The Grey NATO – 363 – A Navel-Gazing Oral History Of TGN¶
Published on Thu, 05 Feb 2026 06:00:00 -0500
Synopsis¶
In this 363rd episode celebrating 10 years of The Grey NATO podcast, hosts James Stacy and Jason Heaton reflect on their journey from launching in February 2016 to building a thriving community of watch and adventure enthusiasts. James opens the episode fresh off a whirlwind trip to Tokyo for a De Bethune launch event, sharing his jet-lagged impressions of visiting sumo stables, the iconic New York Bar from "Lost in Translation," and unexpectedly running into fellow watch enthusiast Neil from Citizen at the Broadway Mall.
The hosts dive deep into the podcast's evolution, discussing how they nearly ended the show in 2018 during a difficult period when Jason was contemplating whether to continue. They candidly address personal challenges they've faced over the decade, including divorces and career transitions, while maintaining their weekly recording schedule. The conversation traces their business model evolution from Hodinkee partnership to listener-supported content via Substack, and the creation of their vibrant Slack community that has become central to the TGN experience.
Looking back on memorable guests—from Don Walsh and David Concannon to Rebecca Struthers and Jack Carr—they express gratitude for the community that has sustained them. The episode concludes with their characteristic risk check and final notes, with James discussing his repurchase of a Breitling Aerospace and new Filson briefcase, while Jason recommends Michael O'Donnell's novel "Above the Fire." Throughout, they emphasize that their greatest achievement isn't just creating content, but never stopping despite numerous reasons they could have quit over the past decade.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| James Stacy | Hello and welcome to another episode of the Grey NATO. It's a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 363, and it's proudly brought to you by the always growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support, and if you're listening and would like to support the show, please visit thegraynato.com for more details. My name is James Stacy, and I'm joined as ever by my friend and co-host Jason Heaton. Jason, how are we doing? Well, I'm I'm doing okay and I I'm'll do my best to keep you awake for the next hour. Yeah, I'm I I don't know if I will keep the like eight errors I made in three sentences there. I don't know if I'll keep those in the recording. I'm uh fairly jet lagged. You know, I'm I'm usually pretty good coming home, but coming back from Japan seems to be able to do it. I did sleep last night. Um I don't know that I slept all that well. Uh I was definitely up and down, uh as was my my baby son. And uh yeah, so I'm I'm feeling pretty fuzzy at the moment. Uh and then we'll we'll figure out how it goes from there. So how have you been |
| Jason Heaton | ? Yeah, I'm I'm I'm doing fine. I mean uh it makes me wonder about you know, there's so many theories about jet lag and you know how many days you're gone versus how many hours it takes to get back to normal and whatever. And it was a quick trip for you. It was what, Friday through Tuesday. I guess that's enough to settle |
| James Stacy | in. Yeah, yeah. And and I I we don't talk about this a ton and maybe it's not even that interesting. Often I find most people talking about AI to be it's I like'm falling asleep unless you're kind of predicting how how things could go. This trip was originally going to somebody else at Hodinky, then they couldn't, so I took it and it it was for the launch of this new L V collab. They do these major uh launches, not er quite every year, but close to uh where they they're doing five of them total. This is the third one, and they partner with like a notable independent watchmaker and they make something really next level. Right. So the first one was a Recep Recepi with a dial on each side of the watch. The second one was a Kari watch from again Kari Vutilen. And this third one was for Debuton. And uh the watch is fairly conventional, especially within the day button sense, a very unconventional brand. Um, the L V D B03 GMT. Uh, but they're they also made two uh sympathy clocks, which is something simply nobody does, and actually the last time it was done, it was largely done by the same person who made this one, Denny Flaggiolet. It's an interesting story. If you want to go deeper into it, it's on Hodinky. My coverage uh is on Hodinky. Uh that said it it's it's perhaps about as far away from being a TGN watch as a titanium sport watch uh with a GMT function could be. You know, it's uh it's a uh uh about a half a million dollars once you pay your taxes. I think 375,000 euros, so you do the math uh for you. And then the clock is like four million Euros. So it's not really within our scope. Um it is an incredible the c especially the clock wildly cool thing and execution and story and the rest of it, but uh not the sort of thing that we typically cover here on the show, but that's what that's what took me to uh to Japan. And I when I got the trip, I started using I asked ChatGPT how I could adjust my sleep schedule to kind of help me get ready for it. So it made it gave me some ideas and and I I took those in and going there I actually don't know that I experienced any jet lag. I had like a a plan for the first week or so before the trip and then how to sleep on the plane. So I really felt relatively fine. I was getting five, six hours of sleep a night. So that would put me up fairly early in Tokyo. But I it's a great city to walk around. And it was also the you know these press trips are kind of once once the itinerary starts for the day, you're just with everybody until you go to bed. Yeah. So having two, three hours to either work on stories or cover emails or whatever, or just to walk aimlessly around and eat egg salad sandos really worked out just fine. There's zero complaints in any of that, but if I sound a little loopy, please know if if you hear me leave an edit in like an error, that's because I got tired of editing out the other twenty. Uh you know, I used up all my edit uh you know, allotment um mentally uh in it 'cause we're also uh due to the thing we're we're recording this like twenty hours before the show goes live, so I'll I'll edit this and then it'll go up uh pretty shortly thereafter. So kind of an in in the moment sort of show. Not our not our normal uh plan. But yeah, that's that's how it's been. Yeah, we're gonna and t Tokyo's fun. I mean it's it's just the coolest place. Got to visit the New York bar at the park Hyatt, which is the you know, where Lawson Translation is shot. And uh and it just recently underwent like a two year renovation. Um and uh uh from what I can tell at least they didn't change anything, they just redid what was already in the exact same way that it was. Because it still feels like you're stepping back into uh into lost in translation for that that time, and there's some people some people playing jazz, and I was I was hanging out with my buddy Michael and and I I don't know that I would go there just for the the drinks and the jazz. Uh it's it's it's uh an alcohol friendly city to say the least. You could you could do pretty well in a bunch of different settings. But if you want to go for the kind of the fun of walking through the lobby, of going through a few of the floors, which all feel like set pieces from from the movie and then sitting down at at the bar, uh it it is a good time and and in that scope for me was worth the worth the cover charge. Yeah |
| Jason Heaton | , yeah. I you know, I remember one time I was I guess it was probably for the Seiko trip years ago, I stayed at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, which is across from the Imperial Gardens there, Emperor's Gardens, and um I I just recently learned I remember I took that trip in late November down to and went to the Frank Lloyd Wright studio and and uh home uh near Chicago and uh learned that and I think I knew this, but that that Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. And I Oh, cool. Yeah, I just couldn't remember that. But I speaking of the bar, I remember um yeah, I remember some of those high views and I also remember my room when I stayed there was on a really high floor and these probably are fairly common, I'm not sure, but there was an earthquake while I was there and I, you know, I could feel kind of this being thirty floors up or whatever in this room, kind of feeling this not you know it's a very unfamiliar feeling for me, you know, living in a place that really doesn't have earthquakes. And it was a little disconcerting, you know, to have a a city full of really tall buildings when there's sure common earthquakes. But yeah, the views are amazing. I mean they just go on forever. And you know, I'm I'm definitely more of a nature guy. I'm not a city person, but there's something impressive about looking out at this expanse of glittering high rises that just go |
| James Stacy | on forever. It's so big. Like at any moment you are kind of some distance from real nature, if you will. Yeah. Um, but there are some you know impr very impressive city park garden scenarios right in the city. Um we we had a great walk through through a an absolutely beautiful one. Yeah, it was a it was a it was a fun trip. It's a it's a remarkable city. I c it's one of those the few places where I go I would absolutely uh you know, as maybe as a younger man, uh have thought about trying to make a way of living here. Oh, sure. Yeah. Um I c I don't fathom how they can have, you know, so many multiples in terms of uh population and vehicles and that sort of thing and so much less traffic than Toronto. Oh yeah. You know what I mean? Like it's just it just there's things about the city that just makes so much more sense. Yeah. Yeah. Uh so yeah. I it it's always a treat to be there. I'm already looking forward to uh, you know, may maybe it's something where I get lucky enough to be there uh once a year, once every couple of years. Um, I would love to see more of the country now that I've had two very short trips in Tokyo. Um, I'd love to see more of the country. I'd love to do more of it sort of self-directed rather than in a like in a press itinerary scenario. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. You have to explain a a a cryptic test text message that you sent me. Um it was the last one I got from you while you were there.'ll We we're talking about when we were gonna record the episode and you said I'll do notes on the plane off to the sumo stables. Oh yeah. What are the sumo stables? I mean I I could guess |
