The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Hour 1: Blowed Out (feat. Jeff Pearlman and Leon Cote)

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

"Was there any part of you that was like 'it's Nebraska though, can you just send me a PDF?'" Jeff Pearlman joins us to talk about his new book Only God Can Judge Me: The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur and walks us through his incredibly thorough process in writing the book. He shares a story that is an absolute must listen and might be the early leader in the clubhouse for Best Story in next year's Suey's. We also revisit Emmitt Smith's eventful tenure on Monday Night football, Amin forms a new character, and we have this week's Boost Mobile Boldest Take hotline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and get you all set up on Boost Mobile within minutes. No hassle. Visit BoostMobile.com to get started. Delivery available for select devices purchased at BoostMobile.com. apply. This is the Dan Levatore show with the Stucats podcast. Jeff Perlman is always exhaustive when he does his book writing. He talks to tons and tons of people and I don't know if he's ever talked to more than you will find his new book. Only God can judge me the many lives of Tupac Shakur. I also enjoy his work in and around all things

sports. Check out his YouTube offerings. He's a great storyteller. and I want to talk to him a little bit about sports before we get into his book. So how nostalgic were you last night on the basketball, NBA on NBC, and more specifically, were you expecting anything from Michael Jordan other than a stiff one-hour interview that they will cut up all season? Because an hour of the goats time is something that you will just sprinkle over this and many other seasons, I suppose. How dare you? How dare you speak of him that way? Don't you, wait, Dan, don't you think we've learned through years and years and decades and decades that legends it just doesn't work when they sit before might?

Like, it just doesn't work. Never, ever, ever, with almost with rare exception, works. Wait, do you disagree? Like, I actually thought for the beginning, Michael Jordan, this can't possibly work. No, let me think for a second. Who has been the greatest of the athletes that has actually transitioned into broadcasting, who was excellent? Athletes or coaches, Nick Saban's doing a bang-up job without the gift of charisma. Gretzky's fine with hockey.

No, he was bad at first. He's got a lot better. Michael Jordan's been awesome so far. This Jordan thing has been cool. Insights into excellence. There were very few of them. There was just a story about making a free throw. And Bill Simmons was like, I don't care what you call it.

I don't care that he's not talking about the game. This was clearly taped like months ago. I'm good. Just keep talking. Okay, so he can be loving him that way, and I could love it slightly less as somebody who wants broadcasters to be good at broadcast. He is. He's not a broadcaster.

He's not a broadcaster. Literally. Like, Torrico's a broadcaster. He's not there to be the goat. He has to live up to this image. The goat. The people have built up to Bill Ryder and his whole family. Exactly right.

Such a dumb shit. Damn. I remember when I was a kid and they used to have a Monday night football. I used to always cycle in former athletes to be the people on Monday night football. And do you guys remember when Emmett Smith had a season on Monday night football? Oh, yes. He got blowed up. The Rice of Passage.

Who could forget? It got blown out. Got blowed out. That was not good. Yeah. What can you do? They're just, it's just not meant to be. Great athletes are so great.

They can't talk about what they're great about at is almost like the disease of it all. Did you get nostalgic last night at all? No, honestly God, just being totally honest. I've mainly been focused on promoting this book as it came out yesterday. So I wasn't as tuned in as I wanted to be. I was just checking on my phone. Jeff, you're a great writer. I've read many of your sports books.

What led you to want to do a book about Tupac as far away from sports as possible? You know, this is got, it's going to sound weird. When I was a kid, Garth Brooks wrote a, had a rock album. I'm not even a Garthburgs fan, but he did a rock album called The Greatest Hits of Christopher Gaines. And it was terrible, and everyone killed it.

It wasn't terrible, but everyone killed him for it. And I always admired the fact that he tried something way outside the box. And I've always thought about that, just trying things. I love Tupac. I've always been fascinated by Tupac. I feel like there hasn't been a great, great Tupac book. And I just decided if no one else is going to write it,

why not a sports writer? So I just kind of gave the shot. The name of the book is only God can judge me the many lives of Tupac Shakur, Before we get to that, let's just play the montage that Jeff Perlman is talking about when he remembers that Emmett Smith said that someone got blowed out. Blowed out. Well, boom, when you talk about Humble Pie, you hear the Patriots promote Humble Pie,

and they have promoted Humble Pie all year long. A slice of that Humble Pie is having the ability to have a short-term memory, which means don't worry about the game we just won or the team that we just blew out. A blown out. Let's think about what we need to do going forward. And they had blown out. All he has done is led his team to nine road wins. He has his team in the position right now.

