"Graydon Carter"

Summary

SmartLess Podcast Episode Summary: "Graydon Carter"

Podcast Information:

• Title: SmartLess
• Hosts: Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, Will Arnett
• Guest: Graydon Carter
• Release Date: July 14, 2025

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1. Introduction to Graydon Carter

The episode kicks off with the hosts humorously introducing Graydon Carter, a stalwart in the media industry, known for his influential role in shaping modern journalism and pop culture through his work with magazines like Spy and Vanity Fair.

Notable Quote:

• Jason Bateman [06:03]: “He happens to be my own Graydon Carter.”

2. Graydon Carter’s Career Trajectory

Graydon shares insights into his illustrious career, starting with founding the Canadian Review at the young age of 23 in 1963. He transitioned to prominent roles at Time magazine and co-founded the edgy and influential Spy Magazine in 1986.

Notable Quotes:

• Jason Bateman [06:20]: “How old were you when you founded the Canadian Review? What? That takes a lot of... I was gonna say guts, but it takes a lot of chutzpah.”
• Sean Hayes [07:30]: “Working at Time magazine with all this great talent was a remarkable period.”

3. The Golden Age of Magazines and Their Decline

Graydon reflects on the "golden age" of magazines during the 1990s, emphasizing the high quality and competitiveness that defined the era. He attributes the decline of print media to the financial crash of 2008 and the industry's slow adaptation to digital transformation.

Notable Quotes:

• Graydon Carter [20:30]: “Every magazine was good in the 1990s. They were just extraordinary.”
• Sean Hayes [36:07]: “Magazines companies were late to transfer their look to an electronic version.”

4. Transition to Airmail: Innovating Magazine Consumption

Graydon discusses his latest venture, Airmail, an innovative digital publication designed to cater to modern readers by delivering curated, compelling stories directly to their inboxes. Unlike traditional magazines, Airmail focuses on high-quality content without the intrusive advertising, aligning with contemporary consumption habits.

Notable Quotes:

• Graydon Carter [38:03]: “Airmail is an email with five stories you can click on if you’re interested.”
• Jason Bateman [38:50]: “It doesn't have a selling element that people have grown an allergy to.”

5. Cultural Shifts and the Impact of Social Media

The conversation delves into the profound impact social media has had on culture and media consumption. The hosts and Graydon debate whether this influence is detrimental or if a backlash will lead to a more balanced media landscape in the future.

Notable Quotes:

• Sean Hayes [50:15]: “It's a correction. The correction is now you share everything.”
• Will Arnett [50:19]: “We've overshared our lives in such a massive way.”

6. America’s Soft Power Through Culture

Graydon proposes that America’s cultural exports, such as television shows and social media platforms, serve as powerful tools of soft power, potentially more effective than traditional means like the military-industrial complex. He muses on how American media can shape global perceptions and influence behavior.

Notable Quotes:

• Jason Bateman [28:14]: “If we were really smart about wanting to pedal influence around the world... we'd pump in Netflix and Amazon Prime.”
• Sean Hayes [29:14]: “It's an element of soft power, and we've given up all our soft power in the last three months.”

7. The Future of Reading and Magazine Influence

Discussions pivot to the future of reading in a digital age. Graydon shares his thoughts on how younger generations are slowly rediscovering the joy of reading, supported by tools like audiobooks, and how niche, high-quality magazines are likely to thrive similarly to the resurgence of vinyl records.

Notable Quotes:

• Graydon Carter [34:08]: “Airtime presents stories that allow readers to choose what interests them without being overwhelmed.”
• Sean Hayes [33:42]: “Young people will come to love magazines the way they love vinyl.”

8. Legacy and Personal Insights

Towards the end of the episode, Graydon contemplates his legacy, expressing pride in his contributions to journalism and his hope that his work continues to inspire meaningful cultural conversations. The hosts share their admiration and discuss the personal impact Graydon’s work has had on shaping media standards.

Notable Quotes:

• Sean Hayes [60:36]: “I am very proud of my children. They’re truly good humans and funny and well-read.”
• Graydon Carter [55:32]: “I love it because it's a perfect juxtaposition between influence and sophistication.”

Conclusion

The episode wraps up with heartfelt appreciation from the hosts towards Graydon Carter, celebrating his enduring influence in media and culture. They encourage listeners to explore his new book, "When the Going Was Good," emphasizing its relevance in understanding cultural shifts.

Notable Quote:

• Jason Bateman [61:10]: “We wish you nothing but continued success. Thank you so much.”

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Key Themes:

• Media Evolution: From print to digital, the adaptability required for survival.
• Cultural Influence: The role of media as a tool for shaping societal norms and values.
• Legacy of Journalism: The lasting impact of thoughtful, incisive reporting on culture and society.
• Adaptation to Modern Consumption: Innovations like Airmail catering to changing reader habits.

Conclusion: This episode of SmartLess provides an in-depth exploration of Graydon Carter’s pivotal role in modern journalism and his perspectives on the evolving media landscape. Through engaging dialogue and insightful reflections, listeners gain a comprehensive understanding of the past, present, and future of media and its intersection with culture.

Transcript

[Will Arnett]

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[Jason Bateman]

Knock, knock. No, I guess you can't say so I'll do okay. I'll play both. Knock, knock. Who's there? Smartless. Smartless who? It's an all new Smartless. Smart. Smart Smart.

[Sean Hayes]

Less.

[Jason Bateman]

I realized that I think that I. I curse too much.

[Will Arnett]

You do?

[Jason Bateman]

Oh, yeah.

[Graydon Carter]

What are you talking about?

[Jason Bateman]

There we go.

[Will Arnett]

Wait, really? Why do you say that? I don't think you do.

[Jason Bateman]

Because don't you think I do? I feel like I do. It just occurred to me that I feel like I curse too much and maybe I just.

[Will Arnett]

I think not enough.

[Graydon Carter]

Why did you. Did you get that feeling because you were hanging out with your dad and you had to. You caught yourself a couple of times. No, truly, like, where did this thought come from?

[Sean Hayes]

You old enough?

[Jason Bateman]

I just. I think I was. I think I was talking about hockey with somebody the other day and I realized that every other. I think when I. Especially when I talk about hockey, I'm like, these fucking guys. And look at this fucking team. Blah, blah, blah. And I was like, wait, how often do I say. And I saw this review of some gadget that somebody that they've just released, some AI Gadget that documents the, you know, words that you say throughout the course of a day or a week or a month, et cetera. And. And this woman was talking about how much she had heard. She was cursing. And I was like, I wonder how much I curse.

[Sean Hayes]

Really?

[Jason Bateman]

Yeah.

[Sean Hayes]

A little bit.

[Will Arnett]

It used to be my. If I got nervous, I used to swear a lot. Like the very first time I met Steven Spielberg in his office.

[Graydon Carter]

Oh, no.

[Will Arnett]

All I did, every other word was fucking.

[Sean Hayes]

What?

[Will Arnett]

I was like, yeah. And his kids were playing video games. Oh, that's fucking cool. How many. When did you fucking get that? That's fucking amazing. I couldn't stop saying.

