The Bill Simmons Podcast - 'Joker,' Fear on the Internet, 'Friends,' Metallica, and President Don Jr. (?) With Chuck Klosterman | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: October 2, 2019

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by author and longtime 'BS Podcast' guest Chuck Klosterman to discuss competitive media, 'Joker' criticism, morality in art, TV shows, Metallica, impeaching Trump, the 2020 presidential election, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, four years ago today, the BS podcast was created. We launched it out of my little guest house in the back of my house. Tate Frazier, employee number one at The Ringer, was producing. I was not allowed to do anything until my contract with ESPN expired. I was pretty bitter at the time. Now, I mean, I was just on ESPN on PTI a couple weeks ago. So it was a funny time. But we launched this thing. Didn't know it was going to happen.

I had had the BS report on ESPN for eight years and then had to create a new feed, new name, all that stuff. We actually almost called the Ringer Podcast Network BSPN. And it was the working title for it. Actually, it would have been funny to call that. It was the Ringer Podcast Network BSPN. And it was the working title for it. Actually, it would have been funny to call that the Bill Simmons Podcast Network, but we decided having my name in the podcast network was not a good idea. Anyway, created this podcast. I think we did three in two days.

We launched The Watch with Andy Greenwald and Chris Ryan either that week or a week after. I can't remember. And now our podcast network is banging. We have a whole bunch of awesome pods. Just launched a couple recently. Ryan Rosillo's launch. Check that one out. We have Sonic Boom on Luminary, which I'll tell you about later.

That one's launching this week. We have the new, what's the pod called with the Vampire Weekend guys? The Road Taken. The Road Taken. That one's launching this week. We have another podcast I haven't even told you about that's coming

that you're going to be surprised by and excited and thrilled. That's going to, we're going to announce that one in three weeks. A lot of good stuff happening. But anyway,

it all started four years ago and podcasts have grown exponentially. The audience for this podcast has grown in a crazy way. We're almost at 200 million downloads for this year, 2019. That's in nine months because people like podcasts. They've enjoyed this one. They've done a nice job of spreading the word. Wanted to thank everybody out there for spreading the word for us. Thanks to Kyle. You're welcome, Bill.

Not just my nephew, but an awesome employee, as well as the one, the only Tate Frazier. And our dude, Tommy Alter. Running the streets. Yeah. Who has found dozens and dozens of great guests for this podcast. And thanks to everybody at the Ringer family for everything you do. Thanks for our social team behind the scenes,

et cetera, et cetera. I hope the next four years are as good as the first four years were. It's been really fun watching this podcast grow. Anyway, today's podcast is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Hiring can be a slow process. Cafe Altura's COO, Dylan Miskiewicz, needed to hire a director of coffee, went to ZipRecruiter, posted his job, found the best person for the role in just a few process. Cafe Altura's COO, Dylan Miskiewicz, needed to hire a director of coffee,

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Get two free months when you go to justworks.com slash Bill Simmons. Wanted to remind you about Diego Maradona, new documenter on HBO. I am very, very lightly involved in this one. Was happy to help with the effort to bring it to HBO. I think it's either the best sports documentary I've ever seen or one of the best sports documentary. I haven't sat down and made the official list yet, but it's certainly an incredible achievement about somebody that I did not know a ton about who I think is the most revered soccer talent of all time. And it was amazing.

Nobody had done a doc like this. It's out of control. It's so good. It premieres. I don't know if this will be up by the time it premieres tonight, but Tuesday, 9 p.m. HBO. But then you can find it on mobile on HBO Go

and all the different HBO streaming things, whatever you have, as well as a bunch of re-airs on HBO and HBO 2 and HBO 3 and HBO 7 and HBO West. And I'm sure it's going to be in HBO Latino. Isn't that a channel? Sometimes I watch Succession now in Spanish because I've run out of ways.

I watched it three times in English, then I watched it in Spanish. Did you listen to the song? The song was good. The song in Spanish? Oh, I didn't hear that part. No, I don't actually watch in Spanish, but you can check that out on all the HBOs.

It's fantastic. I recommend it as highly as I can recommend anything. Coming up, old friend Chuck Klosterman first. Pearl Jam. All right. BS Podcast Hall of Famer, Chuck Klossman on the line. Ironically, four years ago today, we launched the relaunch of this podcast, and we were doing it in my little guest house in the back of my house. We had just a couple things of equipment.

I think Wesley Morris was back there at some point. I barely remember who we even talked to, but now four years later. Wesley Morris lived in your beach, in your, in your boathouse for a while? No, he came by to do the podcast. It was great. We were so, I think I did three podcasts in two days. It was great to be back. I hadn't had a forum in like five months other than Twitter, which barely counts. So anyway, good to be back.

How did your whole book stuff go? Was it good? Productive? It did seem like it went okay. I mean, you know, it's always hard to really tell how, you know, I don't know how many books I'm supposed to sell. I don't know what would be a success or a failure. I don't know what other people actually think, but it seemed like it went okay.

I mean, I... What did you think of Gladwell's revelation that the audio book of his book sold better than the actual hard copy of his book? I was dumbfounded by that. Yes, so was I. That almost doesn't seem possible, but I don't know i mean he would he would know what his own book sales i guess are do you think do you think we're headed toward a new world uh

well if his audio book is outselling his actual book that's not in any way common. Like, that's completely outside of the experience almost every other writer has. In fact, it's extremely rare, as far as I can tell, for a writer to sell more e-books than physical books still. So I don't think that is going to happen. I mean, obviously, audiobooks matter more now than they used to. But it would be surprising to me if that would become the dominant way people read books. Or like one of the things he said was like, maybe in the future, I'll just do an audiobook and then someone will transcribe it. I just I don't think that will happen. I wonder if audiobooks will replace e-books is where we might be headed. I just think people are getting more and more accustomed to listening to things nonstop

and putting their AirPods in or however, listening to things at faster speeds. In general, I really worry about, this is one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. I really just worry in general about what's going to happen to writing as we go into the next 15 years. And I include myself considering I don't write anymore, but I wonder if in a lot of ways, audio has replaced, definitely on the internet, it's definitely replaced a lot of the reactionary stuff that, you know, and you think about last decade and the first part of this decade, if you wanted to read a reaction to something or you want, like, this just happened. I want to know what somebody thinks. You would go read them.

And now more and more, and, you know, we're as guilty of that in a good way as anything, you see reaction podcasts. And Sal and I are taping our podcast now on Sunday nights. In the old days, we used to tape, you know, that podcast would go up by four o'clock on Monday. We'd be doing guess the lines, talking about games that had happened 24 hours earlier and it didn't matter. And sports illustrated was coming out on a Wednesday or Thursday writing about Tiger Woods winning the masters four days earlier. And now when Tiger Woods wins the masters, that story's over in 18 hours.

And just in general, everything has sped up and it seems like audio has cut into the reading, writing experience a little bit. What's your take on all of this? I think that's probably true, although I don't, I mean, it's true that like you do, you're guessing the lines or whatever on on sunday nights now but i mean to a degree that's your choice i mean what would happen if you did it monday afternoon you think that people would feel as though it's uh

it's they they you think that you would you would have a substantial drop off and who would be interested in that? Yeah, I don't know. And I don't really want to find out because I do feel like the climate we're in now, something happens. You kind of want to be there, you know, and you think like the cycle starts that night and then it definitely kicks in the next morning with all the, all the TV shows you have now.

And even when we did, so I did PTI a couple weeks ago. It was great. It was really fun to go back. And, you know, the show's 5.30 Eastern time. You tape it probably like 4.45 range and then you stick around in case something crazy happens.

But as the day's going along, it's just getting further and further away from all the things that were topical that we're going to talk about. And on that day we had the Antonio Brown thing was obviously a story that had some legs and a couple other things. But for the most part, it felt like we were pushing it about as far as you could possibly push it to talk about things that had happened the day before. But I also think that's PTI's place in the whole landscape. It can parachute in still because it's an iconic show. It's been there for a long time, and it's the one show that can kind of wait

and then come in late and have an opinion on things. But for the most part, I just think it's really hard. I think you have to be in the mix a lot sooner with something. And that's for better and worse because I think some websites, they've been able to boost their traffic by doing a lot of the gaming, the SEO, and just reacting quickly to something. And a home run bounces off somebody's head and goes into the stands. And it's like, get the post up as fast as possible with the video. That's a quick way to drive traffic because you're looking at about, what, a 90-minute window after something like that happens where people see it on Twitter, they're Googling it, and they're looking for stuff.

And now I worry sometimes we're in no man's land with some of this stuff heading into this next decade. bit of a of sort of a business question though because for the consumer information is new when they find out about it and if they find out about something 16 hours later uh as opposed to 90 minutes later uh i don't know if the value of the information is less to that person. You know, I mean, I understand what you're saying is that in order to, in a competitive media environment, there is a greater emphasis now on scoops. That's a bigger deal now. Yes.

