The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Local Hour: Yes Chef

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

Roy has never looked better than he does in today's Bucket of Death punishment. Amin and Pablo are here with Stugotz and some of the Shipping Container already out in Vegas! Dan and the crew pay tribute to the great Carl Weathers who passed away over the weekend. Then, the continued rise of Caitlin Clark's star power and what it means for her future, Sam Reinhart taking the hometown discount, and the optimal level of fame. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to Giraffe Kings Network. 1-800-Flowers.com. Right now, at 1-800-Flowers, you can get up to 40% off a beautiful, gorgeous bouquet of one-of-a-kind arrangements that are guaranteed to wow your significant other. Please do not be like me. Don't put it off. Delivery dates are limited. Get up to 40% off today at 1-800-Flowers.com slash Dan. That's 1-800-Flowers.com slash Dan. The Dan LeBatard Show is twoots is presented by DeGiorno. It's not delivery, it's DeGiorno. This is the Dan Labarator Show with the Stugots podcast. You know how when I come in here dressed as Elvis or the Mad Hatter and then get dispirited

or hurt because everyone says, Dan, that's a good look for you. You should try that. It's better than your actual look. Roy, I'm not kidding you when I tell you that this look from the bear for you is better than your other look. Like, this is, you look better than, you look better this way than you do every other day. Yes, Chef.

I don't think anybody here would disagree with me. Roy is getting that Jeremy Allen White sort of like aura of he's a working man and is sexy. This dude, man, he's on every single bus stop billboard in New York City wearing only the skimpiest of underwear. He's very small too. He's not an actually large man, but that's the six pack.

The six pack is showing that off. Roy, this is what I imagined you looked like when you worked on the loading dock. Yes. Yes, Chef. I've gotten a text here from Stugatz. Half of our team is out there. Charlotte was supposed to be here with us today.

I hope she gets better. She got the COVID. Pablo Torrey is here. Hip of violation, Mutz with us today. I hope she gets better. She got the COVID. Pablo Torre is here. A violation month. A meme. Let's say she's under the weather. A meme is here. Thank you for gracefully holding my hand during that instead of pointing it out to everybody. A text from Stugatz here from Radio Row yesterday to tell everyone that he's deeply embedded. This is yesterday, a Sunday. Dan I have the entire place wired.

Espresso shots with the security team today on me. Pictures with producers and engineers who were setting up today telling them that their hosts don't know or appreciate what it is they do. I have an army of people willing to do more for me than their own hosts and shows. That's why you get a lay of the land, Levitt. Tomorrow is all about laying down the foundation. Tuesday and Wednesday, moving and shaking with tons of finger guns and nods and no blinking.

Thursday is a dig deep, finish strong Thursday, I could teach a course on how to do radio row. Tony, are you jealous that Stugatius is already there? I am, I'm very jealous, I'm very jealous. I'd like to get the lay of the land too, because when I was there in LA, there's a lot of movement in shaken happening early too, and that's why Stu's there to lay the foundation.

You gotta know the right people. You're getting in the ground floor with the workers, with the producers, those kind of people. They're the salt of the earth that make things happen. Roy is so Apple averse that he brought a laptop in it. It's like a ThinkPad. This is like a heavy duty thing. And with his general aesthetic, it goes hand in hand

because he's frustrated trying to make this desktop computer work. It's great. He looks like Samuel L. Jackson in Jurassic Park. Yes, Chef. It is a ThinkPad. Roy, what do you have to report from your visit as a correspondent to Toronto and the NHL All-Star Game? What is the content that we're going to have around here? Yes, Chef. There is a video that we are going to playback later in the show.

It's about us going around town in Toronto. It was a beautiful city. A spectacular food. And we had drinks. It was a beautiful city, a spectacular food, and we had drinks, and my dry, January, definitely. Okay, so nothing about sports, nothing about the All-Star Game, nothing about the Bulls-Words. We just, just go, all right, so you enjoyed the city, and you ate, Dan. What show did you try?

