Green Light with Chris Long - Ken Burns! On His ‘Muhammad Ali’ PBS Documentary, Ali’s Life and Legacy. MNF Recap: Raiders vs Ravens. Airborne Mailbag.

Episode Date: September 15, 2021

(1:58) - Hello, Layup Line and Fantasy Football Update. (10:13) - MNF Recap and Pass Rush Review of Carl Nassib and Maxx Crosby, and NFL Debuts of Rashawn Slater and Penei Sewell. (30:55) - Ken Burns on his ‘Muhammad Ali’ Documentary: Ali’s Religion, Dominance in the Ring, Relationship with Fellow Boxers, Protege of Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X and Ali’s Life and Legacy. (1:17:12) - New PO Box for Green Light Podcast and Airborne Mailbag: Childhood Crushes, Worst Time to be High and Better Self-Promoter: Ali or Kanye? Green Light Spotify Music: https://open.spotify.com/user/951jyryv2nu6l4iqz9p81him9?si=17c560d10ff04a9b Spotify Layup Line: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1olmCMKGMEyWwOKaT1Aah3?si=675d445ddb824c42 Green Light with Chris Long: Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more including hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. http://bit.ly/chalknetwork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Download the app. Bet big, win bigger. I got to tell you, I really like the sound of that. And with WinBet, it's just that easy. From boosted parlays to live in-game odds on every major sport, WinBet has what you need to win. So if you're in Colorado or in Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Tennessee, or right here in Sweet Virginia,

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He knows already. And he's at the Olympics where even the Russians fall in love with him. And he's in he's overcoming sunny, listen, despite the liniment in his eyes. Or he's dispatching Ernie Terrell or Big Cat Williams in these masterpieces of fight. Or he's losing to Joe Frazier. Or he's standing up to the U.S. government. Or he's beating for him. And I mean, what could be anything amazing?

People in his corner, nobody thought he was going to win. Everyone thought, please don't kill him. Fax is in the building. I've got Ken Burns coming up. Two sentences. I never thought I'd say in the same breath. we also have a mailbag on the tail end you know who ken burns is no i mean it doesn't matter if you don't but like any of those PBS you know documentaries you see oh i probably do oh you've seen

his stuff he is a magician at bringing history to life bro i'm just telling you you might not even be into history you might be into history but if you turn on a ken burns documentary uh you won't be able to turn it off and he's got mohammed ali coming up uh september night Ken Burns is Muhammad Ali documentary is airing. It's a four-part series. It's like eight hours long. It'll be the fastest eight hours of your life. And I mean, soup to nuts, man.

Like beginning to the bitter end, you know, he hit it all. The NOI stuff, Nation of Islam stuff, the draft dodging, the, you know, his early dominance to like the second half of his career where he was a little bit different of a fighter to, you know, his down-end, fall in the sport and the Parkinson's that followed. But through all that, the thing that comes across is that Muhammad Ali spoke to so many people that probably wouldn't listen to anybody else saying what he was saying. And he did it through the lens of sport, which is really cool. I talked to Ken Burns last summer about his country documentary.

I'd like to bump that podcast. If you want to go back to it, I had a lot of fun doing it. But this is sports. And anytime Ken Burns is doing sports. I won in, dude. So really excited to get him on. Stick around for that. Kim Burns last year was August 14th, 2020.

Good poll there, cowboy. What do you got a little computer back there? I got machines. You got machines, all right. I also want to reiterate this schedule. You know, you're listening. Your today is Wednesday. There will be another pot on Friday.

So it goes Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Sunday nights, you know, a football wrap-up. Wednesday's going to be a Ken Burnsy type guy. If that is an adjective, it's just anybody who's a little bit different than what we'd usually be doing current events and sports. And Paul Nicklin is next week. That was the guy who I was telling you guys was probably the best guest, if not one of the best guests I've had all year. All year, period. It was one of my favorite podcasts we did at all.

If you look up Paul Nicklin, he is a National Geographic photographer. He runs Sea Legacy. He's looking out for the planet. He's looking out for the ocean. And he's a total badass. Honestly, I'm not throwing this around after you listen that podcast if you do next week. You'll think he's the biggest badass

you've ever heard talk. I played in the NFL. I know some bad motherfuckers. Paul Nicklin takes the cake. Takes it. Oh, bro, this guy, he's jumping in the water with orcas and they're doing a feeding frenzy. In the middle of the night, bro.

Diving under sheets of ice. Yeah, the people, I have a lot of respect for people who do anything in the water, underwater. It's a whole different world down there. And those animals have a huge advantage, especially when you're in their territory. Well, you're going to have a lot of respect from Muhammad Ali if you watch the documentary, because I don't know if you know this, but he boxed underwater. So we'll talk to Ken in a bit. Who is saying hello to today?

Hello to Martinsville, Virginia. And when I asked you why, you said, he said because of NASCAR. I said there's a race coming up. He's like, no, I just. No, that's where my girlfriend's from. Oh, that's a, that, wholesome alert. Holesome alert. He tried to cover it with a NASCAR thing.

Why'd you have to put me on blast, man? Sounds like you want to tell everybody about your girlfriend. Hello, Martinsville, Virginia. Layup line here today. Your yesterday hour today. It is Nas' birthday. So I was like, let's pick a couple of our favorite songs. We're going to do two entries today.

My, maybe my favorite Nas song is Get Down. New York streets were killers of walk like Pistoo Pete and Pappy Mason. Gave the young boys admiration. Prince from Queens and Fritz from Harlem Street Legends. The drugs kept the hood from starving. And yours is rewind. Pull up a chair hunting, put it in the air, son. Dog, whatever they call you, God, just listen.

I spit a story backwards. We could have chose New York state of mind. No. Rewind hit harder. Like, and for me being a kid and Nas, to wrap a story backwards. Backwards was just so, I was just like as a kid, I was just eating it up.

Like, this is the craziest thing I've ever heard in my life. The bullet goes back in the gun. Looks it as easy as not. For now, a lot of bad news. Little bad news that's very bad. It's Norm MacDonald passing away. I guess he was battling cancer for 10 years. I had no idea.

What a bummer to say the least. Here's the thing about Norm MacDonald, though. I was sitting on the porch this summer with Lane when he came to visit, and we had to watch Norm McDonald YouTube till three in the morning, one morning. And we laughed as hard as we laughed the entire trip. And when I'm with Lane, I laugh pretty hard. that's how funny this guy was. He just was the master of that dry deliver.

You did not know what the fuck he was going to say, and then he just said it. And the first thing I did upon learning that he died within two minutes getting on Twitter is I laughed because everybody's circulating funny videos. I think it's a pretty good way to live, dude. So God rest his soul, one of the funniest people of all time. I mean, legitimately hilarious and, yeah, bad news today.

More bad news. My fantasy teams aren't great so far. My dad actually beat me in fantasy. The opener in the in-laws and immediate family fantasy league that I'm the commissioner of that league. You lost the big Howie? I lost the Big Howie the first week. And last night, about 11 p.m. He doesn't even know how fantasy football works.

I was just about to ask. He doesn't know how to work. Did Howie draft or just auto-drafted early? He couldn't log in, dude. I'm thinking that auto draft is probably the best. Yes, it is. It's probably the best thing to do for anyone. It is, dude.

Like, because it's just take the thinking out of it and just go with it. Let the computers do the work, man. Let the computers do the work. If, like, Austin Echler decides to not score any touchdowns this year, well, that's tough for Howie Long, but playing the odds, that auto pick was the right one. So I've never felt like more of, I don't know, a grown-up son to an older dad than when I was trying to explain.

you know how to log into the the ESPN app to set up his fantasy team and join the draft i mean i felt bad for my man because i just struggle with it for 30 minutes right before i talked to him and i was like he's got no shot so dad auto picking barely knowing how the league works he's up one nothing he sent me a screenshot at midnight last night with no text i thought he was going to be like what is swag swag i love that you know what his team's name is what is third and long oh Come on, dude. Yes, howie. And then Meg's mom beat the shit out of her.

Meg's mom dusted her off, and Meg's mom didn't even know how, you know, how this thing works at all. So, uh, those auto drafters are on the move. And a little good news on the fantasy front. I,

uh, I soundly beat Akeeb to lead in his own league, the call to the booth league. So shout out to Akeed. Uh, one and no over here. I'm doing terrible in my former players league. with Commissioner Lijé,

Duzable. Shout out to him. Oh, Legey, making big moves on TV, too. Yeah, for sure. But Aaron Rogers had a solid one point, so that just tanked everything. And then I was counting on rugs to have a 30-point game,

and he didn't have a catch until four minutes left in the game last night. Well, I will say this. He had a couple big catches in that game last night. He had a couple big catches in that game last night. Two receptions. First one was like, okay, he's on the board, and then the one down the right sideline was big as well. We were both wondering last night, by the way, I'm shocked that this was the first great primetime game of the season. I mean, truly, this was a vintage

take two teams I'm not terribly interested in and put them on Monday night, and it's just going to get greatness out of them. And that gravitational pull that football has, that like, inevitably, invariably, you're going to get some sort of interesting finish and it just that, that it went that way late. Hey, we, hey, the Vegas crowd looked lit. That whole stadium looked lick. It's one of those things when you're sitting at home. You're just like, that looks like a great place to be. But I don't know if I saw it on TV or I saw it online. They were showing some of the hotel setups like at the pool for viewing parties. And some of the, of those look immaculate.

