The Press Box - A Report From the Cowboys-Packers Tie, the Rise of the Bernie Bio, and Barbecue Notes From Texas

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and David are back to discuss Bryan’s quick trip to Dallas for the Micah Parsons return game. He lets you in on the dirty secret of football reporting, gets into the differences between the Micah trade and the Luka Doncic trade, and gives some barbecue reviews (00:24). Then they share some football audio from the weekend, including Gus Johnson’s call of an Illinois running back fumbling just as he was about to reach the end zone and a sideline interview gone wrong with Bears coach Ben Johnson (11:10). The two also get into the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week, Bernie Sanders entering biography status, and Leonardo DiCaprio going viral over what his manager wanted his name changed to (33:05). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David ShoemakerProducer: Kyle Williams Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Danny Kelly, and it's officially fantasy football season, which means the ringer fantasy football show is back with the latest news from around the NFL and everything you need to get ready for the fantasy football season. So join us at the ringer fantasy football show on Spotify or on our new YouTube channel. David? Yes. I'm coming to you from Fort Worth, Texas. Hell yeah. So you know I've got some barbecue adventures to share. I don't think I ever had barbecue. in Fort Worth, Texas when I live there.

What was wrong with you? I don't know. I don't know. Just never seemed like it was that big of a deal at the time. You like salads or something? You're putting on airs? What was good back then? Railhead?

Well, it was all good, but it wasn't gourmet like it's become. Yeah. I always say it was more like a pizza buffet. Yeah. Then it was something you stand in line for an hour. for. Yeah, now it's all craft. There's a lot of craft. And the first place I went

with some wonderful craft. It's called Sabar here in Fort Worth. People are interested. I uploaded a video to Blue Sky of the knife going through the brisket. Uh-huh. You know, it's like one of the great images of

barbecue. You got this brisket and it's all wobbly and wonderful coming out of the smoker and it's got that nice bark on it and the pit master there takes the knife and just slices right through it. It's just like going through butter. Unbelievable. The owner of Sabar's, this guy named Zane Shafi,

Shafi's parents moved to Texas from Pakistan. So he is combining Texas barbecue with the cuisine of Pakistan. This is the first barbecue joint where I've ever been able to get fruit chot as a side. Wow, this looks great. It's amazing. And let me tell you, the delicacy of delicacies there, lamb ribs. Oh. Looks like pork ribs.

Then you take a bite and it's... Doesn't smell like pork ribs. It doesn't. It's lamby. It's a little fatty. Oh, my God, those were wonderful. Yeah, that sounds really, really good. Do we have lamb ever in Brooklyn?

Did they have lamb at... What was the place up in... Up by Broadway that we used to go? I don't remember us dining on lamb, but perhaps... I remember getting duck. I feel like we had every meat in the world there, but I don't know. So that was Saturday. Sunday morning, David, I sought out another barbecue spot.

This is called Dane's Craft Barbecue. And it recently finished number seven in the Texas Monthly Power Rankings for the State. Oh, okay. The only power rankings I acknowledge are Texas Monthly Barbecue. Barbecue Power Rankings. Mm-hmm. Now, Danes is in Alito, which would we call that a suburb of Fort Worth? Sure.

Not Fort Worth. It's out there from where we grew up. They opened at 10.30 a.m. Is 1030 a.m. too early to have a gigantic filling barbecue lunch? No, absolutely not. Sometimes it's the best time to eat. I agree with you, David. So my mom and I pulled up, not at 1030,

but at 10.05. Because we're expecting to see this huge line. And when we get to the place, there's no line at all. There's nobody standing outside the door. I'm like, oh, my God. This could be amazing. High quality barbecue without a crowd of people like it's, you know, a movie premiere. So I pull into a parking space and driving my mom's or that was actually my mid-sized

SUV that I had rented for this trip. and I look over and park next to me is another mid-sized SUV. This is like a dark mirror episode. Go on. There's a man in this SUV. And I look at him and I'm like, oh my gosh, here's the only other customer waiting to get into Dane's Kraft barbecue. And this guy, David, he's got a beard. He's got an Oklahoma State baseball cap.

he's wearing a Hawaiian shirt that has a print of rubber duckies on it. Oh, I feel like I know this guy. I don't want to pass judgments or profile anybody, but I'm like, that dude can house some barbecue. He is ready to go. And he's probably looking at me and thinking exactly the same thing.

