Gadgetory

welcome back to the show friends our guests today we're very excited to have him he is a writer a comedian art gallery co-founder a podcaster and he has a new book called Kanye West owes me $300 which is not just a snappy title welcome Jenson carpet guy thanks for being here thank you for having me it can't be a snappy title it has to legally be true that's why it's the title oh okay lawyers told me that over and over as long as he technically owes me $300 we're fine so he technically owe you through her no he does let's start with that let's just get that right well when I was 19 years old I was pretty much like Los Angeles's biggest battle rapper which is weird cuz I look like an accountant but I was killer like I could murder anybody and that turned into a million dollar record deal Interscope with Jimmy Iovine and they like that it was like the Yankees of the music business yeah sure and so I recorded an album with them and it was recorded with Redman and fabulous of DJ Quik and DJ Clue and Mya Sugar Ray which is less impressive but one of the people I worked with was a young Kanye West we became close friends he's not sort of the guy you know now he was a very kind of quiet somewhat humble guy a little strange not Kanye West 2020 no not like no not ranting about jogging sweats now like he's a sort of a monster now but at the time very sweet God we became friends hung out movies dinners all sorts I couldn't do that you know me as a person at this point couple minutes in I could not hang out with this version of him that you know and so one of the things I did was we wanted to record we record a song together and as a producer not a rapper no one really knew he was a rapper and he wanted he had to leave he had to go to his mom's house trains about to leave waiting so you made a record with Kanye West yeah where you were the rapper well no one no one knew his rap I just think that's such a cool story yeah yeah managers would never even admit he was a rapper like when he told me was a rapper was like a secret really that's crazy like I know one he was being pitched as a producer you couldn't really be both at the time yeah so it was just he's also like a big dork he had like adult braces and stuff and so like people weren't stoked on him being a rapper sure but I have the right look at the time oh yeah or like yeah his fervor was so like it was too excited it was like very hard to understand even right and everyone else and so we recorded he said he need to leave I said listen I'll get a car service for you the label gave me way too much money and he said no I'll pay you back and I don't want it you know and even text me two ways at the time he would chew me every week about this $300 I didn't even want it but after a while when someone does that you're like yeah yeah check and so we kind of lost touch around a couple months after through the wire after he got in the accident and we haven't spoken since but it is my biggest outstanding debt that I have in my life it's the largest debt and I feel like now I can for it I would assume I guess we're all a little questioning when he said he was fifty three million dollars in debt but I figured was three million and three hundred he's like it's 50 to seven but then I remembered that car that Jenson got me and I'm gonna throw that in yeah maybe who knows but no I have not had much conversation with him so who knows and since since that time you have kind of done a little bit of everything so you have a podcast yeah that's on Earwolf Network yeah and you've got you do is do you still do the show with the baby we did a show with the baby for a long time we got a show called baby talk in Los Angeles Dan levy and I and we would interview six to eight year old every month at the meltdown theater with three of our comedian friends so if you ever looked for Billy Eichner tlf off to a seven-year-old we had the perfect show for you but we have our core audience actually people looking for that on Google well they're all on YouTube we have like Blake Griffin John Mulaney with so many great comedians come through and do it there's like nine episodes on YouTube sweets called baby talk and then you also go 500 an art gallery yeah that was right after the rap career one of the greatest art galleries here in Los Angeles many times already a gallery 98 yeah and so basically when I left the music industry it ended up sort of bad terms which you'll read in this book and I needed to find somewhere where I could sort of wholeheartedly curate not worry about someone else telling me something to do and a gallery's perfect for that like you can put whatever you want on the walls and you can live and die on your decision you choose and and luckily we got we 13 years later we're still in business yeah I mean the gallery isn't exactly a sure thing or on Melrose that's very regional but eternal yeah it's a turnover rate of about three months so we we had 13 years we're pretty much one of the longest-running businesses on the block now that's pretty awesome and you do a lot of like pop culture stuff too which is really cool yeah and directly with the companies a lot of times like we've worked with Breaking Bad and lost and the Oscars and the Avengers and we just did the force