| James Stacy | . So it's where it's where the they kind of train so there's a certain number of sumo stables. I only know uh a little bit that I learned through translation in the car to the stables. Mm-hmm. Um I I would have to do more reading about it. But um obviously sumo wrestling is very much uh a uh an event, a sporting event in in Japan and in some of the neighboring countries. And we got to go uh into a a stable like that includes like a viewing area. Oh so there's almost like a a seating area to the side of the sort of workout space for these guys. And uh we got to watch a master uh sumo wrestler kind of looking over twelve or thirteen prospects that kind of ranged in terms of their their qualifications, their ranking, their their sort of structure in the system. Yeah. And man, I'll be honest, we were in the car going over and I thought for sure this was going to be boring. I was just sure of it. I was like, Yeah, it's it's sumos. I've seen it on TV, you know, I've seen a Discovery World channel sort of special once or twice when I was a kid, that sort of thing. Man, in person it was great. These guys were fascinating watching them kind of go through like warm ups and then and then kind of go through more like staged competition, uh was quite exciting |
| Jason Heaton | . Hm. Yeah. Yeah. Every time Japan comes up or crosses my consciousness, I I always it makes me want to pull out um you only live twice. I I if if you're jet lagged and you're looking for a an easy Bond film to watch um over the next few days while you're jet lagged, I think uh I think you'd you'd enjoy if you haven't seen it or you know if, you already have, like to to review that one. It's it's just it's all in Tokyo and it's uh it's such a good one. And there's a sumo scene in that |
| James Stacy | one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I bet you I haven't seen that movie in you know, like twenty years. Yeah. Yeah. I And might even it might have been one that I watched when I was even younger on like uh somebody's VHS. Oh, sure. Like taped f taped from the TV. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I don't I don't know that I've I've actually seen that movie in its theatrical release. I th it might that but that might have been from uh you know a a a Paramount or a TCM or uh Peachtree TV or something like that. So uh who knows. But yeah, I'll have to check that out. But yeah, the um the trip was really fun. You d you want to know the weird thing. So you know there's what thirty five to f nearly forty million people in Tokyo. Uh the one day we decided we would go to the Broadway Mall, which is where uh Oh sure, yeah, I've been there. And uh it a lot of people and Good Watch, those are all in this one mall. But the mall is also like weird, not weird, that's unfair. The mall is also a lot of like anime subculture stuff and other collectibles. I found like a little tiny die cast of the Ford Explorer from Jurassic Park. Oh. So that's what I bought for myself for the trip. You know, it was like $3,000 yen or something. And I was very excited about it. Of course the other people who were with me were just kind of like blank stairs. You know, they had like thousands. I could have picked any car you could imagine. And when I saw this, I just felt like it was speaking to me. I have the plastic toy, like the or it definitely had. I'm not sure I still have all of it. I have it somewhere in a box for my mom, like the the the one that you could put the figurines in and could be attacked by the by the uh the T-Rex that had like the little stake that came out of his ribcage to show damage or whatever. Um anyway, so that's what I got while I was there. But when we were there and we're standing out front waiting for to meet up with a friend of mine who knows the area and I realized oh look there's Neil from Citizen. Crazy. Wow. Like I knew he was gonna be there because we had traded a couple techs and I said, you know, if we're putting some together I'll I'll reach out. And then we're just standing fifteen feet apart on a street in Tokyo uh and e in an area I didn't really even plan to go to. We kind of decided to go to there like I wouldn't say like last minute, but without a real intent of like I was kind of hoping to find those vending machines that have the like the the G Shock rings. I thought my daughters would enjoy those. Mm-hmm. And I thought there was a chance I'd find some there. So I I was just looking for something to do. And and then we get there and we see Neil. So that was exciting. Yeah shout out, Neil. Uh hope you're having a a fantastic time. He was in town for a little bit of tourism and then some stuff with Citizen. So who knows? Maybe uh maybe they've got well, not who knows. I'm sure they've got some exciting stuff coming up for the year, but he'll know what it is uh before we do. Um yeah, it was it was fun. It doesn't seem like the kind of city where you run into somebody. Right. That that you know, it just doesn't. But yeah, so that was exciting and super fun. I guess when you think about it like there are a list of very common watch spots. Right. And we were there at the same time. So that must raise our chances exponentially from the near zero. Yeah. Uh but yeah, it's still still funny to run into uh run into Neil and and such such a treat to see a friendly face |
| Jason Heaton | . Yeah. Yeah that Jack Road or that whole mall with the the watch shops in there is kind of mind blowing. I mean I you know I I heard about it before I went and I think I went with Robert Jan from Fratello on that trip and we wandered around there. And I was my mind was blown. I mean, there's just glass cases full of you know, multiples of vintage Ploprofts and you know, there's a whole shop that's dedicated to British military watches, so you get, you know, the CWCs and Lemanias and old Omegas and stuff. I mean, it's just and and I remember the words of caution from somebody who'd been there before and kind of told me, like, well, you know, they're all overpolished and you know, overworked and whatever. But I I m regardless, I was my mind was just blown and I I think I couldn't do the I think we talked about this on your previous trip to Tokyo, but you you're struggling to do the mental math of like how a yen translates to to dollars. So I'm like kind of this Ploperov? Can I afford that? You know, I just kind of looking and I just my head was spinning. I ended up leaving with nothing. But uh man, the temptations are crazy |
| James Stacy | . Yeah, I looked at I looked at a bunch of stuff. I looked at some like JDM Seiko. Uh and I figured if I found an SLA diver you know, the the with the eight series uh movement that was like the price was right, I could I could bring that home. That's kind of still on my hit list for Seiko. Is like an SLA 017 or similar. You know, kind of take that the SPB diver which I've owned and loved, but take it to the the final degree. Yeah. Before you get to a grand Seiko. Yeah. Um I'll I'll definitely own one of those at some point um in the future. But I looked around and at one point we were in Jack Road, and that's just Jack Road's like one fairly prominent retailer. And they have old stuff, lots of old Rolex, lots of vintage stuff, but then they just have a ton of new stuff. And it's not just Omega and and Rolex and that sort of thing. It's like Erfurk and uh Richard Mill and uh Porsche Design and you know lots of brands that that you know might start at a thousand dollars and kind of go up from there. And but then at the same time you you go down around the corner and and there's like a display case next to Goodwatch that just had a bunch of like before your and my time, but like what Rolex would have given out at Basel World. Oh, shit. Like there was a Basel World 2011 paperweight. Oh. Wow. You know, a desk clock and ephemera, that sort of thing. And there was just, you know, they had like stacks upon stacks of bezels and handsets. Yeah. Yeah. And and like it was it was fun. I'm I you know, I think if I had spent a day there, I would have found and convinced myself to buy something, but we spent, you know, an hour, maybe two, and then uh and then figured we would we would move on to kind of the next thing. And it was fun. I walked around with Andrew McCutcheon uh from uh time and tide shout out Andrew had a really good time because he was on the trip and it it's fun because we don't normally get to be on trips together. So had a really nice couple of days with him and uh Brees from Monochrome who I'm a big I'm a big fan of and uh SJX was there. I've had a a chance over the last year or two to to become more of a pal with him. We were on the Blanc Pond launch uh for the grand double sonnery uh last year. Uh so yeah, uh it was a fun trip. Uh always nice to be in in Japan. I'm not I can't throw any shade at the idea at all. But I I gotta say, like I keep looking at the notes, going how far into this show are we? Nothing else to report from from |
| Jason Heaton | your side? No. I mean I think you you you had the exciting uh past few days and you know, man, it's amazing how much you can pack into a few days uh halfway around the world, including flights. So um but but let's uh let's dive in because you have you also have some exciting news in in risk check, something new. I |
