8th Floor Special

While Kaena is home writing an essay about soil, Jeremy and Cesar discuss Cesar’s busy week trading iPhones, an appearance on local television, paying emotional taxes, Jeremy writing film reviews for Incluvie.com, charisma checking accounts, and the actor’s plight. Cesar makes a bodega run and Zander hops on for the back half. We chat about their short film, Ha Ha, premiering at the Tallgrass Film Festival, the evolutionary and adaptive nature of cinema, and The Revenant. Working on making shorter synopses. We learn, we grow. Thanks for listening. Give us a follow on Instagram @8thfloorspecial.

The east coast fellas set a new personal dialogue land speed record, a laughfest covering a slew of topics the likes of which this world has never seen. We chat about sourcing barbershop quartets on Fiverr, the streets of midtown NYC paved with loose $10 bills, an ass shooting on our block and a raging fire in an east village Chinese restaurant next door, earning Starbucks gift cards for sending strategic early morning emails, the Man with the Golden Voice, the Riders on the Storm scene in Basketball Diaries, Spike Lee’s He Got Game, revisiting movies and scenes in times of his highness, the Rocky VI training montage, the importance of reading intervention in the American educational system, the Blood Helion and other deep-fried memes, the death of Jean-Luc Godard, assisted suicide (*one fact-checking note: Jeremy mentions Godard died in Sweden, but it was, in reality, Rolle, Switzerland, apologies*), death as an abstraction, Trigger Warnings (*TW: death*), gender-confused cows, standing sleep, the death of PnB Rock, and 50 mile ultramarathons. Thanks for tuning in, folks.

West Coast reunion with Cesar just returned from El Salvador. We talk about how the trip changed him, perspectives shifting with age, the potential for an 8FS Patreon account, personal journeys tied indelibly with your roots, Cesar’s phresh $5 Central American fade, finding your muse wherever you are, not leaving thoughts/feelings unsaid, Kaena’s employment limbo with local gov't agencies, Knowing Your Soils, the distinction between soil and dirt, blazing up in the horticultural department, the myth of always having your shit together, an upcoming surprise birthday party, trading AA batteries for Tesla rides, Amtraks to/from LA’s Union Station, avoiding movie crowds, El Topo as a dense religious allegory, stealing seats in a sold out movie theater to see Sausage Party, the bonding experience of adversity on first dates, Cesar’s sick time PTO and upcoming auditions, and winners’ mentalities.

Jeremy taps in with Apollo and Adonis and we chat about the boys’ trip to Colombia, the south American nightclub culture, the language barrier, and the perils of having a scam artist tour guide, #wanderlust, Jeremy’s new tattoo (shoutout to Doug at No Idols Tattoo in LES), dropping out of art school, first kisses, earning belts in Recorder karate, getting the 8FS house band together, Robert Plant stickman lore, guyliner, Adonis’s Yu-Gi-Oh costume, a fine night of libations and lowlight vibes at Greenpoint’s Twins Lounge, three-story Halloween parties, ugly Aardvarks, an unsuccessful party blemishing 8FS’s otherwise gleaming hosting record, an upcoming “Heavy Traffic” reading event in the East Village, Jeremy on his way to see Jodorowsky’s El Topo, Adonis and Jeremy’s bro-date to SoHo’s Fanelli’s Café, and the discourse surrounding Love is Blind (Love Island is better; elite reality TV). Thanks for listening. Catch you loyal listeners next week.

Another batch of 10 episodes in the books. In a very special Episode 20 with Kaena and Jeremy, we talk about rushing to gym pre-pod, new tattoos, 24/7 doormen, episode 20 reflections, the variety of conversations arising out of different dynamics, the rest of the 8FS cast of commentators on vacation, Kaena’s new side hustle, an awkward ViCruiter experience, the value of honesty of job applications, slinging boba, balancing priorities and shifting hobbies, the return of MoviePass, the evolution of the moviegoing experience, and the House of the Dragon series premiere. Stick around for another one of Kaena’s exquisite musical finds.

