The Bill Simmons Podcast - Chuck Klosterman: Can the NBA Save College Hoops? Should We Abolish Award Shows? (Ep. 340)

Episode Date: March 16, 2018

HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Chuck Klosterman to discuss the present and future state of college basketball and how it affects the NBA (03:00) and to debate the potential of the internet forcing today’s youth to grow up faster (15:00). Then they debate how much of an obligation you have to be plugged into society (30:00) before airing their frustrations with awards shows (57:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We talked about Creed for over 100 minutes. Me, Sean Fantasy, Wesley Morris, and Cam Collins broke it down, talked about a whole bunch of variables, talked about Black Panther, and it went in a whole bunch of directions. Check that one out. Don't forget to check out the Binge Mode podcast. They're talking about Jessica Jones right now, if you like that show. And all of our podcasts, The Ringer Podcast Network, you can find them at theringer.com or on Apple or Spotify or anywhere else. At theringer.com,

we're doing a lot of March Madness this week. We're going to talk to Chuck Klosterman about that in a second. We did a one and done thing, some John Calipari content. Good stuff this week. I know you're enjoying Madness. We tried to make this podcast a little bit evergreen. Our old friend, BS Podcast Hall of Famer Chuck Klosterman. But first, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, from the streets of Portland, Oregon, Chuck Klosterman. This is his time of year, March Madness. Nobody loves college sports more than my friend Chuck.

It's corrupt. It's terrible. It's insane. I don't understand college sports anymore. Chuck, bring some understanding to my life. Well, I'm watching South Dakota State and Ohio State

right now and the score is tied. Pretty, very watchable game. Now, of course, when people hear this, it'll be in the past and I assume Ohio State will have won by 11. Also, I'm not really on the streets of Portland. I'm in the forest. In the trees of Portland. I should have said trees. Yes. I'm with the bears and the beavers. How are you doing? I haven't talked to you in a while. I know. We're taping this on a Thursday afternoon. There's college basketball going.

To me, it's like, I used to love day one of March Madness and all the just, now it's just like all these teams are interchangeable. Some of the games come down to the end. You can kind of half watch it. I enjoy it. Well, I'll say this. This is the first time since I've moved here that I liked Pacific Time. I love the fact that the Oklahoma game was on at 9.15 in the morning.

I know. That was fucking great. Isn't that incredible? But of course, because I live on the West Coast, I've hardly seen any college basketball this year, so I don't really know what's going on as much as I would like to think I do. But yeah, you know, it's a weird time, man. It's a weird time to be a college basketball fan. Watching the Pac-12 tournament, you know, it's a weird time, man. It's a weird time to be a college basketball fan.

Watching the Pac-12 tournament, you know, and I'm watching Sean Miller coach Arizona, you know, and he's kind of, you know, I love Sean Miller as a player. I guess I like him as a coach, too. They kind of have this strange team where they're kind of like the college Pelicans because they've got two big guys. It's kind of outdated, but they're pretty good. So I'm watching them, though, and, you know, Sean Miller is coaching just like nothing is happening.

He's just coaching normally. Of course, if Arizona wins the title, that's going to be vacated like Tuesday morning, right? There's zero chance that they could. There's no possibility that if Arizona were to win the national title that they would end up being able to continually call themselves the national champion. Unless, like this scandal seems so big, is it possible nothing will happen? I mean, they can't put 70 schools on probation. It wouldn't really work, would it? And I still don't know what's true and not true with the Arizona thing.

Because it's clearly turned into one side believes one thing very strongly and the other side believes something very strongly. I haven't heard a tape, but according to everything that I have read, there is

a transcript, an FBI transcript where Sean Miller is saying transcript, an FBI transcript, where Sean Miller is saying, like, hey, if you want to talk about money, talk to me. You know, like, I don't know how that could be misinterpreted unless if we actually heard the audio and he was incredibly sarcastic. Like, oh, if you want to talk about money, talk to me. That's the only possible way.

This is not seemingly an insurmountable problem and now you know the nba is really being real smart about this and like silver's like well we're going to get involved because we see a problem i think to a degree they also see an opportunity here yeah and i have this sense that in 10 years, college basketball is going to sort of be completely integrated with pro basketball. And all the things that I like about college basketball are essentially going to be gone. But what can you do? So it does seem like it's headed that way. And I really wonder, the NBA out of all these sports, the NBA is the one sport that seems to be thinking proactively.

How can we improve? How can we improve? How can we get better? What should we do? Maybe we should do this. All these other leagues just kind of try to protect what they had already built and protect the ideas that are already in place. He's looking at this like, this doesn't work. These guys are going to college for five, six months.

He's talking to some of them. He's talking to people like Ben Simmons who had a really bad experience at LSU that didn't do him any service. And they're looking at these guys as these future assets that don't just play now for eight to 10 years, that might play for 20 years. LeBron might play for 20 years. You know, LeBron might play for 20 years

and he's the best case scenario of a guy jumping right from high school to the NBA. So on the one hand, you have that, which is, it's kind of almost unconstitutional for these guys not to be able to jump into the NBA when they're ready. Like that's one piece. The second piece is it's completely idiotic

for somebody to go into college for six months and then leave in March to start training. Like I already know of two prospects that are going to be in LA that are allegedly college students at the end of March, as soon as their teams get knocked out, that's not a college experience. And then the third piece of this is how do we, how do we control the, how do we control these guys? If they're going to get paid under the table and there's all this chicanery? Then why don't we just pay them and put them under our umbrella? It makes sense. Oh, no, it totally makes sense.

And it's going to happen. I guess I would, we don't need to get into this, but I guess I would b I would bicker with you on this idea of, you know, this constitutional question, because I think that when you look at these pro sports leagues, it's such a unique, rarefied location that a lot of the things, you know, it's become real popular for a lot of people to write about sports, like as a, as an extension of writing about labor. But these are all labor issues, union-based issues. But it's so different than any other job. I mean, here's why Silver's such a good commissioner,

because I think that he fundamentally realizes the most important part of his job, which is that when you look at all of these issues and all of the things that come up in pro basketball, the thing that's sort of the bedrock principle is that these are incredibly lucrative, like an incredibly lucrative world based on the premise that people like watching basketball. So the main thing he has to concern himself with is the health of basketball itself, not

any of the specifics, you know? And I would argue that the healthiest thing for basketball would be to have a robust college basketball world and a subsequent pro world. But it doesn't seem like that's going to happen. What he's doing is probably going to be in the best interest of pro sports. But I don't know. It's a tough one. But, you know, it's harder to watch college basketball now.

It's harder to follow who's where you know it's like i i i suppose the player i've watched the most this year is trae young yeah and i just got knocked out um got beat this morning but it was uh you know it was it was a time early in the year where it was so exciting to watch him play and then it seemed as though the entire world turned against him. Yeah. Like including, you know,

like, like there was just this idea that he's a terrible teammate and he's actually got all these problems. And it's all, I almost feel like I had a four year experience with him already. Everything that has happened. You mentioned LeBron earlier. It really is sort of amazing how he's got

to be the only guy ever where all these things worked where it was like he comes in he's supposed to be the greatest player ever and it kind of worked out yeah i think you know he's hit every thing he has and there's been the worst thing that he did was leave the team he later saved in a problematic way in the middle of his career. It's pretty impressive. Well, we've seen Kobe Bryant came right from high school, Kevin Garnett, obviously, and LeBron.

LeBron is one of the three best players ever. Kobe's probably nine, 10, 11, somewhere in there, and KG's in the top 20. So if I was a stud high school player and I looked at that and I'm like, well, there's three examples of guys who came in right away, it would make me want to come in. And then on top of it, you look at somebody like Ben Simmons, who just has a completely wasted year at OSU, then comes to fill and gets hurt. And by the time he's actually playing, it's what would have been year three of LeBron's career, just coming in right from high school. I don't know. I think there is some way to figure out a version of what baseball does, which I think we've talked about before, but basically either you're ready right away.

And if you get drafted, you come into the league as a, as a high score. And if you don't get drafted, you have to stay in college for at least two years. Seems like that would be a good compromise. Personally. I wish it was like football.

