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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to

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Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so

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Speaker 1: much for tuning in. We want to give a big

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Speaker 1: end of the year shout out to our super producer,

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Speaker 1: mister Max Williams. We've got We've got Big Bullen, We've

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Speaker 1: got Noel Brown. We also have a special guest today, Noel.

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Speaker 1: We can't believe this is happening. This is a true story.

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Speaker 1: We are speaking with the author, the world traveler, the

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Speaker 1: man who started MTV, none other than Tom Freston, creator

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Speaker 1: of the newest hip book Unplugged.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for being here, Tom, How are you.

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Speaker 3: I'm good, I'm very good.

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Speaker 2: He's a busy man. Against the calls.

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Speaker 3: I'm fine. I'm just trying to disconnect my phone here.

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Speaker 2: You're trying to unplug. Huh.

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Speaker 3: I need to be unplugged.

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Speaker 2: It's tough. It's a very difficult thing to do in

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Speaker 2: this day and age. Ben. I think he did a

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Speaker 2: fine job of given the short version of an incredibly

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Speaker 2: storied career and cv. Tom, you are the co founder

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Speaker 2: of MTV, the former CEO of Viacom. You've had your

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Speaker 2: hands in just about every aspect of the entertainment and

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Speaker 2: media landscape that you know you could possibly imagine, but

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Speaker 2: even more than that, And I'd love to start a

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Speaker 2: little bit with some of your background. I saw an

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Speaker 2: article this morning from Forbes, I think it just came

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Speaker 2: out today describing you as a beat poet exec who

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Speaker 2: made MTV cool for twenty years. Can you tell us

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Speaker 2: a little bit about what that means. You talk a

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Speaker 2: little bit about like getting into the game as it

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Speaker 2: were in some of these more kind of wild West

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Speaker 2: days of the sixties and not wanting to work for

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Speaker 2: the man, and having that attitude kind of carry you

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Speaker 2: into this sort of freewheeling, you know, life of adventure

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Speaker 2: and entrepreneurship.

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Speaker 3: Well, that headline, Kana threw me too, okay, I told

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Speaker 3: the reporter. He said, you know, what were some of

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Speaker 3: your seminal influences, And I said, well, in my life,

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Speaker 3: I was influenced by two groups of people, primarily the Beats,

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Speaker 3: you know, Perlengetti, Kerowhac Corso the rest of them, and

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Speaker 3: the Libertarians, which was sort of an odd mix, but

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Speaker 3: they both believed in individual freedom. They both believed in

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Speaker 3: a way that a life should be full of experience,

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Speaker 3: and the Beafs in particular, thought that you could go

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Speaker 3: through life sort of improvising your life, not having a

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Speaker 3: really set career path, but leaving yourself open to possibility, traveling,

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Speaker 3: hungering for experience, being with people that you like. And

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Speaker 3: that's sort of been a guiding maxim for me, along

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Speaker 3: with the fact that I never really wanted to do

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Speaker 3: any work in the mainstream. I thought life would be

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Speaker 3: a little more interesting over on the side of the road,

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Speaker 3: and by and large that's what I've been able to accomplish.

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Speaker 3: And the places I've worked and the things I've done,

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Speaker 3: none of them were really mainstream activities.

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Speaker 1: And this is strange because, to be quite honest with you, Todd,

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Speaker 1: MTV is a formative experience for us on this show,

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Speaker 1: and I'm sure you hear that all the time. If

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Speaker 1: we could, could you share a little bit of the

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Speaker 1: providence or the origin story of how you and your

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Speaker 1: pals came up with this idea of music television.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and let me just qualify one thing at the outset,

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Speaker 3: which is the MTV you've seen for the last say,

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Speaker 3: fifteen years or so, is not the MTV that I'm

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Speaker 3: really talking about.

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Speaker 2: We started out, for sure.

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Speaker 3: We started out as a music service for young adults.

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Speaker 3: The idea was, if you drive back to nineteen eighty,

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Speaker 3: cable was just beginning. Most cities did not have cable TV.

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Speaker 3: It existed in some rural areas because people just wanted

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Speaker 3: distance signals and better reception. And in nineteen seventy nine

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Speaker 3: and eighty, various companies were cooking up things like CNN

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Speaker 3: or U, ESPN or USA Network, and we were going

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Speaker 3: to bounce our signals off of satellite, and we were

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Speaker 3: going to make cable TV kind of sweeped through the

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Speaker 3: hinter lands in the cities and become a universal utility. Essentially,

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Speaker 3: MTV and Nickelodeon was the other company under my sort

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Speaker 3: of umbrella. We were really the tip of the sphere.

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Speaker 3: Prior to that, you had free broadcast networks ABC, NBCCBS,

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Speaker 3: that's pretty much all it was there. Cable was going

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Speaker 3: to do to television what FM radio sort of did

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Speaker 3: to AM radio. They were going to have more slender services.

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Speaker 3: They called it narrow casting at the time, doing one

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Speaker 3: thing all the time, appealing to a certain audience, so

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Speaker 3: you really didn't care that everyone wasn't watching you. ABC

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Speaker 3: was just a bunch of disconnected shows, whereas everything we

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Speaker 3: did on MTV would be cohesive. They would all be

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Speaker 3: directed at younger music lovers. And the form that we

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Speaker 3: were going to build us around was the music video,

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Speaker 3: which was unknown to most Americans but had existed in Europe,

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Speaker 3: where I had seen it years ago, because in Europe

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Speaker 3: it was very difficult for record companies to get their

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Speaker 3: acts on the radio because there wasn't a lot of

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Speaker 3: radio stations they didn't play music, so they would make

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Speaker 3: these music videos and put them on shows like Top

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Speaker 3: of the Pops in the UK. On television, we thought

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Speaker 3: that this would be a great vehicle. Music's a big category.

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Speaker 3: We could have a music channel on television. We thought

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Speaker 3: we'd take the two things that the baby boomers who

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Speaker 3: we were targeting at that time, the two things they

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Speaker 3: really loved, music and television, and put it together in

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Speaker 3: a new way, and we call it MTV. And I

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Speaker 3: was on the team that developed that concept, and we

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Speaker 3: launched in nineteen eighty one, and at the bulk of

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Speaker 3: the programming, we tried to give it an underground sort

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Speaker 3: of cool sensibility, like this was something like you don't

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Speaker 3: know where it came from. And it really became a thing.

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Speaker 3: I mean, it really became a force in the cultures.

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Speaker 3: Easy to remember, easy to forget how revolutionary it seemed

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Speaker 3: at the time, given all that's happened, But back then

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Speaker 3: it really looked like something brand new, a sign of

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Speaker 3: the future that was coming and so forth.

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Speaker 2: It had a certain quality of pirate radio, had a

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Speaker 2: certain quality of punk rock kind of aesthetic. Even with

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Speaker 2: all those I mean, I think of the bumpers so often,

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Speaker 2: some of those early MTV animated bumpers with the clamation

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Speaker 2: using weirdo artists. Some of the animation that came later,

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Speaker 2: stuff like Beavis and butt Head, but in the earliest days.

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Speaker 2: I think the video that a lot of people associate

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Speaker 2: with the very very first days of MTVS video Killed

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Speaker 2: the Radio Star by the Buggles, which a lot of

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Speaker 2: people don't know this, but there is a tiny little

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Speaker 2: cameo in that video from Hans Zimmer, I think he

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Speaker 2: was in the band at the times, and he's got

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Speaker 2: this rack of crazy modular sins behind him, and you

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Speaker 2: can see a young Hans bopping with the Buggles. But

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Speaker 2: it's like you almost think of it as such a

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Speaker 2: connected piece, this idea of this mission statement or this

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Speaker 2: thesis video killed the radio star. But that wasn't exactly

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Speaker 2: on purpose. It just happened to be the one that

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Speaker 2: took off and sort of led this new style of

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Speaker 2: broadcast and the way of experiencing music. Can you kind

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Speaker 2: of talk about those early days and how quickly it

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Speaker 2: picked up or like, did it take a minute or

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Speaker 2: was it a kind of instant that people just saw

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Speaker 2: the potential and got on board with MTV?

