Green Light with Chris Long - Stress Coping, Social Distancing and ‘Shooting the Breeze' with Jimmy Traina

Episode Date: March 22, 2020

0:50 - Open and Life Amid Coronavirus. 13:10 - Chris and Jimmy on Twitter. 33:50 - What to do Regarding Sports. 39:44 - Jimmy and Chris on Betting. 45:48 - Movies and Shows to Watch. About Chalk Media: Following the unfiltered voice and vision of Chris Long, Chalk Media is the interactive online community for you, the intelligent and humorous sports fan. Driven by access, Chalk delivers a unique perspective that cuts through the canned talking points and provides a variety of content from your favorite sports and entertainment celebrities. Here at Chalk, we don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we are rooted in challenging the perception of professional athletes. We embrace the “real” with a unique combination of humor and intelligence. Chalk is a community with a voice beyond 240 characters that brings a perspective and vibe to a traditionally brash and boastful sports media space. Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more. Nothing is off-limits at Chalk - 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. 🌍🏀🏈SUBSCRIBE NOW ⚾🏒⛰️ http://bit.ly/chalknetwork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I really just wanted to shoot the shit with a buddy of mine, Jimmy Trana. We're both bored in the pandemic, and we want to complain about Twitter. We want to talk about gambling. We want to talk about how you actually joke in a really scary, serious time right now and a whole host of other things. It's like we basically didn't prep for this. It's just two dudes talking on the phone. welcoming to the Greenlight Pod is somebody when I asked him how he wanted to be introduced.

He said, don't say the great Jimmy Trana, but I say the great Jimmy Trana when I introduced my friend Jim, who is a Sports Illustrated writer and also podcaster. Terrific podcast, by the way, Jim, I do enjoy listening to your podcast. I appreciate that. And I am beyond thrilled to be on your podcast because I knew you would tick ass at this. I'm just a little bum that it's, you know, under these circumstances. But we just can't have total fun because I, you know, I feel like every time you're on mine, I kiss your ass.

Now I'm going to kiss your ass while I'm on yours. Like, I love your, I love your takes on everything. Yeah. And because you, you get into the minutia of life, which is what I enjoy too. There we go. Two peas and a pod, man. Two peas and a pod. Lots of time to get into the minutia now.

Yep. Yep. Nothing but time to get into the minutia. Has it been hard? Has it been like, I mean, I know it's hard because like, you know, I think when we talk about this and you talk about whether it's the NCAA tournament or, you know, entertainment or leagues canceling or suspending or certain jobs being a little bit tougher, it's, it's never as serious as what's actually going on, which is like the civil unrest and first and foremost

people's health. But there is some crossover. I mean, as far as like, listen, if sports writers don't have anything to write about, what are they write about? And does that make their job tougher? Are people in your industry not only scrambling for content, but like what's the next four to six months hold? I'm talking to a lot of people in the sports media world, whether it's people who write on the internet, whether it's people who are on television, broadcast It's really scared. They're really scared about having jobs. Listen, I understand that there's a lot of worst case scenarios out there,

but you have to think that eventually, even if it's September, sports will be back in some ways you perform. Now, who knows if we're going to have sports the way we've always had them with 50,000 people in a stadium. But if there is sports going on and they can be broadcast on television and we can write and talk about them, we've got to get through this insanity right now. I think the biggest, I think whether you're in sports media or any position, it's the unknown that's really the problem right now. Nobody knows anything.

And I think once we can maybe get past this phase where we don't know, we don't know whether you don't know things from the biggest thing, like whether you have it or not, because you may not have symptoms to, you know, when the NFL, when the NBA is going to come back. There's a range of just, we don't know anything. Right. Yeah, no, the unknown sucks. And like somebody like me, um, who gets a little bit, uh, you know, anxious about stuff. You know, that I'm very, I like my schedule. I like to be regimented. I like to know what to expect. And, uh, in general, you know, the podcast is one thing. Um, but it's, it's unsettling when there's no roadmap in general. And I think sports always, sports kind of as I'm,

thinking about it gives people kind of a roadmap to their year. So you feel kind of naked, kind of weird. Like, okay, what month is it? There's no sports on. It's beautiful outside. I want to go outside. I want to watch games. I want to go to the bar. I want to watch basketball because that's what my biology is telling me right now as a 34 year old man. Like I've been doing this minus the bar part. I mean, I've done that for quite a while. But I've been doing this, you know, watch college basketball thing in the springtime since I was 10 years old. So it's like everything, you're just your system is thrown off. Not to mention, you don't know how to talk about it.

If you figure something out to talk about, you talk about doing lists. And first off, everybody in their uncle is doing a fucking list right now. Well, okay. Can I chime in on that? Can I chime on? So it's funny you say that because as usual, you're right. Because when I, I mean, I'll be fully honest. I talked about this in my column.

Like on Friday, I could not work. Like anxiety had got me at the point where I just couldn't work. I needed a day to get myself together. So I wrote Monday for the first time, really, since this became what it's become. And, you know, I asked my readers, I'm very lucky and very fortunate that I have loyal readers who have been with me since, like, the hot click stays back in a while ago. And they're active and they're good. So I put out, like, a call to arms and said, you know, let me know what you want to see in this column. I have flexibility.

I'm lucky I can do non-sports stuff. I'm like, send me any and all suggestions and, you know, let's move forward. And it's interesting to me how many people have suggested like, you know, top 10 this, top 10 that. Let's do a bracket on this. And it's like, my thing is like, dude, we got, we really got to pace ourselves here because we're not going to have sports for like,

at least I would say three months. Three months. Three months. Right. So like you're going to start busting out, you know, top 10 NBA players now. You gotta really pace yourself. Yeah, you gotta wait. You gotta wait.

