Jason Stewart is no influencer ho.
Plus run club drama, emotional east side dads, and a Glendale fixer upper.
Happy Friday, everyone. It’s my birthday today. I’m writing this from Maui, where I woke up at 2am to see the sunrise at Haleakalā. I took PTO from my actual job, but not from my email job.
If you haven’t gotten me a gift yet, don’t worry – you can pledge a paid subscription below for whenever I work up the chutzpah to turn on paid. At $6 a month, it’s cheaper than most caffeinated beverages and every single cocktail in LA. And you won’t be charged until paid subscriptions are activated, so for the foreseeable future, it’ll cost you…nothing.
As always, you can also follow along on Instagram and share the magic with your friends.
I’ll send one lucky pledger a very nice bottle of natural wine, so really you could be making money here:
Jason Stewart has considered living at the Americana.
I’ve been thinking a lot about LA culture writing recently – and, more broadly, cultural commentary vis-a-vis LA. There are so many great writers and publications in the culture space, but the vast majority of them are based in New York (that city, for example, has the Drunken Canal girls, Emily Sundberg, and Casey Lewis, among many others).
LA has heavy hitters like Matt Belloni and Lauren Sherman, but their lanes are, by nature, more specific. Who, then, is the LA culture generalist – the person with a finger in every jar? Hopefully you said…me, but the real answer, for now, is Jason Stewart.
With his partner Chris Black, Jason cohosts How Long Gone, the thrice-weekly podcast most succinctly described as semi-ironic appointment listening for urban culture vultures and your best-dressed colleague. Jason and Chris have interviewed the likes of Bon Iver, Phoebe Bridgers, Jake Tapper, and Alison Roman; sold out multiple national tours; and influenced countless millennials to overspend on clothes.
Jason’s also a longtime Glendale resident and recent Rag subscriber. I caught him this week to discuss idea generation, living at the Americana, White Boys of the Month, and his favorite east side spots.
Here’s our conversation, edited for clarity and conciseness.
You’re an east sider, but you’re also an avowed bro. How do you reconcile those two things?
The east side is just as broey as Culver City and Santa Monica. It's just a different kind of bro, you know? It’s the same bro with a different pair of pants and a different pair of shoes and a different hat on their head, but they're still broing. I mean, there's obviously cool, interesting, anti-bro people, but nowadays, Silver Lake is just like the West Village. It's full of people who are from Nebraska and Idaho, who play lacrosse and football, and, you know, go watch sports at bars. Twenty years ago, I would’ve said that's really fucking stupid. It was like, an artistic, interesting place where you’d go see an underground band, do some hard drugs in an alley, smoke some cigs. Cool, fun, interesting weirdos. And now it's like, ‘The Stanford game’s on at two, let's meet at 33 Taps and we'll do, you know, some Michelob Ultra beer bongs or something.’
Are the bros getting cooler, or are the cooler people going elsewhere?
I think once a bro gets older, they kind of calm down. You can polish your bro edges. I think nowadays, people want a bro more than ever. You think you want anything but a bro, but when you see what else is on the market, the bro starts looking kind of nice. The bro, for all of his faults, has some positive attributes.
You live in Glendale. Would you consider Glendale part of the east side, or is it its own thing?
It’s its own thing, I think. The reason why I like it is it’s within striking distance. It’s just over the line, split by the 5 freeway, but worlds apart. My wife and I both grew up in Orange County, and it gives us that little suburban hit — but I can still drive to L&E Oyster Bar in nine minutes with no traffic.
Have you ever thought about living at the Americana?
I’ve thought about it at length, and I was actually talking to a friend, maybe five or six years ago, about wanting to do a documentary on people who live there. An old friend of mine’s sister bought one of the apartments when it first opened — and has a three-bedroom there still, I think. I asked my friend ‘Who the fuck lives here?’ And every single person was a freak. There was this one guy, he owned a niche black metal record label, rented out his unit, and lived in a van in the parking lot of the Americana just to make money. So it’s like, only freaks and professional athletes.
What are the chances of this project getting revived?
I was sniffing around with [my friend] and he was like, there’s no way in hell they’re going to let you get close enough to do what you want to do there. I think maybe someone more powerful could get it done. Like if I knew Caruso, or something like that. My ass doesn’t have the juice to make it happen.
You produce multiple episodes of How Long Gone every week, and part of the draw is your lengthy conversations with Chris. Do you ever worry you’ll run out of things to say?
Never. I was actually talking about this today with Chris and our friend David Cho. There was an article….let me pull it up….yeah, in People magazine, ‘Zoe Saldaña Says Her Emilia Pérez Oscar is Trans and Goes By They/Them.’ The actual statue. And I said, it’s nice of them to just hand people podcast premises. People say it’s like, rage-bait or this-bait or that-bait, and now it’s like premise-bait is being dropped. And it makes content creators’ lives so easy. They serve you the headline in a way that it’s like, here’s what Joe Budden and Joe Rogan [are going to talk about today]. The system makes the job easy, so I’ll never run out.
The podcast is obviously edited, but it feels very unedited. What’s the thinking behind the freeform, rambling approach?
The first year we did it, we would edit zero. I would call Chris on FaceTime and we would both record it, and then we’d just post it. And it would sound bad, there’d be long pauses because he’d be in another part of the world, and it was just not working. Once we hit a year, I was like, moving forward I’m going to edit every episode. During Covid, I did a lot of podcast production and editing work. Every influencer ho wanted to start a pod and they’d all hit me up. So I got really good at editing and cranking shit out fast. And now that I know every single word is edited on the show, it’s a big safety net to be able to say whatever I want to say. Maybe I’m going to go off on a tangent that goes nowhere, or I’m going to try a new bit, or I’m going to try to tackle what’s going on with the ICE raids. I’m not a very informed or educated person, but I feel passionate about speaking about things. If I say the wrong thing, I know I can just go back and edit it out.
