Patrick Godfrey And Iconic Movie Watches¶
Published on Mon, 28 Oct 2019 10:00:27 +0000
Old sport watches, classic records, and Italian wines. What's not to like?
Synopsis¶
This episode of Hodinkee Radio features three distinct segments recorded across the United States. In the first segment, host Stephen Polveran and James Stacey discuss iconic movie and watch pairings from the 1960s and 70s, covering five legendary films: Dr. No (1962) with the Rolex Submariner 6538, Le Mans (1971) with the Heuer Monaco, Jaws (1975) with the Alsta Nautoscaph, Three Days of the Condor (1975) with the Doxa Shark Hunter, and Apocalypse Now (1979) featuring both a Rolex GMT-Master 1675 and Seiko 6105 diver. They explore how these watches became iconic through their film appearances and discuss the evolution of product placement in cinema.
The main interview features Patrick Godfrey, co-CEO of Godfrey Dadich Partners, a San Francisco-based marketing and storytelling firm. Godfrey discusses the evolution of advertising and brand storytelling, explaining how his company helps brands tell better stories through various media beyond traditional advertising. He shares insights about the firm's values-driven approach to client selection and their work with organizations like Nike, Lyft, and the Obama Foundation. The conversation also delves into Godfrey's personal interests, including his passion for vintage Rolex watches (particularly his "Sexual Chocolate" tropical 1680 Red Sub), vinyl records, high-end audio equipment, and Italian wines, revealing his collector's mentality and appreciation for quality craftsmanship.
The episode concludes with the "Roarjack Test," a playful free-association segment where Cara Barrett responds to random words with her immediate thoughts, revealing connections between watches, pop culture, and the watch collecting world. The lighthearted exercise touches on everything from Paul Newman Daytonas to Friday Live, offering listeners an unscripted glimpse into the mind of a watch enthusiast and industry insider.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| Unknown | I like the intentionality of listening to records. Yeah. It does require physical action. You do have to flip it. You do have to clean it. When you want to have the experience and you have your original 1966 pressing a blonde on blonde, you're gonna play blonde on blonde all the way through because that's the way you do it. It's it's just good taste. It's good it's good manners. I I love that. It's j it's just good taste. Like it's just what you do. It's just what you do. |
| Unknown | Hey everybody, I'm your host Stephen Polveran and this is Hodinki Radio. This week we've got three different segments recorded in three different cities across the United States. The main event is my conversation with Patrick Godfrey, who's one of the co-CEOs of Godfrey Dadic Partners. You may remember that name because in an early episode of Hodinky Radio, I spoke to Scott Dadic, his co-CEO. Patrick's a super smart guy and one of those people who find something and goes really deep. So we talk about vintage Rolex, we talk about Italian wines, and we even make a couple of record recommendations. It was a fun conversation, and I think we're probably gonna have to have him back on soon. On the back end of the show, we've got Cara and Jack doing something that we're calling the Roarjack test, sort of like a Rorschach test. Uh, instead of the ink blots, Jack is pulling sheets of paper out of a hat with words written on them, and Kara has to say the first thing that comes to mind. It's fun, it's goofy, give it a listen. But first, in Los Angeles, James and I thought it'd be a nice idea to sit down and talk about the movies. So we decided to take the iconic era of the 1960s and 70s and pick sort of five iconic movies with five iconic watch placements and talk about why we love the watches, why we love the movies, and why we think they're such great pairings. So without further ado, here we go. This week's episode is presented by Grand Seiko. Stay tuned later in the show for a look at one of the four watches from the new seasons collection, which is exclusive to the US. For more, visit GrandSako.com All right, where are we? LA baby. LA baby. We're sitting in a hotel room, uh, which is why there might be a slight echo, occasional noise in the hallway. Uh but we're sitting in an LA hotel room uh the day before an event we're doing with Brunilla Cuccinelli. Yep. Uh and we figured we're in L |
| Unknown | A. Time to record a movie pod? I guess so. Yeah I mean I'm at this point I'm kinda used to it. I recorded one for TGN just a couple days ago. Certainly by the time this goes up, that episode will be up. So that's like the third installment of our film club. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, you do this film club thing from time to time. Can you can you explain that? Yeah, it's just like one of these reoccurring topics that we picked up, but with the film club, he we we wanted to have a chance to talk movies occasionally, but like not at any not at any like intensely deep level, just to have a few minutes to talk about a movie we liked. So we we made this thing where you know your goal for the main topic of the episode is like thirty five to forty minutes probably of talking. Yeah. Thirty minutes, certainly. So then we just said, well, like if we each pick five movies and we each have say three to four minutes to talk about them. Yeah. Uh then we end up with you know ten movies and then every time we do a film club so we get ten new movies. And uh and yeah so it didn't work out quite that way because this latest episode's like an hour and fifty minutes long. Okay. Um but uh outside of outside of that, you know, we'll call it a sizable uh setback, the um the the concept is simple. It's just movies that we like. So which from the latest film club, what are some of your favorite movies? Um from the latest, I mean uh there's actually uh at least one that's on the list of uh movie watches that we're gonna talk about today. Yeah. Um and then for me like the you know the the really recent stuff from Denny Villeneuve, Sicario, Blade Runner 2049, these are all really great. And then uh one of my most favorite movies that I've seen i i in the recent history is just uh uh Alfred Hitchcock's Rope. So I mean that's nineteen forty eight. It's this incredible story. Yeah. I don't know. If you want to hear more about it, I just you know down download uh uh TGN ninety two, which is the uh film club volume three. |
| Unknown | For rope, people can download the last episode of Hodinky Radio, uh where we talked about it with Eric Ku. Oh, true enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We did. Yeah. Great movie. So the conceit for today is a little different. We're gonna we're gonna do something a little bit more structured. Um we figured we're in LA. We should do something movie related. Uh so we decided we kept coming back to these like iconic movies of the sixties and seventies, right? Like anytime we tried to figure out a topic, those seem to be the movies we kept coming back to |
| Unknown | . Yeah, absolutely. You know, whenever whenever like if you want to you were in Hollywood, we maybe want to talk about movies or use that as like an impetus to talk about movies. I mean, it's always nice to kind of consider the golden era, which is where we like established a lot of like the way movies look today, the way they sound today, the way that uh in you know product integration is done today is all just an evolution of what was established is defin definitely in the you know the era of color movies, you know, the sixties |
| Unknown | into the seventies. Right. And there's a funny thing where that time period happens to overlap with what we would consider like the golden era of the mechanical watch, right? Like in the same way that we keep coming back to these sort of like iconic movies and iconic movie franchises, it's the same way that like collectors keep coming back to the Speedmaster and to the Carrera and to the Submariner. You know, it's that era is is sort of a perfect bridge between the the two world |
| Unknown | s. Yeah, I mean that you know uh largely these are a lot of topics, you know, you could throw cars in there too that flourished war two. You had this kind of rapid development of of technology and engineering throughout the war that was then applied into other industries. So you had this explosion and growth with cars, with watches, with films, and then by the sixties they started to hit their stride and and the technical elements were so locked in that we started to see huge advancements in style and directorial sort of work and and camera work and things like that. And and then seventies, I mean, as we'll see with films, certainly with uh with watches, things just keep progressing towards uh, you know, uh further and further evolution and and more market appeal. Ye |
| Unknown | ah, right, exactly. So we decided we would look at that era um so 60s and 70s. And we wanted to try to, we thought a good place to start wouldn't be some obscure thing like the watches you'd never seen or, you know, kind of digging. Uh we thought it'd be nice to highlight what might be the five most iconic watch placements of of the sixties and seventies, if not the five five of the most Yeah, I'd say th these |
| Unknown | all deserve or uh at least the argument. Yeah that they that they should be on this list. It's a tough one because you start to apply like people's tastes in films. Totally. And then even in in the first the very first example we have, we actually have a huge change in context between when this watch was connected with that character and who that character is connected with now. Ye |
| Unknown | ah. So let's let's jump right into it then. I mean, that's a perfect perfect reason to go into it. Uh the first movie we wanted to talk about, we're gonna go in chronological order and and this is sort of like the Urwatch guy movie, right? Uh 1962. It's uh Dr. No |
| Unknown | , the very first James Bond movie. So and now we're seeing Bond 25. It's been this hugely successful, long-running campaign and and and you know series of films and and with that each one of them kind of had to evolve with the time around them, whether it's tone, which obviously has changed a lot since Dr. No. Yeah, it's just a little bit to aesthetics, to things like cars and watches and the way people dress and all of that has to kind of like bond always suits the time when that movie came out. It's there, you know they don't typically they don't shoot a bond in a period structure, which is a really fun idea. Keep a note of that. That sounds like fun. But um you know, outside of that, I mean, because they're not period pieces, the the watches and stuff change. But if you catch the right time, you end up with a really killer watch |