We did post-game shows on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, so there's that, and you can find out on YouTube. Now the cigarette in the ear is a really good look. Generally people don't have a lit cigarette in the ear. Yes, Chef. I know it's a fake cigarette, but it has a light inside of it that has it orange, so it would give the appearance that it's a lit cigarette

that's just hanging from your ear. Yes, Chef, I didn't actually look at the cigarette. I just put it on the ear, just like LeBron James and that meme on Twitter. We are going to talk about the Super Bowl and our Super Bowl coverage. We are headed out the rest of us on Tuesday tomorrow and we will tell you about the guest list that is so far confirmed because we're excited about how funny and wonderful that is. But before we do so, when we went off the air yesterday,

I don't know how often this happens to you, Pablo, where you get a celebrity death that sort of hits you a little extra hard because it ties into whatever it is that your nostalgia was in childhood about somebody and Carl Weathers, who passed away last week at the age of 76, felt like he had that kind of impact on a lot of people across a lot of different roles. Like, I don't know.

I think one generation might know him as Apollo Creed, but another generation might know him as Chubbs, right? Oh, and rest of development and the Mandalorian, like he, as a person with good polling numbers, Carl Weathers universally was beloved, I think. He's just one of those guys who feels like you have a, I mean, you guys interviewed him on the show. He was down to laugh at himself

and also to be exactly the archetype of like tough guy when it was needed. An amazing talent. When you think about this guy was an NFL player, he was a football player playing in the CFL and the NFL and then made himself into not only an action star but an actual actor with chops, with range, with a variety of roles, as you pointed out. And the thing that I take away from, you could do a whole show on Carl Weathers, and we might.

Stay tuned. But I saw him at Star Wars Celebration, which is like the comic con for Star Wars, when they first announced the Mandalorian, right? And this is the most insular crowd. When you talk about people who are fiercely aligned with the brand of the content, Star Wars is probably peak. And they all come out, Pedro Pascal comes out, Dina Carano comes out, and all these other actors

and people have done things in other places. This isn't their first time at the rodeo. They come out and say, what a great honor it is to be here at Star Wars Celebration and be a part of Star Wars and all that. And then Carl Weathers comes out and it's, he's regal when he comes out on the stage and he takes a moment to acknowledge the crowd and the crowd roars and he gets the microphone and he said, I wasn't really a Star Wars guy, which for that crowd, that's it, they check out on you.

But he says, but then I fell in love with this role and this story, and I can't wait for you guys to get a chance to experience this. He sold the show so hard, no one had even seen a second of it. We didn't know what it was about. He sold it in that second right there, and the audience was eating out the palm of his hand, and I sat there Dan I said

That's a pro like Pedro Pascal is a great actor He's not on the pro a pro level as Carl Weathers It's a gift to be somebody who projects a certain seriousness a gravitas Well, also not taking themselves seriously So part of the bid in Arrested Development, which I go to immediately, is that he is Tobias' acting teacher, who is the cheapest man alive.

Ooh, he's borderline homeless. Right, so he's destitute. And so he's like making stews out of leftover. He's always carrying stuff out of other events, like he's stealing the food. And what I read over the weekend as I was reliving Carl Weathers greatest hits is that he is the one who came up with that character premise. Yeah. It wasn't written cheap, right? No, it was me, Carl Weathers actor who you know,

I'm going to be a basically effectively unhoused acting teacher, making fun of myself while also being almost Shakespearean in a way, which is that thing of laugh at yourself while also being fully confident in who you are is the best. I think one of the things that is super hard to achieve anywhere in celebrity, especially as people get more and more upset by the politics of Hollywood and celebrities is, it's just hard to find likable. Somebody who lands all the time, the skill of likability, that is, it is not polarizing that it feels extra hard when someone like that is lost because we're so divided now

that you crave people who are likable who aren't polarizing. The thing that got me, first of all, you're absolutely right because there's a natural likability which I think Carl Weathers had but his was also polished. The student figured out, okay, I'm likable but how do I sharpen this? And he did it at an incredible level. But the thing that really, I don't know if anyone else felt this. On the one hand, I'm happy that he passed

peacefully in his sleep. I'm happy that that's how we all wanna go, right? On the other hand, I was staggered that Carl Weathers, this man full of energy and life and strength, was that's how, I when I heard Carl Weathers passed away I said oh no was it a car accident did did he get Was he in a swamp being hunted by a perhaps alien assassin?

Was it a Soviet boxer who would not stop fighting after the bell was wrong and the ref tried to get in the way? Or Craig T. Nelson? Or was it Craig, well no Craig T. Nelson couldn't take him out, well, no Craig T. Nelson, couldn't take him out. No. Shout out to Action Jackson. But to hear that he passed away in his sleep, I was like, wait, was there a disease that we didn't know?

