BOOT&TY

0:00We've got a lot of good stories here talking about Kevin. It's a beautiful day here in New York, July 14th, 1110 a.m. Nice. Yeah, it doesn't matter now because the fourth wall... We should pretend like it's Wednesday, you think? No, no, no, no. I'm saying it doesn't matter. If anything, it's impressive. It's just like when there's a long gap in between the Emily Oberman episode, when we're talking about Timothee Chalamet and Tina Fey sitting courtside, and that was ages ago. Literally, it was one month since the Knicks won the championship. I think today or yesterday. Wow. Happy one month, Alex.

0:33And that feels 100 years old. Yeah, for real. Genuinely. It's been one month. And it's like we didn't even sit on that episode for all that long. I know. It was a little bit long, but certainly not as long as some. But doesn't it feel like the Knicks won the championship in a different time? I think they win the championship every day. That's how I remember it. I just wake up and I think about OG Ananobi. Wow. And I think, what a legend. I'll never forget OG's tip. Pause.

1:05Three, two, one. Kevin! How long before we stop bringing up the next championship on the podcast? August? September? Maybe once the season starts again. Yeah. Then officially we will not be champions. But for now, we are still the NBA champions. Yeah. I wonder how much I'll cut from the preamble. I think a lot. Yeah, probably a lot. That'll probably be a really short one. Yeah, no, but we're in the summertime. We're still in the afterglow. I will say, Jay-Z, there were so many Nick jerseys, hats, bootlegs outside. We're still in the streets. Definitely. It's still relevant, especially in New York.

1:48So shout out to the Knicks and OG's tip. And to Hova. Hova. Hova. Yeah, how was the concert? It was great. I mean, it was truly fantastic evening. It was a beautiful night. Gorgeous sunset. I haven't been to the Bronx in quite a while. I haven't been to Yankee Stadium since God knows. I saw them win a World Series once. I was there for some reason. But yeah, it was a beautiful night. I went to go see the Blueprint show on Saturday night. What anniversary? Is it like 20? 25. 25? Yeah. And that's the thing now. I'm so old that I go to concerts and they're 25 year anniversary shows. Wow. Like last summer I went to Oasis.

2:34That was like an old man's show. It's kind of sad. I see, you know, parents and children and the average age of people there are like 45, 50. It's, you know, I'm washed. Yeah. My face when the time passes. But listen, God damn it. If that wasn't a fun night, the Blue Brand classic album, One of Jay's best. I think it's great. Yeah. And Heart of the City, You Don't Know, Girls, Girls, Girls, Olao Vito. No skips. No skips. And I loved enjoying it. Hell yeah. Marshall came out for Renegade. Forget about Renegade. I haven't, you know, again, like this album is 25 years old, but I still know every lyric.

3:17Wow. it was nice to see Eminem with the sort of the the hoodie and the I don't like he just looks so weird I don't know what his heel is I feel like this is my sort of conspiracy theory is that like something is going on with his face like he got some sort of weird plastic surgery and he like feels self conscious of it so like he just like covers as much of his head as possible at all times I don't know I made that up but Yeah, I mean, that's just a theory. That's alleged. Yeah, I mean, I just made that up, but it feels right. Doesn't he feel like he's hiding something? Honestly, I don't know.

3:54Well, I don't know, but here's the thing. I don't keep up with them. Renegade, great track, and then Jay let Eminem do Lose Yourself, which, again, not my favorite Eminem song, but you have a couple Bud Lights. Of course. It's a beautiful night in New York in the middle of the summer, and Lose Yourself comes on. Yeah, play the hits. And then fire is coming from the stage. It's electric. I mean, to see him do that, that's what I'm saying. It's a top tier experience. Yeah. And then Sunday night was the show where they had some issues with getting people in, with security. Oh, yeah. I saw some clips.

