The Bill Simmons Podcast - 'Basketball: A Love Story,' Election Day, JackO Fixes the Yankees, and Greg Kinnear | The Bill Simmons Podcast (Ep. 439)

Episode Date: November 6, 2018

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons talks with director and producer Dan Klores about his new, 20-hour ESPN documentary, 'Basketball: A Love Story' (3:40), before calling up his buddy JackO to talk about Election Day and fixing the Yankees, and to rub in the Red Sox's title one more time (52:25). Finally, Bill sits down with actor Greg Kinnear to discuss his pre-acting career and some of his films, including 'Stuck on You,' 'Little Miss Sunshine,' 'Sabrina,' and 'As Good As It Gets' (1:25:05). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I don't want to spoil the movie, but let's just say it's appropriately themed for all the stakes of all the things going on this week. And if you haven't subscribed to The Big Picture yet, I would encourage you to do so. This podcast I'm about to do, call my buddy Jacko. We're going to talk about the election and I'm going to rub the Red Sox World Series title on him. We're going to talk to my longtime friend and former colleague, Dan Clores, who directed the epic 20-hour basketball documentary, Basketball, A Love Story. It's on ESPN. It's on the ESPN Plus app.

It is intense. I'm in it. It's my dramatic return to ESPN, kind of. So we're talking to him and then we are going to run an interview I did with Greg Kinnear Nephew Kyle's back

back from the world tour you survived promised nothing no incriminating videos no there's a

there's a questionable picture where my eyes were closed but I don't think it's because I was drinking it was right after the show the one shining pod tour you hit three cities three cities and Three cities.

And they're doing one more. Chicago sold out this week. Chicago sold out. I hope you guys have fun. Yeah. Good luck running the show. You miss him? Did you cry when you left?

No, it was time. It's time to go? It was time to go. That's a long time to be with Titus. In the car? Yeah. Titus is about 72 hours. You're right.

Tate might be 96. Yeah, Tate was fine. Tate's got a way to He leaves He leaves off and comes back You know we're not sure Where he went The one shining pod

They're going to the two The college basketball Opener tonight Which This is going to be a cool season Because of Zion Mania Which is really starting

To gain some steam As well as about A hundred different scandals But They're going to record a podcast Are they doing it tonight After the games I told them they have to do it At record a podcast. Are they doing it tonight after the games? I told them they have to do it at some point.

I think they'll do it tonight after the games. Okay. So check out the One Shining podcast if you want to hear their reactions to all that stuff. And check out Titus' college basketball preview, which is on TheRinger.com right now. All right. We're going to call Jacko first. Pro tip. All right, we're going to call Jacko first. Pearl Jam. On the line right now, my longtime friend, my former colleague,

my one phone call when I'm in jail, Dan Clores. How are you? I'm good, Billy. How you doing, man? So Basketball Love Story is on the ESPN Plus app. It's been running on ESPN in four-hour blocks. The last one runs next week, 20 hours total. You and me and like seven other people are the biggest basketball fans alive. You were always destined to throw yourself into some crazy NBA project. How long did this take?

Actually, as you know, it's much more than NBA it took me from the start to finish 20 hours 4 and a half years that only makes sense if one understands that it takes me 2 years to do a 90 minute film this is 20 hours

in 4 and a half years yeah it's a lot of time you have a lot of time. You have a lot to say. Yeah. We started working together. You did in the first round of 30 for 30s.

You did the Reggie Miller documentary. Right. And now I know so much more about how the whole process works. But back in 2007, 8, 9, just learning on the fly. Oh, that's an interesting way to do it. How many people did you interview for that one? Like 60? For Reggie? Yeah. Reggie winning time must have been about 50.

Yeah, 50. 40 to 45 to 50, yes. Which it was like a 60 minute film. 90 minutes. Was it 90 minutes? Oh minute film. 90 minutes. Was it 90 minutes? Oh, 75. 75 minutes. It took me two years.

75 minutes. That's right. Yeah. We ended up bumping it past whatever you're supposed to do. And you threw yourself into it and you did so many interviews. And I was like, wow, I like this guy. This is how I would do one of these. I would just interview way too many people and throw myself into it like this.

So then when I heard you were doing this basketball project, I was like, oh my God. He might interview everyone who's ever been to a basketball game. But where'd you end up with? Like 160? Well, you know what's great? What's great is we did 165 interviews. Wow. The average length of the interview was two hours and 25 minutes.

Russell for five and a half hours. I interviewed Oscar for six. And every single person that I interviewed is in the film. That's never happened before. There needs to be, at a certain point, a ruthlessness in making the movie. Yeah. Where I have, when I did Crazy Love, I cut out my own mother and father. I had a segment on elder people in love. Cut them out. Yeah. When I did The Boys of Second Street Park, I interviewed two Holocaust survivors. One was was cut out there's a ruthlessness to it

every single person because you don't want to be you get then the right thing to do is i mean when i did ring a fire the emil griffith story i had the absolute really pleasure, to interview Bud Schulberg, who was then about 90 years old, and had to cut him out of the movie. Who the hell am I to cut out Bud Schulberg? But I had to do it, and I was so... And you have to notify people. You can't have them come to

a premiere or turn on... Go to movies or turn on television and think they're on it. They can't do it. So I had to make up some excuse for Bud Schulberg that the interview got screwed up because of the television and think they're on it. They can't do it. So I had to make up some excuse for Bud Schulberg that the interview got screwed up because of the sound and light. Yeah, the audio was off. Yeah, you were working on this for a few years, and now how many people died that you interviewed

that are in this film that are now no longer with us? Too many. Too many people. Connie Hawkins? died that you interviewed that are in this film that are now no longer with us too many too many people connie hawkins uh uh well the first person i interviewed was jack ramsey because i knew he was ill and right into four hours in his home in naples florida and he sat for four hours and couldn't stand and was ingenious as you would expect so he So I dedicate the film to my own father, who passed recently, and to Ben Jobe, my dear, dear, dear friend,

the great coach at HBCUs, and Ben passed a year and a half ago. Connie Hawkins, Mel Daniels, Michael Goldberg, Ralph Shays. It's why I didn't interview you. Because I didn't want to put that jinx on you. That's true.

Not true. Not only did you interview me, not only am I the breakout star of the documentary, but it's my dramatic return to ESPN. I'm back, baby. Yeah. Good luck to you. Yeah. Yeah, good luck to you. Yeah, I was very excited to be in the Spurs one about the 2013 game six, which is still the most unbelievable non-Celtics basketball game that I've been to.

And I still can't believe it. And I had like a 105-degree fever, and I still remember big chunks of it. Yeah. I was, I was super sick. The finals broke me down. Now that makes sense because when I come to you in that story, your horse, you're, you're, you're, you're at that booth, right? Yeah, man. Afterwards. Yeah. Afterwards, your horse, your voice is horse and you're red in the face. Yeah, I was really sick. I had to get like NBA doctors and stuff. My body just broke down. I didn't know that.

But now it makes perfect sense. I thought that you were cheering and talking. Well, you were talking too much. Or that I was like doing drugs or something. Yeah, I looked like Bradley Cooper in A Star is Born. Oh, I had no idea that you were sick. So we should mention before I forget, Yeah, I looked like Bradley Cooper in a star sport. Oh, I had no idea that you were sick. So we should mention, before I forget,

all of the interviews you did were condensed and orchestrated in a beautiful book that is an oral history that kind of weaves through, I don't know, 70, 80 years of basketball. It was edited by Jackie McMullen and my old Grant grant teammate, Rafe Bartholomew. Who you turn me on to. Yeah, he did a great job. Well, not all of the interviews. There's an oral history book, of course, called Basketball Love Story, and they did a great job.

And it was a beautiful, beautiful pleasure to select them and work with them, because I never saw two people who didn't know one another work more comfortably and openly and respectfully with each other. You know, there was never an issue, and they just did a great job. There's probably a couple of more books coming out of the interviews. Good. Just like what you, I think I told you the other day, in the end of your book, you mentioned, you gave me this idea. You mentioned that you did this book, but there are so many issues you didn't get to.

And I'm paraphrasing, you know, analytics and one and done and NBA is a gigantic business. And I remember when I read your book, which I read twice. And by the way, it's the only book other than the Halberstam book on Jack Ramsey that I read in preparation for my research. Oh, I appreciate that. No other book. Thank you.

And I was completely, I have to say this, preparation is so much of this. You can't walk into a room and not be completely prepared and think you know everything about who you're sitting with, because trust is paramount, of course. But when you wrote that, I said to myself at the initial stage of planning, well, I have to get to these areas that Simmons was talking about. And I did. And most of them are actually, like analytics and NCAA pay-to-play

are coming up on November 13th, the last two episodes, my take on analytics, well, not my take, the take on analytics and the take on NCAA. So you gave me those ideas, which I think is also much part

of the process. Don't you, we, we learn from one another. Don't you think that? Yeah. And I think basketball changes so much decade to decade. You know, I wrote that book in 2009 and think of all the stuff that's happened since then. I mean, I'd love to write a sequel. I just, I don't know if my fingers work anymore, but. I know you have. Oh, by the way, you know who called me yesterday? And I spoke to him for an hour and he called me cold. You ready? Yeah.

Bob Cousy. The Cousy. Yes. Start sharp as a tack still, apparently. Age 90. Yeah. 90 years old. You know what?

I'm 68 and he called me kid. So I love him. Oh, 90 years old. You know what? I'm 68 and he called me kid. So I love him. Oh, that's phenomenal. You think about this decade though, you know, since I wrote that book, we had the decision and now the player empowerment and everybody just jumping teams and kind of the millennial era and nobody's ever seems to be happy for more than two to three years. And this is starting to feel like its own era and this stuff that's happening now with Jimmy Butler in Minnesota is

what would you call this era though? it's the player empowerment era it really is well that's your job you come up with it yeah I don't know what it is it's basically like the players have taken control of the league in every way. And they just have so much power.

And I think a lot of it has to do with the social media and just their ability to reach people directly now. That's another thing that happened this decade is you have players that don't need the media like they did. Absolutely. I'm sure you had trouble. You had LeBron James sit down for this, and there's a really good, I'd say, 15-minute thing about the decision.

That was the first time I'd ever really heard him talk candidly about it. But every player you went to, you have to go to the guy who controls their life. It's a whole process. It's like trying to get the president, right? Yeah, no, the contemporary players are, of course, more difficult to reach than the people who are retired. But what I learned, actually, as interesting, the contemporary players that I interviewed, LeBron James and Kevin Durant and Steph Curry, Anthony Davis, Nowitzki, Chris Paul. These guys, most of them, fascinating because their knowledge of the game, when you really talk the intricacies of the game with them, they're right on.

When you remove all the ego bullshit, right? Right. You start talking to them, you go back to that San Antonio-Miami series, right? And all of a sudden, as you know, for like two or three possessions in the entire game, three, all of a sudden Popovich goes to a half-court 1-3-1. And you're talking about that stuff. That's great stuff. Or I have scenes called signature moves,

and I'm talking to Kevin Durant is describing how he plays off the double team and often feigns so a guy does come and double team him. That's great stuff. What knowledge of the game. Or LeBron, his signature move in my view, going rim to rim and looking at the floor

as he says himself as a NASCAR driver. I like that stuff. And you're right, those guys, there's an appreciation of the previous generations that I think this generation has. I'm not sure the guys in the 80s had it. The guys in the 90s definitely didn't have it. Well, I don't want to generalize.

I don't know enough to generalize. You know what? I'm going to generalize. That's part of what I do. No, I just feel like the guys in the 80s, they showed up and they had probably one player they idolized, but they didn't know about the history

of 30 years, 40 years of the NBA, stuff like that. The guys in the 90s just want to get paid. The history is one thing. I'm saying something different. I'm talking about

the appreciation of the depth of the game. When Chris Paul is talking about it, and I think I know the game really well. I've coached the game for many, many years.

But when Chris Paul is talking about how he defends the two-on-one break, and he's the one, and asks me the question on camera, and therefore it's translated in the film, where does his hands belong when he's the one defending the two-on-one? Should he hold his hands high, or should he just hold his hands low? And I'm sitting there saying, I'm 50-50 on my guess. And he explains he holds them high. So then they're going to have to make the pass low and he could drop his hands and potentially get the steal. If he holds them low, they're going to throw the alley-oop.

That's great stuff. That's great stuff. That's great stuff. These guys have so much more intelligence now, too, from the last— I would say it's probably the last 15 years as the internet got better and better and the ability for people to just cut, you know, all right, you're playing this team. Well, I know your favorite player in terms of IQ is J.R. Smith, so I'm not sure I agree with you on that one.

