Speaker 1: Celebrity Book Club. Hey club kids, did you miss us?
Speaker 1: We're handing out a free app this week. It's part
Speaker 1: one of our epic two parter on Downtown Restaurant or
Speaker 1: Keith McNally. If you want part two, honey, you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to head over to patreon dot com slash CBC
Speaker 1: the pod that's dropping next week, But for now, this
Speaker 1: one's on us. Love you. Who's that knocking at the door.
Speaker 1: It's all your friends, you filthy whrse. Your husband's gone
Speaker 1: and we've got books and a bottle of wine to kill.
Speaker 1: It's Hollywood, it's books, It's gossip. I'm shook. Its memoirs Martini,
Speaker 1: Celebrity poof Club. Come read it while it's hot. Celebrity
Speaker 1: poof Club. I'll tell your secrets.
Speaker 2: We won't talk celebrity books.
Speaker 1: No, boys are a loud celebrity boo.
Speaker 2: Say it loud and pound.
Speaker 1: Celebrity Book Club.
Speaker 2: Buzz me in. I brought the queer foe. Hey, best
Speaker 2: friends friend?
Speaker 1: How the hell are you?
Speaker 2: Hey, best friend? It's so it's so good to say it.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, because we don't get to say it as
Speaker 1: much now, But it's still true.
Speaker 2: Mama, right and you have to make sure you're like
Speaker 2: is it true.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, check in, check in with your bestie's out
Speaker 1: there ladies, and make sure you guys are still each
Speaker 1: other's number one, because sometimes those rankings can shift.
Speaker 3: No, they can totally fall, and in life sometimes things
Speaker 3: do fallt yes, and we all go through phases with
Speaker 3: wives and children.
Speaker 1: And friends and friends and restaurants.
Speaker 2: And lovers that become friends.
Speaker 1: And then wives that become business partners.
Speaker 2: Exactly and close confidence.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I think you'll be able to tell by
Speaker 3: the fact that you're listening to this episode on a
Speaker 3: Wednesday and that we said, hey, best friend.
Speaker 1: We're doing a book.
Speaker 3: We're doing a book. Isn't it good to be back
Speaker 3: in the old library.
Speaker 1: A book that literally comes out and say it with
Speaker 1: me today or yesterday's this week?
Speaker 3: No, no, it comes out yesterday. Okay, wow, you listening to
Speaker 3: this it comes out yesterday.
Speaker 1: So be impressed by the fact that we railed this
Speaker 1: in twenty four hours. Oh wait, no, we got the
Speaker 1: arc ma man.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, I'm talking about that galley bitch with big
Speaker 3: confidential letters across the page.
Speaker 1: It's like a slight gray diagonal letter that' says confidential
Speaker 1: for review purposes only on every I will admit, well,
Speaker 1: I am not ashamed to admit that when I was
Speaker 1: reading this on the subway, I definitely was just like
Speaker 1: just taking it out a little bit more solely, just
Speaker 1: in case anyone was curious as to the cover. Be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, this book that comes out next month. I'm
Speaker 1: reading it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're like holding it so hard, hold like a
Speaker 2: completely yeah holding galley.
Speaker 1: Yeah, impressed, And then like letting people see the confidential
Speaker 1: review purposes only. Yeah, that's right. If your eyes wander
Speaker 1: over to my lap, yeah, keep your eyes off my crotch, asshole,
Speaker 1: I'm reading a galley.
Speaker 3: I wonder if anyone at Call Lord today when I
Speaker 3: was reading it in the waiting room, was like so fucking.
Speaker 1: Impressed, so fucking horny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was just like, WHOA is that an arc?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Maybe they would have been impressed if it was
Speaker 1: like Ocean Wong's new book or something, or like the
Speaker 1: sequel to a Little Life or something something in the
Speaker 1: queer lit canon in which this book is not, I.
Speaker 2: Would put this in the cannon.
Speaker 1: Wait, I guess, I guess one is, but like by
Speaker 1: accident in this way that's so like not gay that
Speaker 1: I really love.
Speaker 2: But right, it's so not gay that it is gay,
Speaker 2: but it's also.
Speaker 1: Like way gayer and more honest than like any other
Speaker 1: ship book. Okay, who are we talking about?
Speaker 2: Let's say it.
Speaker 1: You know him as the restauranteur who invented downtown Acquardant
Speaker 1: to New York Times, he is the owner of Baltasar.
Speaker 1: It's so funny that you say Baltussar and not balt Bazar.
Speaker 1: Can we unpack? You know?
Speaker 3: I was watching this interview of him when he's talking
Speaker 3: about opening up the London version, which we'll get into
Speaker 3: this episode, and I realized he's saying Baltzar, and then I.
Speaker 1: Will whoa, Now you just really clipped it. You just
Speaker 1: made that two syllables. You just said Baltzar.
Speaker 3: Well that's what he was kind of saying in this interview.
Speaker 3: He was like Boltsar, Yeah, balts Are. He was like, well,
Speaker 3: I hope to make the London bolts Are, you know,
Speaker 3: like the New York But you know, expectations. It's like
Speaker 3: when you know a woman hears it you're good.
Speaker 2: In bed and and and then you sleep with her
Speaker 2: and you're not good in bed.
Speaker 1: Baltzar. I mean that's a really clipped well of course
Speaker 1: English working class bethnal Green, like you know those clipped vowels,
Speaker 1: right Boltza.
Speaker 2: So okay, so how do you say it?
Speaker 1: I say both bizarre?
Speaker 2: Oh, both are.
Speaker 1: Both bizarre, you know the soft the soft.
Speaker 3: And I'm giving it kind of a baltazar.
Speaker 1: Most times that I've heard it spoken in my circles
Speaker 1: as a member of the downtown New York literati, I
Speaker 1: hear people saying both.
Speaker 2: Thesar, bothre.
Speaker 3: Bazaar, come over here, both tazar, come over here. No,
Speaker 3: I want my next group of fish. I want to
Speaker 3: name pestis bald bizarre shillers, Kathy Luxemburgva.
Speaker 1: Is a really good name for fish.
Speaker 2: School. Okay, who are we talking about if you don't
Speaker 2: know already.
Speaker 1: None other than Keith McNally and.
Speaker 2: His spanking fresh from the Kitchen.
Speaker 1: Book I regret almost everything. And here he has on
Speaker 1: the cover and I wool having bone overcoat, sort of
Speaker 1: gazing somewhere in the distance. Looks like he's on a
Speaker 1: sidewalk in New York City, maybe just thinking about his life.
Speaker 1: Black and white photo. It was probably in four days
Speaker 1: in this shot. Eye.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he has this kind of cool spiky hair in it.
