Overview of How Long Gone Ep. 987 — Chris & Jason
Chris Black and Jason Stewart spend most of this episode riffing on the brutal LA heat, their day at the Just Like Heaven festival, and the weirdly intense way adults talk about food, fitness, and self-improvement. The conversation moves from festival logistics and set highlights to a long, funny detour about “plain eating,” sauces, breakfast burritos, potatoes, pretzels, and the psychology of what we put on our food. They also get serious for a moment about Reggie Watts, psychedelics-as-therapy culture, and how much modern life encourages people to overanalyze themselves.
Major Topics Covered
LA Heat, Home Comforts, and Cooling Costs
- The episode opens with the scorching Los Angeles weather and the misery of summer electricity bills.
- Chris and Jason trade notes on:
- AC settings
- saunas increasing the house temperature
- cold plunges and the logistics of home wellness setups
- The bit turns into a broader joke about how much money and effort goes into staying comfortable.
Just Like Heaven Festival Recap
- A big chunk of the episode is a festival recap from Pasadena’s Just Like Heaven.
- Highlights included:
- Matt and Kim
- Twin Peaks
- Feist
- The Strokes
- a smaller act Chris was determined not to miss
- Chris tells a detailed story about:
- credential/parking confusion
- racing across the grounds
- missing sets because of logistics
- finally making it to the stage in time for the performance he cared about most
- The overall takeaway: a hot, chaotic, but ultimately rewarding festival day.
Food Philosophy: Plain Eating, Sauces, and “Morning Sauces”
- One of the episode’s main running jokes is Chris’s strong preference for plain food and his aversion to sauces early in the day.
- They debate:
- whether ketchup, salsa, honey, jam, and butter count as “morning sauces”
- whether an acai bowl is basically just a sauce-like food
- why certain foods feel wrong when dressed up too much
- Chris also gets into:
- the Erewhon breakfast burrito
- why he feels weird putting salsa on breakfast food before noon
- how burrito size and sauce choice affect whether a meal feels “clean” or heavy
Potatoes, Pretzels, and Snack Hierarchies
- The food talk expands into a surprisingly detailed ranking of:
- French fries
- boiled potatoes
- hash browns
- soft pretzels
- hard pretzels
- They agree that:
- fries are the best potato form
- boiled potatoes feel “punitive” or overly humble
- soft pretzels are great, but hard pretzels are rough on the mouth
- They also talk about airline snacks, boutique chips, and whether “premium” snacks are actually better than old-school classics.
“Slump Buster” and Other Slang
- A funny side conversation centers on the term “slump buster”:
- a hookup after a breakup used to “get out of a slump”
- They discuss how the phrase originated in sports/baseball and how perfectly it captures the idea.
- The term is admired for being both vivid and oddly specific.
Reggie Watts, Psychedelics, and Self-Obsessed Culture
- The tone shifts when they discuss the controversy involving Reggie Watts.
- Their main points:
- the public tone of his response felt unsettling and insincere
- “psychedelics as therapy” can become a dangerous form of self-mythology
- drugs are being treated too often as spiritual or identity-building tools
- They widen the conversation into a critique of:
- constant self-reflection
- “finding meaning” through substances
- people turning their personality into a wellness project
- The underlying argument: modern culture encourages too much self-perception and not enough actual living.
Key Takeaways
- Festival days are fun, but logistics can ruin them if you’re bouncing between credentials, parking, and set times.
- Chris and Jason have a very specific, funny worldview about food purity: less sauce, more restraint, and respect for the ingredient.
- The term “slump buster” gets their approval because it’s concise, funny, and historically grounded.
- Their discussion of psychedelic culture is skeptical: they’re not anti-drug, but they are suspicious of using drugs as a replacement for self-awareness or real healing.
- A recurring theme of the episode is that too much self-analysis is making people weird.
Housekeeping / Outro
- The episode closes with a quick note that they’ll be taking Friday off due to travel and David Cho’s birthday.
- Chris mentions heading to Paris, while Jason has his own travel plans.
- As usual, the conversation ends on a casual, music-filled note after a long stretch of banter and riffing.