Some of the guys really know the history of the game because of what you say. They're looking at it. Kevin Durant, he sat in the interview, and he's talking about Bernard King. I don't think he was even born when Bernard King was around. Well, I do wonder if NBA TV and ESPN Classic, to a lesser degree, these guys grew up with just old games were on and YouTube

and being able to be like, oh, I like Bernard King. I'm going to go on YouTube and watch him for 15 minutes. Like, in the 90s, you couldn't do that. Exactly right. Exactly right. But you know what it says also? It says that they were serious at an early age. Yeah.

That's what it says. They were serious at an early age. Yeah. That's what it says. They were serious at an early age. And the other day I see that Houston plays Chicago, and Carter, Wendell Carter, played for Chris Paul in the AAU. And now they're playing against each other. Wow. So my point is that type of seriousness that rubs off Chris Paul into a kid like Wendell Carter and his mother, who's very serious also, it pays dividend. There are a lot of great people

and good people associated with the game of basketball. Not an accident. Ready for this? That the few people, four or five that have sent me notes, this is not an accident, I contend, that they love the film and blah, blah, blah. You ready? I'm from UCLA, Jerry Norman, Wooden's assistant, Mike Krzyzewski, Duke, Pat Riley, right? Bob Cousy.

Can you think of bigger winners? Right. Well, you had, one of the things you had was about, um, was about how winning is basically just relief and doesn't actually feel good, which I actually felt that last week when my beloved Red Sox won the world series, I was so much more upset when we lost the 18 inning game.

It ruined my whole weekend. And the emotion I had for that and how mad I was and upset and crushed by that loss versus when we actually won, there's like no comparison. The emotion just wasn't as intense. Well, there's a scene, you're right. There's a scene that I came up with along the way and it, and it, and it came from something else. I wanted to do a story on Al McGuire.

And I remember in 1977, his last game ever, you were too young. I watched that game. How dare you? I was like eight. I saw that game. You talk, by the way, everyone should know that in my scene in 1976,

Boston Phoenix playoff game five, my contention may be the greatest NBA playoff game of all time. Yeah, I'm in that. I'm in that one. You're in that scene. Boston gone Friday night starts at nine o'clock. As you say, that's a bad idea. Everyone is drunk. And you say, paraphrasing, I was six years old. I was there and even I was drunk. I think it's a question for child welfare if the statute was. I was the only child. It was the 70s. My parents just brought me everywhere.

But now I go to Al McGuire the next year. So you're seven years old and he cries on the bench after he wins a national championship. It's announced as his last game ever. And I use that, the idea that here he is crying as here's a man crying out of joy. Now the idea is when a coach finally wins, not when Bill Simmons finally wins, do you find, feel joy or relief? That's my way of telling the Al McGuire story. Now we cut to 20 coaches, all champions.

They each express their attitude. That's a great scene. Then I cut back to Al McGuire when he passes away at a young age. Do you feel joy or relief? You felt, when the Red Sox just won, would you feel relief or joy

when they just won? Relief. By the way, when William McCovey died a couple of days ago, I was a Giants fan. 1962, I'm 12 years old. He hits the line dry. Richardson stabs it. One-nothing victory

for the Yankees, game seven, bottom of the ninth. When William McCovey passed the other day, it meant a lot to me, man. A lot to me. When I saw Bobby Richardson

years ago at South Carolina, I was playing racquetball outside. He was the baseball coach. He walked by. I yelled at him. I said, Bobby, he turned around and gave him the finger.

That's it. I have this century. The, the joy ones for me were when the Pats won their first Superbowl. And when they won the, the crazy Superbowl, when they stopped the Seahawks with the interception. Yeah. Okay.

We're just like unequivocal, like going crazy. And then obviously the 04 Red Sox, game four, game five. After that, it was more like a life experience. There was no joy. You were just dead inside from the emotion. You know, when sports goes too far and you're just, you become like a serial killer. Almost.

You, you, you don't have the capacity to feel anymore. That's where I landed. No four. Yeah. But you know, coming up on the 13th,

speaking of emotion is a big, like a lot of great stuff coming up, but it's the big, um, Shaq, Kobe. Oh, Phil Jackson scene. That's a 28-minute story where Kobe and Shaq are really going after each other. And there's great humor in it also, I find.

But boy, they're not pulling any punches in that scene. Did you see that scene? I didn't see that one yet. But that's running this week, right? Yeah, on the 13th it runs. But I use that. Oh, I mean, Shaq is like, Shaq actually says, you know, like, Phil Jackson told us to cool it down, and all of a sudden I cut to Jim Gray giving Kobe's corporate line anti-Shaq.

And Shaq says, I called Kobe up right then and there. I said, when you come to practice, I'm going to kill you. Says it on camera, man. He also calls, you know, and then Kobe says, yeah, I'm ready for you, man. I'm ready. And they had to call Brian Shaw to fly in from Denver to make sure he was in the locker room to break it up. Well, those guys need to get their story

straight because they absolutely hated each other when they played. And they hated each other after they were not teammates anymore. And then a few years passed and then it became like, no, actually we didn't hate each other. Say, no, no, you hated each other. Just stop. No, no, they're in the film. They're saying it. I mean, you don't have to use the word hate when when you can hear all the other

things that they're saying yeah they're they're they're opening up but to their credit and now this goes i think to your point about today's players to their credit they won three championships they stayed together then Then it split. But you think someone, people think Kyrie Irving and LeBron could have stayed together for three years? Obviously, no. Wait, hold on. I have thoughts on this.

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Apply. All right, we're back. I actually think three, I think I wrote this in my book, so I don't want to plagiarize myself, but I'm going to anyway. I think the over-under for championships for those two guys together was like five and a half. I think they were way under. Shaq and Kobe ended up with three.

Yes. And if you look at the way the decade was set up for them, and just the fact that the league was pretty talent-poor last decade compared to now, there's so much more talent right now, especially with the under-27 guys than there were in the 2000s

for a variety of reasons, they really could have just kept winning. And I feel the same way now about the Warriors where, you know, I think they're going to win again. And then it's going to become a question for Durant, whether he just wants to be on a dynasty or not. But that team should win five or six straight. And, you know, that's the over-under for me.

I don't disagree. But, you know, that's the over-under for me. I don't disagree, but, you know, the arbitrary over-under number that you lay out, five and a half, I mean, it doesn't reflect after the third, the tension during the third year and the third championship, and then the owners come to Shaq and say, we're not giving you a raise. And he says in the film, what are you talking about? We just won three championships. And they say, well, we're sorry. And apparently, Kobe had a lot to do with that decision. It was, well, we're going to keep one.

If we've got to keep one, we're keeping the young stud. And Shaq says in the film, he didn't know about that, that he was going to be up in the marketplace until he heard it on the news. In fact, it's actually funny. He says, I was eating my Fruity Loops in the morning mixed with Cheerios when I heard that. So, but these are the things I say, Bob Cousy called yesterday. Players never left. Dynasties were built by the way, Phil Jackson in the film, which I think is, I don't agree with it at all. He says, Popovich's teams were not a dynasty quotes Webster's on what a dynasty is. What do you think San Antonio dynasty or not? I wrote a column about this 10 years ago. I think there's a different word than dynasty. Go ahead.

So I think I combined it with contender. They were like a dynasty contender. It was like a dinatendersty. I made up some fake word for it. Not quite a dynasty, but more like an uber contender. Yeah. They had the 0-2-0-3. Yeah.

They won that season. Yeah. They really should have won in 0-4 or at least been in the finals and the Fisher shot just kind of flung them out. But I think if they had won three in a row there, I have a problem when a team can't even win back to back.

I feel like that's got to be at least part of a dynasty discussion. But it goes to, I tried to pay attention in the film to a lot of championship teams that people don't,

that don't get their due. Both in college and the pros. Kansas, 86. Florida, back-to-back. Billy Donovan's team, back-to-back. Just beautiful teams. Arkansas, Nolan Richardson.

Pros. Dallas, the Carlisle team. Detroit, the Larry Brown team. Seattle and Washington, who never would have been champions if Walton doesn't get hurt. Yeah.

That would have been a dynasty. They could have won a minimum three, if not four, if not four or maybe more, if Walton doesn't get hurt. Part of the big difference, and even Larry Brown says when he wins and he comes out of the blue, right, he beats the Lakers. He beats the Lakers with that Detroit team. But you know what happened to that team? Management got rid of players six, seven, and eight.

And that's the nature of a championship team. It's not only the five. And that's what Golden State could face. That's what Golden State could face. Well, then there's the flip side of it, which is what the Celtics are going through now, where you have too many guys. This is the rarely seen too many guys contender where nobody's happy because nobody's getting enough minutes and everybody thinks they're- Oh, is that right? No one's happy on the Celtics.

I didn't know that. That's too bad. No, I don't think it's- I think it's fixable. I think it's treatable. I don't think it's herpes. I think it might just be a cold sore. I'll tell you, that's when I know I don't know anything

because, I mean, I love watching Duke play, and I went to the Garden Tatum's only year there, and I liked him a lot, and I concluded that, I don't know, he doesn't play that hard, doesn't play any defense, so I never thought he'd make it, so I know I'm an idiot. Well, no, but it's... He's just beautiful to watch.

It's tough for you to really know what's going on with the current NBA because your team is such an albatross in your life, the New York Knicks. I mean, I don't blame you for hating. You just have to live in the past with all these old things that already happened. I was in the garden last night and saw them play the Bulls, and

I have to say that they're still the Bulls, and I have to say that they're still feeling it out. They're feeling the process out. The coaches are feeling it out or not, but I felt there was one bad move after another that lost in that game.

I couldn't believe it. They let Parker go crazy and never put the person on him. The whole, and Jack Levine, who's really good. He's been a surprise. The last possession in a double overtime, they throw a double team at him. They went one-on-one.

And he was killing them. Do you buy the whole thing that, you know, I think this is coming from Knicks fans, but this whole thing where Durant's going to go to New York. I don't know. I have no idea. No, no. I'm not asking if you have inside information. I'm asking, do you think the Knicks matter like that to current players?

Like, do you think they see the value of being in New York City? And if they were on the right Knicks team, that kind of took over the city I don't know but obviously things have changed and money is money now and you can make money no matter what market you're in but there's still a great attraction to playing in New York and and this group no they're they're a pretty good group that you know that that are running that are running it now and and um all they need is a little bit of luck. I don't know how poor Zing is going to be.

No one knows that. That's difficult to come back from, especially since he doesn't play with his back to the basket. What I was amazed about last night is the role of the big man. Did know, the, the, the, the, the, the role of the big man. I mean, did, did, did that kid from Denver have 16 assists the other night? Did I read that right? No, Jamal Murray had, yeah, he, he had a triple double, I think, but Jamal Murray had. Yeah, he had 49, but 16 assists from a big man.

When was the last time? Well, he's basically Sabonis. I mean, we always talked about what would it be like if Sabonis had been healthy in the NBA in the mid-late 80s. And now Jokic is in here and he's basically doing a Sabonis. And we interviewed Sabonis for the film and Marshalonis. And Bob Ryan has a great line about Sabonis when he comes to the NBA in the film. He says, yeah, he was many leg injuries and many vats of vodka away from what he used to be. Yeah, I saw that.

But the footage behind him was a bonus. Oh, my God. Was there any? You told so many different stories in this. Was there anyone that didn't make the cut that now that this is finished, you're like, oh, man, I should have put that one in there? Any story? Yeah. Well, yeah.

I mean. Like Moses isn't. The Moses 83 Sixers isn't in there. Any story? Yeah. Well, yeah. Like Moses isn't, the Moses 83 Sixers isn't in there, right? Moses got cut, that championship team, that was strictly a matter of ESPN pressuring me on time so I had to cut that scene, which was a drag. But the scene that I made, which is and you saw it, is on the melee in Detroit, and that scene didn't make it. There were issues in terms of some of the licensing on that, and that's a great scene, and I love that scene because I not only got into the players and the coaches,

you know, Larry's in it, and Carlisle's in it, and a bunch of the players and the coaches. Larry's in it and Carlisle's in it and a bunch of the players are in it and our test is all over it. Then I cut to what's happening behind the scenes. David Stern gets the call Friday night. He's in his bathrobe eating an English muffin with peanut butter and jelly. Russ Granik

coming home from Hawaii for the movies. I tell all of that and I joke with Artest. He doesn't know I'm joking. I said, well, I heard it wasn't beer in your face. It might have been Coca-Cola. Oh, no, man, that was definitely a beer I tasted. And then footage of our friend West on the floor, you know.