If they win today, they can possibly go into the Super Bowl and make an appearance there. Frank, go ahead. 13 carries now. 13 carries for 72 yards. Now, the reason why he didn't get any more is because you didn't get enough first down. It is an L-Cool JJ shot. That's what you were said about help back. That's the safety.

I tell you what, they better get their minds right because they will be on the cover of an insane magazine. This kind of inconsistency play going up against a team like New England will get you completely blowed out. The Rams are not very good. Eli Manning has been given the rights of passes. The Patriots defense was one of the weakest links of the team. But what happened to the night, the strength of the Patriots team got debacleed.

Blow it out. You never want to be on the cover of Insane Magazine. It got debacle. I love Insane magazine. Longtime subscriber. Jeff should write a book. about Elkoal JJ. What do you, when you go into Tupac's life, what are you expecting, Jeff?

And how were you surprised in ways that, you know, the reader might be surprised by? Wait, Dan, I just have to say because you played that clip, around the time Emmett Smith was on Monday Night Football, I appeared with him on an ESPN segment because I had a book come out about the 90s Cowboys. And he actually kind of lit into me about the book. And this was in the middle of him doing Monday Night Football. night football and I had so much ammunition that I could have pulled out that I actually was running through my head and I just said okay like I held back and I want to thank you guys all of you

won it all for playing that I know you didn't do it on my behalf but that was a beautiful moment for me and my family so you walked away from the exchange from an angry Emmett smith and you've been haunted all these years later that you weren't able to say the things you meant to as comebacks I'm just going to tell you that promoting a book is very stressful and that may have been the salt bath that I needed right there so thank you for taking me to the spa and giving me. Why is it stressful if you're, you've poured so much work into this. You're getting all the applause. You're getting to talk with great facility about subject matter that you know better than just about anybody. Why is it stressful? Number one, you don't know if the

book is going to sell. Number two, to be honest with you, it is way outside my comfort zone as far as I know how to promote a sports book. I know how to come on the different sports shows, but I don't, I don't have inroads in hip-hop. I don't have inroads in rap. There are a lot of hip-hop outlets, podcasts, et cetera, that you need to promote a book on. And I, it's just, it's a lot harder than promoting a sports book for me. I'm just being honest, it's a lot harder than promoting. Well, I heard you the other day on a hip-hop station, and I don't know how much resistance you're being met with when you write a warts and all Tupac book, and you're walking

into a lot of black environments as somebody who's the white guy. There's a lot of, the term is a culture vulture. That's what you get a lot of. Oh, here comes a culture for a lot. And then you just have to show your knowledge on the subject. which I've really been trying to do and show how much work you put in. You know, why is a white guy writing this book?

I understand actually that question. I think it's a fair question. But I think you have to show your research and so, look, I wrote this book because I wanted someone to write a great, great, great deep dive, look into his life, go to Marin City, knock on his apartment door, go to Baltimore, knock on the door of his row house,

meet all his neighbors, interview all his old classmates, that kind of book. So I've been fighting, and I think it's been going okay. Jeff, on that note, I saw a video you posted, I don't know when you posted, I saw it last night, though, where you talked about getting death threats about this. And, you know, beyond kind of just talking about that side of it, you also talked about the role of journalism, actual journalism, doing what you just described,

going to his childhood home in Baltimore, going to his childhood home in Marin City. And right now I've been working with Pablo Toro on this whole Kwai Leonard aspiration story. And even my friends don't understand. there's a difference between hey this is happening now we're all opining which is what sports journalism is now today for the most part for the consumer versus what you're doing what Pablo is doing which is no I'm finding out stuff that nobody would have found out for if not for my work how do you get that message across the people without sounding egotistical I guess it's not even a matter of it's a great question it's not even a matter of ego I swear to God it's a matter

of everyone digest things now in 20 second clips so everything you say is cut down to 20-second clips, throwing on Instagram, TikTok, whatever your choice, and there's no elaboration. And nobody wants elaboration. So they may see some little tiny clip of me saying something about Tupac. Tupac wasn't very good at fighting. Let's say that's a clip, right?