I mean, like, you know, like you look at those, you know, those two NBA guys, like Woj and Shams or whatever. It's like those guys. Yeah. I mean, those, those guys now, like they have a kind of outside, outside support that could have never existed in a pre Twitter world because, you know, but you know,

I think to most people, the information is what's valuable, not necessarily how fast they get it. I mean, you're probably right. I don't know. It doesn't seem to me like there's less writing than there used to be. There just seems to be more of everything, including things that happened immediately. Yeah, I sense more fear than ever in the pieces that are on the internet these days, where it's less weird. There's less quirky writing than I think we've ever had before. There's less people really going for it with some gimmick

or trying to be super funny or trying to toe the line where maybe they shouldn't have said that, but they're going to go for it anyway. There's a sameness to a lot of what's out there now. And I think a lot of it has to do with fear and the fact that if you screw up in a piece or you have a bad angle or you wrote it incorrectly and you become a joke to whatever community you got mad about or sports fan base or fans of a band or whatever, whoever got mad about what you wrote and they come at you and group up. Nobody wants that to happen. The sense I get when I read a lot of the stuff now online is that people are always gravitating toward the angle that will probably not have some sort of backlash.

And in my opinion, this is the best possible time to take chances with stuff and actually have fun with the fact that there's probably going to be a backlash to anything anyone writes. Cause everybody disagrees with everybody in the most violent ways these days. Um, that it actually would be an opportunity to take some chances, but what do I know? I mean, you really think it's the, you really think right now is the best time to take chances online.

No, I'm not saying, I don't know if I agree with that. I'm not saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not saying no I'm not saying it's the best time

what a great time to do this I'm saying if you can pull it off correctly it's a competitive advantage because nobody's really trying to zig when people are zagging and nobody's trying to really I don't know

I don't know what's missing, but I feel like something's missing. I mean, the thing that you're talking about, this is the way it seems to me. It seems to me that, that when people are writing about things immediately, they are not necessarily writing their perception of the event, but trying to predict what they think will be the take you're supposed to have about whatever thing just happened. Yes. Thank you for phrasing that correctly.

Cause I couldn't, I couldn't phrase it correctly, but that's what I mean. But, and, and, and the sameness you're talking about, that is, you know, I mean, that's, that's the reality. It's sort of like, okay, so, so the Internet, if we were talking about the Internet in 1995 or 1996, the idea was that everyone was optimistic because it is going to sort of democratize communication and every possible idea will be able to exist now in the discourse. And technically that has happened. Technically, you can probably find every possible view on every possible issue if you look for it. But the overwhelming majority of the feedback or the ideas about anything are almost all identical. And because there is so many people involved, it feels as though there is almost more of tends to be like one shared opinion that everyone has to deal with.

Like you can support it or you can push back against it, but it's the principal thing that everyone seems to, I don't know, collectively pretend to agree on i know like you were talking you had texted me about this hollywood reporter story about joker yeah about joker yeah okay well you know this movie hasn't come out yet and uh there is already sort of this completely shared idea of what you need to talk about when you talk about this movie uh it's you know it does it seems crazy i mean like like there was a story in the washington post where somebody was saying like here's what you need to know about what people are going to say about this movie when it comes out you know know? And it seems funny. It seems like something that would have been

on The Simpsons in the late 90s, but that's just, that's how it is now. Right. Well, let's talk about that Joker thing for a second, because, so this movie hasn't even come out yet. And The Hollywood Reporter had three critics debating about whether this movie was problematic. And the question was, does art have

a responsibility to be moral? Which is something that we seem to circle around every decade or every two decades or whatever. It becomes a question over and over again. What's the responsibility of a movie, of a TV show, of a music album, of an artist, whether they have an actual responsibility with their art to, I guess for lack of a better word, do good with it. And the concept behind Joker is that this movie is glorifying mental illness, I guess would be the case against it, and has this really bad ending.

It's like, is this a good thing? I'm of the side that a movie's a movie, I guess would be the case against it and has this really bad ending is like, is this a good thing? I'm of the side that a movie is a movie and people when they're making art should be able to take all kinds of chances and not have to worry about people dragging whatever social issues we have in the time as a way to judge the art. The whole point of art is to try to use something to reflect what's going on in our times and try to make it interesting or not even try to do that and just try to be entertaining. I think once we start legislating art, we're in a lot of trouble and it seems like we're headed that way. Well, I guess I could add several things on this. I mean, okay, so first of all, this question about, you know, does art need to be moral? That's a particularly complex question now, because even the meaning of that question has slightly shifted. Like, now, it's not just that a film or a musical artist or a book or something needs to be moral. It needs to be very clear about that morality. in it, and it can absolutely be read as a criticism of violence, and you could even argue that, if anything, it's almost too moral in its positioning.

But that's not really how it is now. Like, the idea of having something actually mean the opposite of what it appears, it's kind of been, people don't like that now because they're uh they're reacting to things as you said like much faster and they're going in they're kind of going into the experience with a position already established in their mind um i mean one thing that i think is is of like, and I really am talking about movie in a way, because it's stunning to me how much I have, I'm trying not to read too much about it, because I do kind of want to have my own experience, but I can see the headlines and I can see what's going on i think that what is complicated for a lot of critics is that they are not naturally artistic people like they're super interested well they're super interested in art and they love art but they don't have their if if they weren't reacting to somebody else's work they would do

no work themselves like they're like their their position is that they like to sort of see things and sort of dissect the things that they see and as a consequence they then assume that the creative types are making these things for the same motives they would use if they were to make a movie. Like you were saying before about, like, you know, you think that movies are, you know, entertainment is supposed to reflect, you know, like kind of what's going on in the culture at the time. I actually think, in my experience of, you know, talking to lots of musicians and filmmakers and stuff and writers, for the most part, artists are making art that reflects their personal experience or sort of the kind of the weird interior thing that's happening in their mind or something that they're trying to understand about themselves.

And the only way to do it or to work through it is to sort of kind of create these false worlds. But I think a lot of critics assume that, well, they like to see the political meaning in movies, so if they made a movie, that's why they would do it. They would never make a movie to sort of illustrate their own feeling. It would be a way to sort of persuade people to view the world, you know, as, as they see it. And I don't think a lot of directors and writers and songwriters work that way. I just, I don't think that.

Well, I think, but I think we're arguing the same. I think we're arguing the same point though. I agree with you. What you just said, I agree with, but I also think when people create art that's in their own head or their own world, their own experience, stuff like that, then in a lot of ways that ends up reflecting whatever we're thinking is going on in the big picture just in life and in culture. And either they're setting the tone or they're inadvertently reflecting things that are specific to them, but the ability then to have a bigger statement about what the era is. Like a good example is,

you know, relatively obscure movie, but a movie that we've both seen a bunch of times, Kicking and Screaming in the mid nineties. That was Noah Baumbach's first big movie. And it was about these disaffected kids after college who just really were aimless and didn't know what to do. That was his experience. And that's why he wrote it. But in a weird way, also represented, I think, what a lot of people were feeling at that point, pre-internet, what do I do now,

kind of a feeling. And if somebody made their version of that movie now, I think it's a completely different movie. Especially if you said it in 2019, 2020, with people that grew up on the internet, that grew up with their phones and their phones being as good of a companion as any friend they had. And then what's happened the last four years with Trump and Facebook and the erosion of trust with people who are in power. I think that's a completely different movie. Now, Noah Baumbach in 2020 wouldn't knowingly make a movie that reflected those times, but I think in a weird way, that's what would have happened, right? Does that make sense?

That's interesting. I mean, because one thing about Kicking and Screaming is that if you watch it now, it seems relatively timeless. Yeah. Like you could tell someone that movie happened, when it happened, you could say that that movie happened in 1988. You wouldn't have to change much about

the script to have it fit kind of any time kind of pre-internet essentially. Pre-phones, yeah. What you're saying is that there'd be a lot of things in there that we would do differently. I mean, I guess possibly. I mean, if you look at the movies Noah Baumbach has made going forward, he has not really tried too hard to reflect the exact moment the movie came out. I mean,

he, he seemed to try to reflect sort of these problems in people's lives that, uh, exist almost, you know, uh, regardless of, of,

of when the events occur. I mean, you know, I mean, his whole, his whole body of work is kind of like, I mean, I might be missing something,

but no, you're right. But that was the one time his movie inadvertently reflected what was going on in the era. By the way, just quick tangent. We found out when you did the rewatchables that you love when couples really get raw with some argument that unlocks all of this relationship shit.

Apparently this divorce movie he made is going to be in your wheelhouse with Adam Driver. Yeah, it looks pretty good to me. It looks pretty good to me. It's pretty intense. I guess I am of the belief that a lot of times

I think people are really only honest when they're extremely angry. That seems to be when people, you know, people get real depressed and real sad when they say things they don't really believe. People will certainly say things they don't believe when they're super happy. But it seems like when people are really angry, they really consider truth.

We've got to take a break, but I'm going to leave you with this thought. Do you think there's less honesty than there's ever been on the internet right now? All right, we're taking a break. Let's talk about CBS Sports HQ, the brand new streaming sports network, live 24-7, costs you nothing. That's right, sports cover ridge. Sports cover ridge. That's always on and always free, always.