| Unknown | . Yeah. Right. And so the watch in that in that movie is the sixty five thirty eight Rolex submariner. You know, the the big crown, the James Bond sub now, you know, it's in many ways like the perfect watch and the perfect character uh to to go together like that. Um right off the bat. I mean that's that's coming in |
| Unknown | pretty hot. And it it would speak to Bond's history in various levels of the British uh military system and and certainly on his route to MI6. And I think, you know, it's it's on a NATO that he lights a lighter to be able to check the time and it's this like locked in. I've I've like we are seeing this watch. And it's like a obviously today we we we associate heavily bond with Omega very successfully, especially s you know, since the Piers Brosnan days. I would say it's uh maybe maybe they predated the watch into Timothy Dalton. I don't remember that that well. The Timothy Dalton ones are But you know, we we now obviously attribute a whole line or or look within the Seamaster as the Bond, uh officially or unofficially, certainly. And uh and then beyond that, that's a very official partnership between Omega and uh and uh and the James Bond franchise and and one that's long standing and certainly has sells a ton of watches for them. I mean, it would be up there with their connections to the Olympics and that sort of thing. And and you have to I don't know, I y you can never really quite tell what Rolex is thinking, but you gotta think every now and then when another Bond movie comes out, they must kick themselves a little bit that you know they were in no probably a very organic sort of appearance of the correct sort of watch that Bond would have been wearing. Yeah. Um and now applied to uh to an entirely different franchise and brand and and uh what what has proven to be a very flexible platform for kind of defining style and ruggedness and you know, Bond has this caddish quality to them that they're fading out, obviously, with with the times. But beyond that, they like it really is kind of an archetype of Western manliness. You know, we're we're post-cowboy now. We're even kind of post-like Terminator and and the the the kind of predator giant muscle sort of thing. And you're into James Bond just kind of returns as this mix of like a do-it-all dangerous guy that also wears nice suits and and drives nice cars. And it's uh it's a a powerful thing. And I and I think it's I think it's interesting where they started and where they are now. Yeah, I agreed. Um also |
| Unknown | just a good looking watch. Yeah, it's a hell of a watch. And and we were talking when we were were prepping for this. There there's sort of a a bit of misinformation that came from the appearance of this watch, right? So you mentioned the NATO on this watch. And it's first of all, it's it's eighteen millimeters and it should be twenty. So it it doesn't really fit the watch right. Uh it's kind of a distin |
| Unknown | ctive look, yeah. Yeah, right. And it's a little bit more like laissez faire, like if this was something you were given by your government or your employer. You might not be nerd level picking your strap. Right. And I belie |
| Unknown | ve the original the the MILSUBs, the Rolex MIL subs, were delivered on 18 millimeter straps |
| Unknown | . I mean they were certainly delivered on NATO's because they would have been uh uh welded spring bars. Right. Right. But I think |
| Unknown | they were delivered on on narrow uh NATO's but beyond the size of the NATO, for years people used to call a black NATO with gray stripes a, James Bond NATO, right? But it turns out that isn't actually the NATO he's wearing in the movie. He's wearing one that's black with red and green stripes, but those red and green stripes don't resolve enough. Yeah, there's not a ton of uh color left in the film. Yeah. Yeah. And so when people would watch old prints of this movie, it looked like it was just two gray stripes and it was actually this like very complex pattern of of green and red, and only with restoring the film did the sort of like watch scholarship cat |
| Unknown | ch up in the last couple of years. Yeah, it's cool. I mean, it's fun look, I think. And those royal military-style NATOs are are popular and you see people. And you'll still always see people wearing the black uh with the gray stripes, which is also a solid look. Still cool. Hard to go wrong. Really, it's hard to go wrong with any any sub on a on a NATO. It's just a it's a killer look. And it's it it does kind of speak to that like mix of you know, kind of overdeveloped ruggedness slash kind of classic and in some ways kind of a nonchalance to the to the whole idea that this is a luxury product. Yeah, exact |
| Unknown | ly. All right. So movie number two is Le Mans from nineteen seventy-two. Uh famously, that's where Steve |
| Unknown | McQueen wore the Monaco. Uh yeah. So this is this is where basically the Monaco made its uh its big debut into a wider audience. The watch had been around since nineteen sixty nine. It wasn't exactly their most popular model. You know, it was a it was meant to slot into where Jack Hoyer believed there was a hole in their product lineup between the Ottavias and the Carreras. Mm and then they wanted something kind of super distinctive, didn't really look like other stuff, but still sporty. And I think they actually hit the mark on the Monaco with that. Even if the Monaco, in my opinion, doesn't wear as well as an Octavia or a Carrera. They are much more distinctive. And if someone gets out of a race car in a head-to-toe Hoyer blue, white, and red suit and has this blue watch on his wrist, all you need is a little bit of star power behind that, and a bunch of people are going to start to notice that watch. Luckily they had like the biggest star in the world at the time. Yeah, being about as cool as he could possibly be. Yeah. So Steve McQueen is a race car driver, you know, driving this incredible uh Porsche, and it is just a a really, really great um portrayal of a race car driver. I don't think the movie's very good. It's kind of weirdly paced. It's not that interesting |
| Unknown | . I don't think it's |
| Unknown | a very good movie. I I don don't't think there's a lot of like story merit to it. Yeah, agreed. I think that visual making fantastic uh the racing is great. The rest of the filmmaking is like okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's a period Yeah, it's fine. Yeah, it's Steve McQueen. I mean, like people love to go crazy about Bullet. Right. Bullet's not a great movie. It's real long, it's real slow. It has a decent car chase in it. We should probably get over all the the rest of it.. Right Watch um the French Connection, then talk to me about Car Chase. Agree. Yeah. But when we're looking at um at this movie, you know, at Le Mans, the the other thing that I was told when I was on uh I was on a press trip with Tag Hoyer to Monaco earlier this year and the thing they were telling us about the the Monaco specifically is the reason that it ended up in Laman was because that's what they had some uh available. They didn't have Krayers, they didn't have Octavia's to send to the film st uh studio. So when they requested some watches, and I'm this number I might get wrong, they sent either three or ten. I think it was ten. For the filming, and it was a watch that like wasn't crazy popular at the time, and it wasn't necessarily even like a like what might have been considered a great marketing move for Jack Hoyer to send those watches then. It's more of that's what they had. Yeah. And and the right person requested this production uh person pr uh requested Hoyers for, you know, for realism within the sphere of of this Lamont film and uh and that's what they sent them and and it literally means that we have a monaco today. Right because otherwise you you could make the case that like imagine if the Royal Oak never took off. They would have stopped making it after a couple years. Yeah. Well, they would have done the same thing with the Monaco if it wasn't in this movie in 1971 and didn't kind of become a standout in a very stylish time that was right on the edge of that sort of retro look that we now aspire or that we now attribute to the seventies. That look didn't really happen in seventy one, it happened in seventy four or seventy five. So you know it's the end of the decade that defines typically the look of the decade because you're carrying over from the sixties. And with with these these watches, if it didn't have that running start in 1971 by being in a huge McQueen film, I you know, I you could at least make the claim uh accurate or or or otherwise that that there's a you know the monocle might not be around. Might they might not be celebrating fifty years this year. Right. And and celebrating it with what looks uh rather |
| Unknown | successfully, I would say. Yeah, I think seems to be going just fine. So watch number three, movie number three. Yep. Uh we're gonna get a little more obscure with our watches, if not with our movies. Uh we're gonna go to 1975 and Jaws, uh, which I'm gonna admit is is one of my favorite mov |
| Unknown | ies of all time. I mean it's a fantastic movie, a less than fantastic book, um, but a great movie with uh an awesome set of characters. And then for those of you who've been around the watch identifying subculture that exists on Watch You Seek for years. You'll know that there was one watch that kind of floated between time zone and and watch you seek and these other ones as everybody tried to make a claim to knowing what uh Richard Dreyfus' character was wearing, Cooper, correct, what he was wearing in the film, and there was always you know these huge threads of trying to figure it out, and then finally somebody did figure out it's this a watch from a brand called Alsta and and uh it's called the Nato Scaff. And it actually kind of relaunched that brand because somebody bought up the brand's intellectual property and they relaunched the same watch uh within the last two years, certainly, maybe even just last year. Okay. Uh really really uh just uh uh a cool watch and and on uh uh you know one of the me and on one of the lead roles in what you could argue is the first um the first blockbuster of all time, the first like big summer blockbuster. This is 1975. Everybody had to see Jaws. It we still reference the music more than we reference even the fact that it's about a shark. Like it's a pretty incredible touchstone in in in filmmaking and a really uh really great placement by uh it was also Spielberg's first |