I wish guys had to stay in it for as long as they do. I know that there's people who think that's outrageous, but I would prefer that as somebody who consumes these things. Although I have an unrelated sports question about age that I wanted to ask you. Okay. It's kind of tied into this, but it's different, you know? So, you know, I've been watching, like, the kids, after the Parkland shooting and all that, seeing the way that they're sort of being, uh,

the, the media is treating them like adults, basically, you know, they're, they're being sort of, uh, uh,

lauded and criticized the way adults are. And, and they're talking about pretty complicated things and they're talking about government and legislation and all these things. Do you think it's possible in our lifetime or in the next 25 years perhaps the voting age gets moved to 16 wow because you know like well could you look at the 26th amendment right the 26th amendment was basically move the voting age from 21 to 18 for multiple reasons. One reason was that there was this idea that an 18-year-old can have awareness of the world and should be able to participate in the world in a nonviolent, constructive way.

That was in 1971 and a 16-year-old now are very intellectually comparable. Now, the question becomes, in that span, is a 16-year-old person still not emotionally ready to sort of be involved in society as a whole. But I don't know. This situation is kind of arguing or suggesting the opposite. And I know that there would be a lot of support for this on the left, since traditionally the vast majority of young people lean left.

Do you think this is possible or do you think that I'm kind of surprised no one's brought it up yet. I'm surprised none of these kids have sort of suggested that they should be able to participate tangibly in government. Yeah. Even if they moved it back a year, that 16 seems really young to me. But you know,

I, my daughter is almost 13 and that's only three years away. And it's hard for me to believe that three years from now, she would even know how to vote or what to vote on. But even if they moved it back a year to 17, that might make a little more sense. Wait, the point you just brought up though, about how people seem to be young people seem to be further ahead of the game um i talked about this a little bit when i when i had charlie warzel on last week and we were talking about internet culture and stuff and how these parkland kids were the first school shooting kids basically or survivor kids to kind of be brought up during the internet age where they knew how to handle trolls and just the way they interacted

and made fun of the institutions and how proactive they were really seemed different and kind of forward from where we've been. And I think Charlie theorized that it was because they've just grown up. This is the internet culture they've known from day one. And they're just used to,

they know how to navigate it. Well, they are obviously more media savvy. There's one other aspect to this, though, that maybe people have talked about, but I haven't seen it happen. Okay, so when Columbine happened, if you recall, there is almost no conversation

about the idea of gun control when that occurs. It's all about bullying and the idea of the introduction of goth culture. What does this mean or whatever? You go back, that's what all the discussion initially was, this idea that we'd be too ostracized

kids. Is there something problematic about the way schools function now and the way kids function? When you look at the school shootings that come after that, you're often looking at little kids getting killed. So the people we're seeing on television are the parents. And that did not seem in any way new. They seem to be mourning in the way that parents mourn tragedies. And they kind of said the things that you expect people to say when they're on TV. But this is a situation where it was high school kids, and the kids talking about it were still, you know, in high school, you know, other teenagers. And as a result, they could be emotional in that way only a high school kid can be. And it doesn't seem insincere.

It didn't seem in any way constructed. I mean, you know, it's just that that's a point in your life where, you know, your emotions are always very close to the surface. And when a real event like this happens, you can just sort of say anything and people are going to be like, okay, I kind of had to listen to this. And this is a different situation. This is like, I prove I'm wrong about this as I'm wrong about many things. The first couple of days after that, I was texting people and I was like,

this is actually going to create a difference. Like something's going to happen here. Yeah. I felt the same way. But then that receded, of course, of course that receded. Now nothing's going to happen,

but you know, it seems like, I think there's momentum for stuff. And I, and I do think that the, uh, the capacity of high school students to understand,

oh, wow, I can actually make a difference and affect change and have my voice be heard. I think that's going to be the legacy of those kids. I think the last time I looked was a week ago. Emma Gonzalez had over a million Twitter followers. That's insane. Yeah, it is.

It's just, I don you know um yeah it's just i don't know interesting deal is they uh you know the the people attacking them them yeah that's oh my god these are you know these are crisis actors yeah but the interesting thing is is they were theater students right they are actors yeah they're crisis actors they were crisis actors. But they're comfortable being in front of crowds. Yeah. True. But where you're talking about, about kids growing up earlier, I've been thinking about this with the NBA and I've noticed like, you know, you think about the seventies, the guys who came into the league who were young and they were just so immature. And, you know, somebody like Moses who barely talked to anybody for five, six years when he came in, Moses Blown.

And then you think about the nineties, which was really like when the one and done stuff started and the two and done and all of a sudden four year seniors weren't coming in anymore. And then that leads to the high schoolers and that whole kind of stretch from KG, DeJuan Wagner, all those dudes. And they just seem really immature. And one of the reasons that they changed that rule and made

it so that guys couldn't come from high school was because they were really worried about the maturity of the kids that were coming in. They just couldn't handle the league. And a lot of the people that had problems in the nins and the 2000s had problems because they just weren't ready to be professional athletes. And now I look at the kids that are coming in year after year, and it's kind of stunning how polished they are. You know, like Jason Tatum on the Celtics, who I don't even think is 20 yet. And he gives these interviews like he's like a 12-year vet, like Darren Fox, all these dudes, all the guys from this rookie class.

Lonzo's probably the least polished of all the top guys, but Embiid, all these guys from the last couple of classes, they're just coming into the league and they're immediately comfortable. And it makes me wonder, going back to what you were saying. That could be an argument though uh almost in favor of the one and done restriction because you can change a lot in one year when you're that age and maybe it really is that i mean would you but would you change that much so? I don't like Jason Tatum probably spent seven months at Duke and then probably left in April to go start to work out for the draft and stuff.

That's such a short time span. I don't see how much of a difference that could really make versus like if he was, if we had a 30 team G league and we had these guys immediately from when they graduated high school, they're in charge of stuff, they're in charge of their bank account, they're playing in front of crowds, there's a grind of the professional season, combined with all the training that the NBA has obviously been doing with all these people,

I would argue that he's probably in a better spot than just being a Duke. Oh, yeah, he probably is. Although we got to follow the G League. I mean, this is still fundamentally entertainment. Like, you know, you're going to ruin college basketball so that to, I guess, accelerate the professional nature of being a professional. I mean, I think what you're saying is going to happen.

Well, wait a second. Couldn't you argue that college basketball is already basically ruined? I mean, it's probably the most corrupt it's ever been. And the turnover of even now, now that once Duke adopted the one and done, um, the turnover with the top programs, I don't, I can't even keep track of who was on what team anymore. I don't, if you told me like, was John Wall and Anthony Davis's team and all the Kentucky guys over there, I'd really have to think like, whoa, 2012, what was that? The history has just been shot to hell, I think.

Yeah, ruined though. I mean, as I'm watching, I'm kind of walking around and glancing up at this Ohio State-SDSU game. The product can still be good, though. I think it is. I still feel like a real good college game is better than a good pro game. All right, so hold on, though.

But why do you feel that way? What are the factors? Well, there, there, a lot of them are ancillary, but it has to do that. The game itself seems like it has more meaning that you're watching people

experiencing something in their life that has a meaning outside of, of just the financial compensation. I mean, look at your buddy Jalen Rose. Do you think Jalen Rose cares more about what happened to the Pacers or what happened to the Michigan Wolverines? Well, that's not fair. He went there, though. It's still very clear.

He went there and he spent three years there, though. Yeah, well, what I'm saying is that he also spent many years at various NBA teams, and he has no relationship to those teams to what he does to college. And I think that when you... The game I'm watching now, there is a tremendous

difference between the experience of being a student at Ohio State and the experience of being a student at South Dakota State. You could argue that the 12th guy on Ohio State might be the best player for the Jackrab.

And yet the game is kind of competitive. And the things that people are invested in when they watch this game aren't just, I like that guy or I like that person. You're sort of almost rooting unconsciously for the ideology of the

institution. And granted you say that's corrupt. It is, but you know. Yeah, but the problem is it's being presented and painted as fundamentally academic. And these are student athletes. This is what they've pushed

with us forever. And you have the majority of the top players who are going to go in the NBA draft next year are going to be one and done guys and guys who basically the colleges, the colleges know when they're recruiting Marvin Bagley, that he's there for a year and he might not even be there for a year. He might be there for five, six months. So if that's the case, I don't understand why they just can't admit that it's a business. And maybe, you know, if you were to talk about just fixing the NCAA, maybe there's a format where you have 25,

30 teams that actually do pay their players. And it's almost like the premier league where you have the highest level. And then the second level is people that aren't allowed to pay their players, but you can play yourself up at a relegation to play into the first tier. And then you can pay their players. Like, I think that would at least be more accurate and honest than whatever they're doing now.