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Sports for real sports fans at the great price of completely free. Yeah. You don't have to log in, sign up for anything. Download the CBS Sports app and watch CBS Sports HQ today. We've been circling around this point, but let's just get there. You're talking about, in general, people presenting points or writing things certain ways because they're almost anticipating what the reaction would be to the point as they're writing it versus them just saying, this is how I feel and I'm going to write this. Do you think there's a little, maybe honesty is not the right word, but authenticity than in years past? That's an interesting question.

I mean, you know, I think I've probably said this on your podcast before. I'm sure I have because it's the kind of thing I say all the time. But for the longest time, when, you time, from basically the beginning of Friendster up until the last couple of years, I always worked from this position that, okay, so people who are really involved in social media, they have their real life, and then they kind of create this character. And this character online kind of allows them them sort of be whatever they want. But I'm increasingly skeptical of that thought. And I think I had it back.

I now suspect that the way people are on Twitter and on Facebook is actually probably more like what they're who they actually are than they are in life. And in life, they're editing themselves to be different. Oh, interesting. It's flipped. I, well, I may have always been that way and I may have just been wrong about it. My natural inclination is to assume, of course, anything in a cyber world or a mediated world is going to be more false than the way a person is in everyday life. But I just, I don't know if that's true anymore. Now, certainly there's people listening to this podcast and there's the majority of them

are people who are like, no way, I'm in the first category. It's like, I'm the person I am. And then sometimes when I go on Facebook or whatever, I sort of have to act in the way that people act on Facebook. But I think the people in the second category is growing. And, you know, I, I, it's just a strange, it's a strange thing,

because, you know, there's, there's so many people who, you know, I know both versions of them. I know the online version and I know the real version. And it used to be real hard for me just to sort of reconcile, well, how could this person I know whole life that they kind of felt like the, I don't know, the almost like the oppressive nature of society and how society works forced them to act a certain way as a person. removed. They can sort of say whatever they want. There's no chance that there's going to be any kind of real retribution or, you know, it's like people will respond to them online, but they can just be ignored. I just have this growing fear that people, that society is moving toward a situation where the way you present yourself in public is more who you are than the way you seem in public. Well, so I'm experiencing this through my kids. First of all, it's funny that you said Facebook because I'm not, I think under 30. What do you think, Kyle? Under 30, Facebook? No, it's for talking to your family yeah I think Facebook

has become an over 35 basically place like somebody like my kids don't even go on Facebook or have a Facebook account they're Instagram TikTok and I think when you get into your 20s you're probably Instagram Twitter and what else what else Kyle That's all I got. That's it. That's my old realtor's one. But eventually they're going to be 30 or 35. Yeah, but by that- That's always the thing. If you try to- It's kind of like your theory with baseball. You always say baseball is dead

because young people aren't interested in it. But young people stop being young people at some point. And then they start gravitating towards the things that they feel somehow represent the adultitating towards the things that they feel somehow represent the adult experience or the things that they are reminded. I'm sure, Bill, that you do things now that your dad used to do and that there was never a point in your life where you consciously thought you would do that. But at some point you became a middle-aged person and started doing things that you associate with being a middle-aged person.

No, I think it's the opposite. I think you just lose things as you get older. No, I think you lose things as you get older. I don't think you add things. I don't think nobody's like, I'm 35. It's time for me to start watching baseball. I think, I think if anything, you start with more things. And as you get older, like, I remember I gave up college football. I don't remember when, but I was in my mid-20s. And then eventually regular season hockey went away. And, you know, in the last five to 10 years,

pretty much regular season baseball has gone for me except for the Red Sox. And even then, I'm basically coming in in the sixth inning and just watching the close games. I'm not watching nearly the same amount. But I think as you get older, I think you just lose stuff. There's also more stuff to do now. I was thinking, who was I talking about this the other day? You think about, let's go back, I don't know, 14 years.

Let's go to the mid-2000s. Even before sports, the blogs and that whole stuff, things are happening, but it's not as organized as it would be a few years later. But people would just go to the ESPN.com page and they would go there for like an hour. And they would just click on pieces and they would go to the next piece.

And they would look at it like, I have 45 minutes to spend. I have four places on the internet I could go. I guess I'll go here. And they would go there and then they would get in the habit of going there. And now I think everybody's experience is totally different.

And especially when you think about how... But what I'm saying though is, okay, when that was happening, when that period was happening, there would have been older people who would have said, you would not believe what young people do now. They go on the computer and they go to this site and they just look at a bunch of different things and they spend an hour there. That seems crazy to older people. Okay. So the thing that we're like, whatever young people are doing now, it's not as though that's going to be what young people. Okay. So the thing that, that we're like, whatever young people are doing now, it's not as though that's going to be what young people always do. True. You know what I'm

saying? It's like, like these things become like, uh, uh, you know, there, there was a time when it would, where people would make jokes about, yo, maybe your grandma's on Facebook now. Now the joke is only grandma's on Facebook. It didn't take long for that joke to change. And she actually really is on Facebook. Yeah, I think about this a lot. Sepinwall did a podcast, me and Sepinwall, last week about 1994,

which is probably the greatest TV year ever. And I think part of the reason it was such a great year, and I remember it fondly, is the total old guy thing. We just had less going on back then. And I had, like, if you watch, like, a great episode of ER, a great episode of Friends or whatever, Seinfeld, 90210, whatever, pretty much most of the people in my life had seen the episode,

because the audience for TV was kind of like how it is even now as sports, where a lot of people probably saw the Rams-Bucks game on Sunday. And if I go to work the next day and I just want to wander around talking to people about football, odds are I can get in a conversation about Rams-Bucks or about, uh, opening night Clippers Lakers or whatever. I know at least with sports, I'm gonna have common ground with a whole bunch of people. I think what's happened with pop culture is it's so splintered now. And you saw it with the Emmys on, on a couple of weeks ago where Fleabag wins. And my dad is like, what's Fleabag? Who is this person? And that was the, I think the

majority of people had no idea what Fleabag was. And we can say that's crazy, but it's such a, such a chasm now where it's like, oh, Marvelous Mrs. Basil. There's a couple of fans for that show, I'm sure. But it's not like, it's not like mid nineties where it's like, oh, ER one. I know, I have an opinion on that show. Now it's just niche everything. It's niche music. And that's, that's why a movie like Joker is actually something that most of the people I know would have an opinion on, which makes it rare. Well, you know, you,

you are basically making the argument for the monoculture, you know, and I, I am accused of doing this all the time, where I'm often talking about or writing about this idea that because for a while people were having a shared experience that that made the experience more valuable. Like you mentioned the box for ramp game. Okay, you're like, a lot of people watched it, so I could come to work and talk about it. You were able to basically use your experience with a football game for something else, for basically social interaction.

Fleabag wins the Emmy. You love Fleabag. Your dad doesn't know it. So it's like, oh, what do we do here? It's like, I like this thing, and who do I talk about it with? It's odd, though, because you talk about 1994 being the best year in television. If you're really thinking about what was on TV, though, that's a preposterous thing to suggest. I mean, if you would have said to someone in 1994 that it would be possible for there to be so many good shows on, like great shows,

so many shows that are better than any show that's on right now, that you could very well not even know it exists, people will be like, give me that. I would love to be in a, you know, but then, you know, it's just everything gets kind of, you know, in balance. Look, I've been watching, I've been watching the Ken Burns country music docuseries. Have you been watching any of that? I have not.

It's real good. It's slow, but it's so interesting, and it's kind of making me think about a lot of different things. One of the things I'm kind of realizing is, okay, so country music predates rock and hip hop. And it seems pretty clear now, it's going to be an important thing way after rock and hip hop fade. So then it's like, well, so now is country music actually the most important art form in the history of the United States? Is it more important than jazz? Is it sort of reflecting a kind of life that is only reflected in this music that you don't really see anywhere else? You don't really see in television.

You don't really see in film that much. You don't really hear about in politics. And my favorite part was the episode from like 1973 to 1983. And even that kind of reminded me of how big things could be with a lot of people having no relationship to it whatsoever. Like when I think of the music of the seventies, I think of rock music almost exclusively and, you know, and some like, you know, soul music and R&B music, there are these huge country records, you know, these massive things that, that, you know, soul music and R&B music. There are these huge country records, you know, these massive things that,

you know, like Willie Nelson records that were on the charts for two years straight or whatever. Yeah. And to a lot of people, it didn't happen at all. So maybe this has always happened to a certain extent. It's just really amplified now and it's like we're real aware of it. Well, I wonder,

all right, so we've had it both ways, right? And I don't know which way is better, but if I had been 13, I really liked baseball cards. Maybe knew two people in my life who also knew anything about baseball cards. There was a, I think there was a magazine back then. Maybe

there even wasn't. But I had nowhere to go. I had nowhere to learn about them. I had no one to talk to about baseball cards, basketball cards, any of that stuff. That was it. It was just my thing and two other people that I knew. And I think it would have been so much cooler for me if you took like the 2019 infrastructure for baseball cards and eBay and these magazines and these websites and people writing about them. And I could be like, oh, wow, I'm getting everything I ever wanted with baseball cards. I definitely would have liked that more. And I think it's the same thing when you're talking about 1994. I think one of the reasons I'm so fond of that year as a TV year is because there weren't that many shows. And it was like I had a bunch of people to talk about all these different shows with because we were all watching the same shows.