| Unknown | big budget movie, right? The first time they kind of like let him run with it and spend kind of whatever he had to spend. Richard Drifts' character is Hooper, by the way. Hooper. Okay. Hey Gray, here you have me saying Hooper. Hooper. Cut that out. It's funny how this watch came out of this movie and ended up essentially like relaunching a modern brand. It's kind of a funny, uh funny, obscure little thing to launch a company on the back of, but like the watch doesn't look half b |
| Unknown | ad. Uh no, it absolutely doesn't. I actually think it's quite a nice kind of uh kind of a twist on like a skin diver |
| Unknown | . Yeah, it's got that like thick kind of like mono block case and a rotating metal bezel. And yeah, it's like it looks like an |
| Unknown | early 70s dive watch. Yeah, and Hooper in the movie, is wearing it on this kind of super distinctive um bracelet style, like a cuff style bracelet. Oh, yeah, two curved pieces of metal with like holes drilled out of it. And then the new launch is offered, I mean, you can still find those sort of bangle bracelets. Yeah. But the new launch is offered on what I think is looks like a pretty solid uh little uh like millinase mesh, which really kind of locks in its its aesthetic. Yeah, I agree. But newer old, it I just I remember when people finally figured out what this was online and and it kind of like it had this weird following. And I love Jaws. I think this is just it it's just one of the best movies out there. Certainly um a a great m movie to highlight what what they were up to in the 19 in the 1970s and uh and and the same with uh kind of the placement of this kind of interesting watch which my guess is just something they bought at a dive shop. Yeah probably um you know like a casual a pretty casual brand not a big name, a pretty simple style I. would say it definitely looks like one of the factory cases that all the brands were using for skin divers. So you could make that leap as well. That it you know, this is a small brand that maybe maybe you sat in shelves next to Doxa's and yeah and things like that. So |
| Unknown | speaking of Doxa, uh movie number four, watch number four, is the Doxa Shark Hunter that appears in nineteen seventy five's |
| Unknown | Three Days of the Condor. Yeah. So another really, really cool movie. This is this one is not as famous in any way as Jaws. Yeah. But has a pretty solid watch placement. So the main character in this film, and this is sort of um uh uh this is a mix of like a Jack Ryan-y sort of like analyst has to become more of a spy scenario where uh Redford comes back to his office, he works in um intelligence, comes back to his office and and things aren't quite how he left said office and he ha and he's quickly realizing that he doesn't know who's actually the aggressor and they don't seem to know who's to blame and it might be him, it might be other people. It's this really fantastic sort of not so much who done it as like a man who knew too much slash man who knew too little. Okay. If you need like a modern, uh not it's not that very similar movie, but if you needed a modern connection, think like uh like a seventies Robert Redford Enemy of the State. Okay. Uh you know, just uh Yeah, I mean I'll I'll admit I have not seen this movie. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a great movie. I think it's uh it's a pretty solid Robert Redford performance. And then on top of that, he's wearing this Rad uh Doxa Shark Hunter on a bund strap that I mean it's just full heatin'. Yeah. Uh that's what we call that look, yeah, for sure. Absolutely. So I I think it's a fun placement. It's a movie that I think a lot of people probably haven't seen. It's it's in our TGN film club volume three as it's one of the things. Which we'll uh we'll link up in the show notes here. Super. And uh and yeah, I think that's uh that's probably all you have to say about a wicked shark hunter on a cool movie. Wicked shar |
| Unknown | k hunter. Yep. Um all right, last up, uh kind of finishing the 70s off. We had a movie that the moment we decided to do this, you and I both said like this is the movie, like this is the anchor for this segment, right? Which is uh Apocalypse Now, 1979, Apocalypse Now. Uh I mean landmark movie, but also kind of a landmark watch movie. Yeah, I think so. And one that we're kind of now coming back on, oddly enough, this year. Well, it's the it's the 50 Well it's it's the 40th anniversary this year. Uh so it kind of makes sense. And then uh with that, the sort of brands who made these watches and then people who might want to sell them on the secondary market are all kind of like coming out of the woodwork now. So it's it's really it's become kind of a talk |
| Unknown | ing point, right? For sure. And I mean obviously celebrity owned slash movie watches a are worth quite a lot now. There's there's and they they probably know, to some level they always have been, especially when you s but if you're dipping into steel Rolex with uh famous actor Provenance, we're we're in the same vein. We're not on the same piece of geological strata, but the same vein as the you know the Paul Paul Newman's Paul Newman. So that's what everyone's chasing. And certainly the the two watches and apocalypse now include a now very noteworthy uh sixteen seven five bezeless sixteen seven five that's you know hand engraved with uh Marlon Brando's signature on the case back, and that's gonna be sold in December. And uh and and on top of that, the the other I think equally as cool watch from the movie is Willard's uh 6105 Seiko Diver. Yeah. And which got a reissue. Got reissued this year at Basel World. And uh I mean the reissues rad, the originals are rad, the fact that this is a watch that very well could have actually been on that adventure, not unlike the GMT Master. Uh I I love, I mean, this is two of the best watch placements in one of my favorite movies. Yeah. This is these aren't layman's selections. These are things that could have been in that place at that time, worn by those types of people. And the idea of like a fallen, high-ranking officer in the military with a beat up GMT master in the middle of the jungle. That works. And likewise the the idea of what's essentially a a non-successful grunt in the army that's being selected for what's a essentially an assassination plot, um, wearing a a Seiko, a big Seiko dive watch, uh is is also just is just perfect. Yeah |
| Unknown | . All right. So it's kind of our first hodinky Radio Film Club, I guess. There you go. Yeah, we'll call it that for movies and watches, watches and watches. Yeah. Um I think we're g |
| Unknown | onna have to do this, do this again. I think it could be fun. I think there's I mean the these are five of I would say the easy the easy targets. Yeah. Agreed. But hopefully there's a movie or two in there maybe you haven't seen or or a watch you didn't had you know had kind of started its time a as a as a movie star. Yeah. And so yeah, Doctor No, Lamont, Jaws, Three Days of the Condor and Apocalypse Now. It's it's a handful of good watches. Yeah |
| Unknown | , handful of good watches, handful of good movies. And uh yeah, if you're listening and you have a movie or a watch spotting that you you think is worth us maybe including in a future episode, uh let us know in the comments. Hit us up, hodinky.com, and then uh let us know in the comments on this post. Thanks very much for listening. Yeah, awesome. Thanks for doing this, man. You bet. Up next, we've got my conversation with Godfrey Hey, good to see you. Thanks for having us here. Really great to see you. Thanks for coming in. So uh we're recording at your offices in the what Soma Soma District of San Francisco? Yes, in the Soma District on New Montgomery Street. Perfect. Can you uh I I have to say, walking into the office, I was pretty impressed. This is a pretty incredible uh space you guys have here |
| Unknown | . This building is remarkable, and we are incredibly lucky to be here. Uh it's actually a a famous building. It was the tallest one in San Francisco for forty some odd years. Um and uh it was the Pacific Telephone building. Okay. So it had an interesting history. Um the Atlantic is uh written pieces about this building, telling a sort of history of San Francisco through the building. Oh, cool. But it's got a remarkable lobby. Um it's just a really fantastic place. And we uh we were kissing a lot of frogs before our prince showed. Um so we feel enormously grateful every day that we got into such a cool |
| Unknown | space. I gotta say it's amazing. It's cool because you come in through the lobby and it's this sort of old historic amazing building and then you get up here and it's just like so light. You almost get to |
| Unknown | kind of like exhale a little bit. It's great. And we we get light from all sides, we get views from all sides. We have actual staircases that some of us take down and the really good among us take all the way up to the seventeenth floor. I was gonna say we're on the seventeenth floor here. We are on the seventeenth floor, but have to say that ten of these floors are occupied by Yelp. And they're uh if you didn't like the website, wait until you meet the people. Um so they can they they can really they can clog an elevator like no one's business. So the stairs turn out to be a real uh a real godsend. Don't a at us if you work for Yelp. Please don't uh we don't we don't need that. Yeah, thank you very much. And that was a one star review |
| Unknown | of uh actual Yelp. And we can get into that later. Perfect. |
| Unknown | Yeah, I think it really speaks to who we are as a firm that every space where you're going to sit and collaborate with anybody is named after a typeface. I thought I knew a thing or two about type until I had gone into partnership with Scott Dadich. And now not only do we name our rooms after typefaces, he can he can you'll notice among arch directors and designers the ability to quickly identify typefaces. What I didn't know was possible is there are people who can take a look at a fairly standard and common typeface and see the differences and realize which foundry created which version of which typeface. So that's the level of type nerds we're talking about here. Aaron Powell Okay. And are you are you now on that level or are you still like kind of wowed? No, no one looks to me for anything when it comes to graphics or style or other. I like to consider myself a highly gifted designer and art director and everything else, but without the talent or the uh the hard work. Um honestly I just I live in awe of the people I work with and I benefit from them knowing what they know. So it's it's it's all osmosis for me. I mean, that's a pretty good way to build a team, right? It's a great way to build a team. I mean I I there are a couple of things I do well, um, and then I lean very heavily on, you know, all the energy and enthusiasm and intelligence of people who are much better than me. Nice. Well, let's let's talk a little bit about what you |
