The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 121: Tony Kornheiser

Episode Date: September 2, 2016

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons talks to Tony Kornheiser about the evolution of sportswriting (9:00), the Colin Kaepernick controversy (23:30), the mechanics of 15 years of 'PTI' (50:00), and 'The Night Of' (1:03:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You should check that out. They won this summer. We made them a music video. Check out all that stuff on HBO Now, HBO Go, HBO On Demand, our Facebook page, which I think is facebook.com slash any given W-E-D-S. A lot of stuff out there. Check out my new website, the ringer, check out the ringer podcast network,

subscribe to the ringer NFL show right now, catch up on our big NFL preview and shout out to Robert Mays, Kevin Clark, Danny Kelly, Claire McNair, and the rest of our NFL team over at the ringer. I might pop up on that ringer NFL show a couple times this season. I'm just ready to talk football with anyone.

I just wander around our offices just bumping into people, starting football conversations. I am ready. I'm also ready for this podcast. Let's roll. Yeah. Clear enough for you. All right.

Yeah. All right. Wow. I've done 120 podcasts, and somehow this man has not been on any of them, but we're changing that today. My old friend, my rabbi, Tony Kornheiser. How are you? I'm good. Now I'm your rabbi.

That's great. I used to be your uncle. Now rabbi is a step up because rabbi means teacher. So I'm feeling pretty good about that. You're still my uncle, too. Can I ask you a few questions before you ask me? Yeah, you're still my uncle, too. You're just, I promoted you to rabbi.

Well, I'm good. Well, I hope I have that line on the chart all to myself. How did you come up with the name The Ringer? Because I've got podcast issues coming up with a name, and I wonder how you did that. We probably spent a month and a half trying to come up with a name for everything we're doing. I actually have talked about this in the past, where it is just so tough to name things

because 75% of the time you can't come up with a name, and then the other 25% you do come up with a name you like, but it's already taken. Like somebody else's name? Yeah, or everything's taken. Yeah. I just, I didn't, that's why I just called mine the Tony Kornheiser Show,

and they wanted me to call it something with podcast, and I said no, no. I like the name show better. Do you know in books, I'm sure they told you this when you wrote your book, but in books, you look for a two-word title. Really? And there's reason to believe that a two-word title is the grabbiest, it's the best, and they want you if you can. Even though most people like us think that longer titles either have a built-in sense of humor or a sense of irony and we want them, the book publisher people who get paid to know this tell you, can you get a two-word title?

Did I ever tell you that? And they point to the Bible. They go, can you beat that? And the answer is no, you can you get a two-word title did i ever tell you what i like and they point to the bible they go can you beat that and the answer is no you can't beat that no did i ever tell you what i almost named my basketball book no tuesdays bible no you'll like this tuesdays with horry so that's you know what i had and now you bring this up because of album album is Mitch album is a good friend of mine. And one of the collections that I wrote, I actually wanted to name, I wanted to be on the cover in a dress and I wanted the title to be

Tuesdays. I'm Laurie. And he got angry. Oh no. He got angry at that. so I didn't do it of course because he's my friend well he really would have been angry at Tuesdays with Laurie it was a few years after Tuesdays with

Laurie had come out but I just liked it and I thought it was a good basketball thing the book of basketball I actually I was competitive because I really wanted the book to do well and I thought it had a chance to debut at number one on the New York times list. So I was studying like, It did, didn't it?

It did. Didn't it debut at one? It did. But I was studying like different book titles and things that would work and what would come up in Google searches. And it just made sense to have a title that had book and basketball in it. And that's how I would think so. If you're writing about a book and basketball in it. And that's how I would think if you're writing about a book about basketball. Right. So one of the collections that I wrote, remember when when Dennis Rodman, of all people, had the number one bestseller in the country, which was bad as I want to be. Yeah. And I ripped that off and I sat on a motorcycle on the front of the book

with no hair and the title of the book was Bald As I Want to Be. It didn't help. It didn't help any sales. It was no good. It didn't do anything. Didn't you name another one? Wasn't it like I'm Back for More Cash? I'm Back for More Cash.

I'm Back for More Cash. That was because all I ever did. See, you, look, you're an actual writer. You have original thoughts, and you write at length, and this is a good thing that you do. What I did in books was I simply reprinted old columns from the Washington Post. So it made sense I was actually literally back for more cash. That's what I did, yeah.

That was a weird era when people just did that and that counted as a book. I think the internet has kind of changed that, especially because so many columns are just available on the internet now. It's tough to just have a collection of... Oh, so you can't collect anymore. Yeah, I mean... So I got in under the wire then. As an aspiring writer growing up in the 80s and 90s, those collection books were really important to me because I never got to read you. I never got to read Mitch's album.

I remember I had Live Album 1 and Live Album 2. Yeah. I think there was even a third one, and it was like my only chance to read all those pieces. I think that, I mean, there are people whose collections I admire tremendously, like Dan Jenkins and Frank DeFord. Yeah. And it's great to have their best work, you know, in between one set of covers. I think those are invaluable. But in my case, I was just, you know, these were just 800 word columns.

That's all they were. They were nothing. I've thought about doing a collection of stuff I've written, like broken down in different eras or things like that. My Red Sox book was basically a collection, but I wrote a whole bunch of footnotes for him. Yeah. And I mean, I literally wrote like, I don't even know how many footnotes.

There's three per page. So it was probably like an extra 40,000 words or something. Well, that's the creativity, right? That's the creative part. If you're going to do a collection and you're going to annotate it in some way that your fans are really going to like, then psychologically you feel I'm giving them new work. I'm not simply trying to get money from them as opposed to what I did. And I wrote a prologue and an epilogue. It was the first fight I ever had with John Walsh, our mutual friend. He was he because I had sold it as a new book and through aspn books and then when i

did it with the footnotes he's like what the hell are these he's yelling at me but it's the footnotes yeah it's the footnotes that reveal who you are and what you really think it's the footnote i would bet that your fans go to the footnotes more eagerly than to the text, I would think. Well, at the time, I think the footnote revolution has kind of faded. But at the time, it was a really fun way to kind of reinvent what it was like to read a book. And especially like older stuff that maybe people had read and you could point out like, God, that was stupid. You almost make fun of yourself as you're going along with it. You haven't, you told me a while ago, you said at age 44, your fingers stopped working.

It's just, it became hard to type it. I mean, all, okay. I'm not one to complain about my life because it's been great. You've had a great life. My career has been great. Yeah, you're awesome. And everything that I ever wanted to do, I've been able to do. You played golf with the president. But what I wanted to do most. You played golf with the president routinely.