I mean, that's why you gotta get obscure with it. I love filling out these brackets, by the way. When did you start seeing the brackets? When did, was it three years ago, ish? Like Twitter. This is Twitter-Aid. No, I'm talking about the brackets for pop culture stuff. Dude, I did Best Seinfeld episode like seven years ago.

Oh, wow. We've been doing, oh, yeah, best Halloween candy and best, I mean, no, they've been around. they've been around even before Twitter. Yeah. But, you know, you've got to really page yourself with bracket. You don't want to, you think you're going to, like, do a bracket a day and then two weeks. Oh, it'll eat you up. It'll eat you alive.

You won't have time for your family. Like, I'm socially distancing with my family, which, by the way, all things considered, yes, it's a terrible circumstance under which we're all spending time at home. But for those of us with families, if you can get over the fear of the, uncertainty, it's not so bad. And even just sitting at home and like turning your brain off for a little bit, we're trained to do the opposite. It's kind of healthy for you. The bracket thing, the ranking thing. How do you do it respectfully and have fun and joke? We talked about this. Like, you know, I'm on Twitter. Everybody needs a little levity. But how do you joke in a way that's

not minimizing the situation? Because that's something I've been struggling with. Well, I'll say a couple of things here. And by the way, you mentioned, you know, being so socially distancing yourself with your family. I definitely would love to get into if it's appropriate, like, how many marriages are going to end with all this. But that's a whole of it. It's not inappropriate. It's not inappropriate. It's not because I think my rule is if you're belittling or like, or or or making fun of like the virus, then you're fucking wrong. But like the circumstances around it, we can kind of, we can bring some levity into the fold. Right.

And I know, and I'm curious if you're going through this, because I feel like a hypocrite in a way because I'll have like, you know, a period of time there for a couple of hours where I'm like, I don't want to hear any jokes about this. You know, this is serious. I'm worried about my dad. I don't want to hear anything. And then like three hours later, I'll text like one of my friends and be like, you know, I hope Pornub has the best servers in America right now because they're going to need them.

So like, I don't know, like, where to go. They do. They do, by the way. Oh, okay. It's running fine, which I'm sure you know. That's what, that, that, uh, they're going to, their subscriptions may go up at the next few months. In Italy, they did something with Pornhub.

I read an article, uh, that like Italy ramped it up, uh, or they gave free subscriptions to whatever that. I don't, I don't go on those sites, but evidently if you pay a certain amount, you can get like a premium. I, you know, I thought you would be one of the two. who'd be above the hole, I don't go on those sites. I mean, it's kind of a, it's kind of a bit. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. This sarcasm is so thin. Yeah. And then like, you know, then I send my text and I feel bad. I'm like, am I being insensitive? I, you know, I shouldn't, you know, like, it's crazy.

No, I mean, I thought, I thought in the beginning, like the whole timeline of this thing was, uh, I had to go to Africa, like, man, it's been about three weeks now, almost a month probably. But I had to go over there to do the Waterboy stuff. And one night, I think it was the night that it like really started blowing up in Italy a little bit. Or, you know, there were the first few cases in Italy. I started getting real panicky and anxious because I'm like, one, am I going to get home?

Are they going to like put bands? And I got to fly through Europe. That whole thing. Two, this shit's hitting the fan. And I couldn't help but think about everybody back home who were like kind of firing off these borderline tweets. like kind of clout chasing jokes about COVID-19. And I was thinking to myself, like they are not going to be firing these same type of jokes off

when it's domestic. Like everybody's tone changes. First it was, you know, it was, and I've seen an interesting crossover on the Venn diagram of people that I think are relatively intelligent. And then like the red hat MAGA folks, uh, that there's a little bit of crossover,

on Twitter between some people I had respect for and these Trump folks calling the coronavirus or minimizing it, you know, but that's all changed in the last week. I would like to think you look at some of the pictures like Clearwater Beach or the post-Muhon concert or any of these places where people are gathering like idiots. Maybe it hasn't actually changed. But I thought, you know, early on, I was like there'll be a point where people get the message and you can't really joke about this as much. I think we're at that point. I think that's, I think, you can joke about like finding ourselves in situations like with you know you joke about like the divorce rate or you know you joke about what a gambler's doing right now like these are

circumstantial things that you're not joking about somebody being sick right exactly and you know it's interesting that you brought up um sort of the maga and the tweens and that kind of because i do find i'm curious if you're like this because i do enjoy the i can say i can curse and say anything on here, right? Fuck yeah. This isn't fucking s-I. Yeah, yeah. I say fuck on my podcast, but I try to limit it.

And here's the thing. Like when I say fuck on my podcast, I'll never get one person who says anything. And then, but if I say anything negative about Trump, then I get like the one-star reviews on iTunes. Oh, yeah. I know. Listen, my pod. I don't think my pod's that great at all. In fact, I don't know if you, I can't stand hearing myself talk, which I'm sure you have one of the best pods.

You know it. Pod voice? You like my pod voice? You don't know you have one of the best pods, but you do have one of the best pods. Oh, thank you. But I do get a lot of one stars. And I know that, like, listen, if you just kind of don't like the pod, you're doing like, you're doing a three star, right?

If you hate me because you think I'm a communist because I don't like Trump, you're giving me a one star. So I know exactly where those one stars come from. Yeah. So what I was going to say about that is so maybe this is my own just bizarre. twisted sense of humor. I enjoy the really fucked up tweets about this. Like someone said the Democrats and China came up with coronavirus together. It's a way to make sure Trump loses it.

