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William Massena (A Watch Renaissance Man)

Published on Mon, 24 Jun 2019 10:00:12 +0000

The watch industry legend talks about the early days of online horology, why his collection is so diverse, and the one watch he tells everyone to buy.

Synopsis

This episode features an extensive conversation with William Massena, a legendary figure in the early watch internet community and collector with deep ties to forums like TimeZone. Joined by Hodinkee Editor-in-Chief Jack Forster, the discussion explores the emergence of online watch communities in the mid-1990s and how the internet democratized watch collecting knowledge. Massena shares stories from TimeZone's founding in 1995, the early days of brand forums, and memorable moments like Walt Odets' controversial teardown review of the Rolex Explorer. The conversation also covers Massena's recent admission to the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers and his philosophy of loving watches rather than brands.

The latter portion delves into Massena's collecting approach, which spans both vintage tool watches and high-end independents, and his criticism of the watch industry's trend toward treating watches as investments rather than objects to be enjoyed. He discusses his own venture, Massena Lab, which produces limited collaborations with brands he admires. Throughout, Massena offers unvarnished opinions on everything from Patek Philippe's movement choices to the homogenization of modern watch design, demonstrating the critical eye that made him both respected and feared in early online watch communities. The episode concludes with cultural recommendations including the MOCA museum in Los Angeles and discussions of food, boxing literature, and music.

Transcript

Speaker
Unknown When I first seriously got into the Watch World about seven years ago, there were a few names that I kept hearing over and over again. They were the living legends, the guys that you had to know if you were gonna get anywhere or actually learn anything. Luckily, I got to know a lot of them pretty early on, and today we've got a great show for you that includes two of them. First up is our guest, Mr. William Macena, who you might remember from his episode of Talking Watches back in 2015. You also might know him from his days at Time Zone or Antiquorum or Bonnums, or maybe from his spot on the jury of the Grand Prix d'Or Logerie de Genève. He's been deeply entrenched in the watch community for decades, and he's someone that I've long known and admired. Whether we're talking about watches, tailoring, French poetry, or some new restaurant, I know I'm gonna come out of the conversation better for having had it. Then we've got our own editor-in-chief, Jack Forster. He's right up there with William in terms of legend status, and when we decided to have William on the show, it was a no-brainer that Jack co-host. Between the two of these guys, we've got about as much horological knowledge and firepower as anyone could ask for. And as you'll see in this episode, I just want to get as much of it out of them as possible I'm your host Stephen Pulverant and this is Hodinky Radio. This week's episode is presented by Zenith Watches. Stay tuned later in the show for my conversation with CEO Julian Tornare, where we talk about how Zenith is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the El Primero. For more, visit Zenith-Watches.
Unknown com And I had seen it and I was really impressed. And all of a sudden he looks at me and says, What have you done? And I go, well I had you know I I moderate on the website, I ban people.
Unknown Wait, wait, wait, okay. Because we are actually recording. Let's back up a sec
Unknown ond. Yeah. So we're talking about William joining the what is it, the worshipful company of
Unknown clock makers of clockmakers in the UK. Which which just just a little context, this is the uh oldest continuously operating, I guess you would say, uh guild of uh in in the city of London. Or one of the oldest. I think it was um I th I think the fan makers are older than you guys or something like that. Yeah, they're always in there. Um but like s mid sixteen hundreds I think it was uh it was incorporated. Yeah, and the Charles the second, I think. Mm-hmm. Yeah, sixteen thirty-two. Yeah, there it is. I was supposed to know those things. There it is. So he's sort of like a combination of uh you know the Albert Einstein and Marco Pierre White of uh of horology. You know, I think that's a pretty good description, Jack. But you know, like deeply, deeply knowledgeable, incredibly arid erudite, and also someone who will um, you know, figuratively rip off your head and poop down your neck and call you a syphilitic, you know, weasel eyed, no good, idiotic bastard if you get a paddock reference number wrong. At least that's that's how that
Unknown I will whip your head off. But yeah, I wouldn't do that to uh newbie.
Unknown So William, uh who's who's been uh who was already a uh a profoundly present and terrifying figure in watch collecting uh online when the first generation of the watch internet was, you know, going on in the late nineties and early two thousands, uh we were talking about the fact that he has rec recently become a five years ago. Five years ago become became a member of the worshipful company of clockmakers, which is one of the oldest professional guilds in in the the city of London. We were talking about sort of the pomp and circumstance that goes along with it.
Unknown Jack feels like a perfect fit.
Unknown Allegiance to the core floppy hat involved
Unknown . I think you're allowed to carry a sword in the city of London and you can have your sheeps cross uh the London Bridge. Wow. Yeah, it's a big privilege. So has have your ships crossed the I I think they do it. I think once a year like some of the uh uh the shorter members do that. They they go around with their sheep and they cross it. Just to say you did it. Just yeah. I think it's part of you know having fun doing this. If you can, right? Like you kinda have to. Yeah
Unknown , I guess. Alright. So one of the things I want to make sure we we get right into is you guys were both there kind of when watches hit the internet, right? Like that's something I think today, okay, Jack, Jack maybe maybe half a generation later. Yeah. But I think I was a few years. If you
Unknown consider five years where 2000 Jack you came in? Actually the first time I remember fighting with anyone about watches on the internet was in ninety eight, I want to say. Okay, so Jack is first generation. Yes. And it was on and there there there were no I mean that that was was I think was that the first year for Time Zone? Yeah, no Time Zone is ninety ninety-five. And there was no there was no you know I mean the watch the the first enthusiast websites were starting to take off. Time zone was a very big deal. Purists.com, which is now Purists Pro. And they're both they're both still around, which is kind of mind-blowing. Right. Yeah. And we were it was sort of like the break between uh uh Sigmund Four
Unknown So what let's let's go back to the beginning. Like so we I think we all take it for granted, since all of our careers to some degree or another revolve around the watch internet, and we've all kind of come up in the era of the watch internet and many of our listeners are familiar with watches on the internet, but like in nineteen ninety five when time zone starts like what does watch collecting look like pre internet and then how does the internet kind of change things? So there was alt.or
Unknown ogy believe it or not okay uh which was I was gonna say
Unknown y for me the first arguments were on Usenet newsgroups. Yeah. So there was Usenet User Groups. I bought a watch on Usenet Usgroup with somebody I'd never met and that was kind of people will talk if you can call this talk on us nuts. But before that it was just going to a store and taking a magazine and just annoying a sales guy in a store asking questions. There was nothing. There was and the magazines were um you, know, bunch
Unknown of ads basically. Um and they were on the newsstands next to the model railroading and doll collecting magazines. I mean it was just not, you know. So all the cool hobbies
Unknown . Right. I I used to subscribe to the Italian magazines. The Italian magazines were always great. They had great pictures. Uh the Germans too, if you spoke a bit of German that were that were rating cars, uh watches like cars, uh it was great in in certain way f compared to what we had in the US, in English or even in French.
