The Bill Simmons Podcast - No-Fan NBA Games & 2020 Cooking Trends With Joe House and David Chang | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: March 11, 2020

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Joe House to discuss the possibility of pro sports in empty arenas, the NBA's new media policy, how COVID-19 will affect March Madness, youth sports, The Masters, and more (2:38). Then Bill talks with renowned chef David Chang about Season 2 of his Netflix series, 'Ugly Delicious,' the rise of food delivery and its effect on sit-down restaurants, food trends, Chang's new book, 'Eat a Peach: A Memoir,' grappling with success and failure, the importance of work ethic, and much more (36:39). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Shipping returns, exchanges free and easy. Do what Kyle did today. Get yourself a pair of Tecovas cowboy boots at tecovas.com slash B-S-T-E-C-O-V-A-S dot com slash B-S. If you love the rewatchables, we put up one Sunday about Contagion, which had turned into a disturbing and fascinating rewatch, given everything that is going on right now. We are also putting up Godfather 3 on Wednesday night. So be ready for that one.

Godfather 3, seen as a bust. It's definitely a worthy installment of the flawed rewatchable series that we're doing right now. Not as bad as I remembered in a lot of ways. Actually, has some really good moments. It was a worthy rewatch. You can guess what the flaw is.

And boy, is it a flaw. But we talk about that so you can check that out. Coming up, we're gonna talk to Joe House for a little bit about everything going on right now with the coronavirus and sports and everything else. And then David Chang, my old friend who hosts the Ringer podcast here on the Ringer Podcast Network. He's talking about his new Netflix show. But we're talking about cooking trends. It gets super weird. Got weird.

It's meta. Let's put it that way. Kyle loves when it gets weird. That's why your wheelhouse is when it gets super weird in the room. This one gets weird in a good way. So that's all coming up. First, our friends from Pro Gym. all right joe house is on the line haven't talked to him in a while haven't talked to him about

all the stuff that's happened the last two plus weeks here. I think we're heading toward a day that might even be Wednesday, but I think it will probably be this week when the NBA announces that, um, they're not going to have fans in the arenas for these games. I think they have been slowly paving the way for this announcement. First with the media stuff. Then you saw LeBron really came out and was like, if there's no fans, I'm not playing. Then he backtracked that big time today and was like,

oh, I actually didn't understand. I didn't realize they meant NBA games in the arenas with no fans. So whatever he did. I think it's all leading to no fans in the arenas. And I got to say, I don't think it's the worst idea, House. What do you think? Of course, it's not the worst idea. It's fine.

Like, we will all manage to continue to just sit at home and watch the games with nobody there that's fine i could i'm happy to be home i'm happy to watch the games i'm happy that they're still playing the games yeah i talked to my dad who went to assault the game on Friday and the guy, I guess, behind him was coughing. And every time this person coughed, everybody kind of stiffened in my dad's row. And it's like, when it starts getting to that point where, you know, and people are afraid to touch.

And my dad's like, everybody's being so careful not to shake hands and do elbow bumps. And then you go to the bathroom and there's drunk people pissing all over the place. And I just think probably putting 20,000 people together for any reason, isn't a great idea. Now I am in the way, way, way better to be cautious and say after the fact, oh man, we probably went a little overboard there, then not be cautious enough. So I'm good with all this, but at the same time, we're getting really close to the reality now of watching sports that we love

with no fans and fans not being able to go to games and South by Southwest got canceled last week and the Ivy league tournament got canceled today. Colleges are sending people home. It is like the manifestation of where things have been headed the last 20 years, where everybody is at home, not interacting. Now we're actually going to be living it out. It seems like house. That's, I mean, you're right. We're all very well versed in living a life on screen, some combination of computer screen, phone screen, television screen. I will say the thing that I'm wondering about is what about like just going out to get something to eat? Are you going to do that? Like if you're not going to go to a thing where there's going to be a thousand people and that seems to be the bright line that experts are drawing. Let's not have any

community gatherings of that size. I can live perfectly happy and comfortably if I have my screens and the internet works, the wifi is good to go and I'm allowed to go up the street to Popeyes. Well, that's my standard. Well, it is funny that we're drawing, we're drawing lines in this, right? Like, well, if I go to this Clipper game, you know, maybe that's a bad idea. I could get sick here, but I'm going to stay home, but then I'll order Postmates. And then this random guy shows up at my house. I have no idea who he is. He's touched the bag with my food. I'm taking the bag from him. Like at some point there's a line and

I don't know what the line is or where, but it does seem like congregating large groups of people is probably not a great idea until we can contain this. What happened with Italy and the speed that everything spread and how scary that was. And now people, you know, they basically quarantine the whole country. The empty arenas thing, you know, it's going to be surreal to watch, you know, everybody, like people like us, our age are like, well, this is what the, what it was like to watch basketball in the early eighties. You see like a Pacers game or Nets game and there was nobody there. That's, you see the pictures from back then and there's nobody in the background. I can't imagine how it's going to affect the energy of the games and the players themselves. Because basically we're talking about pickup in a giant stadium, which I've been lucky enough to play at Staples Center and a couple other NBA arenas when there's nobody there. And it's just

big and cavernous. The site perception's weird because there's nobody in the seats. And I guess that's just what we're going to have. But again, I think this is what they should do. And I think this is where this is leading. But when you talk about March Madness, now we're talking about the NCAA. Now we're talking about a governing body that has always prioritized money over any other rational decision, right? It's like, what is the highest cash figure we can get? Who can we exploit? What ways can we just maximize profits at all times? And now potentially we'd be canceling the final four or having an empty stadium. What happens with March Madness, what happens with people flying to different locations and things like that.

It would seem like if the NBA was going to cancel fans coming to arenas, it would seem like March Madness should follow that. House, are you dubious that they would actually do that? Well, I don't think that they're going to have the opportunity to make the decision because I think state and local officials will be making that decision for them they they i think i saw in today's news feed that the governor of ohio was already either putting a moratorium or strongly strongly strongly recommending against gatherings of more than a thousand people and uh you know they're they're a bunch of ncaa tournament stuff i think like the what do

they call the first four there's a couple games yeah there's there's definitely some stuff supposed to be happening in ohio and so it's called the shitty four house it's called the shitty four before we hit the 60s easy that's the only holy cross ncaa win in the last 50 years. So let's tap the brakes. The Shady Four? We actually have. Yes, we won a game like five years ago. Well, it was one third as many games as we won this year in the entire season when we went 3-29.

So that was a great memory. Anyway, I interrupted you. I did. Yeah, well, but I think the NCAA will be able to say, look, we respect the decisions of the governors of these states that say, yeah, we're not going to let you come in here and have 20,000 people. I expect them to still play the games and for parents and so forth to be permitted. But maybe like, you know, the stands have 300 or 400 people in them at most, like some school officials, some parents and the players. And my guess would be that they're going to try and go forward with the

games. And people pretending their parents so they could be at the game. I mean, I would do that. You know, there's, there's all these other dominoes falling from this beyond the whole what happens if there are no fans at these games and all the conversations everyone's having. But first, Brian Curtis wrote about with these new media things that have been implemented already, where they're trying to limit as much contact as possible between the media and the players, which basically means eliminating any sort of access the media has,

whether that becomes the new norm. Once that's in place, then it never goes back to normal because, you know, like for instance, 2008 writer's strike that happened 12 years ago. Once that strike was in place, Hollywood reset how they do pilot season. And before they were buying dozens and dozens of pilots and then just throwing shit against the wall and hoping a couple of them stuck, when they had to redo the whole concept of pilot season because of a writer's

strike and they had less shows, they were like, oh wait, we were ordering too many shows. And then it was just never the same. They ordered that many shows again i wonder with sports once we have this media thing in place and this is what brian laid out and i thought it was a great angle um will this just become where we are and well i think will we ever have that access again i haven't had the chance to read Brian's piece yet, but with respect to the observation, it does seem like there could be a sensible and efficient way to do post-game sports interviewing that doesn't have the journalist crammed into a corridor or cr, into the entranceway of a locker room. Like if this has the effect of basically like creating every team needs to come up with a space where the journalists can sit and ask their questions and the players and coaches can,

you know, go to a podium and be 10 or 12 feet away and it's a smidge more organized. That sounds kind of sensible to me the access is still crucial though because we still as fans and and you know the the um publications that that uh have uh incentive to report on what happened we still want to know what guys have to say guys and girls about their the games and the same from the coaches so i don't think the access is going away it's just going to change like the dynamic and it seems like that makes sense honestly well we have it in the nba playoffs right right that's that's they go they sit at a at a table table with with chairs my whole thing is i don't i don't feel like we're getting a ton

out of the access that at least we can see. I think a lot of it happens with the one-on-one stuff and sneaking to the side and things like that. That's the part that the good journalists are going to lose. I just wonder, so much of this stuff has been now and there's, especially with sports and especially with the bigger athletes, I wonder what kind of stuff we're actually getting from them anyway, you know, and, and what are, what are we actually losing compared to like when I'm just saying like in the seventies, when we were growing up and you read the newspaper, that was really the only way to know what was going on with your team. You know, now I feel like we're so much more connected to the players, to the sport,

to the teams day to day day we have a real feel for what's going on and those kind of moments just don't don't seem to have the same weight that they did in 1978 you still get guys and and coaches who in the moment is still in the kind of the heat of the moment have the disappointment the taste the bad taste in their mouth that sometimes will you know deliver something it happens frequently enough that i think there's still value i i'm interested in seeing you know uh disappointed coach x throw player y under the bench like true the the entirety of of uh zach levine's um post-game commentary on Boylan this year, that all by itself is worth folks going into the locker room or wherever it is that the Bulls have people meet to hear what Levine has to say after games. True.

I think the athletes are so much more careful now because a lot of times they're just getting videotaped by somebody's phone. And whatever they say, it can be on Twitter and 20 seconds, you know? And so I think there's a lot more tap dancing than maybe we used to have. The stuff from the seventies and eighties is incredible. The candor that guys talked with back then. So anyway, I think that's going to be one thing that resets. So hopefully when, uh, when we get this thing under control, God knows when that's going to be. The other thing, and I haven't heard a lot of people talk about this. A friend of mine who works for ESPN was telling me about it recently.

The whole concept of just televising sporting events where you have hundreds of people, you have broadcast teams flying in for the games. If that turns out, maybe that can't happen anymore, then they would have to use people that were on the ground in the games. I think there's a creativity level that's going to have to go way up. I don't think it's a situation where Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy are just going to be flying around from city to city. I don't think that if this deteriorates and it feels like it's going to keep deteriorating, the whole concept of how this stuff is covered will change. Obviously, all this stuff is small potatoes compared to the potential pandemic we have. Right, right, right.

