The Bill Simmons Podcast - Goodell’s 180, Biden’s VP, Old-School Football, and the Hockey "Code" With Bakari Sellers and Bill Burr

Episode Date: June 9, 2020

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by attorney, author, and political commentator Bakari Sellers to discuss the "perfect storm" that mobilized the current Black Lives Matter movement; people and organizations making statements, including Roger Goodell, LeBron James, and Patrick Mahomes; some history behind the civil rights movement; the political climate leading up to the 2020 presidential election; Bakari's book, 'My Vanishing Country'; and more (1:55). Then Bill talks with stand-up comedian, writer, and actor Bill Burr to discuss the pre–Super Bowl football era, the unwritten rule book in hockey known as "the code," taking a break from stand-up during the pandemic, his new movie 'The King of Staten Island,' working with Judd Apatow and Pete Davidson, and more (49:19). 'My Vanishing Country' by Bakari Sellers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the BS podcast on the ringer podcast network brought to you by zip recruiter. We know what athletes have been doing with their sports on hiatus, like Steph Curry working on his golf game, all kinds of things. There's been some interesting stories out there. While some people in businesses are branching out during this time, there are places that are doing what they've always done. Like our presenting sponsor, zip recruiter throughout all this, their mission has remained the same. They're still helping people find jobs and helping growing companies hire for their teams by bringing together candidates who need employment and employers looking for great candidates.

ZipRecruiter is committed to helping our workforce stay strong. Let's work together. ZipRecruiter.com slash work together. We're also brought to you by TheRer.com and the ringer podcast network, where we launched a new podcast called higher learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay essential listening for these times, a really good podcast. I hope you give it a chance.

It runs on a Monday nights and Thursday nights. Speaking of podcasts, the rewatchables is coming back Tuesday night. Did a say anything. We taped this a couple of weeks podcast, The Rewatchables, is coming back Tuesday night. Did Say Anything. We taped this a couple weeks ago, but we wanted to time it for when Judd Apatow's new movie is coming out, The King of Staten Island. But he said Say Anything was the movie that influenced him the most in his screenwriting career.

So we dove into it. So you can hear that. We're putting that up, I think, Tuesday night. And that's it. Speaking of that movie, Bill Burr is coming up a little bit later because he has a prominent role. First, we're going to talk to Bakari Sellers, who I think is fantastic.

You might have seen him on CNN and a couple other places, but he's really good. And that is all coming up. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, Bakari Sellers is with us. He wrote a book that came out how many weeks ago now, My Vanishing Country? It's my baby, about 17 days ago, two and a half weeks ago. Kind of bizarre timing. You never want to put a book out during the middle of a pandemic. However, while we were

talking about the systemic injustices related to the disparities with COVID-19, it became relevant to the times. And then with Ahmad, Brianna, and George um you know it just it kind of um became a book that people go to to try to understand I mean I hope when people pick it up they they get some sense of understanding of what it means to be black in this country. So you broke down on CNN what was that about a week ago? Yeah, it was last week. And the way it happened is I was actually on right after George Floyd's brother. And hearing that man's pain in his voice, it was tough.

And I was on with Dante Stallworth, and I love being on with Dante. Dante is like our new, he's a new political commentator that we go to often. He has a really, really good voice and a wealth of experience and a different background. And they asked me, you know, I was going through and I read a quote from Ella Baker. And then I just began to think, like, what am I going to tell my children? I have a 15 year old daughter and I have 17-month-old twins. And it just became very emotional because

you realize that there is a group of people in this country who, you know, won't give them the benefit of their humanity. We'll see them as always being less than human. And people may be like, what are you talking about, Bakari? Like, Bill, do you know anybody who can put their knee on someone's neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds? Another human being? That, you can't see a human being as human and do that. They treated George like a dog. They killed him like a dog.

And I just became overwhelmed in that moment thinking about my kids. And I actually, after that, I became kind of repurposeful saying that I have to create a better environment, a better country for them to grow up in. Well, we're taping this on Monday morning, so it's a little more than a week later. How are you feeling today? You know, I tell people that being black in America is in a perpetual state of grief. And I'm hopeful because you have Taylor Swift come out, you have Roger Goodell even give, I mean, the only way the statement could have been better is if he would have said

Colin Kaepernick's name, but yeah, he wasn't going to do that. He wasn't going to do that, but I can't get caught up in what he didn't say. I can just be very happy about what he did say. You know, you have statements like Ben and Jerry's and Peloton. You have Mitt Romney even saying like we're giving Mitt Romney all of these props and rightfully so. But you realize he hasn't come up with a singular initiative for black folk or people of color or poor people. He literally just said that black lives matter. Like, that's it. And that is that in itself is an achievement, an accomplishment. And so I feel hopeful, but Georgia's body is not even in the ground yet. And the question is,

where are we in two weeks? Where are we in, you know, does the NFL have more than three black coaches and two black GMs, right? Will they ever let anybody black crack the ownership ranks? You know, how do we meet this moment? And, you know, the biblical saying that faith without works is dead. I have a lot of faith and I have hope. But the work that goes into making sure that we eliminate these systems of injustice and oppression. Let's see. Let's let's see that be done. We've had moments like this in this country before I hope we capitalize on this It's weird to think that Calling something a victory That George Bush, George W. Bush

And Mitt Romney Just by expressing A tiny bit of disgust Toward Trump And then A tiny bit of support For the Black Lives Matter movement Became such a huge story It wasn't like they were out in the front lines toward Trump and then a tiny bit of support for the black lives matter movement became like such a huge story.

It wasn't like they were out in the front lines, but it was like, wow, look at this. And it did make me a little bit hopeful that the Republican party is at least going to try to look at Trump objectively now. Well, I mean,

I hope so, but I'm not the person to write this book, but I hope that some psychiatrist or psychologist writes a book about the power of Donald Trump making other grown men and women like like just melt and around him. Like he changes people, people get in his orbit, good people, generals, et cetera. And they lose. how should I put it? They lose all their testicular fortitude, right? That's how I'm able to say it on CNN. I just call it testicular fortitude. They lose all their courage. And it's just an amazing way that he, first of all, even if Donald Trump loses in November, which I pray that happens, this Republican Party will be his for the next decade. I mean, he has really put his imprint.

And, you know, people say it's true. 35% of the American public are going to support with Donald Trump no matter what. Testicular fortitude was the phrase that got me in trouble on my way out at ESPN. It was like the last straw because I did an interview with Dan Patrick and I talked about Roger Goodell that way. And I tried to tip to, I thought that was like a nice straw because I did an interview with Dan Patrick and I talked about Roger Goodell that way and I tried to tip to I thought that was like a nice way to put it was it that you

basically said testicular fortitude or that you said it about Roger Goodell I think both because I think I was on like quintuple secret probation and I think that pushed over top. I mean, obviously, it's easy to be cynical in these times. Yeah. When the NFL gets involved and Goodell is going, yeah, okay, and seeming to show seeds of progress, I'm just skeptical. And the fact that he didn't say Kaepernick's name, the fact how they handled the last three years, I think we've seen a lot of opportunism

over these last 10 days. And I don't know how legitimate it is. And with them, it almost seems like, oh, this is a good business decision for us to pretend we're embracing this. I am skeptical. What about you? You've seen a lot of performance, Ari.

That's what you've seen. It's like, um, you've seen the videos on Twitter and social media of like the, the girls getting all dressed up in LA and they wear the signs just to take the picture, like they're marching. And then they get back in the car and drive off. So we've seen a lot of performance art. Um, and then we've seen stuff like Tiger Woods statement. I'm a huge Tiger Woods fan. Couldn't be more disappointed in what he said. I mean, he could have kept that. But in terms of hope, I want to be hopeful. I'm trying to be hopeful. But like I said, we've been here before. I mean, the country in 1955 with the death of Emmett Till. And for your for your listeners who who may not have ever seen that picture, Google the picture of Emmett Till.

Google his face for allegedly whistling at a white woman. And we found out Carolyn Bryant on her deathbed as she was trying to get into heaven, she lied, right? They brutally beat him. And then they threw him in the bottom of the Mississippi River. We've been here before with the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where John Lewis was beaten. And you had the water hoses and the attack dogs and the country was watching. And then just recently, I write about it in my Vanishing Country, you know, my experience in Charleston with my good friend Clemente Pinckney, who was killed, along with eight others in Bible study on a Wednesday night in Bible study. And the country, and remember the president sang Amazing Grace. And at that moment, you know,

I felt as if the country that I write about that's vanishing, the ideals, not just life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but also like love, justice, truth, peace. I felt for a moment in that moment as he was singing Amazing Grace that we would be able to recapture those ideals and it wouldn't be vanishing or fleeting for us. And we missed that moment. And so I'm afraid that we'll miss this one, too. Our country is never on the issue of race. We've never met these moments head on. And it's going to require a lot of work and a lot of policy and a lot of you can't change bad policy without changing bad policymakers. And the activism that we have from sports and entertainment, I hope is consistent. And we got to have follow through. One of the things about my generation is we're not known for being consistent. So that's what we have to have.

Well, what's the difference between 2020 and 2014? I've asked multiple people who have come on that question. It feels like the infrastructure and the maturity of some of the activists who just have more reps now with this stuff just kind of sprung into action in a different way than it did in 2014? I laugh because it took no sports, no concerts,

everybody staying at home, like literally locked in your house for white folk to be like, oh, we got racism in America. Like it just took the world had to stop. And we're in this moment. So what happens when people start going to work again? What happens when people start having these different distractions? The difference in this moment is this is a unique moment in history. This is like 1918 meets 1968 with a little 1928 Great Depression involved in it.

Like we wanted a reality show president, now we're all in Survivor, right? So this is where we are. And we have these moments where we're meeting, we're kind of at the bottom in terms of economics, in terms of jobs, in terms of growth, and how do we rise out of that? I think that's going to be the question. I guess it's going to take a long time before we actually can look back at this with some distance and really try to figure out what were the causes, who do we blame?

I mean, obviously Trump is one of the biggest people to blame, but let's say Hillary Clinton won in 2016. What is different about this George Floyd moment that we've had over the past two weeks? So two things. One, we're in a pandemic, but the pandemic would not be nearly as bad as it is. We do know that if we would have shut down, if we wouldn't have disbanded the pandemic office, if we would have kept our inspectors in Wuhan, we could have actually prevented much of the death and mass death that we've seen. So that's first. I do. This is not this is because of Trump. It's kind of incidental to Trump. But since he's been elected, you know, we've been having these conversations about race more often. I just say it's incidental to him being elected. And that's actually healthy for this country. It's one of the virtues that emanated from a Trump presidency. We would not be having these same conversations if Hillary Clinton was elected, right?

