The Grey NATO – 200 – The Past, Present, and Future of TGN
Published on Thu, 07 Jul 2022 06:56:33 -0400
Synopsis
This is the 200th episode of The Graynado podcast where the hosts Jason and James discuss the past, present, and future of their show. They reflect on how the podcast began after James had wanted to start a watch podcast for years. They received a pivotal endorsement from Hodinkee early on which helped grow their audience. The podcast has evolved through different phases including an ad deal with Hodinkee to going ad-free with a Substack subscriber model and greater community engagement. They express gratitude for their supporters and look ahead to potentially doing in-person events, merch, collaborations with brands, and even organized travel experiences for listeners in the future, all while maintaining the core spirit of the show.
Links
Transcript
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| Jason Heaton | Hello and welcome to another episode of The Graynado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. We've made it to episode 200 and it's proudly brought to you by you, the ever-growing TGN supporter crew, all of you out there listening. We thank you so much for your continued support, especially those of you that have been with us since episode one. And if you'd like to support the show, please visit thegreatnado.com for more details on how you can sign up in various capacities, whether it's just a free feed of the show or if you want to support us financially, we're appreciative of all of that. So, James, we made it. How are you doing? Yeah, not too bad. 200. |
| Unknown | It's pretty exciting. |
| James | Yeah. Yeah. You know, I guess the big thing that we've been saying at the top of every show, it's kind of, it is in many ways the way that you and I are celebrating 200. is we'll be at wind up watch fair in Chicago. That's July 15th, 16th and 17th. I believe this is our last warning, um, about our, our attendance because we won't be doing a show next week. We're too tied up with, um, with, uh, wind up and everything that goes with it. Uh, so there won't be a show, uh, next week on the 14th. The next one we'll be back on the 21st with, um, I guess it's all sorts of stuff from the show. Yeah. or at least the start of things from the show. We're going to record several episodes or pieces of episodes, that sort of stuff. And some late-breaking news, a special heads up for those of you who are planning to visit the show on Saturday the 16th. We've booked the lounge space at Venue West for a little TGN hangout from 5 to 6 p.m. right at the end of the show. Should be a nice way to end the day with a bit of socializing. So if that timing works out for you, we'll see you there. And of course, a big thanks to the wind-up folks for helping us secure that slot. and that's windupwatchfare.com. You can find it in the show notes, July 15th, 16th, 17th at Venue West in Chicago. We're very excited to the point of being a little bit stressed about things like flight cancellations, which is seemingly what Toronto's airport does the best these days. |
| Jason Heaton | Defender reliability for the first eight hour drive. |
| James | Yeah, we both may have pretty significant drives. Can you imagine? |
| Unknown | I think the chief would make it. |
| James | Yeah, yeah. It's got a battery. It seems to be running these days. One of us will be there. By hook or by crook. Yeah, exactly. Somebody will be there. Other than that, I mean, you know, this is 200. We're not really breaking the mold with this one. We're going to kind of talk about the past, present and future of TGN, especially because we have so many new listeners that may not know some of the origin stories. You know, before we get to that, Jason, how was your weekend? It was a long weekend, July 4th, long weekend, July 1st, long weekend for the Canadians. How are things on your side? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, good. I mean, it was, it's, uh, it's, it's a hot muggy July day here. I mean, it was, it was kind of warm and mixed weather over the weekend. We had some rain yesterday, which, you know, if I'm honest, a good rainy day every now and then is, uh, is kind of welcome when, when, you know, summer is like dawn till dusk kind of busyness. And, and so it's kind of a rainy day. It's kind of forced downtime. And so I enjoyed that, but, but, uh, yeah, other than that, I mean, I, you know, did a little of all the summer essentials over the weekend. went to a friend's house for, for, uh, it was actually a vegetarian barbecue, which was interesting and fun and very tasty. And, uh, drank some beer there and, and went out for a long bike ride on, I guess it was Sunday. And then late last week, I bought one of these, uh, I don't know if you've seen, um, this might fit more into our, our watch talk, but, um, Mark too, you know, our friend Billy Yao, um, his company released a limited edition Paradive, one of our favorites. kind of micro brand dive watches with Prometheus design works. And, you know, Prometheus is one of those kind of small brands that makes really cool outdoor gear, kind of tactical stuff and good practical outdoorsy stuff. And, and they released this, this really cool version of the Paradive with them. And, uh, you know, Prometheus has been kind of on my radar. You and I both have one of their compasses and as part of the promotion or the lead up to the release of this watch, They had been kind of teasing out this photo of this really cool zip up wetsuit jacket, uh, that they call the Waterman. And it wasn't part of the promotion with Mark too, but it was, um, it was featured in some of the photos and I really wanted kind of a lightweight, uh, wetsuit jacket. So I bought one and it arrived last week, just in time. I signed up for an open swim club that swims around buoys out in the Lake near our house. And so. I gave it to the it's made in voyage last week and really love it. So if anyone's kind of looking for kind of a lightweight, you know, thin neoprene zip up that you can wear for, you know, snorkeling or, or, uh, open water swimming or, or some scuba diving, it's, uh, I highly recommend it. It's, uh, so far it's, it's been really great. So that was fun to kind of get in the water and, you know, get away from, uh, you know, a bike and running, which I've been doing most of this summer and do a little bit of swimming. So, uh, that was great. Just getting in the lake. So yeah. And, and I saw that you also did some, some snorkeling as well. Some underwater photos even. |
| James | Yeah. Yeah. We had a, we had a fun weekend. We had really great weather. So I was, I was kind of up at the cottage first through the fourth, uh, for the most part of the longer weekend. And I had decided that, you know, as slowly dipping back into diving, um, I wanted a new mask. Uh, it was the last thing that broke for me when I, when I kind of ended my foray in diving a few years back, I had a Cressi mask that just broke while I was on a trip, and I hadn't bothered replacing it. I always just figured, well, I've got other stuff to do that'll also get me to a dive shop, so I'll just buy another mask when I get the chance. And I had had a couple cheap Cressi masks from Amazon that just no matter what I did, would not not fog up. I did the toothpaste treatment, I did the senior frog stuff, I did the gel. I've done the I've done pretty much all of it. The baby, the baby soap, like all of it. And, and no matter what, like either something's on the mask or something's like, wasn't quite right in the manufacturing, they were so cheap that for all I know that could be knockoff Cressy's if that's such a thing. So I ended up, uh, you know, taking my own advice, going to a local dive shop. Um, my, uh, eldest daughter needed some equipment as well. Fins, a proper mask, that sort of thing. She's really enjoying this, the snorkeling as well. And I, uh, I tried on a ton of masks and decided on a Halcyon H view. Uh, you know, a well-known company in the dive space. I'm really only used to the Cressy stuff and maybe some of the scuba pro masks. That's what my, my shop in, uh, in Vancouver carried. And then I remember I was on, uh, Clipperton and I tried, uh, one of my co-divers brought a spare atomic mask. It was, uh, uh, supported by them at some level. And, uh, and if, you know, I think it's like a five or $600 mask and it was incredible. Um, like really high end optic, the rest of it. This Halcyon HV was a little over a hundred bucks, maybe 140 Canadian, something like that. And so comfortable that you kind of forget it's there. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | And it's a, it's one of the single frames. So it's one larger panel of, um, of glass with, um, a really simple skirt, uh, not a lot of structure to it, a little bit more old school than it's look and just like very, very comfortable, low volume, bright, easy to use. And I did my normal treatment, which had worked on past mass, but not those cheap Cressies. And no issue with fogging either. And just had a really nice weekend of snorkeling. I've got a little bit of a gear review coming in final notes for taking some pictures underwater, good or bad. So we can get to that when we get to it. But yeah, beyond that, I have the the Bremont S302 on my wrist with a rubber NATO. We recently published a recently published like a story on Houdinki about like the watches we'll wear this summer. And that's what's going to be on my wrist for the majority of the summer other than, you know, aside from something like an SPB 143, which I'm sure we'll get sometime on wrist as well. I don't know if you saw that post Jason, but the comments got kind of wild. Cause some guy got in there and was on my case about suggesting that people wear their dive watch in the water. Oh really? Oh, I didn't see that. Um, let me find, let me find the exact. And if you're listening, like if you're a listener of, of, I don't, I don't mean this as shade necessarily, but it is a buck wild comment because like dive watches are literally made to go underwater. Oh my God. Let me see if I can find it. It's here somewhere. And you know, it's, it's hard to encapsulate somebody's like entire comment or entire thought process in a single comment. Cause sometimes it can be hard to explain the depth of your thinking. But this guy said, why on earth would you wear a watch to snorkel? Do you wear socks in the shower? As a watchmaker, so many customers come in with water damaged watches cause they read things like this and they think they can wear their watch in the water. Watch enthusiasts keep your watches away from water. It's one of the worst enemy of watches and it's a bad habit for a lot of watch owners. And like, I don't like, I'm not even sure that this is real. It might be a joke. Yeah. Um, I could see that my friend, my friend who posted this, if, if you're actually a watchmaker, you are wrong. Like, Just like with dive equipment, like a dive watch is meant and designed to go underwater. Yes, of course it has to be serviced and cared for, but this is a brand new dive watch that's certified to 300 meters and I'm using it for about three meters. And even if I was using it for 30 or 40 meters, short of mechanical failure, like in usage, leaving a crown unscrewed or the watch wasn't serviced correctly over time, I've never had a watch flood. So I don't, I think this is just such a, like a wild comment. Like, I think you're dead wrong for one thing. One, your watchmakers, so people flooding their watches or needing to service their watches should be in your favor. You would have customers from that within like, if your comment had been, don't take your watch underwater. If you're not sure that it's water resistant, get it tested. We say that all the time. That's great. That's great advice for sure. But this is a, like a brand new watch well under warranty has been cared for. And I checked the crown before I jump in, but like, I'm in and out of the water all the time with pretty much all of my modern watches. This is, uh, this is not good advice, uh, from, from this comment. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And the socks and the shower analogy doesn't, doesn't hold up either. I, that's not even a parallel situation. I just don't get that. |
| James | I mean, if, if I, if I own shower socks, sure. Yeah. I might wear them in the shower when I wanted to. Yeah. Maybe if I was using a public shower or something like that. Yeah. Um, but like socks aren't made to go in the, in the, in the shower and a dive watch is made specifically. designed in many specific ways to go under. Wow. Uh, yeah, it could, yeah, it could, it could be that this is just like a, uh, a nice troll at which point, you know, well played. But I just, I like, I was, I was literally like had the watch on sitting on the dock about to go in and was just like randomly killing some time in the sun, kind of warming up. And I saw this comment and I was like, I don't even want to log in to reply to this. |
| Jason Heaton | This is crazy. Let nature take its course with a comment like that, I guess. |
| James | Jason and I are pretty much on the record. Wear your watches well, take them in the water if they have water resistance to support how you're using them. And if you're worried that they might flood or that they're too old and the gasket might not be secure, et cetera, get them quickly serviced by a watchmaker or just test it. Have them dry tested to a certain depth, that would be enough, and go from there. I mean, Jason, you've dove with vintage watches several times. They just have to be kind of like you would take a vintage car racing. It just has to be checked out and ready to go. Uh, you can't assume that everything would be water resistant, but, uh, for a brand new dive watch, uh, I, I disagreed pretty deeply. |
| Jason Heaton | Your, your photos from, from the weekend, the few that I saw on Instagram look, uh, that I'm, I'm highly jealous of that kind of beach setting that your dock setting, the water looks just perfect there. It's like this kind of Sandy slope that kind of goes into the water. And then there's kind of gentle grass and kind of weeds, but not like the kind of the dark and scary, weed choked lakes that we get a lot of around here. So that just looked ideal. |
| James | Yeah. The lake has zebra mussels. So it's quite clear. Uh, the water is quite clear. Huge infestations, zebra mussels cut my toe pretty good on one. Um, that's, which is just going to happen. The difference this year is, and they'll come, but the difference this year is it seems like the weeds themselves, the, the, the long weediness on the bottom has been delayed. I went out a good distance into you know, quote unquote, deeper water. That's a really shallow lake. 15, 16 feet is the norm. Um, and, and the snorkeling area, like where we, where we hang out is where it's nice and bright and full of fish is like three to six feet maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Um, super easy, great conditions. Uh, not too warm, not too cold, but just right. But, um, the weeds or whatever are really delayed this year. Uh, I think by this time last year they were pretty high and there were whole kind of walls of them in some places. but the visibility is super high this year and we just haven't seen the weeds yet. It could be that the temperature is maybe a little down or I'm not sure. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, interesting. So you had the Bremont on then, what are you wearing for episode 200? |
| James | For 200, I figured I'd pick what felt like kind of my most TGN-esque watch in terms of an evolution of the form. Yeah. I think obviously the Doxa would have been a great choice, but I've been wearing the Doxa a ton and I decided that the SPB 143 kind of represented 200, you know, from episode one, we were talking about SKXs and, and SRP 777s and stuff like that. Um, and, and I feel like as the show's grown, so has kind of Seiko's offering in the space. Uh, and, and I still think the SPV 143 is just, um, just a fantastic watch for the money. It's a little on the expensive side for a watch with that movement and that sort of timekeeping. And I think you can maybe get better value from some of the Swiss options these days, but there's something I like way more about a Seiko. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like when you factor both for what they're offering at a pure product level and then how it hits me, the Seiko hits way harder than what you can find at say $1,000 to $1,500 from a Swiss brand. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, and I think watches are about so much more than the specs or what's on paper or even the price. I think that watch, for whatever reason, I associate with you more than I think any other watch that you have, even your Explorer. I think your, your love of it a couple of years ago when you got it and just kind of the look of it, it just fits your personality and kind of your vibe. And, and I think it's, it's a great choice. And I, I still think that watch holds up. It's, it's a watch that I always kind of eye out of the, you know, the corner of my eye when I see it pop up for sale or when people are reviewing it and in all of its different forms, you know, with, I love the blue dial version, the white dial version, they're, they're just, they're such killer watches. And I think Seiko for whatever reason, and you know, I'm, certainly not the first or even the thousandth to say it, you know, just holds us such a special place in so many watch enthusiasts hearts. And I think that's a, that's a great choice. |
| James | Yeah. Yeah. It's cliche, but they do, they do just kind of hit different. Yeah. And there's, there's something about cracking open a Seiko box. That's not the same as some of the other stuff I've bought and owned. Yeah. Yeah. Um, there's, there's some joy to it. Cause you know, you're not challenging your ability to pay your mortgage, maybe to, uh, to have one, but it's still a real dive thing. It's still kind of comes from this great history. Yeah. And, um, and it feels distinctive from, from the stuff that that's chasing, you know, to look like a sub, right. Um, a submariner. Um, Oh, and then the other fun one, did you catch a, uh, over, uh, world oceans week, we did a little photo breakdown with Becky. |
| Unknown | Oh yeah. Yeah. |
| James | With Becky shot and the lead image. And the reason I picked it, the lead image, she's wearing an SPB. I don't remember the exact reference. It's the Ellie with the gold hand. |
| Unknown | Oh, sure. |
| James | but it's on a bracelet over her dry suit. Oh, it's huge. And the bracelets got about 20 extra links in it. I love it. Yeah. I'll put that in the show notes in case you missed it. But when you were talking about the different versions, I was like, Oh, but that's the, that's the coolest person in the world wearing one right now is Becky with that giant bracelet. |
| Jason Heaton | I love it. You put it on your thigh. Yeah. |