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Speaker 1: And what was the climate like? Was this a very

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Speaker 1: startup environment where you.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it was like a bunch of us in a

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Speaker 3: hotel room with coal waiting. We didn't even have a

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Speaker 3: lot of phones, eating pizza and working day and night.

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Speaker 3: There was a handful of us and we were all

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Speaker 3: No one was making more than thirty thousand dollars a year,

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Speaker 3: and we probably would have worked for less because we

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Speaker 3: were all on a mission. We were like crusaders. Everyone was.

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Speaker 3: No one was from the world of television. I came

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Speaker 3: from eight years in Afghanistan and India. A lot of people

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Speaker 3: came out of record companies or radio stations. But we

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Speaker 3: were all passionate and you were right about the bumpers

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Speaker 3: and all that. We really tried to create an image

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Speaker 3: that would be coh. We didn't want We want an

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Speaker 3: MTV to be a place. It wasn't a show. I

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Speaker 3: wasn't going to go watch a show on MTV. I

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Speaker 3: was going to go watch MTV. We thought that's the

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Speaker 3: only way we really could survive, would be just a

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Speaker 3: because we didn't have a lot of shows for starters,

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Speaker 3: but we wanted people just to come there anytime. In

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Speaker 3: the early days we had we went on the air,

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Speaker 3: we only had one hundred and sixty eight videos. That's

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Speaker 3: like one video for every hour of the week if

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Speaker 3: you didn't repeat them, and it didn't take off immediately,

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Speaker 3: it took a while. We were everyone we dealt with

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Speaker 3: thought thought it was a bad idea. The cable operators

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Speaker 3: didn't want to pay us any money because they don't

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Speaker 3: like paying money to anybody, and they were all monopolists

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Speaker 3: in a particular geography. The advertiser said, no one's going

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Speaker 3: to watch music on television, will never get an audience,

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Speaker 3: and the record company said, we're not going to give

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Speaker 3: you these videos. You know, we want you to pay

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Speaker 3: for them, and we really couldn't afford to do that.

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Speaker 3: We said, well, they're going to sell records for you.

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Speaker 3: They're like three minute commercials. So for a long time

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Speaker 3: it was like for two years, it was just trying

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Speaker 3: to overcome a series of no no, no, no, no no.

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Speaker 3: But what we did know was that people who got

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Speaker 3: it once we went on the air in August of

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Speaker 3: eighty one, they loved it like the consumer had been

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Speaker 3: left out of the equation. I would go out, because

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Speaker 3: I was the marketing guy at the time, with this

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Speaker 3: other fellow, John Stikes, who was a promotion guy. We

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Speaker 3: would go to cities like Tulsa, Current then the biggest

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Speaker 3: cable system in America. And just even when I arrived

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Speaker 3: at the airport to rent a car, they saw MTV

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Speaker 3: button on my jacket. It was like, where did you

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Speaker 3: get that? Cool? I said, you know, you've heard of MTV?

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Speaker 3: They go, are you kidding me? Everybody here knows about MTV.

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Speaker 3: It's wild. It had just come on unannounced in the

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Speaker 3: middle of the night, like six weeks earlier, and the

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Speaker 3: town was going nuts for it. They went to a

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Speaker 3: radio station they were like, wow, all these people are

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Speaker 3: requesting songs from the Buggles in Duran. Duran grew we

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Speaker 3: never play on the radio. People are getting haircuts based

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Speaker 3: on various artists that they see. I went to a

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Speaker 3: bar and everybody was standing around like they were watching

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Speaker 3: an NFL game, but they were watching MTV. So we

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Speaker 3: had the first sign of life. No one who worked

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Speaker 3: at MTV got it at home. It was all an

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Speaker 3: abstraction to us. We were making it putting up on

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Speaker 3: our satellite. We only had two million subscribers, which was

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Speaker 3: not enough to do anything. So we decided, as we

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Speaker 3: were running out of money, to do sort of a

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Speaker 3: hail Mary pass, and we came up with it. I

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Speaker 3: won my MTV campaign, which would go right over the

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Speaker 3: cable operator's head and get these young Then it was

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Speaker 3: like rock and roll fans to torment their cable operator

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Speaker 3: to make sure they carry it, and it worked like

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Speaker 3: a charm. We would enlist major rock stars Mick Jagger,

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Speaker 3: David Bowie, p Townsend Hall and Oates, have them hold

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Speaker 3: our logo and validate it. Call your cable company and

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Speaker 3: say I want my MTV.

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Speaker 2: And you approached them in kind of a punk rock

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Speaker 2: sort of culture jammy way, like didn't you like find

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Speaker 2: Bowie on the slopes or something and like walk up

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Speaker 2: to him and try to get into record like his

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Speaker 2: little version of that.

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Speaker 3: Well, I had drawn to David Bowie cart I had

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Speaker 3: to find him. And you know, the first time I

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Speaker 3: met him, I saw him, I was just trying to

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Speaker 3: ask him to get permission to use some photos of him,

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Speaker 3: Like we couldn't even get those from the record companies.

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Speaker 3: They thought we were like a fan club or something.

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Speaker 3: And David Bowie just said, you want my picture. The

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Speaker 3: best way to get to an artist is to go

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Speaker 3: directly to them, don't go through the record company, don't

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Speaker 3: go through the manager. And he just said it is

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Speaker 3: it good for music? And I said yeah, we're going

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Speaker 3: to play music twenty four hours a day. Said sure,

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Speaker 3: So that was over. So then I called his manager

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Speaker 3: when we wanted to do this campaign. I said, you know,

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Speaker 3: we have this campaign. It's blah blah blah. We'd love

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Speaker 3: to have David in it. Well, David's skiing in Switzerland,

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Speaker 3: he's in stop, but he'll do it. So I got

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Speaker 3: the crew. We got on a plane to Zurich right away,

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Speaker 3: where like it's like mission impossible. And then we got

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Speaker 3: on a train to stod and we went out to

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Speaker 3: like this little hill that was off in the mainstream

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Speaker 3: and Bowie looked great. He was in you know, he

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Speaker 3: was in his legs dance phase, you know, blonde hair,

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Speaker 3: looking healthy. He's a good skier. Comes down and he

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Speaker 3: knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to come

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Speaker 3: down a hill and then stop with a squish, and

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Speaker 3: he was going to go hold his hands like this

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Speaker 3: and say I want my MTV. And uh so we did.

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Speaker 3: We did that a few times and then he he's

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Speaker 3: a really nice guy. He won't know if any of

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Speaker 3: us wanted to ski with him. And at the end

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Speaker 3: of the day he said, you know, Tom, what are

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Speaker 3: you doing later? You want to take a sauna at

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Speaker 3: the Grand Hotel, which was like the main hotel in

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Speaker 3: the shad. So I like, can't believe this is happening.

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Speaker 3: I go, yeah, I got nothing to do. So I

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Speaker 3: go back to like our place, which is like sort

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Speaker 3: of a youth host, the Loemost where the crew was.

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Speaker 3: I said, I'll see you losers later. I'm gonna go

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Speaker 3: take a sauna with David Bowie. So when I went

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Speaker 3: there into the spa, you know, got put a towel

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Speaker 3: on to go into the sauna room. We went in there.

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Speaker 3: He said, you know, he's a very pleasant guy. He

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Speaker 3: talked you about what books you're reading and all that

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Speaker 3: kind of thing. There's one other person in the sauna.