But now that you remember Charlottesville, and I ask people this question all the time, what was the moment that stood out to you, or what stood out to you the most about the Charlottesville protests? It wasn't the fact that they were saying nigger. It wasn't the fact that they were saying Jews will not replace us in blood and soil. It's the fact they didn't wear hoods. They didn't wear masks. You know, racism is, Stokely Carmichael defined it as this, and I always have to define racism first because people don't even know what we're talking about. He said that if you want to lynch me, that's your problem. If you have the power to lynch me, that's my problem. Racism is a social construct. It's a power construct. And so we're not dealing with the chants and people saying nigger to you. What we are dealing with, though,

are systematic and systems of oppression and systems of injustice. And so when you have these people in Charlottesville who don't wear hoods, these aren't fat kids who are sitting in their grandmama's basement eating spaghetti off their stomach playing Call of Duty, right? These are people who work in loan offices. These are people who teach our children. These are people who work in dental offices, etc. They are a part of these systems. And when you have people, and that's why Deshaun Watson, that's why Pat Mahone, that's why Stephon Gilmore, their words mean so much because they are from these communities. They've made it out of these communities where you have these systems of oppression that for many prevents them from emerging. You said with systemic racism,

we're seeing it play out in two different ways. One was with COVID and one was with George Floyd. Um, look, loaded question, but how do you, how do we fix it? Like we've made little baby steps here with police brutality. And I do feel like from a police standpoint, there's signs of signs of real progress here though, that, and I do think there's going to be momentum. I think where it's really hard to make progress is a historical background in everybody's own head about what happens. Like what happened to your dad? I feel like I'm, I'm 50. I feel like I'm pretty up on a lot of stuff and I'm pretty good with my history. And I didn't even know about that though. Orangeburg massacre, 1968. Like I literally didn't know about it. And I was like, not ashamed, but I was like, shit, how did I miss that one? But the point is, there's been so many things over the yearsest critique. It's just not a full critique of how

far we've come in this country. I will tell you that we've made progress. That's just a comma after that, though. It's not a period. Because I also will tell you, but we still have yet a ways to go, right? That's the sentence. That's the phrase. My father got involved in the movement in 1955 when he was 10 after Emmett Till was killed. He calls himself and many of those a part of the Emmett Till generation. And, you know, his first mission, as we call it, was to go to Philadelphia, Mississippi. Have you ever been to Philadelphia, Mississippi? No. OK. Philadelphia, Mississippi is I don't even think they have a stoplight in Philadelphia. But he went to search for the bodies of Goodman, Schroeder, and Cheney, who were killed during Freedom Summer, registering Black voters.

I talk about allies, you know, Andrew Goodman, Mickey Schroeder, they paid the ultimate price while they were registering Black folk to vote. And then he went back to Orangeburg and he helped organize and became a part of the most deadly civil rights demonstration this country's ever seen. You know, people forget or just don't know about the Orange Room Massacre. We know about Kent State that happened two years later. White kid died. But we don't know about Henry Smith, Samuel Hammond, and Delano Middleton. And that's an injustice because their lives should not be in vain. My father was shot that night. I'll write about it in detail in My Vanishing Country. He was not only shot, but when he went to the hospital, he was arrested. He wasn't just arrested.

He was charged with five felony counts, looking at a maximum of 75 years in prison. They denied his bond. And when they denied his bond, they housed him on death row because they deemed him to be an outside agitator. So they didn't want him in normal circulation with other inmates. They eventually gave him a $50,000 bond, which in 1968 was a whole hell of a lot of money. In between the time of his trial and February 8th of 68, all the officers who fired shots into the students were all tried. It was the first time that federal charges had been

brought against law enforcement officers for shooting or harming Black folk. They were all found not guilty. My dad went to trial, 10 whites, two blacks. The lead investigator said he misplaced all the evidence, but he did remember and was an eyewitness, not on the 8th, but on the 6th, that my father stood on top of a fire truck, lit a bick and said, burn, baby, burn. His indictment was backdated from February 8th to February 6th. And you know more than most people I know, but this is a random fact. My father is the first and only one-man riot in the history of this country. He was charged, tried, and convicted of rioting. On that night in justice, it left mothers without their sons. It left the pages of

this country's history stained red with blood. And my sister was born without her father. My mother gave birth to my sister while my dad was in prison. And he's seven months, right? Yeah. He did seven months of hard labor, as they say, back back then. There's a picture, a big picture of he has a big afro and she my mom has her big afro. And you remember the Polaroids that you had to shake? They got another inmate to take the picture. He's feeding my my big sister. That was the first time that he'd seen his daughter. And when I look at my dad today, people are like, what does it mean when you say like perpetual state of grief? Like I see that my dad's eyes don't have the same glow that they used to have or his shoulders aren't as upright from going through all of those things and losing so much.

But then you have the images that we see of Ahmaud Arbery, who was hunted in a good old fashioned South Georgia lynching. And we just found out last week that the last two words he heard were fucking nigger. Right. And so you get in this sense of rage. Today, we're going to bury George Floyd. And you get in this sense of kind of celebration for his life with grief. And then it just cycles over and over again.

And so, you know, hopefully we're having necessary discussions. And I know you're asking, how do we fix it? Well, the first thing we can do is, you know, I'm not the right messenger for a lot of these messages. I mean, Bill, you're going to have to have conversations with your white friends, right? Who have, you know, blind spots that are the size of the Grand Canyon, right? They're not racist, but they just have blind spots. And like, you know, I tell people that you don't have to march all the time. You don't have to protest. You don't have to write

op-ed pieces. Sometimes you can just read a book and attempt to gain some level of understanding. And that way we can get to empathy because right now we have an empathy deficit in this country. Quick break to talk about Miller Lite, the original light beer. It's always been there to bring people together in real life through Miller time. And maybe getting together with a few friends in real life isn't an option for everybody out there, although it is an option for some. It can still be enjoyed with your people, however you want to do it. Small gatherings, Zoom, maybe you're in an outdoor bar, whatever you want.

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It goes down the easiest and the smoothest. It's the original light beer. While you're home, enjoy a classic available for delivery today. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. So when I was, I spent like three years writing my basketball book. Three years? I spent, research and writing, yeah. I mean, it was 700 pages. It was too long.

But really gravitated toward a lot of the information in the 60s, which I just didn't know, where you're talking about this league that basically starts changing color when Bill Russell comes in, but then really starts changing in the 1960s. But they still have all these biases in place, right? It's like you can really only have two black guys out of your top 10.

You can't start five. Then Red Auerbach starts five black guys. Everybody's like, what the fuck? What's he doing? He gives Bill Russell the coaching job when he steps down and you go back and you read some of the stuff and watch some of the questions that he asks. How are you going to tell a white player what to do? And he's like, what do you mean? I'm the coach. You know, and Russell was like the perfect person for all this stuff. Um, I, the moment that their league had a couple of different moments in the sixties. And when I talk about like the historical perspective on things and you don't, you don't think of the NBA as a league way back when guys like Elgin and Oscar, and you just know them as

like the first wave of legends. Right. But you're talking about in 1964, they come up with the players union in 1968. Martin Luther King gets assassinated as the Sixers Celtics series are going on. And Boston almost burned. And well, and they don't know whether to keep playing or not. And the players are all trying to figure it out.

And when I did a documentary about Russell in 2012 and I asked him, was it the right decision to play? And he, and he thought about it and he's like, I don't know. He still didn't have an answer. We're talking how many years, 45 years. You know, right now that they're having a discussion because many of the players will have the players don't want to come back right now. Right.

Because they don't want to miss this moment. They want to be present. And so my answer to that is, first of all, I mean, I'm 6'5", and I am a, you know, I'm still a rec league all-star, right? I still am. But I don't have the audacity to tell, you know, Chris Paul or LeBron James whether or not they should play. But it's unique because I think the statements they can make while they're captivating an entire country because everybody's going to watch the playoffs. Everybody's going to watch the finals. I'm like I'm more interested in hearing the referees talk because there's no like there's no audience. So we'll be able to actually hear the plays called out and referees talk and all the shit they talk on the court. But I think that the statement they can make on that platform is much bigger than anything else they can do.

But that's interesting. I remember when you talk about April 4th of 68, Boston literally almost burned down. I didn't even think that the final, I can remember the finals were going on during that time. And but for people like Bill Russell, but for people like James Brown, the city would have caught flames. Well, that's why I brought it up because I think the 60s, these guys had some really important moments

that I don't know if they got credit for all these years later where NBA players were being put in this position. What they did publicly really mattered. And it actually really affected stuff. And now in 2020, we're seeing this similar moment where the players are coming back.

I've heard, I'm like you, I've heard various reports about, does everyone want to come back? If they do come back, what do they say? And I'll be honest, I thought they missed a moment with the Sterling stuff in, in 2014 when, and I was doing countdown that day. We talked, ironically, we talked about this on a podcast a couple of weeks ago with Barnes and Jackson. Um,

you know, they ended up throwing their warmups in the middle of the court. Yeah. I mean, it was an opportunity for a much more powerful statement. And I wonder, are they going to take advantage of that in 2020? Well, they are. I mean, because it goes back to this. A lot of it is performance because people are afraid of being shamed. I mean, you saw we turned Drew Brees into a cornerback, right? I mean, have you ever seen him backpedal so fast in his life?

I didn't know that. It was 36 hours. I didn't even know that Drew Brees, I didn't know he had any speed whatsoever. His hips were good the way he backpedaled. But you're starting to see, I mean, you saw LeBron James jump on him. You saw Ed Reed hold him accountable. I mean, it's a level of accountability going on right now. Cross, I mean, Bubba Wallace.

You know, Bubba Wallace is speaking up in NASCAR right now. Right. So you have these voices. You have these moments. And, you know, I do believe, though, I mean, a lot of these players want to say something, and some of them just don't know what to say. But at the end of the day, like these Black players, they're Black parents, too. And then when they reach out to me and are like, Bakari, you know, what should I say

at this moment? How do I meet this moment? I'm like, look, you ask the same questions I ask. Like, how do we raise a child during this time? You know, the conversations I have with my kids are different from the conversations that white folk have with their kids. Like my daughter is now driving. She just got her permit. I mean, I'm about to start a GoFundMe to pay for her insurance because good God, putting a 15 year old insurance is a lot. But, you know, I have to tell her that when the police get behind you, you know, dial 911, especially if it's night, and go to a well-lit area. Like, don't pull over because I don't want you to be Sandra Bland, but let them know that you're not running.

