In short
Podcast Summary: Front and Center - Episode "Hello Again"
Podcast Overview
- Title: Front and Center
- Hosts: Alex Center and Kevin Batory
- Description: A weekly podcast discussing branding, design, pop culture, and more, releasing new episodes every Wednesday.
Episode Overview
- Episode Title: Hello Again
- Description: Alex and Kevin return for a solo episode after a month, catching up on missed topics and the latest news. They cover various brands and products, including Throne Sport Coffee, Graza refill cans, and more.
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Key Topics Discussed
Personal Reflections
- Return to Solo Episodes:
- Alex and Kevin express excitement about returning to their solo format after featuring guests for several episodes.
- They discuss their personal lives, including family visits and sports disappointments.
Branding and Product Highlights
- Throne Sport Coffee
- Details:
- Promoted as a high-energy coffee option, featuring natural ingredients and created in collaboration with Patrick Mahomes.
- Hosts conduct a live taste test of the different flavors.
- Graza Refill Cans
- Significance: Introduction of refillable olive oil cans, promoting sustainability.
- Hosts appreciate the iconic packaging and potential trends.
- Dr. Pepper Pucker
- Trend: TikTok phenomenon of adding pickles to Dr. Pepper at Sonic.
- Discussion on the unique flavor combination and potential product development by Dr. Pepper.
- Hot Dogs from Heaven
- Event Concept: Seattle Mariners introduce a promotional event dropping hot dogs with parachutes from the sky.
- Highlight of innovative in-game entertainment.
- Utah Jazz New Uniforms
- Design Critique: Discussion surrounding the return of the iconic purple mountain jerseys.
Cultural Commentary
- Social Media Trends: Discussion of new platforms like Kara, with skepticism about their longevity.
- Celebrity Branding: Coverage of Molly Baz's impact with her lactation cookies and Kellogg's advertising featuring her pregnancy.
Creative Industry Observations
- Adobe's Terms Update: Discussion of Adobe's updated terms regarding AI and user content, with mixed feelings about ownership and usage rights.
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Key Takeaways
- Solo Dynamics: Hosts enjoy the energy of solo episodes and reminisce about past experiences.
- Brand Collaborations: Emphasizes the importance of innovative branding strategies in the current consumer landscape.
- Cultural Impact: Reflects on how social media and consumer trends shape brand narratives, especially in the food and beverage sectors.
- Design and Branding: Insights into how design choices, particularly in sports, affect consumer perceptions and brand identity.
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Conclusion The episode "Hello Again" serves as a lively recap of missed topics, highlighting the hosts' personal anecdotes combined with discussions on branding and product trends. Alex and Kevin maintain a humorous rapport while engaging listeners in the world of design and pop culture.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00You know how I was saying about the guest pods, like when we come in, we start talking and it's great. and then it's like we do the intro and it kind of ruins the pod energy, we're the opposite of you and I. We need the clap to get us into the flow of the podcast, into the sort of energy.
0:22Three, two, one. Kevin. What's up? It's been a minute. I know. It's been almost a month. A full month? Really? Yeah, since we've recorded a solo up. It feels like a long time since you and I have gone. I mean, a month is a pretty long time. Mono y mono. It's a table. It's the 1-12th of the year. I kind of miss these pods. These are personally my favorite pods. I love having guests, and we've had some pretty great guests. I know. We've had a legendary run. Yeah, we even have some more. And it's going to continue, too. The legends keep coming. We have some banked. We're like a real podcast, Kevin.
0:52You know? We got guests. We have regular podcasts. I don't know. I don't know. We're just doing it. We're doing it. We have shows. We have shows. We have clips. Yeah. we still got to make the live show thing happen. I think we flirted with that. I don't know. I hate a live. Yeah. We could like have a hangout session where people buy us, people buy us drinks. That's really what I want. I don't want to do the live show. I just want to do the live hang after the show. Yeah. I mean, we should just do that. Maybe we just cut to the chase and just be like, Hey, we're going to go to this bar. And then like all 12 of our listeners will show up and we can have a I think we did.
1:26I think we'd at least eclipse double digits. Whoa. Bold. The bold statement. Yeah, it's been a long time, Kevin, since we last potted. Since then, New York City fully alive. The weather is tremendous. It's hot. I'm still on my fitness shit. My back pain is now hip pain, so I've moved on. I went to Bozeman, Montana. Shit was absolutely gorgeous. Nice. Beautiful. Saw some of my family that lives there. Nothing stronger than family, Kevin. You know this. I do know this and the Knicks suck they got no they were just hurt they got they got beat game seven they're out the Mets suck nature's healing all is right in the world New York's returning to its natural form that's right bunch of losers you know it's just back to normal all is right in New York and back to sort of caring about things going on in the world of branding and design because sports is not a distraction anymore.
2:33I think I'm going to the Met game this weekend for Father's Day, which I haven't been to Citi Field in a while, so I need to. That's a good tradition, though. I'm loving that. Yeah, that's the best tradition. Baseball game with the dad on Father's Day. What's better than that? Oh, the best. You get the scorecard. Oh, does he keep score? Oh, yeah, of course. Oh, wow. Yeah. Classic. Keep score, get a sausage, sit in the stands on a Sunday day game. Did you let him teach you how to keep score? Of course. I mean, years ago, years ago, probably not. I think what we typically do is get a scorecard. He will score and then he'll be like, hey, I'm going to take a couple innings off.
3:09Why don't you jump in here? And so that's kind of a shared thing between me and my father. And yeah, that's the beauty of baseball. A Sunday day game, Father's Day. Oh, yeah. Come on. Is there anything better than that? And then they'll do like special Father's Day type stuff on the Jumbotron. It's beautiful. What's better than that? Yeah, the players talk about their fathers. Actually, I think two years ago, I was at the Father's Day game. They gave out those blue hats. That's right. Blue for men, pink for women. That's how it goes. But yeah, it's a beautiful thing. A day game at Citi Field is one of the best experiences that money can buy.
3:44You know I got one qualm with Citi Field? What do you got? You can't get a good draft beer there. Yeah, they kind of have a weird thing there where they've gone too far into the eclectic food and beverage game. that if you just want a regular ass like fucking Coors Light or what? No, you can get Coors Light on tap. You can get some on tap. I like a tap beer. But I wanted Brooklyn Summer on tap. I couldn't get it. You're trying to get the fancy stuff. At Yankee Stadium, you can get anything on tap. That place is garbage. That is a fucking concrete. Up in the bleachers, they got a big line of taps.
