The Bill Simmons Podcast - Portland’s Dilemma, the Rise of Autobiographical Docs, Memory Loss Benefits, and Fun Conspiracies With Chuck Klosterman

Episode Date: July 14, 2023

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Chuck Klosterman to discuss a range of topics, including Damian Lillard, Jimmy Butler, TV, music, documentaries, conspiracies, ghosts, memory loss, and much more! Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Chuck Klosterman Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, it's a Chuck Klosterman summer. It's next. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL hockey.

And it's on Prime. All season long, watch Prime Monday Night Hockey deliver unreal plays, the biggest goals, can't miss moments. Matthews, McDavid, Crosby, the NHL's best, they're all on Prime. Prime Monday Night Hockey.

It's on Monday. It's on Prime. It's the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet at all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year.

I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other way if you were wrong. You could bet on new and fun markets on FanD, like to catch a pass, same game parlays, highest scoring game across the Sunday slate, offensive TDs in the next drive. They have so much stuff,

it's crazy. The app is safe and secure and easy to use. And when you win, you'll get paid instantly. Plus, look out for FanDuel Squares this season. Here's what you have to do. Visit FanDuel.com slash BS to download America's number one sports book. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming.

Please visit RG-Help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details.

You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler or visit RG-help.com. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network where we are doing courtroom month on the rewatchables. We did a time to kill on Monday.

Next Monday, my cousin Vinny, that's happening. And we're gonna have three more after that, including a live show that's gonna be on July 27th in Los Angeles. Um, time and details will be given out on the rewatchables, um, probably next week and on my Twitter feed as well. And on the rewatchables Twitter feed. So keep your eye out for that July 27th at night, Los Angeles. There you go. Hey, this is my last podcast for a couple of weeks. Um, if you remember last year, I took five weeks off and it really helped me from doing this podcast. Um,

I was able to refuel my batteries. I was able to throw myself into football prep season and just in general is great because we're going, you know, it goes from basically late August all the way through beginning of July with, uh, football and basketball. This really helped me last year. I'm doing it again. I am coming back for one podcast on Sunday, August 6th. I'm going to do a two parter that day. And other than that, you will not see me again on this feed until the August 20th Sunday podcast. I think it's August 20th. So that is what is happening. Thanks for your support. Thanks for your understanding. Thanks for listening. I appreciate the audience that we built on this pod. All the nice things people have said. It's great to be part of your life. And I'm going to disappear from it for a little while.

And then I'm going to come back and it's going to be great. And you're not going to miss me. So there you go. That is what's happening. Also, we have a bunch of awesome Ringer podcasts that you can listen to, right? You know all of them. But if you want to get into football season, we have a great fantasy football podcast. We have Ringer NFL show.

We're solo talks. Football on his pod. If you want summer basketball, like let's say Dame gets traded while I'm away, you can listen to the Ringer NBA show. You can listen to the mismatch. You can listen to Rusillo's podcast. You can listen to Logan and Raj

on Ringer NBA show for the real ones. Like whatever you want, we have it. We have you covered. We have you covered with pop culture. We have the big picture and we have the watch and we have prestige TV. We're going to have a bunch of stuff rewatchables. I'm going to stay on. We banked a few of the pods and, um, I think I might do two more, even though I'm supposed to be on vacation. Don't tell my wife, but that's it. I will see you back on this feed on August 6th and I will see you for good. We'll be back on a normal schedule

on August 20th. So there you go. Coming up, the man, the myth, Chuck Klosterman is next. And we talk about a whole bunch of stuff. And if you don't think it gets weird, you don't know us well enough. First, our friends from ProJab. All right, it's been a while. Our guy Chuck Closeman is here. A BS Report Hall of Famer once upon a time. And then you changed podcasts. You're getting Bill Simmons'. A BS Report Hall of Famer once upon a time. And then you change podcasts. You get into Bill Simmons' podcast. Still a Hall of Famer.

You got to bring your Hall of Fame credentials over. Every once in a while we get... They can't kick me out of the Hall of Fame. I'm like, OJ, I'm just in there regardless of what I do. You're in no matter what happens. Great. Every once in a while we like to check in and see what's catching your fancy. This is a particularly interesting time to check in with you because you live in the Portland area.

I do. And there it feels like it's going to be in terminal trade negotiations with Dame Lillard. Give us the mood of the city with this trade request. Well, I often, as I always have to preface this, I don't really have a great pulse of the city. I'm not too involved with the city. Uh, but I, I'm still here. So I get a sense of what's happening. You know, he, I just think it's kind of interesting.

I mean, like for so long, he has been just beloved, maybe overloved for this idea of loyalty that he was just the most loyal guy. And when I may overlove, the reason I say that is because I always think it's a little strange when someone gets that much credit just for not demanding to be traded. You know, it's like he's beloved for this, you know, and it's good. He's always really been like, I mean, you know, I mean, he's the most popular athlete in town, you know, by many magnitudes. Of course, there's only really one sport here. I think that there is a sort of an ongoing detachment from being too emotional about this.

Like, it doesn't seem like people are losing their minds. Obviously, as you know, as you move to the West west sports fandom always kind of decreases like it's not like this is happening on the east coast or even in the midwest so people seem to have an understanding that oh well i guess this is going to happen now um like i don't think when he comes back assuming he's traded uh i don't think he'll get booed in portland like i don't think that will happen um me neither what i the the thing that is just, you know, just noteworthy to me is that like, you know, he's gotten all this credit, you know, for being loyal. And somehow it's like nice guys kind of finish last.

It looks like he's going to be the first of these major superstars to make a demand and not get exactly what he wants, which is, you know, everybody else seems to, it's like everybody else, like Kyrie or whoever you want to mention, it's like, you know, Durant that these guys, they want things and then they just kind of happens. And that doesn't seem like it's going to happen for him in the way that he. Intent. I mean, unless the deal with Miami does end up coming through, but I, I,

it, it seems odd to me that, that what the heat are offering is what Portland would get back for this. Right. It's, it feels like he's going to end up in Miami. It's just going to take so much longer than everyone expected. And I don't, we're still, and I talked about this on Sunday, whether Portland would just have the balls to say, fuck it. We've traded you for Carl Towns. Here's the number of the Minnesota GM and give him a call. I don't know if they're going to play it that way. It's going to be, it will hang over the whole summer.

At some point, he'll do an interview or whatever. And, you know, I talked to Stephen A a little bit about this. It's really interesting from where we came from growing up as sports fans to where we are now where you know the old days where you would sports illustrated would release the salaries of all the players and people like oh my god they would have that salary issue and it was pretty anti-player all the way through the uh 90s and really through the decision and now it's flipped and most of the people in my life are like, they should do the right thing. They should trade in Miami.

So I wonder if that's just, if that sentiment is just going to kind of push them toward actually doing that. I think that sentiment has moved through kind of all of sports. You know, I would say prior to the, like the 94 baseball strike, it was very rare when there would be a labor dispute that the average fan would side with the players. They always sided with ownership. Um, and there, there was almost this really, in some ways, I guess, unfair belief that like players should just be happy to do this. Like they should just like, like they're, they're living their dream. Of course, the owner is a businessman. He's going to do this. Like they should just like, like they're, they're living their dream.

Of course, the owner is a businessman. He's going to do what a businessman does, but that has kind of changed now. Now it, it seems as though any kind of labor dispute, especially like the sports writing community tends to side with the players. And I sense this with Lillard that there's this,

I like, I heard someone on the radio saying like, like the Blazers have broken the code by not doing this. Like the code is that when a superstar has to be traded after many years, you just have to do it because you owe him that. And I don't I can't really say that that's some kind of terrible concept, but it does. It's weird for sure you know yeah and it also probably makes it easier that they have his replacement just kind of in the chamber ready to be fired scoot henderson where he's gonna leave and they immediately the second wife immediately comes in with like the new marriage she's younger you know little little pizzazz to it and it'll be fun right away whereas

like we've had other guys get traded and it's pretty bleak like when toronto traded vince carter i was like all right what do we do now you know kevin garnett minnesota is like i hope al jefferson's good the scoot thing i think is gonna solve a lot of this so that that's why i feel like they'll probably end up doing the miami thing i don't think anyone else is gonna step up up. Would you have any interest in seeing both of them on the floor at the same time? Obviously, it's a very small backcourt, but the game is so different now.

I can't necessarily say it wouldn't work. I personally would not be against it. It's ridiculous. You're not going to win a title that way, but if the choice was just bring Dame back and bank on the fact that he loves basketball and throw him out there with scoot and see what happens so plus they get another guy as a good shooter that's you know it's like simon's yeah yeah you know who he's really up and down but when he plays well when he's shooting well it's he's almost

almost like having another lillard on the floor because his range is so great. And I, it just, it doesn't seem impossible to me now that you could put two guys who are six, two and six, one, uh, you know, on the floor together and not have it be a disaster. I mean, that seems very possible. We saw OKC do this where they had that weird Chris Paul season and they had Dennis Schroeder and they had, uh, Shea Gilgis Alexander and they were like, ah, fuck it. And they just played all three of them at the same time. And they were really hard to play. They made the playoffs, got to a game seven around one. It was unconventional.

So yeah, I do think that's a good point. They don't necessarily have to trade them. And they might look at this and just go, you know what? We're better off waiting until December, January. The interesting part that I don't think I've talked about on my pod is Miami is just on hold with this whole thing where they lost Max Truce. They lost Gabe Vincent. They made the finals last year.

They're on a little bit of a time clock with Jimmy cause he's 33. Um, and they didn't really add anybody else and kind of everything's hinging on this team thing. And if it doesn't happen, that team might actually suck next year. Like they sucked as a regular season team last year. They barely made the playoffs. They were a playing team.

And now they're going to be worse because they're going to be missing two guys. So I don't, I don't remember a situation like this before where the other team is on hold, but if for some reason it doesn't happen, it's actually like a disaster for them. So, okay. Tell me this when, you know, I I've seen so many people mentioning and then kind of complaining about this idea of heat culture. Do you believe he culture is real? Is that something that is that, that, that it's, is it just something people say, or is there a reality to that concept? I believe there's something there. Okay. And I think he culture is really the type of personalities and players that they look for. And this is like a 20 year thing. Now it's a little

like the Ravens had this for a little while. They just looked, the Steelers are another team that I think they just look for certain types of guys, certain character traits that they over and over again drift to. So they're playing a lot of the playoffs with three undrafted guys starting. That doesn't happen much in football where there's 22 positions. Right. So if you're, you know, uh, Spolestra, um, and, oh, and if you're Pat Riley and you're kind of looking at this team, you know, I think that you have to say to yourself, it's like, well, we're doing something right here though.