Speaker 2: That kind of name feels very fifties.
Speaker 1: Yes, but the photo is probably from the early two thousands.
Speaker 2: Maybe I just have to say I ate this book up.
Speaker 2: Honey doored it.
Speaker 1: It was fucking eight course meal devoured.
Speaker 2: Obviously, this is like actual like catnip for us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's restaurants, it's drama, it's celebrities, it's.
Speaker 3: Martini's Sick, it's Martini's, it's fall Gral, it's Patti Smith.
Speaker 1: And he's a great writer, and I mean he really
Speaker 1: you know, Tina Brown was talking about this on her substock,
Speaker 1: you know that one humiliation that everyone now is suffered.
Speaker 2: So crazy that Tina Brown has a substock.
Speaker 1: It's just like, wow, we really all just got to
Speaker 1: be out there begging for cash digitally panhandling. And she
Speaker 1: said she was like, reading this book, I realized I
Speaker 1: should have hired him as a writer at Vanity Fair.
Speaker 1: I mean, he just has he has voice, he has
Speaker 1: a gift for voice. And you know, the structure of
Speaker 1: the book is quite compelling. So it begins with his
Speaker 1: attempted suicide after his stroke.
Speaker 3: So it's kind of these these tragedies one after another
Speaker 3: where he's it's like bam, And a lot of us didn't.
Speaker 2: Even know that he had an attempt at suicide.
Speaker 1: No, in my community, in your community of Keith watchers, No,
Speaker 1: I didn't know about the suicide either. And I you know,
Speaker 1: obviously by the stroke, because if you follow him on Instagram,
Speaker 1: he's a voracious Instagram poster, partly because he had a
Speaker 1: stroke that took away his faculties with speech and he
Speaker 1: kind of speaks in his more slurred way now, and
Speaker 1: so Instagram lets him express himself much more easily.
Speaker 3: And I feel like that was also why many of
Speaker 3: us out there were so excited for this book, because
Speaker 3: we all got this taste of you know, and he
Speaker 3: writes these long, detailed posts and kind of these these
Speaker 3: humorous but sad and you know lately, you know, in
Speaker 3: some of the gossip, you know, he's a famous.
Speaker 1: Poster in this book, but you know, but a lot
Speaker 1: of it's posting. He's always posting about his restaurants, and
Speaker 1: like with this very kind of romantic, cantankerous misanthrope like
Speaker 1: viewer is just like, oh and you know, another terrible
Speaker 1: night at both this are We did six hundred covers
Speaker 1: and so he's you know, there's a transparency. He's like
Speaker 1: pulling the curtain back and telling you about like all
Speaker 1: the money they made. Be He's always like has this
Speaker 1: kind of like faux disdain for like you know, powered
Speaker 1: and celebrity and wealth and like you love to like
Speaker 1: take people down a peg, even though obviously he's like
Speaker 1: completely enamored with celebrities and also like creating a space
Speaker 1: that is like a place to go spend your money
Speaker 1: and wants people to be rich and glamorous.
Speaker 3: Like right, it's like his whole kind of I would say,
Speaker 3: like style of restaurant is for a celebrity to go
Speaker 3: to in jeans. Yes, he's so, which I think comes
Speaker 3: from his generation because he is like maybe like a
Speaker 3: younger boomer. So it like comes out of this like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: the French restaurants of New York of the sixties where
Speaker 3: you know, you had to put on a tie and
Speaker 3: and jacket and there weren't really these big French of
Speaker 3: bistros where you could wear a leather jacket and jeans
Speaker 3: and have steak free.
Speaker 1: You know what's funny about him? So I thank you
Speaker 1: for me them about because I feel like you know,
Speaker 1: like somewhat early in the book, he does he imagines
Speaker 1: himself as like reinventing the wheel and restaurants, and literally
Speaker 1: every restaurant thinks that they've reinvented the wheel, and he
Speaker 1: thinks he's the first person to be like French cuisine
Speaker 1: was so stuffy and uptown and menus had the longest
Speaker 1: titles of dishes on them and way too many dishes
Speaker 1: on them. And I said, what if we made a
Speaker 1: brasserie that was a little more accessible, okay, or you
Speaker 1: could just go get a good steak frets in the
Speaker 1: neighborhood and a glass of champagne. It's like, that's literally
Speaker 1: what every restaurant or has ever thought ever. They're like,
Speaker 1: what if the food is really good but it's actually
Speaker 1: like kind of casual, kind of casual and more down
Speaker 1: to earth like even to this day, like every new
Speaker 1: like small Plates rethinks that they're doing the same thing
Speaker 1: of being like, you know, we saw every other place
Speaker 1: was supertentious, and we were like, how about we just
Speaker 1: do some like seven things really good good And what if.
Speaker 3: Sorry, what if this what if it was just fucking
Speaker 3: bankots a zinc bar right now Vintage mirrors from Burgundy
Speaker 3: from seventeen ninety.
Speaker 2: And then we wrote them menu on the mirrors. What
Speaker 2: about that? What about that?
Speaker 3: But what's not to really jump ahead here, But while
Speaker 3: we're on the subject of kind of RESTAURANTSS being rocketed
Speaker 3: to head. The two chefs he hired for both the
Speaker 3: czar who you know, became partners, you know, ended up
Speaker 3: becoming partners.
Speaker 2: In Minetta and then Pastisee. They opened up, Vodoor, they opened.
Speaker 1: Up and French Chatte, where we had a lovely meal
Speaker 1: at Lily by the way, let's just say.
Speaker 2: Let's just say we had a lovely meal there after
Speaker 2: leaving Odeon.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, his former restaurant with his former ex
Speaker 1: wife Lynn Weggencock or wow. No, I mean it's impossible
Speaker 1: to escape as New York if you live here and
Speaker 1: you're in the know, as of course we are.
Speaker 3: This is but I guess sorry, just to thread my
Speaker 3: point is that those two restaurants are trying to bring
Speaker 3: back a little little bit of the stuffiness. His ex
Speaker 3: chefs are trying to bring back a little bit of
Speaker 3: the stuff in Malagy. Yes, in their newer French restaurants. Yes,
Speaker 3: Vodor is spelling against but it's also.
Speaker 1: Like, I mean, I haven't been to Vodor, you know,
Speaker 1: because I might as well. I'm the biggest loser on earth,
Speaker 1: and like you should run me over with an NYC
Speaker 1: garbage truck. But like I have been to the Rock,
Speaker 1: which is also theirs, and like rock is I'll say this,
Speaker 1: it's fine for like a pre dinner, the pre theater meal.
Speaker 1: I'm not like rushing to go back. It's like really
Speaker 1: expensive and like I don't think it's so worth it.