Mm-hmm. So we're just wearing a UT hat at this point in time. Yeah, of course, my rubber ducky Hawaiian shirt as well. We're looking at each other. through the windows of our cars. And I can tell that there's this little moment happening where he's like, you know, I was here first.

And I don't want this guy. Getting the first cut. Exactly. Getting the burnt end of the briscade, yeah. And I'm looking at him and I'm a deferential barbecue customer. I'm like, this guy was here first. Yeah. So I just want to be second and I don't want to be threatening to him by opening the

door too soon. Mm-hmm. Well, sure enough, then this car pulls up and all these kids get out. So we both just go racing. Oh, then you got to run. Yes. He's first. Me second.

We talk about the whole thing and we walk into Danes. And dude, this was also delicious. Brisket, succulent pork ribs, turkey, jalapeno, and Havardi sausage. Wow. And the sides were fantastic. Remember how when we were kids, every barbecue restaurant only had three sides? Mm-hmm. Should we list them?

They were... They were collard greens, big beans. Oh, well, excuse me, Mr. Southerner. This is Texas. Oh, in Texas. Oh, in Texas, it would have been like mac and cheese, like green bean salad. This is still too nice. Coleslaw is the answer.

A coleslaw, yeah, yeah. Potato salad. Yeah. Sometimes with an ice cream scoop. Sure. Pulling it out of the tub and maybe baked beans. Yeah. The mac and cheese came later, and weirdly, it was all good.

green chili mac and cheese. Oh yeah, you gotta spice things up, sure. Well, now the barbecue sides have gotten really interesting. Danes had crisp apple slaw, some broccoli grape salad. I'm a big slaw guy. I like to keep my slaw pretty straightforward. This was generational slaw.

Okay. You can have special slaw, but make sure you have the real slaw too. I just want some freaking mayonnaise sloth. But it tasted like the normal slaw. Okay. really good normal sloth. All right. I agree with you.

Don't mess with perfection. Also, I might have gone by half-priced books here in Fort Worth and found that somebody had dumped their entire 70s and 80s National Lampoon Collection at this store. Sir, here is my wallet. Let me give you all the money for those particular items. You should get a discount if you just take all of the things someone has just dropped off. I've offered to do that before. No discount.

I'm like, I will take all of these magazines. Yeah. Dude, I got so many. And I came home and I opened one of them and the John Hughes short story, Christmas, or excuse me, Vacation 58, which became the original National Lampoon's vacation movie. It was in one of the magazines. Oh, really? Usually, we looked at that, we talked about it last season.

That was the Christmas vacation story. Oh, this is original vacation. See, these are the fine distinctions when you're at half-priced books in Fort Worth, Texas that we're all making. That's great. It was so excited. Anything else happen on your trip? Well, I might have gone to Cracker Barrel this morning. You finally went.

I finally went. The only Cracker Barrel agnostic in the world. I like being agnostic. I'm sure there's something out there. I just don't know what it is. Yeah. I think that's right. What did you think?

First of all, what did you get? What did you order? So I'm looking at the breakfast options and one is like Uncle Herschel's favorite. You remember Uncle Herschel was taken off the sun? sign at Cracker Barrel. And so I'm like, not off the menu. Not off the menu, but off the sign. I'm like, I'd like to make solidarity with Uncle Herschel,

but I wasn't sure what political message that would send exactly. Am I lining up with MAGA? Am I lining up with the forces of modernity and tolerance? What am I doing here by choosing this item? I also noticed that Uncle Herschel's favorite entree there offered you a variety of breakfast meats. Yeah. Which included catfish as an option?