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Speaker 3: I look up in it's Squint and it's Paul McCartney.

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Speaker 3: Can you believe so that maybe you know, I was

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Speaker 3: there twenty six years that was maybe one of my

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Speaker 3: peak moments, you know, early on in my career.

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Speaker 1: That's a weird place to meet Paul McCartney too, because

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Speaker 1: you're walking in, You've got the towel lawn. It's definitely

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Speaker 1: a sauna. It's not a pr thing, right, what was

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Speaker 1: did you have like an icebreaker?

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Speaker 3: Or yeah? Well he is in what you know? They

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Speaker 3: didn't know what was up. They said, what is MTV?

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Speaker 3: We start west where we started? What is MTV? That's

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Speaker 3: how little they knew about it. So I described it

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Speaker 3: to them and I'd be throwing water on the rocks.

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Speaker 3: They were both really, really nice, and I was very

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Speaker 3: self effacing and saying, you know, we're trying to get

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Speaker 3: this thing going. It's going to be really good for

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Speaker 3: music and going to be good for the category. It's

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Speaker 3: a new way for artists to express themselves. And we

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Speaker 3: would one day end up being in Europe, which we

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Speaker 3: did some years later, so that was a that was

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Speaker 3: a highlight for me. But with that, this campaign allowed

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Speaker 3: us to ramp up our subscribers to like seventy eighty

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Speaker 3: ninety million homes as cable built out and as more,

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Speaker 3: because we'd go into a market and run this advertising

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Speaker 3: on the broadcast networks at really high levels, so you know,

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Speaker 3: you'd have to be dead if you didn't know about it.

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Speaker 3: So people would call their company cable company and use

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Speaker 3: that language and put us on.

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Speaker 1: And one thing that's amazing here right that I'm sure

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Speaker 1: you get questions about MTV all the time, obviously. One

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Speaker 1: thing that's amazing about your book Unplugged. I didn't give

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Speaker 1: the full title, it's Unplugged Adventures from MTV to Tim bucktoo.

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Speaker 1: And Tom, we can't let it go here because you

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Speaker 1: mentioned something that I wish more interviews examined from your

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Speaker 1: book before we have this moment with David Bowie and

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Speaker 1: with Paul McCartney, before we have MTV and Nickelodeon and

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Speaker 1: so on. You have traveled the world, you said, eight years,

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Speaker 1: eight years abroad in places that honestly a lot of

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Speaker 1: Americans had not visited at the time. Could you tell

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Speaker 1: us a little bit kind of speaking to that mention

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Speaker 1: of improvisation and just hopping on the road. Could you

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Speaker 1: could you tell us what inspired your travels, what you

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Speaker 1: were doing. We have we have so many questions, but

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Speaker 1: maybe paint the stage. Okay, I'm a kid in the US.

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Speaker 3: I'm a kid in the US and less. Remember it's

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Speaker 3: the sixties, so and there was alienation in the air,

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Speaker 3: there was freedom in the air. The counterculture was in

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Speaker 3: full force. There was the war in Vietnam. I had

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Speaker 3: gone to a graduate school to avoid getting drafted. Somehow

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Speaker 3: that I pulled that off, and then I took a

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Speaker 3: year off and I sort of improvised even with I

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Speaker 3: had an MBA that kept me out of the army,

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Speaker 3: and then I bartended my way out and asked spen

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Speaker 3: a Virgin Islands Martha's Vin. You know, I did a

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Speaker 3: lot of that. That was sort of improvising that I

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Speaker 3: wouldn't got a job at an ad.

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Speaker 1: Agency, Benton and Bulls.

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Speaker 3: Benton and Bulls is one of the big agencies at

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Speaker 3: the time, so I try that out. I got on

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Speaker 3: what they called the fast track for Procter and Gamble products.

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Speaker 3: So I did like I did a Gi Joe thing,

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Speaker 3: which I hated, scope mouthwis. The whole thing was a

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Speaker 3: learning experience, but it was enough for me to know

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Speaker 3: this wasn't for me. Then they wanted to assign me

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Speaker 3: a Sharman toilet paper, one of their big accounts, and

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Speaker 3: that was hard to digest. And I had a woman,

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Speaker 3: a girlfriend. She was living in Paris. She called me

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Speaker 3: up and see, well, how you doing. I said, man,

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Speaker 3: they wanted me to sell toilet paper. And she says, oh,

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Speaker 3: you can't do that. Come with me across. I'm going

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Speaker 3: to go across the Tahara Desert. You're going to hitchhike

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Speaker 3: down through Spain and Morocco. Go across the Tahara Desert.

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Speaker 3: I was on a plane ten weeks later. Ten days later,

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Speaker 3: excuse me, I got a passport and I was off

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Speaker 3: and I didn't come back for a year. We left.

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Speaker 3: We split up after two months, but I kept going.

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Speaker 3: And I had met another woman in Greece who told me,

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Speaker 3: you know, you got to go to India. That's like

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Speaker 3: the Holy Grail, that's the greatest show on Earth. And

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Speaker 3: I set out overland through Turkey and Iran and Afghanistan

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Speaker 3: and India, and I just fell in love with that area.

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Speaker 3: I was fascinated. I had done a lot of homework.

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Speaker 3: I decided I wanted to live there, but I had

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Speaker 3: to create a job, and you couldn't really get a

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Speaker 3: job there in those days. And in those days, this

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Speaker 3: was the seventies. Now in India, the place was like

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Speaker 3: a shock to the system. Sixty percent of the population

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Speaker 3: was under the poverty line and it was a massive

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Speaker 3: humanity and it took a lot of energy just to

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Speaker 3: get through one day. But I said, this is so,

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Speaker 3: I feel so alive here. So I set up a

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Speaker 3: business to design it and make and then import into

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Speaker 3: the United States clothing, higher end clothing, more designer like

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Speaker 3: than the cheap sort of ethnic stuff. And I said

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Speaker 3: that would allow me to make enough money to live here.

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Speaker 3: It would be sort of a creative endeavor. Lord knows

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Speaker 3: what's going to happen. Once I start, other things will

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Speaker 3: happen to me. So I did that for eight years,

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Speaker 3: made a lot of money. I was a millionaire in

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Speaker 3: my twenties. Back then, I had a partner and we

360
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Speaker 3: were in you know, I knew people in New York,

361
00:20:20,040 --> 00:20:23,560
Speaker 3: so we would be in vogue and Mademoiselle and Glamour magazines.

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Speaker 3: We got a lot of coverage, we sold. We became

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Speaker 3: an unexpected hit. But at the end a lot of

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Speaker 3: bat I had a house, I had servants, I was

365
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Speaker 3: living like a pasha. Couldn't believe it. It was fantastic and

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Speaker 3: a very exciting place to be. But then the Russians

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Speaker 3: invaded Afghanistan, which kind of took that market away, that operation.

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Speaker 3: And then Jimmy Carter, of all people, after all we

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Speaker 3: had endured in India, you know, blackouts, strikes, cobra's dysentery,

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Speaker 3: you name it, he.

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Speaker 2: Discovered the actual cobras.

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Speaker 3: By the way, those are real cobra.

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Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, oh yeah, thank you.

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Speaker 3: It's in our backyard and they were in our backyard

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Speaker 3: eating the rats.

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Speaker 2: That's right. But it was the cobra problem because they

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Speaker 2: released cobras to kill the rats. And then I believe

378
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Speaker 2: you would get some sort of bounty if you showed

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Speaker 2: that your cobra had killed rats. So people just released

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Speaker 2: more and more cobras, and it became this like self

381
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Speaker 2: like this rabuus kind of snake eating its own tail.

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Speaker 2: Thing would be created. Went from a rat problem to

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Speaker 2: a cobra problem.

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Speaker 3: Right, I go on YouTube. They have all these snake videos.