They've been talking about that. I feel like in football for a while that essentially the power of five conferences and Notre dame would operate as you know the the the you know alabama's football team is essentially the club team of the university yes and i think we don't really think of the students as on the team have any relationship to the student body or whatever and they're you know being paid and stuff like that. So then I don't know what the Mac then is.

Do all the schools do the same thing, but with less money? I don't know. You say that they've been feeding us this idea that this is all amateur. But no one really believes that. Yeah, not anymore. It's dying. Well, no one does.

I feel like I talked to a 10-year-old kid who likes sports, and they think this. I think I thought that when I was 10. Although it's funny. I think maybe I've mentioned this before, but I've got a friend whose kid's like 9, 10, and he's a good athlete, you know, and they'll be watching like the Final Four or whatever, and at the end, the dad will be like, you know what's amazing, too, is like after this game, like they've got to go back and study.

And his kid still really believes him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wonder how long that's going to take. Oh, my God. Hold on. We're going to take a quick break. Quick break to talk about our friends at Squarespace. They make it easy to build beautiful websites, whether you're starting a business, changing careers or launching a creative project

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Again, that is squarespace.com. Offer code BS. All right, we're back. One thing we were talking about earlier about kids growing up sooner and things like that. Do you think the internet has something to do with that? I was trying to think about what I would be like now. I was an only child in the 80s. And I look back now and my interaction

with all human beings was just so limited, right? I have people at school. I have the books I was reading. I had cable television and movies, magazines, and then like people in my family. And those were all the interactions I had. And I didn't, I had to, you kind of learn as you get older over the years,

like what's right, what's wrong. I shouldn't do this. I shouldn't do that. And now with the internet, um, I'm, I'm watching my kids and you really get a sense of, of, Oh, I shouldn't do that. Ooh, that's a bad idea. You're getting that sense constantly with, through all these different things that you're seeing online. And I wonder like, is that part of the reason why the Parkland kids seem so sophisticated, why these rookies that come into the NBA seem so smart and polished? Maybe this is just what the world's going to be like.

What do you think? It's an interesting question. You know, very often when people complain about the Internet, there's always somebody who jumps in and says, oh, this is what they said about the advent of TV. Oh, this is what they said about the advent of radio. Oh, this is about the gramophone. They said this when the printing press came.

But there is one huge difference here, which in all of those examples, it is a kind of one-way consumption. And the Internet is a two-way consumption. That you're able to sort of participate with it as you consume it, and that is the problem. I mean, when you talk about when you were a kid and you were watching movies and reading books and stuff, you were seeing these images that were separate from your life in any meaning or sort of significance or values or morals, however you look at it, that you took from those, you had to construct that in your mind. You had to watch, you know, you watch a Claude Mondin movie or whatever, and you have to decide, you know, whether or not, how real is this? How

false is this? Is, if this were real, what does it mean to be a person and all these things? That's how it is with the internet. The internet is that you see something, and the whole sort of structure of something like Twitter and Facebook and all these things is be involved. We're democratizing communication. Everyone is equal in all these things. So pull these people into the situation, and then the experience isn't static, and you're not doing it yourself. Someone's doing it to you. Now you say, well, maybe this is beneficial when you look at, you see examples of Joel Embiid or whatever.

He seems like a real mature person for his age. Was this somehow a manifestation of his use of the internet? Oh, maybe, but so is every problem that we see with young people. And that would be the same thing. It can't only be good. Oh, I don't think it's only a good thing. I think there's, I think there's a lot of damaging stuff too. I think, you know, like the stuff we talked about last week when I, when I had Charlie on and the ability, the era we're entering

where people are going to be able to fake information and fake audio and fake video and we're going to, it's terrifying. Well, I, it's a little bit terrifying, but it was a pretty fascinating, particularly to me, this idea of reality, empathy No, apathy. Reality apathy. Yeah. Reality empathy, I guess, would be good. Reality apathy is still bad. The fact that we're moving toward this state where almost every bit of information that we get seems potentially false or potentially skewed. And as a consequence, people will just sort of ignore all of it.

And you can argue why this is a problem or maybe why this isn't as much a problem we see. But it then reminded me of, did you see this story in the New York Times about the guy in Ohio? I think his name is like Eric Hagerman. Oh yeah, the guy who divorced himself from everything? Yeah, he's like a left-leaning guy. Trump wins the election and he says I'm just going to consume no information anymore. So like he watches Cavs games on heat. He just doesn't have any experience with anything in the world, doesn't know anything that's going on. So the story runs and it's kind of like well this is like an oddity you know um the response if you saw any of the response was anger people

were extremely upset about this very often from the perspective as far as i can tell that they're like how dare this person not be as miserable as I am looking at the internet? Like, how, like, the goal of this person to say that they're not going to be engaged with this thing that I go on Twitter and complain about every day. And then there was sort of the second argument that was like, oh, this is like a privilege-based thing. It's like, oh, yeah, this rich white guy, you know, he can do this. Well, actually, anyone can not know things.

There's no element of privilege to that. Like, anyone can disconnect from the world. It's not as though you need to be wealthy to not pay attention. That's just completely erroneous. However, all that, you know, that being my take on this or whatever, it has made me think, and I'm wondering what your response to this will be.

To what obligation is a person obligated to be involved with society? Is it morally wrong to say, I'm not going to partake in society? I can't believe it's a conversation. Can't people do whatever they want? Like I, well, with the argument, what was being made was that,

Oh sure. You can, you know, the people saying that are people who have nothing at stake. Yeah. And that is, you know, if you view our current reality as a situation where,

you know, your very livelihood, your existence, you know your very livelihood your existence you know is is uh in danger yeah how you know you know the idea of someone saying like i'm just i don't it's not me it's not me i'm stepping away is is wrong but i i'm i'm wondering what you think about that because i my natural inclination would be like i'm almost a little envious of this person. I look at this person and I think to myself, it's like I would be so great in a way, but I can't do it. My natural inclination as a person stops me from doing that. But at the same time, I'm sure someone listening to this podcast would say that I am exactly like this person,

that I'm in this position of extreme privilege where I could just stay in my little cabin in the woods here and, you know, I don't know, read Peanuts comic strips or whatever for the rest of my life and have no sense with the records that came out before I was born and just not exist and interact with the world, and I would be fine. And they would say, well, that wouldn't be the case for me. I'm not really sure that's a justified argument, but. You're basically Desmond from lost at that point, right? And that little bunker just totally detached from everything. I,

first of all, I think I thought it was really cool that the guy did that. I didn't, my, my issue with it was I wasn't a hundred percent positive. I believed it. If you had told me like he had done it as a gimmick, but he hadn't really done it, I wouldn't have been shocked, but I, there's a touch of this. I don't know how many times you've ever done this. And I also can't tell how often you're on the internet because it does seem like you love this stuff. I'll go in waves where I just don't go on Twitter for like a month or a month and a half.

And I just go on to post columns and podcasts and maybe notice a couple tweets on my timeline and that's it and I'm out. And then other times I'm, I'm, I really enjoy Twitter. And I think you could argue Twitter for the most part is something none of us are that satisfied with. That is probably the more you're on it, probably the more unhappy you are. The more danger there is to type something that you shouldn't have typed or that you'll get made fun of, or that it could potentially hurt your career in some way. There's so many landmines on Twitter. That's kind of amazing that people spend that much time on it.

And, and the satisfaction you get from it is just the brief satisfaction of, oh, that was a good tweet. Oh, people are liking that one. And it's really, It's just so empty. That never happens to me. Neither of those things. Here's what Twitter does. It changes. That's the thing

about it. It changes. It's the only thing where if you look at it and then you just look up at a light in your house for 40 seconds and you look back down. It will be different. Yeah.

You know, it's like you might not have received any email in that period. You know, there might not. Nothing else may have really changed, but that always changes. And that's I think it's fundamental attraction that when people are standing in line at the bank or they're sitting waiting, you know, their kids on the swing set and they need something to do, they know if they look at that specific app, it's going to be different than it was before. And the podcast you did with that... With Charlie? Right kid from BuzzFeed. Yeah.

