Matt Hranek (Photographer, Writer)¶
Published on Mon, 25 Feb 2019 11:00:00 +0000
The man of international media mystery talks about mixing Negronis, juxtaposing high and low, and why print is far from dead.
Synopsis¶
In this engaging conversation, photographer and media personality Matt Hranek joins Hodinkee to discuss his multifaceted career and creative pursuits. Known for his refined yet approachable lifestyle aesthetic, Matt shares the story behind his acclaimed book 'A Man and His Watch,' which captures intimate stories about watches from figures ranging from Mario Andretti to Tom Sachs. The conversation explores Matt's journey from upstate New York through his photography career, working with renowned photographers and shooting for major magazines, to his eventual pivot into content creation and editorial work. He discusses navigating the transition from traditional magazine publishing to digital media, launching the WM Brown Project blog and Instagram presence, and most recently launching a print magazine that speaks to multiple facets of men's lifestyle - from watches and cars to food and travel. Throughout the episode, Matt emphasizes the importance of authenticity, the value of print media, and his philosophy of thoughtful curation over accumulation.
The discussion touches on Matt's approach to both photography and lifestyle, balancing high-end luxury experiences with genuine working-class roots. He shares insights about building community through shared interests like Negronis and vintage watches, the importance of cooking and self-sufficiency, and his belief in following what you love rather than chasing commercial success. The conversation is peppered with anecdotes about travel, his time at Lake Como for Concorso d'Eleganza, his favorite recipes, and recommendations for everything from vintage Barbour jackets to the perfect club sandwich. Matt's enthusiasm for life's finer things - whether a $20,000 vintage watch or a perfectly executed omelet - comes through as genuinely joyful rather than affected, embodying his philosophy of being 'the most interested guy' rather than the most interesting.
Links¶
Transcript¶
| Speaker | |
|---|---|
| Unknown | A lot of people think they know who Matt Haranik is, but very few people can actually pin him down. You look at Matt's Instagram and he seems to be everywhere at once. He's in LA hanging out at the tower bar, he's in Bordeaux grilling up steaks for friends, and he's in New York shooting photographs and working on his next book. The crazy part is though, that he really is doing all of these things. He's racking up those frequent flyer miles and rarely taking a break from his jet-set media-making lifestyle. Now I've known Matt for a long time. We actually used to be neighbors in Brooklyn. But it was a rare treat to sit down with him and our senior writer James Stacy to set the record straight about who Matt is, where he comes from, and why he does what he does. Matt's a guy who can really tell a story, so I'm not gonna spoil too much for you. I'll let him do the talking. Now, before we set foot in the recording booth, Matt of course whipped out a bottle of pre-mixed Negronis, complete with a fresh orange and a pocket knife for cutting that perfect garnish. A few handfuls of ice, some mismatched coffee mugs, and we were off to the races. If you hear ice clinking, well, now you know. I'm your host Stephen Pulverant and this is Hodinky Radio. Good to see you man. It's good to uh sit down and have a have a nice chat. Pleasure to be here, Negroni in hand. U |
| Unknown | h I've course Negroni in hand. Yeah. There's there's there's three there's four people in studio. Yeah. And they're four Negronies, which I'm very proud to to have supplied to global ambassador to the entire drink. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So um I thought, you know, since it's a f uh uh it's a Friday afternoon. Do people know this is a Friday afternoon? Yeah, I mean they do now. So I thought what a perfect opportunity to kind of pre bottle some Negroni, so I didn't have to like travel all from Brooklyn to here with like all the fixing. So I this morning this morning, before the coffee, I pre-bottled some Negroni to one one one proportions, as every good Negroni lover knows. And I use a very special vermouth, which is this Punta Mess vermouth that is was bottled in the 1960s. I bought a case of this vintage vermouth. And the thing about vermouths and bitters and high spirit um percentage alcohols, uh they are they survive all conditions. So normally if you find them, even open, they're usually still good. So I bought a case of this stuff and uh it's spectacular. It's like other level because it was made in a time when people's palates were different, the tastes were different. So it's much more herbaceous and bitter, there's less sugar in it. Uh and as it ages, it just becomes a richer version of itself. So I love Negronis. Like if I if I can get my hands and I have a few bottles and actually have a shipment of coming from Italy this week of vintage Kimpari, which again the same flavor profiles, right? More bitter, less sweet, different recipe. Pre-1990 was a different recipe. I make these Negroni Vecchio, which is the old Negroni. So this is mezza, n vet mezza vecchio, because it's only the vermouth that was old. Vintage, we'll call it vintage. But it be it's a much richer flavored thing, if you've noticed. It's a pretty damn good way to spend a Friday afternoon. Really delicious and it's less sweet than I expected. It's less sweet. Which I appreciate quite a bit. And uh there's some Monkey 47 gin in there. I like I like classic London dries. I love the flavor flavor profiles of this gin. And um, but I would say in general, uh you get the proportions right, you could pretty much you know you could use what use what's available. But that's what was |
| Unknown | available to me. So so James already hit on the fact that like you you're kind of the like global Negroni ambassador. You're also uh Mr. Tweed Jacket. You're uh the meat platter guy. You you've got like a lot of a lot of stuff that I think people probably know you for on on the internet on Instagram. Yeah. Um but can you tell us a little bit about like who you actually are? Like where where do you come from? What do you consider yourself |
| Unknown | professionally? Listen, I I'm an upstate New York boy. I grew up in Binghamton, New York. I am I love upstate New York. I have one foot firmly always there, even uh if that is symbolically. Uh and um I moved to New York to I moved to New York to be a photographer. And uh and when was that? That was nineteen ninety. Okay. I know some of y'all been born right about then, but uh but I studied art history and uh photography in I was school at R IT and then I studied in Europe. I studied abroad for a year in Salzburg. I actually went to school in the stables of the Schloss Leopoldskrum where they filmed the sound of music, which was kind of awesome. Yeah. Uh and also so that meant also the sound of music tour would come through my university pretty much every single day. So they had to move the gazebo to some public park 'cause it was really disruptive. But anyway, that was a great year of my life and that solidified my Europhile love, right? So then um, but I would say fast forward, you know, photography has always been a big part of what I guess my career was. Um, but I would say in the last 10 years I've been wearing more hats, and that was a little bit of television more editing in terms of content. Like I was like, listen, when digital came around, I was like, listen, there's 10 guys behind me who are great at what they're doing with digital cameras. And you I was just, you know, I'm a street hustler. Like I knew how to get film processed and prints made and was able to build a portfolio. And you normally that cost a lot of money to do that. So the career kind of fast-forwarded because I was resourceful. But as digital came around, I was like, wow, maybe I'm better served as just like the ideas guy and working with all these kind of talented young photographers coming up, working with all these smart writers that I really love and contemporary photographers who I really enjoyed and were friends. And that's when I started doing more of the content stuff for Connie Nas Traveler, covering the watch market. That's how I met all you guys. And uh I basically was just kind of following the stuff I loved. And and luckily I fooled enough people to let me do that |
| Unknown | . And when you were a photographer, you worked with a number of of really well-known photographers and you shot for a number of really well-known magazines. I mean wallpaper in the really early days. Yeah. Can you tell us about that? Who who kind of was a big impact on you early in your career? So when I when I |
| Unknown | came to New York, there was a big uh there was a big network of assistant work, right? And that because I came from this photo school with a lot of qu you know, very successful uh professionals work in New York. Like I found work immediately as an assistant like grunt. And I didn't I just wanted to be around photography. Like I would go get dry cleaning and clean toilets and I do whatever, grunt work. I just wanted to be around photography. And I was like, oh dude, this is great. Like I get paid. I'm having great catered lunches. I'm around everything I want to be around with, including the occasional lingerie model and whatever. And And I just thought like this is the best job on earth. And then then I started working with photographers who traveled, and I was like, wow, this is this is it. Like I want to be paid to travel. It's right. So it's so good. Right. We had this conversation like on the drive on the driver. That was the best scam ever. And then so then I started working with photographers like Eric Bowman, who I mean, Eric was, you know, he was a fixture in the men's in the I mean in the women's fashion world and he was married uh he p I don't know if actually if they're married, but Peter Schlesinger and he were in this big partnership for a very long time and there was this like they were just this dynamic duo of art and photography and he really taught me a lot and exposed me to a lot of amazing things. I work with Horst P. Horst uh in his when he was in his 80s then just but he was he at that point he had been rediscovered and we did a lot of campaigns together and he was just spectacular. I've kept every voice recording like uh message tape. You know, he would call me and he had this weird like pan And I it was just amazing. Like I was like, you know, so I worked with him and then I would say the the most influential contemporary that I worked with was my friend Dewey Nicks. And you know, he w was at the top of his game and he was like, I was in my mid-20s, he was in his late twenties, early 30s, and that's when it was just, I mean, we were working for everybody, working for Vogue and working for Vanity Fair and GQ. It just was a very exciting time. And I always just loved editorial photography. Like I just loved magazines. I loved being around people making magazines. And he was at the top of his game when we worked together and we were like two grunts schlepping around the world with bag of cameras. It was just amazing. And then he was really helpful of me getting my first jobs. You know, like I I think my first job was for Rolling Stone Magazine. I did a uh I did a story on surf riders. And I was just like, oh my God, this is like this is the most amazing thing ever. Right. So if the Rolling Stone has to be like or sho shooting and and like that's gotta be That was a dream. Yeah. Are you kidding me? Like it still at that period, so that was early 90s. Like Rolling Stone, Rolling Stone was really it was They're huge. It was huge. It was kind of like the shit. Yeah. You know? And um And then I navigated all those kind of NAS magazines and, you know, I want I I would shoot anything. Like if someone was like, um we need a picture of a park bench. Um it's gonna run a quarter page. We have two hundred dollars. And I was like, uh being paid to do photography? Great. Let's do it. You know, I just wanted to be around it and I again like I loved being around people making magazines. Did |