| James | Yeah, yeah, exactly. So what have you got on for 200? You've got lots of, lots of pretty TGN sort of stuff to pick from. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I mean, you know, I was, I was all prepared to kind of, say that I was wearing my, you know, DOCSIS sub 300 shark hunter aqualung edition. I had it on briefly earlier today. And then I was like, I am totally on an aqualand jag these days. I mean, these past few weeks, and I mentioned that we, you know, we did our citizen show last week. And, uh, I had mentioned that I'd gotten that loom dial JP 2007 recently, and I've been wearing that a lot, but, uh, the past few days I've had this, this 1985 C020 on my wrist. Um, this is the all steel version. And, I've got it on the ND limits, you know, the original kind of a stiff rubber strap, rubber strap. And it's, uh, you know, I can't take these things off these days. They're just, they're just fantastic. And I just find myself going on eBay now, like looking for them, even though I've, I've got kind of these two versions, modern and vintage and like just looking and there's a guy selling like the PVD version with the gold buttons there's, you know, they made a blue bezel version of it that I wasn't even aware of, like, you could legitimately become like an aqualand collector of, of this very specific version of, of citizens, long history with aqualands. And, and I'm just so hooked on it. It's becoming the, the watch of the summer, as I mentioned last week, I think, you know, I, I don't even remember what I had said. I think I thought I was going to be wearing my tourniquet more. Yeah. I think that's what you picked. Yeah. But for some reason, this has just become my, my daily go-to. I just don't take it off. And it's so fun. And I, You know, I had changed the batteries for a friend of mine who has his original one from 92 and he had sent it to me. He lives in Milwaukee and he sent it up to me and I took the backup. It's all these little tiny screws and it has three batteries and he didn't trust himself doing it. I don't know why he trusted me, but anyway, I did a decent job of it, but he had at some point lost the bezel on his. So I said, well, I'll try to source one, you know, from like a non-functional cheap watch off of eBay. And I got one, I got one of the two-tone ones, the C023s with kind of the red, the gold accents on the steel case. And I've got the bezel and whatever that I can send to him. But then now I have this non-functioning beautiful two-tone Aqualand from, you know, I don't know. I didn't look at the year via the serial number, but if anybody out there has a spare or knows of where I can get a working C020 Citizen Aqualand movement, that I could drop in this thing. I would, I would love to get it running again now that I see it sitting on my desk here. So yeah, reach out in the comments or shoot me a DM on Instagram. |
| James | It'd be great. You're starting to, uh, you know, uh, kind of multiply like a Land Rovers over there. |
| Jason Heaton | I think so. Yeah. It must be something in my personality. |
| James | Yeah, they're fun for sure. I, I'm, I'm excited to get a chance to take a peek at the, uh, at the new, the, the JP series sometime soon. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I'll have it at, uh, I'll have it at windup. So you'll see it there. |
| Unknown | Yeah. I got to figure out what watch, uh, should be the wind up watch. We'll figure it out. Yeah. |
| James | Maybe a couple. Yep. All right. Well, uh, speaking of wind up, which is like I said, what we're, what we're probably doing to kind of officially celebrate episode 200, it kind of makes up for 100 would have been a hangout in New York back in March of 2020. Uh, which of course didn't work out for some obvious reasons. Uh, why don't we jump into a kind of the main topic for today's episode? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. We're, we're talking about a TGN past, present and future. We'd seem to, it seemed a fitting kind of point to pause, catch our breath and look at where we've been and kind of refresh people's memories or, or inform new, new listeners, and then kind of talk about where we're at currently and maybe get some ideas, you know, not only trade them back and forth here, but, but solicit feedback from listeners. |
| James | Yeah. So, you know, when we did the episode a while back where we just asked for ideas about what to talk about, um, we had several comments asking for kind of a show about our origin story, which we, which we do have in the feed, but it is from some time ago. And I thought it might be kind of fun to update that. Cause we do have, of course, a considerably larger audience than we did in the early days and some new folks as well. And not everybody's going to go back and listen to 199, uh, past episodes. I mean, some weren't even numbered. So there's probably more like 205, 206 episodes in there. We used to do something called a TGN chat, which we didn't number officially. And then we eventually turned that into, or just our normal episodes that include another voice. And so the background that I don't know that I've ever shared is, you know, way back in the day. And when I say that, I really mean that this would have been 2010. I was just, you know, I have been obsessed with podcasts kind of since they started coming out, since before they were on iTunes. And of course, once they kind of hit iTunes, it became mostly about tech, which I love. And, you know, I was an ardent This Week in Tech fan, you know, the screensavers, Digg, all those ones, anything I could find that sort of grassroots commentary, the kind of nerdy conversations, the sort of friendly vibe of these shows I really liked. And I liked that it didn't feel like conventional media stuff. And the truth is, the stuff I still listen to now is kind of in the same vein as TGN. It's not about watches. It's about my points of curiosity beyond that. But I like these conversations. And at the time, back in, like I said, 2010, I was still working with Watch Report and it had changed hands. And what I really wanted to do was be on or part of a watch podcast. And I didn't really have a co-worker. I had a boss who didn't really know much about watches. um, was kind of in it for SEO and that sort of stuff. Like my, I guess I was, he was my client more than my boss. But, um, I remember, you know, enjoying back in the day, the hour time podcast, which was through a blog to watch it was Ariel and, and, uh, some other folks at different folks over time. And I remember writing Ariel at one point and saying like, Hey, if you ever want help with the podcast or another host or, or to be on the podcast, just let me know. And that kind of kicked off my chatting with Ariel, which eventually led to me working for the site for, you know, like six years. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | And during that time, I never, I was never involved with the podcast, you know, I came back through a kind of a variety of different things. And then just towards the end of my time with a blog to watch, you know, you and I had become friends through our pal, Mike Pearson, who at the time was working with Braymont. And I realized that in you, I kind of had someone I thought would be a pretty good co-host, similar but different tastes, a different way of thinking about stuff than myself, a different sort of even pace of speaking, just to add some variety, right? Yeah. But I think I'd kind of been hunting for my Jason Heaton for some time. It had been in my mind to do the show for the better part of six years by the time we did the first episode. |
| Jason Heaton | That's a long gestation period. I didn't realize, I didn't realize you'd been cooking this up or thinking about it for that long. |
| James | Yeah. It was never like specific to, Oh, it's going to be called the Grenado. It's going to be, but like, even if, even if I had found, I think if the opportunity had been different, it would just would have been a different sort of show. What came out of the show was defined by the opportunity. And, um, and when we got connected via mic, And I got to know you a little bit and, and you'd been in online conversations with Paul Hubbard. I think you bought his watch or he bought yours, the Pelagos. Yeah. You were in the right circles sort of to make it happen. And, uh, and then I remember just being, I'll still remember just being like crazy excited to record the first one, to finally have, have it be my own and, and knowing, you know, at that point I wasn't at the end of my career with, with a blog to watch yet. but knowing that this was something that could just be mine that didn't have to conform to a schedule or, or anything like that. I think, I think the only thing I asked for you was like, we need a microphone and the commitment to do one every two weeks. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And I think the first time we met was at Baselworld at the, in the, what did they call that? The Braymont was in that tent at the time, whatever they call it. Yeah. Yeah. |
| James | It was in the, in the palace. And yeah, it would have been what I guess, 2015. I think there's a photo floating around. |
| Jason Heaton | I, I, pops up every now and then of you and me standing there at, uh, in the Braymont booth. |