385
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Speaker 3: There's a rabbit hole on YouTube where you can see

386
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Speaker 3: all these cobras eating things. But then they declared an

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Speaker 3: embargo on clothing from India because the president put in

388
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Speaker 3: place tariffs kind of like today, because it was hurting

389
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Speaker 3: domestic manufacturing. So they outlawed it for a while, and

390
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Speaker 3: I basically went bankrupt. I did smuggle some some some

391
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Speaker 3: of the clothing I shipped to Canada and kind of

392
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Speaker 3: smuggled it into the US over the Saint Lawrence Seaway,

393
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Speaker 3: which was crazy.

394
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Speaker 1: Just so you know, folks, we are at Audio Podcast

395
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Speaker 1: and Ed Tubb, you had the most poetic look out

396
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Speaker 1: the window and I could see you traveling back to

397
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Speaker 1: the Saint Lawrence River.

398
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Speaker 3: That situation, Yeah, that was a that was not going

399
00:22:23,680 --> 00:22:25,280
Speaker 3: to be a good way to make a living. So

400
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Speaker 3: I was out of work. I was out of luck.

401
00:22:28,119 --> 00:22:31,159
Speaker 3: I was broke. I was. I spent eight years doing that.

402
00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:34,159
Speaker 3: I'm thirty three years old. And I then saw this

403
00:22:34,400 --> 00:22:38,280
Speaker 3: article about the guy wanted to start a music channel,

404
00:22:38,480 --> 00:22:42,560
Speaker 3: and my brother, who worked at Columbia Records, recommended me

405
00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:45,679
Speaker 3: for an interview. And I realized that after traveling My

406
00:22:45,760 --> 00:22:48,920
Speaker 3: other main passion was music, and I was a music nut.

407
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:51,080
Speaker 3: I knew I could tell you when I was growing up,

408
00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:53,640
Speaker 3: who sang what song? What was on the other side

409
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Speaker 3: of the record, all that, And I said, well, this

410
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Speaker 3: looks like fun, this looks like something I could do.

411
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Speaker 3: So I went in for an interview and they said,

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Speaker 3: we're looking for people with no experience in television because

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Speaker 3: we don't have any money and we can't afford to

414
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Speaker 3: hire people who have bad habits they've acquired working for

415
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Speaker 3: the broadcasters. So they hired me on the spot.

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Speaker 1: Wow, did I have to ask? Did your escape from

417
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Speaker 1: Kabul come up in the interview at all? When they

418
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Speaker 1: said what's your previous work?

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Speaker 3: Well? Yeah, both two people thought I was a hash

420
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Speaker 3: he smugging as I asked about and they said it

421
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Speaker 3: in a way like it was a positive.

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Speaker 2: That's one of these fellows. Is our CEO here at iHeart?

423
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Speaker 3: Were you smuggling the guy Bob Pittman, who now is

424
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Speaker 3: the CEO of iHeart? Bob Bob, I hope you're listening,

425
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Speaker 3: he said to me when he was twenty six. He

426
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Speaker 3: was younger than me. He was the head guy. He said,

427
00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:53,359
Speaker 3: what were you doing in Afghanistan smuggling drugs and I said,

428
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Speaker 3: not really, he goes, not really, that means you were.

429
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Speaker 2: But I was a feature, not a bug. Right, You're hired.

430
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Speaker 3: So I got hired by Bob.

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Speaker 1: And this, this journey continues because, as you said, we're

432
00:24:08,760 --> 00:24:12,359
Speaker 1: doing something revolutionary. At this point, you know, I was

433
00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 1: also in full disclosure. I was one of those kids

434
00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:20,760
Speaker 1: that got hacked by Uh, I want my MTV and

435
00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:25,040
Speaker 1: I was. I was bugging my parents that I remember vividly.

436
00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:25,719
Speaker 3: Uh.

437
00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:29,199
Speaker 1: There was one Christmas where, uh, you know, my my

438
00:24:29,320 --> 00:24:32,960
Speaker 1: parents asked me what I wanted, right, And instead of

439
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:37,320
Speaker 1: picking you know, a toy or a trip or something,

440
00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:40,479
Speaker 1: I said, it'd be cool if we had MTV because

441
00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:42,399
Speaker 1: the kids up the street have it.

442
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:44,320
Speaker 2: Oh, it's something you'd go to the kids up the

443
00:24:44,359 --> 00:24:46,200
Speaker 2: street's house. I watched a million.

444
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:51,679
Speaker 3: I like those sort of origin of my MTV viewing stories.

445
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:54,520
Speaker 3: I hear them a lot. People were young and going

446
00:24:54,560 --> 00:24:57,639
Speaker 3: over to friends' houses because pumpy my mother wouldn't let

447
00:24:57,680 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 3: us get cable. My mother would let me watch EMTV

448
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:02,200
Speaker 3: well or whatever, but there was always someone in the

449
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:05,200
Speaker 3: neighborhood who had it with lenient parents.

450
00:25:05,280 --> 00:25:08,440
Speaker 2: That's right, yep, and then that would be the rallying spot.

451
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:10,040
Speaker 2: I don't want to maybe now, I mean, let's just

452
00:25:10,040 --> 00:25:12,880
Speaker 2: go ahead and do it. You mentioned the idea of cable,

453
00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:15,040
Speaker 2: and I think there might be some bocks growing up

454
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:18,160
Speaker 2: now that don't even really remember what cable was all about.

455
00:25:18,520 --> 00:25:21,360
Speaker 2: And you mentioned the idea of subscribers, and I think

456
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:23,720
Speaker 2: we can certainly correlate that to the model that we

457
00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:26,760
Speaker 2: all now participate in against our will most of the time,

458
00:25:26,760 --> 00:25:30,560
Speaker 2: which is this sort of I don't know, the fatigue

459
00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:34,240
Speaker 2: of infinite subscriptions, all of these different things, which more

460
00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:36,520
Speaker 2: or less the way things are now. It's kind of

461
00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:39,520
Speaker 2: become what cable packages used to be. Where it was like,

462
00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:41,800
Speaker 2: you know, it was this illusion of choice. You know,

463
00:25:41,840 --> 00:25:44,679
Speaker 2: you could get all the different whatever channels, you get

464
00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:46,919
Speaker 2: the package you want, not have the ones that you

465
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:49,600
Speaker 2: don't want. But now it's like there's so much crossover

466
00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:53,200
Speaker 2: and so much weird kind of I don't know, overkill.

467
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:55,560
Speaker 2: If everyone's got their own thing, you can no longer

468
00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:56,959
Speaker 2: get everything in one place, so you have to have

469
00:25:57,000 --> 00:25:58,960
Speaker 2: all of them. Can you speak a little bit abou

470
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:02,960
Speaker 2: how the landscapes changed from what cable was to where

471
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:05,480
Speaker 2: we are now with the streaming thing, that to my

472
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:09,320
Speaker 2: mind kind of resembles almost a more monstrous version of cable.

473
00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good question. Well, you know, we used

474
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:14,920
Speaker 3: to call it, but there's a TV revolution, which meant

475
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:17,040
Speaker 3: you're going to get more choices. So we started out

476
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 3: cable systems were twelve channels, and twenty four, then thirty

477
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:23,880
Speaker 3: five and fifty four, and then it just kept going.