After a brief 8FS hiatus (due to a technical glitch deleting an episode we recorded last week) Jeremy and Apollo re-welcome Rohan onto the air to give him some time on the mic unhindered by echo. We chat about Apollo and Adonis’s upcoming trip to Colombia, Rohan delivering film goods to the Universal Studios lot, slumping at parties (in both the Bronx and Los Angeles), the micro-studio space we all three shared back in the day, an Inside Joke Soundboard, manifesting advertisement sponsors (MeUndies, et al.), Calvin Klein soirees, WFH watercooler bull-shooting sessions, Apollo’s skills with the pen beats and current drum endeavors, the ever-extending “podcast” bit, the rise and fall of Four Loko, ranking alcoholic seltzers, Rohan’s 24 Hour Fitness jaunts, inside jokes for an audience of one, disparity in LA relationships, and Rohan gives us his “boots on the ground” impressions of two of LA’s finest establishments: Rainbow Bar on Sunset Blvd. and Jumbo’s Clown House. Thanks for listening!

Special 2-part episode coming live and largely uncut from Los Angeles, complete with a visual component on YouTube. Some technical oversights lead to generally poor audio quality (you live and you learn, in this business of pod) but this one is too special not to share. Thanks for bearing with us. Jeremy, Cesar, and Kaena welcome special guest Rohan Chatterjee, a filmmaker working in LA and an old friend from the NYC days. We talk about dining at Musso & Frank Grill, overlapping cultural circles, “long hangouts”, the unspoken dress code in Cesar and Zander’s apartment, the inevitability of shared speech patterns, Rohan’s buoyancy in sink or swim situations, and his recent breakthrough in the voice acting space. Rohan (our new resident film reference guide) fills us in on the roundabout casting of Marty McFly and some other pieces of film trivia before whisking us off to SoFi Stadium to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

And for part II…Jeremy, Cesar, and Kaena regroup a day after the concert to dish on the events of the previous 24 hours and recap the show: basking in the live musical glory of RHCP (and the opener, Beck), people watching in the spacepod that is SoFi stadium, sensory overload, building narratives for strangers, Kaena losing track of his skin, the power of inter-song jam sessions, the exceptional stage-side visual accompaniments, the evolving perspective on songs as you age, and we all conclude that, when it comes to our respective lives, we can’t complain.

2/3rds in-person pod. Jeremy is on the West Coast and he and Kaena zoom Cesar from Jeremy’s childhood bedroom. We chat about drunk cooking, camouflaging our coughs on air, accidentally upgraded Delta flights, Jeremy’s family values, Cesar’s upcoming short film, trading posthumous creative recognition for destitution in life, Kaena’s beach antics, and Brazilian Sepaktakraw in Huntington Beach. We encourage you to call your parents, and we go on to do our best Google Earth impression to describe entering Costa Mesa from the scenic 405 freeway, bash Hooters chicken wings, and reminisce on our shared concert experiences (America and the Tropicalia festival’s golden year) as we hype up our upcoming RHCP show at SoFi stadium. We discuss the archival value of recording conversations with people you love, our current, transient recording studio setup, Cesar’s couch-surfing/skateboarding/cinematographing friend making a cameo (follow him on tiktok at .brianwilson), the life of a content creator and the evolution of the OC fair, deep fried butter sticks, the Counting Crows, and rekindling old relations at new weddings.

Speaking with the west coast fellas about first fades, building roads one stone at a time, Jeremy’s pro bono writing career, bringing back the Old Pal cocktail, drunk-proof 1.75 liter bottles, BBC’s Peaky Blinders, Jeremy’s 48 hour NYC-CA-NYC trip, jumbo margaritas and Mexican feasts, Cesar relinquishing his automobile in favor of a fixed gear, (minor tech difficulties resulting in potential promo visuals), observing LA from the vantage of two-wheels, the invigorating, indifferent vitality of bustling cities, witnessing horrific accidents outside your front door (or just beyond your work's storefront), Kaena’s Hawaiian family ties, the emotional impact of the film Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, and Cesar’s upcoming trip to El Salvador (catharsis looming).

Adonis dubs 8FS “the most creatine-infused podcast in the world” and we cover another slew of riveting topics: happy hours being included in a workplace’s benefits package, drinking adjusted for inflation, Jeremy’s nebulous job hunt, spending the nation’s birthday apart from our beloved roommates, the dignity to be lost in post-breakup Hail Mary text messages, the evolution of modern text communications, and the crucial insight a big sis possesses. We take a quick taco break before returning to pontificate on eating as a communal bonding experience, sharing the proverbial meal ticket with interns, using a baguette to symbolically squash beef, Zyzz the prophet of the aesthetic body type, our recent unearthing of our own pod metrics on AnchorFM (thanks, Loyal Listeners, we appreciate you), audio files capturing the nuances of our discourses, ephemeral beings defined by what we leave behind, travel planning strategies, bribing uber drivers to return lost cell phones, artsy photoshoots with four lokos, and partying with celebrities before they’re famous.