The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ta-Nehisi Coates on Story-telling, Challenging Obama, and the Kaepernick Situation (Ep. 287)

Episode Date: November 15, 2017

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by one of the most influential authors of the 21st century, Ta-Nehisi Coates, to discuss the importance of reading (6:00), LeBron's impressive run managing his celebrity status (18:00), the decision to challenge President Obama (28:00), the role of athletes in political protest (34:00), the Colin Kaepernick situation (48:00), the O.J. doc (1:01:00), and the best season of 'The Wire' (1:08:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Coming up, conversation I had with Ta-Nehisi Coates, one of the most important authors, I think, of this century that has emerged. We did the conversation last week when he was in Los Angeles, saved it for today, and it's really good, and it goes in a bunch of different directions. But first, Pearl Jam. Ta-Nehisi Coates in studio.

Thanks for having me. We've never met until like five minutes ago. You're a sneaky tall guy. Nah, but I feel like I know you, so. Solid 6'4". I was surprised. Yeah. I'm adding you to the sneaky tall all-stars.

You know what, though? I would take it down to about 6'0 or 6'1". I think unless you're athletic, anything over 6'0 or 6'1 is just useless. Too many expectations? Yeah, and also you just bump your head a lot. It is true. Yeah, you just bump your head a lot. That's it.

It has no use for it. You know what I mean? So. I'm trying to think what, if you don't play sports, what would be good about being six foot four? Nothing.

Absolutely nothing. You stand out in any crowd. Yeah. You're like two, three inches taller. Yeah, all of that is bad. Everything, you make a target of yourself.

It's just, it's all bad. Cars are bad. You have to put the seat back. Cars are bad. Airplanes are bad. Airplanes are definitely bad. Airpl bad airplanes are terrible i could bear i'm i'm like six one and three fifths yeah and it's like perfect height well airplanes it's not well no no no not at all not at all not at all but in general

i think about six one is ideal well this is people don't know this your entire book is about this it's just no it's actually we were talking before uh before we started taping this is basically you picked eight atlantic pieces from eight different years so it's the compilation book but it's not because you took a really interesting tack that i wish i had thought of with my red socks book from a million years ago of you actually wrote a new essay about the year that the piece was from yeah if you had told me you were doing this and I'm like oh that'll be interesting I don't know if that's gonna work but I actually thought it worked it was cool and it did it was fascinating how this mirrored the eight Obama years yeah yeah

yeah no actually it was I feel like um there has to be some amount of excitement in creating the thing yeah um in order for it to even have a shot at success that doesn't mean it's going to be successful but for it to have a shot you gotta at least you know like the prerequisite is to be excited about it. And the notion of a compilation was not exciting to me. It had been asked to me by several people, why don't you put this together in a book? I'd like to see this in a book. But when I went to do it,

and the notion from Randhouse was like, you'll write a short introduction and conclusion. I just was like, this is boring as hell. It felt boring. It is. It's a money grab. By the way. No, real talk. It's a money grab. Not a bad thing. Yeah, but at least like it just it felt money it is it's a money grab by the way no real talk it's a money grab not a bad thing yeah but at least call it what it is it's better to have money than not have money it is better to have money than to not have money but that's what it

is and i have never approached writing as a money grab so it felt like that's not actually within the spirit of what i do but it was i. I mean, I had signed a contract, and the contract was larger than anything I ever thought I would ever be capable of getting. Yeah. And the notion that you were just going to throw together, like, a bunch of stuff that you had done before and then take that check and walk away. Yeah. I mean, I don't, you know, not out of any, you know, great, you know, respect or loyalty to Random House, which is a huge corporation, you know, part of Birdlesdelsman but to the reader you know what i mean like they you are they are owed your excitement especially if they're paying for it that's right i felt the same when i told you how i did the red sox book which is basically just chapters but i felt like i gotta have something and i spent all this time

writing footnotes for the chapters yeah and threw myself into that i don't know if it worked but yeah i felt like at least i didn't people could just print it out almost everything exactly but and you never know if it's actually gonna work but you should feel like excited about trying to make it work well the other good thing is you know i was looking at this stuff like how what's this what's this book gonna look like on a on a bookshelf or whatever 40 years from now yeah yeah and it's like i'm glad this book exists because it's like this was a really obviously amazing fascinating unforgettable eight years yes indeed and it's nice to just have that in a book yeah books don't matter i feel like you know i watch with my with my kids and i get worried if that generation is going to read books like that because i actually disagree what i think they actually disagree. What? I think they're fine.

You think they're fine? Okay. Yeah, I think the future is secure. How old is your kid? My kid's 17 and was just texting me yesterday about how I need to read Frankenstein. Oh, that's good.

Okay, that gives me hope. Yeah, which I don't know when. It was Mary Shelley, 17, 18 something, whenever it was published. I mean, this is years ago. And he's like, wow, you really would get into this. You should read this.

I think it's going to be fine. And you know what? Like, I'm always shocked is years ago. And he's like, wow, you really would get into this. You should read this. I think it's going to be fine. And you know what? Like, I'm always shocked being out here. How much the people out here, at least who are in the business of creating things, how much they actually read and how much they take. You know what I mean? From the ideas of what is current and out there in the world. You know? I was driving my daughter home from

soccer practice yesterday and she was telling me how they read animal farm animal farming class she's in seventh grade she's like you read that and i was like i pretended i didn't remember what happened in it because i want to see if she digested it and she laid it out and i was like okay i have hope because two days ago you were watching slime videos on youtube for three hours maybe i'm okay yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I do, you know, it is funny how some of the books that we grew up reading in class are still the same books.

Yeah, no, it's true. Which made me think, I wonder, like, I'm sure you're seeing it in college already. Your two books are now drifting into the colleges, right? Yeah, it's wild to see, because I'm a college dropout. Right. So in order for anybody, I would not have read my book if it were assigned to see because i'm a college dropout right so in order to anybody i would not have read my book if it were assigned to me when i was in college and so where you would

have skimmed it and pretended you read it no i just i just don't assign shit to me man i don't want to be assigned that's don't don't be telling me what i gotta read you know what i mean that's up for me to figure out and that was like my mentality in college which is all about you being assigned shit to read. You know what I mean? I don't want people telling me, you know? So I would have been like, ah, I don't want any politics. It sounds like you liked college about as much as I did.

I liked all the stuff that went with college, but I didn't like doing the work. There you go. There you go. I liked the environment. I generally did not like class. Yeah. The whole reason for me being there were you like a wait to the last minute to write a paper person yeah or just not write the paper at all oh just don't

do anything i mean just um and it was really weird because um i wasn't like the kind of kid that would like binge drink or like, I didn't have, um, things that would have kept me, you know what I mean? Uh, I guess a way, like I just,

I wasn't that sort of kid. I was social enough. I wasn't anti-social. I went, you know, to parties and everything, but I wasn't the sort of kid that, you know,

partied every night. And so therefore, you know, I didn't, I wasn't me. I just, I was so happy to be out in the world it sounds like you spent a lot of time in the library i spent a ton of time i saw that cbs morning thing you did that

actually that was really good um but they were talking about you going through the cards and i would read like literally everything we almost like homeschooled uh i was homeschooling myself at that point basically but it was great it was like you know i could assign myself i could you know all the questions that i had about the world i was now free to go and pursue them and that was just if they had given me a place to live and you know just said listen next four years you just do what you do oh my god but that's what i tried to make it into. Yeah. You know, as much as possible. There was stuff in the book that, the new book, that I identified with. Because I thought, even though we had totally different paths and we read about different things, but like, we both hit rock bottom.

We hit a point where we were like, wow, I love writing. I guess I'm not going to get paid to do this. What was your rock bottom? My rock bottom was mid-90s. It was like before i started my own uh my own sports site basically but i couldn't break into the newspapers i want to have a sports column i couldn't get one and i ended up bartending i didn't write for a year the entire basically the entire 1996 i didn't write anything and i was just a bartender i was like i guess this is what i'm

gonna be you know people complain about like the lack of gatekeepers today yeah but they forget like how hard it was to break in was way worse than the 90s yeah no it was terrible it was it was absolutely i mean i remember it was absolutely terrible and it was not a meritocratic system in any sense at all no you had unions and you had if once somebody got the job they kept the job and that was it and he sat there he sat there boy we had in Boston

we had two newspapers we had a weekly and we had a magazine yeah that was it if you didn't write for one of those four things where was I writing so the Phoenix

yeah the Phoenix Herald Globe Boston Magazine you didn't catch one at the Phoenix I did yeah yeah okay because it seems like you would I did

I had a sports column there for six months and my editor changed new editor comes in. I don't like sports. I'm out. Oh, my God. Yeah.