It's like, we seem to have a sense of talent a judge of talent and of sort of what people bring to the table uh that is just superior to these other franchises so do we need to do what is expected of us which is try to just keep adding superstars maybe it's not i mean maybe they see other ways of, uh, of, uh, of doing this. I mean, uh, like I, I think, you know, uh, everybody, you know, like, like, like, I mean, me included, like love Spoh now, he just seems like the best coach. Uh, I have a trivia question for you. Yeah. Prior to becoming a coach, what was the most interesting thing about his life? Um, is the Philippines, right?

Nope. Oh, I mean, I guess this is, this is subjective, but it's like, he was on the floor. The closest guy to Hank gathers when he died. Really? I'm almost certain of this. If I get this wrong, check it. But I, I, I know it is. I I know I'm sure I'm right about this. Yeah, he was playing against Loyola Marymount and was like seven feet away from him when he went to, yeah. He also, he went to a high school that's like five minutes from me, which is very interesting. Makes me want to send my kids there because he seems to be a real together dude.

I spent, after the 2013 finals, and we had met him a couple of times cause I was working for ESPN that year. And we kind of ran into each other at the ESPYs and just talk for, I don't know, maybe it was 10 minutes about how crazy the Ray Allen shot was. And the way he talked about it was really interesting. Like he was just, he's one of those guys that I just think he can connect with whoever he's talking to. And he was just he's one of those guys that i just think he can connect with whoever he's talking to and he was just explaining like i thought it was over i thought we were done and then he hit that first three and we get the foul and the crowd gets into it and it was just like oh my god like oh you know but the way he was talking about i was just like wow this guy

could have probably done all kinds of things like he didn't necessarily have to be a coach he could have been a broadcaster. He could have done whatever. I think he's just a legitimately smart guy. And when I say that, I don't mean like we got to put him down and give him an IQ test. I think that he's probably pretty intellectually intelligent, but also just seems to have a good sense of what is real and what is not real. Like he, he, uh, a friend of mine mentioned this during the playoffs about Jimmy Butler. It was like, so Jimmy Butler just seems to understand how the NBA really works better than

other players. Like he has an understanding of actually what is the amount you need to expand yourself in the regular season to be competitive, but still have another gear in the playoffs. Uh, how is the game going to be officiated in the playoffs? How are, how's my opponent going to react if they're ahead in the series or down in the series? Like he, like Spoh, seems to have just like a good sense of what's really happening. And it's like, it was just impossible

not to root for that team during the NBA this year. It really became difficult to not want them to win considering how outmanned that they would have seemed if it was a video game or a stratomatic basketball game or something. Right, right. Well, with Butler, he has a really rare trait where he seems,

and I've felt it go into games that he's been in where he really seems to understand the rhythm of how a game is going yes and when to kind of snap his fingers and go for four minutes versus when to lay back and also he kind of understands when things are slipping away and when you can go for the kill and grab somebody by the neck like even that game seven I went to Tatum got hurt and there was just go for the kill and grab somebody by the neck. Like even that game seven I went to, Tatum got hurt and there was just this moment for Miami and I think they could feel it like,

oh shit, we can go up by 15 right now. We can like start throwing haymakers. And he was like all out going, but I've watched other games where he kind of lays low, lays low, lays low and then he goes for it. He's probably the worst good player who's ever had that quality that I can think of. And I, and I don't mean that as an insult, but I'm saying like,

that's usually a quality that like LeBron has, you know, Jordan and people like that. He's probably the least equipped skill wise to have that skill, but he has it. Well, you know, yeah. I like, I, you know, you're often, you're ranking these guys, you know, top five, top 15, whatever, you know. Jimmy Butler is not one of, I would say the, you know, 15 or 25 best players in the league. But you know what I would want him in?

I would want him in a game played outside by ones. Like if you're playing on concrete and you're playing to 11 by ones, you got to win by two. There's no threes. No refs. People are calling their own fouls.

But people are, but you know, I just, he seemed like he would be great in that setting. You know, it's like, like where,

where it's just kind of like when you, when you're playing the, in some ways, like the rawest, purest form of basketball. Yeah. You know, he does seem just perfectly suited for that i duran is a sneaky candidate for that too because he just has the ability to score whatever he wants in any situation against anyone who's guarding him you know but

that's not sneaky though everybody take him like yeah i know if we had if you and me were picking guys or me and whoever were picking guys it's like like Durant's going to be a early pick no matter what the situation is. I don't know if Jimmy Butler would be, you know, I, you know, I, uh, but you'd be bummed out when the other team took him. You're like, oh shit, they got Jimmy. I should take him. I would take him. I would take him too early.

You know? Yeah. Yeah. He, he's officially had, I think one of the weirdest careers in the history of the league. There's no question. I mean, I, I think I was redoing my pyramid. I had to put him in. I mean, he's, you know, he's bulldozed his way to two finals.

That's pretty rare. He's, I think, from in the era when we get like 50 years from now, they're going to be like, what the hell is going on with this? And he'll probably get discounted for some of the stats and some of the missed games. But for everybody who was there, it was like, this was a guy, you know, for whatever reason, he felt like he was every bit as good as anyone he was playing against, no matter who it was. Well, yeah, it's a great skill. I suspect in five or 10 years, if you're still doing this, you will probably remove him from the pyramid because some of the stuff about him, we will, we'll kind of, we'll kind of forget, you know, it's like some things you have to, you have to only really exist in the present. And when you remember them

later, it's like, you start looking at the numbers. You're going to look at other guys, guys who aren't even in the league yet, guys we don't even know about. And it's like, uh, uh, suddenly it's like, he's's suddenly it's like he's going to be gone and we're going to kind of forget that this happened i mean i feel like this sort of happened with andrew tony uh you know god yeah yeah so that he's like a kind of a forgotten guy jamal wilkes to a degree is like this where these guys who uh because their numbers aren't astounding um we have sort of lost touch with what they were actually doing and how much they changed the game even when they were having a pretty regular stat line.

A 24-point game with six assists or whatever, but they changed the game more than that based on these sort of intangible things that don't translate over time. My number one guy for this is Mark Aguirre. Mark Aguirre was the number one pick in the 1981 draft. And he went one spot over Isaiah. He grew up with Isaiah.

Mark Aguirre, Isaiah Thomas, and Eddie Johnson, the longtime shooter who's now the Phoenix Suns guy, who's a great guy. They all grew up together in Chicago. Doc Rivers was like a year later than them. There was this like whole create Terry Cummings was in there as whole Chicago scene. And you look at Aguirre stats, he was excellent for the entire eighties. Like he was like 25 to 30 points a game year after year. He was considered one of the best scorers in the league. Dallas had

some runs. They had some bad luck with Roy Tarpley and you know they're in the same conference as the Lakers gets traded to Detroit reinvents himself as kind of this you know role player slash play starts playing better defense stuff like that and now he's never mentioned but he's like when you talk about I don't think he's a hall of famer but there's you know he's he's sniffing around some guys who have made the Hall of Fame. He was that good. So Mark Aguirre, I would have thought Mark Aguirre is in the Hall of Fame. No, he's not. Is Adrian Dantley in the Hall of Fame? He must be, right?

I think Adrian Dantley is in the Hall of Fame. But yeah, they got traded for each other. But it is funny because I did a thing on my pod last week about the greatest blazer ever and how everyone was just saying it was damn. I was like, it's a hundred percent Bill Walton. And if you're saying greatest career, where it's Clyde Drexler, we always talk about legacy, legacy, legacy. And Clyde Drexler is a

good example of like, what's his legacy that people forgot he was the best blazer, you know? So like, do we make too much of legacy when people can't even remember legacies 10 years later? That's a boy. Because if you ask me who the greatest blazer of all time is, I probably would say Lillard. Now, it's interesting that you think it's so obviously. Well, yeah, because, you know, I now think of Drexler as kind of having two careers, you know, one with Portland and one with Houston. And certainly at the peak, yes, Walton was the best. But that career was so short.

It doesn't seem like he can be in this conversation unless we're, you know. We want him a title. Like if you have one title in your franchise history, the greatest blazer has to be the guy that brought the title. But Drexler was like he was the second best player in the league in 1992. Dame's never done that. Brought him to two finals. Dame's never won a single conference finals game, you know? So I, I think, I think Lillard's title is, I think he was the most popular Blazer ever. I think that's what he was. I think he was the most beloved popular Blazer they've ever had and in the running for best but wasn't the best hmm hmm well i guess you know the end of this may you know might be telling like how

we remember this might be telling if he ends up coming back to the blazers and plays very well this year i think then that the it it's gonna almost move him like one step up on that ladder. If it's a really bad sort of ending, if things get worse, then people may sort of long for Clyde Drexler. I don't know. That's an interesting question, I guess. The argument for Drexler being the best one, I guess, makes sense. I mean, the thing about Walton, though, that's a real short window, Bill, though. It really is.

I get it. Very is. I get it. Like, very small. I get it, but he was the best player in the world for 18 months. And I think, I don't know how long this list is, but it's probably 12 people total who can say that. So is Kawhi the best Raptor of all time? Well, he was there one year. Yeah. How many years was Walton healthy?

One and a half years. Probably off and on, probably five. I don't think so, Bill. You know what? Kawhi probably is the best Raptor ever. He played there one year and he left and they won the title and everyone said he's the new best player in the league. I think I might

give it to him. Who is he competing against? By your argument, he has to be. Who would be your choice for best Raptor ever? Don't say Vince Carter. Well, that's who I was going to say. No, that's ridiculous. It's probably

Kyle Lowry if you're going career. There's another one, sure. Chris Bosh wasn't there quite long enough. So Mark Aguirre averaged 29.5 points a game in 1984.

From 83 through 88. That's a six-year run. He was 25.5 points a game. There's never been a Mark Aguirre conversation. He only made three All-Star games.

And then... Yeah, that's it. Did he get All-NBA? Yeah. No, never got All-NBA. He had a great period during the 80s, but he was often, I remember him often being criticized when he was, you know, he can't, he, in a way seemed like he was one of the, like the early, not one of the early, I guess, one of the mid period prototypes of like bad

team, big score, bad chemistry. So I mean, I was, I thought, I thought the Pistons were making a mistake by trading Dantley, but it turns out they were right. Yeah, that was my... Well, they really should have won the last year Dantley was there, though. That really was just,

just a bunch of stuff went wrong that would never happen. If you played that series a hundred times, it wouldn't, you know, that what happened would happen once. Yeah, that's the second closest anyone's come to winning a title without winning a title.