You were talking about, you sort of forwarded the idea of making people pay for Twitter. Yeah. I think I have a better idea. Okay. I think I have a better idea. Okay. I think I have a better idea than that. Because if you sported this idea that in order to use Twitter, you've got to pay for it, people would see that as oppressive. Wait, hold on, though.

That wasn't the idea, though. The idea was maybe you get 10 tweets a week, and then after that you have to pay. There would still be people saying, you're limiting my ability to express myself by putting a financial constraint on it. I'm not saying that's necessarily true. I'm saying that would be the argument. However, here's what it should be.

Okay. How many people do you follow? Probably, I don't know, maybe 500 and probably two thirds of them are muted, muted at this point. Anyone who talks about Trump, I've muted. Okay, exactly. So you have 500 some followers. You should say you have 523. You need to pay $523 a year. It's a $1 a year fee. Oh, I like it. I like hired. I like what you did there. Yeah. What it would do is it would stop people from just,

it would almost be like controlling wildfires, right? Because I know that there are tons of people who follow someone like me or whatever solely in the hope that I will tweet something stupid. Yeah. Or that I will in some way put myself in a position. You know, it's like, or they just don't care. I mean, because, you know, the driving force behind so much of the Internet

are people who are engaged but not invested. Like, they're engaged with culture, but they have no investment in it. It's not like buying a magazine or buying a book or even watching television and thinking commercial everything on the internet is free part of the reason why i don't i don't enjoy writing uh you know stories on the internet is because i know the overwhelming majority of people who read these stories don't give a shit at all about it yeah it just happened to come up in their feed they have no you know you know they have no they don't

care they're not interested in the idea that they have no desire sort of to sort of hear out but the idea they just it's there i mean that's how most of the stories are are just things like oh a bunch of people are talking about this i guess what is what is this? It was a story about the guy who disengaged the internet. I didn't find that on my own. It was like I woke up and 17 people had already talked about it. So I was like, what is this? And I read this story. But the thing is, if you had to pay a dollar to follow someone, it would stop people from being like, nah, I just follow whoever I

just do whatever, you know, it would make people say, well, I can only follow somebody if they have a dollar's worth of value to me in the course of 12 months. And there's a lot of people would see their followers disappear if that was the case. There's a lot of people who, yeah. That would be a good one. I like that idea. I like all of these things Twitter should be at least thinking about and sampling out and trying out. I've noticed, I used to think back to like 20 plus years ago, and I'm sure you did the

same thing. I remember I would have a little notebook. I'd write down ideas in it. On like car rides and stuff, just listen to music, think about stuff. Did a lot more thinking and contemplating, waiting in line for a coffee at the Dunkin' Donuts. And you'd be like, all right, I'm going to be in line and I'm just going to get a coffee and sit here. I don't know if anyone does that anymore.

You know, like who goes to like go to Starbucks and like I'm just gonna sit at this table and relax and just kind of look around like people would think that person was crazy right like what's that person doing over there why aren't they looking at their phone yeah and literally crazy that's what they would think that there's a crazy person

in this Dunkin Donuts just standing there or sitting there looking at people I mean I suppose what you're sort of forwarding and that's actually a pretty interesting thought is the one thing that we're going to learn from you know these last 25 years of the internet and especially the advent of these apps like you know facebook and stuff like that twitter what was the value of daydreaming? Because that's a big part of what the internet takes away. I think there's a lot of value in it.

I mean, it seems that way, doesn't it? It seems as though a lot of creativity comes from just sitting there spacing out, laying in a dark room and just laying there. And I do that less now, although I will say that is one thing that having kids it does make you do more yeah if you're pushing your kid on the swing you're gonna daydream like it's a it's it's a kind of an edifying act because the kid loves it so much it's easy to do but it doesn't take a lot of intellectual power. Like, I can kind of think about anything I want when I'm pushing my kids on the swing.

And if they weren't on that swing, if I was, for whatever reason, just inexplicably standing in a playground, I would probably be looking at my phone. Well, I've noticed, first of all, I've stopped for the most part. Sometimes I waver, but I try not to look at my phone when I'm driving, like at stoplights and stuff. Cause I think like, you know, you could just go crazy. Like if you can't zone out and drive and listen to the radio

for 15 minutes, then you probably have an intention, internet attention deficit disorder. But I've noticed like more than ever the last, I would say year and a half. I don't know if this is a California thing, but it's definitely happening here. And I'm guessing it's happening other places. You'll be at a stoplight and the light will turn green and the person won't go. And they won't go because they're looking at their phone. And then you have to honk their horn. I've probably honked my horn more in the last year and a half than I did the previous 20 years. And it seems like just all these people are on their phone, looking at their phone, checking out their phone.

I think they're doing it when they're driving, probably texting when they're driving. And it's like cocaine. They can't give it up. Even when they're in the car, they can't just go cold turkey for 10 minutes. Oh, it's like cocaine. They can't give it up. Even when they're in the car, they can't just go cold turkey for 10 minutes. Oh, what's going on? I get a check. Oh, did I get a text?

And yeah, you're right. I think daydreaming, the days of just like, I'm on a drive, I'm listening to some weird song and I'm thinking about ideas and oh, what's that? And oh, that makes me think of this. And I really wonder how much that happens anymore. Maybe creativity is driven from the internet now. It is.

Well, I mean, we're certainly in a period where nonfiction is way dominant over fiction. And that would seem to correspond with your theory. We're going to take one break. We'll come back. I've been shaving since college, as I've mentioned many times on this podcast. You know what changed my life? Something relatively recent, the Gillette Fusion Ultra Sensitive Skin Shaving Gel.

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Join now, and MyBookie will match your deposit with up to a 50% bonus. Use promo code BILLSIMMONS when making your account. You can even enter for a chance to win their million-dollar bracket challenge. Visit mybookie.ag today. Bet on the internet's favorite sports book where you play and you win and you get paid. You were saying nonfiction versus fiction. It does feel like we're turning into more of a nonfiction consumer country. Am I wrong to think that? Oh, no, absolutely. It really started in the late 90s, really.

I mean, it was, you know, it has been, I would say, for the totality of my career as an author, that there has been the dominance of nonfiction over fiction in terms of how many people were interested in it although and this is like a very cliche argument now but i think it is true the the fact that tv has improved has kind of taken the place of the person who used to like read a novel a month. Yeah. Because there are television, there are many television shows now that are, is sort of rich and deep and we have this, but the character development of a novel and it's so much easier to do it. I mean,

it's so much easier to watch television than to read that. It's, you can't even book. You can't, I mean, I'm like that. Like I, you can't blame anyone for it.

It's a passive experience that when reading is not. I can't believe the preponderance of documentaries. Because I remember when we created 30 for 30, and we were just trying to find documentarians, and it was so freaking hard to find 30. And so hard to see people's work and even know like, Oh, that person. And now I look all these years later, I remember we went to, we won some award. I think it was the IAD awards, the international, I forget what it's called, but we won something and all the documentarians were there. and only a couple of them had really had any sort

of mainstream success or anything. Most of them were people that spent eight years in Liberia working on some documentary that they ate ramen every day to try to pay for. And now you look at that room, probably all of them have documentaries on Netflix right now, right? That Netflix puts up six documentaries a week and then Amazon has more and then there's other ones. And I I've never seen anything flip like that faster in the span of 10 years. There's probably, I would say a hundred times as many documentaries. I mean, it has really happened in music. Uh know like okay there are there are two rush documentaries that are both pretty good like it would have seemed real unlikely 20 years ago that there would have been a rush documentary but there's two of them yeah there's a okay documentary

about xpc that's real informative there's the canadian all-female metal band Kitty has a documentary that's coming out next month. Jared Leto's band, 30 Seconds to Mars, he made this documentary. I don't know if you've seen this. I think you would actually be very interested in it. I think Jared Leto was making a documentary because he wanted to show the power and the popularity of his band but the entire film actually is about the record business and how he signed probably the worst record contract imaginable really explains and the whole thing explains even goes back and explains like you know um you know some of the deals of apple like paul mccart and stuff made. The whole thing is just like a meditation on how impossible it is to make money as an artist

in the kind of traditional way the music industry was set up contractually. Of course, there's also like scenes of Jared Leto kind of like longingly staring at a sunset, too. There's some of that as well. But it was I mean, I did not think I would normally watch a documentary. Actually, that's not true. I'll kind of watch any music. Yeah, you'll watch any music. It's pretty good.