But we're just talking about some of the curious impacts and the permutations of this. I mean, obviously major city that has a professional basketball, for instance, can host college basketball. And there are plenty of broadcasters in each city for, for both college teams and, and pro teams. I think the infrastructure is there. They just, you, you mentioned that you used the word creativity. They're going to have to get creative and deploy those folks. And I mean, there's, there's definitely a way to do it. My question to you, speaking of things that I'm curious about, how are we going to gamble on this?

How are we going to gamble on empty crowds? Is home court advantage gone? Yeah, well, first of all... This is all new territory no matter what. No matter what happens, this is all something we've never experienced before as fans. And then it's like, should we even be thinking this way?

That's the part. You and I, and I'm sure a slew of people listening to this, we're so conditioned to the cycle of sports, which is something Brian Phillips wrote about for The Ringer this week. Where it's just like, oh, it's March. March Madness is coming. Hey, the Masters is around the corner. Hey, NBA playoffs is coming. And we just kind of move from thing to thing. And that's what we love. That's why we follow this stuff. And now that this is not only being threatened, but is in real jeopardy of just going away for God knows how

long or being completely changed in a way that we can't recognize, for us to wonder what that's going to feel like, I don't feel like that's narcissistic. I'm sure some people would, but it's hard not to think about this stuff. Sports is a huge part of my life and yours, and it's going to change all of a sudden out of nowhere. We're 50 years old, both of us, and it's just going to be completely different. What's that going to feel like? I don't know. If there's no sports on TV and I'm not coming downtown to my job, then I'm going to be at the driving range. So my golf game is going to get really good this season.

I'm going to work on my handicap. Yeah, I'm going to work on my handicap. Well, you brought up golf. I'm nervous to bring this up. Uh-oh. The Masters. Yeah. you brought up golf I'm nervous to bring this up uh oh the Masters yeah April

it's like April 10th yeah 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th that's the stretch I would say not realistic people will be going out of their way to want to fly into Georgia and connect in different flights and things like that. The amount of people there will be the lowest ever.

The question is, what if there are no people? What if it's just all these golfers playing just with their caddies and spouses? And that's it. And it's an empty Augusta. I think that would be one of the most eerie weekends in the history of television, empty Augusta. I'm surprised to hear you say that. Um, I think for the most part,

it will not be that dissimilar from how we consume golf because golf already is quiet for the vast majority of the broadcast except when it's not except when there's a bit when somebody makes a big shot that would be the weird part right the roar on 16 and it's just not there and there's nobody around the green it's like everybody's been c CGI'd away. I mean, it's like the apocalyptic movies that are of a sort. I don't think there was. There is a recent example of this in 2012. I think there is a tournament out at Congressional Country Club here in Washington, D.C.

And the night there was this weather phenomenon have you ever heard of a derecho no you're not familiar with the derecho no it sounds like a new fast food it is a i'm gonna botch this but it the the at the guts of it it's a windstorm that travels super fast and has with it super high power, high energy wind. And it kind of behaves almost like a tornado, but it moves across. It's a weather front. So there was a derecho that moved from Chicago to Washington, D.C. back in, I think it was 2012. And the tournament that was occurring in Washington at the time at congressional, the,

the, the, the retro took down a slew of trees and they couldn't get all of the tree debris out of the way to, they could get it enough off the course to permit the guys to go play, but they couldn't get it enough to permit patrons spectators to onto the ground. So they,

they couldn't ensure the safety. So they couldn't ensure the safety. So they didn't let anybody on. And the guys played the rounds with no fans. It was at least one round. I don't remember if it was two rounds. And it was just a quiet golf round on television. Great for a nap if you're looking for a Saturday afternoon nap. Well, I've certainly played a few rounds of golf without fans in my day. And yeah,

and it's a, it's very, it's very peaceful for the golfer. Right. I wonder if somebody would shoot like a 59. Yeah. Somebody might shoot like a 59 with the, with the no fans.

I don't think the fans are the thing that makes golfers anxious one way or the other. I mean, it's the pressure of the situation. Well, House, this is, I don't know, I've had this podcast 13 years. This is certainly the strangest and most surreal thing that's happened since I launched the podcast. It was six years

before or six years after nine 11 happened. Um, I certainly hope we don't remember all of this the way that, uh, I think we remember nine 11, but it's really scary. And, you know, I, I think we're headed toward a situation where kids are going to be home from school. Um, I don't know what happens to youth sports. That's another thing that, you know, that's been, that slipped through the cracks a little bit here where, you know, my daughter has had a tournament last weekend. She has another tournament this weekend and we're on the sidelines after goals, you know, kind of touching elbows, the parents and not, and then her team scored the winning goal on Sunday with three minutes left and we're all

like high-fiving. It's hard to not be a human being. You're going to forget. You're going to lapse. Under every iteration, though, I think that's fine. I haven't seen any of the public health experts come out and say, you can't go see 10 people. You can't go be in a place and especially outdoors you can't be like you know in a place where there's 50 people or 60 people it seems like the critical mass is around

a thousand people with their the where the threat and in that environment you just described like your daughter's soccer game you know all those people yeah you don't know where all of them have been but you know you have a kind of expectation that all of them are being as safe as they can be. And they also are fitting a demo that's not the risky demo. They're not elderly. They're not extraordinarily vulnerable to lung issues, cardiopulmonary issues. So if you're doing some risk waiting, right,

it's, it's probably okay to keep going to, to the soccer games. They probably don't have to cancel the soccer games. Well, you think like, think like our parents are probably high lottery picks for this virus. Just like the things that the virus likes.

That's the, that's the part that's really frightening. You know, like you mentioned lungs and coronary stuff. And it's like, Jesus. I mean, they canceled the Indian Wells thing out here in Palm Springs, which is, you know, has a really old clientele. And there's a lot of old people that go to that event.

They were like, fuck this. And they got rid of it. I think that's a good idea. Now it's pouring rain. I don't know what that means. But yeah, I guess we'll see how it plays out. It's weird. Rasul and I, we briefly talked about it on Sunday.

I think I've talked about it in every podcast I've had since last week. It just feels weird to do podcasts and not talk about it. And I don't really have anything amazing to say, but it's what I've been thinking about a lot. And usually I think the stuff to talk about on a podcast, especially this one, is what's going on? What's on my mind? What's on my friend's mind?

And this is what we talk about. And this is what we're talking about every single time. Quickly, before we go, the Giannis LeBron thing, you had a huge Giannis MVP bet. It seemed like you could just start spending the money even two weeks ago. And then LeBron made the late charge. Russel and I covered all the narratives and all the reasons why Giannis should still be the MVP with 18 games left, depending on what happens. But who knows, could lebron swing this etc etc how nervous are you for the janice bet or did you already hedge i already hedged i mean we we had the conversations

among ourselves as uh scrupulous um you know uh thoughtful betters in this arena. Cousin Sal and I compared some notes. We exchanged some lines that were out there, and we did a little bit of forward thinking. And, you know, basically LeBron at plus odds in any kind of iteration was the sensible play as of this right before they played the Clippers because that's when it felt like it was going to switch. And we were basically like,

this is the most value you're going to get for LeBron right here at this moment, the Saturday before they play the Clippers. Because if they beat the Clippers, then value is off the table. You're going to have to pay. It's going to be pretty close to even odds or just a little bit above even odds.

So that was the sensible move. And the thing is, at that point in time, and we still don't have clarity around it, if Giannis misses most of these last 18 games and the Lakers overtake the Bucs, then I don't even really have that big a problem with LeBron winning the MVP. It doesn't really break my heart. problem with LeBron winning the MVP.

It doesn't really break my heart. I mean, we're past the point. We're through the looking glass in terms of underlying metrics, analytics, doing the job of swaying the voters. The voters are media people, and media people like stories. And Russell Westbrook led a team to 46 wins and one playoff win in a series that, that his team lost four games to one, but he won the NBA MVP because he averaged a team facilitated triple double.

And that to me was like, okay, this is a joke. I proceed. He had to proceed cautiously. It's all about the story. It's not about the underlying metrics. James Harden has a legit reason to be pissed about that MVP being stolen out from under him that season. And so buyer beware. That's the order of the day as far as

I'm concerned when it comes to MVP. Yeah. Oscars are a little like this too. The best narrative usually has the best chance. But I think with MVP, especially when Giannis won last year, so now people don't feel bad if they don't vote for him again. Then LeBron's getting up there in age, could be his last stand, could be his last chance. People start thinking about that stuff versus the actual production. But the big thing that's changed is Milwaukee seemed like they were going to be way ahead in the win-loss thing and potentially going to be in the seventies for wins. And now, you know, the Lakers might either catch them or come close to catching them. So at that point, at that point, we're removing win-loss and we're just going to our player versus player, impact versus impact, whose season mattered more, all the stuff we always talk about this stuff.

There's a case to be made for LeBron. Again, I said this on an ad, I'm going to repeat it. We don't want to hear about your vote yet, anyone out there. There's 18 games left. Let's let this play out. Don't rush to vote when there's a week from now when there's 16 games left. Just settle down. It's okay.

We can wait till the final week of the season to make a decision. We don't have to give our thoughts, you know, whatever, but it's a two man race now. And, and it's shocking. There's no, no foreseeable way two weeks ago that this was ever happening. Um, all because the, the bucks looked unstoppable and, and and were winning in every kind of iteration of Milwaukee-dom with Giannis, without Giannis. They were dominant, and his continued impact on the defensive end was, to me, the thing that had him tipped over. But if he misses some games because of this injury and the Lakers catch him, then I don't have any issue with it. LeBron leading the league in assists this year is incredible. And it's not an inflated stat, right?

No. He's gone out. He's dedicated to it. He's earned it. I love LeBron as facilitator. And if he wins the MVP, it's deserved because he has four. I love the company that it puts him in. If he gets to five, the all-timers that have five.

MJ, five or six. I don't remember. MJ's five. Kareem is six. MJ's five. And Russell's five. So there you go. He belongs in that company.

I have absolutely no issue whatsoever. And it would be a very compelling case. They would only be like, oh, Giannis was cheated. Giannis will not have been cheated if the Lakers end up within a game or two of the same record as the Bucs for this season. Or even if they surpass him, then it's really compelling. Well, and LeBron's also, as we're taping this, he's played 59 games, 35 minutes a game, basically.

So we're talking five minutes more a game than janice yeah we're talking over 2 000 minutes headed toward maybe 2 400 2 500 something like that plus another 800 to a thousand in the playoffs potentially this is he's on pace for a 3 500 minute season which i i don't think you know at the level that he's played at and how hard he's played especially lately on both ends, it seems pretty crazy. It's my favorite LeBron season in a while. He had a six month rest. He did. He took off the last two months of last season.