478
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:26,120
Speaker 3: But they were all like you say, they were all

479
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:28,000
Speaker 3: you're getting them all for one price, so you didn't

480
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 3: have to keep tracking, even though you maybe only watch

481
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:32,760
Speaker 3: eight or nine of them, but you pay the same

482
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:35,720
Speaker 3: price that was the cable package. And then they kept

483
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:39,560
Speaker 3: raising the prices of the cable package. Then satellite came on,

484
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:40,960
Speaker 3: and you know, there was a little bit of a

485
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:43,520
Speaker 3: battle price. This went down a bit, but the TV

486
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 3: revolution kind of came to an end. It was replaced

487
00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:49,119
Speaker 3: by the digital revolution. And in this revolution, we have

488
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:52,560
Speaker 3: the Internet, we've got social media, we've got all these

489
00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:57,680
Speaker 3: streaming services, we've got substacks, we've got podcasts, and we're

490
00:26:57,720 --> 00:27:00,800
Speaker 3: just we used to say you're gonna be able to

491
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:03,920
Speaker 3: watch or listen to whatever you want, whenever you want,

492
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:06,320
Speaker 3: And now they get out on whatever device, So there's

493
00:27:06,359 --> 00:27:09,959
Speaker 3: an infinite amount of choice. It's not thirty five channels,

494
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:12,560
Speaker 3: and it's a hard thing. Do I have Hulu?

495
00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:13,399
Speaker 2: I don't know.

496
00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:16,399
Speaker 3: I don't remember. Am I on his substack? I can't remember.

497
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:19,439
Speaker 3: Someone's got to come up with a new kind of

498
00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:23,880
Speaker 3: aggregated package or at least show me on a screen

499
00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 3: all the things I subscribe to so I can unsubscribe

500
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 3: to some of them.

501
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:35,200
Speaker 1: Agreed, Do you, given your experience right and your deep

502
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:40,320
Speaker 1: knowledge base with Asdall said, the changing landscape, we have

503
00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:42,960
Speaker 1: to ask you a little bit about the future. I mean,

504
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:47,160
Speaker 1: do you see a course correction coming for streaming services?

505
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:52,679
Speaker 1: Do we see a world where someone says, hey, I'll

506
00:27:52,760 --> 00:27:56,880
Speaker 1: just watch these three things? Are were returning back to ABC, CBC,

507
00:27:57,080 --> 00:27:59,240
Speaker 1: the TV with three channels.

508
00:27:59,080 --> 00:28:01,359
Speaker 2: And to piggyback US, especially now with what we're seeing

509
00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 2: as more of this corporate consolidation, these efforts to kind

510
00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:07,359
Speaker 2: of be the one company that has all the things.

511
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 2: Of course, there's a lot of talk about this merger

512
00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:13,000
Speaker 2: with Paramounts and Warner Brothers, after Warner Brothers already was

513
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:14,720
Speaker 2: acquired by a company that we actually used to be

514
00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:17,920
Speaker 2: a part of Discovery in our early days of podcasting,

515
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 2: it just seems like it's getting deluded more and more

516
00:28:20,359 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 2: and more, and I'm just curious if that's a good thing.

517
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:25,639
Speaker 2: Is this for the consumer? Is this anti consumer?

518
00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 3: Like?

519
00:28:25,840 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 2: What is the future of anti consumer?

520
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:34,840
Speaker 3: Okay, make no mistake about it. Whatever happens with Warner Brothers,

521
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 3: who's like the crown jewel studio of hollywoods.

522
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 2: They have all the all of it, all the legacy stuff.

523
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:43,640
Speaker 3: Yes, whatever happens, if it goes when Netflix, or if

524
00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 3: it goes with the Paramount and the Lessons, there's nothing

525
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:50,720
Speaker 3: in it for the consumer. It means prices are going

526
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 3: to go up because if Netflix gets it, you know,

527
00:28:54,280 --> 00:28:56,520
Speaker 3: it's going to fold into Netflix and they're going to

528
00:28:56,600 --> 00:28:58,800
Speaker 3: have they'll be able to raise their prices because they'll

529
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 3: be one less competitor, which was a big competitor. They'll

530
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:04,240
Speaker 3: have more content that they can talk about, so they

531
00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:07,360
Speaker 3: can raise their prices. As a consumer, you're not getting

532
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:10,960
Speaker 3: anything really extra. You know, you could have got them

533
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:14,320
Speaker 3: from the two of them. And then you know, if

534
00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:16,600
Speaker 3: you're a let's say you're a producer. You guys produce

535
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:20,760
Speaker 3: a show, so you got a new like Sopranos in

536
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:22,320
Speaker 3: your mind, you used to be able to go to

537
00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 3: Warners and you used to be able to go to Netflix,

538
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:30,440
Speaker 3: two potential buyers. Now there's only one buyer of those,

539
00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:34,200
Speaker 3: So you've lost a buyer and you've given this company

540
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 3: more leverage to raise prices. So it's really a question

541
00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:42,920
Speaker 3: of consolidation, and it's trying. It's like, it seems like

542
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:46,360
Speaker 3: it's this inexorable force. You know, why can't Warner Brothers

543
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 3: just stay where they were? And you know, the last

544
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:52,360
Speaker 3: time we had a studio in Hollywood eaten up by somebody,

545
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 3: it was when Disney bought Fox. And if you look

546
00:29:56,680 --> 00:30:00,360
Speaker 3: at the amount of movies that the combined Disney Fox

547
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:03,480
Speaker 3: puts out now, it's less than what they put used

548
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:05,800
Speaker 3: to put out individually.

549
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:06,720
Speaker 2: Arguably less good ones.

550
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 1: Well, they can't compete against themselves, right, They've essentially consolidated

551
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:15,280
Speaker 1: a schedule to attempt to maximize their return.

552
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:18,360
Speaker 3: They stuck out a lot of costs, they unemploy a

553
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:22,640
Speaker 3: lot of people, and you know, it's an I don't

554
00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:25,440
Speaker 3: know what happens at the end of this. I don't

555
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:29,880
Speaker 3: know what happens. Yeah, this is is more and more consolidation,

556
00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:32,960
Speaker 3: and maybe some of these smaller streaming services go out

557
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:35,240
Speaker 3: of business unless you're like you got a niche, like

558
00:30:35,280 --> 00:30:38,239
Speaker 3: you're the Criterion Channel or something, and you can can

559
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 3: live over on the sidelines and no one's really going

560
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:40,920
Speaker 3: to mess with you.

561
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:46,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, you point out, you point out that the indie spirit,

562
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:50,960
Speaker 1: the art first still remains in some ways with outfits

563
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:54,080
Speaker 1: like eight twenty four. I think we're big fans of

564
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 1: their work. But it does seem like what you're saying here, Tom,

565
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:04,480
Speaker 1: is there be a big crunch of consolidation that takes

566
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:08,640
Speaker 1: us back to the days of essentially three channels, even

567
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 1: if they pretend to be thousands, And it doesn't sound

568
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:13,720
Speaker 1: like it's the best thing.

569
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 3: No, you're gonna have in the old days, you've got

570
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:22,280
Speaker 3: three channels for free. Now you're gonna have three packages,

571
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:26,280
Speaker 3: each of which costs money and cost more money going forward.

572
00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 1: It's very strange because I keep thinking back through through Unplugged.

573
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:43,880
Speaker 1: When we were reading it, it was a journey I

574
00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:47,200
Speaker 1: was not expecting to be quite honest, and it's a

575
00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:50,520
Speaker 1: hell of a story, and there there are a lot

576
00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 1: of deep philosophical gems in this, and I love that

577
00:31:56,040 --> 00:32:00,920
Speaker 1: you mentioned Joseph Campbell. It seems almost as if mass

578
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:05,640
Speaker 1: media is on a hero's journey of its own, would

579
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:08,360
Speaker 1: you agree with that? And what do you like about

580
00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 1: Joseph Capbell And please tell me if that analogies BS.

581
00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:16,800
Speaker 3: No, I mean he was about the hero's journey. I

582
00:32:16,800 --> 00:32:21,640
Speaker 3: mean his his sort of philosophy underwride, you know so

583
00:32:21,760 --> 00:32:24,080
Speaker 3: much of life. I always found him as a source

584
00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 3: of good advice. What would he be thinking of today's

585
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:31,200
Speaker 3: media world. That's a good question. He'd probably be as

586
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:33,640
Speaker 3: confused as we are. He's going to watch a lot

587
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 3: of shows, but he hasn't signed up for that network

588
00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:38,480
Speaker 3: yet streaming service.