4:30The show started at 1230 and went till 3 a.m. So it looked like an amazing show. But I wish I got that show on Saturday night starting on time. But I guess you can't have everything. Yeah. That's part of it. You had a good time. but a quick shout out to the woman next to me her name was heavenly and my god she was spitting yeah in every lyric every bar she was uh she she really she was uh sort of she should have been on the stage that's how good she was um but she made my night truly incredible i got to rap with her and my wife who also knows every lyric of blueprint which is again why i was there she was beautiful new york we're having we're having a good summer that's it yeah we're having we haven't We haven't even hit the World Cup final yet, which is also in the city.

5:12Yeah, I got to admit something, Kevin. I'm out on the World Cup. You fell off? Yeah. I just can't. I don't know. We got embarrassed, and it reminded me that this is why I don't watch soccer, because we suck at it. I don't like sucking at things. I got bamboozled again to think that I liked soccer. I was like, oh, yeah, maybe this is the year. It's in our home turf. Maybe these are the guys, the golden era. Trash. Yeah. I mean, as Jonah Hill says in Superbad, it's soccer, Greg. But I'm still watching. Great Paul. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I love that quote. Is there a game? There's a game tonight, a game tomorrow.

5:51France, Spain, and then Argentina. England. England, yeah. Is it coming home? That's the big question, I guess. People want to know. I think that means the US will win now. No, that means England. Oh. That's there. Oh, I guess because they quote unquote invented soccer. I guess so. They definitely had to steal that from somebody. It's coming home. It's coming home. It's just a cool thing to say. Like it's coming home. Like about winning a championship. Again, I don't know the origins of it probably. Sure. I mean, it's coming home. What is home? You know, home is, I guess it's coming home to them, but I guess I root for them.

6:19I don't know. I like Jude. Yeah. That's cool. Bellingham. Yeah. I saw there was a cool moment where they were like singing. Hey Jude to him. And he was like crying. And I was like, I don't know about crying, but you know, that's pretty, that is cool. I like the celebration when he scores and he's just like arms open. Yeah. That's what you did with the, on your marathon. That's true. Not to bring up old sports accomplishments. People forget, but I did run the New York City Marathon. Alex ran the marathon. The Knicks won the championship. Here's the thing. Until another marathon happens, I still just ran the marathon, and the Knicks just won the championship.

6:51Listen, I'm on top of the world. The year of Alex. 25-26. Watch out. Watch out. But, yeah, I mean, I'll catch some of these games maybe, and maybe I'll watch the final. But, yeah, U.S. Did you catch any Erling Holland fever? A little. A little. That guy rocks. Yeah, he's the best. He's clearly the big winner of the World Cup, I think. Absolutely. Even if he got knocked out. I'm watching his YouTube. Really? Yeah. He's funny, right? Yeah, he's awesome. He's got a great personality. I've hardly ever watched Day in the Life. And I was like, damn. What kind of content is he putting out? I mean, he's just like, here's what I do in a day.

7:28And he's waking up, making coffee. He goes to train. Then he picks up some steaks. and then he grills the steaks. Sick. It was cool. Me and him were cut from the same cloth. Yeah, I think he was. Steak lovers. Very similar. Very similar. He probably, I just wanted to look it up. In my head, I was like, oh, he probably gained millions of followers. I feel like he became the world's favorite person. Yeah, he's like the World Cup sweetheart. How many followers do you think he gained? I know. 50 mil? 22. 22 mil? That's insane. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, 22 million followers. There's a trend going around right now where people are blowing up on reels or whatever with comments of like, oh, this looks like Erling.

8:11And they get spammed. And then Erling comes in. He's like, I agree. Or something like that. Yeah, I've seen a couple ladies out there that sort of look like him. Yeah, he looks crazy. Yeah. He's the best. But also looks great, looks Norwegian as fuck. And just like, yeah, a goal scorer. Yeah, funny guy. Just throwing people on the ground. And then, yeah, being funny about it. I think that's the key. I also like that he doesn't dive. That's cool. There's too much diving in soccer. Oh, really? Yeah, that's my American take. Yeah, no. I agree. It's kind of embarrassing. I'd never exaggerate and make it look like a man affected me more than he actually did.