You know what though? He needed it. And he did. You know, I'll defend him on that one because it goes back to what Steve Kerr said with this whole thrown away warrior season where he's like, we needed it. It's really hard to go to the finals every year. It's really hard to play for eight to nine straight months, year after year. And I think, I wonder last year if LeBron, once he realized that that team didn't have it, you just start thinking like, all right, long-term, I want to make two or three

more runs at this. It's not a bad idea to reboot and rest and get my back. But you can definitely feel it in his play this year. This is as strong and as consistent physically as he's looked at really since the 2018 playoffs, which was about a five, six week thing when he really turned on the Jets,

you know, and now he's been able to do that for this entire season, pretty much. I'm totally fine with it. The one I will not be fine with, and I'm glad Charles Barkley, this guy from Bleacher Report, have a quote from Charles that Charles is going to go insane if Zion Williamson wins the rookie of the year over John Morant. Yeah, that's terrible. On the record right now, that if Zion Williamson wins rookie of the year over John Morant, I'm going to drink for six hours and I insist that I have a platform on this podcast.

I only need 10 minutes. Drunk House is back? That's Kyle's favorite guest. If Zion Williamson beats out John Morant, I'm going to look up list of of people that voted for do they publish who voted for who well that was like when people were voting for mb that year he played like 31 games it's like what are you guys doing it's two-thirds of the season i'm gonna go name by name and there's there's gonna be slander there's gonna be libel there's going to be slander. There's going to be libel. There's going to be bad words.

It sounds great. I won't threaten anybody, but I'm not going to say nice things. I'll tell you that much. Well, I'll promise America this, because if this corona thing, if it just keeps getting worse and we hit a point where people can't go to the office, everybody's stuck in their house, et cetera, et cetera. We're going to have to bring out drunk house. We're going to have to find very hard. We're going to have to find a way to entertain America as things are getting canceled left and right. And,

um, they're watching NBA games and empty arenas and all that stuff. The world's going to need drunk house. I think I'm willing to do it for you. I'm willing to do it house. I think. I'm willing to do it for you. I'm willing to do it for the ringer. I'm willing to do it for America. It would be my pleasure. You and I might not see each other for like six months. Who the fuck knows?

Neither of us will be getting on a plane anytime soon. Doesn't seem like it. Although, you know, there are these stories out there about Spotify and the ringer i mean so far the private jets are still pretty clean i think i don't know what do i know all right you could get on a jet i'll work on that house i'll keep you posted house uh we can hear you on fairway roll and making your you doing players championship anything this week or now what do you

mean anything this week the players championship is the single deepest it's the strongest field in all of golf every single season there are 144 players in the in the players championship 110 of those players have won an event on the pga. All of the top 75 players on tour in the official world golf rankings are playing this event, except for Tiger, whose back is hurt, and Lee Westwood, who wants to gamble on horses in England, which is kind of fucking awesome.

But yeah, we have Pat Mayo, who is from the Pat Mayo experience. He's got a whole bunch of picks. He's Golf Gambling Analyst of the year, by the way. I didn't know he came on. And we have Matt Wallace, who is a player from England who's physically at the Players' Championship. This week, he gave us a little bit of intelligence

on what the conditions are like and what he's kind of expecting. So it's an outstanding fairway roll, and we give out about probably like 10 names. It's a perfect Players' Championship preview. So that's going up. That's probably up by the time people hear this. You could have also just said, hey, I have a new fairway

roll on podcast. We preview the Players' Championship. You should listen to it. That would have been the other way to do that. Or you could go for 70 straight seconds about the guys. I like to tease it. I want everybody to have something to stick their teeth into. House, a pleasure as always. Stay safe out there in DC. Talk to you soon. Let's all stay safe out there and bet the unders in the empty arenas. Bet the under. Okay. Talk to you soon.

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what are you solving for? And now, without further ado, my friend, David Chang. David Chang is here. We're taping this on a Friday morning, the day that Ugly Delicious season two came out on Netflix, but we're not running this probably till Friday morning the day that Ugly Delicious Season 2 came out on Netflix but we're not running this probably till I'd say Tuesday range unless who knows what'll happen Congrats

Thank you. Congrats on that You actually were dumb enough to put me in this One of my favorite scenes of the entire season Some people say Cho and I didn't have a high enough usage rate in the series. There could have been more. I could see that.

They might want to spin us off into our own show. It was certainly one of the funniest things when he whipped out that knife. You didn't know he had this knife, right? If you watch, I'm bending down to get a napkin that fell off my lap and I look up and he's holding this oj knife and i'm like what's going on why is this happening so yeah what were the four you did one about kids kids episode we did indian food we did vertical

spit cooking so foods from the middle east region and uh my God, what was the other one? Steak. Steak. Yeah. There's a lot to talk about steak. You're in the steak episode. Yeah, I was going to say, I didn't know when we were going to run this podcast, but I was thinking about dry aging it and running it 350 days from now and it'll give everyone diarrhea. We've talked about this on The Hot of Steak.

You're vehemently opposed to dry aged steaks. Not vehemently opposed. we've talked about this on the hottest day you're vehemently opposed to dry aged steaks not vehemently opposed I just don't get it you tell me you claim that it's life altering to do it and I'm just like you know what's good at filet mignon

I put some A1 sauce on it it tastes delicious you also know when I love A1 sauce it bothers you too it's okay you know A1 sauce on it. It tastes delicious. You also know when I love A1 sauce, it bothers you too. It's okay. You know, A1 sauce on French fries is pretty good. Not on steak. No. You know what my favorite thing is lately?

The pounded breaded chicken. Like really pounded. Pounded in a very special way. But let's get back to steak. No, no, no. Now this has to be spoken about. Yeah. How different is the pounded chicken breast to any other chicken breast that you love?

Chicken parm's the same thing. I like when it's pounded to the point that there's chicken, but there's bread and it's just that there's some... Like a schnitzel. I like schnitzel. I don't like when it's too fat. I don't like the unpounded chicken breast that's breaded. It's like, what are you doing? It always feels like it's not totally cooked well enough.

You make a chicken at Majordomo. What is that, like a boiled chicken? It's a boiled chicken. It's like the secret best dish in the whole restaurant. But it's boring. Nobody would be like, oh, what's that? Actually, people ordered it quite a bit do they yeah well because you feel like all right well i could get this crazy short rib i

could go all these different chicken chicken is always like pushed to the side as like a fun order but this is it's a it's so this boiled chicken dish we brine it before we boil it number one so it's it's uh and we don't technically boil it. We cover it in a pot and we steam it. So it's basically boiled and steamed. And then we serve the breast meat and then we make a soup out of the leg meat. It's

delicious. You love it. I like when multiple things are happening with the same dish. Where the dish is going in four different directions. Now I have to put a schnitzel on the menu. I have to, I haven't been in, have you been to Austria?

No, that's the home of the schnitzel. And there's like a North version of the schnitzel and a Southern version. So the Germans didn't steal this or they stole the schnitzel. I don't think the Germans invented schnitzel. Maybe it's Austria. But I feel like it's a German thing, but the Austrians.

Yeah. And they, they, like, i think they cook it in some butter and some pork fat but ultimately it's delicious i think if you don't like schnitzel that's one of those foods that we can't be friends let's go through every country and say what their single best dish is oh i like this this will enrage people so austria the schn So Austria, the schnitzel. Austria, schnitzel. Germany, the bratwurst. Sauerkraut or bratwurst? I'd say the bratwurst with the sauerkraut. French? Sauerkraut, not only just completely underrated,

but also the levels of sauerkraut underrated. Because the high-level sauerkraut, if it's really done correctly. Nephew Kyle had a funny look on his face with sauerkraut underrated. Because the high-level sauerkraut, if it's really done correctly. Nephew Kyle had a funny look on his face with sauerkraut. I mean, if it's between sauerkraut and bratwurst. What did you say, bratwurst? Yeah. Yeah, bratwurst. But with the sauerkraut.

Okay, we can make that amendment. I think that has to be together. Together. Okay. What kind of mustard are you looking at in that situation? I'll be honest. I'm not a huge fan of mustard in general. I like grainy mustard.

That's another face. Mustard's great. But not all mustards are the same. Yeah, I know. So. I like that brown mustard, dirty brown mustard with a little kick to it. That's what I want with my sauerkraut.

In Canada, I'm going to say the best mustard in the world is from Canada. Really? It's called Coslix. It is outstanding. Truly outstanding mustard. Coslix mustard. And they have all kinds of mustard. Can I order's called Coslix. It is outstanding. Truly outstanding mustard. Coslix mustard.

And they have all kinds of mustard. Can I order it online? You can. Oh, this is great information. You've already made my podcast. I mean, that's, I mean, if I'm going to eat mustard, it's got to be like very, very good.

And obviously, if you're going to make a salad dressing, I guess, grape au point or something like that. Or Dijon's fine. But Coslix in Canada, to me, is the best.

Best food in Canada? Chinese food in Richmond, in British Columbia. But Chinese food in general in Canada is amazing. Chinese food in Canada? Dude. Yeah. Unbelievable.

It's probably some of the best Cantonese food is in British Columbia. The answer would be Canadian bacon? It's called pea meal bacon. Not Canadian bacon. In Canada, you don't call it Canadian bacon. You call it pea meal bacon. What's the best food in the UK? Single best dish.

I mean. Shepherd's pie? That's American cafeteria food. I think it's got to be fish and chips, right? That's got to be the British food. I just feel like

fish and chips is such a low ceiling. I think you've had it bad. I mean, you're from Mass. You probably had good fish and chips. It's fine. I think you've not had it good. It's just fried fish.

Yeah. This is another challenge for you now you're gonna add fried fish i'm just not even gonna fall for this that's just a moving to italy what are you gonna say pizza or pasta i mean you know how i feel about the meatball it's got to be be spaghetti then, right? You're doing pasta. Kyle? Pasta. So versatile. No, you're right. It's got to be a pasta with a meatball. If I'm really going full Italy, but as you know, I love the chicken Parmesan as well. To narrow this focus, because we could go forever. What is, let's break up America. All right. New England. What is New England? The regions. So a lot of people would say the lobster roll here. Lobster roll or clam chowder? I personally would say the lobster roll

has a higher upside than the clam chowder because clam chowder, they try to ride the reputation of the clam chowder throughout New England, but it's not necessarily that good place to place. What do you think, Kyle? More of a lobster bisque type of guy, but that might be a wrong region.

I don't know. No, that's the right region, just wrong answer. I think it's probably clam chowder. If it's a good clam chowder. Yeah, but we're just talking like, let's assume it's the best, right? I feel like we're making your pyramid of food in America. Right.

What's New York then? Fuck. It's a good one. Hot dirty water hot dog. Yeah, or some would say the pizza. Or the pastrami sandwich. A slice of pizza. I don't think it's pizza.

New York pizza. Philly's got cheesesteak. Chicago, people just automatically gravitate to deep dish. I don't even know if that's the right answer. Their hot dogs are fantastic. In Chicago. Yes. Chicago dogs are great.