589
00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:40,520
Speaker 2: And we'd have to get out his sub sect. Yeah,

590
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:43,520
Speaker 2: I'd love to add one more. Go back to music

591
00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 2: briefly with this discussion of kind of the Future, because

592
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 2: as you mentioned, MTV isn't the MTV it used to be.

593
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 2: It's much more of a reality driven network, or at

594
00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:54,200
Speaker 2: least it has been for a long time with like

595
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:56,400
Speaker 2: reality shows. And obviously they've made a lot of waves

596
00:32:56,440 --> 00:32:58,920
Speaker 2: in that medium, for better or worse, whatever your opinion

597
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:02,280
Speaker 2: is on that kind of content. But they're certainly not

598
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:05,480
Speaker 2: breaking artists anymore. There used to be MTV two, which

599
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:08,000
Speaker 2: I thought was great. That was more like the old MTV,

600
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 2: but that's not really around anymore. And now it seems

601
00:33:10,040 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 2: to me that music has been removed entirely from what

602
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:16,680
Speaker 2: MTV is or has been. I'm wondering if with things

603
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:22,680
Speaker 2: like AI music generation and you know, AI video generation

604
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:27,160
Speaker 2: and this question around the philosophical nature of art and

605
00:33:27,280 --> 00:33:31,840
Speaker 2: the artist and giving the people what they want, how

606
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:35,000
Speaker 2: does that all fit in to your journey and how

607
00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 2: does that all fit into kind of the trajectory of

608
00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 2: media and culture, Because I mean, we literally have songs

609
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:44,000
Speaker 2: charting now that were entirely generated by artificial intelligence mean

610
00:33:44,240 --> 00:33:45,800
Speaker 2: or machine learning, whatever the term might be.

611
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:49,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, as I said before, we had the cable revolution

612
00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:51,320
Speaker 3: and you had sort of the digital revolution. You could

613
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:54,600
Speaker 3: argue that the digital revolution is about the annibisa planted

614
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 3: by the AI revolution. And it's maybe too early to

615
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:01,040
Speaker 3: know where the AI is going. I mean, it's going

616
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 3: to be the end of civilization or it's going to

617
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 3: make our lives a lot better. It's probably somewhere in between. Well,

618
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:10,719
Speaker 3: so I'm glad in my career I don't have to

619
00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:13,240
Speaker 3: deal with a lot of the issues, the macro issues.

620
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 3: Is it going to put twenty percent of our people

621
00:34:15,640 --> 00:34:17,960
Speaker 3: out on the street. Is it going to eliminate so

622
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:22,960
Speaker 3: many things, so many jobs, The fact that you can

623
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:29,480
Speaker 3: make songs or TV shows with AI not using real people.

624
00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know. I'm alone. I shake my head.

625
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:41,759
Speaker 3: Maybe I'm all fashioned, but I like authenticity and I

626
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:46,960
Speaker 3: can't see myself getting emotionally entangled in a song that

627
00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:50,680
Speaker 3: I don't think any human being had a role in making.

628
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:54,239
Speaker 3: That it's some kind of consolid dated ay, you know,

629
00:34:55,719 --> 00:35:00,439
Speaker 3: something out of chat GPT. It's just I don't know, maybe,

630
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:04,040
Speaker 3: but maybe for other for younger people, they might not

631
00:35:04,120 --> 00:35:06,319
Speaker 3: find this so bad if the beat's good that they

632
00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:07,600
Speaker 3: don't really care about that.

633
00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:09,960
Speaker 2: Haven't we lost something at that point? Though? Kind of?

634
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:11,279
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know it not to be like

635
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:14,000
Speaker 2: the old man screaming at clouds myself, but it does

636
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 2: feel like if it becomes so good that you quote

637
00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:19,759
Speaker 2: unquote can't tell the difference, or you just don't really

638
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:22,600
Speaker 2: care that much, it haven't we lost something in that

639
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:25,440
Speaker 2: connection to what it means to be a human and

640
00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:27,880
Speaker 2: to make art and to make something that is the

641
00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 2: product of experience, Because isn't at the end of the day,

642
00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:32,360
Speaker 2: this AI stuff is kind of regurgitating the wealth of

643
00:35:32,440 --> 00:35:35,759
Speaker 2: human art, creativity, knowledge and sort of remixing it in

644
00:35:35,800 --> 00:35:37,919
Speaker 2: a way that's as hopefully as trans or as hard

645
00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:40,640
Speaker 2: to tell that it was done that way as possible.

646
00:35:40,719 --> 00:35:42,480
Speaker 2: Is it kind of like a way of like tricking us?

647
00:35:42,520 --> 00:35:44,960
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's like a it is like a remix,

648
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:47,840
Speaker 3: but like the remixes, we know at least we're mixed

649
00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:51,920
Speaker 3: together by humans, right, Yeah, these are going to be

650
00:35:52,040 --> 00:35:54,680
Speaker 3: much more deeper remixes.

651
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 1: It's it's also a new normal. We have to consider that, right,

652
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:03,920
Speaker 1: because if you are privileged enough to have been in

653
00:36:03,920 --> 00:36:09,239
Speaker 1: an environment where you see you see live musicians, right,

654
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:13,160
Speaker 1: you have that destination moment. Oh the new music video

655
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:16,960
Speaker 1: it's coming out tonight at nine pm. Everybody get to

656
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:21,080
Speaker 1: Timmy's house because his mom lets us watch HIMTV. You

657
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:25,839
Speaker 1: have those moments of connection of authenticity. But then let's

658
00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:29,800
Speaker 1: say you're growing up. Now it's the end of twenty

659
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:33,800
Speaker 1: twenty five as we record this, you're six years old, right,

660
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:38,920
Speaker 1: you grow up in a place where live music exists.

661
00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:43,399
Speaker 1: But now it's normalized to have that AI experience. I'm

662
00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:47,520
Speaker 1: just wondering here, Tom, does the pendulum swing back? Do

663
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:51,440
Speaker 1: we see a return to authenticity after a certain point

664
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:53,040
Speaker 1: with Ai rolling out.

665
00:36:53,640 --> 00:36:58,440
Speaker 3: I think so, okay, I think so. I mean, I

666
00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:00,799
Speaker 3: think people will have to be more hungry for that

667
00:37:00,920 --> 00:37:03,799
Speaker 3: real experience. I mean, if you're six years old, let's

668
00:37:03,800 --> 00:37:05,799
Speaker 3: say you grow up and you can be by the

669
00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:08,520
Speaker 3: time you're twenty, maybe you haven't been to a live concert,

670
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:12,720
Speaker 3: and a live concert is something where, you know, music's

671
00:37:12,760 --> 00:37:15,880
Speaker 3: a lot deeper of an entertainment form than than film

672
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:19,680
Speaker 3: or TV. I mean, there's a it's bigger than language.

673
00:37:19,920 --> 00:37:21,880
Speaker 3: You're in a you're in a crowd, there's not a

674
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:27,880
Speaker 3: collective vibe, and everybody's in it together and it's really magical,

675
00:37:28,400 --> 00:37:30,879
Speaker 3: and you know, to not have it, I don't see

676
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 3: how you duplicate that with things all being artificial. You know,

677
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:40,880
Speaker 3: maybe I'm just another old man screaming at the future.