You've had a great life. I have. Yes, I've done that. So the thing I wanted to do most was be a sports writer for a newspaper, because now I would say sports writers, though they made no money. They look down on radio guys and TV guys. They absolutely look down on them. They thought these are just the TV guys were just pretty boys and the radio guys were schleppers. Okay, that's what we thought when we worked for newspapers, and now, of course, all of us work for radio and television. But I got this at a very young age, and I worked as hard as I could and as long as I could,

and I don't even know where the energy came from. And then I got to a point where I felt I not only wasn't getting any better I was repeating myself and I was getting worse and I was looking around at people who were doing what I did for a living and I said God he's better he's better than I am it's sort of like in golf when you you can't get longer anymore as you get older and you go wow what am I doing here when do I have to move up to the other tees and and so at around that age, and fortunately for me, around that age, I started doing, you know, that style column. So that was, that was reinvigorating to some degree, but in

terms of sports, yeah, I thought, honestly, Bill, I thought I was going backwards. I did. So I mean, it was, it was okay for me to leave it. I tried to reinvent myself with these tiny little columnettes, and I gave it a nice title, you know, a few choice words, and I would try to write something like no more than 200 words. But the sports editor I was working for at the time, I don't think he particularly cared about it one way or the other. And it was right around that time that, you know, I got PTI. And PTI was a life changer. I mean, you know, I look back at it now, and I now realize that it was of much greater consequence in my life than I imagined at the time.

Because at the time when I did it, the first contract, by the way, just stop me if I'm rambling, but the first contract that Mike and I got was a three-year contract. We had two years guaranteed and a third year at ESPN's option. And I thought, we're not even going to last 30 days. I mean, nobody's going to look at us. We are clowns. So let's just, you know, let's just get as much money as we can because we're getting out of here. And so I kept with the newspaper. And even in then in my mind, and I was doing newspapers, radio and TV at the same time. And in my mind, my mindset was still newspaper sports writer. And within a very short time with,

within a year or two, I realized that's done. That's done. You may, you may try to continue doing it, but you're done with it. So my theory is people have a certain built in creativity within them. And if that shifts to something else and they're getting their fix from that something else,

it makes it hard to do the original thing. So if your only option to have your voice be heard had been that column, I bet you would have kept writing it and kept trying to reinvent it and stuff like that. But PTI is so much fun to do and you're on PTI every day saying the same things you probably would have said in a column.

So why do the column? Well, what I learned was, doing your mpti every day saying the same things you probably would have said in a column so why do the column what i learned was i mean i what i'm gonna say now i wholeheartedly believe and some will disagree i believe that columnists are born and not made i believe there is a voice that good columnists have that comes from within and it's just naturally out there and maybe like me you were the class clown in school, or whatever it was, you were always a columnist waiting to happen. And I had to wait. I mean, I worked at newspapers that didn't give columns to people in their 20s. I mean, that's really not how it worked. I worked at Newsday and the New York Times and the Washington Post, and you had

to prove that you had that column voice in you. Now what I find, Bill, is that voice is still there, but the columns I write are on radio and starting Tuesday on podcast and writing the leads, which is the only printed stuff we have on PTI, as you well know. That is the beginning of your column, the leadin question. And then the first two or three things you say, that's your column on the air. It's not written, you know, and it's shorter and it's not as nuanced as you would do in print. And you can't labor over it and work it three or four times. Whatever comes out, comes out. But that's your column now.

Don't you feel that way? Yeah, and I also think it's a little less fun to write a sports column than it used to be. Why? Well, I think in your day, definitely. And I was on both ends of it. I had a column in college, and then I had a column on my old website, and then at ESPN started in 2001 on. And I could feel it changing.

I think Twitter was the big thing that kind of shifted it where, especially in your day, and then I got into it a little bit and then it changed. But you argued a point. And it was almost like you were a defense attorney or a prosecutor. And you're like, here's my point. I'm going to argue the shit out of it. I'm going to make it really entertaining. And it didn't have to be 100 percent right. You were selling it.

So if you're selling a point of Dan Snyder will never win a Super Bowl as the Redskins owner. That's what you wrote. Now, I think over the last six, seven, eight years, I think because the hot take culture is people have had so much fun with that because there's so many people online and other places that they'll take somebody's piece and they'll pick it apart and they'll write the opposite side. I think people are much more careful now. And when they write pieces and you could argue that this is much better. I mean, it certainly led to a smarter

uh evolution of the column because they're much more balanced and i think um i found in my own writing my stuff became much more balanced starting in 2008 2009 where i stopped like trying to argue sides and try to present both sides of the case things like that but at the same time i kind of miss just writing those columns where you just said something crazy and tried to defend it. Like nobody does that anymore. And if you do it, you get excoriated. If I understand this correctly, you're saying there's a built-in fear mechanism that brings people back to the center because they're afraid of being picked apart. I know when I sat down to write a column, not a game column.

You know, when I sat down to write a thought column, I remember writing one telling Adam Oates, if you don't like it here in Washington, get out and don't let the door hit you on the way out and get out today. I don't want to see you anymore. And I remember being taught and absorbing it that to write a really good column, you had to be smart enough to know exactly what the other side would say. And you had to have arguments to diffuse it. Yeah, because if you didn't have those, you could eventually look stupid. So that was that was my fear factor. And I don't know if you did this, but and a lot of writers don't. I appreciated editing more than most of my colleagues. I sought editing. I sought an editor who knew me, who understood what my strengths and weaknesses were and got me away from my weaknesses

and into the sweet spot area. Yeah. I, I actually think it's probably better now. I just think it's led to, there's a sameness with a lot of the writing now and i think the choices are somewhat safer that the old school columnists where they would have like that column you just said that you would have written about adam oates i don't think people i don't think people really write those columns the same way anymore they would be like well maybe you should get at it you know what i mean they would couch it and then the other thing that happens that i've noticed is like with social media and stuff they put they put your entire argument in the headline because they're trying to get people to click on it and everyone does it like the ringer does it so you'll say yeah adamote should get out of town that would

actually be the headline of the column when i was growing up and especially like you know the first i don't know 10 12 years of when i wrote you didn't give away what the premise of the column was in the column. There'd be a little bit of mystery to it. And that that is also changed. Now it's just Adam Oates should get out. And now I kind of know what I'm getting when I'm clicking on it. Does it make sense? Yeah, that would bother me. One of the things that I held out for whenever I wrote columns, and I

didn't get this, but I held out for the ability to write the headline myself, because much as you're saying, I didn't want to give away the store early on, and plus I wanted you to read me. I will tell you that the single greatest thrill I've ever had in newspapers ever in my life. And this goes back a long time, and a lot of people listening to this don't even read newspapers at all. But when I worked for the New York Times, one of the editions that came out in the New York Times was a very early edition. It came out at about 8 o'clock at night, day of, you know? I mean, there were maybe 9 o'clock at night or something like that. And I remember the Sunday newspaper in particular, much of it was ready to go on Saturday. And the New York Times Sunday newspaper is a real big deal and remains the best newspaper in the world,