[Graydon Carter]

I remember I once had the guy who wrote and direct. I think he wrote, but he definitely directed Napoleon Dynamite. This guy Jared has. He's a great director.

[Will Arnett]

Yeah, amazing. He's great.

[Graydon Carter]

And I got a meeting with him just after Napoleon Dynamite. I was so excited. And just, like, I get lazy with cursing as just, like, sort of like a way to bond, you know?

[Will Arnett]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah.

[Graydon Carter]

And so I'm just like, every word is this and that fucking. And I'm driving home, and I call my agent. I say, oh, the meeting went really, really well. And he goes, you know, I was gonna say something. I was wondering if it did. Cause I know your family lived in Salt Lake City for a few years, and I was wondering if your family had any Mormonism in their background. Did you guys talk about Mormon? Because, you know, he's a big, big Mormon.

[Will Arnett]

Oh, I didn't know that. And I'm like, oh, no.

[Graydon Carter]

Cause, like, then I was flashing back to the meeting. I'm driving home like, yeah, he didn't say anything. That was off color. And of course, I never heard from this guy again.

[Jason Bateman]

To this day. To this day. Have you spoken to this day?

[Graydon Carter]

No, I probably live. He was just deeply offensive to him.

[Sean Hayes]

That's so funny.

[Jason Bateman]

We got to get him on here and ask him about that. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure he didn't even notice. That's funny. I tell you. I tell you what, this is the segue, Sean.

[Graydon Carter]

This is Segue.

[Will Arnett]

Incredible.

[Sean Hayes]

So smooth, this segue.

[Jason Bateman]

And my guest. My guest is, you know, we all like cool things, and we like being feeling like that we're part of, you know, that we're up on culture, that we're up on what's going on in the world. This is a guy who's been not only at the forefront, but I think I would dare to say, been shaping it for many years. He happens to be Yawn Winner. Oh, he happens to be my own. Yawn Winner is not Canadian. Are you sure he is? I'm very sure that Jan Winter's not Canadian. You didn't know him when he was in Canada, but he'd started a magazine in 1973 called the Canadian Review that was very popular. He then moved to the States and he worked for Time magazine. He worked for a bunch of other things. Life magazine. And then in 1986, he co founded a very, very popular and influential magazine known as Spy magazine.

[Graydon Carter]

This is not Grade.

[Jason Bateman]

And Carter left that in great shape. It went on to become, over 25 years, the Editor of Vanity Fair. He's got a new book coming out called when the Going Was Good. Guys, it's Graydon Carter.

[Graydon Carter]

Nice.

[Jason Bateman]

Good morning, sir.

[Graydon Carter]

I read the airmail email this morning.

[Sean Hayes]

Bless you.

[Graydon Carter]

Yes. Yeah. You didn't mention airmail, Willie.

[Jason Bateman]

I know. Well, I was about to get to air mail because you kept saying Graydon Carter. So I was like trying to get through it.

[Graydon Carter]

And this is an awesome guest.

[Jason Bateman]

I know.

[Graydon Carter]

Yeah, Nice going.

[Jason Bateman]

Will welcome Grade. And I mentioned all the various things that you did that you started. You started as a young writer and you founded him. How old were you when you founded the Canadian Review? What Was that in 1963?

[Sean Hayes]

I was 23.

[Jason Bateman]

That takes a lot of. I was gonna say guts, but it takes a lot of chutzpah to start a magazine when you're 23 years old. Wow.

[Will Arnett]

How do you.

[Jason Bateman]

How do you get there?

[Will Arnett]

How do you know where to start?

[Sean Hayes]

I actually didn't start it. I bumped into a bunch of guys who were starting it in college and they needed an art director. And I said, well, I can draw. And they said, well, why don't you be the art director? And then little magazines are just festering pits of bitterness and jealousy and envy. And so one by one, they all left. And then I became the editor. And it wasn't as good as Will was pointing out. And he was being very kind about it. Nobody knew what they were doing. And that was completely evident to readers and advertisers that we were completely incompetent. But it did lead to a job at Time magazine when Time magazine was like, probably one of the most important magazines on the planet.

[Graydon Carter]

Yeah. And what did you do there at Time?

[Sean Hayes]

I was a writer. But, you know, this was 1978. The city was still teetering after bankruptcy and was like, dangerous. And there were burnt out cars everywhere, but rents were really cheap. And I lived. I live in Greenwich Village and my first apartment was about a block and a half away from here. And it was $200 a month and it had high ceilings and a garden. But then when I got to Time, they were restocking it with a bunch of Young writers. And there was people like Walter Isaacson, who became the great biographer. There was Michiko Kakutani, who became the chief book critic of the New York Times for 35 years. Frank Rich, who became the theater critic, York Times, and then the producer of Succession. Wow. And Maureen Dowd, who was there. Rick Stengler became the editor of Time. My best friend, Jim Kelly, who became the editor of Time. Anyway, it was just. It was a remarkable period, and we were all still, you know, keep in touch with each other, and.

[Will Arnett]

Wow.

[Sean Hayes]

It was. Yeah, it was very intimidating for me because I thought, wait a minute, are all Americans this smart? And thankfully, they're not.

[Will Arnett]

Well, that's true. You're talking to three of them.

[Sean Hayes]

There you go. Exactly. Well, two and a half the smartest.

[Jason Bateman]

That's amazing. And so you work at Time magazine with all this great talent, and then you and Kurt Anderson form Spy magazine, which. Boy, I remember Spy magazine. And a lot of people do. It was so. It was. It's been described as like. As sort of like, vicious and cruel, but also, like, really dead on. And you sort of somebody quoted something like, you despised all the right people.

[Sean Hayes]

Well, you know, there was. There was the time all of a sudden, in the mid-1980s, New York had sort of come alive financially. And, you know, investment banks had been sort of invented and meant there were investment bankers around and they already had a lot of money and they loved showing it off. And accidentally, I think our timing was wonderful, and we used to call it astringent rather than mean, but, you know.

[Graydon Carter]

That it did occupy a space of sort of. I don't know what the term might be, sort of a healthy cynicism. And, you know, like David Spade had. We've talked about it a few times on this show. He had a segment on Saturday Night Live, I think was called the Hollywood.

[Will Arnett]

Minute.

[Graydon Carter]

Where, you know, you'd kind of watch through your fingers, you know, sort of like you didn't want to see it or hear it, but it was always so accurate and funny. I don't know what point I'm making, but I just. I guess I want to say that there. I don't know if it's.

[Will Arnett]

You feel that's gone or.

[Graydon Carter]

No, no, I don't. I feel like there. There is a space somewhere for people having the balls to call out that which is kind of apparent to all of us, yet only discussed in quiet circles with your closest friends. Yet everybody says it. You just don't say it in a big group. You say it in small groups. You're just calling out accuracies on people's foibles. And it is interesting and maybe healthy. I guess this is the question, what do you guys think? Is it healthy to have mainstream media, to have a place in mainstream media for that type of release?