8:47That's crazy. That is wild. Yeah, I agree with you, Kevin. Also, laying on the ground pretending like you're hurt when you just clearly get back up. And then the play's just going on. Like, get up. Yeah. When Jalen Brunson falls to the ground, he gets up fairly quickly. Yeah, unless there's a stoppage. He's going to the floor hoping to get a foul, but once he doesn't get it, he gets back up. Yeah, I mean, NBA is pretty bad at flopping. We have to, you know. Yeah, we have a Shea. Can't criticize one without the other. I mean, Bronson flops a lot, too. So, you know. Yeah. Y 'all aren't so clean.

9:14I'm with you, but I mean, we're champions. Champions. Sure. Yeah, I mean, the World Cup fever has certainly sort of come back to earth for me. But, yeah, it was fun while it lasted. But I do think we're having an English moment here because not only is potentially they on the verge of winning the World Cup, Ali G is back, which is in Wimbledon, which I haven't really been. Yeah, he's selling dime bags at Wimbledon. Clearly his best character, I feel like. And that is exciting. Will there be a new movie or there's got to be something? Probably. I think he's been teasing that for a minute. I think that's been the rumor.

9:48What a look. I remember when Ali G first came out, it was like the Halloween costume of choice. for five years or so should do it this year i mean it's a great look bring it back i think it's uh i'm looking at this photo of him right here with like four watches all the chains and yeah yeah i mean it's time it's a it's great clips when he's like you know posted up at wimbledon with like pre-rolls of is that probably like oregano you know he's not there i don't think it's legal over there but yeah uh i is back and if you is this boring wimbledon final look at the get grand slammed i is here with the hookup mushroom emoji pill emoji snowflake emoji leaf emoji yeah he had especially if you is it yeah did you see it oh yeah did you see the custom uh like wimbledon like logo flippy hat on oh on the on the jacket for the drug dealer it's real nice yeah i mean he's got to be promoting something this has got to be for i mean he's promoting wimbledon and he's also promoting himself yeah i mean this gotta this has to lead to an allergy movie hopefully but uh Yeah, this is how you do marketing.

10:54You dress up as a character and you show up places. I love to see it. But yeah, and drug dealing at Wimbledon is just, that's a funny bit. Yeah. Yeah, but we'll see what happened. What else should we talk about, Kevin? Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey got married. Your boy, Travis Kelsey. Yeah. Ohio's finest. Yeah, Ohio stand up. Let's go. Got married to, yeah. The big star of the world. American royal wedding is what they're saying. I mean, listen, it's true, but I've got to say, what? They actually got married at Madison Square Garden. I feel like if it was - That's the last place on earth I would ever want to do that.

11:32I'm still confused by this. It's weeks later, like a Friday wedding at Madison Square Garden on July 3rd. In the middle of the summer. In the middle of the summer. In the middle of a heat wave. What are we doing? She has bad taste. I've talked about this all the time and like that's been well documented. Her music videos are horrendous. Her album covers like she's bad and I think it makes her relatable. Like I get it. This is just bad. This is just truly. Yeah. Like if you could pick anywhere in the world and it's not like the people, it's not like the people going to the wedding would be like, you know, pissed off and they had to go to some sort of destination.

12:11Like if you get married anywhere in the world on July 3rd, like in the best you can do is Madison square garden. Come on now. I couldn't think of anywhere. I was literally thinking about this. If Jackie and I were like, could get married at Madison Square Garden, if it was available to us for our wedding. No aura. I don't think we would have wanted to. We would have been like, no. You know what I mean? The fact that they have all the money in the world. They can get married. To your point, literally anywhere they want to. And their guests would travel wherever they wanted to go. It's a logistics nightmare.

