The Bill Simmons Podcast - Jon Stewart on a Knicks Disaster, the Soto Era, His ‘Daily Show’ Comeback, Bad Biden Coverage, and New York Fans | Plus: Is an OKC Title Now Inevitable?

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons reacts to Game 2 of the WCF between the Timberwolves and the Thunder (2:25). Then, Bill is joined by comedian and late-night host Jon Stewart to talk about the Knicks, his beginnings as a comedian, and ‘The Jon Stewart Show’ on MTV (14:56). Finally, they discuss the evolution of late-night hosts, returning to hosting, authenticity in the media, and much more (53:02). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Jon Stewart Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo This episode is brought to you by Degree Deodorant. Grab the original Cool Rush at Walmart or Target today. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and help lines available in this and then episode for additional details. Must be 21 plus and president select states, game prom call 1-800-GAMBOR, visit rg-help.com. Coming up, OKC Minnesota Game 2 plus Jon Stewart on the Knicks in life. Next. This episode is brought to you by Verbo Private Vacation Rentals. With Verbo, you can save over $240 on select homes when you stay for a week or more.

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Coming up on this podcast, a long, long conversation with the one and only Jon Stewart. Because, and it's weird, because I scheduled it before we knew that the Knicks were gonna have a calamitous game one loss. But we talked about the Knicks and New Jon Stewart. Because, and it's weird, because I scheduled it before we knew that the Knicks were gonna have a calamitous game one loss, but we talked about the Knicks and New York sports, we talked about his career, we talked about everything going on in the country, the Mets, you name it, we talked about it.

It's a long, long combo, so I wanted to run that as, you know, the majority of the podcast, but wanted to put a little something at the top after watching OKC Minnesota Game Two. So we're going to talk about that right after Pearl Jam and then a lot of Jon Stewart. It's all next. Let's bring in our guys, Pearl Jam. All right. Recorded in this part of the podcast a little after 8 30 right after game two.

Okay. See Minnesota. Okay. See throttles, Minnesota, OKC throttles Minnesota. And I gotta be honest, I'm a little concerned. I'm a little concerned for the rest of the playoffs because it feels like OKC, who is already a great team, who was already 68 and 14 during this season, they had their plus 12.6 point differential. In the playoffs, they're plus 14. I mean, we had lots of reasons to already be concerned that they6 point differential in the playoffs or plus 14.

I mean, we had lots of reasons to already be concerned that they were going to rip through the playoffs and be a juggernaut. The Denver series going seven, maybe open the window to, huh, maybe a minute. No, their defense is just too good. This is, this is turning into some 2000 Ravens kind of stuff. Football analogy. 89 Pistons, which was a totally different team because they were really built around the nine man concept. They didn't have the true superstar as great as Isaiah was.

This team is built around SGA who just scores between 30 and 40 points a game no matter what the defense is doing. Um, how many guys you they're throwing traps 45, 45 feet from the basket. Doesn't matter. He's still getting in the basket. Uh, I think at 38 or 40 tonight, he was just fantastic. He's got this head to head battle against Anthony Edwards, who everybody wants to be the future of the league because he's young, he's a little Jordanian, he's

American, uh, and SGA is just handing it to him in this series. Opponents in the playoffs are 40% field goal, 30% from three against them. Heading into this game, they had 18.3 turnovers, a game that they were forcing. And the defense is just so much better than anything anyone else is doing. We have four teams left and I just don't know if anybody can touch this team. Vandal doesn't think so either because they're minus three 10 to win the title at this point. Indiana might be our only chance because they don't turn the ball over.

They're built around their guards. They play this kind of funky pace that makes you come to what they want to do and the pace they want to play at. Maybe they can mess, okay, see it, but honestly, I don't think it's going to matter. Um, this, we got to this case, this point a little bit with the Celtics last year where the math just becomes the math. If you have somebody that's winning 80% of their games, that's winning by between 10 and 15 points a game that is deep and young and has defense and home court advantage. To flip it on them is going to be almost impossible, which is why, you know, if there's a winner

from these first two games, other than OKC and other than Indiana for their comeback of the century yesterday, Denver's got to be feeling better about everything that happened. You know, they take this crazy juggernaut of a team to seven and, uh, and then get killed in game seven, but just even winning three games off this team when you don't have a bench when you have four guys, it's kind of nuts in retrospect. Okay. See, you might only lose three games of this entire playoffs, the way this is going. So there's 78 and 17 for the season right now.

And if you go historically, um, I did this last year, because it seemed like the Celtics had a chance to go 80 and 20 in the season. The Bulls were 87 and 13 in 1996. That is, that's the mark. I don't know if anyone's beating that in our lifetimes. Lakers and 72 were 81 and 15. The 97 Bulls were 84 and 17.

17 Golden State is 81 and 15. The 97 Bulls were 84 and 17. 17 Golden State is 84 and 16. And then the 67 76ers were 79 and 17. And this OKC team right now is 78 and 17. 84 and 17 is in play, which means they would basically force themselves into the all time conversation, even though we've been watching them going,

I don't know, they're a little young. Hey, Jalen Williams. Is he a good enough second banana? I don't know about these three point shooters. They're basically going to bolt those their way into the all time conversation that this keeps going. And the thing that scares me, not just for the playoffs, but for the history stuff, is that it feels like they're getting better. It feels like defensively, the whole flying around like pit bulls thing. Now they're turning it on and off. You know, you in the second quarter, by the way, I bet on Minnesota today. I thought Minnesota was going to show up big time.

Scott Foster was there, the extender. I was just like, all right, this is all the makings of, whoa, I can't believe Minnesota tied the series and in the second quarter, they kept getting it to one point, two point and okay, seeC, they do that thing they do. They get a stop, they get a basket, they get turnover, they get a basket. They get another stop back. And then it's a nine point game. And you're like, what just happened?

I was just talking myself into, into Minnesota being up at halftime and now they're down 10, what just happened? And I think OKC has more of those than any team I can remember. You know, there's been some great defenses over the years and I still feel like the 90, the 90, the early nineties bulls and the 96 bulls and the 89 pistons, there were some, the 04 pistons were amazing. Um, this team has a really weird gear where all of a sudden they can go on an 80, 10, 0 run and it feels like a fluke as it's can go on an 8-0, 10-0 run.

And it feels like a fluke as it's happening. It's like, oh, that was a dumb pass. Ah, I can't believe he dribbled it off his foot like that. They, they forced these teams to have the dumbest turnovers. Teams are throwing terrible entry pads. There was a play, there was a sequence today where they tried to get the ball to Randall twice. One time, Deep Vincenzo just misses him by five feet. There was a play, there was a sequence today where they tried to get the ball to Randall twice. One time, Deep Vincenzo just misses him by five feet. It was like an intercepted pass, like in football.

And then the other time he almost throws it away again. Like teams can't even throw entry passes against these dudes. So the relentlessness of them is really something else. And, you know, if they ended up sweeping the Timberwolves, that's usually a good sign for the finals too. In the last 10 years, the only team, there are five teams that had conference finals sweeps. Only the 2018 Warriors didn't go on to win the finals and that, Clay gets hurt, Durant gets hurt.

That was a stupid year. For Minnesota, my only note other than, it feels like Randall got broken over the last three halves. Not a good sign for them. And the fact that Nasried can't hit threes anymore for whatever reason. They missed a bunch of corner threes. I actually liked how patient Minnesota was today.

And they just kept missing like those get over the hump rally threes from the corners. My biggest note for them, it's round three of the playoffs and you have an older team that's really physical. Where's the physicality? Why aren't you trying to bang this team around? Why aren't you trying to turn this into like an eighties type of series? There was one play where McDaniel shoved SGA from behind and they, of course, they had to review it because God forbid you'd touch anyone.

Um, but I was like, why, why doesn't that happen anymore? Why aren't they talking shit? Where's Ant? Why isn't Ant talking shit? Where's ant? Why isn't ant talking shit? It's almost like he knows okay. C is better than him. So the one thing I want to see from them in game three is like, go back to the Minnesota

team. I remember that Minnesota team that even against like LeBron and the Lakers was talking, talking, talking the whole time. There's a chance Minnesota is just not that good and that they lucked out playing that weird Laker team around one and then Curry gets hurt around two. Um, can't be ruled out. It did feel like they found something late with Ant and Reed and McDanos and Alexander Walker and, um, Conley, where they basically just put Go Bear and

Randall took them out and tried to match athletes with them, but that's not going to work for four quarters. They have to get Go Bear going. They have to figure out how to get Randall into that 20 to 25 points again. But, you know, again, this goes back to OKC as an answer for everything. They'll just put Lou Dord on you and they'll just put Caruso on you. It just doesn't seem to matter. I still feel like the Quippers in the West were the team that matched up

the best with OKC and, you know, this is going to be the playoffs that matched up the best with OKC. And, you know, I, this is the, going to be the playoffs that we look back and we're like, man, the playoffs were drunk that year, there was so many weird, crazy games and one of them was at OKC. I'm sorry, the Quippers Denver game four that I went to that I keep mentioning that ended with the Gordon Elliott dunk. And I still feel like the Quippers win that game. They're in the next round. And I think the Clippers, OKC,

that would have been the best chance. I think anyone in the West would have had a beating them. And this is a conference that just at Denver take them to seven. I think Indiana does have a chance. I don't think the Knicks with basically seven guys with the way that OKC would be able to just throw everybody at Brunson, they would be able to just throw everybody at Brunson.

They'd be able to attack towns. Um, I think it would be really hard for the Knicks on both ends in a seven game series against them, Indiana, probably not easy either, but at least they could do the offense, uh, you know, the run and shoot, try to, uh, try to mess them up. And, you know, maybe it's Indiana's playoffs. They've had three of the greatest comebacks in the history of the league. They had the single best comeback when I've ever seen. I tweeted it right afterwards, not knowing that, um, what was it?