[Sean Hayes]

I mean, look at people like John Oliver and Seth Meyers and their news elements. And they do it better almost than they do do it better than the evening news in a certain way. You know, not everything is objective. You know, if you're talking about the earth being round, you don't need somebody from the flat Earth society to come out and give the counter argument.

[Will Arnett]

Yeah, right. But Jason's. I think maybe I don't want to put words in your mouth, but maybe. Are you talking about insults?

[Graydon Carter]

Well, yeah, but that cynicism that exists in some corners of mainstream media, like, I don't know if this is fair because I'm not a student of all this, but I feel like Vulture on the New York Magazine. They sometimes they even have like a hot radar they've got a term for, and they just call out basically what everyone's talking about in sort of, I put in quotes the cool circles. And I mention it only because it does seem to drive some pop culture successes and create some pop culture failures when it's discussed at sort of that again in quotes, that high level. And then it sort of filters out into less cynical parts of our country and our media. It drives, like, what films get seen. I mean, it's sort of the theory of, like, having critics. You know, it's like one person says something is good and then that starts to disseminate and then it actually forms a wave of either success or failure for some things.

[Will Arnett]

Right.

[Graydon Carter]

And I wonder if there, if that is a healthy thing that we, that we should have in media. My guess would be yes, but it's hurtful.

[Sean Hayes]

But at the same time, you know, like, everybody, excuse me, on the Internet, everybody's a critic. It's a sewer, by and large. But if you have people who have proper opinions and they're within the realms of accuracy, it can make a good difference. I think in the Internet, if word of mouth is the most powerful tool in the world and the Internet just lets it grow, go exponentially rather than arithmetically.

[Jason Bateman]

Well, the problem is, though, is with the Internet and with social media, is that often some of these voices all come at the same volume and volume that they don't deserve. And so things get lost in the shuffle a little bit. Jason, I think you were referring to the Approval matrix. Right. That they do. And there was something about SPY that did that, which is. It just held things up to a light and sort of brought them into focus a little bit. Things that I remember there was a piece you guys did. You probably don't even remember this, but there was a piece you did. You may have already left, but it was certainly really tonally right in line with the kind of thing that you had set forth at Spy, which was they had a woman holding a pair of rollerblades over her shoulder, and they had her go to different neighborhoods of the city to see what reactions she'd get in different reactions. They put her in the Upper west side, Upper east side, downtown, and what people would say to her at different street corners on the Upper east side.

[Will Arnett]

Guy's like, that's really funny.

[Jason Bateman]

Do you like to skate in the park? And then the Upper west side, the guy's like, hey, you look great. Why don't you put those down? Let's go get a drink. And then in Flatiron, the guy's like, why won't you talk to me?

[Sean Hayes]

Lower east side is get the.

[Graydon Carter]

Out of my face.

[Jason Bateman]

And that's the kind of thing that is really interesting. I do think that that sort of thing is missing because everybody is so nervous.

[Will Arnett]

Yes.

[Jason Bateman]

That's just about offending the. And also, everybody is so quick to be offended. And this is going to get. I hope this is be a pull quote about me railing against people being offended, but there is that there was a notion back there of like, I don't give a shit if you're offended. Who cares? As long as I'm not hurting anybody or saying I'm offended. Okay.

[Will Arnett]

Yeah.

[Graydon Carter]

Yeah. There's a healthy space for that, too, that I feel has been lacking in the last few years as we needed to make, and are still working on this sort of correction for those that. That are marginalized. But I think the consensus is starting to come out that maybe there was an overcorrection, and it's starting to come back to middle a little bit now. And so there's a healthy level of, hey, listen, offending you is part of the joke or part of this thing. And so there's some casualties that are a part of that metric.

[Jason Bateman]

What do you think about that shift that's going on right now? Graydon?

[Sean Hayes]

Will and I would know this better because we came from Canada, but the pendulum in America swings in great arcs like this, and in Britain, it swings like this, and in Canada, it swings like this. So America goes way out I mean, in the 1960s, you know, the pre love movement was much further out in America than it was in, say, in San Francisco, than it was in Toronto. But then it swings right back. So in the 1980s, the investment banker ethos was much more pronounced in New York than it was in Vancouver, say. So America is the. It just has larger swings, and so the extremes are greater. And I think it is coming. It will come. It's a correction from the far left, and then it's gone. Went way too far to the far right. And it will settle somewhere in the middle. You just hope that it does sooner rather than later.

[Will Arnett]

I think it will.

[Jason Bateman]

And of course, nobody's advocating for the marginalization of people who are different at all. And that's never been. You know, I think that anybody, you know, certainly all of us, I assume none of us, would ever advocate for that. But I must say, as someone. It makes sense for someone who likes to comment on culture and whose writing and whose profession is informed by that. Of course, moving to the States is a natural progression for you. Right. Because you've.

[Sean Hayes]

And you.

[Jason Bateman]

Yes, and me as well, of course. Yeah. Because there is that ceiling in Canada where you can only go so far, unfortunately. It's a great place to be from. It's a great place to live. Still. I wouldn't. I'm not suggesting anything otherwise.

[Sean Hayes]

Keep going.

[Graydon Carter]

Well, yeah, you got to put out the fire.

[Sean Hayes]

You're offending somebody here.

[Jason Bateman]

Yes, I am definitely offending. So how far have I dug down? Can I even see the top of the hole? You know. You know, I've told that story before. The difference between the Canadian lobster fishing men and the American lobster fishermen. Right.

[Will Arnett]

What is it?

[Jason Bateman]

They're walking on the road after their. After their day of lobster fishing in the. In the. The American lobster fisherman says to the Canadian, he says, I notice you don't have a top on your pot, thereby. Aren't you worried about your lobsters getting out? And the Canadian says, no, these here are Canadian lobsters. If one of them tries to get out, the other ones will pull them back down.

[Sean Hayes]

That's great.

[Jason Bateman]

That's great. And there's an element of truth to that. But moving to the States and starting Spy magazine and then moving to Vanity Fair, which has an even greater audience and even sort of a broader demographic, if you will, that must have been. You must have been very excited at the prospect of kind of opening up a huge demo to what you wanted to say and what you thought was important to talk about.

[Graydon Carter]

Yeah. And talk about Having a piece of media that anoints week to week, or was it month?

[Sean Hayes]

I think it was month to month.

[Graydon Carter]

Who is it? You know, you and Lorne Michaels were. Basically had the two levers that existed on putting two Canadians, by the way, Canadians here. You know, putting people on top of the mountain at your. At your. At your discretion, which was pretty incredible.