Yeah, that's what it was. I enjoyed because those, right, but like the tweets where it's someone like, you know, where like it's a serious mega person being like Donald Trump is at the greatest, you know, is handling this perfectly. That's when I have to get off Twitter. Yeah. If they're really extreme, then I enjoy them. Now, I'm curious because I've had to really limit my Twitter usage over the last four or five days.

And I know you were like scaling back, but... I was scaling back. Now I'm back. I'm totally back now. I took like two weeks off. I made a big announcement on my pod as if it mattered. But honestly, there was... I think I needed a hard reset.

You know what it was? I was getting in too many arguments. So I was mistaking like... the feeling that Twitter was giving me and being constant conflict for using it too much, which I do anyways, but I can overcome my sanity and using, like, in using Twitter, me being sane and being on Twitter,

they're not mutually exclusive, okay? I can do the two things, but what I can't do is argue with every fucking idiot on Twitter and in taking like a hard reset week where I literally deleted the app and only used it on my computer, which was crazy. Like I joked that it was kind of like the way the people on Oregon Trail did it.

I mean like this was back in the day tweeting on my MacBook Pro. It was like that soft, that hard reset taught me how to use it. Like when I slipped and got back on and then you know you're like down the rabbit hole again, I look back at my Twitter the last three weeks and I haven't been arguing with anybody. I just don't.

Like it's, it feels right. It feels right. So there's a couple of things here. When I heard that pod where you said you were giving up Twitter, and I think during the pod, because I like to watch yours on YouTube a lot of the time. There we go. You had the last podcast.

You're talking about tweeting from the web. And I wanted to text and be like, dude, this is the biggest bunch of bullshit I've ever seen in my life. But, you know, I didn't want it to come. You know, with this tone on a text, you know, you've got to be careful. Yeah. And I was like, this is like a phone call conversation to go through, but I don't want to, you know, I don't want to go to that. Because it's just one of those things where you can, I don't think it's, if you're in this, like we are, like, you've made this transition to sports media.

Like, it's impossible to just never go on it. Yeah, that's why I noticed. But, blah, blah. Like, you know what's say you're at the barbershop, we didn't get a haircut. You're going to check Twitter. You're in line at the supermarket. I mean, this is obviously before we were self-distance social business. Yeah.

So whatever. Now, having said that. Wait, breaking. Jimmy's still going to. the barbershop. Well, not for a little while. Yeah, no, that's also a thing is everybody's hair is going to be really fucked up at the end of this thing.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, totally. But I am blown away when guys like you fight with people on Twitter and they have like six followers. I'm like, I don't understand this guy, what are you doing? It's like I woke up from a nightmare. I didn't realize I was in a nightmare. I made a deal with myself years ago that I would not fight with people on Twitter at all.

Like, if someone wants to, like, debate something with me, shoot me an email. I'll be out, I'll get out my email on Twitter. But I'm not going to do it because those people want the public argument. That's all they want. They don't even care about being, they don't care about being right or wrong. They want the public argument. And then they could, you know, and then they start with all. And then, like, that's the thing.

When you argue with someone on Twitter, the fucking things that people come out with it, you were owned or, okay. Boomer and it's not even like a real like what is this like you're just like what is this I lost my faith in well I never liked the phrase okay boomer because I just thought it was like this cop out like I don't feel like arguing and I'm just gonna paint everybody over the age of like 30 now as a boomer uh the other day the post Malone concert somebody shared it and was like because this was packed the post post Malone concert was packed. The night, you know, they canceled everything. I'm talking the NBA, NCAA, all this stuff was getting canceled. And I thought post Malone, that concert might be the end of it. But I saw, you know, I looked at this tweet and it's scary to read the dimensions. I used to not be able to go in to read dimensions. Now I can. It's still insane, but I don't feel like I have to respond. I saw a couple OK boomers. Like people were like, that's your response to, hey, could you

maybe not spread the pandemic. And people were like, okay, boomer. I was like, you're literally, you're literally gathering in large groups in public to own the boomers. I mean, that's like what you're doing. Like you're, this generation, millennials, myself included, you know, back in the day, the big test was, okay, you got to go like fight the Nazis.

Or like, you know, now it's, hey, stay the fuck. home for three weeks so we don't spread this pandemic watch some Netflix you guys like to Netflix and chill right could you do that for like an extended period nah can't do it got to go get drunk and hoboken or hit the beach in clear water or go to a post Malone concert right listen I think listen there's a lot of things I think I think I don't want to get to a whole cycle analysis of it but oh I do people respond you do I'm just joking. I'm fine.

I mean, listen, I would much rather do it off the years so people don't, you know, give your five one star, but I don't get what's wrong with people. I just don't. But listen, you know, I think, I'll tell you one thing I also learned. I think people like us who are following news all day on Twitter all day are more aware of how that, we're more aware of what this was going to be. You know, you got to think about like the person who works in a post office, the person who is a school teacher or who works as a butcher.

Like they're not on Twitter all day. So, you know, maybe they're not paying attention as closely and they don't, they didn't understand this. I mean, obviously they do now. No, I mean, like, yeah. Yeah. I always, the biggest misconception about Twitter and I, I followed it for a couple years there, was that like the rest of the world is just like my timeline.

Like, this is reflected, this is reflective of, you. you know, general population, you know, from a sense of how informed they are about, you know, the news or fake news, whatever, you know, misleading information, whatever you want to call it, or that they all feel a certain way about an issue. Like when you walk out of your timeline, figuratively speaking, the world is much different. And so is the informed nature of the population. And I don't want to get like ultra heavy and political, but I will right now. I will say this, for as bad as Donald Trump is and has been. I think his mental illness is so severe.

