Episode 105

Fritz Coleman (00:00:05):

Welcome to Media Path. I'm Fritz Coleman.

Louise Palanker (00:00:07):

And I'm Louise Lanker.

Fritz Coleman (00:00:08):

We know you're all wrapped up in your daily grind and don't have time to pay attention to the fire hose of new content shooting at you every day from infinite sources. Well, here at Media Path, we grab interesting things as they fly by, and we recommend them to you. Books and streaming and broadcast, diesel powered cable, whatever the source is. Plus, today we've got two fantastic guests who dovetail nicely with our desire to call cool things to your attention. We've got Evan Lovett. Evan is a social media sensation because of his LA and a minute features on Instagram and TikTok. He's had over 20 million views. There are little one minute history lessons on food and culture and sports and entertainment, all things Los Angeles. Now, you might think you know a lot about la but I'm here to tell you Evan will dazzle you with his facts. Many of them little known about our Fair City, and we have our friend in Audio genius joining us, John Maddox. John helps the world create better music and sounds, and he does it for this podcast. And he's an LA composer and a producer and is himself quite a presence on TikTok. Those guys will be with us in just a second. Ez.

Louise Palanker (00:01:22):

Oh, I've been watching tv. Fritz, have you tried that? I have. Uh, alright. So what if you woke up one day with your memory so scrubbed you did not even know your own secrets? That is the premise in Surface on Apple Plus set in fancy rent. San Francisco Surface Stars Gooba Raw as Sophie, a woman who awakes with no recollection of the incident, which caused her traumatic brain injury. She's told by her husband and friends that it was a suicide attempt, but as she begins to rebuild her shattered memory, flashes of a past that include a clandestine lover begin to emerge, Sophie's past is in fact so suppressed that she does not even remember that. This is basically the same plot as the Netflix film. Last letter from Your Lover, which was based on a book by Jojo Moise, in which a rich sixties era London Lady awakens from a coma to be stiffly comforted by her husband while discovering hidden letters from a passionate romance with her secret boyfriend. Is it a plot so intriguing? You can watch it twice? Sure. Why not? Surface is more psychological thriller. While last letter from your lover falls into the sweeping romantic saga category, they're both worth watching. You'll find surface on Apple Plus.

Fritz Coleman (00:02:40):

You had me at suicide. Yeah,

Louise Palanker (00:02:42):

No, I like Fritz is like mental note. Two things to avoid

Fritz Coleman (00:02:46):

<laugh>. Well, I'm gonna talk about the new Rolling Stones documentary that streams now on epics. It's called My Life is a Rolling Stone. Now I know you immediately say, not on another documentary about the Rolling Stones. Only Hitler has more documentaries than the Running Stones <laugh>. Well, that's exactly the point. And Mick Jagger addresses that issue right at the top of episode one. What can we say about the Stones that hasn't already been said? Well, they get down and dirty and honest. There are four episodes, the last one dropped last Sunday. Each one deals with a different stone. Jagger first than Keith Richards for episode two. Episode three is Ron Woods and the last one, the recently deceased Charlie Watts. Each of these separate episodes gives each guy a chance to go no holds Barr against their band mates. And they do. It's done with love and truth.

(00:03:36):

The only way people who have been toiling away at the same enterprise for 60 years can do band mates. But most importantly, brothers, there's a commentary from some of their musical peers. They talk about concerts and recording sessions, touring and partying, everything. I'm a huge Stones fan. I was always drawn to them because they were more blues based and grittier than other bands in the British invasion, including The Beatles. They were dangerous and renegade. I didn't have the guts to be dangerous or renegade when I was a kid, so I let the stones do the talking for me with songs from Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf and the other blues icons. When the Beatles released Sergeant Pepper, I felt like my generation was suddenly having a party that I was not invited to. I appreciated the musicianship, but I had no idea what they were talking about. So I gravitated to the stones with a darker funkier blow out the car. Radio jams. My life was a rolling stone on epics. Even if you've seen every other documentary, and I think Martin Scorsese did like three. It's fantastic because it's so honest, and these are guys who said goodbye to a friend and, uh, are are seeing their own, you know, uh, demise at the end of the tunnel. So it's, it's really

Louise Palanker (00:04:50):

Wonderful. Well, I think much like losing your memory and forgetting your, um, clandestine lover, you can't see enough about the stones. There's, these are two concepts that not enough has ever been said.

Fritz Coleman (00:05:02):

My thoughts. Exactly. All right. We have two great guests. Uh, first we have Evan Lovett, born and raised in Los Angeles. You can tell he loves his city by the great work he does to teach us about our LA surroundings. His feature LA in a minute, has had over 20 million views on Instagram and TikTok. Each is a nice little package of knowledge about LA's food and culture and sports and entertainment. We also have John Maddox. He's a renowned audio engineer. He mixes the sound on this show. His TikTok posts are a bit different than Evans because they're very specific and technical to the world of recorded audio. He's got 18,000 followers and audio geeks all over the planet, watches, posts for hacks and tips and wisdom. Welcome fellas. Hey, Fritz. I feel like I'm, I'm intellectually, I'm, I'm, I'm the low end of the totem pole in this room. All

Louise Palanker (00:05:55):

Right, well then I'll open things up now. Let's first by start by talking about like who you are in the world and then why you sort of entered this social media realm to present your brand. You go first, John or Evan?

Evan Lovett (00:06:08):

Well, first of all, Fritz and Louise, thank you for having me. Um, it's an honor to be here. I I grew up, uh, watching Fritz Coleman, so, uh, there's no

Fritz Coleman (00:06:17):

Reason to bring up how old I see. She's been outta the explanation.

Evan Lovett (00:06:20):

Uh, but, so I appreciate it. So thank you guys very much. Um, as far as me, I mean, I'm just a, a normal guy, father of an eight year old, uh, son, uh, awesome, uh, boy, baseball player. And, uh, my wife, she's supportive. She's awesome. She's an interior designer, but I am a guy that loves LA and, you know, as long as I can remember, I, I had kind of a silly pride with la. I mean, I guess it goes back to my parents. I grew up in the middle of the San Fernando Valley in what was called Sepulveda back then. It's known as North Hills now. But they'd take me everywhere. Venice, uh, Griffith Park, Dodger Stadium, the Forum. And, um, my parents were always just super proud of la. So I guess that kind of passed, passed on to me. Went to ucla.

(00:07:03):

I only applied to two schools. I applied to UCLA and usc and I figured, you know, if one of them's gotta take me. So luckily I got into ucla, uh, kept that LA Pride going. And I was the type of kid growing up that if an athlete or celebrity was born in LA I'd be like up Sherman Oaks, Notre Dame High School, up Granada Hills High School, like Lock High School. I always, always was just proud of the, the LA natives and just things in Los Angeles. But, um, flash forward now. So my son, as I mentioned, is eight years old, addicted to screen time. Right? Um, it's always a battle to get him off the screen. And towards the end of last year, I was, I was getting fed up with it, and I finally came up with a rule. I said, if you learn something on the screen today, uh, then you can watch tomorrow.

(00:07:44):

But if you don't, then you can't. So I, I tried to encourage 'em, you know, science history, just something, just gimme one fact. Saturn has rings, you know, something like that. And that, that kind of stuck for a little while. But I still wanted it a little bit more cerebral. And now I'm a guy that still subscribes to the newspaper. The LA Times, again, that LA Pride. So during breakfast, I'd be like, come on, son. Like, read the paper like your papa used to, you know, like, again, he's like, what newspaper? Are you kidding me? I, I have these screens. I'm gonna read newspaper <laugh>. So it was around Christmas time last year, and my wife has these young cousins, uh, like 16 to 22. And they were telling me, you know, we get our news from TikTok. And now I'm like, oh, that sounds terrible. I heard

Louise Palanker (00:08:29):

That's like actually wounding.

Evan Lovett (00:08:31):

Exactly. Especially, especially seeing what Facebook did to people who ha were receiving their news from Facebook. And all I knew about TikTok was that it was dances and silly stuff. And I'm like, oh, this is just gonna end badly. And they're like, no, seriously, Washington Post has a feed and LA Times and New York. And I was like, okay, you're dropping kind of the right names. And they show me a couple things and they're like, you should do one on la You like la. So I started the feed on January 3rd, which would've been my grandma's, uh, what would it have been? Not her, geez. Now. Hundredth hundred third birthday, hundred second birthday this year. It would've been, she passed away, uh, five years ago. But, um, so I started and just by reading two or three stories from the la not reading the stories, but being kind of encapsulating, these are two important things that happen in Los Angeles, hoping that my son, I would be like, Hey, Felix, this is his name.