Yeah. You know, they're, you know, they're just pretty much anybody who dies young. Now there's going to be a documentary about, I mean, you know, Whitney Houston and Amy Winehouse. I think they were made by the same person. It's a, no, that is Amy was much better than the Whitney Houston one. The Amy one was legit good. I thought that was, that was done by the people who did Senna, which was also fantastic. Um, yeah, I know. I know it was very good.

The thing about the Amy Winehouse one though, is that there was, I did not know a lot about whitney houston's life even though she was a substantially more famous artist than amy winehouse just because of like i don't know it's sort of what i'm into and working at spin and stuff like that i feel like i knew a lot about amy winehouse's life i did not really know that much about whitney houston's life so i found that one a little more revelatory. Yeah. Even though, even when they're not that good, they're still really fun to watch. I thought the same, I thought the Richard Pryor one, I had a lot of issues with, but I still learned a lot. I thought it was interesting. It's a lot of times I, and I don't

know if it's because of what I've done for, you know, career wise the last 10 years. But a lot of times I watch them and get frustrated that, oh man, why'd they do it this way? And maybe I'm just too in too deep with my head with them. But I always feel like even a sloppy one, if the topic is good, is worth watching. And then you'll see one that is unexpectedly great. Like, I think we've talked about that, that one, I forget who made it, but the one about U2 when U2 almost broke up in the late eighties and they, did you ever see that one? I never did see it. You know, I thought that that's like in my top three or four, Evan, can you find out,

find out what that U2 documentary is from like the late eighties. It's about, it's basically, I never, part of the reason I was, it's really well done, but part of the reason I loved it was I never knew that they had reached a point where they almost broke up. Cause we've probably talked about this in the past, but I feel like every band hits a point where either they stay together or break up. There's some point of no return.

And I never thought you two hit that point. I always thought they were just together forever. And it wasn't true. Like they, they put out the rat on home album and then, you know, could not kind of figure out what was next. And they almost broke up.

And I, I think their producer ended up taking them to a house. Do you have the name? From the Sky Down. From the Sky Down, it's called. Their producer rented this house in Europe and basically trapped them in there for nine months. And they got their mojo back.

Bono got into like the DJ scene, which was starting to take off the electronic music. And it led to Octung Baby, which is one of their best albums. But I just thought it was so fascinating. There was always a rumor about you two in the 90s that they had almost broken up very early on because they didn't know if they wanted to be a regular band or a Christian rock band.

Oh, that's interesting. And that this had been like an early point of tension in the band. But I've never really seen that. Yeah, that one. You're kind of saying, though, what you're saying really does sort of, in some ways, explain why, like, the dominance of nonfiction over fiction, because the thing is, a nonfiction film or a nonfiction book can be bad, but still have utility if you learn something. Like, I found this book about, like, it book about the history, basically the entire history of

just every possible iteration of a navy. Like the history of warfare on water. And it's the kind of thing where it's like, well,

this book doesn't have to be good for me to get something from it. It's like I don't know anything about the history of the Navy or whatever. So the writing can be real. Like I tend to prefer really straight writing anyway. Like I think when you're young in your 20s, it's like, oh, they're the pros. Look at this feature. This guy, this feature, he doesn't even mention who he's writing about until

the 19th paragraph. It's like, oh, he's describing what the grass looks like. That's amazing. It's like, oh, there's you on the grass. Nah, now I have no interest in any of that. I just want the story to, I want the information to come as directly as possible, as cleanly as possible, and

kind of quietly as possible. possible, as cleanly as possible, and kind of quietly as possible. Well, think about ESPN when they were making those movies like 15 years ago, and all of them were bad, except the Dale Earnhardt one wasn't bad. But the other ones were. Are you talking about the one where like...

The Bobby Knight one? The Bobby Knight and those guys. Yeah, all those. They were just all bad. But if they had done a Bobby Knight one. Yeah. All those, they were, they were just all bad. But if they had done doc, if they had done a Bobby Knight season of the Brink documentary, even if it was bad, I still would have enjoyed it. You know, I still would have gotten something out of it. That was something we always,

when, when we were doing the 30 for 30 stuff, we would always talk about what, you know, you'd have all these different ideas. What was the best utilization of that idea? Like it would something be a better sports movie? Would something be a better sports doc? Would something be a better short? Is it just a magazine piece? What is it that you flesh it out

and you kind of figure out what makes the most sense? And what's fun about that is I just saw the Paterno movie that HBO did, which I was dubious of heading in because to me that seemed like classic. That should just be a documentary. Why would you make a movie? That's weird.

Pacino, that seems like a reach. And then it was actually like it did add something to a story that I already knew because they did it about Paterno. It was Pacino playing Paterno. So he brings the Pacino baggage to it. But then also there was just a humanity about the Paterno thing and the fact that this guy was probably senile. How much did he know? How much did he not know?

That I thought was really interesting. And I don't know if a documentary would have captured that. So I still think there's a place for all that stuff. The other funny outcome of these are those lifetime movies when like you remember that prison guard that sprung the two inmates and then they were on the lam and they made they just make the stupid lifetime version of those like you have that version and um and then you go into the the realm of itania which took a story and just took the facts and just made them something else i thought that was crazy i just watched that this week i watched it on monday night i think uh monday or sunday night

i can't remember um it uh you know the opening 90 seconds i was like this is going to be kind of trashy and i'm really going to like this. I guess I don't think I did. I understand sort of what they're doing, and it's sort of like all realities might be possible, but the way that the movie got appreciated in this way, that it kind of got lumped in with like the Me Too moment in a strange way. And I don't know if that seems really odd to me.

I mean, has Nancy Kerrigan responded to any of this? She stayed quiet for the most part. I liked it when I saw it, but I saw it under the context of somebody who lived through the entire thing and assumed that people knew that, of course, Tanya Harding knew what those guys were doing. And all the investigations bore that out. And that's why they banned her from figure skating. And instead something weird happened, which was the movie version of what happened. They left it way more ambiguous. And then I look up at the Golden Globes and Tanya Harding is at the table.

I couldn't believe that. Nancy Kerrigan had to be like, what the fuck is happening here? How could this be? Like, how in the world did this happen? That like, I was just a skating person. That's all I was. And like, it, it, it, it, it is very, I mean, I'm not, I was just a skating person. That's all I was. I'm not questioning the ethics or whatever making this movie.

I certainly would rather watch a movie about Tonya Harding than a movie about Nancy Kerrigan. I mean, there's no question about that. But it seems pretty weird to me. I thought it was crazy. And I think if it had been a real Oscar contender, I think people would have gone at them pretty hard with the whole thing. But, um,

okay. So here, I have a, I have a question about the Oscars to you that really in a way is a question about the ringer in general. Okay. I guess I'm asking you to speak for the ringer. Okay.

Great. So you guys, you guys covered the Oscars, the run up to the Oscars very aggressively. I felt it was a lot of you put a lot of emphasis on. This sounds like a criticism. that that was sort of forwarded was this idea that if get out uh does not win best picture it's going to sort of seem like a an embarrassing mid step misstep in the future that people are going to look back and be like that was that was a huge mistake that they did not give get out the Oscar for best picture I am I am No, I 100% feel that way.