Yeah, you might want to be at the pool. You might want to be at the pool. You might want to be at the pool. But like, I will say this, I kind of wasn't sure what to make of it because you take one of the most down home football fan bases. And I mean that as a compliment, like there isn't any corporatization of that fan base and put it in one of the most, you know, new, shiny, corporately like, inspired football experiments. I mean, Las Vegas, you're.

betting on the traveling businessman and the drunk 40-something-year-old couple down at Margaritaville walking across that causeway into the stadium and buying a ticket and buying a beers and that sort of thing and selling a ton of sweets. It's a gorgeous building, but I was worried it was going to be sterile or weird. And yeah, it's the opener, but I don't think you can bet against Raiders fans, man. Like, I don't think they, like, here's the thing. Raiders fans should have put up a good fight. I'm bummed the team had to move. Like, that sucks. But what do you do? Do you just stop being a Raiders fan?

I'm sure some people did, but you can't keep Raiders fans away. They're too passionate. They care too much. Like you could put the stadium anywhere. It would be filled with Raiders fan. And that's what those marketing guys get paid for. And I think they did a good job. Was it Earthwind and Fire that opened up last night for the older crowd?

And then they had... Oh, I missed the intro. That was the thing. I missed the intro. And then they had... And then Ice Cube performed at halftime. And he's a big Raiders guy. So they're doing all the right stuff marketing wise.

And for a team to move cities and as historic as the Raiders, I know the Oakland fans are hurt. But if they keep winning, the people are going to make that drive. They're going to make that drive. Southwest, I heard some shit about Southwest in the beginning. You know, there were going to be better flights. Have you ever taken the Southwest flight, by the way? Dude, I can't do Southwest because it unlocks.

Do you know the- I know the process, but a lot of people don't know the process. It's like a bus. I hate lines and I hate the way people act in lines. It unlocks like the worst in human nature, bro. Like it unlocks like the worst that besides genocide and stuff like that. Like there's waiting in lines at an airport and like the Southwest thing is all kind of fucked up to me. And I don't want to feel like I have to box somebody out for a seat because I'm going to be less competitive.

No, the worst about that. than the short guy in a business suit. The worst thing about that is the short guy in the business suit is always going to take the exit row. Oh, yeah, he sure does need that. He sure does need that. He's always going to take the exit row. Also, if shit hits the fan, do you want the guy that's, that can barely lift the, that can barely lift the, you know, turn the, the, the knob and throw the fucking door out. I will throw that door 40 feet.

Okay, I'll get it out of the way. I'll inflate the, the slide if I need to. It's crazy you say that because, I think about that a lot when they go by and they have to do the little check with the people who sit there, take your headphones off so we can tell you the safety measure. I do not break eye contact. I will absolutely do anything you need. When I'm not sitting in that seat and I'm looking at the people in that seat, I literally think at my head, they would not be able to pull that lever. No.

They would not. They think they would, but they most likely would not be able to pull that lever and kick that door out. Let us have the exit row. Let all NFL players have the exit row. Military personnel first, obviously. For sure. The exit row, they're trained. They're trained.

But then, like, there's a steep cliff, you know, fire, police, like, that sort of thing. But then there's a steep, like, cliff from that occupation of the next. I think we need NFL players. And you show your PA card. You should be able to just, like, get somebody out of the exit row and sit down. We were talking about the house that Mark Davis built, not and not his house house. Have you seen his house house? No.

Oh, Google Mark Davis' house. Send him a link, guys, so he can see this and react. Mark Davis' house looks like a mini Allegiance stadium. Oh, really? Yeah, like it kind of looks like the house version of an Allegiance stadium. Mark Davis's other house, allegiance, beautiful. The atmosphere was great.

Here was great for me. Like, it was loud on third down. And I gotta tell you, I don't miss football a lot except for in those situations. I definitely miss it when my main man, Max Crosby, is balling out there. Dude, mad Max. Here's the thing about Max, and I said this last year, I think to Mina Kimes,

I said Max will have more sacks than Nick Bosa will. He'll be more productive. And that was true, but it was because Nick Bosa got hurt, so it's unfair. But I think he's well on his way to having that kind of year, a double-digit year. I don't think he's hit double digits yet, but he's been routinely over the first couple years of his career, I think two years. He's been a seven, eight-sack guy. So seeing him last night, all the moves in the toolbox,

I saw him hit an inside out spin. I saw him dip. I saw him rush with power. He won on games. Real technician. He is a technician, and he really does play hard. You know the high motor thing gets thrown around? That guy plays hard, dude.

He had 10 sacks as a rookie 7 in 2020. 10 sacks is a rookie 7 in 2020. I think this year he goes north of 10. I'm really excited for him. But then again, it was Villanueva, who is on the back end of his career. I mean, obviously a big body late in his career is not going to be as agile.

And honestly, I look back at where I realized Nick Bosa was good for the first time was when he was playing, I believe it was Villanueva with the Steelers out there in San Francisco. And I have not seen a rookie put on a clinic like that in quite a while. And that was two years ago. So you think about the way Villanueva's physical state has probably declined a little bit. Next week, he plays the Chiefs. And you know who they line up out there at defensive end. Well, the one thing with Matt Max also, you have to take this and consider. We got to see how bad the Gerald McCoy injury is

because that's probably going to affect some of his sacks. No question, but last night it didn't. I mean, he was carted off kind of in the middle of the game and then down the stretch he was still getting pressure. Same with Janik, Unique and Gakway, who is a hell of a player. Those to his bookends, they play well together. And then you said this, you know, right when you came in, I think we're both very happy for Carl Nassib.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, at this point in his career, he is like a third end kind of guy, you know, but he, a lot of people said when he came out and this really pissed me off, oh yeah, he's coming out so that they can't cut him. Like, which is not true because we cut Michael Sam. Trust me. And Michael Sam was not good enough. But this kid is a veteran and he's a guy who's produced before. I mean, he's had six, seven sacks in a season. He stops the run.

He seems to be comfortable with his role. And I thought that was really great last night that he got to make a play that ended up affecting the outcome of the ball game. And I think on the NFL's part, it was definitely showing this coming out video was definitely a marketing play. And I believe that's probably going to equal to a lot of jersey sales. And on top of it, it's one of those things where he's not that bad of a player. So, hey, like, if you're- It's a good thing. No, yeah, hey, get in your lane and do your thing. And at the end of the day, you keep making

plays, it doesn't matter what people want to say about you, good or bad. It's always going to, someone's always going to have an opinion. Somebody's always going to have an opinion. Men lie, women lie, numbers don't. Numbers don't. So here's the deal. Carl Nassab, it was funny. You mentioned them showing that video last night. Here's something about Carl Nassib that, I don't know of people know. When Carl Nassav came out, of course, like Bo, Bo Allen, who I'm really tight with, played with Carl Nassav in Tampa, and you just tell me he's a great guy, all that stuff. So, you know, I had reached out to Bo to tell Carl, I said congratulations. I've met Carl before. W.D. You know, he's a guy who's a little bit younger than me and that sort of thing.

He goes, would you want Carl on the show? And I'm like, of course I want Carl on the show. This is a big deal. And it's a big deal, of course, because of the delineation between him and Michael Sam, which a lot of people thought was based on a whole bunch of other things, but like there is a point to the word openly gay active NFL player. The reason that's significant is because tell me about all the plays you saw Michael Sam make in prime time. He made plays in preseason, but because he got cut, you couldn't look at the TV and be like, oh, there's a gay player making plays getting mobbed by his teammates. He's a big deal. He's a good player. People like him. It's great that Carl Nassav is active for that reason. A bunch of people saw him make him.

make that play last night. And a bunch of people heard him on the video too. And the thing about the video that I don't think people know is, Bo Allen was like, I'll get you Carl on the show. And I was like, sure, why not? Carl wasn't doing interviews intentionally. Carl didn't want it to be a big deal. It's inherently a big deal.

But Carl Nassiv didn't want to make it about him. You know, even if that would help him be more easily promoted. You know, like he just wanted it to be a thing where, hey I'm a good football player who's openly gay and we can we can move on and that's the goal like that's the goal is that eventually it's not a big deal and you the coolest thing is a lot of people told me NFL players are all these things they're terrible like wait till he gets in his locker room if you're gay in the NFL you get cut automatically I was arguing with people about somebody who spent time in my locker room dude okay you know how maddening that is fuck that app but like he he was so under the radar I don't know if you noticed this But last night at the end of his video, that's all they had. All they had was his like, hey, I'm Carl Nassib, and I'm gay. That was it. There was no interview since.