Like, nope, just passed away in his sleep. I just saw him in the Gronk ad for the Kick a Destiny. And I'm like, no, he looks fine. What are you talking about? Well, not just fine. Looks fit. Powerful. He looks youthful.

Energy, Yeah. Let's play the video of Sylvester Stallone, obviously linked to Apollo Creed and Carl Weathers forever. Hello, everyone. Today is an incredibly sad day for me. I mean, I'm so torn up. I can't even tell you. I'm just trying to hold it in because Carl Weathers was such an integral part of my life,

my success, everything about it. I give him incredible credit and kudos because when he walked into that room and I saw him for the first time, I saw greatness, but I didn't realize how great I never could have accomplished what we did with Rocky without him. He was absolutely brilliant. His voice, his size, his power, his athletic ability, but more importantly his heart, his soul. It's a horrible loss.

That is the role that I will associate him with. Well, you guys have any other It's a horrible loss. That is the role that I will associate him with. Well, do you guys have any other role that you choose above that one? Because that was so, I think that might have been the first sports movie of any kind that I saw. Because it was what, 1976 would have been rocky. And I don't think I had seen before that anything that looked like that on film.

It set the archetype that he then played to perfection in various other movies, but then he subverted. And so I go back to that one also as my introduction to him, but also as like, this is the thing that he played off of to surprise you and delight you when he had this softness inside of him. He's got three tremendous roles that were integrated within the fiber-pop culture at the time, be it Dylan from Predator and the handshake that has become a meme forevermore. Apollo Creed is his role and he owned it and it's, you can't imagine anybody else playing it and you can't imagine that movie or franchise working without his involvement and Chubbs Peterson in Happy Gilmore is another iconic role. He's got three all-timers.

Speaking of likability, right? We talked to him once and he disarmed us immediately with what it is you guys are talking about which is not taking himself terribly seriously So when we asked him for resume and accolades, we we were surprised by his answer Have you ever had a greater honor anywhere in your personal life or professional life any honor in your life all? 69 of your years on earth than being inducted into the international Mustache Hall of Fame nine of your years on earth and being inducted into the international mustache call of fame there's no bigger honor

right tell you you know guys with stashes no there's no bigger or your rivals like who are your fellow hall of famers where you look at it you say yes it is worth you are worthy of being near my glorious mustache or you can be charlie brunson look at charlie's little whiskey little whiskey crazy looking the stash charlie wardwell charlie wardwell i loved him that it is the work with him a great guy and then charles bronson was you know

there's a man man who are you or your i'm gonna offer you some here uh... it tom selleck first ballot hall of famer on the mustache yes or no according to hall of famer carl weathers yes or no first ballot first ballot without a doubt raleigh fingers first ballot yes or no haha yes rally fingers my god going back to the old twisted like handlebar you gotta put in all right all right who else are some mustache hall of famers charlie chaplin who else charlie chaplin yes or no yeah yeah probably chaplain and you know he had that little thing that uh...

mind you know who's the best net flanders net flanders from the simpsons yes or no net flanders uh... that's a that's a shaky one okay i don't know i'm rejected by the hall of famer hulk hogan yes or no hulk hogan well that's a crazy mustache there I think it was on forever you got it for him. All right, Goose gossage. Yes or no goose gossage I'll go with that all the fame Dave wants that Dave wants that

All right, okay Bert Reynolds yes or no Bert Reynolds come on. Bert was like the original, so you gotta be in that. All right, Geraldo Rivera. Yes or no, Geraldo Rivera. That mustache is so off the wall, you just gotta put him in there because of that. Sam Elliott, yes or no? Absolutely. Wow, you are a generous hall of famer. You is a...

We wasted two minutes of that man's time. I would have listened to 40 more minutes of him just responding to mustache props. You know, when you have a guest who gets the show, who has never listened to the show, that's always the best, isn't it? Like this guy, he doesn't know what we do here. He's like, oh, some ESPN sports show wanted to interview me. Sure.

Well, but this is what we talk about when we talk about likability. I don't know how you measure these things, but I know that whenever the famous people come on with us and they just sound like they want to be there, which doesn't always happen. They just sound like this is the place where they want to be, even if they don't know us. That buys them a ton. Everyone knows it's not Valentine's Day without the flowers, so whatever you do, don't be like me. Don't forget the flowers. Beat the Valentine's Day rush and order early at 1-800-Flowers.com.

