My phone call with Tucker Carlson.
It was about Zyn and boarding school
My latest story for GQ is out this month! It’s in the print issue with Novak Djokovic on the cover, and they put it online this morning. The story is all about my favorite drug, Zyn, and it includes:
My phone call with Tucker Carlson the morning after the 2024 election
Pregame kitchens on Long Island, and the nostalgia I have for Snapple iced tea bottles full of dip spit
A conversation with John Coogan (remember Excel?)
Lacrosse players
Travis Parman from Philip Morris International, who might get the prize for the thickest Tennessee accent in the state of Connecticut
A Zyn fanatic who told me he started using Zyn to be a good friend; one of his boys really wanted that sign for his apartment, so their whole friend group helped him out by racking up points. “We held a sign lighting party at his apartment when he finally got it,” he told me. I found this story unironically touching.
I’m so grateful for the editors at GQ for reading Feed Me and assigning this story. It’s a radically different experience than writing on Substack for me, and the process of being edited like this (last year, I wrote this story about members’ clubs for GQ) makes me a better newsletter writer.
Happy to answer any questions about what I learned about Zyn in the comments.
Honestly, if we had a water cooler I’d probably be talking to you about my Zyn story.
Stephen Starr (Buddakan, Upland, Le Coucou) has bought Babbo and Lupa from Joe Bastianich, Mario Batali’s ex partner. Mark Ladner (Lupa, Babbo, Del Posto) will be the chef. Is it too much to ask for the return of the 100-layer lasagna?
If I had a dollar for every new fundraising deck I’ve seen for a “social spa concept” this year, I’d have $6 or $7. I know Othership is the popular one because it’s like dark and sexy and slightly cult-y. I’m partial to the Wall Street Baths, because even though they smell like sweat and borscht, I’ve met three men there who have changed the course of my life. Friend of the Letter and Bloomberg reporter Joe Weisenthal posts the East Village Turkish baths on his Instagram Story every weekend, and I’d trust that man’s wellness guidance, although I don’t know why. Dazed is making a case for it being a social thing, which I like — my head has been better since my best friend and I started catching up over pilates and saunas, instead of spending two hours at The Gate (although I do love that bar…).
Chin implants and hypermasculine jawlines are all the rage in Hollywood. The cherubic boy chub is gone. The men all look like Handsome Squidwards or young Marlon Brandos. You guys will have to pay me to hear about the doctors who read Feed Me who have invited me into their offices and told me to get chin filler <3
This isn’t a new trend, but I’ll observe it: some of your friends don’t know how to plan fun trips, but your favorite creators do. So
If Sky Ting Yoga’s summer retreat list doesn’t cover one of the spots on your summer bucket list… I want to see your summer bucket list. I considered going on one of these. (I hear that the Pantelleria house is the same one in A Bigger Splash).
I think a weeklong Feed Me trip would be fun but I wouldn’t want to teach yoga or cook or anything. I’d just want to kick it and talk a lot. I will say, you run the risk of a school field trip vibe if these are executed incorrectly.
Nobody is reporting on rhode like Rachel Strugatz. Last night in Puck’s Line Sheet newsletter, Strugatz reported that Hailey Bieber’s beauty brand “made about $90 million in revenue from its website in the final two months of 2024 — —close to what Rhode was once projecting for the entire year.” Mind you, that’s without any retail partnerships! Also mind you, we don’t know what the marketing spend was over those two months. But Puck’s big news was that rhode is launching in Sephora later this year, and I’m excited to see how that brand comes to life within the four walls of the beauty retailer.
also wrote about rhode this week, specifically the copy and campaign surrounding the launch of their new lipliner (“In the campaign, they got a lil loony with abstracting the idea of ‘shape’ into an almost there fitness theme, with a mini-skirted Hails photographed lifting a tan-colored dumbbell, and pop princess Tate McRae posing like a cheerleading flyer, abs aglow.”)Charli’s devil ears in her new W cover remind me of baby Sofia’s.
I think you'll regret using and writing about Zyn. The health consequences from smoking have more to do with cardio (as buried in the article) as they do with lungs. So the pace and volume at which you're taking in the drug is likely worse for you than that of cigarettes even though the method feels safer. Smoking looks cool at least.
The only "free lunch" I see is coffee.
Tucker- We know he’d much rather be cranking out articles like a William Buckley or Gore Vidal. He has a soft spot for all the legacy men’s magazines.
Good reporting on a phenomenon that isn’t limited to a few neighborhoods in one city, but has really crossed all kinds of class lines and identities.