as far as I'm concerned. And I was once, I lived on Long Island. I grew up on Long Island, and I was taking a late train home from Madison Square Garden, and somebody was reading my work on the seat in front of me, reading my work. This was the most thrilling thing in the world. And I wanted to say to this person, who I obviously didn't even know, because he's scanning the dress page of the sports section, and he's reading me. And I want to say out loud, go to the jump. It gets better. Go to the jump. Go inside to D12. It's better. And he went in on his own. I just thought that was so thrilling. We do radio. We do TV. We do podcasts. We know there's an audience, but it's an unseen audience,

and you don't know who it is. With a newspaper, you could, I'm sure you've been in this circumstance, you watch somebody read your work. Thrilling, isn't it? Yeah. I remember in college, our newspaper would come out on Fridays, and we'd go to, like, the lunch in the cafeteria, and the papers would be all around,

and I'd be watching people read the back page where I was like, Oh, this is cool. He's reading me, you know? And I don't, I don't think that feeling probably never fades away. I'm guessing. It's totally thrilling. I mean, awards. Okay. What? But like immediate impact, it's so cool. It really is cool. I miss that.

I do miss that. With that said, the right kind of column I still think can be really powerful. And I think one of the differences that is the case now is people are way less prone to take big chances with the format of the column. And there's a certain sameness to the way people write them. Whereas, you know, what my first favorite columnist was Ray Fitzgerald at the Boston Globe. I don't know if you knew. Sure, sure. And we had him and Lee Monfield at the same time.

But Ray was first and then Lee Monfield showed up probably halfway through when Ray was the columnist. But Ray would just kind of experiment within the framework of it. And he'd have fake you know he'd write a whole column that was just a fake script or a whole column in the second person or he just would go all over the place with it and i it seems like people are more afraid to do that now because if it doesn't work you just get skewered and yeah and some people default to the safe essay well i look i grew up i grew up in new york long island so i read you know larry merchant when he was in the post and stan isaacs um at newsday and um dick young in the daily news and you know red and dave redsmith and dave anderson

at the times i mean i'm very conversant with them. I know all the globe writers. I knew all the inquirer writers. I knew all the LA times writers. I knew who I loved and why I love them. And you're, you're right about people not taking chances, but every once in a while you get a true stylist. And I'll, my example now is Sally Jenkins. Yeah. I mean, Sally will take the Sally Sally killed in Rio. She killed. She was absolutely great. And look at the bloodlines, obviously, Dan Jenkins. But Sally can be funny. She can be mean.

She loves to write the columns that essentially says and says literally, but what do I know? I'm just a stupid woman. And, you know, women don't know anything about sports. Those are her greatest columns. And if you're talking about Fitzgerald, Sally will turn styles around. It's not always the same. And after a while, when you've written thousands of these things, a reader, I think, appreciates somebody trying something.

She destroyed Goodell. Yes, she did. Time and time and time again On the Brady issue She's been the greatest voice in print I think And what I like about it is unlike me Where I'm actually probably biased

Because I'm a Patriot fan Although I've been killing Goodell for years before that But she Really I hadn't heard that No it's true But she was unbiased. She's in Washington. What does she care if Tom Brady doesn't play? She was just crushing Goodell

because he was doing something wrong and she felt strongly about it. I think those types of columns, which how much of the Kaepernick stuff did you read the last few days? Did you read any of it? I will tell you honestly, I've been out of town.

I've been in Delaware. I've been playing golf, and I have not read much, if anything. I've watched some television stuff, and then I haven't read. Who's doing well? Well, what's funny is, or not funny, interesting, I guess, is it's the classic classic classic sports topic where you can take one side or the other and go really really far with it you know and if you believe in the flag and you just believe the flag trips everything you can go that whole direction

doesn't mean you're right if If you believe that the flag represents freedom and everything Kaepernick did came out of what the flag represents, you can go that whole side. And then there's all these little subdivisions to it. I was of the side of, you know, I thought the message that he was trying to send was way more important than, you know what what people were

arguing on the other side that you just have to stand up like he the whole point of the flag is it represents freedom and the whole reason that we love this country and we live here and he was standing you know sitting down for that basically but he there was there was a genuine reason he did it and i thought he really explained it well. I thought what he said after was eloquent, and it was just hard to say that he wasn't doing it for reasons that really meant something to him. That was my takeaway. I haven't talked about it, and I'm happy to talk about it with you because I haven't been on PTI. I don't know that we'll get to it, but I will tell you that the most disappointing thing is when people take the following position.

Well, he has a right to do it. Well, that's not in dispute. There's no disputing that. So don't don't tell me you're being smart when you say he has a right to do it. Right. Having having been old and one of the great advantages about being old is that you've seen this sort of thing before in cycles. I mean, you've seen Carlos and Smith and you've seen Abdurraouf and you've seen, you know, the various protests. As I get older and I know that a lot of people don't like him, but as I get older, I sort of find myself agreeing more and more with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in almost everything he says.

He's been amazing. He wrote the best piece about this. This is bothersome to me. I mean, Kareem and I are about, I think we're the same age, and he comes from the New York area and all of that. And I know that, like, a lot of writers never liked him. I got along with him fine, and I know that the Laker people didn't like him. And nobody likes him, and he never got hired. And I always knew the Laker people didn't like him. And nobody likes him. He never got hired. And I always knew he was smart.

And when I listened to him, I think, wow, he's got it. My sense of this is you've got to separate the message from the messenger. And you've got to understand that this, in fact, this is the cornerstone of democracy in America, social protest. It's the cornerstone of it. I mean, everybody talks about the 60s. I know what that was about. There's a great risk on Kaepernick's part. I mean, I'm not sure he's the right guy only in this sense. I don't know that he's a leader on his team. I don't know that he has the stature. I mean, he doesn't have the stature of Jim Brown and Bill Russell and Cassius Clay, Muhammad Ali, he doesn't have that. But come on here. Come on. This is a great risk on his part.

And the message, you may not like the messenger, you may not like the tactic. Nobody ever likes the tactic of social protest. But what he's saying in general makes a lot of sense. I would argue, I would argue the police issue, you know, I sort of argue the blanket terms, you know what I mean, Bill, the blanket terms. I don't like that, but I think you and I are probably aligned on this one, right? A hundred percent. And what I liked about it is it was peaceful. It was meant to provoke discussion, and it certainly did. And I really think, you know, I get the flag thing. That's why this was a great story. Because if somebody's going to just say, look, the flag is the most important thing here,

and it stands for something, and nobody is ever going to get me off this corner, I respect it. I just don't agree with it. I think what bothered some people a little bit was that the motivations that he might have had. I thought his motivations were probably the right motivations. I don't know for sure, but I feel like they were. I don't know the guy.