It was tough. But that's the thing. I think it's better now, but other things are worse now. Right. I mean, you can get discovered faster, but that's also not a good thing. And that's a problem. Because the thing of you got discovered when you were 24. Would you have been ready?

No, no. It would have been terrible. It would have been terrible. You're exactly right. Yes. So I actually think it's you know it's you know i actually think it's a little bit from a talent-based perspective meritocratic um i think it's significantly harder to develop skills than it was in the 90s weirdly

enough you know um well you know in your book you were you were basically saying i liked how because i feel the same way i think most writers hate everything they wrote up until a certain point. And you were looking at these first three pieces. You were like, I didn't really like this. I screwed this up. I did this wrong. And then you were like, this one, I actually, this one's all right. I actually like this one.

Yeah, I'm getting there. It starts to turn around a little bit. But think about that. You're like 40 at that point, or 39, or 38, whatever. You're right. So those pieces actually start when I'm about 32, 33 years old. But been writing since i was 21 like professionally since i was 21 so it's about 12 years of journalism yeah but for that that my god if i had to look at that oof i mean we actually for a brief moment considered okay how far back could we go like what if we went all the

way back because you oh man yeah like when i, man. Yeah, like to when I was, you know. Wouldn't it be recognizable? No. I've seen some of that stuff, and it just, I don't know. It's not that I don't feel like I'm the same writer. I've seen my college stuff, and it's just like, whoa. I told it. It's so far away. Obviously, we've had a lot of people at Grantland and at The Ringer that are different age groups,

but a lot of young people. Yeah. And I always tell them, you're really not going to be the writer that you think you're going to be or that you think you are right now until you're like 37, 38. That's right.

And like, you know, like Rembert, for example, who I know you know a little bit from Graylin. And when he took off for us, he was like 25. Yeah. And, you know, we would go out and be like, you're not even close to the, you got to understand, like you're not even close to the you gotta understand like you're not even close to who you're gonna be yeah it's true you're gonna be 37 and look back and be like oh man why did i do that why did i do this yeah and i don't think a lot of people

realize that and i think it's it's hard when you get a lot thrown at you as a writer in your 20s i would have handled that poorly i would have too i mean i got a lot thrown at me when Between the World and Me came out and I was 39 going on 40 when that and that was a serious adjustment like I could not be the same person at all and I couldn't understand it for the first

few months I didn't like understand what was happening or why it was happening I didn't understand why people were reacting differently and then once I figured it out having to actually what was happening or why it was happening i understand what people were reacting differently and then once i figured it out having to actually make the change i mean it um you know what it gave me immense immense respect for say somebody like kevin garnett right right you know what i mean who comes from a place where you know you don't have much money somebody suddenly makes you a multimillionaire, right?

You have to perform at this really, really high level. People are always, always looking at you. People are trying to hustle you, trying to get things out of you. And you have to somehow mind your way and mind your talent and make your way through that and not end up back where you came from, which is a thing that can happen. Yeah.

You know, I totally could see it at that point. I understood so much, you know, just about, I thought a lot about professional athletes and entertainers at that point. Yeah, musicians, I think, even have it. That's even more dangerous. Like Kanye now, you think Kanye was like 60 years old. I think he's only 40. Yeah, man, oh, man.

Didn't he just turn 40? I think he just turned 40. He's had like three lives already. Yeah, I know. And I used to be really, really hard on Kanye and I understand what was going on with Kanye and I get it now, boy. I get it now. Because if you get that

level of fame and relative wealth and you don't have... I mean, it's going to be hard anyway. But if you don't have a support system... I mean, I look at LeBron. Lebron's miraculous man i mean he really is and i don't think people like get it like that he actually has handled all this you know in the way that he's it doesn't mean he's perfect but that he's not completely insane yeah his biggest scandal was that he just did this live show where he picked another team right yes exactly yes, exactly. That's the worst thing LeBron's ever did.

That's the worst thing he's ever done. That's the worst thing LeBron has ever done. Did a dumb tall guy special. Right, right, right, right. But they don't understand how easy it would be to do so much worse things. So in the book you were writing about when things really started to shift for you

and how hard that was, which I obviously identify with for different reasons. But I think two things change. One is you're the same, but everybody around you changes. That's exactly it. Which I think is a really hard thing to explain to somebody. You're the exact same person you were two weeks before. Yes.

And I can imagine if you're some actor who's never been in anything and all of a sudden you're in this movie that blows up, and now everybody's kissing your ass, and you're PR people, and you're getting offered this, that, the other thing. Right. I can imagine. You can see why that goes badly a lot of the time. Oh, totally, totally. I talked to my wife about this, and we always joke, like, what happened to me in Between the World to me happened to me when I was in my 20s.

I think I would have 15 kids right now. And not 15 kids. Like I'm out here trying to be that dude. Like I fall in love. Like really. I would have been like this girl. This is the one. This is it.

I want you to have my baby. You know what I mean? Then next year it would have been another one. Then they're over. Like I would have been like out of my head, man man because i kind of was out of my head at that point and then you throw money on that and like then you're you know you're that kind of access you have in the man it would and then if you're an athlete or a musician people telling you how great you are all the time oh my god yes yeah it would be the best yeah no no no it would have been

i i wouldn't have won i mean the cool thing about it happening later was i i think i had a pretty firm idea who i was yeah you know and then i had to as you said adjust the you know folks around me and the changing but like my wife didn't change my son didn't change your friends that you had forever my friends really they didn't really change actually they didn't really change i had you know a couple that did but for the most part it pretty much you know what was the same and so that allowed for a kind of foundation and a base to not go crazy the other thing that changes is being the manager of yourself becomes its own time its own job oh my god all the people that reach out they want to do this they want to do that they're offering this how about this idea you have people in your life you haven't really heard from hey man i was wondering if and that that was

i i was the most surprised by some of that and that's at least you know i was looking like zach low who worked for grandland who could tell at some point like this guy's gonna become the best nba writer yeah and i remember talking to him about that about your life's gonna change it's gonna be you change enjoy this because it's going to be really hard to do this every day because you're going to have all these people emailing you texting you, hey man what's up you're going to feel like you have to get back to them

they're going to want you to do this, that, the other thing and it's just going to be hard to do your job you got to be ready for that no and again like I guess one of the reasons why it was hard for me to process was, I went through this thing at one point, you know, we moved to New York. We lived in Brooklyn.

We lived in this basement apartment. We were, you know, like, really, really broke. And we dreamed of, like, buying, like, a house in this neighborhood, right? Yeah. All these years later, we finally get the money together. I had to between the world and me. It's like, my God, we can actually buy a house. We bought a house.

And like, I remember I was on a plane and I get off the plane. I get a text from my wife and she says, this is really fucked up. And I look and the house is everywhere. The interior of the house, the pictures of it, you know, on all kinds of sites. Somebody has gone. Oh, that you bought the house somebody has gone into my my son's instagram account and like looked at what he was saying they photoshopped me into the house they talked to the realtor you know for the for the seller of the

house it was all there and she was just like that ain't our home anymore like we can't actually live there that's not a home for us anymore and it was like damn man we got to the point where we could do this yeah but we can't do it like we can't we actually can't go back like we actually like we can't do it and if we're gonna do it it's gonna have to be in some way that we at that point you know we're clearly not familiar with yeah you know in terms of how to get it done and i the hard thing to process was i knew like people did stuff like this to like say a george clooney and i'm not saying it's okay but i understood like dude i'm a writer man come on now i write books yeah i write books i'm not you know out here dating supermodels i'm not you know driving expensive cars i'm on the train you know like

anybody else's what like i don't it was like i couldn't process it i couldn't understand why it would happen to a book writer yeah how'd you become a real celebrity yeah what the hell is that no one cares about this i mean you know like when you're writing the hardest thing you have to prepare yourself for is that people probably won't care and so you gotta care like you gotta generate that for yourself it almost has to be a private act you gotta be like you know i don't care if five people read this i'm into it and i want it to exist in the world and you do that and you conquer that problem and you say okay well this is my life it's my life and then what do you do when people like really really start to care yeah you know and so that that that was a serious adjustment you know but on the bright side money money no that's

it sucks to not have no no that's a real that's a very very real thing like when you said in the book how you were in la and you guys had a steak dinner and you ordered all the courses like yeah yeah i mean yeah yeah yeah yeah that it's when you go from you're not sure how what's who's the rent whatever you're paying can we get this can we get this this month too and they say yeah get the steak at least once yeah yeah no we are it does make it all the times you're in front of the computer all those all those days yeah and that was the first time we had ever looked in our account and ever like gotten a check like that right and it's such a funny story well what's what's cool about you know you your career took off but you were also like you were doing

that blog in the atlantic which i remember from way back and you were just all the way in on it i was and you're writing on the time you had this line in the book about how you kind of worry about you know i agree with you about when you're writing every day like that it is like boxing you're like you're ready you're ready as far as anybody that's right and if you're not doing that every day your chops can start slipping a little bit that's true i know what happened with me i know i'm sure i'm sure i lost something i'm sure i lost something by backing away from that and um it was it was it was tough it was the problem is being able to stop and start. If you're writing every day, you can be like, it's nine o'clock.