It's off the charts. It's crazy. The most damage that he is going to do, has done, and will be his legacy, is convincing an unbelievable amount of people that, what they actually see and hear is fake news. Yeah. I don't know how we as a country recover from that, but when you see something with your own eyes and then this guy says it's fake news

and then you believe it because you're part of the cult, that's going to be a long-lasting problem that is probably going to be even exacerbated now by what we're going through with this insanity. Well, I have buddies and I have conservative buddies that I argue with. I'm not going to argue. I'm not going to argue about Trump. It's a different thing to me. And that's why.

Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I got to say your phone thing. Because this is what I hate. I hate when there's a Trump discussion and someone brings up Republicans and conservatives. No. This is this transcends politics. Yeah.

Right. This transcends it. No, you've got a guy who, um, who's just going to lie unabated all the time. And, you know, if you want to convince somebody who, who supports him of something, they need like documentation, like notarized documentation. sourcing. You know, like I need, oh, well, that's not real because it, you know, it didn't come from a good source.

Okay, well, let me give you this major news corporate. Well, that's fake news. You have to see it from this source here. And then, you know, when the tables are turned, you know, it could be daily caller. It could be, you know, a blog. It could be a meme. It could be like a meme that's been shared a thousand times. Well, that's, that's, that's scripture.

So you can't. It's one of those things. And this goes back to the, there's no use arguing at this point. I made a decision like a year or two ago. And I still have friends I consider like my Twitter friends who are like they lean. They're very political. I was never a big political guy. I mean, I have my political leanings for sure.

What it was for me is I was anti somebody who is an embarrassment and somebody who is dangerous. And I've said this a bunch of times. Okay. Now, I still have those political friends that for six months, there when I was a pro player or for two years when I was kind of in this firestorm whether it was social justice or it was skipping the white house or whatever um you know everything was hey stand up for this cause like hey you know speak out a couple years into trump's presidency I was just like you know what I have not seen a single tweet change anything I am not tweeting about this guy anymore

I'm not tweeting about it anymore I'm not expending energy I'm not doing it. it it drags me down also i get tired of like and i'll say this about people on my side of the fence my side of the aisle i don't know how many times i've seen the tweet say oh we got them now no you don't just go fucking vote right just vote this fall fucking show up and vote stop tweeting you can tweet if you want but it hasn't changed anything to date and it's not going to and i'm not going to be a part of it so i've kind of that along with you know to wrap the Twitter thing is like somebody you know how sometimes you have to hear something about yourself from somebody else to really like unlock an awakening like you can't figure it out on your own

I can't have an epiphany sitting in my office all day just with my own thoughts I need somebody to hit me in the forehead with it and one of my friends was like hey a buddy of mine was asking recently if you missed the conflict of football and I was like what do you mean he was like well you seem to just you seem to like conflict and you like it like on Twitter and I'm wondering and my friend was wondering and I don't mean anything by this but do you miss like the fight every day and I said to myself you know what you might be right and that was an uncomfortable realization that you know I also think you can you can trace back me arguing with people online before football but I think football turned me into that person and then when you get

online or you go out in the world. I literally, one of my biggest awakenings in retirement has been realizing that everybody's not my enemy. You know, I don't have to, I don't have to judge the intentions of, you know, the guy at the restaurant trying to rip me off or, you know, this, this, business or, hey, my friend's trying to take advantage of me or this person that looks at me on the street corner is, you know, doesn't mean anything by that look like. But as a football player for a long time, like conflicts like your way. And so that kind of coincided with my realization

of I need to get off Twitter. This is bad for you because if you just argue with people all day online and you assume the worst about everybody's intention, then you go out in the world and you do the same thing. So I kind of had a double whammy. I had football and then I had Twitter.

And I wasn't like always arguing on Twitter for the first six to eight years of my life. Like for the most part, or first six to eight years of Twitter, for the most part like back in the stone ages of twitter i would be in st louis just like live tweeting a basketball game or you know yeah there was i remember tweeting about travon martin back in the day and i got some like conservative backlash for for tweeting about that but this is before twitter got very political um you know like there were not arguments i was just ranking things or

like bullshit and then when i really when it all changed for me was the white house so like The past three years of my life, I've been in this cycle of just arguing because I have people coming in me that I could say the sky is blue and somebody's going to have a problem with it in the mentions because they know my politics. And, you know, at that point, I was like, I'm done tweeting about Trump. It has nothing to do with me like giving up the fight. I'll be there to vote. I'll fight for the causes I deem important.

But tweeting hasn't done anything. And I've never seen anybody on Twitter say I was wrong. Never. And you never will. It's funny, though, it freaks me out sometimes how similar we are because I never made a conscious decision or thought about like, I'm going to stop tweeting about Trump. I just did. It wasn't a planned out thing. I think I just, I came to the same thing.

Just like you. Just like you, I'm just like, no one's listening to anything I'm saying via a tweet about something as important as politics. No one, no one, this is me complaining. me pointing out his deficiencies. No one's paying attention. Nobody cares. But I didn't, it wasn't something that I decided,

like, I will know, because I still do it. And I do more when he's, you know, like when he says like something about like your 409K, like I like boxing stuff like that. Yeah,

yeah. It's easy. There's plenty. Yeah, yeah. But I had multiple people in my life, friends, co-workers say to me like,

I don't, I don't do you treat about Trump anymore. And I'm like, the fact that, like, you would notice that. Yeah. It's interesting. Like,