Speaker 2: It's exactly what my his mom said, Well ARPI okay, but.
Speaker 1: Like they're also thinking that they're reinventing the wheel by
Speaker 1: going fancy again, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: They're like, what if we were fancy?
Speaker 3: Do you remember the days of the nineteen sixties when
Speaker 3: men with them jackets?
Speaker 1: Okay, so, but Balthazar, as you were describing, has like
Speaker 1: a zinc bar. It's like a French brasserie. It's like
Speaker 1: the concept is like, it's not it is not reinventing
Speaker 1: a single wheel. When he talks about the when this
Speaker 1: attorney goes The idea for Balta came about while I
Speaker 1: was living in Paris, seven years before I built the place.
Speaker 1: Although it's hard for me to come up with good ideas.
Speaker 1: A few decent ones I've ever had come about by
Speaker 1: pure accident. I was searching for vintage curtains at a
Speaker 1: Paris flea market in nineteen ninety when I suddenly spotted
Speaker 1: an old CPIA photo of a turn of the century bar.
Speaker 1: Behind the bar zinc counter one hundreds of liquor bottles
Speaker 1: stack twenty feet high, flanked by two towering statues of
Speaker 1: semi naked women carved in the classical Greek style. It's like, sorry,
Speaker 1: you saw a photo of a bar with liquor bottles
Speaker 1: behind it, and it gave me the idea for her restaurant.
Speaker 3: All of his inspiration is a photo of a naked
Speaker 3: woman's isn't thin?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: The way?
Speaker 1: Yes, she went, how do I say this bottle cheli esk?
Speaker 2: But he was like, I don't know.
Speaker 3: It wasn't one of those models. She had curves and
Speaker 3: she was leaning. I literally drank every time he says
Speaker 3: zinc in this book. But it's like and bottles stashed.
Speaker 3: I guess what he's time as he's not time about
Speaker 3: just two shelves. He's talking about balls to the wall.
Speaker 2: Liquor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm still just like and he's it, and it's
Speaker 1: like a photo of a bar, isn't an idea for
Speaker 1: a bar? That just is a photo of a bar,
Speaker 1: And then you're just doing a concept that exists already,
Speaker 1: which is just like French brasserie like but mirrors.
Speaker 3: Like I'm also like always seeing a photo of a
Speaker 3: vintage bar, being like, wait, I have an idea.
Speaker 2: Bar, but it's old.
Speaker 1: The concept is bar.
Speaker 3: And then in this trip, so he gets like when
Speaker 3: he creates a restaurant, he admits very wildly, like it
Speaker 3: it takes a lot of money, honey.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's always running out, it's always going in a debt.
Speaker 3: And because so he goes to France and he finds
Speaker 3: these vintage luggage racks and like French luggage racks to
Speaker 3: put on like the ceiling of baltasar and he buys
Speaker 3: them in like greater and then he comes back and
Speaker 3: the guy has like shined them and polished them so
Speaker 3: they don't look vintage anymore.
Speaker 2: And he's like, I've never been more.
Speaker 1: Upsetting, absolutely furious.
Speaker 2: It was heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: And then at Kathy Luxembourg, he like he was like, wait,
Speaker 1: what if we have the idea to do like the
Speaker 1: postcard with a check that's like a funky postcard of
Speaker 1: the restaurant. And then he's like, let's do a photo
Speaker 1: shoot with Zoftig women like right the bar. But then
Speaker 1: they accidentally hired these fucking Vogue models, right, So.
Speaker 3: He calls like a model agency, right, and they said,
Speaker 3: have these Vogue models and he's like, absolutely not what
Speaker 3: I want. So he's like, no, I want like curvy,
Speaker 3: big Luxembourgian curls.
Speaker 2: And he was like and it was perfect.
Speaker 3: I was wondering about the postcard thing, where I was like,
Speaker 3: people were probably doing it, but that was another thing
Speaker 3: where he was like, would it be so crazy if
Speaker 3: we gave people a post card?
Speaker 1: Yeah. I feel like he's probably lying about coming up
Speaker 1: with that idea because obviously lots of restaurants do that,
Speaker 1: and you know, it does add to the experience. It's
Speaker 1: like another point of branding that I think, you know,
Speaker 1: helps sell the overall narrative of the restaurant and you know,
Speaker 1: leaves the consumer with like just like a little bit
Speaker 1: of a closer relationship to the brand. But I can't
Speaker 1: imagine that he came up with that idea. It's like,
Speaker 1: obviously other people.
Speaker 3: Were doing that, right, but yeah, just to take it
Speaker 3: back a little now, like to the seventies. So the
Speaker 3: big reveal in this book is in his early twenties
Speaker 3: he had a homosex wood relationship.
Speaker 2: Yes, play right. Alan Bennett, the famous.
Speaker 1: Celebrated British playwright Alan Bennett, author of the Madness of
Speaker 1: King George, is part of.
Speaker 2: The Beyond the Fringe group now.
Speaker 3: And he was just a working class boy, you know,
Speaker 3: from bethnal Green and but he wanted to be he
Speaker 3: wanted to be a filmmaker. You want to be sund
Speaker 3: by the intellect. And he started hanging out with Alan
Speaker 3: Bennett and he was like, it's so cool the way
Speaker 3: you talk about art and culture and plays.
Speaker 2: And I feel like he was like just experiencing like
Speaker 2: gay guy criticism.
Speaker 1: So he says he was seventeen when they met, or no,
Speaker 1: he says he was like eighteen when the relationship started.
Speaker 1: But I kind of think maybe he's lying about that
Speaker 1: just to protect on. I think he was seventeen. It's
Speaker 1: groom central. But you know what I'm you know, I
Speaker 1: feel like he's really like grateful to have been groomed.
Speaker 1: And I feel like he's like I learned like so
Speaker 1: much from this guy who I got to be around
Speaker 1: him and his playwright friends, and it was like it
Speaker 1: was such an education. He says.
Speaker 3: I've had two homosexual relationships in my life. The first
Speaker 3: was with an actor when I was sixteen. The second
Speaker 3: and more serious one was with the English play right
Speaker 3: Alan Bennett.
Speaker 1: So and they're doing that. I left his like so
Speaker 1: like and like after the plays they would have right Sorry.
Speaker 3: Supper was always simple, a light salad and a chunk
Speaker 3: of pete or cold chicken that Alan and.
Speaker 2: Had roasted before the theater.
Speaker 3: During the meal, we talk about that night's play, but
Speaker 3: to avoid getting serious too quickly, Alan would preface his
Speaker 3: thoughts on the play by gossiping about the actors.
Speaker 2: He was quite funny about short actors, with Edward fox
Speaker 2: Off in his main target.