They obviously didn't have a sound bite from him. All they had was that he was surprised at how good the reception was. And here's the thing about the reception. A lot of people told me about, you know, hey, NFL players are going to say XYZ, were homophobes, this sort of thing, that sort of thing. the NFL is a microcosm of society, okay? So whatever you have in society you're going to have in the NFL, but you might have more acceptance in an NFL locker room than in the real world

because the NFL is inherently more desegregated than the real world. I don't know about from a sexual orientation standpoint, but what did you see last night when Carl Nassad May plays? Everyone's excited. Everybody's excited, bro. Everyone's excited. excitement, maybe even more. Because guys like him, dude.

He's a football player at the end of the day. He's a good dude. And production is the bottom line in the NFL. What people have to realize, it is very hard to make a NFL football team. And there are a lot of very, very great football players that don't necessarily make teams because of whatever circumstances. And trust me, trust me.

No one is putting someone on the, on their team just because of their sexual orientation. No chance, dude. No chance. Like no way. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter. As long as you can make plays, you can find a spot on the team. And nobody's cutting a guy because of their sexual orientation hasn't happened once yet

in the NFL. And I'm really glad that Carl Nassib got to show his talents last night. So good for him. And you know another way he's gonna help. You said it, Jerome McCoy's out. Well, guess who can rush inside? Carl Nassab. So improving his value the first night.

But the MVP defensively was Max Crosby. He was a terror. So awesome for some defensive pieces in Vegas and an improvement, it looks like, at the very least, unless you're telling me that Baltimore's not that good offensively, which I know you're not ready to tell me that guys and girls listening. I know you're not ready to tell me that. They, they, even, I even see K.J. Wright made a play last night

on fourth and short, which was really awesome. He's wearing number 34. I was like, who is that enormous safety? Oh, yeah, it's KJ. Wright. So, great call, new scheme. Offensively, Derek Carr made some big throws late. Me and Nate feel the same way. I think we both feel like people hate on him a little bit too much. I don't think

he's perfect, but golly, he made some nice throws, especially climbing the pocket late. I think Brian Edwards of South Carolina fame. I mean, last night, he made like six great catches in a row. You know, I'm really excited about this kid. I am gloating over being halfway right about something.

A lot of people gave me shit last year. Like, oh, that Brian Edwards, well, fuck you guys, huh? Shota, he was waiting for Monday night football. He was waiting until the crowd was in the stands. And he was hurt last year. He made some big plays. Yeah, so it was a great game. It was fun.

They need to be careful with Josh Jacobs, man. It's the first game, dude. The guy's limping off the field. I know he scored some touchdowns late for you or whatever, but be careful with that guy. You're sitting there like, they're fucked. They don't have a run game. Well, what kind of run game are they going to have

if his toe falls off or something. Real quick, two items, rookie tackles that we talked a lot about on Sunday, I didn't get a chance to, or leading up to Sunday, I didn't get a chance to look at Rishon Slater and his matchups against Washington D-Line.

Up there in Washington, the palace of liquid poop, the Washington football team and their D-Line was supposed to get to Justin Herbert all day long. One of the biggest concerns about the Chargers is that they might not be able to protect him that well. I mean, a lot's banking on this left tackle, this rookie, being a great player,

and he seems to be. But they survived playing one of, allegedly, the best defensive lines in the league, and they kept Herbert clean. So really good day for the Chargers, but really good day for Slater, even more so. He did a really good job early in the run game. There was a play you'd probably see on like red zone or something like that where I think it was Echler bounced for 30 yards in the run game and a lot of that was due to how sticky Chase Young got on Roshan Slater and got heavy on him and Slater kind of turned him and Echler hit the sea gap for about 25 okay chase young the only play he made on him that day was he swam him outside for a TFL this kid did a great job in pass pro I love how square he stays you know when a guy stays really square at tackle

your answer is to bulrush the inside shoulder. Like, okay, you want to stay square? You want to play this fucking game with me? I'm going to dent your inside shoulder. Well, this kid has a really nice anchor for a guy who can dance. So I don't think that's going to be a problem for him. He stays square. He does a good job washing people by.

I think games, two-man games, are going to be the biggest threat to that side of the line in L.A. Not because of him, but because for a young player to work with, you know, a guard, from time to time if you can't beat this kid they're going to start running loops and all types of stuff

but it wasn't a problem for them on Sunday. Snap to release, 2.6 seconds. I mean, that's right down the middle for Justin Herbert. It wasn't like they were

rifling the ball out. This kid had a good day. 49 pass blocking snaps zero pressures allowed. I mean, good Lord. He doesn't look like a generational tackle out there, you know, but he plays like a generational tackle

out there. If he was six, 7, 3.30 and look like, you know, Mackay Beckton or, you know, one of the Penae Seul, we'd be like, oh my God, it's Orlando Pace. But this kid looks a little bit... Del Rio does not like that.

What do you mean? He does not like those stats. They got no pressures. Oh, yeah, yeah, no pressures. Yeah, Del Rio would be mad. He was mad. Another guy, Penn A Sewell had a really good day. We talked about him. Left tackle, right tackle. Oh, it doesn't make a difference. We're all going to make fun of him because Rousseau had a sack on him

in preseason. Listen, it looked bad. We said it looked bad. I think I talked to Jeff Schwartz about this, and we talked about how important it is to play the side that you play predominantly. Penae Sewell had two days getting ready for Nick Bosa, who you guys tell me as like a defensive player a year candidate.

So don't go back on that. Penae Sewell looked really good, dude. He looked really good. I'm happy for him. He had two days to practice being a left tackle again, and it looked great. It looked infinitely better than his preseason stuff. I mean also the run game

He was moving people dude The short stuff There was a swing pass in the first quarter Late off play action pass Where he takes 56 for a fucking 12 yard ride Like almost puts him on the bench You can tell this guy's got those vice grips I don't know if you ever played somebody

That like you're looking up at And he has got his like bear paws on you And you're like oh you're not going to stop running And I can't get off you He's going to be like that guy Bosa did beat him to be fair a couple times Third and 15 beat him inside once and then he ran him the fuck over in the third quarter but it happens to the best of us and with

bennay soo we were trying to we were trying to figure out if he could play at the pro level like in the preseason legitimately is this a big mistake at the very least this kid's going to be all right i mean we'll see so penesoul rough preseason good first game i'll take it that way let's talk to ken burns uh about mohammed ali the documentary that aired september 19th through the 22nd it is an our thrill ride covering one of the most influential figures in American history, period. Guy was an athlete, a boxer. Huge fan of Muhammad Ali and just how big his market is. There we get marketing.

Dude, I watched anime, like a fighting anime, and Muhammad Ali and Muhammad Ali Jr. is like they're in this fighting anime. And it was just so mind-blowing to me that, that, His fame stretched that far. You know, it's mind-blowing to me that you're watching anime. But it's a recent anime, bro, too. I don't think it matters that it's recent. Let's talk to Ken Burns.

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free, go to mintmobile.com slash greenlight. That's mintmobile.com slash greenlight. Cut your wireless bills to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com slash greenlight. So Ken Burns is here, and it feels like yesterday we were talking about his country documentary, which I was just telling him offline, has just followed me for the better part of two years now. As far as like, I've been on a rampage on Spotify, exploring every corner of the genre. A lot of it is thanks to Ken Burns. So thank you, Ken, and it's good to see again. How are you?

I'm doing all right. I'm happy that that two years out, it's still, you know, generating searches and stuff like that. it's such an endlessly wonderful topic because it isn't just one thing. Everybody that doesn't know country music thinks it's a one thing and it's a many thing. It is a many thing. I mean, that is the best way to put it. And before we get into your newest doc, which we've been kind of getting through at light speed here because there's no other way to do it, I'm so glad that we have the opportunity to binge it. It's Ali.

It's Muhammad Ali. and it's running September 19th through the 22nd. It's a four-part series on PBS. It is great. We're going to talk about it here today. The most important question I have for you, though, historically, is what do you think we're going to look back in 50 years and think of Mack Jones? That's great.

Well, Mack, I thought, did pretty well the other day. He was, you could see why Belichick kept him, right? Yeah. And you could see why he picked him in the first place. And he has that Tom Brady, don't go for the big bomb, but do the open guy. And he seemed disciplined. And he just came up on the short end of the stick of a competition with another Alabama quarterback who'd had just a few more miles under his, on his engine.

So, yeah, I don't think it's going to be Tom Brady. I mean, it would be nice if it was Tom Brady. But I just, I mean, I grew up in Ann Arbor. So I have having to think that it has nothing to do with Tuscaloosa. It has everything to do with Ann Arbor. There we go. There we go. What we're talking about, Brady.