And whoa, how could you possibly say that about Tupac? How can you say that about Puck? But you don't hear the lead up who I talk to or the lead down, who I know. And that stuff is like, I've never promoted a book in this world, actually, where everything is digested in small quantities. I think Pablo's going, all you guys are going through that too. Who is this guy? How could he be saying this, blah, blah, blah. All you got is the 20 seconds.

You don't have the elaboration. It makes it, it's incredibly frustrating. Oh, but you say it's frustrating, but you're great at journalistic TikToks. You have a huge following because on the news of the day, you are very good speaking in these soundbites. True. But my videos are actually three, four, five minutes, a lot of them, six minutes, which sounds short, but today is an eternity. So the thing I found on TikTok is actually telling stories, kind of resonates the same way you tell stories. But a lot of people, I'm just saying we live in a culture where the attention span is each seconds, and they're on. I know you guys see this.

It just can be very frustrating. Jeff, for huge Tupac fans, what will they be surprised, let's say, to learn from your book? And what were you surprised by to get back to the original question that made you think of Emmett Smith and all the things you could have said to him back when he was on Monday for football? You know, I sat down with his sister, Cetua in New Orleans, and she doesn't do many, almost any interviews. And she told me something early on. She's like, she said, I went to therapy years ago. And the first thing I told my therapist, the first thing I told my therapist is we had rats running along our floorboards. And she was talking about when they grew up in Baltimore and the poverty of Baltimore.

And they had the poverty and the pain that Tupac went through. I always knew Thug Life, Tupac, I get around Tupac. Growing up without a father, growing up in deep, deep, deep poverty, growing up with a mother who was a crack addict. the pain that informs his music explains everything about him as an artist is the pain. And I just think people don't understand the trauma that he went through. And I just dove deep into his trauma. I hung out with the crack dealers in Marin City who taught him sort of about life, you know, beyond life. It was just a real eye-opening experience for me.

I think you told us last time, but you can tell us again. How many people did you talk to for this book? A official total of 652. So it's more than you've ever done for a book, even though all of your books are exhaustive in this regard. Are they not? I mean, I try. I think one book I did talk to like 704 people. So it wasn't the personal record, but it's number two.

Was there anyone that you tried to get a hold of that you couldn't? Yeah. Well, what interesting was I was in, Jada Pinkett went to high school at Tupac. And he loved her, right? Or she claims that he loved her. I think she exaggerates that point a little bit, but he definitely liked her. And I went to, she was doing a book event at the Miami Book Festival. a true weird story. And I thought, all right, I'm going to go to this event and maybe I'll get her.

And I go to the event. And this is after the Will Smith hole thing with the slap. And it's me and about 500 women and Jada Pinkett on the stage speaking largely about how to have a good marriage. And she literally has gone through all this stuff. And all the women there are like, you preach, sister, you say, yeah, yeah, standing ovations. And I'm looking around like, what alternative reality have I entered? Where Jada Pinkett is telling everyone about how to have this great marriage and they're all eating it up. It was a very weird sort of comment. and celebrity in America. It was strange. But you didn't get her?

I did not get her. I mean, I read her book. I talked to friends. I read past interviews. They went to Baltimore School of the Arts together. She was not well-liked to Baltimore School for the Arts. I interviewed about 50, 60 students who went there with both of them. It's called preaching to the choir, by the way, with that experience that you envisioned there.

Jeff, question for you about an urban legend that I've heard for years, but I hope you can confirm for us. He did not get in a fight with Michael Jackson. No! Oh, I wanted it to be real. Not true. They're not going to fight with Michael Jackson. I am sorry.

He did, I mean, he did, I will say this, among other things. He dated, okay, he dated Madonna, wrote her kind of a breakup letter from prison, and she was basically like, he dated Lisa Lisa from Lisa Lisa and called him. Madonna did in fact, I mean, not Madonna, Jana Jackson did in fact demand that she wouldn't do a kissing scene with him unless he got an HIV test in poetic justice. I talked to the production assistant who went in and had to tell him. that Janet insists you get an AIDS test, and his response was F her, F you. And they wound up doing the scene anyway, but he never got the AIDS test.

