April 16, 2025 • 50 mins
Listen, sometimes ya just need a brain break! Let's talk to Mangesh Hattikudur, co-founder of Mental Floss and Kaleidoscope and co-host of the Part-Time Genius podcast.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Also media.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
All right here we good politics.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
This is a special day because it gets to be
really like this is an example of when I'm taking
a break, like this is my own personal source of
like mental health. Like I know it's corny when people
say go touch grass, but like this is how I
touch grass. Is my man, my guest out here, man,
(00:45):
please introduce yourself and then I'm gonna brag about you.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
But you just go ahead introduce yourself.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Sure, my na, it's my gosh, I got my mango sometimes.
I come founded a magazine called Mental Floss when I
was in college and that for a long time. And
uh and now I've got a show called Part Time
Genius and a little podcast network called Kaleidoscope that's mostly
fo focused on like science content.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, uh, well you should be cited for misinformation on
this idea of like a small podcast network like you, Lion.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Is not small.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
It's incredible, you know the types of shows that are
on there. So first, from a fanboy perspective, this show
is going to be kind of like a grab bag.
I'm just going to really like I hate the term
pick your brain because I just feel like, yeah, that's
called consulting, Like pick my brain. I don't know if
(01:47):
you've got that before. People like, hey, man, can I
just like buy you buy your coffee? Man, pick your brain.
You're like, so for that, you just want You're just
gonna pay for my twenty years of experience with a
cup of coffee.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Out of it.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Yeah, I mean, I I never I never mind because
like a lot of people gave me a lot of
advice along the way, and a lot of people like
really really helped us and rooted for us and and
and that was huge, and so like, I never mind
having a conversation with someone, never mind having like a
coffee with someone. But but the big thing for me
is when they make it a lot of work for
(02:21):
you and they don't like and so like this one person,
uh was like, hey, would you mind like listening to
a show of mine and and like giving me notes?
And I was like, already, that's that's a little bit
about work. But you know it was like a friend
of a friend. I was like, sure, sure I could
do that, but just like pick out pick out the
(02:41):
episode for me, and they wouldn't. And they just got
being like, oh, you know, I've got this massive catalog,
so so you you find one that you like. It
was like, if you're going to ask for someone's elf,
just make it as easy as possible, you.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Know, Yes, for sure. Yeah, I think that's that you're
picking up going down here. I'm just like, it's not
so much like you know, I I My my business
model is generally just be a good hang, ye know,
and like, uh, you know, and I'm not gonna like, yeah,
just be a good hang. Like I'm not gonna like
(03:15):
if we're going out for coffee, like I'm not gonna
invoice you or nor am I gonna be like you know, uh,
we can't talk about that right now, you know what
I'm saying, Like, nah, like you know you're gonna give
me game. You're gonna give me a game, you know.
I I you know, obviously I'm from a I come
from black people, you know what I mean. And that's
part of our cultures that you give each other game,
(03:35):
you know what I mean. But yeah, but anyway, Uh,
this show is really just like I I I am
essentially just gonna go all over the place because I
I find what you do in the way that you've
showed up publicly more attuned to what's going on inside
my head rather than like what's happened what I'm putting out?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
So yeah, so so I can't tell you then.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
I feel like, especially with like this the subject matter
that we cover on the show, like I try to
cover very serious things with a type of sort of
levity that kind of like holds some of this stuff
loosely in the sense that like as existential, especially as
the season we're in now, we are also really just
(04:30):
we're spinning on a rock, like and not even an
important rock, you know, like it's just you know what
I'm saying, like this, like it's it's also it's also
not that serious, you know what I'm saying. Like, so
I try to like put some somewhat of a sense
of scale to what we're going through.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
And and the way that I personally do that.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Is is I often look to science, you know what
I'm saying, and just remind myself of like what a
binary star is. You're saying two black holes that got
connected on accident, like like what, like you know what
I'm saying, Like, you know, there's dust clouds that are
not measured in distance, they're measured in time, Like this,
(05:16):
how tall is this dust cloud? It's five light years tall,
Like wait, that's it's so tall that you don't use that,
you don't use distance, like you know what I'm saying, Like,
so I try to remind myself of stuff like that
that like.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Puts things in perspective for me.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
You know, obviously I say that while being in a
house with plumbing and running water and electricity. But it's anyway,
I gotta start with mental flaws because I can't tell
you how many times I've been I've paid for the
Wi Fi on a flight just so I could go
to mental flaws.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Like just that's incredible.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
I'm like, I just want like it's the mode like
mind blowing.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
And also it's this this, this is why I'm so
excited to do this show. I was like, dude, is
he really? Is he really down to do my show?
Like I know, like we have a lot of don't
shows on the network. You know what I'm saying that,
like have bigger audiences. But I'm like, I'm like, like,
you don't know what this man means to me, you
know what I'm saying, Like so so, so to start
with mental flaws, it's like the combination of this is
(06:26):
mind blowing information that everybody needs to know.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
And also this.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Is mind numbing like brainlessness that like also doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Like how those two things.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I just don't like, Like, so I need to know
a little bit of history of mental flaws.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Like I love that so much. So so a couple
of things. One, uh, one thing that's really funny is that,
like the summer that my friend Will will appearson who
you probably know from from of course yeah yeah, uh,
we talked about starting metal Flass and uh, and I
was like, should I do this or should I? Like,
(07:10):
I have a friend who's like a uh who's really
good at freestyling, another friend who's a drummer who like
had taken lessons from Max Roach like like and and
and we're like no, like should I be in this
hip hop band or should Oh?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
I know I liked you. He's like, I was going
to be a rapper. I was going to be a rapper.
I don't if you guys know this. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Rap skilled, but I could play the keys and like
put beans together and so but but but anyway, so
the idea behind metal Class was, uh, you know, Will
and I were in college and and we were freshmen
and there were Everyone used to come back from their
(07:55):
their classes and and they would talk about like the
the craziest ship they learned, right, like everything from like
you know, the fact that the bronx who had a
pigmy in it for for years, you know, like the
fact that like you know, like anything from like string
theory to economic theory to whatever. And it was it
was like but but it was really just the most
(08:15):
fascinating stuff and the stuff you want to hear. And
and part of what we realized was like, you know,
are like my dad was out of work, We're taking
all these loans to go to college, like I was
gonna have to get a job to like you know
that felt like probably pre law. So something that was
like you know, destined to to be very specific. And
(08:37):
and what Will and I were saying was like after
you graduate, like what like where do you learn? Where
do you have time to learn? Like like you're so
focused on this one thing and and and even getting
to that, right, like you have to major in one thing,
you have to specifically like like go deep on something,
but like where do you get the time to like
engage with the incredible richness of stories and knowledge and
(08:59):
stuff that's out there, and he and I had this idea.
We're like, well, what if what if it just felt
like sitting What if you could get a magazine in
the mail and you could like skim it and just
reading it felt like sitting with your favorite professors at
a bar where they're just telling you stories, right, They're
telling you the best things, the most interesting things, and
(09:19):
it's not like comprehensive, but it gets you to be
engaged in a topic, right, Like it gets you to
like to want to know more about a certain subject.
And so that's kind of what we did. And we
were like naive and cocky and and like you know,
twenty years old, and we put out a campus edition,
(09:39):
and we we googled a book called how to Make
a Magazine, written by Mister Magazine, and we followed it
page by page.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
And.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
You know, like like part of brilliant, part of it
really was so so like we put out a campus edition,
we thought like, let's try to make this spend our
scene year just trying to get it to Barnes and
Noble and Borders and stuff. And we figured out how
and we put it out on stands right before you know, uh,
that summer of two thousand and one, and then nine
(10:13):
to eleven happened, and we were like, you know this,
you know, this is kind of end end of our dream.
We're gonna have to like go to law school or whatever,
like figure out something else. And what we found was that,
you know, when the world's in turmoil, like people need
a break, like and and it's not that like you
shouldn't be paying attention to things, but sometimes you just
(10:35):
do need a break and and and this magazine was
a break for people, and it made them feel good
about learning in a way and and and so like
that that was really joyous and and and we you know,
in the beginning it was like my mom, Will's mom
and two hundred of our mom's friends.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Who subscribed to the magazine and my first album, see baby,
I'm so proud of you.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
Yeah completely and uh but but but you know, we
we made sure to reach out to every single person
who uh who reached out to us, and so like
there was this old, older woman from a retirement home
and uh and and.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
She said, uh, she was like, when are you coming
out with a large print edition? And we were like,
we can really get like, you know, we we're like
working two part time jobs and like spending our evenings
like trying to make this magazine and put together and whatever,
and like like there's no way we're gonna get a
And then Will wrote her back and he said, Hey,
(11:42):
we're not going to be able to put out a
large print edition, but we are going to send you
word documents of every article and you can print them
out at whatever size you want and and you can, uh,
you can still read and enjoy the magazine. And she
sent out like thirty subscriptions to friends for Christmas, and
(12:04):
it was like, we had no money for like marketing.
We barely had enough money to like to get the
magazines out the door, and and it only grew through
word of mouth. So that was this kind of a.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
See that's the testament of just yes, that's the testament
of just being like you just being DoPT like you're
just being cool folks. It's like, oh, I mean you
could have had an artist like you. I'll send you
the word docs like that again. Like that to me,
that lines up with like, yeah, that's my business model.