| Unknown | you ever find something you either couldn't shoot, you just like couldn't get your head around it? Or anything that you shot and you were like, wow, I hate this. |
| Unknown | I never want to shoot this ever again. I think the funny thing is is when I started getting paid a lot of money to shoot commercial work, that's when you sell your soul. Commercial photography? Yeah, like catalogs, advertising. That's when you c you I just sort of lost my soul. Like you become kind of the guy that presses the button on the camera, somebody else made all the other decisions. That's right. You're a guy for the yeah. And the thing is, is I was making significant coin, but I was never so unhappy, and I also was never so physically damaged. Like I was just waking up with bad back and headaches and because I wasn't happy. I wasn't happy doing what I was doing. So once I learned how to like navigate out of that and then sort of found that little TV gig for a while with Esquire when they launched that and started and then blogs were becoming popular and then I could I had all this kind of outlet there to kind of just create my own thing. Yeah. And then as people responded to that, then I started doing the stuff I loved |
| Unknown | . That moment was a really interesting moment in in kind of like media history. And without going too inside baseball here, like that moment where Esquire had the TV network, and I know you had your your blog, the WM Brown project, like that was the moment where that golden age of magazines was starting to decline maybe a little bit. Totally. And everybody had to kind of find like new ways to communicate. So as somebody who was really kind of like a Died-in-the-wool magazine editorial photographer, how did you navigate making that transition |
| Unknown | ? Well, I mean, you saw first the writing on the wall where you know people were turning to digital digital and it uh it was just cheaper to do digital. And then they realized they didn't need to pay craftsmen anymore per se. I'm just throwing it out there. Not to say digital is not a craft, but you know, you didn't the things became it was easier, faster, quicker, and cheaper to get done, and more people were doing it, right? The pool of photographers just like exploded overnight. So um I guess I mean I had to figure out why I would be a more attractive hire than anyone else. And that was like, you know, I just was like figure I'll do the just dog and pony show everywhere. Like I'd be the most funned most, um appealing, get the job done guy ever, and uh not be difficult. Yes, uh it just became a yes man. Like let's just get it done. But I think um that's when I was I was just sort of like, maybe I have to find maybe I have to reinvent myself. Maybe I have to find something else because the writing was on the wall to me that this was drastically changing in terms of how I knew it, how I grew up with it. Aaron P |
| Unknown | owell And was that still a phase where the work was physically hurting you or emotionally hurting? Like like is there still something where you weren't finding it necessarily rewarding? And to interject a little bit, like I love your Instagram feed and I'm sure we'll get to that at some point, but like there's a certain joy that is in what you put out on Instagram that I really appreciate. It and I don't know like where you find that joy because it doesn't there's no way you're fabric you can't fabricate joy, you're either joyful or you're not. And with this work, how was that how did that |
| Unknown | is that did you learn that eventually or No I think the I first of all, I love photography. I loved it. What hap what was happening is I was getting unhappy about it, right? So but when I started doing the blog, which became the William Brown project because it had to be separate than Matthew Huronic photography, right? I was photographing it in a very dumbed-down way. Like I had a little Fuji Snap camera and I was like not creating images, I was just recording stuff. And then all of cour all then as we got this following, all my commercial clients were like, Can you photograph it like you do on the William Brown project? And I was like, I mean all dumbed down with a snappy camera? Like, oh okay. Sure. And that's when I started liking it again because I was being asked to do and and present the work in a w in a way that was truly mine and not an interpretation. The blog is still there, right? The blog is there ish. Okay. I mean, do guys log in to www dot anything anymore? Like I don't maybe. Maybe. I have I have the uh there |
| Unknown | 's one page on the blog I have bookmarked which is your graphlax recipe. Which I make like every two weeks. Same here. I make it all the time. So this is a a Gravlax like a salmon, like a cured salmon recipe. Okay. And I remember it must have been like not too long after we met. I was just like scrolling through W M Brown project one night and found this and was like, Oh, this will be a nice thing. I'll make like brunch for my wife, you know? Yeah. Uh make it all the time. It's amaz |
| Unknown | ing. There's three great recipes on that site in the archive. Like you can you can go to there is a there's a granola recipe that came from a friend of mine and I call it the Killzone granola. Okay. And it's olive oil based. It is so good. And there is a chicken pot pie. It's a game I make a game pie because I do a lot of wing shooting. There's always at the end of a season like a freezer full of stuff. But it's it's a basically a chicken pot pie that came out of an old ducks unlimited cookbook that was my dad's. That is so good. Those three recipes win hearts. Alright, we'll link we'll link them up in the show notes. Yeah.. Yeah, we'll dig them up You know, like the the blog, I mean the blog has an archive. I just found like Instagram was such an an amazing way to communicate so quickly and on the fly that I didn't have to like build stuff and take time in the mor you know like when I was on Blogspot it was so easy like I bang out a blog blog spot post in like six minutes like R.I.P. Blogspot. Is BlogS still around? Can you have a Blogspot blog? My archive still links to the blog spot. Okay. I don't know how it aggregates, but but then but as they got better looking and how like and then you know squarespace came around and all that it just was so complicated the interface that I just couldn't I it was always about the immediacy and how I had an idea and I'd do it quickly. That's why I loved Instagram. Or that's why I love Instagram. Yeah. I love the immediacy of it. I I love the interface and I love how it communicates without anybody logging in. Yeah. Yeah. You know? |
| Unknown | And that's actually that's an interesting thing, right? Like the the the era of blogspot was another kind of like little kind of like intermediary era. Uh but they were figuring stuff out. Yeah. Pieces weren't all in place, but there was enough there to do that. I liked how raw it was. I agree. And there's there's something nice about I mean that's honestly the way I got started in journalism was I had a menswear blog in college that you know nobody read, but it was fine. Uh but it's a great way to keep a diary. Yeah, that's it also had me writing three like I set a schedule for myself. I was writing three days a week and it was like in addition to my schoolwork and whatever, like I had to come up with an idea and publish something three days a week, you know, but it was it was raw, it was photographed with a little point and shoot camera, my parents got me when I when I was in college for Hanukkah one year. And like there was an era where a lot of people had these kind of like raw like blog spot or WordPress blogs, pre-Squarespace days. Uh things weren't polished. Most people were like making their own logos. They all look terrible. Yeah. But there was something raw. Unfiltered. You know, it was it was fun and and you don't really see that anymore. Like everything today |
| Unknown | is so polished. I dug through some old bookmarks that on my computer actually yesterday and found all these Tumblr Tumblr. Nobody really does anyone really engage with Tumblr anymore? And I love Tumblr. I mean basically Instagram replaced that kind of idea of that rapid-fire imagery, that feed. And I love Instagram as the interface. I love communicating. I love engagement. I answer anybody who asks the question, I answer the question. Like |
| Unknown | So while while we're on while we're on that topic, I I think like I I watch you engage on it, I watch you put up photos and stories. And like I don't really I don't really question when someone my like youngest siblings age, 18, like just gets Instagram because it's been around as long as they've been holding a phone. Right. What do you think your edge is? Because you're in like you get it at a level that I don't think people necessarily but more than I get it. It's like how I don't question, I don't know if anyone here follows Dave from our office. He gets Instagram at a level link up Dave in the show notes too. Yeah, he gets Instagram at a level that I cannot facilitate mentally. |
| Unknown | First of all, I think I I the the image making is very important to me. Like I like being a photographer and I I love the camera on the iPhone. I think it's just amazing tool. And um so I like listen, my Instagram fames frames a very specific curated part of my life. Like I am very specifically editing out editing out the boring, disgusting stuff. You're not always just carrying around platters of meat. No. And I do, but I do honestly do have genetically low cholesterol. So no more lipitor comments. Okay. |