| Unknown | guys do here. So we talked a little bit about it when we had Scott on the show last year, but uh what is Godfrey Dadage Partners |
| Unknown | ? Yeah, it it's it's an exciting place to be because we're in the vanguard of how marketing and communications and design are working for brands today. Um ultimately what we do is we help brands tell better stories. And we consider stories to be not only important, but we consider them to be actually essential to what it means to be a human being. And advertising certainly has a history of good storytelling But the advertising industry's changed enormously. Scott and a lot of the people we brought over from Wired come from publishing. And if there's one thing publishing knows well, it's how to tell a good story. But with publishing going through its difficulties and advertising as it existed, being really fragmented, um, you know, with all the channels and choices and places where there are there are no ads like Netflix and HBO. There's been this massive change. And in that change has been opportunity. And the opportunity is that brands can now tell better stories because they have access to the same tools and to the same artists um to tell those stories and not have to do it through the classic models of trying to get a magazine to cover you or trying to get a TV show to do something about you or trying to run advertising. We now have the tools and the platforms as brands and marketers to tell those stories directly. And that's what we do as a firm. And it's it's great. It's exciting to be again in the vanguard of of how this stuff is going to look in the future, which is definitely what we're doing |
| Unknown | . Okay. And so you you come from a I know a slightly more traditional advertising background, but you you wouldn't describe what you guys do as being an advertising firm, right? It would be |
| Unknown | a a misnomer. Um I would say that about 35 percent of what we do is advertising. Okay. Which is great because advertising is where I came from. Advertising gave me a great life. It taught me skills that I will cherish forever. And when we have an advertising problem in front of us for a client, advertising is the perfect tool. Where you get into trouble is when you start applying advertising to problems that are not advertising problems. And that's what we have the flexibility to do now. So in our work for Nike, most of our work is documentary films. And our work for organizations like Lyft, we're not doing things for Lyft where we're advertising the service. We're doing things for Lyft where we're doing stories for drivers so they can understand how to be more successful in working with Lyft because it's not all evident. And it there are dozens of examples exactly like that. So our opportunities sometimes for a client like Ad Yen, big payments processor, they're not known here. They're a Dutch company, founded in the Netherlands. They had a real awareness issue here. Well, advertising's a great tool to solve that. But we got into a situation, I did anyway, as long as 10 years ago, where clients were coming to me, and I very much owned an advertising agency at the time, and they'd say, We want you to bring great ideas, but we don't want you to bring any advertising. And about the tenth time you hear that, you have to understand that they're trying to tell you something. And that's the big pivot that we have spent years pushing on to get to a place where we could be not anti-advertising in any way, but post-advertising in how we see the world. |
| Unknown | Okay. Yeah. I think there's, you know, we we deal with it on the media slash sort of like sponsored content, native content side of things. But you know, brands are trying to tell stories directly to consumers. And those consumers are savvier than they've ever been about who's telling them what, how they're digesting that stuff, um, how sort of the the kind of interaction between storyteller and the person they're telling the story to, that kind of like point where they meet, I think is is really interesting. And it's where all of that kind of like brain power is put into trying to make that connection as seamless as possible. Do you think that with consumers kind of becoming savier, that those strategies have to be changed at all about how you kind of approach consumers with stories? |
| Unknown | I think so. I think that there's so much opportunity though with how you approach those consumers. I some of the some of the tactics that may have seen anachronistic um really recently have become great to tell those stories again. Um take magazines, for instance. We're actually in a world where we're watching a lot of great and storied magazines go through their final days, and it's gonna accelerate from here, especially if the economy slows down. Um that's that's not fun to watch, right? We're watching uh publishing model where these publishers who didn't develop a relationship with the reader so directly that they were monetizing the reader, they were just charging for advertising to get the reader on board, it's gonna be a really tough go for those things. But we're also seeing these new niche magazines that go mass niche that are doing amazing things. And I'm not just talking about Hodinky, but some of the other magazines that that really bring new ideas to life. Uh my favorite travel magazine right now is made by a corporation. It's Airbnb magazine. Interesting. And it's because Airbnb Magazine is built around a new breed of traveler and a new way of traveling that it works so well. If you look at all of the magazines that you know about in the travel space, they all back themselves into a corner, talking about Condonas Traveler and Travel and Leisure and all those. They were always talking about the gold list, they were always doing the hot list, they were always doing, you know, the top 100. But ultimately, they were serving a demographic that attracted advertising dollars. So they were serving white people of a certain age and a certain income. And they became very self-referential. And then it just became about cruises and then became about resorts where they're charging fourteen hundred dollars a night. You know, that was always the last line in the review, double started 1400 tonight. And they got into a place where all of a sudden that audience wasn't really looking to them as much anymore with the internet. And if you read one of those magazines now, it's literally just fabulously expensive resorts and fabulously expensive cruises to all the same places. Um, and then a lot of advertorial. Well, Airbnb magazine comes out and does a big feature on Cuba and you'd never see Cuba covered in a real way by one of these magazines because there's no big tourism industry that was being monetized out of the U.S. Yeah, there's no there's no money to be made directly out of writing about Cuba. Right. And Airbnb's whole brand is about allowing people to be home in new places. So when Airbnb magazine, which is produced by Hearst, they're the partner in doing that, they've created a really exciting and interesting magazine, completely unshackled from the economics of where the magazine world came from, because they're doing something that's about experience and about being in new places, which is what travel should be about. And it's aligned to the needs of the audience, not the septigenarians who are thinking about taking yet another river cruise um down the Danube. So you're not you're not going on a river cruise anytime soon? Not septuaginarian yet, but um |
| Unknown | but rapidly, rapidly sliding into that position. Natural transition, or do you think it's something that is going to go through many different kind of phases |
| Unknown | ? Well, I think it's a I think we're seeing a like an 80-year run um come to an end. And that 80-year run that we're seeing come to an end is is the concept of making rate-based, right? Magazines traditionally made all of their money by attracting an audience, turning that audience into a marketable commodity and then selling advertising. And if it was, you know, ladies' home journal, it was a lot of advertising for consumer package goods and makeup and other things around the house. Um, and if it was GQ, it was a lot of ads for cars and for clothing and things like that. The challenge, of course, is that rate base isn't how you monetize anymore. There are media that are doing incredibly well by appealing to their readers. The New York Times has over two million subscriptions, which is huge. They get more money now from subscribers than advertisers, which is a the enormity of that change is huge. And we're seeing a lot of media that are doing just that. We're seeing new media like The Athletic, where they're taking local sports fandom and charging you a really fair amount to get you to read about your team and pay for it directly. We're seeing paid newsletters. The through line with all of this is: if you want to survive as a publisher, you have to get your readership to pay for your content full stop. Because the idea of being able to create this luxury veneer and then having the luxury advertisers pay for that access, it's not gonna work anymore. And those publishers that are reliant on ad dollars and rate base for their models, if they haven't balanced it yet around subscribers paying, they're gonna end up in a really tough place |
| Unknown | . Yeah, that's super interesting. I think uh I think I would say I I agree with everything you've said. And I think watching the transition, you know, we both know it's a ton of people in the kind of traditional media space. Yeah. And watching how people are adapting is super fascinating. Not just the companies, but watching how these people with very specialized skill sets who are immensely talented in a lot of cases try to find new ways to make those skills useful and to connect with readers and with with an audience is is extremely interesting |
| Unknown | . Look at mutual friends and we were talking about them earlier, you know, Matt Hranick and Yolanda Edwards. Yeah, absolutely. Neither is at Cond anymore, um, but both have their own magazines and as we both know, have managed to spend the last three months in Europe. Um so they're doing something right. Yeah, and they're and they're doing really nice titles, with you know, Yolanda doing yellow and with Matt doing the William Brown journal. The thing that's less promising is looking at Kande and seeing golf digest and wondering what the hell the future of that is. And now I'll look at this week's sponsor |