[Sean Hayes]

I didn't. It's funny looking back. And I realized some of what you say is it was evident to others, it never was. To me, it was. It was a matter of. Of survival for the most part. I wanted to. I had a lot of children, and I wanted to. I had to feed them and clothe them and educate them. And so when I got to Van, I was the least popular person to get there because we had spent five years at Spy making fun of the editor of the house, writing style of many of the contributors. So when I walked in, there was just. It was funereal, the whole mood of the place. And I didn't fire anybody for two years, but I. Eventually, there was most of the people. Some of the people were leftover just to talk about my inadequacies as they went around to dinner parties in New York. And so I. But I let everybody stay for two years, and I thought I'd give them a chance to come around my way of thinking. And then I got rid of these three troublemakers in one week after being there for two years. And all of a sudden it shifted and I could bring my children into the office. It wasn't as poisonous. And people started saying thank you and please and working together in a collegial way. And because I don't like office drama, I like people to work together. I think you get something better out of it. And then I sort of built it from there. And I was fortunate to have one of the great owners, Si Newhouse, who gave me the tools to succeed. He gave me the budget so I could bring in the. I thought it must have been the greatest stable of writers ever. The first writer I brought in was Christopher Hitchens. Wow. And he's great. Oh, he was heaven. And then, you know, also I had. I had photographers like Annie Leibowitz and Helmut Newton and Bruce Weber. So I was blessed by having these incredible colleagues. And I was so appreciative of their. What they did because, you know, taking pictures and writing stories is a lot harder work than being an edit and editor. You're just sort of a wage ape and kind of a. Kind of like a cross between a chef and an air traffic controller and a piece of mold just on your ceiling. We don't really have a point. But other than trying to assemble the thing each month and anyway, I was just. It was a great perch during one of the greatest periods. But by the same token, it was a golden age of magazines. But one of the reasons, anytime you have a golden age, it's a golden age because everybody is good. So every other editor was firing at all cylinders. All magazines were good in the 1990s. They were just. It was extraordinary, period. And also the magazine business attracted the best and the brightest then.

[Jason Bateman]

Right.

[Sean Hayes]

Right.

[Graydon Carter]

And we will be right back.

[Will Arnett]

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[Jason Bateman]

What was your ethos then when you got there at Vanity Fair, when you sat behind your desk for the first time in those first couple of years, going forward, what was your, what was your, did you have an objective? Like this is what we, the kind of stuff that we wanted that I want to do? Did you have something like that, a plan in mind?

[Sean Hayes]

In a way, nothing so formal, but, but sort of an evolving thought that I, what I wanted to do is every month present the reader with something that is highly, highly compelling, that they'll read with and have wonderful stories that could range 15 or 20,000 words, which is a fifth the size of an average book, and that they would come back the next month. I used to write thank you notes to all my contributors every month. Thank you notes to our advertisers who paid for the journalism. The advertising came in at about $100,000 a page and that sort of, you know, paid for the heat and the light and the electricity. But then there was, I got other ideas that really changed the Direction of the magazine from one, from David Halberstam to create something called the New Establishment, which is the. In the past, you know, the establishments were the head of, you know, General Tire and General Motors and a bunch of New York banks. But in the. In the early mid to mid-1990s, America became an entertainment culture and economy. And so what we shipped around the world weren't cars and tires and things like that. It was intellectual property in terms of like video games and movies and television shows and magazines and technology. And so we did a huge portfolio that Annie shot. And it sort of showed the world that there was a new. Because there was a new economy. There was a new establishment to that economy. And then doing the Oscar party, which was started off small and terrified that it'd be a failure, and it just sort of grew each year.

[Jason Bateman]

It kind of rivals the Oscars itself in terms of its prestige. As you're well aware, lots of people will often just go to the party and not the Oscars themselves. And a lot of people who are big film stars, people names that everybody, all of us know. And of course, the three of us have gone many times and enjoyed that. And it has become its own thing, which is quite miraculous really, if you think about it. It's kind of in some ways dethroned the Oscars at its own party in a way which, you know, you spoke, you mentioned something that's interesting, the idea that. But America's true expert is its culture. And its obsession with celebrity peaked. You know, it reached the peak of fever pitch, if you will, in the 90s, as my father calls it celebrity in a way that I think that he does that just to demean the term itself. And he will claim that that's the actual way that you should pronounce it. But he also says to motto. Here's my point. It occurs to me, and I've learned long thought this. If we were really smart about wanting to sort of pedal influence around the world in a way that America seems hell bent on doing, we would. And this would never go down with the people who, you know, with the military industrial complex, which is, you know, a trillion dollars, I think, as of yesterday, a trillion dollar a year business. What we could do and much more efficiently is if we wanted to influence a certain, certain country and its people, et cetera, all we need to do are at the time I used to say drop our DVDs of our TV shows and dumb them down as much as we're dumbed down. If we could pump in Netflix and Amazon prime and Max to all these countries for free. They would immediately lay down their weapons because they'd become just as. As dumb as we are. And. And.

[Sean Hayes]

And.

[Jason Bateman]

And just as.

[Sean Hayes]

Or as smart or. Or.

[Jason Bateman]

Sorry. Sorry. Or as smart. Thank you for allowing me, but do you know what I mean? I mean, that would seem to me to be the answer to all of it. Right.

[Sean Hayes]

Well, it's an element of soft power, and we've sort of given up all our soft power in the last three months.

[Jason Bateman]

Why don't we. Why we should be pumping them with TikTok and YouTube and paying for it and starlinking it into their country. And believe me, they'll be like, hey, listen, we gotta go. We're gonna go and fight on the front line. Like, hang on a second. I just gotta watch this thing about a cat teaching itself to read. Do you know what I mean?

[Sean Hayes]

Yeah, I mean, we do do that in a certain way. I mean, America, if you look at the way most kids dress anywhere in the world, they're wearing, you know, American style trainers, blue jeans, T shirts with something written on them, and plaid. Everybody looks like they're in a writing room no matter what country you're in.

[Jason Bateman]

You know, it's true. And you see. And you see, Ral, you see these people protesting, and they have effigies of the president and whatever, and they're wearing baseball caps backwards, and they're wearing a guess jean sweatshirt, and you're like, wait a second. And the irony is completely lost on everybody.

[Sean Hayes]

That's our gift to the world.

[Graydon Carter]

Well, and sort of expanding on that. Graydon, do you have an opinion about what sort of the current prognosis is for America being able to bear and withstand what some people are saying kind of the hit that the American brand is taking across the world? Like, do you think after everything settles, at whatever point that is, that America will still hold a respectable place in the world?

[Sean Hayes]

I think it'll all depend on the next sort of three or four years. I think it's really tarnished. And we're leaving for Europe next weekend and for a spell, and. And we have these little pins made up that we made up for our airmail shop over in Hudson street here. And it's just.

[Jason Bateman]

It's a great shop, by the way. I was there two weeks ago. It's fantastic.

[Sean Hayes]

And the little pins, they just say, I didn't vote for them. And so when you're in a market in France or, you know, the pub in England, people, it's just because it'll be Difficult. It was difficult during the years of George Bush. George W. Bush as well. And it may take a generation for the sort of the so called American brand to correct.

[Jason Bateman]

Graydon, do you want me to send you over a couple of these Canada patches?

[Sean Hayes]

Love them.

[Jason Bateman]

They are useful to have. They are really useful.