Do you think the culture is too edited, or not edited enough?
I think it’s way too edited. Everyone is afraid of, not necessarily being canceled, but just saying the wrong thing. And when that becomes widespread, everything becomes homogenized and nobody wants to say anything. We are very edited, but we also say a lot of offensive things on the show. I’ll be telling a story and there’ll be a slur, or an offensive joke, or an off-color remark. And I’ll be like, that’s funny, I like it, it stays in. Versus, you know, ‘What if I get a bad YouTube comment?’
You and Chris aren’t instantly recognizable, but you’re very important to a certain subset of the population. What’s the biggest perk of your level of notoriety? Can you get a reservation anywhere, or are you still on Resy?
Not so much because of the podcast but just because of our network of friends, we’re able to get a reservation wherever we want to. The other perks are, like…I never have to pay for Sweetgreen again.
I feel like the internet is into you in the same way they’re into the White Boy of the Month. If the terminology had existed when you were in your twenties, do you think you would’ve been a White Boy of the Month?
That’s an awesome question, bro. Very cool question. I don’t think so, I don’t think so. I think, just like my position in Glendale in the greater east side of Los Angeles, I like operating just outside of that. But still being able to dip in and out and having eyes on everything that’s going on. I don’t want to be anything of the month unless it’s ‘number one podcast that made money this month.’ That kind of thing.
If you could trade lives with anyone for a day, who would it be?
50 Cent. Sounds like a fun day to have.
What’s your favorite cultural trend right now?
I think I hate almost all of them. I guess my favorite current cultural trend is the Kendall Jenner $2 tank top.
What’s played out?
Food trucks.
Where do you go when you want to flex?
I guess Chateau…and the Grill when I’m in New York.
Your top three spots on the east side are…
You can go as far east as you want.
Like Vegas? No, I’m just playing. Oh, I really like this place Banh Mi Hoa Phat, it’s in Monterey Park. I’ve been going there lately, I’ll send you a link.
What’s worth going west of La Brea for?
Rustic Canyon, or the Century City Mall. The RealReal.
You like the Century City Mall?
I hate the Century City Mall, but I really like Eataly, and overall the mall’s energy excites me. It makes me feel like when I would go to South Coast Plaza in Orange County when I was a kid.
Is it more exciting to you than the Americana?
Yeah, it is. I mean, the grass is always greener on the other side, but I would say the Eataly part of it is big. For someone who likes buying groceries, they have a really good selection of groceries. If you know what you’re looking for, it’s like a giant Cookbook…and a lot of the prices are pretty normal, compared to Cookbook.
Your niche east side obsession is…
I like this place called Corner Market, it’s a small sandwich store in Glendale. They have a good tuna sandwich I really like.
Before you go, is there anything you desperately want east siders to know?
I would say I desperately want east siders to know that How Long Gone will be in Santa Monica at the EEEEEATSCON Infatuation food festival June 28th and 29th. [Giggles].
🍽️ And now for some table scraps…
LA’s most aesthetic grocery store is turning one. Somehow, LA Grocery & Cafe has been open for a whole year. If you missed the party last weekend, don’t worry — you can still pick up the merch, which is honestly great (and name drops many of your favorite east side purveyors).
There’s a new dating platform that matches you with potential dates based on your browser search history. Honestly…this might be the quickest way to really know someone in the year 2025. I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying it’s reality. You’re already curating your photos and videos, time to start curating your Google searches.
From the tip line — there’s drama brewing in the run club community. I got multiple texts this week about the internal friction plaguing Echo Park’s popular LSD run club. Rumors are flying, but I can confirm the club’s organizers severed ties with their namesake running store after a heated disagreement earlier this week, and now start their runs from La Fe. I’ll have more here soon.
Trevor Noah is the latest podcaster to sign with SiriusXM. Trevor follows Alex Cooper, the SmartLess guys, and Conan O’Brien to his own exclusive deal with the satellite radio provider. To me, this says less about Sirius’s aggressive expansion push and more about Spotify’s near-total retrenchment from high-dollar talent deals (Joe Rogan’s nine-figure contract notwithstanding).
Eagle Rock’s hottest club is a dads’ group. The aptly-named Dads’ Group is a social outlet and support group for emotionally attuned dads, and honestly, I’m into it. A second chapter will be opening soon in Hollywood.
A reader reached out with this additional context for Monday’s newsletter about ZYN substitutes for soft guys:
NBC is considering giving Peacock’s The Office reboot a broadcast run. Sometimes it seems like broadcast TV these days is just ads and…shows that function as ads for streaming.
Eater named the Vista’s popcorn the best movie theatre popcorn in Los Angeles.
OpenAI and Mattel are partnering to make generative AI toys. Reallyyy excited to meet AI Barbie.
Jason asked me to feature some real estate diamonds in the rough, so here’s a good one. Yes, this 1902 craftsman in Glendale looks a little insane right now. But a few coats of paint and the removal of the current owners’ bizarre furnishings would do wonders. You could have an almost 3,500-square-foot home with a big front porch, super-sexy pocket doors, and Mills Act tax benefits in a walkable neighborhood. It’s been on and off the market for a while because a) it was priced too high and b) most people lack vision, but…you should buy this.
Is the Apple Watch…cool again? No link, I’ve just been seeing a lot of people wearing them recently. Let me know.
Have a great weekend everyone, here’s one more chance to pledge theoretical dollars ;)
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday John!