The Grey NATO – Ep 100 – Hang Out With Us In NYC!

Published on Thu, 13 Feb 2020 06:00:20 -0500

Synopsis

James Stacey and Jason Heaton celebrate the 100th episode of their podcast The Gray Nado. They reflect on the journey of the podcast over the past 4 years, from their initial meeting at Baselworld 2014 to starting the podcast in 2016. They express gratitude to their listeners and share plans for a celebratory meetup in New York City on March 18th. They also introduce a new format for listener Q&A, inviting listeners to record and submit voice memo questions. The episode is a lighthearted look back at their podcasting journey and an enthusiastic look ahead to the future.

Transcript

Speaker
James Stacey Hello and welcome to another episode of The Gray Nado, a Houdinki podcast. It's a loose discussion of travel, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 100. I've said this a hundred times with my co-host Jason Heaton, and we thank you for listening. We made it. Yeah. Amazing. We made it.
Jason Heaton That's a hundred. I mean, it's, it's, it's incredible. You know, I was, Considering this this milestone and kind of the importance of it and you know, there's two ways to look at it It could be like New Year's Day where it's just another day another year passing But I think it's something worth pausing to kind of celebrate.
James Stacey I agree I think it's worth acknowledging and you know, I didn't really know what we wanted to do We didn't want to do a bunch of fanfare. We didn't want to do a clip episode that would cost me 50 hours of my life and You know, play audio people had already heard and that's still very much available on our feed. So in the end, we're kind of just celebrating this milestone by taking the episode off. We're still doing an episode. We have a couple of things we want to talk to you about, specifically a hangout that's going to be happening in New York next month and kind of a new format for question and answers that we want to kind of trial out for the next few episodes and see how that goes. For the most part, we wanted just to take a very brief chance to say thank you for listening, commenting, rating, sharing, emailing, Instagramming, everything else. We think that we only got here because people are listening and because so many of you have been so engaged and open to our mistakes and us learning how to make a podcast in general. And the kind of growth profile of the show has been in kind of big steps. And I think that it's kind of fun to take a moment and look back And then otherwise, in this case, as Heaton and I like to celebrate our successes, is just to kind of take a little bit of time to maybe lighten the schedule a little bit and enjoy the day. So instead of recording a big two hour episode, which is probably what we'll end up doing for 101, because we'll have a bunch to catch up on. This is a kind of a very quick, not too romantic look back at 99 previous episodes. And then, yeah, some kind of more functional news and requests on our part for some fun stuff.
Jason Heaton So, yeah. So, you know, looking back, you know, you and I met, I think it was at like Baselworld 2014. Mike Pearson just sent us a photo of the two of us at the Bremont booth. So that was.
James Stacey Yep. Yeah. Almost. Mike is our. He was our matchmaker. Mike in Bremont is our. Yeah, exactly. Mike was our matchmaker and we'll be forever grateful to Mike for that, for kind of making that connection, especially getting to meet in 2014 was kind of the starting of our friendship at a face to face level, certainly. And then We posted the first TGN, went up just after SIHH, February 2016. So we're almost exactly four years to, you know, we'll record this on the 12th of February. It'll go live on the 13th, 2020. And it's kind of fun to see, you know, it took us four years to get 100 episodes. We're doing roughly every other week. And, you know, we took a kind of hiatus in the 60s. uh, to, uh, to kind of reassess and see if there was a way to take the show to a new level. And, uh, and, and certainly that was something that I feel like we succeeded.
Jason Heaton Yeah. It's funny. It kind of would have been a neat format looking back and we're certainly not going to do it now, but, uh, calculate the number of, uh, cars or miles you've driven, how many, uh, hours of dive bottom time we've had, how many airline miles we've flown, you know, hours of recordings of recording, you know, for example, this is the second time we've done this episode because
James Stacey every now and then a piece of equipment fails. And that's what happened. And luckily it was on an episode that's going to be more like 20 to 25 minutes long and not one that's two, two and a half hours long or something like that. Right.