There's sometimes where catfish is really good in breakfast foods, you know. Actually, you do a really well done catfish and grits who totally get me, but it's, it's dicey. Yeah, and 10.30 a.m. maybe an okay time for barbecue. I'm not sure it's an okay time for catfish. Yeah, maybe not. It's right on the edge. But I got an order you'd be so proud of. chicken fried steak and eggs.

Yeah, there you go. That's the thing to get there. You got to go chicken fried steak, chicken fried chicken, or just the fried chicken. Yeah, it's very, very good food. I mean, that's a very, very good order. And it's, you know, it's Cracker Barrel. You got that, that's a good order to gauge Cracker Barrel by. I'll say that.

Yes. Could have had a little more country gravy on the steak, but, you know, we're, we're... Splitting hairs at that point? We're splitting hairs. We're not putting on airs, we're splitting hairs. also you and I are both from Texas Southern parts of the world were used to people using the term y'all

I've never had such aggressive yawling as I got when I was greeted at the Cracker Barrel almost like there was a script that said you know greet her at the door say hey y'all person seating you at the table also say hey y'all yep you all need some more water over here Unbelievable. Unbelievable stuff. All right. Coming up on today's podcast, David,

a report from the press box of last night's Cowboys Packers game. One of the most exciting ties in NFL history. Plus, here come the Bernie Sanders biographies weekend football audio, if that's what we're still calling this feature, the madness of golf Twitter during the Ryder Cup, and Leonardo DiCaprio, and how the celebrity interviews, sausage gets made.

All that and much more on the press box. A part of the ringer podcast network. Hello, media consumers, Brian Curtis, David Shoemaker, and producer Kyle Williams, who's sitting in for Kyle Crichton. Big football game last night, David. I'm aware.

Cowboys Packers ending in an improbable 40-40 tie. The NFL says that it was the second highest scoring tie in NFL history. Okay. One of the saddest boasts I have ever read or saddest pieces of trivia. Mm-hmm. The reason I flew down, David, is because this was a revenge game. The Micah Parsons revenge game.

I think that goes without saying. I was expecting something slightly more, less earnest, I think, than I was going down because it was a revenge game. Yes. All right. I mean, Cowboys Packers is always fun. Yeah. But when you had the idea that Micah Parsons could perhaps break the NFL single season sack record in one game.

Because the Cowboys stink so much. The Cowboys had two offensive linemen out. Purchase my ticket coming down. All right. Now for countries across the world, and we have lots of international listeners here, for countries that do not spend 90% of their time talking about NFL transactions. Micah Parsons was a defensive end for the Dallas Cowboys. he and the Cowboys owner Jerry Jones got into a contract dispute,

a very funny contract dispute. And then Jerry Jones decided to trade Micah Parsons to the Packers, arrival of the Cowboys, one week before the season started. Just unbelievable stuff. And in fact, exactly one month before yesterday's game. I'm walking into AT&T Stadium.

And all these Packer fans are there wearing green, number one Micah Parsons jerseys. And as a Cowboys fan, that seems so unreal. Well, yeah.

It seemed like those Photoshop jerseys that Adam Schaefter tweets out whenever there's a trade. I've done a bunch of those jerseys

in my time. We were on the cutting edge of photoshopping jerseys on a B1. Did you start that? And then Adam Schaefter picked up on the movement?

I certainly didn't start it. But yeah, we were doing it before it was every single transaction tweet had a different, had a jersey stuck on somebody. So it's great

when you cover game because you get to park right next to the stadium. Get your badge. It's like going through TSA Pre at the airport where you stare into the camera and it knows that you are the correct holder of the badge. Sure.