Speaker 3: That's something so seventies and also British of it, calling
Speaker 3: something just like, oh, just a chunk of pettis.
Speaker 1: Chunk of pette. It's giving cat food, you.
Speaker 2: Know, it's very gay cat food.
Speaker 1: So six weeks after our theater go and routine began,
Speaker 1: Alan drove me to see a small Anglican church in
Speaker 1: the countryside. On our return we stopped the car arrestop
Speaker 1: to eat sandwiches and drink tea from a flask. It
Speaker 1: was a dreary day, and Alan seemed unusually melancholy. It
Speaker 1: was then that I sensed he was in love with me.
Speaker 1: Not long after that, I stayed the night at his house.
Speaker 1: Sleeping with Alan felt like a natural progression of our friendship.
Speaker 1: It was uncomplicated. I never once felt guilty about it.
Speaker 1: After that first night, I'd say two or three times
Speaker 1: a week and I'm just like, okay, so sorry, Na Pride,
Speaker 1: what were you all doing? You know?
Speaker 2: I was almost up.
Speaker 3: Because I was like, Okay, he's you know, he's very upfront,
Speaker 3: but he's also like he talks about sex a lot, but.
Speaker 2: Like, can you talk about the positions?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Is twenty five? Who's topping?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Like was there? Boy butter involved? Was there? Chunk Pete and.
Speaker 2: Chunks was so twink?
Speaker 1: It's Twink Top elder gay Bottom.
Speaker 3: It has to be, Yeah, because I don't really see
Speaker 3: Keith Bottom and such a young age and experimenting bottoming.
Speaker 3: I think it would be a lot more comfortable for
Speaker 3: him to be this kind of well sprightly young Okay,
Speaker 3: But I could also see this very just kind of
Speaker 3: like frottage and.
Speaker 2: Blow a lot of oral to start out with.
Speaker 1: It was side central over there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was a side.
Speaker 1: It's side Eaton's green, lad. I don't. I don't know
Speaker 1: because also though, because there's something about this reallyationship is
Speaker 1: very very ancient Greece like that, because you have this
Speaker 1: older man who's like this the tutor, and then the
Speaker 1: younger man who was eager to learn in his feet,
Speaker 1: and those relationships the classic, you know, pederasty relationships. The
Speaker 1: older man was always the top, the younger man was
Speaker 1: always the bottom, and that was like why it was
Speaker 1: acceptable socially. So I do wonder if some of that
Speaker 1: played out as well, and Alan was like I'm the
Speaker 1: teacher here, you're the student, and it only makes sense
Speaker 1: for me to penetrate it.
Speaker 3: I think penetration absolutely happened. I'm just kind of I
Speaker 3: was more thinking about the early The early hooking up
Speaker 3: was probably like pretty.
Speaker 1: Oral and then like maybe you think that they're like
Speaker 1: not having full sacks their first name. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: they were pet They were petting for three weeks.
Speaker 3: It was a petting for three weeks, and then it
Speaker 3: was so like, I kind of feel like anal happened
Speaker 3: after the Dreary Tea from the flask.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean, but that's he said was the
Speaker 1: first time they slept to go Oh, the dreary tea
Speaker 1: was when he realized he was in love with them,
Speaker 1: and then they slept together in the night. So that
Speaker 1: would be the that would be the first time. That
Speaker 1: wouldn't be weeks of petting.
Speaker 2: Hmmm. Well, I guess we'll never know. I know, I
Speaker 2: just I want to Yeah, I guess I want to
Speaker 2: have it for a few weeks.
Speaker 1: I want to have an opinion on the top bottom though.
Speaker 1: I want to come down on a side here.
Speaker 2: And I think it is classic, but now I'm just like,
Speaker 2: don't you think old?
Speaker 3: So it was like a young British boy maybe like
Speaker 3: he was excited by the fact that he could like
Speaker 3: fuck your guy in the ass and was like, let
Speaker 3: me try.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's such a modern like idea. Well no,
Speaker 1: not really. Well okay, here's like here's what I also think. Like,
Speaker 1: I think it's.
Speaker 2: Actually when you're younger, is when you are more verse
Speaker 2: before you're.
Speaker 1: Like right, you're clay ready to be molded. I also
Speaker 1: think though that we if we assume that he would
Speaker 1: be the top, because he like ends up being a
Speaker 1: straight guy, so we're like, well, hole, it's a hole,
Speaker 1: so he can fox. He can do that job. However,
Speaker 1: something I learned on the Tyra Banks Show once many
Speaker 1: years ago was that a lot of the gay for pay,
Speaker 1: like porn stars, are often bottoms because you don't need
Speaker 1: to be hard to bottom. And so if he's not
Speaker 1: actually as gay as Alan Bennett, the whole sexual act
Speaker 1: isn't relying on his erection. If he's going to be
Speaker 1: the bottom, what.
Speaker 2: About this cut to the whole pod just being about this?
Speaker 3: When so he goes on this huge hitchhiking trip very
Speaker 3: like seventies, literally goes like Catman do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hitchhikes the Catman do from London. It's iconic. You
Speaker 1: can never do this today, It's like.
Speaker 2: Literally never do it.
Speaker 3: He's always been like, oh, the Afghans are so such
Speaker 3: good hosts. And he falls in love with like so
Speaker 3: many girls in bookstores who like sell maps.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And when he comes back, Alan is a little bit like,
Speaker 3: so I'll be starting up again, yeah, And he realizes, like,
Speaker 3: you know, after falling in love with so many map girls.
Speaker 3: He's like, I don't really want to, but he also,
Speaker 3: like I think, really appreciates and loves Alan as a friend,
Speaker 3: so he feels bad totally ending the physical relationship.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I could see him coming back and bottoming.
Speaker 1: Oh you think he was like almost like guilt guilt bottoming.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the when he returns from the big hit.
Speaker 1: So he was topping before Catman do guilt bottoming after, Okay,
Speaker 1: and that it's ultimately going to be the truth that
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to say.
Speaker 3: Right, that's where we've kind of sided on and feel
Speaker 3: free to get in the comments after reading this. But
Speaker 3: it's beautiful because they stay literally like bestie is throughout
Speaker 3: his whole life and actually, of course in restaurants, right Lynn,
Speaker 3: his first wife becomes even better friends yeah.
Speaker 1: With Alan, and they're all just being like, oh God,
Speaker 1: of course we're all former lovers. But we'll have to
Speaker 1: say business partners forever, kind of like.
Speaker 2: You and me, right, sorry, we have to stay business.
Speaker 2: We have to open up a restaurant.
Speaker 1: This road trip which is like so iconic and like
Speaker 1: there's this thing where you can send a letter to
Speaker 1: any city in the world.