Like how many times people have hit me like in
(12:40):
my other world with music where they're just yeah, hey, man,
like I don't you know, I can't afford a forty
dollars hoodie, all right, I'll just I'll just send you
one like it's fine. I'm saying like, yeah, okay, you
know what I mean, and then you know, and then
it turns out like like I can't say. I can't
tell you how many times it's been like you know,
(13:01):
you you were kind to somebody that like, you know,
went to pick up coffee, and then it turns out
like whether the head of curation at Spotify now you know, yeah,
like dude, you were like and I'm like, dude, man, yeah, like.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And I didn't. It wasn't like I was planning that.
It was just like people kind.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Of yeah, you aren't scouting who you're kidding.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I was like, that's going to be immogual.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
But even in that story, man, you said so many
things that like truly like resonate with me because it's
like I I kind of discovered in college. I went
for illustration and in their cultural studies, like and like,
I think my love for hip hop was part of
what made me be so interested in cultures, right, and
(13:49):
just like what's going on around the world? Where does
these sounds come where these people come, Like how do
y'all dance? Like I get So that kind of opened
my mind to a lot more just being connected to
the world. And my father was a black panther, so
I was already kind of like plugged in with like
social movements and stuff, you know, just finding a lot
of finding figuring out that I found a lot of
things interesting, you know, And really what I enjoyed about
(14:13):
college was that, like I joined man, I joined the
like the Filipino Club, I joined the like Southeast Indian Club,
Like you know what I'm saying, Like because I was
just like, like I find it interesting.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
I want to dive in.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Like I didn't, you know, I in, you know, as
an art major, like I had to. You know, I
had my art classes, but I was taking stuff on earthquakes.
I took an Asian American women class. Like you know
what I'm saying, Like, I'm just like I just found
it all interesting.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I had.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I had a one of my polycide professors was like
who actually like wrote to the art department to get
me to change majors, And I was like, you're tripping, bro,
in a winter World. I'm like, I'm an artist, you know,
here doing a politics podcast. But like in that class,
he was like, look, man, I use a real crass dude,
(15:08):
but like I really stuck with me. He was like, man, really,
really you go to college to just to sound smart
at cocktail parties, you know, like, and I was like,
well what do you mean by that? He goes, you
know a little bit about everything, you know what I'm saying. Like,
so when you're at the company mixer, you know, and
you're chatting up the head of HR you know about
the three laws of thermodynamics and like it's an accounting job,
(15:32):
you know what I mean. But you're like, you know,
we're talking about like the Magna carta being, you know,
the rough draft of what the constitutions becomes.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
And it's like it's I know, it's twelve ninety five.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Like like just knowing that stuff, you're interesting, you know
what I'm saying. So now when you go to apply,
it's like your resumes are the same anybody, and they'd
rather train you on their system, you know what I'm saying.
So like, yeah, that you have a resonate better than
this person, It's like, Nah, you're you're cool to be
around because you're interesting, you have a lot of things,
(16:03):
so like it already felt like that's the way like
I already functioned. And I was like, man, but to
your point, like I knew I didn't want to go
to grad school. I was like, I don't have time
to burn a thousand page book, you know, and like, yeah,
I'm already a slow reader. Like that's something that's been
true for me. I just I just read slow, you know,
(16:25):
But like.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
No, me too, yeah, you know, And and I mean
I was. I was an anthropology major, like cultural anthropology,
and part of the reason was, like there are two reasons. One,
I just found it fascinating to like dip into like
any culture around the world and see like how they lived,
how they looked at the environment, how they looked at religion,
how they looked at what, you know, like food, like
(16:46):
any that that whole thing and that comparative sense of
the world was really fascinating to me. But the other
thing I really loved about it was that the writing.
And I'm a slow reader. In fact, I I have
poor comprehension, so it takes me like slow time to
like like make sure I understand something or whatever. But
but so the thing I loved about anthropological writing and
(17:10):
these ethnographies was that they weren't self serious, they weren't pedantic,
they weren't like talking down to you. They were just
like and and there was this thing called participant observation,
and so like they would go try to live with
a you know, a group in the Kalahari or a
group and wherever, and and they'd make fun of the
(17:31):
fact that they pitched the tent in the wrong place
and it flooded and everyone laughed at them. Where they
you know, like like all these things, like it was
you're allowed to make mistakes, you're allowed to laugh at yourself,
but you're also like allowed to be fascinated. And to
me that was like very much the tone of like
everyone's welcome, you know, everyone's welcome to hear this stuff,
and and like and it's not going to be hard
(17:52):
to read. And then and and that that was like
very much like part of part of the philosophy.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
I loved it.
Speaker 6 (18:28):
Man.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I remember to that point too, Like in the art
history courses you have to take, I was always fascinated
with like ancient civilizations, probably for the same reasons you're
saying or where it's like if you you know, drop
yourself into you know the bottom of the Amazon and
like people who this is their normal lives, you know
what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
But like.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
I remember, they made a point in like one of
my like sub Saharan African classes. They're like you go
to a museum and what's on the wall framed behind glass,
you know.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Boxes is a fork? A bowl.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Blanket? Like like can you imagine that? Like like it's
a fork, you know what I'm saying. So like if
you are from this culture like I be, I always
like pictured myself like yeah, post apocalypse, you know, time
machine going to a museum in you know, some off
(19:28):
center place and there's just like an iPhone charger just
like hanging on the wall, as like oh this is
this was their early twenty first century art, Like.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
That's a bowl? Like what it? You have a bowl
on the wall?
Speaker 1 (19:45):
You know? So I think that that like like you said,
that lack of self seriousness, Like I love it because
it's like you I feel like you need that to
stay healthy. Like again, like I remind myself whenever I
have to dive into so much polic I'm like, we're
on a rock spinning in space.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Like it just we're on a rock spinning in space.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, so I'm a fast forward super far so like
you and will you guys y'all invented podcasts whatever, like
just early adapters figured it out, knew what to do.
What was the like light bulb like and let me
let me, let me give a little context of this.
In my career leading up to this, the record label
(20:27):
I was on for ten years was it was called
Humble Beast, who started by like one of my closest friends,
but like in two thousand and seven, he had the
wherewithal to know that within like ten years, you're not
going to be able to sell an album. Like so
he was like, we'll just give you give us your
(20:49):
email address, and we'll send you a download link. This
was like, we didn't we didn't conceive of streaming, but
we can. But he conceived of like digital music and
not being able to like they're gonna get your album.
So here's what we need. We need your contact info.
So like like this is two thousand and eight, like
him being like, yeah, like send us your email address,
(21:11):
and then he was like, once we get an e newsletter.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
That's how we'll tour.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
So we'll use we'll do it by like location, and
we'll tour just based on yeah. Like and I remember
him bringing that to like different distributors and then being
like are you You're out of your mind? And we
were like, all right, well let's just do it and
yeah for a good you know, five to seven years
(21:34):
before Spotify became a thing, Like that's how we's how
we ate, that's how we toured. Was like, like, who's
the promoter you're using. I was like, we don't have one.
We have five hundred emails in this city.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
We just email them. Yeah, I'm said, and yeah, you.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Know so so I I I now look at him
like what how did you.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
How did you see that coming? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (21:58):
So like I feel like you guys did that with podcasts,
Like how did you?
Speaker 3 (22:05):
I think I think that you know, from from the
Metal Plus days, we were always outsiders, right, like you
know we were we were making a magazine from like Birmingham,
Alabama instead of like, uh, you know, instead of New York,
and we didn't have like the money or the trappings
(22:26):
all of us, and we didn't have advertising for for
for the magazine, right, and so like, uh, when you
are outsiders, like you're always trying to like for me,
Like like the realization was that like the only thing
that mattered was the connection to the audience, right, like,
(22:47):
and you need an audience that really cared for you
and and really cared about you, and so like we
worked extra hard to like make captions really funny, right,
Like there were footnotes that were funny. They were like
things that like like things that no one else cared
about or looked past. Like yeah, we we like worked
extra hard because like if you're caring about that thing,
(23:09):
you're definitely caring about the article, right and the way
the article was shaped and the facts and all that
stuff and and so like when we realized we couldn't
make money off advertising, we figured out other ways and
so we'd like spent all this time making like funny
uh headlines, right, but the headlines were ephemeral, the only
last for so long, and so like so we took
(23:30):
those and we put them on T shirts and people
started buying those, right like like we we we we
you know we we we we realized, oh you know
we we At the time, there were all these men's
magazines like lad magazines and like they all had like
swimsuit isshoes and so like we decided to do our
own swimsuit issue with like Albert Einstein and Eleanor Roosevelt
and Louis Armstrong and like like real historical photos. It
(23:52):
was the worst selling issue in our history. But it
was really all this press, yeah, and and and then
and then we turned that into like a book deal
right like and so like everything was like, how do
we do something else out of this? How do we
delight our audience? And how do we like preserve that
feeling that we're making something special for them continuously?
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Right?