| James Stacy | do, yeah. Uh I will I will go first, which I don't commonly do. I've teased at it over the last couple weeks, but I did actually buy a watch this year already. Uh so I didn't quite make it a month. I have rebought uh a brightling aerospace and I'm absolutely overjoyed to have it. In twenty eighteen I sold my E56062, which is a early generation, not the earliest, um, or an early iteration of sort of the first generation of the aerospace. Um and now I have bought uh from Cortez on the Slack, shout out Cortez, uh an E65 362, which is the repetitions minute, uh, with a a sort of steely blue dial, and it's basically in perfect condition. It comes on the standard sort I would call it the chiclet. Did is chiclets the gum a known thing, or is that a Canadian thing? No, that's uh yeah. Well known here and so I look at the these bracelet links and I always call uh that I to be clear, this is not what anyone else would call this bracelet. It's not the slanted, so it's not one of the pro series that you would instantly recognize. I call it a shiklet bracelet. It looks like pieces of those gum all kind of stacked up. And then uh Cortez also threw in the RZE brushed titanium bracelet, which is probably nicer made and has quick disconnect and has a push button extension. So that's probably the one I'll be wearing a lot on the watch, but I throwing it back on this on the stock quote unquote uh uh titanium bracelet from Brightling and uh and just loving it. I I just I absolutely love these watches and and I you know, like I said, we can get into it. I needed money at the time. And so I sold the aerospace and I've kind of regretted it since and I'm sure that's come up on, you know, numerous Q and A's about watches you maybe regret selling or watches you still think about. And I remain a huge fan of these. And this is sort of the model that comes after the one I had. But early January, I think in one day, two or three really good looking aerospaces popped up on the Slack. Yeah. I sent you a message about it. I was conflicted. Um I still wanted to sell a couple of my own watches. So we're still net down in terms of number of watches, but we're I I have bought uh what appears to be essentially a a like new aerospace uh full kit and everything. And I I also realized I don't have any other at least not certainly not ones that I commonly wear, blue dial watches. I have sort of the pastel halios. Yeah. But like your your core kind of standard, you know, denim blue or whatever, I I don't have. And so this gives me that option as well. And I just absolutely love it. I'm I'm super, super thrilled. So if uh if I let you down by buying uh a watch, uh especially one that's exceptionally similar to a watch I've already owned and adds to a stable of ever growing analog digital nonsense in my in my watch box, which I've I just it's it's really my home for fun. Yeah. Is you know, watches with tiny screens. Um yeah. I'm just I'm absolutely loving this. I'm gonna wear it so much. Oh yeah. It's great. Uh I'm I have a another trip coming up in about twelve days uh to Geneva for something quite exciting, uh that I I will be able to talk about a little later on. Uh it's not a watch release, it's more of a a peek behind the veil uh of a great watch brand that we really love on this uh on the show. Um but I'm I'm also looking forward to uh putting a few travel miles on this one as well. So yeah, uh pretty pretty pretty pumped about that. And uh again, shout out to uh Cortez on the Slack and and to the Slack in general. Uh he was able to pick it up from one of the members who had it before and then it didn't land that well with him and and then now it's with me and I I I can't imagine it's going anywhere unless things get pretty dire |
| Jason Heaton | . Yeah, and and you explained. So this is um it repetition minutes. I guess that's Swiss French for minute repeater, right? I mean it it it it does uh on demand um chiming |
| James Stacy | . It does, yeah. So you can you can have it um chime the hours and then it it uh a little different chime for uh fifteen minutes and then it chimes the final digit. Uh so that that's something I haven't bothered playing with just yet. I'm I'm kind of doling out my fun with it uh as as I've I mean I've I've had it for I've at this point a few hours. I got I got home later. Oh right, of course yeah. Immediately put it on it. So still very fresh. Ye |
| Jason Heaton | ah. And it has the rider tabs that you can swap around like I was talking about on a previous episode. |
| James Stacy | It sure does. Yeah. And it's just the bezel's significantly more crisp and nicely, you know, fitted than the one on my last one. There's just much less wear and tear on this model. Yeah. Yeah. I just I'm I, you know, we talked a lot about the watch on on a on a very recent episode, so we don't have to I'll I'll do more in the future as as I wear it more. But yeah, I'm just I'm uh I'm very happy with it. Yeah, that's |
| Jason Heaton | great. Well I went with the um I guess you could call it an equally sketchy watch if we're kind of gonna kind of categorize in that way, you know, Brightling with a reputation as being the watch of sketchy characters. I have uh I have on a watch that I don't know I've talked about on this on the podcast before but it's the the cobalt endurance chronograph. I I picked this up probably last fall from somebody that was selling it was such a such an impulse buy off of BST on on Slack, and you know, I've worn it off and on, but but not much. And I thought at some point recently I was looking at it. I thought, eh, maybe it's time to move this on. It's not getting much wear. But I've got it on this kind of drab olive uh canvas from Haviston that I've had for years and it kind of works perfectly. And so this is the if if you're not familiar with the cobalt endurance, it was I believe it was one of their very first watches, and this one uh dates back to the late 90s when the company was just getting off the ground. And they were Michael Kobold, the founder, who's come to some controversy and fallen in some disgrace by some by some measures, when he set out to found the brand, he was looking for partners and he was kind of a a a mentee, I guess, if you will, of um Gerard Rudiger Long, um, who was the of Chrono Swiss, um, you know, founded Chrono Swiss back in the 80s, kind of was responsible for rekindling the the interest in mechanical watches back then. And so he partnered with him and then they had Zinn actually build this watch. So the crown has the C a C on it for Chrono Swiss and it's it's basically a CIN 103. So it's got the rotating, you know, black anodized aluminum bezel, you know, time elapsed bezel, and then it's that familiar ZIN day date, you know, 7750 based uh chronograph dial and um it's yeah it's just it's kind of a tough little watch. It's 40 millimeters, so it you know cobalt get went pretty big after this um with their later watches and and this one's you know a reasonable size it's really comfortable. It's been accurate. It's got you know tritium markers and hands, so it's starting to fade a little bit. Um but yeah, it's it's a fun piece. It's uh I might hold on to it a little longer. So it's it's great |
| James Stacy | . Yeah. Those are those are very cool. I mean, yeah, cobold the the the interest becomes it raises the longer that they've been kind of out of the enthusiast cycle, yeah, in some ways. Yeah. And maybe it's just that they're out of my cycle and it and I'm I'm misscoping this. But when we got into like when we got if if I say we, you and I, Jason, like c talked two thousand six, two thousand seven. Mm-hmm. I I yeah, I remember it being a real thing. We we definitely talked about this recently on was it a QA? Was it it was something where we we talked a bunch about soarway divers and and that sort of thing. Yeah. Uh these are definitely interesting and kind of like the the I'm I'm c i again, this could just be that it's a recursive loop, so it's not happening in enthusiasm. It's just happening in my little piece of watch internet. Yeah. But it feels like people are looking back at early Zinn now as like, oh, these are re-interesting. They were always interesting, like Easy M1s and that sort of thing. Yeah. But now they've become like increasingly more collectible. Uh and and uh when those pop up, they see feel quite special to see. It's like seeing an old Porsche Design Chrono or something like that. Yeah. Uh so yeah, I I definitely get the Kobold appeal, especially given kind of the arc that the company and its ownership has had in the last you |
| Jason Heaton | know 15, 20 years. Yeah. Yeah. And I got this one and the and that 144 that I got from Tom Place roughly around the same time as within a month of each other. And so suddenly I had two basically Zinn chronographs with the same movement in them. Um so it's been yeah, it's been kind of all or nothing for me in that respect. But yeah, it's great. Nice. I suppose we should jump into our main topic here. We've we're we're half an hour into the show, and we haven't even started talking about the past ten years. Yeah, I mean, if we're if we' |
| James Stacy | re talking about arcs that people have had, let's uh let's make it really clear. The the rest of this episode is gonna be deeply navel gazy. It's we're just gonna be talking about what the last 10 years have been like for us. Last week we had Mike on to talk about kind of the 10 years of of our relationship with Mike and with the watch world and that sort of thing. And now we're just kind of taking one moment. This isn't going to be a trend. This is sort of, I think, where the sort of 10-year themed topics will probably end. Maybe we'll do a 10-year QA in the future. Uh, if people want to send in specific questions, we could probably group those together. Um, but I figured before we could do a QA or something, there's stuff we could talk about here, some stuff that has never made it onto the show because it was too much about the show. Yeah. If if that makes sense. But yeah, so it's been ten years, uh, depending on the time zone of your uh uh your podcast feed February 1st or February 2nd uh 2016 was uh was roughly the first episode. And then Jason, I I have a really fuzzy memory. Like I don't remember you we could try and go back and see. I'm not sure how interesting it would be, but like I think we were probably in planning to start this for a few months. And then we finally just picked like after SIHH we would do it |