One out of, it was the first out of 977 playoff games where somebody came back from that deficit of three minutes left. It felt that way watching it. I was like, I'm pretty sure I've never seen anything like this before. Uh, it's the knees Smith game. It's the Halliburton the bounce only the Kawhi against Philly. I think a ball has ever bounced that high and gone in and a key moment. Halliburton gives the choke sign, but then it's going to overtime. And it seems like that is the biggest, oh my God, that's going to come back to

haunt them. Didn't come back to haunt them. And then, you know, the other legacy of that game is how nervous the Knicks fans got. You can't blame them. They have won a title since 73, but you could feel the nerves coming through the TV on the OG free throws and the town's free throws. So what's Friday night going to be like?

You know, it'll be a drunk, nervous New York crowd. It'll be an Indiana crowd playing with house money. And I'm not sure it's gonna matter because it seems like OKC is just clearly the best team. Sometimes that's the way it goes. We'll see. Can they be historically great? Can they finish 84 and 17 or 84 and 18?

Could they walk among the gods? We're going to find out. Interesting basketball weekend ahead. And speaking of interesting, John Stewart is coming up and we talked for 90 minutes and it was fantastic. And I can't wait for you to listen to it. We're going to have it right after this break. Fandul is still your buddy for the NBA playoffs.

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by including token expiration. See terms at sportsbook.final.com. Game problem called Win 800 Game where visit rg-help.com. This episode is brought to you by Degree Original Cool Rush Deodorant. Remember last year, people got really bad when Degree changed their Cool Rush formula. One dude even started a petition.

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For the last decade by the way, you should put that on especially we're about to hit the summer It's getting sweaty in the summers the original degree cool rushes back and it smells like victory for all of us. All right. We tape this on Thursday morning. Sadly, we agreed to do this well before, uh, Nick's Pacers game one. John Stewart is here. Um, I, I didn't know if you were going to cancel. I didn't know what kind of sh-

What do you want? Why are you bothering me? You were so happy like a week ago. That's, this is, this is the power of the playoffs. This is, this is how it goes. This is the elation, the joy of each victory with the knowing knowledge of you're about to be emotionally thrown over a cliff and it's fuck man.

But you didn't go last night. You sent your son who, who went, he went with his boys. He's is he a blank slate for playoff disappointment because it's been so bad. Like what is his history? His history is so listen, I've thrown him down on Mets, uh, giants, Rangers, and the Knicks. So he's actually not faced the like, like I was trying to explain him, like, this is not even the most catastrophic loss that we've faced in the playoffs at the hands of the

Pacers. Like this isn't even, you know, you've got to understand like the nineties was just this because we were good in the nineties. The Knicks were really good in the nineties, but just could never overcome either, you know, Jordan's greatness or LaJuan's greatness or just Reggie Miller's pain in the acidness or you know, but we faced the Pacers like six times in the night, seven times and then lost in like crazy ways. Like like Patrick Ewing, a seven foot one with a, I think a 28 foot wingspan missing

a finger roll. Right. Like game seven, like you just literally, he could have just dunked it. He decided, let me see if it'll bounce off the back of the rim. But it all circled back with the four point shot and the worst call in the history of the playoffs.

What? Worst call? The seven second continuation. Yeah, Larry Johnson. Let me tell you something about Larry Johnson. That was, as a matter of fact, and I'm glad that you brought this up because it's important for us to discuss this. Larry Johnson suffered at the hands of that and won.

I'm glad that he got the call because he was a fragile flower. You know that Larry Johnson had a very bad back. Right. And for any of those players to put his vertebrae in jeopardy like that, I thought was, I actually thought it should have been a flagrant too. And an injection, like when Starks headbutted Reggie Miller. Do you remember that? Oh yeah.

Starks star. I think it was game, game three. It might've been game three. Nick's were up Starks, headbutts, Reggie Miller, and then Indiana goes on like a 30 to 10 run runs away with it. Reggie Bauer goaded him into it. Oh Jesus. Yeah.

It's, it's nonstop. I mean, but I, I have to tell you like. So he doesn't know it. Your son was there. Your son's what? 21, 22? 20. He's 20.

He's 20 years old. And so, but he's in, he's as passionate about it as I am. Yeah. And loves it. I've got pictures of him, you know, at the games with his SpongeBob backpack and is, you know, he's five years old, but like pointing at Eddie Curry and Zach Randolph, wondering why they're starting two bigs. He kept saying, so they've taken Rick Mahorn's ass and they've put it on these two players, but they don't have the rebounding ability of a Mahorn.

They just have the ass. But yeah, so he just loves it and he's got a pretty good, being raised as a Nick and Matt and giant and Ranger fan, he's got a pretty good tolerance for the beat down. He's got a pretty good tolerance for the raised expectation followed by crushing disappointment. I've raised them right. Well the Giants piece of it, it was at least the one nice thing you did because like I have a couple friends who are Nix-Mets-Jets. I know, but the Nix-Mets-Jets combo is almost like

you're down the spiral of hell. Can I tell you something? And this is true, there are states that will take away your children for that. There are that. They will bring in, they will bring in Difus if you go down that route for too long. But the nice part about it is he always has

like his excitement around the draft or things like that. Like there really is a, because there are so many sports teams here and it is really a nonstop, you know, and I'm always listening to the fan or, you know, so whenever we're in the car, he just sits back and laugh at like Joey from, you know, so whenever we're in the car, he just sits back and laugh at like Joey from, you know, uh, Queens or, you know, Frankie from Iceland.

Like, what is it? Right. So he loves that shit. So I had some, uh, I talked to a bunch of Nick fans last night and today, some of whom were there. Are you on a crisis hotline? Is that what you're like? People reach out to me.

I'm like a sports therapist. A friend of mine said, a friend of mine said the Charles Smith game is still the nadir and that nothing will ever compare to walking out. First of all, the vibe at the end of the game. And then this complete silence leaving the arena, he said was unparalleled. That that was number one. That's always gonna be number one. The Charles Smith game was the most excruciating, let's say, 7.3 seconds of a Knicks, because there were so many opportunities there

for him to just, I think he had three offensive rebounds in that sequence, something crazy. Might three offensive rebounds in that sequence. It's something crazy. Might've gotten fouled at least twice. But that was back when they didn't call. I mean, you look at the scores of these games and that, you know, like they beat them down 82 to 71. It was a highest scoring game. And you know, I mean, these games were Reggie Miller.

That was the shocking part about some of the Reggie Miller performances is you'd see a game where it was like, uh, 82 76 and Reggie Miller would score the shocking part about some of the Reggie Miller performances is you'd see a game where it was like 8276 and Reggie Miller would score 25 points in the last fucking quarter. Yeah, like he would go off in a way That was just like now You know, there are these guys that are pouring in 40 points 30, you know last night Brunson cat, you know Nesmith putting up I don't know Brunson cat, you know, Nesmith putting up, I don't know, threes out of nowhere. He had eight threes.

Eight threes out of what? Nine? Something crazy. Well, that's what's different now is these heat check guys don't have to be Reggie Miller anymore. They can be Niesma just going bonkers for a half hour. Didn't you have Niesma? Wasn't he your guy? We traded him in the, we trade him in the Brogdon trade

When I got not a brogdon. Oh, well that there you go. Well, he turned into drew holiday, which turned into title So we still somehow considered a win, but you have a try. I don't even want to talk to you You fucking like here's the thing if you were a Nick fan You wouldn't even be able to still talk to me right now after what you went through with the Celtics, but you have that 16 championships that have stocked up. You have a resilience in your body. New England has been on the most outrageous championship run that will sustain you. You're like camels that have just come out of an oasis. It's like I got COVID early, but then now my system can fight it.

You're like, you know what you want? You're like Sherpas at Everest. Like you don't actually even need the oxygen. You just go up there and you climb up and it doesn't even fucking matter. Well, I will tell you this when they lost the first two Knicks games, I did not feel that way. Cause that was a, that was a double choke job being up 20 in the fourth quarter of two games in a row. It's a double choke job being up 20 in the fourth quarter of two games in a row. It's in a, but once you've won the championship the year before, like at a certain point you go like, Oh, you know what?

Hey, that was a, that was a terrible thing, but Hey, we won the championship last year. That's what I'm saying. You have a, a food reserve. Like we've been starving, dude. We won in 73. I'm 62 years old. We won in 73. I'm 62 years old. We won when I was 10, 11 years old. Picture over your head of the big four there.

Yeah. Big five. That was four or five. I can't, I can't see. You can't see cause of the little block there, but it's, uh, Willis Reed, Dave DeBusher, Bill Bradley, Walt Frazier, and then Dickie Barnett, who just passed away actually, but, uh, and that's them in the locker room after, uh, I think the first championship, that might be 77.

You have enough juice to start getting next tickets. Like when you had the MTV show, when did you start? Yeah. Yeah. And did you become a regular? Oh, I was a regular before that, but not in the, in the good seats. But once I started having a chance to get into the good seats, well then you're, you just try not to pull the card too often, you know? So, uh,

but back in, in when this was first happening, they weren't great. So it wasn't until Mello got there and Stoudemire that you even had competition like. So in the nineties you could just get them. Oh no, no, no. Nineties I didn didn't have nineties I didn't have the juice. I didn't have the juice No, I could get the occasional like what I had the juice for in the night even after the faculty like That's right. That's hardcore. That's I didn't think he'd go after the acting career this soon. That's Coming off a loss

I'm coming off a terrible playoff loss and I should be received with a certain TLC, a certain kind of warmth and graciousness. You did die halfway through, turned into an alien. Did I die or did I in the closing credits, in the bonus credit scenes come back miraculously with a patch over my eye and a thumb bandage. That was the one I could never, I always ask Robert Rodriguez, I go, let me get this straight, how do I

come back? Like didn't that dude like fucking put a pen through my eye? I lost the lower half of my body and turned into an alien and lost my eye. The whole thing. And Robert's like, that'd be funny. All right, we don't have to have a, you know, it's a sea creature that, you know, comes to life in a swimming pool and turns people into, you know, your acting career. Should be nobody, but go ahead. No, our beloved, our beloved James baby doll, Dixon, James Dixon, James. We were going through it.

And, uh, when we were at Augusta and first of all, playing by heart was good and you were good in it. Are we really going to go through the... Just quickly. No, we were going through it. And he was like, baby, John, John could have been, if he wanted to go that route, he, you know, he goes in immediate baby doll mode. Yeah, he couldn't have.