Unknown They took serious cr the Germans took serious criticism of watches as you know, you you would kind of expect this from the Germans too. They they th to them, you know, serious watch criticism had to take into account, you know, accuracy, quality of materials, performance. The Italians on the other hand were sort of making watch collecting look cool and look interesting, kind of I think before just you know, you had the pro and cons
Unknown on on German magazines, uh which was uh interesting but, you know, it was to a very small audience. So Time Zone comes around and Time Zone was um was part of a project. Somebody in Singapore, uh a watch dealer in Singapore was a Rolex dealer, had the website done in 1995 and the kids I guess who did the website created a form on the back end. So you could go visit the website and and then there would be like question and answer a QA and it was basically a forum and they called it time zone, that forum. And that lasted about a year between 95, 96, 97. And in 97 it was bomb, somebody came and and basically created a loop and it had to close close down the farm. So uh it was shut down, it was a Singaporean farm and somebody called Richard P. Somebody hacked it. Yes, yeah, basically. Richard Page who was a a retailer in San Francisco um bought bought the right to TimeZone.com and used it uh to create a a uh a form to basically start discussion. And also uh retalies watches
Unknown . So when did the first um when did the first brand forums appear on Time Zone and uh when did sponsorship start to become a fac
Unknown tor? So the first brand forum was uh maybe ninety nine. I think it's the if I'm correct, I think it's the IWC forum with Michael Friedberg. Um and I think the reason is because Richard Page was an authorized IWC dealer. Um and the sponsorship came later, maybe in two thousand. The first sponsor was uh Bivert with uh the blanc pain and we told him that it would be five hundred dollars a year until they cancel it so Blanc Blanc had a rate of five hundred dollars and when Jean-Claude left uh Swatch, I think uh, in 2005 to start Ublow. Blancin cancelled it. And we're like super, that's great. Thank you. Amazing, incredible. Can you imagine a gre
Unknown at space for us? And um and yeah, so just trying to imag
Unknown I think AP got something for like $500 or $1,000 for a while. I remember talking to you guys about that when I you had a hilariously low rate. Ye
Unknown ah. It was it was pretty bad back then. Um and and then um I think it's uh Bloom line who really came to us and said, Hey, I believe in product, I believe in on the internet, and uh ask us to open a language for um, invite us to Basel because we're not really invited to Basel. Um the first time I went in the booth,
Unknown I thoug So there's an interview out there. There's an interview out there with Gunter Bloomline which I remember reading when it was first published. Gunther Blumline was was basically the um architect of modern IWC, uh JLC, and the the guy who was you know the brains behind the uh the the the um re-establishment of uh Langenzone. Yeah. A brilliant, brilliant entrepreneur and um someone who was unfortunately taken from us quite early by I think it was Leukemia, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So October of 2001. October of 2001. Big, big shock to the community because he was he was um one of the architects of the modern uh watch renaissance hims you know him and uh you know people like Nicholas G. Hayek um and and Jean-Claude Beaver. Yeah. Um we know and a lot of people have forgotten Bloom Line. We're you know William and I are old enough to remember when uh he was a major, major force to be reckoned with. And the the interview, I recall, uh he actually talked about the Internet and how he felt it was the wave of the future. And the person who interviewed him said to him, Yeah, well, Mr. Bloomline, do you do you read do you read the forums? Do you read Time Zone? Do you read the purists.com? And he said, well, no. Uh you know, but my uh uh secretary uh tells me when there are interesting articles and she'll print out the webpage so I can read it. No, you're wrong. No. That'
Unknown s um that's Stern. Are you shot I'm a hundred percent sure it's Bloomline? I have a feeling it's Philip Stern
Unknown . Five five bucks says it's let's all right. We're gonna try to find the interview and we'll link it up with the answer in the show notes.
Unknown Uh I have a feeling it's Philip Stone and I interviewed him and he said that to me. Are you sure? I have a feeling, yes, but it's a long time ago, so listen, I my memory's not what it used to be either but five bucks says it's Bloomline. But the the Swiss study was a fade. And the same thing is a fade. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, the internet's gonna go it's gonna be gone in f
Unknown ive years. Watches will still be there. And the internet will be gone. Yeah, that's that I mean, Steven, that's the that's that's the relevant point. Like, you know, I mean that someone, whether it was Stern or or Bloomline, uh, you know, whether the the fact that someone very, very senior in the Swiss Swiss watch industry, even that long ago, you know, their way of interacting with the Internet was to have their secretary print out an article so they could read it is sort of hilarious. I'm not sure that
Unknown It's the same. They're not that different. Yeah. You know, it's it goes back to the quartz. It goes back to the fact that they did nothing for quartz. Right. And then it came back to them. Basically by doing nothing, mechanical came back, the boomerang and they're like, Well look we did nothing but we're still on top. And I think this th they think the same about the internet or anything else. Small watchers is like let's do nothing.
Unknown So William, just to you know you know, again, uh I mean Stephen and I both know you and I've known you for you know twenty twenty plus years. But if we back up a little bit, you know, for the uh for the folks who don't know, how did you get into watches? When did wh why why did watches become such a big part of your life? And how and I'm this is a big question, how did you become such a major, major, major figure uh in the sort of foundation of the watch in watch internet and uh and and become you know kind of a both respected and feared person on time zone in the early late 90s and early 2000s? I mean people were respected you, but they were scared of you
Unknown . So I was a banker, uh I was a collector already, and when I joined Time Zone in 1995, I was just a member like anybody else. Right. But I think to a point what distinguished me from others was the fact that I was willing to criticize what I was buying. I think a lot of people they in the early days they would go on the internet and see, oh look at my great on more Pigay Railog. I'm so happy I have it and this and it's so great and they will um basically uh you know make a huge contribution about a watch that they love and it will be very biased. And I will I was one of the first guys to come around and say I bought that AP and I hate it and this is why and and and and basically the fact that you own the watch and you will give a criticism of the watch was so unheard of that it really uh made me look as somebody that wasn't ice especially to the brand that was trying to demonize me saying this guy you know he's not a nice guy um and it wasn't that I wasn't a nice guy. I love watchers. You were also willing to say
Unknown and I'm paraphrasing, you know, probably ten years of things you've said to people on the internet. But you were also willing to say, you know, you're an idiot for thinking that
Unknown . It's a dis
Unknown it's a distinction which a lot of people are unlikely to appreciate. But I take it.