There's a lot of brawls in the movie. I didn't know we were allowed to talk about the Artest section. Well, we are now. You know, I can talk about anything I want. You screened that for me. Yeah. And I thought that was one of the best 16-minute stretches I've seen of any sort of documentary for sports, period, basketball, whatever.

And what was interesting about it was the NBA actually comes off really well in it. And you watch it and you go, oh yeah, as awful as this incident was, it actually was ultimately a good thing. It led to all of these different things and it really made the NBA kind of look at each other. Everyone who runs the league look at each other and go, all right, what are we going to do? How do we fix this?

How do we make sure this doesn't happen again? And they did. It was fun making it. You know, look, you can't get everything that you want. I have zero hard feelings. You know, coming up is another one of my favorite scenes that Bill Simmons is a star in, and that's on the 2004 Olympic team. That was a debacle. There's another one of my favorite scenes that Bill Simmons is a star in,

and that's on the 2004 Olympic team. That was a debacle. Oh, my God. I mean, a debacle. I was calling that on page two before the Olympics. I bet on Argentina. I was like, you got to be Marbury. Who is it, Marbury and Francis for the point guards?

What were they doing? No, Marbury and Iverson. Oh, Marbury and Iverson. That was even worse. Even worse. Oh, my God. Iverson. That was even worse. Even worse. Oh, my God. And all the young kids were on it. Can you imagine the constraint? And you got four rookies named LeBron James, Wade, Carmelo Anthony,

and someone else. And I think Bosh. Is Bosh on it? Bosh. Yeah. Carmelo Anthony got his mother's call and wanted to take him home you know because he's not playing

I mean what a but it led to and this is where leadership comes people say well why is the NBA this way and baseball's not football my answer is pretty simple it's leadership it's leadership I mean like David Stern

it was a brilliant leader. It wasn't an accident. You can't just say it was bird and magic coming into the NBA. If we didn't have the right leader there to understand how to maximize this and maximize Michael Jordan and all of that and understand marketing and understand globalism, and training Adam, and Adam being Adam, I mean, brilliant in his own way, different type of personality, and that transition was effortless. That's leadership.

I don't know enough about the current baseball commissioner to make any intelligent observation, but I know that the NFL, I mean, give me a break. Give me a break. When you say it was effortless, I would say it probably should have happened four years earlier than it did. Well, you know what? Things are meant to be. I wanted to make this movie, Billy. Many years ago, Dick Ebersole was unruly gracious, but turned me down. Adam and Jeff Zucker brought me to him. Then ESPN said yes, and then Skipper called me and said, sorry, and I did black magic. If that conversation doesn't happen, I don't do black magic. If Ebersole doesn't turn me down, I don't go crazy love. So that's the way life is.

I mean, you know, it's about preparation. It's not only about having the right mentor. It's about being the best possible student. Have you, I mean, we should, full disclosure, Adam is one of your good friends. I love Adam. I love David, too. But Adam is, Adam is.

I love Adam to death. Now an incredibly powerful person who runs a league that has never been doing better ever at any point in 80 years. I have unbelievable respect for him. He's a younger guy. He's worked his behind off. I have great, great respect for David Stern. Both of them and the league are instrumental in me being allowed to make this film.

And many, many people, Donnie Walsh, I mean, the people that opened doors for me, Bob Ryan, you, I mean, they's just, you know, Jack Ramsey's son and Dolph Shays' son, you know, and John Thompson. I mean, there's just, you know, really, I find out about the game that there is this, the commonality is not only global but it's within yes it is a shared love you know and i i say this that that i i'm not sure about this but long form documentary filmmaking now why does it have to be linear why does it have to be chronological Why does it have to be linear? Why does it have to be chronological? Why does it have to be viewed as a history? I didn't do that.

You know, it's short stories. So someone could come up that's infinitely smarter than me and do the same type of take on music or on comedy, right? Or in the theater or on dance. The same way, if I open this film with James Naismith, I'm snoring. But he comes up in the theater or on dance the same way. If I open this film with James Naismith, I'm snoring, but he comes up in the fourth scene. In the third story,

PJ Colissimo is getting choked by Sprewell. I chose to do it that way. I chose to do it that way. Well, I brought up Adam because he's on a really good run right now, but you've known him for a lot of years. Is there an embarrassing story you can tell us about him? Is there a funny story? Is there some sort of quirky, quirky, some sort of quirky something? No, I'm not going to tell you an embarrassing story about Adam Silver. Come on. I'm going to tell you that one of his key aides got laid at my wedding.

That's all I'm going to say. That's as far as I'm going. Okay. Very fair. What was your favorite Bill Simmons performance in your documentary? I went third person there. What's the key scene for fans of this podcast?

What's the key out of all these ones that I'm in? What's the one you should tell people? Go watch him in this one. He's really bringing it. Wait, I mean, everyone knows that we're only kidding. You're not in the movie, right? They know that, right?

You know, there were a couple of people I wouldn't agree, and I'm still pissed at you for not agreeing to be in it, you know? How dare you? I'm still mad that Derek test me late. My favorite Bill Simmons moment in this movie, okay, I'm not sure if it's my favorite, but I do the scene

on the first lottery, right? Yeah. And which is a really funny scene, you know, and- I love that one. And you're, of course, like, you know, you call it the greatest magic trick you've ever seen.

Don't know if it could ever be repeated in terms of the envelope. Yes, Terry. But that wasn't my favorite line. My favorite line from you was when it turned up the Knicks and I come to you and you say, so what, the Knicks got them. They suck anyway. Yeah.

They'll still beat them. That was a funny line. That's the thing with the Knicks is they've been terrible forever. The guy who turned me on to that was Bill Russell. Bill Russell was like, these guys at the Knicks are always awful. Of course we're going to beat them. As much as I hate to give you any credit, and I realize this conversation is completely about you.

As much as I hate to give you any credit, you were very astute at certain points. And especially, especially when LeBron comes to Miami the first time. And that's what people don't understand. And you hit it on the head. I mean, you, you, you, you,

I think you call the dueling banjos is my possession. LeBron has mine for Wade. And they don't win that year. And that's the element, the missing element of a championship team is, you know, chemistry is a word.

But what does chemistry really mean? It means you have a leader that defines the correct roles and everyone buys into that. That's what it means. It wasn't until Wade got a little banged up. That's exactly where I was going. Yeah, that's what I mean. It wasn't until Wade got hurt. People don't realize that Wade,

and you say this, was the alpha dog in that relationship. Yeah. But when, so LeBron, because of his personality, was psychologically looking

for Wade and at the same time all the pressure on him, oh, I'm LeBron, I gotta do this myself. It didn't work. They didn't win it all. The next year, Wade has an injury

and you point this out, and now LeBron steps up. That's not a knock on anyone. That's how we all progress. We continue to learn. It was a great opening for LeBron James as a basketball player

and as a teammate. And now they start winning. But Wade still had to let it happen. And you finish my sentence. Wade still had to let it happen. That's exactly right. It's Earl Monroe and Walt Frazier in 1973. Earl Monroe, 28 a game. He comes to the Knicks and it's Frazier's team and he gives of himself. Could that have happened if it was Frazier coming to Earl Monroe's team? I don't think so.

I've seen that before. You saw it with the Warriors these last two years. On paper, that could have gone badly, but Curry is such an unusual superstar. He doesn't need the ball that much. He's incredibly fun to play with. The space that he creates,

he can take five shots and still have a dramatic impact on the game. And him and Durant together, it's perfect. I was there for the final, I think this year when it was in Cleveland when Golden State won or maybe next to last game.

And I thought, frankly, that Curry should have won the MVP in the finals. And I was watching it, and he never blinked when they gave it to Durant. He never, ever blinked. Yeah, he doesn't. It says so much. You know, I love coming up on the 13th. I have a lot on Steph Curry and Golden State in there, a lot on Cleveland, San Antonio, Miami.

But my favorite thing in the whole film is when we're talking about Steph Curry and the footage, and Pete Vesey is talking about how he knows the angles off the backboard, and he's going, look at him, the angles, the angles. And Bessie goes, how could you not get off on watching the angles? And I cut to the original Hustler film with Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason

back and forth as Paul Newman is describing Minnesota fast playing the angles off the billiards table, the curry, the angles, the angles, the angles. I enjoyed making that. That's awesome. I enjoyed making that. I hope people like that part. Yeah, Curry, he's taken it up a notch this year. He was always kind of the stealth MVP candidate.

I think he was 12-tone odds. We talked about it on one of our basketball podcasts before. There was a case that he could still go up a level, and it seems like he's actually going up a level, which I wouldn't have bet on, but there's a chance he's going to be like a 55%,

50% three-point shooter, 55% for the field, 90% free-throw shooter. 50-50, 55-50-90 is actually in play for him, which is insane. No, no, no. It's insane. And you know what?

They came to the garden the other day. They are so much fun to watch. I know. People forgot. I love it. I love having them. I would not change a thing. But one of my favorite parts of them coming to the garden is his maniac cousins.

He's in plain clothes on the bench. He gets thrown out of the game. I know. I know. He gets a double T thrown out of the game. What a loon. I mean, that'll be fun to see how that plays out. How's the Lakers doing, man?

When is the ball father going to break out now? Well, that's, it's like, the countdown's on. It'll be in the next week because Rondo's getting minutes over on that. I didn't think

he would be early. I actually thought they might be paying him off to shut up, but now I think, I think he's going to start spreading his wings soon. He needs to get his son traded.

That's funny. I think they probably will. The weirdest thing is LeBron is so detached. It's really unusual. And we've seen him do this before when he doesn't like the coach or he's not really happy with whatever's going on.

He has the ability to just go on autopilot and still be really good. But you know when he's invested and he's not invested yet. And I don't know whether it's the new uniforms and the new city and just like the, the, all the Kobe lovers that are still here. And there's a little resentment toward him. And I don't know what, I don't know what the dynamics are, whether he just doesn't like the coach that much,

whether he doesn't love his team yet, whether he thought Kawhi Leonard was going to be joining him. I don't know. But I don't have this sense like it's the first time I can ever remember in the history of an NBA superstar free agent where he doesn't seem like he wants to impress his new fans. You know the new guy comes in like, hey, man, I just want everybody to like me. And he doesn't really feel that way this time. You know, I'm not sure I disagree. I mean, there seems to be a lot on his plate, you know. Yeah.

It's a red flag. A lot on his plate. I thought actually Rondo getting thrown out and suspended, was it for two games, hurt that team. Because even though they lost one or two games, I know Rondo was playing great. Yeah. Yeah.

Great. I'm not giving a, I mean, it's so freaking early. It's too early. That's right. And they have a lot of young players and LeBron's got to figure out, he's got to, you know, he's got to process everyone's info into his chess computer. It's too early. That's right.

And I think Tyson Chandler, I mean, look, he's older and all of that, but you know what? He'll throw an elbow in someone's face, man. You know? Right. They don't have that, man. You know? He'll smack you, and that's good for that team.

Yeah, it's going to be a fun season. That's good for that team. All right, so Dan Clores' documentary, Basketball Love Story, it is available, the entire thing. You can watch any of it on the ESPN Plus app, but ESPN's been running it a lot. The last batch is running Tuesday night, November 13th, right?

Right, four hours. And then it's on all the time. And the cool thing about this, and why I think it's going to have such a long shelf life on ESPN, and we saw this with some of the 30 for 30s, that you can kind of jump in at any time. Like, oh, that part's coming up.

Ah, watch this 20 minutes. The way you design this, it's all 10 to 15 to 20 minute kind of stories. You can jump in at any time and that's it. They're digestible. So I think that I could see this being on ESPN for years and years. And I hope it is because I really liked it.

And I'm not done watching it, by the way, because you made it 20 freaking hours. 20 hours, baby. And my Bill Simmons over-under, I think that should be a contest that if I'm setting the over-under in terms of minutes for you in a 20-hour film, I want the audience to understand this,

as 18 and a half, for those people who get the over, right? ESPN, who bet correctly on this, the correct betting date is November 12th. They bet it and get it right. ESPN is doing a taco burger for every single person. That's not true. We can't say that. Look, I should have been in every segment. I actually feel like I didn't get the ball enough.

I didn't get enough shots off. I had a great usage rate for my time. I had good stats. Very proud of my box score in this documentary. Dan Clores, congratulations on this. Thanks for coming on. Don't forget to check out the book too on Amazon if you're looking for a Christmas gift. Thanks.oris, congratulations on this. Thanks for coming on. Don't forget to check out the book too on Amazon if you're looking for a Christmas gift. Thanks. Okay. Bye.