I think it's going to age very badly. Okay. So here's the thing. Here's my question. And the fact that you guys were saying that, and we're writing about that, and I'm not saying it's not true. I'm saying you were saying this before the ceremony itself,

that you were saying that essentially if this movie is not win, it's going to almost negate the meaning of this. Doesn't that sort of back up what I've been telling you for 15 years, which is that the Oscars are idiotic and they don't matter at all? And they have absolutely no impact whatsoever on what films are actually canonized and how we think about them? I think it has no impact. You were making the argument before the event even happened. It's a great point. Um, I think what's happened over the last, this decade,

and it's not just with the Oscars, but I think it's happened with sports awards too, is with the internet. And it's so easy to find opinions and the right opinions that people, you don't really see voting mistakes anymore. So you almost get this sense a month before you know who's going to win. Like I think Sean Fantasy, I think he got 20 of 24 on his Oscar ballot, correct? And had 21 Shape of Water and switched it at the last minute because we had convinced him Get Out was going to win and then it didn't. But it's become, there's so much information now of where things are going, what's going to happen. And then the voters are all reading that. So, you know, in the old days you might've had a voter and be like, I love the post. I'm voting for that. Now that same voter is going on the internet and

going, who should I vote for? Oh, everybody says it's either Shape of Water or Three Billboards. Okay. I'll vote for one of those two. Or they're thinking, like, I don't want to waste my vote on The Post. Yes. Like, I still think it's the best movie, but I don't want to waste my vote on, like, you know, this Jill Stein version of the movies or whatever and just throw it away. It's like I'm going to, like, you know,

I'm going to vote for whatever movie I think might win has the best chance of winning, which really isn't good either. I, it just, it doesn't, the way that the media has evolved, it seems as though the value of these things, even though they get 10 times as much attention, like it drives me insane that people act like they care about the Grammys or they care about the Golden Globes. It's just nuts to me. Well, wait a second though. Those are two different animals because I don't think people care about the Grammys anymore. I think the Grammys died.

Go on Twitter. No, those people, I know. Are happening. No. Because it's a live thing and it's a reason. It's like, here's justification for me to say something and you have to hear about it but here's the thing even though that these things

get all this more attention and then they feel more culturally important because there's this avalanche of it there is that they the significance just evaporates and here's another example i feel like now the position is russell westbrook really didn't win the MVP last year. Actually, it was hard. It was like we gave it to Westbrook, but no, look at this. They changed the team and it's like Harden is obviously better. It's almost as though people think Russell Westbrook is worse as a basketball player because he won the MVP last year.

I know. I just don't get it. It makes no sense at all. You know what it is? It's buyer's remorse from people who never should have bought into it in the first place. He's the exact same player he was last year. He's literally the exact same player.

He's missing maybe three out of every hundred threes more than he did last year. Other than that, he's the same guy. Playing the same way, having the same effect on his teammates. He's the exact same guy. And by the way, the record might end up being better than it was last year. And he might not make the,

he won't make first team all NBA. He might, he probably won't make second team all NBA. And if Kyrie and Curry hadn't gotten hurt, I think there's a chance he would have gotten bumped out of 13 mile NBA. And he didn't do anything differently than he did last year. Although if that happens in a pre, it's definitely not going to be first team NBA, but like,

let's say he, let's say he doesn't even make 13. Okay. But next year he comes back and he has another triple doubledouble or near triple-double season with fewer shots. Or whatever, it just seems better. Then, the whole thing of him not making the NBA team, now it's going to be like, actually, he should have won the MVP last year. It's crazy. People can just reinvent the path now so i it's i feel as though that these

awards that are talked about more and this is across all things yeah are significantly less meaningful because they don't people don't look at the victory as something that stands the test of time they look at the victory as something to continually debate in perpetuity. Yeah, I kind of like it. But like, I take the Oscars more seriously than the Grammys, and here's the difference. I think we go into the Oscars hoping that the right thing

is going to happen, and half the time it does. And for the most part, like, Frances McDormand should have won Best Actress, you know? Gary Oldman. I don't know if I would have voted for him, but I see it. I see the case. And you go on down the line for the most part. It makes sense.

And the case for Shape of Water was always the people that vote for these awards are people that make movies. And this is the kind of movie that they really respect. And that one's probably going to win. I hope it wasn't true. When you say the kind of movie, what are you saying? It's very artistic. It's the vision of it that he executed and the way he executed it, the originality of it.

It's the way that he brought shit to life. It was just the kind of thing that the people who vote for movies know how hard it is. So it was like a degree of difficulty thing. I think the Grammys, I have, I have, I had no,

before again, I got, I got a little step ladder of questions for you. Okay. Francis McDormand, you said deserve to win. Why did she deserve to win? Just the best performance.

I thought I didn't love that movie, but I thought she was incredible in that movie. Okay, Gary Oldman. He deserved to win because performance-based? Basically, yeah. Performance-based crossed with

he basically became another human being. I think. It was like, wow, that's Gary Oldman? I can't believe that's him. It was one of those. Okay. Get out one for best screenplay. Why?

What was the reasoning? You think? Super original, um, spoke to a big picture premise that it didn't necessarily come out and hit you over the head with, but was sitting there and, uh,

reinvented the horror genre. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So for best picture, come out and hit you over the head with, but was sitting there and reinvented the horror genre. Yeah. Okay. So for best picture then, what should the criteria be? Judging from these other categories, what should be the reason that we vote for the best picture? So for me, I would say originality, general excellence, and then also like... General excellence and what?

General technical excellence? Yeah. Excellence of the actors, how it's put together, how hard, what the degree of difficulty was for it. Have I seen a movie like it? All that stuff. But then on top of it, my main issue with Shape of Water was it was really hard to find anybody who

said like, man, I fucking love that movie. Everybody's like, wow. Yeah. I respected it. It was, there was no affection for it. People were like, it should be the intensity of adoration. I think that should be, I agree with you in some ways. That's how I, I feel like that's part of like for voting for voting for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I feel like the intensity of the fan base should matter because over time that does suggest that the person is doing something that sets them apart. But to me what's interesting is I felt that the argument you were making for Get Out, and I'm not saying that Get Out shouldn't have won. I kind of wish it would have won. I thought that, you know, it's like I mean,

the best movie I actually saw was Lady Bird, but for some reason that felt like... That's my second favorite. I don't know why. That's my second favorite. I love Lady Bird. It seems as though the argument that behind Get Out, when you're talking about how in 10 years

it's going to seem absurd that it didn't win, you can't possibly be arguing that in 10 years it's going to seem absurd that it didn't win you can't possibly be arguing that in 10 years people are going to say look at the technical construction of this film and they didn't reward it what you're saying is that that movie in your in your view best represent the political climate and the issues of contemporary amer America in the setting of a film. I would say that's a, that's a piece, but I, to me, like there's probably like five or six. Yeah. But there's like five or six reasons. I think why a movie like that gets it. First of all,

it's really hard to make a great mainstream well done, unbelievable horror movie. It's only really happened a few times the degree of difficulty of that is just so high the originality of it I thought was way way up there and at least even with Shape of Water I thought the acting was exceptional

and I thought it was really well done what genre of movie would you say is easy to make and easy to execute? If horror is super difficult, and they always say comedy is incredibly difficult and drama. I gotta be honest, my biggest issue with Three Billboards was

it was a really simple movie that didn't have a lot of nuance to it and was made, I thought Wesley did a good job of scurrying at the New York Times, but it's made about this fictional town in America that I don't know where this place is. I don't know what place in America you could throw somebody out of a window with 20 people watching and it's not a thing. I just thought it was way too over the top. And I didn't buy

Sam Rockwell, who's this horrible guy, but now he reads this letter from Woody Harrelson and it almost blows up. And now he's a great guy. Now he's had an epiphany. I'm not asking you why you think that it makes sense that Three of the Lords didn't win. I'm asking you why you believe in 10 years

it's going to seem insane that Get Out did not win. And the thing is, I know what the answer is. What is it? Tell me what the answer is. I think that the meaning of it is that there's a deeper, more significance, that it means more to the culture now and the world is changing and this movie sort of fits in that world. And that this movie is an example of ideas that did not exist in the mainstream before.

Isn't that what it is? example of ideas that did not exist in the mainstream before. I think, isn't that what it is? I think that's a piece. I still, it's an, it's an important movie. It's not just a good movie, right?

It's an important one. It's an important movie, but I also thought it's one of those movies that, and I've seen it a bunch of times now. I keep picking up stuff in it and I keep picking up stuff in the performances. And like, when we did the, we did the rewatchables about it and I don't like the teacup scene because it just,

it's so unnerving to me, but Wesley was pointing out like all the stuff that's happening in that scene and how the actors are playing off each other. And it's really amazing. And I think like, I look at a movie like Silence of the Lambs, which came out when I was in college. So it was at least 25 years ago, 1991 maybe. And that movie is re it's, it was so original in the moment and it was so powerful. But then as the years have passed, it's, it's kind of taken on another life. And I think that's what's going to happen to get out. Now I don't know if that should mean it won the best picture, but for me,

that's a factor and it should matter. Yeah. Well, I, I just, I, it seemed to me as though that this, the fact that,

that we can even have this, as the years go by, I think it's going to feel like get out one. I really, it's probably better that it didn't win for the legacy of the movie. But I also think, if you're talking about a movie, but if you're talking about a movie having a moment

or like a movie being part of a moment that should have helped its momentum, I would say Lady Bird's probably fits that bill better, right? From everything that's happened in the last year. And there's a movie where a female writer director uh a movie with two incredibly strong female characters and a movie that kind of personifies everything that we've been talking about the last year and when francis was in dormant asked everybody to stand up at the oscars and like 25 people stood up like to me ladybird's part of that well i mean the mean, the reason that I thought

that was the best movie is because it's just, it was filled with people who seemed extremely real to me. I just thought it was like, it was, you don't, it's odd, it's rare to see a movie where it's sort of like, well, that person, like, you know what, the girl's second boyfriend? Yeah. Like that kid, I haven't seen that kid in movies a lot.