My favorite thing in Chicago is Garrett's popcorn. I was just there. I know you've made a face. What is that? You like that? That fake flavored popcorn. I like watching them. You do the mix thing and it's got the,

the sugary side, wherever that one's called. And then the cheese side, and then they put it together and they shake it up and it's how you uh the sugary side whatever that one's called and then the cheese side and then they put it together and they shake it up and it's that's how you make your macaroni and cheese i just think i just like it i like seeing in the airport it's the only thing i've ever bought in the airport that i'll actually eat dc baltimore mid-atlantics the crab cake uh you get to the south i'd say it's barbecue right yeah it Is fried chicken anywhere in there? Fried chicken, shit. It's my favorite thing in America.

I would have to agree with you. Fried chicken. I mean, you can put Divvy up the South between barbecue and fried chicken. Florida. A couple of times when Kyle does a Sunday night podcast, we'll get dinner. And a couple of times football too. And we got the Kyochon. Kyochon. Kyochon. Kyochon.

Kyochon. Kyochon, the fried chicken. It's the happiest I've ever seen him. Are you chicken nuggets or chicken tenders, fingers, man? You can only eat one the rest of your life. What's it going to be? You said nuggets? Or fingers.

I'm a boneless, like, strips of chicken. Yeah, fingers. Yeah, I like those. McDonald's nuggets? Do you like those? Wendy's is the best.endy's spicy no i don't know by the way just because it's something that i can never forgive the ringer for yeah when a few years ago don't talk about the fast food apocalypse don't talk now it's the darkest moment in ringer history what happened now it's like russian interference or something it's terrible how could you guys live with yourselves, letting that be out in the world?

It's like the 2003 NBA finals of ringer moments. Just really bad. We don't talk about it. The most upset I've ever seen Joe House. He never even— Chick-fil-A waffle fries. Are you guys— It's so bad.

So bad. It's right up there with one of the worst takes of all time. It's really bad. Yeah. What about California with one of the worst takes of all time. It is really bad. Yeah. What about California, in your opinion, best food? Because you have to go some sort of fresh fish type situation, right? I think you got to break up California. It's different, right?

I'm not too aware of the cuisine of Northern California, but if it's San Francisco, what would you say San Francisco is? Fisherman's stew? It's funny because people would go Chinese food, but the Chinese food scene actually isn't that great there. Not so strong. Yeah, because it has such a giant Chinatown. But actually, how many restaurants in that Chinatown would you actually be like super excited to eat at?

San Francisco has arguably the best fancy high-end dining in America. But in terms of an actual food to rally around? I don't think they have it. I don't know. I don't think they have one thing. Don't they have the sourdough bread bowl soup thing? That's got to be a Bill Simmons bread bowl soup. That is really good.

I have strong—I love San Francisco just to go visit. It's one of my favorite places to just spend two days in. But that baseball park, when they built it and all the food options they had. Oh, the French fries. Those are good. Just going in that hole after they built it in the outfield and the third base side, and they just had—it was like, oh, this is cool. There's actually good food in a ballpark.

Well, I think the reason why you like San Francisco, it's the Boston of the West coast. Yeah. I've heard that. I've heard that. I like cities where you go. I wouldn't get murdered for that one. No, they,

we, but we get that. It's on the water. It's, it's when you go, there's a specific downtown and there's specific places. Everyone hits. I still think Boston is the best downtown for a tourist.

Because you can basically go to Four Pockets and get a feel for everything. Boston has one of my favorite seafood restaurants, though. Neptune. You've been there. That place is fucking unbelievable. I love that place. Well, that's like two-hour wait every time. I know.

I know. Well, got to figure out how to cut mine. I think the two-hour wait thing is one of the best marketing tools we've talked about that it's almost like you could hire a hundred actors and just have them

standing outside and do it for a week and people would be like oh I gotta get into that place what's going on there I bet you places have actually done that you think so? yeah

what's the food of Los Angeles then? the taco? the taco? it depends because it's such a diverse place but I would say the best represents Los Angeles then. The taco? Taco? It depends because it's such a diverse place, but I would say. The best represents Los Angeles. I think it's got to be the taco. But you're not a huge taco guy.

You eat them. No, I am a huge taco guy. I love tacos. Is that a true statement? He's seen me. You get it quite often. He's seen me. Yeah, Taco Tumadre in Larchmont.

But no, I think Koreatown has really thrown LA on its ear because so much of the good food is now happening in Koreatown. It is, but I still think the symbolic food of Los Angeles will always be the taco. I agree. I think that's fair. Cheeseburgers? Fast food.

LA is the, Southern California is the, like it's Nirvana for fast food. So that was the thing when I moved out here in 02, the fast food options were the, immediately the most shocking to me. Like it was just such a higher level of fast food. What's your fast food of choice? Shake Shack?

No, you know I love Chick-fil-A. Man. I told you how when Chick-fil-A got canceled for like nine months, I snuck in a couple of times. My hat pulled down. I was like a drug addict. I was like, I gotta get some chicken nuggets in.

If you take away their shitty politics and their stance on people in general, if you just look at the sandwich, it's really not that good. Really, it's not that good. There are versions of it now that compete pretty heavily. I just like it. I like the vibe. I like how fast it is. Because he's of the younger generation.

What are your thoughts, Kyle? Chick-fil-A? I like the sauces. The sauces. You like Chick-fil-A sauce. Good, really good milkshakes, I think, for fast food, too. Polynesian. I think they got to change that name in 2020.

Can I laugh at that? Yeah, too. Polynesian. I think they got to change that name in 2020. Can I laugh at that? Yeah, you can laugh at that. What else? We could go on. Texas' Barbecue. Texas' Barbecue. Just point blank. Alright. I like when you said you take away their shitty politics. What was the other thing you said?

Their stance on people in general. That could go for about 20 companies. Yeah, you're right. You're right. You're right. We can't just single them out. But Chick-fil-A, their food just isn't that. But maybe I'm just projecting my jealousy of their crazy success.

You know? Chick-fil-A, you can't kill chickens fast enough. That's really the tagline. Well, you did your version of chicken sandwich. It did well. It's doing great. Some Barclays. But I think it's a better, we serve dark.

This is a thing. We serve dark meat. We're now transitioning to more white meat. That's what Ludo Bird does here too at Staples. Dark meat only for the chicken tenors. And I'm like, I'm not a dark meat guy. Sorry. I know you are.

I don't want to sound like a a this is a racist statement but if you had to divide the world american white americans love white chicken breast meat the rest of the world for the most but there's certainly exceptions kyle is obviously one of them but uncle bill likes white breast meat versus dark. The rest of the world seems to like dark meat. This is another. My son, Ben Simmons, likes dark meat. Because he's a different kind of cat.

He's a different kind of cat. He's the coolest guy in our family. I think he's been introduced to a lot of cool things. And he's got good palate. He also eats three-day-old sushi, you were just saying earlier. Yeah, I want to talk about that. That's unacceptable. You can't do that.

So we got sushi on Friday night. I always over-order because he eats it in the morning the next morning for breakfast. Then he ate it again for dinner because we over-ordered. I thought Zoe was going to be home with her friend, and they ended up going to dinner. And then Sunday morning, about 11 o'clock range, so this is 40 hours after the sushi had been delivered. He was back in eating the tuna on top of the rice cakes. Plowing that home.

I'm not. It seemed questionable. It's not questionable. I don't think. The only thing that's questionable is the rice is going to be hard and not very good to eat. The rice itself.

He doesn't care. But you think the fish itself. Fish is fine. Okay. Most of the fish you eat in sushi restaurants is frozen anyway. Right. You've explained that on previous pods. So you haven't been on my pod in a while.

What's the biggest food trend? We're two months into 2020. It feels to me like the Impossible burger beyond burger vegan thing has been the biggest thing that's changed over the last 12 months even if you look on like the postmates caviar sites like they have a ton of vegan options now at least in la you know i don't know if it's spread to the other cities yet um i think it's probably been one of the bigger things obviously beyond going public and going bananas and then coming back down to earth a little bit. And the war between impossible and beyond.

Obviously, I have to refer impossible. But I don't think that's the biggest story. I think the biggest story is the rise of food delivery. But that was last year, too. You think it's exponentially bigger? That's going to be the story of the next 10 years. Yeah. And what it does to restaurants. It's going to completely the story of the next 10 years. Yeah. And what it does to restaurants.

It's going to completely decimate the business, I think. Yeah. So your theory is almost like with movies where it became harder and harder to get people to go to a movie theater unless it was a movie you had to see in the theater. Otherwise, people would just wait till it was on demand or they could rent it or whatever. They'll stay home with their nice TV. You're worried that the food delivery business is now undercutting the restaurant business in a way that is no longer good for the restaurant business. Yeah.

I mean, if you just look at the numbers, I mean, I'm just going off the top of my head, like an average restaurant, if it's a profitable restaurant, which is hard enough, I'd probably say it ranges anywhere from 5% to 15%. And if you're really chugging, it's like 18 to 20% net. So if you're doing five to 10%, that's your sort of bottom line. I think you're losing that five to 10% at minimum right now with delivery as a competitor, because now you're not just competing against one restaurant. You're competing against the entire city. Yeah. And it's not that every meal is being ordered in,

but I'd say three or four per week now. So three to four per week pretty much adds up to five to 15% of the, of the market, in my opinion. So I think the, I'm concerned because I think that it's not going to go away. We have to figure out how to make it work because it's sort of, it could be indentured servitude. It's a model that has to improve for the actual restaurants. I don't give it too much. I don't

care too much about the delivery service, but you know, I, do I use them? Yeah. Do I post-made stuff? Yeah. But I'm trying to figure out what the model is because a lot of these services take at minimum 30% of the top line of a restaurant. Without going into too many specifics, it just is a model that is not going to work long term. So I don't know what the fuck the future holds, but I have a lot of concern. Quick break to talk about SimpliSafe with home security. Two ways. Two ways. Two ways. I repeat, two ways you can go about protecting your home.

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350% faster dispatch. Go to simplisafe.com slash BS. SimpliSafe with two I's. simplisafe.com slash BS. So when you see like in LA, DoorDash was exclusive with John and Vinny's. When a deal like that happens, what does that mean to be excluded? To have a restaurant be exclusive to a service?

Well, the restaurant, if DoorDash asks us, I'm sure we probably would have to say yes too because they're driving so much traffic. And DoorDash benefits because they're getting, you know, the brand recognition of John and Vinny's, right? So it's a win-win. When I say people are going to lose, it's not the proven players like John and Vinny's, right? That's like a iconic LA institution now. It's all the restaurants that are trying to be like John and Vinny's that won't get the opportunity. That gives me concern, right? So I don't know. I'm not an economics expert, but I think that the model is not there yet. I know a lot of people are working on it, but... Do you see a world in which there's less tables and more of the restaurant is geared toward food delivery, but also we have some tables too, but maybe half as many tables as we used to have?

