The Bill Simmons Podcast - A Patriots Makeover, 'Unsolved Mysteries,' MLB Foibles and 'The OC' With Mina Kimes, JackO, and Peter Gallagher

Episode Date: July 10, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by ESPN’s Mina Kimes to discuss a new look for the Patriots with Cam Newton at the helm, some teams that probably should have tried to sign Newton, great NFL head coaches, uncertainty surrounding the 2020-21 NFL season, and more (2:54). Then Bill talks with his old friend JackO to discuss the MLB’s plans for a shortened 2020-21 season, the gripping reboot of ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ on Netflix, and more (39:54). Finally Bill talks with actor Peter Gallagher about ‘The OC’ and Sandy Cohen as an iconic TV dad, some of his past films including ‘The Player,’ ‘While You Were Sleeping,' and ‘Sex, Lies, and Videotape,’ as well as some of his current work including ‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist,’ ‘Grace and Frankie,’ and his new film, ‘Palm Springs’ (1:28:04). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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where you can find two new episodes of the Rewatchables this week. We did St. Elmo's Fire on Monday. Me and Chris Ryan. 35th anniversary, plus Joel Schumacher just passed away. So we felt like we had to. It is one of the great coming-out-of-college movies ever, even if it's not a great movie. Then Wednesday, it was time.

We needed to do a real classic. So me and Fantasy and Chris Ryan, we did Swingers. Yeah, Swingers, a movie that is 24 years old and has aged absolutely spectacularly. It really has. That podcast was really fun to do. Next week, because we have a new documentary on HBO called Showbiz Kids that is directed by Alex Winter.

I was one of the executive producers and it premieres on Tuesday. So in the honor of Showbiz Kids, we're going to do Stand By Me on the rewatchables on Monday night. And by the way, put that documentary on your radar because it's, it's excellent.

It's really good. More about that on the, on the Tuesday podcast. We'll talk about a little more with Alex winter, but I want you to check that doc out, put it, file it away, do it in your DVR,

whatever you record, record later, go find it. What else are you going to do? It's a pandemic. Coming up, we're going to talk to Mina Kimes about football. We're going to talk to Jacko about Unsolved Mysteries and the unsolved mystery of why they're starting this baseball season.

And then Peter Gallagher, one of the great TV dads of all time. He's going to talk about Sandy Cohen and his reign as a Mount Rushmore TV dad and a whole bunch more. That is all coming up first. Our friends from Pearl Jam. all right Mina Kimes is here she's witnessing a historic moment this is the last time I'm wearing a Tom Brady jersey right here I am I am pledging my allegiance to Cam Newton from, from this moment on. Thank you for the 20 years,

Tom Brady. I loved it. I loved winning six Superbowls. I love being relevant every year. I'm going to continue to wish you well in Tampa Bay, but this is now a Cam Newton house. Oh yeah. You hate it.

You hate this. I have so many thoughts. So many thoughts. Um, first of all, I feel like every time I do your show, uh, people get so angry that we always spend the first 20 minutes talking about

something Patriots adjacent, even if like it could be in the Superbowl, the Patriots are long eliminated somehow like 20 to 25 minutes. We will do, but the Patriots are the most interesting team in football right now. So it's actually relevant. This is actually a thing we should be talking about. It's such

a fun subplot because there's multiple things going on. One, the most fun part of it is that Cam Newton's really fun to watch play football if he's healthy. I'm just excited that he's starting for a team. I think the process played out the way it should have played out. I think, you know, obviously teams were a little nervous.

He hasn't been healthy in two years and he's a guy who wants 20 million a year. Probably the market wasn't there. Belichick slow played it. I think he took less than maybe he should have, you know, from say the chargers, but he knows if he, if he crushes it for the pats for one year, that's a $100 million contract waiting for him. Right. Yeah. It's when Revis signed with the Patriots, I analogized it to analogize that. Right. Anyways. Yeah. It's like when, it's like when an actor does, um, like an indie film, right?

To get their cred back, to get a few awards under their belt. Then they can go back to the Marvel movies. That's basically what Cam's doing here. I think they got a little lucky. They got a little lucky. I mean, he slow played it, but it wasn't just the health thing. There's a number of reasons why teams didn't bite, I think. And New England was fortunate.

Well, so they got lucky with two teams specifically. The Chicago Bears. It's indefensible. It's just indefensible. You could talk to any Chicago fan and be like, why didn't you guys sign Cam Newton? And there's no answer. The answer is basically, well, if you do that,

then you got to give up on Mitch Trubisky. And then the answer is, yeah, yeah, exactly then you got to give up on Mitch Trubisky. And then the answer is, yeah, yeah, exactly. You have to give up on Mitch Trubisky. That's indefensible. And then I don't know what the fuck the Chargers are doing where they're just like, yeah, Tyrod Taylor. It's like Kim Newton's much better than Tyrod Taylor. What are you doing?

It's not about Tyrod Taylor. They wanted Justin Herbert. What this? Okay. So yeah, but he's not going to start this year. Do you think he's starting? They want him to start at some point, probably this year,

because rookie quarterbacks always start. Okay, year one. Okay, fair. Always, always. And you don't want Cam Newton in that locker room. I mean, there's a number of teams around the NFL. Forget the Chargers. I think you're right that they're the most obvious choice

because they're a really good team otherwise and should compete. But there's a number of teams with rookie quarterbacks, quarterbacks on rookie contracts who should, like Cam Newton is better than their quarterbacks, but they don't want their rookie quarterback to lose the competition. People always forget how often this happens in the NFL, that it's not a real meritocracy. So once the Chargers decided, we're going to take a guy, we're going to take Justin Herbert, Cam Newton was never an option. You cannot have Cam Newton in any locker room where a quarterback has questions around him because the team's going to rally around him immediately.

He is that type of guy. Yeah. What is there any other teams you think blew it? Chicago is the worst one. Um, I mean, I go thing. I actually feel bad for the bears fans because the quarterback position has, you know, been a sore spot for decades. And it's just funny that this was such an obvious win every possible way. And they just missed it. He would have looked great to like in a Bears jersey. I thought, um, I mean, there's teams like Jacksonville, but they're not trying to win. They're doing a Miami light thing. So every team has a different timeline and plan. So teams that are actually competitive and could use him as a starter, you're actually in a really small number of teams, I think.

Yeah. And you also have a situation where we have a lot of quarterbacks. Now we don't have 32 good quarterbacks, but I think we have a lot of teams who are comfortable with their quarterback situation, whether they should be is a different topic, but we've had multiple drafts in a row where we've had, you know, new blood each year coming in. And there's just, there's only so many spots. And I think with Cam, it's almost insulting to bring them in and be like, Hey man, you're going to have to compete for the job. Do you see the video of him today? Uh, I've watched all the videos. You've watched everything.

Which is your favorite video? I, I just like his personality. I think, you know, we had this quarterback, God bless him. Our guy, Tom Brady,

who had just mastered the art of, of saying nothing and being diplomatic. Right. And just, you always had to read between the lines and what is, is Tom upset? He sold his house. There was just so much mystery. And with Cam, Cam's just Cam.

He is who he is. He's going to be upfront all the time. He's going to be dynamic. There's going to be real energy. And it's like, if I'm moving on from my first wife, who I just spent 20 years with, I want my second wife to be different than my first wife. And he's different in so many ways. I think he opens up the offense.

I've been thinking about it for a week. McDaniels has to feel like he won the lottery. He gets to do all these things now that he couldn't do with Brady. Brady couldn't move. I did a 45 minute pod on Jarrett Stidham. I think I texted you when I was watching the preseason. Yeah. 45 minutes of my life spent watching Jarrett Stidham,

a college and preseason tape to prepare for the season because all offseason the bee reporters and everyone around New England was telling us that you know they just love Stidham and I know that's not a New England accent but I'm trying to approximate the I liked it I like the effort oh he's wicked good I don't't know. That was terrible. But we were told, right? Trust in Bill. But when you watched, first of all, the greatest discrepancy between NFL teams and fans

is that preseason means anything. Fans, and I count myself, right? And sure, that's how Russell Wilson won his job in Seattle, the team I root for. But for the most part, a guy doing decently well in preseason means absolutely nothing to your football team. OK, and fans fall for it every time. He looked

fine. OK, he like made a few decent intermediate level completions off of play action. He took too many sacks. He wasn't quite as mobile as I thought he would be. But it seemed very obvious that at the beginning of this offseason, New England was trying to build a quarterback proof offense. Right. You know, it was going to be some early 2000s Patriots stuff, just a ton of two running back sets and running the ball. They drafted those tight ends. Now he gets Cam Newton to play with? I mean, it's unbelievable.

And the thing that's always been hard for me about hating on the Patriots is how much I love everything about them. In particular, the way Bill Belichick runs that football team, which is he is completely agnostic to scheme, culture, like not culture, but he will change literally everything they do at the drop of a hat. And I adore that because it's so rare in the NFL. We see it all the time with the Patriots defense. We've seen it with the offense, you know, from rooting for this team over the years. They have morphed into different iterations even during Brady's career. They're going to change everything they do this season if the

season happens. It's going to be amazing to watch. Well, the ceiling went so much higher. Yeah. Stidham, even if it worked out and he was like, I think solid was a, was a reasonable outcome better than solid would have been exciting, but there was never going to be a case where he was going to like light it up. You know, I just don't think he has the kind of talent. Could he have been like a really solid Garoppolo in his first Niners year kind of thing where his game manager maybe makes one mistake a half, but can make some good throws too. Can drive the car straight basically.

And now with cam, it's like, all right, can we win the FC? Like, and this is what we do. Well, this is what we do is we,

we do it as sports fans, right? You, you start, you think about the best case scenarios for a week. And then after a week, I'm like, man,

we can win the FC with cam Casey, you know, the salary cap issues. could win the AFC with Cam. KC, you know, the salary cap issues, you never know with them. They got a lot of good injury luck last year. You start talking to yourself. I didn't have this kind of hope a week ago, I guess is my point. You think they're the third best team in the AFC right now? You feeling that?

I think they're in the top five. I don't know what to make of Buffalo because I think Buffalo is going to get a lot of momentum. Watch out for Buffalo. And it's usually that's bad in the NFL when everybody lines up. These guys, here they are. It's going to happen.

I think that it's Kansas City and Baltimore. And then there's kind of a mess of like five or six decent AFC teams. Your Bills, your Pats, your Titans, your Colts. I think the Steelers and Browns are kind of sneaky there too. But New England, you have the best secondary. It's the front seven. It's Bill Belichick.

It doesn't matter who's playing. On offense, the line's healthy, right? You get your center back, Andrews. Steel players still suck, but there is literally no way they could suck more than they did last year. And they're healthy. So that helps. They're at least people that might have talent.

We didn't see it last year. It was a bad fit with Brady, but I like, I'm not willing to give up on to kill Harry after a year. Cause he was banged up half the year and then his quarterback didn't trust him. So it was good. He was,

he looked terrible. He's, he was hurt. He was hurt. I mean, they're slow, He's, he was hurt. He was hurt. I mean, they're slow, right? They are like,

if you just look at their 40 times, I think they're the slowest in the NFL, but, um, the advantage of having quarterback like cam is defenses can't play man. Cause you can't turn your back on a mobile quarterback. That's going to help all your slow receivers. Are we,

have we hit 23 minutes yet? A Patriot? No, we're done. No, I had, I had one more quick question though. Okay. How much, how much fun is it that all the people who love Cam now have to root for the Patriots?