I mean, if you had to think of a guy today who's kind of transcends celebrity and sport. Yep. It's become Tom Brady. I mean, like, you know, especially due to the age in which he plays football, juxtaposed to Michael Jordan, who's kind of shrouded and in a little bit relative secrecy and, you know, a little bit more anonymity. And even before them, you didn't. hear a lot from athletes, but a guy like Muhammad Ali was like Brady Times what? Yeah, well, I wouldn't even put Brady in the same way. I think we can speak about the word

goat with relationship to the position of quarterback in the national football league with regard to him. And I think that he's more closely aligned with a Michael Jordan because he has not spent the currency that someone of his position has, just as Michael Jordan has. Just as Michael Jordan has, speaking about issues of social justice, speaking out in a way that they would want to speak out, or just using the platform. I think there's a carefulness. And so in the 1960s, you have Jim Brown, you have Carlos and Smith at the Mexico City Olympics, and they disappear.

You have Kurt Flood at the end of the 60s, early 70s, who challenges the reserve clause, the plantation system that enslaves not only black but white baseball players. And he's disappeared. And it takes two white guys, Messer Schmidt and McNabb. with Marvin Miller to break the reserve clause and cause this huge, big, wonderful explosion and Golden Age in the sport of baseball. You have Colin Kaepernick, who's not being paid by a football team, even though he could be, but he's got a Nike contract. Muhammad Ali, when he said, I'd rather face machine gun fire than go against my faith,

everybody assumed he's giving a middle finger to the U.S. because he doesn't want to fight in Vietnam when he's just, he's got a religious objection. even the prosecutors say only send him to this much and the judge sends him to the maximum. And he's, you know, he knows he'd have a cushy job there, right? He'd go to Vietnam. He'd do USO shows. He'd fake, you know, sparring stuff with soldiers. He'd pose for photographs.

But it wasn't going to do that. So the level of courage that he had is so great that it influences, I think, modern athletes today. I think are maybe not putting, maybe not, thank goodness, have to be in the same position of being challenged, he was dipping into his second wife, Belinda's college fund in order to survive. Right. That's what he gave up. And this is the peak of his career, three and a half years, at the height of his powers as a boxer.

And then he comes back afterwards. You know, it's just amazing to me. It is amazing. And it's hard for people, I think, to imagine, like myself included, because when you look at, like, who's the most famous athlete today? It's Tom or it's Michael 10 years ago or 20 years ago or whatever. was. But like boxing was was enormous in scale. I mean, I feel like when you're, you know, like kind of shed a little light as you're traveling down this path with Muhammad Ali on just

how big it was and how appointment viewing or listening it was for the average American. From the 1880s through to, I guess, Mike Tyson. Yeah. The heavyweight champion really meant something and really meant something in very symbolic ways. When Jack Johnson, the first African-American to hold it, we invented the term great white hope. The idea that an African-American could own this title meant that white people were no longer supreme in their physicality. And so they'd send up fighter after fighter, white hope after white hope to try to beat Jack Johnson and couldn't do it. And Muhammad Ali is the same sort of way, but he was dedicated to everybody. This is a story of freedom and courage, but also love. And Jack Johnson was just for Jack Johnson. But you have to

understand that who the heavyweight champion was just about everybody knew whether they liked boxing or not. I'll tell you something, I've done of 6,000 interviews about this Ali thing. It feels like, and when I've been interviews by sports guys and they start talking about, you know, this, I just, I'll just say to them, who's the heavyweight champion? Yeah, exactly. Nobody has, nobody's answered. It does not matter. Now, I've made two films about boxers. I'm not interested in boxing. I love baseball and I love football. I made two films. One is on Jack Johnson and one is on Muhammad Ali. And it's because they both transcend to principally racial but also many other dimensions with Muhammad Ali, the actual brutal sport, the sweet

science as it is paradoxically called that boxing is. And so there's a lot there. Muhammad Ali essentially intersects with every important issue of the last half of the 20th century. Like, what's the role of sports in society? What's the role of a black athlete? What's the nature of black manhood or black masculinity? What's the civil rights movement like? It isn't just a one thing. It's a many thing.

And lots of different people have different approaches to what it might be. It's a question of race, of course, the age old American question. It's about faith and religion and Islam. It's about politics and war. It's about sex. I mean, all of these things. And there are things that we're dealing with now. So we wake up in 2021, and the example of Muhammad Ali is dimensionally greater than any other sports figure.

He is the greatest athlete of the 20th century. And I'm willing to sit in a bar and have a beer and say, you know, tell me who's better. I mean, this guy loses three and a half years of his career at the height of his career and comes back and wins the championship twice. And if you put together his fights, they're so unbelievable. First Liston, First Frasier, the Rumble in the Jungle, the Thrill in Manila, you know, lots of other ones I could list. They're like the collective works of William Shakespeare. You couldn't make this stuff up. It's so dramatic.

I mean, just the Liston fight, the first Liston fight, where he's expected to be destroyed. And then he's winning on points easily in the first three rounds. Then Liston's corner puts liniment on Liston's gloves so it gets in Ali's eyes. He's blind against one of the greatest punchers for at least a round and a half, you know? That's four and a half minutes, if not two rounds. And he's eyes clears. And then he's back and he's undisputed victory. And he's the heavyweight champion.

And nobody can beat him until, you know, you take away his license because you don't like his point of view. And they saw it as political, as I said, not not faith-based. All the things you rattled off that he represented is that what? Norman Mailer was talking about. The very spirit of the 20th century. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what?

All of those things don't mean anything. They're just like, you know, if this was high school, then there'd be a quiz on Tuesday. Right. There's no quiz. But what happens is the engagement of all those things produces a story. Right. And out of that story, we have meaning. And the meaning is about freedom.

It is very difficult still for a black man to escape the specific gravity and achieve a kind freedom than many of us just take for granted. And he did. It's about courage of the kinds I've described. And it's about love. And that's a four-letter word that the FCC allows me on PBS to use. But it's really tough to talk about. And this guy dies. Let us remember, he dies the most beloved person on the planet. And that doesn't come from being a divisive figure in the 60s because he's bragging, strike one. He joins the nation of Islam, strike two. and he refuses the draft strike three. It comes because he spent his life representing other people.

When the Supreme Court unanimously on a technicality releases him from his jail sentence, he could be jumping up and down, writing a poem, doing all the stuff, bragging. And somebody says, what do you think of the system? And he goes, I don't know who will be assassinated tonight. I don't know who's going to be enslaved. I don't know who will be denied justice or equality. And, you know, he's looking back on three and, 50 years of the mistreatment of African Americans on this continent. He's looking ahead to names

that, you know, he doesn't know. None of us knew then, but names like Rodney King and Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice and Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and I'm sorry to say thousands of others. And he cares about that. And that's where that comes from. That's a love where it isn't just about me. Sure. Yeah, I just got an 8 to 0 victory when Justice recused himself because he'd been in the Justice Department when the thing came down. And the one black justice, Thurgood Marshall. You can't make any of the stuff up. That's why it's so much better than Hollywood, Chris, because it's just, it's just truth is stranger than fiction.

And it's just an amazing story. But he was, he represented so that people around the world felt that he spoke for them. And for all his flaws. And we don't hesitate, as you know, as you've seen, from detailing the flaws. Because a hero is not perfect. A hero is about the negotiation between strengths and weakness. is not about perfection. There's no such thing as perfection. I don't know a perfect person. Do you? No, no, not the guy sitting in this chair, at least. And not the one in this. And so I think,

you know, that's a theme I definitely want to get into in a minute. But also the irony, not irony, he's a stranger than fiction. It's just like for a black man to occupy a seat in which he could deliver messages to so many over that three-year hiatus where he was grappling with so much and he becomes this person who's wildly influential and counterculture is bubbling up. And he becomes this kind of person riding the top of the wave for good reason. The way he got there was through the most brutal avenue. And that was the only avenue available to black men. Yeah.

That's exactly right. And you think about how limiting the choices are. I always like to say that COVID did an interesting thing, which was, you know, it was an existential threat to everyone who had a brain. and so you suddenly, the reason why the George Floyd thing mattered in a way that the millions of other murders haven't mattered in quite the same way is because I think white Americans woke up to the fact that, you know, now going to the convenience store is a problem for me. Right. I might get sick and die. But African Americans have been worried about going to the convenience store for as long as there have been convenience stores.

Yeah. Because you might get shot and die. Yeah. And for no reason whatsoever. or to go jogging in a different neighborhood or to walk down the street or maybe do something, you know, not so great. But, you know, if I do something not so great, I'm getting away with it. Yeah. I don't end up dead on the side of the road. I get a ticket. Right. And so I think, I think that that existential threat that COVID represented and just the division, the larger

division in the country, I think just people who hadn't really thought about it said, this isn't fair. You know, Chris Rock was right. You know, he said, I'm a multimillionaire. And, None of you speaking to a college audience, you know, several generations after Muhammad Ali was speaking to mostly white college audiences, he goes, I'm a multimillionaire and you wouldn't change places with me for anything. And he's just saying, because I can go to the convenience store, right, and get killed. Yeah. Just for going in there and doing something, you know, and that's not even any. I mean, just being normal. And thousands more subtle discriminations that you wouldn't even realize existed until you wore Chris Rock's clothes and sat in his seat.