| Jason Heaton | . Yeah, I think I think that's how it went. And I believe, you know, f I know for sure that when, you know, when Mike introduced us and we started talking about the podcast, you know, you had um, you know, to your credit, I mean you you had this kind of idea pretty well fully I shouldn't say fully baked, but you know, you had a pretty good idea of what you wanted to see and you even had a name for it. And I remember us talking about it and I just thought, um, yeah, it sounds great. I'm not sure how it works and I remember you really had to kind of coach me through you know, the logistics of doing the recordings. And we've we've done it exactly the same way for ten years. I mean with some the hardware minor tweaks to the hardware. Um, but it's it's always been garage band and were and we must have were you were we using Zoom? Was that Zoom 10 years ago or was it? |
| James Stacy | Uh no, we started on Skype. Skype. Oh Skype. We started on Skype. Zoom didn't really exist until 2020. I do |
| Jason Heaton | remember when we talked about um you know I don't remember specifically, but you know, where we're gonna kick things off, and it just happened to be the timing that well let's it kind of makes sense to do it after after SIHH because it'll give us a big kind of big bang, a lot of bang for the buck, a lot of things to talk about. And and sure enough, that's where it was. All Lux |
| James Stacy | ed out was the first episode. Yeah, and I I was still working full time in like the Canada's cable services industry. I worked for Shaw Cable at the time in Vancouver and was kind of building stuff out. And and actually my interest in a podcast for watches probably goes back to 2010 or 2011. Um, where I I'd wanted to start one but didn't have a host. At the time, there were very few watch podcasts out there. I was listening to the one that RL Adams used to do with John Biggs. Definitely at the time I really wanted to do something like that, but in within my own scope, I was obsessed with podcasts. I was listening, you know, big, big This Week in Tech, Leo Laporte fan. Uh, you know, anything I could get my hands on. You know, early on, it was it was a lot of like strange fiction, weird media stuff, um, and tech coverage or or tech news sort of things, where that were the early, early, early, like this would have been first year of university for me when I was listening to a lot of this week in tech and uh Dignation kind of transitioned into having something like a podcast, but it wasn't really called that yet and and and you know, kind of went from there with a lot of the same sorts of uh s same sorts of folks. If you remember the one-up podcast uh in the video game space, that was very formative for me. And I think if you went back and listened to some of these, you'd go like, oh, that's kind of that's why TGN doesn't really feel like a modern podcast. Uh it's it's because the ones that I really loved were these like knuckleheads who worked together in the same space and sat down and had a conversation um that would kind of have happened either way, but was recorded, and people who love the same sorts of things got to be part of it to a certain extent. Which is sort of the the vibe here. We're not necessarily telling stories. We're not necessarily uh, you know, reporting on something. I I have a very different opinion. You know, these days I think the the closest thing that I like is like what the ringer does. Whether it's um the big picture or rewatchables or or any of the other dozens of shows that they're capable of making, I think that's the thing where you get people who have something to chit-chat about or would be doing it with their friends anyways, putting it on tape. And that was always the goal. Once I got to get to know you better and we were con we were kind of constantly chatting on on like Gmail chat or Google chat, G chat, whatever they were calling it at the time. And I I started to see like, oh, I think this would be the the guy to do it with. Pretty choosy on that front. So, you know, obviously I'm I'm pretty happy with how that's worked out. It's been 10 largely drama-free years. Uh and then yeah, I remember uh just kind of saying, like, look, we'll you'll record your Yeah. I didn't have any audio editing experience. Uh not anything extensive, nothing to this extent. If you go back, they don't sound amazing. But I think we cross that line. You know, I think I've called it like the 70% threshold. There's like a line where as long as it's good enough to be clear and doesn't mess with your speakers in your car, your earphones like it it's in the right scope, you'll y it's good enough. Yeah. You know, over time I think we we definitely made it sound a little bit better and and make some tweaks to the way that we were editing the show and I I don't remove I don't uh exhaustively edit as much as I used to. Um, I I I'd'll leave in more errors or or natural speak patterns, speech patterns, or natural speech patterns and that sort of thing. But yeah, that's sort of where we where we started it uh was uh in February of twenty sixteen. And at the time we were two episodes a month. So a much slower cadence than we have now. And I would say that we largely just kind of figured it out as we went from there. Mm-hmm. Like I don't there wasn't like a a grand plan, there wasn't a business plan, certainly. We never intended to make any money doing this. And I think largely for me, it was one of those things where I got so tired of thinking about doing it that I stopped being worried about like making it perfect and the goal just became making it the show. And uh and then I would say, you know, and we've said this before, we got really lucky because within a week, uh Ben uh climber at Hudinky, now my boss and has been for some time, uh, but at the time was just kind of a guy we knew in the space. I don't know if I had met Ben more than once or twice before that, you know, in my blog to watch years. Yeah. He wrote a a story just saying that hey, the podcast is out, it's good. If you like the if you like the sorts of watches that these guys like, you're gonna like this podcast, which I I think is still true. And that made a huge difference. That that gave us our first bump of notoriety, of Google search results, of you know, attention from a huge audience at Hodinky. And I think, you know, a a tiny, you know, fraction of one percent of that audience kind of liked what they heard and has stuck around. Some are still listening, uh, which is great. You know, we we hear from people who say they're on uh since day one, which is uh which is great. And certainly we have some data suge to suggest that's that's the case. Would uh do you remember anything specific about those early bits, like up until you know, we did maybe what, a year and a half uh without without any real slowdown? |
| Jason Heaton | Well, I just remember when occasionally we'll have a guest on um who feels very nervous about talking on a podcast and and just wondering how it's gonna go. And you know, we kinda reassure them, look, it's just a conversation, it gets edited. I remember feeling those things in the early days. I think you had more confidence in kind of you know speaking and the editing process and kind of how it all was going to work. And I just remember thinking like, I need like a script. Like I think I used to type out like things that I was going to say about specific topics, not word for word, but like you know, extensive notes. And um and it's gotten to the point now where you know we'll it'll be it could be an hour before we're gonna record and we're like, what do you want to talk about today? You know, what do you want to do for a topic? I think we just have that that chemistry and kind of this this legacy behind us of of just comfort and for sure. So that works really well. But yeah, uh you know, those early days, I think back to 2016, 2017, you know, I was in the thick of kind of kicking off my full-time freelance career. I had gone full-time freelance in about, I believe, 2014. And um so I was I was taking any trip I could get, you know, press trips and and w writing any sort of story for, you know, Ask Men and Odinky and Revolution and Gear Patrol and whatever. And I was just I was super busy. And you know, the podcast was something that doing twice a month was sustainable. It wasn't too hard to do. You you did the the bulk of the the the work with the editing and and the publishing. Um but then there was a point in you know, 2018, where we kind of decided to take some time off in the summer. I think things had just gotten hectic or busy or you know, who knows, but things in our personal lives. Um, and we decided to take a break and I just remember feeling kind of blasé about coming back. I think I got maybe I just got used to kind of not not doing it for a couple days and thinking, well, you know, this isn't a a money making thing. This isn't like something that's enhancing my my income and and I I'm busy enough with all these these freelance projects, you know, maybe we we kind of don't come back after the summer. Um and I remember telling you that and you're like, well, what can we do? Because, you know, you you still really wanted to continue and I was on the fence and we're like, well, what can change? Let's let's adapt things. Um and I guess that was around the time when when we were, I don't I don't remember how it came about, but we were approached by Hodinky to kind of partner with them on on an ad deal that would you know they would kind of in uh publicize each of the the the episodes and then we would share some ad revenue with them. Um do you remember how specifically that came about |