Get on the phone and let them know that you have an officer behind you. You want people to know. Leave it on while you're talking to the officer. Even if you didn't do anything, just get home safely. You know, when she goes out with her friends, you know, Amy Cooper, like people have this propensity to not mind their damn business. Like Amy Cooper, like going up, you know who I thought about when I saw Amy Cooper harassing the birder? I thought about Carolyn Bryant, who falsely accused Emmett Till. She not only used her privilege, but she sat there and told them,

she lied on the man and said, I'm going to call the police and tell them that you're threatening me. Like, I feel some danger. And that could have ended up, he could have ended up like George Floyd. So, you know, these conversations that I'm having with my kid and my child today on this Monday that we're having this, she's going to a march today. She wants to march. She's going out with her mom. And like, why can't she just be 15? Like, why can't she just have the innocence of being 15? Like, why does my daughter now have to be a civil rights activist telling people that her life matters? Like, why are we so fucked up in this country that a 15-year-old now has to be on the front lines of civil justice. And so that's what

I tell the players as well. I'm like, look, you're raising kids in this moment and tell them it's okay that they can be unapologetically black. Tell them that they can be proud of themselves. Tell them that their life matters. And then you go tell the world about the conversations you're having with them because they're seeing the same images everybody else sees. Have you noticed that ESPN has changed their policy? I was on. About talking about this stuff? I was on talking about this stuff.

They actually had me on first tape talking about this stuff. And I was like, thank you. Because it was me, Max Kellerman, and Dominique Foxworth and had a good discussion about systemic racism on ESPN at 1130. I mean, that is like, it was, it's a powerful moment. So people now, and it's, again, it took a pandemic, right? It took a pandemic and everybody staying inside. And it took eight minutes and 46 seconds. I think people really are seeing how George Floyd died. And they're like, wait a minute. So when you tell me that you get nervous with your interactions with law enforcement, they don't all go well, like you just can't cry and get out of a ticket. You telling me that

happens? Like they're more likely to believe that bad things can happen because they saw George Floyd handcuffed. The man was crying for his dead mother on the ground. In two and a half of those eight minutes and 46 seconds, he was unconscious and the knee was still there. And so I think like minute two, three, four, you started to see the country awaken during that time. And again, the question though is like, we're in two weeks, like where are we? In two months, where are we? Do we have more black owners? Do we have more black partners? That's a good question. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing or both, but it seems like celebrities are going to have an immense amount of sway. And they already have.

We've already seen it. We saw it with Taylor Swift. We saw it with the reaction of NFL players to Drew Brees. We've seen it with some of the stuff LeBron has done. All great. It just seems like maybe it's because of the social media era. Maybe it's just because of the power of fame, which has always been there forever. But people are going to gravitate and follow the celebrities.

Do you think they are well-equipped enough to harness that power? That's a good question. It's a really over-generalized question you have over here. Some are. I think Tiger Woods should just shut up. You don't have to say something, right? That's not even worth the paper it was written on. I mean, Tiger basically told us Blue Lives Matter. I'm like, what are you writing, Tiger? What is this? But I think that LeBron recognizes it. And so I have this theory, Bill. I'm glad you and I are chatting about it.

I think that LeBron recognizes that the true measure of his greatness will not be on the basketball court. I think that there are always going to be these these LeBron haters, right, who will never give him credit. And the reason I give LeBron James credit for being a great basketball player is that no one in the history of sport, no one in the history of sport has had that level of expectation set for them since a child and met it. Yeah. He met every expectation that people had now, whether or not you want to talk about how many finals he lost, whatever.

I mean, he went what, 10 years in a row, nine years in a row that that will never, I mean, that will never happen again. Right. And he he's met it.

But I also think, and this goes to the Jordan-LeBron thing, I think that LeBron recognizes his greatness will be off the court. And he also recognizes that the only person he's chasing off the court are the Bill Russells, are the Kareems. And he's going to stay on the forefront of these things, which is really nuanced because what you had now is, especially after the 10-part series with Michael Jordan, you now have Jordan recognizing that it's different between being the GOAT, right, in basketball and being remembered as a great human being. And so you have Jordan now, I think, trying to realize that his life has to be more intentional. It has to be more purposeful. He's doing stuff behind the

scenes throughout the Carolinas people don't even know about. I mean, he's helping pay for federal health centers and doing all of these things. And then the Jordan brand just gave $100 million. Yep. Right? His statement was powerful. Would you ever imagine Jordan in 1993, 94, 95, when he was the most famous person in the world uttering anything about systemic racism? Like where was he during Rodney King? Did you read, Ray Thompson wrote a really good piece about how Jordan grew up in North Carolina and all the stuff that shaped all the decisions he made as a pro. And I actually, I thought it

was really interesting. And I've read all the Jordan books and I've read everything probably ever written about him by anybody who had any sort of weight. And that was the first time I've ever seen anybody even tackle that angle. And it really did make me think like, oh yeah, this actually makes sense that his career evolved the way it did.

But it's still evolving. That's what I'm, that's my point. Like LeBron James has this headstart on Jordan in this little category. That's not so tangible of like greatness and contributions to society. And I think that's where Jordan, that's where LeBron excels over Jordan. But I think that Jordan is so competitive that everything drives him.

And I think he wants to be great and remember for that too. So you see him, you see his activism evolving. It's funny though. People always point at LeBron as like being the guy who can push the most change. And I don't actually think it's him. If you're talking athletes,

I think it's my homes because Patrick, my home, first of all, the NFL owns a day of the week. Right. And they're about to own another one. If college football... They basically own two days a week.

It's the most popular sport. And he is the biggest, most important player who is still not even in his... You know, I don't... Is he even 25 yet? He's not even 20. The crazy part about that video, though,

is that you had... You had Pat Mahomes. I still don't think he's larger than LeBron, but... Noomes. I still don't think he's larger than LeBron. No, no, I'm not saying he's larger than LeBron. I'm saying he's still at the beginning of his journey. And if he ends up being the Brady for this generation, and as he's becoming the Brady of his generation, he's also laying the groundwork from his mid-20s on.

That's a completely different level with a bigger audience, too. I mean, I give Steph a lot of credit as well. You had Steph Gilmore and you had Pat Mahomes. You had the best offensive and the best defensive player in the league coming out and saying something. So the owners were like, well, Roger, we got to – they literally did something that we haven't been able to do with the league in four years, which is make them listen. So you're right on that point that Pat Mahomes voice, I mean,

is more than just head and shoulders commercials, right? It's like, we're going to raise the level and talk about systemic justice. And they do it in their own way. Like one of the, one of the people who I like listening to speak about their experiences is D hopHop. Hopkins tells you in that country twang exactly how he's feeling, right? Michael Thomas. Michael Thomas holding Drew Brees accountable is important. I don't think it was the LeBron James comment. I don't think it was the Ed Reed comments that made Drew Brees backpedal. I think it's the comments by the person who catches 130 balls from you every year, who makes you look extremely good, who felt some type of way about what you said. And so these athletes from top to bottom, I think are more, I know during the sixties you had, I mean, you've seen the famous picture of Jim Brown and Ali and sitting at the table.

Luau Cinder. Yeah. Yeah. And so, but I think from top to bottom, this generation, I mean, I'm looking forward to seeing what my guys in baseball are saying. I'm interested to hear what Mike Trout has to say, for example. I like, you know, I want to hear what the best in the world has to say. And again, you know, it's kind of weird that, like, Bryson DeChambeau is more woke than tiger, but that's where we are. I thought the breeze thing was so fascinating because three years later and

he's in the middle of it, his league's in the middle of it. And he, even he didn't seem to understand the Kaepernick thing. And this was what was happening in 2017. It's like, well, you know,

honoring the flag. It's like, it's not about that, dude. It was never about that. That's not why I kind of predicted what he did. We did all this in September. Where were you?

You're not listening to any conversation about it. I know. Like, were you not, were you not paying attention? And even more, even more, the framing of his statement was just weird. Like, I'm like, you do realize that black folk fought in those wars with your grandparents too, right? And you realize that your grandparents were able those wars with your grandparents too, right? And you realize that your grandparents were able to come home and take advantage of this American dream, whereas Black

folk went out and fought and then came back and were second-class citizens. They fought for your freedom and then were second-class citizens. Like, what are you talking about, Drew? That's why at the beginning of this, you know, it's a shameless plug for me to say, go get my vanishing country. But sometimes you just need to read a book like Drew, like pick up a book like that's that's all we're asking. Like, you don't necessarily have to be a social justice warrior. That's not for everybody. But you can have a level of empathy and you can have a level of understanding. Because what happened was Drew was put in an interesting position because Drew had a then had a direct face to face with Donald Trump. And I was like, oh, shit, this is about to be interesting, because if there's some support that Drew Brees does not need right now.

Right. It's Donald Trump's. So then he had to tackle that. Because the last thing you want is for people to think that, you know, you're carrying the banner for that White House. And so now he's cleaned it up well. Whoever's in his ear, he has some of the best PR people in the business. He moved. Yeah, he moved fast. Trump's like a shark swimming around the ocean. And when there's Trump in the water, he just goes right toward it.

He's like, oh, Drew Brees. Oh, just go right to him. That man has not seen a culture war that he doesn't like. Yeah. If he finds a culture war and I'm like, and people, people are like, why are you protesting in the streets? Like they explain that to me. I say one protest is messy, but two, you remember we tried to take knees and y'all call this sons of bitches.

You do remember this, right? We were called un-American traitors sons of bitches? You do remember this, right? We were called un-American, traitors, sons of bitches for taking a peaceful knee. And Nate Boyer actually agreed. I mean, they had the legendary conversation that Nate had with Colin Kaepernick about taking a knee and not sitting down and doing all of these things. And that wasn't enough. So now you're in the streets. And I think, I'm hopeful that we'll begin to see some of the change we need in this country.

South Carolina, quickly, because that's that's your place, became the turning point of the Democratic primary. Yes. Improbable. And also Biden's best moment, because I thought that speech that he gave that night for, you know, it was almost like watching an old athlete summon kind of a great 20, 20 minutes, make a couple of threes. And he just kind of was so presidential and perfect this one time, right. When he needed it most, why was South Carolina? Why did that become the place that turned the, uh, election potentially? Because my mom and her friends are the people who choose the Democratic nominee. Black women choose the Democratic nominee. And I kept telling

people at the New Hampshire, after Iowa, we don't have a new front runner until Bernie Sanders can do something he wasn't able to do in 2016, which is to get black people to vote for him in very large numbers. It won't happen. And I knew the level of familiarity. See, black folk are more sophisticated voters than people in mainstream media give them credit for. Yeah. It's a level of trust that goes into it because people know, like, we don't necessarily have to read a history book, but all we have to do is go down and we can talk about the people who bled and who slept on jailhouse floors, et cetera. And so that history is very real. And we know how difficult it was for us to attain the rights we've got in this country.

