Max Tani: Eat, Sleep, Scoop, Repeat
Plus, going Raisin Mode
VANCOUVER — The spring sun hangs low over the Inlet as I tip my glass back and swallow a mouthful of warm dregs.
Rum Raisin-flavoured cider.
Dark and sweet.
9.8 percent.
Straight to the dome.
A short intermission from my life of semi-sobriety.
Easter Sunday on the coast. Not risen but rising. Certainly rising. A cherry blossom in the breeze; pink-cheeked, elegant, behind dark sunglasses, wrapped in a blanket pulled from The Cider House hostess stand.
The patio is in the heart of Kitsilano. Over my shoulder, a Frenchie at a neighbouring restaurant rests furtively on the sidewalk, her face nuzzled in a dog bed her parents (presumably) brought from home.
It is the third day of my four-day weekend and I’ve had a glass of sangria and a Rum Raisin cider.
I lower the glass from my lips.
Going Raisin Mode, I say.
The table murmurs with approval. They have to. That’s how you go Raisin Mode.
At least, I think it is. This is the first we’ve ever done it — inspired after Kate decided to try the concoction as part of her cider flight.
And so a round of Rum Raisins for the table; Raisins all around!
Anything not think about work for a little while; to hit pause on the Media Apocalypse.
Every few weeks it seems some outlet or another is cutting workers or closing shop entirely. It’s all over the Times, The Atlantic, X (formerly known as Twitter).
A lot of the best coverage comes from Semafor.
My new pal Max Tani.
We spoke a couple days ago: about driving in NYC, his recent trip to Ibiza, how he brings earplugs practically everywhere, and what the flavour profile would be if Ben & Jerry’s honoured him with a commemorative pint.
In other words, about everything except the death of journalism.
Because while she might be dying, the industry ain’t dead yet, and there are pressing matters at hand.
A patch of deliriously blue sky hanging over the city, inside jokes with friends, selfies in the bathroom, an Australian shepherd named Puck, trotting across the patio, requiring my immediate pats.
ES: How are things going in New York today?
MT: It’s nice. You know, we got fake spring for two weeks. It happens every year. Two weeks of really nice weather that convince you “It’s all over! It’s done!!” But it’s back to being chilly. It’s fine. It’s New York winter, it’s manageable. You’re in Canada, right?
ES: I’m in Vancouver.
MT: Oh, nice. It’s not like a Vancouver winter — it’s a little more mild.
ES: Have you been here before?
MT: I have not but I’ve been to the Pacific Northwest. Right next to the border. I would really love to go. I’ve spent a lot of time in Seattle and that state park near the border.
ES: We gotta get you here.
MT: I would love to. It looks beautiful; it’s on my list
ES: The U.S. dollar stretches farther here. You’d feel like a prince.
MT: It really does. I’ve been to Montreal several times. A lot of New Yorkers don’t realize that Montreal is, like, a six-hour drive away… I’ve taken advantage of that over the years. It’s always fun to go and it’s slightly cheaper than you would expect.
ES: I published a piece last week about driving because I kind of “smashed” a rental car. New Yorkers famously don’t drive, and I was wondering: what’s your opinion on driving? Do you even have a driver’s license?
MT: You’ve asked the right person because I am a New York driver, somewhat embarrassingly. Some people I know find the idea of having a car here offensive because New York is a fantastic, walkable city — one of the only ones in America (!) — and cars kind of ruin it. Which is all completely fair. But I think it’s slightly different if, like me, you live in Brooklyn, a little bit further out. I drive fairly rarely, so I don’t think it’s too disruptive… I’m from Southern California, so I’m used to driving. I would take the freeway to get to my high school and stuff. It’s part of the culture there.
I got a car here during the pandemic, and I find it useful. I run a lot of errands and if I need to report or something, or I’m going somewhere on the weekends, I’ll drive. I enjoy the flexibility of having it. Is it somewhat wasteful? Probably. Do I use it enough to justify it? Yes… I feel pretty good about it.