| James Stacy | ? Yeah, for sure. So early summer in 2018. We always, I think at the time we were in the mode of taking a break, or maybe the the show was so new, we had like we just kind of did whatever we felt. And uh we we took a break and I uh largely I think that break was downstream of you were doing a string of trips if I remember correctly and there wasn't gonna be like a natural time to record any of it. Could be. And this is before we were comfortable with like take a mic with you and we'll figure it out. Yeah. I think one of them was one or two of them was quite remote. There might have been some time in Sri Lanka where it wasn't going to work or the internet wasn't going to be good enough or something like that. There were some unknowns. Yeah. And you seemed eager to take a break. Uh, so we took a break. And then over the course of that break, we had a couple chats that were kind of like, I don't know where this is going. And or not even that you didn't know where it was going, but kind of like, it isn't going anywhere. We're just kind of talking for an hour every couple weeks and putting it on the internet. And the you know, maybe the show was we were never that concerned about like growth or or its impact or that sort of thing, but it didn't feel like the show was um adding value in scope, that sort of thing. And I think you were at the point in your life where you were working a lot to keep all the balls in the air. And I don't think having something that took the time and and occasionally took time out of some of the other experiences that you were trying to do made sense when it didn't make any money, when it didn't have that impact on the goals of the rest of your existence. Mm-hmm. If I remember correctly, that's kind of the kind of the the discussions that we were having. So I just figured I would find a way to have it make a little bit of cash and see if that made more sense. You gotta get your time paid. We'd put the the time in by this point to to kind of develop what the show was and some of the aesthetic and the logo and you know the the name had held uh you know the Greenado no you know it was it was obtuse enough that we weren't getting any general audience um you know, it probably let's be clear, probably would have been smart to have just called it like the adventure watch podcast or something like that. Right. If you want to look back over ten years of possible mistakes or things I would or wouldn't change, I wouldn't change the name, but I've definitely been told by lots of people who are smarter that the name is dumb and hard for people to understand. I don't care. Yeah. Um I I think it's worked out just fine. Um I like that after 10 years I still have to explain it to people occasionally uh like what what the intent is does it have anything to do with uh you know like NATO proper no uh that sort of thing um so yeah that's uh that's all fine by me. As an aside to |
| Jason Heaton | o that that name does elicit some interesting uh promotional emails from PR people that are like Oh yeah. Wanting to pitch us to talk about, you know, geopolitical experts that are talking about the the role of NATO in the modern era or something. L |
| James Stacy | ike uh you got the wrong NATO. Yeah. Wrong one. Um but yeah, so uh I went to Hodinki and just said, Hey, look, we're we have these are our metrics and um and we would like to uh you know what you know we would be available if there's some sort of Were you on staff there at that time? No. No. I was um I had I had so by twenty seventeen I had taken essentially a stronger role with them. So I was on conch like I was on um retainer uh for a certain number of stories a month and and had taken like I was no longer a contributor. I think I was classed as an editor uh there at the time. And so we started working with them uh as an ad deal where if they sold an ad on the show, we would get half the cash. Uh and in return, we would bolster you know by calling the you can go back and listen to these episodes, we're not changing any of this, of course. And I'm I'm so pretty proud that we did this for when we did it. Uh we put the um you know, it's a hodinky podcast or whatever was the was the sort of tag. It was like a licensing deal with them. And it just it turned out that even even when we weren't the ones selling or administrating the ads, it was still a pain. Mm-hmm. We're you and I are not like businessmen. We're not great at making money. I don't wanna do this side of the job. That's kind of why I made a podcast that was obtuse and and and difficult to like it just it it was never going to be this commercial giant, which I'm fine with. I think that at that point you you eventually lose the show and the point um of what we are trying to do. So we stuck around for a long time with them. Uh I I don't know that I'm well, I never signed anything that said I couldn't. We were pretty far along in possibly selling the show to Hodinki. Yeah. Um we had we had numbers, we had the need for lawyers, we had stuff like that. And then with a venture capital move, they bought Crown and Caliber, which kind of left us not being purchased. And that's one of those ones where I look back and I'm very thankful that it worked out the way that it did. Simply because I don't know if you stacked up everything that Hodinki was up to, it wouldn't have put us at the very high on the priority list, r uh uh understandably so from a business side. And at about April 2021, it was episode one forty three was the last one we did. And we ended that agreement with uh with Hodinki. And and I would say what we learned was quite important, which is you giving up any control is giving up control of something that we like. And two, we weren't going to do the ad thing. Even if we had to do it or someone else, we just it wasn't gonna work. Wasn't gonna work for us. Didn't like the way it worked. Um I'm not you know, I might reconsider that if it meant saving the show again in the future. Um but if it would be a last ditch sort of option, the interest was always to transition to being listener supported. You know, by now we're talking April 2021, listener support is becoming even more accepted for some of these things. And um and you know, during that time, during the time with Hodinki, we also started going weekly for the isolation tapes. So originally I branded it the isolation tape so that we could dial it back and not stay weekly. I was scared of setting a commitment that we couldn't get out of. Yeah. Yeah. It was gonna be a temporary thing. Yeah, exactly. So when when we started the isolation tapes, it was because we were all home, you know, starting in March of twenty twenty due to the pandemic. And I thought, hey, this gives us the ability to brand something where we can go weekly, but then when the isolation tapes are over, we go back to being bi weekly. That we or bi monthly, you you take your pick. I still don't understand all those terms. Twice a month. was the goal We would go back to that. I think you and I, Jason, were on the same page for that. And uh and then we just never did. Yeah. Because by then the show really started to find its like its home, its cadence from a value statement. A show like TGN's very much a preaching to the choir rather than trying to get more people in the pews sort of scenario to use the uh church analogy. And then by April 2021 we were we were out of Hodinky and kind of looking to figure out what we would do from there. And in May of twenty twenty-one, I believe it was May, the there was a fairly large scale outage on SoundCloud, which is what we'd used for 170 some odd episodes by that point, uh, or pushing maybe a hundred and fifty-five episodes, something like that. And it was offline for a long time, and it was this this came at a time when it really felt like we were finally things were coming into play for us. You know the the show was pretty good the the audience was really on board and um and so we uh we switched over to um substack for the show notes and then uh at a s in a similar scope we moved from sound cloud to buzz sprout for uh for uh subs subsidized or like for |
| Jason Heaton | Well and I'll just I'll just interject here too on the on the substack side of things. I you know, at the time we were trying to figure out a way that we could move to a subscriber based platform and we kicked around some ideas, you know, Patreon or or some others. And it was around the the late summer of the pandemic year that I had started my own kind of substack for for writing and I was building a small subscriber base there. And I thought, you know, I suggested, well, we could use that. And and it's you know, looking back, I think we've we're ambivalent about that move and and maybe there was a different way to do it and we might still migrate at some point. It it probably would be a pretty big lift at this point to kind of move people over to a different platform. But Substack's really built and I you know, they've changed over the years and they're they're doing a lot of new things now with you know video platform and kind of chats and social media feeds and that sort of thing. But it really really is made for kind of writing and video and that sort of thing or hosting a podcast on its platform. Um just created a a vehicle by which we could collect kind of subscriber roles and and post the notes, but it hasn't been perfect |
| James Stacy | . No, I I would actually say in in the things I would go back and change, Substack's probably the big one. Um if if I if it was something I could do simply, I just really I really wish we had gone with Patreon. Yeah. Um it would it would just have given us so much more power to speak directly to the folks that that are most engaged, our best audience. Mm-hmm. And I really wish we'd either gone with an entirely our own system for doing it. I'm not sure how you would have done that at the time. It's definitely easier to do now, or something like a Patreon, um, which just gives you much more ability to segment and push content directly to the people who are willing and wanting to pay for it. It's that sort of stuff. So it's it's a lot of ham fisted sort of done by hand stuff that we would have avoided if we'd gone a different way. That said, to distribute the show notes as an email, great platform. Uh just a frustrating thing to try and do anything that they're not prepared or interested in doing or in any way that they're not. And it doesn't seem to matter if you make the money or you don't or that sort of thing. So what are you going to do? It's definitely something I would, I would, if I could go back, I would do it differently. |