But he is somebody that had a chance of getting cut who's had a really up and down career um i i think what bothered people was that maybe they wanted somebody to do this or something like it just not this guy and i did feel like that was part of this you know like if you look if this was done by for example um and and without getting involved in the sort of racial politics of this, so I'll name a white player and a black player. If this was done by either Aaron Rodgers or Russell Wilson, I think it would be different. I do. Yeah. And if instead of in the late 60s, if not Ali getting stripped for the title for a fusion of Vietnam, if it had been Jimmy Young, I don't think it would have had the same meaning.

And I do think people would be foolish to say that's not part of it, that this is a guy that has come off two straight not very good seasons. He's been erratic. Of course that's part of it. Unquestionably, that's part of it. You know. There's unquestionably that's part of it. And the flag, and you're 100% right, the flag is, you know, it is the literal wrapping oneself in the flag that people talk about. You remember what happened with Rick Monday? Yeah. When he saw somebody burning a flag. And that flag is the most powerful symbol of the United States of America. But as you say, you can argue persuasively that that flag

itself is what gives this license and why this is so important. So, you know, I'll tell you this, we're taping this on Thursday afternoon, West Coast time. This story has now been going on for four, four days and he's playing in a preseason game it'll go through the weekend it might go through next week this is gonna have one of the longest tails and i think it's it's great i love i love talking about stuff like this i love debates like this and especially i've been kind of waiting for an athlete you know we saw it at the sbs with these guys when they got up on stage and respect to them for what they did they They didn't really say anything. They came out.

They said some stuff. I thought it took courage on their part to even throw their hats in the ring. Nothing really changed. The debate kind of came and went. It was like, oh, look at what these guys did. Then it kind of came and went. Carmelo, I think his heart's in the right place. He really seems to be pushing for towards something but

hasn't really figured out how to get there and in this one simple thing that Kaepernick did it kind of launched the debate in the discussion that all of these guys wanted now that now it's gone in all these different directions but it's weird it's weird that Kaepernick was the one that really ignited it. I would have assumed it was going to be Carmelo. I thought Carmelo might do something on the gold medal stand. I didn't know what he was going to do. I mean, to me, immediately people, if LeBron had done it, and LeBron was involved in Trayvon Martin, and if LeBron had done it, it would have civilized the debate in a different way.

I agree. Because no matter what you think, you have to understand LeBron James is one of the two or three most important sports figures in the country, and Colin Kaepernick is not, which is why if you choose to dismiss him at the moment, you can. But, but I, you know, my sense of this was that, um, wow, risky, risky on his part. So if you had had PTI this week, what, what happens? Do you, Will Bond, would you? Oh, Mike and I do this,. You do it all week, right? Yeah, you do. I mean, the first day, it's what do you think?

The second day, it's what do you think of the reaction among the players? The third day is what's going to happen at Kaepernick? And the fourth day, you go backwards and you say it's been out here for a while. And, you know, our great producers, Eric Reithelman and Matt Kelleher, would frame questions to get us back into it day after day after day and i think i can't speak for mike and i haven't talked to him in a few days we haven't talked about i haven't talked about this with anybody but i would think he'd have an appetite for it i really do i would i think he would this is in uncle mike's wheelhouse there's no question yeah i think so and also the other

good thing with this saga just from a standpoint, was you knew a couple people were going to make jackasses out of themselves during the course of it. And, of course, that happened, too. So it really was the full gamut. That's a given with almost everything. The Rodney Harrison was an all-time boner. But you knew you were going to have those with this. Hey, you have a podcast coming up, but you don't have a name for it? I need to be mentioned.

Or you do? No, we were going to call it The Ringer, and then we copyrighted it. It's the Tony Kornheiser Show. It starts Tuesday, this coming Tuesday, day after Labor Day, which is when everything really starts in America in terms of sports. Because football's back, and it's the most important sport, pro and college, by far. Are you going to have ads on this podcast? I think we're going to have to have ads.

You're going to have sponsors? Can I explain a couple of things to you or your audience that you already know? Wait, hold on. I wanted to say hello to one of our sponsors, and you can hear what it's like to integrate a sponsor into a lively, fantastic conversation. I want to tell you about NFLSundayTicket.tv. So I've had DirecTV, I think, since 1999,

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That was a very good live read. I think one of my sponsors may be actually underpants. I'm sure I'm going to have to do a live read on that. Oh, we have, we have me and he's coming later. You can, you can stay for the lead. I think they're going to be a sponsor. live read on that. Oh, we have MeUndies coming later. You can stay for the MeUndies lead.

I think they're going to be a sponsor. I was told that today. Yeah, so I'm going to do that. Let me tell you, you're the big winner there. Because they'll send you underwear. All I do is wear MeUndies. Who wants to buy underwear when they're sending it to you? It's fantastic.

Well, I think we also, can I mention this on the air? I think we also have Blue Apron. Oh, we have Blue Apron. Oh, yeah, Blue Apron. Yeah, because that's food. It's food, it's delicious, and we've done dozens of Blue Apron spots on the ringer. Okay. The live reads are fun. Well, I've done a couple of live reads.

I do a window nation ad when I was on regular radio. Give me 30 seconds to spiel on the podcast. I wanted to give you like three minutes. Can you go backwards and explain? Okay, so it starts Tuesday. Yeah, but explain how this happened. So you had a radio show on Washington since 1876. When was the first time you had a radio show?

Since Martin Van Buren. Martin Van Buren. You got in a feud with him. And then it went from there. No. I didn't know. See, that's my M.O. everywhere else that I got in a feud. I actually didn't get in a feud with him, and then it went from there. No. I didn't know. See, that's my M.O. everywhere else that I got in a feud. I actually didn't get in a feud.

I had two years left on my contract. I'm doing something insane. No, I was joking that you got in a feud with Martin Van Buren, not with your radio station. Oh, I thought you meant with... No, no. We went to high school together. We were great. We were pals. We were pals.

Old Tinder hook. You and I, we've talked about your future audio plans for a couple years. You wanted to make the leap into podcasting. You were getting tired of the radio grind. And I think it's the right move. I think it's smart. You're going to do it for about an hour every day, Monday through Friday? Yes, an hour a day. It's going to be just like the radio show that I did.