I'm going to go. I'm going to bang out some words. That's right. If you don't write for a week, it's like, uh-oh. That's right. And I do. I still write pretty regularly, but it's not the same as writing those pieces and being in interaction. It was interesting because we had this, me and my editor, Chris Jackson, we had this whole conversation about whether to talk about money in the book.

Like, whether to be like. Yeah. And how much to actually talk about personal life changes. You know what I mean? Yeah, but part of the reason you succeeded was because you stayed genuine. And it would be hard not to discuss some of that stuff. How do you not talk about that and say this is like. But you don't want to, I don't know.

I think like we feel like there's certain things that are indecent to speak about publicly. I agree. You know, but one of the big obstacles for people that want to write is lack of money. You know, I mean, that's a huge. Especially now. Yeah, especially now. Especially now. You know, it was always such a huge barrier of, you know i remember i wanted to get into magazines and at that time i don't think now but all of the magazines

i wanted to write for when i was in college and coming out of college you had to do a free internship in other words you you worked and you weren't paid yeah you moved to new york and you were not and who would have the money to move to new york and work for free you know but that was a thing that people did you know what I mean to get in the Condé Nast New York Esquire GQ places like that and it was such a barrier you know what I mean it was such a barrier so to go from that and to go from struggling with it to like and I but I'm telling you like in an instant for it to like flip yeah I mean you go through some mental gymnastics seriously you really do well I would But I'm telling you, in an instant, flip. Yeah.

I mean, you go through some mental gymnastics, seriously. You really do. I would say the other weird one is all of a sudden Obama's reaching out to you. Hey, why don't you come down to the White House and we'll have lunch and talk about some of this stuff. Because you've been mostly positive about him, but you've been critical about some things. Yeah, and he don't reach out about the positive, the critical things that he wants to talk about. He's like, hey, dude, so that thing you said. Yeah, yeah, thing you said yeah yeah he's ready to uh no he wants to have a fight about it yeah he likes to fight about the stuff you know he likes to argue about it you know and um well he he didn't have that many people criticizing him in a genuine way it was either people who were

all in or people who were all the way out there wasn't anybody in the middle like really yeah no i think in other areas there were but i think from that i mean not in the ones you were talking about yes yes from black writers i mean it was always kind of muddled like are you doing this because you got something you laundering with him or some sort of thing that happened or are you doing this because you actually legitimately have a disagreement. And I think he sensed, even if he thought my beef was off, that it was a sincerely hell beef. Do you ever make him swing around to your side or anything? I don't think so.

I was going to say, I'm a bit surprised. You know, the closest I got was the conversation we had about reparations. Yeah. Where he admitted that, yes, logically, yes, there is a case here. You're not crazy for thinking there's logic. Yeah. And then he went to a case, an anti-position that was based on practicality, but was not based on whether someone was owed or not. Yeah.

So that was the closest. That sounds like that would have been a good podcast. Yeah, I got the tapes. You and Obama. Yeah. You know, so that was the closest, but I don't think so. That sounds like that would have been a good podcast. Yeah, I got the tapes. We had the tapes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, we got like four hours of tapes with them.

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with him was during during the ferguson time i'm not i'm not saying i'm swinging left right any of that stuff like i really i liked reagan even though you go back now and some of the stuff Reagan did. But I still stand by the Reagan presidency for the most part. God, that dude was the devil when I was a kid. No, I know. That's what I mean. I didn't know any better. I was 15.

It was like, this guy loves America. I'm in. It was like the Rocky IV era. But with Obama, I really did think I thought it came from a genuine place and I thought his family was kind of a family that we needed as a country which you've written about

it was kind of the Cosby family for our generation I love these guys I know their daughters but Ferguson I felt like he sat it out and it really bothered me and I felt like we really needed him those specific three weeks we needed something from him. And it was heading near the end of his presidency. And he didn't do it.

Why do you think he didn't do it? All right. So I'm actually going to defend Obama on this. Please, let's do it. We had Ferguson. Hey, the first thing is, Ferguson was after a series of things had happened. Yeah. And I have a distinct memory of him being asked to,

you know, talk, speak to this. And like, there were fires in Ferguson at that point. I think like the media was doing split screens and he had, if this was, I don't know,

year six, seven, eight, I don't remember repeatedly tried to explain after trayvon martin for instance like when trayvon martin happened and after the verdict it happened skip gates he repeatedly tried to explain to the country what the frustrations were from african americans in a way that would be most palatable to you know the broader country that had elected him. And he got shit on. Yeah, and then at a certain point, it's like, listen, man,

I've tried to tell you this like seven times. Yeah. Like, what is the, I don't have the different, I remember watching him thinking, boy, he looks tired. You know what I mean? And I would be too. Like, I don't, like, it's like, how many ways can I say, listen, this is a real thing that people are upset about.

So that's my first defense. But the second defense is that he actually did do something. And what he did was he appointed an attorney general in Eric Holder who went down to Ferguson and A, investigated the actual killing and figured out that it had not happened as a lot of protesters did and was brave enough to say that, but did not stop there, actually investigated the police department and revealed that the city of Ferguson was basically running like a kleptocracy and they were using the police department to rob the community. And that was the reason why this killing had turned into this huge thing because they had this laundry list of abuses. Even if that particular killing didn't happen the way they said it did, there was a laundry list of things that made them so skeptical of any sort of official version of the police.

I can't remember a time in my lifetime where the federal government went and investigated a police department in that way. I'm not saying they haven't, but that just stood out to me. And it's exactly the sort of thing that would not happen today. What do you think the country needed from him spiritually from a moment like that i mean now we're nitpicking because the president we have now is the opposite he going and pour gasoline on the fire right right right but um i mean maybe there's nothing he could do when i interviewed him for gq i did feel like he felt like he waited a little too long to really involved. I mean, what was he going to do? I don't know. I don't know what he did.

Like some things like president is not king. He ain't, you know, the Pope. You know, what the basic problem was, is and remains, you have a critical mass of Americans who seem intent when looking away from certain things and he can't make people look if Obama who tried to explain this in a way much much more palatable than I would explain it yeah you know in a way calculated and I'm not you know I think this is the job of a president in a way calculated to you know get people who are not necessarily on his side, not from, you know, the experience that he's talking about to see it. And folks can't see it.

I just, I don't know like that. That is up to him. Yeah, I might. It almost like with an athlete where you think they should add a 40-10-10. Yeah. Right. 32-8-8 or something. But that comparison I think is exactly right.

I think of it more like quarterbacks in the NFL with the notion that the quarterback, like obviously the quarterback has, you know, the most power because the ball's in his hand. But neglecting to understand that the quarterback is working within a broader system. True. You know what I mean? So maybe the answer is nobody could have made that situation feel better i don't think so because i thought out of anyone it could have been him but now you see everything that's happened since then right i'm now i'm talking myself out of this i do i'm not gonna talk myself out of this though what's that do you think he had a responsibility to worry about who the next generation was that came after him?

And do you think he realized that part of his legacy was going to be tied to what happened to his party afterwards? That's a great question. It was almost like if Belichick left the Pats right now, but we had no draft picks left, no what i'm no qb nothing right um but to take that further it would be like if belichick didn't really like the dirty work of like looking at you know tape over you know you know the next draft class or whatever i don't think he liked the work of politics i i think it was like his natural instinct i think is to um find some sort of consensus yeah um i don't think he liked um like being involved with the dnc and doing all the you know the sort of dirty sort of things that you have to do in terms of politics but i bet if he had to do it over again

i bet he would i bet he would have gotten more involved think about his last year he's happy to be out you know i agree with that but think about his last year. He looked like a man that's happy to be out. I agree with that. But think about his last year. All of it was consumed with, how am I going to shape my legacy from when I leave? All the media he did. Basically, all the decisions he made where I now have to frame,

I'm leaving, and here's how I want people to feel about my presidency. And I think the part he didn't realize was, well, wait a second. What if this maniac becomes president? No one thought that was going to happen. Yeah, he didn't see it. I didn't realize was, well, wait a second. What if this maniac becomes president? No one thought that was going to happen. He didn't see it. None of them thought that was not a possibility.