The 88 team. I still don't know how they lost to the Lakers. Well, they had two guys got a concussion. Well, that was the 87. Yeah, they had a whole bunch of stuff. All right, let's take a break. We have so much more stuff to cover here. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of

Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gangs here. You're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that. Or when you want a light beer that tastes like beer, that's delicious.

You don't want to load up on those heavier beers and then you only have two of them. Then you feel tired. Your stomach feels full. No, we're light. It's your friend. It just accompan them. Then you feel tired. Your stomach feels full. Miller Lite, it's your friend. It just accompanies whatever else you're doing. You're super happy with it. Opening an ice cold Miller Lite

can signal the beginning of Miller time. Miller Lite is the light beer with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked

that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right. You love the bear like so many of us did. I'm still mad that they dropped everything all at once and didn't just dole it out over four weeks

so we could have gotten a month of content and dialogue about it. I don't like when these shows just dump all the episodes. When it's a half hour show, I like them dumped. You want everything all at once. When it's that short. And also that show doesn't sort of use the regular time parameters.

It'll be like, oh, this episode is 22 minutes because it's really intense. This one's going to be an hour though. Oh, this one's 44. It's like, you never know how long their episodes are going to be. I wish they had dropped the first five, waited a week, dropped six and seven,

waited a week, and then done eight, nine, and 10 and finished it off that way. You said, you thought it addressed an issue rarely seen on TV, what was the issue? Well, what, you know, I think it is very interesting that they have sort of worked on this idea of a main character who loves something, and his love does not make him happy.

Because so often in fiction, this idea is that if someone finds the thing that they love and then they pursue the thing that they love, that that is where they kind of become self-actualized. And I like the fact that like the thing that he understands he loves the most in the world makes him miserable. And then now there's going to be a third season of this, obviously. And maybe they're not going to go any further into that direction.

But like that last episode of the season, he's kind of accepting. That's like, I'm never going to be happy. That's how I am. Because and if I was the kind of person who could be made happy by cooking, I wouldn't be the chef that I am. Because, and if I was the kind of person who could be made happy by cooking, I wouldn't be the chef that I am. I just, you know, I don't often like watch television shows and really like relate to characters. But in some ways I really found myself relating to this guy. Just, you know, his, like his cousin is saying to him like,

wait, if this doesn't fucking give you joy, what does? And he's like, ah, I don't know. I guess, you know, that's a good question. Um, I thought that was just, I was really into that. Yeah. Yeah. Cause most people when they have success or they're accomplishing things that they always dreamed of doing, there's kind of a emptiness to it. I would include myself, but. But where you're like, man, I thought this would, I thought this would be better. Well, it's always,

it's the illusion of having a goal that is supposed to satisfy how you feel. I mean, it just does not how the world works, you know? Well, what's that old phrase of the journey is, what was that quote? There's been a bunch of different quotes about this. The journey is better than the end. Well, yeah. I mean, it's not the destination,

it's the journey. There's many different sort of variations of that. Well, we see that happen with sports teams when they win the title. Pat Riley always did the disease of more about it. But just in general, like you can get everybody to, to, you know, somebody like Michael Porter on Denver, where he's like, you know what?

We have a chance to win the title. I'm going to give up something here. But is he going to be like Michael Porter on Denver, where he's like, you know what? We have a chance to win the title. I'm going to give up something here. But is he going to be like that next year? Is it going to be like, hey, man, it's Michael Porter time. Time for me to get more shots. I need to show that I... Or is it going to be like, you know what? I'm super happy in this situation.

I hit the jackpot with this Jokic guy. I have the best team man in the league, and I'm just going to ride this out for the next eight years. And this will make me super happy. Or is he going to go, you know, what would be better if I was the best player on the team? And then he goes a different direction. I mean, like, like satisfaction or the idea of being satisfied, uh, just does not merge well with the hyper talented. Like, you know, I watched that Wham documentary and I thought one great part in that, and I'm so glad they included this. It's like we have this whole story of George Michael sort of becoming friends with a guy

who wants to be in a band. And then it turns out that George Michael is the guy who can sing and kind of write the songs and produce it. He has, you know, they have amazing success. They're going to, he's going to have a solo career. The guy he's with originally is like really cool about it. He's like, I knew he was going to go solo, but he makes this Christmas song and it happens to come out at the same time as we are, the world is happening.

And like, you know, and, and he said like, well, you know, it's, it was great that we were kind of helping these people in Africa, but I knew that this, or I'm actually, I suppose it wasn't, we are the world was probably the British one that do they know it's Christmas. I can't recall which we are. It was just, oh, it's like the Bob Geldof one. And you know, he's like, so it's like, he knows that this song, this charity song is obviously going to go to number one. And even though he's part of that too, and he knows how great it is, he just can't kind of get over the fact that he's like, I wrote this amazing Christmas song. It should be number one. You know, and that's like a great example of what we're talking about in a sense. It's like, so in some ways he got twice what he had hoped for.

He was on two songs that Christmas that mattered. But one is his and one is not. And it's just that bothers him more than the success of both together. I'm so fascinated with partnerships when the one guy ascends over the other guy. Because this even happened in wrestling where Shawn Michaels and Marty Gennetti were this great tag team. And then Shawn Michaels was just obviously the one that should become a solo star. And he super kicked Marty Gennetti through the barbershop window and had a solo career and became a huge star. We see this in music and in wrestling and sometimes in media too. Like we, we don't know how the Desus and Mero thing is going to play out yet, but one of those guys will ascend

higher than the other guy. Key and Peele, it seems like those guys are cool with each other, but Peele, they split up. Peele becomes this incredible director, right? So if you're just going to be like zero-sum game, who won after the breakup? You would say Peele, but I think both of them are still cool and

Key does good things, but just in general it feels like a zero-s sum game where somebody has to win. Well, I mean, in the wham example, that really isn't the case. One guy sends over the other guy, but the other guy completely understands why I think it's tough is when you

have two people and they sort of perceive themselves as equals at the onset and at the end. I mean, do you think you would have been comfortable, like if your career had worked out differently and that you would have been in a partnership all these years? Like if you and someone else, like all, all the things you did starting back at ESPN, going all the way up to the ringer, if it always been you and somebody else. I think it would have been weird, especially because I'm an only child, you know, I'm not, I'm not used to just making decisions as a combo, you know, I mean, marriage, marriage kind of teaches you some of that stuff. Mike and Mike were a good example of this, right? Mike and

Mike were on ESPN for forever and they were really successful as a morning show. And then at some point Greenberg had some sort of, you know, career midlife crisis where he's like, you know what? Kind of want to do my own thing. I want out. And they had this pretty bitter breakup and Greenberg went on and ascended and Mike Olick's no longer at ESPN. Now Greenberg's on get up and on countdown and all these different things. Cause he clearly was just like, I'm done it. Mike and the mad dogs, another example. And I don't even know who won that one. I think part of it is when you spend every day with somebody professionally, it's pretty rare that it just lasts, you know, like Howard and Robin Quivers, those two. But that's not an equal partnership. It's not an equal partnership. There's not, there's, you know, that's, that, that, that's not even close. I mean, in a sense, I mean, like I, uh, I, because I, I have, I have to admit, I, I, I'm like you in this way. I don't, I don't think that I would like, it's, it's whenever I've had to work with someone else, like on a story, uh, like I'm just, I have a tendency to either want to like just rewrite everything or to almost concede everything and just let them kind of make all the decisions.

But I don't, I guess I don't feel as much this idea that someone has to win between the two things. No, I'm not saying someone has to win. I'm saying that's how it usually ends up playing out for whatever reason. It does, it does. You know, it's just, it's...

But it's also interesting, though, because you also like the idea of sort of group dynamics. Like you like having a group of people around you. Like if you were, if you were a musician, you would want to have a band. Right. If I was a musician, I would have one of those bands where everybody stayed together for like 30 years. I mean, that's basically what we have now with Phenasy and Mallory and Juliet and Chris

and Jeff who joined us halfway through. But I've been working closely with the same people now for 10, 11, 12 years. You know, it's pretty rare. But I love that. I'm just talking, I think it's different when it's like, it's Mike and Mike and you're just attached to this other person and that's how how the outside world sees you. Like the thesis of Mero. And

there's a million reasons why those guys broke up, but I thought they were really good together. It was disappointing to me that they didn't figure out how to navigate it. And there's a lot of insight. There's reasons that it didn't last, but, um, it's pretty rare to have two people stay together. I think a group dynamic's a little different because the group kind of can fill each other out in all these different ways. I was like, I mean, I love when bands stay together

for a long time, you know? Like, I love that Pearl Jam is still together and touring. Like, even the Counting Crows, I saw them last month, and, you know, the core of that group has been together for a while. And I don't know, I always enjoy that. Well, I mean, when bands stay together for a long time, Pearl Jam, U2, ZZ Top, you know, REM actually for a very long time was able to do this. It's always the same reason why. It's always

the same. It's that from the the very beginning they split the money exactly equally even if they're not all contributing the same that's always what it is i mean granted i'm sure it's a little different with like publishing and stuff like that but you know that the that if you if you start with this idea that we're splitting everything equally and that we can't change that we're inflexible on that um that does seem to sustain long-term sort of success you know when they don't do that with the publishing that's when they band falls apart when the guy's like i wrote all these songs why i'm only only getting 15 of the world is on them i did literally all the work well yeah you know it's a hard argument to to it's hard thing to dispute in a sense, unless you've made this like, just sort of very galvanized sort of concrete idea that we're doing this regardless.

Like, even if it doesn't make sense, you know? Yeah. It seems like one of the reasons I think we have less bands than we used to is because I think people realized how dumb the economics were. If most bands have a signature guy or maybe two signature guys and you know, it's like an NBA team. Those are like the LeBron and Wade and then you might need a Chris Bosh, but for the most part you can find the Haslam's and the Mike Miller's and

people like that. They're pretty interchangeable. We don't have, we don't have less bands though. I think we have less successful bands don't have less bands though how why i think we have less successful bands we have less successful i think we have way more individual artists now than bands i think that's totally flipped i mean you know it's yeah you know it's like bands for the most part you know make rock individuals make pop there's a there's many many exceptions to both

this but that tends to be the case and pop is so much more dominant over rock now you know it's like it's that that's a i think probably the the biggest factor i mean i i think that there are certainly less visible bands but i don't think there's less bands i don't i don't get that sense i i i worry about that sometimes. Well, how many, like how many great rock bands can you think of from the last 15 years? That started in the last 15 years? Yeah. Well, I mean, it's great. I mean, so it's like that, that they, uh, you know, that they're. That had like a real impact.

