Overview of How Long Gone (Episode 952)
Chris Black and Jason Stewart record from London and spend most of the episode in their trademark fast, abrasive banter: travel fatigue, bad weather, fitness routines, food obsessions, reality TV, and cultural hot takes. The conversation ranges from London logistics and Pride Month to airplane oddities, World Cup discourse, pineapple-Kool-Aid internet trends, and their recurring skepticism of wellness, branding, and “trying too hard” consumer culture.
Main Topics Discussed
London travel, weather, and exhaustion
- They record from Room 810 at The Londoner in London.
- Chris complains about the unpredictable rainy weather and how it ruins biking and movement.
- They discuss tube strikes, long car rides, and the physical drain of being in transit for hours.
- Chris celebrates his wedding anniversary and jokes about June being Pride month.
Pride Month and brand behavior
- They riff on Pride branding, noting that many companies seem less eager to overdo rainbow marketing now.
- The bit becomes a wider joke about corporate “activations” and performative marketing.
Food, wraps, burritos, and fast-casual judgment
- A long segment is devoted to the difficulty of making a good wrap or burrito.
- They compare burritos, wraps, and different tortilla-based foods, emphasizing structural integrity and how easy it is to mess up the final bite.
- Chris goes hard on Chipotle as overrated, low-quality fast food that people give too much credit.
- They also discuss donut culture, especially Cambodian-owned donut shops in LA, and dismiss some celebrity-backed donut ventures.
Wellness, protein, and workout culture
- The hosts debate whether high-protein eating and hyper-optimized wellness routines actually work.
- Chris is experimenting with his diet and bodybuilding goals, while Jason pushes back on the idea that supplements or “biohacking” replace real exercise.
- They also argue about gym grunting, with Chris insisting that making loud noises at the gym is mostly performative unless it’s truly involuntary effort.
Pop culture and reality TV
- They discuss a new Calabasas-based reality show, comparing it to a softer, more hopeful version of The Valley.
- There’s also gossip about celebrity couples, including Jacob Elordi and Kendall Jenner, and how they seem to be “hard launching” their relationship via Japanese restaurant posts.
- They mention various personalities and absurd casting choices in these reality-TV worlds.
Airplane stories and tech-world behavior
- One of the strongest segments is Chris recounting a flight next to a hyper-organized tech couple:
- airport salads, sushi, green juice, orange juice at night,
- a bizarre choose-your-own-adventure Batman program,
- and the man using a futuristic clamshell/glasses setup to work privately on the plane.
- The story becomes a commentary on how some people will use absurd technology or lifestyle choices without caring how strange it looks.
World Cup and American infrastructure
- They discuss the World Cup and how Americans tend to care more about the inconvenience and money than the sport itself.
- Chris and Jason joke that the U.S. is getting “stadium-mogged” by other countries.
- They also note that American college football stadiums are massive and old, but that newer venues can feel soulless.
Internet food trends: pineapple Kool-Aid
- They dive deeply into the viral “pineapple Kool-Aid spears” trend:
- pineapple pieces in syrup,
- Kool-Aid added with a lot of sugar,
- sometimes with alcohol.
- They frame it as a deeply specific subculture and discuss how to make their own version for content.
- Chris imagines making an authentically trashy, “correct” version using low-end ingredients rather than a polished wellness remix.
Ads, subscriptions, and future monetization
- They joke about podcast advertising, streaming subscriptions, and whether medicine will eventually be ad-supported.
- The bit escalates into a mock conspiracy about “peptides” or medications being tailored with hidden effects.
Notable Observations and Running Jokes
- Chris hates in-between weather: he wants either full sun or full rain, not a half-and-half day.
- They’re suspicious of “efficiency” culture: whether it’s food prep, workouts, or weird glasses on airplanes, if it looks too optimized, it’s probably ridiculous.
- They love local food subcultures: Cambodian donut shops, neighborhood salad/wrap spots, and roadside-style food all get more respect than polished chain versions.
- They think most internet wellness trends are performative: protein goals, red light masks, supplements, and “biohacks” are treated as mostly psychological.
- They are entertained by ordinary people behaving insanely in public: especially the plane couple and anyone using bizarre tech in a way that seems socially invisible to them.
Sponsor Reads and Housekeeping
- The episode includes ad reads for:
- Stateside with Kai and Carter from The Guardian
- Squarespace
- TaskRabbit
- Quince
- They close with quick housekeeping about upcoming live shows and the podcast schedule.
Overall Takeaway
This episode is classic How Long Gone: a loose, funny, status-aware conversation that turns small observations into extended cultural critiques. The main thread is how people eat, work out, travel, and present themselves—often in ways that look absurd once Chris and Jason start picking them apart.