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All right, on the line right now, my buddy Jacko. It is election day. We're taping this. It is 11.06 a.m. Pacific time. Lord knows how today is going to play out. All I know is it's already the most annoying day in the history of social media. Johnny, has everyone in your life that you've ever met told you to vote today or what? They have. They have. I'm just thankful for the countless veterans who came before us who died

for the right of people to post pictures of themselves with I voted stickers on Facebook. It really made it all worthwhile. I was excited that Tony from The Challenge, who's been, I think, kicked out of at least one challenge for bad behavior. And it's just a general train wreck. He was telling me to vote on my Instagram today. So this guy is great. I don't think it's official until CT threatens your life unless you vote. That's what the challenge is. You have to vote.

I'm going to kick your ass. I'll pepper your sauce or whatever. There's a little podcast BS report throwback. Yeah, that's good. I love it when all these celebrities get engaged on election day and tell people to vote. It really does my heart good. Where does this rank for you on the all-time most action-packed midterms? Is this number one? Best midterms ever? No, no. This is way down the list. I mean,

every election, politicians come out and say this, the most important election of your life, but I really don't feel like this one is the most important one in my life. And in Connecticut here, we're voting for a governor, which, you know, we'll have some impact on our state, significant impact on our state,

but I can't really say that I'm all that ginned up for that either. So no, I'd say this one ranks a little lower down on the scale for me. There's not going to be any great earth-shaking changes. I mean, I think the conventional wisdom is that the Democrats will take the House and the Republicans will keep the Senate and maybe even increase their majority in the Senate. So I don't know that it'll be all that earth-shattering. You know, you've been on this, I've been in this podcast 11 years. You're Republican. Conservative.

Yes. The last two plus years have been trying for you. Three years, really. Where do you fit in now? What do you stand for in the current landscape? Is this just a total conflict

at all times for you? This is good. This is a good time for me to, I can have my manifesto now. Yeah. Here's what I believe. Subscribe to my newsletter. No. I mean, it's gotta be weird. Cause you've always, ever since we've known each other now, 30 years, you've always cared about politics way more than I did. Right. I grew up in a political family and everything else, right? It was the equivalent

of like you and your dad with the Celtics and sports is like what me and my father had with politics, right? I say had, because unfortunately my father has passed away, but that was what we had in my family. It was a big political thing. And I've always been a, you know, died on the wall, conservative Republican. And ever since the rise of. And as I looked on aghast as my party, you know, fell head over heels in lust with Trump and it's Trump's party now. So I look on even more aghast and I, you know, I feel like kind of a man without a country, certainly. So, you know, there's Republican politicians I like. I like Ben Sasse from Nebraska. I've got a personal Twitter relationship with the

lieutenant governor of Utah, Spencer Cox. So that's important to me. Go Jazz. Just kidding about the Go Jazz. So, you know, he seems like a decent fellow. But, you know, by and large, the Republican Party has just, you know, gone its way with Donald Trump. So it's troubling to see, because as I've expressed numerous times, I think that he is a moron who should not be within 100 miles of the Oval Office. So, yeah, it's weird. It's an odd feeling. And I certainly, you know, the Democratic Party is still not my home,

and I disagree with them vehemently on any number of subjects. So any number of issues. So I can't really say I'm rooting for them. And I'm not really rooting for these Trump Republicans because that only gives further voice to Trump and validates his thoughts such as they are in his position. So I can't really say that I'm rooting for that. I mean, I've sort of been focused on local elections, and there's a couple people I know that are running for office locally,

and I'm rooting for them to win and, you know, rooting for certain things in local elections. But on a national scale, it's like, you know, I used to get a lot more ginned up, and, you know, there'd be, like, political debates at work and everything now. And there used to be political debates, and now I just sort of, you know, keep my head down quietly because it uh, it's crazy out there. Do you feel like there's discourse anymore?

Cause you used to always get used to getting political arguments and sometimes you would, you get a little bit heated, you know, in college and after, but it was always, there was a good natured element to it. It was never, it never ended with you standing up and going, well, you're a fucking idiot. And that's where the, like, it was always, there was always a balance and now it doesn't even feel like there's discourse anymore. You know, and it's, I think it's a lot with the social, with social media and everything now we're partly because the anonymity of it allows you to be, you know, it used to be that you would have to go in a bus station and hold up a sign for people to know you were crazy or try to find like-minded people that thought the Martians were talking to you through the airwaves or whatever.

But now social media, you can amplify that voice and find other people that share your lunacy. And you have the anonymity of being able to hide behind your keyboard and behind an anonymous name and throw vitriol at your fellow man. And I mean, that is, on a serious note, a troubling aspect of our politics these days, where it is reminiscent more of what things are like in Europe, where in Europe you have these sort of, it's very tribal, and there's a lot more political violence, or be it anywhere else around the world. And America had always mercifully been away from that, by and large. Now people are going to send me 85,000 Twitter tweets now about political violence throughout history. And I'm not saying we have been completely immune to it, but by and large,

we've avoided the, you know, violent street clashes that you've seen in other places. And now it seems like that's where we're headed and we've become ever more tribal. And at the end of the day, it was like, well, we're all Americans. And now I think you sort of forget that and it's become more personal and ad hominem. You know, we can go back and forth over what caused that. But, you know, whether Trump was the cause of that or whether he's just, you know, a symptom of that. But, yeah, it's definitely, you know, it's uglier now than it used to be. And I think people are way too wrapped up in it. Um, but yeah, it's definitely, you know, it's, it's uglier now that it used to be.

And I think people are way too wrapped up in it. You know, it used to be that you could be involved in politics and all that's important or civic duty, what have you. But now, you know, be it the absence of religion in American life or what have you, but people have sort of like taken it almost as their own religion and, and, and, and treated it as such where it has like a level of importance where people are like living and dying. And, you know, I don't know if I can get out of bed now based on what happens with this election. It's like, at the end of the day,

it's not really going to impact you all that much. This midterms. Well, if one of these things swung in a way that we didn't expect. Yeah. That could impact us. Yeah. I mean, well, I mean, at the end of the day, regardless of what happens today, tomorrow morning, Trump is going to be the president. True. And until the new Congress is inaugurated in early January for the night, you know,

November and December, he's going to be able to do whatever he was able to do yesterday. But, you know, in January he may wake up and if there was a, certainly with a democratic house, he's not going to be able to get any legislation passed. And if there was a Democratic Senate as well, certainly he's not going to be able to have any sort of agenda at all, including, you know, putting people on the Supreme Court if any more vacancies opened up or appointing judges to lower-level courts. So that would have certainly, you know, a big impact to some degree. But a big impact to some degree. There you go. That's a good one. It's a big impact to some degree. That's good. I want to hedge more bets. That would have a big impact on his agenda, without a doubt. But I mean, if the Democrats just get the House, yeah, they'll make his life a little bit more

uncomfortable with investigations, and they control committees and things, and, you know, they can drag his cabinet officials up there and, you know, subject them to some tough questioning and investigations. But, you know, so onward and upward. People are still going to be unhappy and still going to be miserable. And, I mean, even, like, you know, the MAGA crowd that, you know, has the presidency and, you know, has the presidency, they never quite seem very happy. So win, lose, or draw, it's going to be the same thing tomorrow of people screaming at each other on Twitter and Facebook.

What about when he introduces his new press secretary, Megyn Kelly? Do you think that'll... Well, no, no, no, there's no love lost between them, because way back in the debate... It's a make-up, it's a wrestling move. I know, but it's a WWE move. Yeah and par for the course really for his administration

because she was on Fox News so that seems to be the way to get ahead in the administration so I would be surprised if she would take that though Nobody's got like 63 million dollars not to do anything right? So why go work? Remember the good old days when we could dress up as blackface for Halloween, Johnny? What are you talking about, Megyn Kelly? What a weirdo.

How do you say that on TV? Yeah, no, this is not great. Rough times. It's funny because the guys on the Press Box did a great, our Press Box podcast, Curtis and Shoemaker, they did a great job of breaking this down, how it started out down this great road of, oh, this is actually interesting. She's going to talk about how the PC police is now ruining Halloween. Right. This is actually a good angle. I'm excited to see how she sells this. And then the car just hits the guardrail at about 80 miles an hour.

It's like, oh, look at that car. It's flying. Oh, no. Oh, God. And that was it. I mean, you should, having been on TV long enough, you should know that, like, you shouldn't, not only should you not open a can of worms, you shouldn't even, like, go to the room where the can of worms is stored. Right.

Like, don't even go near it. Just don't touch it. And as you said, there may have been a good point in there somewhere, but you just can't, you just can't do that. It was heading toward an interesting place. Yeah, you just can't. Yeah, there's certain words, if you're on live TV, that just don't even open the door, as you said. Right.

Just Hitler. Just no. Just don't even go in the house. There's no way you're going to steer it back. There's no way you're bringing that one back. What's the weather look like today, Al? That's the proper response to that. That was like one of our favorite SNL sketches.

When the David Allen Greer morning show when the teleprompter dies. Yeah, when the teleprompter went out, that was the best. And it comes back and they're holding the weatherman's head. The weatherman is dead. Well, Farrell's covered in blood shirtless

yeah it's great hey there's another reason I was calling you oh yeah since the last time we talked we have a new

World Series champion the Boston Red Sox Jesus really yeah oh my god I really hadn't paid attention we did it again Johnny

I guess congratulations are in order then good job by you we did it again four we have now quadrupled your 21st century World Series total. True.

It's 4-1. Although the Yankees are one ahead of their pace from the 20th century, really, and you're right on par with your 20th century output. Hopefully the next 82 years will be the same as the last one. Someone had a pissy tweet about

this is the first, the Red Sox have never had a problem with the first 18 years of a century. I was feeling great, and I read that, and I was like, ah, fuck, now we got to win another one. I don't want to be thinking about the next 82 years. It's a different world, though. So, you know, the world was turned upside down in 2004,

and we still haven't recovered, so. Johnny, what was it like to watch the best baseball team of our lifetime? 119 wins. No. Okay. 119 and 57 is the final record. I'll tell you what it was like to watch the best baseball team in our lifetime,

but it was 20 years ago. It was 1998. David Wells was pitching for brilliant Yankees team that went 125 and 50. So that really was the best team of our generation. Was that the year? Hold on. Was that you played the Padres in the World Series? We did.

That was the year that you bought off the home plate umpire and he called the Mark Langston strike a ball, and that led to the home run. I remember that. They didn't want the small market team to win the World Series. That was fun. Exactly. There you that. They didn't want the small market team to win the World Series. That was fun. Exactly. There you go.

You've nailed it. Exactly. Did you know that? That was the year all of our pitchers that had been shaky got much better because they used pine tar in the postseason to get a better grip on the ball. That was also very smart.

Did you know that in San Diego, there was a big article about it on the 20th anniversary? Really? They call that play the pitch. that in San Diego there was a big article about it on the 20th anniversary really they call that play the pitch it's basically their version

of the Bill Buckner ground ball for Red Sox fans really yeah it was that they had a whole long piece about how it should have been

a strike and literally the next pitch was the series altering home run yeah but yeah it's called the pitch

in San Diego. Who knew? That Yankees team, they basically clinched the pennant in August. I'm not sure that even if that pitch was called the strike, the bases were still going to be loaded. I don't think there was two outs. Maybe there was. It's been 20 years and I'm old, so it's possible.

When people are sending me tweets about the history of political violence in America, they can also send me a tweet about how many outs there were before Tito hit the home run. But I don't think they were beating that Yankees team regardless of what happened on that. I think I agree with you. I just remember in 1998, I feel like I can say this because we've been friends for 30 years. You were at your all time insufferable between the budding Yankee dynasty and the Clinton Lewinsky scandal.

Yeah. Good glorious days. You were out of your mind. You were just, you were just had your chest out just strutting around, strutting around the East Coast. You know, as they used to say to, you know, conquering Roman generals, though, all glory is fleeting, you know. So it's bitten me in the ass because now the Red Sox are ascendant and Donald Trump is president. So really, you know, I should have, if you could go back in my time machine, in my DeLorean and set it back to 1998, I would tell 28-year-old Jack Oter, cool it with the rhetoric.

Slow his roll. It was great times. The internet was really forming and rounding into shape. We were back in touch with all these people that we never wanted to talk to again, just constantly calling each other and making fun of those relationships that were back in our lives that we never wanted. And now we have, now we just have our Facebook group from college. Now we can just follow everybody we want. Absolutely. Yeah. 98.