Speaker 2: How cool is that? And you just go to the post.
Speaker 1: You just go to the post. Yeah, and it just
Speaker 1: like has a name on it, just like a person's name.
Speaker 1: You just send a letter to Keith McNally in timbucktoo,
Speaker 1: and then you go to timbuckto and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: here's my letter.
Speaker 3: I actually acted like that exists in the world today.
Speaker 3: If I made tangent for one second, I was acting
Speaker 3: like Keith. I ordered a T shirt off of T
Speaker 3: Pop and I it said it was delivered, but I
Speaker 3: couldn't find it. And then I saw I had in
Speaker 3: my dpop a wrong address listed.
Speaker 2: So I just went to the building. I was like,
Speaker 2: is there a package for me here?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: No, that's exactly the same thing as mailing a letter
Speaker 1: to timbuk two.
Speaker 2: But I'm just saying as I was being so like, hello,
Speaker 2: I'm here, my name is Lily. Where's my package?
Speaker 1: And this like old woman was just like get off
Speaker 1: my lawn.
Speaker 2: It was a little like younger woman with like a
Speaker 2: doll being so sketch by me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just call it the package. So I love when
Speaker 1: he's talking about being in Istanbul, like at the pudding
Speaker 1: shop and like there was so many hippies and drifters,
Speaker 1: because like there was a lot of like hippies doing
Speaker 1: the old like like the Silk Right.
Speaker 2: Everyone hitchhike to then you do row Darling.
Speaker 3: No, the pudding shop sounded so iconic. It was like yeah,
Speaker 3: like a cool place for hippies that did serve like
Speaker 3: Middle Eastern food, but it also was being like they
Speaker 3: were playing like the New rock and role that he
Speaker 3: had missed because he was away right on his like hitchhiking,
Speaker 3: and there was like all these books there that you could.
Speaker 1: Like love right and you could like get out like
Speaker 1: a pamphlet from Fuco. Like the was like rolling around
Speaker 1: at the coffee shop. I was just like if this
Speaker 1: were today, It's like if you were doing this Silk
Speaker 1: Road today in the pudding shop, I mean, it would
Speaker 1: all just be like I mean, first of all, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't build hitchhig you would have to be like paying
Speaker 1: for so many like e visas and like down leaving
Speaker 1: like absolutely awful apps like in every country. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure just like Ron has like a really shitty app
Speaker 1: like it's difficult to us and that I would say that,
Speaker 1: and then you would just be with like all these
Speaker 1: content creators like to put.
Speaker 3: The phones out at the pudding shop would be crazy,
Speaker 3: and it would be like the new Boy Genius being
Speaker 3: played and someone being like, oh my god, you've been
Speaker 3: on the Silk Road.
Speaker 2: You haven't heard any song.
Speaker 3: And then are you like the books being left? Are
Speaker 3: you like picking up the new like actually like trick
Speaker 3: Mirror or whatever. At I'd be like, oh, I'm having
Speaker 3: I kind of missed this one. It's like de Transition,
Speaker 3: baby Mirror.
Speaker 1: I'm reading The Guest by Emma Kleine in istan Pool.
Speaker 1: Well while I'm like filming my TikTok, just being like
Speaker 1: sexty countries and a hundred's come with me.
Speaker 2: I love.
Speaker 1: The Turkish people are so kind. You have to go
Speaker 1: to this mom, it's amazing.
Speaker 2: Follow me for more chips about jerky.
Speaker 1: This is a really dope bookshop. They had all these
Speaker 1: really cool books. They've never heard of Transition.
Speaker 2: If you go through this curtain, all of a sudden
Speaker 2: it's a record shop.
Speaker 3: And if you go through another curtain, yeah, it's a
Speaker 3: vintage clothing store where you can find tons of dead stock.
Speaker 1: Carhard and then one more curtain you're in the Ace
Speaker 1: hotelis stock Pool. Oh god, you know there's shades of
Speaker 1: I kind of like this book to me felt a
Speaker 1: little bit like a mix of Verna Hoozog's book and
Speaker 1: Anthony Bourdines book, like you have like Anthony Boardines like
Speaker 1: really misanthropic, like like fuck this system, but man, there's
Speaker 1: nothing better than this, like in New York City and
Speaker 1: counting your tips at the end of the night with
Speaker 1: all the busts.
Speaker 2: But it's so, what's so funny about Keith mcdally, would
Speaker 2: she what?
Speaker 3: I like? He's more kind of self aware than Anthony Boardame,
Speaker 3: where he's like, I've literally never been a chef. I
Speaker 3: I've just been dying to become like a filmmaker, which
Speaker 3: kind of happened but didn't really Like I'm so and
Speaker 3: he's like my best memory End of the Night odeon
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty eight watching all the service counter tips, drink
Speaker 3: beer and smoke, and man we had some.
Speaker 1: Laughs and talk shit about the customers. That's what I's
Speaker 1: all about. Okay, wait, can we talk about the celebrity
Speaker 1: the unnamed celebrity actress that he sleeps with x X.
Speaker 2: Okay, I have some guesses.
Speaker 1: I have some guesses. So he this woman like comes
Speaker 1: and sleeps with him, and she arrives at his house.
Speaker 1: They like talked on the phone like a couple of times.
Speaker 1: Then she comes to New York. She rives in his
Speaker 1: house with two huge suitcases at one in the morning
Speaker 1: and she's bringing.
Speaker 2: A baseball high and he's discussed.
Speaker 1: He goes, nothing puts me off sex more than a
Speaker 1: woman with a huge suitcase case.
Speaker 2: Best line, literally the best line. And he was like,
Speaker 2: caps are discussed.
Speaker 3: He was already like caps are disgusting and a woman
Speaker 3: with a suitcase and he was like he was. She
Speaker 3: said she was tired, which I thought man code for sex,
Speaker 3: but he was like, she actually did want to fall asleep,
Speaker 3: which thank god because with that suitcase, in my vision,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be able to get hard.
Speaker 1: He hates hats because I feel like half the people
Speaker 1: at Bulta Thar are so with their little moment the
Speaker 1: moment yeah, I was literally about to say that with
Speaker 1: the moment design store, like yeah, I literally want to
Speaker 1: throw up. So he says that she's an actress and
Speaker 1: a television show that teenagers watch, and Night sent him
Speaker 1: it's nineteen ninety eight tapes.
Speaker 2: She sent him tapes of the show for him to
Speaker 2: watch so.
Speaker 1: Here are my guesses. Shoot, Katie Holmes, Nev Campbell, Party
Speaker 1: of Five, Michelle Williams Dawson's Creek or then I was like,
Speaker 1: what if it's Heather Locklear from Monroe's Place teen show? Okay,
Speaker 1: because Heather Locklear is so like sexy and badass and
Speaker 1: like kind of would be with big suitcases. Maybe, but
Speaker 1: I could also see Michelle Williams being kind of suitcase.