So we're not going to vote for unknown quantity. And there is a certain level of trust and faith that goes into that ballot box and pain that goes into that ballot box. And you're right. And Joe had to summon every ounce of his being for that speech. He just gave another one a little while ago on race from his basement. That was really good. And then we're going to need three solid hours from Joe Biden in the fall during these debates. So I don't know what he's going to need. Get a man some of that ginkgo biloba or whatever they take. Give him some ginseng.

I'm going to need three hours, one hour in each debate for him to go out and be as sharp as possible. Because at the end of the day, it's going to be really, really difficult to beat Donald Trump. And everything's going to have to go right. Can we give him HDH?

Can we put him on a program? Can we put him on a program? Can we put him on a program? I don't know. I guess we have to go to some baseball programs around here to get him right. That's a good question. Well, the approval rating stuff for him is about as significant. There was a good piece by Harry about this recently. Harry is so smart

and the only thing Harry knows better than politics is baseball. Right, right. Those are his two things. Yeah, if you ever want somebody on your show where you all can go tit for tat on baseball stats, Harry's your guy. But he was saying Biden was over 50% approval, which is rare. The lead he has is rare. And Trump's disapproval, which was, I think, 54%, was almost historic. It is.

So one of the things people forget, there are two things. And one I can explain, the other one I can't. The Trump-Hillary Clinton election is a phenom because we had the two most unpopular candidates in the history of this country. Going head to head. going head to head. And there's a stat that's really weird, but Harry can talk to you about it. They poll people who dislike both. All right.

And when in 2016, the people who disliked both candidates was really high. And all of those people, a large portion of those people voted for Donald Trump. You don't have that dynamic in this race. But for those people who dislike both candidates, of course, Joe Biden is winning by a large margin. That's the first kind of weird nuanced stat. The second thing is 53% of white women voted for Donald Trump. And when you're looking at demographics, college educated white women are going Donald Trump. And when you're looking at demographics, college-educated white women are going to be the demographic that can tell you who wins and loses. And you got to have somebody else on your show to talk about why that's the case. Why did 53% of white women vote

for Donald Trump? I don't have that answer. But that is what got him over the hump in the blue wall states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. I don't think that's going to be the case this go around. How about Harris? You think she's the VP? I hope so. I talked to Kamala a lot. I don't think Klobuchar is in the running anymore after Minnesota. Yeah, I would say cross her off. If anybody has more historical bad luck than that, it would be her. Actually, it's a parallel. The Orangeburg Massacre, random history note, I talk about it in the book, The Overlay of Politics. Governor McNair was supposed to be the vice president in 1968. But the Orangeburg Massacre happened. And they were like, we can't have a vice president from South Carolina, even though you're a Democrat,

we can't have a vice president where you have all that racial unrest and your officers just shot 30 kids and killed three of them. Right. And so that is a direct parallel between Amy Klobuchar now and the unrest in Minnesota. Like we can't be VP because of that unrest. So I think that the final choices are, I'm going to say probably, although I know a little bit, are Harris, Susan Rice, Val Demings, Luan Grisham, the governor of New Mexico. And you may have Keisha Bottoms in there, but I think that it's a layup for them to pick Kamala Harris. The caveat, though, is Democrats miss layups all the time. I can't imagine she doesn't get it at this point. What, how does she, what's the biggest thing? Cause you know her, what's the biggest thing she brings to the table with Biden? Like as, if you almost think of them like a sports team, like Wade and LeBron or something,

how does she compliment him other than the obvious reasons? Well, I think that, I think she adds like, I think she adds like energy off the bench. Like she's instant. She's instant buckets. She's like Jamal Crawford, right?

Like if you want somebody who can go out there and score you 50, that's who you get. Like Eddie house, Jamal Crawford. Um, uh, what's my, what's the shooting guard from,

um, the microwave? Oh, Vinnie Johnson. Vinnie Johnson. Like she's instant buckets, right? She's going to go out. She's going to, and people are like, well, black people are going to vote for Joe Biden anyway.

That's kind of true, but you need them to be activated. There were 4 million people who voted in 2012 who did not vote in 2016. Of that 4 million, 1.3 million of those were Black, right? And Kamala's going to activate the base like my mama. So now she's going to be on phone trees. She's going to get her sorority sister. She's going to stand up in church every Sunday because Kamala's on that ticket. If she wasn't, she'd just go vote. But she wouldn't be out there bringing along all her friends that 1.3 million you need. I say that Kamala is instant buckets off the bench,

and she's going to be somebody that provides a lot of energy. And she's sharp as hell. And we saw the debates. I mean, her versus Mike Pence is going to be must-watch TV. Must-watch TV. That's going to be amazing. You were the youngest Black official once upon a time. What happens to you next 10 years?

Cause it seems like you're, you're writing books, you're on TV, but I'm sure, I'm sure you make another run at this whole thing, right? I'm gonna run for Congress soon. I don't know when I got elected when I was 21 years old,

I beat somebody who was 82 years old and had been in office for 26 years. And so young people that are listening to this, like ask yourself those two JFK questions, those two RFK questions. If not me, then who would, if not now, then when? Like you don't have to be 40, with all due respect, you don't have to be 40 to go out and change the world, right? You can be 18, 19, 20, you can be 15, 16 and go out and change the world. And so I'm going to run for Congress again soon. I'm enjoying my job at CNN. This book is a New York Times bestseller now. So we're doing great work there,

traveling the country when I can. I have twins that are 17 months old. So my wife and I are playing zone defense. I don't know if it gets any better with twins. Just from the friends I've had or has, I think it gets better when they're about seven. It's tough right now. Goodness gracious. And so, yeah, I'm going to run for office again soon.

I just, we got to find, we got to create a better country than we have now for our children. That's the number one goal. All right. The book is called My Vanishing Country. It's available wherever you buy books, which is probably not in a bookstore still,

but will be at some point, but you can just get it online. Bakari, this was great. Thank you. I appreciate it. No, thank you for allowing me this platform and I love your work, man. So keep it up.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay, Bill Burr coming up in one second. If you've been dealing with acne, redness, dark spots, or wrinkles, finding treatment that works can be complicated. You need skincare that actually performs, but getting started can be overwhelming. Thankfully, there's a solution. Roman makes it convenient to get customized prescription skincare that really performs. Grab your phone or computer, complete a free online consultation.

You'll hear back from a US licensed physician within 24 hours. If appropriate, a doctor will prescribe a custom blended treatment based on your skin type and priorities. You'll receive your custom skincare treatment with free two-day shipping. You'll also get free unlimited follow-ups with your doctor if you need to make a change for your treatment or have any questions. With Roman, no commitments and you can cancel anytime. Go to GetRoman.com slash bill for a free online visit and start your new skincare routine today. Once again, getroman.com slash bill eligibility requirements and additional terms apply. We did not talk any NBA today. So if you want to fix for this 22 team tournament and some of the

outcomes that we're finding out about that and some of the subplots, I would highly encourage you to check out the Ringer NBA show. Kevin O'Connor, Chris Vernon, they have been diving into all this stuff. So if you need your NBA fix, do that. Bill Burr coming up. Just an FYI, we taped this a couple weeks ago. We were just holding it for this week because his movie is coming out in FS4 Family. That's coming out as well.

So that is why, think of this conversation you're about to hear as something that happened two weeks ago plus before the world started to change. So keep that in mind as you listen. Really enjoy talking to him as always. Here it is. I've been thinking about you because we're heading toward football season and nobody loves a road trip to a college football

game more than bill burr oh yeah 2020 that's not happening have you have you reconciled emotionally is it not happening i haven't been watching you're right maybe it will happen i don't know i haven't watched anything on the news and and then uh just when people who like don't have medical degrees started telling me that the Centers for Disease Control didn't know what they were talking about. And yet somehow they did without any sort of medical background or not even a Petri dish. They started telling me what was what and everybody got in their egos because they couldn't handle the fear and the unknown so like this is bullshit let's just take down donald trump this is the fuck over biden this is the blah blah this is a china thing and i was just like all right shutting off the tv smart

yeah so i shut it off and i've been having a great time i've been delving into the uh pre-superbowl history of the nfl having a great time reading a book book on Bobby Lane and Lou the Toe Groza. Just loving it. Pre-Super Bowl. So like pre-1960s? Pre-1966 season. Wow. My son was writing this whole giant book report for school about the history of football.

Broad topic. It was his idea. He's 12. He's like, I'm doing the whole history of football broad topic was taking since i did he's 12 he's like i'm doing the whole history of football i'm right cool but we did a whole chapter about the afl and he was he was just blown away that there were two leagues i was trying to explain it to him we're trying to explain it to a 12 year old like well then these other guys thought they should have a league so then there were just two leagues and they bid on all the players. So then you know that that was that it emerged. That was the third AFL.

A lot of people don't know that there was two other AFLs. There was the All-American Football Conference. See, the thing is, what I don't get is why the Patriots and the Steelers with six titles in a hundred year old league are at the level of the Yankees, the Celtics and the Canadians. It doesn't make any sense. The Yankees, Canadians, whatever of the NFL is the Green Bay Packers. They won something like nine or 11. I always forget. They won a ton of titles.

Yeah. Four Super Bowls. So they have at least 13 since being in the league in 1920. They should be the benchmark. They won NFL titles. They won Super Bowls, super bowls right nope it's like go fuck yourself i mean they sat they won in uh 61 62 and then they three peated six uh 65 66 67 they won titles in the 60s but because uh what were the three of them were just considered nfl titles

it didn't count i mean they were just playing guys like dick butkus gail sayers and jim brown sam huff yeah those guys those guys couldn't play those those weren't real titles bill i don't and any other time when when the all-american football conference joined uh the nfl um you know they 1970 no that was no the uh the all-american that was 19 oh you're going back further yeah yeah 50 when they came in like they still counted nfl titles before that it just it just doesn't make i think it was all like a marketing thing and i think because there was finally a league that showed that they were just as good which isn't true because the browns won all four years of the all-american football conference with paul brown and otto

graham right and then 1950 they kept calling it a mickey mouse league in 1950 they joined the nfl they won the fucking title and they went to the title every year, like LeBron, for six straight years. Won three, lost three. The way you wrote that book on basketball, you would love this shit because they were the ones that showed everybody in the NFL how important the kicking game was. Because they had this guy, Lou Groza, who was like accurate beyond 40 yards and could actually hit a 50 yarder. And the goalpost was right on the goal line.