I didn't realize it was that much of a part of what I've been doing. And also it becomes subconsciously not an ego hit in that like that's why you tweet about something. But you know if you tweet something about Trump. And this is what used to bother me is like especially when I like skip the White House is people would be like, man, how brave, how bold. I'm like, listen, you're complimenting me on a platform where everybody is excited about what I just did, okay? And I didn't do it for the clout. But just like a tweet, you know, all you're going

to get is a bunch of pats on the back. And I don't want pets on the back. And I don't want to be looked at as like, what a hero. He just filled up the, you know, 240 characters, you know, saying the easy thing that we all know is true. Like I don't, I don't need the retweets. I don't need the ego boost. And I never did it for that. But it became this thing was that when you made a political statement or you made listen and i'm not done if you're going to consider like talking about bail reform or talking about mass incarceration or any of the things that we worked on the players coalition on or you know juvenile life sentences or any of these criminal justice issues that at times i want to lend my voice to i will tweet about those things those are lower level things that

you know athletes and entertainers can bring attention to but as far as influencing uh you know the impeachment of a president. Or like, come on. Oh, yeah. It's not going to happen. Yeah, I would argue with people at work about this, that the impeachment thing was it was never going to come to fruition. It was never.

Never. Yeah, but doesn't it freak you out a little bit that you do things like, you know, you're trying to provide water and get wells for people that don't have water. And, you know, you are behind, you know, criminal justice reform. And people throw social justice more. at you as this big negative three-letter thing. I don't like, and I don't like the term because it just became this thing where, you know, if you're a social justice warrior, you know, you're painted as kind of just a clout chasing,

like social media person. Right. We do a lot of work. Like, we do a lot of work, man. But now it's become, it's become now if you're a nice person, you're a social justice warrior. And it goes back to what I said about the fake news. like now everything you know it was funny because you were talking about

um let's say new stuff about how you know it spreads and this and no you know I see have you seen these tweets now there's been a few of them um where I don't I can't give you like the exact specifics I'll do like the generalization where like

the Atlanta Braves for instance will tweet like we sign first baseman so and so to a you know five year contract and someone will reply and go who's your source Like the team rights back actually us. Yeah, dude. Like we signed the guy.

Yeah, because people are so cynical. Yeah. That's, I mean, that's just fucked up with it. In my opinion on how messed up we are right now. And another thing is like I've come in contact with some people that, and I can't explain how it made me feel. But this was like kind of before I had the epiphany about Twitter was. And it wasn't epiphany because this was building up for a while.

Like I wanted to. to do it. I just didn't know how and I didn't know why I wanted to get off for a little bit or I would run into people and they'd be like I love your Twitter man and I'm like I would feel embarrassed that they were reading my tweets and I was like well maybe I should stop tweeting you know like you know they're like man you own that guy I'm like I don't this isn't why I'm like on Twitter man it's not why I got on and so we'll we'll see we'll see I mean but I do feel like everybody right now amid the pandemic is like huddled in one room and that can be a good thing right because i'll sit there last night at the dinner table and if i'm watching the news you know as i see

the figures roll in or i consider you know the plight of like small business owners people i know like if i consider you know people losing their homes over this or like what's going to happen you know who's going to get sick you know the anxiety kicks in then you get on twitter which usually gives you anxiety, but the last couple nights, it's actually helped because, as you said, people are making lists. You know, the Michael Jordan documentary is going to get moved up. You know, you've got Sports Center doing reruns. If you are king of the sports world the next three months, what are you doing? Like, if you, Jimmy Trana can wave a magic wand and create some content with the distribution and the money to do it.

What are you doing? The first thing I have to say is we finally had a place here where we're on the opposite end of the spectrum. For me, I got to avoid Twitter at all costs right now. I can't enjoy it. It's weird. I mean, the one thing I've realized from all this, I mean, I must have checked Twitter on my,

I mean, I'm on it all day for work. So let's say, I mean, I'm on tweak. Are you familiar with tweet deck? I mean, that's just the machine that. No, I've seen it like, I've seen it's like Hoot Suite or Tweet deck or you shared with. I have no idea what that means. All right. So TweetDeck all day.

Then I come home and, I mean, I check Twitter. I probably don't go three minutes without checking it when I'm on. And with this, I've gone like four or five hours without checking it because I need to see my sanity. So it's interesting what went on. But then I'll scroll carefully because if I start seeing like, you know, hospitals are going to get overrun. I got to scroll past that quick. That's what we... Yeah, I'm sticking to the harmless stuff right now.

I mean, there's a point every night where I need to gauge how anxious I need to be in real life before I go to bed, which is probably the worst time to do that. And I do scroll through and read some articles, but otherwise... Right, like I need more tweets about Pornhub giving free accounts to people in Italy and less about the hospitals being overrunning people not getting ventilators. That's what I need. But for more reasons than one. Anyway, that I was going to say about the sports.

You know, I keep thinking about it. And it's like, you know, I cover media a lot. So, like, you know, there's two things you can do. You can go into your, like, ESPN and NBC and CBS. They can go into archives and show us amazing things. You know, a lot of people are. I'm jealous. Because I'd love to dig up some old film.

As you know, it's hard to get it. Yeah. Listen, we got to go back. like the Howie day. That's like I want to see like, you know, like the old school Brett Musburger, Jimmy the Greek NFL Today shows. Like show me one of those. Oh, yeah.

I just want to watch old sports centers all the way through. Like Stuart Scott. Yeah. I want the old music, you know? By the way, when I think it was a CBS running the March Madness music this year, it wasn't CBS. It was FS1. Did you catch that in the conference tournaments?

I was like, what is going on? on here. But I miss that stuff. I want to watch all the vintage. I'll give you one that I thought. I'm going to write a column about this this week on S.I.com, but I'll give you one I'd like to see and tell me if I'm a sick, sick bastard for saying this, okay? Because I feel like you can be honest with me.