(00:09:20):

And be like, Hey Felix, you wanna learn something? Learn about la. You don't need to read the paper. I'm going to digest. Put an easily digestible format for you. Here you go. Um, he liked it. It was more interesting to him than actually reading the newspaper. So that was a minor victory. But about a week into it, I was like, ah, not, not every day does LA have like an interesting enough news story. At the time I was reading this book by George Geary, who's a, a fascinating author. He did, uh, LA's Legendary Restaurants, California, um, California's restaurants, stuff like that. I was like, you know what, I'm gonna put together a piece, the Summit TikTok feed of oldest fast food chains that start in Los Angeles. And I put that one together, it was the top 10 cuz most of the fast food started here cuz LA was, you know, a product of car culture.

(00:10:06):

And that's basically why fast food, uh, was created or, or one of the genesis of, of fast food. So put that one together and talk's algorithm is pretty ingenious. They get you, uh, magnified quicker than any other social media. So basically overnight, that one had a ton of views. I gained some followers and I was like, you know what? I grew up with all these tropes about Los Angeles. LA has no history. LA has no culture. That's bs. I love this city. I I I'm proud of this city and all you need to do is look for it. You need to explore. So from that point forward, you know, like I already knew a couple tidbits and some information, but I have a relentless curiosity. And, uh, I enjoy doing research. I mean, that's kind of one of the weird things my friends sort of make fun of me for is like, when I hear something I'm curious about it, I'll like dive into it.

(00:10:55):

Um, so everything I passed by I'd be like, wow, I wonder if that started in LA or like, what's the story behind that? And then so that just kind of developed into, uh, what the feed became and the direction that I took. And fortunately, you know, LA in a minute has been able to get a bunch of traction since then. And now I'm up to 160,000 followers combined on TikTok and Instagram. Um, and more importantly, my son's into it. And my wife loves it. She loves La La born and raised as well. So we drive around Los Angeles on weekends and we're tourists in our own city and, uh, able to film and research and just learn what a gift

Fritz Coleman (00:11:29):

You're giving your kid. What a gift you're giving your son seriously. And I think adults and kids probably learn more from your little snippets than any textbook in school. I think it's a great teaching tool. I really do. And

Louise Palanker (00:11:41):

If you live in LA you kind of like appreciate it differently the next time you drive by. It's just,

Evan Lovett (00:11:46):

Yeah. And that's, and that's the thing that I sort of hope to, uh, kind of inspire is because there's so much pride in this city, right? Like la I mean, everybody loves their city. Most people like their city at least. But LA has just sort of a different sort of pride and the culture of this city. Um, people have just a relentless love and for Los Angeles and just to be able to uncover these, uh, piece of information or just the history of things that you don't think about or that you know, you think are maybe insignificant. Um, it it's just exciting. It's fun. So

Louise Palanker (00:12:20):

Check out, check out this segue, if you will. Evant <laugh>. So a lot of people in Los Angeles throughout history have been making music. And, uh, <laugh> John is a music producer and, and he's been looking for various ways to sort of establish him. So he's always been keenly interested in social media algorithms and kind of like, you know, gaming, gaming that, and figuring out what works and what doesn't work. He's been, he's been studying it and it wasn't until TikTok that he found the platform that clicked for him. So go ahead and tell that story,

John Maddox (00:12:52):

John. Yeah. So I was doing, uh, I originally had an idea for a YouTube channel, which would give minute long tips for like Logic Pro or Pro Tools or different,

Louise Palanker (00:13:03):

Explain what those are. You gotta really back this Truck Up.

John Maddox (00:13:06):

<laugh>, I've already struck out no pro tool. So when people create music on computers, they use what's called das, like a digital audio workstation. And Pro Tools used to be the industry standard for that, but there's a ton of them now. There's like Logic Pro, there's a whole bunch. And essentially you use these instead of using tape machines, like in the old days mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And now basically if you've got a laptop or even on your phone, you can create music, you know, with these, with these apps and programs. So my idea for, uh, a, a channel was, you know, I found that my behavior, when I wanted to learn something on one of these things, I'd go to YouTube. And like, a simple example would be like when I first learned how to do Logic Pro, I came from Pro Tools, these two kind of competitive platforms. I couldn't figure out how to turn the metronome down. You know, the click, click, click on logic. So I went to YouTube and I of course found a video eventually, but it was kind of like six or seven minutes into the video. Cuz a lot of these guys are like, Hey, welcome to my, they have a huge intro and then you're, you're waiting, right? Because you're just looking for this little

Louise Palanker (00:14:12):

Tiny, you guys may wanna subscribe to my newsletter. Yeah. Or to go ahead and give like a thumbs

John Maddox (00:14:15):

Up or some, or sometimes it'd be like, Hey, welcome back to my logic channel and oh, that's my dog. Oh hey Lulu, come over here. And <laugh>, I just took her to the vet last. And you're just sitting there and, and usually we're doing these things sometimes in a state of panic because you're trying to get that little nugget of what you need to do to get your work done. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because sometimes you're

Fritz Coleman (00:14:35):

Making it sound like a geek fest, but it's not <laugh>. Even people who are com completely electronically challenged. Okay. Like myself really love the one where you said, here's what it sounds like to play drums through a baby monitor. Okay. <laugh>, I thought that was just awesome because if you have any intelligent curiosity, you wanna know what, well

John Maddox (00:14:55):

Maybe I should kind of gauge my content through, through the

Fritz Coleman (00:14:58):

Email. Oh, I found it. You've got some great ones in there.

Louise Palanker (00:14:59):

Well, cuz he's so creative, like he'll go out, like he found a piano in the rain and he pu and he pulled it in and sampled all its wonky notes. Like he's just super creative and he's always looking for great new ways to make sound. Like when he said that, one of his TikTok says, when there, if there's gonna be fireworks that you can hear in your neighborhood, take a microphone outside <laugh>. It's true. Yeah. Okay, so

Fritz Coleman (00:15:18):

Let's, and, and, and there, let me just say one other thing in, in the way of an indirect compliment, uh, to both of you. I think you guys represent two sides of the ability of TikTok to teach people stuff. You cast a wide net with your minutes about la He's a very narrow focused guy who, so people who have that very specific interest, not only in LA but all around the world cuz people are, you know, producing their own garage band and stuff like that. So it's really the two extremes of what TikTok can do, or Instagram, whichever you

John Maddox (00:15:49):

Do. So I'm sorry if I lost any listeners that got blinded by all the TikTok. No,

Louise Palanker (00:15:52):

But I even think that like, even if you just watch John's videos and you have no idea what he's talking about, just knowing that this is what goes into cr creating the music that, that you so enjoy is fascinating. Well,

John Maddox (00:16:05):

Well here's the thing that I love about TikTok is when I first got on it, which was like last October, so I've been on it almost a year now. And like what Evan was saying about the algorithms, I haven't promoted my channel, I haven't done any kind of advertising. I just started posting content and talks. Algorithms were finding me an audience. And so you know what we do, right? When somebody starts following you, sometimes you check 'em out. And I noticed that some of the followers that were following my TikTok, I'm like, that's like he looks like my son's age who's 15. And I found that a certain percentage of the people that have been checking me out or following my channel are like the next generation of music creators. Wow. Content creators. And to me I thought that was like the greatest thing cuz I'm not doing it to impress like my peers or anything like that cuz most of the people, I don't know all this geeky stuff, but you know, the, the one of the motivating things that I like to do with my channel and I think people can appreciate this, is, is use what you have.

(00:17:05):

You don't need like a $15,000 microphone to create a good recording because there's a lot of that out there on the internet. Especially with people that are in the industry who have worked at Capital Records saying they daily work with really expensive gear and big consoles. Most people don't have that. They've got their computer and there's all kinds of great things you can do with what you already have. So I always keep that in mind, you know, when I'm doing these things. And believe it or not, I do try to come from a place where I'm assuming that people don't know what I'm talking about. I don't assume I, why are you looking

Fritz Coleman (00:17:42):

At me

John Maddox (00:17:43):

<laugh>.

Louise Palanker (00:17:44):

So make it accessible.

John Maddox (00:17:45):

And then the other thing is the creative part about it. Like the fireworks, like the baby monitor drums and, and other things. Like, there's all kinds of sounds and things you can do to record or sample and use as like things in your music.

Fritz Coleman (00:18:00):

So Evan, y you're, you're um, clips are great conversation starters, not only for their history, but just because you go, oh yeah, I always wondered about that. Talk about Inn Out, the history of Inn Out and then go back and talk about the subject that you broached earlier, which is the 10, um, fast food restaurants in Southern California.