Unknown But I I I and actually I'm thinking I'm harsher on smart people than on idiots. Uh because it to a certain way, you know, you have to. Uh and and I think the the the me major issue I have on the internet, and I still have it to today is people are in love with brands. Whether you go on Instagram or on on on forums or on discussion groups, people are in love with brands. And I have a very hard time with this. I'm in love with watches and sometimes some brands don't do the right watch. So uh people take this as a personal insult when you tell them well that watch is not to the standard of that brand. And and I I I don't think I It's like you've told them that their daughter is ugly. No, it's not. It's more it's not. Jack, really bad
Unknown . No, I'm saying that's that's the that's the degree uh you you see the same degree of emotional commitment to brands as brands. It's if you test someb
Unknown ody is your daughter is not tall enough and not beautiful enough or not to the aesthetic standards of today to be a top model. And that person will tell you my daughter's gonna be the next top model. And you're like, I'm sorry, she's five two and you know, she's not exactly looking like what they're looking for today in magazines. And and that's basically you get to a point where somebody has to tell you the truth. And unfortunately on the internet it was me. I mean on on on Internet Forums, Watch Forms, it was me. I was the guy who would say, I'm sorry, but that's not the right watch. If you buy FP June you don't buy this watch. At least not as a first watch. And people take this very personal. They you insult their watch, you think then you're insulting the whole famil
Unknown y Well, I mean uh fine watchmaking at the level you're talking about, FB Journal Padakodmap Piget, these are you know three brands that you've mentioned. We haven't gotten into Omega Rolex yet. But you know, these are brands that require often a significant amount of financial sacrifice in order for people to acquire and that are objects of connoisseurship in a way that I'm not sure that people nowadays necessarily uh um appreciate, you know, people just coming in uh to, you know, the watch enthusiast I I don't know if people necessarily understand the extent to which there was partisanship and a high degree of very, very obsessive, detail-oriented connoisseurship about these things. And I don't know that it's the same today. It doesn't it doesn
Unknown 't feel as granular to me. I I think it's changing, but uh if you go on Instagram you can see that a lot of people are still doing it. And and the thing is you don't have the interaction because they can edit themselves out basically. But Instagram is killing this in a certain way that people just show the watchers and you criticize, they just swipe it out. But and it's fine. With this. Crazy hardcore fan of brands that don't really deserve it. And I'm really talking about brands, I'm not talking about watchers
Unknown . Yeah, I mean I I think that's that's something interesting is you see people who are, you know, not to name any names, but whose accounts are essentially m you know, modified versions of brand names and who are dedicated to collecting one sort of thing, and it it''ss very clear that like I I in most cases can't imagine what that brand could possibly do to shake that sort of allegiance. And you know, I think William I'm probably more like you in that, you know, I I l there are a handful of brands I I really like and who I I feel like I want to support, but for the most part, I'm more interested in in a a good product than a
Unknown brand that makes good products. Yeah. The um one of the most interesting remarks you've made just in this conversation is uh I like watches I don't like brands. I do. Which is not which is not I like watches I dislike brands, but it's you're you're you're loyal to good design and good technique and not to brands as such
Unknown . Correct. I like watches and I like watchmakers. I the brand is kind of in between and it's I
Unknown And the truth is every brand that you can any brand that you can name has done you know some stuff that is not great. Absolutely. You know, and it's and it should be okay to say that, but somehow it's not
Unknown . So So back in 95 when you were getting into this, what what were some of the brands that were hot? Like what was what was the community quote unquote like what was the community's taste like? Like what were people into? What was big in 95
Unknown . The biggest one was obviously and these are discussions, right? So it's Rolex versus Omega. Yeah. This has been going on for 25 years on the internet. It hasn't changed. We saw today with the news, you know, it's Rolex forus S Omega. Um the second thing was all about uh the tourbillons from Frank Muller. I mean they were very hot in nineteen ninety-five. The tourbillon impérial was a very important watch. They were selling high, you couldn't get a discount, it was like this big thing. And uh l
Unknown ess plus we forget Frank Mueller m you know developed a reputation because he was a brilliant watchmaker. He was. He's still a brilliant I'm sure he
Unknown 's still a brilliant watchmaker. But and he was at the time he was the thing. Then you had uh a little bit later you had so we're talking 95, like really 95, this is the discussion. Frank Müller, Volex versus Omega It's not very sophisticated. Um a few people are talking about the offshore. Okay. Uh and the reason is the size. Yeah. Uh there was starting to be discussion about the size of the watchers. The offshore. I remember I wrote something about the uh Portuguese the the anniversary Portuguese at the time. Size was important. Um Panorae was coming. W well they weren't out yet because they came a little bit later in any yeah. But this is this is this
Unknown is another interesting you know um inflection point this is actually pre-Rishmont gro
Unknown up it is um so ninety eight ninety seven ninety eight um pre-Rishmont in Italy you could buy those pre-Richemon uh um panorized so people will fly to Italy and get them and uh we'll talk about it on the internet they were like two thousand bucks. Um uh so there was a discussion. Then maybe starting in 98 there was a big push uh towards lange. Lenge became big, especially in the US because you had only one retailer and that was Shellini in the US. So everybody thought that language were great, but couldn't we have access to it if you live in the west coast or in in Texas or or anywhere else but New York you couldn't see a langue. So that was a big discussion on time zone. Um and then you start to have the um Roger Dubuis guys and Daniel Roth, especially with the Asian crisis of '98. Yeah, yeah. And
Unknown um Roger Dubuis was Mr. Roger Dubuis, the master uh of uh you know clock and vintage watch restoration who had decided to hang out his own shingle with some financing and uh produce his own movements, and uh they made a huge, huge splash. I mean it was all people could talk about, you know, on a certain on
Unknown a certain level. Beautiful, beautiful slash. And Time Zone had really two uh three main people that were really pushing the time zone thing and that was Richard Page, who owned it and uh pushed maybe his brands, but also push the discussion to bring more people in because he was thinking about at least selling time zone or monetizing time zone already, and then you had uh Walt Audits who was uh who is uh an amazing polymath and uh a self-taught uh watchmak
Unknown er. And so let's talk about uh let's talk about Walt for a second. He's the guy who Walt Odet's son of Clifford Odets, the famous Broadway playwright, uh and inherited his father's uh uh way with words to say the least. This is the guy who essentially invented the uh internet technical watch review. And he did it on time zone. Um I still refer back to his articles to this day. Um and he was a this this was a guy who when he wanted a platinum see-through case back for one of his Blanc Pan watches, just went down to his basement and turned one on his lathe. And, you know, then posted a story about it saying that he was never going to work with platinum again because it was a goddamn nightmare. But, you know, like nobody's today nobody's doing that, you know, and he was he he was capable of taking apart uh an IWC Mark twelve, uh swapping in a higher quality JL C movement, uh regulating it and writing a five part story about it that uh, you know, w reads like a uh a cliffhanger detective novel. Really, really phenomenal stuff. And what I want to ask you about specifically is do you remember the uh the storm that erupted The Explorer One. When he tore down an explorer. So what