| Unknown | . Now I'm in no rush for it to be winter yet, but if there was one thing that had me eyeing snowy days ahead, it would be the Grand Seiko SBGA 415, which is the winter watch from the brand's new US exclusive seasons collection. It's cool, it's crisp, and it's quintessential Grand Seiko. The foundation of the SBGA 415 is a 40mm case made of lightweight titanium with a mix of brushed and polished finishes that give it a ton of visual appeal. Unlike the summer and fall watches in the collection, this watch uses the caliber 9R65, which is a souped-up spring drive movement with a 72-hour power reserve and an automatic winding system. Looking at the dial, you'll have no doubts that this is the winter watch in the seasons collection. It's a soft, slightly warm shade of white with a unique pattern and texture that recalls a windswept snowy landscape. As the Blued Seconds hand smoothly glides over the top, you can't help but feel a sense of calm and quiet. Grand Seiko approaches watchmaking in a uniquely Japanese way that truly sets the brand apart, and the SBGA 415 Winter is a perfect example of this special poetic style. For more about the seasons collection and Grand Alright, let's get back to the show. So we we don't have to talk shop forever, but the one last thing I wanted to touch on here is one of the things that that has impressed me about GDP is watching watching what you guys have been doing and the clients you're working with and the way you work with those clients is I get a real sense that not just you and Scott and the kind of like people in the business, but that the business itself has a perspective, it has a point of view, it has ethics, it has values in who you choose to work with, how you choose to work with them, who you choose to support. That's not an easy thing to do to run a company and to make it profitable while also kind of like standing for things. Why was that something you guys chose to do? Did it kind of happen organically? What's the kind of genesis of that? |
| Unknown | It happened organically at first, and then it became something where we decided to double down on it. Yeah. And I think we get a lot of credit for courage around this. And I think it in retrospect it was just the obvious right thing to do. Um one of the ideas that exists in corporate America, as I've watched it for the last three decades of my career, is people want to simplify how audiences react to things. They want to say the world is split in two. You know, there's the good side and the bad side, or is the right and the left. Um, and they want to do everything they can to steer away from ever taking a position and having that position be something where, oh, I don't want to support a progressive cause because some of my custers might be Republicans, or I don't want to support a, you know, a conservative cause because I don't want to piss off that cohort of my audience that might be liberal. And I think we're seeing lots of examples in the world today where that model just doesn't hold anymore and there's actually no truth to it. Earlier this week, we even saw the business roundtable, the most powerful executives in American business, talk about moving away from the Milton Friedman model of the only duty of a corporation is to increase value for shareholders to this idea of having more stakeholders in the mix. Now, we can get into an argument of whether or not they actually mean that, or whether that's just a a cynical play to a get out of jail free card. But for us, one of the things we learn from our people was that we were saying all the right things in terms of our values, but we weren't always living our values. And that hurt because Scott and I very much believe in the causes that we believe in diversity, inclusion, you know, across the board. But we found out through some self-examination that we weren't always, even though we felt the right things and we thought we were doing the right things, our actions didn't always live up to our beliefs. Like when we kept hiring white men of a certain age for jobs, our our thing is we're always going to hire the most qualified person we meet and talk to. Well, we found out that we weren't meeting people that were just as qualified because we're fishing in familiar waters. So we had to make a conscious choice to fish in less familiar waters. And in so doing, we started meeting these people who were incredibly competent who didn't look like white men of a certain age. I mean, still happily hire white men of a certain age, but now we tend to see more diverse groups of people come through. The other thing we do is that we do a lot of our work for the shop. I mean we have three criteria for work. Can we do great work, which is the only one that matters? Can we have fun? And can we make money? And we consider a good assignment one where we can say yes to two of those. When you're working for some large corporations, you might not be having any fun, but you're probably doing great work and you're probably making pretty good money. When we're working with the Obama Foundation, we're doing great work, we're having fun, and we're absolutely not making money. Um, and we've we've done work for Futures Without Violence, we've done work for the ACLU, we've done work with Planned Parenthood, we've hosted fundraisers. These are the values we hold as an organization. They represent the values of the people that we work with. We don't have a litmus test for working here. Um there are probably people here who either lean Republican or vote Republican. I think embracing diversity means you have to have that be part of what you are as well. But it's important that we live our values. And uh I've had a lot of friends and peers say, I'm really, you know, you guys are really courageous in doing that. I don't think that's true at all. I think it's actually becoming just smart to do that. You need your people bound to your purpose. You can look at brands that do the same thing as well. I mean, Patagonia has made a series of motions recently to say, if you are not putting the environment front and center of everything you're doing, we we actually will not let you buy our product anymore. I absolutely love that. I actually love that because everybody wants that puffy vest to be embroidered with the logo so badly. If you're like a private equity firm or an oil and gas company, they'll just tell you to go screw. And the funny part is it just makes those people want those vests more. Of course. Of course. And it makes everybody who can put their logo on them wanna order twice as many. And we of course when we firmed up who we were as a firm, we did our Patagonia vest because why not? It's aligned to our values. Now it feels like we have to do it again because we qualify. That's the type of organization that that Rose and the team will will think that meets their standard. A principled stand is when you give up something meaningful because of your beliefs. Um it's one it like I could boycott Walmart and it would be a hollow gesture because I'm not about to step foot in a Walmart. Nothing against Walmart, it's just I live in the middle of a a city. We don't have Walmart. Right. Um so that's not really a principled stand. But when someone says we want to pay you millions of dollars to help tell better stories about who we really are, and we say, keep your millions of dollars, we're not going to do that. Yeah, that does rise to the level of being a principal. Yeah. But let's be honest, too. We have 67 people working here in the shop. We have 13 more slots open. Everything we do here has to be organized around getting those people to come back up the elevator every day. And one way we get them to come back up the elevator, yeah, the snacks and the happy hours and the kombucha on tap and the wine on tapping. There's kombucha on tap here people. It's a wine on tap, which I feel pretty good about. Pretty amazing. That's that's all nonsense. What they really want is to work at a place where they feel like they're doing something meaningful and that they have a role in contributing to it. And it's incumbent upon us if we get to serve as their employer that we that we do everything to keep them coming back up. That's |
| Unknown | great. So I think we can we can diverge a little bit from uh from talking shop, but uh you know, we we met for the first time through Scott, who was on the show last year, but it turns out we have other mutual friends through the watch world. So our our friend Yasik, who we uh just had breakfast with, um got you uh down the vintage Rolex rabbit hole quite a while ago, right? Aaron Powell He yeah, he |
| Unknown | he put a hook in me and uh it's been there for a really long time. So that's what a good watch dealer does |
| Unknown | . |
| Unknown | I first got into Rolex because I just like the classic nature of Rolex. Rolex obviously means so much in the world of horology. Um I I think I was telling you this morning that I bought my first ever Rolex at a Ben Bridge Jewelrers, uh Jewelers, uh at uh Stonestown Okay. And it was a it was a sub, uh no date, um, because I couldn't afford the date. I think it was thirty eight hundred dollars. Back when you could walk into a jeweler and buy a no-date sub-back when you walk into a driller and buy a steel sport watch from Rolex. Yeah. You know, like this was a thing. And then they were just sitting there. Um and loved it. And then decided later that I needed something a little more special. So a couple years later that got traded in against a Kermit. Okay. Because I liked the anniversary and I liked the green insert. Yeah. Um and then I had that for a while and then I don't know. I I think I went through a a period where I was maybe I had a really bad fever or something. Uh at one point I bought a beautiful but ultimately regrettable panerai. Okay. Um it had a historical back, so it was a nice titanium watch. You could see all the inner workings. But you know, the whole cigar aficionado nature of Panera is something I really struggle with. Okay. And then one day I was sitting around and I had a couple watches that I was just like, what why do I have these? I had a like one of the big Bell and Ross BR92s and I had this paneraye and I just would not wear them. And I said, I gotta get rid of these things. And I did. And then Yatzik turned them into Rolexes. Um and that started me down the path of starting to get into the 5513s and the 1680s and the 1675s and my forever watch, which I wear every