There's two acts of physicality in every sports press box. One is at halftime when every sports writer races to the buffet line. And dude, you should have seen me. We were inching toward half. Do you run faster for the buffet or for the barbecue restaurant?

when the kids rolled up. Ooh. I mean, at both cases, I look like Kavante Turpin returning a pun. I mean, I was blowing by people. I was going to house that baby one way or the other. The other amazing thing about press boxes is so you have a nice buffet, you know, during half time and during most of the game. But the Cowboys, and I've seen a lot of teams do this, put out all this ice cold beer

after the game. He's ice cold Miller lights last night. And I'm like, I just want to reach the tier of sports writing someday where I'm just done with my stuff. Oh, yeah. That looked so good. Oh, it's so good. Rather than coming home and writing a lead 19 times. That's a really kind thing to do because, you know, my experience is a lot of, you go to sporting events to go anywhere.

And it's like the game ends and there's no place to get a drink. You know, it's like most of the concession stands of clothes and you're leaving the stadium knowing I'm an hour away. from anywhere else I could order a beer from, you know, once you, like, get in your cab or get in your car and drive there, get through all the traffic. And by the time you get there, it's like half the stuff's closed down anyway.

Doesn't that feel like old school sports writing? Yeah, man, just give us some beers. Shoemaker wrote his column and two sidebars, and now he gets to celebrate with a cold Miller light. Oh, yeah. So that's one act of physicality. The other is at the end of the game. Because it's a dirty secret of football reporting

that a lot of football reporters do not stay till the final whistle, they want to get down to the locker rooms. And to get down to the locker rooms, there's usually one elevator. That elevator is not just press box to the bottom floor. It's serving all kinds of needs at the stadium. So you want to make sure you're on the elevator first. So I'm sitting there and I'm watching people like Calvin Watkins of the Dallas Morning News. I'm like, when he goes, I'm going.

but of course this game is going back and forth neither defense can stop the other and I'm kind of perched on one side of the press box and I'm like I can't go anywhere this is exciting I don't want to leave and nobody's moving well then Green Bay kick's a field goal we go into overtime

not only do we go into overtime we take all 10 minutes of overtime oh god like the Packers tying field goal their final tying field goal came with one second left in overtime. They barely had a second on the clock. So everybody's just frozen.

And then there's this stampede to the elevator. And it turns out that at AT&T stadium they have a freight elevator up there. Oh, here we go. We can fit a lot of sports riders on a freight elevator. Even those of us who are eating at Cracker Barrel and Danes Craft

Barbecue. Yeah. And if you've ever been on a press box elevator. This is one of the great sights of gallows humor anywhere in the world. People making jokes about the players that screwed up who are going to get all the tough questions. Sure. Yeah.

I mean, everybody in that elevator dude yesterday was just completely silent. Because they're just like, what the hell did we just watch? Yeah. That was exciting. Yep. It was also really sloppy and poorly played at times. Mm-hmm. The whole revenge element of it didn't exactly come off or wasn't obvious how it came off.

Yeah. On either side, yeah. But it was incredibly fun. And then, of course, we get down to the Cowboys locker room and this is a tradition with the Cowboys. Who pops out first before any of the players or coaches have talked to the media, but Jerry Jones? Yeah. And Jerry said, I'm not going to be here very long. And everybody's, of course, laughing at that one because Jerry's going to.

to do 20 minutes. Mm-hmm. And he's walking down the corridor after the interviews and reporters are still tagging along. He's still sloughing off material all the way until he gets into a different elevator. It disappears. Speaking of Jerry Jones. Mm-hmm. I had a chance to meet Bobby Belt in the press box.

He is the insider at Radio Station 1053, the fan there in Dallas. Uh-huh. And he is part of these Jerry Jones radio interviews. but you and I listen to or at least see aggregated every week. Yeah. Because unlike any owner in the league and pretty much any GM anywhere, Jerry is both, he does weekly radio hits. And I was watching it before I went down there and Belt and his co-host there

are like giving these numbered signs. Uh-huh. Almost like their managers in the dugout signaling for a pitch or a pickoff play. and it turns out they have this list of numbered questions. And of course, Jerry is such a digressive speaker that they have to give each other hand signs across the studio there so they know what to ask next. Here is Bobby talking about that.