[Sean Hayes]

All of a sudden, everybody who travels is a Canadian. You have Americans practicing their Canadian patois, you know, because Canadians end every sentence with a question mark. Like, an American will say, I'm going to the store. A Canadian will say, I'm going to the store. As if, like, can I get you something? Sort of thing.

[Will Arnett]

Right. Great. As far as journalism goes. And kind of to what Jason was saying about Scott Galloway. You know Scott Galloway? Oh, yeah, yeah. We gotta have him on the show.

[Sean Hayes]

He's brilliant.

[Jason Bateman]

I know.

[Will Arnett]

Yeah, he's great. Very, very smart man. And I saw this clip either again on TikTok or Instagram or something, and he said, we could take over your.

[Jason Bateman]

House in two minutes. Yeah, you wouldn't get off the couch.

[Sean Hayes]

Sorry, go ahead.

[Will Arnett]

Exactly. He said, nobody wants to read anymore. That's not fair, period. And he goes, everybody's getting their information from obviously TikTok or Instagram, because nobody wants to sit down and read articles or magazines or books or anything. And that said, people know that, people of influence know that. So they'll just speak to these kids or these people about what it is they should know. And that's how they get their information out.

[Sean Hayes]

Okay, Well, a counterargument to that would be that the fact is the New York Times has never been more successful. It's never been larger. If you look at a magazine like, say, the Atlantic, the Atlantic is exponentially larger and more influential than it was, say, 15 years ago.

[Will Arnett]

But that's a certain demographic.

[Sean Hayes]

I think it is a certain demographic. By the same token, most people watch TV with the. Even with. Most people watch TV with the Chiron, you know, the whatever.

[Will Arnett]

Yeah.

[Sean Hayes]

Professional show. People call that subtitles. Subtitles. And so young people, I think it's harder and harder and I have a feeling that most of us, if we were growing up in with TikTok, and that we would have read less than. And. But it also, you know, most. I have five kids and I know that some of them didn't read that much when they were in their teens, but they're all huge readers now. They're all writers. And so they're all huge readers. You just have to wait a bit and it'll come around.

[Jason Bateman]

Sean and Jason, what are you guys waiting For. Yeah. I always say to these guys, you.

[Graydon Carter]

Know, I. I've got a. A boring story I won't bore you with about why I'm not a great reader. But. But I will tell you that.

[Jason Bateman]

Does it have to do with. You don't know how to read?

[Graydon Carter]

Is that lines top to bottom, left to right, that there's. Now you can. Every article online is now you can listen to it.

[Will Arnett]

Right. That's what I'm saying.

[Graydon Carter]

And. And it is something that. That's helped both of my girls, where they have these large reading assignments for school, and now all those books are audiobooks as well. And so one of the teachers suggested, and I thought it was a great idea, get them the audiobook so they can listen to it as they read it.

[Sean Hayes]

I agree.

[Graydon Carter]

And that's helpful. And you get some momentum going. You get engaged in the story. And now maybe you don't need that crutch for chapters five through 10. You can actually just read the book. And so. So I do. That's helpful. That's somewhat of a phenomenon where, like you say, the New York Times, Graydon, I would imagine their online business is larger than their print business.

[Sean Hayes]

I think it's nine tenths of it. But still, they're reading it online, but they're still reading.

[Jason Bateman]

I will say that, though. And I do bang this drum quite often. But there is a certain. Reading it for me, reading at the end of the day, I find to be such a extreme luxury. And it's very calming because we do live in a digital world. I'm looking at my screen all day, I'm looking at my computer, at my thing, whatever. And to have that moment for 45 minutes every night to read. I do find that it is so calming in this sort of chaotic world in which we live. If nothing else, apart from the fact that it's interesting and you can be all the other great things about reading, but in that way. And I would especially as we get older or I'm not speaking to you. Great. I'm speaking to Sean and Jason because I am older. You need to calm down. You need to calm down, both of you.

[Will Arnett]

Yeah, no, I read. I read a lot. I still read a lot online and stuff.

[Graydon Carter]

But what do you. What do you attribute, Graydon?

[Sean Hayes]

The.

[Graydon Carter]

The, the. The. Not the demise, but the, the way that magazines have. Have not. You know, you say, like the New York Times, for example, never been more profitable, yet it is 9, 10 online now. Why did the same not translate for the periodicals?

[Sean Hayes]

I mean, the financial crash of 2008 was an issue because the first thing that people could take off their balance off their accounts were advertising, because then you don't have to fire anybody. So the advertising started disappearing. And then even in New York City, there used to be a newsstand at every major intersection, sometimes one across. Across the street from each other. There was a newsstand in every office building. Now when you see a newsstand on the street, it's. It's often a like, movie set thing because they're gone. And in office buildings, they. If there was, wherever there was a newsstand, it's usually they're selling, you know, gum and flip flops and lotto tickets. So just the fact that you used to be able to see magazines everywhere you went, you know, in Los Angeles, those. Those things in Hollywood. But the, you know, the long walls of magazines, I love those. Anyway, that. That's sort of. They're gone. And I think a lot of magazines companies were late to transform, transfer their. The way a magazine looks to an electronic version. And the thing about airmail is airmail was put together by magazine people, and we didn't have to work with a legacy brand and then transfer it to the Internet or digital that we built. We started it from that. And so I think that made a difference there. And, you know, I read, you know, 20 magazines a month, but I read them all on my iPad.

[Jason Bateman]

Right.

[Graydon Carter]

Yeah, but before you go too far past airmail, you know, I just love the. What you. The. It's so. And this is probably not the right term, but there's nothing intimidating about the way it comes at you at its initial point in that it isn't. It's an email. And there's just like, here's. It's basically like looking at the table of contents.

[Will Arnett]

What are you talking about? The subscription to a Vanity Fair or.

[Sean Hayes]

No, to air mail.

[Will Arnett]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Graydon Carter]

Graydon's new thing is this thing called airmail. So you get this email and here's like five stories that you can click on that. Then if you decide to click, then it expands into the story. So there's just like, you don't have to buy a whole magazine or you don't have to go to a magazine's website or anything and, like, have to, like, deal with all the advertising and the big pictures and all that. It's just. Just here's some ideas, some stories. If it's interest to you, click on it. If not, go to the next email. Like, so it's not in your face. The medicine goes down easy and they happen to be incredible stories. So, I don't know, I just think you tack to a format that speaks to the current reader's appetite as far as, you know, the attention they have to get.

[Jason Bateman]

And there's a tonal shift, too, right, jb? I mean, there's a tonal shift in it from Vanity Fair to Air Mail. That's. That's.

[Graydon Carter]

Yeah, there's no selling element to it that, that, that I think people have grown sort of an allergy to. And you're just. You're very current on that, which is not surprising coming from somebody like that.