It's going to have sports and pop culture and politics, and we're going to have the same regular people who are my friends who are very smart. It's a smart and funny adult talk show, and we're going to do it. And, and I think there's a lot of motivational factors here, but uppermost in my mind was the fact that I stayed on newspapers and watched them die under me, you know? And, and I got the sense from my son and from everybody in that era who are like 35 and down that they don't that they don't have appointments anymore, that they get this stuff when they want to get it, that the fact that you're on every day from 10 to 12 means nothing to them if they can't get it in their hands, that it's video on demand and it's audio on demand and your listeners should know this,

but I think you'll run audio in America within the next two to three years because you're the smartest guy out there. And I felt I wanted to do it. I wanted to own my own content. And the really good news for me is that I left two years of significant dollars on the table as an employee. And now I'm the employer and I will make no money and will pay people so it's a fantastic career move at my age fantastic well you but you'll be able to get some sponsors and the podcast you'll be food you'll be fine who doesn't need that come on underpants and food people need underpants necessities of life they need all this stuff no i think it's going to do well and i think it was the right move and i like that you know you've a couple of times in your career, you've,

you've zigged a little when it was the right time to zig. And this, this feels, I think I've told you this, what, um, as far as I'm concerned, the greatest newspaper editor of all time, Benjamin Crown Shield, Bradley, proper Bostonian. He told me, or didn't tell me but was quoted as saying he was quoted as saying that when you reach the age of 55 and you get a job offer that scares you take it you gotta if you lose

the ability to take risks because you've just gotten sort of stayed and old that's deadly and you should try new things and so I'm doing it. Yeah, I do think that in general there's a fear of failure, especially as you get older and older, and you just kind of default to whatever the safe thing is.

So I'm glad you're doing this. You mentioned Ben Bradley. I was just watching all the President's Men for the 738th time. It's great. It holds up. It's great. I just got sucked in. It's great. I just get sucked in. And Robards is so good in that, as Ben Bradley. And I was watching the Sally Quinn scene when she knows, I forget the guy's name,

somebody who's involved who has info on the Watergate stuff. And she'd had drinks with him. And Redford's like, do you think he invited you up there to go to bed with you and she gets mad at him do you remember this part with Sally Quinn I remember that part in the movie I I'm because I know everybody you know I mean I know them all I know Bob and I know Carl and of course I knew Ben it's just hard for me to separate the actors from the people it is it's hard here's my point though Sally Quinn ended up marrying Ben Bradley like three years after that movie

well they yeah I mean it's one of the great romances and marriages in history I know and I had forgotten that so now when I watch all the it kind of screws up all the presidents Ben like a tiny bit for me let me tell you a story about how I got all the, it kind of screws up all the presidents, been like a tiny bit for me.

Let me tell you a story about how I got to the Washington Post. Please do. I was recruited at the time in the late 70s. The sports editor was George Solomon, and he hired some of the greatest people who ever worked in sports in America. The style editor was Shelby Coffey, who went on to become the editor of the Los Angeles Times, among other places, and is now running the Newseum in Washington, D.C. And they invited my wife and I down to Washington for dinner, you know, to sort of seal the deal. And we went out, and so it's George and his wife, Hazel, and Shelby and his wife, Mary Lee, one of the first female orthopedic surgeons in America.

And we get to this restaurant, and I think the restaurant is called Romeo and Juliet. And it's not existent anymore. And we get to the restaurant, and we notice that it's a table for eight and not a table for six. And at that moment, Ben and Sally walk in, and Bill, I'd have paid them to work there. They walked in on rose petals and foam. It was like a scene from a Gene Kelly movie when he starts to dance. I was totally hooked. These are, in my mind, Ben Bradley and Sally Quinn in the late 70s are not only the greatest couple in journalism. To me,

they're the greatest people in journalism. I'm just stunned by it. And as they say in Jerry McGuire, they had me at hello. Yeah. What a great decade to be in Washington. I mean, could more stuff happen that decade? I left the New York Times, which nobody does. Yeah. And I left the New York Times to go to the Washington Post, which was risky at the time. Worked out great for me. Worked out great. I've no regrets on it. But this was in the post-Watergate blush period. And it was great to be in Washington then. No matter what you did, no matter where you worked, you could have worked for any newspaper in the country. To be in Washington then, that was the best place.

I have a couple of rapid fire questions for you that aren't that rapid. Are you going to get me in trouble? No, I'm not going to get you in trouble at all. Can we talk about the night of at some point? Yeah, that was in the semi-rapid fire. Okay, go. What do you got? I haven't spent time with Wilbon in, I don't know, two years.

Yeah. He was, it's funny, physically he doesn't age, but he becomes grumpier and grumpier as an old man, I think by three years for every year. How grumpy is he right now? What's the level of grumpiness? That's the whole thing. That's Walter Matthau.

It's grumpy old men. I mean, Mike can never be as old as I am, so he's going to out-grumpify me if he possibly can. So he has out-grumpified you. And no matter what happens, he yells about two things no matter what, go analytics. And he yells about millennials. I hate millennials, but he hated Uber. And now all he'll take is Uber black. If we're waiting outside, he said, I'm not, no, I'm not getting in a Toyota Avalon. Get out of here. We're going Uber black. We're going big or we're going home. So he does that all the time. I can't believe he uses Uber. That's the most stunning revelation I've had in like 50 podcasts. He loves to call it. He loves to hit the button.

And he'd go, look at this. There's three of them within three blocks. He loves it. He loves it. One of the best things about Wilbon was his ability to, no matter how expensive his suit or whatever that he was wearing, and how messy the meal was that you were eating like when we would do a countdown like between halftime and whatever

he would never get food on his clothes ever his clothes are much too important and expensive ever I don't know how he did it but he would be eating like he has 150 pair of shoes

I know he does he would be eating like spaghetti it's splashing everywhere and it was like he had this like suit of armor. Not on him. Invisible suit of armor.

It would just never. Meanwhile, he's got he's he's. Yeah, you're right. He's wrapped in invisible saran wrap. Nothing gets on him. Nothing. And his collars are perfect. Nobody has perfect collars like Wilbon.

Nobody in the world. Perfect. All the time Wilbon impressed this upon me when we were doing TV that the single most important part of an outfit when you're on television and you have to turn left and right is the rigidity of the collar and the collar's ability to move with the neck

versus either flopping over or being too hard so it sticks in your neck you gotta find the middle ground. Uncle Mike. He's totally perfect on collars all the time. All the time, no matter what the shirt is. So you guys are still getting along? Even golf shirts, which have soft collars. It's been like, how long have you guys been together now? You're like literally the old phrase of you guys are like an old married couple.