Speaker 1: But I could also see Nev Campbell being so I'm
Speaker 1: coming in the night.
Speaker 3: I think it's a more Nev. Michelle is like, I
Speaker 3: don't can she carry two suitcases?
Speaker 1: Well? No, that's why he had to carry them up
Speaker 1: the stairs. She was rolling it.
Speaker 3: Probably I was imagining it someone from maybe Nino to
Speaker 3: and oh, I'm just like Shannon Doughty Jenny Garth.
Speaker 1: Something's so funny to me about the name Jenny Garth,
Speaker 1: and like always will be. Wait, maybe it is Shannon
Speaker 1: Darty and that's.
Speaker 2: Why he hooked up with Derinda. He likes blonds.
Speaker 1: He hooked up with Derinda.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they had a quote unquote tour affair for three
Speaker 3: months in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 1: Wait, he didn't mention that in the book.
Speaker 2: No, But it like he that was one of his crazies.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's just like him saying something crazy
Speaker 1: on Instagram that can't be true. I mean also, they
Speaker 1: are like the same age. That does make sense, right,
Speaker 1: it's not that weird.
Speaker 2: She is always like dating a huge like fat guy.
Speaker 3: Okay, Jenny Gary Spelling, Jenny Garth, Heatherlocklear, Shannon Doherty, Alyssa Milano, charmed.
Speaker 1: Milano is because he's so she At one point she
Speaker 1: says the thing, She's like, you just tell it like
Speaker 1: it is, and he's just like, oh, that's like she's
Speaker 1: too dumb, like also because I don't tell like it is,
Speaker 1: and I feel like I'm such a faker and like
Speaker 1: I can't like keep this going. And he brings I
Speaker 1: could see a Lissa Milano being like, you really tell
Speaker 1: it like.
Speaker 2: It is, right, Like I love your honesty.
Speaker 3: That's her, and he brings her to his son hockey
Speaker 3: games and staring Jenny Garth.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to beat Jenny Garth. Let's go with
Speaker 1: Jenny garrandom so random.
Speaker 2: She said it kid use like tapes, but by ninety
Speaker 2: eight might have been over already done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know, and but like all the teens
Speaker 1: at his kid's hockey game are recognizing her, So it's like,
Speaker 1: would they be recognizing the Campbell? I mean they would
Speaker 1: where they be recognizing how they're Lockley or maybe not,
Speaker 1: because that was kind of I think is too old,
Speaker 1: too old, And like melrose Place was also like you
Speaker 1: had to be an older team to watch it, not
Speaker 1: a younger team.
Speaker 2: Right, So it's like ninety eight.
Speaker 1: Dawson's Well, that's why I'm saying, like, was it Katie.
Speaker 2: William or Michelle or Katie? Katie makes a lot of.
Speaker 1: Sense, yeah, and like Katie is looking for like an
Speaker 1: older man to like make her feel safe, safe family.
Speaker 1: He also said that they were photographed in the post
Speaker 1: together at one point, so I'm like, maybe we can
Speaker 1: just look it up, right.
Speaker 2: Dawson's Creek premier in ninety eight.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: We're gonna have to do some more deep diving on this.
Speaker 2: We'll continue our investigation.
Speaker 1: Drop your ideas in the comments about who you think.
Speaker 3: But that really riles up Elena and she then is
Speaker 3: like so fucking pissed at him, but they get back
Speaker 3: together after that. He actually has this quote that is
Speaker 3: so true. He said a couple always breaks up or
Speaker 3: usually breaks.
Speaker 2: Up when they finally get their dream home.
Speaker 1: M yeah, unless you're Ellen and Porsche and Porsias has
Speaker 1: an ankle monitoring on and she's not pready to leave,
Speaker 1: and then you can just buy another house and make
Speaker 1: that your dream house, you know.
Speaker 3: Because he meets his first wife Lynn at working at
Speaker 3: one fifth Ave, which he says also like started what
Speaker 3: it was.
Speaker 1: Like to have a first down and didn't fIF that
Speaker 1: become auto.
Speaker 3: Oh no, yeah auto, but Tali's more where your actual
Speaker 3: friend worked. Literally maxin friend worked when we first moved
Speaker 3: to New York, and she would bring us home like
Speaker 3: so much family meal Penney. Yeah, and that I guess
Speaker 3: opened her world of you know, downtown New York food,
Speaker 3: and honestly say with us because I feel like then
Speaker 3: we like got to go to restaurants again. Some fucked
Speaker 3: up so kind of did the same thing that did
Speaker 3: for keeping.
Speaker 1: Right, Like the one fifth was our like entry point
Speaker 1: into like the glamorous world of like restaurants, food and
Speaker 1: restaurants and artists and publishers and writers going to.
Speaker 2: Restaurants over there.
Speaker 3: And so at one fifth Ave is where his first
Speaker 3: bad interaction happens with Maplethorpe and Patty Smith.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he sees her reduce a waitress to tears,
Speaker 2: yeah for not bringing bread.
Speaker 1: Patty Smith is a huge bitch who's shocked.
Speaker 3: Who is shocked, And it's like, the funny thing is
Speaker 3: he also talks about Maplethorpe being still a bitch, but
Speaker 3: less of a bitch, and he's like, actually, when he
Speaker 3: had his leather jacket on.
Speaker 2: He was more of a bitch.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, wait this It was like this costume that
Speaker 3: he had on to be this you know, bad boy photographer,
Speaker 3: and he was like and I saw it off.
Speaker 2: Of him once and it was like he was totally
Speaker 2: different and kind of.
Speaker 1: Under He goes, although Maplethorpe with this tough boy leather
Speaker 1: jacket image could be terseed with the service, he never
Speaker 1: charged to belittle them the way Smith did. The only
Speaker 1: time I saw Maplethorpe without his leather jacket, when the
Speaker 1: restaurant's air conditioning broke down, he seemed strangely reduced and
Speaker 1: like a policeman out of uniform, surprisingly ordinary looking. Maybe
Speaker 1: it was coincidence, but without the leather jacket, he was
Speaker 1: also friendly to the staff. I mean he's just like
Speaker 1: making up this narrative, but I.
Speaker 2: Mean, yeah, I think it's probably very true.
Speaker 1: A little bit of truth to that. It's like, I'm
Speaker 1: sure the difference between being nice to the staff and
Speaker 1: like Keith's story and him not being nice is just
Speaker 1: being like, oh, we have the check and just like
Speaker 1: I'll take the check, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: It's like a pretty mean I think it's this classic
Speaker 3: like downtown observation people have where it's like, you know,
Speaker 3: maybe you see someone in Dime Square and you think
Speaker 3: they're like so intimidating.