[Sean Hayes]

Well, and we wanted to look beautiful because I think design means is everything these days. And look at the amount of work that goes into an iPhone, say. So we. You know, I, as I say, I'd written thank you notes to all my advertisers at Vanity Fair, and I. So I wanted those advertisers in Airmail. I didn't want, you know, advertising for, like, I don't know, I don't know, you know, foot fungus or, you know, Geico insurance ads. They wanted, you know, much better to have Hermes and Dior, Cherelle, Florence. So, yeah, so all the advertisers, once I got Hermes, all the other advertisers felt safe coming in. But it's put out by people from Time magazine when I worked there, Spy magazine and Vanity Fair. That's the. That's the core group. And then there's about eight young people who. Who are in their mid-20s, and they form the core. In the future.

[Jason Bateman]

Yeah. Well, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention our mutual friend, the great Linda Wells, whom I adore.

[Sean Hayes]

Me, too.

[Jason Bateman]

Yeah. Whom I absolutely adore and have known for many years. And she's a big part of Airmail. I'm not telling you, I'm telling our listener, our single listener. But I will say that when you were at Vanity Fair, it was a. There was a real balance between covering high society profiles, if you will, celebrity and investigative journalism. I remember there's a great article that I've referenced many times and had people read, which was about the Sultan of Brunei's brother. That story is an incredible story. Still holds up. It's incredible, it's hilarious, and it's right on point, and it's scathing and yet very fair. So you. You do that at Vanity Fair, and then now that you're at airmail, how would you define what is your relationship? Well, I was gonna say, what's your relationship with celebrity culture? Before I Say that what was. Because you were at the forefront of defining celebrity and covering celebrity culture back at Vanity Fair, and you still are at airmail, in a way. Did you. When you were in that position, what kind of incoming calls did you get from people from publicists and celebrities themselves who wanted you to either amend something that you wrote about them. And I know you already mentioned this about Mr. Tisch, but if some. But what celebrities did you get?

[Graydon Carter]

Did you ever get a call from that Donald Trump pseudonym, John Baron, John Barron?

[Sean Hayes]

No, but I would get calls from Trump. And once they invented Twitter, he went to town on me. He would call me a floppy. I was a loser. The Waverly Inn was a failing restaurant. The Oscar part wasn't hot. The magazine was terrible, but I would take any phone call. But most of the. Doing the covers was actually the least favorite part of the job. The fact is, movie, you know, show people like you are more attractive than the rest of us. So having a very attractive person on the COVID who happened to be talented was a great way of getting the attention of the reader so that they'd pick it up and. And they wouldn't be embarrassed putting it on their coffee table. But once you got that, that was sort of like the wrapping. And then the magazine itself was sort of the gift in the box. But most of the calls, and we did get a lot of complaints, but they were routed through the office of the person who. Of the people who booked the covers. So I would get occasional complaints. Most of the complaints often would come from staff members. And once, when I remember Christopher Hitchens did a. A pretty rough story on Mother Teresa, and he accused her of, like, cozying up to dictators and that sort of thing for money. It came out of the blue, and it was wild. And Ronaldo Herrera, who's the husband of Carolina Herrera, who was on the staff, and he came, a staunch Catholic, and he came into the office, stormed into the office, Grant, you've gone too far this time. I said, what do you mean? He said, mother Tracy, I'm canceling my subscription. I said, you can't cancel your subscription. You get it for free. At Spy magazine once we did a story on the 10 most litigious new Yorkers, and Gore Vidal was on that list. And we were listing the phone book, and he called me up and he said, I really object to this. I'd never met him before. I really object to this. And if you don't. If you don't take my name, if you don't correct that, I'll sue you. And I say, I said, wait a minute. If we don't take, we don't correct that you're one of the most litigious New Yorkers, you're going to sue us? He said, yes. And I said, don't you get the irony in his own thing that he just hung up?

[Jason Bateman]

That's great. That's so good.

[Graydon Carter]

We'll be right back.

[Will Arnett]

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[Jason Bateman]

Your new book, Graydon is When the Going Was Good, which is out now. And talk a little bit about that. First of all. Well, what a great title.

[Graydon Carter]

You're clearly not talking about yourself because things continue to have a nice arc.

[Jason Bateman]

You're talking about a cultural shift. Yeah. Is that sort of talk a little bit about the book?

[Sean Hayes]

No, I think that the, I think that the, you know, if you look back and the 80s, the 90s and the aughts with the. Except, I mean, the 80s and 90s in particular, it was a great time in America. It was very aspirational. The middle class was doing well. We still had two World Trade center towers. You could get on an airplane without stripping down. There was no cell phones or social media. And it was a. It was just a much more natural, organic time. When my wife and I happen to love watching Frasier before we go to bed because they're like perfectly written plays and there's no. Nobody has a cell phone. And there's just something, you know, I mean, the same thing with Will and Grace or Friends or. I'm trying to think what else Seinfeld say. And, and there's. It was just a great time. And so the 80s, 90s and aughts, with the exception of, you know, obviously 9, 11 and everything that came after that were a great time for, for television, a great time for movies. And I think television has overtaken movies now too, in terms of driving the culture. Magazines do not drive the culture like they used to. It's obviously the, you know, things like Instagram and television in a big way.

[Will Arnett]

So do you think we'll ever get back to what you're describing?

[Sean Hayes]

No. No.

[Jason Bateman]

Ever.

[Will Arnett]

Or a version of it.

[Sean Hayes]

A version of it, perhaps. I think young people will come to love magazines the way they love vinyl, but there'll be specialty magazines. They won't have millions circulation and they will be largely visual. Like, you know, you go to like casa magazines on 8th Avenue over here.

[Jason Bateman]

Yeah.

[Sean Hayes]

And there's a ton of these big, expensive, $20, perfect bound, thick, thick paper magazines. And they, there's, they get scooped up by young people, not by people over 30.

[Jason Bateman]

There's one of the, there's a, one of those great. They're about four. Every corner from, from West Broadway to 6th Avenue. There are three or four bodegas on every corner. There's that one at the corner of Sullivan and Prince that still has a really robust magazine section. And you know that, you know the one I'm talking about.

[Sean Hayes]

I know exactly where you're talking.

[Jason Bateman]

I've been listening. I've been living half a block from it for the last sort of six months and it's been phenomenal. And I've gone in there, I found myself going in there from time to time and perusing magazines again. And I feel like I'm stepping back in time.

[Will Arnett]

I think it'll, it'll come back. I think.

[Jason Bateman]

What do you, what do you, what do you think is. We talk often about, and we reference it here today, the effect of social media has had on our culture, which to me in large part I think has been quite a negative effect. What do you think the future is for things like social media going forward? Do you think there will be a whiplash or a backlash, rather?

[Will Arnett]

I was gonna say, I think I'm hoping that because I wasn't asking you.

[Jason Bateman]

I mean.

[Will Arnett]

No, no, but I want Greg to say because. No, it's funny because you brought up social media because I think we've so overshared our lives in such a massive way and billions of people now we know everything about everybody always that I think if I'm guessing correctly, we will go the opposite way in 5, 10, 20 years, whatever it is. I don't know where people will be like, wait, I've, we've all overshared. I'm going to get off. I think it's cooler to hang out without it. I think it was a long way away, but I think that's what's gonna happen.

[Jason Bateman]

Graded.