Evan Lovett (00:18:22):

Can, can I say one thing about TikTok before that John kind of touched on? Yeah. Two things actually. Number one, what's interesting is I recently read that people are starting to use TikTok as their preferred search engine, which is kind of crazy when they're finding stuff out. Oh my God. Like the same way you went to YouTube, TikTok is up and coming rapidly as one of the, uh, major search engines. And it's because

Fritz Coleman (00:18:43):

It cuts right to the

Evan Lovett (00:18:44):

Chase. Exactly. Cuz you only have a certain amount of time and usually the people are relevant. The, the people that get traction are relevant with their information. There's a reason why they have that kind of following. And number two in this surprised me, especially in this day and age with social media. And tell me if you see this John, people are nice on TikTok. I mean, like, again, I've on Facebook with what are my friends? Yeah. You know, you know, I get in these, you know, I've been in these arguments or people

Fritz Coleman (00:19:12):

Listen suck down a rabbit hole

Evan Lovett (00:19:13):

And it's like, wait, wait, you we're, we're friends on Facebook yet here I am having this fight and people are like, we're me and you're not coming over for dinner anymore. Oh, wow.

John Maddox (00:19:22):

I I I totally agree. Like, that was one of the things that kind of shocked me was not only how nice they were, but how much they were engaging. Yes. And leaving comments because at least from what, what I do, like I, I really, I reply to every comment that someone leaves and you create an engagement with people. So it's not just like YouTube for the most part, which is you go and you get the content and you leave. Like a lot of these people, they kind of develop a little bit of a relationship with you. And then I'm sure with you, it's similar to me. Like they, they have a trust. Like they, they, they like you and your personality and what you put out there and they will keep coming back to you because they like you, you know?

Evan Lovett (00:20:01):

Completely, completely. So I was, I was almost overwhelmed with the positivity where I was just like, wow. I guess I was completely wrong about TikTok. Who

Fritz Coleman (00:20:09):

Is your audience? Who, who, who have you? Have you been funny? Have you been doing it long

Evan Lovett (00:20:14):

Enough? So, so the initial thing was those F four mentioned cousins. My wife's younger cousins would tell me about a month or two in when I started getting a little bit of a following. They're like, I didn't know there were this many old people on TikTok <laugh>. Oh, that's so cute. So, uh, so for and by old, by the way, they meant like my age. And I was like, wait a minute. Like, thank you. But, um, it skewed a little, you know, let's say 40 to 70 mm-hmm. <affirmative> if you will. But recently, and this kind of touches onto something that you said about teaching, I'm starting to get a pretty fair amount of people saying I learned more from you than I learned in my class at older people

Fritz Coleman (00:20:48):

Are more inquisitive anyway. If you watch cspan, the audiences and those things are always like 90 in above <laugh>. But, but they are older people are more inquisitive about that kind of stuff cuz they have time to sort of look for answers. Yeah.

Evan Lovett (00:20:59):

But what experience is to know that you don't know

Louise Palanker (00:21:01):

Everything once the algorithms are kind of like pushing you out more broadly. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> like he's saying, he's even getting kids Yeah. Who are fantastic. Who are, who are seeing it in their feet. And then they're kind of hooked. Cuz it's,

Fritz Coleman (00:21:13):

You, you, you provide a great public service. You really do. How about who, who's your audience? Uh, John Have you, have you It's

John Maddox (00:21:18):

Pretty wide. Like I said, there's younger people, but then there's people my age. I mean, um, gen X and I, there's some boomers too. I mean it's, it's kind of all, all over the place and from different countries too. So I can't really say, I mean, I haven't done any metrics. Maybe you, you could teach me how to do. Like, I don't have a, I haven't like been scientific and had something to analyzed like, oh, they're, you know, this demographic from this country. It's, it's mostly from the U us a little bit in Europe. I've, I've looked at that.

Evan Lovett (00:21:48):

I'll tell you this, Instagram breaks it down pretty well. So right now my number one demographic's, 35 to 44, but right under that is, uh, 26 to 34. Um, but then it's, it's a pretty even, uh, distribution, which I'm happy with except for the, uh, 13 to 17 doesn't, doesn't really care that much, but anywhere from about, uh, 18 to as high as it goes. So it's a pretty, pretty balanced demographic, which I like, which I think again is reflective of Los Angeles where it's like my content is pretty, um, you know, acceptable or, you know, received well by people in any demographic just as long as you have some sort of Los Angeles pride. But, oh, go on.

Fritz Coleman (00:22:30):

No, I, I was gonna say, you bring up an interesting question and that is, do people outside LA enjoy your thing? They should I, if they're coming here or are they visited here or they have a fond remembrance of la I bet they look your stuff

Evan Lovett (00:22:42):

Up. I'll tell you what's weird is I have a weirdly loyal following in Australia. I get dms fairly consistently every day, every other day from somebody in Australia. It's like, Hey mate, I'm down here in Australia. And like, I've always loved Los Angeles. So I don't know if there's,

Fritz Coleman (00:22:58):

There's a similarity. I think people think of that it's like a California with a different accent down

Evan Lovett (00:23:03):

There. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good take. A lot of surfing. And then, um, I get a lot of, uh, people are like, I moved out of LA and I miss it so much. Um, which is, those are kind of my favorite. And like, you take me back to Los Angeles and then I get some, which I actually really like, which is like, man, I hate la but somehow your feed came up and like, I can't stop watching it because it's so interesting and all these things. You know, I thought LA was this cuz so many people, and this is one of my things outside of Los Angeles, you really think of LA as Hollywood, Beverly Hills and the beach. Right. And that's Los Angeles. But la I mean, look, melting pot doesn't begin to describe it. I mean, the diversity here is literally every race, culture, class, creed, you name it. Um, working together pretty seamlessly. And I think that once people get to be exposed to, wait, Los Angeles is so much more than what I see on TV or, or what my assumptions were. It's a really interesting place. So, I mean,

Louise Palanker (00:24:03):

And if you're watching some conservative news outlets, you may think that we just eat avocado toast with our goat yoga neighbor and you know, and we're just not, you know, plugged into anything that actually matters. And so in your content is just really kind of very close to the earth. It's like, these are the things that people love. We love food, we love being somewhere beautiful, and we love knowing the history and of our culture Yeah. And like celebrating it. And that's, those are pretty human basic desires just to kind of connect. And so you're showing the world that people in our in LA are people.

Evan Lovett (00:24:42):

That's right. And for

Fritz Coleman (00:24:43):

Both of you guys, do people suggest topics?

John Maddox (00:24:46):

Oh, sure. Yeah. And one of the great things I love about it is when people leave a comment, you can, as a TikTok creator, you can create a video comment or a video reply to their comment. Oh, that's cool. So if I post something and you say, man, that's too technical. What, what was that? I can actually reply to your comment with a TikTok video. And the interesting thing about it is it shows up on your main page. So as a creator, it's like you're actually getting a, a real prompt to do something. And it's something that somebody actually wants to stays

Fritz Coleman (00:25:18):

After class to answer the questions. Yeah. Good for you. That's cool. How about

Evan Lovett (00:25:21):

You? Yeah. Suggestions come all the time. And some of 'em are awesome. I mean, look, I, I get a ton of really good ideas, to be honest with you. Art Labe was kind of inspired by somebody who wrote in, um, from El Monte and he was like, Hey, I'm out here in El Monte, like, art Lebo is a God out here. Like you should. And I was like, oh man, art Lebo is like on the Mount Rice East

Fritz Coleman (00:25:41):

More of loves Art labe. They do, because he was a big purveyor of r and b back in the fifties and sixties. Do

Evan Lovett (00:25:47):

You know what I learned when I was doing the Art Lebo piece? Not only was he big purveyor of r and b, but he was the first person on the West coast to play both black artists and white artists. And then Richie Valens was the first, uh, Latino artist. So I mean, that's a huge deal. And then he was the first show that allowed callers of different races to call in and make requests. So I mean, that in and of itself is like, I mean, now it's no-brainer, but that's pretty significant, especially in a city like Los

Louise Palanker (00:26:12):

Angeles. That's so crazy. How are you checking the race of a caller <laugh>? That's nuts.

Fritz Coleman (00:26:16):

Yeah, yeah. No, but I bet your screener probably, you know, in the old days with management being what it was, if you, if you get somebody that's obviously, uh, you know, not a Q-tip, please don't take the call.

Louise Palanker (00:26:27):

So let's get into some specifics. Like you wanted to, uh, Fritz, you wanted him, you wanted to talk about some of the fast food stuff in and out. You take

Fritz Coleman (00:26:34):

My interests. Yeah.

Evan Lovett (00:26:35):

So, so because

Fritz Coleman (00:26:36):

I learned from him.