So if you got to the 42 yard line, you were in this guy's wheelhouse. So they're like, how the fuck are these guys in it every year? And they started crunching numbers and they found out that they won 15% of their games because of the kicking game. So he, in a way, is the first Adam Vinatieri. By the way, when they won in 1950, he kicked the winning field goal. When Otto Graham, with a minute 48 left, and they try to act like before Johnny Unites,

it was three yards and a cloud of dust. It looked like the modern-day NFL. He was just throwing, throwing, throwing, going right down the fucking field. The difference was the goalposts right on the goal line, which it's kind of amazing. They went decades before they realized that maybe the game would be a little more fun if they could run pass routes over the middle inside the 10-yard line.

It's just kind of nuts that they did it that way. I would say the CFL took it too far. Yeah, that's true. They built an entire parking lot for an end zone. That's true. It's been really fun. My son just really got into football this year and we've been watching like the America's game and you know, some of the old, like we watched,

we were watching this 68 jets that the team that became the 69 jets that won the Superbowl, but that whole year, they had this crazy win against the Raiders to win the AFL. It's like, this is stuff like we knew as kids, because we had nothing else to do. And you just read about the history of everything. Yeah. But it's been fun to, to redo it.

And you're right. Like teams didn't throw as much as they do now, but they, they weren't capable of throwing down the field. It's not like it was quite a bit. Yeah. Way more than they thought. And then it's fun to look at the Steelers who just couldn't win anything.

And you saw that they had, they had the late 50s they had a rookie named Johnny Unitas who they got rid of because they signed Bobby Lane after he broke his fucking leg um he made him a winner but not to the level they well they also had they had Len Dawson they drafted Len Dawson got rid of him right Right. They just, I mean, thank God they got Chuck Nolan there. They would have traded a Terry Bradshaw away too. I like that. This was one of your quarantine deep dives was pre 1960 football. No, I was already into it, but I just had the time to do it. I mean, I, you know, I bought some football cards. I'll buy like complete sets of years and i buy the ones that are just in good condition because you can get them for a couple hundred

bucks as opposed to tens of thousands of dollars it's like i want to look at these things i want to read them hold on to them you know that's like a classic car and they never drive it it's like what the fuck did you get it for right there were some dark times with the Patriots from 87 to 94. I mean, crazy shit. I had season tickets in 89. The Rod Rust years. Oh, the 1 and 15 year. Yeah. Were they 1 and 15? Yeah, I knew it was bad.

I remember when I finally tried to get my money back. I was like, fuck this. And I did the sacrilegious thing. I bet against the Patriots. And they showed up and they beat the Jim Kelly Patriots and Bills in 89. The one that went to the next four Super Bowls, which by the way, here's another thing too, is when you talk about losing the big game, like they are the benchmark with football, the losing four Super Bowls in a

row. And they took the monkey off the bat of John Elway losing three out of four with the Broncos. He also did it by winning back to back, of course then before that it was the vikings who lost like four super bowls over like eight years but here's something that i learned with nfl titles the new york football giants they fucking they lost in 58 59 61 62 and 63 they they lost five and six years. Oh, my God. And then in YA Tittle was the quarterback in 61, 62, 63. And I lived in New York long enough to know that the New York Post and Daily News, if they were around back then, probably had fun with the headline. Probably said YA no title Tittle or something silly like that. But, yeah, it's fascinating. It's funny.

I used to know all this stuff but i i always feel like your brain is like a nightclub it has a capacity and then when new stuff enters it it's just guys get customers have to get thrown out so all of my basically my pre-1980s sports knowledge i feel like it's just been thrown out i think when you become think when you become a dad, you lose a lot. But Dave DeBuscher wrote a book on memory. I was watching that Rappaport documentary again, when the garden was eaten. And he was in there and he'd developed his own language that he used to speak with Bill Bradley and Phil Jackson be looking over, they were speaking their own pig Latin. And he had this book. I was going to buy it because my memory, I feel like, you know, your brain's a muscle. Like I got to get wrote a book. He had an

incredible memory. So I also think that, um, that like a lot of people treat their brains the way they treat their midsection. You know what I mean? Where you're not doing this. You should be doing sit-ups every day, keeping your core, doing some squats and get your old ass up and out of a chair and people just don't do it. And you do the same thing with your brain. So I think it's actually a good thing to try. And, like, I can name all the titles from 1948 in football right through today, just through connecting, knowing all the Super Bowls, watching the NFL film,

and being a kid, and then watching from Super Bowl XI on. Although I always get a little cloudy after the Patriots won their third one because I got real busy in my career. So there's that bookend Steeler thing where it goes like Steelers, Giants, Steelers, and Saints, Packers, something like that. I always get confused in there. For football, I can go back to probably 70. But basketball, I can still go all the way back. And it's sad because-

That book you wrote on basketball. Yeah, it's like ingrained in my brain. And it's weird- You know who you should have on your podcast? Who? Who you would- Don Gavin, one of the legends in Boston comedy, started the whole frigging scene at the Ding Ho.

He went to all thoseeltic games back in the day he used to go and watch the celtics win a championship when it was the half full garden and he could move down like he was there he was there at the beginning of it and i i had a podcast with him and i stumbled onto that in the end and i was like oh my god dude if you ever just want to like just go dork it out the old school hoops well old school hoops with a guy who was there during the the like remember when Bill Russell was a rookie I mean he was there at the game when Koozie retired and that guy yelled we love you Kooze goes, yeah, I was at that game. I knew all the ushers, and they used to just come down. You know what's crazy?

So my dad got season tickets in 1974. He got one ticket for the 73-74 season. He's had them ever since. He is now seventh. He's seventh in the pecking order of all time season ticket holders. There's only six people that are older than him who have Celtics season tickets, who are still alive and actually go to the games. I mean, he's not that old. He's 72, but he's seventh in the pecking order. I know. You know, I was amazed. I read this book on Koozie and Bill Russell.

It's kind of a more on Koozie because Bill Russell had no quotes in the book. Yeah. So it's more about Bob Cousy. And it was about basically the inception of the league and then the racism and what you wish these guys had done. Right. And I was surprised with how many people from those Celtics where they won nine in a row and like whatever, 11 and 13 years or whatever. I was surprised how many of them were still alive and how long they all lived. It was, it's incredible. Like it was like, you even have this now with the NBA where you have most of the greatest guys

basically going back to Russell and Elgin Baylor are all still alive. They like Wilt's dead, but, like, I think, like, Bob Pettit's still alive, and, like, Oscar and Jerry West, obviously, and all the way through. Like, Casey Jones is dead, but Sam Jones is alive, and so on and so on. It's a surprisingly high non-mortality rate compared to, like, the NFL. Or just compared to a regular guy that is that height because you get this, everybody gets the same size heart. So when people are that tall, just even when you're in shape, how much harder your heart has to work to pump blood to your

extremities. Now here I am acting like I have a medical degree, but it's just stuff I read on. That's why you always see like, you always see little old men and little old ladies you know driving down the street it's because that that that heart you know just goes like this and it goes all the way to the end of their toes but those guys this guy's got to be working like that i would think so yeah i remember one time being in hou and I was at a cheesecake factory when I was on the road. And Moses Malone was in there. I got to see him before he passed away. And I always said I would put the 83 76ers up against the 96 Bulls. I think that would be a great matchup because Dr. J could neutralize enough of what Jordan would do.

Wouldn't say they would win. But then you got Moses Malone underneath against Bill Cartwright. And Tony, Andrew Tony was unbelievable that year. He was like 25 a game in the finals those two years when they made it. Without a three-point line. We're in the low top converse, right? Yeah. Well, they had a three-point line.

It was just nobody used it. It was like a third rail on a subway or something. Don't ask me why but i was watching some of the 1980s celtics sixers series because maravich is in it it's really weird like they have merit they have like six hall of famers on the team but somebody takes a three and the announcers react like it was like a midcourt shot bird pulls up well he's gonna get benched it was like for well he cut it from five to two. They're acting like it was a buzzer beater. All he did was pull up and take a

three. Clay Thompson will do it 11 times in a Warriors game. Back in 1980, it was like, oh my god. Did you see what Bird did? 25-footer and he made it. It is funny how it evolves. They hit globetrotter shots. Six-foot-11 guys will pull up and take a three and miss it.

And like some of the shit that you see in a game would just be like you'd get traded. Forget about benched. Oh, yeah. Nobody underneath on a fast break and a 7'0 will pull up and take a three-pointer. It's just like – but I mean, I don't know. What do they call it? A game of attrition now? It's just – it's –

We're taping this at the end of May. You're a huge hockey fan. Are you surprised that hockey players, legendarily the toughest, people who care about their own health the least out of basically any professional athlete ever, aren't already playing right now? I'm amazed they're not just breaking into rinks so they can skate around and try to play i i i can't believe they haven't come back yet it's i'm actually proud of them that they've they've uh they've they've read the newspapers yeah i'm actually reading uh i just

been reading a book like i always read like three books at a time i just yeah i'm reading another one uh it's called the code it's just whole NHL. All these years of watching and seeing fights and why did that happen? Just breaking the whole thing down. And they have all these enforcers and stuff. It's just fascinating. The soap operas that build up to some of these fights. somebody really gets hurt how 24 hours sports broadcasting, you know, and plus the horrible hockey coverage in this country. They, they just take the incident and just act like this guy just skated up and did that. And that was it. And it's just like, no man, this, this goes back years or this goes back weeks or months or five, six game playoff series last year. It's really a, a fascinating thing on just the whole thing about it. weeks or months or five, six game playoff series last year. It's really a, uh,

a fascinating thing on just the whole thing about it. Cause I never understood that the players have to police the game where they just sort of like, it's like one of those, uh, you watch those things, the toughest jails in the world. And then there's jails, they're so fucked up. Like some of the prisoners have guns and, and for some reason they don't break out, but the guards are sort of working for them. And it's just, just totally gotten nuts. There's sort of an element of that. I always thought, but then when I read the book, it's such a, uh, it's such a crazy controlled, violent game that you need this guy,

just the presence of that guy going out there, I've seen that guys will skate out there. And this one guy would just get out there and just say right before a favorite, clean this up, somebody's going to get hurt. And everybody's just like, oh shit, that guy's going to beat the fuck out of me. And then the game settles down. And then other times you have to do something

and rules about not trying to drop the gloves with a guy at the end of his shift is considered a cowardly mood. And you can't. That shit will come back. Later. Right. When you whack Billy Bats. Yeah.