I want to see, and I think you can appreciate this because I know you were an old school Knicks fan. Yeah. I want to see in real time, not edited, in real time, the Knicks game. With the OJ card chase. Yes. Replay that whole thing. Yes.

That's what I want to see. No, I'm fine with that. I mean, I'm fine with that. Yeah. With the split screen and cutting away from the game and then the chase, I would love to see how that all played out in real time. Well, that 30 for 30 was crazy if you watched it. It was like that one day. Right.

There's 2.30 for 30. There's the OJ 30 for 30, which I think might be the best thing ESPN's ever done. And then there's a 30 for 30 on that specific day of all the sports and stuff that happened. I'm talking about that day. I remember exactly where I was. It's one of those like things, you know, that you just don't forget it. You just don't forget where you were when that happened. So also, I guess that begged the question.

Somebody asked me, if all sports were able to occur over the next three to, six months, but without fans, which ones would be the most and least conducive to watchability? It's a good question. I think, listen, football is always the most watchable no matter what, especially when you can bet on it. So, you got fan that. Like, no fans wouldn't affect gambling and fantasy. So football will roll right along, no problem.

I don't, oh. And I, and I think, I'll tell you this, I think a lot of people, and you know this, you know, I do not want to get into CTE at all because I know that pisses you off and I don't want to, But I think if fans actually heard the hits and the helmet's helmet, they wouldn't even believe with the stuff they hear. Oh, yeah, that's true. That is true. I hadn't thought about that.

But I also think the players wouldn't perform as well because you need that adrenaline so bad. I talked about this with Rissillo last week. I just feel like you absolutely need that crowd rush and you need the stadiumscapes. Like imagine the chiefs locking up that buy or whatever it was during the New England game when New England lost to Miami

and they're panning arrowhead. Imagine nobody's in the stands. How much does that change a moment like that? Both in the NBA, you know, you have the last two minutes, games tied, somebody at the three, and there's no reaction at all. I mean, it's bizarre.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is like, I was someone from a hardcore sports fan thing and you could speak on this, obviously, as being asked, like, if there was a football, let's think it was an NFL game played with no,

fan. You would, my assumption would be, you're really going to pick up so much of the sound. Like, would we hear coaches calling out plays? Would we hear, I mean, we're going to hear the quarterback calling out the signals even more, with defensive signals? Oh, we would. I was thinking about that from a March Madness standpoint. You would hear everybody's adjustments.

You would hear, like, all the times coaches are yelling at players. You know, you'd hear exactly what they were saying. And by the way, I thought that when at first they were going to carry out the tournament, we all knew it probably wouldn't happen with only a central, staff, I was like, well, one of the most essential pieces of that whole puzzle is the cheerleading staff because of the background noise. Like, you can, you can get through, uh, watch the AC tournament this year. If you watch like, uh, you know, Pitt, NC State in the beginning, there weren't a lot of people in Greensboro, okay? But it felt like, it feels normal. It feels like March Madness. It feels like a,

you know, a regional game in the round of 64, you know, because you hear the, the, the, the squeaking, you hear the rim, you hear people yelling on the court, you hear some cheerleaders in the background. That's why I thought, you know, actually March Madness, as long as you kept the shots tight, it could have survived. Right. I want to hear trash talking as a fair. I would love to know what you guys really say to each other when you're down there in the trenches. Oh, yeah, maybe you don't. I feel like it's one of the things. No, I definitely do. Because what we end up get it, like, you know, NFL films will do a nice little video like during the week. from a game from the week before, but that's all edited.

Yeah. So give me some unedited, you know. The MLB stuff's great. The mic'd up stuff, which they won't adopt because baseball doesn't do anything fucking right. The mic stuff they did in spring training. I have a feeling if they come back, they will do a lot of that. I think that's coming.

Nice. I definitely think that's coming for the week. Okay. Okay. Anything. Yeah. Now, from what I saw on Twitter, from the great Joel 9-1, which I still don't know what that means, but we need to know one day. One day.

I mean, you have embraced the – I know you've always – I think you said, you know, you've always liked to make a wager here and there. Yeah. I feel like you've gone, like, you were going like pretty full-blown. Like, here's like with me. I used to be that way. I used to bet every sport every night. And then I've gotten down over the last several years to just NFL and kind of. college football.

Mm-hmm. Little baseball here and there because I had a little problem with baseball. But you're like, from what I saw on Twitter, you were like knee-deep with the NCAA, any game going on. Now, what are you doing without all this? Has it, has it, has it, how's it, uh, making you feel the, you, uh, Jones in for a wager? I, it does make me feel a little funny. Um, I got a text from an unnamed friend.

I've gotten a couple texts from a couple unnamed friends. One just texts to me and, and I quote, uh, this is actually a good, I'm tired of looking at the money in my account. I want to bet it. I also have a buddy. I also have a buddy who texted me earlier this week talking about, hey, man, I got some horses if you want to get on them. Listen, I don't want to minimize like everything else.

There are people who have real physical conditions and, you know, there's obviously people who are actually, you know, worried about getting sick because they're immunocompromise. there's also people who are anxious, right? Okay, myself, you included maybe, a bunch of other people. Like, how does this affect people's mental health? There's also gamblers who have a really real addiction right now. And I'm wondering, you know, chemical addictions, right? Like deep-seated, degenerate gamblers who have been gambling every day of their life for maybe 30 years,

if you survive that long and the house doesn't win in the big game. Like, how are they feeling right now? What are they betting on? Like, what do you do to get your fix? Like, if you go to jail and you're an alcoholic, you make hooch. Like, there's no, like, what do you do?