That kid I've seen in life my whole life. Yeah. Like, you know, stuff like that. Now, you know, to kind of tie this back, remember before there was even a national championship game in college football? I'm not even saying that. We had to vote on it? The one title game.

Yeah. When it was all voted. Okay. Yeah. So very often what would happen, a team would be number one and then somebody would be number two and they would both be undefeated or they both have one loss. A decision had to be made,

you know? Yeah. And always, it was always to the advantage of the team who took second. Yeah. They were sort of discussed of the team who took second. They were sort of discussed as the team who should have won the national championship in perpetuity. I feel like that's how this is with the Oscars now, that the film, like Get Out Who Loses, is going to actually be sort of rewarded over time for having lost. But here's the deal.

Why did we stop doing college football that way? Because people felt it was idiotic. It made no sense that finishing second was better than finishing first year after year after year. This is why I think the Oscars are idiotic. Because the only thing that they really do is they create a false canon for people to disagree with. The only purpose they serve is to be wrong. When they get things right, nobody gives a shit. We just move on. It's like, I don't think people remember now

who won between Moonlight and La La Land, except for a select few. They just remember that one of them won and then it got flipped. I think what I said before, I think, Stance, I think people watch the Oscars hoping the right things are going to happen. And I think people watch the Oscars hoping the right things are going to happen. And I think

people watch the Grammys with now multiple decades of experience knowing the wrong thing is going to happen and ready to be annoyed by it. You go to the Grammys, you're like, I know this is going to be fucked up and I know the wrong person is going to win. I can't wait to bitch about it.

And that's your mindset when you watch the Grammys. It is. It's such a weird and obvious thing. It. And that's your mindset when you watch the Grammys. It is. But it's such a weird and obvious thing. It's like, okay, so Bruno Mars won the Grammys this year and Lorde did not. But when you think about it, this is an award that's voted on

by the industry. Bruno Mars' success is an extension of the music industry. Lorde's success is an extension really of the media and of a fan base that was interested in things that were outside of the mainstream. The industry played very little role in her success. and this is, and that's not to the detriment of Colonel Mars.

I mean, it's just that, that there's a certain kind of performer that the industry, the music industry sees as the music industry sees as, well, this is what we're good at. We can make this person succeed. And when someone succeeds and is doing something that's artistically likable, it's like they get the Grammy. It's just so obvious to me. And then I see people who are like, well, it shouldn't be that way. It shouldn't.

We need to get involved and get this changed. It's like, why? So the music industry doesn't get to have an award system that they built that kind of plays by their rules. I mean, it only matters if you think it's important. And if you think it's important, you're a fucking moron. Well, it seems like

that's the biggest awards inefficiency right now is for somebody to create a legitimate music awards that would actually capture whatever happened in the year. that's the biggest awards inefficiency right now is for somebody to create a legitimate music awards that would actually capture whatever happened in the, in the year and some of the innovations and the best songs and all that stuff. It's like, I don't think it's possible. I don't think it's possible either, but I think it's, I think somebody should try. I think with the movies, you'll have the independent spirits.

Cause I think it would be cool. I would love to know. I just know like when I wrote my book, it was really, it was really valuable and fun to go backwards and go, Oh, here were the all NBA teams in 1968. Oh,

here's the MVP voting. It's like a little snapshot of what happened. We don't even have that with music because the snapshot is so distorted and fucked up I feel like I remember when this flipped I'm a little older than you but I remember when Asia

won like four Grammys I remember that was like a nuclear bomb for the Grammys I don't feel like the Grammys was ever are you sure it wasn't talking about when Toto won Toto won for Asia, sorry. Yes, okay. I had a senior moment there, as my dad would say. Yeah, when Toto won all those Grammys.

That would be the ultimate proof of what you're arguing, that you're saying that this, you know, but it was Asia. And actually, it was Toto. The thing is, you know, I mean, not to derail this, but guys in Toto, they're not exactly jokes. I mean, a lot of the biggest songs on Michael Jackson's Thriller were written by a guy in Toto. It's like they knew what they were doing. Hold on.

Can I interrupt you for a second? I'm going to go further. I think a couple of those songs are really good 35 years later. I'm just saying what the perception was at time, that was like the first time people really lost their fucking shit. That Toto won four Grammys. I vividly remember this. I was like 12. I remember people freaking out about this.

Jethro Tull won the first Grammy for best metal act, defeating Metallica. Who was that win better for? Jethro Tull or Metallica? It was clearly better for Metallica. Who was that win better for? Jethro Tuller Metallica. It was clearly better for Metallica. If Metallica wins the first Grammy for heavy metal, it's like, oh, well, I guess that's what they do. They're going to pick whatever's kind of the hottest, biggest metal

band, they're going to give it to them. But because of that, it created this idea that sort of that there's this bias, and then the bias was that the people voting in the industry were like, well, Metallica, it's like, okay, uh, uh, you know, this bias. And then the bias was, is that the people voting in the industry were like, well, Metallica, it's like, okay. Maybe they, I think they were on Elektra at that time,

but they kind of came from a Megaforce records and it was like, they don't make videos at the time. They may be, I don't know if they'd even made the one video yet, but it's like, they don't make videos. They don't make radio singles. We as a music industry have very little impact on their success the reason that they're successful is because they go out live and they fucking kick ass man kids love it and like they just that that there's a you know and the kind of person who uh you know loves metallica loves them in a way that very few jethro Tull fans love Jethro Tull. I mean, I'd say this is someone who likes Jethro Tull, regardless.

This is the get out, Marty. Get out, Shape of Water argument. Well, no, I mean, I wouldn't say that, because I think there's very few people who would go back and listen to that Jethro Tull record and listen to the corresponding Metallica record and be like, ah, this is kind of Tull at their best. Nobody would have said this.

There's no similarity to that. No, I think Jethro Tull is Shape of Water. No? Okay. Would you abolish all award shows? Would you get rid of all awards? You just get rid of all of them. Everything. I think that they're totally fine

as something to have on TV when there's nothing else to watch. Yeah, I think that they're fine as a way for people to sort of see the lack of a better term. Somebody, a celebrity in kind of a real life setting. The person has to make an award speech and they have to just talk. And it's like that they can't hide behind the idea all that is fine i don't mind that the award shows exist what drives me crazy is that people care about them i mean i care about the heisman trophy that's it there's not one other maybe the cy young a little bit but other than that there is no award

that i think has any meaning at all. And they've kind of ruined the Heisman Trophy by only giving it to quarterbacks. They kind of have ruined... Now they've made the Heisman Trophy this situation where somebody like Paul Hornick could never win. You have to be 11-1 or 12-0.

They've even ruined that by making it more professional. I genuinely care about NBA MVP. I really put a lot of thought into it. I could name every one of them. I know what the top fours were. I just love it.

And I think it's a really nice snapshot. It's so much better than, I don't know who the football MVP was this year. Was it Brady? It seems like it's all over the map. Yeah, nobody cares. It's offensive player of the year and defensive player of the year in both conference. The baseball MVP got ruined and I barely pay attention

to that anymore because they made so many mistakes with that, but it feels like the basketball MVP. What's funny now is the voter shaming that goes on, which goes back to what I was saying about how there's very little surprise anymore with awards. You always have a sense ahead of time. Cause like with the NBA MVP,

somebody last year could have been like, yeah, they have like 120 voter votes. Somebody could have been like, you know what? Fuck Russell Westbrook. I'm going to vote for Al Horford. And that just would have been their vote. Now, if you do that, you're like, it's the worst thing in human beings ever done. Somebody voted for Al Horford. And that just would have been their vote. Now, if you do that, you're like, it's the worst thing a human being's ever done.