Great times. 20 year anniversary, Johnny. You should have celebrated it. We should have. You could have worn a Jeter jersey with that. Well, I do that anyway. And had your wife wear like a Linda Tripp costume. You could have worn a Jeter jersey with that. I did. Well, I do that anyway. And had your wife wear like a Linda Tripp costume,

you could have gone out for Halloween. It would have been great. Well, I haven't really had that many fantasies about Linda Tripp, but I'm glad you didn't say that my wife was going to be Lewinsky in this scenario. You censored yourself, and I appreciate that. I thought Linda Tripp would have been a funnier costume. Well, that's good. It would have definitely taken a lot more effort. Yeah, no doubt.

The Lewinsky one's easy. You just wear the blue dress. Right. Absolutely. Yeah, that's a good one. Those were the glory days, Johnny. Now it's just, you know, and now our GM gives, you know, gives interviews where he's like, well, you know, it's possible Brett Gardner could be our everyday left fielder.

We'd love to bring CeCe Sabathia back. You shouldn't bring him back. We have to do it cost-effectively. I was surprised when he gave the interview and said how the important thing for the Yankees is to be cost-effective. George Steinbrenner didn't rise from the grave

as a zombie and come back and drag him back into the ground with him. I was actually expecting it. I kept watching the interview saying, any minute now, George Stenbrenner is going to stagger in from left field and take Brad Cashman off this interview. That would have been amazing. Steinbrenner's son gave him some interview, and all they ever talk about is the luxury tax and how they don't want to fund other teams. And that really has hit him personally. They are obsessed with that.

I understand getting under it last year, but I thought the point of that was to reset and then not worry, because you don't have to worry about it as much going forward now that you're not a violator. You pay a lesser tax. But they really seem troubled by that, and that's disconcerting to say the least. Hopefully it's all smoke and mirrors and bluster to throw people off the scent of their plans. But I haven't loved the comments so far at all. I like when you use the word violator. Right, we violated the luxury tax.

Some terrible offense was created. I know. Meanwhile, the world's been turned upside down because the Red Sox were always the ones that wouldn't splurge on free agents when they were run by the Gene Yawkey Trust or whatever. But now they have owners that are like, let's go get championships, whatever. Let's pay whatever it costs.

And they had the highest payroll this year. They didn't care. And we're buying guys left and right. And more power to them. It worked for them. And now the Yankees are like penny pinching. It's ridiculous. Well, if the Red Sox sign not only just World Series hero Nathan Evaldi,

but just hero. Yeah. I really feel like there should be a holiday in 2019 for Evaldi's birthday. That's how heroic he was in the playoffs. He was great for them, absolutely. But if they sign him, that will give us four of our five starters will have nine-figure contracts,

which has to be a major league record. Not to mention the Sandoval-Hanley. Actually, I don't know if we're paying Hanley anymore, but we're definitely paying Sandoval. I think we're paying Carl Crawford for the rest of my life. You're still paying Rusty Castillo, aren't you, too? You're paying a lot of guys.

Well, no. Rusty's holding down our Triple A team. He's great. Oh, is he? Okay. I think you're still paying Hanley and you're definitely still paying Sandoval. And I'm telling you, Carl Crawford is going on forever. Until

global warming ends the world, we're paying Carl Crawford. I'm not sure who's going to get paid last, him or Bobby Bonilla. Because the Mets still pay him a million dollars every year for 25 years. So here's my question for you. If they traded Andujar and spent like $300 million on Manny, the third out of the 2018 World Series Machado, the final out. Would you be okay with that? I would not.

Now, when they were making rumblings about trying to trade for Machado at the trade deadline, and I don't know how real that ever was, that the Orioles would trade him in the division. But I was excited for it. I wanted Manny Machado. And who wouldn't at that time? But just as Nathan Ibaldi has made himself a fortune in the postseason, I think that Manny Machado has cost himself a fortune because it was bad enough that he didn't really set the world on fire after having gone to the Dodgers to not

really like put the team on his back and, and carry them into the post season and didn't do anything in the post season. But then when he did not run to first base more than once and says, well, that's not my game. I'm not Johnny hustle. I'm not going to do that.

Like his agent had to be ripping his hair out of his head. Like, what am I doing here? Like, how can you possibly go out and say, well, that's not me. I'm not Mr. Hustle. And the notion of that going to New York and having that on the back page every day, when he, you know, stands there and admires a home, when he thinks it's a home run and it's a long out, or it ends up being a single instead of a

double because he was watching it, they're going to eat him alive. And I don't need him in the locker room, like whispering to Gary Sanchez, like, eh, don't worry about when they tell you to run hard, just, you know, just hit home runs, take it easy. You know, being a mentor to Gary Sanchez, I don't love that thought either. I felt like we could get him out. And then he had a couple of dirty plays too, where he tried to spike somebody on the Brewers at first, and then he did it to Pearson for the Red Sox. I mean, that's all we need because that's obviously reminiscent of the A-Rod

with Bronson Arroyo back in 04, which I still get gifts sent to me about. So I just don't need it. I just don't need that in my life. And I'll take so much grief. I just, no, I'm good. Well, I'll tell you,

he would add some spice to the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry because the Red Sox fans detest him. We were yelling at him game one and game two at shortstop trying to get him to look at us. He's not a crowd favorite in Fenway, I'll tell you that much.

What if he signed Bryce Harper? Was that you and Damon and Ben Affleck? Your buddies, your Boston crew? No, we didn't yell at Manny and the Dodgers. No. They say hi. Did you say, hey Manny, how do you like them apples?

Anything like that when you finally want it? Oh, you're so adorable. Hey Manny, we just won the World Series. How do you like them apples? Huh? No, he didn't do that.

He shouldn't, Matt David shouldn't do that. Hey Manny, you think you're better than me? Who the fuck are you? Count of four rings, four. That was my favorite story of all time ever told on the BS podcast when Matt Damon told the story about going through Boston with Robin Williams

and Boston people going, hey, Mark. Classic. We could have predicted, hey, Mark. Classic. We could have predicted that one. What about Bryce Harper? Well, I tell you, I was a little intrigued by Bryce Harper. Here we go. I like it. I know he did not have the best year.

I know he has some, he's a little bit of a head case as well, has some shortcomings, but he's left-handed, which the Yankees desperately need a left-handed bat. That short porch in right field, you know, he was, when they played at Yankee Stadium a few years ago, he was like genuflecting at Mickey Mantle's retired number. So part of me, and I think he's probably an upgrade in left field to Brett Gardner, call me crazy. And I like Brett Gardner. He was a fine Yankee, but he's 36 years old, and he hit.236 last year. I think Bryce Harper might be a slight upgrade. So I am a little intrigued by that, I'll admit.

Like, a middle of a lineup. And I know he strikes out too much, and it's all home runners strike out, which is a problem they have. But at least he's left-handed and breaks up the right-handers. I'm a little bit more intrigued by that thought. But they partly want no part of him, allegedly. I think he's a cub waiting to happen, because who's he best friends with

on the Cubs? Somebody, right? Chris Bryant, I think. Oh, seriously? And his dog is named Wrigley, so I think if the Cubs can find some money, I think he's going to be a cub. What do you do with those rigs? The Bryce Harper thing scares me as a Red Sox fan

because of that judge batting second, Harper third, Stanton fourth, Sanchez five. That's a fucking gauntlet. I don't want that to happen. And by the way, I know Bryce Harper wasn't good last year, and he might be one of those peak 20's 23 type of guys maybe and he's been around he's been up since he was 19

so he does have some miles on him and he has injury problems I get all that but he's also once in a generation talent arguably and to do the Yankees it's just money the old Yankees it's just money George would have already signed Machado and Harper And if you're the Yankees, it's just money for the lower guard. It's just, you know, the old Yankees, it's just money.

George would have already signed Machado and Harper. Well, it should be a concern that the national fans would drive him to the airport and make sure he got on the plane. Yeah, that is concerning. That's a problem, right? They watch him day in and day out, and they're all ready to drive him to the airport. The one I was hoping the Yankees would splurge on is this Patrick Corbin, the guy who was on Arizona. Great stats. Lefty. Yeah.

Makes a ton of sense. Right. But I love the whole, let's grab the small market guy who's got great stats and let's throw him into the fire in New York. Please do that. You know, he's a Yankees fan. Yeah. Great.

Bring him in. Bring in Patrick Corbin. The whole family grew up Yankee fans, and I was excited about that. And then I talked to a guy that his daughter plays on my daughter's basketball team at a basketball meeting last night. And he's a Yankee fan, and we were talking. And I said, you know, Corbin, his whole family is Yankee fans. And this guy did not want to sign him because of that because he thought it put too much pressure on him. Because he's like, you know, when you play for your favorite team, he's going to be trying too hard.

And I was like, that's a good point, actually. That scared me off Patrick Corbin. Yeah, let's do it. Spend $300 million on him. Today there was rumors that they were talking to the Indians about Kluber and Carrasco. And then I also saw that the – Yeah, about either Corey Kluber and or Carrasco. And that they were – apparently the Mariners are going to blow it up.

Signing Robinson Cano to a $275 million contract. That didn't work out. Wow. I can't believe it. Who could have saw that coming? So if they blow it up and they were taking offers on Paxton, that would be good too. I'd like the Yankees to sign Happ.

If they go out and get Corbin and then get Kluber or Paxton, that'd be pretty good. You know, you'd throw them in with Severino and Tanaka. I'd be happy with that. One guy I like is, and unfortunately I think he's going to get overpaid, but I like Dallas Keuchel because he's done it in the past. I had him on my fantasy team the last two years. He was definitely up and down,

but I do think he's the type of pitcher that is going to age well. He's one of those guys, if the Yankees got him, my gut instinct... He's a ground ball pitcher, which is what you want at Yankee Stadium. He freaking owns the Yankees. That'd be addition by subtraction, just getting them off the Astros. Yeah, my gut instinct,

if you signed Keiko, would be like, oh shit, I could totally see him jumping a level on the Yankees and being that crafty lefty that you've had forever. I'd let him keep his beard, too. I kind of like the Civil War look. Yeah. Do you think I... Are you allowed to have beards on the Yankees?

I thought you had the shame. You are not. No. Yeah. I heard Aaron Boone was watching some really good how to manage a baseball team YouTube clips. Well, you can't hurt. I would recommend that.

That's good. That's good. Yeah, we're bringing him back in. Larry Rothschild. The pitching staff regresses under Larry Rothschild, but let's give him one more shot. Why not? You definitely have to upgrade the CC spot.

It's tough, man. When you're in the same division as the greatest baseball team of all time, it's tough. What do you do? Everyone's coming back. A budding juggernaut, and we're like a small market penny-pinching team just trying to get by with rookies and retreads.

Best we can do. Yeah. If only Edmore was here. There's a guy at work who's a Red Sox fan, and I was like, hey, does JD Martinez have an opt-out after this year? But it's only after the second year I was disappointed. Do you have a,

do you want to apologize or do you have any last words for David Price who you've maligned on this podcast over and over again? Congratulations on discovering Pintar. It's really turned things around. Oh, wow. Come on. I have to give kudos to you on this because you were like David Price's family did not have as much faith in him. I was the only one. I was in his corner the whole time.

And your father, after game two of the Yankees Red Sox divisional series, your father was like castigating you on Twitter. He was. For giving Price a back rub, as he put it. He undermined it. And he really should be apologizing to you as a fellow Red Sox fan because you were the last guy. Years ago, you were like, give me all your David Price stock, and you wrote out the volatility of the market,

and it paid off in the end for you. I watch a lot of Red Sox, and I like the way he was throwing the last couple months. He was hitting like 95, and his record was really good. And then that first Yankee game, everybody just freaked out and was ready to send him to Cuba on a one-way ticket for a political asylum. And I just didn't get it because I felt like he had good stuff. We had guys like Pomerantz who somehow didn't pitch even in the 18 inning game.

I have no idea why he was in the roster. But Pomerantz, like that's done. There's no chance. But Price was actually – would pitch well. He just had this weird mental block with the Yanks. But I just think that's understandable. The Yankees have all these right-handed dudes who come up one after another who can hit the ball 480 feet.

It's like just a bad matchup for him. But he was great. He did not exercise his opt-out, and he's all in on ball. Great, he's back, baby. He'll continue to stink against the Yankees for the remainder of his contract, so that's good for me. It's a good guy to have in the playoffs. The biggest thing I learned is don't freak out

about not having an eighth inning reliever when your manager is more than willing to blow out everybody's arm on your roster to have an eighth inning guy for four weeks. I learned that now, Johnny. Nathan Evaldi, his arm's probably going to be in a sling until February, but

we won the World Series. We're fine. It's a good idea, a guy coming off two Tommy Johns, to throw him as many leagues as he possibly can in a postseason. Well, here's the thing. I'm sure that won't have any repercussions. I mean, you can't have three Tommy Johns. He's fine. They fixed it.