day, um, which we were staring at this morning at breakfast. So Yatzika, once you go into his environment and you get to know him a little bit, it's uh it's a very welcoming place to spend a fair amount of time and a fair amount of money. Oh, yeah. Um and and just love Yatzek. He's just he's one of the my dear friends now. That's great. And so can you can you describe the watch you're wearing on your wrist? Yeah, I'll do it to the best of my ability. I I'm outclassed by your you and your listenership. But um this watch I named it sexual chocolate. Um it's a that's fitting. Yeah. Well to to take a look at it too, you can get a sense of it. Um it's uh meters first red sub, a 1680 that's tropical, but you can't always pick up on just how tropical it is because the insert itself has faded to this sort of chocolatey brown and it's really uniform. Uh that the insert's gone from black to pure brown and and a little bit of red in the brown. Um so it's really unique in that way. Um and I just love that it's meters first. Um and it's just my companion. I've had it for a decade now. Um it's fifty years old this year. It's a nineteen sixty gun. Yeah. So it's a year younger than me. Um so I think this is gonna be the one I'm wearing when they uh put me in the casket. That's that's that's a good one to have forever. Yeah. It's it's my forever watch. Yeah. Do you you had a uh blueberry GMT before that, right? Yeah, I also had alongside this uh nineteen seventy five radial dialed sixteen seventy five blueberry. Yeah. That's also a pretty nerdy watch. Both of those are both kind of like insider-y kind of watches. Yeah, I Yatzik's wife Christina was wearing a blueberry repeatedly and I kept trying to buy it off her wrist. Okay. And and she repeatedly said no. And Yatzik found me a version I was happy with and I had that for a while. But to be honest, I just stopped wearing it. Okay. And I ultimately decided after sat in a in my house in a safe for a year that I would just let Yazik put it back out into the wild. I thought that was better to set it free. Because I'll be honest, I uh I wear my Apple Watch series four all weekend. Okay. That was gonna be my next question. I know you're you're an Apple Watch guy too. I've had all versions. I mean, I'm into the quantified self. Um I really do want to know my VO2 max score. And I mean, I I went from having an Apple Watch as a novelty in the early days, but I think Apple has this tendency by the fourth version of something to really get it right. Yeah. The iPhone 4 was really, really right. That was when the the product really became what it is today in in a meaningful way. And I think the Apple Watch Series 4 did the same thing with the the bigger battery, the bigger screen, um and the more advanced telemetry around everything you were doing. I would I would agree. Yeah. So I I I uh I literally sometimes stand in front of my dresser in the morning with a watch in each hand, and one's just an Apple Watch Series 4, just a stainless steel one, and the other one's my beautiful forever Rolex. And there are a number of days where the Apple Watch Series 4 wins out. That's fine. I mean some days it's the right choice, right? I I think so. Have you ever worn |
| Unknown | both? I can tell from the laugh, I now know what |
| Unknown | the answer is. Oh shit. Um yeah, I uh I had I had done a Peloton at home in the morning and wanted more credit for the day. I I was on a s I was on a streak of uh of closing all three rings. And I wanted to go a week closing all three rings for seven straight days. And I believe it was a Friday. I had done a Peloton, and I'm like, well, if I wear this watch, still get there. But then I realized I had lunch with people that were interesting and interested around watches. So I figured if I walked to the train and walked to lunch and did all the things I did, I was going to get there. But I couldn't not wear the Rolex and I couldn't just throw it in my bag. So I went to the I went all the way to the point of using the watch app on the phone to switch the orientation to my right wrist. Oh wow. Okay, so you committed. Yeah, I don't I don't half measure is not my thing. So I I actually put it on my other wrist and I uh yeah, I wore two watches that day. And then I took the Apple Watch off at lunch for a brief period and then put it right back on when I left the restaurant. And I'm not proud. That's okay. No, it happened. I I double watched |
| Unknown | . So beyond watches, you're uh you're a bit of a collector in general, right? You've got that you've got that uh bone in your body |
| Unknown | ? Yeah. Yeah. Stereo gear and records and wine take up a lot of my energy and most of my disposable income. I think we can see it uh through the yeah, through the window there. Aaron Powell Yeah, it's got some of the hand-me-down gear, you know, so it's just a little Rotel integrated amplifier and uh a Morantz uh turntable that was actually built by Clear Audio uh in Germany. So it was this great Morance um deck that's got this sort of ceramic acrylic plinth and then uh an offboard motor that is really a a beautiful deck. It's like a clear audio emotion that they allowed to be branded by Morance. So it was one of it was my first good turntable Okay. Um and I just sort of bring in old equipment and have the equipment in the office that I've you know gone through my system at home. So like having records in the office. I like the uh the intentionality of listening to records. It's not unlimited. It does require physical action. You do have to flip it. You do have to clean it. I think it engages you in the act. Aaron Pow |
| Unknown | ell So I would assume if you're deep into records, you're a believer in listening to a record start to finish. |
| Unknown | Yeah, I I I don't listen to the greatest hits, you know, um because they don't make any sense. And not not everything has to be a concept record, you know, not everything is okay computer. Um and I love making playlists, right? So I I contain multitudes. But when you wanna have the experience and you have your original 1966 pressing of blonde on blonde, you're gonna play blonde on blonde all the way through because that's the way you do it. Um it's it's just good taste. It's good it's good manners. I I love that. It |
| Unknown | 's j it's just good taste. Like it's just what you do. It's just what you do. Yeah. Uh what are a couple records? I won't make you give it give us a full laundry list, but what are a couple records you'd you'd recommend people, whether it's on on vinyl or whether they go onto Spotify or Apple Music, uh what are a couple records you think people should listen to start to finish if they haven't recently |
| Unknown | . Good one. Um I think for anybody who likes quality recording and quality engineering and records that are just really well put together, because there is a material difference. Any of the run of Talking Heads records from the late 70s up into the early 80s is something where you're going to be in a good place, whether it's fear of music uh excuse me, fear of music or even little creatures, um, those are ones that you're really going to enjoy because d David Byrne is such a genius. He's a visual genius, he's a songwriting genius, he's a performing genius, but he also is an amazing guitar player and had those records engineered and produced absolutely beautifully. Um I keep getting further into a collaborator with David Burns. Um I spend a lot of time with Brian Eno and especially his ambient works. Um so I have three different vinyl versions of his nineteen seventy-five classic Ambient One music for airports. I love that record so much. I I love it so I don't think I've ever heard it on vinyl. Well you can in just a minute because it's sitting right in front of the stack right now. Not my best turntable setup. Um, but that's one I would absolutely do that with. Um records to listen to all the way through. I I'm a I'm in completely unapologetic radiohead nut. Okay. And I think their great underappreciated album is Hail to the Thief. Yeah. The way it fell between uh Kid A and Amnesiac before they transitioned into In Rainbows. All of those great records, but I think Hail to the Thief sometimes gets left behind in that argument. And Hail to the Thief as a cohesive piece of music is has so much of what Radiohead is good at all in one record, from the weird stuff to the guitar hero stuff all the way through dystopian ideas. It's really one that I spend a lot of time with. And then I like going back to some of the greats. If you've never listened to Bill Evans trio, Sunday at the Village Vanguard on vinyl, you've never heard it. Um and you're hearing everything that went on. That was a crappy recording on a Sunday at the Vanguard. There's even a dropout in the first track on the record. You know, that's there on because it dropped out. It's an external mic'd recording. You can hear people laughing, you can hear glasses clinking. It's one of the most engrossing pieces of music I've ever heard in my life, and I'll always go back to it. That's amazing. Oh, it's such a good one. I' |
| Unknown | ll have to get off to give that a listen. I don't ever heard that on vinyl. Oh. Yeah. I can tell from the smile on your face that |