John, John couldn't have. Here's the thing about James and it's very lovely of him to try and defend it, but he's probably being contrarian. When I was first starting, because you know, James and I worked together for the whole time. James and I met in like 87, 88. He was working in a mail room

and I was still bartending at fucking Panchitos down on MacDougall Street and just doing gigs at like the Bitter End and all this other stuff. So we've been working together since then. So he would as a like junior, junior guy, every now and again, get a little, you know, a blurb off of like back page and send me off to a commercial audition. And I went to one and I come back and usually like, you know, you'd hear something. So I think I called him up a couple of days later.

I go, Hey man, did you hear anything about that commercial edition? And he goes, Oh yeah, I don't know what you did in there, but they hated you. And I was like, what? They were like, yeah, I don't, I don't, I think they thought like you couldn't act. I don't know if you need to take like lessons or anything. And I was just like, you're my guy. I'm staying with you forever. So you like the bluntness. Hey dude, we're in a business where nobody tells you the fucking truth. So to have a guy that will be like, hey, I think that might have sucked is the most valuable thing to have in this industry. To have somebody that'll look at you steely eyed and tell you when you suck is the greatest

thing. And because it can be a business of self delusion, you know, and try and do that with comedy how many times you met a comic would come off stage Be like I crushed that you're like, uh, uh, I don't know does I think I heard some there was some light murmuring But I don't know if I would call that, you know, but they're just dudes that are just like I'm invincible So it's always good to have somebody in your corner like that invincible. Uh, so it was always good to have somebody, uh, in your corner like that. That was such an interesting era when you're trying to take off as a comic,

you know, way pre internet, it felt like you had a whole class of people that all went on to do all these different things. These guys at the, they were all at the comedy show that you're talking about David Tell, Ray Romano, uh, Louis CK, Nick DiPaolo, Alan Havy, like fucking hilarious. Keitlinger, Suzy Esman would come by. Colin Quinn was in there, and you would watch these folks, we'd hang out there all night.

And you're working for nothing. You're working for hummus. You know, if you were on the schedule during the week, it was 15 bucks. On the weekend, I think it was 50, 45 or 50. But mostly, and I was working as a day bartender at Panchitos, so you know. Was Panchitos like a Mexican place?

What was it? What do you, no, it was an Indian restaurant. Yeah, what do you mean, Panchitos? I don't know if it's a guy it's Panchitos like a Mexican place. What was it? What do you both know? It was an Indian restaurant Bob Panchito who's the next fan? It's a sports. It was a guy named Bob. Actually that was that was a nice Yeah, it was this really like early on Blender drink Mexican restaurant not a chain, you know, imagine like some margaritas, frozen margaritas, all that stuff, dude, every learning being a bartender. There was a nightmare.

You had like a three, four or five page just frozen drinks. Uh, they'd like a creamsicle and a Greenwich blend, you know, and you're just, but as the day bartender, I don't know if you've ever been a day bartender in a restaurant, but nobody comes in. You're the prep guy. So you spend your day cutting limes so that the night guy can fucking clean up. That's your role. Because you couldn't be the night guy because you're a comic.

Because I'm a comic. So I couldn't make the money. I could only make the drinks for the night guy to make the money and then I'd go work for Hummus. And I have to say, happy as I've ever been. Just loved it. Loved it. Loved it. Imagine that you're fucking 24, 25 years old. You're in Greenwich village. I'm living down near canal street, you know, sharing a room with a dude.

I live in a little loft bed. He lives on the bottom of it. And you're living this like bananas dream that nobody ever thought you would ever do. Like it's not like I was destined for greatness. Like it's not like people, you know, were like that kid's got it. Like it was a ridiculous whim. And so to just head up there, no plan,

no idea of where this thing was gonna go. I worked in catering kitchens, bartended and all kinds of other odd stuff. And just the ability to like walk home at three in the morning through Greenwich Village and so to get down to Canal Street after sitting around with a tell and, and Quinn and those guys like, come on.

So you go, you go to New York and you're basically like, I'm going to try to figure out how to be a comic and you're just put it together and they'll fly. Six week lease in an apartment. I would see, I used to work in bars down in Jersey when I first got out of college. And I was working at this one place called City Gardens. And it was like a legendary punk club in Trenton, New Jersey. And when I say like, bad brains, black flag,

suicidal tendencies, misfits, like all the great punk bands of that era would roll through between New York and Philly. So Trenton, it was this weird shithole, like a warehouse, you know, in the middle of like this very kind of dangerous place. It was a very dangerous place. But all the bands that would come through, I'd get to interact with,

because as a bartender, you're up in the green room, you know, you're bringing them beers and booze. So you're, you might not remember this, you might be too young, but do you remember Martha Quinn of MTV? Of course. Oh, okay. So she was everybody's pixie, everybody's-

That's only child. I remember every moment of MTV. So she was everybody's pixie and adorable thing. Well, there was a band called Stiv Bader's and the Lords of the New Church, and Stiv Bader's was the lead singer of Lords of the New Church. He's on stage. He's an addict. Opiates, heroin, whatever.

He's on stage. He's sick as a dog. So he's vomiting. He looks like we need to get him, this is before they would do IV treatments for like hydrate people. So he looks dehydrated near death. I go upstairs to the green room after the show,

he's lying there kind of sort of comatose and I'm bringing booze in for everybody and Martha Quinn is in there on his lap and he kind of revives every now and then and and is making out with her and I was like boy this industry is really it's not what it appears to be on television it might be a little darker than what I had originally surmised yeah oh my gosh it gosh. It was a wild place, but it inspired me because I talked to these guys and they'd be like, what do you do? And I'd be like, uh, I get you drinks and they're like, is that it? I'm like, kind of. And it, it, I always had this

idea in my head. Like I wanted to try to be a comic or be a writer or some shit. And they were like, so what do you do? Why don't you do it? And it, it kind of propelled me to one day. I just sold all my shit and got a U-Haul drove up to the city and that was it. Well, it probably made you realize how haphazard everything is. And that you think in your head when you're growing up, Oh, there's this whole process and you gotta do this and this. And then you get this. And then you realize like, Oh yeah, maybe you just throw caution in the wind for six months that it might work out.

It might not. Right. You just make decisions. I remember telling people and they were just like, like it's one of those things that were like, I don't think that, I don't think any part of that sentence that you just said makes sense. Like, I'm Lee, I'm leaving and you know, going to go to New York to be a comic. And they'd be like, what? But it was a ball. In the late 80s, the best case scenario

for being a comic is maybe you get a 1230 show someday. Maybe you get to tour the country. Like what in your head? Or who's your role model? Like Seinfeld? Tour the country. Well no, those guys were so far above and beyond. Look at that time.

But I mean like if you're shooting for the stars, who are you looking at? That's the thing, I wasn't shooting for the country. Well, no, those guys were so far above and beyond. Look, at that time- But I mean, like, if you're shooting for the stars, who were you looking at? That's the thing, I wasn't shooting for the stars. Right. Like, I wasn't thinking like that. I think maybe that was partially how I was able to kind of endure whatever indignities get thrown your way. Like, how many times can you go to Carlos

in the kitchen at Panchito's and go, hey, man, any chance you could make me dinner and then maybe a breakfast too that I could put in a tin and just take with me. Like it's a lot of indignity. You know, I'm a grown man at that time. Like I'm not, I'm sharing a room. Like when was the last, I shared a room when I was a kid.

Like when was the last time you shared a room? You know, I know how to drive. I'm old enough to drink and I'm sharing a room with the dude. Like it was, you know, you did, I didn't think, Oh man, I'm going to do my own. They're going to discover me. Like they discovered Seinfeld and Roseanne and it's going to be, and you're on. It was, I hope I get good enough to pass the club. Like there were milestones,

but the milestones were much closer to your face than what you would imagine. You know, I imagine for you sort of a similar, like you think to yourself, I'm gonna create a podcasting network and a conglomerate of writers and sports. You know, you don't, you think like, how am I gonna get good at this?

How am I gonna get good enough at this that they'll let me work here for the $15 I might be able to get? Holy shit, how do I get here so they'll let me work on the weekend? Like that's where, like, they put cash money in your pocket. Like if you could do five sets at different clubs on a Friday night, six sets,

Attell was the king of that. Attell was, he would do like nine or 10 sets in a night. Like, really? Oh my God. The most industrious, like you would barely see him. You'd wander in real quick with the cigarette dangling, go up on stage, bang out 20 minutes of fucking hilarity, pop into the subway right uptown. Because you had to go, the circuit was the cellar downtown, Boston comedy, but you also had Comic Strip, Catch a Rising Star uptown, Stand Up New York, although they did weekend

bookings. So you had a bunch of places, but you had, you had to travel. Caroline's at the sea port then in midtown. So it was like a little, little troubadours. How long did it take you to get good at? Uh, I'll let you know when I get good at it. Well, when did you feel like, okay, I actually feel like I somewhat know what I'm doing here.

I think it was, and I wouldn't know, you know, the dates I can tell you the process of it was I worked at the seller, which was just a few doors down from that bar I was working at. Yeah. And, uh, this guy, Bill Grundfest and Rick Crom, who sort of ran it, booked it, let me hang out there every night. Not obviously on the weekends where the real comics were. And they would put me on every night as the last guy.

So Sunday to Thursday, I'd go on it one in the morning, 2.30 in the morning, depending on, comedy, the comedy sell back then wasn't what you know it as today, which is like Monday night, they're doing three sold out shows for, you know, and packing it in and it's all just like really great, really established comments, like best shows you would ever see in your life. And then even in the middle of it, Chris Rock will show up and like bang out a set, you know, crazy stuff.

So, you know, they would put me on every night and you learn how to be yourself. You learn how to be yourself on stage, which is the only way you can create a kind of sustaining comedy career. And I remember doing that and you just, you do reps, just do, you know what it felt like being like a gym rat, a comedy gym rat.