Evan Lovett (00:26:38):

Yeah. So I, I do wanna make something clear. And a lot of people sort of make this assumption. I am not an encyclopedia of Los Angeles. I wish I, I wish I was. Why are

Fritz Coleman (00:26:46):

You invited

Evan Lovett (00:26:47):

On me? I do the research this, one of my friends said it like, <laugh> one of my friends said it like this. He's like, dude, you do a term paper every single day, <laugh>. And I never thought of it like that, but I'm like, man, it really is. It's

Louise Palanker (00:26:58):

Like if you, if you tomorrow ask Chuck Henry to talk about what he says today on the news, he's

Fritz Coleman (00:27:03):

Not gonna, oh no, no. He doesn't even remember what he said on the news

Evan Lovett (00:27:06):

Today, <laugh>. So it's true though. It's a lot of information. Go. And I always compare it to like finals, right? You cram, cram, cram for finals. But yeah, the second the test is over, you can ask me anything from that study. I'm like, but a lot of it in LA it really is interesting. So it sticks with you. But going back to In and Out, I mean, that's a pretty, uh, hallmark. One of my, uh, creation or one of my pieces, uh, a couple interesting notes. Number one, Harry Snyder, who founded it with his wife Esther, uh, did in fact invent the two-way speaker box. So that is, uh Oh wow. The genesis of the drive-through. So that's pretty cool. Um, I feel that their marketing campaign, that they use only fresh ingredients. That is absolutely true. When they had the first location in Baldwin Park, he would go to downtown, which was 18 miles every single day to get fresh meat and fresh vegetables. So, I mean, that really did start back then. And that's like a testament to the quality of in-N-Out. Um, people like the fact with the palm trees, most in and outs have crossed palm trees. That comes from a movie called it's a Mad, mad, mad, mad World. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> where the, uh, characters were, were chasing a berry treasure and to Harry Snyder in and out with his treasure. So he wanted to put the cross palm trees in front of every Inn Out.

Fritz Coleman (00:28:16):

I think hands down is the favorite in Southern California. There's always a battle between Inn Out and Five Guys. Seems to be the argument. But I I'm an,

Louise Palanker (00:28:23):

Well what's that reaction all about

Evan Lovett (00:28:25):

<laugh> Five Guys? An Out is an outsider. So Yeah. That, that, that's

Louise Palanker (00:28:29):

Okay. Okay.

Evan Lovett (00:28:30):

But Five Guys is good. It is a good handle.

Louise Palanker (00:28:32):

It's like, it's like you root for your team. Like LA is my team. Like I I'm have go talk about like some, you know, and

Fritz Coleman (00:28:38):

Here's what I learned from your posts, that the cheeseburger was invented in Southern California in Pasadena. That's

Evan Lovett (00:28:44):

Right. I didn't know that. That's right. Uh, I believe his name was John Sternberger. He worked at a place called the Right Spot in Pasadena, and I wanna say 1923, somewhere around that. But hamburgers have been around and, and the, the actual invention of the hamburgers disputed because it's kind of, I mean, it's a, it's a meat patty.

Louise Palanker (00:29:02):

And this guy was like, you know what, there's not enough cholesterol in this sandwich.

Evan Lovett (00:29:07):

<laugh>. That's right. <laugh>. Let's

Louise Palanker (00:29:08):

Take it up a few notches.

Evan Lovett (00:29:10):

That's right. That's, and not only was the cheeseburger invented here, but the double burger. And this goes back to, uh, um, a request he had earlier. The double hamburger was invented by Bob's big boy. Um, Bob, we on the owner, um, had a customer, very loyal customer, who wanted a bigger burger and they wanted something different. So what he actually did was split the bun into thirds, put patties and piece of cheese on both. And that was essentially the first double hamburger on record. And it became known as the Big Boy.

Fritz Coleman (00:29:39):

Let, let me give you a very sad fact. Okay. And I am demanding that you do not include this in any future pieces about the culinary arts of Southern California. I eat breakfast at Bob's big boy, six mornings a week in Burbank. I have the same thing every day. Poached eggs, Turkey sauces, fruit, and buttered wheat toast every day. Walk in there and ask any of the help. I'm there

Evan Lovett (00:30:01):

Every season. I saw it on there. Bob's Big Boy Hall of Fame. Actually, I I saw that. But go. Why is that a sad fact?

Fritz Coleman (00:30:08):

I ain't lying.

Evan Lovett (00:30:08):

That's a great fact. Yeah. What's, what's sad about post

Fritz Coleman (00:30:11):

Eggs still? The, the regularity, the linearity of my life. When I say it out loud, it seems so

Evan Lovett (00:30:16):

Sad. Hold on. Sad. You add something. You said Burbank Bob's big boy, right? Yeah. I wanna know, is it Burbank or is it Toka Lake? Well,

Fritz Coleman (00:30:23):

It's actually in Toka Lake, but it's called Bob's Big Boy Burbank, I think. Cuz of the ants of Bob's big boy Burbank. I don't know, but it, no, it's Toka Lake.

Evan Lovett (00:30:30):

Okay, okay. Because I get, I get people, I say

Fritz Coleman (00:30:33):

Burbank, I love, it's the best breakfast in town. Without question. No, I don't eat dinner there all the time, but I eat my breakfast here.

Evan Lovett (00:30:38):

So Bob's doing, and sorry for, for monopolizing the conversation, but Bob's big boy was actually number one on oldest fast food chains in Los Angeles. Now you could say, okay, Bob's big boy is really fast food. Keep in mind that they had the CarHop service, which at the time was fast food. So thus it counts. And one stat that I like about Bob's Big Boy, which I find really funny, Bob Wann, who was the founder, he was voted, this'll tell you about the difference in time, uh, and era he was voted most likely to not succeed at his high school in Wow. In Glendale. So kind of that I guess motivated him to, uh, to really succeed. So I, I always kind of like that. I wanna,

Louise Palanker (00:31:17):

I wanna talk for a moment about technology just because I mean, a lot of people maybe at home haven't even sampled TikTok so they don't even know where to find it or how to get started. And then I want to talk about how you create your videos and how you create your videos because we made a video. It's the history of Fritz Coleman. So look for that on, on, uh, in a minute coming up. Sure.

Fritz Coleman (00:31:39):

Text me how many views that gets with

Louise Palanker (00:31:41):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So

John Maddox (00:31:42):

Is your, is your audience TikTok friendly, do you think? Do they know? Are they on TikTok?

Louise Palanker (00:31:46):

No, they're gonna be listening. They, they may have even scrolled past us to next week's. Right. With Felix Caver who's who named after your son p

John Maddox (00:31:52):

We might, we might be able to give a few little tits.

Louise Palanker (00:31:54):

Yeah. So that's what I was thinking, like if you're listening cuz you just love Media Path and you're like, all right, fine. They're gonna talk about Bob's big boy. So let me get in here cuz I'm a little hungry. How do people get started on TikTok?

John Maddox (00:32:06):

Well, I would say, you know, it's similar to a lot of things like Instagram, you have a feed, right? But the one thing about TikTok that kind of surprised me is the feed that they call it a f a for you page, the fyp. So when you log on for the first time, it's gonna randomly show you whatever it decides to show you cuz it doesn't know what you like mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? So the trick with with TikTok is initially like maybe hashtag searching a couple things that you're interested in. In my case, I put in music production Logic Pro tools.

Fritz Coleman (00:32:37):

When, when you download the app, which I did just to prepare for this interview, you can tell I deep dive to prepare myself for these interviews. Okay. What they do is they ask you three areas of interest when you just download the thing. So that gets you started. Okay,

Louise Palanker (00:32:51):

Let me just say this, you guys, if Fritz downloaded the app, you can download the app. Okay, go ahead John. Okay, so

Fritz Coleman (00:32:58):

Here's the big people of another sanctuary

John Maddox (00:33:00):

<laugh>. So, so as long as you know that the main fee that you see is what they call before you page, that's the starting point. And what it does, and this is, this is the tip, is when you like something, you know, watch a little bit of it. But if you see something that you don't like, immediately flip up because TikTok is like remembering and calculating and that's feeding into their algorithm how

Louise Palanker (00:33:20):

Long you spent on something.

John Maddox (00:33:22):

Exactly. So,

Louise Palanker (00:33:23):

And even kind of measuring what your eyeballs do.

John Maddox (00:33:25):

Exactly. So for instance, and I do this on purpose, like I like politics, I like staying on top of current politics, but I don't wanna see that on TikTok. Okay. Because, so anytime like Bernie Sanders might show up, I flip up. Like I don't even, I don't want to see anything political on TikTok. Okay. Cause I just want it to be a different kind of thing for me because some people probably use TikTok for their politics.