[Sean Hayes]

When you say 100%, I think, yeah, I totally agree with Sean that it is, again, it's a correction. And so the correction, now you share everything. Pictures of your children, pictures of your children's birthday, them having cake on their nose and all the rest of it. I have five kids. None of them have a social media presence and no tattoos either. So that's a major accomplishment. But it, I don't have any social media presence. And I think, and I know this sounds strange for somebody who's just written a memoir, but I'm a very private person and I think a private life will have greater currency in maybe three to five years than it does now. And it'll be considered much cooler than having a social for young people, than having a media presence.

[Jason Bateman]

And it gives you more cachet, Much more cache.

[Sean Hayes]

There's a mystery.

[Will Arnett]

Right, right, right.

[Graydon Carter]

Well, it's so great and kind of on this sort of this cultural transition period we find ourselves in, hopefully. And you being the head of a major media effort, talk to us about your process with you and your team when you decide what stories it is you're going to, to go forward with there on airmail. Is there any agenda, such a pejorative? But do you consider the effect and the move that you guys can make for people as you try to encourage them towards a better, healthier cultural position? Or is it just stories of interest to you guys personally?

[Sean Hayes]

I mean, I put the next issue together on a Sunday morning, but. And it's my favorite process of the week. But by and large we look for stories that have not appeared in the American papers. It's sort of intended as the weekend edition of a non existent international newspaper like the old International Herald Tribune. And the fact is there's so much to celebrate about life. It's not all about Donald Trump that we have. You know, it's hard to avoid Donald Trump. I mean, it's certainly worth the effort to avoid him, but it's almost impossible. And so he's. He winds up in there. But it was designed as a. It was, we started it during the first Trump administration. I was living in France and it was designed as a sort of not the same. Like every single newsletter you get in America is, you know, it's all basic Boston to Washington sell a corridor news. And we have very little of that. There's enough of that to go around. So ours is very international. Stories have to be just interesting and things that reflect changes in the culture, hopefully for the better. Not always. And just sort of spirited writing, you know, that could be funny about informative and, you know, some new fresh voices. And it's just something that you can wake up Saturday morning and read it without completely hanging your head in despair over the news. Today I took the New York Times alerts off my phone. Yeah, every 45 seconds is like the end of the world.

[Jason Bateman]

And it was just, I know, same same here. And I've been doing my best to try to avoid it.

[Will Arnett]

Totally same.

[Jason Bateman]

You've been a, for lack of a better word, a tastemaker for decades. It's just simply true. What cultural trends? Are there any that you now that you miss most or, or. And what do you think? What cultural trends do you think are wildly overrated now?

[Sean Hayes]

Well, social media, as I think Sean points out, that it will have a swing back because the not sharing everything will be a value in your. Both in your life and your personality and your interactions with others. I think kindness would make it be a wonderful addition back in the world because I think, you know, the sort of wanton cruelty you see coming out of Washington is a. It sort of reflects badly in us, even though most of us are not like that. And I don't think it's going to get better soon, but I think it will get better. And I think so too. He's. He's a very strange man. I've known him for 40 years. He's both loved me and hated me. And he reads young. You know, he reads like a young 78, whereas, boy, Biden read like an old 81.

[Jason Bateman]

I know you gotta give him that credit. It's hard not to.

[Sean Hayes]

I know.

[Graydon Carter]

Graydon, at the great risk of offending you.

[Sean Hayes]

Okay.

[Jason Bateman]

Go ahead. Uh. Oh. Oh, boy. Oh, no. This is his favorite.

[Graydon Carter]

Can you please walk me through the genesis of your incredible and impressive hair?

[Sean Hayes]

Oh, my God. We'll take a good look at it because it's disappearing as we speak.

[Graydon Carter]

No, no, it's. No, no, what it is, is it's one of my favorite things about you, always has been to the extent you're comfortable. Can you please walk us through how it started and what the process is to make? Is there a pick involved?

[Will Arnett]

Yeah, because put a baton in your hand, you can conduct the New York film.

[Graydon Carter]

I just fucking love it so much.

[Sean Hayes]

No, I had this hair. It's the same hair I have on the COVID of my book when I was 30. And it's sort of, you know, in the old days when I didn't have much money, you get it all cut off and you wait three months and it would grow back. Right. And now I get a cut every month or so. And it's just. But it is. It's gone gray. And there. If I'm out in Los Angeles and I go, and there's a lot of people my age in the room. I'm the only man with gray hair, which I find really amazing. How does that possibly.

[Jason Bateman]

It has something to do with the water out here.

[Graydon Carter]

I think of it is just. I just love it because it's just a perfect juxtaposition between this incredible place of, oh, Influence and success and sophistication that you hold. And it's sort of offset. I mean, it's like Einstein, you know, like Einstein was like the greatest brain ever, yet he had great hair. He counterbalanced it with.

[Sean Hayes]

Well, Pete Davidson once said. Pete. Pete Davidson told a friend of my. My daughter, he said, your dad, he looks like. And with that hair, he looks like he should be on money. Which I think.

[Jason Bateman]

Well, it sort of. You know, there's a confidence to it, which is. Which is intoxicating.

[Sean Hayes]

That's code for, what a fool. Who would do that?

[Jason Bateman]

No, not at all. No.

[Sean Hayes]

Anybody who says, how brave of you to wear that or something like that?

[Jason Bateman]

No, the. The opposite. The opposite. Well, great. I'll leave you with this. And again, we pointed out all the great things. Spy magazine, Vanity Fair, air mail, and now your book, when the Going Was Good. After. After.

[Graydon Carter]

Don't forget the Waverly Inn.

[Sean Hayes]

And the Waverly.

[Jason Bateman]

And the Waverly Inn, which. Sorry, the Waverly Inn, which is. I must admit, I haven't been to in a long time, but I love the Waverly Inn.

[Sean Hayes]

And you can bake a resident through my email.

[Jason Bateman]

Is that true?

[Sean Hayes]

Yeah, I do all the seating. I do the seating every night. We'll treat you well.

[Graydon Carter]

No, fantastic.

[Jason Bateman]

Oh, my God, what a dream. I'm coming back.

[Sean Hayes]

I mean, don't put it on your website or anything like that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[Jason Bateman]

Oh, believe me, I'm gonna guard it with my life.

[Graydon Carter]

I will tell you, and this probably won't be much of a compliment because I'm probably one in a long line, but I just finished doing this show, and it's about an incredibly beautiful hip restaurant on the Lower east side called Black Shots of Inside of Waverly Inn was up on our production designer's board, and we basically modeled the aesthetic in there is just so incredibly beautiful.

[Sean Hayes]

And built down in Atlanta.

[Graydon Carter]

No, actually, we shot it in New York. We built an entire restaurant at Steiner.

[Sean Hayes]

Oh, my God.

[Jason Bateman]

It would be great to do. Let's do something like, now that we have graded here, like, let's do a thing where, like, we get Thoreau banned from the Waverly in forever. Like, you know what I mean? Don't let him know.

[Graydon Carter]

Don't see Justin Thoreau anymore.