It would be Hillary Clinton or it would be some mainstream Republican. You know, the idea that the unthinkable could actually happen was not, you know, on his radar at all. You know? Yeah. Now I'm depressed. Shouldn't be depressed, man. You know, I told people, I did an event here yesterday

and I always tell people, there's nothing to be depressed about. Life is always a problem. It's always a problem. It's always filled with challenges. It's always filled with things that, you know, are irreconcilable in the moment that can't be, you know, resolved in the moment that can't be you know resolved in the moment that's natural

for the human condition you know i think about my kids are 12 and a half and 10 and it is that this is the first year that i really worried about the future for them i think that's the biggest thing for me that's changed this year other than just waking up in the morning and not knowing what was gonna to be on my Twitter feed. Yeah. Like, oh, no, this happened? Yeah. Yeah, no, you're out of point. It used to be like you'd look at your Twitter feed and be like, did any sports trades happen or whatever?

You know, that was like the most dangerous thing that could happen. Somebody got traded. Yeah, no, it feels existential right now. Like, it feels like you got a dude who, I mean, it doesn't feel like. I mean, you got a guy who you i mean it doesn't feel like i mean you got a guy who is very very little i mean when you're talking about the national intelligence assessment report you know all this intelligent and folks have to like use pictures and graphics because he can't like read right little bullet point memos whoa and. And see, when I read that, I think people that actually really want to do things to the country also see that the president is not here.

Yeah. It's scary. It's scary to know that he's not on it. Yeah, so I understand. And the staff is a concern, too. The staff is a huge concern. Some unqualified peoples, shall we say. Some unqualified peoples, yeah.

Can we talk about sports? Because you never talk about sports. Yeah, a little bit. You know, it's not my expertise. You know, I'm a fan. So, yeah, sure. NFL, NBA, yeah. I want to talk about athletes.

Yeah. Specifically, like, a sport like the NBA. Right. want to talk about athletes and yeah specifically like a sport like the nba right where you had um in the 70s everybody was writing the league's too black all the fans are white this can't work right how do we how do we solve this problem and then the 80s bird of magic show up that's right then the 90s it swings back again right and all of a sudden these guys make too much money right so they i think they're gangsta rappers how do we how do we relate to these guys i'm saying these are all the media

narratives yeah now these guys are gods again right and they're have the most marketable guys i would argue they're more popular than pretty much anyone in any other job yeah you know what's interesting what change what do you think happened i think that so i mean here it is i'm gonna say something hopeful i have to believe the country changed. Because they're not any less... When I think about that 70s era, the league is pretty black right now. It really is.

It's not like they whitewashed the league and that's how it was accomplished. There's more foreigners. That's about it. But there's less white guys. Right, right, right. So what changed? LeBron's a pretty... And a lot of them are actually politically aware. Like, it's weird. Like, they're politically active in a way that, like, I think about, like, in the 90s, how scared, you know, NBA athletes and athletes in general and how allergic they guys, you know what I mean? They are open with it. They'll wear the can't breathe t-shirt. Um, I don't know if the audience got matured or habituated in a way where they decided it was okay. I don't know. And this is actually, I would pose this to you. Does this have anything to do with a stronger union? I mean, what,

what is it that, you know what I mean? Uh, makes it so that you have a population of people who are actually very similar to the population of people in the 70s. But they have much, much more freedom and aren't regarded in the same way. So I think I've thought about this a lot. I think they learn from the previous generation for better or worse. So this generation learned from kind of the LeBron and those guys and Kobe and all these dudes that had figured out kind of how to handle their business. Right. That generation dreamed of being the next Magic.

Right. Magic was like, here's what, I don't want to just be a basketball player, I want to be a businessman. Right. There's a generation that skipped there where you had in the 90s, those guys came in right

out of college right i mean right out of high school or one year out of college and they didn't have the rookie scale yet they just got crazy amounts of money right and they know what to do it was like yeah i'm 20 years old i'm making 20 million dollars a year right and that generation kind of lost its way and the league started to crack down on it right set these guys up to succeed not fail. That started. And now we have this generation that has learned from the LeBron generation. They're coming into the league.

I look at a guy like Jason Tatum on the Celtics. He's 19. He spent eight months at Duke. And the guy carries himself like he's 35 years old. I don't think there were guys like that in the 70s. So I think maybe it starts in AAU and it just pushes through. Maybe they learn from stuff. Maybe the people they idolize are different.

The guys in the 90s, their idols were Dr. Dre and Eazy-E and Biggie and all those guys. Their idols weren't basketball players. The gangster rap era had gone into the league where those were the guys they wanted to be. So now I think it's like the guys they want to be are LeBron and Magic and they make all their decisions accordingly or I'm overthinking it.

I don't know. What do you think? Because Porzingis is wired like this too. Yeah. Where he's a really, he's this guy in the 7'3 Lithuanian, I think he's Latvian on the Knicks and he just gets it yeah he says all the

right things that's so that has to be learned behavior from other players i think you probably and this is just speculating probably were on to something with the whole aau piece which is that maybe now they're institutions that begin at a very young age for better or worse that go all the way up to how to handle your business when you're 14 professionalize and have because you know um it's not like you know um i mean here's the difference between like being an actor right if you once you become a star in the nba it's not the first time people started looking at you you know what i mean they say wow this kid is gonna do x y like you're used to you know that that kind of attention in a certain way you know well think about like twitter so when twitter starts 09 2010 yeah all these players have skeletons from those two years

where they're talking about girls right ripping players stuff like that the guys that are coming the league now have no skeletons they know yeah like dennis smith had one piece about what was what was dennis smith's tweet slinging the wood when he was a kid he's like 15 he's like there's only one thing i like to do and it's slinging that wood and then he gets drafted and apologize if i messed up tweet it was something like that and he gets drafted everybody throws that back in his face and he's probably like oh my god i was 14 i forgot to do that but these guys are just so aware not to make a mistake that maybe that makes them better.

Do you think these guys should be able to come out of high school at this point? Do you think we should go back to that? It's kind of not fair for 18-year-old LeBron not to be able to make money right away. He was 35 when he came out of high school. How does he not get paid? My dream, if I was a sports star, my dream would be to have a committee. And they would basically...

You'd be charged, yeah. It'd be like five people would be like, yeah, you apply. And be like, LeBron, your application's been approved. You should be in the league. Right, right, right. I think we could figure out a way to get the right people in but i don't know how how democratic that is so question i always have is why is college which is exploitative as hell yes like better like why is it better to send that person it's not like college is this benevolent place it's really well you're especially you're seeing it this year right yes you are now you have these guys going for eight

months yeah how they're not in college yeah that's like durant was at texas for eight months he still wears a texas longhorns sweatshirt and cap and it's like you they're eight months come on he feels like he was there for four years right right but i don't know they i think for a lot of these guys they love going it's the first time they've been out of wherever they grew up right in a lot of cases and it's just like this new they're like oh my god this is amazing and they just love it but they bottom line is eight months is eight months yeah you know yeah yeah i mean ben simmons was at lsu for six months he was out of there in like march right right right so i don't know i i would uh the whole college thing's so broken the guys are getting paid anyway i think in a lot of cases

and it's illegal but then when they get caught nobody feels that bad because they were happy people got paid but at the same time it's not a lot of money yeah it's interesting because there's this kind of um moral argument that is increasingly becoming divorced um from the actual rule argument with people you know when you say oh we caught x y and z doing so i just said and it's like come on man yeah you who exploit these guys caught them you know trying to find some way to not be exploited yeah you know um well it's like when they had the adidas louisville thing it as weird as this sounds there are parallels to that with like some of this harvey weinstein stuff where you've heard

the same stories over and over again, but nobody actually wrote them. And Louisville was always, that's an Adidas school. Right. Kids go there, they get Adidas. And this was known. This is known.

Oh yeah. That's the Adidas school that the kids get. This happens and that happens. And you just kind of knew, but nobody ever wrote it. And then all of a sudden people wrote it. Now Rick Pitino doesn't have a job. And the same thing with some of the Weinstein stuff out here.

It'd be like, yeah, Harvey Weinstein. I've heard this, this, this, this, but nobody wrote it you know and now it's like a snowball going down the hill I don't know where it ends I saw One and Done a few months ago

yeah my friend Mora did that oh my god I thought Calipari was just I'm not saying he's a great guy I don't know if he's a great guy or not I thought you were talking about the Ben Simmons one yeah the Calipari one was it called one and done do i have that wrong it was a no you're right it was i got mine mixed up yeah he was so straight up about it yeah he was just listen it's what it is yeah it's what it's and there was a

kid i can't remember the kid's name but the kid uh comes in place with calipari calipari's like you got to go to the pros and he's like i't know. Kid goes to the pros and like within a year or two, he's diagnosed with something that ends his career. But he signed that first contract. You know what I mean? And he actually, you know, was able to put himself in a different position than he would have been. And you think about that kid staying in college, right?