Jason Heaton I mean, we've, we've seen a lot of, a lot of changes over four years and a hundred episodes, you know, uh, career wise and, um, you know, watches we've acquired and sold and tried and places we've been and, um, puffy jackets we've owned and bags we've tried.
James Stacey Yeah. And, and the funny thing is, is, is, There's different ways that I look at it. Sometimes I feel like TGN is just kind of another thing that I make. Yeah. And I'm lucky enough to get it, get to make it with you. But other times I see it as this kind of outlet for some of the pressure that builds up while I make other things. Yeah. Yeah. Because it is this distinctive singular piece of content. It's, it's audio, which I don't work in otherwise. Um, it's, I have to edit it, which I, you know, in other scenarios, like when I, when we do a week on the wrist or something with Hodinkee, I don't edit any of those files. I just have to sit in front of the camera. try and say enough to give them enough meat to put a video together. In this case, it's something that you and I literally start with a blank Google Doc every two weeks and make a show. And for me, this is some of my proudest work because I think if I look back at what I would have loved when I was 20 and just getting into watches, it would be a show kind of like this. Maybe one that at times is more about watches and less about other things that I hadn't quite gotten into yet. But that's kind of like a live and let learn sort of scenario. You know, we cover our our topics kind of on a whim. If we want to talk about watches, I think we do. And we have. And if we want to talk about puffy jackets and Dopp kits, we do that, too.
Jason Heaton So, yeah, I would agree with that. And I think there's something about doing audio that's very even though you do edit it and it's recorded, it feels very real time. And once you commit your voice to to this SD card and to the ether. Um, it's, they're kind of preserved with all of the emotion and the, the weather and the head cold you have or, or whatever it is. And, um, honks and the horns and the sirens. Yeah. I mean, and it's, it is, it's very different from anything else I do. Uh, you know, even though I'm still not a huge podcast consumer myself, it's really enjoyable to me because I think I grew up always kind of having this romantic notion of, of being some, something of like a late night, jazz disc jockey or something like that. I like the idea of talking into a microphone to sort of this anonymous audience out there. And so it's been it's been really kind of a fun, a fun and very different venue from from anything else I've ever done.
James Stacey It's an interesting sort of medium because it is directly in your ears. And I think there's a time when I really didn't respect that. And oddly enough, I think in the process of us growing to the point where we could sell ads that weren't just copy read you know, use this promo code and then maybe we get some money like real advertising. Yeah. Once I got to that, I start to realize like, oh, well, when we transition from one thing to another, the tone or like the the the overall like context doesn't change that much. And it's a weird it's something that I feel like I'm learning to respect more and more as I hear it in other podcasts and as we try and produce it into ours. And and yeah, I think like largely what I'm saying is like, thank you so much to Jason, to you, obviously, for being a rock solid co-host and co-producer of the show, but also to everyone who's been like listening and providing constructive feedback and support and letting us know that we're not just shouting kind of out into a void or even producing something that people listen to for say five minutes and then shut off. It's kind of fun to feel like we have this big group of friends that are only an email away or if you happen to be in New York in March, Uh, you could be on the other side of a handshake, but it's a, it's a, a fun thing to have kind of seen these groups of people come together and it's, and you see it in the comments where it's not just people talking to you and I, but there's kind of a little circle of conversations that go around and it's this sort of ethos of like, we appreciating kind of nice things and amazing experiences, but really keeping it all hopefully in some sort of a perspective. And I think that perspective shifts from, from time. And certainly there's times where I think, we've presented things that are maybe too product focused or too consumerist. And then other times we go in the exact opposite direction. And I mean, it's a, it's very much been a learning experience, uh, for the two of us in, um, in speaking directly to an audience rather than speaking through a format like a webpage or, uh, uh, even a piece of print or something like that.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And, and huge thanks to everybody that's been with us since, especially since the beginning. And there, there, there are a fair number of people that have listened since episode one and You know, it has been a real journey and I think we've had our hits and misses. We've had kind of dud episodes. We've had, um, you know, we've tried different sort of interview formats and, um, we've had some great, uh, interview subjects, Corey Richards, Nims Purja, you know, Rolf Studer, Paul Scherfield, et cetera. And, you know, we're going to continue to evolve that format. We've got some exciting, uh, interview subjects lined up or, or hopefully lined up for the future. But, you know, just thank you for everybody for, for kind of putting up with,