12:42It's a terrible place to get married. And on a Friday? Yeah. so broke? It must have been the cheap day. That's what I'm saying. You get married on Friday because Saturday is too expensive. I know, yeah. We always, big wedding goer here. Yeah. Everyone knows that if you get married on Friday, you broke as hell. Everybody knows that. Yeah. So to get married on a Friday is insane. And then like the sign just TNT married, like we could not, you couldn't get a designer in there? Yeah, I mean like we had to have some alternative options as I would say in the studio. We got to push this a little bit.

13:15You know, we got to try some other stuff. Also, billboards on the side of Madison Square Garden is just like so fucking tacky. What was the wedding brought to you by AT &T? Come on now. It's so bad, dude. Like, I don't know. Did Adam Sandler actually fit? Also, like, and maybe that's cool, I guess. Like, if Adam Sandler. It's auralist. Like, yeah, maybe if they were like tight, you know. I still don't believe that any of this actually happened. Like, it just feels so terrible. And like the fact is that the one thing that is maybe the most impressive is that they actually didn't have any photos leak.

13:48Like I saw a couple like blurry ass photos from inside. And like you saw some of the scaffolding and some of the trees that they put in there and like some of the entryway. I bet they had people put up their phones in bags. I mean they did something. But you would think, right, like those photos are worth lots of money to lots of people like TMZ or whatever, Daily Mail. Like I'm sure they would pay top dollar for just a decent iPhone photo. Oh yeah, dude. Um, my, so one of my friends from college, her brother grew up with Travis Kelsey. Okay. And so they got married at honey's in Bushwick and they had a bunch of photos leak from their wedding.

14:26Okay. And it was like, and they literally identified the people like, I think in the TMZ article was like, Oh, this guy from his bowling team, like, Oh my God. And it's like, oh my, I can't even, like, I'd be pissed if my boys were leaking images. Yeah. You know? I mean, I guess, but, like, also just, like, if someone paying you a million dollars for I mean, it's not a million dollars. You know? I think for the Travis and Taylor wedding at Madison Square Garden, if you had a really good photo of them, like, getting married in Madison Square Garden with the whole setup, like, some publication would have paid a million dollars.

14:59Well, I'm sure we'll be getting some sort of documentary. Well, I think that's probably what will happen. Probably some sort of Disney documentary. But that's even cheesier. It's so crazy. But did you see, speaking of friends from high school, did you see what she did with the invite? No. So the invite was like apparently like she painted it. So it was like some sort of like scene. Oh, she painted it? But like the actual wedding invite had the recipient's name watermarked on it. Yeah. So like in the background. Oh, my God. So like printed in the background. So if it did leak to TMZ, she would know whose invite it was.

15:37And so it did actually happen. And the guy was like one of Travis's like high school friends, like brother or something like that. It was like a it was like a friend of a friend of someone that he grew up with. His name is like watermarked in the trees of this invite, which also looked kind of bad. But just, yeah, I mean, what a weird situation. We're hating from outside of Madison Square Garden. we couldn't even get in it's true but the design of everything just so bad um speaking of outside of the uh the wedding did you see our friend justin genak from working now working formerly uh you know how he has that garbage project yeah new york city garbage we have one right here uh in the studio and so he did something very smart which is he showed up to madison square garden and collected garbage from outside of the venue oh my god that's hilarious and so he did the like just married collection that's funny and uh put it on tiktok super viral oh my god that huge views yeah do you see people like showing up from like indiana and they're like i just had to be here i just had to get some this energy or whatever like it's the royal wedding like again like people were that's what they do uh in england like they you know they show up for they from all around the world this is our royal wedding yeah all right i'm done talking about this i will say shout out to Justin because he's I literally just googled it he's in fast company today so he's there's this is still a story for him and I think I'm really happy for him that's awesome yeah that is cool very smart of him to show up and I like that he wore tux like he wore tux to collect the garbage oh damn that's a level of commitment July 3rd was a very hot day yeah that was I was like that was brutal so he did it and uh yeah shout out to him yeah but it's funny like all the stuff going on in New York with the World Cup and the Knicks.

