Jon Liedtke joins 610 CKTB’s Gene Valaitis for his weekly segment, Liedtke Has a Take!
Liedtke analyzes two contrasting New York romance spectacles: Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s multi-million dollar private wedding at Madison Square Garden, and a daredevil couple’s illegal, viral proposal atop the Empire State Building, illustrating the modern divide between elite privacy and extreme algorithmic clout chasing.
Transcript (Gemini Generated):
Gene Valaitis: Jon Liedtke has a take. Good morning, Jon Liedtke.
Jon Liedtke: Good morning, Gene Valaitis.
Gene Valaitis: Hey, let’s give a little bit of love to our friends in the US. They’re celebrating the July 4th weekend, a lot of people traveling today, fireworks tomorrow, except in Buffalo, which makes no sense. But New York City is giving us a literal tale of two love stories this holiday weekend, and they couldn’t be any more different. Set the scene for these two love stories for us.
Jon Liedtke: Yeah, you know, it’s a tale of two opposites. Waring factions, if you will, of weaponized romance. On one side, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are staging what can only be described as an American royal wedding at Madison Square Gardens, shutting down so many blocks around right in midtown Manhattan. They’ve got the NYPD acting as private security, a budget that could quite frankly, you know, build homeless shelters, if you will. I think they’re at 25 million so far being reported.
But just blocks away, you’ve got two daredevils who decided that renting an arena wasn’t good enough for them, so they decided to scale the Empire State Building’s broadcast spire illegally, triggering a tactical helicopter hunt. And they actually—they had a proposal, though, at the very top of it. And then they promptly got arrested, and they’ve been arraigned, and they have been released right now. But it’s the billionaire versus the romantic outlaws, Gene, and New York taxpayers footed the bill for both to a certain extent.
Gene Valaitis: Yeah. Let’s start with the one dominating the universe. Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, they aren’t just getting married today. They’ve essentially turned Madison Square Garden into a private fortress.
Jon Liedtke: It’s wild. I mean, fortress could almost be an understatement. It is a corporate panopticon. The city permits allow them to have the space from, I think, 5:00 PM until the event ends at 2:00, but they’ve got until 4:00. They’ve constructed what could only be described as a fairy tale castle directly onto the arena floor of Madison Square Gardens, although what it looks like entirely is being completely shielded from the public.
They’ve installed giant walls to block any view. Madison Square Garden doesn’t have any windows, so there’s no opportunity for drone shots. But as I said, this is around 20, 25 million dollars. Guests are bound by non-disclosure agreements, phones are confiscated at the door, and it’s just—it’s not just a wedding. This is peak establishment power footprinting over Manhattan.
But as you were saying in the prior segment, she does incredible things. Her and Travis just donated 26 million dollars to charities a couple days ago, one of the main recipients being Dolly Parton’s book charity that gives away so far 180 million books to children. So I mean, she does an incredible thing by helping people out.
Gene Valaitis: Yeah. Okay, let’s flip the script, as they say. Just a few blocks away, a couple of days ago at the Empire State Building, another high-profile couple took romance to a terrifying extreme, I guess we could say. So, in your take, what did they pull off?
Jon Liedtke: Well, this is spectacular, Gene. These daredevils are from the Netflix documentary Skywalkers, so this is what they do. But they decided, you know, diamond ring in a champagne glass? That’s too pedestrian. So they bought a standard tourist ticket on Tuesday for the Empire State Building, they went into a utility closet, waited overnight like teenagers evading mall cops, then they breached a maintenance hatch on the 103rd floor, scaling the broadcast antenna, masks on, zero safety gear really, dangling by their fingertips over the skyline.
And then, they set up a selfie camera, and the guy drops to one knee. They unfurl a massive black banner quoting about peace and love. You know, most people get sweaty knees just dealing with a restaurant hostess helping you with an engagement, but this guy did it staring down a lethal drop. It’s completely unhinged, it’s beautifully cinematic, and it’s complete counter-programming to the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce wedding. And you know what? We’ll probably get documentaries about both of them.