Fritz Coleman (00:33:46):

Let's talk about it like

Louise Palanker (00:33:47):

His cousins.

Fritz Coleman (00:33:48):

Let's talk about that with both of you. TikTok is a Chinese company and they have more strict censorship standards than the United States does. You've been victimized by the censorship.

Louise Palanker (00:33:59):

Yeah, we wanted to talk

Fritz Coleman (00:33:59):

About that. I mean, it's, to me, it's very odd and sort of unsettling that another country puts their Im perimeter on our morals in the United States and they take off stuff they don't want you putting on there. Talk about it. Talk about I

John Maddox (00:34:12):

Got in TikTok jail, I'll tell you about that.

Louise Palanker (00:34:13):

Yeah, you both did. So let's

Fritz Coleman (00:34:15):

Oh, you did too. I even,

Evan Lovett (00:34:16):

I'm so perfect. I'm like this in offensive music. How-to content, how can you possibly get, so, um, first of all, that's a big reason why I transitioned, uh, to Instagram is because Instagram doesn't censor. Um, because I was getting what they call community guidelines violation. I have six of 'em now. You guys have seen my content. There's nothing controversial about it. In fact, I'm basically a homer. I'm a cheerleader for Los Angeles and I try to be like overwhelmingly positive. I mean, it's genuine, uh, passion for the city. So sometimes it'll be, in one instance when I did the history of Malibu, you know, and I always try to mention the native people, right? The Tongva and the Gabrielino, the kids people that were here first. You see those images that are like National Geographic when we were growing up in the magazines where the women are, are top not topless in a sexual way, but yeah. And so I had an, and it's such small image, and they were like, oh, nudity. And then I did one on the North Hollywood shootout. And now knowing that they flagged me on nudity, you could see why they, they, that

Fritz Coleman (00:35:19):

Was, that was fascinating to me

Evan Lovett (00:35:21):

That that

Fritz Coleman (00:35:22):

Was because that was a news story. So they don't want current events on

Evan Lovett (00:35:25):

There. And that's what I was saying. I was like, I'm not glorifying gun violence or anything. And in fact, you know, it's ultimately like frankly a pro-police, they did a great job that day and you know, like it could have been a lot worse than it actually was. Um, but you can always appeal. And um, but after the sixth comedic guidelines violation, they were like, if you have one more, we're gonna shut your account down. Wow. And I was like, man, like I'm trying to do this positive content. But tell me about the TikTok jail, because I haven't quite been there

John Maddox (00:35:55):

Yet. Okay. So have you done TikTok Live? I mean, let's, do we we should maybe talk about that real Yeah, go ahead real quick. Yeah. Talk about that is a content creator such as us, I guess you can do what they call TikTok Live, which is just the same as YouTube or Instagram or Facebook. And essentially you, you know, our broadcasting something live. Right. And I don't know if you've done that. I've done it from my recording studio and I've learned that it's actually helped, you know, get people interested and it can be something unscripted, not a presentation. Just like, and I've actually been mixing this show, doing a TikTok Live Oh, cool. <laugh> and people. And what I think is, you know, it's not, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's work. You know, you're editing things and you're getting rid of noise here and there. But I found that people found that interesting. Yeah. To

Louise Palanker (00:36:42):

Peek into your world, right. Your

John Maddox (00:36:43):

Process. So one time I was doing TikTok Live, basically kind of talking about how to mix music for film and tv mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And all of a sudden I'm in the middle of something and it shut me down. Why? And it said, uh, you've been, there's a violation of hate speech. And I was like, hate speech. And there was a little button to to, you know, send a, a message and you know, I, I replied and then I guess they go through and they check and like maybe decide, okay, I guess that wasn't hate speech, but it came back and said, yep, that was definitely a violation. And I was like, oh my God. So <laugh>, do

Louise Palanker (00:37:14):

You know exactly

Evan Lovett (00:37:15):

What it was they tell you to what No,

Louise Palanker (00:37:16):

They didn't tell. And also, do you know, like were you reported or are there Chinese people kind of watching?

John Maddox (00:37:21):

So here's, here's the thing, I, I don't know the answer, but just getting feedback from people. Cuz you know, I'm sure like Evan, we have friends on the platform and other creators. And some people said that, yeah, it could have been just a bot, you know, like one of the Chinese things like, like, you know, monitoring what you're saying and maybe something I said sounded like a word,

Fritz Coleman (00:37:42):

Keep you on your toes, we're watching you even if it had no value.

John Maddox (00:37:45):

But I can guarantee you, I, I was, I was talking about EQ and I was done. I was not talking

Louise Palanker (00:37:51):

About that was a sloppy edit. <laugh>, you had been blocked

Fritz Coleman (00:37:56):

That, that's the dark irony of this whole thing. The Chinese put their, um, censorship and perimeter on TikTok, yet they're collecting all this data from all of their adherence in the United States and stuff about kids and all this. And I, I don't think it's a two-way street there. It seems very dark to me,

Louise Palanker (00:38:17):

But we're getting this free service. So th th that's the price. We don't really fully grasp the price, but we're paying the price. Yeah.

John Maddox (00:38:26):

So is it darker because like Mark Zuckerberg lives here in the United States?

Louise Palanker (00:38:31):

I mean, good point. I mean, we really don't have any control over this relationship that we have with the content that we receive for free on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram. It, it's free. You open your phone and you don't get a bill from Facebook. It's just something that you get to do. So if, if something is free, then you are the price. And that's just something to keep in mind or keep it, I'm

Fritz Coleman (00:38:56):

Not for sale, dammit.

John Maddox (00:38:58):

Well, it's just like at the grocery store, cuz this, from my recollect, the, the beginning of this was when you used to go to the grocery store and you can get Devon's card or whatnot and it would keep track of what you bought and then you'd get coupons related to what you buy and that sort of thing. But I've known certain people over time that refuse to do that cuz they don't want any of that data going out. And so there's some balance between that extreme of like, uh, you know, they could steal your identity. I mean, what are they gonna do with your grocery list?

Louise Palanker (00:39:25):

Well the, the thing that people sort of have to accept is that they already know a lot about us. So this is that that ship has sailed. So it's really just a matter of deciding what works for you and what is, you know, like in terms of like, does, does, uh, does Vons need to know my phone number? Or can I pay 30 more cents for these chickpeas? You know what I mean? Like for me, I, I don't want, you know, I, I do kind of resist that. But for lo, for some people like those 30 cents really that matters. So we're each different. So you make your own decisions, but just kind of be aware that we're being watched

Fritz Coleman (00:40:03):

And yeah. What are the parameters on Instagram? Is there stuff you can't do on Instagram?

Evan Lovett (00:40:06):

That's a great, I haven't found out. I mean, I don't do offensive content. I'm sure there's some, I'm sure hate speech or direct threats or something. Do you know on Instagram, I

John Maddox (00:40:15):

Don't know about that sort of thing, but being on the music side of things, I've done things where like, I'm gonna never forget the first time I on Facebook Live and I thought, oh this will be cool. I'm gonna play some records. Cuz I like vinyl and I have a turntable

Fritz Coleman (00:40:27):

Writes issues.

John Maddox (00:40:28):

Yeah. And I, you know, being a, being a music person, I should have known, but it's like TikTok, it was, it was live. It wasn't like I was trying to monetize it. I was just mm-hmm going on Facebook Live. And it's happened on Instagram too, where all of a sudden they sense that you're playing a song that you don't have the rights to boom, you're shut off. And YouTube and I

Louise Palanker (00:40:45):

Get that and YouTube has kind of moved along where they're sort of working with the labels to where they'll put sort of a widget on your page to go ahead and go purchase that. They won't, they're not taking as much stuff down on YouTube as Facebook currently is with music. That's at least what I've been noticing.

John Maddox (00:41:00):

It depends on the artist. Uh, have you guys heard of Rick bdo? Have you ever, do you know that name? No, I don't. He's like a YouTube sensation. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, he's got millions of followers and he is, uh, basically an educator of music. And you would love his channel cuz it's like the 20 greatest guitar, rock guitar solos of all time. Or what makes Ross great, like he'll do song breakdowns. Mm. So he plays a lot of content from established big artists, which is one of the reasons he's got a big channel. But he's gone, uh, kind of a couple times gone on rants because there's a few artists who take down your video no matter what. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, one of 'em is, um, the Eagles, the other one is Fleetwood Mac and there's a couple others. So you're right, like most artists you would think, hey, they're talking about my music. Especially

Fritz Coleman (00:41:45):

It's

John Maddox (00:41:46):

Promotion. Yeah. It's free

Evan Lovett (00:41:46):

Promotion, A new audience or

Fritz Coleman (00:41:48):

If it anybody covers by Irving, A off doesn't get to play anything on the internet.