I mean, so to get where he went, though, Muhammad Ali had to be a self-promoter. He's known to be one of the greatest self-promoters of all time, like an artist in that way, almost. But it was very interesting to me to learn that and made a lot of sense that he picked up some of his first kind of pointers from wrestling, wrestling. Tell people who haven't seen the doc or who are getting ready to see the doc where that comes from. Well, a lot of this, David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker magazine, and also an early biography, of clay, is talked about this time. He's in Las Vegas for a fight, but he goes and he visits gorgeous George, who's like this perfumed and pear-permed guy who's primping and whatever. He's the ultimate villain. Everyone loves to hate him. And just light bulb went off and Ali goes,

of course, it doesn't matter. So Ali later on says boo, his throw peanuts, but whatever you do, pay to get in. And so he had P.T. Barnum's essential sense of self-promotion, but he was also knew that he was on a on a bigger mission and and that's so great so he combines all of the history on he doesn't care if people don't like him he doesn't care and that's a that's a liberating thing and he doesn't care if he's not supposed to be this way he doesn't care if if people say well as you know a real athlete doesn't respond you know doesn't say that right and we've had some goofy people in football you know goofy people in baseball and the system tends to try to snuff the life out of them or else they're turned into kind of

of, you know, like the Mark Fidrich, the bird. Do you remember him? He was talked to the baseball and whatever, Detroit Tiger pitcher, or somebody that had eccentric. He's oil can Boyd in the 80s for the Red Sox. I mean, you just had people that were eccentric. You know, football's had that. McMahon, you know, was sort of like. The boss, yeah. Didn't behave the way you were supposed to behave, Dion. You know, but nothing was like this. Nothing was at this level of promotion. And he had promoters, and he always did a better job than they did. I mean, there was a newspaper strike in New York City, and he had promised the legislators up in Albany who were worried about the game and the integrity,

that he was going to sell out Madison's Corey Garden, which hadn't happened for a boxing match in years. And then there's a newspaper strike. So how are we going to find out? He's going door to door. He's knocking on every press guy's thing. He's going to every television station. He's, you know, and they sell out. They sell out this fight. I mean, just look at him and you go, you cannot help when you see him this love of life, this bullions, this Wadaviva, where he just, you can't help but smile and go, you know, I know he was in a lot of people's faces and you made people nervous, but now in retrospect, he can't hurt you. He can only just remind you that you can be a better person if you let go of a lot of the garbage that keeps you down. Sunny Liston, to me, you mentioned being

a heel. Sunny Liston was not only the quintessential heel, but that fight was. That fight, was like the quintessential young Ali fight like we that's the poster right like that's how most of my generation knows him but going into that fight you know you you remarked he wasn't well liked either so who were people pulling for yeah well you know what I think if we're talking about white America I'm not sure I could actually speak for black America at that time because I think that um mohammed cashes clay was a difficult package to accept because he was athletes weren't supposed to behave this way and not a black athlete. You're going to get us into trouble, right? So in a paradoxical way, the thuggishness of Sunny Liston, right? He out of prison,

tied to the mob, you know, this gigantic guy that is, you know, just a slugger. You know, Clay was not going to last around. He was out of a movie. He was out of a movie. And so, so is right, he's central casting. And so in a way, I remember with my dad and I was 64, so I'm like a the fights in February. So I'm like 10, 10 and a half years old. And it's not that I'm for Sonny Liston. It's just he's the familiar person. Right. But this other guy is unfamiliar and just a little bit scary. And so I think that that's the evolution that I know I made individually with my dad. And Howard CoSell was a great helper in that because in the beginning, Howard CoSell is antagonistic towards clay and then when he changes his name, he's won't, he calls him clay for a while.

But then of the sudden he realized, oh my God, this guy is sincere. This guy is also very, very good. And there's, we can help each other. And Ali was no fool. He understood exactly how he could ride CoSell for as long as he could ride him. And that would be just as he did anything else. You know, one of the great stories is there's a life photographer named Flip Schulte. who comes down to Miami on assignment, Life magazine,

to take pictures of Ali training, right? So they take some pictures and Ali says, do you want to see me train in underwater? And he goes, sure, sure. No one trains underwater. No boxer had ever trained underwater. But here is Ali's genius. He says, want to watch me?

And of course, this photography gets the underwater equipment. He gets the beautiful spread in Life magazine. It's gorgeous. It never happened. And it doesn't get back until finally he realized he's been had by the greatest promoter since P.T. Barnum. You know, it's so, it's just, that's to me, like a perfect, there are lots of perfect Ali's stories in all the different facets. That's one.

Then this is one of the most generous people on earth, period. And so there's a story that's told that by his biographer, Jonathan Igan, the film, that Angelo Dundee comes over to him in the Fifth Street Gym to walk up, CD plays where he's training. And he says, see that guy in a wheelchair. over that. He's going to try to tell you he's Roy Campanella, the great Dodger star who was in a car accident, the MVP, who was catcher for the championship Dodgers in the 50s. And he's going to tell you he's Roy Campanella, confined to a wheelchair. And don't give him anything. He's a hustler. A few minutes later, he looks over and Ali's ripping off a roll of bills and giving it to this guy, right? And Dundee goes on,

and he says, wait, I told you, he's a hustler. And he goes, Ange, we have legs. Like that is the perfect Ali story too. It's like, yeah, sure, you know, I made a film about the shakers. This is going to sound like out of left field. And it really is. The shakers are a celibate religious sect. Yeah, I know, yeah.

And they discovered that their poorer neighbors were stealing their crops at night. Yeah. So what did the shakers do? Plant more crops. They said, we plant some for the thieves and some for the crows and some for the shakers. thieves and crows have to eat too. And Muhammad Ali, that is the quintessential Christian gesture. Is it not?

Oh, you're stealing. Let us plant more so that you will have some stuff to take. Here is a guy who's embracing this cuckoo dangerous sect that has, but gives him a kind of foundation of meaning in a turbulent world that's not treating him and his people very well. and his idea of generosity is way beyond my I mean his gravestone you know cave hill cemetery in louisville kentucky yeah it says service to others is the price you pay for your room in heaven and mohammed ali has the biggest sweet there is that's a pretty good good way to wrap up his

life's work i mean i'd love for people to say that i mean that's just beautiful don't you want that about you? Don't you want to die the most beloved person on your planet? By my family. I don't want to chase the rest of it. But if I were Muhammad Ali and I had that reach, you have no choice. You could either waste it and just be a great boxer, which on its head is awesome. Or you could do a million other things in the arenas of service and in the arenas of change making. So, you know, Michael J. Fox, the actor, right? It has Parkinson's as well. The same same affliction, if that's what you're you want to call it. I mean, they've, they've transformed it. I remember something that Michael Jay's box said years and years ago that really struck me. And it was so beautiful. He said,

I couldn't be still until I couldn't be still. Right. Meaning the, you know, he learned about himself through the affliction. And so here you have in Ali, the most valuable talking all the time guy and funny and jokes and serious and wise and whatever. And yet, in a way, he couldn't really talk. until he couldn't talk. And then all of a sudden, the entire world. I mean, like if he called a press conference in the 60s, the sports world would stop, more or less, most of the sports world. He visited Pakistan, the entire country would stop. There are thousands of people named Muhammad Ali Clay because so many people named Muhammad Ali.

He was a superstar around the world, not for the boxing prowess, although that was something, but because he spoke to people who felt like, nobody had heard their story. And that's what you, you know, and his daughter at the end of the film, Rashida, pinches her fingers together and says, you know, boxing was only this much. And that means he could have been a simple carpenter. And we know in world religions where simple carpenters have gone. And so you have this profit of love that I'm unabashed. There's a great shot in that 5th Street gym, the same place where the host or con

a cond amount of some money, which he gave away freely. It's only a con if you feel like it's a con. Right. Right. And he's training for the list and fight. It's 64. It's the British invasion and who should show up at the 5th Street gym, but John Paul, George, and Ringo. And there's a great, you know, this setup shot, I'm sure you've seen it. Yeah. Where he seems to be punching and they're all going over like dominoes. But it occurred to me, these are five men who understood the heart of the matter for all of humanity and certainly for the last 60 years that we've been struggling as a country and as a world with these things. Three of those men are dead. Two of them are still alive. One of them wrote probably the summary of all of that, which is, and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. And all five of them spent their entire professional lives as long as they were lived, you know, one murdered, one died, both two died of, of, you know, debilitating diseases, cancer with Harrison and and Parkinson's with Ali. But they all spent their lives, even in this brutal sport of boxing, promoting this in congruous thing that we have a hard time talking about called love. And by the way, the George Harrison documentary is pretty good. He's my favorite. He's my favorite. I have to say that all the time.