| Unknown | I'm gonna I'm not gonna regret that. Every time I walk by the village vanguard, I I just you know sort of silently, you know, give a little nod and a bow for what they were able to do there. Yeah. And the fact that, you know, that record was so perfect and then Scott LaFaro, the bassist, one of the greatest bassists who ever lived, died two weeks later in a car accident upstate New York. And, you know, so that was the last document of that trio performing at that level. It just it makes the thing that much more special. Amazing. You said you're also you're also a wine guy? I'm a wine guy. That's that's been since I was in my early twenties. So I've had some bottles I've had for 20 years now. Aaron Powell What kind of wines are you into? Well that's an interesting thing because everybody I know who's into wine has seen their palate evolve. Uh and it does create kind of a situation where you've been collecting a style of wine and then your palate evolves and all of a sudden you're holding on to a bunch of inventory. So I I started um early days with Rhone varietals, really got into both north and south Rhone, a lot of Château Neuf de Pop, a lot of Vacaras, Gigondas, Saint Joseph, the ultimate, Coat Roti. Um, and then some American styles, because there was sort of a Rhone revolution that happened here. But as my palate has evolved, you know You. know, I got into more burgundies, white and red. Um I'm still terrified of Burgundy, the region, um, because it can it will break your heart. You know, the bottle, you finally find the bottle that you were looking for. And if it's from the right village in the right year and was stored properly and everything else, it still might be, you know, preoxidated and it still might be something that just went wrong. But when it sings, it it it's amazing. Today, I'm spending most of my time and energy and money um on Italian wine. Um classic expressions of Sangiovese from some of the great producers, not always things like Brunello, Di Montalcino, um also rosso de Montalcino and and simple Chianti, which is pure Sangiovese. Um but I think my my rosebud wine has become various expressions of Nebbiolo. So everything from Piemonte and some of the truly great producers, you know, both the Mascarellos, Giuseppe and Bartolo and getting into Rinaldi and and all of the great producers of Barolo and Barbaresco and Barbera and everything else that goes on there. So it's just a really rich ground for that. That said, my wife and I have a home in Sonoma, and there's this great new generation of European-centric, entirely natural winemakers making some incredible things happen in California. Um I can't be bothered with California Cabernet for the most part. I get white people like it. It's just not for me. There are a few producers in Napa that make wines that I like, like uh Kathy Coruson makes restrained beautiful cabernets that seem like they were from thirty years ago. But the big sort of 16% alcohol sweet glycerin-like cabernets can't do it. But there's some weird, weird stuff happening in California. And I absolutely love those producers that, you know, are very into natural, organic, biodynamic winemaking methods with Europe as a reference voice. Really fresh, vibrant, bright wines. If I were to sum it all up, and I've been talking too long about it. W Ihen was a kid, I looked for wines that were powerful. Um, but now I look for wines that are beautiful. And I think that's the easiest way to sum up the whole thing. I like |
| Unknown | that. What what is it about collecting, whether it's wine or records or uh audio equipment or watches, what is it about collecting that you like? Because you're obviously somebody who likes that that kind of pursuit and that passion of collecting. Yeah |
| Unknown | . I I I clearly am. I I'm something of a completist. Um I figure out something that I like and then I'm not able to relax until I've plundered it. Um whether that was how I got into Bob Dylan um and then needed to know every phase of what he was doing and what he was thinking and where it came from, so I understood why Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid was totally different from Blood on the Tracks. Um, or whether it was pavement at an earlier time and needed to know exactly how and why that went down. Um same thing goes with wine. I have an experience that someone turns me on to with a wine and next thing you know I'm reading a twelve hundred page book on the methods of that region. I think I feel empowered by knowledge. And then I think I have just a typical obsessives tendency toward I wouldn't say acquisition. I have an obsessives tendency toward wanting to know more and wanting to see how far this thing goes. And I've certainly done that with a few different things in my life. There's no question about it. A |
| Unknown | wesome. Well, cool. Well, I know you uh we're recording this at your office and you have a full, full day of stuff uh to get into here. But thanks so much for making for making the time and uh it's good to see you as always. It's really great to see you. Thanks for coming in. Yeah. Yeah, let's go do that. We'll uh we'll link everything up in the notes so people can then go give it a listen too. Sounds good. And to close things out, we've got Kara and Jack doing the first ever Roarjack test |
| Unknown | . All right, what are we doing here today? Well Carl, we thought we'd do something a little different today. So um what we're gonna do is something of the nature of a psychiatric test, shall we say. Um you know, there's the uh there's the Rorschach uh inkblot test, uh, and uh there's also a free association test, uh, you know, much used and revered by uh Freudian psychoanalysts. And uh the idea basically is that you uh get a sense of someone's uh inner life, so to speak, by uh throwing words at them and uh hearing their completely unscripted and spontaneous response. What did I sign myself up for? Yeah. I hope I don't say anything weird. Now um you know, Cara, the great thing about a free association test is it really leaves you off the hook. You don't have to um create anything it doesn't require any effort it merely that's right that's right it merely requires you to be completely spontaneous which I I know is a Should we take some deep breaths? Yes together inhale exhale I'm trying not to breathe into the mic because I don't want to freak our listeners out. Also, I I think we I think we may have deafened our producer. All right. Shall we jump right into it? All right, let's do it. All right, Paul Newman. Daytona. Well, I guess there's no real surprise there. Doesn't reveal anything about your um psychological depths. No, it certainly doesn't. Yeah. I mean could there have been any other reaction in the world horlogical? No. No. I think it's just Datona. And honestly that would have been my reaction if someone had just said that toward like any if even if we weren't talking talking about watches, I think that that would be my reaction, which says a lot about the level that I'm in. Fortina. Omega. Ooh. Connect the dots there for us. I think they were kind of the first in my mind to create watches with Fotina that really, even though they weren't, I'm pretty sure. I think there were some before that. But they were kind of the first mainstream manufacturer to release watches with Votina when they did the trilogy back in 2017, I believe. That's an excellent question, though. Which what was actually the very first Fotina watch? All I know is Fotina was coined on Friday Live. But um Basel World Hall One. Death. Stephen J. Pulverant. Neat. That was neat. That was neat with an N, right? Yes. Okay, just I want anyone. N E A T. N E A T. Neat. Yeah. Good. Good. Uh I and I I don't think that we No, I think we're all familiar. I mean he's uh he's a very uh neat, tidy, organized person. The only person at Hodinki who keeps canned air in his desk to uh blow crumbs out of his keyboard. He also has a little pads to put like his mouse on, his keyboard, his watch, his phone. Geneva. Switzerland. It's not that exciting. Not really a stretch. Yeah. That's okay though. That's okay though. We're looking for the authentic. Yeah. Vaping. Illegal? Even though it's not. Although uh it's it's looking less and less attractive with every passing day. Sure is. I mean, yeah. As a former well, I won't even get into it. Cut that part out, great. Moving with discreet haste to the next word. Yes, please. Wegmans. Sandwiches. Oh. Well, again. Seems like a logical. Yeah, they've got good sandwiches. Where's the closest Wegmans to uh New York? In New Jersey. Are you ever thinking about Wegmans and watches at the same time? I've had conversations where both have been involved, yes. So would you say there's a common enthusiast base? I think if you like nice things, you like Wegmans. And to be I mean, I didn't say that's like a New England thing. So my late in my late in life discovery, I will say, has been very enjoyable. I think they've got great products. The sandwiches are good. The pre made food is good. Not unlike discovering uh watches a little bit later. It's very similar, I would say. There you go. Moon signs. Taurus? What do we mean by moon signs? Moon signs, I think, is astrology. Right? That was what my take was. Yeah, so your moon sign is so you have three signs. You have your sign, like your regular sign. You have your sun sign. Which your sun sign, which I'm a Taurus. Yes. And then you have your moon sign, which is what you are behind closed doors, mine's a Libra. And then you have your outward, I think your sun sign, which is your outward phrase and sign, which is I'm a cancer. So there's uh there's the sun sign, which is the s side of the zodiac that the sun was in when you were born, the moon sign, which is the sign of Oh no, maybe my rising sign is cancer. Whatever I present to the world peop I'm a cancer, but I'm actually I'm a Taurus. Oh. Princess Diana. Oh, legend. Oh. You think so? Yes. I was like obsessed with her when I was younger. Really? Yeah. Obsessed with her. I was a kid. Well, I just thought she was like magic. I just thought she was like so beautiful, like so cool. She was a princess. She was. She was. She was a people. I was very yes. Is there a is there a connection? I believe she uh may have given someone Did she give Prince Charles a watch or did she give Prince William a watch? Not not Prince Charles. I think Prince William. Maybe. I didn't know that, but I'll have to look into it. Work lunch. Salad. Even though I don't eat salads very often. I feel I feel like you're going through a bit of a salad phase. I am because you know I'm getting older and like food energy food like affects your energy and when I have a sandwich or something for lunch, I get really tired. And then you can't then you can't content. Exactly. So salads it is. Salads help you think about watches in the afternoon. Yes. Through the long-term They keep me going. Through the long arduous afternoons of thinking about watches. It is. It is. Do you think uh do you think the increased amount of roughage helps clear the mind? No, we don't think we need to get into that online. All right. Tattoos. I have one. All right. Is it of a watch? No. Is it of Paul Newman? No. Is it of Stephen J. Pulverant? No. But these are all great ideas. Do you think you and Stephen J. Pulverant should get matching portrait tattoos? No, but I have for the longest time tried to convince Stevie to get a tattoo. Um Just because of of the epic meltdown that would happen after he got a tattoo. Because he's so neat, as we discussed earlier, that I think the second he got a tattoo, he would just freak out because he couldn't wash it off. Yeah, it's harder to walk back a tattoo than it is somebody. Sure is. I don't know what this next one means, so you're gonna have to clear that up. Lisa Vanderpump. She's pretty epic. That's kind of that's the word I would use. I mean, she's fallen out of favor with a lot of people lately because she spread a lot of gossip. Um Did you guys circulate this i internally to get people to contribute this was this was put together by your colleagues, not including me. Yeah, seriously. No, she's one of the real housewives of