You literally are an old married couple. There's no question we are. Of course, not only have we been doing PTI for 15 full now. It's amazing. But we worked together at the Post starting in 1979 and 1980. We're never apart. I mean, we're apart, but I know exactly what he's thinking. He knows exactly what I'm thinking. He knows how to press the buttons that drive me crazy, and I can do the same to him. Sure, of course. What drives him the most crazy about you?

Probably rigidity, you know, and let's start. Let's go now. Come on. This is the time to go. I mean, I am not just on time, I am early, and he is not just fashionably late, he is really late. So that drives me crazy, and he knows it, and he does it deliberately.

Of course he does. And what I would do deliberately to him is find any way in the world to try and insult Northwestern or Chicago every time I can to try and just take them down, take shots at them. You know, so I'll do that. What does he stand on Derrick Rose now?

Because he was like the last Derrick Rose defender and he bled Derrick Rose and now Derrick Rose is on a New York team. So has he abandoned Derrick Rose or how has he come to grips with that? I don't, you know, my guess is that he hasn't, that he wishes him well, that he understood. He understood it was time to go in Chicago. I mean, even he at the end was, he could not defend anything Derrick Rose ever said, so he would take the position, oh, don't even listen to him. And I'd go, Mike, but he's standing at a microphone, and he wants to be heard.

You can't take the position that he's actually not saying anything. Consequentially, you have to talk about what he says. But I figure, I think what hurt Wilbon, I don't know how much he would talk about this, but I think he really liked Thibodeau. He really did. But he knew that Thibodeau, like Billy Martin with a pitching staff, was killing his players.

And so he was really ambivalent about it. Like he knew he had to be fired, but no matter who replaced him, he was going to hate him, and he does. And he does. But he's got to be out of his mind with the Cubs right now, though. Well, he's doing that Wilbon thing. That Wilbon thing is to deny that they're any good, is to brace yourself for disaster, to predict disaster. It's a great move.

Even though he says that Madden, he used to rip Theo Epstein. He killed him on the air when Theo worked for the Red Sox. He killed him. And I would say, look what this guy's done. He's nobody. He killed them. And I would say, look what this guy's done. He's nobody. He gets to the Cubs. And now Theo Epstein is the greatest executive in the history of baseball. He loves Madden, you know, and probably always loved Madden. But he'll say, oh, you know, Rizzo's not that great or, you know, their pitching isn't that great or what's happening

to Lester's arm because he wants them to win so badly that he's afraid if he gets out in front of that and they lose that it's crushing. But if you ask him, you know, like, do you want to play golf? Let's play golf on this particular Saturday. And he'll go, well, I've got to find out what the Cubs' playoff schedule is. It's like he's on the team. He's got to go to every game. He's got to be there.

He is, even in our business, his fandom is almost remarkable. I mean, it really is to me. He loves them. Yeah, it's funny. I always took shit for being a Boston fan, and Wilbon was doing the same stuff on PTI before my column even became like a well-known column. He always owned a Chicago thing.

The thing that I don't understand, and I cannot tolerate it, it's very simple. I grew up in New York, and when I was very young, there were three baseball teams, but there was always two of everything. Yeah. And you had to pick the team you liked, and you had to hate the other one. Or if you didn't hate the other one, you had to be at least indifferent. When the White Sox do well, Wilbon says he's a White Sox fan. I don't know how you can do that. I don't know how you can do it. when you had to be at least indifferent. When the White Sox do well, Wilbon says he's a White Sox fan.

I don't know how you can do that. I don't know how you can do it. I don't understand that either. There's some L.A. basketball fans that flip back and forth between the Clippers and the Lakers, and I'm just confused by them. I don't understand how that even happens. No, that's wrong. When you guys started PTI...

You pick the one you want, you live and die with them when you guys started pti how i remember one of those early shows ended up online at some point it was fascinating to watch how long how many shows did you do before you felt like the show that it eventually became like you you kind of knew like oh this, this is it. We've figured it out. I can't answer that because it's so long ago and I don't know. And it occurs to me that I thought it was really good from the beginning. But I can tell you this, that when we started, I think maybe we did one practice show or two practice shows, not more than that, and maybe only one. And Mike and I had come out of the tradition of the Sunday morning show

with Dick Schaap, the sports reporters. Okay. So that was what we were used to on television. And we did this show with Ride Home and Ride Home was inventing television with us. You know, we were, we were the drivers of the car. He was the designer of the car. Every single thing that went into the car was Eric Rideholm and then Matt Kelleher. And after the first show, I think Mike said, we got to slow this down. We got to have more exchange. And I looked at him and I said, see that guy over there? That kid knows what he's doing. Let's get faster. And that was the key to all of it. That was the key to all of it.

The stuff on the screen, the bells and the whistles, all of that, the key to it was let's move. And as a consequence of that, I didn't go back to sports reporters, really, because the pace was really different for me. I didn't go back to sports reporters really because it, the pace was really different for me. I, it's like I felt that I love sports reporters. I love Joe Valerio. I love the history of that show. And I was on the original, um, pilot for that show with Dave Anderson and Mike Lupica and Willie McDonough.

And I was on the original pilot. But it was like I went from a horse to a car, you know? And you put your foot down, and it went so fast. And it was thrilling. And we weren't nearly as fast as, I guess, other people. I mean, I think when Levitard does the show, you know, it's really fast. When you did the show, it was fast. It was hard for me to keep up with you. You were fast.

I was psyched that I came back last March, and I had had so many TV. I had never done PTI with you when I had had enough TV reps, because my first TV I ever did, I think, was on PTI with you, and you carried me for four days, which I've always appreciated. I'm sure I didn't. I'm sure I didn't carry you at all. No, you 100% carried me. And then I did a couple more times,

and I was doing it from that closet at LA Live, and I hated it. Yeah. Because you were on a half-second delay. And I just never wanted to do it unless I was in the room with you. And then I did countdown for two years and I did the grantland basketball and I got I got just a ton of reps and I was really excited to go back because I knew at that point I was probably leaving and I was like I really want to go back and do PTI with Tony one more time and I came back and it was so much fun

to do that show when you actually kind of know what you're doing on TV versus when you're terrified and just kind of being led by the back of your head the whole time. The two really smart things about the format, one is that because of the time limit for each subject, nobody can filibuster. You can't just talk for a minute and a half

because you're literally screwing over the other guy. That's right. You've got to go back and forth. You've got to give it back. You have the prompt to read. You throw it to the other guy. He says his point for like 30, 35 seconds. Throws it back to you. You counter. And now it's just a race to

fit in as much as you can before you hear that bell, which is the second part of the genius of the show, which is because that clock is coming, you end up, you go faster because you want to jam stuff in. But that actually makes for great TV. And then boom, you're off to the next one. I can't tell you how many people over the years have said to me about the show. One of the reasons I like the show is because I know that even if I don't like the topic you're talking about, I see what's next and I see the clock and I know you're going to be done. One time, I think on the show, Mike went on and on and on and he finally finished. There was about,

there was no 10 seconds left in the segment. I said, oh, do I work here too? Is it my turn? And the relationship that we have, we've been coworkers and friends. It's, I don't know, since, what, it's 35, 36 years. I mean, people talk about chemistry. And there's that old line, the guy goes to Wimbledon for the first time. And he looks at the grass courts of Wimbledon. He says, my God, they're green. How do you get them this green?