Well, you know, it's interesting because it's always, you know, Lennon and McCartney's output is beyond compare. And if you're talking about who the greatest band is in rock and roll, you have to, if you're honest, go besides the Beatles. And then you look at a list of the Beatles songs. And the top six songs, at least three of them are George Harrison's songs. My guitar gently read. Here comes the sun and something, right? And then you're talking about this guy who's like, he's like the tortoise in the hair. So you're arguing, well, Paul wrote this. Yeah, but John wrote that. And Paul did this. And they've all got great. Well, it's all subjective anyways. Yeah, it's all subjective. There's nothing subjective about the fighting, though. So, you know, and that's interesting that people from all vocations, all walks of life seem to gravitate to Muhammad Ali. I mean, I've seen pictures of Wayland Jennings.

with Muhammad Ali, like they were buddies. Like, you know, people that you just wouldn't expect found some sort of, I don't know, like hey, I'm interested in this guy, maybe the first time I heard him speak, it scared me or it stirred something up in me that made me uncomfortable, but by the time I met him, I mean, like, he probably won a lot of people over

that didn't expect that he, on his speaking tour as well. I'm looking a lot of these kids, I'm like, there's no way these white kids at Chapel Hill or wherever else he was talking or Chicago, some of the apps, state was mentioned. Like there's no way these kids ever heard this messaging before. No, that's exactly right. Who had the balls to say it that looked like him. Exactly. Well, you know what? I made a film a few years ago with the same, you know, this film is

co-directed by my oldest daughter, Sarah and her husband, David McMahon, Sarah Burns. And Sarah and Dave wrote the script. And so it's equally theirs. And so it's, it's embarrassing for me to, you know, take it, you know, it's like a lot of people on the team, you know, that thing. But they're, you know, this, this is an. amazing story. We made a film earlier about the guy in the previous generation, Jackie Robinson, who redefined black manhood. And it occurred to me that if in 1947 when Jackie comes up, you're a Brooklyn Dodger fan, but you're a racist, what are you going to do? Right? It seems to me you got three choices. One is you're going to say, oh, I'm going to change my team. But, you know,

if Jackie's coming to the Dodgers, African Americans are going to be coming to every team. Oh, you could change your sport, but that's the same thing too. And in fact, some of the other sports had already, you know, had African-American players, but they weren't just as big and as popular as baseball was as monolithically great. Or number three, you can change. And that's what these people like Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali do. They sponsor in you, however conscious or unconscious, the realization or even just a subconscious movement towards something that's better.

You know, Lincoln called it the better angels of our nature. You know, that's what it's about. And that's why if you're going to say, who are you going to have it at that dinner party, you can invite two people, I'd say, Muhammad Ali and Lewis Armstrong, you know, who basically is the guy who took jazz from this ensemble music to this soloist art. You just can't admit, you add to me, Abraham Lincoln, you had, you know, Harriet Tubman or Ida B. Wells or whoever it is, it's a big dinner table if you can do it. But man, when you're talking about somebody that when you leave their presence,

you feel transformed. Muhammad Ali is one of them. Muhammad Ali might talk over the music is the only consideration. You can be music. Anybody who can say, I'm so bad, I can drown a drink of water and kill a dead tree. Yeah, he's part of the music. He was one of the first rhymers. I mean, he's a proto-rapper.

Yeah, I mean, he's an amazing, in so many ways, influential in so many ways. But one of the interesting ways that he influenced people was he forced them to consider that other people might have a different faith than them in the arena of American pro sports, which was very, even for black Americans, the fight where he wasn't saying his name, Ernie Turrell. He was calling him Clay. Floyd as well. You know, like the NOI was kept a secret. The Nation of Islam was kept a secret, his involvement with Malcolm X and, you know, I guess his burgeoning passion for that faith

until he won the fight with Sunny Liston. And I never realized this part of it. They were trying to keep it under wraps because you probably aren't going to get that title bout. You're not going to get that fight. A week or two before the Liston fight, the promoter said, selling tickets because Malcolm X is involved. And so they send Malcolm back to New York to just sort of

cool things. And then he flies back on the eve of the fight. And they're certain that, you know, Clay is going to, you know, run away and do something. But that night after he wins, nobody had on his camp had planned a party. So he and Malcolm X go back to the all black Hampton house and have vanilla ice cream at the little shop. And then he and Jim Brown and Sam Cook stay up all night talking about his future. And the next day, he comes out not bragging, but saying, I don't have to be what you want to be. I can be who I want to be. As Robert Lipsite, the sports writer said, a declaration, an athletic declaration of independence. And then immediately, it's, I'm joining the nation of Islam. I've been a member of the nation of Islam. And so, you know, he's, he's liberated. He's achieved a kind of freedom.

He's escaped the specific gravity of the African American community. And so it's worris of, African-American community, which has invested in the Christian religion. They were forced to adopt when they were kidnapped and brought here. And they've done a hell of a good job representing Christian values, I have to say. Yeah. Turning the other cheek. Affirmation in the face of adversity, all of the stuff that goes on. But he was worrisome because, and let's face it, there's nothing pure about the nation

of Islam. It's not Islam. It's a cult. And they've got some dangerous stuff. Remember, they do assassinate one of their own. or they've expelled him, Malcolm X. There's corruption. There's impregnation of secretaries and female assistance.

So this is not, you know, the model thing. But what Malcolm X first and Muhammad Ali, just in his own inner self, is moving towards, is a much more expansive and generous version of Islam that is more in tune with mainstream, as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says in our film, who is a Muslim but has joined a Muslim group, not a kind of sect thing. It moves towards that. That's more ecumenical, more generous.

And this is where Muhammad Ali, this is where it's the evolution. You can't just say, oh, he did this. And it's a fact. Everybody's fluid, you know, it's like saying, you join the Patriots, and then this happened. You know, that's all you are. No, all these things happened while I did this. And then I did this. So everything is in flux. Everything's in motion. And that's what I felt. They're looking. lots of really good documentaries about Muhammad Ali. And but none had actually done soup to nuts, you know, and we wanted to be able to follow this as a spiritual journey, not just say, oh, he was, he had joined this thing and it had

these repercussions, but understand how he changed and evolved and grew. How much do you think like a young Muhammad Ali or young Cassius Clay before he became Muhammad Ali, how much of it is like truly his conviction of how much of it is like I'm a young, you know, person who can easily be influenced. just like myself at 22 or, you know, yourself at 22, like all of a sudden you're on top of the world and you have Malcolm X in your ear and you have Elijah Muhammad in your ear. And, you know, it's, it's just a lot for a kid no matter what. That's a super, that's a super smart question, Chris, super smart. So I don't know the answer because we can't know unless he were here and

able to express it. But he grows up in, you know, segregated Louisville, Kentucky. His father's bitter because he's a painter, but nobody treats him like an artist. So he has to be a signed painter. You know, it's both nurturing and protective in a middle class black neighborhood, but it's also got all the constraints of Jim Crow. And he's seen Emmett Till's open casket, you know, pictures of this brutalized, murdered, tortured black kid who's no, not that much older than him. It's hugely influential. And, and so he's struggling. He doesn't know what it is. He is, as we all are. You know, we go to college and we meet a professor and that professor wakes us up or a coach. And that person gives us. life values that we keep for the rest of our lives or at least build on for the rest of our lives. And I think meeting the bumping into the nation of Islam, it made a lot of sense in that do-for-self. You can't expect others to do it. It's just going to be for yourself. We're on our own.

You've been given a slave name. What's that? Who are you told us? So in a fundamental way, it made a lot of sense. It, of course, had some really rough edges and untied stuff. But that's- Sounds like organized religious. to me. Sounds like all of organized religion. But also if I was black in the 60s, I would want to be

segregated from white people. And I don't think that's that ridiculous of a request. I would be like, hey, you guys can be over here. I'm going to be over here. So here we are. We hold up quite rightfully, Martin Luther King, as the ideal of the Southern integrationist civil rights movement, turn the other cheek, nonviolent. But, you know, there's an interview with Bud Collins where he says, you know, I admire Governor Wallace, George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama. And Bud Collins is like, don't you want to take that back. He doesn't say that. But he goes, yeah, he says, you shouldn't move into a neighborhood if they don't want you. Now, there are lots of answers to that question. But at the same time, there's a kind of internal fundamental logic for a kid,

like a 20, early 20 something like Ali says, you know, I don't want to go where I'm not wanted. It's so funny because he's a person who crossed all barriers. He, oh, he's, you know, he hires a white trainer. He's got white people and brown people and as well as black people surrounding him. And yet he's representing in a larger sense, black people. And so that makes the story incredibly accessible for all of us. And in a way, it helps us grow. That's what I'm trying to say. I just think we don't, we always want, we always want them to do the changing, right? It's always, you know, Mark Twain said, nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. Right. Right. I mean, it's, It's so easy to say, you know, Chris, could you please not do this and please not do this

because it really bothers me. In point of fact, the only person I am able to work on is myself. And so I think Muhammad Ali provides us with enough irritation, enough inspiration, enough just stuff that you can spend your time, you can waste your life hating him or being mad at him or whatever. But really, all he's done is giving you an opportunity to work on yourself. I put you on the spot with that hypothetical question. I'll give you another hypothetical question as a segue into the draft talk because, as we said earlier,

listen, there's been a lot of great athlete activists since him, but, you know, the amount of risk that he posed himself. It's just scary stuff, especially when he's not trying to get out of getting shot. He's trying to get out of going on a fucking U.S.O. tour. Excuse my friends here, Ken. I just cussed at Ken Burns. I got a great job. My grandmother would use to say, boys don't swear, not that I give a damn, but it sounds like hell to other people. Oh, that's so funny.