Beverly Hills, no moss. She quit. Oh. She quit to the press before she told Andy Brave though. Any connection to the Wchat World other than that Stephen J. Pulverett, whose name is coming up a lot. Uh is a reality TV fanatic? Uh no. She wears like a lot of bling though. No? Her husband wears a Hublow, I think. Alright, quartz. Watches. Which is sad. Cause at first it was watches and then I immediately thought of rose quartz. Mm-hmm. Which is a healing stone. Is it? Yeah. But not found in watches. I don't think so. Actually no, I think it not necessarily rose quartz, but quartz, the crystal is found in watches. Oh absolutely. Yeah. Odell Beckham. Well, time too much time has passed. David Beckham. Football player. But footballer. I mm he's a football he's a soccer player. That's true. But I was saying f I think I said football by accident. No, it's uh because I was doing the English thing. Yes. I was trying to be English. Where are you? We'll go with that. All right. Isn't he an ambassador for a certain brand? Tuda. Indeed. Tuda. Double wristing. Uh-huh. Huh? Double wristing. Huh? Wearing a watch on Wearing Watch. That's why huh I don't I I don't get it. Is it uh is it anything that you would ever do? I don't think so. What do you think of the fact that I do it? I think it's okay that you do it. But you you're the exception to almost every rule. Thank you for that, I think. Um do you do you think do you think it's an absurdity? No. I think it makes sense when you have an Apple Watch and another watch, because one's tracking for health On the other hand, so was Nicholas Jihyek. There you go. He was he was larger than life in every respect. Yeah, I mean like you know, I don't think you need six watches on one wrist. Pizza. Yum. I don't think we need to dig any deeper than that. New York. Uh w where I live said unenthusiastically. I was looking for something like center of the watch universe so as to spark debate. Okay. Send center of the of the universe. Go. Los Angeles. Ooh, sunny. Also uh center of the watch universe? I think it's a popular place for watches, yes. How would you describe that how would you characterize or can you characterize the difference between New York watch culture and LA watch culture? I see more watches when I'm in LA. But it's uh very repetitive, so it's a lot of the same stuff, which I think is fine. That's just kind of a not a it's like a, you know, it's a trend. It's it's kind of what happens I'm almost never out there myself. Um, despite of the fact that I have family out there. What do you see a lot of? I see a lot of Nautiluses, I see a lot of APs, I see a lot of bracelet watches, you know, it's kind of like Rolex AP and the fifty seven eleven are like the the go to's Is that significantly different than what you uh feel like you see in New York? In New York I think you get a broader range of like niche vintage pieces to submariners a little bit more I feel like every time we do a Hodinki meetup there's always a good ten percent of the folks that show up have something quirky and idiosyncratic. Yeah, exactly. I think it's kind of speaks to the to the culture of the Would you say uh Los Angeles watch culture is a little bit more I don't want to say pr uh not not predictable, but maybe more outward looking, more um a little bit more status aware. Yeah, maybe. Less less insider-y. Yeah, I mean it's a little more Hollywood, you know. And I don't think I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean that in just like that's the environment in which they live. Yeah, and no and no surprise there, Hollywood being in Los Angeles. Exactly. GPHG. Never been. Wanna go? I'm okay. Any interest? I'm all good. Would you like to be on the jury some year? Maybe. Have you seen anything uh on the lists this year that really jumped out at you? No, I'll have to revisit the list. I think I'd be a pretty cutthroat juror though. I suspect you would be. What do you think of the whole GPHG as a j sort of a general I think it's great, but I think that they should do it with all watches. I don't think that you should have to everyone pays to be on there. Yeah. So I think it should be free. So you can actually vote for watches that like don't necessarily pay to you know what I mean? I think it would give a lot more of the I mean the entry fee is fairly nominal. The real i the the biggest issue with the GPHG, and I I say this as a you know judge for the last three years is that um watches have to be submitted because the organization wants judges to be able to actually see them in person and handle them. And uh it's not always, you know, possible to do that. Right. So copycat. I don't know. Let's try again. Clear your mind. Clear your mind, Carl Barrett. Emptiness. Emptiness. Copycat. I keep picturing Felix the Cat. Do you know who I'm talking about? Are you familiar with uh Felix the Cat wall clocks? Yeah, that's what I'm kind of picturing. Yeah. Yep. I actually, you know, some people have um wonderful clock collections. We know a couple of people who own um uh Atmos clocks, which are wonderful things to have in your home. Uh in my kitchen there is in fact exactly that clock. A feeling's that? Yeah, with the eyes that go back and forth. Oh yeah, that's great. I like that. I want a life-size swatch clock in this office. I feel like you could make that. You know what I'm talking about? The jelly cocks. Yeah. They're so good. Platinum. Cold. Gold. Warm. Stainless steel. Also cold. Ten million dollars. A lot. I like how much ground we've covered in the last 72 seconds. Rapid fire. Indeed. Friday Live. Fun. Do you miss it? Bring it back. The problem is. No, there's no problems. I don't see problems. I see solutions. Well, you know, you know, there's a there's a you y you you see opportunities. Where other people where other people see chall problems, you see opportunities. Exactly. I wonder how our esteemed producer, Mr. Grayson Korhonen, who had Gray, what do you think about it? Bring it back. Bring it back. Yeah. It was a bit of a heavy lift. It sure was. From a technical perspective. And from an emotional one on our side. Yeah, yeah. We qu we we would often cry after Friday Live. It was it was cathartic. Or have a beer if you work was over. Or do both at the same time. The other problem with Friday Live is that we'd we would do it Friday afternoon and then we wouldn't like working. No, there'd be no work done after that. Which was, you know detrimental to the growth of the company. There's probably a a a correlation between the two. There might well be. Did our did did did Hodinki really start to take off when we killed Friday live? Maybe. Maybe. Hodinky Radio. Fun. Yes. Also fun. And sustainable. And sustainable. Slightly lighter lift. Case back engravings. I like them. Do you have a favorite? Uh I really like when you come across old watches or like vintage ones that have um like Christmas messages or like love messages from like the thirties and forties. I almost think that that's really nice to think about what that family was doing on Christmas Day. Yeah, it's super charming. You know, it just sort of brings you back in time a little bit, right? Yeah. What do you have a favorite uh that's uh you know over the years that's kind of stuck out in your mind? Maybe from something you saw while you were uh in the auction uh world? Aaron Powell Well Cartier used to do this thing where you could do these like little envelope uh shaped shutter watches. Oh, I love those. And you could get them personalized with your name and your address on them. On the shutter. On the shutter. That's cool. So it looked like an em you know had little postage, little stamps. So I always thought those were really darling. But um yeah, just the the the Christmas kind of messages I always thought were really sweet. Man, that is such a Cartier thing, isn't it? I know. It's the best. Yeah. It's just that this kind of them at their best. Yeah. Adam Scott. Golf. Er and and former Hodinky radio guest. Oh, yes, yes. There you go. And very nice guy, actually. I love Orel. I'm actually fascinated by Aurel. That's not a one word answer. He's he's very he's he's very intense when you first meet him. He is very he's he is a very intense. But I find his whole career path fascinating and what he's been able to do for the auction world with watches is really something else. He has been able to bring the now we as watch enthusiasts feel there is something intrinsically exciting about watches. Um, but certainly a lot of the time the broader world does not agree. Yeah. And I think one of the things Aurel has succeeded in doing as a great watch enthusiast and also a fantastic communicator is actually get that excitement out into the world. Yeah. No, it's true. He's one of the most charismatic auctioneers I've ever seen. And he gets people to bid. Jean Claude Beaver. Amazing. Yes. Happy birthday. Oh yes. It was his birthday a few days ago, I think. Philippe Dufour. Ledge. Yes, he is. Yes. Yes, he is. Advice. I give a lot of advice. Unwarranted. What's the best and the worst advice in retrospect you've ever given anyone? Well I never tell people to I always you know I always say never buy a watch as an investment because I just just you don't know if you're gonna get the return on it and you should buy something because you enjoy it or you like it or it really kind of speaks to you. And if it goes up, great. If it doesn't, you can't be mad about it. I feel like I was telling people that they shouldn't uh consider uh vintage Rolex submariners as an investment like twenty years ago. Yeah. LOL. So sorry about that. Everybody Especially me. Alright, ready? Yeah. Last one. Mind clear. No undulations in consciousness whatsoever. The mind gives rise to no form. Okay, my eyes are closed. Form gives rise to no mind. Form is emptiness. Are you hypnotizing me? Emptiness is form. Vintage. Watches. I know it's so boring. You said think of the first word that came to mind. No, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean what else were you gonna say? Especially in this context. Cool. Vintage is cool. It is now. It is now. Was it always? I don't know. Well i in my in my lifetime in this industry, yes, it was always desirable. Well, thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for joining us uh in this uh utterly transparent, completely unscripted trip inside the mind of Cara Barry. Yeah, the Roar Jack test. Car you've been a great sport. Thank you so much. Thank you |
| Unknown | . This week's episode was recorded at the Mondereen Hotel in Los Angeles, California, Godfrey Dadic Partners Headquarters in San Francisco, California, and at Hodinky HQ in New York, New York. It 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. |