So there's some other ones for you. All right, well, let's do this off the cuff here. Only God can judge me the many lives of Tupac Shakur. Let's have you sell the book by giving us what you believe to be in order the top five best facts you have in the book, because you just told a couple of very good stories there. So let's go 5, 4, 3,2, 1, and I'm putting you on the same. spot. I know this is impossible. You're a quick thinker and you've got

a ton to choose from. So choose your five and I'm done filibustering now. Number five, Jeff Perlman. This is in no order though. Okay, I found the... It's not what Dan wanted. I know. He's going to have to adjust, Dan. Number five. He's telling him to give away the most important

parts of the book and now we want them to rank them to on the fly. After doing that to Zazz, I know the audience heard it. I heard it. Zaz asked a question and he's like, that question. My question now. That's right. I may as well go

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if I do it for you? I think it's pretty good. Yeah. Stugats. You think you're big time? But you're going to die. Big time! That is my infamous scale

of one to ten. That's a 7.6. Solid. Good job, Good job. That's a suey nominee right there. This is the Dan Lebatar show with the Stugats. All right, I'm going to do five.

I'm going to do it in order. Damn it. Okay. Number five, I found the EMT. He'd never been interviewed before who got to Tupac when he was shot at Quad Studios. There's always been rumors that Tupac shot himself in the ball because one of his shot, he got one of he got three shots, one in the head, one in the head, one in the testicles. There are always rumors he shot himself in the Tascos.

I found the EMT. He lives in Maine. He'd never been interviewed before. He was surprised no one had ever interviewed him before. He confirmed to me there was no entrance wound through his pants or underwear when he shot himself, meaning he had to have had the gun in his waistband and shot his own testicle. Ooh, that's number five. Tupac shot his own testicle is number five. Faith had twins. I probably have two pucks. Holy shit. Number four. All right. Number four is I thought this is the fact. This is a good reporting fine. I hope that counts.

Everyone told me he had a girlfriend in high school, you need to talk to Mary, but Mary doesn't talk to anyone, but you need to talk to Mary. I tracked down Mary. Mary was his high school girlfriend, she was a ballerina. She now lives in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska. First, she's like, I don't really want to talk. Then she said, you know what, I'll talk to you.

I like what you're doing. She said, if you come out to Nebraska, you might want to see this. I don't know if this interests you, but my mom found about 150 love letters that Tupac wrote me under the bed in like a folder that I hadn't seen in 30 years. If you come out to Nebraska, I would let you read all the letters.

Wow. So I flew out to Center City, Nebraska the next year, next day, met her at a deli and read through 150 love letters, breakup letters, pain letters, joy letters that she had, this woman had written Tupac when she was a 15-year-old in love with him. And the letters were amazing, beautiful, heartbroken, I hate my mom, I love my mom, Mary, I want to marry you, let's get married, let's have kids, let's have sex. It was absolutely insane. Is any part of you like, it's in Nebraska, though?

Can you just send me a PDF? Just take me a photo. I had a, I went to a deli in Nebraska. I met her there. They microwave the bagels. Oh, no. Number three. I thought number three could be they microwave the bagels.

That was number three. Number two. No, I got one, I swear. All right. Tupac dies in Las Vegas. The family is, Shug Nite is there at the hospital. And they give Shugnight one responsibility. it is to get the ashes from Vegas to the family home in Las Vegas in Los Angeles.

Two days later, a two-day FedEx man shows a package shows up at the door in a cardboard box, like a FedEx cardboard box, and inside the cardboard box are Tupac's ashes. So that was his big way, like classy way. Two-day FedEx opens the box. The ashes are in the box. To be fair to Shugnight, have you guys seen what FedEx First Overnight cost? lot of money it's a lot of it's a lot of these guys are price gouged especially in the 90s strong cardboard too number two all right number two i was in lumberton north carolina everyone knows that

tupac's ashes are spread off at sea in malibu or most people do um i'm in lumberton north carolina tupac's mother fennie shikor had a home in lumberton north carolina um that she built years later after tupac died no one's there anymore it's been an abandoned lot for nine years i got a tour of the lot by the caretaker and he said to me do you want to see you want to see where Tupac is buried. And I said, what do you mean? He goes, do you want to see Tupac's grave? And I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, just come with me. Before she died, if any Shakur took her, the remaining Tupac Ashes, bury them, has a tombstone up. So if you go to an abandoned lot in Lumberton, North Carolina, you can see the grave of Tupac Shakur. And I don't think anyone knows

it's there. There's one better than that. So this is a good list he's put together. Journalism. Everything this guy does is good. I tell you that Jeff in the book is Only God Can Judge Me, the many lives of Tupac Shakur, number one, the number one best fact that Perlman on earth in talking to more than 600 people. All right. I'm going to have to tell the very bridge version of this, but there's a song, do you guys know the song? Some of you, Brenda's Got a Baby by Tupac?