ES: How does New York driving differ from SoCal driving?
MT: It’s night and day. For the most part, everyone in SoCal knows how to drive. Everybody follows the rules, people take pride in being good drivers, and it’s a very sane driving universe. Here, it’s the complete opposite. I don’t even know how people learn to drive here because you have to break the rules. People mostly don’t follow any rules. They treat the road as if it were a sidewalk and they were walking. You’ll see cars stopped at a red light sometimes, and the driver will lean over, see nobody’s coming, and just go. It’s shocking… It reflects the personality of the city. The people here drive fucking insane and that takes a lot of getting used to. But once you acclimate to it, you can sense what the rhythms are. They’re just unnatural and aggressive.
ES: What’s your parking situation? Are you switching sides every hour?
MT: You’re truly getting into it now.
ES: Laughs. Lay it on me.
MT: I street park, and for the most part it’s easy because I live right next to Green-Wood Cemetery, which is one of the historic cemeteries in New York. I don’t have to compete with anybody there for parking spaces. I lived in an apartment a few years ago and part of the reason I moved was the lack of street parking. It felt like I needed to rent a parking space to keep living there. I would just circle the block for hours, which was terrible. This place doesn’t have that problem. That said, I’m currently double parked because it’s street sweeping. Everybody does it on street sweeping days, so it’s fine. But parking is something I am constantly thinking about.
ES: Do you get a lot of funeral traffic living by the cemetery?
MT: No, Green-Wood is mostly full and it’s expensive to get buried there so you don’t get as many funerals as other cemeteries with more room. It’s mostly just a tourist attraction because it’s a National Historic Landmark. It’s pretty fascinating, it’s home to some of the oldest graves in the country. I have so many good things to say about it. It’s a big, beautiful park near my house that provides me with fairly ample parking.
ES: You mentioned fake spring. What park did you spend the day drinking beers in?
MT: Great question. I didn’t go to a park, but we did go to this great bar, the Ear Inn, by the Hudson River. Semafor’s offices are in the city near Tribeca, and so we went and walked along the west side. It was good. I should have probably gone to a park, but we did the Hudson Parkway. It was close enough.
ES: Summer is, what, three months in New York?
MT: I would say summer in New York runs from mid-May to September now. The heat breaks after Labor Day every year, which is nice. But it feels long now. It’s almost four months and it’s hotter and more humid.
ES: Are you a seasons guy coming from Southern California? Or do you prefer the warm weather?
MT: Like a lot of people that grow up in Southern California, I was, at one point, enchanted by seasons because they don’t exist there. You have wildfire season and then it gets a little chilly, and that’s kind of it, so growing up I wanted to move to the East Coast or somewhere else where there was more seasonality. I enjoy the seasons and I enjoy the things that cold weather inspires, whether it’s changing my diet to eat all of the heavy, fun winter foods. There’s great bars and places to go in the winter here. It’s nice to have an excuse to be a little lazy.
That was charming for about a year and then I was like, “Oh my God this is fucking terrible. Why would anyone voluntarily want to get colder for several months?”
But I also feel fortunate because I go to Southern California around the holidays every year. I spend a lot of time there, so I always feel like I’m cheating. I also take advantage of one of New York’s great perks, which is the sheer number of direct daily flights to Miami. I didn’t do it this year because I was in California, and in South Carolina for a lot of February. But usually I fly to Miami for a week in February or March, because the flights are so cheap. One time I went there and the Uber to the airport was more expensive than our roundtrip flight.
ES: What are you flying — Spirit Airlines?!
MT: No. I mean, you can, and it’s very cheap. But there are just so many flights. If you buy your ticket far enough in advance, you can get a $99 flight. That anecdote also shows how expensive Ubers are in New York.
Whenever you travel, you have to try on the culture a little bit.
ES: What is Max’s version of Miami? Give me a day in the life.