| Jason Heaton | And I think it it's uh there's also once you start layering these different platforms that we're using, you know, Substack and Slack and uh Buzzsprout and you know all the podcast platforms are players and things, it it it gets to be confusing. It's a lot for people to manage and they're like, what you know, um people that maybe aren't quite as tech savvy are like, what's the difference between Substack and Slack and whatever? And we can get into Slack here for sit, because Slack was a is another b bigig big piece of of |
| James Stacy | T GN over the past few years. But um Yeah, I was I was only only really summarizing us up to this this line in the sand of the substack working and us bringing in paid subscribers because I don't really know and it's tough to remember. Uh, twenty the end of twenty you know, thus the latter half of twenty eighteen, early twenty nineteen was a really terrible point in my life. I went through a divorce, which we never talked about on the show. And I'm surprised that I made any good decisions about the future of what I wanted to do, whether it was my work with Hodinki or TGN or any of that. And I think just keeping that ball rolling kind of got us eventually to uh to 2021 where things started to click and we were able to start building something that really was recursive to the the people who wanted it. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I I think, you know, there's a lot that, you know, as as quote unquote public figures, we we kind of keep behind the curtain. Um, you know, personal lives sneak out sometimes as we've seen you know recently. Um and you know, we've now we've both been through divorces. I went through one in twenty twenty four and you know don't we don't really talk about these things on the show. I mean, people know there's there's hints out there and people, you know, can speculate and find things out in other ways. But um I I guess the moral of the story for me is that you know, even though we don't talk about these things or or illicit, you know, sympathy or feedback or anything from the audience, uh the the vibe, the the j the general sort of warmth that we get from the community and just from doing it and you know, frankly our friendship has has just been such a sustaininging th in my life. And I think I I get that feedback. We get that feedback a lot from from listeners as well. I've been so many private messages and emails and things from from people that are going through things and struggles. And I think they do appreciate that, you know, we we kind of you know, we let on some things about our personal lives and we field questions from people and whatever. And I just think it's been it's been a two way street. You know, I think it's uh it's been a really valuable, huge um, I don't know, uh positive influence in my life. I mean, possibly the most positive thing |
| James Stacy | in the past 10 years, really. Yeah, I don't, I don't disagree on that front. You know, I think for me, I I try and I'm very compartmentalized as a human being. Um, I it's and it could be from doing a show for 10 years where I could say too much about my personal life or too little or whatever, that I've just built up sort of these walls and it never felt like a safe space to talk about some of this stuff in in the public sense. And I think since then we we found that the QA episodes can often become quite personal. Um, you know, we we had we had a question recently from somebody asking about how do you how do you factor for like personal selfishness in the way that you exist in life. And I think that's the most feedback I've gotten about anything I've said on the show in years. Yeah. Yeah. And uh and I and I'm not saying that that necessarily some of these topics are things that I want to talk about. They're I the fact that I didn't is probably a suggestion that I I don't want to talk about them. But um it's not that they didn't exist, you know what I mean, or like we didn't go through it. And I think for me look,ing back on the 10 years of of T GN, it's not so much that we m that it's remarkable that we made a show or that people enjoy it. I'm I'm incredibly thankful for that. And I think a lot of it's luck or w whatever other term you might give for it. The thing that's remarkable to me is that we didn't stop making it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, because I think there were lots of options where you could just say like, dude, this is why not why don't you call me? Just we'll just have a phone call. We don't, why do we have to record it? Why does it have to be online? Why is it why does it have to be part of this thing? Or why does it have to stack on top of, you know, at a certain point, if you're going through a tough time and it could be any sort of a tough time, it could be an illness, it could be problems in your in your family, it could be whatever, um, work stress, all those sorts of things. It's it's a weird thing to get on the mic and just kind of have to put all of that to the side for a little bit to do what this is. And uh and you know, I I think I've I've learned a lot about that that sort of thing and and where certain topics exist and where they don't and and that sort of thing. But yeah, that's uh it I think it's remarkable that we for me, the biggest achievement is that we didn't stop |
| Jason Heaton | . Well it got to a point, I think a tipping point or an inflection point where I just I started to feel like no matter what's going on in my or our personal lives, I started to feel a real accountability and commitment to to doing what we do because I I I sensed that there was some impact and it was developing these very real although virtual or distant friendships with with people. Um |
| James Stacy | and and it just felt like a link. Yeah, and I think you know, over that era just post pandemic, we started doing the occasional like we'd show up and hang out or or a wind up or now Toronto Time Piece Show or Vancouver Time Piece Show or whatever hangouts at various breweries and places. And I think as soon as you start doing that and meeting people face to face, you realize like and it's not like uh oh look what a great job we did but just like the fact that we we're we make it and we're out there and and we kind of do things to a certain tenor people seem to attach to or or certain type of person kind of attaches to and certainly some of those people become pretty good friends. Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember |
| Jason Heaton | our first I I think it might have been our first in-person sort of hangout, which was very informal. And it was in New York after one of the days of the Hodinki 10 years. During yeah, during H10 at that bar next to Washington Square Park. Yeah, yeah, it was. Um, I remember Robert Spangle showed up and you know a handful of other people, and it wasn't gathering, but it was fun. And if there was a fifteen or twenty people. Yeah, it was great |
| James Stacy | . Yeah. That was such a reprieve. You know, that that December of 2018 was not not a great one. Um, you know, it was a a lot of change happening all at once. Mm-hmm. You know, we've we've said it before, but if if you're into these watches, if you're into these things, if you're into the final notes, you're probably the right type of person to be a pal. Yeah. Uh to some extent. And and we've certainly seen that kind of play out in in real life. So yeah, that I do I do believe that was our first quote unquote like TGN hangout. And uh and yeah, man, that was feels like a long time ago because it was a long time ago. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, we should probably uh start to wrap things up a bit, but I I did want to just ask you a question about um, you know, we've done so many things over the years, you know, different kind of special projects with raffles to raise money and we've done some partnerships of course with CWC and Tactile Turn and we've we've done episodes about those things. Um, but we've had a lot of great guests on the show. And I'm I'm just curious if there's one that stands out that was maybe your you know your favorite or m maybe one or two. Man, that's that's pretty tough. Yeah |
| James Stacy | . Um you know, Don Walsh. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's pretty pretty incredible uh to have him on, you know, before he passed. I remember the one that I sat on my end of the call and my brain just had it went in 20 different directions because of the quality of the guest. And we could have him back on, I think, pretty easily. And I don't really know why we have it, but uh David Concanon. Yeah. His substack is fantastic. He's just an amazing guest. And every now and then he sends me an email that's just full of like wisdom and kindness that I don't necessarily deserve. Yeah. Yeah. Um, he's just just a a really fascinating guy. Um, you know, I I loved having uh Rebecca Struthers on. Yeah. I thought she was amazing, and I've I've traded a couple emails with her, you know, for other stuff since and uh dude it's tough Richie Koehler the pantheon or whatever the with a web of TGN like the shadow divers is is such a kind of a core text if you will yeah uh in the syllabus and to have Richie on was sorry. R required reading for T GN. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I which I thought was amazing. Um, you know, we've had a chance to really speak with some people who are in so deep into their part of a slice of what we love, like clothing, like from Steve Tidball from Volabach to Abe from Outlier uh clothing from that's quite a long time ago. That's an episode from a long, long time ago. Man, it's it's it's kind of tough. I mean, we've had we've had Ballesta on multiple tim |