Yes. Okay. So Brenda's got a baby. Tupac was filming the movie Juice, and he's reading the New York Daily News outside his trailer in New York City. And there's an article called Cries in the Night about a 12-year-old girl who was raped by a cousin, delivered the baby on the bathroom floor, through her baby. baby down a trash heap. Tupac reads that article, goes into his trailer, writes the song,

Brenda's got a baby that becomes Tupac's first, really one known song. I thought it would be amazing to try and find the baby who was thrown down the trash heap. I work with the genealogist who called me one day and said, I think I have a number. I reach out to this guy, crudely via text. His name is Davon Hodge. I go to Las Vegas. We sit down. He, in fact, was a baby who was thrown down the trash heap and Brenda's got a baby. After he was thrown down, he was adopted by a family in Las Vegas. So I saw him in Vegas. His parents had died recently. So he did an Ancestry.com search. And they all came back to this housing, public housing unit in Brooklyn, New York. He has his grand reunion with his family. They show him the place where he was thrown down

the trash heap. They're like, oh, they said, do you know Tupac? He's like, of course. Do you like, do you like Chupac? I love Tupac. We think you're the baby from Brenda's got a baby. His family tells him this. Sheesh. He says, it's amazing moment. Wait, it gets crazy. I say to my genealogist, it would be amazing. My genealogist is his name Michelle Suley. She's amazing. It'd be awesome if we could find the mother. She's like, well, that might be hard, but blah, blah, blah. She gets a number one day. She calls this woman. She says, by any chance, is this Jeanette? Who's this? My name's Michelle. I'm working with the writer, Jeff Perlman, about a book on Tupac Shakur. By any chance, did you have a baby when you were 12 years old? She starts screaming. Oh, my God, oh my God, oh my God,

do you know where my baby is? Do you know where my baby is? She's screaming and crying. Michelle says, yeah, we do. We found him. She goes, oh, my God, oh my God, I need to get home. I need to get home to Newark. I live in Newark. Well, where are you now? I'm at a concert. What concert? I'm going to see the red hot chili peppers tonight. Where are they playing? They're playing in Las Vegas. She met her son that night.

No way. Holy shit. That is a holy shit. Look at him and then he drinks from the mug like Kermit. Look at him because he knows he nailed that story. He knows he nailed that story. It is a good story. Do you have a best theory on how Tupac died?

Yeah, but it's not sexy. You guys saw it. It was the Mike Tyson-Brews Souten fight. after the fight, Chubac is in the MGM Grand. He's with a guy named Trayvon Lane, a death row guy, a mob, Pyrou guy. They see Orlando Anderson there.

Orlando Anderson was a Compton Crip who had recently gotten in a fight with this guy, Trayvon Lane. Trayvon Lane points it out, says, that's Orlando Anderson. That's a guy who stole my chain. Tubac says, which guy? That guy right there.

Tubac walks up to him, punches him in the face. All the death row guys pounce. I interviewed Orlando Anderson's closest friend, the guy who was punched. And he said, there's no way Orlando Anderson could come back to Compton, having gotten beat up publicly by a rapper, like by a rapper. You just couldn't.

Later that night, Orlando Anderson is driving around, looking, looking, looking for Tupac. Tubac is just randomly is driving down the street, wish of night, hollering out at women along the strip in Vegas. Orlando Anderson is like, that's him, that's him right there. And they pull up on him and they shoot him. And it's not even a sexy story because everyone wants him a grand puffy or biggie conspiracy. The truth of matter is he punched the wrong person at the wrong time. And that guy happened to be a member of the Compton Crips and got a revenge killing and killed him. You're reporting that as fact, it feels like. And I don't think that I don't, but that's not, that is not fact. I've not heard that reported as fact. No, it's been reported a lot of places as