| Unknown | I mean I will say like that. Come on. I mean we were neighbors for a while. People people probably don't know this, but like Matt and I lived two blocks from each other for I guess I was in Parks Hill for two and a half years. And like what you see, what people see on your Instagram, like is it's edited, but it is also you. Like, you know, I would we would run into each other on 7th Avenue, like going to a coffee shop on you know 10 o'clock on a Sunday morning and like you're dressed the same way you'd be dressed on your Instagram. Like you're doing the same sorts of things. You're with your dog, you're hanging out with your wife and your daughter. Like the this is actually you, like it's not a fabricated personality |
| Unknown | at all. No, and I I listen, I I think framing a very edited version of yourself is important for me, but it's the most authentic version of the edited version. It really is. Like and is it edited or maybe you could call it like distilled |
| Unknown | ? It's distilled. I mean there's a I think it's I think you're pulling on an essence rather than cutting out stuff |
| Unknown | that's not right? No, I'm not no, I'm not cutting out stuff that but like, you know, uh um when I'm walking the dogs and I you know, Instagram story with the dog like what I call squirrel patrol, right? It's like I have two terriers, it's an aggressive walk. Like I'm not I''mm not not I posting the you know New York Times bag coming up the pocket to pick up like soft stool. Right. You know what I mean? Like so we we we frame the essence of our life and you know and I'm also I also like how when you frame certain things that you like, you find like-minded people out there. I think that that fraternity that exists, I think is terrific. And I I love that like with this whole Negroni shtick, you know, like that there's a guy in Boise sitting on his front porch making a Negroni and he sends me that picture and I may be at the Villa d'Este having the same. But suddenly we're connected by this thing in two very, very separate stylistic worlds. But we find things in common. And I and that's what I love about Instagram. And I I have made friends on Instagram. I have gone to people's wedding that I met on Instagram. Like I just think it's a great way to to you look at it and I also think it's a great way to kind of navigate commerce and hospitality and restaurants. You take a quick look and you're like, oh yeah, that's relatable. I like that. I don't care if it's a restaurant or a person or hotel. And then you make a quick decision right then, like is this something that is become can be become a part of my life or no? And uh I like that. Yeah |
| Unknown | , I mean the the one I won't even call it a downside, but maybe let's let's first take of argument call it a downside. The one downside of that is there's so much signal, right? Like how do you filter out the noise? How do you find those like minded people? Like what separates just like, okay, it's a pretty picture, oh, somebody else is drinking a cocktail from like a a real sort of like meaningful interaction? Right. Or or are those still meaningful interactions? |
| Unknown | I don't know I think that comes like it comes in experience, like you just kind of get it or you don't get it. You know what I mean? Like it's a gut thing. I think it's a gut thing. I also think you can weed through the crap. Like we're all smart clever enough and smart enough to realize like what seems absurd and ridiculous and what seems correct. You know what I mean? We know when somebody's selling us stuff, regardless if there's a hashtag sponsored or not. And if it's a gut feeling. And you know, and I don't really care. Like I'm a consumer. I like being sold stuff. Like nobody has to like you know, there should be no mystery around that. Yeah, right. |
| Unknown | And I mean like good good content to use the the C word. Yeah. Uh good content is good content, right? And like if it's paid for by somebody and people are above board about it, like |
| Unknown | fine. Like if it's good, it's good. Well, I remember when when all these kind of algorithm algorithms were coming out where people are like, oh, they're taking all your information and they're gonna sell sell you stuff. And I was like, if they could take all my information and sell me exactly what I want, fantastic. Yeah, great. It's something I actually want. Yeah, great. Save me the time. Take all the information you need. Cookie me out. Like I don't you know what I mean? Like when we were when we were in the t-shirts. Cookie me up. Cookie me up. Yo, cookie. Too bad we don't have episode names here. That would be the episode name. Cookie right there. Cookie me up. I agree. You know, like let's trim let's trim the fact. I mean, that being said, I love retail. Like I shop listen, if I if I know I need to find Marvis toothpaste, then I can go on Amazon and buy it. That's great, right? But I when it comes to like clothes and even watches in a way, like I like the tactile experience. Like the discovery. Like how do I know I even was looking for that neck scar |
| Unknown | f at Drake's? Did you go to did you go to the opening of Bruce Pask's new shop? Amazing. So so for people who don't know, Bruce Pask, who used to be at the New York Times and is is now the menswear director at Bergdorf Goodman, uh just opened a new shop in shop uh inside Bergdorfs. It's called B at Bergdorfs. And uh it's amazing. It's's this it this beautiful little space. It was actually designed by his brother, um, who's a Tony Award-winning set designer, uh, to look like his place up in I think it's Vermont. Uh so it kind of looks like Yeah, yeah. In Belport, Long Island. Belport, Long Island. Okay. So it it looks like Bruce's house and it's it's styled. Anybody who knows Bruce knows that the clothes are kind of like merchandise in a in a way that looks like Bruce's taste, a lot of its collaborations. It's the sort of thing where the retail experience is kind of like a look inside someone's brain. Yeah. Uh and |
| Unknown | that particularly I mean Gruose uh the Negroni's are kicking in, folks. Just slurry one on one. Um Bruce and I kind of grew up together in the editorial business. He was an assistant at GQ. I was an assistant for Dewey Nicks, and he was Jim Moore's assistant. And we were we kind of were growing up in that editorial world together. And that edit, I mean, I sort of got choked up when there. I mean I've known a Bruce a long time, and I was so proud to see that extension of himself so thoughtfully curated, and it was no mistake that Bruce's hand was on everything. And it was and it's hard to see Bruce's hand on some of the Bergdorf men stuff when you have all that kind of outlandish, kind of like urban streetwear, which makes no sense to me. But yeah, I know there's a market out there and Bruce is in the business of selling clothes, right? But that shop I thought was I just thought it was amazing. And you again like you said, like you saw Bruce's styling, and you know, I am most inspired I think about the men around me like forget about my my dad and my grandfather and all that kind of heritage stuff but I love like the the men that have like great style that I witness around me every day, and that could be a Melanie's cab driver to Bruce Pask, to to y'all handsome guys walking around the streets of Basel. Um you know B Basel noted menswear capital, uh Basel Switzerland. Well I think you guys were trying to do like I think we're trying to like pull out the the best PT like moments out of Basel. Which I is a challenge. I think is a very, very hard thing to do. But it it is m it is manageable. You you remember how |
| Unknown | I I attempted that at Villa Desta. Yeah. In the sun. Do you remember how sweaty I was that day? Yes, I did. This is a story not everybody knows. A couple people know this. I wouldn't take my blazer off. I was so sweaty. It was like I can't do the math that quickly. It was twenty five to twenty eight Celsius. Like it was legitimately hot. He's going full cane in the high in the sun. In the high eighties, early not uh high eight. Exactly, yeah. Eighty five, eighty eight, something like that. And uh I was walking around all day approaching beautiful Italian people, weren't just continental Europe European people, and being like, Hey, I'm the sweaty guy. I work for this watch, say. I'm definitely not super sweaty, but let me pitch you on letting me take and and like like yeah the the the the you I mean uh you had some good tips for the style style stuff. Uh that was a fun trip. The That was a great I've always it's a |
| Unknown | mazing. It's one of the best things in the world. That was my first time. I've never been to Villa Deste. Well, if you're gonna let you know, you have to be in a R |
| Unknown | iva boat as we're going from the Gran Hotel Tremezzo to Villa Deste Yeah, the Tremezzo is amazing |
| Unknown | . Alright, so so for people who don't know where you're talking about or what Concorso is like what |
| Unknown | 's the what's the deal here? So Concorso del Ganza is this incredible car show. I mean there's maybe five, six really incredible car shows happening in the world right now. Like true collector, you're not allowed to bring the car twice, bonkers stuff. You have to go every year if you really love car if you're in that world because you want to see everything and people bring insane things. I I and Matt you can balance if I'm off, but I think it's the best show and best car show in the world. |
| Unknown | Well I think first of all the fact that it's it's in it's on it's in Lake Como right in Italy which, is like what a good hour two hours as the crow flies from Milan. And it is first of all, it's a magical place, right? You're on this lake, you're being shuttled around in Rivas and it's like it is Nigaroni Central, the food is amazing. By the way, Villa Desta has a hot tip, probably the one of the best club sandwiches in the world. We're gonna someday we're gonna do a club sandwich episode. Can I tell you something? The club sandwich is my barometer for the best of best room service |
| Unknown | . So I we talked about this on the episode we did with uh Staline Velandez, but uh my favorite town and country story of all time. I should go look up what issue this is in and like we should link it up or something at some point. But uh they did this story where they tested luxury hotels, like famous world events, like Lemaurice, the Carlisle, like really world famous hotels, by visiting them and ordering it was a club sandwich and a bloody Mary. Perfect. And that was that was the barometer for how good the hotel was. Yeah. That is it was like what hotel can you go to? Go down to the restaurant at any time of day, get a good club sandwich and a glib good bloody Mary and be happy. Yeah. Uh and that to me like as somebody who travels a lot for work and is often, you know, trying to cram some food in my mouth while I crank through a story on deadline. Yeah. A good club sandwich is a lifesaver, man. |
| Unknown | And I get you know, sometimes I get a lot of I get a lot of crap from friends who travel around and they're like, you're in Italy, you should be eating pasta. It's like, okay. I eat a lot of pasta when I'm there, and it's like sometimes you just want to like nussle into a club sandwich, particularly when you have cultures, French, Italian, you know, the the select few in America that really get it in that way. That really have their own take on it. That is so good. I the George Sank in Paris, like that is an epic club sandwich. And I actually made them bring me to the kitchen to see how they make it. And there's some really good tips in there. Okay. Okay. I won't reveal them all right now. Okay |