James Stacey our experiments and our little audio problems on my part and that sort of thing. And, uh, you know, in, in talking about what, how we thought it would be most fun to actually address the idea that we've got a hundred episodes under our belt, we thought it might be more interesting than doing some giant clip episode or, or I don't know, like a, an hour long version of what we're doing. We're attempting to do in 10 minutes now. Jason, I really remember this hangout we did during H10, the Hodinkee 10 celebration near Washington Square Park as being kind of a high point in the general positive vibes of TGN. And we would like to attempt to build that again or do that again. So for any of you who are listening, if you can make it to New York City, Manhattan on the evening of March 18th, we are going to hold a kind of a large get together. So a traditional Hodinkee sort of format, there will be an RSVP on Hodinkee that we'll share on our Instagrams and everything else in the coming week, somewhere closer to mid-March. But yeah, we have a space set up and we're hoping that anyone who's in the city, anyone who's a train ride away or anything like that can come and hang out. And hopefully we can use this as a case of Well, look how many people come out. We should do this in this city or that city or, you know, kind of as much as possible whenever he and I can be in the same place.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I hope we, you know, I'm sure we'll get a great turnout. I mean, we did for the, for the last time we did a meetup and I'm really excited to do this again and to celebrate, uh, slightly belatedly, but, uh, but this hundredth episode, it's just a great excuse to do it. And we're all going to be in the same place at the same time.
James Stacey And Ghoshani too.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Ghoshani is going to come. We're, we're out in New York for a few things and yeah, it'll be really fun.
James Stacey So that again, just to summarize for anyone who may be zoned out as I was rambling, our TGN 100 hangout will be March 18th in the evening, just after kind of work hours in Manhattan. And just stay tuned to either TGN or Hodinkee or either Jason or my Instagram as we will share details and the RSVP process as soon as it's available. It's just not something we're going to throw out there now because it'll become unwieldy. Um, we we've learned, or specifically the folks at Hodinkee have learned how to do this in a manner that doesn't end up upsetting people. Um, as far as RSVPs and clarity of where the topic could be and that sort of thing. So, uh, just stay tuned. I think it's going to be super fun and I'm actually thrilled that it's just going to happen in general. And it's one of those things that like speaks back to what I think is one of the largest stepping stones in our recent history with the show. And that's our move to, uh, to kind of be under the Hodinkee podcast umbrella. And that means we can do things like hangouts, we can we can do, you know, things that cost a little bit of money or require a little bit more effort or require somebody with, say, venue booking skills that Jason and I simply don't have, especially for a city that neither of us live in. So a huge thank you to Chelsea and the team at Hodinkee for, you know, kind of doing all the logistics for this, uh, the hangout in March. If you look back at episode 66, that's when we essentially came back from a hiatus and it was a hiatus where if we're really being honest, you know, just in this, uh, kind of chit chat here, uh, we weren't sure the show was going to continue.
Jason Heaton Yeah, we weren't sure the direction it was going to take. And I think we maybe were suffering from a little bit of burnout and kind of not sure of the direction. And, um, and then we came to this agreement with Hodinkee to have them sort of support the show and host it. And we started doing some more advertising and it's, it was kind of the cutover. It was kind of a real milestone for, for the gray NATO. And here we are. And, um, you know, the future looks super bright. And, you know, with that in mind, I mean, I think we've got some ideas for even show format and some different things that we want to try. And, and James, maybe you want to talk a little bit about the new Q and a format that we want to kick off.