Right now, at 1-800-Flowers, you can get up to 40% off a beautiful, gorgeous bouquet of one-of-a-kind arrangements that are guaranteed to wow your significant other. Please do not be like me. Don't put it off. Delivery dates are limited. Get up to 40% off today at 1-800-Flowers.com slash Dan. That's 1-800-Flowers.com slash Dan. Mike, I want to ask you as we've got a fractured group and we're going to be doing this differently this week, what do you want to tell the audience?

Because we have guest list planned and we have this, what we're doing this week has been planned for months. It is not a small undertaking. We are taking almost the entire company out to Las Vegas, half of it is already there. What can we tell people and what do we want to keep quiet? Well, I don't think we want to keep anything quiet. It's usually in the show's nature to have some surprises along the way, but look, this is a big investment for the company and the idea here is audience acquisition and growth and we want to make Stadium Swim at Circa Hotel an absolute scene and the RSVP situation is encouraging for an

absolute scene. Naturally more people are going to the Friday show. I want to talk a little bit about Thursday and give you a reason to show up because the guest list on Thursday is incredible. I'm not gonna give away the person that's going to kick off all the ceremonies, but our featured guest list for Thursday at stadium swim at Circa Hotel is Wu Tang Clan and Wayne Newton That's right. We're bringing back the old dirty bastard And Wu Tang Clan I think presently we're at about 24 of the 36 chambers,

but when you include the old dirty bastard, we're at 28. I'm not going to be there, so I only have one request for you guys. I need you guys to get Wayne Newton to say, shimmy shimmy yaw shimmy yaw shimmy a. Give me the mic so I can take it away. That's a great idea, Amin. We're gonna try everything that we can

and the photo ops are gonna be incredible out there. We're producing a live stage show and this should be really fun for those in attendance. It's a mini-Moss Vegas, there's gonna be plenty of stuff going on in the crowd and the layout for Stadium Swim is incredible. So there's still plenty of time. I'm talking to Chiefs Kingdom and 49 are faithful

here. If you want to rep your team, come out to this really cool event. Stadium Swim at Circo Hotel February 8th and 9th. Things get going at 10am. Line up early. It doesn't have to be a ridiculous amount of early. I've seen Caitlyn Clark type cues being talked about on the internet. Everyone will have a spot over there. But come on out. Reserve your tickets right now. It's absolutely free. Circa Las Vegas dot com slash Levitard. So do we want to broaden our constituency and our base by promoting this, is come out and see the Dan Levitard show with Stugats and the Klan? I could see when you were revving up that this was going to be a bad joke

To sing Donkashane with with no because that might be for Greg Kody you get Too much now now now I feel like I'm there's gonna be some some live entertainment Even though there's content that needs to go out, we're gonna entertain you during what are pseudo breaks over there, and sometimes what's going on during our breaks is gonna be more fun than what's happening on the stage. Dan is treading, perilously close, mentioning Don Keshane and the Klan to he who shall not be named

as Carl Weathers had dubbed him. He was talking about Michael Jordan there. I thought the mustache of Michael Jordan. You uh... you mentioned katlyn clark and the lines for katlyn clark i want to put up for the people on video here this was at maryland this is not an iowa basketball game i was wondering where i would place her right now in terms of marketing star power

economy of being able to fill arenas wherever it is she goes, where in sports I would go to put her on a list of most marketable brands right now. She is going to be making more money in college than she can make in the pros on NIL. And I'm just floored by the star power that every time she shows up someplace, the lines are like that.

The lines are like when Steph Curry and the Warriors are showing up someplace. Two things are happening in the NIL conversation is there's like an empirical, like there's a question as to who in the pros will pay the way that Iowa boosters are paying and that's a conversation maybe we should have also. But this is one of those stories where

what she's doing is cool no matter what gender is the sport that we're talking about. Nobody mentioned gender until you did right now. Well, because you have to because despite that fact and it's awesome, like she is compulsively watchable to me. Katelyn Clark's on television, top five, I wanna stop and watch that. Well, she shoots from, I mean,

she comes out in that game and she's shooting from 40 feet. And it's badass. It's not just that, it's she's doing it with an arrogance that does remind me of Steph, but it's also impossible to extract from that or to isolate in that the idea that because she is a woman there is this extra novelty that people just want to see. Like it's a circus act. Like we've never seen something like this before and I think those two things are happening simultaneously. It's a circus act and it's also slash pioneering, right?