This is my favorite wrinkle, the whole thing. It's so good. It's through the roof, man. Like I, the second he is wearing like the all whites with the number one zone read, I'm going to lose my mind. And then the camera is going to cut to all these Patriots fans and the cognitive dissonance is going to be out of control. And I think there's so many people like me. I don't know how that's going to play out. I really don't know. It's like a science experiment. Hey, I guess I should ask this

question. Are we sure we're going to have a football season? Am I allowed to say I hope so? Is that, are we allowed to say that? Especially now that you're on NFL Live. We kind of needed NFL season. Yeah, that would be a tough scene for me if there's no season. I don't know. I'm sure you feel this way too.

As a professional taker, it's really not fun being asked to weigh in on issues of science and probability it's I feel like a total fraud every time I'm asked about this stuff right um I can tell you what I'm hearing and I'm not Adam Schefter over here but the NFL I think feels from based on what I've heard from people that if baseball and basketball happen, there's no way they can't in some way. It might be a little later. That's something that the schedule left as a contingency. A few weeks pushed back and then everything gets pushed back down the road.

But if those sports happen, football is going to happen. The best thing I've heard, the best point I've heard for why it's going to happen, or if it does happen, why it would happen is once it starts, all the contracts are guaranteed for that year. So maybe it doesn't start week one. Maybe it starts week five, week six. Maybe they wait, maybe they slow play it. Maybe they decide to just have a 10 game season. They're going to want to have at least 10 games. They're going to want to have the playoffs. Here's what we do know.

No sport has a group of owners less concerned with the welfare and health of their players than the NFL. Like if anyone's going to push it through, it's going to be them. And the attitude will just be, all right, he has COVID. Next guy up. Their whole left side of their offensive line has COVID. Well, allow them to sign some practice squad guys. They're going to have the games. I forget which team talked about quarantining backup quarterbacks,

like in a bubble in case to keep them from getting COVID, but having like a COVID roster. I mean, conversely, though, to your point about the owners, no group of players is less willing to give up a season than professional football players because of, you know, age and career length. It's not like basketball or baseball, right? They, I would guess, want to play more than athletes in other sports. Right now, the NFLPA and the league are negotiating over training camp and what that's going to look like. But I imagine the PA is going to try to come to some sort of resolution with them.

I think it happens, but I don't think it's 16 games. And I was surprised that they made such a big deal about the schedule and all that stuff because it's like planning for... How do you plan for something when you have no idea what the world's going to look like in September you know I think they should have been a little more emphatic about here's at least a 10 game schedule and then if we play more than that here's what that will look like but we're gonna take this more seriously plus Plus COVID is getting worse. Obviously everybody knows. I hear. So, um, it, it's, it's not slowing down. Turns it turns out a pandemic doesn't slow down

when people aren't, uh, aren't, aren't being, uh, healthy enough. What do you think about the NFL having their season in like New Zealand though, or something? Have you heard that? No, no, no. Incredibly irresponsible speculation by me. Oh, I loved it. That was great. I mean, I feel like New Zealand would reject us, although it would be the greatest advertisement for New Zealand, which is gorgeous, right? Every time

there's a show like Game of Thrones, everyone wants to go to New Zealand or Czechoslovakia. Where are they? Croatia, I think. Yeah. That could be the NFL in New Zealand, like Kiwi football. I don't know. I just think they're going to have it

and they're just going to assume that some teams are going to get decimated by COVID and maybe, you know, just for two weeks, they're just going to get beaten in the games by a lot of points. And that's just, it'll be, you know, like having a torn SEL multiplied by 100.

How are people going to gamble? It's going to be bizarre. I mean, the fantasy and gambling ramifications, much less the health and many more important things. I have to get used to dropping those caveats in with somber tones, but they're going to be enormous if any of these rosters have any sort of,

I guess, flexibility in that regard. I think now that we're basically four months since Rudy Gobert, March 11th, that whole day, I think people have completely lost their minds at this point. And if there's stuff to do and things to watch and fantasy and gambling and information to find out and reloading Adam Schefter's Twitter feed over and over again to see if somebody had a last minute COVID or not. I think people are all in. There's nothing to do. It's interesting to me that we're treating COVID revelations with velvet gloves and there's a little bit of weirdness like you don't want to report who has it or doesn't have it when our industry will report immediately when like a running back you know towards mcl or like seconds and i i'm not quite understanding the

disjunct between those things which i guess reflects more poorly on the fact that we report on their actual injuries to begin with and less about the COVID thing. But yeah, it's going to be super weird. I mean, college football right now is on the brink. That's been the story today and this week. I don't see that. I never thought that was happening because there's too much liability for the campuses. And, you know, I just don't see it. I got so excited for football to happen when the cam news broke i mean that was the first time i think this whole summer that i really prayed to the football gods that we got a season you know just because the excitement around it the idea of seeing it um just seeing as you

said that whole experiment of it was so fascinating to me and i don't know whole time, I think like football's been so weird because obviously they've benefited from being the second mover and getting to wait and having the calendar move later, but nothing, everything is just proceeded normally, right? We had this off season, we had the draft, nothing changed at all. But when I saw that piece of news, it hit me like this might not, if this doesn't happen, I'm not going to see any of this play out, um, for the first time in my life. Yeah. CBS showed chiefs Titans over the weekend and I caught the fourth quarter and I was just kind of watching it. And I was like, man, life was so simple. The end of January, just, just trying to ride the Titans, hoping that they were going to cover and they're down 11.

And as I, man, I remember when just getting upset that the Titans couldn't cover that spread was like my biggest issue in a weekend. That was coming off of, I think the worst call of my career coming on your show and guaranteeing Titans victory or a Ravens victory rather over, over the time. I think that is actually the worst prediction I've ever made. Has Mallory talked to you? She's talked to you since then. Yeah, yeah. I think she's bounced back. She's feeling optimistic about her squad. She should.

She should feel optimistic. I think they're probably as good as Kansas City. Lamar's on Madden. It's done. It's over. Yeah, throw the black hat on that team. Wasn't Mahomes Madden the year before? Was he? If he broke the curse,

then I recant my comment. How did you feel about me working with your coach, Pete Carroll? Technically now a ringer co-worker of mine since we've done 10 podcasts. I know that was surreal for you. I like that podcast a lot, by the way.

It's good. It's going to be going away cause they have real jobs in real lives, but we got an amazing short run out of them. Yeah. Well, um, I actually, um,

did a thing with Pete recently. Um, he has this book coming out with that performance psychologist that he worked with. And I never read self-help books. I've actually never read like, I don't know, maybe that's the wrong way to describe it. wall. I totally got it. Like the whole Pete thing. And obviously he's, he's obviously an incredible coach and I get, I've interviewed Seahawks players who speak to sort of the culture he establishes there and you know, why they love him so much and how he gives them the freedom to be themselves.

And, you know, I'll criticize decisions he makes as a coach and get frustrated. I guess at times with Seattle and that they don't let Russell Wilson throw the ball more. But after reading that, like, I felt like I got it completely. And I also felt like I now have no idea what it takes to be a good coach and I should shut up every time I'm asked going forward because it's so much more complicated than I thought. Well, it does seem the thing I've learned from the episodes and even talking to them and the little pre-show thingies we have or whatever, it's just how much luck needs to happen to become a good coach because it's like who you ran into at different points in your life, job experiences you had, a break you got that you weren't expecting to get.

And it's almost like this video game where you're completing these levels and you don't even realize it. And then all of a sudden, you're in a position of power and you're trying to use all this knowledge you had. And it's no wonder there's not very many good coaches. It's a really hard job.

Like two of the best coaches in the NFL are Pete Carroll and Bill Belichick, who couldn't be more different in literally every way as human beings. So it's hard to like use those two examples and draw even a line, any lines between them, I suppose, other than that they both ended up with really good quarterbacks. And I think that, you know, it's kind of a chicken or egg thing with both of them.

Pete and Steve, they both do the same thing about, they're really invested in their players and not just the stars. They really try to have a feel for everyone on their roster. And because I think both of them, neither of them were great players, right? Steve had a better career than Pete did, but both of them were in the position of not being an essential part of the team, but a smaller essential part.

So understanding the value of basically everybody. And I don't know, I've learned a lot from it. I just don't think they're, I always get criticized because I always shit on coaches too much. I don't think there's a lot of great coaches, but my expectations are probably also really too high for coaches in general

because I think it's a fucking hard job. But what you just described, like, okay, Pete Carroll, you're right. So this whole audio book is about that. Oh, I, you know, I get to know these guys as human beings and think about what motivates them. And I think about, you know, I use that information to then coach them

and develop them and give them opportunities bill patrick's never done that day in his life right like i mean we always hear these stories about a guy who you know even like a julian edelman type not like a end of the roster scrub who has an awkward conversation with bill for the first time you know that lasts more than seven minutes. And I'm not saying that means Pete's strategy is wrong. It just kind of makes you think, okay, maybe there really are many different ways to be a good coach. No question. Like the, one of the most famous Belichick shots, they win, they beat the Rams in the Superbowl. Laura Malloy runs over Belichick's hugging his wife or his daughter. I can't remember. And Laura Malloy's in there and it's a three person hug. And you're just like, wow, those guys are so close.

Then he shanks Laura Malloy straight to the Buffalo or wave them. I forget, but he waved them. Laura Malloy ended up a Buffalo, but it was like, he, he gets what he needs out of you for the season. And then that's it. You might be gone. I think I truly do believe now that he was ready to get rid of Brady three years ago and Brady knew it. And I think that did probably start the, yeah, enough stuff's come out that it seems pretty confident

that's what happened, right? Yeah. I mean, now the conversation is like, yes, I agree with you, by the way, about the Brady stuff. And now the conversation is about, okay, how does personality mesh with Newton's, right? It doesn't fucking matter, right?

Bill Belichick doesn't care what Cam Newton's personality... I don't mean this... We all know the character thing is BS, right? We were talking about a football team that signed Antonio Brown last year. We don't even have to have that fake conversation. But the idea that Bill Belichick cares about anything other than what Cam Newton can do on the football field

is ridiculous. Kyle and I were talking about that before. People act like Belichick has shied away from players with charisma and personality. It's been the complete opposite. We fucking traded for Randy Moss. Who in the 2000s, other than maybe T.O., was somebody who had more baggage and, uh-oh, this guy, oh, he's selfish, blah, blah, blah, than Randy Moss. And he loved Randy Moss. Randy Moss was a great patriot. I never understood that angle. I think the greatness of Bill Belichick, it's funny thinking about him and Carroll kind of in conjunction because I think they have, like I said, they have very different personalities, very different qualities, and I think probably

have things that are lacking in the other. Like, I think Bill Belichick could probably benefit from a little bit of Pete Carroll's culture building, his eye for development, quite frankly. Whereas I think Carroll could benefit from Belichick's malleability, his willingness to completely shed scheme, right? Like, I will never forget, you know, like, God, feel like i i've brought this up with you before but that ramp super bowl and watching that patriots defense just completely do everything differently from how they had played all season you know going from man zone and running that front and i just i think that belichickian quality of being willing to be completely amorphous and tied to nothing

and just not even on a season-to-season basis, but on a week-to-week basis, play those sorts of games, is something that's so missing in coaches across the NFL. It's something that I thought Cliff Kingsbury actually did a really good job of last year and really impressed me, the fact that he was completely able, a few games into the season when he just tossed aside Air Ra raid and started running the football, which nobody thought he would do. And did started moving away from all the concepts he'd used in college and became, they actually became like one of the most successful running teams in the NFL.

I think that to me is the most, I don't want to say like the key determinant of success in coaching in the NFL, but to me, if I'm looking at great coaches throughout history, that's one quality that I see in a lot of them. Harbaugh did it with Lamar, right? Completely destroyed that offense. Something that other coaches looked at Lamar Jackson and were not willing to do.

And I feel like if I was a football team hiring a coach, I'd somehow try to test for that or look for that malleability because I think it's predictive. You know, it's funny. Basketball is like that too. Cause I think the basketball coaches that quote unquote have the system doesn't, doesn't work. Cause you know, you never know who your players are going to be year to year. The ones that have kind of figured out how to adapt to whoever they have. I always thought that was Belichick's best trait. And that's why the irony of all of this, they are the most fun team that could have gotten Cam Newton.