| James | It would have been 2014 or 2015, but I think it would have been like, yeah, March or whatever, 2015. And the show we started in January, 2016. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | And I remember, you know, Mike saying, you know, you guys are kindred spirits. You have to meet, I'm going to introduce you guys. And, um, you know, we, we certainly owe a lot to Mike for, for that initial introduction. And I, I'm sure I had seen your name, you know, just through, you know, overlapping circles, but we had never met on any kind of a press trip or, or whatever. And I guess you could say we were writing for quote unquote rival, uh, watch websites at the time, blog to watch. And I was doing heavy work with Hodinkee back then. And when you suggested this podcast, I was like, I don't really listen to podcasts. I don't really know how they work. I don't know what they're all about. Yeah. You know, you, I think you told me which microphone to buy. I don't think, you know, there was any sort of an Amazon thing back then where you sent me one. I don't even remember how that worked, I remember that, that first microphone. And in fact, I still have it lurking in a cabinet somewhere here, but, uh, yeah, then we, we sat down to do the first episode and it was around SIHH. It was, it was about, um, all luxed out. It was called. And fortunately that episode had a kind of a built in, you know, hook or topic, um, that we could kind of talk about. And I think, you know, in the early days, at least for me, I'm, I'm not kind of a natural, just sort of ad lib speaker. And, So it was, it was helpful to have like a set topic about like, okay, let's, let's walk through each of the brands that are at SIHH and talk about the watches we liked and didn't like. And that was really helpful. And I think that episode, you know, kind of kicked things off and set us off in the right direction. |
| James | Yeah. I mean, it absolutely did. And then, so that would have been like what, probably mid to late January, 2016, if I remember correctly. Yeah. |
| Unknown | Yeah, definitely. |
| James | And then the, the, the other one that we have to be really clear on, we got, we got kind of a hookup that we didn't deserve. which was, um, in early February, 2016, Ben climber at Hodinkee wrote a post just saying that we'd started a podcast. |
| Unknown | Oh yeah. |
| James | Yeah. He said a look at watches for the real guy. Um, and with a hero of a Rolex, a Submariner on a gray NATO. And I just remember like it, I don't know where the show would be if Ben hadn't done that to be fair. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | Yeah. True. Cause like, I think we immediately got like, you know, 800 people listening to it. |
| Unknown | Mm. |
| James | And I think that first 800 would have taken us a while otherwise. Right. I think it might've like, I think we were sure we would've gotten there eventually, but like, what did we have out at the time? Maybe two episodes. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And you know, Ben was, he still continues to be, but it was a smaller group of people. I feel like at the time that were really representing the voice of watch enthusiasm in 2016, which was a smaller voice than it is now. Right. And, and for Ben and like, I'm just on the site here and we, it's the, with their original logo, Oh, which is, you know, a whole different thing. I'm not a designer. Uh, I, I can't even play one on the internet. Um, so I will, I will throw that in, in the show notes just for posterity. But, uh, yeah, I, I think it's a, it's, it's a, it's a fun thing. It was cool, cool to bend to do that and, and to get a chance to, um, it looks like it was for episode one. So it must've been pretty close to when, when we first came out and that kind of set us off on, on the foot we're on now. |
| Jason Heaton | And, you know, in the early days we got, We got a lot of, um, good support and, and, you know, admittedly podcasts weren't as prevalent and ours certainly was quite small back then, but we had these, you know, key people in, in the business, um, and, and watch brands even that were happy to support us, you know, Braymont being one of them. I mean, I think we were, they were there at kind of our, our first meeting certainly. Um, but then, you know, they were happy to have us at a few of their townhouse events and provide us like a little room to record or us has done the same for us over the years. You know, all the, the, the ambassadors and different people that, you know, Blancpain hooked us up with Laurent Ballesta. And, you know, we're, we're so appreciative of not only our audience, but also these, these people that kind of believe in what we're doing. Um, you know, and yes, you could say there are ulterior motives because, you know, they're getting some sort of a promotion out of it in some way, but I don't think that's it. I think a lot of these are, they're very like-minded people running these companies or doing, you know, marketing and things for these companies that just really like what we do. And, and it's been so great. |
| James | Yeah. And I think there's, there's something, there's something in the mix that includes like, we don't want anything to be difficult if it doesn't have to be. And because the show really only reflects our personal curiosity, and these days also the curiosity of the audience, but certainly when we started, there wasn't an audience and whoever was listening wasn't commenting or really providing a ton of feedback. It took a couple of years for the email to really speed up. And then thanks to all of you, the sub stack has really kicked off quite quickly in over less than a year. But back in the day, it was a little bit more of a shouting into the void. And, and having these other people who were, who were involved, whether it was Mike, who was listening to every episode and giving us feedback and, and making sure we had connections to people with, you know, Oh, you want to have so-and-so from Braymont on the show. You want like you English brothers or, or, you know, or, Oh yeah, well, of course we can do whatever works. Like, yeah, it's, it's, I think a lot of people attached to like those who find the path of least resistance. Right. And, and, because we weren't interested in, to a certain extent, remain disinterested in being especially commercial about it. I mean, when we started, we didn't even have a plan. It was to do a watch podcast. And I think that was by having such a stupid broad goal. And there were a couple of watch podcasts at the time. A couple had already failed or had kind of moved into a new mode. But it wasn't like it is now, right? Now you can find a show that really supports like your niche. And I think that While we found some success numbers-wise when we do kind of generalist stuff, by sticking to the things that we list at the start of the episode, it's kind of shaped the direction that we've gone and not the direction that other people have gone. Yeah. Which I think is important as much as that sounds a little bit self-aggrandizing. That's not really how I mean it. But the travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches is kind of like, this is what we're into, and we're not really going to go super far away from any of those things. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And you know, we are broad based in those topic areas, but which is great for kind of our audience and what we enjoy. But it also has made it difficult to sometimes explain like almost in an elevator pitch to somebody like, what's your podcast about? I was asked that over the weekend again. And then even when I was teeing up this interview I did that will run on September 1st with somebody that should be a really fun guest for people to listen to, you know, she's like, So tell me about the podcast. I sent her a few links and was kind of explaining, and it wasn't like her wheelhouse, but so I was trying to explain like how there was a tie in between kind of her world and ours. And she kind of got it after she listened to a couple, but it does make it a little bit less straightforward than just saying it's a watch podcast. Yeah. I have to ask because I think a lot of people will be curious. And now that I think about it, I'm curious, you had the name, the gray NATO, uh, before we met and you suggested, I have a name for it. I remember you telling me the Grenada and I was like, it's perfect. Like to me it just encapsulates and it's like, I get it. But like, there's another thing that's like really hard to explain to somebody outside. |
| James | Yeah. The name was not a great business choice. And that's the, that's the truth. But I think there's a, um, an insider quality to, to, you know, like we had Robert Spangle on recently and he was talking about how like there are, there's a, a correct size for a given community. Yeah. And I think that the, the gray NATO is obtuse enough to keep out folks who wouldn't be interested in investing in the substat, not investing monetarily, but commenting, being part of the conversation, sending in questions, that sort of stuff. And it keeps it, I think it keeps it just, it's not a shibboleth if you know the term, right? It has some specificity to it, which I think is obvious because it came from me and I'm like problematically specific at times. You know, I liked this idea of, of, body in white being a term for car design, where when they get to a certain point in the car, they show it in white and you see how the light hits it. And in my mind, any great sports watch will work beautifully on a Grenada. And it was how I was wearing watches at the time. It was also one, you know, like you couldn't get the watch podcast, you couldn't get, and this one kind of connected to the way that I was interfacing with watches and still continue to. but also made it something where we didn't have the word watch in the title, which is probably not smart, right? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. Is this like some sort of a, you know, a geopolitical, you know, military or military thing. Yeah. But, but I also think that, that even beyond the watch and strap side of that definition or that reasoning behind it is it, it somehow captures the ethos that, that we kind of live by. And that is, And I think that a NATO strap on any watch takes it down a notch. And I think, again, I don't want to pat ourselves on the back too much here, but I think that's what we try to do on this, on these shows is I think we try to kind of look at accessible adventure, accessible adventurers, you know, people that are willing to kind of come on and talk humbly about what they do. Yeah. And, and I think that a NATO strap is kind of symbolic of that. And I think obviously it goes to my, kind of anglophilia around, you know, the gray NATO strap kind of having its origins with, uh, you know, British military watches. Um, there's, there's just so many kinds of ways you can take it. And I think that's, what's fun about it. And then of course it abbreviates really well. And I think people just have come to know us as TGN. |