4:18Well, I would never go there, so I wouldn't know. Yankee Stadium, the Bronx. I'm not going to the Bronx. I go to Queens. Okay. Queens. I pretty much live in Queens at this point because of how close Greenpoint is. So I think it makes me even feel closer to the Mets. There you go. Kevin, we got a sponsor for this episode. This episode is brought to you by Throne Sport Coffee. You know Patrick Mahomes, Kevin? Yeah. You ever heard of him? Well, Patrick, close personal friend, needs to perform at the top of his game, both on and off the field. Patrick knows that high-calorie coffee drinks loaded with artificial ingredients will only slow him down when he needs to be his best.
4:58You know those third-down runs where he's just third and eight, and he picks it up on his feet? Yeah. That's because of Throne Sport Coffee. Well, when he gets an extra down in the AFC Championship game, all thanks to Throne Sport. How hard is this for you as a Joe Burrow? I respect him. Game-recognized game. So, Throne Sport Coffee actually just launched. It is 150 milligrams of natural caffeine, natural flavors and sweeteners, vitamins, electrolytes, and amino acids. Provides you the boost you need to get going and keep going no matter your game. Our game? Podcasting. Yeah, I need to be well hydrated and amped up.
5:35So we got four flavors, Kevin. The packaging looks great. Mocha Java, French vanilla, black, and salted caramel. Which one do you want to try? 50 calories in a can, which is pretty good. Pretty good. I'm interested to see what they taste like. Let me try French vanilla. We've never tried these, so we're doing a live taste test. Can you roll over a French vanilla? Oh, you want to do the French vanilla? Okay. Let's see how this goes. That's definitely going to make it even better. Premium-charged iced coffee. Sweet. Yeah. Theron's World Coffee was created by a beverage industry veteran and close personal friend, Mike Fidelli.
6:10And he was a former brand manager for Coke, where I met him. Powerade and Vitamin War before joining Body Armor. And now him and Mahomes are teaming up to launch this incredible brand, Sport Coffee. Pretty good. Really? I haven't tried it. I'm going salted caramel because I like it. Was there a mocha in there? There's a mocha over there. I should have did that one. Okay. I like more of a chocolate rather than a vanilla guy. But yeah, pretty good. Whoa. Salted caramel. Really interesting. Why don't you roll me over that mocha? I can't roll things. Hey, there you go. You did it. I did it. We have a quote from Patrick.
6:52He said, quote, I am proud to be part of Throne Sport Coffee and to launch and introduce a better iced coffee to the masses. We've been working on creating the perfect product for those who are always on the go, who are looking for a natural energy source with added benefits. And I couldn't be more excited about being in on the ground floor of building this brand. Holmes isn't just the face of the marketing. He's also the financier behind the product and played an integral role in developing it to fit the needs of consumers and athletes. It's something that he wants to consume himself. He's very careful about what he puts into his body, even if his dad bod might signal otherwise.
7:31I love how the narrative of him having a dad bod is coming to the forefront. I agree. Reading this, I was like. He wore an unflattering shirt one time, and now he's just labeled as a dad bod. I mean, I think it's a thing. I don't think it's just one time. He takes his shirt off at these parades because he's always in the fucking parades because he wins a championship every single year. And yeah, he takes off his shirt. Not this year. And it's surprisingly not a great body. He's just not ripped. I mean, I think he has a great body. By the end of this year, I may have a better physical physique than Patrick Mahomes.
8:10Calling it right now. Yeah, if you keep drinking Throne coffee. That's because of Throne Sport coffee. Yeah, no, it's really good. I personally, this is a little anecdote. Before the gym, I don't always make coffee, and I find myself really struggling. So if I'm going to bring some of this Throne Sport coffee home, I'll be able to just like Yeah, do it. open it up a can and get going. Open up a can of whoop ass. That's right. That's right. This makes me want to complain to some refs. I feel like I'll get every single call now. You couldn't help yourself. But thank you to Fidelity and to Patrick Mahomes, friends of the pod.
8:50Personal friend, Patrick Mahomes. Yeah, one of our big guests coming up is actually Patrick Mahomes. He's coming on. Oh, another thing I watched in the break was the Tom Brady roast. I didn't make it through the whole thing, but I remember we talked about it. I didn't watch it because it was just too much. You made it through? I took another stab, and I made it halfway, and it's pretty fucking funny. I can't believe he signed up to do that. What an idiot. Yeah. I mean, he is Tom Brady. He is Tom Brady, but he didn't need to do that. Who's the guy who went up and defended him? Didn't Ben Affleck go up and - I didn't see that part.
9:24I didn't get there. It's three hours long, which is way too long for us. That's insane. I saw like Kevin Hart was very funny. Nicky Glees were very funny. Bert Kreschner, very funny. I skipped over most of the athletes because I'm not interested in that. But yeah, so Kevin. You didn't watch Jules? I want to see Jules. I'll get there. But yeah, it's very funny. I mean, it's, you know, the roasts are phenomenal. They're just very funny. We missed a lot of shit. We tried to get all the shit we missed into one sort of document for the show today. So we probably missed some things. There's some new stuff.
10:00There's some old stuff. It's just the typical run of the mill for us. This is the, like, we missed some stuff pod. Graza launched their new refill cans, perfectly portioned and 100 % recyclable, to basically refill the iconic plastic bottle that they are now known for. Yeah. It's good to see them leaning in and giving people the opportunity to refill them with their oil, which is very good oil. Yeah. Yeah. And it's iconic packaging. As I said, it was my favorite brand of 2021 or whenever that launched. And yeah, it's continuing to do cool and amazing things. And I think olive oil on a can looks cool.
10:37Absolutely. It makes the packaging translates really well to a can. And this will hopefully start some trends. Yeah. People love that. Isn't that a packaging trend of putting unexpected things in unexpected packages? I believe that's called chaos packaging. Wow. now the trend uh term for it yes why haven't you made a tech talk about it uh i should i should we should record one right after this pod yeah i'm trying to get into the tick tock uh creative director for the internet energy because apparently there's a bunch of people on there and i watch all their videos and those guys don't know what they're talking about yeah some of them do some of them do but they it's funny like they talk a lot about design and branding but then you actually look at what they do from design and branding, that's kind of whack.