| Unknown | . Okay. I mean to to bring the the como back into view, for people who have seen Casino Royale, it's where uh Daniel Craig's James Bond recovers after being uh brutalized. That was a very delicate way to be able to do that I was trying to fair way to say that, but yeah, it was a tough scene and that's where he uh kind of comes back. And yeah, George Clooney lives there. It's this very like unbelievably gorgeous, uh, dark waters, big rising, sort of low lowland peaks, and a lot of green, a lot of granite. Yeah, and then crazy architecture. I mean, I was lucky enough to basically be there just to take pictures of cars and people, and I just anywhere you pointed a camera was incredible. Even outside of cars and people. It's all good. I think the funny thing about Lake |
| Unknown | Como is um which would never happen in America, nobody swims in it. No, no. They got really upset with me when I said I was if I could jump off the dock. Yeah. I think it's insane. I I and I can't. I can't get a straight answer. I swam in it because I love lakes. I was told nobody swims in it. I love swimming in lakes. I love it. But I was there in mid July in a boat on a Friday and nobody pretty much barely anybody was on the lake and certainly no one was swimming. I mean, if that was in America, there'd be so many jet skis and water skiers and like flotation devices. Not seeing a water skier on that water |
| Unknown | . Lots of bushlight. Absolutely. Yeah. But not seeing a water skier on water like that, incredible. And then so we're at the Grand Hotel Tremezzo, which is this incredible hotel. The the front facade of it is the basis for the Grand Budapest Hotel from the Wes Anderson film. It's it's a legitimately incredible property. And then you go across one street, a small street that's not that busy, and they have a whole dock system which has a pool in it, and the pool is in the lake. So that tells you what they're thinking of this lake to begin with. Yeah. I get out there and I ask a guy like, I'm in my bathing suit, I'm in hotel slippers. Hey, you think I could Can I jump off this dock? I don't see a ladder. And he's like, No, no, no, we have two pools. Yeah. And I was like, no, no, no, I want to swim in the I want to swim in the water like it like because that's what I like. It's just like and he's like, mm, it's very deep. And I'm like, I'm really only concerned with the top like six six foot three of it, bro. Yeah. It's like Loch Ness. It's like Loch Ness is in there with those guys. I'm only concerned with the top six three. I only need so much of it. Like my head's staying above water, so we can get away with like five eight of this. No, if anybody's out there that can explain the phenomenon. Yeah, hit us hit us up. If you know why nobody swims in that lake, let us know. If you don't like deep water, that's a good reason, because what do they tell us? 1400 meters? I know, but like Tahoe is who cares? Yeah, exact |
| Unknown | ly. For sure. Still, it's a real deep lake. Yes, I don't like coming in shallow stuff. You know, who wants to get a mucky bottom? Where you touch seaweed with your feet? Yes. We have we have another episode title there, Mucky Bottom. There we go. Next on Nucky Mucky Bottoms uh Matt's first date. |
| Unknown | There we go. And now we'll look at this week's sponsor. Hey guys, Stephen Polverant here. If you like what we do here at Hodinky Radio, then I think you're really gonna love the Hodinki magazine. It's our biannual print publication and it goes way beyond the world of just watches. We cover watches, of course, but we also take a look at things like vintage cars, design, architecture, fashion, travel, and a whole lot more. We bring in a lot of voices from this wild and crazy world we inhabit. Volume 4 is coming soon, but you can find volumes 1 through 3 on shop.hodinky.com and I really recommend that you check them out. Alright, let's get back to the show. So, Matt, in in addition to all the other things you're interested in. You are obviously a watch guy. You wouldn't be here if you weren't at least a little bit of a watch guy. That's true. Uh and a little over a year ago, although it feels like a lot longer than that, you wrote a book, right? Yeah. So I wrote uh Man and His Watch. Yeah. A much beloved book. A hot hot seller in the Hodinki shop, I know. Thank you very much for your support. Of course. Yeah. Uh do you want to tell us a little bit about how that book came about? Because o obviously you do a lot of things so how did you end up you were like I want to do a book how did |
| Unknown | it become a book about watches? Well first of all I w I'd like to quote my friend Stephen Lewis who is the very, very talented photographer who shot that book who said, Matt, it' its so's so amazing. Like, you've actually written more books than you've read. You know? And it, you know, it's like it was certainly not like something that was on my career kind of career trajectory, right? Like I'm a lazy reader, I'm not a great writer, I'm heavily top edited when I wrote for the magazine and stuff like that. But I really like um emotional stories. Like I love I love great stories. I love great stories about things, you know, and I uh if I'm in a flea market, I want to hear that story about the set of snowshoes or somebody's car or whatever, right? So when I started navigating this watch world as a quote editor for Continent Traveler. I was running into great characters like everyone here and kind of cool stories. And I just was like, wow, this is like so amazing. Like, there's some really heartfelt emotional connections here and there's some great storytelling. And I was sitting having coffee with my wife and she was like, That's your book, dummy. Like your wife, who is also a media professional. Yeah, who's been in the magazine business as long as I you know, like like we both been in one facet of another of the magazine business for twenty-five years. Because Artisan, who is my publisher, who's d does some of the most amazing, most beautiful books, mostly about cooking. Like they do great cookbooks, like all of Thomas Keller's books are done there, Sean Brock, you know. You know, they had we had been in conversations about kind of figuring out a little bit something for the manspace. And you know, I'm so scattered and I think like, you know, I'm not a I'm not a sniper, you know, like I think very broadly, you know. I couldn't figure it out. And that's when she said, you know, that's your book. These stories that you come back from, these trips to Geneva, Switzerland, whatever, a lunch on in the Upper East Side, and you come back and talk about these stories. This is your book. I was like, oh my God, you're absolutely right. So I knew I had a I knew it was a hard sell for a a company that pretty much makes cookbooks. So I had Steve and Lewis and I, we one day up in my house in upstate New York, I pulled out a bunch of watches from my collection. I was like, Steve, I have this idea, like this is how maybe we should photograph it, but can you help me translate it? So we shot a test, like six watches. So I walked into artisan and I said, So I have this book idea. And they said, What is it? They said, Oh, it's a watch book. And they were like, no. We don't want we don't want to do a watch book. Actually. Actually, we just turned that idea down. And I was like, well, can you just listen to the pitch? And I pulled out all the imagery, which I had Stephen beautifully printed of these 11 by 14 of these watches. And it showed like all the patina, all the dirt, all the life, uh, the th all the scratches, like nothing was retouched. And then I wrote one story which was my own personal story, which was about the watch that was left to me by my father. Well, that was it. They were like I said, it's a storybook. It's not a watch book. And they said, let's do it. And then I took about, I would say, a year collec kind of collecting these stories and finding these great stories and putting this edit together and then Stephen photographing them. And, you know, I approached it in a very naive way in the beginning. Like, I'm not like a techie watched guy who's a, you know, I don't have a lot of knowledge about the intricacies of brands and and each model. And I I just my brain doesn't work that way. But I knew a good story when I heard it. And um we put those all together and it resonated. You know, because it wasn't about the most expensive watch. It was about the watch with the best story. And that could have been a Casio F7, or it could have been, you know, a that Paul Newman dat |
| Unknown | Do you have any favorite stories from the book? Like anything like maybe behind the scenes that stands out while you were producing the book? Andreddy |
| Unknown | . He's so awesome. You know, like I mean, of course, I loved him because I love cars and I l grew up with him as the race car driver. And you know, and any time you were driving like a maniac with an old uncle. Well then who the hell you think he are? Mario Andretti? You know, it's like that kind of thing, right? But to pick up the phone and call him, because I had there was that Jack Hoyer, gold Hoyer uh that he wore when he raced for Ferrari, right? And that was to me.. So cool It's amazing. It's it got the burn marks. It's such a rad watch. Right with the burn marks on the inside. So I knew that he had that. So I called and I I he still lives in Pennsylvania. I got his assistant and she was like, just one sec. And I said what it was about. I was like, I want to talk to him. I don't want to talk about Mari about race car driving. I want to talk to him about watches. And she was like, one second. He gets on the phone. He says, why don't you come out to Pennsylvania tomorrow? And I was like, okay. So I called Steve. I called my friend Mara, who worked with me at Traveler, who's a car race race car obsessed. And I said, We're all going to Mario Andretti's house tomorrow. I don't care if you have something something going on, like you cancel it. And we all drove out there. And he had a table, this big round table, about six foot, right? And he had dumped every single watch that he had ever been given, collected, made, won, whatever. And it was just unbelievable. And he had like cheap little plastic throwaway Ferrari watches to in the middle were a pile of Daytonas. And I was like so caught up in the moment, it was so naive. And I was like, Mario, look at all these Daytonas you have here. And he goes, Well, you know, I did win that race a couple times. And I was like, oh yeah, I forgot about that. And uh he was just so generous and fun and I brought him olive oil from my friends uh the Frankie's, you know, and he just was just so completely generous and I was just so taken aback by how the watch world brings those kind of intimacies together and how people like to share their stories. I did find out that, you know, may uh there were watch guys, like car guys have been telling their story like forever, right? Yeah. You say, oh, uh what year is that car like? It's a 1967 Corvette, I bought it. You know, they could just spew they've been thinking about that a long time. Watch guys, like a lot of the storytelling I had to kind of coaxed out because it wasn't something that anyone really pushed them on in terms of the intimacy of the story. But once you kind of opened up those gates, you really got good storytelling. And of course like I put a put a hundred more stories in there. It was like like peeling an onion, but after a while the publisher was like, no more watches. |