Gene Valaitis: I bet. It is a tale of two different receptions. Taylor and Travis get a massive police detail to protect their privacy, but the daredevil couple get a New York Police Department tactical squad, helicopters, and the reception was in jail.
Jon Liedtke: Yeah, you know, I guess it just goes to show what money can buy you. And if you’ve got enough zeros at the end of your net worth, the NYPD will gladly shut down midtown for you and deploy surveillance drones and act as concierge security while private—while expensive lobster is being brought in. But you know, if you’re an influencer couple, you’re going to be dealing with the Emergency Service Unit of the NYPD, and they’re going to roll in and take you down in zip ties.
But that’s sort of how things have always worked here, right? I’m not trying to compare the two situations in every way, but it’s—it’s just it was a very interesting, again, tale of two love stories and two spectacles that are taking place right now. And it’s, I guess, fitting that it’s so hot in New York that we’ve got these hot spectacles, too.
Gene Valaitis: Yeah, I actually really, really liked the massive banner the daredevils hung. It was actually written by Jimi Hendrix: “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” And he wrote that in the ’60s. I’ve admired that quote for years and years and years. Mind you, do you think that was a direct shot at the corporate mega-wedding down the street?
Jon Liedtke: If it wasn’t, Gene, the universe possesses a magnificent sense of irony. I mean, the dichotomy again, you have the love of power absolute at Madison Square Garden. That was an exercise in supreme societal control: billionaires, Hollywood A-listers, and sport elites safely cocooned inside this fortress perimeter. But then you got the two outlaws hanging from a lightning rod in the clouds, shouting that the power of love conquers all. It’s a brilliant, poetic contrast.
The show Billions actually noted that America knights people by letting them buy NFL teams. But Taylor and Travis didn’t bother buying a team—they didn’t even have to. They’ve become the entire macroeconomic ecosystem. Whereas the Skywalkers couple tried to stage a 20-minute rhetorical coup against that empire with a bedsheet and a Hendrix quote, and they walked away with a grand jury threat for their troubles. So, I think it was obviously a direct shot at it.
But I think also Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce choosing to have their wedding on the eve of the 250th anniversary of America is their way of cementing themselves to that as well.
Gene Valaitis: Yeah. Well, at the end of the day, you’ve got one couple spending millions to hide inside the arena, and another risking their lives to be seen by the entire world. So, what does that tell us about modern romance, Jon Liedtke?
Jon Liedtke: Romance in 2026 is dead unless you’ve optimized it for maximum algorithmic spectacle, Gene! I mean, we’ve become a culture of hyper-extremes. On one end, you’ve got a gatekept, hyper-elite privacy event where billionaires spend tens of millions to ensure that the public can’t look. On the other, you’ve got the reckless, clout-chasing visibility where you could risk a 100-story-plus plunge just to capture viral content for Instagram.
But I think the takeaway is clear: if you want to marry like modern American royalty, you have to commandeer Madison Square Gardens and confiscate everyone’s phones and force them to sign NDAs. But if you want to marry like a folk hero outlaw, you climb the lightning rod, you kiss the sky, and pray that your lawyers can convince the judge that felony trespass is a protected form of romantic expression.
Gene Valaitis: I’m just wondering, could you imagine like tonight all of a sudden word leaks out that Madison Square Garden was just a big hoax and like the wedding is like a thousand miles somewhere else?
Jon Liedtke: That would be absolutely perfect. What a cherry on top of everything there, just… I mean, she’s not going to get any goodwill by doing that, I’ll tell you that much, but it would be—it would be delicious irony.
Gene Valaitis: Oh, absolutely. Hey, great take this Friday morning. Thank you, Jon Liedtke.
Jon Liedtke: Thank you, Gene.
Gene Valaitis: Okay, we’ll see next Tuesday. There he goes, Jon Liedtke, always with a great take.
This aired on 610 CKTB
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