| James | Yeah. And I, I agree. A lot of this is going to sound pretty Naval gazey. Um, and I would say just give us a break cause it's 200 maybe. Yeah. And, uh, and I remember hating NATO's the first time I saw a picture of a watch on a NATO. uh, try to watch on a NATO, that sort of thing. And then it took me down this path where I finally trying to remember who gave it to me. They're going to be upset that I forgot. It might've been Paul Hubbard. Um, but gave me like one of these, uh, single pass NATO's that has a fabric loop for the keeper. Yeah. And I started wearing my watch on that and like immediately fell in love, um, of the aesthetic. I love the way that the, it kind of supported the watch, but still looked like crazy casual. It was like, I think I was just starting to dip into luxury stuff. It's like 2254 Omega and other stuff like that. And this kind of brought it down a level without diminishing what I liked about the watch. Yeah. So that, yeah, I think that's pretty much where it came from that, you know, a fairly long ramble. |
| Jason Heaton | Before we move on to kind of where we are in the present, I think just from a practical standpoint, I get a lot of questions from people about How do you guys record? Because when I listen, it sounds like you're in the same room and you have this like rapport that you'd like, you're just chatting with each other across the table. And I think it would be interesting for people probably to hear how we, how we've done this. Sure. Every episode from the start with the few exceptions when we have been face to face. |
| James | Yeah. For everything that's not face to face, for those who, let's say this is your first episode. I'm in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Jason's in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And we've done like, what, maybe 10 episodes face-to-face? 12. Something like that. Right. Of the 200. So I think there's a lot of pluses to the way that we record this, which is where I record my side, you record yours while we're having a phone call over Zoom. Yeah. And we did it with Skype before Zoom became how big it is now. And I think we've even done it over an actual phone a few times. But now you can do a lot of the recording through Zoom. I'm a little bit of a maniac for audio quality where I just think it has to hit a certain bar where you don't notice it. Anything below that and it's detracting. And don't get me wrong, we don't get it right every time. One of my favorite episodes we ever did was with Paul Schofield. Yeah. And that audio was terrible. It's not Paul's fault. It just didn't work out. And we're going to have to have Paul on again at some point. And now we're in a new mode where like we ship everyone a microphone. Yeah. And at least then you record into Zoom with a proper microphone. You can turn off the dumb noise filtering, isolation stuff in Zoom. And the audio quality is like, I'd call it like a six out of 10, six and a half out of 10. With Jason and I, for the ones where it's just us, we record directly to GarageBand, I think for both of us, Jason. Yeah. And then Jason sends me this giant file on Dropbox and then I hand cut them together. So if there's any delay or lag, but yeah, I cut everything together. And then over the years I've learned to do the very bare minimum in terms of like audio processing so that there's an attempt to make it sound good on any set of speakers. Um, but the, don't get me wrong. The show is absolutely mixed to sound like really good on like a car stereo, big headphones, that sort of thing. It's a little bit off. I still haven't figured out how to master for AirPods. Uh, so if you listen on, on which I do, sometimes I listen to a lot of podcasts on AirPods and I noticed that ours, the EQ is a little bit off. So that's, that's, that's where I'm coming from. Maybe that's more, more data than people wanted. Yeah. So back in the day, I think when I first started the first like 10 or 15, 20, maybe even 30 episodes was like 10 to one an hour of recording was 10 hours of editing. Wow. Um, and at this point I think I've probably gotten it down to about four to one. So the average episode takes five or six hours and then we do the notes. Um, there's some linking a little bit of, um, Instagram prep for the, you know, the, the logo with the title of the show beneath it and the show number and a sub stack take care, takes care of the rest. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. So that's, uh, that's kind of the origin. Um, you know, I, I, I think at present, you know, with episode 200, we've, I don't even know, it kind of, it kind of crept up on me personally. Like here we are at episode 200. I don't know how I feel about it. I mean, it's, it just, in some ways it just feels like another episode and this is just part of my life now. I mean, now we do it every week. |
| James | Yeah. We didn't want to do nothing for 200. Yeah. Like we almost just decided to make it like a thing we mentioned at the top of the show and then moved on to a film club or something like that. Like at a certain point we could stop numbering the shows, but people still write in and go, Oh, what number show had this on it? Or this is the whole reason I went back into Substack and built out the entire library so you could search it. So I think there's some value there. And then I think the other thing is, is I felt some duty to at least mention it because the only reason we got to 200 is the people who are listening. Right. You know, we, we went through a whole phase with the show has gone through many phases to get to where it's gone now, but it has become something I wouldn't have predicted. I, you know, I thought we'd have a show, we'd have a thousand listeners, we'd have fun with it. We'd skip sometimes we may, or maybe we'd sell an ad and you know, I could buy some dive gear or something like that with the money. And now it's become like a piece of my, of our living and something that like we're broadly kind of known for. And while 100 felt monumental, 200 really doesn't to a certain extent, if that makes sense. The show has gone through several phases. There was a time where we were just running the show every other week and it was going fine, but it wasn't growing. Then we started an ad deal with Hodinkee, which was fine, but Jason and I are lazy, especially when it comes to administrative work. Maybe lazy is not even the right word, just disinclined. I love working, love writing, love making the show, don't really like sending more invoices, trying to figure out Ad scripts. Did we get paid for that? Did we get paid for this? Is that ad script approved? Is that recorded correctly? You know, oh, that client was unhappy with the ad read or the copy came in too late. So the show had to be pushed or I don't, we don't want any of those complications. So it was easier to go to no money than accept money from that direction. So we ended the ad deal with Hodinkee and you know, before, before the ad deal with Hodinkee, we almost shut the show down. Yeah. Um, we weren't really finding a rhythm or, or, or other people and, and we took a little break. and reassessed and Hodinkee showed interest. And we thought, well, hey, maybe this is the next kind of phase of the show if they want to license it and do an ad deal. And that's what we did. Incredibly thankful for that opportunity and huge respect for that team, of course. When we finished that, we kind of figured like, well, what's kind of the next phase? What makes sense? And Jason, you had had some success with Substack, continued success with Substack. We liked the platform. I really thought that what felt like it was missing was the chance for everyone who was listening to kind of triangulate both with us and with each other. Yeah. Um, because of course, putting a podcast on something that wasn't even designed for podcasts, like, uh, like, um, SoundCloud doesn't really allow people to chat back and forth. Um, thankfully sub stack has worked out really well. And it's also become a way that we can support the show and make it part of our living and, and, uh, and, and try to be reflective of what the audience, what you guys, especially the supporters actually want. Right. Which is kind of the, the, what makes podcasts and grassroots media the most fun. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And I think that community aspect of it is what refueled my kind of interest in, in doing it. I mean, you mentioned that we kind of almost shut things down. I think there was a point at which I did feel like we were kind of speaking into the void, as you said earlier, and, and, and to introduce, well, first of all, on Hodinkee, we were getting comments there, obviously when they were running our show which was kind of fun to see feedback. And then once we, Um, moved away from that. We, we launched the substack model. I think the ability to engage with, with listeners, not just through our, our TGN inbox, which is, you know, grown, um, to me to an almost unmanageable size. Now, um, substacks just created this way where now, now listeners can interact with each other. And I know we've had requests from, from people and we'll, we'll put out further, um, you know, solicit further ideas for, for how we can improve the show. And I know that it's come back to us that. we'd love to have a venue like a forum in which a TGN listeners can interact with each other. And I think at this point, um, sub stack is the best we've got. And I think it's, it's working out pretty well. And it's really fun to go in and see people interact with each other. And then you and I can, can chime in every now and then, but it's become almost this like self-sustaining organism, the entire audience, uh, it's transcended just what you and I speak about on the show. And it's now encompassed everybody. |