awakens with JJ I have a number of things that I purchased they're on the walls in my home you love it yeah a bunch of Ghostbusters stuff I do stirs event was amazing but so all of this stuff all of your very eclectic life all these different endeavors that you've been part of our in this book this is this snow this is just the rap career just the right yeah this is basically my my childhood in Woodland Hills California which is not quite a city of much minority sure mostly just whites a lot of Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and I came up it was the path my passion since the first moment I heard it and I became very good through training what was the first rap you heard was the thing that jump started it all this is this group called third base not necessarily a big famous group but they were three white dude or two white dudes really as the rappers and they spoke to me it was they didn't try to appropriate the culture I knew even at that age not this wasn't my music I knew to love it and to understand it but not to sort of steal it I heard that through Motown and things that I studied and so these guys third base made it their own and that was the first time I heard it when you know what I can do this and that was what I was into yeah that's cool and then it ends the last day I decide to rap wow that's cool and you and you me too you start of your career just extemporaneously are sitting down in writing for the book or for rapping for rapping writing really first I mean I mean like sixth grade so like that and it's still kind of good I mean I look back at the sixth grade stuff and I'm like oh this is this is pretty funny and it's in the book I put some in lyrics from sixth grade and they're decent and then freestyling miss Finkelstein no I was rough I was definitely claiming to have sex with 6% rap was about yeah I'd studied long enough that was at the time at the time and so yeah I knew what to do and so yeah and then I became I liked battling battling is what I wanted to do especially cuz comedy was so engrained in me and so that's free selling at that time so that's how I got into freestyle battling is that I wanted to use comedy and music and that was the easiest way do you still rap not much in the last ten years I've the Clippers asked me that I'm a huge Los Angeles Clippers fan they asked me to do a song two years ago for half time and that was the first time I'd rapped on our microphone in a decade so they put that at halftime and then since for the book I've put out a couple things I did a song with Mike Shinoda from Lincoln Park which we just released for the book and then I have a song with Nova Rockefeller from Canada so there's some things I'm doing I put out a freestyle for the book so some things I'm doing to promote and I still have it so in the book there are a lot of these sort of interesting like factual encounters with people like one of my favorite things that you mentioned in that you have a trailer for your book I do it listen if you're not sure about buying it like go watch the trailer on trailer we'll sell it it's great no it's right here and you talk about how mark McGrath threw you a 25th birthday party first the 21st birthday party I'm sorry threw you ochio party and then you never spoke again we've spoken I've never seen him again he actually tweeted the other day I did not send him a free book he tweeted himself reading the book congratulating me I was like thank you so much I hope you like your chapter with like a heart Oh cuz he was very nice to me we had a song together and he was a friend and then after the the he got a I mean I guess I could spoil this he got a humungous Virgin Mary tattoo that night because he was so drunk and he got a Virgin Mary tattoo on his neck and then he had it removed shortly thereafter so no matter how crazy I think my 21st birthday I did not beat Marco grass they're like the bull or the Virgin Mary the Virgin Mary's fine baby yeah it very much sounds like this was a not to use a book metaphor but a chapter in your life that had a beginning middle and end and you are past it now absolutely and that's a lot of therapy that's that's fine there's a therapy because when you're 19 and you sign a record deal for a million dollars and they tell you're gonna be on TRL and they tell you you're gonna work with Timberland and they tell you all these things and then that doesn't come together as much as that sounds like the smallest violin in the world it is not it is very painful for a child it's alright yeah very hard at 36 I'm a grown man I'll take any of your disappointment my parents are divorced I'm fine when you're 21 and you are you know this is your job and also I want to College I graduated I could win another route I was a sitcom writer by trade like I could have done those things instead I lost two or three years because of rapping sure and it's my passion but I was promised a bunch of things and those did not come through now I feel good but at the time is very painful yeah I'm sure that's really hard so what do you think now about sort of the landscape of I mean obviously we talked about this with Jackie to people who are independent able to get their music out there regardless of you know labels and things like that like