11:23We talk about design and branding. Shots are fired. I'm shooting up shots to these internet creative directors. They talk a big game, but their work is so-so. That's what I'm saying. They're good at talking about branding. Those who can't do talk. And those who can't talk produce a podcast. That's from School of Rock, right? It is from School of Rock. Kevin? No, I want to start an internet challenge where people are chugging these cans of Graza oil. Okay. Shotgun the Graza can of oil. I thought you were going to say Throne's for a coffee. Yeah, that too. I actually really like it. The portal, Kevin.
12:06Do you remember the portal? I do remember the portal. It was a big screen that would connect people from New York City to Dublin. Yeah, and they shut it down after the OnlyFans model flashed everybody in Dublin. That was the final straw. Yeah, I saw some people trying to do some fun and fucked up stuff, but it was OnlyFans that took it down. It was cool. It's back up now. It was only offline for six days, and I believe it's back up, but maybe they have to have somebody sitting out there. Or a delay, maybe. I mean, did they not think that people were going to do terrible things in an effort to fuck with this?
12:41It just seems very obvious. So it's back up. Wait, the portal's back. The portal's back. Where is it? Maybe they've hired people. It's in Times Square. So we'll never be over. Exactly. I do think that they, I mean, maybe they have people like a security guard making sure nobody does anything lewd or some sort of like in-between editor. What do they do? Jump in and like pull them out of frame? Maybe. What is this portal? Like it's just an art piece? It's an experience piece, dude. Oh, man. You can, it's like, you know, you just talk to people in another country. it's like they're on the other side of it oh wow they have new portals they have one in Poland one in Lithuania we're big in Lithuania we are big in Lithuania that's like our top market so maybe we should go to the portal and see if we can say what's up to some of our front and center listeners in Lithuania I know our fans are hanging out at the portal they do yeah big overlap there how about this if you listen to our podcast and you're in Lithuania right now let us know we'll meet you at the portal yeah we'll go to the portal I would do that for that yeah long distance meet and greet from the portal Ireland, New York City, and then more coming soon, announcing soon.
13:47Wow, thank God. I'm so excited for the portal. Oh, there was a Mac keynote yesterday. I didn't watch it. I saw, oh, they did the cool money transfer. That's right, yes. And artificial Apple intelligence. Sweet. So good for them. I'm excited about it. I do care about those. That's like the keynote where they talk about the phone iOS, which is a little less exciting than the product release. That one in September or something? Yeah, that one comes typically right before holidays, so they can introduce their products and then get people to buy them. They're now doing them outside at this new pavilion thing.
14:24Outside? Dang. Yeah, they do them. Touching grass. They do have people outside in Cupertino in some sort of live screen. So it looked cool. I think the event looks – the iOS, of course, will continue to get better. Yeah, AI is the thing. Speaking of keynotes, we missed the Taco Bell keynote. Oh, we talked about that. No, we talked about it. We talked about that with somebody. Oh, yeah. It's great. They should do. They launched a big Cheez-It. Oh, is that a new thing? They did another one? I think they were. Either I caught old footage and, you know, I'm speaking out of turn here. You are, Kevin.
14:57Sorry. It's from February. Jeez. Yeah. You're late to the game. Hey, we're knocking off the rust. Kicking the tires a little bit. Kevin, this next one is for you, though. Pickle, Dr. Pepper. So apparently this is a, not a launch, but a trend that started on TikTok where people are putting sliced pickles on top of their Dr. Pepper, specifically at Sonic. I guess that's a good place to get pickles. Yeah. I mean, Sonic's massive in the South. Yeah. It's the premium beverage destination. Oh, really? They've got the good ice. Yeah. They do have that sort of little, small, round ice. Yeah, that's pretty good.
15:37So people are customizing Dr. Pepper with pickles. As a pickle connoisseur, what do you think? Wood. Wood? Yeah. I'm not a big soda guy, but this has been ruminating in my brain for quite some time. I've been thinking a lot about Dr. Pepper and pickle. Yeah? Or you haven't tried it yet? No, I just don't drink soda. Yeah. Well, it has a name. It's called Dr. Pepper Pucker. Ah. Good name. Why not Dr. Pucker? It's probably better. it's not an official drink on the sonic menu but they are encouraging and appreciate the creativity yeah so i listen anything that gets people to go to a sonic uh restaurant i imagine is good i've never had sonic we talk about this they have them here in new york really i still haven't had raising canes i was oh you got to go to there you gotta go to the city and i was kind of by one i was like oh should i go and i don't know not good for the fitness you know no not good for the fitness and i haven't really been drinking so it wasn't like a late night oh i'm gonna go get some raising canes drunk, even though it was open kind of late.
16:40But yeah, no, I'm on the record saying that I love Dr. Pepper. Dr. Pepper is one of God's great creations. Diet Dr. Pepper is my preferred because... You could probably put pickles in that one. I hope you can. I imagine it probably has the same type of results here. Same 23 flavors. Yeah. I wonder if Dr. Pepper kind of gets word of this and creates a pickle Dr. Pepper flavor. I hope they don't, but something tells me they will. I think if something kind of bubbles up on TikTok and people start talking about it and it's driving people to Sonic, if I'm Dr. Pepper, they already should have launched it.
17:15It should already have been out there. Yeah. I mean, I feel like they'd be kind of dumb to put pickle flavoring in Dr. Pepper. I think you're just taking the fun out of it. The fun is getting the fresh DP and throwing a pickle on top. Call that a 3P. I'm into this. I'm into this, and I'm excited about this. Maybe one of the reasons why Dr. Pepper is not jumping on this is because they don't have to because they have moved from number three to number two in the overall soda rankings, according to Wall Street Journal. This is big news. I actually saw a lot of big soda. Big soda news. So obviously Coke is number one because we're the greatest.
17:52Number two is now Dr. Pepper putting Pepsi at number three. Damn. In this house, we trust science. That's why I drink Dr. Pepper. I think that's the correct order. Coke, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi. Question for you, Kevin. Can you name four through ten? No. Do you want to know? Do you want to know? Do you want to guess? Yeah, let me know. Okay. Number four, Sprite. It's different. Number five. Sorry. Diet Coke. Oh, Diet Coke? Yeah. So Coke, number one. Number five, Diet Coke. Six, Mountain Dew. Who the fuck is drinking Mountain Dew? I guess all of America. That's not in New York. Coke Zero. Number seven.