| James | Well, and the cool thing is just, Like, don't get me wrong. It's our show. Sure. Whatever. But like also it, it reflects the things that we like. And when you find other people who like those things and they teach you stuff, yeah. Like if I get something wrong, if I say something wrong in the show, or if we forget to mention a watch that really should have been in there, it's right in the comments immediately. So I learned something every time we put a show out and it means not only show gets better, but like I can be better at my job as a whole. And it, it, it is, it's kind of, this is in many ways what I wanted back in the watch you seek days or the time zone days. But like the show has become an absolute blessing for me. Yeah. Uh, mentally it's a chance to do what I want or what you want. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | Right. Um, it's, uh, it's, it's a chance to converse with people who don't feel the need to hide behind a moniker. |
| Unknown | Right. |
| James | And it's supportive and people ask for advice and they get incredible answers and people keep us honest. And to be honest, I just really love that the way that Substack works means that we're only accountable to the people who actually know and love the show. |
| Unknown | Mm. |
| James | Right. It's the same, same reason I support so many podcasts on, on Patreon or their own sub stacks. Sure. Ads are fine. And I'm not saying we would never take the right ad deal from the right partner if it was really easy, but if you want to support the show and you want to know that the feedback is meaningful because there's some skin in the game to be represented, I think this is the right way to go about it. And, and I, I, it felt like a real gamble to turn on the sub stack, especially introducing another layer of, you know, |
| Jason Heaton | complication, if you even call it that, where somebody has to go and, you know, download something new or, or contribute here or subscribe there. It's, you know, for a lot of people, that's just, ah, it's just one more step I have to take and people have adopted it. And I'm so thankful for, I just want to say, I'm so thankful for the civility and friendliness of, of the audience. I know we're not making, you know, controversial, highly controversial topics for the most part, but you know, having, interacted with a few other sub stacks and people that are producing content and they have to shut down comments or they, you know, they've just got headaches because of, you know, kind of mean spirited feedback and things like that. I think we just don't experience that. And I'm so appreciative of that. It's, it's, it's very uplifting and I hope it is to the listeners as well. |
| James | I guess where this brings us as to now and looking forward and the first thing, and I think Jason, you'd say the same thing is just thank you. Yeah. You know, it's, it's 200 episodes of something we really love doing. I'm not bored of the show. I feel this deep sense of obligation to make it good and interesting and something I would want to listen to. And so much of what I invest my time and effort into outside of the show doesn't always meet that metric. Some of it's just work. Yeah. And to be able to see, to be able to see people loving the show, you know, sending a message saying they enjoyed it or they liked it or, or it gets them through their work day or it helped them through the pandemic. It certainly helped me through the pandemic, goodness sakes. Mm. It just, it means a lot. And the only real response is like, it's thank you. We thank you so much. Thank you obviously to Ben and Hodinkee for the continued longstanding support from the start, but really everyone who's liked, shared, commented, told their friends, written us an email, kept us honest, called us to task if we didn't do something right, supported an auction, downloaded the show, supported the sub stack, rocks the TGN NATO and puts a picture of it on Instagram, all of that stuff. we'd at this point, we're blessed enough to not be able to say thank you to each and every one specifically every time, but please don't think it's not noticed or appreciated. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I would, I would echo that. And uh, I guess looking ahead now, you know, we're at episode 200, we've got, uh, you know, at least another 200 in us. I think, um, I certainly do. What, uh, what, what do we want to do with the show? I think I, I, we'd love to open that up to, to kind of listeners and, and substack commenters and, and get more feedback, not just on topics, but, What else would you want? And with the expectation that we're not going to adopt any, uh, every single suggestion, and we certainly won't be able to do it in, in really short order. These things take time. We both have other commitments, but, uh, we do read all of them. We do all, uh, take them all very seriously. Um, there are a few things that, that I think we've talked about doing. I don't know if we want to go into that right now. |
| James | Um, yeah, I mean, I'm interested to hear what people want, what they would like to see. Uh, we're going to continue on with the weekly episodes with the monthly subscriber Q and a, I think all of that works. The other one that I'm absolutely committed to, so I can save you making the comment, is say between now and when we launch the second year of the Supporter Bundle, which will be the start of November, I do want to get a chat platform, some sort of more broad communication, whether it be a forum or a Discord. I haven't quite decided, probably Discord. We've actually had a few folks even step up and say they'd be keen to help admin it and keep it running and working and that sort of thing. I'm still looking into that. I haven't forgotten. It's just, we want to be mindful of these things so that we don't start something that we can't keep going or, or give the correct amount of attention to, you know, I think Jason and I have talked to, uh, kind of extensively about having a very limited shop. So we're not looking to sell watches. We're not looking to, uh, to sell straps or stuff like that. It would be more just like some merch, some easy merch, uh, nothing super expensive. And then, you know, The other one that Jason and I have talked a bunch about is having some more premium collaborations with brands that we love that already have their own retail channel. So where we'd get to work with a dream brand and maybe make something a little bit different that reflects kind of the values or the interests of the show and all of you to make something that would occasionally kind of be like a special release. We're working really hard to do more chats. So it's not just Jason and I on every episode. And that'll include some that's just me or just Jason with a, you know, with a guest of some sort. And we remain super interested in, in hearing from experts who are in to the same things, but at a much deeper level. You know, I think that some of the best episodes of, of the show in the past were that where we took our, our sort of generalist interest in a topic, maybe like with Paul Schofield and saturation diving and spoke with a guy who actually does it. And it's a show I still think about a lot. And I think we got the same thing from Corey Richards and even from Ghoshani and from Becky Schott and from Robert and from, you know, all three of the Cole Pennington episodes. Like we want to do way more of those. And now that we kind of have a format and we have some money to buy microphones and ship them all around, I'd expect to see more of that kind of stuff as the show kind of continues. And we start to kind of lean on some of our friends and connections in, um, in the deeper areas of these, these sort of listed interests. |