Later, you think you get made on now. Boom. Like it's it's really, really, really fascinating. So it's funny. There was more fights in the 80s than there was in the seventies. They make like, they may look like the flyers ruined the league. True.

Well, I like when the guys are like, like Larry Robinson was like this and char has been like this, you know, for a long time, the guys who don't fight really ever, but the reputation is don't fuck with them. And they can still be the policeman without having

to really fight that much because yeah chara has fought it's just like you just don't want to fight that guy no he he'll do it like every so often but but he doesn't need to you you pass this point where it's like you actually don't even really need to fight anymore because every everyone's properly scared and threatened well also you don't want to need to fight anymore because everyone's properly scared and threatened. Well, also, you don't want to have a Norris Trophy winner sitting in the box for two minutes and also get an instigator while they have some fucking guy, just agitator, is sitting there and all their goal scorers out there. The amount of ice that Zane O'Chara eats up is ridiculous. I mean, you can't put a price on it.

I still can't believe Ottawa traded him. Well, you know, the other thing, these guys are obviously amazing athletes, right? Like there's this clip of Wayne Gretzky. He's in the superstars where you ever see that where he's racing and Sugar Ray Leonard and like two other great athletes. And he just beats them by 10 yards and a 40 yard dash. Like it just destroys them. But I always felt like,

like Bobby or yeah, it's online. Bobby or only has, I don't know. He probably had less than 15 fights total. And, and I don't know, five or six of them are on YouTube.

Like he was an amazing fighter, which makes sense. Cause he was an amazing athlete. So if he actually fought, he's going to be more coordinated and do some stuff. So I was like that part too like the better the better the player i was i was like when that would translate into their fisticuffs yeah but there's also there's the there's the courage thing too the courage thing

can make you can have your talent drop off that takes a lot of like something i don't know that takes us to do that and then have a fight in front of 20 000 fucking people on skates and try and stay on skates and then when he came in the league it's like you know guys would come at you and you tried to see if if you were tough or not and you had to prove yourself it was like going to prison but something i'm trying to look up is i want to see like the hockey fight from the 40s or 50sies. Cause back then, if you grabbed another guy's Jersey for balance, they immediately came in and broke it up. So they would stand there like,

like, like boxers. Let me get your seat. And I'm just like, how the hell did that work? And they would basically trade until they were tired. The refs wouldn't come in and they would just both skate to the penalty bots.

And that would be it. Right. Well, they, I, I always liked the seventies fights fights if i'm doing a youtube binge i like the 70s and early 80s more than the next phase because the next phase guys started to like put actual practice into the fighting your guys changed it which is the guy that i heard gets

credit he was the guy because he was smaller yeah he was the guy that I heard gets credit. He was the guy because he was smaller. Yeah. He was the guy that did the thing. Because it used to be when I first watched him, guys stood right in front of each other. I grabbed your right shoulder. You grabbed my right shoulder. We did bang, bang, bang, bang. Just like that, right? And he was the guy, the first guy that did this move.

Because he needed to, I think, create distance. So he was the guy that grabbed here. Well, I wonder who created the spin move. I did a benefit one time, and he would tell me about it. He can't believe how big that guy's hands are. He grabbed me. I was like, oh, fuck. And he was the guy that did this and then would come back.

I mean, actually, he was right-handed, I think. So he was the guy that developed that. So now, then it became like, then the big guys started doing it, which is why Ty Domi is one of the greatest and toughest ever because then they took what was working for him right then there was a guy uh and he's great ty domey fights rob ray on the on the uh on the buffalo sabers yeah guys like rob, another great, great, great fighter. They he was the reason why now you have to have your jersey tied down because he used to he was almost like in basketball, tear away sweatpants. You'd go to fight the guy and you just looking at his jersey, everything would come off, including his pads.

And then you had nothing to grab onto. You grab your best hair. And then he just grabbed your jersey and you were fucked. I mean, it was like you were trying to hold on to like a banana field or something. And I remember there's this great, hilarious clip of Ty Domi fighting him. And the guy's jersey comes off like a fucking stripper. And he's got nothing. And then, you know, Rob Ray beats him. And so Ty Domi's in the box yelling at rob ray like making these these gestures about his jersey falling up and then rob ray just goes like oh in

three like i beat you three times which you know must have like driven him up the wall the guys had like there was um hockey players in general just hilarious. The ones that I've been fortunate enough to meet, they're really, really funny. And it's the only sport where nobody's out of shape. There's not one fat hockey player. Right. Soccer is the other one like that. Phil Kessel always looked like he was playing pickup hockey, like a pickup hockey, like rink rack kind of guy. It's why I always loved him because he looked like the guys that when I used

to be back when I used to play. Well, when you talk about the code, I remember the Islanders beat the Bruins. It was like 1980. And O'Reilly and Gillies fought, I think, either every game or every game but one. And really, like, they really seemed like they truly hated each other. And then we lost to them. This is when I really cared about hockey truly hated each other and then we lost to them this is when i really cared about hockey and i was so upset we lost but in the handshake line i was like oh riley's gonna punch gillies in the handshake line at least we're gonna have this

and then they had like this really emotional like handshake there was some there was a shoulder pat and i i my mind was blown you Yeah, total respect for each other. It was like, you guys wanted to kill each other for two weeks. What just happened? But that was the way it was back then. Dude, Clark Gillies. Clark Gillies, underrated as far as when people bring up tough guys from that era. Dude, there's a fight.

I forget who he fights. I believe it's under Clark Gillies breaks so-and-so's face he's punching this guy and the guy just takes a really bad one so he ducks down and as he's bringing his hands down like gillies just effortlessly takes that in and throws an uppercut it was like it's one of those those elevators going right up to the penthouse. Boom hits this guy. And this guy just went down. Like, yeah, it was one of those ones where it's not an enjoyable fight to watch. It was just like, Ooh, well, we had the Bruins could never beat the Canadians when we were growing up,

but then we at least had Stan Jonathan beat the shit out of Pierre Bouchard that time. And there was like blood on the ice. And Fred Cusack was all excited. It was like our Stanley Cup. The fact that Stan Jonathan won the Bouchard fight. You know what? It all turned around in 87 and it's been going in our favor ever since.

We've essentially owned those fucking guys except for one or two seasons. I would say though that this is going to come off as sour grapes, but I've been, I've been a pretty good guy up until this point. I mean, look, the Celtics have done what they've done. The Lakers are the most successful franchise in all four sports in my lifetime. They've done what they've done. Yankees have done what they've done. Um, you know, Patriots, Steelers, Packers, you know, if you count NFL titles, have done what they've done.

The Canadians. I kind of got to take dominating a six-team league. I don't know. You go back with the Yankees, there was like an eight-team league. This is the argument against Russell, though. You can't make this argument and then defend Bill Russell. Because everybody says, oh, Russell won 11 titles. I defend Bill Russell as an individual.

Listen, I defend Bill Russell as an individual, but I don't like... Every league has that team that won a bunch during the Three Stooges era. Yeah. And then it's just like the Canadians were winning it when they were playing like pond hockey against the fucking Montreal Maroons and the Stanley Cup is the size of a shot glass. Yeah, if somebody were to argue that with me, the reason why I don't argue that in the NBA is because the other dominant team is the Lakers. And they're counting them all the way back to the BAA, according to your book. So it's kind of a fair fight to me. I guess, you know what it is?

I guess if the Toronto Maple Leafs have continued to win, which a lot of people don't know, that they were going cup for cup up until 1967. It was like 15 to 13. And then the faucet shut off. Then it just shut off. And then Canadians won in 68, 68 69 won seven six or seven 72 right 71 73 76 to 79 86 and 93 and that was it that was like the fucking lance armstrong when

he looked over his shoulder and then just took they did that move you're a little older than me not not much but like when i was growing up the canadians were the invincible dynasty because we had these little smaller dynasties like the steelers won four when i was growing up and we had the packers from the 60s and the celtics from the 60s but the canadians dominants ended in 1979 but for theins, it continued for almost another decade. And it had already been... They'd been the bane of our existence like, you know, the entire time, because they were our number

one rivals, and they were the most successful team. Well, they beat... They won every time. But then the Islanders showed up in 80, and then it was just like, then they ended it, and then the Oilers showed up, and then they did their whole thing. It was a really weird era to look back then the canadians ran patrick wa out of town which never made sense he went no if you look if you look at goaltending before patrick wa

it's it's ridiculous the guys just played stand up and they would try to kick their leg out he he brought that that butterfly thing in and ever since then you know and then the pads got bigger and clutch and grab and you know hockey's gone through a lot of shit became way pads are too big that's the biggest mistake i feel like they've made in hockey is that the goalie pads i don't know why i know they have some limitations on it now the protective gear got so good that you could kill somebody right because like dude those pads you wear in hockey with like those that hard plastic dude and you skate as fast as an nhl guy like taking an elbow like that that fucking uh stevens move over the blue line if you have your head down and he came across it was like getting hit with a fucking wrench so um that's the thing too about it like nfl players

where they were talking about like helmets where it protects the skull but not the brain because it's it's in the fluid so true i started leading like if you watch like you know i've been watching a bunch of old sports you watch the way they meet the way they hit in football back in the day i mean they just they use their head as like a Yeah, they had a Pats offense game from 94. It was Bledsoe-Marino. It was week one. And there's like 15 cheap shots in the game from receivers going over the middle on the sidelines.

Like the head hunting, you just kind of forget now. Well, it's not, it wasn't considered a penalty. And before that, before the Mel Blount rule, did you ever see what mel blunt did to golden richards in that that super bowl this uh the 75 season yeah he basically just beat the shit out of him right he come down the field he would grab him he would throw him on the ground you know it'd be like a sweep to the other side and he would just be fucking like like wrestling dropping elbows on him well we had i mean we I mean, Coates is in that game.

Ben Coates was amazing for the Pats, and then all of a sudden it was over. And he takes like eight hits in that game. And this is like week one of the 94 season. He gets crushed like eight different times, and it was weird. It's just weird. Maybe we'll think this about UFC 25 years from now because we watch UFC, like that fight that they had, the main event from a couple weeks ago,

and the guys just beat the shit out of each other for five rounds. Maybe we'll think 20 years from now, like, oh, my God, I can't believe we let that happen. But that's what it's like watching these old football games. You can also, they have submissions, and then they also, somebody can choke you out or whatever. And the elbows. Those leg kicks.

My thing about – the only thing about that sport, because I love that sport, is when a guy's clearly knocked out, the four or five hammer fists that he then takes before that – and the refs are lightning quick. Everybody's doing their job. Like, that's the one thing where, especially watching all this NFL stuff, when you see a guy, it's like it's over. He lost the fight. Did he need to take those last three or four?