18:33My mom loves Coke Zero. I have a microphone on the podcast so I can say this. I think Coke Zero's recipe is worse. I think they changed it recently in the last five years. And I remember a Coke Zero being a top-tier beverage. Yeah. I really enjoyed it. And I think they changed the formula. They went to zero sugar a couple years ago. I don't know exactly when they did this. And I find it to taste way worse these days. I'm not a Coke Zero guy anymore. I used to be a big one. But it's just the flavor is - Were you taking Coke Zero over DC? I don't know. It's a tough call. I think - Back in the day.
19:12Back in the day, Coke Zero 100%. But today, I might go DC. I think Diet Coke has been hidden. We have some in the fridge here, and they're pretty good. Yeah. Something about Coke Zero tastes flat to me now. I don't know what that is. But I think they fucked up the recipe back there in Atlanta. So, yeah, go back. I bet if you search online, I bet there's other people upset. Because I think if you make a change like that, that's a big deal. I'm sure you could find people upset about anything online. That's fair. Number nine is Fanta. Surprise. Surprise. And number 10, Canada Dry Ginger Ale. Is this global or just U.S.?
19:49This is U.S. Nice. So, yeah, shout out to us. And shout out to Dr. Pepper, climbing the ranks. And shout out to Pepsi, number three. Number three. Not even number two. Kevin, moving on. Baseball season is fully here. The Mariners have a great promo. Did you see this? I've seen this, yeah. So in-game entertainment. I think we've been saying it needs to get. Everyone's been stepping it up this year. Yeah, I feel like the overall sort of vibe is we need to bring more than just players talking about their fathers on Father's Day. We need more entertainment. We need to banana baseball this thing. What do they call those guys?
20:27Savannah Bananas. Savannah Bananas. You see they sold out some massive Wrigley or... Dang. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. They're fucking legit. And so, yeah, they're trying to take it up a notch. And so they have a brilliant idea. It's called Hot Dogs from Heaven. And how do they do this, Kevin? So literally they just drop hot dogs from the sky? They've got parachutes on them and then people catch them. So they have a plane go up and drop off hot dogs? I believe they're probably dropping them from the press box or something. Okay. I don't know the logistics on the droppage, but I would guess that it's got to be some physical person, probably from the press box.
21:05Got it. But it looks like they come from the sky, but you're saying they actually just come from the top of the stadium? Maybe. I don't know the science behind this. I haven't looked into it. My guess is they must go like, you know how sometimes they have people that can go to the area above the stadium with the lights on? I think maybe they drop them from up there, but brilliant idea. Hot dogs with little parachutes on them are adorable. I'd be so stoked if I caught a hot dog at a baseball game. I mean, yeah. We've been throwing out T-shirts for years. No one really wants a shitty T-shirt. I do.
21:34Yeah. I mean, of course you do. But those shitty XL Mets shirts with the fucking sponsor logos bigger than the Mets logo. No one wants that. Hot dogs from the sky? Absolutely. That's incredible. I caught a shirt at the hot dog eating contest one year. Oh, yeah? It's my favorite shirt ever. Yeah. I always appreciate that they threw them out as extra large because, you know, that works well for me. Yeah. It's a universal size. Are you going to go to the hot dog eating competition? I'm going to be out of town this year. Again. Wow. That's two years in a row you haven't been there. I'm sad. But I'm also going to be in Hawaii.
22:09Whoa. Consolation. Fucking sick, dude. Yeah, dude. Fucking Hank. Hank 10, dude. Mahalo. Rip it, dude. Yeah. Joey Chestnut, I guess. When does he retire? I saw that. Never. Kobayashi retired. You see that? Yeah. He hasn't been competing. He's weak. He is weak. I think he's been competing on his home turf. Yeah. Just away from MLE because that, you know, the 30 for 30 doc. The drama, yeah. Yeah, they got some beef. Yeah, I saw some video of Joey Chestnut eating ice cream pints. That was pretty sick. It's fun to me to watch him eat other things that are not hot dogs. Yeah. Because I'm so used to him just downing 80 hot dogs.
22:46Well, he's the hot dog champ, but when it comes to, like, wings at the Buffalo Wing Festival, it's not as good. I think he's competing. He's going for the top, but he's really got a knack for sucking those hot dogs down. Yeah, well, he's been engineering his face and his mouth muscles to really get dogs down. I guess the same mechanics don't apply. He's the greatest athlete of all time. Yeah, he is the greatest of all time. Speaking of greatest of all time, Snackshot, Andrea Hernandez, friend of the pod, is coming to New York. She's got a bodega pop-up in June. So this makes a lot of sense. Yeah.
23:24Yeah, I mean, she's like, at this point, she's like friends with every founder that launches anything in Food & Bev. She should open a permanent retail shop. She should. I feel like she's... Well, now that Foxtrot market's gone. They're back. Oh, they're back? Yeah, they're back. Oh, my God. Things move so fast. Yeah, yeah. I'm washed. That's another thing we missed. Foxtrot went out and is back. But that's also a Chicago thing, so who cares? But yeah, no, Andrea, I think a retail shop. I mean, she's the queen of the shoppy shops, you know, so I feel like it would be only right that she would open one.
23:57She's out there. She moved to America. So she's in Austin now. So expect only greatness. But all she does is win. Yeah. All she does is win. And I saw she has like a kitchen that looks prime for filming videos. Wow. So maybe I'll make my way down there. Shout out to her. She'll we'll have to get her on the pod. Kevin, my Mets are looking to shift the off-field narrative with new content deal. I got bad news for the Mets. The off-field narrative is heavily influenced by the on-field play of the New York Mets. And that's the thing about sports branding. It's like, if your team sucks, I don't care what content deals you do.
24:42Nobody cares. If your team rules, everybody cares. It's as simple as that. I'm excited for the Mrs. Met content. Yeah. I got to know what her deal is. Yeah, behind the scenes. I think so. I read the article and it seemed a little vague, but what I got the sense was they're going to do some sort of hard knocks type behind the scenes TV show, which I feel like every team is doing these days. Yeah. I feel like on YouTube you can go watch a behind the scenes show about at least every football team feels like they have them now. Yeah. Which is like they produce their own version of Hard Knocks. They're not as good.