Yeah, I've always actually sort of thought that because that's why I started to get into food delivery myself. The two things that we started back a few years ago, because there's going to have to be some kind of better balance of a restaurant delivering food, but also serving food in the four walls of a restaurant. But I don't know what the future restaurants look because it's not going to be in the four walls of a restaurant, but I don't know what the future restaurants look because it's not going to be in the four walls of a restaurant,

which means restaurants aren't going to go away. They're just going to be a specific kind of restaurant. So we've talked about this. They're going to be shit that you can't deliver ultimately. But, you know, we all want to go out to eat, but do you think that we've lost the meaning of going out to dinner? Think about 20 years ago. I would hope not.

I still love, I mean, we went out to dinner two weeks about 20 years ago. I would hope not. I still love... I mean, we went out to dinner two weeks ago. It was really fun. Yeah, that was great. But do you feel that there's a generation or just diners in general now with so many options, this is food so good right now,

across the board, for most people, not everyone, that it's not as special as it used to be? Like getting dinner with you and we, you know, because Bill's in my Asian American club. He's an honorary card member, right? We go out with Cho and Yang and Chris Chen. Like that's a thing because we rarely get together

and that's what's a special thing. But recently we went to Park's Barbecue, which if I walked in by myself, they would just stare at me for three hours and be like, yeah, we don't have any tables. It's a special thing. But what if you wind up going there without me and you start getting that treatment which if I walked in by myself, they would just stare at me for three hours and be like, yeah, we don't have any tables. A special thing. But what if you want to wind up going there without me and you start getting that treatment and you get it every day.

That's the true Asian card. If I get, if I can pull that off. But I feel like that people are getting a little bit desensitized to it because it's like too much. Right. I think so. I still love going out to dinner.

I love sitting across the table and catching up with somebody. And like in that case at Parks Barbecue where we've been there a couple of times, but that stew they have, you know, and you kind of go, you're taking it for granted. It's like seeing LeBron in person after 15 years. And you're like, oh man, I forgot LeBron is fucking incredible. I'm glad you brought up, and I'm glad you like the stew they have at Parks called Gochujang Jigae. So you know, a lot of the Korean barbecue shops stew they have at Park called Gochujang Jigae. So, you know, a lot of the Korean

barbecue shops, they don't get as much credit as they should for their broths, right? Your big soup guide. All the beef scraps turn into an amazing beef soup

and they add that with gochujang, which is a Korean fermented chili paste and a few other vegetables and you have basically like the best Korean chili of all time.

Some vegetables and then there's some potatoes. Yeah. But soft potatoes. So good. I think it's the best dish, consistently best dish in Los Angeles for me. I think you're sort of on that same wavelength right now.

What was the other one we went to that you blew up in the shopping center? Oh, Sun Hong Kong. Yeah. Because that was the other one that had the great stew. I like both of them like they don't give me any fucking time of day yeah you wait in line for two hours yeah i like it though i like that but uh yeah they're like the one of the nba referee that's not impressed by any superstar

absolutely it's like yeah yeah no that was a travel i'm calling it i was talking to a chef i won't blow him up but they were saying that this whole world of food and food media and just access to good food and people sort of getting their dopamine levels up because they're constantly just eating good shit always is like porn addiction for everyone with food. They're just at a point now where they're just like, well, that's not enough. I need to see more shit. I was like, huh, that's a crazy way to think about it but i think there's something there and that's what i'm afraid of is dining has lost like that sense of like i don't know what that is you know what i mean

because now everyone knows so if you had a porn addiction you're going to categories and you're just banging out whatever your predilection is. And if you're like me. Where's Joe House when you need him? Yeah, where is he? Joe House is the perfect person to blend these conversations. But with food, it's like, I just love chicken parm. Where am I getting my chicken parm tonight? But that's the thing is you're constantly looking for the best chicken parm.

So you could be chicken parmed out, potentially. You think? Could you? Well, I went to Madeo again last week, or this week, and they had the veal chop, but you can ask them to do it Parmesan style. But how often are you eating veal parm or chicken parm? I'm very, as you know, very squeamish about the veal order. Right. Especially when it's in a chop thing because I think it can go wrong.

I don't like rolling the dice. But you don't want chicken parm with the exception. Chicken parm is more reliable than veal parm. Is it once a week for you? Yeah, probably. I'm a huge fan. I'm half Italian. My mom made pasta fizzle yesterday.

She never, other than the banana pudding thing that you made. It's going to happen. I'm making it happen. She's, she's reconciling her feelings about show after seeing some of the ugly delicious content. She's, she's not sure. He's a little R rated. Yeah. He's a little R rated.

She's, she's, she wants to make sure I vouch's a little R-rated. Yeah, he's a little R-rated. She wants to make sure. I vouch for him. She trusts me. But yeah, she made the pasta fizzle, which is, I don't know where you stand on that. I don't even know. What is pasta fizzle? It's basically. It's like a soup, right?

It's a soup, but it's got pasta in it. It's always piping hot. You put cheese on the top. Some people put like little tiny meatballs in and other people don't and it's just delicious it's basically like spaghetti stew but again like but little round little pasta if you had it every day or like every other week you'd lose its sort of luster well that's one where you have kyle would have a giant bowl of it then he would go in the back and sit in the massage chair and pass out.

Cause it's just like, it's basically like eating a coma. But Kyle, if you had it every day, you'd get sick of it. Right. I don't know. You wouldn't get sick of Jamie's food. You would eat, you would eat Jamie's food every day. I mean, I could be a bit of an ingrate at times. I think, you know, it's, but it's every day I'd be like, yeah.

But I think that's, what's happening with food in general. It's becoming commoditized. And I don't know if that's a good or bad thing, but it's getting harder and harder for restaurants to be like, this is what's, you know, this is what we're going to do to keep you interested. So, um, I don't know, man, some crazy shit. The good thing is some stuff just doesn't travel well with food delivery. 100%. Well, pizza is the best. Chinese food and fried chicken

are two and three. Fries, they have just not been able to figure out. Because it's not possible. Fries die in the vine after 10 minutes and there's just no way around it. It's just not going to be as good.

The only way, there's someone I know that's trying to make food in general in the vehicle as it gets to you. Oh, wow. That's how fries will happen.

Yeah. That's interesting. So, yeah. That's how fries will happen. That's interesting. So, yeah. That's going to be the game changer. So for 2020, you still have food delivery as the number one story right now? It will.

There's two things. I feel like a political talking head about fucking food. It's food delivery and it's going to be environment in terms of how you can get ingredients and three is going to be like

you know labor issues because there's just too many restaurants. It's just too many fucking restaurants. You should do this should be like a Bernie Sanders type talking point for you. There's too many restaurants. We need to have more people

with a seat at the table. You know one of my favorite things in the world is when you do impersonations in general. Bernie's one of the only ones I could do. But yeah, there's too much sushi.

We're taking the sushi out of the hands of the sushi chefs. And they need a seat at the table. I don't know what's going to happen. But the thing that I think

we're all worried about is the coronavirus. And I just think other than washing your hands and keeping your employees home if they have a meal, that's the thing I'm really worried about as it affects not just restaurant business. It's like everything, right? So we'll see what happens. I mean, we're taping this on a Friday.

By the time people do this on Tuesday, it might be three times worse. We have no idea. And I don't want to talk too much about it because I don't want to incite panic or anything. But I'm a paranoid person in general, even on a really good day. So this has me up at night for sure. How old is your son right now? Just turned one. What kind of food?

What are the staples now? Is he in the mac and cheese phase yet? He's slowly eating pasta. So I cook almost all the stuff for him for the most part. She eats like a real champion. This is where you gain probably eight pounds right now from one to one and a half. Oh, you've been telling me this. They start eating more fun stuff, but they only finish like one third of it.

And you're just like, oh man, what a waste of mac and cheese. I just have to finish that for him. Well, you're right like, oh man, what a waste of mac and cheese. I just have been to have to finish that for him. Well, you're right. That's happened. Like his breakfast. Yeah. The difference is

I can make him things that maybe a normal person can't. True. I was like, oh, you know what? He wants to eat bread, but it's got to be soft. I was like,

oh, I'm just going to make him crepes because pancakes will be too thick for him. So I make him crepes and I put some spinach and some Parmesan. It's great. You talk about somebody who's going to be desensitized when he's older.

Again, I'm actually worried about that. He's dating some girl. She's like, hey, let me make you some eggs. They suck. And he's like, what the fuck? It's crossed my mind for sure. But he's, you know, it's awesome. I actually love making his food.

And I wish I, instead of actually opening restaurants, I actually love making his food and, um, I wish I, instead of actually opening restaurants, I just got into baby food or pet food. I wouldn't have to deal with fucking customers ever. It would be a blessing. What would you, how would you change baby food?

What would be your three moves? It's just the, the store bought shit is not tasty. No. And I've tasted them all. Yeah. Some of them are okay if they're fruit puree, but my,

my, my two senses, I don't, I haven't tried one that is compelling enough. You know, Jennifer Garner has her brand, Once Upon a Farm. I'm learning all the shit. So that's pretty good, I guess, for purees and such. But for the most part, it's pretty easy to make it yourself if you just freeze it. But, you know, I'm not going to go into a whole lesson about how to make baby food but maybe one day is there meat and baby foods ever so for dinner she go eats salmon salmon turkey chicken or beef usually with some rice are you blending that stuff up or i boil it down with with some cooked rice and uh and avocado breakfast, he eats a soft-boiled egg. He doesn't eat hard-boiled eggs.

He's already turning into a food weirdo. Yogurt or some oatmeal. And then lunch is a vegetable puree. And then dinner is some kind of salmon rice type of thing. He eats really well. It's like some kind of keto diet thing. Most dads dream of having like that first catch with their kid and you like that that first yeah parks barbecue stew that he can finally

eat without it singeing his intestines how old is it how old do you have to be like eight i'm trying to figure out how to give get him spicy food yeah how do you indoctrinate him in the spicy? I don't know. I don't know when to do that. And I try to sneak food to him while my wife's not looking because she's like, you can't, you know, like, it's too salty. Like, to me, he likes salty things, but I guess they're kidneys. So maybe you just put, like, little tastes on his tongue,

get him used to it. That's what I've been doing. She doesn't know that. Now she does. But man, like, I can't believe the kid thing. And I get to actually do like parent corner stuff with you. So it's like, it's the best. You had the one-year birthday party, right? Well, you have like multiple parties during that first year.

The 100-day is a big one. I've learned that as I got my Asian card. I heard about the three different parties. Korean's getting better. And then the one year is a big one. I've learned that as I got my Asian card. I heard about the three different parties. Korean's getting better. And then the one year is called the dol. And that's where they get dressed up in the Korean traditional clothing. And usually mostly families there. And they choose like, you know, a pencil, paintbrush, money.