Well. Cause if we go back 20 years, you can bring in the strokes and the killers and all. No, that's good. You got, you got to go back further. You got to go back 25. Yeah. You got like 01. Yeah.

Or 22 years, whatever. I, it just, it's yeah. I, I, it seems like often when we get into these conversations and these podcasts, we end up doing this, but it's just like, there's just so many, there's so many things that are just that just because of our age and the way the world is sort of unspool many, there's so many things that are just, that just because of our age and the way the world is sort of unspooled, it's like, it's going to be really hard to get used to. I mean, like, I was just, I don't know if the math is right exactly on this, but I was

like, I was thinking about like the hold steady. And I think now that the time, the number of years, the hold steady have existed might be more than from when the Beatles started to when Lennon was assassinated. Oh my God. In fact, I'm, I'm pretty, you know, cuz I'm saying if the Beatles is a recording outfit, you know, if you start look at them with, with when they record records, you know, that's, uh, that's that from that period to his assassinations less than 20 years. These bands have existed now for more than 20 years. A lot of reasons you can use to explain this and how time has changed,

our culture has changed. Well, let me ask you this. and used to explain this and how time has changed and our culture has changed, but it's... Well, let me ask you this. Who do you think the three most influential musicians of the last 15 years were? Basically, so we'll go back to when Twitter was created and when social media is taking off in all these different ways.

Well, Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift would be an easy one. Most, are you saying most influential? Most influential. Who has influenced the most aspiring musicians? would be an easy one um most are you saying most influential i mean most influential who is influenced who has influenced the most Beyonce would be aspiring musicians Beyonce would be number two i mean it's like you took like and i would say Kanye would be number three now uh in terms of but i'm kind of looking at this like who had the biggest impact on music, on the world, all of these things. It would be those three individuals. Not purely...

All right, flip the question. Who influenced the most, last 15 years, who influenced the most aspiring musicians who were like in their teens or early 20s, who were like, I want to be like that person? I suppose people would say Billie Eilish because her and her brother really mainstreamed the idea that you could make a major record in your own house

and it's not that strange. And you don't have to look in any way that seems conventional to success and all of these things. That probably is. Although that's, you know, it's a. OK, like I'm a huge Kiss fan, right? There's probably nobody in the 70s maybe who inspired more guitar players than Ace Frehley, but that didn't necessarily generate the most good bands.

You know, it's like, it's like the fact that the idea of like convincing people that they can make records on their laptop, in their house, you don't have to do anything. You don't have to be a rock star in any way. You don't have to be a pop star in any way. You can just do it. That is inspiring to somebody who wants to do that. That doesn't necessarily mean the manifestation of that is going to be a lot of good music. In fact,

you know, I think it would be, uh, I, I mean, it just, it seems like in some ways, uh, the things that inspire people now to become artists is having somewhat negative effect on the actual product. But yeah. I'm glad you brought up Billie Eilish because that's what I was kind of getting to. I think it's probably Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish. And then you could argue about who the hip hop person is. And those would be the three.

And I'm saying last 15 years. I think there's more people and maybe I'm more aware of this because I have two kids in high school or one about to go to college, but I think there's more people out there trying to be Billie Eilish or some variation of how she does what, what succeeded for her than just about anything. And then Taylor's, you know, Sage, you can't compare her to anything. She's the biggest star of the last 20 years. The, the idea though, of like inspiring young people, it's, it's kind of changed in a way in the sense that for the, for say 1950 through maybe, uh, like maybe the, the, the late eighties to early 90s.

Yeah. The idea of rock music and pop music was still like, this is music for young people. Like this is what is like most important about like rock as an art form is that it was the first time there was ever an art form that was specifically designed for teenagers and for young people. And that was part of it. And that the idea of this being sort of a youthful expression of ideas or whatever is

built into this. And that is not the case now. I mean, now, you know, rock music is for older people. Pop music is really for all people. It is not weird for a 65 year old person to love Taylor Swift. That's not surprising at this point. So the fact that Billie Eilish is causing a lot of maybe a lot of 14 year olds to want to make music, that means something different than it would have meant if she would have been an artist like, you know, in the relatively recent past. Like I, it doesn't seem as important to me when you're looking at the value of an artist, uh, if they are inspirational to young people anymore, because music, pop music in this way is no longer designed just for young people. And now it's, it's, it's, it's just the music of this period.

Who do you think is the most influential rock musician of the last 15 years? Like if I'm like, my son wants to play bass in a band, who are they? Who is the band emulating? Uh, Vampire Weekend maybe? I mean, well, I think that they're, I think that they're just really highly musical. So if you're the kind of person who's getting into a band, like you're a musician who wants to do this, you're probably going to be drawn to the kind of group that makes you go like,

oh, this is what they're doing here is like really innovative and interesting. And I want to do this as well. I'm trying to think of, I mean, I might be overlooking somebody obvious, but that's, you know, I mean, now probably I would say even probably Taylor Swift still that, you know, that, that, because it's that the assumption would be that like, well, okay. What, what, what does a successful artist do now? Well, they have to write about themselves. They have to mine their own experience for music. They need to, you know, sort of think about the end product while they're in the process of creating the initial thing. You know, and she's very much like that.

I mean, like, I think that when Taylor Swift writes songs, I think that she has an idea of the end before she does anything. Yeah, I don't know what to idea of the end before she does anything. Yeah. I don't know what to make of the Taylor Swift thing anymore because I've never seen anybody so prolifically crush every piece of whatever their career is. Like usually the kind of artists we're used to is you become famous, you become super famous, and then you start to get weird. Seems to be the arc. Yeah. is you become famous, you become super famous, and then you start to get weird.

Seems to be the arc. Yeah. And whether she's weird or not, who knows? But publicly and from a work standpoint, the work continues to, everybody still seems to be really pleased. And, you know, we have a podcast every single album where they break down all the Taylor stuff. They're like, they feel like she's getting better.

And that's pretty unusual for music. Because music usually it's, what is it? Seven, 10, 12 years. That's kind of the run. And then you start repeating yourself. But like, I mean, she's very open about this. Like she spent her childhood watching behind the music. Her whole life is thinking about what goes wrong with bands.

Why do successful bands fail? How can I avoid that? It's like she started thinking about being a musician the age she is now when she was 14 years old. I mean, it's a little bit like what they say about like Wimby or whatever, that he's like started thinking about the NBA when he was 12 and everything that he's done in his life.

Like I'm gonna learn English so I'll be better able to give interviews when I'm in the NBA, you know, nine years from now or whatever. It's like, I, just kids now, I think are sort of often sort of socialized and almost programmed to have an adult understanding of the world before they understand the world. And when there was what I'm saying is that they use the language that an adult uses to describe sort of like how one goes through life, even though they don't really have an idea of what life experience is like. It's like Taylor Swift was preparing for life experiences she had no relationship to. Like she was preparing herself to deal with like,

well, what if I get caught up in drugs? And she had never even seen drugs. You know, it was like, she's thinking about these things beforehand. And then when you do that, you end up sort of giving those things a meaning. And you know, it's like, it's just things happen faster and slower

at the same time. Let's take a break. I want to keep going on this. What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend that powers your scale with no preset spending limit. More cash on hand to grow your business with up to 55 interest-free days. And the ability to reach further with access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. Redefine possible with Business Platinum.

That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. All right. We were talking about Taylor Swift and the run she had. And you mentioned the bear earlier. And I was thinking the bear leaned into some REM. They play strange currencies a lot. And I was thinking that was like one of the biggest bands in the world. I don't know. I mean, they had one of the biggest bands in the world. I don't know for,

they, I mean, they had one of the weirdest darks ever because the whole point of the band in the eighties was that they didn't want to be one of the biggest bands in the world. And they're at the forefront of this music scene that was just kind of happening. And then they became this giant band and they crossed over and pop culture

and all these different ways. And then I think mostly because of who the lead singer is and how he's just not that interested in being famous and doing stuff and keeping the legacy. They weren't doing like an REM big concert tour. We're back. And they weren't doing any of the cycles that bands have to do to kind of stay alive after their run.

Now they're kind of weirdly underrated. I don't even know what athlete they would be. And when you hear them in the Bay Area, like, oh yeah, REM, one of the biggest bands in the world. I think that's the only band from that era that I feel that way about. Whereas like, it's actually the impact of them, the way I feel it now, anecdotally, or just even thinking about listening to them

versus how I felt when I was like in college, it's probably the biggest disparity. So I was excited to hear them in the bear, but it's just what, if you could, if you could take REM from like 96 on and be like, no guys do it this way. And they could have, but it's kind of wouldn't have fit in with what REM was to begin with. So I kind of like how this played out. The reason I'm bringing this up is you told me to watch that documentary about dinosaur junior, which I loved. And it was the same thing.

These bands that to the bitter end are going to stay who they were when they were successful. And I don't know. I felt like there was a parallel between those two things, but you go, you tell me. Well, yeah,

I, you know, what would I have told REM after 1996? So was that so, so new adventures in hi fi was out. That's a real good record. I think they're probably in the process of getting ready to make up I would guess. Yeah. And I guess I wouldn't, if I was trying to advise them on how to keep going, well, I would say, don't have your drummer quit, but it's like the drummer quit for justifiable reasons. And, um, you know, it's,

it's, uh, it would be, it would be, it would have been strange for them to have sort of become just a completely commercial entity. I don't think it would have like a youtube yeah i'm not sure what it would have worked i don't uh uh i i don't uh they they sort of you know were kind of pioneering college rock and that merged with regular mainstream rock and pop. They could never have been so different than other bands once they'd become that popular. I don't know. I would have had very little advice. Plus, they had signed a huge contract, I think with Warner.

They did. We did it. We made it. That's it. Like in terms of money, we don't gotta worry about it anymore. Um, and that, not that I'm sure they probably didn't worry about that much to begin with. Um, I mean, dinosaur junior is, was just, that's, uh, uh, the part of the reason this documentary is called freak scene. It's a very cheaply made documentary.

