The Most Important Drug(s) of the Summer.

Poppers, steroids, and the alluring draw of Es Vedra. PLUS: Summer fashion report, and the brewing media war against the New York Post. Summer Fridays, back again!

It’s Friday, June 28th, 2024.

• It’s the sixth Summer Friday of the year, nine to go until Labor Day.

• “Getting Away With It” is on the radio.

• In theaters this weekend, attempting to quell Inside Out 2’s box office dominance is A Quiet Place: Day One. Plus, the first installment of Kevin Costner’s post-Yellowstone four-part cowboy epic Horizon. Finally, a movie in which *pushes glasses down bridge of nose, looks over them* Sean Penn drives a cab from JFK to Manhattan, with *squints* Dakota Johnson in the back of it in traffic, for 100 minutes, titled Daddio.

• It’s another great weekend for sports! The round of 16 in the Euro 2024 cup begins Saturday, and the 2024 Copa América group stage continues over the weekend. Finally, in Formula 1, the 43rd running of the Austrian Grand Prix will be raced in Spielberg, Austria.

• Finally, around the world today, the weather: Montauk: 72/64, mostly sunny • Marseille, 82/69, clear • Malibu: 83/60, sunny • Cala Mariolou: 92/72, sunny • Chios: 87/74, cle—

—wait, ha, shit, sorry, I know, I KNOW. We didn’t see each other last week, as noticed by a surprisingly large number of you! 1. Flattering. 2. Really? 3. There was a very, very good reason for that: It’s summer, of course. And as infuriating as it is to deal with any kind of person or business keeping impetuous hours — something that, if you’ve been anywhere interesting in the world (or Spain), you’ve definitely encountered — there is, you gotta admit, a certain charm to it, too. Someone’s out there in the world, keeping the hours most of us wish we could, not subscribing to the same temporal orthodoxies we do. It’s a good reminder: We all deserve more vacation. We all deserve more. We all deserve to wear white.

But no, actually, truth is I was at a wedding in South Beach — yeah, in June. And haven’t you heard? Heat makes you insane, and a dumbass. And I’d have to be both of those things to miss out on sending this blast of summer joy to all of you, The Best Readership In The Goddamn World™. Penance issue obviously forthcoming.

In the meantime, beauty, love, joy, romance, travel, resplendence, all the fun in the sun you can handle and then some. Shall we?

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Drugs.

The Greatest Zoom Meeting, Ever. // Congrats to the good folks at Boy Smells, who (A) apparently have the best work culture ever, as (B) they’re launching a poppers-scented candle just in time for Pride Week, and (pictured above) did poppers together on a Zoom call (which you must watch) for research.

For the uninitiated, poppers are teensy bottles of a liquid (amyl nitrates), that you open, sniff, and get high on — lightheaded and loose — for all of about thirty seconds. As the liquid hits the air, it evaporates. So long as you keep the cap on the bottle diligently, one person could (I’m told!) probably use a single bottle of poppers for quite a while. It’s ostensibly sold as VCR tape cleaner, obviously, a thing people in 2024 need. They’re famous in the gay community for their (to use a word) dialating capabilities. They’re illegal, kind of, but that doesn’t stop them from being found pretty much everywhere — you can buy them in a bodega.

This is a $147M — yes, $147M — market. That number might feel small (I know, so does everything…on poppers) but it’s absolutely eye…opening, given that bottles retail for $10-$15 each. Either a lot of people are doing poppers, or a smaller amount of people are doing a metric fuckton of poppers.

This brings me to, over the last two months, two recent encounters with poppers: 1. A friend’s birthday party, at a nightclub, watching her erstwhile roommate, an enormous club gay, take the kind of huff out of a bottle of Rush that would literally kill me, or at least turn my asshole into something resembling the Mariana Trench — repeatedly. 2. A friend’s high six-figure wedding upstate, at the after-party, watching a fellow straight — a successful and ocassionally hard-partying hotelier who I thought had seen/done it all, mid-40s — try them for the first time. When I saw him at the brunch the next morning, and asked him how he was feeling, he joked that he sat at a barstool, and found himself on the floor.