| Jason Heaton | es. That's crazy. Yeah, yeah. He's he was a real highlight for me. Um and uh yeah, Richie Kohler really stands out. And then you know, we had a great chat with uh uh with Sean Lerwill, if you remember. He was uh fit and fitness uh coach and former Royal Marine. Like just a great episode there. And then more recently we did that episode with Ben Fogle, the amazing guy co-owner now of Buffalo Systems and and a TV presenter from the UK and I just I loved the the things he had to say. He was very humble and and that was great. I too many to list. I mean I I'm kinda blown away that we have to make a few names. Yeah. Yeah. Henry Catchpole. Henry Catchpole, Thomas Holland. Yeah, Megan Hein. I mean we've we've had some I'd love to. Buddy Gajin Ballin, incredible episode. Yeah, I'd love to put a roster together of all |
| James Stacy | the guests we've had. I it's it's pretty pretty mind blowing actually. It' gresat. When we do the when we do like the TGN twenty five international meetup, we'll bring all these people out and put put them all on the stage or whatever. But yeah, I mean the the the guest thing is is wild because I think you'll remember like deep on I I think I said pretty clearly like I I didn't this wasn't gonna be a guest show. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um if it felt like that was the way other watch podcasts were going, like, oh, we have so and so from this brand, we have so and so from this Instagram account or whatever. And I wanted it to be like this sort of old school early podcast, two buddies kind of kicking it back. But man, the the the episodes about if I put James Bond in the title, yeah, we get good results. And if we put like a we put like a Cole or a Henry. Yeah, some of the guests can can can really change the change the tenor. And you know that we've had um Jason Limon from Halios early on, not a guy that does a lot of podcast appearances. Uh we've had lots of Jas Jasons.on Gallup, of course, has been on a couple of times. Right. Um and then I I think if you look back at the the two potluck episodes we've done from the Toronto Timepiece shows, those sit for me as like pretty special things that I'm really proud of. Yeah. Already looking forward to you know figuring out who we'll have on uh for the 2026 Toronto Time Peace show uh and that sort of thing. But yeah the the guests have been have been really really a thing. Um and we we've definitely had some amazing ones. I mean Jack Carr's yeah talk about a big deal, right? Right. Yeah. Um and then s since then I read every one of his books and and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, we've been very fortunate when it comes to guests and to people like members of our audience being like, Hey, I'll connect you with so and so. I know them through a friend or I'm a buddy of theirs. Um and and it you know, some people can be like very selfless with that uh that sort of connection. Um and then there's lots of people I'm I'm I'm embarrassed to say there's lots of people where you get that connection and you send an email and they're busy or you're busy on the reply and it just never really comes together. And sometimes it can take like a year or two years to to to for all of it to kind of align and and have people be ready and sometimes you get the sense that they really don't understand the show and then you worry that it won't work. Um and that sort of thing. So yeah, it's a it's a it's a delicate math when you're not really a guest driven show. Yeah. Um, to find the ones that that make sense to break up that cadence, but for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And then yeah, I I would say that the big era for me, the the era where we go way more in terms of depth starts in what November of 22 and brings us to now, which is kind of the Slack era of the show. Yeah. Kick that off. Never I don't think we ever imagined it would be more than two, three hundred guys in there, uh chit-chatting about whatever and now it's taken on a life of its own it requires our incredible moderator team uh shout out to uh to uh jake and and chris and jackson uh for all their help. But there's also you, know, lots of other guys that are there just to be supportive. We don't necessarily call them moderators, but they take on a charge of bringing people up to speed on how things are done and making sure that when a BST post isn't right. They you put know the red flag on it and that kind of thing and and it's a it's really a team effort and and it's something where I I I don't think you and I can take any credit for what the slack has become or how it is. It's it's absolutely a a little town, a city of it of its own. And uh and I'm I'm proud to have been the one to turn on the free service with Slack, but like let's not let's not take too much credit here. Um that's something where where we're able to really see the idea of community. Like this is something we're largely hands off. I go in there to have fun. It's not work, uh, for the most part when I go in there and uh and it's it's become my number one social media. I get, you know, with the way the world is these days, I get further and further from Instagram and I I lost my login recently to LinkedIn, so I hope everything's okay over there. And uh and yeah, I pretty much just, you know, it's uh I just I just do do uh the slack and I I check it a couple times a day and it's great it's great it's a great place to be kept honest about things and and get feedback and if I'm gonna eat crow that's where the plate will come from for sure which is fine. Yeah. And uh but it's also a been a place of of um real learning and a place to go deep on things and get connected with people who know way more than we do. And uh and also to find perspectives that I just don't think about. Yeah, |
| Jason Heaton | and it's it's it's really transcended the podcast to the point where I almost get a glimpse sometimes, you know, sitting back quietly looking at the discussions going on that I think if we I mean, heaven forbid, and this isn't going to happen anytime soon, but if we ever stopped the podcast, this is just T Gen could go on. You know, T Gen just goes on in the Slack. Like it's become that. It's become the community more than just you and I talking and it's uh I think so. It's |
| James Stacy | really encouraging. Yeah. Pretty amazing. Yeah, and who knows, you know, d we we never we didn't thinking we would do ten years or we never really found a reason to stop making it and that in many ways making it became this sort of catharsis through the reasons that might have stopped the show at times. Mm-hmm. As I said, there's, you know, it's 10 years of learnings and some mistakes and all that kind of stuff. But uh it's it's there's very little that I would go back and change from a a content standpoint or or uh uh you know a, community standpoint or anything like that. It's all kind of tech stuff. Yeah. Uh that I uh you know, with with the uh abundance of perspective that comes from looking backwards, uh there's things I might have done a little bit differently, but yeah, no, no major uh major problems there and yeah it's it's kind of fun to look back like I don't think we'd make more than one episode a decade kind of like this. Uh that's a that's a an a solid hour of uh of kind of talking about ourselves and and what we did. And you know I, think the only way to get us to final notes here would be to to say thank you. Yeah. Definitely. You know, for those of you who are who have been around since uh twenty sixteen, can't appreciate you enough. For those of you who have uh come in and out of the show, thank you for giving it another try. And for those of you who are more recent, I I hope you enjoyed. I hope you know that if you want to be part of any of the additional ones, uh, we've never never raised the price of the supporter bundle, which largely let's be clear, the five bucks is because you like the show and you want to be in the slack, or or really for some people, I've learned is just the slack. And that's fine. I think that's fine. I think that if if if the slack is is I I I believe it to be worth the money as I believe the show is worth five. It's so little money. Yeah. Um but we you know we've occasion what Jason maybe every two years we go, do you think you should we should raise the price? And we just quickly talk ourselves out of it. Uh so you know we l we lean on things like merch or the CWC CWN one for a little bit of a a bump uh every now and then. But uh yeah it's uh it's largely worked out and I I just have a huge thank you to um to the guests who've been on the show, to the people who have promoted the show for us, to those of you who have told your friends about the show, to those of you who've been listening and send emails when things don't feel great, or send emails when you're happy about something, or send emails when you don't understand or or want to share something, all of that's incredible and uh same on the Slack. And yeah, Jason, you anything to add for that? No, |
| Jason Heaton | I just want to thank you too for uh for picking me as a co-host. Oh, and sticking with me for 10 years. No |
| James Stacy | , I I would say thank you for not quitting. Yeah. Uh I uh I I I feel like I was destined to do this to some extent and there are alternative timelines where it was with different people and it didn't and it didn't last for sure. I think this is the best case. Uh, and it's been a treat making, you know, I guess maybe when you factor for all of them a little over 400 episodes over the years. Um, and I look forward to whatever, whatever we're uh, you know, sort of blessed enough to continue to make |