So you would say it's actually better to have a million choices and all these different things. I would say yes and no, because I feel like everybody's on a different timetable with whatever show they care about. That's what's made Succession interesting this year is that for whatever reason, I know a lot of people are watching that show and it's really fun to be able to talk about a show without people going, no, no, don't talk. I haven't caught up yet. I'm still on season one or no, I'm not watching that. This one, it seems like kind of people are in on, and it's an old school experience of the show happens. Kyle and I watched Sunday night.

We're all fired up, talked about it after. And, uh, and I, I wonder if that's happening less and less. Well, you know,

it is interesting. You mentioned that succession is the only show my wife and I watch live. That is the only show that we watch when it comes on, you know. But I want to ask you something. This is kind of a question about, I guess, I'm interested now in something about the way you sort of view the world, okay? Let's use the book of basketball as an example. I feel like I'm going to be insulted here.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Because I had a real, when I was on this book tour, I did this event in Seattle with David Shields, the writer. And at one point, and I'll explain this later, a question came from the audience

that me and David Shields vehemently disagreed with. So, but I want to get your take on this first. Is there anything in the book of basketball, it's like an 800-page book, okay? Is there any joke or reference or anything in that book that's just for you

that's not really for other people to get or understand or even be amused by? It's for you. It amused you, and you left it in the book you want in the book because, uh, it, it, it is like, uh, something you just wanted regardless of, of what it meant to anybody else.

Oh, I would say there's like 200 things like that. I don't, I don't think you can write, I don't think you can write a book like that and not especially a long book like that, but just in general, when you're writing a book like that and it's personal and it's passionate, you have to put stuff in there that's just for you. That's the only way to have fun writing it. Okay. Well, see, I agree with you. Okay. So we're in Seattle doing this book event downstairs at the Elliott Bain bookstore.

And somebody asked me a question about one of the stories in Raised in Captivity. And it was an incredibly kind of arcane question that had to do with, like, I can't even remember what the reference was. And earlier in the conversation, I had mentioned that the subtitle of the book is kind of a joke to myself, because the subtitle of the book is like fictional nonfiction. And it doesn't really make any sense because nonfictional fiction would mean the same. It's like it's just sort of a way to avoid writing the word stories. Anyways, the thing is, it confuses people, but I find it amusing. And he asked me, were there any other examples of that in this book, where there's something that you did just sort of for your kind of,

you know, to entertain yourself? And the honest answer is many times. And in all my books, I think that is the case. David Shields found this to be sort of an offensive concept. He was like, the whole idea of writing is to reach out, kind of reach out of the darkness and communicate with someone to basically break the limitations of loneliness, that people are inherently lonely because we're kind of trapped in ourselves. And the reason you write a book or do any art is to kind of break out of that and reach someone else. So he would never include anything in his books that

only applied to him. And now I think this is kind of interesting, because what you're saying about art, and why you love television in 1994, was that the experience of watching it also included the experience of talking to other people about it. It would seem to me like I would not have been surprised if you would have said that there's nothing in your book that isn't intended for other people. Because it seems to me

that you're very hungry to connect with people. In fact, I wonder if you're- So I knew you were going to insult me. I thought I think you are. No, I think hungry is the wrong word. I think your whole, no. No, but hold on though.

I think that your whole career is built to connect because you, when you had no money or making no money, you still wanted to write things for people to read

and for people to be amused by. But so did you. there was no benefit. You did too. You were writing for like the North Dakota, were we writing music columns?

It was like the Fargo Tribune Forum. I was working in a newspaper job. It's like I was being paid $19,000 a year. You know, I was able to sort of, you know. I was getting paid, ugh, I think it was like $200

a week. You were getting paid nothing. I thought that, okay, maybe this is just the mythos, but I thought the thing okay, maybe this is just the mythos. But I thought the thing was, is that you were like watching 90210 on reruns at like one in the afternoon and typing up sports columns and then emailing it, like CCing it to like 400 people. No. Is this true or false? No, that's good though. I like that version of my 1990s story, though. What is the story?

I got hired by Digital City Boston to be their quote-unquote sports guy. And I started writing columns for them. What did you do before that, though? Well, I was bartending. What was this thing about you? Because you did that one podcast where you had no guests. You just talked into it. And you talked about doing this. I know

you did. No, no, no. How there was a period where you were just emailing your work to people. Now you're mixing up the stories. So the first 18 months I was on digital city, Boston, you could only read it with an AOL address. So it was all people with AOL accounts could read it, which actually it was more people than you think. because there weren't a lot of email. I think it was, what was it, like AOL and Yahoo and two other things. So if I had a friend at work or a friend who had a school address or whatever,

they just couldn't read the thing, so I'd have to mail them out, and then there became a mailing list of people who couldn't get AOL. But I still had the readers. I'm still getting paid. How are you getting paid? So the first three months, I made a deal with them.

It was $50 a week. Because I knew if I got a chance that I was going to do well. So I was totally willing to do that. Then I negotiated up to $200 a week for the next three months. And then after the six-month mark, because it was doing well, I think it went up to like $500 a week.

No benefits. So I still had the bar time. Okay, so you kind of reject my thesis that as an only child and somebody who probably spent a lot of time watching television sports by themselves, thinking about things in their mind, thinking like it would really be fun to have someone else who would, you know, uh, have this experience with that your drive to

write and podcast and sort of do all this. This is not an attempt to connect with other people. I would say that's true, except for here's the caveat. If that was true, then I wouldn't have written anything that hasn't been published or things that were just for me, which I still do. So then that can't be true.

So you journal? No, I've written a lot of stuff. Just because I wrote... I mean, you must have done the same thing, right? You must have a bunch of shit that nobody's that's either never been published or you've never posted or anything. Right. Well, I know, but, but, but do you have a lot of unpublished work? I do. I have a lot of stuff that I've, that I've written that either.

I decided it didn't work columns that, that either I wrote three fourths of columns that, that either I wrote three, four sub or I wrote and I just didn't like, or I just wrote cause I wanted, was experimenting with the format or whatever, and then just didn't publish it. But the intention was to have it published. No,

the intention was to try to say, I have not done much writing in my life where the intention wasn't that it would be published. There are things that I thought were too bad to publish that I didn't use or whatever, but my intention always was basically published anything I wrote. My intention was, I've never,

I've never kept a journal or a diary. Have you ever done that? No, not since like, I think I did in college for a little bit, but no, my, what did you journal about?

It was just kind of to remind, to remember what I was doing. It was, it was less like, you know, written thoughts about stuff, but more like this happened just to, so it was like, this is going to be a whirlwind. I want to look back in the summer, remember all the things that happened. So it was, it was almost more like bullet pointy than actual today. I write, I'm sitting under a tree thinking about blah, blah, blah. I never wrote that. But when you talk, wait a second though, when you talk about intention, sometimes I write, or I really don't

write anymore, but when I did, sometimes I would write just because I was trying to get better or trying to work on stuff or try some sort of style. It was more for, you know, the craft of it, trying to just improve. And sometimes that meant it was something that was published. Like, like Hunter S. Thompson would retype Ernest Hemingway stories. That's weird. Because he was under the impression that if he did, well, his thinking was that there's a rhythm to writing. Yeah.

So if you retype these stories he would naturally adopt the rhythm it is interesting too when i was a young person uh like in high school uh i would read books multiple times like i one time you know i would never do that now but like when i i i i was reading season on the brink in chemistry class i was sitting in the back of the room and i finished season on the brink and i just went to the front and started reading it again like i just i can't imagine i would ever do that now with a book but i think when you're young that does happen um i guess i was just i was wondering wondering if like, what is, what's your real motive for doing what you do? But I think, I think the answer to this coming from you is more interesting because

you, you have now created a world for yourself where you're just writing books for people that you know will probably like the books and you won't, you won't try to write for anybody other than those people. So I would say that motivation is a little more interesting. Well, yeah, I think that one thing that I did realize is that once your work starts being consumed by people who don't really want it, who are just reading it because it's free or because everyone else is reading this or whatever, it really changes the experience.

And it shouldn't. I guess I shouldn't think about any of it, but it's hard not to sometimes. I know, but I feel like you would have had, I don't know, I wish you had written more about stuff just for non-book stuff, like just reaction stuff, things like that. I thought you wrote some really good stuff for Grantland. Well, it's nice of you to say,

but I will say Grantland was a real clear indication of this thing I'm talking about. I know it was, I was there. Yeah. It's just, it, it, it's, it was so different. You know, it's like when you write for a magazine, but the person who got that magazine was like pretty open to it, right? They were like, the reason I'm buying this is because I want this. They might not necessarily like it, but they're starting from the position that this is something I want. But when you're writing things and they're completely free to everyone, it ends up just being like, well, I'm going to look at this because somebody else pushed me at it. Or I got nothing else to do. Or I feel like being mad about something.