Because what you're seeing there is it's not just that greatness is bringing them to the arena. It's that women sports don't often get to feel like that. Like she's leading a charge, right? I understand that the WNBA and college basketball have been growing, but now you mix the fervor around college basketball with her fame, her stardom, and her style of play. And what you end up getting is a spectacle. It's not merely a sporting event anymore. There's a sporting kind of fame, but then there's a spectacle of I have to be in attendance to witness this. It's there's a spectacle of I have to be in attendance to witness this. It feels a bit like Messi's going to play in Miami or

LeBron's going to play this weekend in New York. I have to go and be a part of something that is beyond sports. It's bigger than sports. Yeah, I don't think we've ever seen a needle mover quite like her. And Angel Reese, I think you can lump her in too, because if you see the television ratings, it would suggest she's also quite the needle mover in the history of women's basketball in this country, both pro and amateur. I don't think we've ever seen needle movers like that. I mean, with Caitlin Clark, what's so spectacular, she's sort of capitalizing off what you just

mentioned, Dan, which is the last couple of decades of the growth of this sport, where we've seen that from a team perspective. First, it was Yukon and their dominance, now the last 5-10 years and all of these other powers of teams that we've looked at while there's been individual players. But now, with both Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese and their polarizing rivalry that we get to create on the marketing side, what I'm fascinated to see too is, you know, you mentioned her getting paid in NIL, that marketing can and will still exist when she gets to the pro level because now with the way that the WNBA has grown and the story building that exists around that league, seeing both her and Angel Reese get to that pro level and get to create maybe their own sort of version of a magic and bird rivalry is gonna be fascinating for years to come as well.

Oh, but let me tell you the coolest part for me because this part I couldn't have imagined at any point in my career before now. Men's College basketball doesn't have that. No. It doesn't, they're one and done. They're, you know, Duke had it a couple of years ago when Zion was on that game.

It is getting a little bit better now in the men's game. Fine, but it's not that. It's not that. It's not somebody who's been there. It's not someone who's been there for several years to build something around the fervor that is college sports. Character development. Forget about character development. Give me the one in Dunn name and cause basketball right now.

Yeah. Who's the guy? That's a bad draft. People that are prospects that are in that late first round range, they end up coming back, but we've never seen, even in the men's game, someone with these kind of pro prospects willingly come back to the collegiate sport and grow that game. It hasn't been. Like, when's the last time a pro basketball did that?

Tim Duncan? Joke him no. Very true. I mean, that's a long time ago. I know. Well, the math is different. Bill, Bill, it's Tom, listen up. Listen Bella Jack, let me whisper in your ear, tell you something that you might like to hear.

You had a nice career but the end look is sad, mind if I tell you about this plan I had, my home's been gaining on me way too fast, surely as a coach they should get past, I can play at least another year or two So here's what we're gonna do I'm calling up Woody and we're going to the Jets Twice a year we could be the Patriots We're kicking both Salah and Aaron to the curb I'm calling up Gronk and we're flipping a bird Never really wanted Greg Olsen's spot Wanted him to know how much cash I got You need a main bill, I'll always be the boss after we're done you can coach We're gonna partner up. We're gonna partner up. Like bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam,

bam, bam, bam, bam. Roy and Mike Ryan came in here today with a little extra spring in their step. I don't know if Meen and Pablo have been at this so long that their allegiances and their fandoms are not affected by news that comes out. But Sam Reinhart, the idea that the Florida Panthers can now afford him when you guys thought he was gone, you guys thought the first month of this season that he was playing

too well to be affordable, the idea that you guys now feel like he's going to be a part of this team, I saw palpable positivity and happiness on Roy that I haven't seen in a long time. Yes, chef. Well, it's not like something magically happened where all of a sudden the Florida Panthers have more money. They're kind of capped. It's in that it's certainly below $10 million, certainly below what Sam Reinhart would get in the open market. Presently Sam Reinhart sits at 37 goals that is second to Austin Matthews and the entire NHL.