James Stacey Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things that I think has been missing from the show, and it's one of the things that I love about podcasting and I would love to integrate it more effectively, is a like an actually engaging question and answer format. So in the past, we've done a lot of question and answer segments and whole episodes, but it's with Jason or I actually reading your emails. And while I think that's functionally OK, it's not entertaining. It's there's not that much personality to it. It's a little bit slow. And if you phase out, you could miss the question really easily. I have this happen when I listen to podcasts. So here's going to be the new format moving forward. And I'd love to even be able to do this for the next episode in two weeks. So if you have a few minutes and you have a question for us, let's do this. If you can record your message as a voice memo on your phone, as though you're calling in to a voicemail line or a radio show, say your name, where you're from. That sort of thing can be doesn't have to be like formal. Please make it very casual. But just record the message like a voice memo on your phone and then email us the file. Just the greynado at gmail dot com. Same email as you would for any other question. Then we can drop the audio into the episode and make it sound a little bit more like a radio show, a little bit more produced and actually hear your voice and maybe even hear, you know, the intonation that you put on various parts of a sentence. So we understand kind of where where you want to go versus just some text. So I definitely want to get into doing more question answer. And this could be something depending on the response that we either season most episodes with or we do these kind of bigger Q&A episodes that are all of them. But again, if you have a moment and you like the idea of of this format versus just sending us an email, then open up the voice memo app on your phone, record your question and then send us the file. I think this could be a really great way to bring another little segment to future episodes. And it's something that I think is going to be kind of the first of a few ideas we have for triple digit TGN moving forward.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I mean, we've always enjoyed Q and A episodes. We used to do a lot more of them early on, but it was a little bit kind of clunky for us to be reading questions that somebody else sent in and trying to interpret things and maybe it wasn't written as clearly. And we'd try to figure out what exactly what the question was this way. It's, it introduces new voices. It brings that, you know, TGN listenership. actually literally into the show, which is really kind of a neat idea.
James Stacey If this isn't how you want your question read or answered, don't feel any pressure. You can always just send us a normal email to thegrenadoatgmail.com, but we wanted to add this extra level. So if you think you have a question that feels like a show question, let's try this new format and see how it works. And if it's not good, we'll pivot and we'll move forward. But I'm excited for how this could go and kind of just to have 100 under our belt with ideas to spare.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Well, hey, what do you say we dive into final notes and put a bow on, on 100 here?
James Stacey Absolutely. Uh, how about you go, uh, how would you go first with yours?
Jason Heaton Yeah, sure. Uh, so mine is, uh, it's a documentary film that I found on YouTube that was, uh, from 1981. It's called gold from the deep, the salvage of the century. And, uh, it's kind of based on this interesting story I might've touched on a couple of episodes ago about the salvaging of some, uh, Soviet gold from a British warship that was sunk during World War two in the Arctic and you know It sounds like you know, like James Bond thriller or some sort of fantastical movie. Mm-hmm, but it's true It's an entirely true story and and I would recommend the book as well called Stalin's gold which is kind of a companion piece to this to this film and You know, I'm not gonna say a lot about it. I think you should just watch it. It's it's some great 80s footage of you know, really deep water, saturation diving, lots of mustaches and big sideburns and Rolex watches. And, uh, um, you know, just some dramatic footage of actually rescuing or, or sorry, salvaging gold bullion, gold bars from 800 feet deep in the Arctic. Um, you know, I can't say anything else about it. Just, just go watch it. The story might be familiar to maybe to those, especially in the UK, that maybe the story was a bit more in the, in the public eye back in the eighties and nineties and kind of a source of legend. Um, but I only learned of it, uh, a couple of months ago and I read the book and then I recently saw this documentary and it's just a fun hour and a half viewing. So, uh, check it out. We'll put the link in. I'll also drop in the link for Stalin's gold, the book, which is equally good. So, uh, James, I'm going to kick it over to you cause you, you've got a really cool, uh, long form piece that I enjoyed as well.