Somebody vote for Al Horford. Get him. Get the Coyotes after him. I know, I know. And they'd like freak out. So everybody's so scared to make the wrong pick now. This year in the NCAA tournament, this is the most, it's been a while, I think,

since I've seen as much criticism of the selection committee and who got included and who got drugged on, but they're the most in a while. And you know what the weird thing is, is it seems as though they just went exclusively by the numbers, which I thought everyone has been telling me we're supposed to do, that you're just an im imbecile a troglodyte if you use anything except pure analytics and that's what they did and then people are like why is oklahoma in they had wins at the beginning of the year but not at the end of the year well the numbers suggest that when at the beginning of the year is the same so of course they get in you know like syracuse getting in all none of the mid very few i think the only mid-major who didn't win a tournament

to get in was nevada now i don't that to me there should be more mid-major who didn't win a tournament to get in was Nevada. Now, to me, there should be more mid-majors in, but I can understand why the analytics would suggest the opposite. I have one last thing for you. I have one last quick question. I heard this on your other podcast. Is there really a guy for the Angels this year playing outfield and pitching? Oh, yeah. It's the biggest fantasy conundrum of all time.

It's really like... Is he Babe Ruth? He's like the Japanese 1918 Babe Ruth. Yeah. People, in fantasy, it's going one of two ways. Either they split him up into two separate people, and you could draft pitcher Otani and hitter Otani, or you make him one person, and he just counts for both categories.

It's, it's honestly, it's the biggest thing that's ever happened in fantasy baseball. I'm on a 200 email chain about it, like trying to figure out what to do. I'm in a, I'm in a college football fantasy league. And the thing that happens every year is at some point, like a guy who starts the year at tight end gets moved to option quarterback. And suddenly this guy has a tight end

who's rushing for 110 yards every game. It just screws everything up. Okay, what's your last question you were going to ask? This is it. This is our farewell question. It was the 25th anniversary of Beavis and Butthead this month. A show that I feel like was really, really resonant there

in the early mid-90s in almost as big of a way as anything short of The Simpsons. And then has over the years has kind of faded away and then Mike Judge went to do other things. And it kind of belongs to the 90s in a lot of ways. Don't you feel like when you think of the 90s and you think of that early 90s era and raps taking off, grunge is at its peak, MTV is the cultural force as strong as it's ever been and just all this shit's going on.

It feels like Beavis and Butthead was right in the middle of all of that. And now it's just kind of gone. Am I overthinking this? Well, it is kind of gone, but it's real significant. It changed rock criticism substantially because it was this idea that this is the experience that the average music consumer is having with rock videos except that many of the things that edison butthead said in those video clips was very insightful right like it was delivered in kind of a moron but it was like like something like the things that they like said about like pavement and stuff like that they those, those hold up. Yeah.

How about Dan's Glenn Danzig? Remember that mother? Yeah. Um, and you know, I, but it, you know, the thing is they can't, if they, you know, they, they don't have the licensing for the videos anymore. I know. It's really hard to find them. Yeah. And, um, I think that...

Wait, hold on. Why do you think... Even though there's... Oh, go ahead. Even though there's not a lot in Beavis and Butthead that would be like the obvious thing

that would offend people now. The tone of it would seem, I think, to a lot of modern young people as, well, this isn't right. This is not right. There's something about the way they think about the world and their worldview that does not seem good. And I wonder about, like, I'm guessing at some point now, like my kids are going to start watching The Simpsons.

And I'm looking forward to that, to the point when they kind of get into that. It seems like that will be something kids get into now and I'm wondering what the early Simpsons are going to seem like to me seem like to me now my son bangs them out I saw

the Simpsons where I've seen every episode 20 times weirdly I haven't seen a new episode probably in 10 years but I'm wondering how that will. I have a sense that they are going to still resonate with young people, but maybe I'll be wrong. My son, I think, is a very fair litmus test for this. Really started watching them about two years ago. The first couple of seasons, it takes probably probably season three is when it kicks in.

But love them and they still hold up. I think those will end up being timeless. Weirdly, he loved Beavis and Butthead. Actually, not weirdly because of some of the stuff they do. I think the reason it probably they have an age well as characters is because Mike Judge was

parodying this certain type of people that maybe America is a little more afraid of these days. Yes. But the best part of that show for me, and the thing you mentioned that is such a, it's not a tragedy, but it just sucks, is the funniest part of that show is them making fun of the music videos.

That was what, when I was watching it, I just loved their takes on different things. And like you said, some of them were really astute. And sometimes I would learn about bands that I didn't even know who the band was. And then other times they would just trash the right people in the best possible ways. And the fact that they didn't have the rights for that, it's like this lost treasure from the nineties. Now, what I've never understood is why MTV can't just replay them. SNL can replay old SNLs and show the music acts, right?

I never understood why MTV just couldn't replay the old Babes and Buttheads. I think it might be because Saturday Night Live, those are live performances, and that's different than the mechanical rights that they recorded. What a shame. It is strange.

You know, it's like too, like, do you want to get into, but like, you know, the whole music industry, as we know it, that has collapsed could have saved itself if it had gotten to the right kind of relationship with MTV, where it would have told MTV, if they would have said to MTV,

you know what, okay, we're going to let you play these videos, but we're going to have some weird arcane thing. Like, you have to show every week, you have to show at least four artists from Capitol. And you have to show four artists from, you know... Like Paola, almost. Four from Chrysalis. Well, no. You just need to show every label we get to have. Every major label has four acts

that have to play. All the indie labels get one or two acts that must be played in the span of a week because what that would have done is it would have stopped MTV from being in a position where they could stop showing music videos. They would have had to keep showing music videos.

As long as they were showing music videos, the music industry could have still sold CDs because all they would have had to keep showing music videos. And as long as they were showing music videos, the music industry could have still sold CDs, because all they would have needed to do is really crack down on the pirating of times. We had to see Taylor Swift. Well, they would just make sure that no one can download those songs and pirate those songs. And they could have kind of created like these two, like a real economy and a shadow economy, but regardless. Can I let you in on a little secret? The music industry

is like thriving right now. I would say they're doing, I've been told that it's as profitable as it's like ever been. Now that they figured out all the Spotify streaming, Apple, all that stuff. Just telling you what I heard. I think they're raking it in. I think there was definitely some dark times, but I think they are now raking it in.

And like, you look at how much money Spotify is, uh, the revenue they're generating now and shit like that. And Apple's obviously doing okay. But, um, yeah, anyway. All right. We have to go.

Anything you want to plug? Uh, let's see. I, I, my, uh, Chuck Holstrom in 10 is coming out in soft cover in May.

Ooh, father's day gift. Perfect, Father's Day gift. Perfect Father's Day gift. Great. Actually probably is. Now that I'm, I guess I'm at the age when that's who things apply to. And are you, are you caught up in Trailblazers fever or no? Do you wear a Dame Lillard jersey walking around?

Well, you know, Lillard's a real fun guy to watch. He really is. He's been great this season. Oh, Ohio State won by nine, not by 11. No, but he's fun. Their backcourt, I mean, if you discount the Warriors, it seems like they might have the best backcourt in the league. It's certainly the most explosive.

The Rockets, the Rockets, the Rockets. The Warriors, discount the Warriors and the Rockets, I guess. Am I missing somebody else? No, that's it. I would say there are probably three. If John Wall was healthy, the Washington would be in the discussion. Yes. Yeah, no, Portland's been really fun.

And they just have awesome fans. I've always teased them from time to time. I'm calling them Portland soccer moms, stuff like that, because they only have one team. So all of their sports frustrations for professional are thrown into this one franchise. But when Portland's good, the playoffs are more fun. And I love the home games there.

And it looks like they're going to be a three seed. So it could be interesting. They are right now. Right now they get to, so that would, but who are they going to play? That's the. Right. I mean, they could end up, it could be anybody. It might be better to be anybody it might be better

it might be better to be a four but okay anyways Chuck this was a pleasure as always enjoy the tournament

great to talk to you talk to you soon bye bye on the seat there on the way so I don't say I don't have a few years

with him on the wayside on the front side of the river I don't have a few years Thanks so much to ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire.

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