Yeah. Because they're going to, whatever they think he could do, they're going to unleash it. And I don't know. I really like watching him, you know, irrespective of him being on the team. Like I just, I enjoyed when he was healthy and I really thought him and him and Wilson were two of the guys that i just always enjoyed watching on a sunday you know

and and it was a bummer that he was hurt the last two years go back and watch the 2018 ravens game uh carolina when cam before he got hurt right when he was in the north turn offense which i'm sure you've been hearing a lot about how great you you know, everyone talks about what a great job. Yeah, so watch that game in particular and watch the things that Norv was doing with them, how good he was in that quick passing game, the use of misdirection, all stuff that New England would love to do. I mean, over the last two years,

he's actually been a better quick passer than Brady, okay? And Brady, I think there's a number of reasons why he struggled. A lot of it has to do with the talent around, not like Cam Newton was playing with world beaters. He can do all of that in new England to great effect behind a much better offensive line, by the way, I know, no Dante is scary, but I mean, yeah. And you're right. He's just joyful to watch. I think him like Deshaun Watson probably is up there on my joyful rank like just guys I just love to watch play football right now um but when he's healthy he's definitely in the mix and 503 million Pat

Mahomes I don't think that's a real number yeah it's not I just read an article about the guarantee mechanisms things which seemed kind of like made up you know when that came out I didn't really understand it everybody pretended to understand it at first. You should have told ESPN to do that when they gave you your last contract that was worth like 230 million with incentives. Like we could just make up any number with a football contract and people actually report it. Like my son came to me, he's like, dad, Pat Mahomes signed for 503 million. I'm like, no, he didn't. No, don't read that. 12 year olds are getting fooled by these NFL contracts. Actually, I have a take on that.

And I would love to run it by you as a Brady apologist. Okay. So the. Apologist. Well, formerly. Yeah. The thing about Pat Mahomes is he's not actually fun to talk about because he's so good like the day after he signed his contract i went on all of our shows right like around the horn whatever and it's like

pat mahomes signed a 500 million dollar fake contract like you know was he worth it everyone's like yeah like he's so unequivocally the best quarterback in the nfl he's not actually a debate topic right i think i don't't think Brady, and this is more about, this has a lot to do with the quarterbacks around him, Rodgers at times, Payton, whatever. I don't think there was ever a year where he was like that, where you looked at him and you said, there is no debate right now. Because I don't think with Pat Mahomes, there's any debate. I know Lamar was MVP last year and I love him, but I don't think there's a debate. Do you ever think Brady was like that?

I think in 07 he was. The offense was a world-beating offense, but you think he was unimpeachably... He was just great in 07. Going into that 08 season, I think people felt like he was the guy. And then I think after the Atlanta super bowl, ironically, when people were like, we're gradually like, all right, I guess he's the best. Like that was unbelievable,

but you're right. He hasn't. To me, my homes is almost more like an NBA player where it's, you know, when, uh, I don't know, like when Shaq in 2000, when he won the MVP and he won his first title, he just ripped through the league. I was like, Shaq's the best. Right. So my homes has hit that almost like more of an NBA type. We've always argued about quarterbacks. I don't feel like even with Rogers, there were some people like he's the best, he's the best. There were other, other ones who were like, eh, he's only won one Superbowl, blah, blah, blah. Well, you're talking about the distinction between the best and the most accomplished. Like Tom Brady is the most accomplished quarterback in the history of the NFL, and it's not right

debatable, but I do think it's debatable whether he's the most talented. That was always the divergence between him and Rodgers. Rodgers is more talented, Brady is more accomplished. I think Mahomes, obviously, he can't be the most accomplished. It's too early in his career, but he's undeniably the most talented guy right now. The play Mahomes made to basically save their Super Bowl. I think as the months pass.

Wasp in the game itself, you mean? The third and 14, third and whatever. The 11-yard drop back fucking heave right as he's about to get hit. It's so sick. I'm just like, nobody else in the league

ever made that throw. It's just sick. I'm just like, nobody else in the league ever made that throw. It's just not, and it saved their season. I don't know. I just don't know who else could have made that play. The whole playoff run. I mean, the Titans game, the Texans game. Like, I don't, I mean, his ability to like put his team completely on his back is unreal. So yeah, it's not, it's not fun to argue.

Yeah. God damn it. He could be the next guy. This could be the next Belichick-Brady run could be Mahomes for the next 12 years. Especially with the way the rules have moved into the favor of having a quarterback like that, and if he's by far the best one.

That's a really interesting point. I'm trying to think, who was the de facto. There's no question about it. This is the best guy quarterback. It's been a while. Like even Manning versus Brady was a whole thing. The whole two thousands trying to like Kurt Warner. Nobody felt that way about even after that one year he had Elway Marino, Montana. I guess the last time was after in the late eighties when I was in college, when Montana, Montana won one of those super bowls by like 40 points or whatever. I'm just saying what it was like when we were there, we were like, Montana is the best. We all, we were, we were like, it's done. We're not arguing about this

anymore. Like that was a thing for two years. Now it's so fascinating though, too, because our understanding of quarterback play is so much more sophisticated, right? We're not like using wins. We can break down every, we can isolate what the quarterback does. We can focus on the contributions of the other players. We can incorporate running in a way.

I don't think in the past, people who talked about football were able to do, or were like too racist to do. Now we can do all these things. And even with all that information, any way you slice the data, any play, whether you're a tape guy or a numbers guy or just a guy who does care about wins, he wins every debate. And he seems like a nice guy. He's totally unimpeachable. And your point about whether he can redo the Brady-Belichick thing,

I mean, he's got Andy, who I'm wearing an Andy Reid shirt right now. Like, he has that. He has the genius coach on his side, and they're perfectly in sync. And if Andy, I believe he does want to keep coaching for a long time, like, Mahomes has rejuvenated him by all accounts. If he can do that for, like, six more years, they could absolutely, I think, match the total. Yeah, I think Andy's, what,'s what 62 63 now early 60s he gave a quote the other day about how like mahomes it was i hate using like second wife thing again but it was like it like he was like i wake

up and it just made me see the world in color again. I mean, he's had some good quarterbacks, but I think for an offensive-minded coach, which I think differentiates him from Bill, having someone who can execute all of your wildest dreams and fantasies on the football field, it must be so immensely validating. Well, it reminds me of the NBA thing where Popovich gets Duncan and he just knows he won

the lottery and he's like I'm never leaving as long as this guy's healthy I think Kerr feels the same way about Curry totally you don't see it happen as much with the football yeah and you usually like the quarterbacks get rid of the coaches after a few years this in this case it's it's a marriage for a long time so So NFL Live, when does it kick in? When do you start doing that all the time? Is it now or is it like next month? The hope is August, mid-August. Yeah.

And I think that's my new job title is NFL analyst. So I'll be on Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays with Laura Rutledge is hosting, Marcus Spears, Dan Orlovsky, some Keyshawn Johnson, and Ryan Clark in the mix as well. It's exciting. Thank you. I'm very excited. I really hope there's football to talk about.

Otherwise, it would be pretty odd. It was good seeing you. Thanks for coming on. Good to see you too. All right, bringing in Jack on one second. First, UFC 251 is coming up. There's no better place to bet the action than on FanDuel Sportsbook.

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First deposit required. Restrictions apply. See full terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com gambling problem call 1-800-GAMBLER in west virginia visit 1800gambler.net in indiana call 809 with it colorado call 800-522-4700 speaking of uh fanduel fairway Rolling with Joe House, which has added Nathan Hubbard to the mix for 2020. It's a really good podcast. I encourage you to listen to it. They have been all over this golf season. They've all been over Beefy Bryson, whether that can continue. I thought the podcast they had this week was really good with Jason Sobel. So if you are getting into golf because there's nothing else to watch, I highly recommend a fairway rolling or his house would say fairway roll in, uh, right now,

bringing in Jacko here is all right. He celebrated his 50th birthday last week and you could really feel it during the 10 extra minutes it took to set up this podcast as Jacko tried to plug his iPhone headphones into the zoom recorder for 10 minutes as Kyle and I wondered what was going on and then finally figured out this is 50 Jacko. This is how it feels. You know, I'm used to doing these things on a telegraph. So it's good. This newfangled technology just throws me way off. I was trying to do it on a typewriter and i couldn't hear anything so it was crazy how's 50 feel how's 50 feeling for you

i'm feeling it believe me i feel it every minute yeah no it feels pretty good it's fine 50 is the new 30 or 40 or something so i'm sure it's all good we had a fun birthday we had a birthday zoom call. We did. It was great. That was fun. Yeah. That was a highlight. So I asked you to watch Unsolved Mysteries so we could talk about that because literally

there's nothing to talk about right now. Great. But I thought we'd start with the unsolved mystery of why the hell are they having an MLB season. This is a slow motion car crash day after day that is just continuing to happen. I love baseball. I miss watching the Red Sox. I should be in the demo. We're both of the age demo of people who should care that baseball is coming back. Even I'm kind of like why are we doing this and and even more frightening for the for mlb they have signature players kind of looking at each other going why are we doing this what is happening do you think this season actually happens i think at this point yeah i think it

will i i'm i i don't know why i'm optimistic but I really think like they've gone so far down the road that at this point they all know they, they have to have something. And I re I agree. It's a farce. The 60 games is a, is a farce. Uh, you know, the, the setup is a farce with no fans for now, but I think they're going to try to muddle through and go forward. I mean, you know, it's like a roller coaster of emotions because I think it's a farce, but I'll look forward to watching baseball and having something, you know, I was having baseball in my life. But then you read about like Mike Trout, who's about to have a baby, his wife's about to have a baby and he's concerned about it and not

sure about that. Now he's like the best player in the sport, you know, seemingly the face of the sport. And if he has doubts and concerns, that's problematic to say the least. It's funny, the comparison between the NBA and MLB where the NBA has put so much time, energy, thought money into this bubble. And the MLB is like, Hey, we, uh, we wiped down the dugouts with those Lysol wipes like two hours ago. You guys good? Should we have batting practice? Like, it's unbelievable how badly, like Rob Manfred, I always thought Bettman was going to be the worst commissioner of my lifetime. And then Roger Goodell was like, hold my beer.

Right. But now Rob Manfred, this first like three years of his reign, however long it's been, it's like, what are your wins? You've just had these massive losses across the board. You're bad at everything. I mean, here's the thing about the commissioners we have now, like Adam Silver, I guess, is

considered the best commissioner of the four sports, which is not a high bar to surpass, but regardless, he, he's considered the best one. He seems to have an affinity for basketball. Like he, he would probably be like a basketball fan anyway the little bit i know about the nba he seems like he would be a fan regardless um roger goodell for all his faults like he was like an intern for the jets in like 1975 or whatever you know right he made the joke once he was out like washing johnny lamb jones car or something getting him coffee so he's like a he's a football guy like

whatever his faults are it's not because he doesn't like the sport gary betman and rob manfred actively dislike the sport that they're the commissioner of yeah gary betman was an assistant commissioner deputy commissioner or something the nba right Like he was a stern guy. He had no clue about hockey. He has no knowledge of hockey. He's not like a hockey guy. And hockey is like this fraternity of like people that are hockey fans. You know, it's the fourth of the four big sports. People are like way into hockey and they always resent Bettman because he doesn't understand hockey. He couldn't tell you what icing was, you know, he doesn't know anything. And Rob Manfred is a guy that was like a labor lawyer.

So I think he likes the labor battles and he likes the negotiating, but it's pretty clear. He hates baseball. Like he doesn't, he wouldn't watch baseball. Like if he was not the commissioner, he has no affinity for the sport. It's glaringly obvious. Well, how about the fact that their last two commissioners, one was a fucking owner, which was a disgrace.