And you know, it was you and the waitstaff and the occasional table of like drunk Norwegian sailors or whoever might wander down there. Cause the place wasn't packed. Yeah. It's not like they started the show at eight and they ran it till the last person left. And I was the guy getting your reps in. And that's when I started to feel like I figured it out in a way that didn't feel embarrassing. If that's the bar. Well plus you're allowed to make mistakes. Like I look back when I

had my comms before I got to ES, I was on my own for four years, just writing comms and some of them are good, some of them are bad. I'm making a ton of, but I was able to make these mistakes with not a big audience. Right. And then you learn from that. And then by the time you get the audience, you have enough of a feel of what's going to work and not work. So I was so frustrated those four years.

I'm like, is this ever going to happen? Should I. So I was so frustrated those four years. I'm like, is this ever going to happen? Should I go into real estate? What should I do? But then you look back and you're like, oh, that's actually really good. It played out this way that I spent that much time trying to figure out how to get good at something.

Because then when it happened, I was ready for it. You were in column college. Like that's, it's an essential learning experience, but that's also what you have to want. Like it sounds like you wanted to be a writer, not a star. And the people that I always really loved were the people that wanted to be comics, not stars.

They might get good enough to be like, the way I sort of looked at it was, if I get good enough, it'll be like bartending, like something you can make enough money with that you'll be okay. Right. And then occasionally people would show up, like I remember when Chappelle showed up. I mean, he was like every now and again, somebody would come in. That's just built different. Like a lot of us are, you know, you're, you're in there doing your work a day sets and trying to make your way and kind of build. And then a kid will come in and you just go, Oh, well, that's just touched by God. That's just, that's just a weirdly different prodigy. Yeah. Um, and, and I always,

I always felt good at not feeling mad about that. Like I remember seeing Dave and just going like, I love that. I love that that kid can do that rather than feeling like, Oh, why is that guy so good? Cause I always threatened by it. Right. Cause I watched a lot of guys where bitterness stole whatever shot they had. Like I always tried to maintain that feeling of no matter, like people will say like, when did you think you made it? And I'm like, here's when I made it, when I left Trenton. That's when I made it.

Like everything else is gravy. Like you tried the thing. Like that's all you can give yourself as an opportunity and work your ass off at it. But like, you always try to maintain that kind of feeling of proud of yourself no matter what happened because you did the hard thing, which was to cleave yourself from your old life

that would have been fine. Well, the funny thing about your industry at the time is you have all these damaged people who are really good at what they do. And a lot of them are just pre naturally bitter. There's going to be bitter anyway. And super mad at everybody who's more successful than them. That's part of the comedy industry.

But I didn't find that to be the general, like that was the whole, the reputation of comics is like damaged people doing a damaged thing. Like they were the funniest, smartest, nicest, like often warmest people you'd ever come across. Like we all have our shit, but this idea of like, what's up sad clown masking your pain. Like it didn't feel that way. like, what's up, sad clown, masking your pain. Like it didn't feel that way. It felt like people excited to be in this very fertile,

creative environment. I mean, we all worked, we wrote for like Caroline's comedy hour and comedy central came on board in the middle of it. And like some of us got like little jobs there, like, but it felt, you know, I can only imagine like a creative scene that if not relevant, was it least like it was, it was, it was constructive. It was like,

you felt the excitement of it. Cause we were getting to do what we wanted to do. Like it was a crazy, wonderful, weird, dumb life. I think the thing I was always jealous of from afar. When I moved out, I had to work for Kimmel and he was dating Sarah. Right. And Sarah had this whole web of people and it was almost like a sports team.

She knew everybody and they all looked out for each other. And she was unbelievably good. Another one that was just young, but really fucking good. Kind of knew what their voice were. Yeah, but the way they all pulled for each other and how they knew everybody and they were all, it was, I was like, wow, this is not what I expected from the comedy industry, that it was a little more rowing the same way than on the boat than I kind of thought. Listen, you would get a dick or two, but it was the exception, not the rule.

And even the people that you thought like, wow, that, that person's dealing with a lot. They generally didn't take it out on you. You were part of their support, not a part of their attack. So I have nothing but ridiculously fond memories. And I'm sure there's a little gloss of nostalgia, you know, that carries over maybe some of the tougher times. But I think if you didn I think if it hadn't been somewhat painful and somewhat of a struggle,

I don't think it would mean much in the aftermath. If you didn't feel like you had to develop, it's like when you talk to a guitar player and they play unbelievable and then they show you pictures of like the blisters on their hands and you're like, yeah, that's no blister, no solo. You know what I mean? Like it's, it's part of the process from the MTV show. Like you probably do this show. What did it last? Two years, three years, two, I think. Yeah. Something like that.

And then then it's done. you move on to other things, but now we're in this YouTube video era and all of these clips come back from it. And one of the things that's amazing about that. The MTV show. Oh yeah. Well, one of the things that's amazing about it, you had, you had unbelievable music on that show. That's part of the show.

And a lot of these artists, like that's kind of, it was kind of the prime apex of their careers during this amazing music time. We had, that was, we had a guy named Bruce Lee Gilmer, who was the music booker and Beth McCarthy was the director of the show. And she had been a director at MTV, did all the live, like if you ever watch Nirvana, Unplugged or those kinds of things. Alex Coletti had come up with the concepts and was doing the unplugs, but Beth was directing them all. You see even in that Nirvana unplugged, that little moment where like Kurt turns and smiles to the camera, that was Beth going like, are you having fun here Kurt? But she's to my mind, like the greatest live music director of all time.

Like she's just phenomenal. She went on, she did, you know, uh, Saturday night live, but she directed. Our show, our dopey little show for the whole time it was on. She was, it's the, it's the peak of alternatives. That's right. Hip-hop's coming super hard at that point. Yeah. Just everything is, everything is humming in 93 and 94. the peak of alternative hip-hop's coming super hard at that point.

Yeah. Just everything is, everything is humming in 93 and 94. When we were done at MTV, we went over to Paramount and I think the first week on the air, the musical guests were public enemy and Johnny Cash. And like that was the breath of it. Biggie Smalls was on, uh, ODB Wu Tang, uh, Mike watt came on and growl played drums while Eddie Vedder and Pat smear played guitar for him. Like it was insane.

Slayer, uh, Danzig, like it was. The breath of it. I was enjoying Glenn Danzig. Played mother, baby. Played mother. Now that was somebody who knew what his persona was. Yeah. No, I love those guys and they were all like, again, like I know the reputation, like,

oh, everybody comes on and there's attitude and all that shit. None of it. Like they were all hanging out in the green room with, you know, Trent Reznor and Marilyn Manson. Like it was crazy. And it was so much fun, but the music was so good and such an important part of it. And like we were able to sneak in, you know,

guided by voices and bad religion and bands that were like not quite mainstream, but really great. Buffalo Tom. Right, counting crows around there, I remember. Yeah, you had a bunch of them. It was an incredible, that was my favorite part of the show.

Loved it. I thought the show, I don't know. I thought the show was good and it had a weirdly important place in pop culture because MTV, that was the height of MTV. You know who did it? All that shit. You know who did it? Well, were the executives that were in charge of the program when they canceled it. No, the MTV one actually, we did really well in the ratings.

It was when we went to Paramount, got syndicated, is when, that's when it went. I blame that on Baby Doll. Completely, I told him, I said, don't do this. No, he's like, baby, it's a lot of money, we gotta do this. No, it was, what happened was Arsenio left and Paramount owned MTV and so they bought us to do that.

And that was it. But we didn't realize, like, you'll be on at three And so they bought us to do that. But we didn't realize like you'll be on at three in the morning in Houston and 11 o'clock at night in, you know, Atlanta. But even that was a great experience. And to go to our earlier point, when you get canceled and your name is on the show, like when they come into the office and go that show with your name on it. Yeah, I've had the experience It's not great. Right. Yeah, it's not great. But What's better than waking up the next day and going oh

I'm still alive and I can still write jokes and I can still do the shit that I love to do I can still write jokes and I can still do the shit that I love to do. And I'll, it won't maybe in that venue, but I can go off and do it. That's the crazy part about, I think. The way that people view the kind of stereotypes of the businesses that we're in. And I heard Jack Antonoff actually summed this up really well. I can't remember the interview I was watching, but Jack Antonoff was talking about going into music and he would be like, I'm thinking about going into music. And everybody would say to him like, what are you crazy music? What do you think you're doing?

But if he had said, I want to be an astronaut, they'd all be like, yes, fantastic. But then he goes, but how many there's like seven astronauts. Music is everywhere. Like why wouldn't they say, oh, you love music? That's amazing. It's everywhere. And that's, they view these careers as like not safe. As a lark, as an indulgence, but comedy is everywhere. Sports are everywhere. Writing is everywhere.

Like why wouldn't you say to somebody, oh, if that's what you love, you'll probably work your ass off at it. And you'll probably end up, you might not get to here, but you might be fine. You might make enough to make a living and have a family. Like, why wouldn't that be encouraged? I think so. Yeah. Oh, good. No, I was just going to say so that when the cancellation came as hard as it was, it was also freeing.

Cause I realized like, Oh, I still get to do the very thing that I came up here to do. Yeah. Well, I think the difference now, the potential of becoming either famous or successful seems easier because we have all these different levers you can pull now. Like somebody could just start a video podcast on YouTube and actually get an audience pretty fast.

Oh yeah. I think people do that, right? Yeah. Oh, they definitely do. So first of all, you can have an audience too soon. Second of all, you have the potential of this could happen to me soon, which I think skews the brain chemistry a little bit where you're like, right. Why is this happening yet?

It's been three months. And I think what was different about our generation was, was you never, never really thought it was going to work out. And if it worked out, that would be great. you never really thought it was gonna work out. And if it worked out, that would be great. But there was no, wasn't like there was like this prize in the bottom of the cracker jack box. You're like, man, I really hope this works out, but I have no idea if it is.

Now it feels like it can work out, which I think why people even get more and more frustrated when it doesn't. Maybe the key to our generation was a utter lack of confidence. That was gen X. I mean, and right before gen X of like, yeah, this actually might not happen. There were viral sensations back when we were younger too.