Speaker 3 (24:12):
And so I was we were at Mental Flaws for
like seventeen years, I think sixteen or seventeen years. And
by that time we'd done everything from like we'd done
a TV show We've done with that geo it was
called Brain Surgery Live. We did like thirteen books, all
these like the business had grown in various ways, like
(24:33):
there's a massive website like all these things, you know,
And my whole thing was like, how do you still
make this feel small? How do you still make this
feel like you're talking directly to the reader, right like
and along the way we sold a magazine. The guy
who we loved was a crazy billionaire who decided to
(24:55):
give all his properties to a forest in England, and
so like we were owned by a nonprofit that was
a forest in England, that owned a British company that
owned an American company, and so like it what it
was a structure that made zero sense. And when we
kept proposing things, we were like, hey, we can do
(25:16):
this book in print, we can do this TV show,
we can do this, and they're like no, no, no,
we just like, you know, they weren't interested in anything.
And so when we looked at non compete, the only
thing we hadn't done was audio, and How Stuff Works
reached out to us and they were like, hey, do
you want to help us make more ambitious things in audio?
And the truth was, initially I was like, no, I think.
(25:39):
I think I just want to like figure out something
small that's like meaningful that I get my hands dirty,
you know. And then the more we thought about it,
it was like, oh, the fact that you're in someone's ear,
the fact that you like the fact that people who
listened to How Stuff Works were listening to eleven hours
of content every week from this you know, this network,
(26:02):
you know the fact that people really wanted this and
there was opportunity to like, it just felt like there
was something that could be done in the space that
hadn't been thought of yet, and lots of things done
in the space, lots of voices to bring in, lots
of you know, like all of that. There was so
much possibility and so much fun. And also like the
people at the Stuff Network, who at the time were
(26:23):
like like some of the La crew, you know, like
Robert Evans coming in, Like it just felt like, oh,
this is a great time to be here, you know.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Yeah, yeah, man, I feel like I missed. I missed
a golden age, Like I came in a little late.
But like that I always say, like that network is
like yeah, like how I actually became like a guy
that likes pods, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Like, yeah, you know, there was an era when it.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Was like dealersten podcasts like that was like a thing
saying like like you know, are you in a punk
music Like it was like your your shove genre, you
know what I'm saying, And that for me, like that
network was like, dude, I think I like podcasts. And
I think it's because of what you said to where
you're just like I still like learning, you know. And
I think specifically that one was because you know, whether
(27:13):
it was the music, the like justice work I was
a part of, like a lot of the stuff that
I do, it's just so intense, it's just so psychologically emotionally,
like it's it's taxing, you know what I'm saying, Like
you know, get especially like right now, like talking about
politics every week, I try.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
To I try to quarantine it to two and a half.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Days out of my week to be like, Okay, you
only get two and a half days, you know what
I'm saying. But I'm also a citizen of the country,
you know what I'm saying. So like this affects not
podcaster prop, this affects Jason, like the.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
And resident and and it's hard.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
I mean, like on one hand, it it then diagrams
everything that you're interested in so beautifully right, like like
like you know, the way you can put the same
spirit between behind like getting a message out through a
song that same like our artistry like that same like
you know, the same the social justice work, the fact
(28:18):
you know, the teacher prop episodes, right like like all
these things like yeah, like they work beautifully together in
this space. And and honestly, like within this network, you
have a voice that is distinct and necessary and and
and it's like you know, like like I told you before,
(28:38):
I was like, you know, I listened to the stuff
you've done with Robert. I'd like, you know, been aware
of stuff and and and I binge stuff. And then
I started sending it to my son, right and I
was like, oh my my, you know, my my son
loves hip hop, he loves drill, he loves like like
he loves jazz, loves music and and and he's trying
(29:02):
to figure out how to be in this world. And
he knows that like the voices that are coming through
to him on TikTok aren't the right voices, you know,
like like and and and so like how do you
counter that? How do you find like so like what
you do is so important and also like of course
you've got to protect yourself, right, like like because you're
(29:23):
basically doing therapy for for a world of blisters.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Woh boy boy, yes man, thank you, thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
You describe like how I kind of want to be
in the world. So I definitely appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
And and I think that that brings us to what
you guys are doing now with Kaleidoscope and with the
you're counting down the twenty five what wait, tell me
say it, say it correctly, I'm gonna say it wrong.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
It was the twenty five most important UH science ideas
of the last twenty five years, but twenty five ridiculous things.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
For the most hour, it was.
Speaker 6 (30:10):
Exactly what I needed, like exactly what I needed. I
don't even want to spoil any of it, Like I
like I purposefully wrote it was like don't tell at
all what any of these people to actually just go
listen because it's like it's it's yes, just they're ridiculous.
(30:37):
I I think you you've, you've kind of like already
hit on the head, hit the head on the nail.
Like what I wanted to get from the show, which
was justice, the the living in the tension of the
the seriousness and the levity that like you whether it's
(31:01):
and from that level and from the meta level, because
like you know, you're you're, you're. That's like this might
sound more competitive than I mean it to be, but
it's I'm not trying to be competitive. I'm just like, Bro,
you're like like the way like you're speaking about starting
multiple multimillion dollar businesses and just like, oh yeah, we
(31:24):
were just you know, we're just kids and trying to
figure it out and we don't have any money for this,
Like bro, wait time out me Like come on, fam
these I like, I am like actively considering, Like I
started a coffee company and I'm like actively like figuring
out how to wind it down because I'm like I
don't know how to do this and I don't even
(31:46):
I'm not enjoying that, like you know what I'm saying.
So I'm like starting a business it at all at
all is hard, you know what I'm saying, and not fun,
but then starting one and then it works and then
selling it, Like are you hitting me?
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Like you're alien? Like this is not easy.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
I mean, I mean the truth is I got. I
got really lucky, and I got lucky in a lot
of ways, right Like I got. My dad had worked
at a company where he had worked there for twenty
nine years, and he was about to the reason he'd
stayed there that long partially was there was an agreement
(32:26):
where where like if you get to thirty years there,
you get your full pension, you know, like all these things,
like you know, and and on his twenty ninth year,
they went through and cut everyone of his cohort, like
and and and so like, you know, my dad had
put all his life. You could have taken better jobs,
et cetera, right like at this company. And like I
(32:47):
was just going to college. My dad lost a job.
And I was like, I don't trust corporations, you know,
like like I don't. I don't, like there's no one
there who's looking out for me. My dad, like you know,
did the incredible work there. He was like, you know,
like a very very respected scientist actually, and and and
like and at the end of it, like he you know,
(33:09):
he was just dismissed. And also I mean this is
completely separate, but like I think part of the reason
that I ended up starting mental class is because because
my parents are immigrants, right, like like like living between
two worlds. And and when you're brown in like a
(33:30):
like a mostly it was diverse, but like a mostly
white suburb or whatever, there's like a feeling of less
than that that like sometimes you know, you can inhabit
and and like for me, like this living in two
worlds where I'd go to India and be a certain
person come back to the States, like you know, when
when I get to when we'd save up enough to
visit my grandparents or whatever. Like there were things that
(33:50):
were just intimidating about the world and and so like
something like art and art history was intimidating. There was
like a barrier of entry to like understanding it. Something
like you know the way you walk into like certain
rooms and can't talk about certain conversations, right, like conversational
topics like that is intimidating. And college can like ameliorate
some of that, and like reading certainly, like and can
(34:13):
can fix a lot of that. But like, but for me,
that's part of what the magazine was too. It was
a leveler, right, Like it was this way that I
could satisfy like curiosity and whatever. And part of the
reason we'd started the magazine too was like in my
freshman year, I had applied to all these publishing internships
and I didn't get a response from many of them,
and I realized, oh, I'm an outsider. I'm going to
(34:34):
have to do it myself, right, Like, if I'm going
to want my name in print, there's no other way
than like, and so for me, it's like, yeah, I
got I got really lucky. I got I got I
got Will as a partner who's the most incredible, like smartest,
like really savvy, really thoughtful person like that that I
could have had, and and like and he had connections
and he like pulled me into those and he had
(34:56):
like you know, like his his his dad had been
in the States a long time for generations, right, and
so like they had the people in publishing, they knew
people in right, And so like I'm lucky that way.
Like colleges, whatever college you go to, they're filled with
professors who want to help you, right, and so like
we took advantage of that, right, Like, like like I
said in the beginning, right, the fact that I'm willing
(35:17):
to give conversations, have conversations with anyone, right is, and
it's not always easy, right, Sometimes sometimes people have to
bug me like two or three times, right, Like it's
it's not like but but but it's but I will
make time for people because so many people made time
for me. And so like I just I just don't
think I think that I got lucky. I don't think
(35:38):
that business is I think that if you're doing something
authentic and you're doing something that connects with people, and
you're constantly trying to figure out like how do I
make this better for you? How do I make this
a service for someone? Like how how am I like
entertaining or pleasing someone?
Speaker 4 (35:55):
Like if you're constantly thinking through that, like, it isn't
that hard.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
I love it. I heard an interview. I'm trying to
remember who the guy was.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
It's this is gonna make the quote suck because I
can't remember exactly what it was. But he was asked
like a similar question about like succeeding in business and
like what do you like what's some of the key takeaways?