25:19But if you're a super fan of a team, it's fun to see those moments. Yeah, it's fun to see behind the camera or behind the action. Yeah. I don't know. The people. The people. And HBO figured this out like 10 years ago. Yeah. 20 years ago. Where they were like, oh, people don't care about Floyd Mayweather's boxing matches. But if you watch a show for two months leading up to it, then you're super, super invested. so there's just like long-form long-form tick tocks that they're probably going to be making yeah yeah i like when they walk into the stadium and they like ask them questions like that kind of stuff so people just want to know more about the teams the players the behind the scenes like and i think that's what i love about hard knocks and i love about sports documentaries like i i talk about this all the time like netflix has the golf show um full swing i think it's called and they have the tennis show full court who knows whatever these fucking names are but But these shows are great in that they genuinely make me want to watch golf, something I don't care about.
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26:19And so I watch the Masters, and I have people that I root for because I watch a reality show about the people. Yeah, Steve Cohen should focus on the on-field happenings at the Mets. Yeah, we suck. Yeah, you do. We're really bad. So that's – Stevie Cohen, I wonder how long the Stevie Cohen – I mean, he owns the team, right? No, I mean, he's not going to. But I think general online discourse is still favorable for him. Yeah. I mean, they were never going to be good this year anyway. That's not what my dad said. Trust the process. Tank. Get the picks. Man, I don't want to lose Alonzo, though. I think that would be.
26:57I see it coming. Probably won't. It's happening. No, they're going to. You think so? Yeah, it's contract year. Jeez. Yeah. He's gone, dude. Getting into the nitty gritty. No, I mean, it's just like he's our best player. and he's going to be traded in a month or so, and it will be devastating. The fans won't like that, but they have a new content series. Yeah, some of that content will ease the pain. Yeah, exactly. I can't wait. I don't want good players. I don't want generational talent. I want content. Good content. Thanks, Stevie. In some design news for the Utah Jazz, they're bringing back the Mountain jerseys.
27:33Good. Yeah. We love this. Those are the right jerseys. Yeah, right move. Yeah. I'm a little confused why they have two purple jerseys. Yeah. It seems like they've got a throwback and a modern version, which like, I don't know. They look exactly the same. Well, the one has like some sort of gradiated mountain type visual language on it, which I guess is probably more so like the new updated version. Maybe the other mountain one is like a true throwback, but I don't know. Just decide on one. Yeah. I always thought it was weird that they had these like yellow and black colorway for the jazz. Yeah.
28:09Their brand's been all sorts of confused. I mean, I love the design of it because they went super minimal and very modern. I always thought that they did a cool job with that. But yeah, those purple jerseys, like that's when you close your eyes and you picture the Utah Jazz, you picture Malone and Stockton and you picture the purple jerseys. It makes me so frustrated when the Celtics wear black or the Knicks are wearing this navy blue. It's like wear white and blue. Yeah, play the hits. Play the fucking hits. How do you not wear Nick's white jersey at home? How do you not wear the blue jersey on the road?
28:42It's very simple. I don't get it. Why would the Celtics not wear white at home and green on the road? I don't know. It's fucking like that. Why are they playing the NBA Finals in black jerseys? It's because the Mamba mentality, dude. Jason Tatum is just like Kobe. You can't win a jersey. You can't win a championship in a black jersey. Remember LeBron won a championship in the T-shirt jersey? Oh, yuck. That's offensive. Yeah, I'm looking at the two jerseys. They have the City Edition jersey and then the Icon Edition. One has a gradient mountain, and one has like a – or actually, one has like a sort of line gradient mountain, and one has a sort of smooth gradient gradient.
29:25It's a mountain gradient. This is confusing me. Just pick one of these two. They're identical. Nike's got to move units. Yeah, but what's the difference? One has a black Utah and one has a white Utah. It's like, guys, make a decision here. But I think this is the right move. This is the right typography. I don't know. Yeah, no. It's an interesting design decision. I'm not seeing any hidden meanings or any videos announcing this. So, yeah, it looks just like. Not yet. They'll have a video. I think they just leaked it. or they're teasing it. Yeah. I mean, the musical note has been downplayed, which I think is the right move too because everyone knows that jazz is not a Utah thing, mountains are.
30:13So let's move a little bit away from the musical note jazz and a little bit more towards the mountain jazz. Moving on, Molly Boz is having a moment, Kevin. Yeah, she is up in the news. She is out here. And so this started when she launched Big Titty Cookies, which was a lactation cookie with a brand called Swell, S-W-E-H-L.com. Yeah, she wrote a recipe for cookies that help you produce milk. Cool. and the brand Swell decided to put a billboard of Molly pregnant in Times Square. And then the big Times Square took it down, said, we can't have that. They said it was indecent. Yeah, which got a lot of people upset, including my mother.
31:06Yeah, she was like, what's going on with the Molly Bob? It's good to hear Joni was fired up. She was fired up. And yeah, no, why take that down? It makes no sense. And then the brand Seed, which I'm a fan of as well, they had a billboard space, I guess, in Times Square and decided to put the board back up in one of their units. So they had like four units on the side of the building and they wrote an ad that said, Dear Molly, thankfully we're not lactose intolerant. And they put her billboard in the middle, took out one of their spaces, happened to be the same size, so worked out well for them.
31:43It said, in solidarity, you're friends at Seed. So brilliant move by Seed. Yeah, we love to see two brands coming together and uplifting an icon like Molly Gauze. That Seed ad got significantly more eyeballs. Absolutely. So this is whoever's over there at Seed that was like, hey, I got an idea. This, this, that person. What a partnership. That person is, is doing their job. And Molly just had her kid too. Yeah, and then the last part was that Kellogg's got into the mix and put Molly pregnant on the front of their packaging, which looked awesome, very cool. They had a very cool Kellogg throwback jacket.
32:20Oh, yeah, I saw that. I rocked. She was the first pregnant person to ever be on a cereal box, which, again, I don't understand why pregnant people are not on covers of things or in ads. I guess people are scared by human birth. Yeah, so Kellogg's also kind of good by you. I did want to start eating some cereal and putting salt on it. Did she have big pinches of salt she was putting on? Yeah, she's been promoting the salt and ice on cereal. and just like the pickles on Dr. Pepper, I'm intrigued. Yeah. I mean, this one's a little bit more right down the middle, but this one makes a little bit more sense at least.