It's multi, you know, it's, you're not gonna brand for them. Um, but you know, like at Jay mask is in there at one point says like, I It's a very cheaply made documentary. It's very on brand for them. But, you know, like Jay Maskus in there at one point says like, well, you know, all these other bands were talking about having fun and was it still fun for them? And like, we thought music was important. We never thought it was fun. Like, he's kind of like the guy from The Bear. Like, Jay Maskus was like, what I'm doing is meaningful to me and meaningful to the world. And it's, the idea that I'm going to enjoy this

and be happy with it is not really a factor. That, you know, so I can say, I watched that Wham documentary. I watched the Dinosaur Junior one. And then I watched another documentary on the Melvins, which is, uh, there's this, this network called like, it's like freebie or free TV. Do you know what I'm talking about? It's part of Amazon.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you got to watch commercials and it's very confusing because the commercials are always like, you know, for, uh, you know, like, uh, like some, like, uh, like, like adult diapers or something. And they almost seem like it could be Melvin's videos. So when it cuts to the video, I'm like, is this part of the commercials? But you know, like the, the, the Melvin's philosophy was pretty much like,

we want to exist as a band for as long as possible and never have a job. So music is my only job, but I don't want to compromise at all. I will not compromise one inch. So how do I find a way to have a career making only music without making any compromises at all? And the solution seemed to be just never stop touring and make as right as many songs as possible. But I mean, like those, those three documentaries, the dinosaur junior, the Melvins and the, and wham, it's like, they're, they're, they were kind of cool to watch in this group because they really show three completely different ways to think about being a musician and to think about what is meaningful about music. I mean, it was just, you know, well, one of the funny things, Dinosaur Jr., like, it's a documentary that would have been made in, like, 1994.

The way it's filmed and produced. You know, they'll have, like, Henry Rollins is in his dressing room. And you could just tell it's being filmed by, like, somebody's iPhone. And then it's like, here's our Henry Rollins interview. And it's like, this looks like it was from 80 years ago. They never match the sound levels. It's like some interviews are loud and some are barely, like you can barely hear them. I had to keep changing the volume.

I thought it was on brand for them though. I mean, it's kind of like what you would have expected from a Dinosaur Jr. documentary. Well, there's a section in the documentary where their van breaks down in Idaho for 10 days. Okay. So they're stuck in this tiny hotel. The three guys in the band are stuck in down in Idaho for 10 days. Okay. So they're stuck in this tiny hotel. The three guys in the band are stuck in this hotel together for 10 days. It essentially ruins their relationship and ends the band and they never fucking explain what happened.

Like, like they never actually say what happened in this hotel. And it's like, I, I was watching with my wife and she's like, do we miss part of this, like, so we let me rerun a little bit of it. They just never actually say what happened. It was like, that's very on brand for dinosaur junior as well. It's like, we're, we're all going to admit that this happened and you're never going to understand why. How many documentaries are you like, how many do you watch a year?

You think if you include like the multi-part true crime type things yeah i don't know but i guess between 50 and 100 because i always watch one a week and sometimes i watch two because you and i have always loved documentaries i mean ever since i've known you we were like how did you and there just seems like there's more than ever but i do feel like we're hitting a true crime some sort of tipping point first of all we're running out of of all, we're running out of murders. You know, we're running out of famous things. Now they're doing six part documentaries about murders I never even knew about when I was alive, you know? Well, that's true. Yes. But the thing about it is though, about those true crime documentaries, which I know that people are always hammering and they have all these issues with them. And it always seems to be at a woman

being killed and that's true. And that's true. And all that's accurate. The one thing I'll say about those films is that you see people in these documentaries you never see in any other media extension. Like you see people like an in-depth discussion with people who would never be on TV or never be in a movie or never be in a magazine article. So I do think that in some ways that, that even though they're kind of salacious and in some ways sort of kind of playing into just like, uh, people sort of kind of like darks, darkest desires or darkest impulses, they are showing, uh, a part of

the country and a part of the populace that would never be seen otherwise, you know, and that's always interesting to me. part of the country and a part of the populace that would never be seen otherwise you know and that's always interesting to me well i remember in the 90s i remember seeing hoop dreams in the theater when i was at 93 94 whenever that was and it was just like it just blew my mind i was like oh my god i i just can't believe this movie even exists i was so fascinated by every single second of it because back in the day, you know, it was like cable and books and some sports illustrated profiles. That's about all I'm getting in this whole world. And now I'm in it. And then I remember the other one that made

me feel that way was, uh, totally different reasons. The paradise lost documentary that they ended up doing, I think three different versions of. But these kids that were allegedly inspired by Metallica to commit these murders, then it's like, did they? And are they being wrongfully imprisoned? And then what's up with the stepfather? Why did he get his teeth removed? I remember House and I, this is late 90s, and we watched it and we would just have phone calls about it. It was like, this is 10 years before podcasts. We'd be like, just going through like all the beats of it. Like, oh my God.

And now that Paradise Lost thing, that probably has been made, I don't know, 5,000 times in different kind of documentaries. Yeah, it's true. I would love to go back and watch it and see like, does it hold up or was it just so new? That's why I thought it was great. Well, you talk about hoop dreams, talk about paradise lost. Uh, there's a documentary about the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jones on massacres like this. If you spend a bunch of years with

someone, it's going to be a good film. Like, I mean, hoop dreams is a bunch of years that when, when I first saw that, well, you know, I guess I wasn't as, I guess there's sort of a history of this, but like I was young enough where I was like, how many years did they spend with these people before they made this? It just didn't seem possible to me that they would have invested this much time

when, you know, there had to have been a point when they're like, are we even gonna, like, is this gonna be anything? Or like, how did they know, like had to have been a point when they're like, are we even going to like, is this going to be anything? Or like, like, or how did how did they know? Like, what was their initial plan when they met those kids right away? Were they going to follow them for a year? I mean, that's if somebody wants to make a great documentary, there is one somewhat easy way to do it, which is find anything remotely interesting and spend eight years with them. Like, it will be good.

Like, you know, it just will be like, you know, it's like my life would be interesting if someone just hung out with me for eight years and filmed everything, you know, I would totally watch that. Um, yeah, I'm with you. I, I, I'm really interested to see where the form goes. Cause there's so many of them and we've entered, I've talked about this before, but a little bit of this infomercial era now where the artists or the athletes or the teams or whoever, they know that these things are valuable, but they also want to control it. So we're hitting this weird stage of them now

where there's an authenticity piece that I'm always suspicious of with most of these that are done. Did you watch the Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary? I watched the entire documentary. Okay okay so this is a good example yeah i i mean now i first of all i would say it's pretty good i'm gonna stay up front like i i enjoyed watching well he's a great interview like so it's mostly an interview of him and he's compelling so you know it's broken into three sections it's broken into him as an athlete him as an actor and him as an american which is basically his political career the stuff about him as an athlete i i it's like

i don't know what else there would be it's like it's the way you do it even if he if if he wasn't involved like it's like we were doing it about him that's how you do it but it was it was compromised by the fact that pumping iron is one of the great sports documentaries ever so if you saw that part one it's like i don't even need to see this. Yes. Although his childhood stuff was a little more interesting than I expected. And I don't think that was in pumping iron. The part where it's about him as an actor, uh, still pretty good.

Although it would have been helped by having anyone who could be somewhat critical of his films, because it is not as though he's had a perfect career as a a film star. And then the third part. Wait, hold on. Can you hold on? Oh, go ahead. And I have a comment on part two, but go on part three.

The third part about his political career would have really been served by somebody talking about the things that went wrong when he was governor, as opposed to him just describing the experience of how it felt. Now, I'm not saying because I'm not like, oh, he was a, as opposed to him just describing the experience of how it felt. I'm not saying because I'm not like, oh, he was a terrible governor or something. That's not what I'm saying. It's just that as the stakes of something get higher, it is sort of tough to sort of just rely on the source

to give sort of the full picture of what happened. I mean, like I know you've had this issue, like with Morissette and with Kenny G and these things where it's like, it is weird where you sort of know that this person you're learning about does have some editorial degree, not as the filmmaker does, but can kind of shape it. Like, this is, this is the thing about me. That's important. Like I'll maybe even give you freedom to show it any way you want,

but I'm sort of setting the terms and that does change things. But I can't see how, how documentaries are going to be any different going forward because like they realize how valuable these things are and, and they, they want to do them, you know? You know, what's happened. It's they're basically autobiographies. They're video autobiographies. Yes. So we, we grew up reading autobiographies our whole lives and you'd read them and you would take stuff with a grain of salt. And it was like this person's version of what my life was. And a biography is so much different than an autobiography. And the books that I think you and I probably love the most are the biographies. But I also love autobiographies.

And you were always like, you can pull stuff out like in this Arnold thing, which I don't know if I would recommend. But the movie, the part two movie section, which used to, as you point out, like it's, you know, it's the glass half full version of Arnold's career. And he was the biggest star of the world. There's like an eight minute section of him and Sly Stallone talking about the rivalry they had that I thought was like one of the best sections

I've seen in a documentary in like five years. I was so into it. I didn't even know that they knew they were in a rivalry. And not only did they know it, they like kind of, they really went into it about how they measured themselves against each other. And I just thought that was so interesting. These guys have been in my life, you know, for almost all my life, I had no idea that they felt like it was a rivalry.

So it had that in there and that made it worth watching the whole thing for me. You know, a lot of which I wasn't crazy about. Well, yeah. What, what part, what, what didn't you like about it? I mean, the stuff you pointed out, it's, it was too infomercial, infomercially autobiography-ish, but sometimes that's a deal you make when you want to do these. And I think, I think the problem is, is that just what we're going to be getting going forward? And if that's what we're getting, like Magic Johnson has written two autobiographies, right? Those were his perspective on what happened to him. It wasn't balanced, but like the stuff you and I like are like Richard Ben Kramer writing about Joe DiMaggio

and shit like that. I would much rather read those personally. I'd rather read Halberstam, go and spend a year with the Portland Trailblazers and write about what the team was versus like Dr. Jack Ramsey's autobiography about what the title season was like, you know? But that's me.

Would you allow someone to make a documentary about your life and give them full control? No, and you wouldn't either. Would you allow Michael Lewis to spend five months with you to write a book about your life? No, I don't think I would. So there's no writer who you would trust enough to do that. I had, I talked about this recently. There was one time right after I got suspended when this writer I really respected

asked if, um, if he could write a feature and spend time with me. And I thought about it more, less about me, but more about, it was such an interesting time in my life. I'd be like, I'd be really interested to read this 10 years from now. You know,

it's just somebody like trying to capture whatever the fuck is happening right now. How close would you come to saying yes? I said no, but I, I did think about it. But ultimately, I don't know. I think because we're writers, you think about,

you're always like putting yourself in the shoe of how the writer, it's just not, it's not worth it. I think from a documentary standpoint, it does feel like it's part of what being a legitimately famous person. You know, Michael Jordan, we had that footage in the late 2000s. We were trying to get it done when we were doing 30 for 30

and he just never wanted to pull the trigger on it. I thought it was really interesting why he ended up doing it or why I think he ended up wanting to do it because he could feel his legacy starting to slip away a little bit. And it was kind of, there was this whole LeBron Kobe generation

that had come in. And to me, he's so smart about everything. I think he was like, you know what? I think people are starting to forget. Let's it's time. And he wanted to get paid. And I don't know if that was just thinking, but if it was, he did it perfect. I think that was his thing. Like, you know, it was just, and then the timing with the pandemic, which is obviously he couldn't have planned, but that. Well, but remember, he also did the right Thompson feature, which he never would have done. That was a ways back though.