He sits at 40. Sam Reinhart has 20 power play goals that's more than a lot of teams have. Sam Reinhart has turned himself into a player that gets $11 million in that neighborhood. But I've spoken to sources at the Florida Panthers and Sam Reinhardt's quotes have been promising, but we want to make a deal happen because he's had this whole career resurgence down here in Florida. Again, he came into the league as a highly touted prospect, didn't quite live up to that, and made some great key contributions during his time here in Florida. But now he's just totally blasted off in the stratosphere

in playing on that line next to Barkov and he has this insane output. The Panthers are encouraged with some of the dialogue that they had in being able to… Here's a Panthers pitch and it's not unlike something that Pat Riley's done in the past. You operate here in the state of Florida. Some of the other people that are going to be in on you have insane state tax. Look Canada Incredible amounts of your wages are the greatest advantage the Miami heat have yes, no state income. Yes And you also for the first time in this franchise's existence. You can sell. Hey, we're really close We're building something special. There is a younger nucleus here.

You have Matthew Kachuk locked in for a very long time over here. If you wanna win the cup, and that is every hockey player's dream, this is the best place to do it, and we can fit you inside this number. Sam Reinhart gave some very encouraging quotes to all the press that descended,

including Roy, into Toronto for the NHL All-Star game. And it seems as though both parties are in agreement. Let's wait till this offseason so we can maximize that dollar, but the pool isn't going to get any smaller for Sam Reinhardt. I'm encouraged, and it seems like they're going to be bringing him back, and probably. Yeah, he takes this discount, and they could work the tree deadline to bring in a rental so they can actually go deep into the playoffs. So that's going to, this is very encouraging. Do you guys have any allegiances that you get moved by somebody taking the

finances down in order to stay with your team, or is that part of you now died as sports fans because you've been working in this industry too long? I was really excited when Apollo took the exhibition match against Drago, but then I was pretty upset with the result. This doesn't happen often in this sport. I guess there's a fairly recent example of someone like Jonathan Marciuscio who had this career. You kind of had an idea of who they were, and then they just blow up into becoming one of the highest point getters in the league. It's a fascinating thing that's happened with Sam Reinhardt. You don't usually have this evolution in one's career this late in the game. But the thing about the hometown discount also is that it actually is the,

talk about the big advantages that a team could have. Instilling enough affection in your employees such that they take less than they could get otherwise. Tom Brady did this, Tim Duncan did this, and as much as we talk very aspirationally about player power, there is no question that even the most player power people have to admit that this is such an enormous thing that helps you win. It just, it's the, I mean, I don't know of a bigger edge you can have than your best player wants to make less money that that may well be But I say this to every young player who's about to get paid you don't give up the Discount until after you've got that huge you Tom Brady could do that because I made the money and now this is just Incremental money for Sam Reinhardt. it would be ballsy because he's 28 years old.

You didn't see this type of season coming. Capitalize on this season, maximize your dollar, and be locked in on those wages for several years. He's currently on a three-year, roughly $20 million deal that's going to expire this off-season, right? Prior to that, his entry-level contract was three years $10 million. So it's like, yeah, $30 million, that's good money, but it's like, this is your opportunity to cash the F out.

And then after you've done that, now you can come back and say hometown discounts and all that stuff. I will say, for the audience that doesn't know necessarily this this part matters too. Many of these players love how anonymous they get to be in the fort lauderdale sunshine playing games where it doesn't feel like Canada, but it feels enough like Canada on the Hollywood boardwalk where people are still walking around with sandals and socks.

But it's warm and the the anonymity where people are still walking around with sandals and socks, but it's warm. And the anonymity that they are afforded here where they can go elsewhere, where they care about hockey differently and live in Fort Lauderdale, it is not a small thing. Yeah, it's not just Canada. There are certain hockey towns. If Kuturov goes out to dinner in Tampa, he's going to get noticed. Mitch Marner can't go out in Toronto. Sam Reinhardt can probably go weeks without being recognized and Broward.

It is actually something that you could sell these players. Yeah, him, Anthony Duclair, Ansergy Babrosky was on the flight, coming back from Toronto, seeing flight as I was on. They really didn't get recognized in the airport. By the way, which is awesome. So the whole Taylor Swift thing I've been thinking about, what is the ideal optimal level of fame? Oh, my favorite, favorite conversation.