He was an owner right and it was like yeah he's bud's gonna take over for maybe a year and then i don't know how many years later but it was like yeah guess who's still in charge bud right he leaves and it's like all right well finally they'll get this right they'll get you know an adam silver type guy now right no no they didn't. And I understand the owners are always going to want a guy that's just a shill that they can control to some degree. But could you at least get a shill that maybe has some interest in the sport?

Like maybe he has a baseball card collection. Like maybe he had a baseball hat at one point. But Rob Manfred seems to actively, like when this whole Astros thing came around and they're like, well, how about if you strip them of the title? And it was like, Oh,

I can't do that. And they're like, I mean, this trophy is just a piece of metal. I mean, you can't say that about the sport that you run, that the trophy, I'd realized the baseball trophy is not the Stanley cup,

but it's still the fucking trophy for the world series champion. Like guys drive their whole lives to win that trophy. And he's like, Oh, it's just a hunk of metal. Like you can't say that it's ridiculous. So he's completely fucking clueless completely. I don't want to marry out of things.

I might've said this before. So I apologize if I repeated my point, but the pandemic has really shown a spotlight on what strong relationships are and what terrible relationships are. You know, if you're, if you're stuck with your girlfriend that you've been dating for a year and you're in some one bedroom apartment and you were fighting before the pandemic and now you're stuck, you probably broke up by now. There's probably some guy listening to this being like, yeah, that was me. I was living with my girlfriend in Chicago and we, and we were thinking of breaking up anyway. We lasted three. Baseball to me is the equivalent of like just the,

the, the terrible relationship between the commissioner owner side and the players union. Everything's fucked up all the time. And now we throw this pandemic into it. Like, of course this was going to go terribly. And it's gone.

You were, I was reading the stories yesterday and it was like Mike Trout, he practiced with a mask on kind of like a fuck you or two days ago where he was just like, just want to get my thoughts out

that I don't really feel safe in this alleged protective environment they've created. I think it's just, I think all of it is insane and they honestly don't care. They just want to get through, get through the season. They probably,

they know they're going to have some COVIDs, which I think, I think that's what we call these, right? If an athlete gets COVID during this season, like Jim Nance does that out with a leg. Oh, it was COVID.

Like so-and-so's out with a COVID. Right. They're just like, fuck it. We're going to have it. The season's going to fly by. And then the playoffs will start and people will be like, cool, the baseball playoffs. And that's all they wanted.

They just want to get to that one point. Absolutely. And I mean, really, I mean, the notion that there wasn't going to be baseball. I mean, I would have, I would have hoped that there would have been better protocols in place where there'd be more adequate testing and, and requirements like, you know, maybe not to the degree of the NBA with the bubble, but there's precautions that they could have taken, but they spent so much time arguing over labor issues that are still going to be there after this is all over with this season is over with.

And after COVID is over with, they couldn't even like put that aside for this, you know, in this time of crisis that like let's try to do this let's let's have like a at least a half a season of 81 games let's try to put together some protocols that make some sense let's try to do this safely but they were so busy like picking at the scab of 150 years of labor grief that they've had in the sport of hatred for each other that they couldn't even like say all right we'll still hate each other come February. But for now, like, let's just have a season and do it the right way. So they couldn't even do that.

And then it got rushed. And now here we are with like, no, not adequate safety protocols. DJ, my beloved DJ LeMay who tested positive. So he can't even be at like the, the spring training for the next 14 days. You know, you have like, you know you have like you have intra-squad games at yankee stadium with like nobody there it's it's it's all very surreal and it just and it's a 60 game season how how do we judge this historically like what if i guys saw something today and said what if somebody hits 400 you know right because they could you could hit 400 over 60 games george

brett did right so now that's going to go in the record books is like up there with ted williams Because you could hit 400 over 60 games. George Brett did, right? So now that's going to go in the record books as like up there with Ted Williams. Like what if somebody beats the 406? Somebody hits 410 over this season. Like, are we going to recognize that in any meaningful sense? Well, this is why they kept Ted Williams' head in the cryogenic chamber. So if somebody breaks his record,

they could just kind of revive him and bring him back to life. Zombie Ted Williams will come back and go three for four. I think, uh, how the MLB handled this when the only concern they should have had this whole time is how could we create a safe environment for our players? It was almost like when somebody buys a house and you go through the process of trying to find out what's wrong with the house and you make your like, Hey man, the chandelier is broken. Like, can you deduct that from the price? And, or yeah, they, you said the air condition, the air conditioning actually doesn't work. So we're going to have to say, you got it. The MLB was like that person who was just

like, Hey, that light bulb in the front, that's not working. Let's spend the next eight hours negotiating whether $10 should come off. That's right. It is a classic, couldn't see the forest through the trees with anything. And then on top of it, where are the owners? Who are the signature owners? Where are the 11 John Henrys getting together just being like, hey, man, we got to save our sport. None of these guys give a shit. They're all just looking at like the bottom line, what they're going to

get out of it. And it's embarrassing. I'm embarrassed for everybody. We talked about this in an earlier podcast when we were, it was debating whether there was actually going to be a season. And there was owners that were like, let's not play. I'd rather not play. Like, how do you own a fucking sports team and be like, I'd rather not have a season. Like, I don't want to play at all. Cause I'm going to lose too much money. Like maybe you should sit down and think about like, do you want to own a sports team? Like Steve Cohen, the guy that wants to buy the Mets, you know, he, he negotiated with the Wilpons who had some screwy deal and he backed out and he's still now want, he likes baseball

enough for the Mets enough that now he's like back in and all in. And he's the runner i guess ahead of a rod to buy the meds that's a guy that should be an owner like he loves the team he loves the loves baseball but you have all these guys that own teams and it's like they don't really give a shit i don't i don't understand that if you don't give a shit then you know go buy some other company that makes paper or something you know or makes printers like nobody gives a shit about that go by zoom right whatever but like if you own a sports team there's a certain cachet that goes with that yes you have a certain duty to the fan base and to the players and everything else it's it's different than owning like a widget factory you know but these guys just treat it like a widget factory it's a write-off they deserve a rod to

join their ownership group they deserve that that guy. And J-Lo. Yeah. The double talker, cheater, will cut every corner to get what he wants. Will just be the chameleon in whatever situation. He grew up a Mets fan. It's a fitting ending. Oh, yeah. I'm sure he's loved the Mets his whole life,

even when he was on the Bears and the Yankees. His formative years was like the 85, 86 Mets. No, he was a legit Mets fan in Miami back in the day. That's what I've read. I don't believe one thing. You can tell me anything about a ride. I don't believe it. Well, it's not, he has no motive to lie about being a Mets fan though.

When he played for the Yankees, like he should have been like, I always loved the Yankees and Reggie Jackson or whatever. That would have been horseshit. But like to play for the Yankees and say, I loved the Mets when I was a kid, I may be a sucker, but I buy that. How are you defending A-Rod? They said it would happen before you turned 50. I'm old now, and I'm all about love and forgiveness everywhere.

So A-Rod was a solid Yankee. What's the funniest outcome for this MLB season for a champion? Well, the Yankees winning and me doing a full one 80 and saying how it was the greatest season ever the gritty gutty Yankees number 28 and wearing, wearing a podcast, wearing a pot, coming out a podcast with 28 time world champion t-shirt and a hat. So yeah, that's probably the most ridiculous, but the craziest thing would be for a team like the Marlins or something to just have the greatest 60-game run

in history and come out of nowhere and win the series and catch everybody flat-footed or something. But that would be fun if it was like when Leicester won the Premier League. When it was like the short season and all of a sudden people were like, what the hell is going on? These guys are going to win?

I haven't thought about this until you asked me, but you know what would really suck? If the Astros fucking won it. That would fucking suck. So I had my top three. I made my top three about 20 minutes ago for 10 seconds.

Number one is the Astros. That would be the perfect exclamation point for a shit sandwich of a two and a half month season. Perfect. Now that's going to happen. God damn it. That's what's exactly going to happen. That would be hilarious. The other really funny one would be if one of these teams that has not won for

decades ends up winning. Indians? Yeah, like the Indians. I think the Mariners would be really funny too. The Mariners have never won funny too. That would be funny. The Mariners have never won. They've never made, they made one World Series. No, they've never been in the World Series,

the Mariners. They've been in the playoffs, but not the World Series. Oh no, they've never, I was thinking of San Diego. Yeah, the Mariners have never made the World Series. So if the Mariners like ran the table and like, we did it. We won the worst season ever by far.

I think that would be hilarious. And same thing for the Texas Rangers because that's another one. They've been around since... They've never been there, right? Wait, what, the 1970? I can't remember what their first year was. I think those were the three longest.

But the Indians would be... That would be pretty funny. The Astros would make everybody the maddest I actually think people would disown the season if the Astros won yeah that might be the final nail at baseball's coffin if the Astros win the World Series this year well they're probably trying to figure

out how to cheat during the pandemic right like they can put radio transmitters in their masks if they have to play with the mask the mask could buzz when it could let the mask could buzz when it's going to be an off-speed pitch you know with no crowd the drop the banging on the garbage can is going to be even more clear to hear for batters you know without any crowd noise to drown it out it's good yeah maybe you just need to like gently bang on the bench for

a second that's right it can be pretty quiet that's right no yeah that's right i'm now getting excited for the baseball season, trying to figure out how the Astros can cheat newer and better ways. And then the guys would be like, look, say what you want. Jose Altuve is a good man. He wasn't involved.

The rest of us, maybe. Right. Jose's a good man, except for the part when he covered his chest as he was trying to, to celebrate a game-winning homer. That fucking team. There's honestly like four different documentary projects going right now about the Astros cheating scandal.

Good. And I'm not sure I want to watch any of them. I'm not sure four is enough. I want to watch all of them. You would watch all of them? Yeah, because I want, I mean, I know they're full of shit, but I want to watch all of them you would watch all of them? yeah because I want I mean I know they're full of shit but I want someone to get in depth on this

of course with my luck they'll make an Astros documentary and it'll be like the 30 for 30 about the historic 98 home run race so I'll be back on here like setting myself on fire on a podcast literally or something about the Astros 30 for 30

so yeah I should I probably shouldn't really hope for that actually. Coming up next, Mark McGuire gets into the St. Louis Cardinals hall of fame on our 98 home run chase documentary. You're actually showing footage of a big back making it. Uh, all right. Unsolved mysteries. So yeah, I, and House to a lesser degree, but really you and me, and House jumps in every once in a while on it with some of these things. I remember the Paradise Lost documentary. We spent a solid two months of our lives just discussing, dissecting all that stuff.

We used to love the autopsy show with Dr. Michael Baden, whatever his name was. Yes. We love Unsolved Mysteries. This is a show that's been on forever with Robert Stack. It was kind of the cheap discount version. You know, it was like... The original, you mean. The Stack one.

The Stack one, yeah. It was like... It did the job, but not really. It was like having the worst possible beer in the fridge because you wanted a beer. Netflix was like, we're doing this. We're going for it.

I've watched all of them. I don't know if, have you watched all of them yet? I've watched all of them, yes. So I watched one on like last Wednesday night and then you texted me. After I badgered you.

Well, no, no, no. I watched, because I saw on Twitter where Unsolved Mysteries was a thing. Like it was trending. So I was like, oh, really? This seems intriguing.