And he was like, well, be born a white male
and a rich fan Like he finally like like just
(37:03):
he just cut through it and was just like acknowledging
in the funniest way the reality of just like look, dude,
I'm privileged, Like I am not unaware.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
You know.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
And he's like, of course you got it, like the
I don't. Of Course you gotta work hard. Of course
you got a hustle. Of Course you got to put
your ten thousand hours in. Of course you do right,
but like guys, it's like, can we just acknowledge like
you said, like Yo, it's you were, like Yo, I
loved youself, Like bro, I got lucky man like Will
(37:36):
Will's Daddy's connected.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I don't know what to tell you, you know what
I'm saying, Like I don't, like I don't.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
I just happened to be at school with him, like
you know, and I think that like that for someone
who's like every day grinding, you know what I'm saying,
like white knuckling, trying their best. I first, this obviously,
like the shadow of you becomes cynical. But then the
other side is like, oh that's great. That that means
(38:05):
that there's nothing wrong with you.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
Yeah, you know what I'm.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Saying, Like that you have what it takes. You are
being authentic, You are put in in the hours. You're
making something that you can stand by. You know what
I'm saying that, Like I remember I had another guy
told me like you just have to get this. White
boy played a kind of like some like kind of
like blue eyed soul type music, you know what I mean.
He had my elbot voice, but he used to say, man,
(38:28):
you just got to make something that's just like just
fuck off good where you're just like it's so good,
you just fuck off, man, this is amazing.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
And he's like, that's that's what you do.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
You make something just that Like no, they can't get
did nowhere except from here, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
I mean, and I and I think that's true. But
also everyone starts somewhere right like and yeah, totally and
so like you know the first time you I mean,
I remember reading Miles Davis's autobiography when I was in
like ninth grade or something and and being like, oh, well,
the first sentence is amazing. It's like the best it's
(39:06):
like the best feeling I remember. I remember having with
my clothes on is listening just like like listen Dizzy
and then and it's Charlie Parker like playing but but
but but like you see the products where he's like, oh,
this guy who's a high schooler when I'm in eighth
grade like plays these licks on the piano and they're
(39:27):
unbelievable and and like and that's something to aspire to, right,
and like you're constantly like aspiring, you're constantly making something better,
like you know, like like the first the first vaccine
was riddled with so many errors that the printer back
to us to like to fix all the like, like
like they were like, no, we.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Can't prink guys, Like I know it's my job just
to press print, but like I can't read.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
Like we didn't put bylines on the like on the
table of contents for people, and and like that was
a huge And finally we got magazine printed. It had
a UPC code, but it didn't have the like it
didn't have the price on it. And and we're so
proud that we had an UPC code on this this
magazine because we were like seniors in college and and
and so so we had to like at Will's parents
(40:13):
dining room table, like everyone was stickering like prices and
then mailing the magazine not you know, I mean like
it's you're gonna made a lot of mistakes, you know,
like yeah, and and and and everything that feels like
it's going to be a success isn't. Like you know,
you think you're just waiting for like the big thing
to hit, and the big thing is always like really great,
(40:34):
but it's never it's never like that big a thing,
you know, it's always like a little bit better a
little bit and so it's always like this constant building
and and you know, to Will's parents point, I mean
like like his his dad grew up very like I think,
lower middle class and in Alabama and like and he
worked really hard and he made connections and stuff. But
(40:55):
but you know where my dad didn't know anyone from college.
Will's dad did it right, like you know, like but
but but but there there's a line from I think
it was like Warren Buffett's partner Charlie Monger said something like,
what's the fastest way to like make a hundred million dollars?
(41:16):
Start with ten million dollars, you know, And and that's exactly.
It's like it's a lot easier when you get some
of these like yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, baked in
advantages and.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Man, that's super real. So I think, lastly, uh, I'm
going to get to like the politics part. So you
have this this amazing outlet that I know, like I again,
like I go to this when I like need a break,
you know, but like I don't like I'm not like
I can't do the candy kind of like four twenty,
you know, not for twenty Beyonce, I don't want to
(41:48):
make fun of Miles, but like like ninety eight Beyonce,
like I I I don't find solace in that, like
because I'm like, like messiness stresses me out, like you'll say,
like my TMG, Like I get more stress with that.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
You know what I'm saying, And it's bad, but I
know it means nothing.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
But I'm just like I hate this, but I go
to like stuff that like what you guys do. But
I think that there's a reality again that you still
live in this world. You brought up the fact that
like you know, your parents are immigrants, you know what
I'm saying, and and just the reality of like this
is the world we live in, man, like the the
(42:27):
obvious direction. You know, I'm assuming nothing about your politics
except for your knowledge of history, which would be like
it's hard to not see what's happening here, you know
what I'm saying. So my question is, like, in what
ways are you sort of taking care of yourself, like
moving in the world, and just in the ways that
(42:50):
you're already making the world better by the by the
content you're making, but in ways that like could be
things that our listeners could hear us like this how
we move in through this times right now?
Speaker 3 (42:59):
Yeah, yeah, you know it's it's it's different for for
every person, every family. Uh. And and I think that
I I have a younger kid who's non binary and
and to have and one of the places that we
felt was safest is New York City, right like you
(43:22):
feel you feel it's kind of been enclave for like
people who are different, and I mean it attracts all
sorts of weirdos and artists, etcetera, right like and and
uh and to get notes from the pediatrics division at
n y U that say they know they're no longer
(43:43):
providing services to to UH for for UH kids who
who are dealing with issues of gender like it was
was really sort of heartrending. And and you see, I
live in Brooklyn. The amount of homelessness around me, like
it's just all the unhouse population here is like it's
(44:05):
just like it is. You see it all around you,
and you see the devastation around you and the ways
that community hasn't been working, you know, like or hasn't
shown up and and and I think that's hard to see.
And then on the other side of it, right like
you see so many people pulling together in really beautiful
(44:26):
and incredible ways and and so like I think, I
think to me, like community gardens really are like like
a place of you know, where you see older people
and younger people mixing. Like Uh, I play. I play
a lot of tennis, and I play with anyone who
wants to play, and and uh and to be just
(44:48):
like finding common ground and then having conversations from there.
And I play with people on different parts of the spectrum,
you know, like in terms of politically and and trying
to like remind people like who who we are and
why we're here and and and I belong to a
co op in in in park Slope. And part of
(45:08):
my favorite thing about it is that it reminds me
how lucky, you know, like when when you're when you're
receiving groceries and you're like putting and putting them, like
moving the boxes and like separating things or whatever, like
it's hard work. And I go in like it's almost
like a tourist, right like for for three hours, like
(45:29):
like ever every few weeks, and and and it's a
reminder of like, oh, these bodegas don't get stalked by themselves,
right like the the like we don't use like a
lot of the fresh delivery stuff, like because because you're
so removed from from like the actual work and the
people and and and and to me, it's like the
other thing that's really I love about the co op
(45:51):
And my favorite thing is like there's a there's a
shelter near us, and part of the co op is
like taking the food over, but also like participating and
like giving coffee to people in the mornings, and like
and queuing people up for forgetting meals and just remembering
that all these people are human and and and that
they want meals. They're they're like struggling to like be there.
(46:12):
And it's just like there's so much awfulness in the
world and and to realize at the end of the
day that there are all these people who are just
like trying to make their days work, their lives work,
you know, and really good people. It's just like it's
it's hard not to feel better about your day when
when you get to hand a couple of coffee to someone,
and and it's hard not to feel grateful for all
(46:34):
the things you do have when when you see those.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Things, I have nothing to add to that. Thank you
so much.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
That, so it's don't don't be ridiculous. I mean it's
it's it's really really lovely to be here chatting with you.
I if you're ever coming through New York, please please
hit me up honestly, like I mean that, and and uh,
and I really love your show and and I'm going
to keep evangelizing it.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
So thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
So last thing, like you know with us, like plug
all the spots, plug, where can they find you? Where
can they find the shows? They're right what you're working on,
and then we'll let you go from here.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
Yeah, of course, Will and I do a show called
Part Time Genius. It's basically like an excuse for us
to hang out the same way we used to hang
out in our dorm rooms in college. And so so
it's still really fun to do on Kaleidoscope. I think
your audience might like there's a show called Wild Chocolate,
which is basically like in Indiana Jones of Chocolate and
(47:36):
and it's uh, it's you know, science, but it's really
like an adventure story and so like I think they
might dig that.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
That's dope. Yeah, so please.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Just go to the net, go to Kaleidoscope, Go to
the network. There's so many dope shows there. The at again,
the the twenty five most Important Science.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
Years.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
I'm begging y'all. I'm begging you to go listen to
that series. Man, Thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
This is really delightful.
Speaker 7 (48:12):
Thanks all right, all right, all.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Right, now, don't you hit stop on this pod. You
better listen to these credits. I need you to finish
this thing so I can get the download numbers. Okay,
so don't stop it yet, but listen. This was recorded
in East Lost Boyle Heights by your boy Propaganda. Tap
in with me at prop hip hop dot com. If
(48:46):
you're in the Coldbrew coffee we got Terraform Coldbrew. You
can go there dot com and use promo code hood
get twenty percent off.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
Get yourself some coffee.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
This was mixed, edited, and mastered by your boy Matt
Alsowski killing the beat Softly. Check out his website Matdowsowski
dot com.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
I'm a speller for you because I know m A T.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
T O S O W s Ki dot com. Matdowsowski
dot com. He got more music and stuff like that
on there, so gonna check out. The heat Politics is
a member of cool Zone Media. Executive produced by Sophie Lichterman,
part of the iHeartMedia podcast network. Your theme music and
(49:29):
scoring is also by the one and nobly matdow Sowski.
Still killing the beat softly, so listen. Don't let nobody
lie to you. If you understand urban living, you understand politics.