17:24That got washed away and forgettable. But hey, it happened and no one cares. You know what people do care about? Chet Hanks. Chet Hanks doing an ad for anyone is brilliant, let alone a morning after pill. The brand is Julie, which I believe, if I remember correctly, Julie is the same people from Starface and a couple other brands. They do all sorts of smart products and they brand them and take products that you know sort of are are sort of used but don't really have great brands and they sort of like reinvent them and so julie is the morning after pill uh putting chet hanks on an ad where he's holding up a stack of money and he's got the julie morning after pill packaging around his neck like a necklace like a giant chain is brilliant Yeah.

18:19This is fire. Say what you will about Chet Hanks. Love him or hate him. Love him. He's putting asses in seats. He's like the perfect guy for this advertisement. I'm fired up for him. Yeah. I'm just happy that... I feel like Chet, he had a tough go of it for a little bit. He was laughing style. I guess. You can only have it so tough when you're Tom Hanks' son. I think that was obviously part of it was that he was, you know, sort of doing the patois accent. And he was, yeah, white boy summer. Who could forget? Who could forget? I do feel like he's having a resurgence here. I feel like this is a redemption tour.

19:00Do you watch that Netflix show Running Point? No. He's in it. He's acting. He plays a point guard on the basically this the show is base is about the Lakers. It's not that they don't call them the Lakers. They're the waves. Okay. And it's about Jenny bus. It's about the bus fan. Yeah. That's the concept. It's like a fake. It's not a real. It's not like it's a it's a comedy about a family that owns a basketball team. And he plays the point guard on the team. Well, good for him. And he's good on it. Like, he's funny. He's a solid actor. Yeah. He plays a Chet Hanks type of basketball player. I feel like that's kind of what he's got.

19:34Yeah. It's his bag. Yeah. He plays a white guy that, you know, sort of acts like he's not a white guy. Basketball. Of course. And yeah, he crushes. So we need more Chet Hanks. This is what I'm saying. And Haley Batchelder is the other person. She's like a sort of Alex Cooper disciple, sort of unwell kind of a podcaster. Yeah, I'm not familiar with her. Yeah, she's a sex positive influencer. So to put her and Chet together for the morning after pill is incredibly strong. Yeah. Yeah. And she has a great quote. Having a dumb boyfriend is a universal experience. Having one as the father of your children doesn't have to be.

20:14Yeah. Yeah. There it is. Big ups to Chetna. Yeah, that's a beautiful thing. Other things going on in the world of design. What else we got here, Kevin? Should we talk about Pirate's Booty? Yeah, I guess people are angry, but the kids aren't. Yeah, so Pirate's Booty is a brand. They've been making flavorless snacks for years, decades, actually. And kids love them. Yeah, kids love them. But the packaging has sort of felt, yeah, it never got a glow up. It just kind of stayed the same for a very long time. And they decided to change that. So Pirate's Booty got a big old rebrand. I guess they were owned by Hershey Co., which is information I didn't know.

21:02And then Pearl Fisher is, I guess, the agency of record there. They've done a bunch of Hershey Co. things. and so they gave Pirates Booty a 2026 makeover I would say they yassified the pirate is that I mean they just made it like in the style of children's cartoons yeah these in 2026 I don't like yeah I don't know that's fair anyone who's actually like you know get impressed about this is you know that's it's not it's not for you like you shouldn't I mean granted we do have Pirates Booty in the studio I was gonna say should we have some on the pod a taste test for a brand that came out 20 years ago.