| Unknown | You know? Is there one that ended up on the cutting room floor that was like the last one to get cut? No there |
| Unknown | were ones that slipped through the cracks that I was very, very disappointed about. The the Martin Luther King Timex that is actually still sitting in a museum like a vitrine in the Atlanta airport. Like I really wanted that Timex. Because I had JFK's inaugural watch. I wanted that Timex, and I had spoken to everyone at the foundation and how important that watch was to him. And he's often photographed with this Rolex date day date or uh date just, right? Um but that time X, you know, was such a bit of intimate storytelling and it just fell through some legal cracks. Like it was yes, yes, yes. It got to the lawyers and they were like, no. And I hate no. I hate it. I don't want to hear no. Ever. Um and um, you know, there was a 9-11 watch that I couldn't get, you know, I got the family's permission, but I couldn't get it out of the museum with through all it was just bureaucracy got in the way of some very cool stuff. And and I really wanted Jay-Z so bad, but he is like so immortal that and I remember I've He's a tough guy to get to. He's the king. He's a tough guy to get to, and I understand why, but like and I'm not bitter about that one. I'm more bitter about the 9-11 watch more than anything. Um but the Jay, I remember I had an email to an assistant that a friend was a friend of hers. And every morning I'd get up at 7 a.m. and I'd crack off an email. Any news from Jay? And she would answer me. No, not yet. You know, every single day. And then finally, I think after like five months, I was just like, we're not getting an answer, are we? And she's like, probably not. You know, but she was very generous and very sweet. Uh but I just wanted that so bad. It's a kind, kind defeat. Exactly. It was a kind defeat. Because for me the, th in terms of the storytelling, like I was a huge fan of nineties hip hop and I love the I loved the the the lyrical relationship to like the Rolex president or the platinum president and what that meant in terms of storytelling and kind of success and what that identified. And as a fan of hip hop, like I wanted that represented, you know? And then and then fun funny enough, like Nas told such a nice story, and and actually was the in terms of I think the generation of hip-hop, you know, the paddock became that Grail Watch, right? And um to me, he touched so brilliantly on the relationship of two worlds that I was really happy. Because that part of the kind of cultural ecosystem I wanted in the watchbook. Yeah. You |
| Unknown | know? So I have to say funnily enough, I think my favorite watch from the book is a digital watch. Um I love the Casio that um Tom Sachs in the book, The New Bedford. Amazing. Uh for people who don't know, first of all you should you should get you should get Matt's book. Uh but essentially Tom Sachs, the artist, whose whose office, whose studio is right near our office, Tom did a riff on the Hermes Cape Cod, uh which you know is famous for having the the double tour, the double wrap strap. Uh so he basically modded a like twenty dollar you know drugstore Casio watch. It was a G Shock. It was a G oh you're right it was a G Shock, yeah. Uh with a double wrap strap and named it the new Bedford, which is the sort of like working class community where all of the like, you know, servants and housekeepers and weight staff work outside Cape Cod. And I thought it was this brilliant moment of of like combining luxury with a little bit of social criticism, with also like kind of like insider watch knowledge. It's it's just such a fun, interesting story. Well Tom Tom so brilliant |
| Unknown | brilliantly plays with what our idea of luxury is in mass market. Like I loved when he would do those McDonald's trays of like cut-up Hermes boxes or Chanel boxes, like playing with the duality. Like Chanel guillotine. Yeah. Yeah. I mean he's brilliant and I I love his craft and the fact that he kind of hand sewn this bridled leather on to this G-Shock. And of course he loves G Shock. He loves them for their utility and their, you know, their simplicity and purity of design. And um yeah, he's that was a really terrific one. I also think because it was so sculptural sculptural and that and it was so homemade. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean you can really see like the stitching is uneven. It's all done by hand. And I love Dimitri's story about the the Timex Indiglow and Yeah. And who's who's Dimitri for people that are Dimitri was he's m moved on to another property that's still owned by Jeff Klein is the at the Sunset Tower Hotel, he's the keeper of the gate, this kind of very effervescent Matre-D. And there's this Bill Murray story where um it's a very, very dark story. It's so good, right? It's such a um it's a very, very dark dining room in this hotel at the tower bar and Bill Murray was a big fan of the hotel there, s lived there, stayed there for a while and he would always come into the restaurant and say to Dimitri like what time is it? And he was like, What Mr Murray, I mean he couldn't see his watch because it's so dark in there. So Bill Murray says, Give me that watch. He takes it off his wrist and Murray drops it in his pocket, takes off his timex in the glow, gives it to Dimitri, put Dimitri puts it on his wrist and Bill goes, Um um, what time is it? And he clicks it and he's like eight thirty-five. You know, like he's like, that's the watch you should be wearing. And he never took it off his wrist. And he said sometimes Bill Murray when he stays in the hotel will call down to the dining room and just ask for Dimitri and ask him what time it is. Nice. Yeah. And you know, that was, you know, again, like that was not an expensive watch, but the the terms of the value and how precious that story is and what it now means to Dimitri, it's a priceless watch. Yeah. It's priceless. What's that |
| Unknown | concept of a of a watch becoming something of a totem to your experiences? Just you. Yes. And like you're able to capture that I I think beautifully in the book. Uh but it it's really fun to see that from all walks of life. Yeah. From Dimitri to everybody else in the book. I mean but Ben |
| Unknown | 's in there. Well, I think also Ben's story is really touching and thoughtful and then you you understand the trajectory of his life when you know when a grant when a grandfather or anyone special in your life gives you something that makes you view the world differently. Yeah. And that is often |
| Unknown | a wristwatch. Trevor Burrus And the impact that something like that can have. I mean, you know, speaking very selfishly, like that that watch is why I have a job. You know, that watch that watch created something much bigger than than the impact on one person. That watch ended up impacting, I think arguably the watch the watch industry. Yeah. Certainly the people who who work with us. You know. The whole culture. Yeah. And it's it's cool that these little things can have have that impact. But I I wonder, you know, you wrote a man and his watch. Mm-hmm. I know you have a few watches. Yeah. Can you tell us about some of your watches and the the the meaning that each carries for you? Because I know you're you're not somebody who just sort of like hoards things, you're somebody who each of these things sort of has to have meaning for you. Did |
| Unknown | you hear that, everyone in my household? I am not someone who hoards things. Yeah, sorry. Sorry about that. I am a curator. Okay. I'm an archivist. Okay. No, I'm v I'm ver my tastes are very, very much framed by m h how I grew up, right? And I wanted to be I love sports sport tool watches, right? Like I wanna I wear a submariner because I god, I wanna pretend like I'm a navy diver or maybe I'm James Bond. I wear an Omega Speedmaster because I kind of grew up with the space program. Like I love all those reference points, you know You know., I had an uncle worked for Pan Am, that's why I love GMTs. Like I just I always felt like I was gravitating to a very specific style of watch early on. And um I stayed true to that path because I just aesthetically like them. I mean half the time when I wear, you know, that's I've had a submariner for a very, very long time, a 5513, and I don't even tell, I mean, I just look at it with frequency because I love looking at it. Like it's gorgeous. It's it's perfection. It's so beautiful. And it also reminds me of a a very specific time. Like I think about okay, that watch was made in the mid-1960s and what was going on then and in terms of the nod to industrial design and all that stuff. Like that's the way I look at watches. So I'd I mean I I have maybe a dozen I mean I should have bought piles of those submariners when I was buying them, but yeah, we can't get it. That's a story for another time. Just move on. It's just move on. It's depressing as hell. But also, so that being said, I never was buying stuff in a very gluttonous way. I was buying the one thing and I I would say this is great advice. You know, you buy the the best version of that thing you want and if you can't get there, you wait and you save and then you get there and you buy that thing and then you move on. Like I think I looked at photography that way. I looked at cameras that way. I, you know, I was not gonna, you know, I was not gonna buy a pile, a pile of like cheap SLRs. I was like, I want a Leica and I'm gonna wait for it. And that's what I did. And um I think I like navigating my life and not, you know I don't like having lots of disposable things. I like things for life. And if that's a pair of shoes or a watch or you know |
| Unknown | , whatever that is. So how would you let's say we wanted to action that philosophy? Everyone listening, if you wanted to offer some tips for how to approach buying things, yeah. From that mentality, which I think is a very like approachable mentality, but it's it requires some thoughtfulness. You know, we had Matt Jacobson on and he spoke about the fact that like he won't Yes. So it's a very much not necessarily a one in, one out, but like a a general level of like appreciating improv |
| Unknown | ement in the I totally agree with that. Like I have my eyes on a watch, a vintage watch. And I was saying to myself, okay, I could probably go bleed the bank account and get this. That's not very practical. It's not very smart. It's not very adult. So I was like, okay, how many chess moves could I put toget |