32:59I fucking love cereal. I mean, it's just, is there anything better? I love the ice move. The ice move sounds like I like when the milk is really cold. Yeah. So I totally fuck with that. It makes a lot of sense to me. The salt move, curious. Salt makes everything better. Yeah, but it's salt and - I started sprinkling salt in my morning water. Really? Get the electrolytes. Hydration, baby. I mean, listen, you just created Gatorade water, I think. Yes. Right? Didn't they just launch that? So you're not wrong. Another thing we missed, Kevin, Wu-Tang came out with cream seltzer. Cream seltzer. Cash rules everything around me.
33:41Yep. Cream. Seltzer. And it's called hard. But the thing here is that it's not alcoholic. So this is confusing. I'm just going to say it out loud. I love Wu-Tang, and I hope all the members of Wu-Tang are getting paid for this hard cream exclusively at Walmart. Yeah, I feel like they're not a big alcohol group. I feel like they're about that ginseng tea. So I guess it's a cream soda. but it says hard, which is very confusing because hard now means alcoholic. But I guess it's a partnership with a healthier for you sparkling water brand named hard. Sparkling water hard. Kind of an odd name for a better for you sparkling water.
34:25Terrible name. And an impossible Google. Got to get that SEO pumping. Yeah, this is a bad look for everyone. The packaging is kind of cool though. Yeah, I like it. A gold Art Deco kind of vibe. I was for 30 years of Wu-Tang with the logo. I love that hat that Mello wears. He's got the sort of half Wu-Tang logo, half Yankees logo. You should get that. Yeah, I wouldn't wear a Yankees logo, but it's pretty hard. On brand. I guess this is a good idea. I'm confused by it, but yeah, I love cream soda, so that's another thing. Oh, wow. You should get some. You should get hard. I would certainly try. Definitely not better than Throne's World Coffee, but probably good.
35:09Get hard at Walmart. There you go. Heinz and Kit Kat have launched the Kit Ketchup, which is a Kit Ketchup flavored Kit Kat. I want to hate on this. It's a Kit Kat that's ketchup flavored. The external coating is like a chocolatey ketchup or a ketchup-y chocolate. It is a tomato ketchup chocolate. Correct. I would try it. Yeah. This is, again, remember on April Fool's Day where you're like, oh, all these crazy ideas, they should just launch them. This feels like it could have been an April Fool's Day joke. It's random. But, yeah, Heinz and Kit Kat. I love tomato ketchup chips. Yeah. Those are phenomenal.
36:00Everyone knows that. Shout out to Canada. They don't sell them in America because we're dumb. Because we don't deserve them. We don't deserve them. and shout out to Chloe who wrote the article here on the dial line and she said brings new meaning to tomato girl summer I think she's having a tomato girl summer oh she is okay but I'm not sure if that's a bigger overarching social media trend Kevin it is brought to you by Teen Vogue what is tomato girl summer TikTok's latest trend is not what it seems oh Gen Z discovered tomatoes hell no Kevin they didn't they didn't discover tomatoes they discovered tomato fashion oh okay so it's clothing that has tomatoes either on it or tomato colored wow what a time to be alive yeah shout out to it's an aesthetic thing it's not an actual you only hear you only hear this stuff on front and center that's right that's where we do this kind of research so you don't have to so yeah i i'd try i would try i mean any sort of kit kat flavor you know the they they'd be popping off globally you I know those go to the Asian supermarket and pick up the various flavors from around the globe.
37:10And they're always fire. Yeah. The exotic snacks are alive and well in the New York bodegas. Oh, yeah. I feel like every time I check out my local bodega here, it's got more and more like international Oreos and international Kit Kats. It's thanks to Zaza. It is. Yeah. The Zaza-ification of New York has led to the exotic food and beverage. Yeah, there's some positives that came from it. A lot of those weed stores started out as exotic snack shops. When you got the munchies and you're looking for – when you're off the ZA, you're looking for some exotic snacks. Oh, there you go. Well, I mean ZA does mean exotic.
37:52Is that true? Yeah. Wow. The more you learn. What's with the red carpets outside of the drug? They treat you like kings. I noticed I was walking by one the other day, and it had a red carpet with the railings on the side. I was like, why are we putting red carpets leading up to weed shops now? What's going on here? Why is this happening? But yeah, I like this. Because it's cool? The name Kit Ketchup is a little tricky for me. Kit Ketchup? Kit Ketchup. Maybe you should have just called it Ketchup. Cat-chip. Like Kit Ketchup. I don't know if you need the kit in the front, but sure. No, they did it right.
38:26This is a great name. I would try this product. It does seem April Fool's-y. Was there an occasion? Chloe said April Fool's Day. Is this just because? It's just because, Kevin. It's tomato girl summer. Tomato girl summer, exactly. Stop asking so many questions, Kevin. It's a Kit Kat-shaped flavored Kit Kat. It's not confusing at all. I want a pickle flavored Kit Kat. Heinz could do that. Heinz could do anything. Shout out to Heinz. Banger wine. Okay. New social media just dropped. It's called Kara. I feel like this happens every six months or so now where there's a new platform that everyone is signing up for and then posting on their stories and then it disappears I guess people are getting a little upset with Instagram and the terms or whatever I think people are upset about the AI use on Instagram or something like that they integrated AI into Instagram for some reason and I just think everything needs to have AI now.
39:27But did you see those story posts that people were posting? It almost seemed like something a boomer would do. They'd put it on their story and be like, Instagram does not own my content. Yeah, yeah, they do. I reject Instagram owning my – or Instagram AI. I don't know. It was just funny. It just seemed like some boomer Facebook posting. And it just goes to show you that time comes for us all. It is true. And I think AI training is a real problem. The fact that we're all feeding these algorithms and this knowledge that now Instagram and Adobe and all these companies are building. They've been doing this, though.
40:06It's not a new thing. It's like you think all your posts and all your ideas and thoughts and creativity haven't been being, you know, you've been feeding this data to these companies for years. It's just now that you're aware that it could be informing something that can produce work is where it gets tricky. But it's been producing ads and all sorts of other things that you have been dealing with for 10 years now. So I don't... Are you joining Kara? I'm not going to join Kara. You don't care at all? Yeah. And so I guess I haven't really read enough about it. But I guess Kara is like a creative-centric platform where it won't teach AI from your stuff.