Unknown uh this was in the uh summer of 98. Walt did a review of the Explorer 1, the Rolex Explorer 1, the modern version, obviously, and he wrote a very critical review of the World One. It wasn't complimentary. No, it wasn't. It was very well written and it had he had very good points. And I think that's when Volex realized that something was going on with the internet. And that created a storm in a small scale, but everybody talked about it for months. I think Rolex got involved at one point. I wasn't part of management exactly. I was kind of around the circle, but I wasn't really in the center. of it So I'm not exactly sure what happened, but um they invited Walt who didn't want to go to uh Geneva who uh Walt lives in uh San Francisco or at least Dan lived in San Francisco and he didn't want get to too much involved with them and but he created a big big story because uh nobody liked the fact that the Explorer One wasn't up to the standard of a thirty five hundred dollar watch. I mean this was also
Unknown the first time uh um that I can remember and I remember when that story came out and y you know, I mean I read it with my with my mouth open like everybody else. This was really the first time that somebody had taken apart a Rolex and uh you know looked, at the movement and said,, o fromkay an engineering standpoint, from a watchmaking standpoint, from a craft standpoint, this is what I think is good, what I think is bad. And the only you know, the the most sort of trenchant criticisms that I've read of that piece in retrospect say, well, you know, Walt came from he loved the high high end. You know, he loved Paddock, um he was a big advocate of Chopard when they first came out with LUC, um and he was bringing expectations to what's essentially a tool watch that were not necessarily appropriate to that watch, to that movement. Um and he did actually say at the end of the review, you put it on a timing machine and it shows, you know, almost zero beat error, great freak you know, great stability, um performed well. But uh you know you open up the back and you don't see what you expect to see if you're a guy who's into paddock uh you know, Vachon uh high finishing. Yeah, yeah. So do you do you feel that was uh to some extent a uh in retros
Unknown pect a relevant perspective? I I think it kind of showed uh what bias towards the the langue, you know, at the time he was big time a langay guy, he really loved his eighteen fifteen and I think he looked at it and he was like, Oh this is not up to the standards, but that was a three thousand dollar watch, an extremely reliable watch. It wasn't uh it was a great review, but in certain way he kind of showed uh Walt bias towards the you know uh finishing rather than the uh engineering. Ye
Unknown ah so you you said that that that was kind of a moment where you think maybe Rolex realized that something was going on with the internet. When do you think the industry kind of at large maybe started to notice that the internet was was something they needed to pay attention to? Um much later
Unknown . Very much later. I when not yet. Yeah. When when I saw how they were um opening their arms to bloggers. Uh I I I I really thought I would get arrested at Basel. Like I really thought that at one point somebody would come and say you're a food, you're not allowed to be in the Basel booth here, you're under arrest and you're going with the Swiss police somewhere. Um and I really believe the Swiss starting to believe it when there were bloggers and they're like, okay, we have to control this thing. And I think it's more a con question of containment than a question of embracing. Yeah. I don't think that we're very much into it any
Unknown way and I don't think they're still into it. Well that's also I'm also curious about your particular experience because you you went to school in Switzerland, you in in some ways grew up in Switzerland, right? So you were kind of around this your your whole life. What was it like to finally then be at Basel World and kind of feel like maybe an an insider in this world?
Unknown Um I well I went to Basel. So I started going to Basel. I went to Basel once when I was a child. Okay. I mean fourteen years old and you know I used my uh school ID to go in and I say I was doing a project for school. And what year was this when? Uh I think eighty-four or eighty-five. Okay. And then I've been continuously going to Basel since ninety-five. Okay. Uh and um in nineteen eighty five it was uh basically a table like this and you know, you have two chairs and uh a display, a little display case and something like you have in the Wendinke office. No uh no marble fountain. No, no, no. It wasn't neon sides. And it would be AP and you have Jean-Claude Bivert behind it and you know he will show you his watch and you be ordering them. Okay. But when I went in 95, I really felt like an outsider. It was much different than today. Press was not really what I always felt really like an outsider until 2005, like 15 years ago, let's say, when they started really making press appointments and we were really considered especially the internet. Um I think people like Joe Thompson had access because they were representing the industry, uh they were with jewelry um uh magazines, so they were more they had more access than us who was just pure watch guy from the internet. Uh the anti-corrump bought time zone in 2006, and that helped us. When anti-corrent bought a time zone, he helped us get access because all of a sudden we're owned by an auction house and the biggest one in the world at the time and that gave us access. Biggest biggest one in the world, biggest watch specialist. Yeah. I mean at the time time zone in 2005, 2006 it was a peak of anti-com and anti-com both time zone were there when uh the Japanese had bought Anticom, a Japanese uh company at both Anticom and then Antikom had bought time zone. Um that's when you know things became a little bit easier for us in terms of access
Unknown . And now I' lookll at this week's sponsor. I'm here with Zenith CEO Julian Tornare. Julian, how is Zenith celebrating the 50th anniversary of the El Primer
Unknown o? Usually brands they celebrate their own anniversary or they celebrate a watch, a model anniversary, we celebrate a movement. El Primero has become such a legend, such an iconic movement that we had to do something big. I'm actually in New York right now, part of the world tour. We are celebrating the anniversary in 15 different cities and we talk about uh of course the El Primero but we also talk about Charles Vermeau, the guy who saved Diel Primero in 1974 and uh who took uh an amazing uh place in the history of the brand.
Unknown Yeah, that's a great story. We actually talked about it in a previous episode. But I'm wondering what makes the El Primero such an icon with collectors today
Unknown ? Sure, I mean um El Primero in 69 was a huge uh revolution and and and nobody believed it could be possible. They made such a statement and today it's still probably the most famous movement in the watch industry. We are not the most famous brand. We don't have the most famous model but we have the most famous movement and this is something which is a great asset for the brand and we need to build from that. Which makes me wonder, what are we gonna see next? I believe Zenit is the perfect mix between having a long history, 154 years, authentic, because 100% of the watches you can buy at Zenith, they have a Zenit movement. But it doesn't mean we should repeat the past. We should create the future. So yes, we will come with a 1000th of a second chronograph based on the El Primero, but El Primero is everywhere. El Primero is in our pilot watch, El Primero is in the DeFi line with the new El Primero 21 and we will continue to develop new ideas, creativity, but we will stay in line with who we are. Well, thank you so much for joining us Julian. It's great to have you here. Thank you. Thank you for welcoming me here. It's always a pleasure to be this beautiful city of New York and to spend time with you guys. For more, visit zenith-watches.