MT: I love to stay at The Standard in Miami Beach. It’s my favorite hotel. It’s off the main part of Miami Beach, so it’s not near all the tourist craziness. The spa is a signature selling point. Usually, I go and sit at the pool, go to the spa, go to the gym, get something to eat, and rinse and repeat that cycle a few times. I won’t go to the gym multiple times but I’ll rotate between everything else all day long.
After that, I’ll take a car and go eat some Cuban food or something. Come back to the Hotel, or go and get a cocktail somewhere. It’s not a crazy Miami experience, it’s more of a chance to escape the cold weather and relax. I always love it there. Last time I saw the Memphis Grizzlies basketball team and Skrillex. It was off-season and there weren’t that many people around, but it’s cool to get a little taste of celebrity. Mostly I’m just there to chill out.
ES: You’re telling me you were smoking Cubans poolside with Sonny Moore?
MT: Laughs. I was with my girlfriend and we were waiting for a car. I wasn’t wearing my glasses but I was like “That guy looks like Skrillex.” When you get down to it, there are very few guys who look like that. It was 80 degrees outside and he was wearing all black. He stood out. I debated saying something, but I didn’t.
ES: I mean, what would you say? Thank you for your service?
MT: Yeah, “Thank you, Sir.” No, I was going to ask him “Why are you here? Are you playing somewhere? Should we be going somewhere?”
ES: What are your feelings on electronic dance music, given you were able to I.D. Skrillex without your glasses on?
MT: I enjoy some EDM. I like some house and techno, and club music if it’s not too intense. I started listening to electronic music in college. I would use it to focus, and write papers. Boards of Canada and Aphex Twin and Burial. Stuff like that. That was my entry point. Now, electronic music is so mainstream that it’s part of pop. That Drake album from two years ago, for instance, or Renaissance.
I’ve seen some harder, more intense techno shows that were too much for me. I get served rave content on TikTok, too. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it, but it’s like these massive festivals and they have these AI-generated monsters. I’ve gotten one with Shrek a lot. It’s scary. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not for me.
ES: B.C. has a bunch of electronic music festivals. There’s Bass Coast and Shambhala, which I think is one of the biggest EDM festivals. It’s very druggy and I haven’t been to any of them, but maybe when you come to Vancouver we can hit them up and do some boots-on-the-ground reporting.
MT: I would love to. Last year I went to Ibiza. A media friend of mine organized this whole trip. I was pretty skeptical. He invited me maybe a month beforehand and I was like, “Man, I don’t know that’s probably a little much for me.” But he cajoled me into going and it was amazing. We were there for a week and we went out twice. Two different clubs. On our first night, we went to this place people call The Best Club In The World. It’s called High and it was the worst. It was the rave thing I was talking about. Truly awful. Our entire group hated it. No one was drinking, we were completely sober because it was such a terrible vibe. It was just European men in their mid-20s to mid-40s.
ES: Eurotrash.
MT: Exactly, it was Eurotrash. And I was like “This is such a bummer.” But a few days later we went to Pacha, which is where Solomun plays. There’s a big New Yorker article on him and his relationship with Ibiza, and Ibiza’s explosion as a dance music place. His set was amazing. It was cool. So all that is to say, I have traveled to see electronic music before, and I would do it again.
ES: It’s good to know that you’re open to a pilgrimage. Shambhala is kind of like Woodstock. I’m pretty sure it takes place on this private property in this remote part of the province that’s six hours away from Vancouver. It’s a whole thing.
MT: Oh, wow. It’s really far.
ES: Yeah. I’ve never been because it’s so inconvenient, but I would go as a “bit.”
MT: I’m intrigued. Whenever I travel my priorities are food, relaxation, and nightlife. Food is top. I have to go somewhere where I’m going to enjoy what I eat. Relaxation — turning off my brain and not checking my phone. And then I do like to have some sort of nightlife, or musical/cultural experience. I love to get a full view of a place, and that’s a huge part of it.
ES: That’s good to know because, unfortunately, Vancouver nightlife is famously pretty bad.
MT: Why?