| Jason Heaton | And I think two, two other areas that, that were, we're kind of kicking off next week in Chicago at windup is a more in-person interactions with our, with our audience. And as you mentioned the shop, so we're, we're kind of, I don't want to say test driving. We're actually going ahead with, with two of those things. We will be selling merchandise at, at windup Chicago, which will be kind of a good test case to see what, what grabs people, what people like, what it's like to kind of sell at a, at a higher level. to our audience with, you know, kind of TGN merchandise, but then also in-person interactions. You know, we did one, we did one meetup back at the kind of corresponding with the H10 event in New York. Um, we did that at a pub there in, in New York city. And it was a lot of fun to meet people. And it was a pretty, looking back, it felt like, wow, we, we attracted a lot of people. I think if we did that now we would attract exponentially more than that. I'd like to think, but I think even beyond just kind of meetups, uh, one thing that I've been, thinking about a lot, um, is, is introducing an element of, it sounds grandiose, but like TGN travel or TGN adventures where we can put together some sort of, uh, um, you know, destination type event where we sort of facilitate, uh, like, uh, you know, one thing we've talked about is some sort of a dive trip somewhere where everybody kind of meets there. And we have a few special things around it. Maybe we record podcasts, we do some, interactions with some brands, you know, with watches or dive gear, whatever it might be, do a few adventures, do a few dives, take some photos, just have a good time. Could be hiking somewhere, light mountaineering, whatever it might be. I think these are all on the table. These are all things we've, we've talked about. And like I said, that's certainly not something that's going to come about quickly, but you know, never say never, it might happen. |
| James | So yeah, it's, it's something we've, we've been talking about for years. So I think it is something that will happen. It's just you know, travel. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | Right. And, uh, and all of that kind of stuff these days, we need, we need to get a lot of checks in order, uh, before we start asking people to put, you know, real money in, into our hands or the, a booking agent's hands or something like that to try and organize something like that. We would take it pretty seriously. Right. The other thing I would say to the audience is looking forward, we're not, um, we're not going to do anything that would pursue like rapid growth of the show. We're not looking to do a lot of promotion or advertising or, or, you know, really change the format. We think that the show's kind of in a very healthy place at the moment as with the audience. And we don't see the value in having it be bigger just to be bigger. I think that's, that's kind of the promise we would make. Cause we have a lot of plans for the future, but we're not looking to change kind of the core of, of what has worked so far and what has brought all of you into the fold. So. Let us know in the comments if there's something specific, if you think it's a, if you think there's a newsletter for subscribers, if you want, if you do think that a forum or a discord or something like that would be great. If you have opinions on whether or not a shop would ruin the show or something like that. Oh, and then Jason, I'm sure you've got this question too. A handful of people have asked, you know, saying they're not going to make it to Chicago. Will the, um, merchant such that we're, we're offering there, uh, be available otherwise. And the answer is it depends on supplies. If we come back with anything from the show, we'll probably make a little garage sale for supporters on the website. I would say stay tuned for that. We'll talk about it in the next few weeks because then we'll know. Currently, we don't know. As much as we put a lot of effort into planning for this, we have no idea what the response will be to any of it really. I think that at a general level would be great, but this is specific to WindUp and there's a lot of vendors with a lot of great product there. If there's anything left over or you know, if we end up selling through everything and it looks like it was quite popular, there'd be no reason really for us to not, uh, kind of explore more options, especially with the second year subscriber bundle kind of coming up in November. We have a lot of plans for that and a way to make it as simple as possible and that sort of stuff. So with that, I would say stay tuned. Um, but certainly we'll, if we have some, it'll be available to, uh, to the supporter side for sure. |
| Jason Heaton | All right. Well, as you said, that's, that's probably enough, uh, naval gazing. |
| Unknown | Yeah, right. |
| Jason Heaton | The gazing naval TGN. |
| Unknown | Yeah, exactly. |
| James | The gazing naval. We promise we won't do another one like this until 400 or something like that. Right. Normal shows will return the week after windup. We appreciate you all understanding why we might take next week off given the overall impetus, but we'll be recording a bunch of stuff at the show. So I think we'll come back with some really great content and a lot of fun chats with a wider group of people than we normally get. get on. Um, but, uh, with that in mind, Jason, you want to pop over to final notes? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, sure. Um, I've got one that's kind of relevant to what we were just talking about. Actually, this, uh, this came out in may over on, um, one of my favorite sites and publications, uh, adventure journal. Um, they did a piece, uh, called, um, it was, it was kind of timely because it was, it was called, uh, thoughts on outsides layoffs, outdoor media and adventure journal. So, you know, for those that might not have been familiar, This was published on May 23rd and there was some news just prior to that, that outside magazine and kind of outside media, uh, which had recently kind of gone through a big sale from its original owner from the 1970s, kind of a new level of ownership that then expanded its offerings and kind of its model, its business model. Um, they were forced to lay off, uh, gosh, I think over a third of its, uh, its staff, which was quite sad. And Adventure Journal, who's a founder and kind of primary contributor is a guy named Steven Casimiro. Um, Steve's a bit of a legend in the outdoor space. Uh, and if you don't follow her or subscribe to Adventure Journal, I highly recommend that you do. Steve was, was an editor at a national geographic adventure, which used to be one of my favorite magazines. I think he was with like powder magazine, like a ski magazine and some surfing publications. He's a great photographer. Um, just a really kind of insightful, interesting guy in the outdoor space and he kind of pens this, this fairly long editorial about the state of, of the outdoor media space and, and kind of what the layoffs at outside magazine represent and kind of the changing face of, of media in general. And I think it's something that is kind of relevant to what we've just been talking about with, with our model at TGN and our, our kind of lack of comfort, I guess, or interest in, you know, going heavy into selling ads and, and, you know, sponsored content, things like that. And I think, You know, you and I have certainly worked for a number of publications over the years, uh, you know, gear patrol Houdinki I freelance for outside for a couple of years. And, you know, we we've seen kind of the ins and outs and pros and cons of all of these different models. And I think, you know, your last comment about TGN not wanting to grow for the sake of growth, I think is something that is a dilemma that, that is faced by so many of these outside publications, these outdoor publications, uh, outside magazine was for so many years. most of its lifetime was, was just a, a print magazine. And then they were forced to change with the, you know, huge growth of, of online space. And so now they're, they've got this kind of outside platform in which they offer, you know, classes and videos and podcasts, and you can subscribe to all of it or only to the online content. And that hasn't worked out exactly the way they hoped it would. And so it's kind of a cautionary tale. I think this, uh, the story, And I think it just kind of reinforced to me what I like and don't like in kind of what I see in the media space. And I think smaller things like what we're doing with, with TGN, but also what adventure journal is doing, what the intercooler is doing, what, you know, there's a really cool magazine that's been revived called mountain Gazette that, that, you know, isn't taking ads. It's just purely subscriber based. Um, a lot of these kind of Patreon creators, whether it's on, you know, YouTube or a podcast or just a publication sub stack, I think those are the things that are more, interesting to me these days than kind of the traditional models or the ways that a lot of media has adapted to kind of grow. And I guess I would just encourage people, you know, to not only read this article, but then seek out some of these, these independent publications. And I realized that as, as creators kind of shift to these new modes of, of income and new models, everybody's starting to get barraged with now requests for subscriptions for, for monthly access to content. And we fully recognize that with TGN and that's why we're so appreciative of those of you that that do subscribe, but, uh, you know, it's a, it's a brave new world is a bit of a cliche to say, but I, it is. And, and I think this, this article kind of points to that and points to some of the challenges and Steve has some good insights into that. |