fact. And then it's surrounded by by myth. I've talked to investigators. I've talked to people from death row. I've talked to people from the Compton Crips. I talked to Orlando Anderson's best friend. I personally, obviously, when you have a young death and a lot of conspiracy and Vegas and everything. You have a lot of rumors. But if it were not, Tupac, you've heard a guy named John Smith and another guy named Bob Jones. This would have been reported as fact long ago. Jeff, thank you for the work. It's always excellent. Only God can judge me now the many lives of Tupac Shakur. Thank you, sir. Yeah, thanks for having me out. I appreciate you guys. Writing a book sounds like a lot of work. It is. Microwave bagels? He said it is right before he

hung up. I mean, the way that Stugatz wrote a book is the way to write a book. Get everyone else to do the work for you. That's the way to do it. Well, when I wrote The Pride of a Lion, I interviewed three people, so I can relate to what Perlman went through. One of them was a lion. That's correct. Well, he said no comment, the lion. So three people in addition,

in addition to the Lion, that's right. Thank you, Billy. Wait a second. I should hit both of you with loser game show sounds. I'm retiring. Thank you, Billy, after today. This is the world. I've got the boost mobile hotline to get to, but before I do that, I thought, and it'll

remain, I suppose, that Liam Cohen's most famous moment as a Jacksonville Jags coach was the following. Dooball. But after losing 35-7 to the Rams, this is a close second. Everything we said we didn't want to do did occur. Well put. Man, seen a lot of those games. Everything we said we didn't want to do, did occur.

It did. It really did. I mean, he didn't account for the Rams getting that good sleep. Yeah, that's a legion game. I love the pause. Everything we said we didn't want to do, did occur. I like this guy. It's almost like he considered it for a second.

Was it everything? Everything we said we didn't want to do, did occur. We wanted the Rams to get bad sleep on their flight over. Yeah, Kerr. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot trackside. So being a fan for life

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Plus, tax, at participating restaurants in Canada for limited time. Don Lebertard. You are a fool. You're nobody. You are an infant. You have nobody to me. I literally put together a freaking stage for your toenail. I am your career right now, pal.

Look at me. No. I am your career. No. Stugats. You have messed with me, David, and now you're messing with me, and I'm more dangerous, pal. This is the Dan Levitar show with the Stugats. 486 Gots. 305.486. 466.4689. That's right, Dan. The Boost Mobile. Boldest take is presented by

Boos Mobile, the newest 5G network in the country. Three-pointers should not be described as from downtown. Three-pointers should be described as from the suburb. When I was a kid, I thought that all dogs are boys and all cats from girls. There is way too much time between the end of the the late afternoon games and the beginning of Sunday night football. The fan getting upset about the Panthers being shit on is one of the funniest things ever. It's the Carolina Panthers. Howl.

Jeremy Tashay is the Chris Whittingham of Pablo Torres. Last week, Dan said he had two outstanding vests from across the decades. And I just want to remind Dan that he is a third outstanding bet that has never been paid. Dan guaranteed that a certain team would not lose or he would Eat poop. That team lost, and he never ate poop. So, Dan, eat poop. I have the scorching Trevor Lawrence take. Oh, my God, he blows. He happens to blow.

Trevor Lawrence, he happens to blow. Put it on the poll, please, at Levitutche. Is there way too much time between the 4 p.m., the end of the 4. p.m. game and Sunday night football because you're too addicted also put on the poll is Jeremy Tachey the Chris Whittingham of Pablo Torres.

It's a compliment to Jeremy, honestly. Is it? How can there be too much time between you need to shower, you need to get your life in order? You shower then? Talk to your wife. You've spent

six hours, seven hours in front of the television. You need that time to regroup before the single game that is Sunday night. Those 45 minutes are literally the get my shit together at time. Or have a quick dinner. Yeah, quick dinner. Guys, your ignorance is showing here. That little window right there is what we call the NASCAR window.

That's right. You can watch the end of many NASCAR races during that window. And races like Talladega delivered. Guys, we're on the precipice of an amazing championship four. We already have Denny Hamlin, who is searching for his first ever Cup Series championship. We have Chase Briscoe, who has been unbelievable this season, was without a team, found a new home, race in the 19, his first Super Speedway victory. Now we have Martinsville this weekend. It's the final chance for two drivers to punch their ticket.

Who in that final eight will win the race potentially and automatically get to the final four? Who knows? Will there be a spoiler? Will Kyle Larson find his way into the championship for, even though he didn't make the championship four? last year after winning the most races. Guys, this is shaping it up to be unbelievable, and it can only be brought to you by NASCAR. That's right, NASCAR. Gearhead is presented by NASCAR.