As long as his elbow works to sign on the dotted line for you, that'll be all good. I'm going to have my son get a Tommy John surgery right now to see if he can increase his fastball. Get it out of the way. Might have nephew Kyle get it too. There you go. Jacko, I would tell you to enjoy the rest of the election day, but I don't know if any of us are going to enjoy it.

I think we're going to be enduring it, but it's always a pleasure. Talk to you soon. Good times. All right. Hey, let's talk about the Pixel 3. You've seen the commercials. Unleash the most powerful Pixel ever on the network chosen by Google Verizon. Pixel 3 has more than just any camera.

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what they want without paying for the things they don't. You think we can get you one, Kyle? I think we should try. I think we should definitely try. Would you use a Pixel 3 all the time? Yeah, absolutely. Let's try to get you a Pixel 3. It's a sleek looking phone. Good job on the commercials, Google.

Send this kid from the streets of New York a Pixel 3 for God's sakes. Visit your local Verizon store today or learn more at vzw.com. Wanted to mention, had an awesome red carpet premiere for Momentum Generation, new documentary that we have coming on HBO, which is going to be, I think, December 11th. And you're going to hear me talking about it a bunch of times in this podcast over the next five weeks

just because I really love the film. And it's a quote unquote surfing doc, but it's not. And I really want you, the listener, to watch it because I think it's really good. And I don't know. I rarely like go all in and push something to you people. So I'm pushing this. Keep it on your radar.

It's about five weeks away. Just file it away. I'm very concerned about the Boston Celtics is the only other thing I wanted to say. I don't like, there's some chemistry stuff. I mentioned this on Friday, but I am concerned about, it's a classic too many guys issue that is just manifesting itself so far. And I feel like there's going to be a trade coming. So I wanted to get that on the record. I feel like Terry Rozier will not be on this team 10 days from now. So whatever day this is, what is it? November 6th, November 17th.

He will not be on, on a, on this team. Um, all right, here it is. Me and Greg Kinnear. All right, Greg Kinnear is here. This is your first time on the BS Podcast. It is. It's happening right now, live. You used to do this. You used to interview people way, way back when.

I did. Later. Oh, my God, later. Later is in my salad golden years. Way before that, I was doing it on like borderline public access cable without even a C in the word cable, doing it for a thing called movie time and just trying to- What was movie time? I don't remember that. Before E was E, it was called movie time. And it was on, I don't know, some satellite dish. And it was like literally like going back to college for me. You know, I, I kind of came out of school and caught out here and crashed on a couch just like this one,

uh, that I'm sitting in, uh, for, you know, a few months, but, but I got this gig, uh, doing this kind of low budget cable channel. And we would fill the hours with just interviews and show behind the scenes interviews and, you know, run trailers, anything we could to fill time. Was that what you wanted to do even in college? You were like, I'm going to be a host. Did you want to be like Letterman? You know, honestly, no, I really, I don't know. I didn't have a strong, clear drive as specifically of what I wanted to do. I mean, I was in broadcast journalism at Arizona, and I started as a drama major. So I definitely ended up in the right zone.

But I honestly didn't know anybody in this business. Yeah. So it always seemed so far removed, you know, the idea of actually ending up in it is, it was just seemed preposterous to me that you could actually get a, get a gig out here. So, um, so I just never anticipated it, but it's funny, Justine Bateman, as I was reminded the other day, played a big part in my career. Wow. Yes. Yes. She was, uh, dating a friend of mine who was a sound mixer and she had gone to like this MTV, you know, used to do those Superbowl events. I mean, this is way back in the eighties and she was there doing, you know, helping out with one of those things and doing her thing. She was on Family Ties.

And she told this guy who worked at MTV, she was like, yeah, you should talk to my friend's friend, Greg Kinnear, at some point. And so I ended up getting a chance to audition for MTV via her. Those are big, big days for MTV, late 80s. They were huge. They were huge. And I went into this, you know, sat on the stairs where J.J. Johnson sat and Mark Goodman and Martha Quinn, the whole gang. And I basically, you know, did a terrible audition.

Good God. I still have it. Yeah. It's awful. And I didn't get the job out of it. But I did get a nice tape out of it. And that tape said MTV audition. So when this fledgling cable channel was starting up called Movie Time, they were like, oh, this guy might be legit.

He's got an MTV audition that he didn't get the job for. I don't remember the Movie Time thing. And I feel like I have a really good memory. And I love pop culture. But man. Yeah. I'll get you a hat. I always thought, but now that you said that, I'm like, oh yeah, E wasn't always E. Because I remember when they became E, I was like, E? That's going to be their name?

That's right. And literally before E was E, it was this movie time channel for three years. And just one day they came in and they changed the sets. They changed the name. They changed the hosts. I was fired by E. And I left and did some other stuff for like a year and a half and then came back for TalkSoup. So that was all much later down the road. And you started TalkSoup and then you told them someday there's going to be this family named the Kardashians. And they're going to blow up the mountain. Keep your eye on them.

Just watch this family. I know they're little girls now, but they're going to save your channel. Yes, yes, exactly. I saw it in my crystal soup bowl. TalkSoup was, I mean, it's funny now because it's basically the internet. Right. We're talking 1991? I think so.

91, 90, well, no, 92. I think we went on the air with it, 92, January 1st. And I was on it 92, 93, 94. And what was like the prototype for that? Did you have one? There wasn't a prototype. Honestly, they brought me in. I had just, I don't know, I'd done some other, a couple of other things.

And they had been running periodically clips of like Sally Jessie Raphael or Geraldo or, you know, Ricky Lake. They just periodically would run a clip. And so I went in with the guys of creating a show once a day that would just run a number of these clips. Rather than just run one, they'd run, you know, a number of them. There was no idea of what the show was going to be. There was no prototype. In fact, they thought it was going to be like a serious reverend look back at the highlights from Jerry Smith. And we all got in there and I don't think they knew we were on the air for like two years, but we just kind of started running. I remember watching in college. I graduated in college in 92, but we were like, this is great. What is this? You guys are just making fun of all these

terrible shows. I love this. And it's so funny. I mean, even now I, I, people know that show, they know the history of it. I didn't know that people knew it. It just, there was no internet. So there was no, you couldn't like see how your Twitter response was, or there was no way to gauge it. We started to get a rating. I think we, at one point, my producer Eileen Graham came in and said, we got a one this weekend, which in that world on E at that time was unbelievable. And they were, you know, and we got a lot of mail as well. So I started to realize towards not until like the third year, you know, before I left that people were actually seeing it out there, but I didn't know we had an audience.

I just thought we were just kind of in a little echo chamber screwing around. I remember that and then Comedy Central, whatever it was called back then, was running the SNL reruns. Right. And those were the two kind of, oh, this is great. I'll just kill some time and watch this show. But going backwards, I'm going to say it's like 87 88 those the crazy talk show started to take off the morton downey jr maybe that was even 86 but when he's just yelling at nazis and and it's like what is going on and they and those shows were like massively successful

and then that kind of led into the early nineties when nobody was really making fun of them publicly, but everyone was making fun of them who watched them. And then it tapped into that. But I really feel like it was like a pre-internet, you know, the internet comes in, message boards start coming in 93, 94, 95. And then the internet, people start getting email, but this was kind of existing pre all of that. It's so true. Yeah. And Morton Downey Jr., you're so right. I just remember him like, you know, he'd always have a cigarette in his mouth. And it would always invariably kick somebody off. Get out of here!

He's such a bully. Get out of here! You know, it's great. It's amazing Donald Trump didn't have one of those shows. Yeah. He probably tried. That could have happened. That could have happened, actually.

He would have, you know, he would have fit in that. I think, I'm trying to think some of the crazier ones. Martin Johnny Jr. That's a, Richard Bay? Yeah. Was Montel Williams on back then? Yeah, he was on there. Yes, he was.

I feel like I'm missing like a really good one. And it's, oh, Jenny Jones. Jenny Jones. Was Wendy O. was not back then though no no no so you had all these people and they were just watching these shows cutting vcr tapes vhs tapes that's right and you were trying to figure out which ones and then you're screening it i mean it'd be so much easier to do it now the internet it would be much easier to do it today it's almost like the internet saved us uh uh no it was it was crazy how convoluted it was i i just come in in the morning and we

basically taped the show but we did it sort of live we once we started we just didn't stop and we just let it go whatever it was it'd drive me crazy if we stopped. And we had a technical issue here and there, but not a lot. And in the morning, I'd go in and there's this nice guy, like line up. He'd say, well, here's what we got. And we'd sit there and he'd show me probably 12 or 13 different potential nominees. We only had time for about nine or 10. And we'd just kind of say, okay, let's do this this this this we kind of thought hey why don't we do like we had like different gags and stupid things that we'd come up with on the fly and then uh and and then uh you know that we sit down and

do the show i feel like that show dennis miller and weekend update it, it was the first kind of people, yeah, people kind of wise asses. Yeah. Which is basically where we ended up with the internet, were just people being wise asses about anything. But it was- You're not blaming me for all this, are you? No, I think you should take credit.

I think this is great. But I remember when you left, it was like devastating. Yeah. And then you're in this great situation where everyone who followed you were like, yeah, but he's not Greg Kinnear. It's like they could have followed you with Eddie Murphy in 1984. Well, you know, but Greg. So you do that later show, right?

As the kind of, I mean, that was basically now we have podcasts. But back then we had these kind of long form interview shows that people were doing that really kept going all through the nineties. And then I think in the 2000s started a flame out as a gimmick, but, um, that for two years, they still do later. They still do them, but it's now you have to like make them, it's the kind of catch the viewer's eye a little bit more. Sure. You can't just be like, Hey, two people are talking. Exactly, three cameras. I know. I know. Well, listen, I took over that show from Bob Costas. Yeah, he loved that show. And he was quite good at it. And by the way, they did it without an audience, which was always my big regret. I got over to NBC and they were like, oh, we got to put you

in front of an audience and have you walk out. And it was just, it felt completely wrong. Oh, you didn't want to do that? I didn't, I didn't like, I didn't like walking. I even tried to say, why don't I just sit here? I'll just sit here and we'll just start the show. You know, we can have the audience, but anything but the walkout, we had the whole walkout deal. And I just, I don't know, just the whole thing felt like, it felt very, uh, even for me at that time, it just felt like a formula that had been beaten to death. And we weren't going to do it as well. But the idea of having a one-on-one interview with somebody and kind of talking to them, you know, rather than moving them down the couch after seven minutes, that appealed to me.

Yeah. On some nights. It depended who the guest was. Yeah, it's tough. The booking every night is well we a lot of times we just pilfer whoever you know jay leno had down at the end of the right you know the other stage we just grab whoever you literally grab them yeah stop yeah and then you left to become an actor yeah which i remember being like just flabbergasted by it's like what

yeah he's gonna act i thought this guy was gonna be like a like a letterman type now he's gonna be in movies makes no sense and you that was something you always wanted to do i i had i i did uh um oh i did have great interest in acting. A really good friend of mine always was like, you want to be an actor? And I was always, no, no, I don't. But I guess I kind of did. The truth is, again, I just didn't think it was, it was something that was like really possible to, to, to make happen.

And, and, you know, even my first movie, I mean, which was, which I did a couple of little things, but I mean, just kind of like a day gig here or there. But the first thing was Sabrina with, you know, that Sidney Pollack directed and he. And that was a big ass movie. It was a big, huge movie. That was like a big deal that it was being remade. It was kind of an iconic movie that meant a lot to a lot of people. And he had me come in and meet with him a couple of times. Eventually, you know, they put me on videotape and, you know, I ended up getting the gig.

But I, you know, I was not searching for that. He literally, somebody, Lindsey Duran, who used to work for, for Sydney, dropped off a tape of me, I think on TalkSoup and just said, after he had tried to get thousands of other people to play this role, uh, who passed for different reasons, he, uh, he at least entertained it. And then I went in and I think, you know, we had a good connection. He's from Indiana. I'm from Indiana originally. Maybe that helped. I don't know. But yeah, that was my first. Harrison Ford. Yeah. Kind of at his second apex, the double apex that Harrison Ford.

Yeah. The 80s apex and then like in the, just an unbelievable run early 90s. Right. At that point, he was like the most bankable A-list star in Hollywood other than Tom Cruise. For sure. I mean, he just, I think, I'm trying to think what he had come off of. Was it? He'd done like Clear and Present Danger.