I always don't use that. But would Cassius Clay or Muhammad Ali have fought in World War II? Would it make any difference to him? Another super great question. His mentor, Elijah Muhammad, went to jail at World War II, which everybody went. He did not go because his religion forbade. And at that point is a black man saying, no. And they said, no, this isn't religious.

This isn't based on anything. You're just lazy and you don't want to go. So you're going to jail. So he goes to jail. There's, I think he's being inspired by the courage of his mentor, but he's exhibiting a new kind of courage and a different kind of riskier age for us. So it's, it's why he's still, that's why we're talking about him. Right. You know, it's because we're 55, 60 years from the moment of these things.

and he's still inspirational. He still can be rousing in the best sort of the word to make us be our better selves. It was illuminating to me a little bit hearing him actually talk about it. I hadn't seen enough footage of him talking about the draft, but it didn't seem like it was an issue as much of like, hey, is the Vietnam War just? But it was like, hey, it's a non-starter for me. Yes. So, you know, that might answer the World War II question.

I was just like, for a long time, I thought, well, he knew before we knew that the war was totally out of line. But it wasn't just that. This is why he comes back. You hit the nail on the head. This is why we forgave him. This is why, you know, for his supposed sins, the sins were ours. You know, he comes back because people are suddenly realizing, oh, my God, he was right about Vietnam. Oh, my God, he was courageous.

He, you know, we did the thing on Vietnam, and we had people saying, you know, the courageous thing to do would have been to not go, not to go. not to go. Yeah. And, you know, the guy went and, you know, this is Tim O'Brien who wrote one of the greatest books ever about war and about the Vietnam War called The Things They Carried. And he's still carrying the burden of the fact that he went rather than, because he didn't want to disappoint his parents and his community and his girlfriend and whatever.

And he knew it was wrong even then. And he's still beating himself up. And, and Muhammad Ali just said, no, this is not what I believe. That would be, he says, That would be 100% against the teachings of Elijah Muhammad and the Muslim religion and the Quran, the holy book of my religion. And you just got to go, this guy's like 22, 23 years ago. Stones. Yeah.

I mean, my man had stones. He comes back after that whole hiatus, the speaking tour, which was really interesting part of the doc. He comes back. He's not the same fighter. And I think, again, we have this idea in our generation that he was perpetually the guy standing over Sunday Liston. Yeah. You know, like when he comes back, he's a different fighter. The fight we all remember, the fights we all remember, most easily is the trilogy between him and Joe Frazier.

Yeah, I mean, this is it. And the first one, he loses, and he definitely loses that fight. And it begins to show some of the weaknesses and also some of the strengths. He's going to learn how to take a punch as Verdi Projeco. His fight doctor said, and that's going to be a good thing and a very bad thing because he's going to do it. One of the interesting things after the Frazier, trilogy is the foreman, Don King, Zaire, like, kind of zany. It's like the fifth episode to me, or the fifth season of the wire or something. It's like, no, no, no. It's just gone a little bit

off the rails here. The thing I'm wondering about is like, do you think Don King is good or bad for boxing? Like, as you look at it later down the line, could we use more of Don King now? Is that why boxing is struggling? Or do you think Don was a negative character? Well, I don't know that. He just is a force. I mean, is a is a is a is a tornado a negative character yes if it causes damage so yeah don king was willing to do a fight well after ali shouldn't have been fighting at all you know this is a guy who also beat somebody else up into jail and should have spent a hell of a lot more time in jail than than he did um this is you know a guy i you know there's an immorality or an amorality to to don king and um you know it's all about money. And so, you know, he's, he's a very interesting character. So you can't dismiss him

out of hand. It's just very, very interesting. No, I, I, you know, I'm not sure that boxing will ever recover from the absence of Muhammad Ali, you know, and does it need to, you know? I mean, do we care? I mean, about people beating themselves up once you don't have somebody of this dynamic stuff. Yeah, we tolerated Tyson for a while because he was so out there and he bit somebody's year. You know, it's just, but at the end of the day, is that, is that what your celebrity is about? I mean, when you have somebody who you, who's preceded you, who is, you know, the broken

record who dies the most beloved person on the planet, you know? Yeah. I mean, that service to me was a barometer. Like, if you can have a service like that and like kings have had smaller. Yeah. No, no, no. We were talking about this the other night. Like, who is the most popular person?

And we go, well, maybe you go to the Pope because there are, you know, two or three billion Catholics or however many Catholics there are. And there are a lot of other people who admire him as a holy leader. But, you know, who else is out there that has that kind of universal, positive stuff? And maybe you go, well, Michelle Obama, yes, but we're not talking about the same league as Muhammad Ali. And so where is he? Well, you know, at least in a kind of flage. flickering shadow of it. He's in four episodes that we've spent the last seven years working on that will be on PBS on the 19th. Last question to close it out. Towards the beginning of the dock,

you pick the torch to kind of set the table a little bit for what we're going to see after it. And I wonder, because he did go through so many phases and stages, including the demise, which is an interesting part of the doc and had to be painful to watch some of that footage. Really painful. Who or when was Muhammad Ali most Muhammad Ali to you? What a great question. I don't know, Chris, this is that's, God, that's great. Because he's, he's him as a little kid.

You can see it when he's, he's barely picked up boxing gloves and he says he's going to be the greatest. He knows already. And he's at the Olympics where even the Russians fall in love with him. And he's in he's overcoming sunny, listen, despite the liniment in his eyes. Or he's dispatching Ernie Terrell or Big Cat Williams in these masterpieces of fight. Or he's losing to Joe Frazier. Or he's standing up to the U.S. government.

Or he's beating Foreman. I mean, what could be anything amazing? People in his corner, nobody thought he was going to win. Everyone thought, please don't kill him. And he beats Foreman. And then the third Frazier fight is like Armageddon. And then there's this whole after, you know, the, excruciating, please, Daddy, stop fighting. His daughters are saying to him. And he won't. And he keeps

losing horrifically. And then the Parkinson's in these in case. But yet he's, as David Remnick said, he's like a Buddha. He's like a religious figure that everybody admires forgetting all the other stuff. So I mean, my fudge, my dodge, my horrific, you know, avoidance of your question is he's like all of those things, you know. He's every single one of, those things. And I think maybe he's so beautiful, right? When he says, I'm pretty as a girl, he's absolutely right. He's got the most beautiful body. If Michelangelo were alive today and was going to sculpt David, I go, David, Ali, I'm going to do Ali, right? This is a gorgeous specimen of that. And there's this joy when he's with the twinkle in his eye when he's just

reciting the poetry or provoking somebody where you go, okay, maybe that's it. And I get, I suppose if you really nailed it down, I'd want to remember that just perfect athlete who's disposing of Cleveland Big Cat Williams and what Michael Bent, our secret weapon, the former heavyweight champion, who's embedded in every one of the important fights. And he just said, that's Perishnikov, that's Picasso, that's Miles David. This is a masterpiece. And he's doing these 10 punch combinations. And he's going backwards. And then Ben just looks at you going, like, he must have come out of the wound. doing this, he says. And so maybe you just take this minor fight. The ref called it in the third round. And, you know, it was no contest from the very second for second. So it doesn't have the dynamics or the drama of the fights. But man, you know, just him at his most exquisite best is there. But then you'd say when he's talking about the draft and willing to face a machine gun, who's that? You know,

I mean. But I think you're right, Ken, because it is that first thing you mentioned that made him a conduit for all these lessons that people had to learn. Yes. That's what set him apart from all the incredibly brave, bold people that have littered U.S. history. That was what got him to have his voice. So I'm with you. It's the boxer.

That was the passport. Thank you so much, Ken Burns. Chris, brother, you are so great. I'd do this every week with you if I had some of myself. Don't say it. I'll fucking call you. Be well, dude. Take it easy.

Thanks so much. Okay. Twitter, we got her shit together. Okay? We got a real handle reflective of the name of the podcast. Guys, we did it. Applawed. And now go follow us at Greenlight.

Twitter is at Greenlight. We also have a new YouTube channel name as well. Green Light Tube. Hope you guys like that. Hey, real quick, Ken Burns was awesome. Trust me. But he also has a. couple more docks coming out that I didn't get a chance to plug at the end of the interview there.