It was just a different mentality. You know, it, they didn't have that, you know, I'm sure there was a, you know, an analog to Hawk to a, you know, back end, you know, but it, but it would be somebody like Donna Rice or one of those people. Yeah, exactly. That's the perfect, uh, analogy to although, yeah, somebody that came up through notoriety and maybe infamy, but didn't necessarily have something attached to that but then took those opportunities beyond that to go on all kinds of you know Write a book or be on shows or that kind of shit

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One of the things as we get older and we watch how culture changes, like one of the things that's so interesting to me is the late night host piece. Like it seems like CBS is just gonna dump the 1235 spot that used to be this breeding ground for new comics, right? It'd be like, or new hosts, or this would be either you put somebody who was established or you'd put somebody who has a chance to basically become you.

And now there's two problems with it. One is the audience is just dwindled to the point that it's like Kim, Will and Colbert and, and Fallon and Seth. And maybe those are the last four we're going to have in a network. But then the other piece is, right. If you're going to try to get somebody young up and coming, is that even a good move for them in the same way? Are they just better off being on the road going around?

Like I would think those people would rather be Nate Barghazi who's now doing basketball re-miss. That's the issue. Right? I think those people would rather be the biggest comic in the country. That's not really how it, but 10 years ago, Nate Barghatsi or five years ago probably gets the 1230 thing over happening over having happened. What happened to them? Right. Cause the old model of how it happens, you know what I mean?

Or a sitcom or something along those lines or other things. But now you're just better off going to the people and going on tour. And some of that is just ubiquity, right? So people don't, those sorts of talk shows do provide, I think a kind of weird, repetitive, uh, habit forming. Like I go to bed watching the tonight show or Colbert or Kimmel, and I wake up watching GMA or the Today's. That's always been kind of the idea of it is to lock people into a brand. I have a CBS lifestyle.

I have an NBC lifestyle. And if you look on YouTube, there's still millions and millions of people. The ratings traditionally are maybe not the same, but I would argue the reach of it is maybe bigger. It may not be monetized through advertising dollars in the way that they think makes it an efficient use of network capital. But in terms of its ability to permeate and people to see it, I think is still really, really large. You know, it shifted to YouTube and Spotify.

You look at Seth will do a bit, you know, on it's 1230 at night, which was never like a huge audience thing, but he'll get millions of people watching it on YouTube or Facebook or whatever the hell people watch stuff now. Mulaney's doing a cool thing on Netflix, like just allowing himself like to do, to just be as creative as like old time letterman on a weekly basis on Netflix. They've given him kind of the leeway to be able to do all that stuff. I think what will ultimately happen is you'll still have something that resembles

it, but maybe not with the infrastructure. We're, we're carrying an old, like the way I look at it is like, I run a tower records, do you know what I mean? Like people are always going to want music. Right. But I'm still the guy who's like, well, come into my giant building and let me show you the new CD rack. Like I'm, it's just a delivery system of something that I think people will always find somewhat interesting or appealing,

but without the brick and mortar, like you, you watch a, a Z-Way or somebody who's doing something really interesting, creativity finds a way. Like great, funny, interesting people find a way to make topical commentary or interviewing interesting for people. And that's always going to be something that I think will have appeal. It just may not have an appeal with 250 employees in a giant theater. Right. With people coming every day. Yeah. Right. Well, it's interesting with you. You're just doing Mondays now. Right. God bless.

That's and your show and you on that show still feels like it has the same impact, but you're not having to do the, you know, you're not pitching every day. You're pitching. You're not starting. You're not throwing the 120 innings. I come back in, I do that thing now that like Aaron Rodgers can do, like where you do the thing where you're like, I'm going to go on a darkness retreat and then maybe I'll sign in, I do that thing now that like Aaron Rogers can do. Like where you do the thing where you're like, I'm going to go on a darkness retreat and then maybe I'll sign in September, but I don't want to go to practice. Is that okay with everybody? You know, it's that kind of shit.

Did you worry? I mean, obviously you know what you're doing, but you hadn't done that show. And then you're doing that first show. We did. Were you, were you nervous? Or did nervous energy? Like, what was it? What was it like to just do it again?

Well, look, the muscle memory, I think one of the advantages I had is the people that the really talented creative writers, producers and all that of that, you know, it's, it's a, it's an organism, it's a mechanism. And the people that did it when I was there were still there Only they had all leveled up their skills Like they had all done boss battles And so now I was walking back into the place where it was the comfort of all these people I love like I will say we have a fucking ball

Like I know that that's I think everybody works hard, but it is fun. Like they're great people. I love being around them. They've leveled up their skill level. So that part I wasn't nervous about. I was, man, it's a weird, it's hard to describe the feeling. The first day I went in to do the show, and I'm sitting behind the desk in rehearsal, and a lot of the camera guys, this guy Phil, this TQ and Richie, they're all behind the cameras. It's like people that I've been with for 30 years.

So I knew them all. So it's not like I was like, where am I? Who are you? The comfort was there. We did the rehearsal, but when I put the suit on and I came down and I sat behind the desk in the suit and I looked into the camera and saw on the monitor myself at the desk, in the suit, with the script, had the pen, the whole deal.

But I look like this now, but you're older. Yeah. It looked like, do you know those like Instagram posts where they're like a friend group that takes the same picture every 10 years and like, there's that one year where everybody looks old all of a sudden. Right. Yeah. everybody looks old all of a sudden. Right. Yeah. And that was daunting because

it was a very strange, like kind of melancholy feeling of, uh, the evidence of, I, you know, decrepitude is too strong a word, but you do look at that and think, Oh shit, like Pat Like it was explicit evidence of passage of time. Well, that's the, that's the phenomenon of like high school graduations, college graduations, weddings, when, when we were younger and we'd watch the parents crying and be like, this fucking idiots, why are they, what are they so upset about? But then you get it as you're get older.

Like, fuck. And as your kids get older. And so as I sat there, it really was a stark feeling for me and also wondering if the audience would be able to get past it to just hear the jokes and, and, and see all the things, or if they would be distracted by this image that they had seen for so many years that was now so clearly in a different, you know, a different age demographic. But you were out there. It wasn't like people hadn't seen you in seven years, right?

Not much, man. I, I'd been out there a bit. I'd been on Steven's show a bit, but I really don't, you know, James will tell you, I don't like to do shit. I like to be home. And not only will he tell you it, it drives him crazy. He just feels like you're costing him money constantly. It's like four more country clubs he could belong to. Oh my God. That's so funny.

Listen, I put enough distance on his pool that I feel very comfortable with the choices I made. Do you realize what John could do? Do you realize if he just committed for one year what we could do? He'll tell you the worst ones are the advertisements, the commercials people would come with. And you'd be like, what? You don't understand. They don't make deals like this. And he'd be like, what? That you don't understand this is they don't make deals like this. And I'd be like, I don't care.

I don't, I don't use that product. He just wants enough that, uh, he can brag about how much he helped you. He has, and the great deals that he gets, all he wants to do is brag about the deal he got the best at what he does of anybody I've ever seen. And part of it is he's so, he doesn't play games. There's no bull. Like he's just like, this is what we're doing. This he doesn't try and trick people.

He doesn't strategize around it. He doesn't try and take shortcuts. He just does his fucking job in a straightforward, like clear cut, honest manner. And the people that appreciate that are great to do business with. And the people that don't appreciate that are people you wouldn't want to do business with in the first place.

Because there are, as you have probably figured out by now, a shit ton of liars in this business. On every level. And sadly I have to deal with them on the executive side now and it's elevating people who have something that it could go to another level and then watching it happen, I think is the most fun part, which I think you've had an incredible amount of experience with too. Like you think of the. It's pretty good.

I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing.

I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing.

I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good I think, is the most fun part, which I think you've had an incredible amount of experience with too. Like you think of the... It's pretty great. The Daily Show tree, when you watch somebody and you can watch them go from here to here and if you have like a tiny part of that,

I think that's probably the best part. Watching people level up, whether as writers or the executive producer of the show. Jen Flance, who's the executive producer of the show. Jen Flance, who's the executive producer of the show, who like, that show wouldn't happen without her. If you're looking at the special sauce, like she's the keeper of the formula to the Krusty Krab.

Like she knows what's up. She was a PA when I got there in 1999. She was in the building before I was. She was a PA when I got there in 1999. She was in the building before I was. She was a production assistant. And she was just a killer, just smart as shit. And you just watched her get better and better and better and level up and level up. And making her executive producer was one of the easiest decisions of my life. It's just easy.

Um, when that first show you did back, you did all the Biden stuff and people were surprised that that was your first thing and it immediately became polarizing. And then we look back and it's like, all right, even the time was right for that show. People were mad. Yeah. Really mad at you. Yeah. Why is he doing this? Why is he, why is he bringing all this up? Called me a threat to democracy. There was a while there was like you and Charlemagne and I don't think anybody else was saying anything.

Oh, Charlemagne. So I love listening to him. He just fucking, he just cuts through it. Um, but it's just been crazy to watch the last year and especially you did your show on Monday about Jake Tapper's book when he's on TV the whole time not saying anything and then it's like I've got some news I thought that was uh you know that's that's why your show I think as long as you want to do it it's so essential because you're just taking these little things that are happening and then tweaking them and presenting them in a way we're like oh yeah that's kind of fucked up.

Well, I think the process is it continues to be sort of what it always was, which is it's not a reexamination of news. It's really a kind of reexamination of the most, what you think are the most absurd aspects of these institutions that we like to me that first Biden bit we did was that. Yeah. Like I just I was watching this with a sense of like, am I insane? Like the idea that we're not looking at this as that, you know, we are supposedly in the most dangerous election of our lifetime, the only way we will fend off forever fascism.

And we're not going to put our best foot forward. And we're going to all pretend that this guy who did fine, did a good job. But this ain't fucking peewee football. This is the presidency. And it just seemed utterly absurd to me. And then I remember we had come back, it was right after the Superbowl, I think. And traditionally, I think during the Superbowl,

the president has an opportunity to address, you know, do an interview. In the middle, so this is a run up to the election, you have a chance to do an interview and get to, and they decided not to do it, but rather put out TikToks of him, like eating chocolate chip cookies. Right. And it's-

Seems like a red flag. And so we ran a big montage of everybody saying, the idea that he's too old is ridiculous. He's the sharpest guy. You don't, I think it was, you don't understand. If you were in the meetings, you don't understand. If you were in the meetings, you would see someone at the top of their game.