40:50Yeah, and it doesn't let you post AI images. Oh. Yeah. Great. I don't know. I'm just going to say it. It's real and raw. This will be dead in six weeks. Six weeks? Yeah. I think calling my shot here, Kara will look back and be like, who is she? And you'll be like, oh, that was the platform. Yeah. From... June 11th, 2024 that people signed up for and meta. Is this the new threads? This isn't even, this won't be even as popular. So it's threads. Threads is actually like the integration of threads into Instagram has actually made me go to threads a little bit more than I ever was. Go through a separate app.
41:31Yeah. You have to go through a separate app, but they're feeding thread content into Instagram. And at first I was like, this is really annoying, but every now and then there'll be something there and I'll click it. Yeah. You don't have to go to Twitter. anymore yeah i still go to twitter yeah me too twitter's still the best but i i mean i've been i'm not threading but i think it's not dead people are still there i just care is this this is you know twitter i don't think this is you know twitter recently just said that adult content is allowed on the on the platform it has been allowed right wasn't it always allowed that's what everyone's saying so nothing changed yeah nothing changed great um speaking of not changing much uh moss Plus Plus from Lionel Messi is a sports drink that promises to be the next generation hydration beverage.
42:20Comes in Miami Punch, Orange, Berry Copa Crunch, and Lemon Lime. Did you say Copa Crunch? Berry Copa Crunch. What? What is that, a cereal? I don't know what's going on here. Whack name. The real story here is that it looks exactly like Prime. I think it's in the same bottle. is Prime. It's got the same label and it has big black type running up the sides. I mean, I guess Prime is doing well and people love Prime but come on. Gen Alpha loves Prime. Come on, Messi. Do better. And drink it Prime while watching their skibbity toilet videos. Yeah, good for you. It's just too simple. I mean, sorry, it's too similar.
43:02Everyone's calling it a Prime dupe. Bright colors, black type. I mean, this is this is straight from the center playbook not the copying but there's the simplicity of the prime design i always said that um we we have done multiple designs that look identical to prime and pitch them to clients and they've not gone with them one specifically being uh uh color daddy seltzer yeah r.i.p i think we could talk about that one can we talk about that alex cooper um yeah uh hydration sports hydration is important yeah everyone's trying to be hydrated And Messi, this is launching in America. I mean, it's honestly so close to Prime that if I saw it on a table and it was like turned halfway, I'd be like, is that Prime or Moss?
43:46Yeah, that's probably the market strategy. I mean, it might work. Moss Plus, too. What a name. Maybe it's got cleaner ingredients or something. Who knows what the plus. It sounds like a sort of a streaming service. Yeah, Moss Plus. Moss Plus. Streaming now. Yeah, I mean, this might be dumb enough to work, but yeah, we got a quote from Messi. Hydration is essential to overall well-being. I believe everyone deserves a drink. Everyone deserves a drink with amazing ingredients and taste. Moss Plus is a drink I'm proud to share with family and friends because everyone deserves to feel like a champion in every part of their life.
44:23Wow. Thank you, Messi. Thank you. You totally wrote that. That was how you really feel. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Way to go out on a limb. Hydration is essential to overall well-being. It's actually essential to just life itself. Yeah, dude. Thanks. We didn't know. But now that you brought it to my attention. Without liquid, you would die. Maybe I'll pick up some Moss Plus. Yeah. What's next? Are they going to start saying live Moss? Yeah, they should. And Taco Bell would come down on them with all their lawyers that somehow were able to free up Taco Tuesday. Do you know Moss is Spanish for more? Really?
44:58This translates to more plus. What do you think about that? I love that. Yeah. More plus hydration. I mean, it's kind of sweet that they were either able to trademark Moss plus or just they don't care. So shout out to them. Hard name to get. Has Prime come at them? I feel like if Prime hasn't done something cheeky in an effort to like sort of play off of this, I feel like they're losing their fastball. Yeah, maybe. They could also be watching those Instagram videos where it's black and white footage of a tiger. And then there's some motivational stuff about being a sigma and the lions don't care about sheep's opinions or something like that.
45:45Oh, yeah. I feel like that's probably the grind they're taking right now. Yeah, maybe that's... You're saying that Logan Paul's taking the high road? Is that what you're saying? Probably for the time being. Yeah. I mean, they're dominating. My nephews are addicted to Prime. A very, very reputable source on Twitter called At Milk Plug 69 says, Logan Paul and Prime will reportedly be suing Lionel Messi for this new hydration beverage called Moss. And it's just a picture of a woman, just video selfie. Oh, great. I don't think that has anything to do with reality. Let's settle this in the ring, boys.
46:24Maybe they will be a lawsuit, but who the hell cares? Let's settle this in some sort of athletic competition. That's what we need. Do they fight still, or the other brother is fighting Mike Tyson? I think that got canceled. I think it got postponed. Postponed, maybe? Oh, okay. Yeah, it's going to be on Netflix. I feel like that will work really well. I feel like people don't want to pay to watch Jake Paul fight. Yeah, but they'll watch him for - But if it's on Netflix, I think it'll do huge numbers. It'll do some numbers. Yeah, rescheduled for November 15, 2024. Oh, God. Jeez, we've got to wait that much longer?
46:59November? Who? What happened? Do you know? I have no idea. It's at Arlington Stadium. It's where the Cowboys play. I mean, listen, good for them. Good shout-out to them. How many people are they expecting to come? I guess fucking a lot. Yeah. They postponed this. When was it supposed to be? It was supposed to be July 8th? Apparently. Who cares? Kevin, the last story of the day is Adobe. We kind of already talked about it. But yeah, Adobe is updated their terms of use. And essentially in the fine print said, we now own the ability. You grant us the ability to reproduce, publicly display, modify, and basically translate and use our AI to learn from your everyday Adobe use.