ES: I’m not entirely sure, to be honest. Locally, Vancouver has a reputation for being a “no fun city.” You’re more likely to wake up early and go for a hike or to yoga class than you are to stay out late. And I think another factor is that we don’t have a great nightlife district. We have pockets of clubs and bars downtown, but beyond that, there’s not a ton of nightlife in the city. At a macro scale, I also wonder if it’s part of the city’s personality. Like, among major Canadian cities, we’re known as being cold and standoffish and cliquey and I feel like that sort of extends to the nightlife too, somehow.
MT: I lived in Washington D.C. for five years, which is one of the worst cities for nightlife. Nothing could be much worse than that. So I think I could still have a good time. Also, whenever you travel, you have to try on the culture a little bit. Like, “Alright, this is what people do here.” So I’m going to get up and go to yoga. I’m going to be a morning person. I’m going to adapt.
ES: You’re going to golf in the morning and snowboard in the afternoon.
MT: Growing up in Southern California, that was always the big thing. You could be from the mountains to the beach in two hours, which is amazing. I think Orange County is very similar to what you’re describing. It’s not a nightlife destination at all. It’s sort of an in-between because it’s not truly outdoorsy. It’s built out and suburban, but it likes to think that it’s nature-y because you have the beach and some great state parks.
ES: Speaking of nightlife… I was chatting with our mutual pal, and friend of the ‘sletter, Kate Lindsay and she mentioned that the last time she saw you, you were wearing earplugs at a party. Laughs.
MT: Oh my god, my Loops! I’ve got them right here.
Did she get some? They’re little earplugs that you can hang on your keys. I don’t know, a few months ago, it occurred to me: I’m 31 and I spend a lot of time in loud spaces. New York is so loud. Most of the time, if you’re walking around, you have headphones on and you don’t notice. But I’m in loud spaces talking to people, especially for work, and it’s probably doing some low-level damage to my ears. I’ve got friends and family who have started to lose their hearing, and I want to stave that off as much as possible, so I wear these.
*Places Loops into ears*
They’re pretty good. They don’t look too bad.
ES: They’re subtle
MT: If you’re out at a bar or something nobody notices. Like, I always have to point out that I’m wearing them. They take the noise level down by five decibels. It just keeps your ears from ringing when you leave the bar, or go to sleep. I honestly love them. And everybody at the bar with Kate that night was jealous that I had them because it was so fucking loud in there!
ES: This is something I’ve been thinking about more lately because I’ve been photographing bands in my spare time. You need ear plugs when you’re moving around a stage, or else you’re gonna get hit with a sudden bass note that destroys your equilibrium.
MT: I was really going off about it with Kate that night. We were at this bar for Kate’s sister’s birthday — she used to be my roommate and now is dating one of my close friends. But yeah, I’m a Loops evangelist. I feel like I should be getting a percentage, I’ve gotten five or six of my friends onto them. Sometimes we go out and we’re all Loops’d up.
ES: It’s interesting you need them for work too. I assumed most of your stuff is done at the office, but it sounds like that’s not the case.
MT: I’m in the office maybe two or three days a week. I probably should be there more, but I feel like most days I’ve got shit going on. I’ve got either lunch or dinner or something. I’m trying to keep that muscle alive because it has yielded so many leads. It’s good to talk to people. How’s your working situation when you’re at home? I feel like I can’t lock in the same way.
ES: My journalism life mostly centres on TV production, which sort of requires me to be in office. But working from home absolutely has a different vibe. If I do it too much, I start to feel untethered from the work. I think clearer and more journalistically when I’m surrounded by other journalists, you know?
MT: Exactly. There’s nothing more motivating than being around other journalists. There’s something gross about being the guy who’s like, “I love return to work” but, for me, it is super motivating to see my colleagues making calls and doing interviews. Like, fuck, I need to be doing that instead of scrolling on Instagram or clicking on this sale that landed in my inbox. At home, I always feel like I could be washing dishes or doing something besides working.