And I don't know, my wife was puttering around and the kids were in bed so i'm like i'm gonna fire up episode one and i got hooked into it i was like oh this is good and then you texted me over the weekend and you said have you watched unsolved mysteries and i said i watched one and you're like you got to watch it so then i sat down and i watched episode two and that totally reeled me in and then i banged out the rest like all day. Sunday, I was like just luggage. I was just sat there all day and watched. I watched the remaining five episodes. So I'm on board fully. It's cool because I think there's been this trend with true crime documentaries where they try to extend as much as they can out of the topic. So, you know, it'll be like 10 episodes, six episodes, eight episodes. And, you know, they're really working it

just to try to stretch the episode count. These Unsolved Mysteries, I loved how you could just sit down and in 50 minutes it was over. Right. And then you just look at whoever you're watching with and be like, all right, what happened? What do you think?

I watched, my wife was away. My daughter and I ended up plowing through all of these. We watched that first one about Ray Rivera, which was, I thought the best one. And we didn't, she was like, let's watch the second one.

And I'm like, hold on, hold on. I need 10 minutes. So I had to do like the Reddit Ray Rivera. I'm trying to figure out the Belvedere hotel ceiling, all this stuff. Floor plan, right. Oh my God. I thought that was one of the most enjoyable true crime hours I've ever spent.

I was, I just, and then they're like, Hey, there was this thing taped behind his computer. Oh, I know. It was this long letter and they kind of gloss over it over three minutes. It's like, yeah, he went into some Freemason stuff and he listed all of his favorite movies. And it was like, wait, what? Like, it was the rare documentary that actually left me wanting more. Like, I really could have gone three hours on it.

And that's such a rare thing to have now in the streaming era. I feel the same way about all the episodes, really. They all kind of left you wanting more. you wanted more information you wanted more stuff but really like before we gloss over this the the thing unsolved mysteries has going for it is that fucking theme song i mean oh yeah whoever that composer was you know and maybe it's like a product of my of my younger days but like that music comes on and like the hair on your neck stands up. It's like it's almost got like a little bit of an exorcist feel to it, that song.

And it's like that song really gets sets you in there. And I was like, once it started up, I was like, oh, yeah, here we go. So, yeah, the Ray Rivera one. I mean, that's the thing with all these. That's why they're unsolved mysteries, because there's so many questions. But like it doesn't make any sense. He went through this hole that apparently he couldn't reach from any roof, seemingly. And he went through this hole and was enough to kill him, seemingly.

But it didn't damage his glasses. It didn't damage his cell phone. His flip-flops were placed there, seemingly. It's crazy. It doesn't make his cell phone. Like his flip-flops were like placed there seemingly. Like it's, it does. It's crazy. That's it's, it doesn't make any sense at all. And the guy didn't seem like he was suicidal or anything.

You wouldn't think from the wife didn't seem that way. So it was literally an unsolved mystery because there's like seven scenarios that came out of it. And I think I would have believed any of them. He's got his buddy who talked to him and working for the company. Right. And, and then that guy is just MIA after this happens, puts a gag order on his staff. That's a little suspicious. The fact that they should, he shut everything down so quickly. Like we're not talking to anybody. Like if you want to talk to me, you know, get a, get a subpoena basically. And like,

you know, he put up like five bucks for the guy's reward and it was his best friend made him move from LA to Baltimore. I know that it's super shady. Like just, I don't know that if you want to look guilty, like behave the way that guy did not saying he's guilty. God only knows it's an unsolved mystery, but like you couldn't look any guiltier. Like you couldn't act any guiltier than you did. You know, it's crazy. Well, and then the guy raised, they were worried about somebody breaking in the two days before the guy raced out of his house after he got a phone call from work was never seen again. The, the, the fall, there was really no way unless he was like Bob Beeman in 1968 that he could have, could have, uh, landed where he did based on where the building was.

Didn't seem like anybody there even heard the fall, which should have made a major commotion. There's like a whole, all these different condos, all these different things. None of the people heard anything. The body's in there for 10 days. Nobody sees it. Everything about it was so strange.

And then the aftermath of like that letter of well i feel like they didn't really cover the note as much as they should have like like it seems to me the note was kind of like an afterthought not really an afterthought but i feel like you could have covered the note a little more and the wife was like i know he wrote this on the day he disappeared yeah that seems and it was kind of like this note and it was this cryptic note, and it referenced Stanley Kubrick, and it referenced the movie The Game. And I've seen things on Reddit where they're like, he was like, that was purposeful because there was that Sean Penn movie with Michael Douglas. Wasn't it Sean Penn? About the game or whatever, where Michael Douglas bought him this thing where he was kidnapped and ruined his life, and it was all

just like a birthday present or whatever. And thank you for not getting that for my 50th, by the way. And, you know, like you wonder if it was like he was trying to reference something with that. You left out the best part of that or the best part of that theory. Michael Douglas gets broken as it goes along and he just jumps to his death. But they know he's going to do that. They have a mattress and he lands. He goes through a roof or something.

Yeah. Yeah. He goes through a roof, but he lives. Cause they figure he's going to do that. And the theory on Reddit was that this guy loved the game so much. He had some sort of psychotic break and was trying to relive it. And it was like, all right, that's insane. But I'm not, I'm not going to bet my life. That wasn't what happened. You know, like, who you know like Who knows like if you look at That letter like if you left That letter and you disappeared

And your wife was like hey Johnny wrote this letter and I'm looking At it and it's like all your favorite movies And Freemason stuff And it's going in 90 directions I would have Been like was he alright like what This is completely insane Pogues lyrics Yeah but I would have been like, was he all right? Like what? This is completely insane.

Pogues lyrics. Yeah. You would have written down all the unforgettable fire lyrics. And it'd be like, well, he did like that song a lot. But yeah, I mean, that was a true unsolved mystery where I had to go online and see what some of the theories were. And now we still don't know. Nothing has really emerged since. No, it's literally unsolved.

It's nuts. It's crazy. Yeah. So that's the thing. When I watch these six episodes, like, you're hopeful, like, well, maybe somebody will have information. Like, I need some of these to be solved. Like, I need, like, an answer to some of them you know I mean not necessarily the UFO one I'm not sure where to get answers to that but like to

the certainly to the five murder ones you know like there's got to be people that know more to have more information and like maybe this like you know gooses them to share that hopefully but well the last episode which was about the lady who kind of got around a little bit

had some relationships moved the kids around, depending on who the guy was, ended up falling for somebody's brother. Yeah. People start dying at some point. It's pretty clear she was probably involved in some of the mysterious deaths. I get nervous when my wife asks me if I want scrambled eggs now like i'm like what but yeah that that one is crazy and like she seemingly you know i mean

reading between the lines killed her own daughter who was a witness to her killing her husband it's certainly and was not afraid of the way and not afraid to threaten the other daughter apparently the one who's alive like had her other like, point a gun at the daughter and, like, don't talk. And, like, that was just insane. I mean, this sounds awful, but one of the things Unsolved Mysteries taught me was if you're going to commit a crime, you should do it in the South. Because, like, the law enforcement or the investigation, you know, I don't want to cast dispersions on half the country but you know the law enforcement seemed like a little lacking in certain areas in terms of investigation or investigative techniques like it left me wanting a little better service frankly so that's the lesson i took away from it they're the gary's fan wasn't that guy's name gary who

disappeared yeah yeah yeah it's like gary's family doesn't know where he is she's like oh really i thought he left for work right tell me he's coming back just gone that's it gary's just disappeared never seen we could right because that happens all the time people just disappear he went to go by fighting roosters and then and then the you know and then he never came back and then the daughter oh yeah she just up and moved to florida and like left her baby behind with some mysterious boyfriend and like no no credit cards or debit cards or money or anything else has ever been used but yeah she's in florida now the new life all right they should have used that as the pilot episode for a spin-off series called probably probably solved mysteries yeah that one i mean let's face it

that one's solved that one's not unsolved that one's solved right it's just that one's called can't be prosecuted but that one's solved and the one about the guy in kansas who went to the party and the friends ditched him i never would have ditched you like that at any party if we were an hour away from our house i appreciate that and i was thinking that because you know you and i have been to parties and we've been sometimes at parties that were not necessarily like at holy cross and we're down the road away first of all i didn't understand why they went to a party for somebody they barely knew and it was like an hour away yeah it's a pretty far drive why did they it was 47 miles and they went there and they really didn't

know who it was or what it was all about like there was nothing local they could have gone to or just hung out and had beers amongst themselves i think there was more to that story too and then they go and the one guy goes and he gets stuck in the mud trying to buy cigarettes and they're like you drive him home and then the other guy goes i thought he left like wouldn't you make sure everybody was accounted for if you're like 47 miles away and there was like some you know pushing and shoving and maybe some racial aspects to that and yeah maybe not like leave that guy behind yeah like maybe keep an eye out let's make sure we all like whoever's left we're all gonna go back to gardner i think it was like gardner kansas or whatever like can we all be on board with that that was that one was just heartbreaking it was well they're

all heartbreaking but that one really like affected me that one was just god awful you know yeah they need they almost need like an after show for each episode where they do winners and losers and they could just be like loser the guy who went to buy cigarettes got stuck in the mud and left his friend for dead basically like yeah that guy's being interviewed like man it really sucks to lose a lot i know it's like it's your fucking fault you left the party dickhead guy's dead i know you fucking asshole i know and then another friend was like well i think he got his ass beat like he was kind of cavalier about it like what the fuck that's your friend the guy's dead dead in a fucking swamp and then that made no sense because that people searched and searched and there was nothing to be found then they went back and then he was there

and seemingly his body was pristine or whatever so i've read some things on the internet about that about some family that like ran the town and you know yeah they put him in a freezer or the restaurant and basically like everybody in the town knows what happened so that's why like the unsolved mystery seems to be a good thing because that may like shake some things out on that one hopefully because it's pretty clear like he just didn't wander off into the swamp and like fall down fall down or something, you know? Yeah, they definitely placed his body there way after the fact.

No question. And they found his boots one place and his hat someplace else. There's no way he was just, like, walking down the road or trying to walk home. That was horseshit. So, yeah, that one was just awful. It seemed like a good kid and, like, just brutal.

So, apparently, they have six more coming. Yeah, I know. There's a 12-episode run, and that was just brutal. So apparently they have six more coming. Yeah, I know. There's a, there's 12 episode run and that was just six. I'm excited for more of them. Cause the other one I've been watching is the golden state killer one on HBO. Oh yeah. I thought the first episode was pretty rough. Cause it really, it, it dove hard into, uh, Michelle McNamara and, and her and Patton

Oswalt, the whole thing. I'll do respect to them, but I just wanted to find out about the Golden State Killer. Then the second episode was great because that got deep into what was going on. It is true. One of the reasons Michelle McNamara became obsessed with the

story was she couldn't believe it wasn't a bigger story. It was like, why did Zodiac and Ted Bundy and these guys, why did they get all, all the attention? And this was like much nuttier because this guy's terrorizing this entire part of Sacramento and, and, you know, that, that whole extended area. And every time they think they're kind of honing in on what, what he is and what kind of criminal he is, then he would change it up and add things and change locations. And he was just, I mean, the totality of what he did is way, way up there with how awful it was.

He's on the short list. I never heard of him until the thing about the publicity for her book started. And I had never heard of the Golden State Killer or whatever. Me love everything about him right yeah we love this stuff and we we had no idea i mean you've always heard about zodiac obviously and bundy and everybody else but like yeah he he was completely on flew under the radar at least on the east coast seemingly so that was like the first i heard of that so yeah that and it's amazing they you know the way they found him was through through uh one of these DNA, like it wasn't ancestry because it was one where it's part of the public domain and it's free.