Which is all to say: That the existence of poppers is being acknowledged by a millennial-coded candle brand in the form of a product emulating a smell that even recalling feels like it’ll bore a hole in your brain feels like evidence of a trendline to come.

FOSTERTALK MARKET INTELLIGENCE TAKEAWAY: If a report projecting the doubling in size for the market of poppers by 2030 is to be believed, that means that the market for poppers will be taking a giant, six year rip off a bottle of rush, probably assisted by the straights, if we don’t ruin it first. More likely are teenagers getting ahold of them, and poppers getting regulated out of existence (thus propping up an inevitable black market for VCR cleaner). Rated: Buy!

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Beach Bodies.

On the cover of this month’s GQ, the question: WHY IS EVERYONE SUDDENLY ON STEROIDS? It’s a borderline Dan-Peres-era-Details banger of a magazine sales pitch that’s designed to trigger small neurological events, made all the funnier and pointed by the star gracing the same cover: Kevin Costner, a 69-year-old man (nice) with a 14-year-old daughter (…nice?) who probably finds it funny to point out to her friends that her father is in his “yeehaw era.” There’s a large swath of American Man who will walk by that magazine in an airport and (after a series of synapses fire off in his brain commanding him to do so) purchase it — much as he’s supposed to. Such is the dark art of magazine-making and why big media is Shaytan.

Anyway, like all trend stories it deserves to be turned upside down and investigated for sport like it’s Watergate, so: I called a friend who’s been taking steroids on and off starting in his mid-30s. Super successful, lovely guy — perhaps, among the nicest I know — and also, built like a brick shithouse. Ergo:

Is Everyone (Actually) on Steroids, And Also, Should I (and You) Be Taking Them? A Q&A With a Friend Who Took Steroids

Is everyone suddenly on steroids? Suddenly, no. Everyone? Well, in the sense that you know way, way more people than you think are doing them, yeah [laughs], for sure.

Wait, really? It's especially true of the New York/LA professional set, where you're dealing with an ambitious crowd with a little bit of extra income, and boom: High likelihood if you think they’re doing it — if they’re not just losing weight (Ozempic) but getting in great shape — they’re doing it. Or doing something like it. Maybe it’s not TRT, maybe it’s Clomid. But it’s something.

Is this one of these things where — like SSRIs or ADD drugs or Zempies — there’s a stigma attached, but the moment you start talking, everyone… Admits to being on them, too, yeah, exactly. You have a few conversations, start going down the rabbit hole, and it’s: Holy shit, how many people are doing this?

What originally prompted you to go on them? Honestly: Depression. I tried therapy, antidepressants, I’d always had low energy. And I’d heard good things.

I mean, my guy, you’re very, very in shape sans-roids. And a good looking sweetheart of a man. With a great career. I should note, for our readers, that you’re the only person I know to have not one, but multiple strippers try to wife you. As in, give you their number because they want to date you. You’re the opposite of the T-Pain song, you’re the Yakov Smirnoff joke of strip clubs: YOU don’t love stripper, stripper love YOU. Okay, well, that was be—

You’re like the guy who goes into a casino every once in a blue moon and wins a million dollars — you inspire all the other gamblers. That’s not really wh—

Lemme ask you: What’s it like to have a woman see you, your career, your good family, your values, your picture-perfect health, and think not I can fix him but rather I wonder how I can break him? What.

Steroids! What’d you take and how illegal are they? The thing is: You don't get anything illegally, if you work with the right doctor. You can get anything prescribed. Off-label use is just one routine workaround. As for what I took, it was 80/20 testosterone and human growth hormone. And then you start stacking things on top of it, to balance all the drugs out.