ES: It’s easier to have more accountability at the office. Like, I’ll click on the sale, but I’ll get back to work a lot quicker when I’m there… I also tend to think the people who find the most success in journalism are the ones who treat it like a lifestyle, and not just a job.
MT: Yeah — is that bad, do you think?
ES: I think it depends on the individual, but I do feel like, across fields, anyone who is good at their work usually thinks about it a lot. For some people that translates to being too married to the job, and maybe that’s detrimental to their personal life.
MT: I think that’s true… The other thing for me is that I write about the media. So I’m writing about people I work with, but also people I’m friends with. I’ve tried to keep my relationships outside of media because it would be so easy for me to live a life that’s relegated to this ecosystem.
ES: It’s so good to have friends like that. I find it refreshing because they often have priorities that are completely different from mine. Journalism is important but so much of our work truly does not move the needle in any meaningful way.
MT: It’s always interesting to see which stories break out and capture public attention. It happens once every few months. My non-journalist friends see something I wrote and message me about it. It’s much more satisfying because I think it means the story has a broader meaning or application. It’s also humbling because, most of the time, I’m working on stuff for a fairly niche audience.
ES: Going back to your question about good or bad, though, I think it’s good for you because you like the work. Media reporting — especially in Canada, but in America too, to some extent — is not always taken the most seriously, so it’s good that you enjoy it.
MT: Someone else had mentioned that to me recently. Maybe when I was in London a few months ago. American media reporting is quite serious…
Readers will pick up on whether it’s inauthentic to you. Long, short, whatever, just so long as it’s your thing and it reflects who you are.
ES: Since we’re talking about work — you’ve had a ton of good scoops lately. I know we work in journalism, but scoops still make me think of ice cream. What would the flavour profile would be if Ben & Jerry’s made a Max Tani-themed pint?
MT: Laughs. That’s really good. My flavour would be caramel and vanilla. A dulce de leche vibe, as opposed to something chocolaty. Maybe throw some caramel in there. We need a little bit of crunch.
ES: A wafer perhaps?
MT: Something like that would be good. I don’t know if a chocolate chip is too much. Maybe a piece of chocolate with some caramel inside?
ES: I’m glad you mentioned the crunch. I think that’s essential.
MT: You need to have a crunch. It’s a great balancer. Not too much, obviously, cause that hurts. But if you get it right, it’s perfect.
ES: You’re often asked about the media, and media dying, but I notice you’ve been bullish on newsletters lately. I wonder if you can give me Max’s keys to success on Substack?
MT: The most important thing about newsletters, in my view, and the reason someone wants to open them every day, is that it gives you a connection with the author. That’s the main thing that makes a good newsletter… You need to make your newsletter something readers want to open, not that they necessarily open every single one, but… The ones that I feel are the most successful are the ones that you seek out in your inbox. The thing that makes those newsletters special is a connection with the author. And it could mean a lot of things — that you enjoy the writing style or the point of view. But most of the time it means that you’re finding multiple types of value in the newsletter.
In a way, it’s strange that we live in an era where super-news consumers are getting so much of their information from newsletters and podcasts. It’s such an old-fashioned way of delivery.
ES: What conversations does Semafor have about word length? This is something I grapple with a lot. My interviews are intentionally — some may say comically (!) — long and I try to balance it out with short reads on the other side, but I wonder if there’s a better strategy.
MT: There is a real sweet spot. You don’t want newsletters to vary in length too much. You want it to have the same length and cadence every time. I feel like our media newsletter is broken up into short little segments. We’ll go long and then we’ll go short again. I always want to be breaking things down, chunking them out, so the mind is constantly being refreshed. That’s how my brain works. I’m jumping between things a lot. That said, I read long newsletters and short newsletters…
ES: Reading between the lines: it sounds like I might be fucking up.
MT: Not at all. I think that the newsletter should always reflect its author… I don’t think there are any universal rules. It just has to be you. Readers will pick up on whether it’s inauthentic to you. Long, short, whatever, just so long as it’s your thing and it reflects who you are. I have enjoyed talking to you and feel like other people will experience that as well.