And the police were just constantly monitoring it. And it was like some relative of his and it was a DNA match. It was just nuts. It's reason 230 why you should never do one of those DNA, find out what your genes are thing. Right. You might be related to the Golden State Killer. Yeah. Screwed. Absolutely. should never do one of those dna find out what your what your genes are thing right you might be related to the golden state killer yeah you know screwed absolutely right that one though um he he would he was like an evil genius how he stayed ahead of everybody for four years but it

was also in the late 70s which was like you know the apex of serial killers four years, but it was also in the late seventies, which was like, you know, the apex of serial killers and all these guys, it was none of the, none of the, you can take one County and all of their criminal information and you could move one County over and they would have no idea they were looking for the same person. You had no internet yet. You had people hitchhiking. You didn't have alarm systems the way you have. And there's like this six, seven year run when just all hell breaks loose. And it's weirdly in only a few areas, right?

It's like where this guy was, Seattle had a bunch of them, Florida. And they would just wreak havoc. And that was it. I remember reading a thing once. And I now it's now it's like next to impossible to get away with anything because, because of cell phones and cameras on every corner and DNA and everything else and the internet that you can share information. So you can't get away with anything now, but I remember reading something about like serial

killers and the reason they could get away with it is essentially if you killed somebody 30, 40 years ago and you had no connection to them, like you just picked up a hitchhiker or something and you had no connection, like you would get away with it. Because normally in murders, they would only catch you if you had, you know, you somebody screwed you in a business deal or it was like a romance that gone bad or you were married to them, whatever. Obviously, you were a clear suspect and you were dead to rights. But if it was you just picked up a random person and killed them extremely hard to tie you to that if you did you know did it right this fucking golden steak the golden steak guy he had this whole thing he would tie the person up and then he would go like have a beer he would go like get a beer from the fridge that was what they were covering in part two like he had the same kind of bits. He would really settle in.

Just that alone, they're catching you. Go ahead. Drink beer. It's done. We'll find you in five seconds. Five minutes later, you're done for. Absolutely. Glory days of serial killers. I do feel like some of these guys took off basically

because of the gimmick. Son of Sam uses the newspapers brilliantly but then also gets the nickname son of sam and then and then it's new york it's the blackout it's it's that whole crazy and the whole thing kind of takes up yep but golden state like if you're doing the advanced metrics gold state killer Killer is like miles ahead of Son of Sam. Like he did so much more damage and nobody knew about him. He's in a small market. But then you have like the fucking Zodiac guy,

who was really like Zodiac. It was half Zodiac, just like a cool, kind of scary seeming name. Well, he played the media too. And then the letters. And then you play the media and send the letters to newspapers. But don't i think he killed like less than 10 people didn't he well yeah like documented i don't know it's like documented it's like five or six he would write letters claiming it was like 40 50 but like the the ones they can definitely tie to him are like

like six i believe golden state killer just bad. Just couldn't figure out the media game piece of it. Yeah. Should have studied the other horrendous serial killers. And then screwed because his niece did a freaking DNA test or whatever to see who she was related to that was famous or something. Yeah. That second episode was chilling.

I thought that was one of the better episodes I've seen in a while of, of just like golden killer one. Oh my God. It's, it's really creepy. And I made the mistake of watching with my daughter who was just kind of like scarred for life. Now, both of us were like, Jesus, like he was just the worst person out of all of these people. Not that they're not all awful, but he was pretty bad. Uh, Speaking of terrible people before we go. Well, hold on. Just one more thing on Unsolved Mysteries. Yeah. How did you feel about the UFO episode? The same way I feel about every UFO episode. It makes me uncomfortable. And I,

I really truly believe that there are, there is shit out there that can't be explained. And when I see stuff like that, I almost like, I can't stop thinking about it. So I'd like shut it down. And I try not to think about it. It creeped me out because I live in Connecticut and it's not that far really

from great Barrington, Massachusetts. And I've been to great Barrington, Massachusetts, but my grandmother's cousin lived in Pittsfield, which is nearby. And I used to, we used to go there all the time when I was a kid. So that, that kind of creeped me out, but I had some friends of mine watch it and I will, cause I wanted to make this joke. The thing that amazed me about that. And those people frankly seem believable and I don't know that they have any motive to lie, which is super creepy.

But the part that I kind of enjoyed was the fact that there was the guy from who now lives in New York. And it was him and I think his sister and his mother and his grandmother. And they apparently got abducted by the covered bridge. And then the next thing they know, it was three hours later and they're downtown and they're parked in the car. And the grandmother did not drive. And when they all woke up, the grandmother was in the driver's seat and the mother who

had been driving was in the passenger seat. So I was joking around with my friends and I'm like, the aliens mastered intergalactic travel, right? And they were able to abduct people with some sort of a beam and like make them not really know what goes on. But then they put the grandmother in the driver's seat so i'm like the alien supervisor like they're flying back to zeta 13 or whatever the supervisor's like guys i just want to say that's a great job but we're gonna need a little more attention to detail next time because the grandmother doesn't drive so So we got to take some notes. Bob, did you fuck that up?

I told you not to put the grandmother in the driver's seat. The old lady's got to be on the right side, and the other one's got to be on the driver's side. Like, we need a little more focus next time, gang. How about that? Jesus, we went over this. We've been planning this for months. Like, you do all this shit, But you put the grandmother in the wrong seat

I mean, come on guys Come on Get her head in the game That part made me think that It was one of many things that made me think They didn't make the story up Right Because if you were trying to make the story up

I don't know if you would come up with that Because it's like a brilliant touch Like fucking grandma was in the driver's seat Right Wait a second. What? And I, I just don't think you would come up with that.

Right. Right. It was good. Some alien really got a fucking tongue lashing for that one. I guarantee. I got fired. Now he did. It was his last mission.

No question. Now he's running major league baseball. Before we go, speaking of terrible people. Um, yeah. Trump, the president. Yeah. before we go, speaking of terrible people, um, yeah. Trump, the president.

Yeah. There, there's a theory going around that it's becoming unwinnable for him and he's going to know it. And he's going to basically do the judge smells. Oh my, Oh my arm. I think it's broken. Get his ass out,

do something. And then he could do the thing afterwards. Like I would have won, oh my arm, I think it's broken. Get his ass out, do something. And then he could do the thing afterwards. Like I would have won, but you know, I had that health thing, do that whole thing. Do you believe in that theory? Well, it's funny. Like before that theory became a thing, I had that theory because I was like,

if he starts looking at the polls and it's like, he's going to go down and he's going to go down hard, he may come up with some fake health thing and say he's got heart problem or some bullshit thing and say, I can't do it. I would love to serve you, my beloved American people, but I can't do it because he can see the writing on the wall. And his whole thing, like his whole shtick is I'm a winner winning, win, win, win. And I'm like, he's got to be looking at his post-presidency life such as it is and his business such as it is. And if he loses like,

you know, he loses 37 states or something, it's like a, you know, landslide, you know, and he gets killed. How does he come back from that and, and say like, I'm a winner, I'm a winner, come to my, come to my business, come to my hotel, come to my restaurant. You know, that's going to be a big ego blast for him. Now we were talking about this on my birthday zoom and house was like, well, but he's just going to say it's rigged. So if he loses and goes down hard, he's going to be like, well, it was the mail-in ballots and it was all rigged and it was the fake news and whatever. But part of me kind of thought he would do this thing where it's like, again, you know, the judge smells who my arm, I think it's broken. I can't run. And then he could always say, tweet out. Oh, I could have won. If only my health let me, I would have beat Joe Biden, sleepy Joe Biden,

yada, yada. So I don't know. I mean, I don't know what his course of action is here now. I've seen some speculation now where people think he doesn't want to win, like based on his behavior, like when he tweets out the other day about the Bubba Wallace thing, right. The Bubba Wallace news thing. And he, you know, which which was a non-story at that point in our millisecond of a news cycle now that had passed by. And he felt the need to tweet that for some reason the other day and look like he's, you know, to bring that up and Confederate flags and everything. And you're like, why would he do this? Like, why would you do this or an election campaign? Like, this is going to be your focus with a limited amount of time between now and

November 3rd. So people are like, maybe he doesn't want to win like maybe he's like president thing is hard this is not for me it was easy when the economy was good and we were at peace so to speak and I could just go to rallies and everybody loved me but now that it's hard like I I don't want to do this anymore I want to go start a tv company and you you know, bitch about CNN. I don't know what his motivation is at this point anymore. If to the extent I ever did. Well, he's leaving a lot of breadcrumbs lately. It's clear that his strategy is going to be twofold. One, just dog whistle now.

Now the dog whistle is like three feet three feet big that he's blowing where it's just like oh let me take a shot at bubble wallace for no reason like he's just trying to double down on a specific base in this country right but the thing is like he already has those votes you know like if you if that's if that's your big issue is the confederate well maybe he's worried about losing him though i mean that might have been part of it maybe that they just would stay home yeah like he just wants to make sure they're engaged that's the only thing i could guess that'd be one thing and then the other thing is he's gonna triple down on the whole woke culture cancel culture is trying to destroy this country and the thing is he's gonna tap into

some people who you know they're gonna look at it like i i hate this and i hate that i'm gonna go with whatever i think the lesser of two evils is right and he's gonna play those two cards combined with the if you elect joe biden he's gonna be the senile compromise puppet of all these people you hate don't let that happen you might as well you know what you have with me just bring me in again so that that seems to be a strategy he wants to do like a nixon in 68 strategy where it was like you know nixon appealed the people that if it looked like the country was falling apart because of like you know vietnam and you know riots after assassinations of martin luther king and bobby kennedy and you had the democratic national convention which degenerated into a riot in Chicago.

And so people were like, we need like law and order. And that was Nixon's thing. I'm going to bring in law and order. The difference was that Nixon was not in power at the time. You know, LBJ was in power. Humphrey was running as sort of the heir apparent to not sort of he was running as the heir apparent to LBJ. So people were like, we can't do this anymore because the country looks like it's falling apart.

So we're going to go with law and order of nixon um and nixon had he at least had credentials right and he didn't turn out great but he had he had had some good jobs he had been a congressman and a vice president and everything else right but that was the party out of power it's hard for trump to run as like i'm going to fix all this and i'm law and order where if you feel like the country is spiraling out of control and cities are out of control or whatever, like if that's your issue, well, Trump's the president. So it's not like you're voting into him to make a change in like law and order. Like he's the president now and it's happening. So that doesn't really like bounce back to his benefit. I mean, I think that's his goal and he keeps tweeting out,

you know, silent majority and law and order. But I just don't know, like, you know, people, I think took a flyer. Well, people didn't like Hillary Clinton one, two, they took a flyer on him as a businessman. They're, you know, they bought into his horseshit that he was a businessman and they're like, we'll let him run things and see how it goes. And he never built on his base. He just like doubled down and tripled down and quadrupled down on his base and did that. And that's like maybe who he is, but he hasn't expanded it at all. So to now to like the people that decide elections are, are, are suburbanites, basically suburban women specifically. And they're grossly turned off by him. And I think they're ready to say like, well, let's see what Biden can do. Basically. He's harmless, you know? Well, you also have, you have an opposition that's way more engaged

than it was four years ago. Oh yeah. And they're, they're ready to stick it to him. No question. They're ginned up and everything else. So he, that he faces a, he faces a lot of problems and a lot of headwinds. And that's why part of me is like, I wouldn't shock me if he was like, I don't need this anymore. And the fake news ran me out or health or whatever, you know, he came up with some horse

shit to get out. And then he could always say, I would have won, but I didn't get the chance, you know? I mean, he could pretend he got COVID. He could, he could say COVID sideline number something and whatever. So, uh, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I don't know. All right. We're wrapping up Johnny. It sounds like your money, your money's on Biden. Um, Ray Rivera was murdered by his employers. Probably. The lady with multiple husbands did it. Yeah.