For all the latest insights and storylines to find out when and where to watch, visit NASCAR.com. The punch their ticket reference is a train reference, correct? When you say someone punches their tickets on a destination. So it is a largely 100-year-old saying when people were most... traveling by train, right? I'm just, there are no other punch tickets. You punch a clock when you're punching in for work, but that's not a ticket.

The only time a ticket is punched is when you're taking a train somewhere, correct? It's not even a bus. Jessica's got some disputes, Zaslo, with your bus story. Evidently, she doesn't believe some parts of your first class bus story. When Anthony Peeler fought Kevin Garnett, he also punched a ticket.

A big ticket. I would love to hear where this doubt is coming in play. Wow. You're going to, in the next hour, we will find out a little more about this accusation. I've heard it whispered around the office. Whenever a lie is told around here, it spreads quickly in terms of accusatory people. And you're not a known liar yet. Really?

I always tell the truth, even when I lie. That seat, though, it kind of comes with it. You're not a known liar? Oh, Greg. I'm not talking to me. Greg. We're just two weeks away from Denny Hamlin, racing for his championship life, while he is. is actively suing NASCAR as a team owner for Michael Jordan's team.

It's great. I can't wait for the NASCAR commissioner if there is such a person. Is it still the Francis? France's. Yeah, they're super powerful. Yeah, and handing the trophy to the guy suing them, that's going to be lovely. How many of you had any criticisms of last night's debut of NBC basketball brought back to life? this is really reaching across generations because the young players who were interviewed

have no recollection whatsoever about the nostalgia being triggered for the over 40-year-olds. Chris Cody mentioned that the technical difficulties at the beginning gave him felt like bomb. I am honestly surprised that more of these giant endeavors don't have more wrong in them. Like I already saw that NBC last night was a little bit physically clear. closer to the players, like right on them than I'm used to seeing, even though plenty of people are trying to push the boundaries. I assume that this is all, the streaming services are going to all push the boundaries on more access.

How do we make the game more futuristic? What do we do in order to give you more inside the huddle? Dan, I'm going to seize upon something you just said there about streaming networks because a lot of been made about, oh, it costs $650 to watch every single NBA game. This is ridiculous. We had opening night on broadcast television. We haven't had that in a gazillion years. You're getting more NBA basketball if you are a basic cable subscriber, and that's it.

You're getting more NBA basketball for free than ever before. That $650 number, that's if you're getting league pass. That's if you're getting Amazon Prime. That's if you're getting Peacock. It's if you want NBA every single night. Every single night. But if you're saying, hey, I can't afford it. All I have is basic cable.

You're getting NBC, you're getting ESPN, and you're getting more than enough. And ABC games. You're getting way more than enough. The word streaming should not be in anyone's lexicon. Right now, the NBA is back, and it's back on big-time television, well, until football comes back. I want to talk to you guys about how you're viewing some of this stuff, but just my wife, just this last week, decided I have to get control of this cable bill. I want to know what you guys think or know you're paying monthly because I do believe that this is such a sprawling thing now. My wife was alarmed when she realized what we're paying for as we're changing our cable package and more alarmed when I said, and get raised baseball.

She didn't understand why I was doing that, but I'm like, make sure that we have Tampa Bay raised baseball. Can you just get raised baseball? What is the amount? What is the number? Do you guys know? What is the highest number I can give you to shock you because I was surprised about what I'm paying a month once I find out and there was some overlap.

She's trying to get rid of some of the overlap and the places where you get ripped off because you have multiple same subscriptions. This is what we're going to do, Dan. So first of all, you have obviously regular cable, right? Or whatever the equivalent of regular cable is, right? So you get TBS, TNT, all those channels, right? You get HBO, I know you get HBO, right?

You got... I have all the... movie channels. He's got Apple. All the movie channels. All of them. Even all of them. The movie channels? Everything. All of them. Wow. Yes. You have all the movie channels? You have those kind of movies. You pay so much. You must pay two grand a month.

Tell me what the numbers are for you guys. That's our guess. Before we get to my number. No, it's not that high. It's not that. We're kind of like Netflix. Four digits? Is it four digits? It is not. No. It is not four digits. $850. No. It's, uh... One dollar. We're playing the game poorly. It's a little more. It's a little more than $500 a month.