Yeah, but it was in the mid 2000, mid 2010s. It was somewhere around there, but it was, it was very, I thought it was really interesting that he did that. So I always think about, because all these guys have teams around them, so if they're going to make a decision like, hey, Ray Thompson wants to do a feature on you, that's not some famous person going, okay, cool, yeah, tell him, come over on Tuesday.

He's going to discuss it, or she's going to discuss it with all the people they trust in their life right and they came to the decision this would be a good thing if you did this right so that that when you come to that conclusion that's always interesting how people come to that conclusion this is good for me if i do this did you come close to doing that story? The only reason I came close was because I really liked the writer and I thought it was a, who was it? Could you tell me, or is that you're not going to say the writer, but it was a particularly unique time, you know, it was literally right after I got

suspended and, uh, just all that shit was going down. And, and, um, I was like, you know, this would be interesting for somebody to kind of capture all this, but I don't know. Now I don't know if I wish that it happened or not. Probably like 50-50. Nobody's ever written like a big feature about you, right? How big of a feature? I mean, like a giant magazine, you know,

where they spent like three months with you, nothing like that. Oh, no, that would, no, no, no, no, no. You would hate that. Yeah, I would never. I would never want to do that as a writer i certainly wouldn't want someone hanging here because it's just you would it no i mean and i no nothing close no let's take one more break because i have three more things to hit with you. So I had some quick questions to throw at you as we head toward the summer break.

And this goes off the documentary conversation we just had. Are documentaries replacing books? Not for everybody, but for a significant chunk of people who used to, like 30 years ago, you went, I don't know, you went away for a vacation for a week and you'd be like, I'm going to read the two new John Grissom books. And I'm going to read, you know,

maybe you and I, we read more than probably the average person, but like, all right, I'm going to, I got to catch up. I got to read these two books. These Grissom books came out. And then there's the sports book I want to read. I'm going to bring these three books. I'm going to try to bang all those three out. And now it feels like people talk that way about TV where it's like, yeah, I got 10 days off. I got to catch up on the bear. I haven't watched that yet. And then there's that Schwarzenegger

documentary. And then that Bill Walton, that four-parter he has pinned it. I want to watch that. And it's just kind of taken the place of books. I don't feel like there's room for both necessarily. Maybe there is for the rare people like you, but for the most part, it feels like documentary is on the corner. Well, it, it seems like high end television has sort of taken the place of novels in a lot of people's lives. I think documentaries have as well in the kind of in the nonfiction realm. But a big part of that is just like this is sort of a technology thing. I mean, so prior to 1990, you know, it was kind of hard to see documentaries. They didn't play in lots of towns.

Not everybody had a VCR. If you had a VCR, you had to have a documentary section at the video store. And, you know, Roger and me was there, but not everything. Now, when they were also not very good, they weren't, you know, they were harder to make. They had these giant cameras. It just, they, it wasn't an easy experience to create a documentary. But, but the thing is the ones that did work in some ways were superior because it was closer to conventional filmmaking. Whereas now, it's so easy to make a documentary

that it's often just like a person sitting there talking. I mean, it's like a lot of documentaries now, that even I see seen a theater sometimes, um, seem closer to what used to be how documentaries were kind of presented on television. I mean, to me, I mean, the, the, the documentaries that I am most attracted to, uh, are the ones that are like no talking heads, all found you know like the mike wallace one that was a good one exactly or you know or um there was a really great one about a about a uh like a race car driver from a few years ago um a guy never knew anything about senna we did that yes um you

know it's a uh that i think when that, the, the, the princess Diana one that came out was actually pretty good. By the way, those are the fucking hardest ones to make. Well, of course. Yes. Yeah. That is like a particular crazy skillset that only a few people have. Amy Winehouse was like that too.

There's, there are just inevitably going to be situations where it's like, this is so great, but we have to describe what's going on here. I need someone to explicitly say this was backstage at wherever, or this was in the locker room. And sometimes you just can't find that. And then that it's, and then it's just, so then you're sort of confused as to what you're actually seeing. So, you know, and then the keys are always like if when like say when princess diana and prince charles are being interviewed the the 60 seconds before like the the cameras on but

the interview hasn't started oh i love those yeah yeah i mean that's like anyway in that one that you guys did about the whole the oj chase day um you know all that stuff like the most interesting kind of realist parts are like when like bob Bob Costas is being explained, okay, this is what you got to tell people the NBA finals are on, but you gotta, you know, that that's the stuff that's like, Oh yes. You know, this is like, this is something that I, I feel like I'm, I'm seeing a reality that I did not know was there. I remember when Brett Morgan, when he pitched the idea to us about the OJ car chase doc, and he was like, I think I can just do with all the footage. I didn't even understand like how he was going to do it.

It was like, wait, what? Because it was so ingrained in my head. Like, yeah, you have to have the interview with this person and this person and this person. He's like, nah, I'm just going to try to capture the day through the footage. I was like, all right, see if that one works. And then it fucking worked. But now it's, those are impossible to make. Like that Mike Wallace one that Avi Bell could make, I don't know, it was five years ago,

but it was like, everybody was dead in the documentary, you know, to pull that off. Like, Jesus. But at least, but at least he's a broadcaster. You know, that's like, it's easier least but at least he's a broadcaster you know that's like the footage it's easier to do a documentary about that about a broadcaster or about an actor or about somebody who just has for whatever reason often been in front of cameras what's tough is when it's just like like there's that that 10-part documentary trauma zone which is about, you know, basically the fall of the Soviet Union, who actually and in emergence as Russia from like 1985 to 1999.

And that's all it is. It's just found footage from like Russian TV and all this stuff. And it's it's it's just when that works, it's just there's just it's as good as it gets. There's nothing is better than that. There's another piece of documentary is that, I mean, it's maybe more specific to me, but when somebody has an awesome idea that I'd always either wanted to do or potentially do and they fuck it up, it makes me so bad where it's just like, Oh, you guys had the idea and now nobody else could do the idea. Like they kind of pee on the idea, but they do a bad job of it.

And then you're like, Jesus, now it's like seven years before anybody can go back with the same idea. I suppose. Because, yeah, I'm going to hold off. I was going to, I'll tell you after we're done. One documentary that drove me fucking crazy. I don't want to shit on another documentary um all right more stuff for us we had 599 scripted tv shows in 2022

did you know that no that's how many shows were made in 2022 599 there There were 877,000 shows available on all the different streamers that have been made over the last, I don't know, 70 years. I was trying to get my daughter to watch an episode of Cheers

because I was curious. I was like, Cheers, can you watch this? Tell me what you think. And my son was with us. They lasted like four minutes. They were like, it's too slow. The clothes are too old.

It's just too long ago. I can't watch this. This is one of the five best comedies ever. We don't care. It's too old. So, I'm wondering, are we hitting the point where shows, you know, when we were kids or younger and like our parents would watch like the Andy Griffith show would be on or some sort of fifties Western and they'd be like, Oh, this is a great one. You'll love this. And we would watch it and be like, this sucks. And now I'm the parents where I'm like, you guys got to

watch cheers. This is literally an iconic comedy. And they're like, eh. But I could show them, I don't know, Hot Rod with Andy Samberg, and they'd be like, all in. By the way, decent movie. It's just weird. Do we have too much content? What's going to happen to all the content?

Most of it will disappear. It'll be as if it never existed at all. I mean, you know, people had this worry. And then when cable came into existence, they're like, TV's on all the time. Now there's all these channels, what's going to happen to all this. And most of it did just kind of, it was ephemeral and it was gone. Um, you know, uh, uh, the idea of showing something old to a young person and they don't get, I mean, that's just, that's how it always has been. And as your kids mature and they get more interested in culture and art and history, they might not feel that way. Like I, I, I definitely see myself having not wanted to watch an episode of the Andy Griffith show when I was young, I would watch

it very differently now. All right. Next topic. I know like you, you love conspiracies and we've talked about conspiracies many times and it just feels like UFOs have been UFO sightings have become more acceptable. We had a lady on a plane who was demanding to be let off because there was an imaginary pastor that only she could see. And this became a week-long story. What fascinated you about this? I'm glad you brought this up. I found this to be compelling in a way that is unique to me. Okay. So if people don't know what this is, there's this woman, she's flying from Dallas to Orlando. She's like kind of wearing a sleeveless gray shirt, you

know, and I guess carrot top is on this plane supposedly. But she goes up the aisle of the plane and she turns around and she's like, that motherfucker is not real. I'm getting off this plane. That motherfucker, you don't got to believe me. I don't care.

That guy is not real. And, uh, I wonder if this is going to start happening more and more. Oh, because where's the woman, you know, I I'm sure now this is gonna, this is gonna air and there's gonna be a bunch of people tweeting at me that this woman is given the seven interviews, but it seems like she has just disappeared. And this idealist strange thing she said, she wasn't like, it's a cyborg or that's a shape-shifting reptile. She's like, that guy is not real. What does it mean? I just feel like this is going to be the next thing.

Unreal people. So you think this is part of a trend? I don't know. There was just like there was something. It seems like the next step that, you know, as as as the world kind of gets weirder and weirder that we're going to start having this epidemic of people. Feeling other people or accusing other people of not being real. It does feel like the beginning. We have to get your dog on this. You got to bring your dog on airplanes. Which dog?

The one that sees ghosts? Yes. Yeah. Well, did I tell you what's going on with the, with the, I told you what was going on with the new house, right? What? We got something on the third floor. Something?

Yeah. What? It's unclear. That we've had two people that my wife knows who are a little witchy. Yeah, you mentioned that. I think I've talked about this before. Not to you on a pod, but to somebody else. Well, you were talking about

that someone committed suicide in your house. No, no, that was the old house. Oh, we talked about that the last time. So the new house brought two, so when there were people, because we had some stuff to fix, and the workers were like, we heard somebody laughing on the third floor, the little girl's voice, they were freaked out.