Speaker 2: This isn't me, of course, I'm saying.
Speaker 1: One, Oh, of course you've never been intimidated by anyone
Speaker 1: in Dimes Square, which is actually.
Speaker 3: I'm always like so intimidated by someone, and then it's
Speaker 3: just like and then you see them in this other
Speaker 3: context and you're kind of just like, oh right, you're
Speaker 3: like actually normal, You're not like the king of Downtown,
Speaker 3: or maybe you are, but you're not as scary as
Speaker 3: I thought.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I feel like, you know, Keith has
Speaker 1: this very like he's like intentionally iconoclastic. I guess it's
Speaker 1: like he has this view of himself where he's just
Speaker 1: like I'm such a rakish, I hate everyone. I'm like
Speaker 1: an ugly, nasty man. I'm not having a fucking restaurant tour.
Speaker 1: And like it's you know, and it's it is quick
Speaker 1: to a joke, and you know, I think that's that's beautiful.
Speaker 1: But you know because because he has this like working
Speaker 1: class ship on his shoulder, right, and he's constantly referencing
Speaker 1: the best not going upbringing, and how like he's never
Speaker 1: felt at home in these settings and yet is so
Speaker 1: clearly enamored with this world of a well and it's
Speaker 1: like and is absolutely bragging about all of his relationships
Speaker 1: within a winterur and like and also like dropping so
Speaker 1: many it's like he'll be like he'll reference like you know,
Speaker 1: we just we just like you know in this Camu novel.
Speaker 3: Or no right, it's the classic proof that he has
Speaker 3: now read and he collects art and he takes Limos
Speaker 3: to see every year.
Speaker 1: Right, and he's like, oh, you know, he's like personally
Speaker 1: I love the Fovists and like, I mean abstract expressionism
Speaker 1: not really for me. And you're like, okay, so like
Speaker 1: that's not very working class and like he would maybe
Speaker 1: admit that that's an affectation that he's doing like because
Speaker 1: he has the chip on his shoulder. But like, there
Speaker 1: also is I don't know, as much as like he
Speaker 1: is honest about it, there is also this just like
Speaker 1: kind of never ending performance of being just like I
Speaker 1: actually am really pretentious and I'm pretending that I'm the
Speaker 1: most salt of the earth person, you know.
Speaker 2: Which is he couldn't be who he is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think if he was, you know, salt
Speaker 3: of the earth, he couldn't create the most like popular restaurant,
Speaker 3: literally the most popular restaurant in the.
Speaker 1: Right because he wouldn't have the taste level.
Speaker 3: Right if I made this quote about Anna Wintour when
Speaker 3: he befriended her at One Fifth f So she came
Speaker 3: in and order eggs benedict. That was her order every time,
Speaker 3: which I think now has changed because I saw a
Speaker 3: video now.
Speaker 1: She why is she so obsessed with always having like
Speaker 1: one because like her whole thing in like Devil Worre's
Speaker 1: product has she only gets the steak and mashed potatoes.
Speaker 3: Right, which is true, And I've heard actually it's not
Speaker 3: even a steak, it's just a hamburger with no bun,
Speaker 3: no bun. Although I made, so he's making He asked
Speaker 3: the chef to make her eggs and they're like, fuck off, no,
Speaker 3: like my services done, so he goes. Although I made
Speaker 3: a hash and the eggs benedit, the incident itself had
Speaker 3: rich consequences. The young woman was future Vogue and Earn
Speaker 3: chief Anna Wintour, and despite coming from opposite ends of
Speaker 3: the English class system, we became friends. Nothing romantic happened
Speaker 3: between us, yet we'd often watch movies together in the afternoon, which,
Speaker 3: outside of the bedroom, is the most intimate thing two
Speaker 3: people can do at.
Speaker 1: That time of day.
Speaker 2: I love that line.
Speaker 1: He has a lot of amazing, like just really really
Speaker 1: brilliant observations that he just like drops with such authority.
Speaker 1: I like, right. I love that when he said I'm
Speaker 1: like many divorced fathers. I spent most of the time
Speaker 1: I have with my kids in and around sports, just
Speaker 1: like you have to have this like activity to do
Speaker 1: with your driving, picking up, picking up.
Speaker 3: Also, the day when Anna Wintour was just watching Taxi
Speaker 3: Driver at a theeder on Houston with Keith at four pm.
Speaker 1: Because because New York City used to have theaters Bay
Speaker 1: it used to have cinemas, it used to have everything.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is why he's such a like figure
Speaker 1: of our time. And like you know, we all like
Speaker 1: he became like very famous, like the Instagram and then
Speaker 1: like he does talk about his Instagram later on the
Speaker 1: book and the whole James Corden thing, and like I
Speaker 1: like that he admits to being so like thirsty for.
Speaker 2: Likes, but like he was good.
Speaker 1: He's such a retro fetishist and like, you know, there
Speaker 1: is this real overlap with the whole like you know,
Speaker 1: downtown New York City, like whether it's dimesquare reactionary or
Speaker 1: it's just the whole general like trend of all like
Speaker 1: restaurants and bars and everything being retrotinged. He is one
Speaker 1: hundred percent of that moment and like he is like
Speaker 1: he's still doing that and people are still fucking living
Speaker 1: for it, and they're still just like I want to
Speaker 1: red both on a martini. What a fucking photograph of
Speaker 1: a nineteen forties boxer framed above that?
Speaker 3: Like no, you talk like and I think, I mean
Speaker 3: we've talked about this a lot, but it was like
Speaker 3: the thirst for what the McNally universe creative.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at the end, like coming out of the pandemic.
Speaker 3: That is all people want it because they wanted state.
Speaker 3: They wanted you know, vodka and red meat, you know,
Speaker 3: and the excess and what he's created and leather jackets
Speaker 3: and red booths and as he says, and.
Speaker 1: Thin girls dancing, like let's say.
Speaker 2: That because girls dancing within booths and part.
Speaker 1: Of his like I'm photographing like women who've had kids
Speaker 1: or whoever he describes like a woman not being thinn
Speaker 1: like is because like what he really loves and what
Speaker 1: like the whole world he's creating it is about like
Speaker 1: thin girls dancing and it is it's like this more
Speaker 1: like raventist you know America. Yeah, like fetishism, which.
Speaker 3: We have to if we can now lead into talk
Speaker 3: about a place I've never been of his. I think
Speaker 3: it was closed before my time, Pravda.
Speaker 1: I mean the name Pravda alone.
Speaker 2: It's like I so sex and the city time to
Speaker 2: go to Pravda.