Do you just meet up in alleys and play like, I guess you play cards, but if you're a sports gambler, like what is there? Well, I'll tell you a couple of things. One, I think what can end up happening is people would start dipping into like the online poker world, which I would not recommend. No, I'm not doing that. But two, like, I mean, I remember we, I used to sit around with my friends. We'd be sitting outside or something.

And I say to my friend, you know, all right, let's go, 10 bucks. What color will the next car be that comes down the block? I'm little white. You know, I mean, you can get to. So this is, so I just described you. You got to get creative. You got to get creative. So was I describing you?

this entire time. No, because like I said, you were describing me in my older days, in my younger days. Right now, like I said, I'm very reformed. I'm down to NFL college football, so this is my offseason anyway. But like, you got to get creative. I think there's shows like American Idol is going on right now. You can bet on that if you're on the right offshore site. So there's ways to get a fix.

Yeah. I think your best bet is going to be reality TV. shows like American Idol, the voice. I don't know if Survivor is going on, stuff like that. Yeah, I heard a couple weird prop bets that they were releasing just for pop culture things, I think,

to, but think about the way gambling platforms are struggling right now. Like, the platforms. You know, like, that's got to really affect, you know, their bottom line. Dude, the Vegas strip has shut down.

Is it really shut, shut? all the way down? Yeah. Wow. Wow. I mean, that's, I mean, that's the ultimate place for big crowds. So, um, do you think, you know, tell me all strip clubs are shut. I, you know, it's funny.

If you ever need laughs, the New York Post will always come through for you. They had, like, before this really exploded, like last week, they had an article. And it was like, the headline was so, like, super serious, but it was like how New York City strip clubs are dealing with the. coronavirus tragedy. Like, hey. And then like, you know, they get a, it's, I know it's a legit, they get a picture though. They get like a generic, um, what's word, stock photo. Stock photo. I love stock photos. And then, and then, and then they photoshop a picture of Purell hand sanitizer on it. It's just like, the only thing I would say about that is I think that's

one industry that will come back strong whenever this is over. Oh, for sure. Like a mat, like, imagine like you know we can't leave our houses for two months and then they're like okay everything's reopening on you know hi but let's see where we marginage but let's say everything's reopening in america on june 1st they'll be turning people away at the doors of that she oh no doubt about it did you see the stripper who uh did you see the stripper who uh did you see the stripper who fell like in Atlanta like three stories on that megapole and fell since you Oh yeah, yeah. There was a stripper that was doing like some tricks like really high up on her pole. And she like twirled and almost like free fell down and landed. I guess she broke like a vertebrae or something.

But she just got up and tried to just twerk it off. And that didn't work. She's on the DL presumably. Like for her, she'll be right off the DL right on time for June. Like she never left. She's got she'll have as we call him football. fresh legs, you know, like so... I mean, it's... For some. Anyways. Yeah. We've gotten to strip clubs.

I think it's time to go. But Jim, is there anything else that you think I should watch or that I should do to pass my time? Well, let me ask you. Are you a curb your enthusiasm, watch? I am. I am. And we just started the new season.

The first episode was very funny. Oh, I saw uncut gems the other night. And you liked it? I really liked it. Four out of five stars. How about you? I would say, I think I said two and a half out of five. Wow.

There were too many unrealistic gambling things that annoyed me. Okay, okay. Well, that's one of those things. Like, yeah. I got it. Okay, you want to talk about Twitter for a sec? Yeah. So I see the movie.

I think Adam Sandler was terrific. I think you should have an Oscar nomination. without a doubt. He was really good. Yeah. So after I see the movie, I go on Twitter, and this ties into our whole Twitter thing earlier, and whatever. And I said, you know, just so uncut gems,

couldn't get past the fact that when he was, he had bet a big NBA game, and he says to his wife, can you put on ESPN? Because he was watching the game in the bedroom, but the game was on T&T, had the T&T graphic logo, all that. He's watching the bedroom, and then he goes in the living room,

and he tells his wife, can you put on ESPN. Yeah. I have that trouble with a lot of like movies. If I see a car model that's past the date of the setting, it bothers me. Right. Now, Uncut Gems, the only part that bothered me in the whole movie, and I said this on the pod yesterday, was, the dude that was screaming at him when he was unpacking the stone from the fish,

he was not a good actor. If you remember that guy. I don't remember it because it was a while ago when I saw it. But my issues were like, you know, he makes this big bet at Mohican Sun in Connecticut. Connecticut doesn't have sports betting. You can't make a bet at Mohican Sun. You can't bet who will win the opening tip for like in a parlay for 10. Yeah, that was weird.

That was weird. That was weird. I like, I did like the ending a lot. I thought the ending was the biggest cop out of the movie. Oh, you did? That you just got to shoot him? Sorry for anybody who was... He had to get shot at that point.

It would have been a cop out if they didn't. Yeah, I guess. That's what he did. Yeah, I guess. I mean locking him... You mean locking him in the little doorway. Also, KG was so funny. And I don't know if he meant to be funny the entire movie,

but he was cracking me up. Yeah, he was good. He was good for sure. But when I tweeted that, of course... So then I get people like start at mentioning the directors. Oh boy. On my tweet. And the directors admitted it was a total full pie.

It wasn't planned. And then all these people on Twitter were saying to me like, you're an asshole. Everybody knows if you bet a lot of money in a game and you tell your wife, you just say put on his pen, it means just put on the game. That's what you put on the ass pin means. Yeah. What the fuck world are you living? Well, I, okay.

I actually still tell people to MapQuest things. They know what I mean. Well, because you're doing it to be funny. No, I'm not. No, I'm really not. And I also say the TiVo things. I think MapQuest is much worse than TiVo. But like I still, like I can't deal with all these, like that's how I am with all these stadiums when they change.