47:49And yeah. I'm cool with this. They've done so much for me over my career that they can do whatever they want. This is a hot take, Kevin. I kind of like this. It's like, well, Adobe, you've given us a job and a life and one that we really love. And you know what, Kevin? I'll join you. Thank you, Adobe. I'm ready to make my way into the woods anyway. So whatever. You know, Adobe. Take whatever you want. You deserve this. Yeah. Sure, Adobe. Do whatever you want with all of our creations. i think i'm not gonna get hellbent uh out of shape here about this i'm with you i'm kind of like adobe we love you we support you i don't uh talk badly about you on and off the camera please call us kevin and i are ready to make content for whatever platform adobe plus you know you have and we agree to the terms of service because um you know yeah what are we gonna do disagree yeah I guess what are we going to use some other fucking creative suite?
48:46One thing about me is I will always comply when it comes to Adobe. That's right. Exactly. Like, is there another creative suite? Is there a Kara suite? You know, is there another, is there alt? If I don't want to use Photoshop, illustrator and design, et cetera, there's, there's alternatives. There are, I don't know what they are. Yeah, they are. Well, guess what? I would never use them Adobe because you and I are in a lifelong partnership. Match made in heaven. We are a match made in heaven and we love you. and I will speak at Adobe Max. What's mine is yours. Yeah, exactly. We're just sharing.
49:17Sharing is caring. Whatever we make. We pay to subscribe to your service. Yep, yep. We get tools. Yep. You get our IP. Yeah. Simple. Seems fair to us. Fair trade. For all that you've done for us at Adobe, what else do you want? Do you want to sleep on my couch? Like, what do you want? You want a little area of our office? Adobe can have my wife. You want a little shrine? We'll make you a little shrine. Just a little area where we can come in and just pledge our allegiance each morning to Adobe and the Adobe overlords. Yeah, it'll be great. I love the fact that people are just waking up to this idea that Adobe may not be a super by-the-books kind company.
50:01That they're not 100 % for creatives and maybe they are for profit. Yeah. I love that it took this. Yeah, I'm shocked. Shocked. Shocked that maybe they don't have creatives' interests at the heart of their company. I definitely understand where everyone's coming from, though. I mean, if I wasn't so... Cut this from the record, Kevin. Cut this from the record. We love you, Adobe. Send me your general terms of use, please, so I can sign it in ink. If I wasn't teetering on the edge of the Bass Pro Shop Aquarium, I'd care so much more about this. Yeah. I mean, listen, Adobe, we love you and we support you.
50:36And you know what? in support, I'm going to open up all my apps right now. All of them, Adobe, InDesign. I would love that they own this podcast. I got two versions of Adobe Photoshop. So I'll open up both of those in solidarity. They do technically own this podcast. I use Adobe Creative Suite to edit and produce this podcast. There they go. They can train AI to do this job for us. They don't even need to sponsor us because they already own it. Yeah, but they can make their own version of the show based on AI with AI Kevin and AI Alex which to be honest I'd be down for because then we wouldn't have to record that sounds really nice and we also make no money so they can hopefully they can monetize yeah they probably would and then we'll get none of that money in return and that seems totally fair yeah that's cool shout out to Adobe we love you, we support you and we cannot wait to work for you for free that's the show Kevin, shout out to Throne, Sport Coffee he uh we'll get back in the groove yeah a little rust but hey look you know that's what happens when you take time off of the mic and uh i think you did a great job kevin so don't be so hard on yourself yeah it'll be fun yeah next week
52:06Cash, fruits, everything around me. Cream, get the money. Dollar, dollar bill, y 'all. I grew up on the crime side, the New York Times side. Staying alive was no job. Had second hands. Moms bounced on old man. So then we moved to Shaolin land. A young youth, you're rocking the go-to. No goose. Only way I would get into G-O was drug loot. Unless started like this, son. Bowling with this one and that one. Pulling out gats for fun. But it was just a dream for the team who was a fiend. Started smoking rules at 16 And running up in gates and doing it for high stakes Making my weight on fire skates No question I would speed for cracks and weed The combination made my eyes bleed No question I would flow off and try to get the door off Sneaking up right boys on war for me My life got no better Same damn low sweater Times is rough and tough like leather Figured out I went the wrong route So I got with a sick type click and went all out Catching keys from four C's, rolling in MPV's, every week we make 40 G's.
53:10Yo, brothers, respect mine, I here gonna take now, jabow, move from the gate now. Cash foods, everything around me, cream, get the money, dollar dollar bill, yo. Cash foods, everything around me, cream, get the money, dollar dollar bill, yo. It's been 22 long hard years, I'm still struggling, survival got me buggin', but I'm alive on arrival. I'm beef at the shape of the streets And stay awake to the ways of the world Deep A man with a dream With plans to make dreams I fell I went to jail at the age of 15 A young buck Sellin' drugs and stuff Who never had much Tryna get a clutch on what I could not Incorporation I face incarceration Pacing No one else states my destination In handcuffs in back of a bus 40 of us Life as a shorty shouldn't be so rough But as the world turned I learned life was hell Living in the world no different from a cell Everyday I skate from taste, giving taste Selling bass, smoking bones in the staircase Even though I don't know why I chose to smoke cess I guess that's the time when I'm not depressed But I'm still depressed And I ask, what's it worth?
54:16Ready to give up so I seek the old earth Who would explain working hard may help you maintain To learn to overcome the heartaches and pain We got stick-up kids, go up cops and crack rocks And spray shots, all in a block that stays hot Leave it up to me while I be living proof To kick the truth to the young black youth We shorties run a while, smoke excess, drinkin' beer And ain't tryna hear what I'm kickin' in his ear Neglected, but now it's so It gots to be accepted That what? That life is hectic Cash moves everything around me Cream, get the money Dollar, dollar bill, y 'all Cash moves everything around me Cream, get the money Dollar, dollar bill, y 'all Cash moves everything around me Cream get the money Dollar Dollar bill yo Cashsto's everything around me Cream get the money Dollar Dollar Bill yo
55:18Cashsto's everything around me Cream get the money Dollar Dollaronen
55:27safe
From the publisher
Alex and Kevin are back at it this week with a solo episode! They try to cover all the stuff they missed and this week's hottest stories. They talk about Throne Sport Coffee, Graza refill cans, The Portal, Dr. Pepper Pucker, Hotogs from Heaven, Snax Bodega, Mets off-field content, Utah Jazz New Uniforms, Molly Baz, Wu-Tang's CREAM soda, Heinz x Kitkat Kitkat'chup, Cara, Mas +, Adobe, and more!