Speaker 3: This was his like eastern block like themed bar and
Speaker 3: soho that where he hired like sexy waitresses and it
Speaker 3: was like so many like canisters flavored vodka. And I
Speaker 3: looked at this old Pravda ad it just it brought
Speaker 3: me back to being a teenager looking at ads. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like absolute ads, being like I can't wait to move
Speaker 3: to New York City. And it's like women's mouths laughing.
Speaker 1: It's a joke, block letters women and heals and well.
Speaker 1: When he describes meeting his second wife, Elena, who was
Speaker 1: half Japanese, although she was born in awais Shoud grew
Speaker 1: up be to Aska with her mother and three siblings.
Speaker 1: And this was at the next time. I was two
Speaker 1: weeks later at Pravda, a subterranean vodkabar.
Speaker 2: I owned the phrase a subterranean subterranean.
Speaker 1: It was raining heavily, the night in the place was
Speaker 1: packed and steamy. I was helping they made her DC
Speaker 1: customers and Elena walked in with some girlfriends. I took
Speaker 1: a break and sat down with them. It's like, it's
Speaker 1: the most sex in the city scene you could describe. Sorry, Alena,
Speaker 1: she's half Japanese and so glamorous, and she's like you
Speaker 1: can just picture this wearing this like sheath red dress,
Speaker 1: little she dress, long, straight hair side inside, coming in
Speaker 1: with all her girlfriends and their keels closed and they're laughing.
Speaker 3: And it's like soaking wet outside and Carrie it's like
Speaker 3: voice over comes in and being like there's only one
Speaker 3: place to be on a rainy Saturday night, Pravda, the
Speaker 3: downtown Russian themed.
Speaker 2: Vodka he goes.
Speaker 1: Just before closing time, the DJ played a Cat Stephens
Speaker 1: song Moonshadow. Elina said she loved Cat Stevens because he
Speaker 1: had such integrity to bring us closer, and said, I agreed, No.
Speaker 2: He's such a cat.
Speaker 3: But hearing his voice, that's funny, Like he actually does
Speaker 3: sound kind of this is pretty stroke.
Speaker 2: He does sound kind of gay, not just in like
Speaker 2: a British people are gay way, but it is.
Speaker 1: Like, so this brings us back to the guilty bottom
Speaker 1: the post Catman do a guilty bottom.
Speaker 3: And a lot of times he says in this book,
Speaker 3: which I think is also true maybe of like a
Speaker 3: middle aged bricking class man rose up in ranks, is
Speaker 3: he's afraid of hanging out with men as a group
Speaker 3: straight men.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, he's very fearful of that.
Speaker 3: And you know there's this hole there's which was a
Speaker 3: famous Instagram post of his where there was a group
Speaker 3: of you know, Wall Street traders who ordered the most
Speaker 3: expensive bottle of wine, a bolts Us Bolt Boltzar.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and this isn't the book, Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: a yeah.
Speaker 2: And then a couple who ordered the pino on the menu,
Speaker 2: and the.
Speaker 1: Couple saw the Wall Street guys getting their Chateau Child
Speaker 1: like three decanted, and they were like, wait, can we
Speaker 1: have ours decanted? And so they kind of has a joke,
Speaker 1: and so they decanted their pino and then somehow the
Speaker 1: it was it was switched, and so the Wall Street
Speaker 1: guys get the cheap pino.
Speaker 2: And they're swirling it being like the Tannins.
Speaker 1: And then the and then the couple is swirling the
Speaker 1: Chateau muton Roth's Child, not realizing that it's like a
Speaker 1: three thousand dollars bottle of wine, and they're pretending to
Speaker 1: be like, oh the tanni.
Speaker 3: When actually and then so the you know, the waiter
Speaker 3: realizes his mistake and calls Keith, and Keith comes down
Speaker 3: to the restaurant. Keith is like, I was afraid of
Speaker 3: even approaching.
Speaker 1: The Wall Street traders, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Because like I'm afraid of a group of men. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and what do I do in this situation?
Speaker 2: Do I tell the truth?
Speaker 1: And he did he did because he was like, I
Speaker 1: mean I think he realized like obviously he loved the
Speaker 1: kind of romance of like letting them believe it.
Speaker 2: But I think he's so funny to kind of like
Speaker 2: play a prank on these things.
Speaker 1: If they found out, like they would be so mad
Speaker 1: and it would be like such a liability. But I
Speaker 1: really like this thing where he goes so knowing he's
Speaker 1: talking about the couple. So when the actor like, they
Speaker 1: fixed the mistake, so they then they give the the
Speaker 1: rich guys like they open another bottle. So he's kind
Speaker 1: of out two thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Right, but he's like it's worth it. And his also
Speaker 2: his fear was that he didn't want to also embarrass
Speaker 2: the trader.
Speaker 1: Yes, so that they would have to admit. But then
Speaker 1: of course they all immediately a like, oh I knew
Speaker 1: it wasn't a rothschild. But then he goes talking about
Speaker 1: the couple. So the couple just gets to keep drinking
Speaker 1: the fancy wine that they accidentally open for them, knowing
Speaker 1: they were drinking expensive wine for real. They switched from
Speaker 1: acting out drinking expensive wine in jest to acting out
Speaker 1: in earnest, which was a pity in ways I couldn't explain,
Speaker 1: which is.
Speaker 3: That such an amazing sentence it's a he's kind of
Speaker 3: watching like how he has changed.
Speaker 1: And yes, yes, yes, exactly, he's watching how he does
Speaker 1: exactly it.
Speaker 2: Right, it's crazy.
Speaker 3: It's like he's being like, oh, but the romance of
Speaker 3: making fun of rich people, it's all gone because now
Speaker 3: you are literally just being there.
Speaker 1: Yes, oh, oh my god. That is brilliant, doctor Lily.
Speaker 1: That that's exactly what it is. He's he's seeing his
Speaker 1: own selling out or is it cashing in? He would say,
Speaker 1: there's a difference that is there, and that is the
Speaker 1: end of part one of our Key McNally episode. Stay
Speaker 1: tuned for next week when we discuss chillers, Minetta Tavern,
Speaker 1: the rules of service at Balthasar Class, analysis of salvage
Speaker 1: workers versus antique store owners. Keith McNally is an anti
Speaker 1: woke icon, the deep rift between Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket
Speaker 1: and mythologizing the past, which is something we love to
Speaker 1: do here. On the thought. To hear that episode, which
Speaker 1: will be out next Wednesday, quit to patroon dot com
Speaker 1: slash tvc the pod where you also get new episodes
Speaker 1: every Friday. There's another one this Friday too, so it's
Speaker 1: a lot of content