They were like, we don't know what's going on on the third floor, in the attic. And we had, my wife brought two different people over who both were a little witchy. And they both went up to the attic okay and they're like whoa definitely a vibe they walked turned the corner where like some of the electrical equipment is and they were like it's in there and they walked they both not knowing each other, walked over to the same spot. What do they think?

They felt like something not great happened in that corner. In the attic. But our attitude is not afraid. We embrace all the spirits. And, you know, it's just trying to hear's just trying to have a happy time in the house. So they got a bad feeling. Not just a strange feeling, a bad feeling. Yeah, like it was like something not great happened, but you guys will be okay.

Just don't do like weird Ouija board shit and try to bring those spirits up. It's a little surprising because when people tend to do terrible things in houses, they tend to use the basement. You know, that's where they always, you don't often use the attic for that. You know, I mean, the attic is where you trap someone, where you keep someone. Well, maybe that's what happened that someone has been kept in your attic. Yeah. I don't know if I'm getting older and crazier, but I feel like I'm more receptive to all these stories.

Like that lady on the plane, I was like, hey, maybe that person wasn't real. Maybe shit's going down. Well, what do you think she meant when she said that the person isn't real? This is what I keep thinking about. What does she mean by this? I think she means she was sitting next

to this person who was pretending to be a human being, but wasn't. And when you're sitting next to somebody in an airplane, you get a pretty good feel for who's next to you, right? And she must have been like, something is not human about this person. I am freaked out. And maybe he did something that made her double down on that thought. I thought it was one of the weirdest videos I've ever seen because it wasn't, she didn't seem crazy. She seemed agitated, but I wouldn't say this was not like this lunatic outside of, you know, on some corner of a street, just acting crazy. Like she was like adamant something fucked up was going on well i i just keep wondering what this was because if you know she's just saying he's this person's not real

she's not specifying what the supposedly thing that you know that he had like a serpentine tongue or that she looked into his chest and it was, uh, you know, there was like, there was like tubes and wires. It's like just something that was unreal. Um, you know, uh, uh, maybe he's a magician. Maybe there's a magician on the flight and he just did an amazing illusion without telling her that he's a magician that could make you think someone is unreal. Sometimes we use the term unreal to describe things that are just great like oh yannis he's unreal in the paint maybe maybe somebody maybe the guy just did something incredible but her her her look of fear like legitimate fear and like also i think it's

interesting she said you don't have to believe me. I don't care. I'm getting off the plane. Because people who are insane, I'm not saying she's not, but people who are insane tend to try to convince you to believe them. They very rarely say, I don't care if you believe me or not, which she did. Did you ever see this movie called The Entity with Barbara Hershey? I don't think so. It was a horror movie where she just gets possessed that night by this demon. And she spends most of the movie trying to convince everybody else that this is actually happening and nobody believes her. And then in the last part of the movie, I don't want to spoil it, but let's just say she wins the argument. But I always think that trope works for movies and TV where it's like this happened and nobody's like,

no way, stop it, you sound crazy, but then they almost have to convince the person. Halloween, one of the reasons Halloween, the original great horror movie was so good is there's that stretch where she just doesn't believe that the boogeyman is in her neighborhood. Really, until she walks over to the other person's house and sees all the dead bodies.

Then she's like, oh shit, this is happening. But that's usually the foundation of a lot of good horror movies is there's this malevolent force and our hero doesn't believe in it yet or nobody believes our hero. Well, so in this case, you're saying if it was a movie,

she is the hero. She's the hero and she couldn't get anybody to believe her. But of course, nothing bad happens. The plane just lands in Orlando. But then we follow the lady. She goes back home and then maybe somebody delivers the mail and she's wondering if that's real. But then we follow the lady. She goes back home.

And then maybe somebody delivers the mail and she's wondering if that's real. It's definitely the making of a good TV show. I think it's like an Apple Plus show. Not quite a Netflix show. What if they're just, you know, we've started creating these unreal beings and we're slowly trying to kind of move them into society. He's not necessarily bad.

Maybe he's only unreal. That's the only downside. I don't know. I just want, I want to know where she sat on the plane and I want to know the, with the people around here, who they are. I would,

I think I'd be very, I want, I feel like there should be more coverage of this. Well, because now there's, I think this is unreal. I think this is probably untrue, but the, the, the, the,

the urban legend that's already kind of come up is that she's just gone. You can't find this woman. She's just gone. She's just disappeared. No one knows who she is. You never see her name anywhere. You know, it was in all these

daily mail and all these different places. They never say who she was. Like, uh, I, I, I, we she was. Like, I want to know what this person believes she saw. I just watched Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the 1978 one, the good one with Donald Sutherland.

Okay. And that is a great, like the Brooke Adams character, the lead actress in it. She, it starts out, it's hilarious. She goes, she comes home. She's got like this handsome boyfriend she lives with. And he's watching the Warriors game with his headphones on for some reason.

And getting all excited because the Warriors have a chance to make the playoffs and whatever. And he's just like, seems like a normal guy. And she brought this plant home that she found. She's like, I found this. It's such a unique plant. Puts it next to his bed in a pot. And the next day he wakes up and he's cleaning up the plant and he doesn't have a personality anymore.

And she's like, Jeffrey, where are you going? And he's like, I have a meeting and goes out. And she just sees him kind of walk away. She watches out the window. There's a dumpster truck that comes and he puts his bag in the dumpster truck. All this dust comes up and that's how the movie starts. And she's like, that's weird. And then for the next 45 minutes, she tries to explain this, like something's going on people are changing people are different it's a fucking great movie like for a 70s movie that one i think really holds up i love shit like this though i actually don't think we have enough of this stuff

like were you an x-files guy you know i i i never really watched it i never really did either i don't know if i missed out i remember i had to review the film and i had to and of course it was on that was how you know how it was then it's like you knew about these things even if you didn't watch it like i knew all the characters i knew all the premises i know they went dealt with a chupacabra at some point i feel like you know uh there's just sometimes it was easy to know about something without having to actually experience the depth of it but now we have more i mean way more anecdotes and incidents quote unquote we're like what happened here what happened here what's this weird video of this giant light that streams down and nobody can explain it feels like this

we're in like the golden era of this stuff now uh we're in the golden era when when will the golden era end of just sightings and weird shit things things are getting weirder i don't know maybe we just have better ways to document it obviously this woman on the plane if there's not for camera phones this isn't a very interesting story right we wouldn't even know about it you or if somebody said well like maybe carrot top would go on if he was actually on the plane as he claims he was he would have went on like the tonight show and he'd be like oh this funny thing happened there was a woman on the plane and and she believed that uh she saw somebody who wasn't a person or whatever you know and then it'd be like oh but when you see this it's like well it's you know

your initial reaction is just like oh of course she's crazy or maybe she is but i don't know there's something different about this one. I'm waiting for it. I'm waiting for the second account. Not the second account. The second event. I just had this weird suspicion this was going to become the thing.

People claiming they're seeing unreal people. We need a Twitter account that just follows this lady and updates us. Or maybe a Threads account. Just, just, just, oh, you're on Threads. That's right. Barely. How is it?

It's a mess. Because you don't control who's on your main screen. So it's just, you go on there and it's just all these people you never wanted to follow. And it's like, why are these people in my life? So until they fix that, I can't get into it. I gotta say, I find it. I just think this is so hilarious to me. These people going from Twitter to threads.

It would be like if somebody was like, oh, yeah, you know, I got really involved with Scientology and it really screwed my life up. But you know what? I found a way out. I'm going to start selling Amway. It's like, it's like, why, why would somebody have this desire to, to see, like, I need to replicate the experience of Twitter from 10 years. I just, it's just crazy. Like I, I, I'm not, I mean, who knows, you know, I remember we did a podcast once and you convinced me to join Twitter in 2009. Uh, I can't, or 10,010, whenever I did, you were like, Oh, here's all the reasons.

Here's how you do it. You know, it's kind of funny or whatever. Um, I don't know if I'm going to do it with this one. I don't think so. If I have to, for some reason, I don't know what that would be, but then I will. But I, I feel like I've, I've, I've put my time in. They made it really easy to sign up and use your Instagram. And the only reason I signed up

was I was like, well, I'd rather I had my username than somebody else if this becomes a thing. But that seems to be most of these social media apps now where they start to get a tiny bit of momentum. It's like, better sign up. Better get in there. It could become a thing. Like I have a BeReal account

that I don't think I've used since I've signed up from a year ago. I don't think be real became a thing, but I got an account just in case. Well, I mean, now it's, I mean, if, if, if a whole bunch of these things, or even just one other one, it's like three threads works or whatever. It's just like one more thing that's going to bifurcate and polarize the country that a certain kind of person will be on one application and a certain kind of person will be on the other platform and they will further have absolutely no relationship with each other

while having extremely strong ideas about what the other person must think. Like it's just, it's not, it's the thing about Twitter is, is like it was kind of like the only place where all these lunatics had to sort of interact, you know? And now it'll be like, well, we can keep them apart, I guess.

And it's just, I don't know. It just doesn't seem like a great step forward for society. Here's my last thing for you. Obviously getting older and I used to have this incredible memory for basically everything, which is starting to fade a little bit, but I can still remember certain things

like all the NBA shit for some reason hasn't faded, but I could have friends say to me, remember that dinner we had in 2008 in Orlando? And I'd be like, I kind of don't. I remember like bits and pieces of it, but not really. I had this thing happen yesterday. I read this piece by Seth Wickersham and Don Venata about Roger Goodell and the emails. Which was the John Elway trade, right? The idea that the Raiders. Yeah. Okay. So in that piece was about how Al Davis was felt like, felt like, uh, they blocked him from getting John Elway because he was the renegade franchise.

And I was like, oh my God. And then a couple of people in my life pointed out that we did a 30 for 30 in 2013 Elway to Marino where we covered this story. So I was rediscovering this story 10 years later because I had forgotten it. And I was thinking like, on the one hand, that's kind of scary that I didn't remember this documentary covering this that I gave notes on.