And how he never, like that never would have been a thing that actually happened if he had stayed. You know, so I always think about that with these guys i mean but you know how many um i mean i was watching this this year with um my man down to the texans quarterback uh watson watson yeah how many and i don't know this but how many kids coming out of high school clearly look like you know hey you might do something and they blow out anything in college you know what i mean they blow and i understand there's a body maturity thing that's different you know i mean than say the nba but like they never actually get that shot you know what i mean i mean watching at least you

know i'm you know it's a horrible injury horrific thing that happened cost himself you know undoubtedly you know uh some amount of money but how often in college do you never like it like you don't even enter into the deshaun watson conversation because you know, some amount of money. But how often in college do you never, like, you don't even enter into the Deshaun Watson conversation because, you know, freak injury. Yeah. You know, so I just, I worry about that. And they come from, you know, folks come from communities where, I mean, this is like, you know,

this could be life-changing money. Where do you see football going? Have you followed the CTE concussion stuff? Wow, yeah, yeah. This is bad. Everything's bad. Everything's bad, dude. I mean, this is all bad.

I mean, and I don't think, I mean, I guess many people are. So when Junior Seau died, I stopped watching, actually. Really? Yeah. That was it. The Junior Seau thing hit me hard. I came back, which I'm about to tell you how I came back. But the Junior Seau piece hit me so hard because Junior Seau thing hit me hard. I came back, which I'm about to tell you how I came back.

But the Junior Seau piece hit me so hard because Junior Seau came into the league when I was in high school. I watched him. He played in such a way, like the neighborhoods I came from were valorized, that kind of toughness. And that this dude, you know what I mean? It wasn't even that he had CT. It wasn't even the way he killed himself. That was depressing enough. But I can remember, and I don't know who this was on ESPN. I think I know, but I don't want to say that name.

Not out of fear or anything, because I just don't want to be wrong about the memory of it. And the person said, we will never know what caused Junior Seau to do X-Files. Bullshit. Yeah. Come on, man. Don't lie. You know what I mean? Don't lie. We don't don't lie you know what i mean don't like we know what this is you know i mean like if you i i understand actually the athlete impulse

that says listen i love this so much that if you told me it was going to take 20 years off my life you told me it's gonna make the last x y and z years of my life you know not you know livable inequality i still would do it there's something to be said for saying that when you're 21 you know what i mean i'm making that decision but i get it i get i don't believe that you know long life you know like i believe how you decide to live your life actually has some value and so something being that important to you i get it but i think like in a fair world the deal that those folks like we would recognize that uh and we would say people that give themselves in that sort of way the nfl would say people that give themselves in that sort of way deserve to never have to worry about anything for the rest of their lives so here's the difference

between then and now back then i don't think the guys even knew they're in danger right and they're getting thrown back out like i read this Tony Dorsett story this week where he had this famous 99 yard touchdown run yeah I remember that run against the Vikings yeah so he said in the first half

he got knocked out cold and they put him back in and then he had the run yeah and nowadays he'd be out for three weeks but then they would just throw the guy

hey you ready that's right oh he got dinged up he got his bell rung yeah got his bell rung nowadays we know.

Right. There are more. So my question is, if somebody still wants to play football, how is that different than somebody who wants to be a boxer or an MMA person or a coal miner or anything that's dangerous? It's not. It's not. But I believe, as I would believe in any other form of work, that employers you know um should provide for the safety of of

people i agree um and i believe that there are people who are not millionaires but who are billionaires you know making tons of money off of these folks you know literally bashing their brains in see i'm more worried i i mean not that that what you just said was a good thing but right i'm more worried about youth football because now here are kids that have no idea and all the studies are saying it's so much worse

to have a concussion when you're like before you turn 15 my parents are pulling them right like part one is already you know declining in terms of it is and it isn't

it is and it isn't yeah in certain states you can guess the states that's what's gonna happen Texas, Florida ain't gonna to change. California might not change.

The South probably will not change. Parts of California, no. It's still going to be the same. And they'll be like, no, we made it safer. It's true. But the bottom line is if you have two nine-year-olds colliding at full speed head-to-head, it's probably not great. But I think about it. My daughter plays soccer five times a week and does headers.

And everyone, you know, it's like, is that good? Is there a and everyone you know it's like is that good is there a header that seems like it's fine and then two weeks later she's sees a dark patch out of her red eye you know my son played football when he was a kid yeah when he was really young actually he played from the time he was six until he was nine this was just as say like the andre water stuff was coming out yeah so i didn't really understand at that point. And I had played, you know, at a relatively like, you know, like I played when I was like nine and ten. Yeah. So it just, you know, you want to play football.

OK, you know, this is great. You know, I love football. We'll go do this together. And I think about it now, man. He actually wanted to play in high school. He said, come on, you can't. You got to think. Right.

You got to think. I actually would not have banned him if he had really, really, really, really wanted to play in high school he wanted i said come on you can't like you gotta think right you gotta think i actually would not have banned him if he had really really really really wanted to play i would have said okay you know um but we would have had a serious serious conversation about i get it man because listen as somebody whose kid played it's a beautiful thing not just with your, but with the other families that are there, you know, you're kind of united in a certain way. And I think in a bigger sense, football functions like that, you know, in general for the country. I mean, the years I didn't watch, I just felt like there was like a social fabric that I had had with say a guy who I had never met from any background in America. You understand?

Like any background. And you could talk sports. You could talk football. I didn't come back. So I went away. I lived abroad for a year. And I came back here. And I was on tour.

And I was living out of, like, hotels. And the only thing that was familiar to me, which I had done since I was five years old, was I could cut on a football game. And that was what brought me back. That was actually it was like home it was familiarity it was you know um something to talk about with people who i had nothing else in common with and so what scares me now is like i'm getting this feeling day after day where i just feel when i don't watch, I didn't miss anything. Yeah, that is. I felt that. I watched everything this weekend on Sunday.

Whole day. All I did was watch football. And at the end of it, I was like, I could have missed all of it. Wow. But it went fine. Now, what's that about for you? Well, there's just not that many can't-miss guys in the league anymore. And this Kaepernick thing is just killing it for me.

It's like. Well, I mean, this is. And I was one of the last holdouts because I was like no I get it people don't like when the backup quarterback causes a big commotion and then guys started getting hurt and they still weren't even bringing him in I was like wow he's getting blackballed so what was the point where you thought oh wow no this is like it's clear there's clearly something going on it was in August when it seemed like uh I think it was baltimore was gonna sign him yeah yeah yeah and they kind of needed him i don't know if you've seen joe flacco lately yeah but uh but it made sense and you know i think that the type of franchise that

he would have succeeded as a backup with all the commotion he was going to bring was just a franchise that had their shit together which which Baltimore, I think, does. And you're going to get hit for two weeks. He's going to get a lot of media requests, and then it's going to go away. It's going to go away, right. And most franchises just aren't stable enough to even deal with that. But some are. And Baltimore and Seattle were the two that it seemed like it made sense.

Yeah. And neither of them wanted him. Yeah. And then you hear these... It's not like he was that good. I mean, he was somewhere between a below average starter and a way above average backup right right right but then you watch these dudes down it's like oh my god how is he not so the person you just mentioned the first like a person that's in that category that person should be working in the nfl like

theoretically that person always worked 100 that person worked and so it's just especially like you see houston they're running deshaun Watson. Oh, come on. Come on. Basically the same offense Kaepernick's good at. Come on. And then you see Gus Savage and it's like, I can't in good conscience watch this. Yeah, I was. Like, come on.

Like, I can't actually. I actually think. He's got, he legit got blackballed. But you know what? I think he won. I think people are underestimating how much he actually won. I mean, think about it. This is a guy who doesn't say anything at this point.

He doesn't talk. He doesn't. Nobody knows how to reach him. Nobody knows how to reach him. He's not on the field. Remember when the whole feature matter, because you got in touch with him. Right.

He had to like write about the people around him. Exactly. He's not on the field. He's not doing anything. But his shadow is everywhere. Yeah. Like he's haunting the league. Yeah.