Unknown com All right, let's get back to the sho
Unknown w during that period roughly ninety-nine to two thousand four-two thousand five I, was a moderator on uh um the purist. So what did what what did you guys at times on think of us? Did you think we were a bunch of, you know defeat snobs? Uh no. I
Unknown uh you know there's a whole backstory behind the purist and how the purist was born. I don't want to get into that today because it would take another two hour show. But there was a schism. There was, there was a schism. That's the word to say. Um and uh to a certain point it looked like the purest were the high-end guys and uh the money guys and time zone was the uh Omega Rolex crowd. And I was kind of proud uh to be on the Rolex Omega crowd, especially the Patek Forum was very strong at the time. Yeah, yeah. And I was a moderator of the Patek Forum. Um I I I I l uh I first I I I think I always looked at the purest is the more the merrier. It is competition is good for everybody. I don't think that was really true for the purists, but uh uh I I I looked at it as okay, it's great. Uh we are having competition and it's good. Uh at least there are more people and a lot of my friends were on the purist. And yeah, and a lot of mine were on time zone. I was I I mean I was active on time zone. But it was it was pretty rare to have somebody that was on both time zone and the purist. You had to choose your battles
Unknown . I remember um uh my first experience uh with actually working on watches myself was thanks to the Time Zone Watch School, which Walters wrote the con uh content for and took a lot of the pictures for. Yes. Uh w we redid it like
Unknown maybe fifteen years ago. Yeah, ten years ago. But uh recently. Yes, yeah, recently. Um somebody told me uh recently that Time Zone looks like CompuServe nineteen ninety five and I kind of agree with that. Uh but you know what I so
Unknown so I I took the Time Zone Watch School version one point oh with Walt's pictures and content and the movement the s the uh the the movement was uh a Fontaine F M ninety seven which you've you know has has long since been out of uh Yeah we use ETA now. Yeah. Yeah
Unknown . Well you can get those. I think it's the 6547 we use. Yeah. Um so the w the timeline watch school still has um about 15 to 20 people on um per semester. We do fairly well with this. It's $50. Uh and you can take a class and now there's six different levels. It's not it's not the same as they say HSNY, but if you're if you live in the middle of nowhere America and you want to learn about uh watchmaking, it's I mean for me, you know, I
Unknown was in graduate school when I did the time zone uh watch school, and you know, I didn't have a pot to piss in. So there was no way that I could participate in the discourse about, you know, what it's like to have your own Rolex, your own paddock. I mean let um your own Omega. But I could spend fifty dollars and I and you know, I would get by parcel post, uh watch tools and a by gosh, genuine Swiss movement uh you know to work on and um you know oils and lubricants and the whole nine yards. And you know for less than a hundred bucks you could have an experience that it would have been p impossible to have even five years ago. You could really you could take apart a movement um and put it back together and you would never look at watches again the same way after doing that even once. And it was it was phenomenal. And it was part of the democratization, I think, of uh in a good way uh of uh connoisseurship about watches because okay, like you don't have two thousand dollars, three thousand dollars, four thousand dollars to spend on a watch, but if you've got fifty bucks, you can really learn something about watchmaking and you can be part of this community, you know
Unknown And it still exists and we're still having a few people take the class every year. Oh every semester. And we have six different levels now. Six. Yeah. Are you up to minute repeaters yet? I I think it stops at chronograph. Maybe. I don't even know. I took only class one or one, I have to admit. Yeah. Well we you know we we had um we did a CD of different mini repeaters. So we created a CD where we had recorded time zone. Uh created a CD where they recorded a few mini repeat And we had it like you could listen for forty five minutes of different mini repeaters. For forty five minutes? Yeah. So basically.
Unknown Jeez. We gotta find that somewhere. Yeah. If somebody has it. If somebody has that, let us know. Uh that's wild. That's like peak watch nerd. Yes. Uh one of the things you said is is that the divide between time zone and purists kind of was the divide between the the sort of like classic tool watch crowd and the the high-end crowd. But that's one of the things I've always found interesting about your collecting personally is that you do kind of bridge that gap. You know, on one side, I know you have a a pretty serious collection of, you know, vintage Rolex, uh vintage military watches, but on the other side you're collecting Jorn and Debitune and uh Moser and those kinds of folks. What what is it about those sort of two categories that you find appealing. What what things that they share and what things that make them different?
Unknown Oh I like them all. I have clocks, I have a pocket watches, I have I have everything. I I love I love watchers. I really do. Um there there's a movie, a true four movie, The Man Who Love Woman. I don't know if you know and it's about this guy who just love women. You know it's doesn't matter the redhead, blonde, brunette, and it's life at the 6 p.m. is to be with women. My life after six PM is to be with watches. And I like them in all shape and colours
Unknown . interested in and bought at auction is uh it was a couple of years ago now I think um there was a uh timing device uh that had been made uh for the Swiss police uh that was designed to start and stop surveillance tapes for wiretapping. I did not buy it. You didn't who was the maker? Uh Patek? Yeah. Yeah. Uh and this is the kind of stuff I like. Patek Philippe surveillance tape timer. Yeah. That's pr
Unknown etty awesome. I'm kinda into that. For for uh Swiss spies. I'm pretty into that. I really want to buy it. But I made a mistake. You actually ask you asked me not to not to write about it. Yes. But I made a mistake I mentioned it on uh Instagram. Ah before he came out and and I didn't I I I I I bit it on it. Uh it was an anticom. Yeah. And I I didn't get it and I it went to a Chinese uh client, uh I know that, uh, for crazy money. Crazy money I'm twenty thousand dollars. And that was way above what I would pay for such a device.
Unknown I mean uh but can you imagine what that would go for in today's climate? I mean a a a surveillance device maybe Yes. I think I think some
Unknown people in this country would love to use it. But yeah, I I I this is a violated Philippe, hu?h Yeah, so I I like I like I like a bit of everything. I have uh um I have uh Seiko uh timers from the Olympics of sixty-four, I have uh GLC Atmos, I have poker watches from Breguet. Uh i I like them all. I I i i it's kind of sad but in certain ways I it it proves what I said before. I I I like watches, I don't like brands.
Unknown I have a question for you, uh, William. Um having uh seen you active on the forums on time zone for many years, what's the what's the harshest thing you remember ever saying to someone about a watching um this I have no
Unknown idea I'm sure somebody will I ask this just out of morbid curiosity will send me an email and say you once say this about my watch. That is nothing. on a watch. Um but usually I'm harsh on a watch that I have owned. That is one very important thing. I'm rarely criticizing things I've never owned because I don't know the piece at the end of the day. I I'm harsh on things I have owned. Uh if I have something and sometimes I'm harsh on something I still own. So I'm kind of you know, it's I'm kind of like saying bad things about my own kids. Um it's uh I'm it that's the way I I I I wrote don't like to critici
Unknown ze stuff that I've never owned. Have you ever found yourself um I mean in in the decades and decades that you've been around watches and watch collecting, is is i are are there pieces that you've experienced where your feelings about them haven't changed
Unknown There are things I'm buying today that I about twenty-five years ago that I'm still buying. I I I think the Omega Speedmaster is a classic example of something that I I mean I've been collecting for nearly 30 years and I'm still buying today. I mean it's kind of s it's it sounds silly but I'm still buying Omega Speedmasters. I'm still buying Rolex. I not as much as I did before because they're way too expensive today, but uh if something I really like and I really want, I will buy it. Um I I'm more a tool i at the end of the day I'm much more of a tool guy tool watches guys than um a high-end finishing guy. I start to like more modern than vintage also because I think vintage is kind of overpriced. But at the end of the day I'm a $3,000 kind of guy.