Sharp as attack. Sharp as attack. And the joke was, oh, has anyone thought to film that? Right. Because the shit we're seeing does not engender. Cause what happened with Biden, and this sort of brings it around to comedy. Like the worst thing a comic can be What happened with Biden, and this sort of brings it around to comedy.

The worst thing a comic can be for an audience is fragile. If you're in the audience and you're worried about the comic, not in a mean way, like in a way of like, I don't think this guy's very good. This is going to be rough. And he's like stumbling. The spell is gone. It's a fragile spell. And if that's the way you're viewing the president and that is the way when you couldn't deny that when you watched him, there was

trepidation that he wouldn't get through it and he would fuck it up. Well, the other piece of it was, it was the private conversations we're all having about it. Weren't being captured in public conversations. And that's always when you know, something is off. Cause all the conversations I was having, I was like, what the fuck's going on? And he seems seeing Parkinson's what's happening. And that was two years. Those conversations were taking place everywhere, except on the news where

they're supposed to take place. everywhere except on the news where they're supposed to take place. And I think, you know, I've always said the truest part of CNN or MSNBC, the truest part of the broadcast is in their green room. If you go to the green room of those 24 hours, you'll hear the truth. You'll hear people that are involved in politics, that are politicians, that are consultants, that are journalists, that are analysts. That's where they tell the truth. Can you believe this fucking guy?

There's no way he makes it through. He can't even get up. If we do this, it's a disaster. Camera's on, red light's on. He's able to get through certain legislation. I wouldn't say that it's a detriment. I think it's perhaps it's his experience that could help. But if you go in that green room, that's the truth.

And our show has always hopefully been a kind of presentation of the absurdity between what's going on in the green room and what's going, what they're putting out as the official version and how those differ. Well, ironically that also happens in sports. Cause I even remember, yeah, I remember the first year I did NBA countdown and magic was on the show and we'd be in the green room talking about stuff to talk about in the show.

And half of the thing was trying to get magic to say this stuff. He said in the green room on TV, but that red light, oh yeah, that red light really scares. There's just repercussions with every sentence you say, especially if you're ad libbing on camera or you're, you know, you're talking for 30 straight seconds and the words are coming out. Sometimes you can't control where the words are going and you're trying to make a point. It's either too hard and you end up, you end up kind of receding and being more careful. And that's what you see. You know, shifts in tone.

I don't mind it's shifts in absolutes that I always mind. And I think, like I've always said to the people at daily, should I go look around this room? Like when you leave here, these will be your only remaining friends. Like you can't look at it. Like, yeah, I need to maintain access. these will be your only remaining friends. Like you can't look at it like, I need to maintain access. And I firmly believe that if you stick to

what you think is true and defensible, you'll be okay, we all fuck up. You know, we all say something that's intemperate or like maybe didn't come out the way you want it to. And when you own that stuff, when you need to, you should. But boy, when we put on this, and you and I are wrestling fans, when you put on this kayfabe and now I'm starting to feel like the whole thing is kayfabe. The whole thing is, you know, we were talking about it on the show.

It used to be the, it's not the crime, it's the cover up. I feel like the whole thing is cover up now, no matter who's out there. You're talking about authenticity, which I think feels in 2025, with the single most important word, right? It's, they still think of authenticity as a strategy, which is the antithesis of authenticity. But that's, I think what shifting is authenticity just in the purest form is now becoming the thing you want.

Cause we see this with athletes and celebrities, what, and I think social media has a big part of this. They're presenting this version of themselves or this version of what they should say, how they should act for the public. And you don't kind of really know what's behind it. And then over and over again, we find out, oh, that person was a maniac or, oh, that person got caught, you know, behind the scenes saying this

when they actually said this in public. And I think a lot of the ways they did the by themselves. Is that intentional? Is that for athletes, do they have people kind of that are working with them on that to make it that way? I actually think the decision was kind of the turning point. And then there's social media pieces too, but the decision went so bad for LeBron and was such a bad kind of move.

And it's kind of just such a bad unforced error that I think it made, it reconfigured how people think about when they do something. Right. Do you have to think about all the ramifications, good and bad, and then that leads to this weird social media personas everybody has now that you've no idea what's real and not real. If you look at it and go, well, geez,

if somebody who is as great as LeBron can face a backlash, I guess what chance do I have? I mean, Jordan was very, you know, famously was like, I'm staying out of the fray. And, you know, but then you see the 30 for 30s and you know, the last dance and all that. And you're like, ooh. The gambling stuff with him was way worse

than I think people remember. I mean, he's giving interviews on the pregame show. Like I do not have a gambling problem. It's like watching politicians. Right. Um, but now I still think there's some really, I think we have some athletes now that feel authentic to me, um, in everything they do. And you kind of know who they are.

We don't have to do the list, but there's, and then there's some people that still feel like they're trying to present some version of themselves that they think we want versus whatever it actually is. You know, and it's, and then they get called out for it. I think, you know, there's that, you know, there's always, you know, you know, it's interesting Tatum faces that a lot, which I think is you sort of, you look at a guy who's just so good and won a world championship,

but even in the midst of winning a world championship, people were like, that's the wrong way to say, you know, what he just said mimics what Kobe just, you know, and I thought that was so fascinating that here he was at the peak of this and he clearly like with his boy, which like, you're just like, Oh my God, this is a moment's moment. Like this. And then you look online and people are just, fuck that guy. He's doing that. That's not real. And you just think, Oh boy, the other thing that I forget the other piece of it is we face relentless. We live in a in a culture of relentless comment, relentless commentary.

And those that are in sports or entertainment or politics, you know, those relentless comments, as they exist in the ether, but I think they ultimately begin to have a kind of molecular weight to them as well, that the heaviness and you carry that, you carry that around as a little bit of extra weight as you're going through this other journey, that's really hard to do in the first place. And I do think it's weighed on them. Yeah. If you're looking for it, but people say like, I don't go in the comments. That's nonsense.

You know, I don't check that stuff. Yes, you do. It's like saying, it's like being, it's like being in a comedy club, right? And whenever you're in a comedy club and you're doing a show, there's gonna be a table of people that like aren't having it, just not feeling it.

Yeah. Social media is then you have to ride home with that table in the cab and, and hear them talk their shit. But to suggest that like, I don't listen to it. Like people are calling your name. You're not going to go, what? Like, of course you know about it. How can you not? Well there's never saying knowing about it and then obsessing over it. Oh, that's yes. No question. You have to learn how to avoid it as much of it as I possibly can.

Cause I think it's, I think it's damaging. It's, it starts putting, you know, it's like being, it's like being in a room in high school and you hear people in the bathroom talking about you. Right. Are you just going to stay there and be like, Oh cool. I hope all five of these people just rip me apart for the next 10 minutes. I'll just stay here. Or do you just kind of be like, all right, that's kind of fucked up. Were there. I remember when I was just leaving the show is when like the internet was kind of coming to bear.

Like, well, we talked about that. Cause I remember talking to you Yep, the end of 2015 and you left and it reminded me of my dad retired from being a superintendent 2009 and one of the reasons was because the phones were coming and social media was coming and he's like I Got to get out I don't know where this is going and I don't want to be in charge when this heads to where I think it's going And that was kind of your mentality when you left the daily show. Originally you were like, I see where this is going and I don't like it.

Right. It stole, I think a lot of the joy of it to some extent, but also the relentlessness of the news cycle and the redundancy of the news cycle. I sort of got to a point where I didn't know how to creatively elevate the show anymore. I just didn't feel like I had the ability to do that. And I felt myself checking out to the extent that it wasn't fair. You can't, you shouldn't just stay in a place because you can, because they'll let you, you know, you don't want to just go.

Combining that with my kids were at that age where I needed to be there. They were seven, eight, nine years old. I needed to be there in a more explicit way than I had been able to throughout the run of the show. So all those things kind of coalesced into a very clear feeling of, you kind of know when it's time. Yeah.

This is, this is the right move. I've always said one of the best decisions I ever made was accepting the job. And one of the other best decisions I ever made was when I left because I'll never, I will never, I would never have been able to get those years back just even though like driving them home from school every day and you just hear shit. You wouldn't hear, I was there at the crying times before crying because they didn't want to go to school and crying because they didn't want to go to bed. Those were the only two times I got to see anybody.

because they didn't want to go to school and crying because they didn't want to go to bed. Those were the only two times I got to see anybody. So having that experience broadened out like priceless, you know, but then you come back and now you're in a weird spot. They go to college and I'm like, oh yeah, that's the other thing. You find out, oh, my kid's 15 now. He barely wants to hang out with me. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

All right. I guess, I guess I'm just an ATM machine now. And then occasionally we have dinner. That's so fun. I was saying that to Paul Ruddy was on the show. I was like, you know, I think I made a mistake when I was a little younger in that I didn't make any friends. And so when my son and my daughter went off to college, I was like, huh,

Hey honey, you want to, you want wanna watch a game and eat a sandwich? He was like, no. Do John Ham show on Apple? Jump in a couple episodes? Yeah, yeah. But you're in a spot now where I feel like you could do Monday and Thursday and probably, but. Don't add, no, no, no, no, no.

I'm in a spot now where I can do Monday until the company is bought out by people that don't want anything to do with the daily show. And then who the fuck knows what's going to happen? I mean, look what they're doing now that 60 minutes and CBS news and everything. I was going to ask you about that. This, it feels like we're in we're in an area now that we've never been in in my lifetime. Oh, it's insane. People are just saying that was in,

that was like the NFL and five other things in my life that I just felt like would go on for the entire time until I die. And now I wonder if it's going to exist. Wonder if it's going to exist because an interview, they, they aired an edited interview, which is how all interviews air. Now you can make, uh, comments about, well, I think I didn't like the way they edited it in the way that oftentimes people don't like the way they edited it.