And that's like basically some kind of fortune telling of what they might do. My son chose a stethoscope and I was like, that's going to happen. There's no Dr. Chang's. We don't have that DNA. Too volatile. Screaming at patients.

Professional gambler? Yes. I could see that. Oh, you know what we haven't talked about since the last time I saw you on a podcast? What's that? Parasite winning like seven Oscars. The greatest moment since Linsanity

for the Asian American community. You know, man, it was, I still can't believe it happened. I'm speechless. But I have to say, Parasite and Director Bong fucked it up for everyone else.

Why? Because now it's like, whatever you do in the non-lawyer financial academic centers, if you try to do something in the creative fields, they're going to be like, well, you have to win four Oscars now. Oh, you think the tiger moms are going to be pointing at Parasite? Dude, it's the worst. 100%. So now I think Korean parents are going to take their kids off the golf course and send them to like film school. And it's like, you better win five Oscars

because that's your measure of success now. Yeah. Unbelievable. Who could have ever guessed? I certainly couldn't. I just, it's weird that it happened. I'm so happy, but I can't believe it happened. I mean, what do you think in your whole five-year rule?

Is that something we're going to look back on and be like, that was worthy? Or it should have been once upon a time? It would be interesting. A lot of people love that movie. My initial instinct was that once upon a time would be the five-year. But I really think people love Parasite. And I think people are re-watching it too, which is, especially when it hits like HBO or Cinemax or whatever, it's on Amazon or it's on Netflix.

I think it, I think it does have a re-watchability to it. So we'll see. You know, my wife's not a huge fan of me saying this too because like everyone

I know that's Korean is like, they love it. It's the best. I think it's a great movie and I know I'm Korean. I need to be saying it's the greatest movie

of all time. I'm 100% overjoyed. And I wanted them to win everything. I just, I'm not at the level to say it's like the best movie anyone's ever seen. And that's, to me, the hyperbole. And I think warranted because we've been waiting for this moment. Everyone thought we're going to have a Black Panther. I just don't think anyone thought Koreans was going to be this. So that's what I'm excited about. But like,

I want to make sure that it has legs, right? So for this to really have the impact culturally, it's got to continue to be the best in class where you can't really say maybe Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was the maybe overall better movie. I liked it. I didn't love it, but I also saw it on my TV with the subtitles. Harder to read because it's on a TV versus the giant big screen. I think if you're trapped in the theater with it, it would have been a different experience. Yeah, it's dense and a lot of repeating themes throughout his movies. And it's just a brilliant movie. So what's the pantheon now?

Where's Bong? Bong in Asian culture right now? Yes. He's number one. He's number one. He has the championship belt. There's no one even close, right? Remember when Steve Yoon had the belt for like six months?

Well, Steve, this has been an amazing year for Korean actors and directors. Steve is coming out with a movie. I think A24 is coming out with it called Minari. Yeah, that's a big movie. And it won Sundance. Yeah. And it's basically a story about Korean immigrants

going to, I think, Arkansas as chicken farmers and that whole story. And I think Steve is just an amazing actor. And I'm so happy that I think this movie is going to crush for him and the director. So walking dead died when they killed him off. I have not watched an episode since I was,

I never, I was out within a couple episodes. I couldn't believe that was the one guy I would not have killed. But the only thing that's walking dead's inspired me to do is I've been looking at a Katana blade on Amazon. I really have. It's in my save for later list. Cho will buy it.

So who did Bong take the championship belt from? I don't know. He might have taken it from you. No. No, I think he might have. Again, Koreans don't rally around me. I'm just too white for most Koreans.

He's a real Korean. I'm a fake, you know, yes, he's like the real deal he's a genius he's a fucking genius the best thing is he was he was talking the talk as he was winning the the trophies going oh you can just tell i was like i'm really partying tonight this is going to be a really fun night and then that's what actually happened he got shit faced it was a legendary party where was that they were so bon yeah uh which is an amazing restaurant and i'm so happy that they That's what actually happened. He got shit-faced. It was a legendary party. Where was it? In Koreatown? In Sobon, yeah.

Which is an amazing restaurant. And I'm so happy that they went there because now a lot of people in Los Angeles are more aware of what has been already accepted. But that was like a 7 o'clock night, right? Didn't it go all night? Yeah, they reopened from what I heard. But yeah. And you weren't here. I wasn't here.

You missed basically the Asian Super Bowl. But here's the thing. My Korean sucks. You missed, it was the Redskins winning the Super Bowl for this. Yeah,

but I would have felt weird. Like years ago, like 10 years ago, my Korean was pretty good. Now that Hugo has like children's books, like basic Korean books, we're learning Korean together, essentially.

It's pretty embarrassing because I never speak it. It's like the whole muscle memory is dead. Have you met Bong? I have not met Bong. We got to get Bong on your podcast. I know. I got to improve my Korean. We just get the...

Oh, I guess that would be tough because we need the translator. I'd still listen to it. He could talk to me and I could respond back in English pretty well, I think I guess that would be tough because we need the translator. I'd still listen to it. He could talk to me and I could respond back in English pretty well, I think. But that would be weird. Maybe it's like a 20...

Yeah, that... That would be really weird if I'm thinking about it. Man, he's a genius. Actually, now with Spotify, they'll probably be able to translate it. They'll just click a button.

All right, Director Bong. He's older, so I have to call him Mike Young or something like that. What's his... I wonder what his next thing is. He's got, so I have to call him like young or something like that. What's his, I wonder what his next thing is. He's got that Adam McKay thing.

They're doing Parasite. Is that actually going to happen though? I think that's going to happen. Do you think that happened in the sense that like we didn't think it was going to be the winner?

I feel like they have to abandon that now. I don't think so. Because the movie is so big now. It's like you can't do the TV version of the movie now that the movie

became what it became. There's so many Korean things in that movie. I don't know how that translates, but that's not the TV version of the movie now that the movie became what it became. There's so many Korean things in that movie. I don't know how that translates, but that's not up to me. You know, that's going to be,

they'll figure out how to translate that. How it translates to like American culture. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's take a break. I want to tell you about two podcasts

on the Ringer Podcast Network. One is an exclusive to Spotify hosted by Chuck Klosterman and Chris Ryan. It's called Music Exists. It's excellent deep dive conversations about music and its role in society, culture, sports, you name it. Last week's podcast was called Where Do Sports and Music Meet? I think this is really good. You've

heard both of those guys on this podcast. And if you like them, I promise you'll like Music Exists as well. The other podcast I want to tell you about, Against All Odds. Remember our old friend, Cousin Sal? He shows up on Sunday nights, does Guest of Lines with me, do it for like 22 straight weeks. And then he disappears so he can do his other four jobs. Well, he still has a podcast for us. It's called Against All Odds. And last week he did a whole thing about Brady's future. He had the doctor who's on Twitter all the time, breaking down NFL injuries, Dr. David Chow. Yeah, he had that guy on.

He had the Super 70s sports guy on recently. Every week something's going on, and this is really when Sal thrives, when there's no football, and he can just go out of his way to find the most ridiculous bets on the planet to break down March Madness coming up and a whole bunch of other things, hopefully.

But check out Against All Odds with Cousin Sal and the Trifecta. Two of the many podcasts we have here on the Ring of Podcast Network. Not to mention David Chang's as well. You should check that out too. Back to the pod. Tell us about your book. Yeah. Wait, it's coming out may 19th uh random house clarkson part i would love for you guys to pre-order this right now great um it's it's

something that was signed like four or five years ago and um i just delayed doing it until i couldn't delay it anymore um and And it's just weird. I mean, you wrote a book, but it was a book of basketball. It's not about your life. This is my life, and it's weird. And I don't know how to feel about it. It's very strange. It's a memoir.

It's a memoir, yeah. But to people who followed your career, they'll have a general gist of some of the things you're hitting, but you're going pretty deep in some of them. Yeah. I don't, I mean, it definitely talks about a little bit of my upbringing,

but not too much because that talks about food talks about like mental health, but it sort of covers sort of starting Momo to present day. And I'm nervous because letting that out in the world is like shit. Yeah, you put it out. You put yourself out there. Yeah, you're like, fuck. And ultimately, people say it sucks.

You're like, fuck. I would say, though, that one of the trends of the last five, six years, I think, with writing is it's gotten way more personal. Yeah. And a lot of it is like, here's what happened to me. Like this was, here's the, here's the story about this one damaging thing that happened to me and how it shaped me to be the person I am now. Or here's, here's how I battled this thing and I got through it and now I'm here.

Right. Seems to be like an actual genre now. I mean, the Players' Tribune over and over again has pieces from athletes where it's like, I hit rock bottom and then I came back. Here's my story. When do you think that started, that sense of like... I think when Twitter took off.

Because now players are just completely open about their anxieties or their depression or the highs and lows. That never happened 10 years ago. It didn't happen five years ago. Who was the first? It's been pretty recent. Kevin Love advanced a little bit.

That was not that long. It was like three years ago, two years ago. Yeah, two years ago. I think a weird tipping point was when I did the song conference with Adam last year and he was so open about being concerned about the players and their mental health and stuff. And that, I felt like, made it more real that the commissioner of the league was like,

I'm worried about the sanity of my players. But I also, I worry, I think about this stuff a lot. Obviously, we have a lot of young people that work here and it's just like, you know, i think social media i think all this stuff makes me nervous and people online all the time and or checking stuff and constant feedback and the instagram culture i think about it all the time with my kids well that's sort of the same thing i was talking about food it's just like too much right how do we find a way to it's people trying to yeah the thing that's and i'm not the first one to ever make this point, but the thing that

scares me about the Instagram and especially seeing with my kids is you're always trying to present the best version of your life at all times. Right. And that was what that movie, Eighth Grade, which I think came out last year, did really well, where it's like this girl. She had him on your pod, right? Yeah.

And this girl has this really sad kind of life, but has this instagram version of it that seems like it's a little more fun and i i think there's i think a lot of people have trouble finding that balance of i'm constantly trying to pretend i'm having more fun and doing better than i actually am you know and that's that's where it gets dangerous this is going to be like we're probably too serious for the BS show, but. No, we like when it gets serious sometimes. Do you think that this is something that I've been thinking a lot about

and we actually talked about it at some length in the steak episode for this season of Ugly Delicious. And this ties into sort of the concept of what I've been talking about food, like too much access to something. Like do you feel that we are eliminating suffering and the pain of like trusting the process, more or less the best way to describe it? And editing out all of that just to show this perfect plastic like sense of perfection. And that's fucking everything up. It's like instant gratification society.