| Unknown | It's more fun. It's more fun this way. I swear. Everyone who's listening, it's more fun. Listen, I have and I harder it is. |
| Unknown | You gotta pull you gonna pull some shit to get something or you gotta brilliant. You gotta bleed a little bit. You gotta bleed a little bit. And guess what? The hunt and the journey is part of the game. I think it's like Yeah. It's more than half of it. Oh yeah. Yeah. But I feel the same way when I go out looking for vintage spirits or um a crazy one off car or you know, because I'm dealing I I'm not I'm dealing with a very specific budget restriction, okay? I mean that being said, like Matt Jacobson who, probably is not in the same budgetary restrictions as me, he has such the most he has the most amazing edit of stuff. Like this is the taste is great. The taste level and the thoughtfulness of those purchases that that I may sound frivolous, but I and you know I envy that. Like it's you know, the level is it's just so thoughtful and smart and uh it's a great lesson, you know. So you have one end of the spectrum that probably can get there quicker than most of us, but I I still think it's important to follow that journey of, you know, we're just not locusts, you know, feeding, feeding, feeding, feeding and then you're like, Okay, I got it all you know. Little bit of patience. Patience is lots of knowledge. Patience and also use your resources resources like people who are out there that are so much more knowledgeable than you that can lead you down the right path or give you the right advice on doing that. I don't care if it's like I always answer vintage barber questions. You know, like I mean I think that's I love You actually answered a v |
| Unknown | intage barber question for me. So which one was that? I wrote you both jackets, winter jackets. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. Because I won I need something I'm you know moved to Toronto and I need something like legit warm. And I ended up buying a fall raven. Which is just a which is great. Uh the quality's incredible. Yeah, I mean you wrote me back and you're like you go this way, you go this way, you go |
| Unknown | this way. You gave me a few plays. Well I say use your resources, right? Like you you know, use the the most knowledgeable resource that who's gonna give you the insider tip and insider track and you know, I I I used to navigate all these old timers who were like were flea market guys and stuff like that in upstate New York. And you know, they were sort of like mush if if anyone ever this is gonna be a weird analogy, but like you know, if anybody knows a mushroom hunter, like mushroom hunters never give up their turf. They will lead you close and they will advise you and they will nurture you. I feel a little bit about of like the like navigating the vintage world of stuff, like I will lead you down the path, but I am not bringing you to that exact, you know, vintage. It's in this it's in this place, that |
| Unknown | rack, whatever. The funny thing is though, right? Like I I think that's right to a certain extent, but you know, you're you're still at the end of the day, you're a media guy, right? Like whether it's it's a magazine or Instagram or whatever, and a lot of that is about what we would call like like service journalism, right? Like it it is about showing people that spot. This is the store where you can get that unbelievable piece of glassware that's gonna make your next Negroni the best Negroni. This is where you can get that vintage jacket that is gonna completely change next winter for you, right? So there's this element of you have to be selective about it. But but a lot of that is about kind of like sharing those things, but sharing them in a sort of safe space, right? For people who are are like-minded and who you can sort of like trust with that knowledge? Aaron Powell W |
| Unknown | ell, I think one of the biggest things that I I mean friends, intimates who would give me crap if there was some great little Italian hotel somewhere, and they were like, You can't report about this because you're gonna ruin it, and da-da-da. You're like, you're not gonna ruin it. You're gonna bring more like-minded people. |
| Unknown | You're gonna keep it in business, is what you're gonna do. That's right. But there's also there's also a consideration between informing helping inform someone's level of taste and just telling them where they should stay on a holiday or what jacket to buy. I think one is one in my opinion, this is very personal, I would rather have the latter where I'm having I I would follow your account or or you know I could list a handful of others where I feel like even if I never visit any of these stores or drink any of these drinks that you had, it still informs a general level like a vocabulary which I can apply in my in in my travels, in my exploration. So I may not be tracing your footsteps, but I know where you walked and and like like I think there's some value in that. Well there's |
| Unknown | a lot of times where people I get these DMs and uh there's these questions like you know, people I don't know, obviously. And they're like, Hey, I'm going to uh I'm going to Paris. Can I get your uh top twenty favorite blah blah and I'm like You're kidding me, right? Are you gonna pay me a dollar a word? Yeah. Like seriously? It's like I don't even like I don't even give that to my mom. Like I mean like No, I listen, I I don't I just think it's naive, right? Like and often a lot of the times people say like, hey I,'m heading to Milan and we're shi I'm like, follow the gram, baby. Follow the gram. Like it's all there. All that information is there. Um I or like I always will say, you know, people say, oh, what is your top 10 hits for Paris? And I was like, uh Well one and then just walk. That's right. I'm like, go to Harry's Bar. Great Negroni, Great Bloody Mary Harry's Bar. Like I always will answer something, but I think it's unrealistic everyone out there to like get, you know, anybody's top ten hits on anything if you really aren't it that's a lot of work to to to deal with that stuff. You know what I mean? And even if, you know, like I said, even if you're a really dear friend or relative, you're getting a |
| Unknown | much So before we run out of time, there's there's one more thing I want to make sure we get to, which is your new magazine. You know, we've talked about the move away from magazines, but you wrote a book and now you're doing a magazine. You're l you're pretty hard in on uh on print. Well listen, |
| Unknown | I uh as I watch uh I'll be qu very, very quick about this. As I watch leg legacy publishing kind of lose its way, kind of stumble, make things that I thought were not sort of not as beautiful as I remember them, and kind of, you know, kind of the advertising dollars drying up and then kind of scrambling to figure out are we a digital medium or we a print medium. I said, you know what, listen, we cannot let this die. And I think you guys are a great example. Like doing what you do with a print uh object is is so great, right? And I think what Waco does at the rake is so great. Like I can't do either, I can't do what you do, and I can't do what Way does. But I know that there somewhere in the middle, there's all this other stuff that I may not be an authority on, but I'm definitely opinionated about. And I just like telling those stories. And I felt like this I love print because you don't have to charge it. It doesn't take a battery. It could take a hit at the pool, you it's still useful, you roll it up in your pocket, you bring it on the subway, you revisit it. I love the way ink reflects off a page, like all that stuff. It works on an airplane. It works on airplane. Nothing else works. That's right. One piece of print will always work. And on the subway. And on the subway, there you go. And and I also was surrounded by all these talented people, writers, photographers, designers, who are I was like, who are losing their outlets for this stuff. And what photographer doesn't want to see their stuff printed, right? Yeah |
| Unknown | , that's very it's the best. Right? So I just felt if you're a photographer and you're not printing your work, total aside, go print your work. Go print your work. It's not the same on a screen. Yeah. It's not. |
| Unknown | Sorry, that's a quick quick PSA. Yeah. And I think that's very, very good advice. And you know, and I had and you know and when I reached out to all these kind of pedigree friends, photographers, writers, whatever, they were just like, whatever you need. This is great. We yeah, of course we support this. And you know, I had been waiting for a magazine like this for a long time. Like I some something that spoke to the whole version of myself, like the guy who likes watches, but the guy who also likes, you know, food and the guy who likes to do a little wing shooting and fishing, and the guy who likes cars and you know, and the guy who collects too many vintage wax cotton coats and you know, so I felt like I bet I'm not alone. I bet there's at least five thousand guys out there like and then so over the course of a couple months we put this all together and the idea also was to put it out quarterly and seasonally because I felt particularly men in the northeast dressed differently, drove differently, ate differently based on seasons. So that was important to me to kind of approach that way. We cannot let all this schlocky print stuff die. Of course it should die. But let's create quality, thoughtful, evergreen stuff that does not go on the recycler, that stays on the shelf, that gets discovered by a next generation like I did growing up looking at old vanity fairs and GQs and House and Gardens, whatever. And you know, guess what? You can't Google everything. Like, how do you even know that you like something until you discover it? Like, that's what this magazine is about, which is not about it's it's it's this kind of general point of view on |
| Unknown | this Trevor Burrus The thing about that lifestyle too that I think is so interesting and kind of carries through everything you do, right, is this really unaffected juxtaposition of high and low, right? Like you can be at the Grand Hotel Tremezzo, you know, on Lake Como, drinking in a groni, you know, riding in a Riva, you know, really like the highest luxury you can possibly imagine. But like you're also happy like kicking back on a porch, drinking a Jenny Light, and you know, wearing a barber jacket. And there's something about that that can so often feel affected. And with with you and you know, the magazine is is the WM Brown magazine. It it feels kinda natural. Um how how do you I mean I know it's a byproduct of of you and who you are, but how do you kind of balance those things and and make sure that it it stays feeling authentic and real and relatable |