Unknown So with that in mind, what what do you think is a watch that's under $3,000? A vintage watch under $3,000? Or actually you know what? Let's say it can be a modern watch too. What's a watch under $3,000 that you think maybe people are sleeping on? Something they should take a look at? I I
Unknown modern or modern, you see. Either either way. For some reason, I recommend to everybody the 39mm no date for Alex. It's a 5,0$00 watch. You know the one in all the colors? Yeah, the Oyster Perpetual. The Oyster Perpetual. It's almost almost six, I believe. Almost six. But you get six thousand dollar worth of watches hands down. I mean it's it's a no brainer. Uh at at this price range I think it's a no brainer. It's a watch that can go with anything, you can choose it in so many different colors, whatever, you know, you want it in uh weird color grape wine, get it in that color. You want a blue getting blue, you want gray getting grey, white grape. They have a grape. It's It's that's what's wrong with the world. There are not enough grape dial roller out there. Um I to me it's the best six thousand dollars you can buy it's like talking about investment I think that's an investment I I hate that word I hate to use that word with watches but I think that putting six thousand dollars towards a watch like this that you know you're gonna enjoy every day that can you wear with a suit with jeans whatever, that's a watch to buy for one watch guy. Why do you hate to use the word investment with watches? Because watches are not investments. Because I'm a banker, because I because I know what an actual investment is. Because they don't give you dividends, because uh because they're the whim of fashion and Instagram, uh because watches are not investments. Because we've been lucky in the last twenty years that they've been going up in price, but it doesn't mean that the next 20 years they will. I have a very hard time with this. Actually kind of my fight now is to fight that conception that uh I think everybody's trying to push, especially brands and dealers that watches are an investment. They're not an investment. Watches are something that you can enjoy, that you should wear, that may go up in value, but that's kind of the bonus. Uh but it's not an investment. It's not a house maybe an investment. Uh bondss are investment, stocks are investments, but not watch
Unknown ers. William, when you and I were first active on the watch internet back in the nineties, a paddock Philippe Calatrava was a five, maybe six thousand dollar watch. It's now a twenty-two thousand dollar watch, and I'm pretty sure it's the same watch
Unknown . Retail. I mean Retail. Uh put it this way. The thirty nine nineteen, which is uh the Clou de Paris Obnel Basel. Yeah, yeah. Uh you know, your average yellow gold. Yellow gold. Uh so that's a thirty three millimeter watch uh with a two hundred fifteen movement inside, you know, the manual wine. We we reviewed that on the purists in white gold a million years ago. Yeah, I I'm sure you I mean this is like the classic nineteen ninety one watch that you would buy from Patek Philippe that did advertising on this. So this is a 30-year-old watch. Holy smokes. I'm sorry, I just
Unknown I just r remembered that was one of the first watch reviews I ever wrote. Um I wonder if it's still online. Uh you
Unknown well you should put a link on it. Um so that watch uh in nineteen ninety one was I can tell you the price, it was around eight grand.. Right Retail in a store. So you buy this eight grand today. I'm sure you can sell it ten, maybe ten thousand dollars, because it's thirty-three millimeter. And it has a hope-nail bezel and it has a two fifteen movement. Uh Patek if you're listening to this change the two fifteen movement. Uh it's a shame. Um but uh ten thousand dollars, eight thousand dollars, thirty years, is that an investment? No No.. That's uh a watch that basically has reduced in value about forty percent. Um but saying oh look the tech of today if you buy it it's twenty two thousand dollars or twenty-five well first of all, it's a different watch, it has a different color, it has a different dial, he has a different movement, most likely has a three fifteen or three twenty-four. Uh you cannot compare, you're comparing apple and oranges. What do you got against the movement? The two fifteen? Yeah. It's tiny a little thing. I mean when you're Patek Philippe, you should have a high-hand grade chronometer movement manual wind. Simple three hands. The 215 is um despicable for Bernag Patek. I think that uh today when you look at Lange, when you look at Lange, when you look at a small company like Laurent Ferrier and your Patek Philippe, you're like, we're coming with a two fifteen? It's like we're ridiculous. Bringing a knife to uh a gunfight. Yeah. It's uh it's a small movement
Unknown . Twenty I think what, twenty four millimeter? Uh r I'm r remembering
Unknown uh ten ten lines thereabouts. There there's a reason why the fifty-one ninety-six has uh uh a solid back and not an open back, and that's the fact that the movement is so ridiculously small. Interesting. I like the 3919 though. I I do too. I I
Unknown you know as a watch, taken as a whole. I I do too. I I it's good the the design itself is great for the movement. Uh Kara wears one every once in a while. Her uh her dad had one has one and uh which she's basically stolen
Unknown . Yeah, basically. Nice move, C B. Uh yeah, I think with Jack one of the things Jack was getting at is price increases, right? I I assume Jack. Is that am I right there
Unknown ? I mean y you know, th one of my sort of standard riffs in um I mean the good old days were neither good nor old, but uh you know the i i I mean, uh a family physician in the United States makes r uh average salary around $150,000 a year, and you know, uh at that salary if a really nice watch from Switzerland is four thousand I mean high end, Vascheron paddock, Audmachpigue, um and what have you, you know, it's the it's it's you can you can save up a little bit and you can buy your you know, you can buy your one nice watch and you uh don't feel like an idiot for having sacrificed a little bit to get it and you know you're gonna wear it for the rest of your life. Um but when it's a twenty thousand dollar watch uh, that means that uh it means giving up things that you really don't feel like you can give up. Um starting a family, buying a house, maybe getting a second car, maybe starting to save for your kids you know college education. It becomes becomes more problematic. And you know, William, I just I just feel like there were so many of us around in the late nineties and early two thousands. It didn't seem unachievable. You know, uh if you were if you were just uh you know doing okay as a lawyer, doing okay as an engineer, doing okay as an architect, doing okay as a family physician, you know, not making, you know, a million plus a year doing complicated neurovascular surgery. You you know, you you were you were part of this. You could be part of this world and y almost without anyone noticing that entire demographic has gone away. They've been priced out of the g
Unknown ame. Which is a Milgaus. Milgauss had two reference 6541 and 6543. The rare reference is 6543. We saw the Milgauss 6543 turned tropical with box and papers and uh that watch came from Mexico and it was owned by a Mexican TV repairman who bought it in the 50s on a layaway plan for two years. Now this guy bought the watch and every and every week, every month, and he kept all the receipt. He bought it on layerway, he kept all the receipt for two years and he bought the watch. And he worried from uh the late 50s to uh the early 2000s I guess and he passed away and his daughter uh his daughter gave us the watch Atlanticum and we sold it uh and that was maybe ten years ago and we sold it for maybe a hundred thousand dollars. Um and that basically paid for the education of his grandkids. Today you cannot do this. Today a TV, well I don't know if this still exists, but somebody who repairs TVs, I don't think can afford a milgauss, which is a a seventy five hundred dollar watch. That would be years of saving. Uh and and that's that's a major problem. The the major problem is there were tool watches and today they're no longer tool watches, they are luxury watches. Only a $120 month with a firm
Unknown . Do you do you think that's you know, there's lots of talk about the problems that the watch industry faces from things like you know smartwatches and iPhones and whatever, but do you think that it's also a problem that there are fewer and fewer sort of like quote unquote entry-level products to get new customers interested?