What can I find to be mad at? Like, it's a very different thing, you know? And it was less enjoyable, you know? But some people, I think, actually like that more. They almost think it's like, well, okay, so, you know, it's easy to write for people who want to read it. You know, I'm going to write for people who want to read it. You know, I'm going to write for people who don't want it. That's like an interesting challenge, I guess. It would be like if I tried to write a book

specifically to appeal to people who didn't like any of my other books, I guess that would be an interesting obstruction. I mean, to bring this full circle, we could talk about that. That's probably affected the kind of, the general writing that we have now where people, all of the stuff you just mentioned is in their head before they even start a piece. And, you know, they're just calculating

all the ways it could be thrown back in their face as they're writing something. So then they would gravitate toward slightly safer ways to say things. Or you go the other way and you just become the one that just sits there and goes after everybody. I mean, both of those things seem to exist.

I mean, you know, but the thing that I used to think that people were pretty sophisticated about was that they could really tell when somebody was trying to be controversial or bombastic on purpose. And they would really see through that. But now that's so central to everything that we do. I, I, I don't, I don't know if that feels something that people, uh, are able to, um, kind of recognize and push back against. I think it's almost seems like they think that's necessary, but there needs to be, there needs to be someone who is kind of, I don't know, like consciously embrace it for whatever. I think a lot of that has switched to TV and radio and podcasts to some degree.

Like the stuff that you've mentioned with the writing stuff. But I also think, you know, you go back to, like when I started writing for ESPN or even going back to my old website, it was fun to write sports comms where I used to approach some of them at least because I was a political science major. Political science I loved because it was basically like take something that happened in history and then make an argument about something about it. And sports writing, I think, used to be like that. It was a huge part of the experience is people would take something like,

Peyton Manning's never going to win a Super Bowl. And they would actually write, I probably have a column in my archives where I actually wrote that. Because you would take this premise and then you would try to argue the case for why you thought that way. And it didn't have to be balanced, nuanced. And then around the mid 2000s, that style just got basically rejected, where it was like, you can't just go all in on this one thing. You have to lay both sides and then things became a lot more nuanced. I would say this is probably a good thing and ultimately made people's writing better, including mine. But at the same time, it was kind of fun to just take an angle and try to write it and try to prove some point that you didn't 100% believe, but you were going for it. And that kind of thing is now either gone completely or, um, when people do it now, you kind of know they're doing it as a way to get a reaction. I didn't really feel like that was the case in the early two thousands. It was more like, this is, this is my argument. I'm going to make

it. We're definitely, the stakes were definitely lower. Like it was the idea of someone having kind of a um like a crazy or reactionary or sort of troubling sort of perspective it didn't seem to mean as much like you know you would have to write a pretty crazy uh newspaper column to lose your job. Like that was, it would almost be news if that happened. Right. It's not really so much how it is now. People just,

it's odd. We have more of it and more of it is really shallow. And yet the importance of everything has increased. Like people care about it more. I'm curious as a political science, a political scientist, what are your thoughts on the situation? I'm going to give my thoughts right after this break.

Let's talk about Luminary, new podcast subscription service with some of the best content around, including a bunch of ringer podcasts like Sonic Boom that premieres this week. It is the story about how the Seattle Supersonics, an iconic franchise that won the 1979 NBA title. You think when you win a title, you're not allowed to have your team moved. You'd be wrong because they stole it. They brought it to Oklahoma City. It's bothered me for 12 years. I wrote about it back in the day,

a bunch of pieces, actually. And now we're doing a narrative podcast about just how effed up this whole thing was. And you can get it on Luminary along with Rewatchables

1999, which we have two episodes left. We have a HodgePodge episode actually coming later this week. Me, Sean Fennessey, and Chris Ryan talking about the movies

that weren't... We decided not to give a whole Rewatchables pod to, but we not to give a whole rewatchables pod too, but we wanted to talk about just because of the spirit of that year and the movies that were made. So stay tuned for that. And then Magnolia is coming next week. Now it'd be the last one.

You can get the rewatchables 1999 on luminary. You can get sonic boom on luminary. You can get break stuff, our Woodstock podcast on luminary. You can get your first two months of access to luminary is premium content for free at luminary.link slash Simmons. After that, it's only $7.99 per month. Cancel any time. Terms apply. And speaking of new podcasts, I hope you're going to Spotify for the hottest take. That is our new mini podcast that's seven minutes long, eight minutes long, nine minutes long. It's always in that seven to nine minute range. It's one take. The person argues it. They might either totally believe it, 90% believe it,

80% believe it. But the important thing is the passion for the take is there. We've done some great ones already. I think we probably peaked with the alphabet, but we've been trying to capture that magic ever since. But you can check that out. Follow us on Spotify. And every time we have a new one, it'll go right into your Spotify feed. So there you go back to Chuck. Well, now we're into political science. I knew this was going to happen. I wanted to make one case though for 1994 is the greatest TV year ever. It was a groundbreaking stretch for TV just in general. And I think that's why I remember it so fondly, because it was the beginning of all these different things that eventually TV learned how to do better. But when I think of 94, I think of all of these different ways TV was kind of realizing its potential in getting out of the formulaic bullshit from the previous decade.

Even think about something like NYPD Blue in the mid-90s compared to dramas that we had thought were awesome dramas from the previous decade. There's an LA station here that runs all old TV shows, and they had a Hill Street Blues episode on. And I was like, oh my God, Hill Street Blues. I haven't seen this show forever. This was the dominant TV drama for, I don't know, four or five years until St. Elsewhere kind of took the championship belt from it. And this show was so slow

and boring and I just couldn't it felt like it came out 130 years ago. And I think when I remember that 94 range for TV, I just felt like things were kind of shifting into where we are now. So I think that's one of the reasons. Anyway, I want to make that case. Well, the Hill Street Blues thing is

interesting. I mean, like Joyce Carol Oates wrote an essay about Hill Street Blues for TV Guide. Now that all seems kind of crazy, but like the premise of her essay was, I can't believe that me and all my literate friends care more about what's happening on Hill Street Blues than what's happening like in the literary world. I mean, that's like how innovative Hill Street Blues seems. The thing you're talking about, the slowness though, in that Stephen Johnson book, Everything Bad is Good for You, he talks a lot about this exact thing about how that it television for the longest time um was like there's only there's an a story and there's a b story and they're moving in a very literal like a linear way um and as a consequence like it's hard to go back and watch

shows even i think i mean you talk i think even from 1994, to be honest, that it does not seem dynamic. I mean, there were some things that happened in the 90s that were very innovative. I feel like that Seinfeld really radically changed what was considered or qualified as comedic. I think that was a huge part of it. You know, it's like that, that there, when they were also sort of like the idea of having, you know, George is trying to make his own show. So there's like, and the show,

it would be Seinfeld. And it's like, you know, so it'd be like a postmodern thing within this thing. I mean, that was pretty innovative. Um, I mean,

so now it's, you know, that's still basically using the eighties format for television. No bill. Yeah, it is. No, but I'm saying like some things, that's still basically using the 80s format for television, though, Bill. Yeah, it is. No, but I'm saying some things, some formulas that had been in place for a long time,

they felt like they were modernized during that era. Like ER, there have been a million medical shows. And then ER happened, and I was like, holy shit, this is cool. They had Tarantino direct an episode. They had, they found talent that was, you know, would go on to do a whole bunch of great stuff. And, um, you know, just going around the map, like even Seppel and I were talking about MTV, like that's when the real world's real world started taking off, which is now a joke, I guess, but back then wasn't, that was, I'd never seen a show in my life like The Real World, where it was like people

my age or close to my age, trying to figure out what they were doing with their life, and they all lived together, and there were cameras on them all the time, and it was like, what the fuck is this? I couldn't get enough of that show. I know, and everybody kind of knows, like, everyone concedes that now.

I wrote about that in Sex, Drug, and Cocoa Puffs, and reviews at the time were still like why is he writing about this mtv show like now nobody would say that now it's sort of like it's a given that uh like not only that event kind of an entire genre of television but it had a you know a huge uh impact on shaping young people who were like living in Omaha and just watching the show or whatever. I mean, if you want to track, say, the adoption of like black slang by white people over time, you can do it by watching the real world in order. You will see language that was only basically used initially, it would have been considered to be used, like, you know,

it would be weird for a white person to say that. There was many people who thought that, you know, in the early 90s about language. And you can see it change. Like, you can just, like, it's, you gotta sit through a lot of episodes, but, like, the adoption of that language,

counter-counter language among like just, you know, seemingly, you know, average white people is like perfectly illustrated in that show. Right. And then you take a show like the first season of Friends, which has been written a lot about recently. And, you know, people had done variations of young people in their 20s trying to figure it out on TV.

But that was the first one that... I stand by the first season of Friends. They really captured that dynamic within a group of friends and how they're not really all perfect match. And in some cases, you'd be like, oh, well, Phoebe would never hang out with Chandler, but they all kind of end up in a group together.