These people is not smarter than you. We'll see y'all
next week.
Also media.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
All right here we good politics.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
This is a special day because it gets to be
really like this is an example of when I'm taking
a break, like this is my own personal source of
like mental health. Like I know it's corny when people
say go touch grass, but like this is how I
touch grass. Is my man, my guest out here, man,
(00:45):
please introduce yourself and then I'm gonna brag about you.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
But you just go ahead introduce yourself.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Sure, my na, it's my gosh, I got my mango sometimes.
I come founded a magazine called Mental Floss when I
was in college and that for a long time. And
uh and now I've got a show called Part Time
Genius and a little podcast network called Kaleidoscope that's mostly
fo focused on like science content.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, uh, well you should be cited for misinformation on
this idea of like a small podcast network like you, Lion.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Is not small.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
It's incredible, you know the types of shows that are
on there. So first, from a fanboy perspective, this show
is going to be kind of like a grab bag.
I'm just going to really like I hate the term
pick your brain because I just feel like, yeah, that's
called consulting, Like pick my brain. I don't know if
(01:47):
you've got that before. People like, hey, man, can I
just like buy you buy your coffee? Man, pick your brain.
You're like, so for that, you just want You're just
gonna pay for my twenty years of experience with a
cup of coffee.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Out of it.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Yeah, I mean, I I never I never mind because
like a lot of people gave me a lot of
advice along the way, and a lot of people like
really really helped us and rooted for us and and
and that was huge, and so like, I never mind
having a conversation with someone, never mind having like a
coffee with someone. But but the big thing for me
is when they make it a lot of work for
(02:21):
you and they don't like and so like this one person,
uh was like, hey, would you mind like listening to
a show of mine and and like giving me notes?
And I was like, already, that's that's a little bit
about work. But you know it was like a friend
of a friend. I was like, sure, sure I could
do that, but just like pick out pick out the
(02:41):
episode for me, and they wouldn't. And they just got
being like, oh, you know, I've got this massive catalog,
so so you you find one that you like. It
was like, if you're going to ask for someone's elf,
just make it as easy as possible, you.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Know, Yes, for sure. Yeah, I think that's that you're
picking up going down here. I'm just like, it's not
so much like you know, I I My my business
model is generally just be a good hang, ye know,
and like, uh, you know, and I'm not gonna like, yeah,
just be a good hang. Like I'm not gonna like
(03:15):
if we're going out for coffee, like I'm not gonna
invoice you or nor am I gonna be like you know, uh,
we can't talk about that right now, you know what
I'm saying, Like, nah, like you know you're gonna give
me game. You're gonna give me a game, you know.
I I you know, obviously I'm from a I come
from black people, you know what I mean. And that's
part of our cultures that you give each other game,
(03:35):
you know what I mean. But yeah, but anyway, Uh,
this show is really just like I I I am
essentially just gonna go all over the place because I
I find what you do in the way that you've
showed up publicly more attuned to what's going on inside
my head rather than like what's happened what I'm putting out?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
So yeah, so so I can't tell you then.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
I feel like, especially with like this the subject matter
that we cover on the show, like I try to
cover very serious things with a type of sort of
levity that kind of like holds some of this stuff
loosely in the sense that like as existential, especially as
the season we're in now, we are also really just
(04:30):
we're spinning on a rock, like and not even an
important rock, you know, like it's just you know what
I'm saying, like this, like it's it's also it's also
not that serious, you know what I'm saying. Like, so
I try to like put some somewhat of a sense
of scale to what we're going through.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
And and the way that I personally do that.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Is is I often look to science, you know what
I'm saying, and just remind myself of like what a
binary star is. You're saying two black holes that got
connected on accident, like like what, like you know what
I'm saying, Like, you know, there's dust clouds that are
not measured in distance, they're measured in time, Like this,
(05:16):
how tall is this dust cloud? It's five light years tall,
Like wait, that's it's so tall that you don't use that,
you don't use distance, like you know what I'm saying, Like,
so I try to remind myself of stuff like that
that like.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Puts things in perspective for me.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
You know, obviously I say that while being in a
house with plumbing and running water and electricity. But it's anyway,
I gotta start with mental flaws because I can't tell
you how many times I've been I've paid for the
Wi Fi on a flight just so I could go
to mental flaws.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Like just that's incredible.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
I'm like, I just want like it's the mode like
mind blowing.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
And also it's this this, this is why I'm so
excited to do this show. I was like, dude, is
he really? Is he really down to do my show?
Like I know, like we have a lot of don't
shows on the network. You know what I'm saying that,
like have bigger audiences. But I'm like, I'm like, like,
you don't know what this man means to me, you
know what I'm saying, Like so so, so to start
with mental flaws, it's like the combination of this is
(06:26):
mind blowing information that everybody needs to know.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
And also this.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Is mind numbing like brainlessness that like also doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Like how those two things.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I just don't like, Like, so I need to know
a little bit of history of mental flaws.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Like I love that so much. So so a couple
of things. One, uh, one thing that's really funny is that,
like the summer that my friend Will will appearson who
you probably know from from of course yeah yeah, uh,
we talked about starting metal Flass and uh, and I
was like, should I do this or should I? Like,
(07:10):
I have a friend who's like a uh who's really
good at freestyling, another friend who's a drummer who like
had taken lessons from Max Roach like like and and
and we're like no, like should I be in this
hip hop band or should Oh?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
I know I liked you. He's like, I was going
to be a rapper. I was going to be a rapper.
I don't if you guys know this. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Rap skilled, but I could play the keys and like
put beans together and so but but but anyway, so
the idea behind metal Class was, uh, you know, Will
and I were in college and and we were freshmen
and there were Everyone used to come back from their
(07:55):
their classes and and they would talk about like the
the craziest ship they learned, right, like everything from like
you know, the fact that the bronx who had a
pigmy in it for for years, you know, like the
fact that like you know, like anything from like string
theory to economic theory to whatever. And it was it
was like but but it was really just the most
(08:15):
fascinating stuff and the stuff you want to hear. And
and part of what we realized was like, you know,
are like my dad was out of work, We're taking
all these loans to go to college, like I was
gonna have to get a job to like you know
that felt like probably pre law. So something that was
like you know, destined to to be very specific. And
(08:37):
and what Will and I were saying was like after
you graduate, like what like where do you learn? Where
do you have time to learn? Like like you're so
focused on this one thing and and and even getting
to that, right, like you have to major in one thing,
you have to specifically like like go deep on something,
but like where do you get the time to like
engage with the incredible richness of stories and knowledge and
(08:59):
stuff that's out there, and he and I had this idea.
We're like, well, what if what if it just felt
like sitting What if you could get a magazine in
the mail and you could like skim it and just
reading it felt like sitting with your favorite professors at
a bar where they're just telling you stories, right, They're
telling you the best things, the most interesting things, and
(09:19):
it's not like comprehensive, but it gets you to be
engaged in a topic, right, Like it gets you to
like to want to know more about a certain subject.
And so that's kind of what we did. And we
were like naive and cocky and and like you know,
twenty years old, and we put out a campus edition,
(09:39):
and we we googled a book called how to Make
a Magazine, written by Mister Magazine, and we followed it
page by page.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
And.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
You know, like like part of brilliant, part of it
really was so so like we put out a campus edition,
we thought like, let's try to make this spend our
scene year just trying to get it to Barnes and
Noble and Borders and stuff. And we figured out how
and we put it out on stands right before you know, uh,
that summer of two thousand and one, and then nine
(10:13):
to eleven happened, and we were like, you know this,
you know, this is kind of end end of our dream.
We're gonna have to like go to law school or whatever,
like figure out something else. And what we found was that,
you know, when the world's in turmoil, like people need
a break, like and and it's not that like you
shouldn't be paying attention to things, but sometimes you just
(10:35):
do need a break and and and this magazine was
a break for people, and it made them feel good
about learning in a way and and and so like
that that was really joyous and and and we you know,
in the beginning it was like my mom, Will's mom
and two hundred of our mom's friends.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Who subscribed to the magazine and my first album, see baby,
I'm so proud of you.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
Yeah completely and uh but but but you know, we
we made sure to reach out to every single person
who uh who reached out to us, and so like
there was this old, older woman from a retirement home
and uh and and.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
She said, uh, she was like, when are you coming
out with a large print edition? And we were like,
we can really get like, you know, we we're like
working two part time jobs and like spending our evenings
like trying to make this magazine and put together and whatever,
and like like there's no way we're gonna get a
And then Will wrote her back and he said, Hey,
(11:42):
we're not going to be able to put out a
large print edition, but we are going to send you
word documents of every article and you can print them
out at whatever size you want and and you can, uh,
you can still read and enjoy the magazine. And she
sent out like thirty subscriptions to friends for Christmas, and
(12:04):
it was like, we had no money for like marketing.
We barely had enough money to like to get the
magazines out the door, and and it only grew through
word of mouth. So that was this kind of a.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
See that's the testament of just yes, that's the testament
of just being like you just being DoPT like you're
just being cool folks. It's like, oh, I mean you
could have had an artist like you. I'll send you
the word docs like that again. Like that to me,
that lines up with like, yeah, that's my business model.