678
00:37:41,280 --> 00:37:47,160
Speaker 1: Well, we're with you here, a fellow abbateur meteorologist, right,

679
00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:53,360
Speaker 1: We're also we're also getting a lot of folks in

680
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:58,520
Speaker 1: the audience and friends of ours candidly when we said

681
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:02,200
Speaker 1: we're going to have a moment to explore life and

682
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:05,920
Speaker 1: history in the future with this guy. One thing a

683
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:10,040
Speaker 1: lot of people are asking us about is the life

684
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:13,320
Speaker 1: lessons or advice you would give not now for a

685
00:38:13,360 --> 00:38:16,280
Speaker 1: six year old, but let's fast forward for a twenty

686
00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:18,040
Speaker 1: year old right now growing.

687
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 2: Up in the world.

688
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe hopscotching around, doing some bartending at the vineyard

689
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:30,160
Speaker 1: and so on. What would you want a young like,

690
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:35,400
Speaker 1: let's say early twenties Tom Freston to know about the future.

691
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:37,680
Speaker 1: What advice would you give yourself if you could travel

692
00:38:37,719 --> 00:38:38,080
Speaker 1: in time.

693
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:41,920
Speaker 3: Well, let's say you just got out of school and

694
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:44,880
Speaker 3: you're really young. And if you're really young, you're at

695
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:47,360
Speaker 3: a point in your life where you can make some mistakes,

696
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:50,600
Speaker 3: you can take some shots. There's no risk. Really, It

697
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:53,239
Speaker 3: isn't like if you disappear for a while, people are

698
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:55,799
Speaker 3: really going to know you're gone and disqualify you off

699
00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:59,440
Speaker 3: some kind of list. So get off the conveyor belt.

700
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:03,200
Speaker 3: The world is the best classroom. I'm now speaking from

701
00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:06,160
Speaker 3: my own experience. What others would say this too? And

702
00:39:06,200 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 3: go places? Now, Maybe you can't go everywhere like I did,

703
00:39:10,360 --> 00:39:13,160
Speaker 3: but you can go places. You can have menial jobs,

704
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:15,000
Speaker 3: you can work around, you can be a king of

705
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 3: the road for a while and see the world, see

706
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:20,759
Speaker 3: the world outside this country, see the world from other

707
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:23,719
Speaker 3: people's shoes, see what they think about our country. Get

708
00:39:23,719 --> 00:39:28,480
Speaker 3: some of the nuances involved in the global you know

709
00:39:28,640 --> 00:39:31,240
Speaker 3: sort of setup that we have today, Make some friends

710
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:33,560
Speaker 3: in other places that you can continue to have through

711
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:37,239
Speaker 3: the rest of your life, and don't feel guilty. Don't

712
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:39,160
Speaker 3: feel like you have to go to work for Goldman

713
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:42,080
Speaker 3: Sachs like a week after you get out of college.

714
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:45,280
Speaker 3: That just baffles me. But you see these kids today,

715
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:48,799
Speaker 3: they really have high anxiety, and they have they're more

716
00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:54,000
Speaker 3: prone to depression, and they have panic attacks. And I'm thinking, God,

717
00:39:54,040 --> 00:39:57,400
Speaker 3: you're in your young twenties. You should feel great. You

718
00:39:57,440 --> 00:40:00,400
Speaker 3: did the school thing. Of course, you you don't know

719
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:02,600
Speaker 3: exactly what you're going to be. If you do know,

720
00:40:02,680 --> 00:40:06,680
Speaker 3: you're you're you know, you're really naive. So doors will

721
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:10,279
Speaker 3: open to you that you would not even have imagined

722
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:14,120
Speaker 3: if you take a break, take a few beats, and

723
00:40:14,160 --> 00:40:16,759
Speaker 3: get out there and get some experience, and because when

724
00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:19,040
Speaker 3: you come back, you're going to be a lot more

725
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:23,400
Speaker 3: desirable of a job candidate and a lot more interesting

726
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:26,680
Speaker 3: with a more interesting story as a job candidate than

727
00:40:26,719 --> 00:40:29,920
Speaker 3: if you've just been you know, going along drone like

728
00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:34,080
Speaker 3: in you know, thinking that you don't have a lot

729
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:38,000
Speaker 3: of agency in what you're going to do with your life.

730
00:40:39,160 --> 00:40:41,959
Speaker 3: You know, a little improvisation could be good for sure.

731
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:44,480
Speaker 2: I mean, I think especially as like the traditional models

732
00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:47,200
Speaker 2: even of like college and career paths and stuff, they're

733
00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:49,759
Speaker 2: starting to, I don't know, fall apart a little bit.

734
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:52,799
Speaker 2: It makes a whole lot of sense to just try

735
00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:57,200
Speaker 2: to collect experiences, collect various pieces of wisdom and knowledge,

736
00:40:57,280 --> 00:41:00,399
Speaker 2: various skill sets, and then be able to to kind

737
00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:03,520
Speaker 2: of improvise your way into finding the right path as

738
00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:06,120
Speaker 2: it presents itself. But you can't really see that path

739
00:41:06,120 --> 00:41:08,520
Speaker 2: if you don't go places in order to look for

740
00:41:08,560 --> 00:41:10,759
Speaker 2: those doors, right, because you know it's not if you're

741
00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:13,279
Speaker 2: looking for like the setout path that's going to be

742
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:16,080
Speaker 2: what it is. But if you go abroad or go

743
00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:19,720
Speaker 2: elsewhere or just try different things, then you're gonna kind.

744
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:22,120
Speaker 3: Of a good place. I'm an optimist. I know. Whenever

745
00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:24,800
Speaker 3: I go looking for an apartment, you see an apartment

746
00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:26,879
Speaker 3: you think you like, and then you don't get it,

747
00:41:27,400 --> 00:41:29,200
Speaker 3: and then you see something else you think you like,

748
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:31,480
Speaker 3: and then you don't get it someone else rented it.

749
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:33,560
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, you find something

750
00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:35,920
Speaker 3: and you go, thank God, I didn't get those other two,

751
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 3: because this is a better one. And you know, I

752
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:44,640
Speaker 3: think you can apply some of that optimism to like,

753
00:41:45,080 --> 00:41:48,080
Speaker 3: you know, career choice. Career is almost a different word

754
00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:50,279
Speaker 3: these days because you're in the world. We're in the

755
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:54,279
Speaker 3: gig economy time, which I know it presents a whole

756
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 3: bunch of other issues and problems, and you know.

757
00:41:58,040 --> 00:42:02,480
Speaker 1: I do, I do. Like I love the point about

758
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:06,920
Speaker 1: about traveling, about taking a beat away from the conveyor

759
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:11,359
Speaker 1: belts or the so called rat race, because often we

760
00:42:11,480 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 1: forget there's a whole other world out there. And Tom,

761
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:19,600
Speaker 1: this reminds me of that that beautiful verse from T. S.

762
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:23,080
Speaker 1: Eliot from Little gettings, we shall not cease from exploration,

763
00:42:23,480 --> 00:42:26,279
Speaker 1: and the end of all our exploring will be to

764
00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:28,880
Speaker 1: arrive where we started and know the place for the

765
00:42:28,920 --> 00:42:32,080
Speaker 1: first time. I feel like that that's kind of nailing.

766
00:42:32,440 --> 00:42:36,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's beautiful, that's really true. You do kind of

767
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:38,279
Speaker 3: know it for the first time. You can say I

768
00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:43,200
Speaker 3: know myself and I know America. I really know America

769
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:46,800
Speaker 3: for the first time, because you know, Americas are famous

770
00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:50,400
Speaker 3: for not traveling, right, Yeah, I think it used to

771
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:53,279
Speaker 3: be twenty five percent of Americans had passports. Well, you know,

772
00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:56,200
Speaker 3: you go to the Netherlands like ninety nine percent of

773
00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:58,799
Speaker 3: people that passports. Of course it's a smaller country and

774
00:42:58,840 --> 00:42:59,120
Speaker 3: all that.

