what I mean? It's not personal. Chris Black's going to need a carve-out for his own endorsement deals. Exactly. You know how it is for us athletes. We have to be very specific. Gatorade might get mad. You never know. Labels out.

What are your thoughts on Gatorade? We've been doing some throwback lemon-lime drinking after the games. Have you? Yeah, we've been doing some zero-sugar Gatorade. Are you guys mixing your own powder, like old school? No, I wish. No, but we were discussing the option of that. Yeah, we're thinking about bringing a full-on cooler to the court. Yeah, just like a five-gallon bucket full of water and then dumping all that fresh pow-pow and gets to chugging. Jason mixing it like a cauldron. I think so, too. I think it's a good idea for us. I think it's kind of like a vintage flair that we can add. Yeah. I don't have anything to add to that. I'm jealous that I didn't think of it. Who are some of the sexiest tennis players playing tennis right now? There's one that I really want to talk about a lot, and his name is Benoit Paire. Benoit Paire. How is that spelled? Benoit. Benoit. Benoit. French tennis player. Oh, okay. I'm looking at him right now. Caitlin, he looks like a bad replay jeans model. It's quite diesel circa 1990. I'm looking at him right now. He has a beard, but it's a little on the thicker side for me. It's very manicured. He has a beard oil sponsor. Does he? How well is he playing? That's not the right question for Benoit Paire. The question for Benoit Paire is what state of mind are you going to encounter a Benoit Paire? What I like about Benoit Paire is he gives zero fucks because he's a lunatic. So when people ask me who should I watch, I want to see something amazing. What they think they're asking is who's the best. But what I'm going to give them is what's the most entertaining. And I'm going to give them a better pair. I understand that. I understand that. Tweeners. He does rope-a-dopes where he will stop trying for a while and then he'll lull his opponent into submission and then come back and flex at the end of the match. He's doing something completely different than most professional tennis players are doing. Damn, you're really speaking my language. This sounds right up my alley. Exactly.

That's the kind of player Jason thinks he is. Yeah, I like to have a bit of a drunken style where my casual spirit is taken advantage of and exploited, and then I strike like the anaconda that I am. Oh, God. 100%. I don't want to beat my opponent. I want them to be riddled with frustration. for losing themselves. And they'll beat themselves. It's exactly what this guy is up to. And if tennis were smart, which we've established that it's not, they would figure out how to market him as performance art. Because the other guy like him is Nick Kyrgios, who everyone kind of loves to hate on. And Nick Kyrgios, again, doesn't give a single fuck. If he's in the first round of a tournament where like in a town where he doesn't want to be, where he like can't party, where he like doesn't feel any love from the crowd, he will not try at all. But if he finds himself in like a semifinal against Novak Djokovic, he's not going to drop a point. Like it's nuts. That's the coolest. That's the coolest way to be. It is. And nobody knows how to talk about him because everybody in tennis is super dusty and we don't know from other sports how to talk about. the various personalities because again like tennis has only kind of been played by a few very narrow archetypes for the most part although that that's not quite enough true enough just because we've had like a bunch of like it's been everybody doing the same thing and then john mackenroe is the one guy who would like yeah and that's all people know yeah yeah or like agassi you know the outfits of becker like you know impregnating cocktail waitresses like they've been a bunch of cool personalities women's side just as much as the men but in the past like decade everybody's like super corporate and like everyone all these big three are kind of like falling over themselves to be like amazing sports and like corporate friendly and it could not be more boring so for me i'm like not interested in like roger fetterer's like you know gracious post-match speech I'm interested in Nick Kyrgios getting defaulted because he threw a chair at the umpire. Yeah, same. Jason, I'm throwing a chair at the umpire tomorrow. Also, in some of these Google image photos of our friend Benoit, it doesn't not look like me, I will say. He's got a real lanky, sultry...

that I would imagine using. All of this is correct. Jason and Sultry should never be used in the same sentence. He kind of looks like if I fucked Jude Law is the vibe that I'm getting. You're giving yourself so much credit. I have to. Caitlin, thank you for joining us. It's been a pleasure. I can't thank you guys enough. What a fantastic chat. And I'm excited for the book. That's very cool. And that comes out August 11th, you said? uh, on repeater books. You guys, uh, come join us. East coast, West coast. Doesn't matter. I want to see you guys in person. Maybe Chris, if you ever returned to New York, you're, you'll always have a place. Uh, great. I appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you. Anytime. Thank you. It's been a real pleasure. We'll talk to you soon. Have a good weekend. Bye guys. Bye.