Louise Palanker (00:41:52):

So if it's a cover, most artists think it's just flattering.

John Maddox (00:41:54):

Yeah. But apparently with the Eagles, they have a, it's smart, they have a team. So even if you like have like, you know, your son playing an old take it easy or some old, like, they'll take it down <laugh>, you know, they, they won't even let that stay up.

Louise Palanker (00:42:08):

That, that means it's group think. It's not one guy. It's like the whole consensus of like, you know, you kind of want to blame one of them. You know, pick out the most prickly eagle. Maybe it's Don Henley. I don't know. So, um,

John Maddox (00:42:21):

I think though they do want to promote more of a general, like good, positive, uh, atmosphere. I mean I, you know, you've gotten six, you said? Yeah, six.

Evan Lovett (00:42:30):

Pretty

John Maddox (00:42:30):

Good. But you're still up, thank goodness. Right.

Louise Palanker (00:42:32):

You know, so what do you, and you think it was always from those National Geographic photos? Or was there something else?

Evan Lovett (00:42:38):

So they sort of tell you, right. It'll be a general, so that one was nudity and I was like, nudity. And I was like, I watched it again. Cuz you always get like a hard copy saved on your phone. Um, I dunno if it's called a hard copy, but <laugh>, I was like, that had to be what it was. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then the North Hollywood shootout was like violence or guns. And I was like, oh, that, that one was pretty obvious, but I was able to appeal and they overturned that appeal like immediately. But some of 'em, it's just a general committee guidelines violation. They won't tell you what, but

Louise Palanker (00:43:05):

That, so I think stuff's getting lost in translation and it's just being flagged by an algorithm. Yeah. And then to go ahead and try and explain it, maybe you, once you explain it each time they've been like, oh yeah, dude, okay. But do they ev do they take into account that someone's really popular and that taking them down would probably not be a great idea?

Evan Lovett (00:43:26):

I feel like if you're at a certain level, you probably afforded more rights. Because if I may mention what my first community guidelines violation was on one of the first profiles of an icon I did, which is what the Fritz Coleman piece is gonna be. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but was, uh, Snoop Dogg, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I find it funny that in 92, Snoop Dogg was a threat to, um, you know, America and Los Angeles and was violent and smoked marijuana and all these kind of things. And he hasn't changed in the last 30 years. I have a question all of a sudden, all of a sudden he's everybody's uncle and he's grandpa Snoop. And it's cool. And I mean, like, I, I really think that I consider him like the Willie Nelson of our,

Louise Palanker (00:44:08):

Our generation. And he's hilarious.

Fritz Coleman (00:44:10):

He's doing shows with Martha Stewart.

Louise Palanker (00:44:12):

Yeah, no, he's,

Fritz Coleman (00:44:13):

He's completely lost his street credibility <laugh>. But yeah, I got story about, you know, back, I think it was probably early nineties, uh, he was a guest on the Tonight Show, and he had, I don't know what happened, he flew back into Burbank with a stash of pot and had to come right to the Tonight Show. And, uh, and, uh, I, his manager or his handlers talked them out of arresting him. And so the minute he got finished the Tonight Show, he got in the limousine and he drove out to Bob Hope Drive, which took him off the N NBC lot. The cops pulled up and arrested him right there. Whoa. Whoa. Wow.

Louise Palanker (00:44:46):

Yeah. So, but now he's just becoming the Betty White of hip hop. Right.

Fritz Coleman (00:44:49):

<laugh>,

Evan Lovett (00:44:50):

Honestly,

Louise Palanker (00:44:50):

Hip hop, we just love

Evan Lovett (00:44:51):

Him. And I gotta tell you, there is a picture of him like holding his grandson and his beards all gray <laugh>, and it's like the cutest thing ever. And you're like 30 years ago, people are like, oh, down with Snoop Dogg. But going back to that piece, here's what's funny is I got my first community guidelines violation because I mentioned how much like marijuana smokes mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I, I don't know if anybody's familiar with that, but he claims to smoke like 60 blunts a day. Which is like, it's, yeah. It's like a, anyway, but, so his community guidelines violation, like promoting drugs or whatever, but yet if you go to Snoop Dogg's feed on TikTok, he's literally like smoking marijuana on the feed. And I'm like, so that's okay. But mentioning that he smokes weed is not, but I'm like, okay, TikTok probably gets a lot of you slash money and he's held to, to a different standard.

Louise Palanker (00:45:36):

I see. I see. Small creative. All right, let's talk about each of your most popular and, and did you predict that that would be that popular? So we'll start with John. Like what's your most popular video?

John Maddox (00:45:47):

I think there's one, uh, Fritz was talking about with the, uh, the, or the, the fireworks one or No baby monitor. One Baby monitor. I think the baby monitor one.

Fritz Coleman (00:45:56):

You mean what's the greatest cowbell song in America? That one didn't. Megan, what is the greatest

John Maddox (00:46:02):

Cowbell song? I, I actually did a TikTok, funny you mentioned that cuz I did do a TikTok about cowbell. Right. I started the TikTok with a little from the, uh, you know, need more cowbell the best. And then I put a bunch of clips of a lot of eighties tracks that had an obvious cow bun on and I kind of thought, Hey, I bet this is gonna do it. That didn't do well.

Louise Palanker (00:46:20):

No.

Fritz Coleman (00:46:20):

Yeah. I love that.

Louise Palanker (00:46:21):

Did you hashtag

John Maddox (00:46:22):

Cowbell? So here, here's, here's the thing. Um,

Louise Palanker (00:46:25):

If I had only hashtag cowbell, what, okay, go ahead.

John Maddox (00:46:28):

No, but I did anyway. I know you, uh, the ones that have gone, I mean, for me, three, 300,000 views is pretty viral because mm-hmm. <affirmative>, like, I, like I said earlier, I think I mentioned, I, I tried to do a similar thing on YouTube and Instagram and my kind of content like a year and a half ago there were already so many people, a lot of people doing similar things that I couldn't get any traction mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then a friend said, Hey, maybe you should check, check out TikTok. Right. And that's when I did and kind of realized that, oh, those big YouTube channels, uh, and Instagram channels are not on TikTok yet, right. Yet. Yeah. So I kind of came in and, and, and got a little bit of that niche. And so in terms of the popular videos, you don't know. You don't, because like the 4th of July this year, it was like the day before and I just was was like, oh yeah, I should mention, I should make a TikTok about recording fireworks because I, for the last three or four years when it would come up, we usually stay home.

(00:47:22):

My, me and my family, my wife and son. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> just because our dogs go crazy because the fireworks. Yeah. So one of the, like four years ago I thought, oh, maybe I should just set up a couple mics outside and record it, which I did. And I've done it for like three or four years now. And I, it's, those recordings have been there and I've used them for a couple things, but I thought, Hey, that might be a good idea for TikTok. Like, you know, go out and put some mics up. And I put it up like the day before, cuz I'm like, oh yeah, the fourth is coming up. So I just literally kind of put this together and I had some video of when I recorded the fireworks kind of going off and all of a sudden that thing just took off. And like, I posted it at a random time in the morning and I think I was doing something to my son. I came back like an hour later and looked and there was like, you know, 50,000 views. I'm like, what? So you don't really know. No, it's, and you can't

Evan Lovett (00:48:09):

Predict. I think that sounds like a cool piece by the way. I

John Maddox (00:48:11):

Wanna Oh,

Evan Lovett (00:48:11):

And, and I want to see that one.

John Maddox (00:48:13):

And so my wife, my wife Melinda, who she, she is so smart about some of these things I was telling her about. She goes, well, duh. I'm like, what do you mean? She's like, how many people would think about setting up microphones in the backyard and recording? She's like, I don't think many people would think about doing that. Well, you

Louise Palanker (00:48:30):

Know what I mean? It's like, you know, she, she's right in that it's like, it kind of transcends audio recording to become just a cool video of a guy that did a cool thing. You know, it, it kind of goes outside your box. And it, that one maybe made its way to other people's feeds that aren't necessarily into recording music. It's just like this guy went on his roof and, you know, recorded the fireworks. Like, it now becomes like sort of a cat in the pool video, you

John Maddox (00:48:54):

Know? Right. And, and so the whole point, again, back to sort of like doing things that are right there in front of you, you know, using the gear that you already have or just finding sounds that are like right in front of you. That was an instance of this. Like, you can record these things that are happening in your backyard, then you can cut them up, like make little sounds out of them and use them for drums or a drum beat or any, you know, you can manipulate sound now in ways that, you know, you couldn't do before. So it's more like source material for people that are into music and sound design. So it's just a way to get free, free sound. And I guess people liked it.