Yeah. sense of perfection. And that's fucking everything up. It's like instant gratification society. Yeah. But the idea of happiness to me, weirdly, and that's why I think we have the cover of like a peach rolling up the hill on the book, which is called Eat a Peach, is that maybe happiness is doing the hard work and not the actual moment of happiness, right? Because that's always fleeting. And the way I describe it with food and steak is, and this is weirdly the analogy that I've been thinking to myself is, if the three of us were here in California 40,000 years ago and we were hungry

and we had to support our family and Kyle's a terrible hunter, but you're awesome and whatever. I knew it would be that way in the analogy. Right? Like we've been hungry for 30 days and then we kill some woolly mammoth. Yeah. And then we're like, dude, I'm going way in the analogy. Right? Like we've been hungry for 30 days and then we kill some woolly mammoth. Yeah.

And then we're like, dude, I'm going to start the fire. This is going to be the best. Right? You got the salt, you got the knife and we're going to feed like 30 people of our closest friends and family

that night where everyone's hungry. It's going to be the best day of our lives. We're going to remember that. And then we, you And then we process it. We try to store some of the meat. But a month goes by, we're out of all the meat. And we're like, all you're thinking of, oh, shit, we're going to do this again. This sucks. But if that was every day, we're not going to really appreciate that moment of eating something. And I think that over time, just meat eating, because the world over, even if you're a vegan, we all came here because we

ate meat, you know, in the steak houses, like build a, build a butcher time in a gangs in New York. If you want to go eat steak, it was called a beef steak house. You literally walk through the carcasses and it's a celebration. We all celebrate over meat or we not everyone these days right for environmental reasons or whatever can you imagine going to a restaurant today walking through carcasses of cows hanging and then be like yeah i'm gonna have that cut there and i want it bloody that's what apl does right sort of but like those are vestiges of it and i know this sounds crazy and you can edit the shit out, but like now. We don't edit the BS. Now, like even like when you went to Morton's, they would like bring out the steak on the cart and tell you this is what we're going to cook for you.

Yeah. We now can go to a steakhouse and not even know that, you know, like a cow died for it or it was aged for 40 days. Bill's favorite. And now we're just like, that's what I want and give it to me now. We completely eliminated the process of this fucking cow, whatever, whatever. Or it's so expensive. So the suffering, in my opinion, has now been translated to cost or whatever. I'm losing my mind like I smoke pot or something.

But it's like I can't quite figure out how to, I know where you're going because you're talking about impatience. Yeah. But how do we get back to a point in eating where it's like that moment where like, this is fucking awesome. I'm so glad to be breaking bread with you. Let's get fucking drunk. Let's remember the good times. This was so fucking hard to get here. And that's what I want to do with restaurants. Right. I don't think restaurants are going to go away, but how do we get it to it's like that? You know what I mean? I don't know what I just said. Kyle's looking at me like, what the fuck, Chase?

I actually followed it. Kyle followed it. Yeah. No, I think, you know, when you talk about things being fleeting, that's kind of a side conversation of what you just said. But like when, if you achieve something

and then if you achieve it, the whole, what do I do next? Some people, some people kind of fold from the moment. Other people, like the process of,

it's the process that is attractive to them, not the actual winning. When you look at like any of the great athletes, they win the title. They celebrate it for five hours. The next day, they're in the gym. Yeah. Belichick great athletes, they win the title. They celebrate it for five hours.

The next day they're in the gym. Yeah. Belichick's like, okay, we won. It's like Brady's famous quote about what was your favorite Superbowl? He's like the next one. Those are like somebody like Steph Curry wins two titles in a row. He's at the gym the next day. He's shooting shots.

And yeah, you cover this all the time on your podcast. When you talk to athletes, it's like the Super Bowl hangover, right? You've experienced it. Like, I don't want to work as hard now. And that's the problem is how do we convince ourselves to fucking work harder? I don't think it's possible. I think people don't want to because why would someone want to experience like intense suffering unless you're a crazy person like Kobe or Michael Jordan?

Kobe had some interesting quotes about this too. He was big about, and it's funny because when Kobe was alive, he was like a little bit of a character with some of this stuff and the mamba and we would kind of make fun of it. And then after he died and people were reciting some of the stuff

that like he really believed in, it seems so much more profound. And this was one of the things that he talked about. He was like, it's about the day-to-day. It's about every day treating what you do with the proper amount of respect and dedication. And that's how you win. It's not about, oh, I did this. It's about, do you have the will day after day to try to work towards something?

Yeah, he said it way more articulate than I do. Yeah, no, but it's's like that's a real thing and i do worry about that with um especially younger people when because you know we all the cliche jokes about the trophy generation and the participation trophy generation all that stuff but you know the people that still are going to make it are the people that put in the time and don't expect things are going to get handed to them after a certain amount of make it are the people that put in the time and don't expect things are going to get handed to them after a certain amount of time. It's the people that are like, I want to be great at this. How do I become great? How do I keep putting in hours? How do I learn from people? How do I listen to people? How do I keep adding things year after year? Those are

the people that make it. Like, I, I always love it when you talk about, you know, now that you have the podcast, the book of basketball, and all you're writing about the secret, and it's not about you, it's the team, and being sort of empathetic enough, your teammates, all these things. And it's not a surprise to me that

all the athletes that have historically won year after year, they always talk to all these people. They have the same work ethic. Why is it that it's not clear to everyone else that this is what they should be doing? That's what I don't understand. One thing I learned, not saying I'm, you know, I'm like the master of this or anything, but because I had obviously some failures too, but around like 06, and it wasn't intentional originally, but I realized like every year I want to, I want to add, or at least try one thing that I didn't

do the previous year. And I want to, at the end of the year, I want to look back and be like, all right, so that happened this year. And the first couple of years, I didn't even realize it, but by like 2008 or nine, I was like, all right, this is every year I want to approach this way where at least I rolled the dice in some way with something. I think that's a really good, that's probably some of the best advice I could give to people who are thinking about what I want to be someday, or how do I get from point A to point B or point D to point E? What did you add over the last 12 months? Are you in the exact same spot that you were 12 months ago? And if you are, is that a good thing or are you satisfied with that?

And I don't know if a lot of people think that way because some people, they hit a certain point and they're good and that's it. And that's fine. I don't begrudge that. But if somebody is talking about they really want to be something, you have to keep adding and trying and you can't be afraid to fail. I don't begrudge that. But if somebody is talking about they really want to be something, you have to keep adding and trying. And you can't be afraid to fail. I don't think. You sound like Kobe Bryant who every offseason is like, I got to work on something.

But you and I have both failed in high-profile ways a few times. Yeah. Was it a bad thing? No. At the moment, it sucks. At the moment, it feels like you're life-sending. But you look back and you go, all right. There's no other way.

What did I learn from that? I had, can I take those three things? I look at like my HBO show, it failed. I learned three or four really good things from it. You had, what was your biggest failure? Nishi, probably. And you learned from that. You learned to double down.

You figured out all the reasons why it didn't work and then you applied it to what came forward i realized like hey my my game plan doesn't work anymore you know i felt like sean mcveigh yeah a little bit i was like fuck i can't be sean mcveigh right you know and hopefully sean mcveigh is not sean mcveigh he turns into something else but you know i was just thinking about our favorite Korean brother, David Cho. Yeah. And God damn it, that guy's like some kind of weird wisdom savant or something because this is how he phrases it. And I think he even talked to Howard Stern about this on the Stern podcast, not on the show, years ago.

He phrases all of this, these hard moments in life, whether they've happened to you or you are the reason for it, is post-traumatic growth or post-traumatic stress disorders. And most people choose post-traumatic stress as a, not an excuse, but as the logic and reasoning as to why they're not going to push harder or, you know, not try because it hurts too much. And I don't think you can blame anyone for feeling that way. And I don't know what the rhyme or reason is for people to be like, well, whatever obstacles in front of me, that's going to propel me. I don't have any rhyme or reason. And I wish I could because I would expect to be cooked all the time. Or have somebody who's going to react. Yeah.

I don't mean to single somebody out, but this is a positive. So Kevin O'Connor, who's been on your podcast. I love him. So we hired him in 2016. He was a Celtic blogger. I call him cock, not KFC. Cock. So for the next two years, he really worked at, he listened to us.

He really worked at his writing. Figured out how to get better and become a better reporter. At that same time, we gave him a podcast too. We threw that at him. He figured out what his voice was. I would say this season, he went up a level on the podcast. At the same time, he has all this personal shit going on. His dad, unfortunately, just died.

He's talked about his dad a lot. His dad had cancer. And in the last year, he had a really rough ride. And, you know, he passed away. And he had all this personal shit going on. And he was able to balance that and be there for his family, but also really kept trying to get better

and thinking about how to get better. I was about as proud of that as anything. Right. You know? And I know you are because we talk about it because he's gotten

so much better. Right. And what I found to be incredibly, like, not just vulnerable, but that's what Cho and I talk about too

is like, that's maybe what dudes need to be talking about more is that strength. Right? The strength that seems to be like, I'm really at a loss.

My father passed and and by the way if that's your reaction that's fine i'm not i'm not saying that's a bad thing every it hits everybody differently i think when you find when you can find strength and adversity like that and actually be like compartmentalize a different way and come out of it in a place where you're like all right this happened but happened, but I'm going to respond this way. Like you really learned something about somebody at that point. And I wish I could figure out how to just be like, Hey, this is how you, this is how it happens. But I don't, I don't think there's a rhyme or reason as to when someone's like, yeah, this is what's gonna, this is why I'm going to get through this. Right. And maybe it's

a coping mechanism. I have no fucking idea because, you know. But, you know, when you say that, it's like if someone chooses not to get better at their job either, it's like that's not bad either. You know what I mean? And that's what I'm at now. And I just wish I could better prepare people, including myself, as to how to deal with all this shit. Because, you know, shit's getting more complicated and harder than ever before. The thing is, people control their own destiny a lot more than maybe they realize sometimes. You know, and it's like,

if you're 60% there with whatever, then try going 100%. Or if you're not happy somewhere, maybe that's not where you should be. Or if you went down this path and it's not working, well, why isn't it working? How can you flip it into a positive? But the problem solving, I think, is its own skill. And it's something I was really bad at for a long time.