And they kept Alonzo in a freezer. Yeah. Then put it that side. So you're doing a parlay of all those things, it sounds like. Yeah, and the other two we haven't touched on. And the UFOs, they need more attention to detail and the uh the hairdresser one was just terrible i feel so bad for that kid we haven't even talked about the husband that went to the mortician and was like can you put her back together and let me walk around with the skull for a while and

sleeps with the urn which is fucking tiger king insane you know yeah that was completely insane that was horrible and then the fucking french guy which was just the worst thing i've ever seen in my life and that was unclear when they like when he walked into the mountains or whatever like with his bag with the gun they think did they ever find the bag like is it possible he just jumped into the sea or did he late did he leave with the bag and hop on his ship and he's living it up somewhere that that's just awful it's unsolved that's why it's an unsolved mystery. It's an unsolved podcast. Jacko, happy belated birthday.

Good to see you. Thank you, my friend. Good to see you. All right, take care. All right, Peter Gallagher's coming in one second. First, what's the number one sign of a bad home security system? One that's so complicated, you never use it. That's exactly the type of security system

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slash BS. All right, here he is, Peter Gallagher. All right. Peter Gallagher is here. Um, on the short list of greatest TV dads of all time. I think, I don't know how many people are on the list, but I think Sandy Cohen's on there. I don't know if it's like three deep, five deep. I think about some of the great TV dads in my life. You know, I was like family ties, Alex P. Keaton's dad, something like that. Where do you rank Sandy Cohen and the great TV dads? You know, I've never really ranked Sandy Cohen

in the great. I was, I gave up hoping to be on lists a long time ago. You know, so I haven't really thought about any of that stuff. So really one of the most remarkable things was for the OC was when I ended up on like the best all time dad right behind Bill Cosby. So I might've moved up a step.

I don't know. Yeah. You jumped. I think you're up a spot. Maybe. Yeah. You know, I think about like, all right, what makes a great TV dad? And you think the character has to be, you know, like

the rock. It's gotta be somebody who's kind of a leader, somebody who can kind of intervene in the right moments, somebody who's not going to fuck up in any way. And it's just gotta, there's some sort of moral compass. And I don't know why it's so hard to pull off with these shows, but I feel like, especially the first couple of years of that show, it was weird. Cause it's like this glitzy kind of teen soap opera, right? But there was all this really well-written adult stuff that was in there too, which I think is one of the reasons that show resonated with so many people, right? Well, I think so. I mean, I think, and I think like most things that succeed, it never quite looked exactly like what anybody had in mind until that but the

beast was alive right and one of the wonderful things that happened that first season was that Doug Lyman and Dave Bartis were our producers and Doug Lyman we did all the Mission Impossible but not all of a lot of great movies was directed our pilot so people were expecting it to be very glitzy and but it wasn't at all because he went right after uh you know as if he was shooting anything so it was a confluence of wonderful writing from josh schwartz and and uh you know a good group of people assembled and uh you know it's it's miraculous i actually find a lot in common with DOC and there's always extraordinary playlists because they both came along at a time

when those stories were powerful. Yeah. So it was... So you're older at that point in the mid-2000s watching all these young people on the show who are pretty anonymous and now their profile is blowing up. Like, what do you remember from watching that knowing you you'd been in Hollywood

at that point for like 25 years and you're seeing like some of the good stuff that happens when somebody's on a hit show, but then also some of the potentially bad stuff too. What was your role in that whole thing? Um, you know, I, uh, I did have the benefit of a little bit of experience and, and, um, and I love those kids. I love the whole cast, you know, and it was, you can, you can't really diminish how important the group of people you assembled, not just behind the camera,

but in front of the camera, too. So I really love all those kids. And what I was surprised at was just when we were so obviously successful, all the atoms in the atmosphere changed and people started seeing things differently, you know? And I kind of felt like it was like writing the end of the show. Cause like, dude, we gotta like, I mean, we got to stick with what got us here. Right. You know, now all of a sudden, cause we got here. It doesn't mean we're all geniuses and we don't have to keep doing what we

were doing to get here but um but i'm really happy that all the kids survived and and uh because i mean misha was 16 when she came with us which is like what an awesome responsibility for a company to be taking care of essentially a a grown child at that age and right the power of success and fame and all that other stuff. So it was, you know, like every great experience, I love the people I was working with and, and that's what stays with me in terms of, and I'm also gratified that still all these years later,

people reach out to me all over the world. If they've got a final, if they're worried about something or you know they they call me dad right you know so i get that and i really value i mean i think the other thing about you know people are is people who want to be good dads it's that important to you you know and i try to be a good dad my my my kids they might not agree with me, but I try. Well, it was such a weird time for celebrity culture too, because you had the internet is really rounding into shape when the OC 2004, then you have,

it's the heyday of Us Weekly. And then you have all these different bloggers trying to judge up stuff. It was like when you became, when I first knew about you in the early eighties, like a lot of that infrastructure just wasn't there. Obviously no internet at all. You have a couple of magazines, that's it. And people can get their shot, but not be under this microscope that I think it really changed in the mid two thousands. I, in a lot of ways for the worse. I think it's pretty intense to be 16 or 17 on a hit show like that, and just day after day,

you're just hearing about yourself. It's hard for that stuff to bounce off you. Right. People have to take care of you at where you're working. The people that you're working with have to take care of you. People need to value those kids and realize that they're not just, you know, suddenly famous monsters. But they're kids who are doing the best they can.

And, you know, I think we all could have done a little better in that department. But, yeah, I mean, the Internet is a very strange place because it gives everybody the impression that they know all there is to know about somebody when in fact you realize you don't know anything about anybody because half the stuff you just read isn't true and and the other half doesn't really have the same kind of uh impact on you is really reading about somebody or talking to somebody or hearing about somebody or looking at all their work. So yeah, there's all sorts of challenges for, for, you know, everybody now, but that's, you know, life, life goes on.

We've got all sorts of challenges. Your first break was the Idolmaker, right? 1980 range? I mean, that was my, that was the first movie. That was a big break. Yeah. 1980, Taylor Hackford's first movie. I mean, that was my, that was the first movie. That was a big break. Yeah. 1980, Taylor Hackford's first movie. I mean, for me, my first big break was when I got a call, when I was doing open calls for Broadway shows and I got callbacks and that's, and I started to get work on Broadway. So I couldn't, I was ready to spend the rest of my life in the theater and die a happy man if I

could just make a living. So I was ended up in the original Broadway company of Greece. I was Danny when the movie came out. Oh, wow. And did a bunch of other shows which really formed me in terms of how I work and experience. But The Idolmaker was my first feature. And I was so proud of that. People still like that movie.

I guess for whatever reason, it didn't take the, you know, it didn't do the box office people. Of course, I think our studio was the same studio that released a heaven's gate at that time. So, Oh Jesus, I was going to say it's never on TV.

So it's, it's probably in a streaming purgatory. There's all that stuff works. I think, yeah, I don't know where they go. I know the OCS back. is back on HBO Max, and Daniel Miller was with Netflix for a minute.

You know, stuff keeps showing up. Well, The O.C., I think, has had this whole second life in the streaming era. I have a 15-year-old daughter. Oh, cool. It's like, yeah, boom. Say, let's go. All right, season one. And you're just, all right, what's the next one?

And you're just watching four or five in one day. And it's, it's really crazy. Like the shows from that era, like Friday night lights and a couple other ones that, um, kind of were things in the moment, but then they go away. But now this whole other generation is experiencing differently and they really hold up, you know, they're really well done well done it was 15 years ago but it's not that long ago and a lot it's a lot of the same moves and also what's really cool is the kids that were into that show that are now kind of starting to run the world they're starting to be out in the workforce and starting to be able to have a sort of a perspective on their youth and so they'll revisit a show like that and it'll be comforting. Right.

First of all, it's not a total piece of junk. So you might've, you know, been afraid. Maybe it hasn't aged well. It's a good show. And I think there's something comforting about that, to be able to go visit something that you liked as a kid. You'd say, yeah, that's okay, man. That's still worth liking. And, you know, and I and i people i always say to people

you know when they say oh my god sandy oh well i say hey sandy cohen loves you right and uh and i love that that that you know when our show the oc came along right after 9-11 and see that to me was and so i thought this is the perfect response to this sort of rising environment of xenophobia here keep all these other people out now they bombed this and that this and sandy cohen says i'm not afraid i'm not going to lose my sense of humor just because i'm you know the only jewish guy for the bronx here in this neighborhood i'm not going to not be me i'm not going to you know not embrace I'm not going to, you know, not embrace, you know, somebody who needs to help, needs help, uh, or lose my sense of humor. You know, so that to me

was the best of being an American. So the formula of that show though is unassailable where you take the outsider who doesn't have a lot of money and you bring him into a super rich place. I'm always in. I'm at least watching the pilot and if he didn't land the plane on it, then I'm out, but I'm always in for that concept. Yeah.

Rich culture, outsider. All right, let's see how they do it. Cinderella, man. All right, I'm going to freak you out here. Uh-oh, I'm sitting down. My mom's favorite movie of all time. Sex, lies and videotape. I don't know what that says about me.

Yeah, I know. I know. See, I told you you'd be freaked out. Wow. You're probably scarred and you don't know it. Oh, I definitely, I think I do know it. Your mom. Wow.

I was just so funny. I was just, I was just talking to Steven Soderbergh the other day. Um, well, that's cool. Hey, well, I did a, I did a podcast with him a year ago and I told, I told him that fact and he had the same reaction. It's like, Oh, it's almost like it's that people look at me like, Oh man, what's wrong with you? I'm like, no, no, it's just my mom. I also love the movie, but, uh, 30 plus years. What's weird is cause we do this podcast called the rewatchables and the ringer where we rewatch old movies. It, you don't think that's a rewatchable movie, but it really is.

It's so well done and it's so intense. And if it's on cable, I just like, I get sucked in and you can see all the brilliance that eventually is going to come with him down the road too. There's so many things that I love about that movie. But what's crazy is other than the VHS tapes, it's, it's a weirdly modern movie. It's 31 years old,

you know, like, like honestly, you could change it. The VHS tapes to DVDs or not VHS or whatever. Something or whatever. Yeah. It's basically, you could make the same movie, but, uh, did you know in the moment you're

on the set with them? Like this guy is going to be one of the most influential directors of the next 30 years or. Oh, I mean, I never think that far ahead, but I did know that, um, i was reading a great script excuse me i did know that remember we were staying at the sunset marquee we were living in new york then and my wife was working out here and i was i guess in transit or me hooking up with her and i got this call about, oh, I had just been at the Sundance with Jimmy Spader. And I'd gotten a call and the actor they were going to have

play my role dropped out. And Steve sent me, you know, said, I saw these films you've done. I'd really like you to do this. And he sent me the script and I read it. And then I woke up in the middle of that night.

I read it again because I couldn't believe it was as good as I thought it was. And I up in the middle of that night I read it again because I couldn't believe it was as good as I thought it was and I must have missed something and then still it was oh my god this is the best thing I've ever read but I gotta find out what he how he sees it yeah I'd had experience in the past where you know you think you know what how a writer or director is gonna see it and then you think it's my story. It happened to me. And you think, Oh, okay. You want to tell your story. But I asked Steve, I said,

when he came to the hotel the next day, I said, so, so Steve, how do you, how do you see this? Oh, I see it as a black comedy. I said, Oh, I'm in. And then and then he said, you know, your roles probably least well developed of all these other of the roles. So I'd be open to don't worry. Plenty or there's plenty we can go with that. But I just wanted to know that the the brain and the vision that wrote this script saw the humor in it in the way that I did. And as soon as he said, yes, it was like, Oh my God, this, this is great. Cause I think I look at my performance. I think, I remember thinking this is, this is a totally comedic performance.

Right. Right. And of course people just despised me after that. I mean, women would say, you know, you walked in here. I thought I knew you. And I took an instant dislike to you. How do I know you? And I said, did we go to college together? They said, no, I'm an actor.

That's not it. So I did sex eyes and video. Oh, you bastard. And you say, well, thank you. It's so funny. Like, I always felt like Tony Goldman in Ghost was like that, too, where he's so good as the hateful guy in the movie that you actually like you kind of carried. It's a real life with him. You see him in another movie.