Fritz Coleman (00:49:31):

Do people monetize TikTok? Like they do other social media? They do. They do. Are the Kardashians paid to wear a bathing suit on TikTok and that kind of

Evan Lovett (00:49:39):

Thing? It's different. So TikTok has what's called a creator fund. And you want to talk about nebulous slash Chinese is they pay you pennies per thousands of you. And, and it could add up if you get a lot, but if you go in to see how the Creator fund, uh, formula figured out, they'll tell you. It's like, well, it's not exact. And it could vary day to day based on like <laugh>. So it's like,

Louise Palanker (00:50:02):

Like

Evan Lovett (00:50:03):

Airfares. And then there's also, you know, sponsored posts where people reach out, be like, promote my product or my restaurant. Um, are you

Fritz Coleman (00:50:10):

Allowed to do that on your own? I,

Evan Lovett (00:50:12):

Sorry. So I've started to be offered, you know, sort of, uh, monetization opportunities. And here's my thing. Number one, I don't feel comfortable with taking free, uh, stuff like Norm's was one of the first to reach out and Norm's actually a good LA story by the way, Googie architecture and stuff like that. Um, and they were like, let us comp your meal and blah, blah, blah. I was like, I was gonna do Norm's anyway. Like that's a good one. Um, but there are people who are like, pay X I'll pay you X amount of dollars to wear this or to put this on. But I don't wanna, uh, undermine like the, the authenticity of my feed because I feel like as soon as you're doing something that looks like you're pandering or catering to an advertiser, people are like, oh great, here we go. Because I know when I watch stuff and it's a creator, you like, and I get it, everybody wants to pay bills and make a living, but at a certain point you're like, really?

(00:51:00):

That's what you're advertising? It's not even like with your quote unquote brand. It doesn't even go in line with what you're doing. So it just sort of detracts from their credibility. But I wanna address, if I may, the, uh, expectations factor because sometimes I know I have one that I'm just like excited about <laugh> and I'm like, this is, this is gonna do great. Uh, last week or two weeks ago I did mosquitoes. I don't know if Yeah, it's mosquito season and there's that new, the new version of Mosquito, new version, new, uh, species of Mosquito,

Louise Palanker (00:51:29):

<laugh> Mosquito 2.0

Evan Lovett (00:51:31):

Called the, the eighties Mosquito

Louise Palanker (00:51:34):

<laugh>. Yeah,

Evan Lovett (00:51:34):

A E D E S. And it's interesting because these guys came on a shipping container, uh, from China on a, uh, bunch of, uh, lucky Bamboo plants in 2001. And they made their way to Arcadia in different places. And finally, finally from 2011 to 2015, they basically took out the old mosquitoes, which we call Lux Mosquitoes. And when I was growing up, I remember Mosquito, you could kind of see they're slow, they're dumb. Like your grandma could whack it outta the air. And then these new guys are like, they only bite your A or they focus on lower half of your body. But they're small, they're tiny, they're fast ninja, uh, they're insidious. And it's like, and now I just kind of knew, I'm like, man, cuz my ankles, I have like two dozen bites on my ankles and I know I'm not the only one.

(00:52:17):

Yeah. So I was like, I think this one's gonna do pretty well. However, I was also excited about Fat Burger cuz I feel like Fat Burger is an Ellie institution in my mind. Only behind in and out in Tommy's as far as burgers. Yeah. In and out to great Tommy's did great. Fat Burger tanked. And like, it's such a great story and an important story because Fat, fat Burger was founded by an African American woman in the 1940s, lovey Yancy. And you're like, dude, look as much as LA is this melting pot, true melting pot now of diversity in the forties as racist as anywhere else. And for her to like fight through the stigma of being African American and a woman in the 1940s and create an institution. And I was like, dude, magic Johnson ended up owning Fatburger. Kanye West had a piece of Fatburger. I was like, everybody loves Fatburger, but for some reason that one just didn't do well. Well

Louise Palanker (00:53:08):

Is TikTok racist? Because Fritz and I watched a video on, on Prime and they were sort of alleging, I mean, it's an interesting question because they're Chinese people, so they're not white people. So why would they be racist against African Americans? But they're on this, uh, prime video. They were, they were alleging or certain, uh, African American TikTok ERs are alleging that their stuff is getting buried. They're just as pretty as these other makeup girls and everything and they're, they're getting buried. So I don't know if that would factor in.

John Maddox (00:53:38):

I have, I haven't experienced any of that in Cool. In terms of people that I've seen and follow. Cool.

Evan Lovett (00:53:44):

Well maybe not people, but I like the content itself might be getting suppressed, you know, which is an interesting point. So

Louise Palanker (00:53:51):

What about Bruce's beach? Cuz I thought that was one of your more interesting

Evan Lovett (00:53:54):

Stories. Oh man, that is a great story and a significant story. And to be honest with you, that's one that was very disappointing as far as the performance, cuz I was proud of that one. I love that one. I think that's an incredibly significant story. And relative to my other, uh, pieces didn't do that. And I thought I did a good job with it too. So, I mean, sometimes, you know, and sometimes you don't, but it's not only, it's not only the ones that, um, you

Louise Palanker (00:54:17):

Know, well tell, tell the story Bruce's beach. So that,

Evan Lovett (00:54:19):

Wow. So Bruce's beach, man, crazy. So going back to I think 1912, what was her name? I think it was Wilma and Charles Bruce, uh, purchased land, um, in Manhattan Beach. And you know, African Americans did not have equal rights back then, and especially not equal beach rights, but the person that they bought the land from, you know, finagle to deal where they would be able to own it. And it ended up being like a beach club for African Americans, like a super successful beach club. And of course, uh, you know, people didn't love it. Uh, the, the non the neighbors African American people, they didn't love it. So they started, you know, protesting or making things, well, not protests. They started making things difficult. And then the Manhattan Beach City Council, uh, enacted like no parking statutes. So it'd make people walk like a mile, two miles just to get to Bruce's beach.

(00:55:09):

And little by lit, and then there were KKK protests like at, in front of Bruce's beach. And then finally by 19, I wanna say 1924, the city of Manhattan Beach claimed eminent domain. They said they were gonna make it into a park and you can't fight eminent domain. I think they gave him something like $1,200, which, you know, at the time was they just resolved that in the last year, quote unquote, what the land was worth. And they ne they didn't even end up turning it into a park for like 30 years after. And then finally in 2004, 2007, there was a council person, I wish I remembered her name, I'm sorry. Um, but she was like, Hey, we need to, you know, write this wrong. And then it took about 15 years before the city of Manhattan Beach and the state of California finally was like, you know what, we're gonna give this land back to the, um, progeny of the, uh, Bruces Bruce family.

(00:56:00):

Yeah. And then, you know, they, they weren't gonna build. It's actually a really beautiful piece of land. Like it's, it is, and now it's a nice park, perfect grass overlooking the beach. Um, and there's a little monument for Bruce's beach and everything, but the, instead they re they leased the land from the family for an X amount of dollars per year for 20 years. And that was kind of the first reparations mm-hmm. <affirmative> that, that I knew about in if not greater areas. So that was like a fascinating piece and just an important part of LA and national history.

Louise Palanker (00:56:29):

But I don't know, it's just kind of worth studying whether or not your content is being censored based on whatever people in another country might think would be Wow. More attractive filter for an American audience. That's interesting. Like we do have a large mix of people who live here who love all kinds of different content. And so, I mean that, that's the whole history of, of America, right? Is like our music and our culture and everything is so infused by each other and like, and to deny us, deny that, to deny that and people fight, you know, to have their voices heard and then their voices are heard by people of different races. And then that infuses, you know, new levels of creativity and we're all com completely influenced by one another throughout history. And like, and you're celebrating all of that, all that diversity you're always mentioning like, you know, the tribal people that were here in in initially. And I love that. I think that's so important. Now John, before we close, cuz this one has to pick up, um, said child <laugh>. Before we close, I think your most controversial YouTube or uh, TikTok ever was when you were asked who's the most talented Beatle

John Maddox (00:57:35):

Oh

Louise Palanker (00:57:35):

Yeah. <laugh>. And I wanna know what you said and what the response was.

John Maddox (00:57:38):

Well, it was, it was in, it was in reply, I believe, to another content creator. Oh, okay. But I, um, I I basically put it out there that, um, that you, you, you can't, I mean, how, how do you even answer that question, you know, because the, the way I basically explained it was like the Beatles to me anyway, were greater than the sum of the parts. Sure. So Sure. A lot of people. And that got a lot of people talking about like, well Paul McCartney sure. Surely cuz he's a multi-instrumentalist, he

Louise Palanker (00:58:07):

Plays the mandolin. Yeah.