I mean, he just, by by not even you know what i mean oh and they hate him too you're talking about 31 rich old white owners and shotgun the jacksonville guy and these guys are like this guy's hurt our business i hate him how he's not even in your business now like what is he like what is he doing to you right now they blame him as he's like patient x for all the stuff that's so crazy i mean do you know what colin karmannick is doing right now and you actually can notice if you go to his website he's going to cities and giving away money right that's what he's doing yeah but he's not like outside you know stadiums you know what i mean like leading the picket line he's not holding you know press conferences like this dude is not doing anything and yet he's hated is wow do you think he 100%

even wanted to come back or do you think he likes the life he has now as i think he did i have no reason to believe that he didn't come back and i what i do think and i don't know if he reasoned this out was that if he did not come back he could or if he did not get the op like that he was going to win either way yeah either he was going to get the opportunity to play or the fact that he did not come back he could or if he did not get the op like that he was going to win either way yeah either he was going to get the opportunity to play or the fact that he did not get the opportunity to play was going to be huge and was going this is going to be remembered man i mean this is tommy lee this is um not to my mom john carlos and uh tommy smith tommy smith i mean this is you know i think this is ali in v. People are going to look back on this and be like, those guys were completely out their mind.

You know, the NFL owners are going to be the villains. This is, you know, how the story is going to be told. Oh, they're already the villains. Right. You know, one of the things I like about it is that he sat the first week. He might have even sat the second week. But it didn't start as like, I'm getting attention for this. Right, right.

He wasn't like, hey, hey, hey, I just like i'm gonna sit over here and then somebody noticed like why'd you do that and then he explained it right and then it blew up right i i don't know there's a crucial step in that bill when somebody said they said that that's disrespectful and he went and talked to like a vet and said here's a way you can protest and be respectful right and then he started right right, right, right. That was the nail. You know what I mean? And then that somehow has become the ultimate disrespect.

You know what I mean? The flag is, it's one of those things, man. It's a touchstone. Yeah, no, it is. Some people are just, I see, I was wired like this to some degree. Like when I go to a sporting event and you sing the anthem in the fan stand yeah if somebody doesn't take their hat off i actually i want to punch them like i don't wow that much you want no just like what the hell dude take your hat off like show like respect and playing the anthem yeah so i get it hold on what does that mean to you though i don't know it just is

something you do it's a it's a sign of some respect but you're right they did make me question like why did i think that why can't every person make their own decision right on how they the captain i took all this stuff for granted with the way we treat patriotism and sports that the kaepernick flipped on me the kaepernick thing flipped on me yeah yeah it's weird you know because i was raised in a household where we didn't stand. Even for, like, sporting events and that stuff? I have memories of going to see the Orioles play and not staying. That point, that was really weird. And actually, I probably would stay in a day.

And I think if I were... This is going to sound weird. I think, well, at this point, I might would have. But I think if I were in the NFL, I probably would not have been the kind of guy that would have nailed. Maybe at this point, I would have, though, you know, after it became this thing. But the problem is when you talk about this thing, and this is what bothered me about how this unfolded this year, is that then when Trump said this stuff about the owners. See, that's when I got a nail. And then it's like now the owners are on the sidelines.

It's like, what is this becoming? This isn't what Kaepernick was doing. When you talk about inmates, you know, and like you talk about folks about inmates, see, now I got a nail. Now this has become a thing. You know, when Jerry Jones is threatening people, telling people they can't, you know,

they had done my betting, see, now I got a nail. At that point, I feel like that would push me. Or go one step further than kneeling. Or go one step further, which is really the issue. That is the thing because at some point, I feel like, and I want to be careful about this because I think folks are in particular positions and I don't, you know,

want to, you know, be dispensing life advice for people, you know, in their situations, you know, we've got to deal with their families. But at some point somebody is going to say,

listen, I ain't playing, man. I ain't playing. And I guess in some profound way, cap did that. Like, I think he had to be aware of what,

like, I mean, enough people probably told him, listen, think he had to be aware what like I mean enough people probably told him listen this is going to be the consequences like you need to understand what

you're risking here and what you are probably risking is the ability to play again you know yeah there was I think he was

resigned at some point this season or preseason that I'm not getting signed yeah cause like you know

if you look at when Ali when they wouldn't let him fight for all those years Ali was giving speeches in college campuses and trying to arrange fights and right all he was doing was trying to get his title back right and fight for his name and all that and he was obsessed with it right and kaepernick seems a little more beaten yeah which is sad or maybe he's just

celebrating yeah maybe i won i won you know either you're gonna let me play and i'm gonna get to pursue the thing that you know i've been doing since i was a child you know or you're going to be haunted by the fact that you didn't do it you know what i mean um i'm sort of shocked that they like to me like the long play is actually to sign him oh my that's that's the smart thing was saying this. I wrote after week four. I was like, everyone's saying Kaepernick's a distraction. All right, you're the Cincinnati Bengals.

You're 0-2 or 0-3. This is a great distraction. Now nobody's going to be questioning whether you should lose your job as the coach. They're just going to ask Kyle Kaepernick questions for three weeks. I thought he would have been an unbelievable distraction. Arizona should have signed him.

Yeah, you need it. Please, distract me. Yeah, yeah i know your fans are miserable talk about my actual record you know what what was the most surprising athlete that ever reached out to you about a piece or your book or anything uh i'm hesitant to put anybody on blast on blast well not on blast i just i people reach out to you privately and i don't know that they want me to say you know who it is but i have been surprised a few times i have i have been surprised a few times yeah and it's it's good i mean again i came from a generation and you know i relayed this you know to you know this one guy who i talked to quite a bit um who's a lot younger than me and i tell him listen man i was like i came up in the 90s when athletes did

not engage this at all it was the opposite it was a complete opposite you know and so to see folks actually care to see hey I read your book I did x y and z I mean this is not private but to see like you know somebody like Gabrielle Union you know talking about like Dwyane Wade in between the world to me like that was like huge I mean that that meant something yeah you know um I can mention that because it's not like, you know, somebody reached out to you probably about it.

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to activate the offer. You play, you win, you get paid. All right, a little more with Coates. One thing that I'm fascinated by with you is that it seems like you go on music binges as you're writing something. Yeah, I do. With different things.

Like you had like a Marvin Gaye binge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's still going on. So that's what you do? Do you fixate on one something and you're writing something with different things. Like you had like a Marvin Gaye bench. Yeah, it's still going on. So that's what you do. Do you fixate on one something and you're all in on that and that frames how you write it? And you like, what's the reasoning behind that? Whenever I'm working on a piece, I usually pull together like a place of playlist. And I think about like, I think a lot about like when I'm writing, the reporting and the facts are always there.

But I really want an emotional response. And I think about, and music is the thing I come back to over and over again that gives me an emotional, you know, sort of response. And Marvin Kaye, who I've, you know, loved since I was a kid, you know, and my mom playing What's Going On, you know. I think about, like, his ability to use his voice on so many levels and, you know, elicit emotion, you know, like from that, you know, just his straight, you know, sort of normal voice to that kind of falsetto thing he would do just a virtuoso. And when I'm writing, like I try to bring as many tools as I possibly can. Okay. So now I'm in the first person. Now I'm doing, you know, just sort of straight reportage.

Maybe here's some history for you. You know, I try to do that same sort of thing. And so. What's the weirdest musical binge you were on as you were writing something? Probably during the aughts. I got really into like uh boy nobody would expect this i got really into like alternative like i became a huge like yeah yeah yeah fan huge they're having a concert tonight and i'm upset i'm not oh yeah yeah great caro no they're

performing in brooklyn at which you call it that's about i was at tonight like right now it's kind of the great lost band of that whole era yeah no I love them I love them you know so I got you know I still could binge on

yeah yeah yeah I love them you know did you see the Defiant Ones on HBO no no no I didn't

I would urge you to watch that one really okay yeah just not knowing you that well but knowing what seems to

resonate with you it's really good because it's I've watched it I don't know how many times Not knowing you that well, but knowing what seems to resonate with you. It's really good because it's – I've watched it I don't know how many times. I mean, obviously, I've done a lot of documentaries and kind of – I like the art. I like seeing how different people approach it. In this one, they were just – they told Alan Hughes, like, take as long as you want. Here's a lot of money.

And he had this unbelievable library. But it's basically about Dre and Jimmy Iovine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And kind of how they ended up together. And it's basically both of them hit rock bottom, like what we were talking about, and come out of it, which I didn't really realize Dre had rock bottom. I always thought his career arc was a little easier.

Was it when he had to split from Suge? No, when he did The split from Suge no when he when he did The Chronic nobody wanted to buy it he did the whole thing himself and he went to every studio okay

and could not because he's out of NWA and he's not having yeah and it was kind of like an ice cube it ascended him a little bit yeah

and nobody wanted to make the album and then he played it for Jimmy and Jimmy heard it and he was like wow the producing is amazing. He just loved the way it was produced, and that's how they ended up together. You know, the hard thing for me with Dre, who I think is a genius,

and I think we're facing this with a lot of people that we admire these days, is like, I knew about that attack on Dee Bonds. I mean, that was sort of known. They cover that in the documentary. I was actually surprised. Oh, they do? Oh, okay. That makes me want to watch it now.