That's the fucking guy from. Oh, yeah. He's an actor. It goes with the territory. For some of us, it goes with the territory. You know, some of us sometimes you see some of us. Asshole. I hate that guy.

You'd think that year is that and do the right thing. And really the birth of everything that happens in the 90s

where you know, not like they weren't making independent films before that, but independent films that had success, that had small studios.

Right, had big audiences. You have the whole industry changing where it's not just like these big power player studios anymore. It's like these little up-and-comers looking to work with people. Right, that was pretty much

one of the beginnings of Miramax. Oh, yeah. And then it just goes. As we go in the 90s and you got- It goes and then it went away. Right, true. You had Premiere Magazine writing about all this stuff. It was such a fun time. And then it just goes as we go in the nineties and you got And then it went away. Right. True. You had premiere magazine writing about all this stuff.

It was such a fun time. Right. The gaps quad and how the premiere magazine would, would be. I remember once we were, I was doing a TV show and, um, it was a comedy show. And I had asked the director,

could I just do that with a look rather than saying, what? Um, as, director, could I just do that with a look rather than saying, what? And it kind of wasn't too crazy about that idea. As we're going by, there's a premier magazine laying open. And I think I was in the picture. It was of The Player, Robert Altman's movie, The Player. Yeah, classic. It was the last page where they give all the dialogue of the scene.

And it was, and Dr. Dolmah, hey, what, that's you? I said, yeah, that's a movie I did with Altman. He said, oh, my God, look at that scene. I said, you know what's funny? We improvised that entire scene. It's amazing what you can do when you just let the actors do their thing sometimes. And it was like like i couldn't even go do something with a look in that situation and here was a whole scene that we'd improvised and it

was and i think his response was no you only do movies and i was like no it's not good but so was that a big altman thing even with that movie because i thought that one was more structured he was one of those i mean you know you know, Michael Tolkien wrote a wonderful script and certainly helped give the structure to that. But yeah, I mean, that was, I did three pictures with Bob. The only one we couldn't absolutely improvise, but we did physically, but not with the words, was Kane Mutiny Court Martial, the first show I did with him.

And so we had to be word perfect for Herman Wook, naturally. But there was all this other kind of marvelous improvised behavior behind because we shot it on a basketball court and you'd have the panel of officers adjudicating. Yeah. And we go, the camera pans behind them and you see they're making plans for lunch playing hangman sending notes back and forth but still with all and the information and the inspiration for that were the iran country hearings of the period where you always saw the assistants coming behind the guy who was speaking right so that was um but yes mean, the thing about Bob is he always gave you enough rope to hang yourself. You know, like I remember once in the player,

I was waiting for my scene to come up, but we'd all hang out together because we were all having such, we all liked each other. We were all close. And all of a sudden there was a scene with Cynthia Stevenson and Tim, Tim Robbins have a scene. And all of a sudden Bob says, Gallagher. I said, what? I need you to go in there and do something. What? I don't know. When? Next take. You ready? Well, we'll find out.

So within seconds, you all of a sudden have to think, okay, where have I been? Where am I going? What's going on in the story right now and it's exciting because you can really you'll give you enough rope to hang yourself but you can also and you know and so i went in and i walked from camera left to camera right behind the two of them i saw griffin says habeas corpus griffin habeas corpus was good because it was about the movie that he was pitching me, but it was also about the body that hadn't been found that he had killed the night before that. All right. Is there ever got to do that? And all of a sudden, all right,

that was adequate. Let's move on. Wow. That was the height of praise. Adequate. Let's move on. Well, it's funny. Like, I think that's there's been a resurgence in the let the actors cook directing style because I know that's a big thing with Adam McKay and Apatow has always done that.

It's more in the comedy or people who have the comedy background who know that the best thing you could do is if you have good people, unleash them, let them fuck around because in some ways, that's going to be some of the best stuff because they feel more ownership over it. Bob used to say, I used to say, how come you, because I'd done a show where somebody was fired

and I noticed that Bob never fired anybody. I said, Bob, how can you never fire anybody? I said, why would I do that? Because you're here because I want what it is you do. The worst you can do is that. The worst you can do is that. The best you can do is surprise me. And he says, I want you to come into a show because I want you to be in a show because I want a little blue in the corner. But I know that you're going to get your elbows in some red and your knees in some yellow and make it interesting. So that, um,

that really informed how I saw filmmaking for me, you know, and it was a perfect way to be prepared for sex lives and videotape. It was a perfect way to, to, uh, we just fit right. And plus I loved him. Plus he kept hiring me because he liked me. And at that time, my mug was, a lot of time I was getting, nah, you're still good looking.

I can't stand to look at him. I can't. And he'd even say, Gallagher, you're so good looking, it makes me sick. What are you doing next month? We're going to do this show called Shortcuts. You're also in a Hall of Fame rom-com.

I don't know if you're aware. No, I didn't. First ballot, uh, you know, while you were sleeping. Oh, well that, that would make sense. It's a first ballot, I think for, for the rom-com fans. It's up there. Like the wet first ballot hall of famer, like with when Harry met Sally, a couple of the other ones. Oh, wow. Well, that was one, man. That was a, that was a good time.

That was a good time. In fact, John Turtletap directed two of our episodes of Zoe's Extraordinary Playlist. Oh, wow. He only would work with me if I'm not saying anything. Tell me about Zoe's Extraordinary Playlist. Well, I mean, as I say, it was a... Have you seen it at all? Have not. What channel is it? It's NBC.

Just got picked up for a second season. NBC? Well, but then they ran it on Hulu though, right? Or maybe now that would be Peacock. I can't keep track of all the streaming. It was on Sunday nights at nine up until a couple of weeks ago. Mary Steenburgen, Lauren Graham,

Jane Levy, Alex Newell, Skylar Astston, Michael Thomas Grant, John Clarence Stewart. A wonderful, wonderful, wonderful cast. And we sing and dance. And I play Zoe's dad, Mitch, who's dying of PSP, which the writer's dad has. Progressive super nuclear palsy. And, and she it's a story about, well, it's, it's why, again, the reason I was so drawn to this story, because in this divisive time, this story is all about the things that connect us. And we use hit, hit song, big hit song, Van Morrison, Simon and Garfunkel, Rolling Stones,

with Mandy Moore, our choreographer, who choreographed La La Land. And she's so wonderful. And basically what happens is Zoe's a coder in San Francisco, stressing out, trying to get ahead. She's a little worried because I'm dying and I have this brain disease and she has terrible headaches. She thinks, oh my God, I'm getting it.

Mary's teen virgin, her mother, my wife says, well, you know what your father would say? Go see the doctor. She goes, gets an MRI. There's an earthquake while they're playing the music and she's in there and she's freaking out and calms down. She comes down, she walks down to the street. She's going back to the office. All of a sudden, the woman in the crowd goes, help. Somebody else goes, I need somebody, help. And then all these people are singing help and dancing together. And then it's over and they disperse.

And she's the only one who's seen it. And she thinks she's losing her mind. Make a long story short, what she learns is that she's able to hear what people are really feeling from through popular song in her head and which ultimately gives her a way to communicate with me because then i'm able to risk because i can't speak in this particular disease it's uh take rob you of the ability to speak and ultimately to live but uh it's uh really cool it's a really it's like as i I say, you know, and then the way the OC was at a time when people were getting very xenophobic and afraid of the other.

This is a show where we've been divided quite intentionally for reasons of profit and power, you know, with our wedge issues of abortion or guns or whatever it is to divide us. And here's this show, which, you know, is about things everybody human being shares. And in the theater, you know, when we do our job well, when everything works, for a moment, it's a powerful thing.

For a moment, nobody feels alone. And for a moment, everybody feels connected to the same tribe of humanity. And that's what this show kind of does, because it's sort of existential. There's life and death and love and these amazing hit songs that we all know already. We don't have to learn them. Everybody has a relationship to these. Sounds of Silence, moon dance, true colors. You know, these are just songs I sing in the show,

but it'd be amazing. And then the talent we have is ridiculous. I'm going to, I'm going to force my 15 year old daughter who loves to sing. Oh, she's going to lose her mind. She'll watch all 12 and probably 12 hours, especially now. I'm shocked she hasn't seen it. Are you sure she hasn't seen it already? I asked her. She hadn't seen it yet, but I know it was on her list. Oh, she's got to.

You're going to love it. You're going to love it. You're going to be crying your eyes out and laughing. I'm going to force her to watch it. Before we go, I wanted to ask you about To Jillian on her 37th birthday. Oh, that's another one of my favorite movies. So I love that movie. I also love the Nantucket,

but most of all, I love Michelle Pfeiffer and it's my favorite Michelle Pfeiffer movie because it's like Michelle Pfeiffer, so good looking. She's just going to play a ghost in this movie who basically torments her widow because he was so in love with her. He knows he's never going to top it. I was like,

what better cast than the Michelle Pfeiffer? Oh, totally. And her husband wrote it. Yeah, that's right. That's a really good movie though. And you know,

it's funny though, because we've all been quarantined for three plus months here. My family has been gravitating toward these movies that are set in locations because you get to kind of go away for two hours. And that's a good one because it's like, oh, I get to go to Nantucket for two hours. We actually shot in Nantucket. Yeah.

It's like deep dive Nantucket too. Also Nantucket, like South North Carolina and California. But we shot on the beach. Yeah. All right. So,

so Zoe's extraordinary playlist. You have, uh, you have the Jane Fonda, Lily Tom. We didn't even talk about them. Grace and Frankie. Yeah.

The seventh season. I went to jail in the sixth season, but Nikki's got a heartbeat in the seventh season. And what was that? And then you have Palm Springs, new movie. And Palm Springs is amazing. New movie with Sam Berg and Kristen Milioti directed by Max Barbacow. And on neon, uh, it's, it's being distributed by neon and it could not,

I mean, the greatest thing in the world is to be to have and be part of these stories that really, if you're going to be they couldn't be more appropriate right you know i mean there have been so many people in in the stay at home during this that have been so grateful for zoe's you know or who didn't have time to grieve for their father passing 10 years ago and then all of a sudden they're wrecked meanwhile Judd Apatow's movie with Pete Davidson. King of Staten Island, yeah. That wrecked me. And

to be doing Zoey's, which couldn't be more appropriate, and have the sixth season of Grace and Frankie come out, and also this movie, Palm Springs, because it's eerily prescient, and it's about kind of groundhog day meets

while you were sleeping i don't know it's not right i don't know what it is uh yeah but it it it is like caught in a in a loop which i'm sure we've all felt like a few times as we've been doing the same things in a loop, forgetting what day of the week it is and where you are and which month is it. The 17th month we've been here. Wow. What day is it? Is it Saturday? No, it's Tuesday. Yes, right. I don't know what's happening. And it's so funny and deep and ultimately about something very compelling about love. Awesome.

Yeah. Can't wait to watch it. Nice to meet you. Thanks for finally coming on. It was a pleasure. Oh, it's great to meet you and tell your little girl, Sandy Cohen loves her.

All right. Thanks to zip recruiter. Thanks to Mina and Jacko and Peter Gallagher. Thanks to simply safe, the home security for right now when feeling safe at home has never been more important. SimpliSafe, designed to be easy to use while protecting your whole home 24-7 starting at 50 cents

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This podcast will not return until Monday or Tuesday. I'm not sure which day yet. If you're bored of me, go listen to the rewatchable St. Elmo's Fire and Swinger this week. Stand by me coming on Monday. Don't forget to set your DVRs

for Showbiz Kids on HBO on Tuesday, directed by Alex Winter. That's all I got for you. Enjoy the weekend. Feel it Swiping On the wayside I'm a bruised son Never once I don't have

To be