And the answer is you start with 5,000 years of rain. Wilbon and I knew each other so well before we ever did this show. That's the key to it. Yeah. And it's also why you guys are so careful about who the guest hosts are, because it's got to be somebody that fits into that at least a little bit. You have to have some sort of foundation. I have this, I have this terrible fear that I'm so old and some of the people with me are

young. I have this fear about Pablo, about Pablo Torre, who's really smart, really smart and really interesting and says things on the air that you go, you back up and you go, Whoa, I had never thought of that. But I figured that I look like his grandfather. And yet Eric and Matt say that the reaction on social media is fine. And nobody says that at all.

They like the show. So, yeah, I remember a year ago you were like, I, they say Pablo would be good, but I can't go on with him. I'm like,

I look like I'm his grandfather. I'm taking him to the ball. Yeah. You said I was like the lowest you'd go for age. Like mid-40s was the lowest you'd go. Yeah, I mean, because there's such a sort of striking difference, and I worry about that. But at my age now, I can't worry about it.

I mean, because I've got to celebrate being a geezer. I got to celebrate that. Hold on. We're going to take one more quick break. All right. Let's talk about Headspace. Most problems beginning in your head, whether it's stress, depression, fear, sleeplessness, they start in your mind and then they worm their way into the rest of your life.

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99 you should definitely try this i gotta say it's pretty good uh download the headspace app start your journey toward a happier healthier life again 10 minutes 10 minutes a day. Learn more at headspace.com slash BS. And Tony mentioned underwear earlier. Well, we are coming up on my one-year anniversary with MeUndies. We launched this podcast in October 2015. This is podcast 121. And we passed 60 million listeners, I think last week. So pretty amazing.

And thanks for everybody that spread the word and supported the podcast and everything. And thanks to everybody that's helped out with sponsorships and all the partnerships we had, including MeUndies, who I think has been on here as many times as anyone. And not only that, but they send me underwear and I wear it and it's fantastic. Every pair of MeUndies is made from sustainably sourced Modal.

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they are free. Go to MeUndies.com slash BS for 20% off your first order plus free shipping. That's MeUndies.com slash BS. Back to Tony. Yeah, I think you and I have talked about this a lot off the air, but I just don't think people understand how important chemistry is for TV, especially when it's two people, three people, four people, whatever. And I think the mentality for most of these networks, especially you see it with the big sports, football, basketball, baseball, is they hire the names and then they throw them together and hope it works.

They don't go the other way. They don't figure out who's going to work and then put them together. Which was interesting, like when Kelly Ripa, when Regis left her show and they just had this never-ending cascade of co-hosts trying to figure out who the right co-host would be instead of just hiring somebody. And eventually they settled on Strahan because she had chemistry with them and they did great and that show did even better than the regis thing then it eventually turned out they hated each other but which i didn't know because it didn't show on tv they were great they but even

if they didn't like each other off tv they had chemistry on tv which is which is all that really matters and now they're going through the same guest host thing again. It's always interesting, and we've seen it now, the football season started next week, where some of the crews have gotten shaken up. I'm always fascinated to see how it works, because I've been on both ends of it. I had

the first year I was on Countdown, it was me, Magic, Wobon, and Jalen, and we all liked each other. Maybe the show wasn't perfect, and I had a lot to learn about doing TV. But, you know, when we were in the green room, we were talking the whole time. And we definitely had some form of chemistry. And then the next year, it just wasn't the same. But you can feel it when it's not there.

And when it's like your turn, your turn, your turn, my turn, it's obvious. No, look, I always wanted – do you remember when we did that NBA draft special, that one time only thing? Yeah, 2010. That was so much fun. You, me, Wilbon, and Levitard. Okay, who was on that show in the same room? Who was that cast?

You, me, Wilbon, and Levitard. And how great was that show? It was a good one. Right on putting the overhead camera. Yeah. Remember? Wilbon, and Levitard. And how great was that show? It was a good one. Right on putting the overhead camera. Yeah. Remember? So, I mean, I always thought, I guess we've talked about this,

but I always thought that if I was casting for ESPN, the basketball show, I would have you, me, Wilbon, and Stephen A. And I think it would have been the most interesting show that they could possibly do. It wouldn't have had coaches, and it wouldn't have had players, and it wouldn't have had, you know, necessarily a host, although we all could have taken turns in doing that. But I think people would have wanted to watch that show, because there are no shrinking violets there none and and everybody respects and likes each other enough to do that show and i could see us

afterwards although i'd get out early because i'm tired you'd be asleep i could see us going out and continuing it i really could well especially on that that. Especially now in the era of Uber, now that Wilbon knows what an Uber is. Yeah, it's been interesting to watch. I don't know if you've seen any of Stephen A. with Max, but it's like watching... I've been fascinated by it. It's like

watching somebody in a new marriage. Stephen A. was with Skip for, I don't know, five or six years? More, I'll bet. Maybe more. I'll bet with Skip for, I don't know, five or six years? More, I'll bet. Maybe more. And it got to the point where I think people thought that they argued all the time. They didn't really argue that much at all. Like, if anything, they were

a little too friendly. And they would just kind of exchange monologues and Stephen A and Max, like, they're going at it. Like, I can't totally tell if they like each other or not, but it's very compelling. I've been interested in it. Max is really smart.

Max is smart, man. I had him on one of my test shows. He was great. He's really smart, and he knows he's really smart. Max was the original host of Around the Horn. I remember. And I spent a lot of time with Max.

I am a big of time with Max. I am a big Max Kellerman fan. And I think, I mean, he's smart and he's quick and he doesn't take stuff. And I think for that format, I think he's going to be great. I think he's the perfect choice. I really do. Yeah, it's a very, very, very interesting combination. I'll be interested to see how it plays out. It's a little, very, very interesting combination. I'll be interested to see how it plays out. It's a little like watching two alpha dogs on a basketball team. Good. For TV, that might be the right thing.

Alright, time to talk about The Night Of. I loved it. I love when you get passionate about shows. It doesn't happen often. Sometimes it's the wrong show. I think you were the last person who was watching Homeland.