Sounds onerous. But on a scale of pretty fun to extremely fun, how much fun are steroids? The first six months were amazing. I felt energized, radiated positivity, all the time, I was happy — I felt the way I thought I should feel, I felt emotional textures more distinctly, I felt things so much more strongly. And my sex drive was through the roof. Then what happened was… you get side effects.

Famously so! What’re we talking? Depression. ‘Became very, very emotional.

Roid rage? It wasn't so much rage as it was…

You wanted to jump off a building? I mean, yes.

Hm. Not great. Gotta ask: Your balls, they get small? …Yes.

How small? Small.

Sure, but— Really small.

On a scale of M&Ms to Jawbreakers? I mean, they probably…[considers this deeply]

Could I fit both of them in my mouth? Oh [laughs], easily.

Jesus christ that’s so small! It got, like, uncomfortable. It felt weird.

I’ll say. They were probably a third of the size.

And that’s not even why you were going crazy! Those were just small balls! Right.

So, the big takeaway, here, is that all these guys writing for men’s magazines and going on podcasts and talking about their kettleball routines have teeny tiny testes? If they’re on steroids, probably.

Now there’s an image. What else you got? For the record, the “man boobs” phenomenon is also real, but I didn’t experience that — though I was carrying some extra water weight. You take these drugs to inhibit/counteract your estrogen, and suppress it. One of them was legitimately a cancer treatment drug.

What. Yeah. It was a minor form — a pill, chemo in pill form. And it just wrecked my body. It got to the point where my joints were sore all the time. I felt horrific.

Well, that’s fucked. You eventually got off them and deflated like a balloon. Thanks.

What happened? The 2020 covid lockdown. I couldn't lift weights because I was stuck in the apartment, all I could do was run. So I went from eating 4000 calories a day and lifting heavy weights five days a week to: At home. Eating. So I cut my calories in half.

And do you still take anything now? I'm taking this stuff called HCG, which is sort of like a testosterone precursor. And I think it just helps, because it's not straight-up TRT, it doesn't throw everything else out of whack. In hindsight, I kind of wish I just started off being on that, rather than start in the deep end, but it was a learning experience, and it's really cool to sort of see what you can turn your body into.

Now, to the important part: Steroids, would I enjoy them? [Laughs] You would definitely enjoy them.

So should I do them? If you want to do them, I’d probably start with something small. First, Clomid or HCG, or Testrol, something a little bit more mild would be probably my suggestion.

So…not pure testosterone. Not unless you really need it.

I still enjoy the occasional Broadway musical, so. The honest truth is that it’s fun, but I wish my doctor started me on something less. That’s what I’d tell people: Start slow.

Like, not with Sondheim. What? Steroids! The Musical? What.

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Islands.

In Which Diplo Throws The World’s Dumbest Party. // Ibiza is a gravitational pole of the known universe of summer culture, in the sense that it’s effectively a microcosm of narratives about tourism, music, culture, economics, and politics playing out much the same around the world. Ibiza, not particularly known for its fashion or art, is even quickly becoming a place for fashion and art. And as “peak season” gets longer every year as an effect of climate change, Ibiza grows more popular, the situation on the island gets increasingly volatile. Which is unfortunate, because as many people who have been there can tell you, Ibiza is also fantastic.

Which is how we find ourselves interested in Diplo, this week. Who decided to throw an ad hoc party in Ibiza near Es Vedra, an uninhabitable rocky island/outcropping off the White Isle’s coast long purported to have mythical qualities, and a source of metaphysical energy. Most people just sail over, and hang out.

So! None of this might seem all that interesting at face value. But what matters here is that Diplo decided to throw his party on a mountain ledge nearby overlooking Es Vedra, and drop a pin to all of his Instagram followers. The ledge, of course, is protected land, and now Diplo is under threat of prosecution by the authorities in Ibiza.

Can’t be the first time he’s done it. You know how this goes: Diplo already disappeared the stories from his IG — though ample evidence still persists — and normally, he’d pay the €300,000 fine he appears to be facing, and make the entire thing go away. But it’s far from a normal summer in Ibiza.