So Taylor Swift has a stalker, among all of the other indicators of her fame. She has at least one stalker who keeps on going to jail then being let out and going to her house in New York City. Real love. Just won't stop. And obviously that's okay. We can all agree, we don't actually want to be as famous Being let out and going to her house in New York City real love just won't stop and Obviously, that's okay. We can all agree. We don't actually want to be as famous as Taylor Swift

But it now brings us back to like the Mike trout conversation of like I actually think Mike trout has it, right? He matters as Dan was saying he matters in all of the rooms that he actually Professionally cares about but otherwise can be like eating a sandwich on a bench, smeared his face with mayonnaise, and like no one's gonna take a photo of him because he's just some guy. The optimal level of fame is the amount of his fame that gets you a reservation at a restaurant and a free drink at a bar,

but never hounded by anyone while you're doing it. That's another level of fame you wanna get. Kornheiser argues on behalf of the radio show by saying that it is the greatest power to have because it's the power to get the table at the restaurant you want and to destroy your enemies. I would argue though on behalf of this level of crappy fame.

Us? The level of crappy fame. Us? The level of crappy fame that gets you a nice amount of appreciation that makes you feel somewhat relevant and also one of the great benefits I will say of fame is that I can simply text my doctors. That I can, I don't have to, I can go straight to them. Provided that you give them like a little back and forth on Tua?

Oh man. That's right, that's right. Yeah, of course. Yeah, you gotta give them a little something. That's the cost of admission. So they can go into the like the work room and be like, yeah, I was texting with Labitor the other day. He says, you know, trust in Tua, but don't pay him.

But Mike, I'm telling you, that's the cost of admission. It's like when I go to Vegas and I go and there's like a security guy I was like sees me guess what that guy gets 15 minutes of show whatever you want to talk about I'll give him everything If you're just some guy walking to the casinos like hey, I mean like hey, how's it going and then you get one question You get one question. I bet you Tony's great at that The one I always give time to people that recognize me,

because again, I am the shittier of the shittier people in here as far as celebrity is concerned. So that's your trisman generally. Well, sure. Put it on the pole, Juju. Is Tony the shittiest of the shittier people? Thank you. But whenever I get recognized or somebody comes up to me,

I'll give them five or 10 minutes of my time. Too many minutes. Too many minutes. Yeah, but I mean, you're higher on the, lower on the totem pole, But whenever I get recognized or somebody comes up to me, I'll give them five or 10 minutes of my time. Because. Too many minutes. Yeah, but I mean, you're higher on the, lower on the totem pole, depending on how you think of it. But you're whatever on the totem pole more than I am. So for me, it's like, this person took their time to say, hey, Tony, I love you on the show, man.

You represent us. For me, that's one of the highest compments that I can receive. I have a move now. I will immediately ask for their name. Oh, no, that's. I will file it away, end of the conversation. I have a move now. I will immediately ask for their name. Oh, no, that's- I will file it away, end of the conversation. I say their name back.

At the end. That's so insincere. And we are bonded for life. Yeah, but it's a pro move. That's it's fake. What? I'm just telling you it's a move. Just gave away the series.

I'm telling you it's a pro move. He's doing that for everybody. No, it's respect. Hey, what's your name? Thank you. Thank you so much. Brandon, I'll see you later. No, it is respect if he never admits it

Now it's something he gives everybody he is a respect whore It's insincere respect that on the pole. Can you be a respect whore? I think that's being respectful. You can't but you're giving it to everybody. It's not special. It's not monogamous It's everybody. That's the point of respect You're giving it to everybody It's not monogamous. It's everybody. That's a point of respect. You're giving it to everybody. It doesn't make them feel special that you're knowing their name because it's your move.

It's a pickup line. It's a pickup line. It's, you know, I wish I could change the alphabet so I could put the U and I together. No, it's a line. Oh, this guy's used that word. It's a move. Get out of here.

What is that? You don't admit that? you admit that whispered in private How much does a polar bear way? Not to make the ice break. I had to go to be no has a nice to meet you. Oh Jesus Christ Still a suit and a mystery the floss before or after you brush line. It's killer. Me and my friends need a debate settle. Thank you mystery. That's the last time you watched a towel. Thank you mystery.

I was more of a Toro guy. That has not been said. Atador. Atador. Sorry. Racially profiled matador.