And some of the things that were in that show are things that, yeah, I was the same age as the people on that show, basically. But, you know, some friends making more money than the other friends and things like that. I just,

that Hootie and the Blowfish episode. It was a great episode. That was a, that, that, that is a reflective of a real problem at the time. Friends did get one thing totally right. And it explains why people who are 18 now will still watch that show. It's like there is a period in most people's lives when your friends become your family.

Yeah. It doesn't last your whole life. But, you know, from the age of about 18 to the late 20s, usually, unless you get married real young, your friends are more important to you than your family is. If you could spend Thanksgiving with your friends as opposed to going home, you always would or whatever, you know, or you would prefer to do that. But a lot of times in your 20s, doing stuff with your parents kind of felt almost obligatory, you know, and they really got that right because the way that the people on that show interact,

they don't interact the way you do with a more adult relationship where, you know, it's disposable. Like, none of those relationships are disposable to the people because those are the most important people in their lives. Wesley wrote a really good piece about friends a few weeks ago for the New York Times. I'm still mad about what happened to friends because I really thought, and I know it's going to live on now eternally, and I know it's popular with the whole new generation

and people like that, but I thought for thought for like the first year and a half, it was really close to figuring out how to explain an entire generation of people. And then it just became, you know, once Ross and Rachel actually started dating and the studio audience is cheering and it just became a typical TV show. But a lot of the stuff they were doing in that first season, I had just never seen on TV before. I thought it was really high level and really smart. And, you know, I think it's cool. Like my daughter can watch those episodes now

and they're silly. And, you know, Gladwell wrote a thing in his book about how good the actors were with their expressions, how you could mute a show and still figure out what's going on. And it was one of the most talented casts we've had. But I really think the legacy of that show for me now is that so many people tried to rip it off and nobody could. I mean, how many shows have we had? About 20 somethings that all they have is

each other trying to navigate the world, and none of them have worked. Friends was the only one who did it because they set the bar so high with that first season. It's so hard not to compare any show that comes after that first season. I don't know. I think it's weirdly underrated, but then also overrated

at the same time. That makes sense. People have strong feelings about it. People who hate Friends have real strong feelings about it. And I think part of it has to do with when it was that period throughout the 90s where it was like anything that seemed to be

obviously mainstream, like, like very consciously mainstream that you were, you were supposed to kind of prove that you were aware that you knew that by not liking it. Right. You had to backlash it. Well,

but it was just like your awareness. It was like, like how can you be fooled by this? Like, like if everybody gets fooled this would have been like a thinking in the 90s like everyone gets fooled sometimes by thinking something is cool and actually it was just sort of you know a commodity that's being sold to you but like you know friends is that like there was no question it's like the but you know a super

popular situation comedy you know on and on on nbc opposite my so-called life, you know, on, and on, on NBC opposite my so-called life. And, you know, there was this idea that my so-called life was, was forwarding these ideas that, that actually had more meaning. So if you were choosing friends over that show, you were pretty much choosing to hang out with the cool kids in the cafeteria as opposed to the people on the stairs. Yeah. It's funny.

And that this has happened with me with a few TV shows. We're actually really get mad at the TV show. And I take it personally when I feel that they betrayed the characters. So a couple of examples in friends. Um, I think Chandler fell in love with Joey's girlfriend. That was maybe like third or fourth season. And it became a thing and they had to figure it out.

In real life, if that happened, the friendship's over and everybody in the friend group has to choose sides. Like that's it. Like you broke the code. You went after your buddy's girlfriend. That dude's never going to trust you again. And then they did it a second time. Joey fell in love with Rachel.

And it was like, no. In a friend group, that's not happening. And if it does happen, the friend group splinters. They're not bouncing back from that. But I remember same thing with Sex and the City, which I thought the first two years of that show were really good. Then it became a parody of itself.

But they had that thing where Mr. Big got married and then Carrie, who I really liked, who for all her faults was a good character, really well drawn out. I understood her. And then she starts cheating. Big starts cheating on who he married with Carrie and they're sneaking around. I was like, And then she starts cheating. Big starts cheating on who he married with Carrie and they're sneaking around. I was like, I don't like this. I don't like this person.

I'm out. And I was out in the show after that. Do you do that with TV shows where you actually take it personally? If the characters make a decision you don't like, or am I crazy? Not really. Yeah. Mine might just be a lunatic. I would say, no, no, no. I would say the opposite. I would say that you are probably more in line with most people. I probably am the weird one in this because I like, I'm of the belief that, you know, the character is what the writer decides. You know, this happened during Mad Men. You know, it was like there was this huge uproar when Joan sleeps with the guy from Jaguar. You get the Jaguar account. Yeah.

See, I like that. And there were a lot of, well, here's the deal, okay? It doesn't matter if you like it or dislike it. There are two things I would say. First of all, like people who said that she would never do that. She would never do that. That's like, well, if you watch the very first episode of Mad Men, you would absolutely think she would. Yes.

Like the character she is there and the character she comes later are pretty much different people. But more so, it's like that's what the guy doing the story and the women running the story watch. Like, you know, it's like that, that, that it, I, I guess I give those, I,

you know, I, I, I, it's hard for me to ever view fictional characters as real. I mean, I know you're supposed to do that, but it's hard for me to do that.

Yeah. But I'm not, I'm not saying I'm not blaming the character cause it's a fake character. I'm blaming more the writers who are now in charge of this living, breathing thing they've created. I want them to make decisions that make sense. I remember the last Larry Sanders episode, which is one of my favorite TV show episodes ever. And the show, they do the last show. And Hank is so mad they didn't give him time to say anything.

And he comes out and he starts screaming at Artie and Larry. You know, you motherfuckers, how dare you? It was totally, he just never would have done that on the show. And as it was happening the first time I watched it, I'm like, oh, Jesus, really? They're going to fuck up Hank on the last show? Like, this is, he wouldn't do this. He wouldn't have the balls to be this angry about it.

And then he comes back 30 seconds later crying and he's like, I'm sorry. And it was like, oh, now I know why they did it. But I think it's more for me, like I feel ownership

over how they've created the character. And when I feel like they do something just totally stupid with it, I get mad. I mean, that's the tough thing. It's like in fiction,

everything has to make sense, but in, in nonfiction, it doesn't. But if you're watching a documentary about someone and they do something completely out of character, if they do something that makes absolutely no sense, if they betray someone who they've kind of spent their whole life loyal to, it's like, this is a more interesting person. But if that happens in a fictional story, people are like,

that couldn't work. That would never happen. That's the hardest thing about fiction is that you get to make up stories. And yet it can never have kind of the logical leap to happen all the time in life. It's like the, the Eagles documentary. Remember in the Eagles documentary,

they tell the story about Glenn Frey kicking. They basically steal Hotel California from Don Felder. He has this thing. He wants to sing it. They don't want him to sing it. The manager takes him out to lunch and then they record the vocals without him and then come back and then bring him back and be like, hey man, Henley did this.

And Glenn Frey does this whole thing in the documentary. No, actually you're confused. That's the song Victim of Love. Gonsfelder wrote... Oh yeah, you're right. I meant Victim of Love. I'm sorry, you're right. Yeah, yeah, Victim of Love.

So they do that and he comes back and they're like, sorry man, we did this. And ends up, they'd steal the song from him. If you read, if you're writing a book about a music band and the guys did that, and it was fictional, you'd be like,

wow, what fucking assholes in the documentary. It's like, ah, that was cool. Yeah. He shouldn't have saying that. It probably would have been more out of character for the Eagles to be like,

it's real important to him. Let's let him do it. Maybe it'll cost us some money. Who cares? You know, it's like we're artists. Oh, my God. Did you tell me you recently saw Metallica? Tell me about that.

Oh, yeah. I wanted to talk to you about that. Had never been, had never seen Metallica. Went to the opening concert at the new San Francisco arena that the Warriors built, which is the state-of-the-art rich guy palace that's ever been built. There's just suites everywhere and incredible acoustics. And they really, they built a money machine. But the good thing is the acoustics are really good.

And just had an offer to go. I was like, what the fuck? And went, and, uh, I guess we went on the show. There were two shows. The other show is the diehard fans where it was like all the people in the Metallica club. So it was like all those, this was like a mixture of the diehard fans and then just people like me that were going to go. And it was intense. I got to say. They had the rotating stage. They were doing it with the San Francisco Orchestra. So they're trying to blend orchestra stuff into all their songs.

Pretty ambitious. But man, I mean, some of their their songs it's just intense I was into it I gotta say they had a whole lull during the middle when they were really trying to get the orchestra ready and they're saving all these songs and I know in my head they haven't played like 7 of their best ones and I went on

Spotify to see what their top 5 songs most played on Metallica and they hadn't played any of the five. So I was like, oh man, this is going to be good. And then they just ripped them off one after the other. And it was like a half hour. The crowd was just so, so into it.