do you think that if you were doing that you were rapping now at that age do you feel like you would have gone through maybe like a YouTube or a sounds like you have to feel like you would have done indie or would you have gone for that record deal oh look at me I was made to rap on the internet especially because at the time you have to understand no one looks like me in 2006 or sounded like I've never I've dressed like this I've sounded like this my whole life it in 2016 it's hard to find a white rapper who doesn't look like he belongs at Pacific Sun where like the I was the first of that mold and I listened to it back then and went this feels like even I heard and went I'm it's I'm trying because I can't be anything else I can't talk about guns I can't talk about jewelry I did not live that you have to be me and it was startling now I listened to it 2016 and I'm not even really that creeped out by it it's just the way the world has evolved and the internet being a big part of it because if you're selling realistic rap from a kid who grew up in a middle-class suburban home the strongest way to put that out is the Internet and I didn't have that at all when Napster barely started when I got out it's true democratization of media yeah it helps it and get to other audiences it creates subgenres within a larger genre and and I didn't have that opportunity and I'm still happy with what I did but I I my project was made for what would later become the Internet do you have a lot of time to listen to or like look around for up-and-coming musicians that you're really into is there anybody online that people should be able to sing to right yeah I mean that's what our podcast is called get up on this and it's me getting people up on musicians apps movies TV shows anything and I love a group out of LA called villain Park no one truly knows who they are yet they're kids they have some connections one of their brothers was a 90s underground rapper like I was but they're incredible and their kids and I don't even know how many probably a thousand followers 2000 followers but they sound like like back group 90s farside sounding but their heads yeah Wow in part Dylan Clark I'm publicizing them they've never emailed me I've never said you're the mark McGrath of villain parks life right let's make it a little nicer I appreciate the metaphor but so what's what's the next after the book like I do want to write more books do you want to do I mean because you do a lot of things yeah and so what's what's next for you well I'm writing right now I'm writing the ESPYs the ESPN Oscars it's my third year in a row this year we have John Cena so I'm super excited about that as a host are you gonna go for the meme wait hold on there are a lot of memes are you talking about John Cena yeah yeah I'll have to tune in I'm so jealous because I feel like he would be my best friend and reason I mean he would get a lot he seems like the cleanest guys why I used to write a pro wrestler I wrote Monday Night Raw was my first right oh yeah need to have you on just what I could just talk to you about that I'm a best huge for us yeah I did six months in 2005 and I was a great experience not something I wanted to do ever again I quit very easily did you get those crazy Vince McMahon phone calls where he was like no change at all no yeah well I didn't get those calls existed they didn't call the new kid to do that he was very nice to me and very sweet and John was always a bright spot he was the guy who like walked up to my mother and like introduced himself when she came like he's that guy in charm parade Oh through and through I got politician and so I've been so stoked to be reunited with him and be making jokes with him and he went and bought my book in a store yesterday don't seem too walked in and bought a book in my book store bag did anyone see John Cena but it's been fun and then I'm on the alternative press Music Awards with my friends Jack and Alex from all-time low they're hosting and then to Rob riggles pilot over TBS so I have a lot lined up as far as things to get me away from my life a little less self-centered sure and then hopefully something new more projects more fantastic well thank you so much thank you so where can everybody find you yeah it's Jensen carp comm with a queso je and Sen kar P everything I do which is a lot of stuff is all hugged there and then on Twitter its Jensen clan 88 that's what the CEO because I'm not racist so that's Jay and Sen yeah well done yep that's it sounds great and I'm gonna check out villain park and definitely go pick up Kanye West owes me $300 these are very funny again there are a lot of really great stories in there about a lot of your favorite 90s hip-hop artists when I know something on the way out please PLEASE Maya loves quesadillas don't Maya lives I mean who doesn't love Kay she told me it many times then we talked about quesadillas for 15 minutes now we know how to get her to come to set up a Cassidy a plate amazing yeah somebody called the taco man yeah all right guys that is it for Jennsen thank you so much again we really appreciate it and we'll be right back with our into its and also a delightful Beckett or Hecate if you like taking pictures of space so stick around surround Aileen