| Jason Heaton | . All right. Well with that, uh we've probably talked about ourselves enough here. We can uh move on to final notes and uh and wrap it up here. All right, you wanna go first? Uh I went first for uh Rish Check. Sure. Yep. Um so you know, a couple of weeks ago, or maybe th three episodes ago, I talked about reading a book by one of our listeners, uh Michael O'Donnell. It was called Concert Black, uh, which I recommended. It's forthcoming, it comes out in April. Um Michael had earlier sent me his first novel. Um this was a couple of years ago called Above the Fire, and I never read it. Sorry, Michael. Um I read your second book first. Um but then I I found uh his first novel, Above the Fire, on my shelf, and I pulled it out and I started reading it. And I have to say I highly recommend it. I think it's it's incredibly TGN if you kind of consider all the things we talk about. It's um it's about a father and son who were hutt to hut hiking in the White Mountains out in uh New Hampshire. Um and they get word while they're you know at one of the huts that something has happened back in civilization, a major power cut, um, internet outage, basically a, big cyber attack that is kind of thrown the country into chaos, and they're forced to stay in the mountains indefinitely, kind of through the winter, and stay in one of these remote huts. Um, and it it just has so much going for it. It's it's I wouldn't call it an adventure thriller or you know anything like that, but it has these elements of you know wilderness adventure, fatherhood, um, you know, a lot of introspection. It's really it's really quite well written. Uh Michael's a fantastic writer. There's even a mechanical chronograph that that is unnamed but comes into play quite a bit. Um it's passed on from somebody to to the the young son in the story, and he uses it for a very specific purposes. I highly recommend this book. Um it's it's it was published in December of twenty twenty three, so that one is available. So you can go ahead and order that. We'll put a like a Goodreads link in the show notes um and uh and you can check that out. But uh congratulations, Michael. I I really enjoyed that book. I can't decide which book I liked better. I think this one's a little more in my wheelhouse and I think people would would dig it. So above the fire, Michael O'Donnell. |
| James Stacy | All right, Michael, ten bucks for the Kindle, buying it live on the show. Let's go. It's great. Looking forward to it. All right, what do you got? You got a cool bag. Yeah, I got a cool bag. Look, I given the topic of the show, I wanted to bring it home with something we talk about or we used to talk about all the time. And then I I really did set out um to to try slow down when it came to constantly buying bags. And uh and so over the last little while with the the job with Hodinky, I now travel a fair bit to New York for like one or two days. And I'm not taking a bunch of camera gear. Um I'm taking a computer in and in the summer I probably don't even need a suitcase. I could I just need a a a a large enough bag, overnight style bag that can hold a laptop, um, but I also needed to kind of suit both my style, but also you know, a proper business environment, if you will. And so over some time, I started to consider a few different options in the past, uh, maybe even talked about on a very early TGNs, I had uh like a Philson 256, like the standard you know, like the standard heavy twill tan yeah laptop bag. And I I remember finding that quite rigid and heavy and it picked up a ton of uh like blue dye from my jeans at the time, just walking back and forth in Vancouver. And then I kind of stopped thinking about Philson, but then I sa I got back into the research, went down some deep Reddit and YouTube rabbit holes of like great twenty-four hour to you know, a little bit longer style bags that were small enough to go under the seat in front of you, um, but still big enough to actually carry some stuff. And so a little while ago, uh I figured I would swing by the Philson store in New York, where they carry pretty much everything and check out their twenty four hour tin cloth briefcase. So the tin cloth is a lighter, thinner, more pliable fabric than the twill. And in person, I like within 10 seconds, I was like, this is I like this. This is so much less rigid and heavy than I was expecting a Philsen bag to be. But it's not, you know, they do another model that's down. I'll I'll include the link. I don't remember what it's called. That's down one from that. That's made out of more like a nylon. And I think the nylon would be fine. I'm I'm still very much trying to do uh buy once, cry once. So if I'm gonna bother with it, I'll buy the one that I think will last the longest. Yeah. So I went in to check this out. And at the time I walked into the store with my Topo Global Briefcase. And that's what I had been using for these sorts of trips. And I just it it really felt a little bit too adventure themed, a little bit too like outdoor colorful. It didn't suit the style I was looking for. And with the backpack straps tucked in, it's kind of awkward and it looks a little bit klugey for going to and from, you know, the business. I wanted something with the the luggage pass through, I wanted something with a little bit more room, with a laptop dependency, but I didn't need the backpack straps or or that sort of thing. So I I'd kind of wanted to check out this 24-hour tin cloth. I got there, they had the green then and the tan. I was really waffling between the two. Which do you pick? And then the guy from the store says, well, there is one more color, uh, but it's not on the website, it's limited edition. And we I think we have one left. And I go, well, what's the color? He goes, orange. I go, well, I think we'll have to see that. I kind of like orange, as you might expect. And so they brought it out. And if I say it's like a perfect orange where it's it's still orange, but it's rustic enough without being that like burnt color. Yeah. Yeah. It's like between um a sporting orange and like a burnt color of brownish orange. Yeah. And it's it's like it's perfect. And immediately I was like, oh, let's just do that. And then we get up to the counter and you know, Philcent bags are not cheap, nor should they be. They you know these are, you know, pretty widely well regarded and and well made sorts of things was also on sale because it was the last one. So I got 30% off of something I was going to buy at the full price anyways quite happily. And carried around New York, has been using it for a while since and then I I took it as my main bag for Tokyo. So laptop, a camera, uh you know, flash and microphone rig, uh the spare bits, my you know, the other stuff I travel with, all fits in there. So it carries this loot, not the same amount of camera gear, but otherwise it carries very similarly to my tech tote, which is my absolute favorite thing to carry when I'm like if I go to a probably if I go to like a a watches and wonders or like a major trip where I'm carrying a lot of gear, that's what I would put it all in. Uh but I I mean I got my SL2 to and uh uh with a spare lens the flash the rest of it all in this bag and it you know just sits right on top of your luggage it's got the pass-through um during the day if I wanted to put only a couple things in it, the camera, a a spare uh layer, uh, you know, bits and bobs, throw it right over your shoulder and it just looks like a Philsen. The orange makes it kind of uncommon, but kind of people don't realize like you know, the green or the tan, especially the tan is very So yeah, I've uh I absolutely love it. It's great. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful. I mean, I remember you sent me the picture of it. It's uh you you really got lucky with the orange. I mean, I like Philson stuff anyway. I like their other colors. The green is nice. I have I actually have one of their um I don't know if it was classified as a tin cloth, but I have one of their camera, old school camera bags that they did in partnership with Magnum Photography years ago. It was like a Steve McCurry collaboration or something like that. And uh Oh, cool. And it's great. It has the the the pad padded dividers, but you can take that out, but it's kind of the classic shape of a camera bag, but it it's it's that same material with the bridle leather straps and kind of closures and toggles and things like that. And it's it's it's really nice. I just don't have much use for carrying a lot of that big camera gear around anymore. But um yeah, you've intrigued me now with this 'cause I I I've I've always liked the feel and look of that. And it's it's just they have such an incredible durable feel. The zippers are big and chunky. Yeah, it just feels like something you'll have, |
| James Stacy | like you said, buy once, cry once. So yeah, I may eventually kind of dig up a camera insert that could slide in there depending on the width. I just have to do a little bit of measuring. Um, but otherwise, I I I found it to be quite useful. And we'll see. It might even be the bag I take to uh watches and wonders. Oh, nice. Um so we'll see, we'll see what kind of gear I feel like I absolutely have to bring for that uh this year. But I I had a bunch of other stuff on the list to talk about. I've I've got a new flash, which is just significantly smaller. I'm not sure if that's as interesting of a final note, but I felt you know looking back at 10 years, one of the topics we talk endlessly about is bags. And uh I've got another one that I just absolutely love. I'm so if you have bags and you're happy with them, don't buy any. But if if you feel like you've got a hole for a twenty four hour, forty eight hour sort of bag for travel um that's quite flexible and looks really good, um, I highly recommend the the 2ur4-ho tin cloth briefcase from Philson. Cool. Yeah. Very fitting final note. Good one. Yeah, I thought it suited. Yeah. Alright, well, hey, as we said, thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode, consider supporting the show directly, and that would mean you could get yourself a new TG and sign NATO. You get into the Slack, uh, you get the uh monthly QA episode, uh, all that kind of stuff. Just visit thegreynado.com for more details and music throughout is siesta by jazzar via the free music archive. As it's been since episode |
| Jason Heaton | one. And we leave you with a very clever quote from Zadie Smith who said, the past is always tense, the future perfect. |