It's almost like the ref needs a weapon when they try to get a lion away from somebody or a bear. Yeah, something where he just needs to come in with a weapon and knock the guy out. Hey, we're taking a quick break to talk about whoop. All the pros are wearing it. It's one of the most talked about fitness trackers on the market right

now. I've been paying attention to the whoop fitness for a while now. They've skyrocketed over the last few years because their product is one of the smartest tools out there. If you want to actually improve performance at work, at home, at the gym, sleep better, recover faster, train smarter. It tracks your daily activities, tells you how much sleep you need, also knows if you're actually recovering from workouts. And unlike other watches out there, it's going to tell you to take a rest,

maybe a day off, whatever you need, and it's going to remind you to keep your steps in. My wife and I have been using it for the last couple of weeks, and it really breaks down the sleep portion of your life in a way that I just wasn't prepared for. For some reason, I get better REM sleep than my wife, even though I probably sleep less than her. But when I sleep, apparently I'm just unconscious. But you learn stuff. I had a night the other night where I only slept like four and a half hours. The whoop did not like that. The whoop was upset. It was really, really upset that I didn't do better. So anyway, it's a good way to track what you're doing every day and also how you're sleeping. It helps athletes and everyday people monitor their

health and wellbeing with amazing personalized insights delivered via mobile app. Get in-depth analytics about the stress on your body, your sleep, your workouts. Here's how you can get it. Visit whoop.com, W-H-O-O-P.com. Enter code Simmons for 15% off a Whoop membership. I highly recommend it because it will help you sleep. It just will. So there you go. My son wanted to come on this pod but i wouldn't let him because he he's still watching your netflix show it's in his oh all right my son the the the biggest fan of uh inappropriate animated comedy out of anybody like not inappropriate but for when you're 12 yeah and it's you've made the short list so congrats on that he oh yeah season four f is for family that comes out on

june 12th as does the king of staten island as i'm saying that's a big week for you 1930s yeah that's that's a big uh big date for you yeah he's excited it's back because his he has that he has big mouth he has uh duncanville and then the old south parks that are moving to hbo max so he's he's been fine during the quarantine. Don't worry about... Isn't that unbelievable? Yeah. It's great. Here's the amazing thing about going back to the UFC, is the UFC has done in 20, 25

years what all of the other four American big four sports leagues have tried to do, which is go global. I feel like they're all jealous of soccer, how that the world cup and all of that. Ooh, can you imagine how much money is in there? Like they're all jealous of that shit. And, um, they in 25 years lapped all four of the big four and just put them into the stratosphere where, where they are, you know, in the same conversation. It's like, I mean, what are other global sports?

Boxing, maybe you could say? Stuff like that. Soccer, NBA to a lesser degree. Way less. MMA. And then whatever major boxing fight there is, which there's less and less as the years go on that people actually care about. Well, boxing's weird where they were the reverse of the NFL

where they kept squashing out all these other new leagues where boxing just became more and more and more. And then they compiled that with, like, every three pounds was a new, like, weight class so they could have a new champion and have yet another title fight. They kind of, like, sold their souls to that, I feel. Well, they had no commissioner or any sort of logic or governance. And it was just the wild, wild west, which I think that's one of the reasons the UFC

has been able to thrive like that, is there's some cohesion to it. That's the one thing, as a a fan what i love is the fact that it's all under one roof which i've heard fighters can grumble from time to time about pay but what i i do think is cool is that when it's all under one roof that the best guy is going to fight the best guy like you don't have to wait what else do you care about when do you think you'll be able to do comedy on a stage again uh you know that's not up to me to decide and i've been doing it for 28 years so i'm confident that i can just go do a couple of uh runs at some small theaters out here don't charge anybody any money or whatever and

just i'll get it back together i just do you miss it i'm to come back and crush it when I get back on there. I have a killer, if I can remember the 90 minutes I got. But I needed a break, dude. I really did, man. I was like, you know, I was touring. I was doing specials. I was doing a cartoon. We shot the movie last year. I got a podcast network producing specials.

I kind of needed a little bit of a break. I just did not take one. But, just didn't know how to take one, but you know, now that I took one, I'm, you know, I could do like, but I will tell you that there's something I'm also, when something makes me sad, I also block it out and just say, I don't care. Something I learned from my childhood. So I probably do really miss it on some level. But like, I just I'm sort of I got that German Irish thing where it's like, oh, that's painful. Just bury it. So I think consciously I don't miss it. And subconsciously, I'm probably crying someplace.

I thought that's a New England thing because I'm like that too I always like in times of whatever I always just kind of I get laser focused on other things because I don't want to think about the bad stuff yeah and I tone everything everybody's over reacting I tone it down fucking relax you'll be fine I I go that way

it's German Irish so Tom Hagen's your guy who's that? Tom from The Godfather. Let me tell you something, my Kraut-McFriend. Oh. The one from Godfather was Tom Hagen. You weren't kidding. I was trying to think sports.

I was like, does that mean who's that? I was thinking of the German-Irish pantheon. Tom Hagen's got to be up there. I'll have to watch The Godfather again. It's been a while. Oh, my God. I thought that would have been one of your movies. You rattled off Goodfellas before.

You rattled off Billy Bats in like two seconds. There's a split. Yeah. There's Goodfellas people and there's Godfather people. Like, I'm ashamed. Can I be both? Huh? Can I be both?

Can I be both sides? There's one. It's like, who do you like better, De Niro or Pacino? Everybody leans. Fair. They're both un-fucking-believable. Everybody, there's something. So you're De Niro guys, is what you're telling me.

No, I am a comedy guy. And I will tell you that Goodfellas is one of the greatest dark comedies that has ever been written. The amount of fucking hilarious lines in that. I agree. As far as mob movies go, I would maybe say Godfather Part II is the sickest movie I've ever seen. Okay?

But as far as like the personality, the character, all of that stuff, just there's so many like, and every time I watch it, I see something else that some actor did that was hilarious. Like the last time I watched it, I became obsessed with the guy, the club that they end up burning down. Yeah, I'm just he's his performance in that. It's just it's so it's so fucking unbelievable.

So you're saying Dances with Wolves shouldn't have won the oscar over good fellas no that's the game because everybody has to wait there's so many everybody thinks they're getting fucked yeah the thing is is they're just self-centered and if you look at scorsese when you realize that all those movies he made that they didn't finally open up a space for him until The Departed. Everybody wins it, like it seems, like four movies after they should have won it,

unless you, I think you do like a hot topic sort of, unless you're the guy that's in that hot topic thing that's you know the disease the group of people the story there's there's so much that's involved and when the whole thing is kind of silly when you think about it i mean i honestly i think trophies should be for kids little league trophy and i think if you win like a championship you know what i mean if you like i like it you if you win like a championship, you know what I mean? If you, I like, I like if, you know, if you're a championship boxer, you get a championship belt.

That makes sense to me. All right. But like, you know, you should give this speech at the Emmys. If you win for the Netflix show, you just do this exact speech. I know I should, I gotta watch it. I don't want to paint myself into a corner because you gotta play the game because if your show wins an Emmy, then all your writers have written for an Emmy award winning show and then they can make some more money. So you gotta be the team player there.

Well, the longer this pandemic goes on, the only thing we're gonna have is animated shows. This will be it. So you actually, your odds are increasing. I'm not playing. Dude, money always wins. What they'll do

is they'll fucking have a doctor there. They'll have a fast test. You'll get tested. And if you don't have a fucking, you know, anything, boom, you're on the show.

You're shooting that day. Take your temperature and that's it. So this, this Staten Island movie. Is this the biggest role you've had, like in a big movie, like the most lines, most screen time, all that stuff? Because you've been in big movies, but is this the biggest part you've had? It's probably the most lines in something that's going to get this much attention.

Yeah. I did a movie called Black or White um where i had a really good role mike binder kevin costner um anthony mackie and uh then i had one uh yeah i guess it would be maybe it is but as far as like something that i mean i i I did one, The Front Runner, a great movie that got buried by Aquaman. That was Reitman's movie. I like that movie. Oh, it's a great movie. You're the movie and the amount of work that he put into those shots. Yeah. And like how much. Of a passion project that was and then aquaman comes along which i have to admit i watched that movie i fucking liked it man it's a cool movie aquaman they made aquaman aquaman

was cool man he's fucking drinking he looked like he wrote a harley and shit i liked it um i would have liked it if it came out a few weeks after ours did but that's how the games play yeah it's interesting with those movies like The Front Runner, because I had Jason on when it came out. Those were the kind of movies we grew up with in the 70s and 80s, these signature movies with great cast by a good director, looking back at something that happened. And now it's almost like people don't want to go to the movie theater

as much to see a movie like that, but they end up seeing it. I feel like most people ended up seeing the front runner, just not the way in the old days you went to the theater to see it. You know, like if Silkwood with Meryl Streep came out now, I don't think it's a signature movie. I just think people find it eventually on a, you know, whatever. They're in a transitional period. And I, um, I think this pandemic was stuff like our movie is going straight to streaming.

Yeah. Um, I think that that's going to become like, I also, what I'm hoping in this, another thing I'm hoping with this pandemic thing is I'm hoping that the zoom meeting becomes a thing. All of these poor bastards having to go to the fucking airport all the time. It's like, why don't you just get on a fucking, what is it about having to sit across? That's that old school business thing. I want you to sit across me, look me in the eye and I can tell you,

I bet you after a while you'll be able to tell, you'll be able to judge by these things, whether you trust me enough to fucking buy into my company or something. But I'm just hoping pitching shows, we can just do that over Zoom as opposed to one group of people having to cross under, over, or go on to the 405 at around 5 o'clock in the afternoon. You just don't need another six fucking cars out there. Well, I think we talked about this on this pod in the past. It's been amazing what we've learned in the last three months about what we need to do and not do.