Of course. Presumed Innocent. The Fugitive. Right. It was a murderer's row. Witness. Remember how great Witness was? Witness.

Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. His 20-year run is kind of unassailable. So I had never met Harrison through the whole process. So the big elephant in the room when I'm like trying out for this, just the thing that you just don't want to ever, ever think about is the fact that you haven't really acted in a movie and now you're going to do it with Harrison Ford. It was just too much.

I think I just compartmentalized it and kind of said, I'm not going to acknowledge this. Eventually I did have to meet him. Yeah. And that was in, I guess, in New York. We met at, you know, I don't know, Sydney's office in New York. And he says, you want to go grab some lunch? And so we went down the street and got a little lunch. And, of course, you walk in the restaurant and it's, ain't looking at me, man.

It was pretty cool. And you're right. He was kind of at that, you know, great apex. And I remember the lunch specifically at one point. It was a very, you know, straightforward lunch, talking a little bit about the movie, I don't know, baseball game, random stuff. And at some point, we got the movie thing, and he's talking about, well, we were doing this thing. And he mentions Star Wars. And I got to do the, of course the joke that we all want to do,

which is, now I haven't seen that. What is that? What's that one about? So, uh, I didn't get a, Star Wars.

Yeah. Yeah. That was the title. Yeah. He, uh, uh, I think I got half of us,

maybe a quarter of a smile out of him on that. Worked. Sabrina, I didn't do really well, but people were like mad about it? Like it had like a weird reaction. Yeah. I mean, it, you know, I think. But people thought you were good in it, but they didn't understand why it got remade,

but people saw it anyway. Yeah. They didn't realize that tons of movies were about to be remade for the next 20 years. Yeah, no, I think it was controversial a little bit that it was being remade. And then some people didn't dig it. Some people did. I mean, even now, I mean, my kids saw it and I watched it with my kids a few years ago and remember thinking it's kind of a, you know, I, I like the film, but it's, it does have a strange, a slightly, you know, strange vibe to it. But I, but I do,

I did like it and I did think it was a worthy remake. I mean, I really, I really, um, uh, I don't remember the box office though. I don't think it did tremendous. I think it was cause Audrey Hepburn was so iconic in that role. Sure. But now it's like- Julia Ormond, though. She was wonderful in it.

Can do that again. I mean, yeah, exactly. I mean, it was like kind of a damned if you do this thing anyway. So I think it was a hard- What was it like to watch that with your daughters? Yeah. They see dad in a movie. That's got to be weird.

Yeah, they don't like to watch dad in movies. I can tell you that. That's the general takeaway that I've experienced is that it's strange for them. And they haven't seen me in a lot of stuff, you know. So I don't, I'm not pushing me around the house. So it's, we're at a nice neutral place where they know what I do, but they're not that keen on watching it. Yeah, hopefully we'll never see Autofocus. Just tell them.

Don't ever watch that one. It doesn't happen. So when you hooked up with Nicholson a couple years later, and he was another guy, you know, one of the all-timers, and that was a really big movie for him because he had, you you know he hadn't had

kind of a movie where it was like oh my god jack nicholson's amazing in a few years and that became kind of the signature middle-aged jack nicholson movie man i i just remember reading the script and thinking oh my gosh this this is really an incredible script this is just going to be an incredible movie i'm never going to get it and jack playing this role just going to be an incredible movie. I'm never going to get it. And Jack playing this role is going to be one of the great things to watch at some point when I pay my $8 like everyone else to go to the movie theater and watch him and whoever got to play my role and Helen in this movie, because you just knew that he was going to crush it and he does. It's such a well

acted well written movie it's weird some parts of it has an age well you know because I think some parts of it I guess don't age well or haven't aged well culturally yeah like he's you know he's gay bashing him for the first hour plus of the movie and when you watch it

now under the current lens you're like oh man come on dude but in the moment lens, you're like, oh man, come on, dude. But in the moment it was kind of like, oh, he's a crank, but we know he's going to come around. But then you see it in the 2018 lens and it's a little rough. I haven't seen it in a while. That's probably a fair point, but I don't know. I just, I mean, I'm interested to see it with that idea in mind it probably is different we talk about this we do a podcast called the rewatch was about going backwards

and legislating content it's like look it was 1997 or 1996 whatever it was it was just like it's the way it was that's the way it was and he's so good in that movie I still the one thing with that him and Helen Hunt getting together

the age difference it is a tiny bit of a leap of faith but then you think well I take a leap of faith in every movie so this is a very tiny one I mean in this town if you live here and you're looking at that and worried about the age

difference I mean I don't see it myself i was always very comfortable with it but yeah there's a little bit of a of a span there but i feel like i've seen that enough where would you learn from nicholson were you studying him were you watching like little weird things he did front row seat baby it was great um yeah i i don't know i can't tell you specifically what i learned i mean hard working and you know took the work the role incredibly seriously and uh it was never easy it was never easy for him you know jim brooks did a wonderful job with the movie and and everyone cared a lot and nothing was taken for granted not one moment you know the everybody was was constantly trying to make whatever it was better

and it's amazing because the script really is great and yet you'd get in and we would start with a scene and i remember thinking this is horrible this is never going to work and and then you know uh it would it was just trying to find it and it would get better and get honed and you know jim has an incredible ear and and it would just get better big sports fan that jim brooks yeah see him at a lot of clipper games yeah he's a like a diehard tortured Clipper fan. Yeah. It's amazing he hasn't written the Clippers sports movie that the world needs. He'd be the perfect person to write it.

I know. That would be, he would do great with a sports movie. Well, he did have, they had one, didn't he have a sports movie? Paul Rudd and Reese. Yeah. She was a softball player. Yeah. Yeah.

I need the Clippers. A little bit touched on sports. I need a Clippers movie. Yeah. I need a Clippers movie. So that yeah, I need a Clippers movie. So that movie cleaned up at the Oscars, and you got nominated. It was one of those movies. It was just like, oh, that next person's going up.

The big movie that year was Titanic, too. A lot of people don't remember that that was the other movie that was in the category, which was- It's a good year. A little feature-length motion picture that people remember. Yeah. It was supposed to be a bust. It was supposed to be a bomb. They spent so much money.

It's going to be the biggest bomb in Hollywood history. It is funny. Anytime that happens, half the time the movie ends up being really good. Right. And then the other time, it really is a disaster. Yeah. but when you start hearing the buzz about oh my god this is good jesus then it's like oh yeah this is actually pretty good any buzz is good buzz baby when you know good or bad you know it's like uh maybe that's the message out of that though the autofocus with bob crane is one of the most disturbing, kind of fascinating cable movies that comes on when you're flipping channels.

And it's like, oh yeah, this movie. Bob Crane. It's kind of hard to explain. You know, I'm in my late 40s. Like the guy from Hogan Heroes. Hogan's Heroes. Like that was like, everybody knew who that was, you know, or like Mr. Brady or, I don't know, the dad from My Three Sons. And there were like these 20 people that were just in your life and you just assumed they were perfectly normal.

And he was not normal. He was the opposite. And when that stuff started to come out, it was absolutely flabbergasting. It's like, really? Bob Crane? I know. I remember hearing about it in high school that some story, I think he had been, maybe it was after he was murdered and had been murdered recently so so there was a little just a little buzz i was in high school in greece by the way so i'm yeah i'm in a parking lot in greece having this conversation but somehow the bob bob crane yeah i understand he was you know he had kind of a he had a crazy he liked the girls something like the ladies yeah he liked the ladies filming the ladies didn't never hear much more than that i mean it was a tiny blip on uh that registered for me back

at that time and then the whole story went away for many many years like with everybody i think and and only uh only when you know paul schrader sent me the script was I like, oh, yeah. It's a really good movie. Yeah. Paul Schrader, by the way. Yeah. Another legend. Yeah. I mean, it basically seems like his buddy killed him,

but he didn't get ever convicted for it, right? Nobody researched it better than Schrader. And he said there's no question if he had sat on that jury, he would have voted to convict him. At the end of the day, they had botched the case badly enough, the Scottsdale police department that of course they had to, um, you know, they had to let go of like some key evidence, but you know, there was, there was, uh, you know, it was all there and, and very, very clear. Yeah.

One of the things that's cool about that movie is it was that era where you became famous for the one thing. And then after that, you're just kind of chasing the fame that came with that one thing. But each year becomes further and further away from thing. And it goes like deep into, you know know this weird post hogan's hero's career where he's just like working in nightclubs like yeah dude like patching things together and it's just getting darker and darker yeah it was a very uh it was a really well written script and i and i uh and i and i had the benefit of Willem Dafoe playing Kobe. That was super creepy.

Who was so awesome. And I was such a fan of his. So that was just an added bonus. But yeah, it gets pretty far out there. And we, you know, there was an element of the movie that seemed slightly, it was funny to me just i i don't know how to because it's not really something you should laugh at i mean i definitely think this man had a problem and oh yeah i have an addiction that obviously but but i think sex addiction now is something that is probably in the public consciousness a little bit more and you can have a sober

conversation about it but i mean when i saw this thing, I mean, I don't, I don't remember what year we made it, but it was just, it just seemed like he, he, what, you know, sex addiction and how, how, you know, Bob was creeping around outside of being in Hogan's heroes, this kind of, you know, charming role that he plays, that he had this dark energy that was, was driving him. And there were moments within the script that had some really funny beats in it that I, that I liked, but ultimately it's a, it's a drama and it is dark and it does kind of tip over into a different

place, but you know, there's, there's just, it's a lot of different colors in that movie. And I, I enjoyed it. You made Little Miss Sunshine in 06. Does a movie like that get made now? And if it gets made, what's the budget? I mean, it was considered kind of a low budget indie when you made it. And now it's like, I love that movie. I wonder who's making that movie now. I talked to Matt.

Matt Damon was on the pod a month ago, and he was talking about how hard it was to get the Casey Affleck movie they made, The Manchester by the Sea. And he was saying, like, the 15 million to 70 million movie is just disappearing unless somebody with a lot of clout gets behind it. I think Little Miss Sunshine is a good example. I don't know if that movie happens in 2018. It almost didn't happen when it happened. Because I remember Abigail Breslin, who plays Olive, kept getting older. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie, they're the directors. They were like, we've got to make this movie.

Oh, there was like a time limit? Well, they just were in love with her as Olive, and she kept getting older. Yeah. From when they originally kind of were out trying to, you know, they were very close. They were on the one yard line a couple of times. Really? And then it slipped away. And they just couldn't get the financing for it. And finally, one of the producers, who at that point had just been a producer on it, just said, you know, he was a wealthy guy.

And he just said, screw it, I'll write a check. And he wrote a check for $7 million to make the movie. And that's how it got made. It wasn't sold. It didn't get any, it wasn't financially solvent in the sense that it didn't raise any money as a project. So he just said, I'll do it. And that turned out pretty well for him. Yeah, I was going to say that was a nice check.

And, but, you know, listen, that, that doesn't happen very often for good reason because, you know, there's a thousand stories of losing your losing your money and, uh, any kind of, you know, movie investment, uh, for every one that hits, but that one hit and it hit big. And I, I don't know if it would be made under normal circumstance. I mean, listen, the script was, it was good. I remember reading it the first time when it was brought to me and thinking, yeah, yeah, that, that'd be, that'd be fun. I didn't knock me out of like, as good as it gets was like, I thought, wow, this is, it was, by the way, as good as it gets was originally called old friends. They changed the name, but really, yeah. And I, uh, and I loved old friends. I told Jim,

I said, I think you're crazy, man. You want to change the name? And he was right. Um, but I, that script was, seemed really ready. It was just a thousand percent there for me when I read it and, and Little Miss Sunshine, I thought was really good. I didn't think it was a bad script, but I, I don't remember being knocked over by it until we got in and finally we're going to make the movie now. And, and we started doing some rehearsals and we all started to, you know, do it, did a couple of read throughs of the script. And all of a sudden it hit me. I was like, wow, this thing is so great.

And every moment of it kind of works and the development of the story works. And, and then I realized how well it had been cast with everyone. So, uh, but it was a, it was a bit of a slow burn for me to kind of, I'm slow anyway. Well, I was going to say that was a good example of, I think you need to get lucky, especially in a movie like that. And in that movie, it's perfectly cast. Yeah.

Like even if you go, I don't know, there's maybe five key people in it. Even if you go four for five, I think it really hurts the movie. Like you really had to go a strong five for five. Right. With the five parts. And the little girl's great. And then all on down the line, it's just like.