It doesn't seem as bad. I got a guy for you. Talk to me. I pay the lowest year out of everybody. I think you're paying more than that. Free 99. You may need to get a second job. Do you know how much you're paying?

Do you have any earthly idea how much you're paying? No, but my chief of staff does. Whatever my mom tells them, it's probably double. I'll bet I'm paying what you're paying. And it's making me a little nauseous. Really? Yeah. Do you have all the movie channels?

No, no. Wow, then you should really be nauseous. Because I got like all the ass. you know, and God knows what I'm... It's soccer fans have to pay like $300 more. Guys, guys, it's not... I wasn't counting Red Zone in any of that stuff. I'm not actually...

That's baked into your cable. I think I have that baked in. I'm not like Red Zone by itself is between like $400 and $800 a year, is it not? Yeah, but you want to... Do you have YouTube TV? I do, yes. So you can watch the individual games. And I have to go non-commercial as well because now I'm in...

I just... At this point, I wonder how the audience feels about this. At this point, I simply... can't do commercials. No, don't say that. We love commercials. Commercials are awesome. What chaos, the hockey show, figured this out. That's a good show. It is a good show. It's a guy with the guy in the hat. Oh, White Hat. Yeah. They figured out something. Like you meant the hockey show. If you like to bet on hockey, as I'm one to do, as a lot of us do, you want to watch

the games live. ESPN's app decides they're going to run a uniform time for ads every game. so they discovered why, when I check the score online, is it so far ahead of where I am in the game? You think you're watching a game live, you're not. They're baking in the ad time to however they see fit, and they'll catch you up when you get there. Like the game runs on tape delay. You're not watching live games anymore. So streaming already is delayed from live TV via cable. But what these guys discovered was that on top of that delay, ESPN Plus is delaying you even more because they don't care.

So if you hit go live after the ad is over, it's not right where you are. It actually jumps ahead. Really? Yes, they are playing, they're gaming the system to make sure their ads are watched at the expense of you being up to date on your watching things. That's why I don't like, I'm not a big fan of the streaming. I am one of the last people who is a court keeper. I keep my cord because when I want to watch live sports, I want it to be live for reals.

I believe that. Why did you say that that way? I don't know. I channeled Greg Cody there. For real. Well done. Thank you. Really good.

Thank you. Should be a new character. It should. What would the character be called, though? Leon Cody. Okay. Thank you. I'm honored.

A writer cup. Nice. Yeah, let's say it the where the writer cup guy owns the house. Remember when Dan did that? Silly guy. Not as bad as making Ray Bork, Ron Borgias. That's true. Also, just trampling Zaz's question.

That was the highlight of the show. show. That was the highlight of the show. We had so much fun back here. Just laughing at the way you just said, yes, that question sucks. He was just asking a form of the same question that I didn't get answered when he went on the Emmett Smith divergent path. And so I was just following up again on the state with hostility. Actually, a better question than that would be. Yeah. It's actually worse. Dan carried resentment into doing that. I feel like I'm going to go back. I'll listen on the podcast later. My part of the question is going to be edited out. It was the same exact question. Actually, not what we would find most surprising. What you would find most surprise. Because I asked you before, and yeah. Is that where we got the top five? He did really well with that top five.

That number one of answer is. You asked him for a top five. What a top five. I'm serious. All five of those facts were like, interesting. Wow. I have to buy that book. That's it.

Wait a little it comes out on paperback. Hanging out with crack dealers. Yeah, he did some real journalism. That's a little bit harder to do. than it used to be. Most of the things you're reading and consuming, don't talk to 600 and some odd people before they get public. And it's dying, and very few people actually want that kind of thoroughness

because he's getting frustrated by our attention span that lasts 20 TikTok seconds. Did everyone get the great Cody joke there about when it comes out on paperback? Because I don't think that exists anymore as far as, no, as far as like, it used to be a big thing in publishing. It's a hardcover, and then you wait, the paperback comes out, and it's cheaper. I don't know if the listener now is aware of these. 20 CB. 20 CB.

Where's that segment, Tony? You're here. We could do it. You did do a promo tour real quick for your paperback release, right? This is a new and an improved Dan Levitar show with the Stugas. Gamble on by Dravkins. Now is a good time to remember where tequila's story truly began. In 1795, Cuervo invented tequila.

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