And even stuff like podcasts, it was always so hard to do pods when somebody was in the room with you, if there was more than two people. And now it's like, it's actually kind of easy. You just all get on a zoom, record on your end and you can do it. We didn't know that three months ago, you know, I don't know. I was always, I always tried to work from home as much as I could, even as my life got more complicated. Cause I always felt like I was more productive. I could control things more. I just got more shit done and it's been interesting to watch other people realize that over the past three

months like I never liked to travel for anything I did because it was like if I try if I go back to New York that's an entire day flying back you know it's nine hours from going to the airport the time you land all that stuff so I lose a day. The Wi-Fi might not work on the airplane. Then you go and you got to cram everything. Then you got to fly back. And I basically lost two days. And now I think people are realizing, yeah, let's just hop on Zoom. We'll bang it out. We just joined Spotify three months ago. We've met all these people on Zoom and that's it. You need the herd to like, whichever way the herd runs. I'm just hoping it doesn't go right back to normal. And like, I think with everything that's going on environmentally, it's better if there's

not a, if there's less people driving and less people flying. And, but just the weird thing how money works yeah like they'll say like it's this fucking disaster that maybe airlines have to have less flights like that's more of a disaster than having fresh air or or whatever but um or maybe i'm just being selfish because i have to travel for a living and be my overwhelming thought when I go to an airport is where are these people going okay and I'm not talking about people in business suits and shit I understand like that but in the middle of a fucking school year and you see like a family of like five and like aren't they supposed to be in school where the fuck are you going this isn't

spring break they don't have a vacation it's not the holidays why the fuck are you here right another fucking seven people standing in line like i said it's mostly selfish but like um the level of the level of of airline travel that the average person does compared to when like i was a kid like nobody like it was like there was like that was like a big thing if there was a guy in your neighborhood and he wore a suit and got a company car and occasionally two or three times a year he took a business trip like where is that guy going what is he doing he was a he was it was like borderline fucking James Bond and now I feel like like there's soccer moms with no jobs

who have higher status on Delta Airlines than I do. And I'm doing fucking stand-up gigs every weekend. It's just like, where the fuck are you going? It's like in Mad Men when Don Draper would go to LA. It was like a big deal. I'm going to go to LA, get some business done. So you go to LA? I think it's the whole thing

where you watch the travel channel you watch like the food network and they're showing you all of this shit you didn't know was out there and they're really just all of these commercials to just go to all of these places and also airline travel became cheaper and shit like that but like um well i'll tell you it's completely changed los angeles the air is unbelievable it took like within four weeks you could actually like feel a difference and see a difference oh you could with the less cars see it immediately like i think like uh the cleanest days of the last 20 years were those few days after 9-11 when they grounded all the flights. They're just up there spraying low-lead fuel. We're all driving and we're kicking up dust and doing all of that stuff.

It would be a really great thing if some positive stuff like that came out. It's a weird thing, though, because I'm also rooting for people with small businesses and shit like that. So it's a tough thing. Well, I mean- We're getting deep here. We're going beyond, we're going above my pay grade here. This is the stuff that I try to avoid thinking about

because it gets too frustrating. Everybody starts screaming and typing to me in capital letters. Yeah, but we could learn lessons from it. Like we could have weeks that are designated to be like no travel. Let's sit, let's try to get the earth back for a week,

week and things like that. There might be things to learn. What are you the most proud of about this movie? Um, I mean, I just had fun. I think I, I,

that I finally had like legit had fun. Um, my last few things that I've done in acting, I figured out how to have fun because there was so much anxiety about, am I doing this right? Is it going to come together right? And, oh my God, I have to do that. I have to do this. Like there's so much stuff like, like people always like give credit to comedians. Like, oh my God, I can't believe you had the nerve to go do that. But it's like, okay. But I also totally control how far I'm going to go. If I just want to go up there and just stand there and just tell jokes, I can do this. But like,

you're, you're acting all of a sudden it's like, all right, you know, your character is going to have a dance contest in this scene. You're like, I don't like to dance. And all of a sudden it's like all right you know your character is going to have a dance contest in this scene you're like i don't like to dance all of a sudden you just have to fucking do it you got to take your shirt off or your your character has a uh um um uh you have to kiss somebody or something just get you out of your comfort zone and i think that that's what took me such a long time of this new thing of letting go of that and being like, okay, this, this isn't me. This is this guy. And this is what this guy does. And, and then all of a sudden, I think I finally went through this porthole of like, oh, this is the fun, the fun of acting. It's the exact opposite of, of, of comedy where it's like, where standup, um, you know, right act, direct,

whatever, whatever they say, this thing here is I have to let go of all of that and just be like, what do you want me to do? And even if this is something that I wouldn't do, I have to figure out how this guy would do this. And, and, and having to get out of you and into this guy was like a real sort of new thing. And then also I always heard like great actors just keep reading the script. So I kept doing that and really tried to think about, because I used to just think about the scene. Okay, come in and do the scene. And you say this and I say that.

And then she says this. And this thing I was kind of looking at like, all right, so here's all of my scenes and here's all of the story where does my energy need to be so it goes like this or i take it on the ride is it because like this stuff i've done in the past where i've watched it and it's it's literally just can be off this much and it's glaring to me, but I'll just watch it and be like, like when I shot that scene, I was not thinking that this shit happened before. So I should have adjusted. I should have been slightly over to the right or slightly over to the left here. And I was here instead. And it fucking drives me nuts. But my problem is, is

I have problems reading and I have like massive ADD and shit. So I just had to like, I just kept reading like 20 pages every day. I try to read like, you know, if I had time, I just read it. And then I would think, okay, what's, what's the obvious thing that I would do? What would be the weirdest thing? Now what's something in between just to try to try to do like something different hopefully people think people probably watch and think yeah he's doing the same old fucking bullshit but i like to think it's a little different how much ad-libbing was there in the apatow movie a bunch a bunch you must love that it's it's amazing well that can be a scary thing if you

stand there in front of a crew and you got nothing, um, that's something that unless you're just born with this confidence, it takes, you have to get like seasoned. So at least that's how it worked for me. But like with Judd, there's like the scene that's written. You do that a few times, then you start messing around with it. And then he comes and he goes, Hey, here's an area. I liked where that was going play with that and the amazing thing about him is that he keeps it all up here and is editing it like i mean i'm just sitting here worried about like just my scenes he's got

the whole fucking movie and then the overall vibe that he has to keep between his ears as you're doing all of that. And everybody pretty much had free reign to say and do whatever they wanted at any time, minus killing off characters and changing the storyline. And he just sort of would guide it. There's a real genius to what that guy does. I mean, I can't imagine when you go into the edit bay. I remember when reality TV first came out and it really was reality. And they would just film you for 14 hours and then have 14 hours of footage to try and find where the storyline is. And that's why it moved to assisted reality. Yeah.

Like, we're not going to have enough hours in a fucking year to put this shit together and come out on time we got to start to see where the fires are and nudge people towards it so we have something and to see somebody doing that with a movie it's it's funny i actually watched the thing recently um on gary marshall where when they were showing behind the scenes of pretty women what pretty woman which i still haven't seen for whatever fucking reason. He worked like that. And I was talking to Judd. I was going, were you a fan of that guy?

Cause that's the only guy that I've kind of seen that worked that kind of way and could kind of, you know, anybody from like the craft service guy, that's what Gary Marshall was saying could come up and they would slip them a piece of paper with the joke on it. And the thing was, is if the piece of paper went into the pocket, it. And the thing was, is if the piece of paper went into the pocket, it was in the script. If he dropped it on the ground, it was a

no go. And I love that shit. Cause I heard back in the day, some guy told me backstage one time, Bob Dylan had a thing that when he was backstage, he had a hoodie. If the hoodie was up, don't talk to him. The hoodie's down, you can talk to him. And it's just such the effort that it would take when you're him, the amount of people that want to talk to you, that you got to be like, I'm sorry, just getting my head together. I'm sorry, just because you're not right now. All he had to do is just, if I have the fucking hoodie up, I'm getting myself mentally where I need to be to give these people their money's worth. So they keep coming back and seeing me so I can keep living my dream to just be able to do that that that's brilliant paper in the pocket it's in the script I drop it I don't have to explain it to

you and worry about your feelings it was no good was that Gary Marshall special I didn't watch it was it good should I watch that because I saw it was on and I just didn't see it but now I want to see it I watched it because my wife was watching it and I think it's fun to see watching Julia Roberts right before she's going to blow up

and just be watching her like she has no fucking idea that she's going to become like you know this movie is going to come out and her whole life is going to become like you know this movie's gonna come out and her whole life is gonna that's fun and then the similarities of the way he was working and then having done that movie with judd and resonating watching each actor talking about like yeah i guess we just sort of show up and sort of say what's written and then we kind of go in the other direction it's I don't know I really enjoyed working with John we haven't even talked about Pete Davidson that was my that was my next and last question what was your takeaway after spending

a couple months with him well I already loved the guy anyways before I worked with him but uh I got to I I feel like you know he's someone that I've known for a long time, but just because of where his career was and where I was living, where he was living, like the full friendship didn't happen. So that was the best thing is be a full friendship developed out of it. He's such a, such a great guy. And he was, uh, you know, it was his movie. He did the Jordan thing. He was like first there last to leave you know and he made sure like with coverage he tried to you know judge shoot him out you know i'll stay he was a real stand-up guy man he's uh yeah awesome awesome and he and he's incredible

in this movie yeah it's weird he's one of those and some celebrities are just like this where you're always rooting for them from the first time you see them and i don't know if there's an snl piece to that too because they've had a few people like that on the show where just from the first thing you're like i hope that guy makes it or hope that lady makes it and with him he's always been one of those guys and i don't i can't really explain it but i think a lot of people feel that way like oh man i hope he it's especially when he was having some issues I think a lot of people feel that way. Like, oh man, I hope he, especially when he was having some issues, I think a lot of people are like, oh man,

I hope this guy. You know, that shit always gets blown out of proportion once you're in. Yeah, once you're in. Everybody else would just have a bad couple of days, but then all of a sudden, you know, you're on a show or something and it becomes, you know, is so-and-so blah, blah, blah. And then it never goes anywhere.

And it's just over in three fucking days. And they just, that's that chicken little shit that they do. Um, and this is the thing, if you're on a show and you actually got to take it as a compliment, they're like, Oh my God, I've reached the level that someone's going to make up some bullshit and try to get it going for three days. That's that's pretty cool. It's funny watching those entertainment shows now with the because they're basically taping it from their houses, but doing the same gimmick you just did. But they're like in their kitchens behind them coming up. So and so you can see like what are you talking about now yeah nobody's not taking out his trash yeah i don't know why i went with todd bridges i'm old i was gonna say gary coleman but he's dead ben affleck not wearing

a mask that's coming up yeah that's it i don't know what else you would do. All right. Well, congrats on everything. June 12th, big day for you. A lot of stuff going out. My son says thank you for all the comedy. It was good to see you as always. And good luck with everything. All right. I'll see you. All right. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget about the rewatchables. Say Anything is going up Tuesday night. I'm going to have another podcast here on this feed on Thursday. And again, the schedule is going to be erratic for the next few weeks. So bear with me. But that's it. Hope you're staying safe out there.

Hope you're listening. Hope you're reading. Hope you're doing your thing. See you next time.