Unknown Yeah. It's a luxury product today. It there's you're trying to make a statement. I think a lot of people like vintage because vintage make less of a statement than than luxury modern watchers. Modern watchers you're making a a statement. I've become I belong to this tribe, I'm a Rolex guy, I'm a uh I'm a Vachron guy. You belong to a tribe and your luxury product and it's you're making a statement. Uh I think that thirty years ago that wasn't the case. Thirty years ago you bought a milgauss because you worked around TVs and you want to make sure that your watch was gonna be able to withstand uh uh magnets, I guess. Um that it's very different. Today you want a tool watch, you buy an apple watch. Ye
Unknown ah. You know, what uh that that kinda gets uh one of the questions I wanted to ask you, which is, you know, when you did your talking watches episode a couple of years ago, you talked about you love the beta twenty one. And one of the reasons you gave for loving the beta 21 is that it represents this kind of particular I guess maybe balance in in the watch industry that when the watch industry comes under threat or under fire or uh has a period of crisis, it's the things that come immediately after that that are the best and the most interesting. Do you think that the watch industry today is producing at its best or do you think that's yet to come or do you think it's maybe past?
Unknown I think the watch industry is producing interesting things, yeah. Uh uh interestingly enough, I don't think it's the Swiss watch industry. I think it's uh people outside of Switzerland are doing it. I think the Seikos, I think the Nomos. Um and I I think maybe some of the independents are doing things that are very interesting. But I think the major guys, the big groups are not. Don't have respawning. And everybody else around them are. But I don't see really the Swatch group or Richmond or Patek to a certain extent to answer that big challenge is coming forward. But I see smaller companies and I think the trend will continue because technology is allowing this. The smaller guys' voice is being heard now and they will be able to survive because of this. Um but the industry itself is not. In Switzerland is not the big guys are
Unknown not. Interesting. I mean people who listen to this show regularly will know this is one of my favorite topics to talk about, and at some point I'll get around, I guess, to writing that big award-winning story about it, maybe one of these days. Yeah. But uh I had a conversation with someone maybe maybe two years ago now, somebody in the industry who I won't name, uh and we were talking about the trend toward toward vintage inspired modern watches. And his his fear was that if all you're doing is recreating old things, where do the new ideas come from? And what happens when that trend toward loving things that look old goes away? Because when when you can no longer design by just looking back at your archive, you will have trained a whole generation of watch designers to not be creative and to not think for themselves. And a whole generation of consum
Unknown ers not to look for creativity. Yeah, and I wonder what you think. I would make it even uh more challenging to you is I I I think uh that um they're doing this trend, but they're not doing it right. I think that's the interesting thing is they're doing this um uh revival watchers or whatever they call it, um uh new old uh you know design, uh but they're not doing them right. It's like there's always something that's wrong with them. You're looking at those things and they're out of date or there's they're off in in certain ways. It's kind I found it the lazy way of doing it. Um but I agree. I and I'm the first one with uh Messenna Lab I did a watch that is very 1940s in certain ways I kind of copied a 1940s design uh but I I it's very hard you are you are Max Busser and you do stuff that is out of your imagination and you don't care what people think or you end up doing things that has already exist for the last 40 years. But I think the the key thing is do it right. Do like make a vintage looking watch, make a movement that fits that vintage looking watch. Don't make, you know, don't put a small movement in there or make it without a date because it was supposed to be without a date
Unknown . Watch um watch designers seem to struggle to stop themselves from adding that one more thing that the watch doesn't need and that nobody asked for. I mean everybody's favorite whipping boy for uh you know for that is uh is the date window obviously but they're it's
Unknown right those two thingss like I don add' a day window or add a GMT hands. And you're like, neither of those are really needed here.
Unknown Yeah. Well you you mentioned Minna Lab and we're we're gonna have to wrap in just a few minutes, but I want to make sure we talk about that. Can you can you tell people what Massena Lab is? Um
Unknown so Massena Lab is it's kind of me being a uh think of me as a music producer with watchers. I do things independently like a Mark Rosson basically. I go to brands and I say hey what if we did this together uh do you do you like this idea and uh that that that's the original thing the the lab is basically collaboration uh laboratory label whatever you want to name it um but the idea is I don't want it's not really a brand it's more me doing things that I like and making watch that I like uh so I I was kind of uh surprised by the success of the first one. I thought it takes me three or four months or five months to sell all fifty watches and we sold them really quick. Uh but I I'm trying to do a uh a watch once a year maybe and and do things that I like uh with brands that I like. Yeah. Or people I like. I guess and the first watch was was with Havering, right? Yes. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Richard is a great guy. I mean if if people follow Richard he worked with Lange, he's uh most of the stuff that came from the uh the good stuff that came from IWC is Richard. He was he was the architect of the IWC doppelkerno. And the uh and the uh um uh deep one. And and the deep one. The deep one was his too. Richard is a great guy and I really want to work with him and he was Richard and Mario are great people to work with. And that was great. And I and I can see that now working with other people that I was blessed with my first um with my first project. Yeah. Yeah, we covered it on the site. We'll make sure to uh to link that
Unknown up. You know, uh talking to you, William, it bring it's brought back a lot of memories and in if in no particular order and for no particular reason there are a couple that uh Stephen, I hope we have time for me to uh you know just share a couple of these. Yeah, we got we got a couple minutes and then we'll we'll do our questionnaire and wrap things up. We got five minutes. One of them is I remember my very first uh watch dinner. Uh it was in New York in two thousand when Udis Nodin launched the Freak and Rolf Schneider, who, like so many other architects of the new watch, uh the watch renaissance, you know, a lot of people have forgotten, uh Mr. Rolf Schneider, uh, who bought Udisnow Dan when there were two employees left, came to New York to launch the freak and uh he brought with him the jungle minute repeater, um Genghis Khan. The Genghis Khan. Uh and you know, I mean we were uh uh awed and amazed to see these things. And you know, and I was in graduate school, um but again this speak the like the good thing about the Watch Internet is that it's it's democratic. Um and I was invited to this dinner um by Dr. Thomas Mao uh you know, just because he knew that I'd be into it, which was sort of an amazing thing. And I I like to think that uh you know on a certain level, one of the enduring benefits of the watch internet is that it actually has made it possible for people who can't necessarily afford the price of entry as an owner just yet to um to be part of this community. You know, which is pretty terrific. Ye
Unknown ah. So we're gonna have to start wrapping things up. Sure. Uh we had probably I don't know, twenty five other things I wanted to cover here, but I have a funny feeling we're gonna have you back on the show. So we'll uh we'll make sure to cover those next time. We only got to about two thousand six. Yeah, that's true. We did actually. Um but we're gonna do our our hodinky questionnaire. Questions we ask everybody. Uh and then we'll finish with cultural recommendations and uh get you get you out of here. Um so to kick things off, uh what's a watch that's caught your eye recently
Unknown ? A watch that caught my eye recently. Um you mean that basil or SIHH? Yeah, just something you saw that uh that caught your eye. Um think of one was that I guess that tells us more than uh you picking one. It's kind of sad, but there's you know, usually I go out of a show, uh SHH or a Basel, and like I'm gonna buy this. Yeah. And uh this year was the first
Unknown year where I I haven't. That's hilarious I'm gonna bribe somebody to make that your epitaph. I cannot think of one watch that I like
Unknown . Uh i I I mean I'm buying watches, but it's not things um that just came out. Okay. Oh yeah
Unknown . Question number two. Uh what's the best place you've traveled in the last year? In the last year? Um
Unknown uh Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires, good answer. I loved it. It's um if you've been because I I haven't no. So Buenos Aires is kind of like Paris meets Barcelona, meets Milan. That's great. It has that yeah, he has that it has a lot of European vibe. Um and I liked it. I was there a few days with my wife and we loved it. Uh people were nice, food was good, there's a lot of sightseeing, it was nice. Not a lot of nice museum but a lot of sightseeing. Great. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given and who gave it to you? Um best piece of advice. I I there's a code that I use usually is uh Bertolt Brecht, you know, the German playwright. Yeah. And it's I think in a letter to a friend, he rewrote that um a man without a passport is a dog. Yeah. And I and I believe this. Uh every time I cross a border, I think of that quote. I love that. I a man without a passport is a dog and whether you you're stateless and it's condition, you know, it's a human condition that you don't have a passport or that you are a wealthy guy who has never left your country. I think both guys are dogs in certain ways and uh I remind myself how lucky I am not to be one. Perfect. And then uh the last thing what's your guilty pleasure? Food. Uh anybody who has met
Unknown basic food. I
Unknown love food. I'm uh yeah food. Yes.