21:40What will I say? What do I have to say about this? First thing we should establish, Pirate's Booty is for babies. It's literally for children. If you, again, as an adult person, take out some Pirate's Booty in a meeting, you are immediately... I'm going to let you finish, but I did see you eating Pirate's Booty yesterday. I have not had Pirate's Booty. I had Boom Chicka Pop. That is very different. that's also for children, but it's not for babies. I am interested in having Pirate's Booty because I haven't had it probably in over a decade. I'm curious to see the taste. I'm not a big white cheddar guy.

22:16That's a thing that I never got into the like smart pop. I love it. Yeah. It's just not for me. I'm not, that's not one of my - Dude, you know what's actually good? The Lesser Evil white cheddar. I think one thing we have learned here as a studio, and this is not an ad, that Lesser Evil makes some pretty good products. We were not familiar, or I was not familiar, just how great those products were. They put a lot of popcorns in their place. Definitely. They're running up the score in the popcorn game. Yeah, it's really good. Yeah, they got the championship belt as far as popcorn in a bag. Yeah, it's made with coconut oil, so it's got a little hint.

22:53Yeah. It's not too overwhelming, but it's just the slightest hint of coconut, and it's just beautiful. It's really, really good. But here's my thought on the Pirates Booty thing. I think most of these elements are well done. I think it's a nice rebrand. I think it modernizes it without losing sort of its core sort of vibe. Like I actually find the typography sort of nice. Like I think it's, you know, a little questionable on some of the crafting or some of the craft elements. But like, I just think it's too much of a change for a brand that like has been around for 20 years, hasn't changed at all, has these equities that like people are super, super, super familiar with.

23:36and I feel like I would have retained a little bit of what it used to be, whether it was putting the sort of brand in a circle or just like they kind of changed everything about it to the point where it's sort of unrecognizable as the brand. They kept the name. They kept the part. They kept the physical product. I'm all right with it. They kept the chest. I mean, listen, I think this is a good move. I think ultimately this is better for the kids. It's for the kids, but it just does feel like the before and after is quite a stark change. And so if I know anything about branding and I know anything about packaging, people don't love change.

24:20You know who loves change? Kids. Kids love change. Well, I mean, I think you're right. The target audience is a child, and they probably will like this pirate better than the other one. Yeah, but I don't think they care. They just want the baby snack inside. Yeah. So let them enjoy it. No, I'm not saying that they need to go back or anything. I just think it was quite a departure from what it was. What else we got? I am intrigued by these Pringles buns, Kevin. That's the thing that I think it's July here. It's grilling season. I grilled this weekend some portobello mushrooms, some chicken, some steak.

25:01Made some delicious watermelon salad to go with that. Nice. And you know what you need is Pringles. I have been on the record saying I'm not a Pringles chip guy, but the flavors are good and the brand is strong. And so they decided to launch for National Hot Dog Day, which when is that, Kevin? It's coming up soon or maybe happened. And they released three potato-based buns infused with the iconic taste of three fan-favorite Pringles flavors, sour cream and onion, barbecue, and honey mustard. I feel like sour cream and barbecue are the most famous ones. I'm not familiar with the honey mustard Pringles, but I'm sure those will be delicious.

25:44But what they really nailed was that they put a seven-and-a-half-inch long bun in the iconic Pringles can. which is what makes this interesting. Armin is claiming that most dogs are only six inches. And I don't know if this is based in science or if this is some sort of dirty joke that he's playing, but I'm going to take his word for it. The jokes are right there. It's kind of bold for Pringles to make the bigger bun, to make you enjoy the bun a little bit more than the dog. Next time I eat a hot dog, I'll get the tape measure out and see what's good. measures. Yeah, I'll be measuring those wieners.

26:28I think, yeah, six inches is a totally traditional normal sort of length for a dog. And so, yeah, to go with a seven and a half inch bun is, yeah, maybe a bit - It's an interesting choice. It's certainly a choice. It's certainly not making me feel less than.