James Stacey Yeah, so this piece actually came to me via a group chat with the Red Bar YVR guys, so the Vancouver Red Bar crew, and someone dropped it in there. It's a story from the Washington Post called The Intelligence Coup of the Century. And it's this amazing, like really, I think Pocket told me it would take 40 minutes to read it, and that's probably about accurate. You might have to pay a dollar to get into the Washington Post. The dollar is worth it for this one story. Without question, you can do your trial or whatever for a dollar. I got past the paywall once and then I didn't the next time. So it's the story of a decades long secret in which a very famous and prolific encryption service and company and machine manufacturer, this is, you know, pre-internet encryption, was actually the entire purview of the CIA and in cooperation with a German intelligence outfit called the BND. And this is one where, like, I definitely don't want to give anything away because it's such an insane story. This predates the Cold War. Basically, they were selling encryption machines that had, like, specific backdoors. So they were just listening in on anyone. anyone they wanted. And there were only a few countries that basically said, no, we don't like how close this crypto AG is to various American or German entities. Everybody else just bought it because this is what was good and seemed to work and was the kind of de facto encryption, like communication encryption service and technology in the world. And it turns out it was just entirely run by the CIA with the profits being shared to the German counterpart. And it's an incredible story. Like it's really well written. It's really well researched. And this is all, you know, via the Washington Post. And it's a really fantastic layout of a very complicated thing that that went on for some time. I mean, like technically crypto in this context went into the 20 teens.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Incredible. I think also there are these modern parallels to kind of the scare around or the questions around you know, Huawei phones and Huawei, you know, devices and, and whether or not, uh, you know, the Chinese government is using those to, to intercept, uh, information. And, um, but this is a, this is one of those stories where the story itself is good and then the delivery of the story is good. I mean, it's so enjoyable just to read it and view it.
James Stacey Yep. It's like, it's definitely the sort of thing that like pre Snowden Snowden sort of stuff, a full look at, at a really, really high level, super successful, Surveillance system within the the CIA.
Jason Heaton Yeah, just just fantastic stuff. I mean It's again like like my final note, you know this stuff you can't make it up I mean, it's it's as good as any sort of a thriller, you know novel or movie just just really good absolutely, and what I would add is finish this and then go watch a really great movie from 1973 Eugene Hackman called the conversation
James Stacey It's not similar, but as I read this, it becomes more and more similar to me. You know, this is a scenario where Gene Hackman plays a guy in audio surveillance that listens to and records something he shouldn't have. Oh, yeah. And it becomes like a whole thing. And I would say it's very much, you remember, what was that Enemy of the State with Will Smith and also with Gene Hackman? Yeah. Which a more modern film, it's like a precursor to Enemy of the State. It's something else. So I would definitely say this fantastic Washington Post article, which might cost you a dollar, a deal, a steal in my opinion. I'm sure they have many other fantastic things on their website as well for your money. And then followed up maybe on the weekend with The Conversation, 1973, Gene Hackman.
Jason Heaton Cool. There it is. There's episode 100. Episode 100. Two great final notes.
James Stacey Cannot thank you enough for listening through this many episodes. If you've only been around for a few, we've got another hundred in us, I think. Uh, we'll certainly, we'll certainly keep, uh, keep at it. And if you have any feedback, criticism, whatever, TheGreyNado at gmail.com.
Jason Heaton As always, thanks so much for listening and thanks to Hodinkee for supporting the show. Hit the show notes via hodinkee.com or the feed for more details. And you can follow us on Instagram at Jason Heaton at J E Stacey, and be sure to follow the show at TheGreyNado. If you have any questions for us, as James said, please write TheGreyNado at gmail.com or submit your voice memos to the same email address as we mentioned earlier. Oh yeah. And please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts. Music Throughout a Siesta by JazzArr via the Free Music Archive.
James Stacey And for a hundred, we leave you with this quote from Victor Hugo, who said, Perseverance, secret of all triumphs.