But it certainly doesn't rise to the level of libel slander or whatever the fuck else they think they're doing with a $2 billion lawsuit. It's a purely subjective editorial decision that are made every day, including on Fox News and OAN or whatever it is that Trump feels like. But what you're seeing now is all must pay tribute to the king. And the price of that, the price of peace is different. You know, ABC had to pay 15 million. Bezos had to pay 40 million for a documentary on Melania.

Zuckerberg had to pay. They just pay trip. They just put money into the pot so that hopefully they don't get, they're paying like, what does that remind you of? Michael Corleone. Protection money. Right. It's protection money. So ultimately at the end of this, does Trump burn our country down for insurance money?

Like where are we headed? But the reason why the guy from 60 minutes and the reason why the head of CBS news left is it's not even about the money, which I think is, they've said is upwards of like 50 million. Imagine paying $50 million for fucking nothing just to get somebody to approve a merger. A, it's bribery. But B, the reason they all left is part of the deal is they have to apologize. And in that moment, these people who have built careers on their excellence and their integrity had to look and go like, all right, well, I hope I've done well enough that I

can weather this, but there's no fucking way that I'm going to apologize for doing my job the way it's supposed to be done, just because this one guy is offended by it. And ultimately, what an awful precedent that these media companies have set. But, you know, now, now he'll go after Harvard and Comcast or whatever the hell else he does because a policy of appeasement always leads to more conquest. It's, it's tragic. And there's been a bunch of soul searching on the other side for the last year. On what side? About about the Democrat liberal side.

What did we do wrong? How did we get this? How do we fix this? Oh yeah. Well, that's been, which has honestly resembled sports. Oh, you think it's, it's like a, did they fire the coach and then they're going to bring somebody going? It's like one of those where it's like, we lost in the second round.

What happened? What do we do now? What is it our drafts? Is there a best and the way that uh, that the liberals Democrat side has approached it It's almost like we have to blow this up and start over and we have to rethink our Right, and I don't I don't I don't feel like it's a six-month fix Because a lot of the same issues are on that side with, you know, authenticity, honesty, um, the same kind of media machine. Stage for it.

The corruption of the system sets the stage for these kinds of disruptions. Yes. Like the, I'm convinced that the Iraq war and the way it was prosecuted and the fact that Bush and the Republican, the establishment Republicans that led that charge, that is what opened the opportunity and the door for Donald Trump to demolish and take over the husk of that party. They had so destroyed their credibility that for somebody to come in with a new idea,

take a hold of that apparatus and turn it on its head was exactly, that was set, the ground was set because of the actions of in Iraq and all those other things. This and what happened with Biden and everything else will set the stage for a similar opportunity in the Democratic Party.

Whether or not someone is able to grab that apparatus and build something powerful and effective out of it will be the real trick. And we might not even know who that would be. But certainly the opportunity right now is there because the status quo, right, of that party is tainted. Everybody's got it on them. Almost everybody. Which means that it really opens the door for somebody to walk in and go, I'll take your infrastructure, but the rest of you motherfuckers have to go. Or you have to get in line and this is the new way that we pursue the vision for

whatever the Democratic party is going to be. Or you need one or two great people, which is another like- Or one or two or two great people, which is another like, or, or one or two, not so great people who just, I mean, I wouldn't suggest that, you know, Trump is a great person, but he was a person with a vision. And when things are in disrepair, vision goes a long way, vision and will. And I think it's entirely possible. And I think it's actually, the opportunity is there. I just hope that they seize it in the right way

and don't just paper over, which is what you tend to think they're going to do. We have two years here to figure it out. Not you, but just what just The country it's funny. My friend van lathe and was over last night who works who works for the ringer, right? and we were hanging out in the kitchen actually watching the next game and He was asking my son about what are you studying in history? And he was talking about the 50s and 60s and some of the things he's learning

We were talking about the 60s. and sixties and some of the things he's learning. We were talking about the sixties, which is one of those weird kitchen conversations. We were talking about all the great people in the sixties and then how many of them were, were murdered or in the case of like Muhammad Ali, they wouldn't let a box for five years and all the ways we got fucked up, but we just had this unusual collection of awesome, interesting one of one people all at the same time for whatever reason.

That's right. And I wonder, can that happen again in the 2020s or in the 2030s? Is that even possible anymore? Where we would just have this, this confluence of, oh shit, hey, we have this person and this person and this person. Maybe we're in good hands again. I mean, I think circumstance dictates the people that, that rise to those challenges.

And I absolutely think, you know, opportunity almost never goes, uh, wasted. Like I think, I think someone always steps up and steps in maybe not to the extent that we'd want it to or maybe on the other side, but I always remain optimistic because there's too many. Look, I do too on an individual basis. There's just too many fucking good people. Yeah. And, and I don't think these things all go in cycles.

And those cycles change. And as they say, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. But what people don't say a whole lot is, but it doesn't bend by itself. And there's a whole bunch of people trying to bend it the other way. So those things are necessary.

But I think you also have to of, you have to have kind of a more clear-eyed view of what it takes to bend that thing and where you want to bend it. And, uh, there were, how old is your son now? My son's a high school junior. Can I ask you a question? And this is a personal question. I hope I don't want you to be upset with me. Does he forgive me?

Oh, for the wrestling? Yeah. When you ruin the wrestling event? That you were the big surprise? I sent you the video. My son was like, who the hell is Jon Stewart? His son is like seven years old. He's cursing me out.

Yeah. The kid, the kid was cursing me out. What is this asshole? Who is this? You were the big swerve in a like a pay-per-view Yeah, and my son thought I was gonna be somebody else in summer slam And it was a match between Rollins and Sina Yeah, Sina was gonna win his record championship and I was the swerve. I jumped in, but we should, we should explain. You were in the exact same position.

I was there with my son. We're at that stage where you just want to impress your son. Your son loved wrestling and you're like, this is the most impressive thing I've ever told my son. Yeah. But this leads to you taking a giant bump, but I jumped out of the story. Boy, did I take a giant bump on that. That was, that might've been the dumbest move I think I've made.

And I was not, when I took the bump, I was not a young man. I think I was probably like 53, four or five. Like I was an old man taking an attitude adjustment from John Cena, which was stupid. We blame, we blame baby doll. Me and Jimmy and Sal. With that one, we were like, you left them. This is the most unprotected you've ever left the client. He just got the attitude adjustment.

Always has a problem. I do freelance. I do, I do go rogue and I do shit and then he'll just hear about it. And he'll be like, what are you doing? And I'll be like, oh, it's just a, I got into a feud with this wrestler, Seth Rollins, you know, Nate loves wrestling. So we've been going to the wrestling matches and all that. Don't worry, it'll be fun. Oh yeah, no, they want me to do SummerSlam. He's like, what?

I was like, yeah, no, it's this thing. I'll go, it'll be fine. And so at SummerSlam, well, it was actually on Raw where I took the bump. SummerSlam is where I ruined the match for Bill Simmons' child, who I didn't think would forgive me, but. No, I think he's forgiving you.

He's over it. I can't forgive the bump, because that was crazy. The bump was wild. Even if you were like 35, that would have been a crazy bump. That's a bump, like past your 20s, I'm not taking it. Part of it is, I don't think ahead. So I don't really quite understand.

Did they practice it with you though. Practice practice. They didn't take you in the back and do like, put you on the big nothing. So you had no idea. Uh, I think here's what he said. Uh, just tuck your, uh, tuck your chin, tuck your head, your chin, and I'll do the rest and I was like, okay, and then, yeah, so you gotta do this so that I guess your head's not out. So you really, I think it's to protect you from like really, because I don't know,

you know, like the floor of the wrestling ring is not soft. Yeah. It's, it's hard. It's on Springs, but it's hard. It still hurts. Like a motherfucker. So when we did it now, to be fair, WWU was very thorough in their medical examination prior to me taking the bump. Uh, about five minutes before I was supposed to go out there, a guy walks in, he goes, I'm the doctor. I go, okay. And he goes, how you feeling? I go, I'm okay.

And he goes, okay. Any problems ever? You ever have a heart attack? No. Okay. Yeah. Any major back issues? Oh, are you old and decrepit and made of hollow? Are you, do you have the bones of a sparrow here? Let's get you out there right now. So I went out there and I'm up on Sina, who's gigantic and muscular. And there's no like, oh, let me drop you down with the attitude adjustment.

It was the full, I hit and the electricity went from, directly from the back of my head, down into my coccyx and through my legs. Like it felt like an electrocution, like you had plugged me into an outlet socket, like getting rear ended in a car. It's the same kind of sensation, the whole thing. And they're like, just play it like you're hurt. And I'm like, I can do that because I'm fucking hurt.

Yeah. Uh, but the one thing I really learned through the experience is if you're going to do something like that, uh, tuck, tuck your shirt in because when you go down on an attitude adjustment on live television and you got that big old white tuna belly, just popping. I forgot about that. The belly popped out. Two little, little tuna belly popping out of the jeans.

That's, that's not a WWE superstar look. I've got a little tuna belly popping out of the jeans. That's, that's not a WWE superstar look. That's not, it was rough. That was rough. I'm glad you survived it. All right. I took too much of your time. Like we got to end with the Knicks though. All right. Are you going to game two? So I can't, I've got a shit, it's a holiday week. I've got some shit I got to do, but I'm hoping to get there next week. Yeah. And look, man, I've loved watching this team.

I really do. It's the most talented Nick team that I've seen them have in a really long time. Maybe since I've been really paying attention, except in the seventies. And what I also like about them is they're good dudes. Like, yeah, they're just easy to root for their hard work. And there's not a lot of like, look at me, shit like they're really, they're a fun, incredible group. This has been

a ride that like you dream about a little bit. It'd be great to get to the finals, but man, Indiana's a wagon. Like it's going to be hard. But you know, they're not out of it. I don't view it like I viewed the Celtic series. I view it like we could be in every game. But then, you know, look, what was it? 138, 135 and before overtime even. Like we're playing the Pacers style right now. you know, look, what was it? 138, 135. And before overtime, even like,

we're playing the pacer style right now. And I don't know if we can survive that. Yeah. I don't know if we can survive that. What do you think 1993 Mike and the mad dog would have said about that loss last night? Mike. Waste of time. These guys are the dog, dog, dog. That is the most humongous loss the Knicks have ever had. Dog, you're never gonna see a loss like that again in the garden. I've been going to the garden since 1908. I saw Tony fight Dempsey in the garden in 19...