The citizens of Ibiza have spent this year furiously amassing in the streets, in the largest, angriest protests in the island’s history. Firefighters and police are sleeping in cars; one teacher flew back and forth forty times in a month from the mainland because she couldn’t afford to live on the island. And really, you couldn’t Mad Libs your way to a more comically politically combustible situation on Ibiza right now than “Diplo DJs pop-up illegal rave on protected lands overlooking Es Vedra” if you tried. This is a monumental fuckup with monumentally bad timing. And it is tipping residents over the edge. How bad? Well, a photo of a sign that went viral is being celebrated by residents of Ibiza for jokingly (?) threatening to garrote anyone who leaves any trash, or generally, is an asshole.

Unfortunately for the residents of Ibiza, despite this being as great a hook to bring international audiences’ attention to their plight, it won’t make the news. And you can lay the blame for that at the feet of nobody less than Diplo. Who managed to pull off the fascinating feat of overshadowing one story about being an asshole with another, in which he’s been charged with revenge porn yet again.

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The Hamptons.

MEDIA FIGHT! Previously in FOSTERTALK, I’ve made my love of The Greatest Police Blotter in the world, The East Hampton Star, well known. Obviously they hit the jackpot recently, in the form of Justin Timberlake’s DUI bust. But they didn’t quite have the ingenuity of the New York Post, who managed to find a bunch of Hamptons residents to complain about the rookie who busted Timberlake:

In just three months on the force, Arkinson has earned a reputation among Sag Harbor’s wealthy residents, earning nicknames like “the Sag Harbor Nazi” and “little redheaded dips–t” for his strict enforcement of traffic laws.

Emphasis mine! Where this gets wonderful is when we turn to The East Hampton Star’s editorial page, at the ready, to deliver a screed (!) against the New York Post’s weighing in on the matter:

Equal enforcement of the law is a beautiful thing, and we applaud it, especially when it comes to dangerous driving, drunken driving, and what we might call driving while V.I.P. (being reckless but expecting to get away with it because you’re a privileged white person in a Lambo or G-Wagon). Officer Arkinson, when The Post starts calling you names, it’s usually a sign you’re on the right track.

Hot damn! Our beloved little East Hampton Star brought the motherfuckin’ sauce out! There probably aren’t many small town newspapers in America left keeping ‘em honest quite like the Star does. At the very least, if not that — as we turn to the latest Star crime blotter yet again — they’re not as funny:

Prior to paying a $112 tab, a woman at The Lobster Roll asked for directions to the restroom. The restroom was assuredly not in her gray Kia sedan, which she was seen in moments later. Officers searched for the car but were unable to locate it.

And:

A concerned woman, who told police she was a grandmother, called on the afternoon of June 17 to say that three teenagers were stranded out on the water while paddleboarding in Gardiner’s Bay. Officers determined that the teenagers were “in two feet of water.”

See, that’s just good writing.

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Summer Fashion Digest.

Boxer Shorts: The new no-pants?

Pedal Pushers: A high-value reader writes in!

Espadrilles: Fantastic.

Wedges: Still gross.

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That’ll do it! I don’t wanna hit the PINK BAR OF DEATH/TOO LONG FOR EMAIL warning, so we’ll leave it here: More to come next week, where I’ll be reporting live from Athens, Chios, and filing from the Eternal City. As ever: Thanks for reading, truly. I’m flattered you’re giving me the time of day, especially when the weather’s this great. I’m still figuring out whatever this is.

In the mean time, remember: Buy all the poppers, do all the steroids, don’t do pedal pushers, be kind to the sacred natural lands of the world, and slap on some espadrilles. Also: Don’t forget to tell your friends about FOSTERTALK, and if you’ve ever got any ideas, you know where to put ‘em. As you well know by now, in the words of one of the ancient, great gods of summer vibes: I’m qualified to satisfy you, any way that you want me to. Can’t wait to do it again.

As ever, -f.