[Jason Bateman]

Like, he just. You're always busy. You're full.

[Sean Hayes]

So Con Ad has shut us down. Yes, but when we opened it, we wouldn't take reservations from the 203 area code because that's Greenwich and that's where all the hedge fund guys Were so. So they'd make a reservation. We'd say, I'm sorry, shut. You know, Con Ed.

[Jason Bateman]

Listen, Graydon, you're speaking our language. I have said many times, nobody is more responsible for the destruction of this planet than, you know, sort of private equity guys, 100 guys and bankers, they have absolutely. Except for Dandies, who is one of the all time great guys, everybody.

[Graydon Carter]

One of the all time great guys, double Ds.

[Jason Bateman]

But I want to ask you this as a sort of parting shot, if you will. What do you. What. What would you like your. God, this is a tough one to answer, I'm sure. What. What would you like your legacy to be? If you've even thought in those terms as a Canadian, you probably never have. No.

[Sean Hayes]

I mean, first of all, I'm really proud of being a Canadian, and especially now. I'm sure you feel the same way. I like Mark Carney, and I think that, you know, you just want to leave. If you got to a beach and it's filled with, you know, candy wrappers, you know, my inclination would be, and I'm sure, you know, for you guys as well, to sort of clean up the candy wrappers and try to leave something in better shape than when you got there. And in large part, we do that through our children. And it's my kids. I'm very proud of them. And they're truly good humans and funny and well read, and that's because that's your legacy, because they're going to go on after you're turned to dust and all the rest of it and, you know, leave a modest, you know, body of decent work behind you.

[Graydon Carter]

What a great answer.

[Will Arnett]

Yeah.

[Jason Bateman]

Well, listen, Graydon, thank you so much for joining us.

[Sean Hayes]

Such an honor. I mean, I'm really.

[Jason Bateman]

The honor is ours. Yeah. We've been. We've been such fans and we've spoken about you before, the three of us have, and we've been just a fan of everything you've done from sports. Oh. To Vanity Fair to airmail. And now your book, when the Going was Good is out now for. For all our listener. So I. I listener. All our listeners.

[Sean Hayes]

Tell him to get there quickly then.

[Jason Bateman]

Or. Or her.

[Sean Hayes]

Or them. Or them.

[Jason Bateman]

I encourage him or her or them or whoever it is to go out and. And. And get it today. Great. And we wish you nothing but continued success. And thank you so much.

[Sean Hayes]

Thank you so much, guys.

[Will Arnett]

Yeah. Nice to meet you, Graydon.

[Jason Bateman]

Yeah.

[Sean Hayes]

Okay. Pleasure.

[Graydon Carter]

Thank you. Cheers.

[Jason Bateman]

Bye.

[Graydon Carter]

Bye, buddy. Nice guest, Willie. That is now, you know, again, every time we have somebody that is not one of these big fancy a list celebs whom we love. It is. I just love talking to other folks.

[Jason Bateman]

Well, I mean, think about it. And it is true. Not only. And Jay, you said it. I said it. Sean, you said a version of. Of it, that he was a taste maker, if only because he was. Because he was on the front lines of reporting what was happening culturally, whether it was a film or television or art or media, etc. Because of that position, he ends up in a lot of ways steering culture because of what he decides to report on.

[Graydon Carter]

Lorne Michaels is still doing it. Like, who's hosting Saturday Night Live and who's a musical guest will tell you who's the top of the zeitgeist.

[Jason Bateman]

He and Lauren are still doing it. And again, I should be pointed out that these are Canadians. And I think that there's something to that.

[Will Arnett]

Fresh eyes.

[Jason Bateman]

Well, Canadians, we. We just inhabit a just a slightly higher place in the space.

[Graydon Carter]

You're breaking up a little bit. Are you going over a canyon? We're losing you.

[Jason Bateman]

No, I've got full bars. Shut off this mic.

[Graydon Carter]

You turn off this mic.

[Jason Bateman]

Well, you know what? There is this, and I've spoken about this before, as Canadians, we do. We grew up. We are so culturally close and geographically close. So we are kind of observers of American culture in that way. And very close. And so we do.

[Will Arnett]

Wait, what do you think that is now, though? If it's not Vanity Fair, maybe it still is Vanity Fair. That is the quote, tastemaker. Like, where do people look? Because it seems so fragmented now.

[Jason Bateman]

Yeah, well, you know what? It's much more. I think there's been. Divided it into these different pieces. Vanity Fair was much more of a catch all back at the time.

[Will Arnett]

Right, right.

[Jason Bateman]

That inhabited a big space. I don't know if there's anything that.

[Will Arnett]

Unless it's this air mail, which I didn't. I didn't.

[Jason Bateman]

I think a lot of podcasts do.

[Will Arnett]

Oh, yeah, that's true.

[Jason Bateman]

Maybe Smartless. Maybe the Smartless podcast.

[Graydon Carter]

You know, I haven't heard that, but I did hear about it and I hear it's not great.

[Jason Bateman]

That's probably one of the. It's a little overrated is what I'm very overrated. And these guys, they swear too much. They, they. They interrupt people. But you know what they do have really down pat by reference, our own by. As the. By.

[Graydon Carter]

Oh, you mean how they say goodbye.

[Jason Bateman]

Meta much. Meta much.

[Sean Hayes]

Smart lies. Smart lies.

[Jason Bateman]

Smartless is 100% organic and artisanally Handcrafted by Bennett Barbico, Michael Grant, Terry and Rob Armjarf Smart Less.

[Graydon Carter]

Hey friends. Jason here. We're so excited that Smartless has officially joined the Sirius XM family. We can't wait to announce new surprise guests who we know that you'll love. If you want to be the first to hear new episodes ad free whole week early, subscribe to SiriusXM podcasts plus on Apple Podcasts or visit siriusxm.com podcastsplus to start your free trial today. The Clorox Toilet Wand. I mean, I can just stop right there. Does that not sound like a pleasure? The Clorox Toilet Wand uses disposable scrubbing pads, pads preloaded with cleaning solution that brings clean to a whole new level. You got to appreciate the efficiency even if you're not cleaning your toilet for fun, okay? The Clorox Toilet Wand is an all in one toilet cleaning system that comes complete with a sleek bathroom caddy and disposable scrubbing pads preloaded with cleaning solution. Just click, swish and toss for a fuss free clean. Notice how it didn't say toilet brush? It's a wand and it cleans like magic.

[Jason Bateman]

Magic.

[Graydon Carter]

Visit Amazon to purchase your Clorox Toilet Wand today.

[Jason Bateman]

At Capella University.

[Sean Hayes]

Learning online doesn't mean learning alone. You'll get support from people who care.

[Jason Bateman]

About your success, like your enrollment counselor.

[Will Arnett]

Who gets to know you and the goals you'd like to achieve.

[Sean Hayes]

You'll also get a designated academic coach who's with you throughout your entire program. Plus, career coaches are available to help you navigate your professional goals.

[Will Arnett]

A different future is closer than you.

[Jason Bateman]

Think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella Eduardo.