And that was the only time I ever thought same same kind of thing dogs you you must have listened to that back in the day all the time right like in the dark yeah was anything better than when they did the Oscars nothing not Mike like ever ever that was to me that's that created podcasting Mike and the mad dog decided they were going to weigh in. Interesting. I feel like they created it when they weighed in on like the 94 Oscars or the Emmys. I was like, this is just the model for something down the road.

It is stunning. How influential they were. And are, and are through broadcasting more dog now. I think Francesca doesn't do a ton. I feel like a lot of the people that have huge platforms now, and I include myself, were massively influenced by that specific show. Because of the interplay back and forth with those guys is really what podcast became. The first take and all those other ones, I think, are in many ways direct.

Sons of those shows. Yeah. Absolutely. But the first take and all those other ones, I think are in many ways direct. Sons of No Shows. Yeah. Absolutely. Those guys were, and when they came on the air, the fan was nascent. Like it wasn't as big a deal yet. Stevie Summers, you know, at night doing all his stuff and Dog and Francesa and like it lit up sports in a way that, you know, for New Yorkers was like this, you know, and now

everybody does kind of their impression of that. But, but it's amazing. And to see, especially Doug, like still going strong, it's kind of great. It's a long career. And with some chapters to it too. Well now the fan, you still listen to the fan, it seems like some of it is a little performative because the clips are really funny. Yeah. Well, it also has to be, you know, there's two bald guys just like absolutely losing their mind over the protection behind Aaron judge or what that wants. Soto seems unhappy.

Yeah. And the problem I have now, sometimes the fan is a lot of the voices sound the same. Like the nice thing about Dog and Francesa is they were like Hall and Oates. Like one guy sang high blues and the other guy and every now and again, we're like, so that treble and bass really work. Now you get shows that are like treble, treble, and it's, you don't know who's talking and they're all at the same pitch. And it's just kind of cacophony. And like you say, pretty performative, pretty obviously takes with

like kind of holes in them. Um, still fun to listen to, but you know, but we're also old heads. We're old heads. New York radio will never die. The, the, um, the one thing with thing with, I'm blanking on the, what's the guy's name? Dog was on, when he goes on first take, and he does basically national version of the dog,

that was the part I never thought he would be able to navigate the way he has. I always felt like that was a New York show with New York people. And I never thought he would become a national treasure because I think he's great. He's so legitimately funny that I think that translates through it. And the way that he just runs through, you know,

the whole like, I'm gonna take a gummy, I'm gonna take a gummy, I'm gonna sit down, I'm gonna take a gummy and watch it. I'm going to watch the Yankees. You know, he just, he, he legitimately is just an entertaining personality. One of the things I learned from that show was how completely seriously they took everything. Like they would talk about tennis and dog would have these passion and opinions about like Monica

sell us. Right? Mike. I, I think she may be the best woman's player ever. Like right now. And it just, it just would go all in and be like, wow, this is an incredible, incredible take. But the nice part about them is they were a hot take in a sea of like lukewarm water So it's so brutal. Yeah, it's so stood out for just its as we said earlier Like there was an authenticity to it these two guys And and just it was brilliant

PGI was another one like that. I feel like those oh, yeah If you're talking about podcasting. PGI is a great one. The form, those two, the interplay and the chemistry is what matters. Well, Wilbond, I've always loved it. Corey and I, you know, those guys, you know, and again, like sometimes duos really are

more than the sum of their parts. Like those guys are great on their own, but like Dog and Friends as it were, together, it were together, it was just, it was magic. You know, it's like that Larry David and Doc Rivers would have a great talk show. I'm telling you, they have it. The combo of those guys.

It's like a fascinating. Larry David is doing dog. He's doing dog. Yeah. He was there last night. She's the greatest at all time. She's the best. What is Townes doing?

What is he doing? Townes, drive the lane. You're bigger than he is. By the way, when Townes was posting up on true holiday, what, why would the Celtics put true holiday on Townes? I think people try to Jedi mind trick towns with smaller people, hoping he'll elbow them in the face or bowl them over.

Yeah. That's why I was just like, what's going on here? Cause every now and again, like you'll see a bad switch and like somebody will end up on towns who's like six, three. Yeah. But this really like it happened enough where I like, oh no, that's the plan. People try to use towns against himself is the plan.

The good and bad of towns. They hope the bad goes out. Last question. Are you worried about Juan Soto or no? He played, they played the Red Sox this week and he seemed, he seemed a little sullen. I would have sullen is the word I would use. You don't remember the first year of Francisco Lindor. You don't remember the first year of Carlos Beltran. You don't remember the first year of Carlos Beltran. You don't remember. And by the way,

you don't remember the first four years of Jason Bay. Like people come in there. First of all, Juan Soto right now is not failing. He's not all star Juan Soto, but he's still a very solid performer in a lineup that's underperformed recently. But you're not talking about the emotions. He's played a much better outfield than I think people thought he was going to play.

And I'm not going to read the facial expressions of a superstar that's going to be here for 15 years. Who already seems sad? Yeah, I never thought of him as like the happy warrior to begin with. Like I didn't bring him over here because I, you know, get excited about it because I thought he was super entertaining and gregarious. I just thought... See, this is what Mets Nation needed. They needed this defense. about everything. Again, you're talking about a fan base that like Whatever will go wrong. Whatever could go wrong goes wrong. Tyrese Halliburton throws up a fucking prayer

it hits the back of the rim goes straight up in the air and in any other Universe other than the New York Knicks universe, it goes over the backboard. Right. That's the arc. The ball is supposed to travel. It's the highest. Other than maybe the clash at the highest that the game winner has gone or a game tire. I've never seen anything like it. For God's sakes, the little stat track said the Knicks said 99.8%. They're going to like only in New York. New York Mets are going to go to the thing.

You went to Cesspitus, breaks his ankle riding a bull. Like only shit that can happen happens to us. And over time you expect it. So, you know, that's what they've done with the Mets is already fighting the gravity of our history. What Cohen has been able to do with them, what Stearns has been able to do with them is to counteract the gravity of our history in a way that looks like we might actually be competitive for years.

That's never been the case. That happened with the Red Sox when, uh, when they, they specifically, when they got Manny 2000, they actually spent money on them and it took a couple of years, but at least like the foundation was laid for like, Oh, we traded for Pedro. We got Manny. Right now we can actually like maybe fight the Yankees. You also built a farm system that started to bring up studs. Yeah. Like that's the key. also built a farm system that started to bring up studs.

Yeah. Like that's the key. Like the Mets, even before, when Cohen was there, they were still doing shit like, all right, well, we want to be good. Who are the oldest pitchers we can pay? Find me two of the oldest pitchers and pay them more than anybody's ever gotten. And maybe they'll make us good for six months. Now they've taken, Sterns has come in and completely flipped the approach.

He's building a ground up solid infrastructure. Will you win the World Series? Who fucking knows? The World Series is, it's a crap shoot and the Dodgers are gonna be there for a while and the Yankees are gonna be there. But they're at least giving you something. want to be sustainably good. Thank you. That's what, that's what the self and that's what Leon Rose, uh, uh, and Thibodeaux have done for the Knicks. It's much harder

to keep going in the NBA, but you know, because I, I don't know how you feel about this, but I feel like the NBA cap rules and all that other shit. It's, it I, I don't know how you feel about this, but I feel like the NBA cap rules and all that other shit. No, they fucked it up. It's, it's awesome. We've been talking about it on my pod constantly. They fucked it up. How are we not able to pay Hartnestein what we wanted to pay him?

That makes no sense. We wanted to keep that dude. I know. And we couldn't. The problem is they reward bad teams who throw away seasons and get high picks. Is a better strategy than just like signing players smartly, making good trades, drafting well, and then you somehow get penalized for it. They shouldn't have been penalized for the heart and steam thing.

Cause that was such a great, such a great signing. But then they had been able to keep him. My guess is they probably, they don't do the towns. Yeah. They would have run it back, still would have gotten bridges. And then you would be a deeper team. Yes. I loved how, when they were deeper, I'm, I'm, I like that.

Like Indiana's built really well. They really are. And, and this is interesting too. I wonder what you think about this. This is such a repudiation of like the super team. Like these are great teams, but these aren't superstar teams. Right. Other than like, okay, she's got.

You know, the league is so much deeper. Now you can actually build a team a little differently and you don't have to have like the top heavy best two guys, You can actually go seven, eight, nine deep. That's what the Celtics tried to do. And then they had too many injuries this year, but, right. But even the cell, like imagine having Tatum and, and Brown, and then like having to worry about holding your team together, like teams shouldn't have to

worry about holding together like that. That's bullshit. You're preaching on the choir. John Stewart. This was great. Thank you for all the choir. John Stewart, this was great. Thank you for all the time. I'm glad we finally did this on a pod. Hey, my pleasure, man.

It's so nice to catch up with you. It's always good to see you. Yeah, good seeing you as well. All right. I appreciate it. Thank you. Bye-bye. Go next.

All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to John Stewart. I had a great time. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. Don't forget, you can watch all of the clips and videos from this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. You can watch the rewatchables on the Wringer Movies YouTube channel.

You can watch everything we're doing as video podcasts and Heaven Can Wait is going to be the next rewatchables on Monday night. I am also on the Prestige TV podcast this week talking about your friends and neighbors season eight. That's your friends and neighbors, season eight. That's your friends and neighbors episode eight. Hopefully it gets to eight seasons, but the eighth episode, I think we're hitting the end, me, Joe and Robinson and Rob Mahoney. So if you watch that show, go check out the podcast that is going to be going up on Friday. Enjoy the three day weekend. I'm going to be back Sunday afternoon with Rosillo and I will see you then.

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