So like for instance, last week I had 19 questions written out for Jerry. And so it just goes in a million different directions. And Sean Trief, who's our lead host, he is kind of directing all of it. And so when I've got my questions out there, I'll send them to him the night before. of like, hey, this is what I'd like to ask Jerry. So then when we're on there, that way we don't have to cut off our mics,

he'll just hold up a number. And then when he holds up a number, I know, okay, all right, we're going with this direction next. So we just asked three, but let's skip to seven next. Yeah, so honestly. So, like, I mean, it'll be, I'll have it like stacked up and it can be, he'll hold up three. And then it could be he's holding up 11 and then, you know, 14. And then obviously when we're listening to him, it's like, okay, well,

let's pivot over here and let's now. He just said this. Let's talk about this now. And so it can kind of change the area. But, I mean, like said, it's a number of questions that usually cover eight different topics that we have up there. Some of them kind of evergreen. Some of them were drilled down and pointed. And then we just kind of walk in there prepared for like, all right, we know exactly what we want to ask them and how we want to ask. So the idea is that like you have 20 questions prepped, 30 questions prepped.

And if he answers like seven of them in the course of answering the first one, then you're just, that's why does producers that are like signaling to go to something else. Yeah. And you know how Jerry talks. He's just like fish tailing all over the road. Sure. So often he's answering those first seven questions and also answered seven other ones that you didn't even put on the list. He has also had such an amazing way of talking when he was talking about scheming up against Micah Parsons this week. He kept using the term antidotes.

Like he was running a drug company. Yeah. He was racing to find a vaccine. He also had this line talking about the draft picks they got in the Parsons trade that's constantly with me on the hunt for Red October is the best way to use these picks. Wait, what? So I asked Bobby, do you understand what the hunt for Red October means? I don't know what Jerry means when he makes about half of his analogies.

We just kind of like smile and nod, but no, I think he's, he's on the prowl. He's, he's on the attack. That's what he's looking for. But he's, you know, he's every year, he's always got something. He's circumcised in mosquitoes is one of his from the past. course we know about glory hole we've heard that reference before um so he he's always thrown a phrase or thrown an idiom and then you're just kind of like okay all right what would whatever that i'm sure that means something different to him than it does to whoever else you hear it and so when you hear it you

usually just kind of go okay we need to mark that to ask him about when we're off the side at some point like hey what does that mean specifically so yeah that's the way he typically answers was the glory hole bit in the cowboy's documentary is that where he was actually where he's finally asked about it I think he's been finally asked about it like three times. But he said it's an oil, it's an oil term or whatever. But then he seemed immediately aware of the other implications or the other meanings of it. And by the way, circumcising the mosquito, there wasn't an alternate meaning necessary. We sort of understood that there could be one true meaning of that phrase.

I also asked him about how people in Dallas are feeling about the Micah Parsons trade. Because there were a lot of comps with the Luca trade when it happened. Of course, it's not that bad. I don't think anything could be that bad. But here's what Bobby said Dallas sports fans were feeling when they saw the generational pass rusher shipped out of town. It's going to be interesting. We were talking this week about how much we anticipate booing versus cheering when he's out there.

It's not like the Luca trade. The Luca trade devastated the entire city. This was one that I think most people wanted to keep him. I don't think anybody was pro-Jerry from this trade, but they definitely just thought there were two bad guys, I think. And I think by the end, a lot of Cowboys fans were kind of fed up with Micah. It had dragged on a little bit. He had, you know, kind of sprawled out on the training table out here during a preseason game.