Like 10 out of 10 that a crowd would be into it. And it was really intense. And they are obviously incredible performers. And they have the set up of the stage. Lars is pretty prominently involved. He's in the middle. You can really see him. He gets a lot of time. It's pretty rare to see a band in person where they're actually featuring the drummer as this hugely important person it was just I was kind of like I left it I was like okay I get it now because I never really

I wasn't against Metallica I just didn't really get it and then seeing it I was like okay now I get it this is I get why people get sucked into this you know

I've seen Metallica I think three times and in the 90s I used to be pretty critical of them like in fact I think three times. And in the nineties, I used to be pretty critical of them. Like, in fact, I think like, I haven't ever went back and checked,

but I think like, I think I've written pretty negative things about like Metallica and Fargo Rock City. You know? And my opinion on that has really changed over time because the thing that I've realized is, is they're pretty underrated as songwriters. And the reason I say that is because they don't do anything that goes really outside of thrash music.

Like the Load Records a little bit, but they are pretty conscious about staying within the kind of the silo in which they work that that metallica songs are going to have these certain elements and that then they're not they're going to be in every song and within those constraints they actually have a pretty varied selection of material. Like, it's, I think that they're pretty intelligent in terms of being able to be as kind of surprising and unique as you can be without ever changing from what you do. I mean, like, if you look at, like, ACDC, they're kind of the same way, but ACDC songs are fundamentally the same way but ACDC songs are fundamentally the same like you can be a pretty big ACDC song ACDC fan and

you can hear a clip from one of their songs and they're like now which record is this Metallica's not so much like that I respect them more now as I've kind of and plus they've kind of proved it by being so popular for so long yeah somebody we were talking to somebody in the music industry after and Plus they've kind of proved it by being so popular for so long. Yeah. Somebody,

we were talking to somebody in the music industry after, and he was just like, these guys in the music industry. Who are you talking to in the music? I would, I would be curious. I don't want to out people. It was just somebody who knows stuff about music, who works in the industry.

And he was saying, he was just like, he was like, these guys are eternal. And I was like, why? And he's like, cause every year there's a new generation of 15 year olds who hate their parents, who are trying to figure out what's going on in their life. And then they hear these guys and it all makes sense. I was like, oh, yeah, I guess you're right. And I've experienced this a little bit. I mean, not that part, but with my son because he's been playing the bass. He's like really, really passionate

about learning the bass and playing. He gets lessons, like he's really into it. And he's gravitated toward all these 70s songs that are like from the deep recesses of my brain. And it's so funny funny. These songs are just never going to die. Black Sabbath and Bad Company

go on and on. All those bands from back then, they're just never going to go away. They're going to be there for as long as we have ears. Okay, you still have not addressed your impeachment thoughts. This is a good one for us to go out on. Hey, we're taking one more break.

Wanted to tell you about The Road Taken, our brand new podcast. But actually, let's have the host tell you. Hello, friends. Welcome to the trailer for The Road Taken with CT and Bayo. I'm Bayo, a.k.a. Chris Bayo.

I've watched Chris bring his sunny positivity and shredding bass lines to stages all around the world for the past 13 years in the band Vampire Weekend. And I'm CT, which is short for Chris Thompson.

For the past 13 years, you've been my sneakily dark rhythm section partner. We've embarked on a massive world tour and are excited to experience all the thrills and boredom that entails. To help us process our own experiences along the way, we'll be having conversations with peers, idols, and maybe a rando or two. The Road Taken with CT and Baio, part of the Ringer Podcast Network, coming soon on all podcast platforms. All right, we're back.

It just seems like there's more overwhelming evidence that he probably shouldn't be the president than we've ever had with all the other presidents combined who have been in this position. Like, he's so far beyond the presidents combined who have been in this position. He's so far beyond the conduct that we should expect from this position that I almost don't even know what to believe anymore. I used to joke about the Tyson zone in my column way back when about Mike Tyson. I'd believe any story of Mike Tyson. I really would believe any Trump story at this point. I don't think there's a single thing you could throw at me that I wouldn't be like, oh, that makes sense.

So, I guess my point is, even though it seems like this is probably headed toward the end, I'm just assuming he'll somehow get out fine and he'll be fine. That would be my political science take.

What do you mean by headed toward the end? Do you think he's going to be removed from office? I don't. I think there's no chance he'll be removed from office. Oh, I think there's no chance, but I'm sensing real hope from people that that's going to be the outcome for this. And I just, to me, it's like until the day comes

when he's actually out of the office, I'm not going to think it's going to happen. Yeah, I mean, I'm certainly interested in how this is all going to play out. But I do have this one fear, which is that I think there's a lot of people who think that Trump should not be president. I think the majority of the country believes that Trump should not be president. But the reasons they think he should not be president are not really tied to what he's going to be impeached over. I think for a lot of people, they're like, he's a lunatic. He's losing his mind. He's a racist. He hates women. He has all these things. And they're like, well, okay, so he called a guy the thrust of the things that we think about Trump. And there's going to be this attempt to convince the American public that the reason he shouldn't be president is because of this issue that my suspicion is most people don't care that much about. And that's going to, in a weird way, erode their memory of all the things about him that are just catastrophically terrible. And that I think

that this impeachment is incrementally increasing the likelihood that he will be reelected. But, I mean, I'm wrong about lots of things. But that's sort of, that is kind of my perception of this. I really thought Pelosi's initial position was the correct one, and people just hammered her so much, particularly people running for president who want to sort of be in, like, you know, Elizabeth Warren and Harris and now Joe Biden, all these people who say, like, we got to impeach the guy, because, of course, they need to sort of adopt the most aggressive possible stance. But, uh, it's a, I don't know. It makes me worried. Yeah. It's, I mean, there's so much going on that the big overwhelming thing that I keep thinking about is that next year is just going to be awful.

And I'm really not looking forward to it in so many different ways. But I think what's happened the last four years, not just with him, but with Facebook and the erosion of privacy, all these different ways people have been disappointed has created this whole generation of really disillusioned, angry people under the age of 30 who rightfully should be angry. I don't really know what the repercussions of that are going to be, but people are just angry either way. This is a level of anger. I turned 50 last week. I just can't remember people being this pissed off all the time. And they're pissed off because of what's going on with the stuff we just mentioned, or they're pissed off because they're actually on that side and they think it's fake news and everybody's out of control

and they're trying to railroad Trump. And I think you're right. I think he's going to use this as a way to double down on the whole, they're trying to get me. The media is trying to come after me. This is their plan. They don't want me in office. This is a rebuke of everything you believe in. They don't want four more years of this. And he's going to turn himself into a martyr with the whole thing, and it'll probably work.

And that, I think, will be more discouraging to people than anything. I mean, it's strange. I was recently talking to a 35 year old person, a very intelligent person. And she was actually saying that she hopes our economic structure collapses now because her argument is that it's going to happen in the relatively near future, but if it's 25 or 30 years from now, she'll then be a 60 or 70-year-old person. She won't be in a position to deal with it. She actually would like to see the system collapse immediately. And, you know, I thought to myself, like, what if this really is, like, the standard position that more and more sort of young people adopt? I mean, you'll see these polls where it'll be like, where over, especially like when people say, like, under the age of 25 or under the age of 18, like a majority of them think socialism would be a better system than capitalism and they would like to see it immediately.

It's like the degree of chaos that would happen in this change. I don't know. I don't know. It's like, did you, I don't know. No, what you just said, what you just said is how I feel about college sports. But like, that's something that if it happened

would probably be a good thing. I think the complete collapse of our economic system along with our political system would probably, makes me a little worried. I don't know. Call me crazy. But it would be fun to see the NCAA collapse.

I know it won't happen. Well, yeah, but if the NCAA collapses, we do a podcast about it. If our economic system collapses, Yeah, it's a little different. I'm probably not going to answer the phone when you call. Because you probably won't have phone service. I probably it's a little different. I'm probably not going to answer the phone when you call. Because you probably won't

have phone service. I probably won't have phone service. I'll probably be trying to, I don't know. It's like a, there was this, I think I mentioned to you, there was this HBO show, Years and Years, which is about like, you know, it's like a dystopic, you know,

15 years forward situation. And at one point, there's an episode where a guy goes to the bank and the bank just won't open its doors. And the people are kind of losing it outside. And all the wealth, 95% of wealth in the world is digital. It's fake. So if that all ends, nobody has anything. And I was talking to Chris Ryan ryan about it actually because we were texting he had just watched it with phoebe or whatever and we're and i was like this is kind

of my ultimate nightmare like this this specific thing like more than all the other dystopic things that i know i should be much more worried about that is the thing that terrifies me because it seems so plausible like the only reason that we're able to have wealth and money is because everyone agrees that this imaginary thing is true. Yeah. I just don't know if people are always going to think that. Yeah. I think like my son loves the purge.

He loves that movie. He likes the TV series. He just is really into it. It seemed absurd. But Trump's presidency has been just so fucking crazy that if he held a press conference, it was like, I have this idea. I was watching The Purge last night and this is what we're going to do one night a year. I wouldn't be like stunned. I wouldn't be like blown away that Trump thought we should do the purge

it's totally in line with all the other crazy shit he says so I just think it's a really strange time and I think about like four and a half five years ago and I was so upset about Roger Goodell and his handling of Ray Rice and the flake gate that stuff seems

so stupid now compared to what the real stakes are now with everything. And the fact that, you know, he has the ability to influence the stock market, however, but just by he can say one thing and there's just red arrows down for the stock market for the next three weeks. Yeah, but so then here was the thing when he did that. Okay, so Trump tweets twice, right? And the stock market just collapses. And it's like, oh my God. But then part of me thought, well, now everyone has been talking about a recession.