Like how many times people have hit me like in
(12:40):
my other world with music where they're just yeah, hey, man,
like I don't you know, I can't afford a forty
dollars hoodie, all right, I'll just I'll just send you
one like it's fine. I'm saying like, yeah, okay, you
know what I mean, and then you know, and then
it turns out like like I can't say. I can't
tell you how many times it's been like you know,
(13:01):
you you were kind to somebody that like, you know,
went to pick up coffee, and then it turns out
like whether the head of curation at Spotify now you know, yeah,
like dude, you were like and I'm like, dude, man, yeah, like.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And I didn't. It wasn't like I was planning that.
It was just like people kind.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Of yeah, you aren't scouting who you're kidding.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I was like, that's going to be immogual.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
But even in that story, man, you said so many
things that like truly like resonate with me because it's
like I I kind of discovered in college. I went
for illustration and in their cultural studies, like and like,
I think my love for hip hop was part of
what made me be so interested in cultures, right, and
(13:49):
just like what's going on around the world? Where does
these sounds come where these people come, Like how do
y'all dance? Like I get So that kind of opened
my mind to a lot more just being connected to
the world. And my father was a black panther, so
I was already kind of like plugged in with like
social movements and stuff, you know, just finding a lot
of finding figuring out that I found a lot of
things interesting, you know, And really what I enjoyed about
(14:13):
college was that, like I joined man, I joined the
like the Filipino Club, I joined the like Southeast Indian Club,
Like you know what I'm saying, Like because I was
just like, like I find it interesting.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
I want to dive in.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Like I didn't, you know, I in, you know, as
an art major, like I had to. You know, I
had my art classes, but I was taking stuff on earthquakes.
I took an Asian American women class. Like you know
what I'm saying, Like, I'm just like I just found
it all interesting.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I had.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I had a one of my polycide professors was like
who actually like wrote to the art department to get
me to change majors, And I was like, you're tripping, bro,
in a winter World. I'm like, I'm an artist, you know,
here doing a politics podcast. But like in that class,
he was like, look, man, I use a real crass dude,
(15:08):
but like I really stuck with me. He was like, man, really,
really you go to college to just to sound smart
at cocktail parties, you know, like, and I was like,
well what do you mean by that? He goes, you
know a little bit about everything, you know what I'm saying. Like,
so when you're at the company mixer, you know, and
you're chatting up the head of HR you know about
the three laws of thermodynamics and like it's an accounting job,
(15:32):
you know what I mean. But you're like, you know,
we're talking about like the Magna carta being, you know,
the rough draft of what the constitutions becomes.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
And it's like it's I know, it's twelve ninety five.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Like like just knowing that stuff, you're interesting, you know
what I'm saying. So now when you go to apply,
it's like your resumes are the same anybody, and they'd
rather train you on their system, you know what I'm saying.
So like, yeah, that you have a resonate better than
this person, It's like, Nah, you're you're cool to be
around because you're interesting, you have a lot of things,
(16:03):
so like it already felt like that's the way like
I already functioned. And I was like, man, but to
your point, like I knew I didn't want to go
to grad school. I was like, I don't have time
to burn a thousand page book, you know, and like, yeah,
I'm already a slow reader. Like that's something that's been
true for me. I just I just read slow, you know,
(16:25):
But like.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
No, me too, yeah, you know, And and I mean
I was. I was an anthropology major, like cultural anthropology,
and part of the reason was, like there are two reasons. One,
I just found it fascinating to like dip into like
any culture around the world and see like how they lived,
how they looked at the environment, how they looked at religion,
how they looked at what, you know, like food, like
(16:46):
any that that whole thing and that comparative sense of
the world was really fascinating to me. But the other
thing I really loved about it was that the writing.
And I'm a slow reader. In fact, I I have
poor comprehension, so it takes me like slow time to
like like make sure I understand something or whatever. But
but so the thing I loved about anthropological writing and
(17:10):
these ethnographies was that they weren't self serious, they weren't pedantic,
they weren't like talking down to you. They were just
like and and there was this thing called participant observation,
and so like they would go try to live with
a you know, a group in the Kalahari or a
group and wherever, and and they'd make fun of the
(17:31):
fact that they pitched the tent in the wrong place
and it flooded and everyone laughed at them. Where they
you know, like like all these things, like it was
you're allowed to make mistakes, you're allowed to laugh at yourself,
but you're also like allowed to be fascinated. And to
me that was like very much the tone of like
everyone's welcome, you know, everyone's welcome to hear this stuff,
and and like and it's not going to be hard
(17:52):
to read. And then and and that that was like
very much like part of part of the philosophy.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
I loved it.
Speaker 6 (18:28):
Man.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I remember to that point too, Like in the art
history courses you have to take, I was always fascinated
with like ancient civilizations, probably for the same reasons you're
saying or where it's like if you you know, drop
yourself into you know the bottom of the Amazon and
like people who this is their normal lives, you know
what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
But like.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
I remember, they made a point in like one of
my like sub Saharan African classes. They're like you go
to a museum and what's on the wall framed behind glass,
you know.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Boxes is a fork? A bowl.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Blanket? Like like can you imagine that? Like like it's
a fork, you know what I'm saying. So like if
you are from this culture like I be, I always
like pictured myself like yeah, post apocalypse, you know, time
machine going to a museum in you know, some off
(19:28):
center place and there's just like an iPhone charger just
like hanging on the wall, as like oh this is
this was their early twenty first century art, Like.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
That's a bowl? Like what it? You have a bowl
on the wall?
Speaker 1 (19:45):
You know? So I think that that like like you said,
that lack of self seriousness, Like I love it because
it's like you I feel like you need that to
stay healthy. Like again, like I remind myself whenever I
have to dive into so much polic I'm like, we're
on a rock spinning in space.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Like it just we're on a rock spinning in space.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, so I'm a fast forward super far so like
you and will you guys y'all invented podcasts whatever, like
just early adapters figured it out, knew what to do.
What was the like light bulb like and let me
let me, let me give a little context of this.
In my career leading up to this, the record label
(20:27):
I was on for ten years was it was called
Humble Beast, who started by like one of my closest friends,
but like in two thousand and seven, he had the
wherewithal to know that within like ten years, you're not
going to be able to sell an album. Like so
he was like, we'll just give you give us your
(20:49):
email address, and we'll send you a download link. This
was like, we didn't we didn't conceive of streaming, but
we can. But he conceived of like digital music and
not being able to like they're gonna get your album.
So here's what we need. We need your contact info.
So like like this is two thousand and eight, like
him being like, yeah, like send us your email address,
(21:11):
and then he was like, once we get an e newsletter.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
That's how we'll tour.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
So we'll use we'll do it by like location, and
we'll tour just based on yeah. Like and I remember
him bringing that to like different distributors and then being
like are you You're out of your mind? And we
were like, all right, well let's just do it and
yeah for a good you know, five to seven years
(21:34):
before Spotify became a thing, Like that's how we's how
we ate, that's how we toured. Was like, like, who's
the promoter you're using. I was like, we don't have one.
We have five hundred emails in this city.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
We just email them. Yeah, I'm said, and yeah, you.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Know so so I I I now look at him
like what how did you.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
How did you see that coming? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (21:58):
So like I feel like you guys did that with podcasts,
Like how did you?
Speaker 3 (22:05):
I think I think that you know, from from the
Metal Plus days, we were always outsiders, right, like you
know we were we were making a magazine from like Birmingham,
Alabama instead of like, uh, you know, instead of New York,
and we didn't have like the money or the trappings
(22:26):
all of us, and we didn't have advertising for for
for the magazine, right, and so like, uh, when you
are outsiders, like you're always trying to like for me,
Like like the realization was that like the only thing
that mattered was the connection to the audience, right, like,
(22:47):
and you need an audience that really cared for you
and and really cared about you, and so like we
worked extra hard to like make captions really funny, right,
Like there were footnotes that were funny. They were like
things that like like things that no one else cared
about or looked past. Like yeah, we we like worked
extra hard because like if you're caring about that thing,
(23:09):
you're definitely caring about the article, right and the way
the article was shaped and the facts and all that
stuff and and so like when we realized we couldn't
make money off advertising, we figured out other ways and
so we'd like spent all this time making like funny
uh headlines, right, but the headlines were ephemeral, the only
last for so long, and so like so we took
(23:30):
those and we put them on T shirts and people
started buying those, right like like we we we we
you know we we we we realized, oh you know
we we At the time, there were all these men's
magazines like lad magazines and like they all had like
swimsuit isshoes and so like we decided to do our
own swimsuit issue with like Albert Einstein and Eleanor Roosevelt
and Louis Armstrong and like like real historical photos. It
(23:52):
was the worst selling issue in our history. But it
was really all this press, yeah, and and and then
and then we turned that into like a book deal
right like and so like everything was like, how do
we do something else out of this? How do we
delight our audience? And how do we like preserve that
feeling that we're making something special for them continuously?
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Right?
Speaker 3 (24:12):
And so I was we were at Mental Flaws for
like seventeen years, I think sixteen or seventeen years. And
by that time we'd done everything from like we'd done
a TV show We've done with that geo it was
called Brain Surgery Live. We did like thirteen books, all
these like the business had grown in various ways, like
(24:33):
there's a massive website like all these things, you know,
And my whole thing was like, how do you still
make this feel small? How do you still make this
feel like you're talking directly to the reader, right like
and along the way we sold a magazine. The guy
who we loved was a crazy billionaire who decided to
(24:55):
give all his properties to a forest in England, and
so like we were owned by a nonprofit that was
a forest in England, that owned a British company that
owned an American company, and so like it what it
was a structure that made zero sense. And when we
kept proposing things, we were like, hey, we can do
(25:16):
this book in print, we can do this TV show,
we can do this, and they're like no, no, no,
we just like, you know, they weren't interested in anything.