Yo, they did. Oh, okay. Now I watch it. Yeah, yeah. Because I know a lot of times people don't. They just sort of airbrush it. They went in on that one. It was not airbrushed.

I'm definitely watching it. I'll be interested to see what you think. Okay. All right. No, I'm definitely watching it. Spike did one on Jim Brown years ago. And I watched it expecting him to airbrush jim brown he did not you know he went in on jim brown and his thing

you know like the woman he threw was it like off a balcony yeah it was horrible yeah it was bad it was bad and he didn't let that sit you know he didn't he went at it what'd you think of the OJ documentary? Incredible. I mean, I know Ezra and Ezra was trying to get, when I heard, he was like, listen, he wanted me to be in it. And I was like, I'm not, I don't want to. I don't feel like this is my expertise. I'm not, I can't really talk about this. And then when he got it done, he said, listen, you really, you gotta

see it. You got, you have to see this. And I said, okay, alright. You know, and he sent he might have sent me the whole thing but for one for some reason i only have one episode and i went right through the first episode and i was like i don't have the rest of this like i want to see all of it right now like i mean it was dude that that documentary is incredible it's incredible i mean it's like, it's one of those things where somebody is working in a form and they defy the form.

Like, they do something, it feels like it's beyond what it actually is, you know? It has no right to be as long as it is and hold your attention the way it is. Yeah. Like, it just, it shouldn't be possible to do that. And he did it.

I think about, like,, like there's a scene where OJ is in a Buffalo and he falls down and he gives back up and keeps going. And Ezra like got the music right. Like when OJ would run, like he got like the actual beauty of him running and somehow did not slight any, you know what i mean any other aspect i mean to say and i think this is the conclusion of the documentary to say yes he probably did it and yes the jury got it right like you know you like like the case was bad you know what i mean and that's america that happens in america yeah you know what

i mean yeah you're right this guy did do it we got a lot of evidence that he actually did you know what i mean this guy was a horrible person but this was a bad case and the people that you asked to judge this case had no reason at all to trust the people bringing the case i thought it was tremendous man, if you like moments from documentaries, the Defiant Ones, the first time they show Tupac, it's slow motion. He's coming around the corner

and they're playing So Many Tears. Wow. And it's just like 45 seconds, but it's quiet first. I'm telling you. You got to see this one. Okay, I got to see it. Yeah, you got to bang it out.

It's too long. It gets a little infomercially at times, but it has some of the best segments. So did you feel the out. It's too long. It gets a little infomercial-y at times, but it has some of the best segments. So did you feel that OJ1 was too long? I'm friends with Ezra, so however I answer this, he's going to interpret it, and I'm going to be in trouble for like six months.

Okay. I always feel like documentaries can be tighter. That's my answer. Wow. Yeah. See, when they told me how long was it six hours no it was like

it was like seven and a half okay when they I was like that's ridiculous but when I watched it it was I didn't

there was no moment where I was like I thought I didn't have it I didn't have a lapse I didn't have a moment true

I wouldn't I wouldn't change anything about that doc yeah but I was like to answer that question I'm'm always going to feel like, all right, if we went back into the edit room for another three months, could we make this a tiny bit better?

I don't know. I think you could say that about any documentary. There's always something to take out. Documentaries are like writing. I think that's why I like them so much. Where you'd be like, sometimes you have a 5,000-word word piece but it's not the right length it's like ah what if i take out this this this yeah yeah no i hear you and then he got like the thing for me was when he went to re-interview the cops yeah and i was like oh i see why these people didn't come in

you guys are horrid like you're horrible now like right now in, you're horrible now. Like, right now. In 2015, 18, 16. You're horrible. Yeah. Like, you're just as horrible as you were then. Like, whoa. Yeah, it was a confluence of events. My God. And I was like, do you realize you're on camera? Like, do you realize, like, you're talking right now?

Like, what you're saying? What do you think, what are you writing about these next eight years? I don't know. Thought about it? Yeah, I thought, I think a lot about it it i think um and i've said this before um i watched um you think you could do more features potentially would you do more profiles or you're now you have your lane you're no no i don't have i definitely don't have my lane um i think like i think a lot about fictional storytelling because um i watched this really beautiful incredible incredible one of the best films i've ever seen um film yesterday

by avid duvernay middle of nowhere about a woman whose man is locked up in the attempt to keep the relationship together and it may it said so many of the things that I think I try to say in my more aggressive, declarative work and said them very, very quietly, which you can do in fiction. You can do, I mean, I'm writing comic books now and it's a similar thing where you can,

the political statements can be underneath of the story. And I'm, weirdly enough, more of a story guy than an idea guy. I'm forced enough more of a story guy than an idea guy. I'm forced to be that way because I write for the Atlantic so I have to I'm forced to be the way where I put the idea on top but I'm attracted and maybe this doesn't have to be fictional but

you know what in a weird way I'm tired of fighting with people. I feel like I know I'm kind of sick of hearing myself cite the same stats about the same thing cite the same history like when john kelly had the slavery thing you're like all right i'll put on the boxing gloves i know and it was like all right i'll make it really was against some tomato can right like it was, it was like, fight this dude. You know, see, it's dangerous when you're no longer challenging yourself.

Yes. It's dangerous when you're putting, you know what I mean? Like, you really are setting yourself up. And I feel like I am entering the, like, I'm getting close. I don't know if I'm there yet, but I'm getting close. Wasn't this the plot of Rocky III? Maybe you need a Clubber Lang. Maybe you need a younger you. A Clubber Lang.

Yeah, you need somebody on the way up oh who's that guy yeah but it's more like i i feel like to do that as a writer like you need to go do something different like you actually you know i talked to my and this is scary man i talked to my wife yesterday after i watched middle of nowhere and i said you know what i realized that like in the kind of journalism i'm doing boy this is i can't believe I'm going to publicly say this I'm just not as scared as I used to be

I used to be scared of the work I used to be scared of like when I had to do the case for our race I was scared can I put this together can I actually I got this picture in my head for how this should look and I'm scared like I'm challenged and I don't I gotta tell you I don't feel challenged in the same way.

Because you know you could do it. You just got to roll your sleeves up and do it. That's right. That's right. That's right. John Kelly, more of a challenge. No, wait. I could have done that.

I did that at like 4 a.m. in my underwear. Yeah. Like, I really, you should look at like the timestamp on Twitter. It was like 5 a.m. Oh, John Kelly. All right. Yeah, it was like, okay, let's go. All right, let's do it.

Let's do it. But it's like, I shouldn't, I got to get 5 a.m. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, it was like, okay, let's go. All right, let's do it. Let's do it. But it's like, I shouldn't, I gotta get out of this because it won't end well for me. I forgot to ask you about one pop culture thing about, because I saw in something you had,

you talked about Rocky and how that movie wasn't for you. And that was like, I really like Spike Lee's basketball book that he wrote like 20 years ago. It's called Best Seat in the House. He wrote it with Ralph Wiley. Goes in a whole bunch of different directions.

It's got some flaws, but he has this takedown of Hoosiers, which was my favorite movie at the time, that ruined the movie for me. Wow, really? I still love it. I watch it every year. I saw Hoosiers when I was like 10. I haven't rewatched it since. Well, he's basically like Hoosiers, a bunch of white kids,

and they play the much superior black athletic team at the end is that what happens is that who's just but then the team they have the stupid coach and they screw up and the white team

wins at the end he's like fuck that movie and I was like oh oh like I don't have a response like

and it was the same thing with Rocky like Rocky oh he's gonna be the black champ and then here comes Cumberland now he's a

but it did seem like that was a sports movie trope for a while now it's flipped the first one Like, Rocky, oh, he's going to be the black champ. And then here comes Cumberland. Now he's a black champ. Right, right, right, right, right. But it did seem like that was a sports movie trope for a while. Now it's flipped. The first one was a great movie. Rocky I. Oh, Rocky I. It's one of the all-timers. Oh, my God.