So if he does it all in one day, then for the next six to eight weeks, it slowly crawls back up because that always happens. You know what I mean? He went down, it went out down all those points. And then kind of little by little, it comes up. So I was like, did he do that on purpose? How could he be so dumb and so smart? Like, it can't be, right? Like, there's no way, there's no way that he would be intelligent enough to think that if I do something inane that tanks the stock market in one day,

knowing that of course it will come back over time, it will eliminate this idea of a recession because I'll make the recession happen immediately. I was like, there's no way he came up with that. Right. There's no way he thought of that. And then I don't know. I just don't know. I don't, I, well, the only thing where you just said, like, because I've heard a lot of people say this, like, I'm not sure he's dumb. Because I don't think a lot of the things he pulled off a dumb part. Like, I think of like Forrest Gump as dumb.

You know, like, I don't think Trump's dumb. I don't think Trump's dumb. He's definitely smart enough to have pulled off a lot of the stuff he was somehow able to pull off these last five, six years. I think pretending that he's kind of this impetuous, crazy person, it's probably 75% true, but there's got to be like 25% that knows that this is like theater to some degree, unless I'm just too optimistic about it. I don't know. You might be. There's so many odd things. It's like, okay, so when this is all over,

let's say, let's assume everything eventually works out and this is all over. What's going to happen to all the people whose entire life right now is being angry about Trump. Angry about Trump. What are they going to do? They're going to be angry about Don Jr. What are you talking about?

He's going to be the next guy. This is going to go on for 16 years. When he takes over as the czar. That's 100% happening. Don Jr. is going to be the next guy. This is going to be Charles Dolan slash James Dolan with the Knicks, but only the whole country is going to be the next guy. This is going to be Charles Dolan slash James Dolan with the Knicks, but only the whole country is going to be the Knicks.

You don't think it would be Ivanka? No, I think it's Don Jr. But weirdly, I mean, so many people have made this point, but it really does feel a little succession-y where she's Shiv and Don Jr. is a combination of the other three bozos on that show.

And that's kind of the choice. But yeah, I think it would be Don Jr. My money would be on Don Jr. I think they're already positioning it. And he's very good at already kind of inflaming people in the same way on social media and things like that as Trump was. You know, he just comes barreling in. How would,

how would he, how would he come into power? Cause I think, I think Trump would set it up if he gets reelected, which I think he's going to, um, that Don, that,

that Don jr. Is going to be running in 2024. We're going to keep this thing going. It may be Ivanka after that. Okay. I guarantee this is his plan. You're not imagining, I thought you're all imagining a situation where Trump would drop Pence, make his son vice president, resign from the presidency a year and a half into the term.

Don Jr. would then immediately take over. I didn't even think of that. Hold on. Hold on. Kyle just passed out. I didn't even think of that. Yeah, I guess. So if he named Don Jr. his vice president, is that legal?

I guess it would be legal, right? You can have anybody as your vice president. Oh, sure. You can have anybody as your vice president. Plus, I mean, you know, you could make the case that, you know, historically there have been other situations

where sons have become president after their father was. Why couldn't they be, you know? I don't think that there are, like, it almost seems surprising that, like, in the early 1800s that didn't happen. That somebody, you know, that didn't happen that somebody,

you know, ran with their son or whatever, you know? Um, so Trump, Trump dumps Pence makes Don jr. VP and then wins reelection. And then six months in goes,

I've got to resign for health reasons. Our new president is Don jr. It's not inconceivable. Well, it seems possible to me that the health reasons thing wouldn't even necessarily be a lie. Did I say this on our previous podcast? Like, I can totally see a situation where Biden gets the nomination and we're watching presidential debates next year where both individuals are sort of struggling with certain kind of basic, you know, mental

acuity or whatever. I mean, because when you're that age, things can change fast. Like, real fast. When you get into the age both those guys are, if you show any sign of slippage... That was what was so crazy with the debate, where everyone got mad at

Castro, because they were like, wow, you're age-shaming Biden. It's like, well, I don't know. Maybe this should come up at some point, that Joe Biden's going to be in his mid-70s when he's the president. Well, yeah, because everybody else can bring it up. Everybody else can bring it up writing about the debate, but you can't bring it up within the debate.

It's like that kind of odd decorum of the debate. I mean, there's tons of things about the debate that just sometimes you think, like, why are we even doing this it's like if you've always had it's basically you've always candid saying that like um you know like uh climate change is an existential crisis that is putting the entire world in jeopardy okay yeah it's, that's great. That probably is true. But if you actually believe that it wouldn't be like your third point, you wouldn't be like, let's talk about busting problems now. Okay. Like, you know, it would be like, if your house was going to burn down and you're like the house, I certain my house is going to burn down. But first let us discuss if we're going to retile the bathroom in the guest room or whatever. It's like they can't,

they're using this language where they're saying that they're taking climate change seriously, and that it's so important. And it really should be the principal thing every one of those candidates is saying if they actually believe that. And it makes me wonder, do they actually believe that? No, it's- You know, they say they do. They say they believe the scientists. They say that this is not an issue. It's something that is potentially putting the entire existence of mankind in jeopardy. And only one of those candidates made it his main thing, and he's out of the race now.

So it's like who... It's all kind of a theatric. It's so weird the climate change thing that there's sides. It's like, what are the sides? Either we fix this or at some point

the Earth's just going to blow up. There's a counter-argument? People don't trust the scientists. It reminds me of the DNA stuff in the mid-90s with OJ. People are like, I don't know. His DNA was on there. The blood was dripping from the sidewalk

and people were like, yeah, but you know the DNA, you just don't know. It's like, no, we're pretty sure we know. We have tests and there's DNA and chromosomes and we know. But did you notice a couple, I guess maybe a month ago now, where Jonathan Franzen wrote about climate change and the New Yorker and people just went crazy because Jonathan Franzen's argument was basically, it's kind of over. It's too late. I don't think there's any chance that we can fix this problem. So we have to figure out a way to basically live the best possible life we can as the planet is expiring. So people went

nuts about this because they say he ignored the science. And also it's like the ultimate kind of nihilist kind of defeatist purpose. But it was so weird. As I followed that on Twitter, as I followed people getting more and more upset about what he wrote, two days later, it seemed as though the argument they were making is like, climate change will be easy to fix. What does John Framson know? Like, we can totally do this. It's like, they were so upset by his overly pessimistic view of things and how that sort of contradicted the sort of the dogmatic view of how you're supposed to view climate change, that they convinced themselves that not only is he wrong, he's so wrong that the problem is being exaggerated. It's like, oh my God, it drives me

crazy. I wish there was one of the candidates. So we have like, what, do we still have like 12 candidates going on stage? I wish one of them had made rescuing dogs their main thing of their agenda. Because if you think about it, you're trying to mobilize at least whatever small base you can mobilize, right? If you're one of the smaller candidates. And people are just insane about dogs. People care more about dogs than the homeless problem in San Francisco and LA right now and New York and all these different cities. If somebody had just tripled down on dogs, I would have been interested to see how it

goes because people are nuts. People are fucking crazy with dogs. I wish somebody had done it. That would be my last gasp if I was at like, who's that guy, de Blasio? That should have been de Blasio's whole thing. Like, man, I love dogs. I just want to make life better for dogs here. There was a clip going around of like they've trained these like German shepherds now to

like attack an active shooter, like at a school or a mall or whatever. And they put a little camera on the dog and the dog like here's the gun goes for the guy right yeah and like somebody was saying like well it's going to be a lot of dead dogs when that happened and then someone else said you know though that would actually have more impact than dead kids because people the people who like guys like glenn greenwald and stuff love dogs so much they that would that would absolutely blow their mind it's like they would be like we've got to do something now to save these German shepherds yes you know

oh my god people are fucking nuts that's the legacy of this decade people are fucking nuts everybody's crazy Chuck Klosterman this is a pleasure as always thanks for being on the fourth anniversary of BS podcast. And,

uh, we didn't, we never talked about college football, but we can do it in December. Okay. All right. Talk to you soon. Thanks to zip recruiter.

Don't forget to go to zip recruiter.com slash BS. Don't forget to go to fan duel.com slash ringer. If you want to play against me and sound the trifecta in our, uh, daily fantasy this week, week five is coming up. Thanks to Spotify, where you can find the hottest take. Thanks to Luminary, where you can find Sonic Boom,

as well as Rewatchables 1999. Thanks to Chuck. Thanks to everybody for the last four years for all the support for spreading the word for us. And we have one more BS podcast coming later this week. And a Rewatchables. We're this week. And a rewatchables. We're going to be doing a den of thieves, me and Chase Serrano,

Chris France. That's coming too. So some good stuff coming later in the week. Don't forget to go to the ringer.com. See you soon. On the wayside, never on the side I don't have feelings within On the wayside, never on the side I don't have feelings within