And so when we looked at non compete, the only
thing we hadn't done was audio, and How Stuff Works
reached out to us and they were like, hey, do
you want to help us make more ambitious things in audio?
And the truth was, initially I was like, no, I think.
(25:39):
I think I just want to like figure out something
small that's like meaningful that I get my hands dirty,
you know. And then the more we thought about it,
it was like, oh, the fact that you're in someone's ear,
the fact that you like the fact that people who
listened to How Stuff Works were listening to eleven hours
of content every week from this you know, this network,
(26:02):
you know the fact that people really wanted this and
there was opportunity to like, it just felt like there
was something that could be done in the space that
hadn't been thought of yet, and lots of things done
in the space, lots of voices to bring in, lots
of you know, like all of that. There was so
much possibility and so much fun. And also like the
people at the Stuff Network, who at the time were
(26:23):
like like some of the La crew, you know, like
Robert Evans coming in, Like it just felt like, oh,
this is a great time to be here, you know.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Yeah, yeah, man, I feel like I missed. I missed
a golden age, Like I came in a little late.
But like that I always say, like that network is
like yeah, like how I actually became like a guy
that likes pods, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Like, yeah, you know, there was an era when it.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Was like dealersten podcasts like that was like a thing
saying like like you know, are you in a punk
music Like it was like your your shove genre, you
know what I'm saying, And that for me, like that
network was like, dude, I think I like podcasts. And
I think it's because of what you said to where
you're just like I still like learning, you know. And
I think specifically that one was because you know, whether
(27:13):
it was the music, the like justice work I was
a part of, like a lot of the stuff that
I do, it's just so intense, it's just so psychologically emotionally,
like it's it's taxing, you know what I'm saying, Like
you know, get especially like right now, like talking about
politics every week, I try.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
To I try to quarantine it to two and a half.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Days out of my week to be like, Okay, you
only get two and a half days, you know what
I'm saying. But I'm also a citizen of the country,
you know what I'm saying. So like this affects not
podcaster prop, this affects Jason, like the.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
And resident and and it's hard.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
I mean, like on one hand, it it then diagrams
everything that you're interested in so beautifully right, like like
like you know, the way you can put the same
spirit between behind like getting a message out through a
song that same like our artistry like that same like
you know, the same the social justice work, the fact
(28:18):
you know, the teacher prop episodes, right like like all
these things like yeah, like they work beautifully together in
this space. And and honestly, like within this network, you
have a voice that is distinct and necessary and and
and it's like you know, like like I told you before,
(28:38):
I was like, you know, I listened to the stuff
you've done with Robert. I'd like, you know, been aware
of stuff and and and I binge stuff. And then
I started sending it to my son, right and I
was like, oh my my, you know, my my son
loves hip hop, he loves drill, he loves like like
he loves jazz, loves music and and and he's trying
(29:02):
to figure out how to be in this world. And
he knows that like the voices that are coming through
to him on TikTok aren't the right voices, you know,
like like and and and so like how do you
counter that? How do you find like so like what
you do is so important and also like of course
you've got to protect yourself, right, like like because you're
(29:23):
basically doing therapy for for a world of blisters.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Woh boy boy, yes man, thank you, thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
You describe like how I kind of want to be
in the world. So I definitely appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
And and I think that that brings us to what
you guys are doing now with Kaleidoscope and with the
you're counting down the twenty five what wait, tell me
say it, say it correctly, I'm gonna say it wrong.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
It was the twenty five most important UH science ideas
of the last twenty five years, but twenty five ridiculous things.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
For the most hour, it was.
Speaker 6 (30:10):
Exactly what I needed, like exactly what I needed. I
don't even want to spoil any of it, Like I
like I purposefully wrote it was like don't tell at
all what any of these people to actually just go
listen because it's like it's it's yes, just they're ridiculous.
(30:37):
I I think you you've, you've kind of like already
hit on the head, hit the head on the nail.
Like what I wanted to get from the show, which
was justice, the the living in the tension of the
the seriousness and the levity that like you whether it's
(31:01):
and from that level and from the meta level, because
like you know, you're you're, you're. That's like this might
sound more competitive than I mean it to be, but
it's I'm not trying to be competitive. I'm just like, Bro,
you're like like the way like you're speaking about starting
multiple multimillion dollar businesses and just like, oh yeah, we
(31:24):
were just you know, we're just kids and trying to
figure it out and we don't have any money for this,
Like bro, wait time out me Like come on, fam
these I like, I am like actively considering, Like I
started a coffee company and I'm like actively like figuring
out how to wind it down because I'm like I
don't know how to do this and I don't even
(31:46):
I'm not enjoying that, like you know what I'm saying.
So I'm like starting a business it at all at
all is hard, you know what I'm saying, and not fun,
but then starting one and then it works and then
selling it, Like are you hitting me?
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Like you're alien? Like this is not easy.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
I mean, I mean the truth is I got. I
got really lucky, and I got lucky in a lot
of ways, right Like I got. My dad had worked
at a company where he had worked there for twenty
nine years, and he was about to the reason he'd
stayed there that long partially was there was an agreement
(32:26):
where where like if you get to thirty years there,
you get your full pension, you know, like all these things,
like you know, and and on his twenty ninth year,
they went through and cut everyone of his cohort, like
and and and so like, you know, my dad had
put all his life. You could have taken better jobs,
et cetera, right like at this company. And like I
(32:47):
was just going to college. My dad lost a job.
And I was like, I don't trust corporations, you know,
like like I don't. I don't, like there's no one
there who's looking out for me. My dad, like you know,
did the incredible work there. He was like, you know,
like a very very respected scientist actually, and and and
like and at the end of it, like he you know,
(33:09):
he was just dismissed. And also I mean this is
completely separate, but like I think part of the reason
that I ended up starting mental class is because because
my parents are immigrants, right, like like like living between
two worlds. And and when you're brown in like a
(33:30):
like a mostly it was diverse, but like a mostly
white suburb or whatever, there's like a feeling of less
than that that like sometimes you know, you can inhabit
and and like for me, like this living in two
worlds where I'd go to India and be a certain
person come back to the States, like you know, when
when I get to when we'd save up enough to
visit my grandparents or whatever. Like there were things that
(33:50):
were just intimidating about the world and and so like
something like art and art history was intimidating. There was
like a barrier of entry to like understanding it. Something
like you know the way you walk into like certain
rooms and can't talk about certain conversations, right, like conversational
topics like that is intimidating. And college can like ameliorate
some of that, and like reading certainly, like and can
(34:13):
can fix a lot of that. But like, but for me,
that's part of what the magazine was too. It was
a leveler, right, Like it was this way that I
could satisfy like curiosity and whatever. And part of the
reason we'd started the magazine too was like in my
freshman year, I had applied to all these publishing internships
and I didn't get a response from many of them,
and I realized, oh, I'm an outsider. I'm going to
(34:34):
have to do it myself, right, Like, if I'm going
to want my name in print, there's no other way
than like, and so for me, it's like, yeah, I
got I got really lucky. I got I got I
got Will as a partner who's the most incredible, like smartest,
like really savvy, really thoughtful person like that that I
could have had, and and like and he had connections
and he like pulled me into those and he had
(34:56):
like you know, like his his his dad had been
in the States a long time for generations, right, and
so like they had the people in publishing, they knew
people in right, And so like I'm lucky that way.
Like colleges, whatever college you go to, they're filled with
professors who want to help you, right, and so like
we took advantage of that, right, Like, like like I
said in the beginning, right, the fact that I'm willing
(35:17):
to give conversations, have conversations with anyone, right is, and
it's not always easy, right, Sometimes sometimes people have to
bug me like two or three times, right, Like it's
it's not like but but but it's but I will
make time for people because so many people made time
for me. And so like I just I just don't
think I think that I got lucky. I don't think
(35:38):
that business is I think that if you're doing something
authentic and you're doing something that connects with people, and
you're constantly trying to figure out like how do I
make this better for you? How do I make this
a service for someone? Like how how am I like
entertaining or pleasing someone?
Speaker 4 (35:55):
Like if you're constantly thinking through that, like, it isn't
that hard.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
I love it. I heard an interview. I'm trying to
remember who the guy was.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
It's this is gonna make the quote suck because I
can't remember exactly what it was. But he was asked
like a similar question about like succeeding in business and
like what do you like what's some of the key takeaways?