775
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:04,319
Speaker 1: It also, uh. The story that's going to stick with

776
00:43:04,360 --> 00:43:07,799
Speaker 1: my pal Nola and I is definitely going to be

777
00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:11,920
Speaker 1: the fact that man Bob never asked us if we

778
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:14,040
Speaker 1: smuggled Hashish out of Kabul.

779
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:17,319
Speaker 3: You know what you should do. You should send him

780
00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:22,000
Speaker 3: an email say you're just speaking to Tom and wondering

781
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:25,080
Speaker 3: if the fact that we've been smuggling Hashi shot us

782
00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:28,640
Speaker 3: somewhere that does that mean we could get out some

783
00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:31,440
Speaker 3: kind of promotion or a raise, or maybe you can

784
00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:33,560
Speaker 3: direct us into another side hustle.

785
00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:36,719
Speaker 2: Hell, I've never even seen Hashish until I went to

786
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:39,440
Speaker 2: UH to Copenhagen, where it's Yeah.

787
00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:42,960
Speaker 3: I think they smoke it all before it gets across there.

788
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:46,120
Speaker 2: It is there, it is Tom, this is the best.

789
00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:48,440
Speaker 2: I don't know. Do you have any any closing thoughts

790
00:43:48,440 --> 00:43:50,279
Speaker 2: to leave us when we could go so deep with this?

791
00:43:50,400 --> 00:43:53,200
Speaker 2: But I do first of all recommend everybody pick up

792
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:56,919
Speaker 2: this book Unplugged. It is not entirely about the history

793
00:43:56,960 --> 00:43:59,960
Speaker 2: of MTV unplugged, which could be a topic of discussion

794
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:02,319
Speaker 2: all its own. I think We're gonna leave that one

795
00:44:02,360 --> 00:44:04,799
Speaker 2: for another time. But yeah, I don't know, is there anything.

796
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:06,560
Speaker 3: I'm just please you guys have me on. I just

797
00:44:06,560 --> 00:44:09,200
Speaker 3: say the book is not a business book.

798
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:12,440
Speaker 2: No, no, no, It's.

799
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:15,520
Speaker 3: An adventure story and it's wrapped around us some business

800
00:44:15,560 --> 00:44:19,120
Speaker 3: things and in my life. But yeah, it's about history

801
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:23,359
Speaker 3: going through you know, going from the sixties onward. You know,

802
00:44:23,480 --> 00:44:26,560
Speaker 3: the path that I took, which started out in a

803
00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:32,680
Speaker 3: relatively more free, optimistic environment, and what we find ourselves

804
00:44:32,680 --> 00:44:37,040
Speaker 3: in today. Things were ascendant and anything. You thought you

805
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:40,200
Speaker 3: could do anything. But I say that a lot of

806
00:44:40,200 --> 00:44:43,839
Speaker 3: the rules then still apply now. And my book ends

807
00:44:43,920 --> 00:44:48,120
Speaker 3: up with reinventing yourself. I reinvented myself a third time

808
00:44:48,160 --> 00:44:50,480
Speaker 3: doing a lot of pro social work work, going back

809
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:53,960
Speaker 3: to Afghanistan and helping a TV network there or working

810
00:44:54,000 --> 00:44:58,040
Speaker 3: in Africa for the extreme poor. I know, there's a

811
00:44:58,080 --> 00:45:00,439
Speaker 3: lot of lessons in there. It's funny when you write

812
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:01,960
Speaker 3: a book like that, you don't think of what you're

813
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:04,440
Speaker 3: writing your lessons. But people would say to me, that's

814
00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:07,000
Speaker 3: why I really learned a lot reading that. But people

815
00:45:07,160 --> 00:45:11,040
Speaker 3: like the book. It's it's kind of fun, it's good ride.

816
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:13,440
Speaker 2: Well, but it doesn't come off as teaching lessons. You're not.

817
00:45:13,480 --> 00:45:16,320
Speaker 2: You're not preaching to people, You're just experiencing. You're expressing

818
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:19,880
Speaker 2: these lessons you yourself have learned that are very universally applicable.

819
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:22,400
Speaker 3: I would argue, I never thought i'd write a memoir,

820
00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:25,000
Speaker 3: you know, it never occurred to me till the pandemic

821
00:45:25,040 --> 00:45:26,960
Speaker 3: came along and I kind of started and I'm thinking,

822
00:45:27,120 --> 00:45:29,200
Speaker 3: how do I connect all of the sparate parts of

823
00:45:29,239 --> 00:45:32,439
Speaker 3: my life? Is there is there some overarching narrative? And I,

824
00:45:32,480 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 3: you know, you do a book like that. Of course

825
00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:38,040
Speaker 3: I'm older, you know, and sort of like you could

826
00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:42,600
Speaker 3: see it come into focus. So it was a satisfying experience.

827
00:45:42,480 --> 00:45:43,360
Speaker 2: As fine reading.

828
00:45:43,719 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 1: And you have genuinely made the world a better place

829
00:45:49,640 --> 00:45:53,319
Speaker 1: with your work, which I know sounds hyperbolic, right, but

830
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:57,920
Speaker 1: we're I love that you're mentioning the fact of the

831
00:45:57,960 --> 00:46:00,840
Speaker 1: existence of things like one. I love that you're mentioning

832
00:46:01,280 --> 00:46:06,080
Speaker 1: the volunteering that you've done and returning to Afghanistan. And

833
00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:09,160
Speaker 1: if you want to learn more about this, folks, please

834
00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:13,040
Speaker 1: do check out Unplugged Adventures from MTV to Tim Buck

835
00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:16,200
Speaker 1: to We're not blowing rainbows here. This is a page

836
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:19,719
Speaker 1: turner again, Tom, it was not what I was expecting

837
00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:24,799
Speaker 1: and I was riveted and we can't thank you enough

838
00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:25,640
Speaker 1: for your time man.

839
00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:28,839
Speaker 3: Thanks Ben, thanks Aul, really nice to speak to both

840
00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:32,319
Speaker 3: of you guys. Good luck, happy holidays, and thanks so

841
00:46:32,440 --> 00:46:33,759
Speaker 3: much for giving me the time.

842
00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:38,000
Speaker 1: And there you have it, folks, Tom Preston the one

843
00:46:38,200 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 1: and only. I can't believe that we got to hang

844
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:44,879
Speaker 1: out with a living legend like that. And super big

845
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:47,480
Speaker 1: thanks to everybody for tuning in. Big thanks to our

846
00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:52,120
Speaker 1: super producer mister Max Williams and Alex Williams who composed

847
00:46:52,120 --> 00:46:53,880
Speaker 1: our track and did some yoga with Noel.

848
00:46:54,280 --> 00:46:56,360
Speaker 2: That's right, we did a hot yoga session. It was

849
00:46:56,400 --> 00:46:59,160
Speaker 2: at delay. Huge thanks to Chris Frostiotis and Eves cheff

850
00:46:59,160 --> 00:47:01,719
Speaker 2: Coat here in Sparait the Strickland, the quizzer A and

851
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:03,359
Speaker 2: j Bahamas Jacob's.

852
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:06,720
Speaker 1: The Buzzler and big big thanks to doctor Rachel Big

853
00:47:06,800 --> 00:47:11,280
Speaker 1: Spinach Lands, Big thanks to our rude dudes of ridiculous crime.

854
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:15,560
Speaker 1: If you dig us you'll love them and Noel thanks

855
00:47:15,560 --> 00:47:18,080
Speaker 1: to you and thanks to Max. This is the last

856
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:20,319
Speaker 1: episode we're going to record in twenty twenty five.

857
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:24,040
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, have a great holiday you guys. We'll

858
00:47:24,080 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 2: see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

859
00:47:33,640 --> 00:47:36,880
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

860
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:37,960
Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.