On the other hand, I was like, maybe this is a new frontier for me where I'm just rediscovering these things that I already knew where I'm like, whoa, it's like short-term memory guy with Tom Hanks on SNL. This, uh, it'll be some version of that for me where every once in a while I'll find out like, Oh my God, Dominique Wilkins was drafted by Utah. That's crazy. But even though I already knew that and probably wrote about it in my book. So I don't know. I'm trying to come up with a way to justify memory loss being fun oh it could be like

okay you know you talked about showing your kids cheers okay let's say I could give you a pill that you would swallow and you would forget everything about cheers and you could rewatch it for the first time again

or like or you know, or, you know, I know you like Peter Gabriel. Like I could remove your relationship to Peter Gabriel. And then you could like go back and listen to the soul record and it'd be the first, it would be like the first time, because you know, I, it's, or like things, especially things that become like, first time because, you know, I, I, it's, it's, uh, or like things,

especially things that become like, like super canonical. Okay. Like Nirvana is nevermind or whatever. Wouldn't it be interesting to actually feel like you're hearing all those songs with absolutely no relationship to what they mean to the world or to other people or your own life or, or how often you've heard them. Like it would be like, like, uh, the first time you could do it. I do think it would be great if we could consciously have memory loss about very specific things, you know? Um,

so intentional memory loss. This sounds like a black mirror episode. Absolutely. It seems like a Black Mirror episode. what would probably happen is because you're a different person now it would not seem the way it did before i think a lot of this would be uh uh you know probably no question it's disenchanting you know um and then of course and then people would probably start doing it with people like i want to meet this person again for the first time and then i suppose it would if it was a black mirror episode, it would be like a marriage counselor who, when he is dealing with a couple who seems destined for divorce, he would say, I'm going to allow you to remit each other, uh, you know, by taking this drug, you'll have no knowledge of each other and then you can

meet again and then everything kind of becomes escape the Pina colada song where, you know, it's like, oh, I didn't know you like, didn't know you like fucking in the sand or whatever. I didn't know you like to, you know, it's like, didn't hated yoga. Um, it would, it would, it would be quite the thing to sort of be able to just, I mean, now that we're talking about it, I've never thought of this until you brought it up, but like, it would be pretty amazing. If there are things from my life I could completely forget about, not because they're dark, terrible memories, but because I want to see what it's like to, to have that feeling again. Like, Oh, like if I could forget what mashed potatoes tastes like or something like, wouldn't that be incredible? It's like, you have no idea what's this going to be like. And then, Oh, there it is.

It's in, you know, um, uh, it would be good. Yeah. Food is a good one for that. If you could take, like you could re-meet Chris Ryan. Who's this guy? Oh my God. I love this guy. But now I'd be missing. I would be meeting old Chris Ryan. I can't re-experience missing the, you know, the original Chris Ryan. Original cigarette smoking Chris Ryan. Yes, yes, yes.

You know, that was a totally different guy. And boy, now that could be kind of scary because would, is, if you did this, not with necessarily Chris, but with lots of other people, you'd suddenly figure out if your relationships are based on the actual affinity between the two people or your shared history. Yeah. Circumstances, shared history. Like, you know, uh, like, uh, it would be, it would be pretty disturbing to do that because you're like, Oh, I can't wait to, to meet my best friend again. And then find out you hate them. Well, how about with spouses? What percentage of people could you could remove all the shared history and they could meet right away? Would they still like each other? I feel like I would still like my wife. Well, I feel like I would like my wife, too, but it's hard. It's like, but some people might be like, whoa, this person sucks.

What am I doing? Well, I well, also,, I mean, you talk about a bunch of years passing. You really are a different person. I mean, I'm always sort of amazed by people who like married their high school sweetheart or whatever. I mean, you change so much as a person from 20 to 30. Yes. It's just incredible to me that, you know, I had, you know, and then every decade, I mean, you obviously change the most from like zero to 10, obviously. And then you change a lot from 10 to 20. And you still change a bit from 20 to 30. And 30 to 40, the change is meaningful, but it's more like a tweak. And then 40 to 50 and

50 to 60 and 60 to 70, that gets less and less and less. Like, you know, it's hard to imagine, like it's hard for 30 year old me to imagine liking 20 year old me, for example. I think 30 year old me would have hated 20 year old me. Interesting. What would you have hated? Almost everything. But of course I'm like 51 now. And I think 51 year old me kind of hates 50 year old me. Actually 51 year old me hates 51 year old me. So I'd be a bad example of this but like uh um uh it's uh i don't know now now i'm gonna be now you really got me going on now i'm just gonna i'm just gonna constantly think about ways to misremember things you know for for yeah i think it's gonna keep happening to me it was it was interesting experience to move because you find stuff in boxes or things you bought or you know be like what was that when did

or find like a press pass to something i went to in like 2005 i'm like what happened to that i don't even remember well what happened at that espy's i i literally can't remember anything of it i think it's almost like your brain is a nightclub and you could just have too many people in the nightclub and then some stuff has to get pushed out well some of that stuff is the memories right like how many memories can you keep in your brain well because we just you know like let's we just keep adding stuff there's more like there's you know more sports more musicians more films more political things more history it uh it's just it's like i'm running out of ram or whatever it's like you just you just think i had this one during the pandemic.

I was rewatching a couple of challenge seasons and I had no memory of anything that happened on the season. And these were seasons I watched, you know, and it could be the same thing for like a real world or basically I feel like any reality just goes, you consume it and it's almost like food that you digest and it just leaves your body. Well, yeah, I mean like you, but you go into, like,

watching the challenge with the idea that it's disposable. You're barely watching it. Yeah, I mean, sometimes, you know, I'll be reading, say, like, a real good book or something, or, you know, I'll be like, I'll be, guys, be like, remember this shit. Like, I'm reading a paragraph and I'll be like, remember I read that book Sapiens,

and there are sections in that book where I'd be like, remember this shit, like, do not fucking forget this. And like two days later, it's gone. Um, it's even weirder though, when it's your own life, like you talk about like you, uh, uh, it's, it disturbs me when I see a picture from a party that I was at and I don't remember it. Like, cause that's like, you know, the size of your reality is just the size of your memory. So like, if you lose parts of your own life, you're losing that part of reality. I, I don't, I mean, I, I, uh, if, if I like found out that I had was, you know, had was getting out like Alzheimer's or something. I just, I, I, I feel like before I even experienced the, the, the illness, the fear of that would be so great

to me because it's just like, like, I, I, I try to remember everything and I feel like I have an okay memory, but it's, it's, it's, it's, of course it's going, you know, uh, things with your kids are sometimes like this, you know, it's like you, like your, your, like, how can I forget some of the experiences I had when my kids were babies? Cause I wasn't thinking about anything else during that time. That's all I was thinking about. And yet somebody will say like, Oh, say what age did your kid start walking? And I'll be like, well, uh, I can picture it. Uh, it was like about, was it not? No, it couldn't have been like, I just, I suddenly, I can't remember these things that are central to my life.

You know? Uh, it's, you know, I think you remember, you remember the memory and that's not the memory. It's your memory. It's your memory of the memory. Yes. And then eventually it's a memory of the memory of the memory. And then it just kind of keeps going that way. It's yeah. That's, that's how I mean, like anytime someone tells, like you tell a story, if I, if I asked you like, what's the best story of your life from junior high? Okay. You'd probably remember a story you've told before, but all you're really remembering

is the last time you told the story. That's why they always say when couples break up, like after a long marriage or whatever. Um, yeah. One of the things, one of the losses, the many losses of that is you actually lose memory because you realize how many of memory, how much of your memory was shared memory. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, you'll be like, Oh, we were putting the Christmas tree up and it was like, Oh yeah, that was the same year that like, you know, they were, we, we'd went to this watch Star Trek all night or like between the two of

you, you're able to sort of put together what happened. And when that person's gone, the fragments completely dissolve almost like a dream where it's like, you see it leaving your head. I always did this with my parents because my parents got divorced, you know, when I was nine and my mom will tell a story sometimes. And I'll be like, that's like when you were a kid, this happened. I'm like, so then I go to my dad and then he remembers a story. It's like half the story, but then half of it is another story that merged into the story my mom's telling. So that's another thing. You don't have that checks and balances person with you if in a divorce or any sort of a split up. I'm like, no, no, that's not what happened. That

was, that was Christmas the next year. You're, but if you don't have that checks and balance persons, all those stories end up just merging into this new version of a story that didn't actually totally happen. And you're like your parents divorced when you were nine. Okay. So my dad had a stroke when I was nine. And, um, I have some memories around that, that, I mean, there's vivid and clear as if they had happened to me last week. It's really weird that my son is now nine because I realized that, uh, that he is now at an age where things that happened to him will not just be ephemeral. He may remember for his life, you know, and it's, it's really, it's, it's strange that sometimes, you know, I'll, I'll just,

I'll be watching him do something and I'll be thinking to myself, it's like, well, in all likelihood, this is something he'll do and it'll just be gone. But like, this could also be something that over time, because he happens to remember it, he will build into like a defining part of how he thinks about his life. You know, that's, it's just, it's, it's amazing in a way and weird and scary. Nine and 10 great ages for boys. All right. We got sufficiently weird on this podcast. Um, anything you got any plugs, anything you're working on, anything you want to talk about

before we go? Oh, well, well um i'm finishing up a book that'll probably come out next year um uh they made downtown owl into a movie but i don't really know what's going on with it what yeah yeah oh yeah it it they it played at tribeca um it's not really like my book i mean it plot wise it is, but it's very different. So you just sold the rights and then the people made it. I sold the rights 13 years ago. It just finally happened. Wow. Um, but, uh, so that, that exists, I guess, but it's, it's, it's, it's, it was, it was a strange experience watching it. It was, you know,

it's like the people who made it, they're great people and they tried so hard to do a good job. They just devoted their life for it for all these years. Um, you know, and like, you know, and Ed Harris is in and stuff. It's like, there's real people in it, but, uh, it was very, yeah. Uh, Vanessa Hudgens is in it. Yeah. This is like a real movie. No, it is. Yeah. I mean, it was, you know, it is, it's, it's a, yeah. Um, but I had no, I had, I had no, I had, I didn't play any role in it at all. Like, you know, it's like Chuck Klosterman. Um, uh, but that exists now. So, you know, it's like, uh, yeah. Uh, it just, it's, it was, it was, it's surprising that, that it happened at all, I guess. Um, and, but no, I guess I got nothing.

There's nothing that I have to promote. All right. Um, well this summer at some point, I'm going to do my annual, um, phone call to try to talk you into a podcast. You'll never do. I do have a really good idea for you for a podcast. Well, good luck. And then, and then you won't do it. Um, all right. Chuck Klosterman. Great to see you. And then you won't do it. All right. Chuck Klosterman, great to see you as always. Enjoy the rest of the summer. You bet.

All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Chuck. Thanks to Kyle Creighton for producing. Thanks to Steve Cerruti as well. If you want to hear Women's World Cup stuff,

we have a bunch of great soccer podcasts. Just go to TheRinger.com and go look at all the podcasts we have. We have something for everybody. I will see you in August. Stay safe. Enjoy July. Enjoy the summer. I'll see you next month. I don't have feelings within on the wayside

on the front side never I don't have feelings within on the