The American Buffalo is one. You know they could see the buffaloes from space. I don't know how they knew that, but they say there were so many buffalo at one point before the Caucasozoids came in and fucked everything up. You could see them far and wide, bro, far and wide. Great Wall of China type stuff. Like they travel in herds, so that's why they can be seen like. that or they're just yeah they were big enough they were just the individual buffalo used to be so big you can see them from space wow you believe that no dude it's just the herds bro it was these herds that were as wide as like a state you know like I can't wait to see what Ken burns has to say about buffalo's he's got one about um I don't know uh vinci uh he's got one about LBJ coming up he

also has a Ben Franklin one which I think will be interesting because people I feel like know the Ben Franklin from the history books. By all accounts, that guy that got fucked. Ben Franklin, Ben Franklin was out there just like tearing it up when he went to France.

Like he was a total party animal. Wasn't he a smoker? Yeah, I probably was smoking opium. That type of thing. I don't want to, I'll wait for the documentary to confirm that. I think Benjamin Franklin was smoking opium.

See, not much difference between me and Ken Burns. Really. American Revolution, that's the one I'm worried about, because there's going to be a lot of flute. I think he's going to knock it out of the park, but they're going to use a lot of flute. That was the one question I wish I asked him, like, how do you get around using a flute every time there's an interlude?

That's why the country music one was great, because it was a bunch of, like, fiddle and mandolin and stuff like that. Facts, we're going to have a Ken Burns watch party. So here's the deal, dude. I mentioned a PO box that we're going to have a PO box here, and we do now. send us anything you want to send us. This is exciting. Don't send us anthrax.

Size 2x for shirts. Matter of fact, Macon will open all the packages. Any package you send, Macon will open it. Any sneaker vendors out there, size 14 or 15. Any anybody out there who could send

some like some cabbage, some lettuce, some produce. Maybe dusted with a little dust send stuff to our fucking p o box here p o box 5267 charlotsville virginia that's uh two ls at the end of charlott'sville if you've ever spelled a word with vill at the end of it there's two t's and that's it's just like charlotte and then an s and then vill it's like charlots without an apostrophe

then ville virginia 22905 for packages let's go 2150 wise street i don't even know where that is dude this is some mafia shit awesome number 5267 Charlottesville Virginia 22905 so send us some shit all right we're rebranding the mailbag this elevated mailbag yeah is that what we call no airborne mailbag I want to rebrand mailbag because my kids are a few years away from being on the internet I mean shit they might already be okay airborne airborne so people know not like the I love I love airborne before you get on a flight I love it. You know that shit doesn't work. When you take airborne, it's like too late. I used to do that, take airborne religiously, and then every time I got on a flight, I get sick. And I don't fly like much

anymore. So, you know, now I'm not worried about it. But airborne mailbag, we got to rebrand the state that we're in because I, you know, I'm just starting to feel a little awkward about it, you know? I saw a kid the other day with like a cell phone. He was like a knee high, bro. But they have those you know they they have those special kid phones where it's just like one app like you can only call your they can jail break those motherfuckers dude these kids these days they know how to jail break phones and shit they're going to jail break their little kid phone next thing you know my son's going to be on youtube and he's going to be dad what's a stone mail bag well it's an if your kid could jail break a phone right now he's probably going to be making you a lot he's going to be like a real

deal kind of mark Zuckerberg without the awkwardness so here we are elevated mailbag Episode one, we threw this thing out there a couple minutes ago. And as always, Kai came correct with multiple great mailbag questions. Let's lead off with one from Kai. Who is your childhood Hollywood crush? Sandra Bullock. Sandra Bullock and later it was the girl in Hollow Man, which we have a segment named after now. She was the one who was dating the Invisible Kevin Bacon.

It was the girl in Van Helsing, which I walked out of. That tells you how bad that movie is because I walked out of that movie and she was in there. Rona Mitra. Rona Mitra. She was in Hollow Man. She was fine. Sandra Bullock in Time to Kill. It's one of the best like childhood crush performances of all time.

And when I met Sandra Bullock at the Espies, I totally froze up. Like I got a picture with her. I don't even want to use it because I looks like a deer in the headlights, bro. I was so nervous to meet her that Brian, our guy Brian, who was with me at the SPs was like hey Sandra Bullock's over there do you want a picture with it I was like no no chance bro don't even fucking try anything you know like I don't even want like no I don't even want to be in the same room um Sandra Bullock walks by Brian and Brian of course asked sir did you take a picture with me like I'm some fucking fan boy which I am they did take

it it's actually Chris's photo was saved in my phone now well that I was never going to see a lot of day. Bro, I look so fucking shook in that picture. I'm half shook because it's Sandra Bullock, but I'm also half shook because I hate asking people for shit like that. And Brian went out and did it. For me, it was Carrie Hilsen. She's not a Hollywood star, but...

You were a child or you were an adult? I was a little bit older. I asked you about a childhood crush. You talked about Carrie Hilsen, who was most popular when we were young football players. Yeah, for sure. Worst jobs you've ever had. Worst jobs we've ever had.

Good thing this isn't making because he'd be like, this podcast. No. Are you lying? Definitely not this podcast. What is it, Nate? For me, was handing out flyers for dolphin fitness. You've had so many great jobs.

Dolphin Fitness. I did it for a whole summer literally to make $1,000 to buy my first car a 93 Plymouth Sundance. Sundance. I don't even know they named a film festival after it.

I don't know what it looks. Nicknamed the Green Goblin. Oh, the Green Goblin. I remember that. I remember the Green Goblin. Yeah. Sundance. 1993, yeah? Yeah, 93 Sundance. All I'm getting here is the 1993 Sundance Film Festival.

So listen. My job, I was the annoying person putting the fitness flyers under your windshield when you would park at, like, it was a, it was in Portchester, New York, and it Caldores. Now I think it's Coles Shopping Center with like a leaping lizards, a party city, and all these other flea market type stores. and there's probably over 2,000 parking spaces. And me and one of my best friends, shout out to pork. Shout out. Shout out to pork. We used to have to take stacks and boxes of these flyers and put them on every car.

No shit. Yeah, people used to shoe us away from their cars. We used to watch people look at them and fling them on the floor. Avoid eye contact with you, that sort of thing. this this uh plimuth sundance is uh in contention for our beater car nate didn't you work in a turkey farm too like really surface level give me some some weird jobs you've done i still do i have a yeah i have a labor contract on a turkey farm in crozee shout out to heritage glen shout out to jud and kelly bronze turkeys that actually we're going to have to talk about two weeks doing a live

killing of yeah it's going to it might it might affect the pod for for two weeks but yeah you can come out there season you're gone huh for a little bit you know i kind of i kind of have a good i have a good job there but what would what was your craziest job or worst job actually well tough other than the rams other than the rams you made the joke i didn't um i was a mason but that that was a really awesome summer job dude i can't complain crutoff masonry i used to build pools and shit and like i was trying to be fit for like the football season so i was treating it as like a second workout and i was hauling like big sheets of bluestone and the guys were looking at me like fine stupid fuck like carry all

you want i mean that was that was a good job i don't have any complaints worse job i don't know have you ever been too high in a situation and regretted it so for me i don't know if i told too many people this this is going to be good when i was in canada and the cfl one of my team gave me a THC capsule two days before the game and I was still high for the game. That was- Two days before the game? Two days before the game. How much THC was in this THC capsule?

Enough to kill a horse. Bro, it was a small capsule. But like literally I was, I felt drowsy for, Three days. Really? Yo, last... Last game I played in the season. How did you play?

Not good. Like, not bad, but it was just like a lot of like flowing and drifting. Like, that, it was still in my system. Yeah. But to me, I didn't feel like anything was wrong. Yeah. But then you watch the tape and I'm like, what the hell am I doing? Last question, Nate.

Better promoter. Muhammad Ali or Kanye West? I think that's a tough one. I think that's a tough one. But only because of the way Kanye put together Sunday service and the marketing and the following that that had, I probably would think otherwise because Muhammad, wherever it comes. countries he would go he would run through the streets he would have all these people running with him but the fact that Kanye west would dude like he did three album release parties playing

the same songs and packed out stadiums bro slept yo slept in the falcon stadium for a week for a week bro, I'm telling you. Like, I, no disrespect to Muhammad Ali fans to your, to your guests

who did, did eight years of Muhammad Ali footage and documentaries. But Kanye West, there's going to be people doing way longer documentaries than that. For the people listening to the podcast,

I just had to walk off for a little bit. Hey, what do you think? it feels like to be like you know they say on the internet like to not it's the internet has a main character twitter has a main character like you don't want to be that main character how you feel about being that main character all right you're on nah dude i'm telling you bro like yo conier bro like his following is huge bro he's he's huge like i don't know just tell me about an anime video game or something no but

you know south park did a whole thing with conye i can't do it dude i can't wait for tomorrow you're going to be the you're going to be the the one character on the internet yeah you think so yeah Yo, Kanye West is a better promoter than Muhammad Ali. It was set on my show. I think it's asinine. Yo, he ran for president. Like, bro, like, he tried, like, he had everyone hyped and, bro, like, stop it. Like, he's the best.

Like, he knows how to get your attention. Like, I'm telling you, man, like, Kanye, Kanye, yeah. Jesus. He has a deal with gas. Yeah, y'all take care. Cut the mic, Reid.