| Unknown | . I think I realized that I was a guy from Binghamton. You know, like I grew up. It's a roots thing. Like I was a second generation, like my grandparents came off came from Italy and from Czechoslovakia. They made their way um making shoes in upstate New York. My mom was first generation, my dad was. I loved growing up there around all that stuff. And um my dad was a very well balanced kind of country squire who was a sign painter and illustrator and went to work with in like five oh ones and red wings in a barracuda jacket, but like had Italian tailors in Harris Twee jackets. You know what I mean? It was a it was just sort of what I was around, right? And then of course I had all these aspirations to be this kind of like, you know, that movie Breaking Away is in, you know, about the kid who just wanted to be the Italian, you know, bicycle, you know, um bicycle racer. Like I was sort of like that kid. I wanted to pretend I was European and uh and then all of a sudden I was like, what the hell am I doing? Like, yeah, I could be I could aspire for all those things, but also love where I came from and all that kind of great like I'm sorry, la bats on tap and chicken wings is like one of the like my put the gun to my head. That's like one of my last meals. Like you know, enough you know, enough foamy food in Geneva. You know what I mean? So I I just think I recognized um that who who the whole version of myself was, which was very much from this place that I was not going to abandon because I I really love it. But also it's nice to be at the Tre Mezzo kicking back with spritzes by the pool and who wouldn't deny themselves that? We had a lovely after |
| Unknown | noon at that pool, didn't we? Yeah, yeah. That combination of aspiration and like kind of coming to peace with where you're from is I think a really special thing. I mean, James, I mean I I don't I don't know how you feel about it, but like I grew up in Austin, Texas. My parents are from the Northeast, from New York and Pennsylvania. And when I was growing up, I really I really kind of like resented being in Texas. It was like, what the hell am I doing in this like out in the out in the boonies? Like what what the hell and I grew up in Austin, like not really in the boonies. But I was like, what am I doing here? You know? And now with some some hindsight, it's like that was that was a pretty great place to grow up. And I I went back recently. My parents have since moved, so I I hadn't been back in a long time. And I went back and realized like this is great. And like this is really a big part of who I am. And coming to peace with the idea that like I can have breakfast tacos in East Austin with like the buddies I grew up with. Talk to me about Torchies. Yeah, we can we can talk Torchies all day. But uh yeah, I can I can have Torchies Tacos on South Congress uh and also, you know, go to the you know whatever Jersan in Paris and like those are both a part of me. Good is good. Yeah, good is good and being able to come to peace with that is a |
| Unknown | pretty special thing. Well, I also I think my high school survival was about being able to navigate all social groups. And I think that's a very interesting life lesson. Like like I had to navigate the jocks. Yeah. I mean I I was like the yearbook nerd photographer and like you know, I had access to all these things. I was we should talk about that. I I I loved it because it basically got me out of class eighty eighty-five percent of the time. And I just loved photographing the girls' track team. Sorry. Okay. Sorry. I'm sorry. So I I mean I I think learning to kind of navigate all those worlds is very um we could do another show on that. Ye,ah for sure. Your book photography? I was |
| Unknown | trying to remember the Friday Night Lights, Clear Eyes. Full Heart. Full Hearts. If I could have called that out, we'll cut this. That is the second uh Friday Night Lights reference on this show. Yeah. If I could have called that out, I couldn't I could not place Kyle Chandler's line. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Empty empty plant glasses, uh Canadian beer of some sort. |
| Unknown | Is this a big edit through here? kind of worlds as adults and how you know it's just I mean it's just three or four steps behind high school. It's just all the same people. It's all the same school. It's all the same thing |
| Unknown | . What I think is really interesting is how that perspective that you've just talked about about, you know, high school and then in into other elements literally is reflected in the work that you do now, where it can be anything that you cover, but you cover it with the same enthusiasm. Yeah. Which I think is, in my opinion, why I would follow somebody like you around. I am incredibly enthusiastic. Absolutely are. But like it doesn't matter if it it was literally like we it doesn't matter any time I've ever interface with you, it doesn't matter what it is. If you're into it, you're into it. And you have a reason for being into it. And there's a thoughtfulness to it and I think that like permeates your work and it's why what you put forth and I you know I mentioned joyfulness earlier and it's something that I I try and be cognizant of like joyfulness and gratitude and those sort of thing because, I think they're they work together. And it seems like you have a really interesting kind of power power uh you have a really interesting way of kind of connecting with the industry in a way that I think is is accessible, regardless of whether you're covering something like uh a uh you know an auto show in Italy that's incredibly expensive or uh Negroni which you made in a bottle that literally says Negroni on the side of it in in press in press letter and i it it all kind of I like that there's a tone that matches throughout the whole thing, so it doesn't matter really. Cause I don't uh you know, Steven talked about where he came up and you came up and and like I I came up in like a small town Ontario, like none of this makes any sense to me. I should be talking about going for a rip and hitting Tim Hortons and and good coffee in Tim Hortons. We can do another full episode on Tim Hortons. Really genuinely terrible coffee, Matt. Oh really? Really genuinely terrible coffee. At one point they were good coffee, then they changed hands, they bought both bought out by like Burger King. This isn't important. The coffee's real bad |
| Unknown | . It's just hot water at this point. But I you know, I often said like I am not necessarily the most interesting guy, but I'm definitely the most interested guy. Like I I love it. I am really interested. Like I love enthusiasm. For sure. And I could find that like I get you know I get crap for my wife all the time. Like I will find conversation on the subway if you like it or not. And I'm gonna like, you know, talk to you about your watch or like what tote bag is that or um you know like I just I like that I like the engagement and I I think that um you know you should be careful if I'm at dinner with you and I have nothing to say because that's a dangerous place. I'm I'm happy to |
| Unknown | say I've never experienced that. But do we have time for two more questions or we're we're out of time? We gotta wrap cool cool. Okay. We're gonna wrap it up. So we gotta we gotta start wrapping things up. So I wanna make sure we have time to get to our uh our hoodinky questionnaire that we do. So it's a couple little rapid fire questions. You can give us uh you know short ish answers. Okay. Uh and then we'll uh we'll make cultural recommendations at the at the end as always. Okay. And um for the record, I have not had any preview to these questions. No, you have not had preview to these questions. So I'm gonna ask first up, what's a watch that's caught your eye recently |
| Unknown | ? You know, I really kind of re have been looking at Brightling again. Okay. Okay, like I was not the John Travolta in an airplane Brightling guy. T |
| Unknown | ell me more about the error though. That's one error, but like there's old Brightling, there's like medium nineties Brightling, there's like really flashy brightling, and then there's now. I think |
| Unknown | na now I really like Brightling. What catches you? I like the the the is it the Navitimer The new one, the eight. Yeah. In forty I I it's cool. Brightling, if you're listening, I need that one. The steel one or the black one? I like the black one. I think it's great. I like it's my favorite one. It nods to military styling. I love it. I like the case size, everything about it. I agree. Okay. Alright. What's the best place you've traveled in the last year? God, I love Italy. I love all things Italy, and I went to Abruzzo this year and, Abruzzo is on the cover of the magazine and it's in inside the magazine. It looks like you're in Wyoming and you're in like sheep country of Italy, and the food is amazing, and it is just a breathtaking place. Awesome. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received and who gave it to you? You know, I'll go back to horse where, you know, I was trying to navigate this photo career and like, what am I going to do? And, you know how can I be you know successful at what I'm doing and he was like just do what you love baby. And that's for real. He's like just do what you love. They'll find you. And that's so true. If you really just stick to your guns and you do what you love that is true to you, uh it's un it's unmistakable that you find success in that. Even that if that success is just happiness, you find success. Perfect. I love that. Uh and what's your guilty pleasure |
| Unknown | ? Negronies. Mm. There we go. I think that's that's shared three ways, right, Jay? Straight whiskey for me. |
| Unknown | Listen, you get to a certain you get to a certain age where you gotta pick a lane. Um I basic |
| Unknown | ally order two cocktails. It's like Negroni Martini. It's like it's you have two options, you know? Uh all right, we'll finish things off here. We always end the show with a cultural recommendation. James, what's uh what's your rec? Yeah, |
| Unknown | so mine's actually I think I'm happy with this one because I think it's affordable from all ranges, and we have someone who has their or their their start in photography, it's buy a 35mm film camera. Wow. So if you already have the iPhone, I genuinely don't think that unless you're gen like you're super into photography, I don't think you can do better than a modern cell phone right now for just developing your eye. Your photos would be better with a better camera, but your eye won't be any better. But I think you can learn a lot about the mechanics and about the romance of photography from like a hundred dollars worth of gear. So buy a canon, buy a Nikon, buy a Minolta, buy a Pentax, buy literally any brand where the camera's in good running order and it has a fifty millimeter lens that's F one eight or the number's lower, like say one four, or you're not gonna get to one two at a hundred bucks. Um and literally like so a Canon AE1 program is a great option. Uh Minolta X700, a great option. My first camera was Minolta 7S. Those are pretty cheap. I have a 201. A 201 should be about 100 bucks. And then if you can find it, something like a Rokadon fifty one seven, super, it literally doesn't matter what lens you put on it. If you don't like uh fifty mil, like if you're not gonna shoot people and maybe find yourself a twenty-four or twenty-eight and go nuts with it, a thirty-five clean as well, don't fret about stuff like that. Buy a prime lens so a lens that doesn't zoom so that you have to move with your feet to get closer to somebody or further back from somebody if you want to take their picture. And then just buy um everybody can weigh in on the film, but I I think buy Portra 400 and shoot about 30 rolls of Portra 400. It won't cost you nearly the camera and all the film and the development might cost you about as much as what a good point and shoot costs, and you will learn 200x what you would learn from uh a modern point and shoot. It's a great recommendation. Yeah. I gotta shoot more film. I I'm not ever shooting film again. You're done. You're out? You're done, dude. We're talking like 30 years ol.d You earned that though. I exactly I did. I literally started on a Makaiva and I got shooting to a three and a half inch flopp |