Like I still say, you know, candlestick park for whatever the Niners play in. Like I can't keep up with all, like all these corporate names. It's ridiculous. Oh, yeah. No, no, no. I get it. But my brain is stuck in the MapQuest stage of my life, which was 2003. But that's because it's a good, like, it's a little awkward to say to someone,

oh, just Google Map it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mapquested. It's, it's, yeah. Now it's ways. Now it's ways. But, yeah, so I liked Uncut Jams. Also, seen Irishman recently.

Finally, I finished it. I know I'm like months behind. Thought that was very good. Did you like that one? I did not see it, but I, that's, Obviously something I'll be able to do now. You're even more behind than me. Also recently saw Lighthouse.

Have you seen Lighthouse? No. The last movie I think I saw was the Mr. Rogers movie with Tom Hanks, which... I haven't seen it yet. Great movie. I don't like being depressed. The first Mr. Rogers movie depressed me. This will not depress you.

It's more uplifting than depressing. Okay, good. And it's not really about Mr. Rogers. I'll tell you something that depressed. me recently that I watched was the George Harrison documentary. Did you see that one? That was a Scorsese thing. Did you see it?

I didn't, but why did it depress you? Because the guy should have lived to like 700. And I do not like the Beatles. Okay, is that, do you like the Beatles? Yes, but I'm not like a fanatic, but I mean, I didn't know those existed. Yeah, I didn't know the people that don't freak out and start like

throwing a tantrum when you say you don't like the Beatles existed. And you don't like any of their music? Is that the deal? I'm really trying. I've tried. I've tried. Also, I know. Like John Lennon to me, John Lennon wasn't a great guy.

That also kind of. Yeah, now you're getting into a whole other. Yeah. Talk about you were willing to get political. You don't want to touch that one. Yeah. I mean, David Bowie did a lot of bad things. Chuck Barry did a lot of bad things.

Listen, you're going to go through this list with musicians. Yeah. good online but I always I was a big George Harrison fan George Harrison seemed like he was a good good dude um you know he he's his solo stuff I like more than the Beatles stuff I see I like the Beatles music I can't you know so for me I don't know I'm not with you on this one of these feel like I have no issue whatsoever with you not liking the Beatles whereas you know people get offended if you don't like you know well some people are going to be mad did you I'll give you something to did you watch on Netflix, don't fuck with cats.

Yes, love don't fuck with cats. It's impossible to explain it to anybody who hasn't seen it, so skip through this little minute discussion here. But it was like really dark. It was really, I mean, the plot twists were crazy. It did not start. It didn't finish where you thought it was going to finish. I mean, it was, it was well done.

It was well produced. I didn't know how to feel about it. Did they create that guy? I don't think so. I have to say, I was more fascinated by, I was more fascinated by the people who were trying to find him. Yes. And by fascinated, I think maybe I'm being kind.

It was more like, you got to fucking be kidding me. I mean, they see this video and they're trying to track down like the mattress and yeah what did you find oh the vacuum the vacuum yeah the vacuum

like she was going to every vacuum distributor yeah yeah but my thing was she asked the question at one point

and she was like did we create this and I'm like no you didn't I don't think you created it because that person had it in them but like

that's what they were doing it for to be chased right you know but again like yeah see I agree with you like that guy was

completely deranged I mean in a major way he was going to do bad things no matter what they might have sped it up these people's these people spending their lives in Facebook groups and I don't know that to me the fact that

there are people like that out there is kind of but they got them they got them I never want to piss face like body moving types off if you remember her name and they're like I don't want to I don't want to piss those people off because they're going to find me

they're going to find everything out that they need to find out. So all respect to those Facebook groups, I'm certainly not dragging them, but you know, that that did make me kind of think about, think hard about the cause and effect of like pumping somebody up that's kind of a sociopath that way or whatever the diagnosis was for that person. Yeah, I saw the George Harrison thing. I saw the Johnny Cash thing with, you should watch the Richard Nixon Johnny Cash thing. It's only an hour long and it really, it rocks. It pretty cool. That's your world right there. Yeah, man. Yeah. So we'll catch up. You know, maybe we should check back in from time to time here in the, uh, dude, any, any time. Okay. I always love chopping

up with you. Okay, good. We don't even have to have an agenda kind of like today. So we can, yeah, yeah, we can, we can, we can, we can, maybe we'll do a home and home here. I got a home and home set up with Rosillo. We can do a home and home. Sounds good. I want to check up on you about what you're betting on, what you end up finding to... Yeah, it's slim pickings right now,

but I will tell you, I loaded up on that last game before the board disappeared, and that was Colorado, Washington State. Although, I wonder how people who bet on Creighton and St. John's felt the next day, but you knew that next day wasn't going to finish. That's when you're in deep. That's when you're in deep.

All right. Well, Jim, appreciate you, man. Stay safe. And is it Erie in New York real quick? Is it empty? It's interesting because I'm on Long Island. I'm not in Manhattan. Oh, you live in Long Island?

Yeah, yeah. So it's a little, it's crazy because, you know, social distance, social distance, and then, you know, I got to get in my car and drive around a little bit every day just for my anxiety. And I don't get out. I just want to drive around. And I see everything back. Yeah. Oh, I sat and I sat in the, um, I sat in the, um, I sat in the parking lot of a store that I had to go in yesterday for 30 minutes, and I didn't.

Yeah. The one thing I've done this, like, I went to the ATM this week and then, you know, you take out the buttons, you touched all the buttons. Then you got to wipe down your hands after you touch the buttons on the ATM. Somebody tried to give me a hug the other day. It's like a hug. That's rich. All right, Jim.

Well, I'll check in next week sometime, brother. Be well.