| James | Yeah. And I mean, it's an interesting thing with the request for subscriptions, because it's also why we take it so seriously that the four episodes a month are free and you can ignore our, our soft pitch at the start and end of the episode, by all means, enjoy the four episodes, get on the sub stack. It's free. It's just if you want either expanded episodes or a little bit of swag, would you support it? And I understand being on either side of that line, there's lots of content I enjoy that is partially user supported that I don't pay for. And there's lots that I do. And so I think that is a give or take. But the interesting thing is, you know, we started the episode by talking about or with me talking about kind of very early podcasts. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | Right. And I think podcasts have gotten to a certain age where they've started to align with the greater, you know, all the media that was going to destroy newspapers, uh, 15 years ago. Right. And now all of that media needs to find a way to fund themselves like newspapers. Yeah. Yeah. And, and podcasting is part of that. Um, because now it's just seen as another string of content, another vertical, this is a fascinating post. It's a really, really good read, especially if you're interested in the sort of stuff that we have been talking about throughout this episode. An adventure journal, I'm going to co-sign on that. It's a fantastic outlet and absolutely worthy of a few bucks if you've got it. |
| Unknown | Yeah. Yeah. |
| James | What do you have? Well, speaking of a few bucks, I've got something that costs $12 and it sort of works. |
| Jason Heaton | I was skeptical when you mentioned this. Yeah. |
| James | Yeah. As was I, as was I. So with more diving and snorkeling and everything on the horizon and also the interest of it with my children, the idea of like an underwater camera becomes Fascinating, right? Like it's a high level pursuit at a certain point. But I have gone down the road with actual housings, caring for them, cleaning them, cheap ones, more expensive ones. I've never gone to the extent that Jason and Ghoshani have, but I've owned a few of the options for RX100s and I've eyeballed the one for the Q in the past. And the truth is that what I mostly want is kind of snapshots when I'm underwater. It wouldn't have to be really high level stuff if it could just mimic what I can do with my phone for the most part. I think that would cover me. So I've started a journey of seeing what's out there to take your phone underwater, which I'm, some of you are saying right now, that's a very stupid thing to do. Uh, you're probably not wrong. I can tell you that the Moco waterproof phone pouch, which is again, $12 and I bought it on Amazon. Um, it was good. Uh, you know, I took it as deep as maybe six feet over this weekend with, with my iPhone 12 pro max in there. a phone that I would rather not have to pay whatever it costs for a new iPhone, $1,500 or something. Yeah. I can't really recommend this thing, but I did want to bring it up because I think that if you're kayaking, if you're swimming, if you're playing in the pool, if you want shots that would be dangerous to get with your phone just above the water or half in the water, it's surprising how good this thing works. You can't tell that the phone is in a paper bag or in a plastic bag, essentially a fancy plastic bag. And that's what it is. It's like a, a really two thick pieces of clear plastic. Right. Yeah. And then the top has, um, has kind of a two sided channel lock. So you unlock these two tabs, put your phone in and then lock the tabs. And it kind of creates a seal, almost like a very burly, um, uh, like Ziploc, right. Yeah. The, the only thing that I'd say is like, again, like kayaking, you know, playing around at the surface with your kids, getting a wrist shot where maybe the phone's half in the water. And I know some of you are saying like, Oh, but the iPhone is IP 67 or 68. I can't remember. I, that stuff really freaks me out. Um, cause that's, that, that's a lot like the water resistance of, of a watch that you have no idea of its history. Um, you know, we put our phones through a lot of stuff and a lot of the IP stuff is more designed for the emergency drop, the accidental drop into a puddle or off of a, maybe off of a shallow dock or something like that. And you quickly go in and grab it. Um, I know that some of these brands will show like Samsung always like to show their, camera is actually being used underwater. And if Samsung sent me a phone and said I could do it, then sure, that's fine. But when it's my phone that also does all of my work stuff and my life stuff, I get more worried about it. So I figured I'd try this bag out and for the above or just right on the edge of the surface, it's really impressive for $12 phone was super dry. The, the autofocus works, all of the controls work. It's a little iffy when, when it starts to get a little bit humid in the bag where touching the screen buttons, but you can still use the volume up to take a photo. So that works pretty well. Underwater was, it was a different experience entirely. I had a lot of trouble deciding where to focus. So it could normally hit the bottom. Maybe it could hit a fin. I could not get it for the life of me to decide that what I wanted to see was my watch. And a lot, almost all of the photos I took that weren't kind of directly facing the bottom in bright light were out of focus. It was having a lot of trouble dealing with what I assumed to be distance between the end of the lens and the start of the bag. So again, for $12, I'm not complaining. I got a couple silly shots. It worked okay in video and then above water, really, really impressed. But I did want to put a small caveat that if what you want, like me, was an underwater wrist shot or maybe a cool video to show some people who didn't go snorkeling with you of how many fish were down there, You couldn't see any fish. It couldn't figure out the focus. Um, it couldn't figure out the, the sort of, uh, exposure correctly all on its own. And you really don't have the fine control. I mean, if you mash the, the shutter button that's on the screen, it'll take a photo. It'll start a video, that sort of thing. But it wasn't like using the phone outside of a case. Uh, so I'm going to see what, what you get if you go a little bit higher up the chain on this, on this task. But I wanted to start with the, it's $12 Canadian as well. So it's like, we're talking nine bucks. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | Yeah. Uh, for Americans in the audience, the, uh, the MoCo waterproof phone pouch that you're not going to worry about the pouch. You might worry about your phone in the pouch. I was okay in a normal, yeah, like probably six to seven feet is the depth that I took it. And, uh, the phone survived without issue. |
| Jason Heaton | So that's, uh, I think, um, you know, it's a, it's a really valid final note. And I think, you know, final notes are often what we consider recommendations. And I think this is, this is kind of a, a critical review of something. So you're saying, you know, this isn't the be all and end all, this is something. And I, I suspect that a good number of our listeners might have had some experience with this or other, um, waterproof foam pouches. And I really look forward to, to seeing if anybody can put in some comments, like some other recommendations. Cause I'd love something like this to just, like you said, you know, take, take kayaking or some light snorkeling or something like that. |
| James | Yeah, so the one that's on my radar is the Sea Life Sport Diver smartphone case. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, yeah. Is that a hard case? That's a small hard case? It is. |
| James | It looks like a traditional sort of thing, and it does the 12 Pro Max, and it has these little grip tabs. It's a neat system. So that's the one I'm kind of eyeballing at this point. You can save me a little bit of time if it doesn't work and you've tried it. Put it in the show notes and let me know. But this is the one I'm looking at currently. I love the idea of taking a camera I already have because I don't need the most amazing photos. Right. And goodness sakes, the housing for a Q or something like that is a fortune, right? Let alone, you know, maybe I could go back and try and find one for my 5D Mark III, but then you're, you're getting into some pro level stuff. And I don't really think that's where I am. I mean, if I could get something where. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | You don't want to take an hour to prep your camera to go snorkeling at the cottage. |
| James | To go snorkeling. Yeah. I mean, and I like the, my experience with the GoPro was, was such that the video of course is great. Super usable. But it couldn't do a wrist shot or it wasn't great at taking a picture of somebody on the surface or underwater. It was more meant for video. So I think that if the sea life one is I'm leaning towards that, I'm going to do a little bit more research, watch a few more reviews, and then we'll see where that lands. But yeah, it's kind of a fun journey to kind of thread the needle of like what makes sense for my use case versus the fact that this isn't going to be something I'm going to do for business or work or at a professional level. Right. But yeah, so that's 200. That is 200. We made it to 200. Thank you so much for listening. And as always, you know, if you want to subscribe to the show, get into the comments for each episode or consider supporting the show directly, and maybe even grab a new TGN signed NATO, just visit TheGreyNATO.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the free music archive. |
| Jason Heaton | And we leave you with this quote by Julia Cameron, who said, it is impossible to get better and look good at the same time. Give yourself permission to be a beginner. |
| Unknown | you |