| Unknown | y. Wow. I mean I I actually got rid of so many film cameras like like a SL. I kept some key I kept my M's and stuff like that. And then of course my daughter like a year ago was like, Where are all the film cameras? And I had to go out and I bought her a a Nikon F. E. Just send me an email. I'm keeping stock, baby. I'm getting people into this. I should have done that.. Yeah, yeah I would say I think I got it now. Okay. Are you ready for my cultural my cultural takeaway? I I would I think I would like men of a younger generation to spend more time in the kitchen. Yeah. I'm a terrible, |
| Unknown | terrible cook. That kind of shocks me. I can literally make uh bone broth that's my name. By the way, a |
| Unknown | buy a a good broth is difficult. I love to make it I absolutely adore it. Okay. So that just think of the endless things you could do with that. You know, I think that um first of all in the magazine we we I did this section called Solo Meals, which was not giving you any excuse to not make a thoughtful meal for one. If that was a tin of sardines or if you had eggs in the fridge. Like everyone can get eggs in a tin of tuna and you know, and just and and make something special out of it. There's a great book, I love Jacques Papin deeply. He was a big inspiration. I watched, I follow him. Follow him on Instagram. La Technique, man. La Technique is the technique. I have that book in four versions, two of them signed by Jacques. My wife got me a signed copy years ago. It's incredible. Buy that book, but you can also start with there's a book that Jacques Papin did called it was a off a riff off the PBS series he did. It's called Fast Food My Way. Right? They are the best recipes with the least amount of ingredients, with the most bang for your buck, and it really teaches you how to navigate a kitchen in a very clever way without a big investment and without a lot of without needing a lot of skill. And I think, you know, there's n who doesn't love P.S. Great first date cook the meal. That's my tip. And um I couldn't do that today if I needed |
| Unknown | to. You can make bone broth. I mean, I'm not you're not cooking that. I mean that takes twenty-four hours. Bone broth is pretty impressive though. You just serve |
| Unknown | it and you drop an egg in it. You're done. Home ramen. Yeah, I think I think you you go you go out there and you find a cookbook that that speaks to you whatever that ethnicity or whatever that you know that style of food is and you know learn to cook three solid recipes. You should always have two or three solid recipes that you somebody can turn to you and say, you know, what can you make tonight? So if we were to just real fast three, what is it? Uh I I think grilled sausages and a salad you is and a great bottle of wine is like my go-to. Like that's my midweek go-to. I think it's amazing. I think learn to make any great pasta sauce that could be incorporated with risotto pasta gluten-free, whatever is your flavor. But I think a a great marinara is like you cannot go wrong. Good parmesan, again, we'll pair it with a good another good bottle of wine or something. You cannot go wrong. And I also think learn to make the perfect omelet. Done. You know, one time I was on the knew you were gonna go there before you did. Eggs. Eggs. It's a great thing. Eggs are amazing. Amazing. One time I was on the road and my wife was like, there is no food in this house. And I was like, okay, open the refrigerator. What's in there? I said, first of all, is there a bottle of rose? It was a summer. She's like, yeah, there's a bottle of rose. I was like, good, check. Open that. Two, are there eggs? Yeah, they're eggs. Okay. Is there any cheese, like an old rind of anything? Yeah, there's some parmesan. Okay, pull that out. We I know we have a garden in Brooklyn. I know there's always like some thyme or rosemary or some sage or some herbaceous thing in the back, right? I was like, are there eggs? Yeah. I was like, okay, here it is. You're gonna go pull whatever herbs you want, you're gonna make the best looking omelet that you possibly could make, and that could be scrambled eggs, and you're gonna open that ball of rose, and that's gonna be the best meal of your life. And it was, you know, and I think part of that is like you accomplish it and part of it is like you're kind of pickled with a good rose and it can only taste good after |
| Unknown | noon. Stephen, what about you? So my cultural recommendation is gonna be something way less self-improving than what either of you guys have uh suggested. Uh I am deep, deep, deep into season three of True Detective. Don't talk to me about it. I'm gonna leave. Uh are you are you starting tonight? Oh, you're starting tonight. I'm literally starting tonight. So season one of True Detective is possibly the best season of television I've ever seen in the TV. |
| Unknown | Okay. It it is the season one is more than friends. I was headed. Season one is season one of True Detective is the finest piece of television ever made. I I and in in narrative arc storytelling, it it should be a co |
| Unknown | urse. I would say I would say in terms of storytelling, it's as good, and this is this is from me a big big compliment. It's as good as the great Gatsby. Like it is it is narratively unbelievable. It's acted incredibly. Season two is the biggest dumpster fire I've ever seen in my life. Like I am a worse human being for having spent eight hours of my life watching that season of television. Can I of |
| Unknown | fer a different take? Yeah. First season is absolute avant-garde philosophical metaphysical storytelling. Wow. Yeah. In a rooted true crime kn uh genre that's borderlines on noir. Okay. The second season is a very good true crime drama |
| Unknown | . I think season two is garbage. By the way, you both have lost me. That's fine. So see season one's amazing. Season two was garbage. Season three took years and years and years. Finally came out. Not only is it I I would say it's not quite as good as season one. It's very good. It's also connected to season one. So we're getting a sort of like we're we're getting a very different yeah, sorry, I won't blow up too much here, but it is connected to season one. Better lead actor than season one. Better lead actor, but Michelle Ellie is unreal. He plays himself as a thirty five year old, a forty five year old, and like a sixty something year old. It's incredible. I guess I I guess I know what I'm doing this weekend. So it's binge watching true too. I'll put on USB, I keep it on my laptop. When we're recording this, it's five episod episodes in, six they'll air this weekend. Uh and in addition to watching the show, this will have already dropped on a a uh weekend roundup on on Hodinky. Uh but you gotta go to the ringer and watch. They have a a like video after show called The Flat Circle. Um that is uh it's the best like kind of like recap after show you could possibly have for the season. Uh they they really go through like all the like weird conspiracy theories that are floating around the internet of like what's going on. They walk you through the episode, all the little Easter eggs that you don't pick up on when you're watching it in real time. They find all the references to like there's a whole lot of like Lovecraft stuff going on. Pre-hore. Yeah, like early, like late 19th, early 20th century stuff. It's great. It's just like it it is so satisfying. Uh it's the only show I can watch nowadays, and this is probably an indictment of of my own media habits, but uh it's the only show where like I put my phone on silent and I looked at my television for 50 something minutes like a television not a computer. If we're watching it and she like picks up her phone, I'm like, put your phone down. Stop it. Like we have to focus. You're gonna miss something, and then we won't be able to talk about it and I'm gonna be really annoyed |
| Unknown | . Like you have to watch it. It's so good. So on the on the very off chance, and I know we're short on time, but on the very off chance that somebody hasn't seen season one, watch season one, and then just do me a favor. If you enjoyed it, Google the King in Yellow and Sarkosa. All right. Uh Google will correct your spelling of Sarkosa, so don't worry about it. Carcosa. Carcosa, thank you. Carcosa. The King in Yellow and Carcosa. And specifically the short story you're looking for is called A Visitor to Carcosa. Yeah. It will This is gonna mess with your brain. Yeah. That's all that's as far as I'm gonna This |
| Unknown | episode was like super fun and then got real weird. But when did it produce? Who produced it? Uh so it's it's Nick Pizzolato. It's HBO. It's on HBO. But Nick Nick Pizzolato's the sort of a creator and then um It's it' |
| Unknown | s Matthew McConaughey's absolute finest work as an actor. No question. |
| Unknown | Watch the first couple. I gotta get back into it. Check it out. Also, I want to say, like, I'm not sure how sensitive these mics are, but the my combination of my jeans and this chair may have sounded like I was farting through the entire interview. Uh for the record I wasn't. Okay. I think you're good. That's your opinion. Okay, guys. Brown project on Instagram. Link it up in the show notes. That' |
| Unknown | s great. Yeah. Hit the show notes. Awesome. For all of it. Cool. Dude, it was so good to see you. Thank you. Since we're not neighbors anymore, I don't get to see you nearly as often, but uh it was good to chat and uh thanks for joining us, James. And I'm I'm sure you're gonna be a recurring guest. I can't imagine this is your last appearance. Uh I would be constantly available. Perfe |
| Unknown | ct. Love it. Beautiful. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Thanks, man |
| Unknown | . This week's episode was recorded at Mirror Tone Studios in New York City and was produced and edited by Grayson Korhonen. Please remember to subscribe and rate the show. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next week. |