And he was like, well, be born a white male
and a rich fan Like he finally like like just
(37:03):
he just cut through it and was just like acknowledging
in the funniest way the reality of just like look, dude,
I'm privileged, Like I am not unaware.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
You know.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
And he's like, of course you got it, like the
I don't. Of Course you gotta work hard. Of course
you got a hustle. Of Course you got to put
your ten thousand hours in. Of course you do right,
but like guys, it's like, can we just acknowledge like
you said, like Yo, it's you were, like Yo, I
loved youself, Like bro, I got lucky man like Will
(37:36):
Will's Daddy's connected.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I don't know what to tell you, you know what
I'm saying, Like I don't, like I don't.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
I just happened to be at school with him, like
you know, and I think that like that for someone
who's like every day grinding, you know what I'm saying,
like white knuckling, trying their best. I first, this obviously,
like the shadow of you becomes cynical. But then the
other side is like, oh that's great. That that means
(38:05):
that there's nothing wrong with you.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
Yeah, you know what I'm.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Saying, Like that you have what it takes. You are
being authentic, You are put in in the hours. You're
making something that you can stand by. You know what
I'm saying that, Like I remember I had another guy
told me like you just have to get this. White
boy played a kind of like some like kind of
like blue eyed soul type music, you know what I mean.
He had my elbot voice, but he used to say, man,
(38:28):
you just got to make something that's just like just
fuck off good where you're just like it's so good,
you just fuck off, man, this is amazing.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
And he's like, that's that's what you do.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
You make something just that Like no, they can't get
did nowhere except from here, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
I mean, and I and I think that's true. But
also everyone starts somewhere right like and yeah, totally and
so like you know the first time you I mean,
I remember reading Miles Davis's autobiography when I was in
like ninth grade or something and and being like, oh, well,
the first sentence is amazing. It's like the best it's
(39:06):
like the best feeling I remember. I remember having with
my clothes on is listening just like like listen Dizzy
and then and it's Charlie Parker like playing but but
but but like you see the products where he's like, oh,
this guy who's a high schooler when I'm in eighth
grade like plays these licks on the piano and they're
(39:27):
unbelievable and and like and that's something to aspire to, right,
and like you're constantly like aspiring, you're constantly making something better,
like you know, like like the first the first vaccine
was riddled with so many errors that the printer back
to us to like to fix all the like, like
like they were like, no, we.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Can't prink guys, Like I know it's my job just
to press print, but like I can't read.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
Like we didn't put bylines on the like on the
table of contents for people, and and like that was
a huge And finally we got magazine printed. It had
a UPC code, but it didn't have the like it
didn't have the price on it. And and we're so
proud that we had an UPC code on this this
magazine because we were like seniors in college and and
and so so we had to like at Will's parents
(40:13):
dining room table, like everyone was stickering like prices and
then mailing the magazine not you know, I mean like
it's you're gonna made a lot of mistakes, you know,
like yeah, and and and and everything that feels like
it's going to be a success isn't. Like you know,
you think you're just waiting for like the big thing
to hit, and the big thing is always like really great,
(40:34):
but it's never it's never like that big a thing,
you know, it's always like a little bit better a
little bit and so it's always like this constant building
and and you know, to Will's parents point, I mean
like like his his dad grew up very like I think,
lower middle class and in Alabama and like and he
worked really hard and he made connections and stuff. But
(40:55):
but you know where my dad didn't know anyone from college.
Will's dad did it right, like you know, like but
but but but there there's a line from I think
it was like Warren Buffett's partner Charlie Monger said something like,
what's the fastest way to like make a hundred million dollars?
(41:16):
Start with ten million dollars, you know, And and that's exactly.
It's like it's a lot easier when you get some
of these like yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, baked in
advantages and.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Man, that's super real. So I think, lastly, uh, I'm
going to get to like the politics part. So you
have this this amazing outlet that I know, like I again,
like I go to this when I like need a break,
you know, but like I don't like I'm not like
I can't do the candy kind of like four twenty,
you know, not for twenty Beyonce, I don't want to
(41:48):
make fun of Miles, but like like ninety eight Beyonce,
like I I I don't find solace in that, like
because I'm like, like messiness stresses me out, like you'll say,
like my TMG, Like I get more stress with that.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
You know what I'm saying, And it's bad, but I
know it means nothing.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
But I'm just like I hate this, but I go
to like stuff that like what you guys do. But
I think that there's a reality again that you still
live in this world. You brought up the fact that
like you know, your parents are immigrants, you know what
I'm saying, and and just the reality of like this
is the world we live in, man, like the the
(42:27):
obvious direction. You know, I'm assuming nothing about your politics
except for your knowledge of history, which would be like
it's hard to not see what's happening here, you know
what I'm saying. So my question is, like, in what
ways are you sort of taking care of yourself, like
moving in the world, and just in the ways that
(42:50):
you're already making the world better by the by the
content you're making, but in ways that like could be
things that our listeners could hear us like this how
we move in through this times right now?
Speaker 3 (42:59):
Yeah, yeah, you know it's it's it's different for for
every person, every family. Uh. And and I think that
I I have a younger kid who's non binary and
and to have and one of the places that we
felt was safest is New York City, right like you
(43:22):
feel you feel it's kind of been enclave for like
people who are different, and I mean it attracts all
sorts of weirdos and artists, etcetera, right like and and
uh and to get notes from the pediatrics division at
n y U that say they know they're no longer
(43:43):
providing services to to UH for for UH kids who
who are dealing with issues of gender like it was
was really sort of heartrending. And and you see, I
live in Brooklyn. The amount of homelessness around me, like
it's just all the unhouse population here is like it's
(44:05):
just like it is. You see it all around you,
and you see the devastation around you and the ways
that community hasn't been working, you know, like or hasn't
shown up and and and I think that's hard to see.
And then on the other side of it, right like
you see so many people pulling together in really beautiful
(44:26):
and incredible ways and and so like I think, I
think to me, like community gardens really are like like
a place of you know, where you see older people
and younger people mixing. Like Uh, I play. I play
a lot of tennis, and I play with anyone who
wants to play, and and uh and to be just
(44:48):
like finding common ground and then having conversations from there.
And I play with people on different parts of the spectrum,
you know, like in terms of politically and and trying
to like remind people like who who we are and
why we're here and and and I belong to a
co op in in in park Slope. And part of
(45:08):
my favorite thing about it is that it reminds me
how lucky, you know, like when when you're when you're
receiving groceries and you're like putting and putting them, like
moving the boxes and like separating things or whatever, like
it's hard work. And I go in like it's almost
like a tourist, right like for for three hours, like
(45:29):
like ever every few weeks, and and and it's a
reminder of like, oh, these bodegas don't get stalked by themselves,
right like the the like we don't use like a
lot of the fresh delivery stuff, like because because you're
so removed from from like the actual work and the
people and and and and to me, it's like the
other thing that's really I love about the co op
(45:51):
And my favorite thing is like there's a there's a
shelter near us, and part of the co op is
like taking the food over, but also like participating and
like giving coffee to people in the mornings, and like
and queuing people up for forgetting meals and just remembering
that all these people are human and and and that
they want meals. They're they're like struggling to like be there.
(46:12):
And it's just like there's so much awfulness in the
world and and to realize at the end of the
day that there are all these people who are just
like trying to make their days work, their lives work,
you know, and really good people. It's just like it's
it's hard not to feel better about your day when
when you get to hand a couple of coffee to someone,
and and it's hard not to feel grateful for all
(46:34):
the things you do have when when you see those.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Things, I have nothing to add to that. Thank you
so much.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
That, so it's don't don't be ridiculous. I mean it's
it's it's really really lovely to be here chatting with you.
I if you're ever coming through New York, please please
hit me up honestly, like I mean that, and and uh,
and I really love your show and and I'm going
to keep evangelizing it.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
So thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
So last thing, like you know with us, like plug
all the spots, plug, where can they find you? Where
can they find the shows? They're right what you're working on,
and then we'll let you go from here.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
Yeah, of course, Will and I do a show called
Part Time Genius. It's basically like an excuse for us
to hang out the same way we used to hang
out in our dorm rooms in college. And so so
it's still really fun to do on Kaleidoscope. I think
your audience might like there's a show called Wild Chocolate,
which is basically like in Indiana Jones of Chocolate and
(47:36):
and it's uh, it's you know, science, but it's really
like an adventure story and so like I think they
might dig that.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
That's dope. Yeah, so please.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Just go to the net, go to Kaleidoscope, Go to
the network. There's so many dope shows there. The at again,
the the twenty five most Important Science.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
Years.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
I'm begging y'all. I'm begging you to go listen to
that series. Man, Thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
This is really delightful.
Speaker 7 (48:12):
Thanks all right, all right, all.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Right, now, don't you hit stop on this pod. You
better listen to these credits. I need you to finish
this thing so I can get the download numbers. Okay,
so don't stop it yet, but listen. This was recorded
in East Lost Boyle Heights by your boy Propaganda. Tap
in with me at prop hip hop dot com. If
(48:46):
you're in the Coldbrew coffee we got Terraform Coldbrew. You
can go there dot com and use promo code hood
get twenty percent off.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
Get yourself some coffee.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
This was mixed, edited, and mastered by your boy Matt
Alsowski killing the beat Softly. Check out his website Matdowsowski
dot com.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
I'm a speller for you because I know m A T.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
T O S O W s Ki dot com. Matdowsowski
dot com. He got more music and stuff like that
on there, so gonna check out. The heat Politics is
a member of cool Zone Media. Executive produced by Sophie Lichterman,
part of the iHeartMedia podcast network. Your theme music and
(49:29):
scoring is also by the one and nobly matdow Sowski.
Still killing the beat softly, so listen. Don't let nobody
lie to you. If you understand urban living, you understand politics.
These people is not smarter than you. We'll see y'all
next week.
Host
Prop
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