Nothing too late, nothing mistake.
The future of media is Kareem Rahma and his friends.
Good afternoon, everyone.
I woke up this morning a little frustrated that I was writing alone in my apartment. I wanted to be in a space making things with my friends. I wanted to point at each other’s screens and suggest new ideas and shut down bad ideas and discuss movies and books and parties. I text Teddy Kim and J Lee and Dano and Feed Me’s Anonymous Transit Expert and Jack Mankiewicz almost every day, but sometimes I forget to answer and killing a conversation is the best way to kill an idea. It’s also not as fun as when we get drinks or stay late at a party and kick our dream projects around.
This feeling didn’t come out of the blue. I’m lucky to have a lot of friends who work in film, and a big part of their specific work is that it’s made with the same friends over and over. Every time I go to one of their screenings, this feeling of mine grows.
I really think when something is made by friends or lovers or people who consider each other a good hang, it shows up in the fabric of the final product. It’s undefinable but everyone knows it’s there. It’s why the five TBPN clones have all flopped.
Today, I wrote about Kareem Rahma’s new show, Keep The Meter Running. The premiere was last night in New York.
Today’s newsletter also includes: a publisher job at a brand new media company that describes itself as a love child between Conde Nast and Tumblr (it’s a secret, but if you’re reading this you know the founders), Drake sings about Polymarket on his new album, and Louis Vuitton wrote a big check to the Frick.
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“I just want to talk to cabbies.”
Kareem Rahma and Adam Faze started shooting Keep The Meter Running – their new show that premiered this week on YouTube – four months ago. Last night, hundreds of people gathered at Metrograph to watch the first two episodes. Keep The Meter Running is a revival of a shortform Reels series that Kareem, who is now 39, started a few years ago. In these 20-minute episodes, Kareem asks New York taxi drivers to take him to their favorite place in the city, and he interviews them about their lives outside of the car while he… keeps the meter running. It quickly becomes a documentary show about the New York City immigrants who hold this place together. Many cab drivers from the show were in the audience, sitting alongside other characters in Kareem’s Big Apple universe (Gutes Guterman , Eddie Huang , Paul Needham, Amelia Dimoldenberg, Nico Heller, Nicolaia Rips…).
After the screening, Adam and Kareem spoke to Ramy Youssef about their process and vision for the show. Kareem, who has, yes, hosted celebrities from Rosalía to Rachel Sennott on Subway Takes, discussed his belief that most people are interesting if you give yourself an opportunity to connect with them. Adam said that when the two were debating what direction to go next after the success of Subway Takes, which currently has over 2 million followers on Instagram, Kareem said, “I just want to talk to cabbies.”
One of the top comments on the first episode reads: “Kareem, sometimes you give me so much hope for America that it scares me.”