Unknown So um so what's one restaurant everybody should go try
Unknown ? I went to Le Cuckoo. Yeah. Have you been? Yeah. It's right near the office. Yes, it's it's great restaurant. It's amazing. I I love Le Cucou in New York. Uh I'm looking forward trying um Chai Crown Shy or Chai Crown who had a great review on um on the New York Times uh last week. Uh but yes, restaurants food is uh that what what will kill me most most probably, yes. Best pizza in Geneva? Uh da Paolo. Good card. You heard it here, folks. There we go. Uh don't go. Because But Da Paolo is some place I've been going since I'm ten years old. Uh since born in school. Yeah, Da Paolo. Nice.. Yeah
Unknown Cool. So final thing, cultural recommendations. What is something you recommend people go check out when they're done with the show? So
Unknown I I knew you were gonna ask that one actually, uh because I listened to the book. That's perfect. I love that. I listen to your podcast, so I can prepare with that one. And it's a place I've been last month. It's the Mocha in LA, the Museum of Contemporary Art. Yeah. And I really enjoyed it. Uh they have worth a room with like six Worthko. Yeah. Uh which was great. Uh and they then I went to the Geffen side, which I thought was uh very interesting. So I will it lives kind of uh on the shadow of the broad, but I kind of enjoy the Mocha more than uh than the Broad.
Unknown We're gonna have to do an entire Rothko cast. Just you and me and we can just sit and talk about Rothko stuff. Oh, I would love that. Perfect. Yeah. Jack, what's your uh what's your cultural recommendation this week?
Unknown Uh so it's a book. Um I've uh heard the name of A.J. Liebling, you know, for years and years and years and I've read like I think like a lot of us have uh you know snippets of uh a lot of the stuff that he's written. Uh very famous columnist for the New Yorker, and he covered a lot of things. He covered he covered the war, World War II. Uh he was a very famous uh food writer, um, someone who's appreciation for the finer things in life I think you William would would would really connect with. But he was also very famous as a boxing writer, and I've never been particularly a boxing fan, but uh he wrote a book towards the end of his life called The Sweet Science, which was about um was about boxing and about boxers and about how the boxing community was changed by the appearance of television, uh which he felt did not improve things in the boxing world because it basically killed boxing clubs and it killed the experience of seeing boxing in person. Uh took away the sort of tribal aspect of it. And it was one of those books I think it's really healthy for a writer to read every once in a while because even though it's not something I'm personally all that interested in, the writing is so good and the storytelling is so good, it makes you step back a little bit and realize that what we do is really a craft. And uh that if you do it w really, really well, the craft becomes transparent to what you're writing about and it makes you see uh parts of the world in a way you didn't think they could be seen. And uh I just I can't recommend it highly enough. Um I think he's he's one of those people who within certain circles is remembered and appreciated, but I I I wish were more widely widely read. And what is that book called again? The sweet science. The sweet science. Yeah. Being punched in the face repeatedly. Uh not so sweet. But uh you know, the science aspect is nice. But it's an art form too.. It It
Unknown is is. Are you a boxing enthusiast with it? No, but I can recognize R when I see it. Yeah.
Unknown Cool. Well, I'm gonna recommend uh something that's not new but that I uh discovered recently, which is uh Rolling Stone magazine has a I I guess at this point you can call it tradition of doing lists. Uh some of which are ambitious to the point of being silly. Um, you know, ranking every song ever put out by the Beatles, for example. Um you know, numerically arguing why one is better than the next, um to the point of of it really becoming folly. But That's crazy. The list that tops all other lists for me from them is uh they put out a list of the 500 best songs ever. Uh and essentially it it's all 20th century and 21st century music. It's it's not classical music. It's essentially popular contemporary music. Um and it's insane. Do you remember which was at the bottom of the list and which one was at the top? Top is like a rolling stone. It is like a rolling stone, yes. Um and it's an incredible list. And it's you read it and you find yourself getting excited when you see songs that you love and frustrated when you see songs that you don't love, and wondering when that song that you think is monumental is going to appear, and when it doesn't, you want to, you know, throw your computer across the room. But it's it's incredible and it's a ridiculous project for them to have even taken on. And I found all kinds of music that I had at one point heard and in many cases at one point loved and just hadn't listened to in years. Uh and just my wife and I the other day were going through it and just putting things on the sonos, and it was an extremely fun activity. Uh, and I I recommend sit down with your phone in hand, and as you find songs you like, put them on as you keep reading the list and just sort of cycle through things. Uh and it's it's a fun way to sort of rediscover how rich and varied and interesting and fun the last, you know, let's say seventy five or eighty years of music can can be. Uh I really, really enjoyed it. They have all of them as a Spotify playlist, uh which we'll link up here, uh which is great. So you can actually if you want to listen to all five hundred songs or most of them. I think a handful aren't on Spotify. Um but yeah that's my recommendation this week
Unknown . Can I make a William Messina comment about this? I I I know the list. I like the list. Yeah. But it's so English oriented. It's like For sure. No, it's it's yeah. I mean uh think of Jacques Brel, Edith Piaf, just the French and then the Italians and the
Unknown Africans Yeah. I would say they say it's the five hundred greatest songs of all time. I would say it's the five hundred greatest songs in English written since nineteen twenty five. Wait, wait, guys, guys. How far down is Bohemian Rhapsody? I don't remember. It's not crazy far. It's top 100. Yeah, for sure. I don't remember what the bottom 500 is, but it's a famous song. I can't remember what number 500 is, but it is a famous song. I remember getting to 500 and and laughing. Um but it's great. Very English. I mean English language. English language, yeah. Yeah. All right. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. I really think this could have been like a four hour episode. So uh we'll do it again. Yeah 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, it really does make a difference for us. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next week.