It's just gorgeous. It's a little slow now, though, is the only thing I would say. See, I like the slowness. It's slow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you like the slowness, Rocky I, man. But it's like, I'm not watching a fight film. Like, this guy just happens to be a fighter. like i'm not watching a fight film like this guy

just happens to be a fighter but i'm actually watching a character study of this guy yeah that that's what i'm doing you know what i mean i i but it's a classic after i saw creed i was like oh i mean creed was just just blew me the hell away i mean i just i it would not have occurred to me that that would work and you know it's funny creed has become i i saw michael b jordan recently we were talking about it creed has become the rocky for like the under 30 generation it's like their sports movie right right it's like the first one that was made for them right but if you're black it's your rocky too yeah yeah basically yeah you know what i mean like creed is your rocky you know but i

thought like he was gonna go with the sort of stereotypical trolls i thought he's gonna get a kid this kid's in the ghetto he's fighting his way but it was more interesting to say no you actually what are you fighting for man right what do you really you're not one of these guys who has to do it so what well you know what else happened they they they got like one of the best under 40 filmmakers on the planet oh no, no, he's ridiculous. And he actually crafted a movie. He did. And it was a movie

that also happened to be about sports. It wasn't a sports movie. No, that's a great point. That's why it was special. And that's why he's not directing the second one. No, he's not. Yeah, I've heard. Sly Stallone supposedly is doing it,

but it just makes me nervous because the reason Creed was incredible was how it was directed and acted. It makes me way nervous I think we're out of sports movie ideas for the most part until they remake Fast Break

which was the most politically incorrect sports movie is there a great one like before like in that same time period of Creed is there a great one

that I need to see no no because now what's happened to some degree I think, is documentaries have taken the corner. Right.

And some things are just better as documentaries. Right. But they make boxing movies every year. Yeah, they do. Every actor wants to be in a boxing movie, so they always have those. But when was the last great basketball movie? How can there be all of this tension with colleges and college sports and then not be like great movies about that every year?

It just seems so ripe for storytelling. You know what's funny? Like Blue Chips and The Program, which were not good movies. People loved those movies. The Program, which was a college football movie, James Caan. The quarterback in the movie is like 38 in real life. Nobody even looks like a football player. And that's on cable all the time

yeah but you're right like Varsity Blues is another one these high school college things that's sitting there for somebody

and nobody can put it together yeah I was wondering like my favorite show growing up out of like my favorite show still is The White Shadow

which only lasted three seasons the third season was terrible so really it only had I don't know 30 episodes but i always thought that idea could work friday night lights yeah the guy the coach in the high school like trying to make people that idea should just exist every year yeah no it should

it should it just seems like it's a natural place for drama like why is there not a a wire for instance about like college football right now it seems like there should be why is there not a wire, for instance, about, like, college football right now? It seems like there should be. Why is there not a wire? Why is there not a wire? That's the better question. It's been 10 years. It has been 10 years.

My friend Jonathan Abrams, who worked with me at Grantland, is doing the wire oral history that I think has a chance to be special. But you're a Baltimore guy. You don't really, I didn't really, did you write about the wire? I never. Not too much. I Googled it. I looked looked for i wrote a few things for the atlantic but by also by the time i started writing for the atlantic they probably was kind of done four they probably were at season four that was the best season that was my favorite i'm about to cause a fight let's have a fight right now we can end it on this season two is the best season of the wire oh no but none oh my. It's not even a debate.

Now I feel like... It's indisputably. Now I feel like Coates with John Kelly walking in the ring. Season two is so not the best season. It's the best season of the wire. Season four is the best season of TV ever. Season four is not even... Season four, the second best. Season four probably is the second best season.

It goes two, four, one, three, five. See, everybody's down on five, and five has now become underrated because everybody gets mad about the newspaper yeah the season for that the series finale of the wire i will stand by and ride to death the problem with five for me and i like let's be stipulated we're talking about the wire yeah so anybody that starts with the problem with and you're talking about the wire it's a mount restmore show right it's on the same i just felt like they i don't know what new was said at that point like i felt like they knew and you watch mcnulty tumble back but okay i already know who mcnulty is i don't need to see him go back i know i got it i got it like i i i know you know what i mean so you thought it could have ended at four and then done like a movie

because before he comes back right yeah that shit I didn't think that was going to end well I didn't think I don't like

my mind McNulty does not come back and they ride off into the sunset McNulty I know who McNulty is he wasn't going to be the mayor of Baltimore

no that wasn't going to happen at all that wasn't going to happen maybe you're right maybe I got it let me make the case for two right off the bat please

it's an unwinnable case but I want to hear it that's what you think that's what everyone thinks but everyone is wrong here's why this is what people forget season one you get drugs in Baltimore and you get it's not stereotypical but the image of these black drug dealers is well within the the imagination it's done really really well that's not a shot at it yeah it's done really really really well season two he's like oh you thought this was some black shit fair no it's not yeah i mean it's just quietly it just flips this is no no no this is this is baltimore man and as a person that grew up in baltimore i knew they were poor white people in baltimore i knew they were working class white people who had these problems you didn't you know see them in the same way but to say no no

this ain't just black folks this is the system at large and it's eating at everything yeah i just thought that like i mean was that something you saw like white drug dealers white urban drug dealers when is that is there a character like ziggy on like i've never seen that i've never seen anything like that it needed season two the series as a whole desperately needed season two to exist it was a tremendous act of courage so i just feel like from an ambition perspective like to say like what was selling that like like come on you started with these cast of characters and now you're saying you're to completely flip it and put them on the back burner, and you're going to have white drug dealers?

Yeah. And shipping. And shipping. Right, and shipping. That's what this is going to be about. Right, and docs, and intricacies of the shipping business. Yeah, can I only imagine the notes from HBO for that one? Oh, Bob.

Yeah. The only thing I can- Those charismatic black characters, can we bring those back? The only thing I can think is that they were making so, like, the ratings were so low but that gave them the shield to say okay just let it happen go for it do whatever you want it's not like we're banking on you anyway were you uh were you an avon guy or marlo guy oh avon by far okay i'm sorry about marlo i i couldn't i feel like they didn't um maybe this was an intentional creative choice I didn't get enough from Marlo to get into him

like I wanted to I think it was an intentional choice yeah yeah yeah right now I'm getting excited to just re-watch the entire thing I still stand by

this series finale though I'm telling you I don't even remember it at this point that's the thing everyone's just like yeah season 5 and they throw it off

because of the reporter Scott Templeton he's staging the whatever get him out of here yeah that was tough maybe we can do what you call it didn't he made that uh he made spotlight he's a real dude yeah he made spotlight which is a great film oh yeah oh my god that's a great film so i don't want to disrespect him in any sort of way i mean that's that's a real i have hopes for uh people are talking to me in this washington post film about uh watergate oh this is the thing

that's happening all the president's men spotlightlight, now that Spielberg did it, Tom Hanks. It's basically about what The Washington Post was like during Watergate. When's it coming out? December. Okay. Spotlight's incredible. The journalism movies are always like, if they do them right, those are always phenomenal.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I still stand by Shattered Glass. You know, it's a lot. Well, I guess that's a magazine, but that's a- It's so funny. I just watched that movie three weeks ago. It's phenomenal. It's really good. I totally watched that movie three weeks ago. It's phenomenal. It's really good.

I totally forgot. It's really good. It's really good. It put you on edge the whole time. Yeah, yeah. And Christian's good. Yeah, he is. And it's like the weird thing about Shattered Glass is you almost don't want him to get caught.

Like they put you in his scene. It's like, oh my God, he's going to get caught. It's like Heat where you start rooting for De Niro. Right, right, right. Exactly. Or any movie where you rooting for the bankrupt. Yeah, Shatterglass can never happen now because we have Google. People Google in three minutes.

They're like, wait a second. Yeah, no, it couldn't. Wait, what's this company? It couldn't. No, that's mid-90s, man. It's a different thing. All right, Ta-Nehisi Coates. This is fun.

This is different than most things you do, right? You said what? This is a different interview than most? I mean, it's you, man. So, of course. I knew that. I just wanted to make sure. No, no, I knew it was going to be. You know, you're in the circuit. Yeah, Greg over here didn't need my public. He didn't I mean, it's you, man. So, of course. I knew that. I just wanted to make sure. No, no. I knew it was going to be.

You know, you're in the circuit. Yeah. Greg over here didn't need my public. He didn't have to sell me on this, man. He just said, Bill Simmons is going to say, We can talk about 80s Nike posters maybe next time.

Next time. Next time. You said your favorite was Iceman with the ice cubes. Iceman. I got to find that one. That Iceman one is the one. It's a good one.

Yeah. It's the hardest one to find. Is it really? Yeah. So, people, it's known to be a good one people love it I may or may not have

an autographed one in my house wow yeah Gervin the Iceman yeah one of my favorites yeah

alright good luck with the book thank you thanks man thank you thanks again to Ta-Nehisi Coates thanks to SeatGeek use offer code BSMNBA for $20 off your first NBA purchase

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Never go to the post office again. We are back on Friday with a brand-new episode of the BS Podcast, and also we'll have a new column on the ringer.com. I read about MBA this week, thinking about it. It's been almost a month. I have some MBA thoughts building up. Until then, the BS Podcast. On the wayside On the first of November I don't have to ever