Now it sounds like we're doing like a whatever podcast. Yeah, what are we doing? Like a personal growth podcast. We're sponsored by Deepak Chopra. No, but I look at, so when I was writing for the Boston Herald and I felt like I was better than all the people there, or at least the people I was competing against, and it wasn't happening for me and I was doubling down,

I was trying, but then, you know, I submarine myself. Cause I, instead of being like, all right, I'm going to keep my head down and I'm just going to be better than I'm just going to keep doing good work. And eventually someone will notice my attitude was like, I'm better than these people. This is so frustrating. I can't believe this. And you get caught up in that. And then you're not doing as good work. And I didn't realize that I was doing that at the time. You spent so much mental energy, not working, just being mad and just being like, why isn't this happening? Why isn't that happening? This guy. And you get caught up in that. So I think of what social media is like now. And I do feel like, you know, you could feel it, especially

after the Trump presidency with young people, but they're mad about that. But then they're going on social media. Then there's other people that are mad there. And then it's just this tornado of everybody being mad about everything. And I don't know if that's healthy. So when we talk about like mental health, why is it, going back to the original question, why are there more and more pieces

about people talking about this is what happened to me and here's how I got through it? I think it's all part of the same thing. I think social media in general, if you're on it all the time, there's not a happiness factor from that that's going to pay off, in my opinion. I totally agree. The one thing I think can remedy this social media sort of uni you know, uni mind, uni voice is like just being honest. And if you're afraid of making mistakes, then you're never going to learn and you're going

to just make decisions like everyone else. And yeah, there's a group thing too that I think it's dangerous. Here's the thing. What's a drug? A drug is if I try to remove this from my life, I'm going to notice and not be able to function. And I'm going to think about how I don't have this thing. So it's like caffeine. If I don't have coffee in the morning, I'm fucking discombobulated. But I also love coffee. Coffee's not bad for me. It's okay. It's okay to be addicted to that, I feel like. But coffee and cocaine, not the good mix.

Cocaine or cigarettes. Like if you're smoking cigarettes and you wake up in the morning and you're like, I need a cigarette. Well, cigarettes are bad for you. That's a bad place to be. If you can't live like two days

without looking at Twitter or Instagram, like I honestly worry for my daughter. If I was like, I took your phone away, you can't look at TikTok or Instagram for two days without looking at Twitter or Instagram. Like I honestly worry for my daughter. If I was like, I took your phone away. You can't look at Tik TOK or Instagram for two days. Could she function? Yeah.

But I think she would, the first six hours, she would just reflexively be looking at her hand where the phone would be. And it's like, is that a good thing? No. So all this stuff, I,

I, I do worry about this stuff, but I don't, I also don't know if I'm the old guy. I think we're the old guys Kyle you think we're the old guys Kyle do we sound like the old guys

no we should go back to flip phones and internet cafes I think it'd be great Kyle is a rare a rare 20 something though I haven't posted something

on Instagram in like a year Kyle would much rather be at a bar hanging out with two people shooting the shit I get no service at the darkroom I don't have a choice

yeah Kyle's like let's go have aroom. I don't have a choice. Yeah. Kyle's like, let's go have a cigarette outside and we'll have a moment here for the next 10 minutes. And then he'll get all sappy. That's my move. And be like,

hey, Chang, man, you mean a lot to me. I knew you were going to say that shit. You know, Chang, I just want to tell you, man, I love you. He did. He did say that.

I didn't tell him I love him. You did. I did not tell him. You got me. You got me, Chang. You do. You guys are kind of soulmates. I love you. I did not. You get me. You get me, Chang. You do. You guys are kind of soulmates. But like, this is going to take another weird route.

But when you talked about the Masters and how amazing it was, besides the golf itself, was the fact that you guys were in a vacuum of information. No cell phones, no running, no bullshit. And then the year after I went and I was like, oh, my God, this is heaven on earth. Right. It's amazing. And everyone's following the orders. And if you want to meet someone, you're like, Hey, that, that tree over on the 15th, let's

just meet there. Like when, where, like, we'll, we'll just see you there. Yeah. And that's how it used to be. Or you rerun into, you run into somebody again that you didn't think you were going to see again. And it was like super exciting. Exactly. Right. Like going to a bar back it was like super exciting. Exactly, right?

Yeah. Like going to a bar back in the day. You're like, oh shit. And then that doesn't happen anymore. We've been, I like to watch dumb shows

right before I fall asleep and lately I've been watching Moe Rose Place, which is on the CBS All Access. Who's your favorite of the female cast members? Courtney Thorne-Smith? First of all,

I'm so glad you asked. I'm so glad you asked. I'm so glad you asked. It is a murderer's row. It is the 92 dream team of female cast. Let's go through them. But Amanda Woodward, a.k.a. Heather Locklear, she comes in halfway through the season, the show's dying. That's when we started watching it, re-watching it recently. She comes in and is immediately in

the love triangle with Billy and Allison. And she's throwing 135 miles an hour. It's just phenomenal. But it's interesting to watch though, because people, they're having a conversation. There's no phones, there's no social media, there's no internet yet because it's interesting to watch, though, because people, they're having a conversation. There's no phones. There's no social media. There's no internet yet because it's 1992. And people will be like, you know, Jake and Billy, they'll go down to Shooters and they'll just start talking about their life for 20 minutes. I'm like, this definitely never happens anymore. Kyle's not like, hey, Jim Cunningham, let's go down to Shooters.

I've tried. He's not into it. Yeah, he's like fuck you Kyle so basically we're saying the cell phones ruin lives no it's just it was an interesting way to watch people interact

it was also way more flirty like Melrose Place you watch it now you're like oh who's the cancel culture

would not who was the worst villain the doctor was the worst character right Mancini that was his name the last like 12 episodes of season one,

he starts cheating on his wife with Kimberly. That's right. And the whole show takes off because it's got that and it's got the love triangle. And the wife gets written out, right? No, she just starts dating other people. Do I have to watch this again?

The other thing is there was a great, there's a great stalker subplot because Allison's ex-boyfriend, it becomes like a villain and that part was good. But anyway, watching it just seemed like simpler times. Is this going to be rewatchables?

It really could be. It was a spinoff of 90210, right? Which one? Melrose Place. Yeah, oh yeah. Because Brenda was dating someone? Brenda would, no, it was Kelly got involved with Jake.

Oh, that's right. Gladwell's talked about this Melrose Place was a cultural phenomenon like there was everybody in a 12 year age range was watching it

every Monday night with 90210 that was just the way it went I don't think there's shows like that now but anyways it was a simpler time but it was fascinating to watch

there's just people like hey wanna go down to Shooters and get a beer sure now that person would just be online people aren't even drinking anymore I know Kyle do you think people are drinking less hey, want to go down to Shooters and get a beer? Sure. Now that person would just be online. People aren't even drinking anymore.

I know. Kyle, do you think people are drinking less and smoking more pot? Yeah, I think so. I think it's way more pot, which, you know. I think you save money. Right? Less hangover? I guess, but.

I don't know. Is that good? Have we normalized pot too much, though? I say this as somebody who once owned a bong. That was four feet tall. Graphics, four foot bong. Oh, my God. It was so great.

It was unbelievable. We had a name for it. I can't remember the name of it. Oh, man. I mean, I don't even know what we're talking about anymore. We're talking about bongs. I will say this. Whatever the Deepak Chopra type shit, whatever the fuck we've been talking about,

happens to be some of these themes that are in the book. So, I don't know. Yeah, well, that's how it came up because you have a whole thing about mental health. You were pretty open about that earlier than just about anybody. You know, the funny thing is I don't know if I talk about it if Tony doesn't die. That was the thing. Yeah. How much of Tony is in the book?

Just a couple bits here and there. That's still too raw for you. Yeah, I mean, I talk about it, but it's also like, I don't want to seem like it's like benefiting from it by talking about it more or less. I talk about one thing, you know, with him, but he was like, he was a big figure in my life. So the thing that I have to think about was,

and the reason I decided to talk about it then uh on on my podcast was like shit i was always in situations where i only took from tony you know what i mean and i was like man i never asked him hey how's everything is there anything i can do whatever whatever and i mean you just started thinking about that I was like shit that would be the dumbest thing and the easiest thing to do is just like ask someone right so that's why I was like

maybe just that also maybe helped me decide just to write the book the way it is right now so so May 19th yeah May 19th

Eat a Peach is the name of the book Bill's given me three quotes. I gave you three choices for a blurb. All of them made fun of you in some way. So I don't know what they picked. They probably just edited the joke part. Yeah, probably.

And just kept the good part. Because each one was like, David Chang is so great, but, and then some sort of insult. So they probably just cut the insult. And, you know, hopefully it does well. There'll be a book tour. But, you know, hopefully it does well. There'll be a book tour. But, you know, people may forget Book of Basketball, number one New York Times bestseller for how many weeks? Just the first week.

That was it. Yeah. But that's an impossible thing for anyone to reach. It was for the nonfiction, which was the hardest one. I had to sketch out a battle plan. This is like Aaron Rodgers talking about all the quarterbacks he drafted ahead of him. What are all the books you beat?

He's got to remember. He knows them all. I actually didn't remember. I just didn't remember. It was like Super Freakonomics that came out the same week. Mitch Albom's book had been out for a couple weeks. It was like the Tuesdays with Maury sequel. It was like Wednesdays with Bob.

I don't remember what it was called. And then Gladwell had his book, which was at that point multiple months on the list, but still crushing it. That's an insanely hard task. It was late October. No, I figured out a whole plan for it. And then ESPN Books did their best to try to screw it up.

And I still did it. It was like I had the coach who was calling for the, for the fourth and 10, not punting, throwing the Hail Mary into three people, but it still happened. It was good. But that was another thing where it was like,

there was this one day where it happened. Super excited. Had a dip. My dad had, we was in San Francisco. We found out I was with some friends from high school and my dad was there and big dinner. And it was,

and then the next day you wake up and you're like, all right, what's next? You're like Belichick. You're like, got to, no, it's like,

all right, now, now what happens? No, it doesn't feels good for a couple hours. Then you're like, but that's all right. Now what you think that would be the moment that I finally did it.

But you're like, well, you gotta, gotta work harder. That's what's so stupid about, but you're like, you gotta work harder. That's what's so stupid about this whole thing. You'd think you'd work less. But no, you gotta work more. I gotta find the Cervantes quote.

The journey is better than the end. That's it. But that's, how different is that than the process? In fact, let's bring him out. Cervantes, come on in. With poncho. Alright alright so we got that we got Ugly Delicious season two

and then we're filming the Hulu show right now with Chrissy Teigen the name is still a work in progress but there's a lot and

this LA thing is happening but we're here we're gonna get here permanently you'll see moving here and then and then you got to

take the belt from the parasite guy. I got to start making feature films. Don't be satisfied. You got to take that belt back. Oh, man. David Chang, a pleasure as always. Thanks, Bill.

Alright, thanks to House. Thanks to Chang. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Thanks to SimpliSafe. Everything you need in a home security system. An army of highly trained security experts ready to dispatch police to your home in a moment's notice 24-7. You can set this system up all by yourself. Go simplisafe.com slash BS. Go there. Get a free SimpliSafe security camera. Normally $100. Go today. It's free. SimpliSafe with two I's. SimpliSafe security camera normally $100 go today it's free SimpliSafe with two I's SimpliSafe.com slash BS

Godfather 3 rewatchables tomorrow and then this pod's coming back one more time on Thursday see you then I don't have.