Yeah, I got off Homeland a little too late and then I went back and I liked the second iteration of it. No, no. Okay, but I was first on The Americans. I was first. And you might have been last.

Who else was on The Americans? On The Americans? Eh. You don was on the Americans? On the Americans? Eh. You don't like the Americans? Eh, you guys are all in your little Americans club. Love it. Throwing dropping balloons at each other about the Americans. You know what I loved?

There was a show on HBO about five years ago that didn't even get a complete run that Dustin Hoffman was in about horse racing. I think it was called Luck. Oh, yeah, Luck. Loved it. Loved it. A couple of the horses died. I think that's called Luck. Oh, yeah. Luck. Yeah. Loved it. A couple of the horses died. I think that's why they canceled it. Two horses. Yeah. PETA got mad

at Luck. PETA didn't like Luck. I thought it was a great show. So I get on the night of early, like second episode and I go back to the first because I hear about it and I love it. I mean, I love it beyond anything that I've watched in the last few years.

I loved it even more than the first season of True Detective, which I thought was awfully good. Yeah. So are you done with The Night Of? Yeah, I finished. I watched it. Okay, good. I didn't want to spoil it for you.

I watched it. So I had, in hindsight... Wait, hold on. Hold on. Before you do this, I'm going to tell the listeners that this will be the last thing we discuss and then we're going to go. So if you haven't finished The Night Of,

everything now, we might spoil some of this stuff. Thanks for listening. This was great. Blah, blah, blah. If you have finished it, keep listening. Okay, here we go.

Okay. So I get on it right away. There are characters I immediately, small characters I immediately love. I love the first lawyer. I love her. Like the Gloria Allred lawyer. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love her.

Yeah. She's great. Love her right away. I love the limousine driver, the scary guy, the hearse driver. My God, I love the hearse driver. Small character, love him right away. I thought the parents were wonderful in very, very small roles. And the guy I like the most is the lead detective.

Not John Turturro, because I've got to tell you, as much as I like John Turturro, I got tired of the feat. I got tired of it. It was a little bit too much. I love the lead detective. I love the fact that as the show went on, he became less and less sure, and he worked it harder and harder and harder. So I really like that. was the method in which they got the young woman lawyer off the case at the end. I didn't, that was silly to me, and it didn't really work. I know you want to give Totoro a last shot. Okay, I see that in hindsight.

And I won't even go the Martin Scorsese route with the rat at the end of The Departed and the cat walking across. I won't do that. I thought more would be made of the cat. I actually thought at some point the cat was the key to the whole thing. And the disappointment to me, the ending was sort of like, oh, okay, I didn't see that coming, but you didn't let me see that coming. You didn't give me an opportunity on that. So I didn't love the ending,

but I really did. I really did love the show and I love the lead character. I thought he was great. And then Omar was in the show. Omar was unbelievable. Yeah. Omar was great.

My biggest issues were I thought the female attorney fell apart too fast. I can get maybe the one second kiss, but when you're smuggling heroin in your vagina, it was just too ridiculous for me. You can't do that, no. But now in hindsight, Bill,

we see that that was the setup John Turturro. I think the kiss could have set her up because basically they only showed the video of the kiss. And as my friend Brad said. Yeah, they had the other. They had the other. Of course they did. Yeah.

I'm stealing this point from my friend Brad because he set it up my fantasy football draft as he had a seven minute rant about the show. If they have the video of that kiss, aren't they going to go back then and then watch all the other videos of her coming in? And aren't they going to see the vagina smuggling they're going to have the heroin smuggling yeah of course they are um so i just thought the kiss could have done it i i still i i know she was young and inexperienced and was only thrown on the case because of her ethnicity ethnicity i have trouble saying that word uh-huh yeah but uh but i still don't think somebody's going to make that big of a common sense screw up it no matter how incompetent you are i mean

we've seen going to happen we've seen some incompetent tv characters that was too much and the other thing is the deadlock jury i know they happen i just don't think the judge quits on the deadlock jury and says all right now, let's throw this out. And that all happens in five seconds. Even at 6-6, it's too convenient. You're wrapping up a series. You're wrapping up a show. It's a little too convenient for me. I did like the way they led me to believe time and time again that one of the other characters might have done it.

It was good. There was some good red herrings. My phone is beeping. All right, we're almost done. Tell them to hold off. I'm going to lose juice. Oh, your phone's beeping? Yeah. All right, well, if we lose you, I'll say goodbye now.

I thought the pilot was incredible. I think one of the great what-ifs is what happens if Gandolfini is in the Turturro role, which apparently, not only did they film a whole pilot with Gandolfini in that role, but it exists, and I'm going to get my hands on it at some point. I'd like you to see that. There's a whole pilot of it. I did note that he was in the producer role. My phone is beeping.

It's too much to use. The podcast is way too long. Oh, what is it? Oh, no. That's all right. Carol is telling me to go upstairs and use the landline, but it's okay. No, it's fine. We'll wrap it up. We've been talking forever.

So the Tony Kornheiser show. I thought you should have called it the Tony Kornheiser podcast, but what do I know? No, I want a show because that's what I did. It starts on Tuesday, the day after Labor Day. Subscribe to it. You can get it on iTunes. Subscribe to it where people get podcasts. This was fun.

It was great to talk to you. I talk to you when we're not on a podcast, but it was fun to do one when we're actually recording it. Enjoy the rest of the summer. We never talked about Obama. Damn it. Next time. We'll get to him the next time, and there will be a next time, and I'm grateful to do it this time. Thank you, Bill. All right. Bye, Tony.

Bye-bye. Anytime y'all want to see me again, rewind this track right here. Close your eyes and picture me rolling. All right, thanks so much to Sling TV, the best way to watch live TV on your turf. For just $20 a month, you can stream more than 20 live channels, including ESPN, TNT, AMC, and CNN.

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Focus on sleeping, eating, stress, depression. They can make anything work. Download the Headspace app. Start your journey toward a happy, healthy life or happier, healthier life. Either or. Learn more at headspace.com slash BS. Finally, don't forget to check out theringer.com.

Some great stuff this week. Now that football and basketball are kind of coming back a little bit, college football, some good pop culture stuff, we're starting to have a lot of stuff to write about. I thought we had some really good stuff this week. TheRinger.com, and we have seven other podcast feeds as well on The Ringer Podcast Network,

including The Ringer NFL Show, which has been doing a ton of preview stuff, which you need for fantasy and gambling and everything else don't forget about my new hbo show any given wednesday 10 p.m wednesdays hbo comes back september 7th with a football show because it's football season uh we also have a splash page on hbo now and hbo go that includes every episode and every bonus clip we've done, which you can also get on HBO On Demand. Hey, enjoy the weekend, Labor Day, and then football. This is great.

Safe travels.