Yeah. Paul Dano, who I just did the Tonight Show this week. And I ran into him like he was on the show, too. And we were just, I hadn't seen him for a long time, and we were just kind of ruminating. And he has like, yeah, he's had a big career now. Oh, my gosh. He's doing incredible. Can tell from that movie, though.

From that movie, you'd be like, that guy's going to be something. Yeah, right. He was so good. And I didn't know him when we did the film. And I was like okay this kid as same for Abigail I mean really everybody was you know doing great stuff so Jonah Hill was here two weeks ago he was talking about his kind of class Paul Dano's in it and like that part everyone wanted that part oh really they're all going

for the same parts from like 06 to 09, but that was one of the parts. Yeah. It's pretty funny. I always like the concept of acting classes. Yeah. Where it's just like the same. Damon talked about that last month about like his class was, you know, obviously Affleck and McConaughey and all those people, but also like Ed Norton. Ed Norton got the primal fear part. Right.

Everyone else wanted that part, but then he got him back with the Coppola, the John Grissom movie. He got that over Ed Norton. Yeah. When you did, actually, you did stuck on you with Damon. I did, I did. I saw Matt not too long ago at a UFC fight and we were kind of reliving our anguish of, of having three or four hours

of a prosthetic on our body. Because now you would just do that with all CGI. You probably would never be attached. I know. Yeah, maybe. I mean, they had, they, they, they did it with a big giant piece of, of silicone that was literally taped, you know, kind of stuck to our body. And the guy, after they put it on, and this was whenever you saw us, like in our, well, there's a scene where we're in our swimming suits. So you have to see the whole connection. And, and, uh, but it was, you know, it was a couple of weeks where we had to put that thing on and it would take like five, six hours. I mean, we would get there at five o'clock in the morning. We couldn't shoot till lunch. And then I remember getting this thing on and,

and I'm like walking with Matt. And then the guy comes up and he says, now, listen, guys, it's important. I just want you to know this. Everything's fine. You guys are gonna be fine. But if one of you were to fall or trip and you got separated, this could rip your flesh off. So try to be really careful when you're walking together. Oh my God. And, and I remember thinking, okay, okay, don't trip, don't trip. But we, you know, it was a fun, great fun to do that film. And we did have hours and hours. That doesn't sound fun. That sounds not fun at all. That part was a fun, great fun to do that film. And we did have hours and hours. That doesn't sound fun. That sounds not fun at all. That part was not fun.

But we shot Miami. I mean, only the Farrelly brothers would shoot Miami for Los Angeles. Don't ask me why. Yeah. You know, Matt's a tremendous, you know, guy. And we had a lot of, we just had a lot of laughs doing that movie. And Matt will tell you today, he'll say, you know, he says that is the most fun he's ever had on any movie. And I think I would say the same thing, just in terms of like just going to work.

Those guys are fun to work with. The environment is crazy. Plus, it was such a nutty idea to begin with. So it was fun. The, you agree to do a movie like that and it's like, oh yeah, there's going to be some prosthetics and then you're on the set and it's six

hours. Yeah. Well, there's gotta be someone where you go, oh man, really? Right. Yeah.

I heard like Jim Carrey, like almost went bonkers and like the Grinch or something he had because it was like eight hours a day or something and it's just and i get it i mean it just listen fortunately usually if we were if it was just matt and i we would just they'd put a shirt over us yeah and we'd have a piece of velcro holding us together or i don't know elastic band or something that was the majority of it so so the prosthetic thing was the pain point that we had to hit for a couple of weeks. But aside from that, basically we'd throw a shirt on and we'd have to rub bodies throughout the day. CGI now, I'm telling you.

You guys could be in just separate cities and do it. Yeah. Well, I smell a sequel. Stuck on you, you guys can be in just separate cities and do it. Yeah. Well, I smell a sequel. Stuck on you too. It's back. Stuck on too. House of Cards, what's your role? What's your job? What's your profile on this movie? Job? I mean, a TV show. Yes. It is a, well, listen, it's a kind of a great, it's a great show, man. And they have- They had to retool it, shall we say? They had to retool it.

So I was cast along with Diane Lane as brother and sister Bill and Annette Shepard, who are showing up to, we were in Washington, sort of that fifth estate, just kind of quietly doing our bidding from very stealthily, but using our influence and our money to try and change policy. We certainly have a problem with Claire Hale, who has ascended to the presidency. Robin Wright's character. Kevin Spacey will be this sort of, you know, he's the former president now and he will basically be running a foundation and all sorts of things span out of that. Got there, shot a couple of days, like a day, just a camera test and then a couple of scenes. And then I was shooting a movie in Memphis. I went back to Memphis and then I got a, uh, you know, a call, I don't know, two days later to turn on CNN and,

and the court, the bottom dropped out of this whole thing and it went, uh, uh, everything went a little crazy. So credit Robin for, you know, as one of the, along with the producers for, you know, keeping this thing on the tracks i think the easy move would have been to walk away from it all i mean if you know she didn't she didn't have to keep this thing going and right to get her running the other direction i think you'd be a little vulnerable right i mean yeah the you know he's such a significant part of the show and you know this happens maybe the move is just to walk away. And I think she, you know, uh, she, she made the decision that she wanted to stay and that the show was, you know,

worth finding an ending for. And, and the writers, you know, Frank and Melissa had the, you know, very tough work ahead of them because they had to then totally re um you know rewrite and kind of reconfigure the the season out and they did a really good job and uh in in doing that and and we um you know so we're just there wreaking havoc and we want claire's head on a platter there you go did you think about backing out after this whole thing or no? No, I just didn't think it was going to happen. I just assumed that this was, when I heard, I was like, well, that's done. That's just not possibly happening. And then a little time went by and I was just told to, hey, stand by.

The producers are trying to maybe keep this together. And then Netflix, I know, ended up taking care of the crew, which was, make, maybe keep this together. And then Netflix, I know ended up taking care of the crew, which was really cool. I thought, um, you know, they, they took care of that crew in Baltimore for quite a, you know, some period of time while, while they reconfigured what it is we were going to do. And that can't be overstated because I think there's a lot of production companies that would just say hey tough luck we'll pay you know we may we may come back we may not if you got to go find another job good luck yeah um so that was kind of cool and you came back because you just wanted to be married

to diane lane for the tv season no i i i'm not i don't even get to be married she's my sister oh she's your sister she's my sister now it's true my story is i'm in love Lane. She's my sister. Oh, she's your sister? She's my sister. Now, it's true. My story is I'm in love with her. That's my backstory. But I don't know if that's what the producer's had in mind. But yeah, she's lovely and great. And it was great fun work with her. And she's such a talent.

I knew her socially over the years, but we'd never worked together. So this was terrific. She's awesome. I agree. I'm a socially over the years, but we'd never worked together. So this was terrific. She's awesome. I agree. I'm a huge Diane Lane fan. Me too. Right there with you. I'm always up for Diane Lane in stuff. I wish she did more stuff. So you have three daughters?

How old are the daughters? They're 15, 12, and nine. I have a 13. Oh, you do? We can talk, kid. It gets complicated at 12, huh? I'm actually, I'm having a pretty good experience, but there's little- Comes and goes?

Yeah, little snippets where I'm like, oh, now I understand what other people were trying to warn me. What's it like to have three? Well, with three, you say with one it comes and goes well just assume that if it if it if it's comes and goes periodically and you have three just the law of averages it's always coming and it's always going um but you know i i don't know anything different i I mean, they're really great girls, I will say.

I might be slightly biased in that assessment, but it's fully from the heart. I love them like mad, and they're all different. You always hear that, well, can you believe how different they all are? And that's true. They're all very different. But one of them is going to be trouble. A lot of averages if there's three. That's probably true it's true one of them's the candidate to sneak out of the house

after everybody falls asleep i've got one earmarked as possible scouting yeah i ended up with a daughter and then a son who's two and a half years younger and he's have him have him marked yeah yeah i'm watching his every move he just turned 11 very careful with him yeah did you get a male dog at least have have i do have somebody to talk somebody to talk to i do i think he's a male dog i think he's a male dog uh you can feel outnumbered with all those ladies in the house that i do and do. And by the way, this dog gets so much love that I don't get. I mean, this dog is beyond spoiled and loved and adored in the family dynamic. But yeah, got a dog.

Would you let any of them go into show business? I certainly, oh man, I just want, like, I don't know about you, but I, I, I, my greatest wish would be that they would be passionate about something, you know, that they'll, they'll have a thing that they want to do. And if that's show business, fine. You know, I, I don't care, you know, really, I don't care what it is, but I want them to be, um, I think that that's, that's the great advantage you can have in your, in your, in your life and your work is, is just a, uh, an interest and, and some sort of passion for, for what it is that you do. And, and so, um, if that led to show business with, you know, which is fraught with complications that have all been talked about, I don't think I would try to talk them out of it. I think I'd just encourage it and hope for the best.

And I think, you know, show business is like, it's not just one thing. I think people envision everybody ends up as an actor or a director or, you know, it's a, it's a million different facets and there's so many different things in it that like any industry, it, it, it's, it's not at all one thing. So, so, uh, you know, bring it on. I think that's good parental advice you just laid out there. Yeah. Let the kids follow the passion. I'm going to write a book. My daughter just started playing volleyball randomly for her school. And she loves it.

She's like, I want to keep playing. I'm like, great. Knock yourself out. Did she just- She's always been soccer since like age four. She's still going to play soccer, but she's like, I really like volleyball too. I'm like, awesome. And how did she know she liked volleyball? She had played it when like fourth grade fifth grade and then came back

for the eighth grade team just to be with their friends and was just good at it and she's like i want to keep doing this that's great all right cool we're in la play volleyball whenever you want but yeah i remember i remember my my my youngest daughter we were at a halloween party and she was probably like six and there was this uh of this one of those inflatable sort of kickboxing things out there or something, you know, like one of those. It's sort of a practice bag. Yeah, yeah. And she just out of nowhere just did this massive roundhouse kick on this thing. And I was like, huh.

And later said to her, do you have any interest in, you know, ever doing something with that? Maybe, you know, the karate classes and stuff. And, you know, she was like, yeah, I'd like to do that. I'd like to try karate. And, uh, she's done it since then for, you know, I don't know, like, you know, eight years and she's working on her second degree black belt and she loves it. And it's just a thing that she, I, I, you didn't, wouldn't see coming. It was just this thing all of a sudden she was like, yeah, that would be cool. And so I kind of feel the same way about, you know, any advice I do give them is, is that you kind of have to let their, let them lead the way, you know, they know what they want to do.

Well, good luck with house cards. When does it drop? Uh, drops, uh, November 2nd. Well, good luck with House of Cards. When does it drop? Drops November 2nd. Oh, so that's today. Correct. We're taping this on a Friday. Yeah. I think it's running next week, though. Oh, you're right.

It's on Netflix. It's on Netflix, yes. It's officially on Netflix. It drops. That's what we all say. You probably wouldn't know the terms. What's the new logo? Hmm?

They must have redone the logo, right? It used to be Spacey. Well, yeah. It's Robin new logo? They must have redone the logo, right? It used to be Spacey. Well, yeah. So that's Robin, right? you know, she's devious and horrible in certain respects, but as the president, but she's, she's really kind of owns the role in a fantastic way. So it's good stuff. We had her, we did the Andre the Giant documentary last spring for HBO and she, cause he was in Princess Bride. So we,. So it's this documentary. It's Andre. It's all these wrestlers.

And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, like an hour in, like Robin Wright just comes in. It's like this white light shining. It's just one of the most beautiful actions ever. And then it's like, all right, back to the wrestlers. Back to Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan. But she just kind of passes through for two minutes. Is Robin Wright one of the greats.

How did he get cast for this? I have to see this. I have not seen Andre the Giant. It's a documentary. I'm going to watch that. I haven't seen it. Yeah. Oh, it's great.

You would love it. I will. I will love it. It was a really good one. I love that movie. And I kind of like, you know, I don't, I'm not a huge wrestling fan, but. The cool thing about how he did this is you don't have to be a wrestler. Was he like a Hulk Hogan-y type?

He was, right? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. You like it. It's on HBO. I'm going to- HBO On Demand.

Which I have. Yeah. You watch that, I'll watch House of Cards. Deal. Greg Kinnear, thanks for coming in. Thank you very much. All right. Thanks to Dan Clores.

Thanks to Jacko. Thanks to Greg Kinnear. Don't forget about the rewatchables. We are going to drop one this week. Don't forget about the rewatchables. We are going to drop one this week. Don't forget about ZipRecruiter. Check them out at ziprecruiter.com slash BS. Don't forget about Casper, a sleep brand that continues

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