John Maddox (00:58:08):

And he plays drums too. And he, and he played drums on some Beatles tracks. He that a lot plays of people don't even know. Yeah, yeah. But it's not like you can just compare and say, oh, well he was was the better one. Like in my mind, I can't separate them, you know, you can separate them on their solo careers, but when they're the Beatles mm-hmm. Good, good point. They, they, they really were the, the greater than. So what was the general consensus? Well, people replied, I'll, I'll, it was between Lennon and, um, Paul McCartney for sure. But I think heavy on Paul McCartney because he's an instrumentalist because he could basically pick up anything to make some music out of it.

Evan Lovett (00:58:43):

Why was that controversial though?

Louise Palanker (00:58:45):

No, what's controversial is what he said. Oh, okay. Actually he said you can't answer it and then he answered it. Okay. <laugh>. Okay.

John Maddox (00:58:51):

So yeah, that's his controversial as I get on my channel.

Louise Palanker (00:58:55):

<laugh> No, go ahead and say what you said because I, I think we're all sort of influenced by our own experiences, but you said Ringo.

John Maddox (00:59:03):

Oh, did I? Yeah. Uh oh, it's for, for for me. Yeah. I yeah, for you. I guess I should review that cuz I kind of, I

Louise Palanker (00:59:09):

Yeah, no, and I think it's really interesting cuz you know, of course Ringo is much celebrated, but I don't know that people know as much as a drummer knows about Ringo.

John Maddox (00:59:18):

Yeah. Well I think that was maybe another video. Okay. But, alright. I was wanting to draw attention to Ringo because for the longest time that I can remember, there's always been this ongoing thing. Like, people come up to me when they know I'm a drummer. Like, so Ringo Star, great drummer, crappy drummer, I'm like, <laugh> great drummer. Like, he kind of had this reputation of not being very good, but it was only because in relation to like the more busier drummers of that time, like Ginger Baker, John Bonham, Keith, Keith Moon, John Bonham, like Ringle was simple and he was a songwriter, drummer. Mm-hmm. Meaning like, especially if you watched the Get Back documentary. I know you guys, I think have talked about them on the show. Yep. The moments when they're sort of playing like the three of them before Ringo plays and then Ringo joins in. It's like, it's like a whole different thing. It's like he was the glue to the whole Beatles sound.

Louise Palanker (01:00:15):

Ringo knows how to support a song. Yes. And that's his, you know, his superpower.

John Maddox (01:00:19):

And the other thing I think you might have seen was he would listen to probably what Paul McCartney would come up with for drum parts because the song fixing, um, getting better, he does this beat that's like boom chat. Like it's not a very exciting beat. And most drummers would probably never come up with that on their own. They'd play something typical or something busier, but I'm sure Paul McCartney went, Hey, it's kinda like this vaudeville kind of thing. You know, can you just go boom chat and Ringo just, he played it. Yeah. And it was

Louise Palanker (01:00:50):

Perfect.

John Maddox (01:00:50):

Yeah. So that's, I was giving him some love. He

Louise Palanker (01:00:53):

Really knew how to be a Beatle and, and that was what was required, you know,

John Maddox (01:00:57):

And he was so self effacing too. Yeah. Like his favorite quote about Sergeant Pepper, like you were talking about Fred's people say, Hey Ringo, what was your favorite memory of making Sergeant Pepper? And he was like, well, I learned how to play chess that summer <laugh>, because he, he even said that the, that they would be in the studio and they would call him every so often like, Hey, can you come play some moras on this and play? Like, he wasn't

Fritz Coleman (01:01:19):

I so understand that feeling. Yeah. I just felt dumb when I listened to that whole album. Oh, this great musicianship and all the, you know, the George Martin tricks and, but I, I

John Maddox (01:01:30):

It's a different beast. It's a different, it's

Louise Palanker (01:01:32):

Different angle. That's the Beatles evolving and challenging themselves. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's what's there. So I think we need to wrap things up now before we do that. Where John, where can people find your content? Uh,

John Maddox (01:01:42):

The best thing for now is on TikTok tiktok.com/creating music and sound. Awesome. I'm in the process of building a site for it cuz it's getting to that point where I want to expand things. But for now, TikTok.

Louise Palanker (01:01:54):

Okay. Awesome. And Evan,

Evan Lovett (01:01:56):

Uh, on Instagram, I'm at LA in a minute and on TikTok, if you search LA in a minute, you'll find it, even though it's at Evan Lovett, e v a n l o v e t T. And I wanted to say don't be afraid of TikTok. I mean China notwithstanding, I'm, I'm not, uh, vouching for that or anything. However, it is very user friendly and the more you engage with it, the more it gets to know your preferences. And honestly, by day one by 10 minutes in, you're gonna be like, wow, this thing knows me already. And it's gonna start serving you up content that you have.

John Maddox (01:02:28):

Yeah. And one quick thing before we go, the difference between it and Instagram. Instagram, from what I remember, I haven't been on it on, on a while, it shows you things that the most recent from content creators. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they sh they show you the, the most recent videos in TikTok, they show you the most relevant videos to what you want to see. So in other words, if you're into la you're, you start, you've logged in, you've created your thing, and all of a sudden TikTok goes, oh, you like things about la Well we're gonna point you to Evan's video, but his video might be like four months old. But because the topic is relevant to what you're, you are looking for, it's gonna show you that. Okay. Not just because it was what Evan did yesterday. They might show that too. But it's, the feed is kind of custom to what you're interested in, which I, I, I like myself.

Louise Palanker (01:03:12):

Really interesting. Fritz, any, any upcoming gigs to talk about?

Fritz Coleman (01:03:16):

Uh, yes. I'm gonna tape a TV special on October 16th in the Monroe Forum at the El Port Hall Theater. We're doing two shows, four and seven o'clock and we're gonna hope to find a streaming home for them.

Louise Palanker (01:03:29):

Oh, interesting. Yeah. Fascinating. So we're doing that and we've got some, we've

Fritz Coleman (01:03:33):

Got some

Louise Palanker (01:03:33):

Reviews here. Yeah. We have some reviews coming in. These love reviews. Yeah. We read the reviews if you type them up. The

Fritz Coleman (01:03:37):

First one is from T squared 77. Such great insight, Fritz and Louise are such great hosts that go on a deep dive on a variety of topics. If you listen, definitely you will learn something new and interesting. God bless you. T squared 77 and everything you stand for. Here's one from Brandon Novara. Found it and loved it. This is one of those podcasts that you find and stick with. Each episode is different and unique and flows very well. Start with the first one and work your way through new and great conversations each time. The episode showed a wide range of topics and conversations that flowed together very well in a world of podcasts and so many choices. This is an easy one for me.

Louise Palanker (01:04:24):

Oh, that's so cool. I feel if someone's gonna binge all of our episodes that we should send in sandwiches cause it's gonna be there for a while. Right? Here come your closing credits. Fritz and I have created a web hub to help you shop for gifts and save democracy in one handy transaction. It is called gift of democracy.com. We curate great swaggy merch from candidates and causes committed to protecting and defending our democracy. Fritz and I take no piece of this. We simply send you to these websites to buy merch as a gift for your mom or your grandfather. It's the donation that counts. Democracy makes a great gift. Thank you so much for joining us. We would love to continue this conversation with you on Instagram and Twitter where we are at Media Path Pod and on Facebook where our show page is, media Path Podcast.

(01:05:06):

And our Facebook group is Media Path with Fritz and Weezy podcast community. You can find full video podcast episodes loaded with bonus visual content on our YouTube channel media podcast. You can write to us at media path podcast gmail.com. If you enjoy the show, please give us a nice rating and review in Apple Podcast and talk about us on social media. You can sign up for our fun and dishy newsletter@mediapathpodcast.com and we wanna thank our guest Evan Lovett from LA in a minute, and John Maddox from Creating Music and Sound. Our team includes Zena Friedman, John Maddox, Sharon Beo, bill Fiac, Thomas Hubble, Mason Brown, and you. Our theme music is by me and John Maddox <laugh>. You can even watch the webcam of us <laugh>. I'm Louise Planer here with Fritz Coleman and we will see you along the media path

Speaker 5 (01:06:02):

Off.

Speaker 6 (01:06:05):

Yeah, he does. Right? I wanna listen to your voice like too.

Louise Palanker (01:06:08):

Thank you, Thomas. It looked like you were really covering all.