He had not worn his jersey to practice a couple times. He had, you know, talked a certain way on social media that I think a lot of Cowboys fans just felt kind of like personally slided by. Like, well, you can do this just kind of quietly. You don't have to take shots at us on the way out. Isn't interesting? Because when you think of the Luca trade, it was all on Nico Harrison. Sure. The Maveridge GM.

Nobody was pro-Niko. But with Jerry, there's been so much villainy priced in with him. Yeah. That somehow there are multiple bad guys in Dallas? Yeah. I feel like that's a pretty common... I mean, listen, I don't know that Micah Parsons did anything that should earn him any ire. But I do feel like that's a pretty common reaction.

that you see to, you know, trades and free agency and other transactions online. I still think, despite the fact that we're in the player empowerment era, a lot of fans, I'd say the majority of fans' inclination is to be anti-player. And part of that in this era, in this age, is like, I feel like I know them really well, I have expectations of them, like whatever. So you hear a lot of people say, oh, the player really, this is the player's fault. That's the sort of default answer. But we know we're in the player empowerment era.

We know we're in a more modern world. We know we shouldn't be pro-owner. And so you always have to qualify it. Well, you know, I'm not a Jerry Jones fan here. Like, I don't believe, I don't like this owner. Don't get me wrong. But, you know, the player acted more too disrespectful. Then you go back to like an old-fashioned critique or whatever.

But yeah, I could, I see. Yeah, that doesn't shock me too much. Jerry's also sort of in some ways evolved past villainy. Now, don't get me wrong. I think the vast majority of Cowboys fans would be. happy if he disappeared and let it literally anybody else run the team. But he's reached a kind of age and a comfort level or comfort level with him as such that, yeah, it's hard to villainize him too much on a day that he's not just traded away your best player.

A little more football audio for you. We had no eagle on the podcast last week. Oh, yeah. And I was joking with him that because he was calling Penn State Oregon, that he was going to be the first broadcast. to ever participate in the Penn State whiteout where everyone wears white. And now if you saw this, the college game day crew then actually showed up wearing all white. And please glance at your Google Doc because somebody had an absolutely fantastic tweet where they got a picture of Nick Sabin from Game Day and said, this is what I imagine God looks like.

Oh, I'm looking right now. That is absolutely fantastic. I mean, that is so great. The real energy of those George Burns movies in the 80s. Over on Fox, Gus Johnson was doing Illinois USC. It's a fourth quarter in Illinois running back, Khalil Valentine. About to run at the end zone, David. And he fumbles. And Illinois is just about to put SC away.

He fumbles into the end zone. SC recovers. I want you to help me describe the vocal quality that Gus Johnson achieves right here. Yeah, holy Chicago is a good one. That wasn't quite a screech, maybe a Yelp. Would you categorize that as a Yelp?

Kind of a Yelp and kind of like he was doing Looney Tunes characters or Hannah Barbera. Yeah. I mean, there's a real cartoon voice aspect to that. Mm-hmm. I love that. You know, Sean McDonough, his voice always cracks.

Yeah. When he's a really, really big moment. Gus, I wouldn't call that cracking necessarily, but it goes to a different place. Oh, for sure. Wanted to run this by you too. A sideline interview gone wrong. Ben Johnson, head coach of the Bears,

was being interviewed at the beginning of the second half of his game against the Raiders. Offense had been a little sluggish in the first half. CBS sideline reporter Adidi Kinkabwala asked him a few questions. and see how this kind of got off the rails. Your offense has struggled. You can take advantage of those takeaways. Okay, so what did you tell them to get things going?

That it wasn't our brand of football. We're capable of a lot more. And so we're hitting the reset button here at halftime. We're going to come back and establish our identity here in the second half. You need to change what you're doing. I don't know. You think so? We're going to be just fine.

Thanks, well. All right, Ben Johnson, all business. The little intimidation. I can't see there is the mean mugging that Johnson is doing after that last comment. I don't know how you address it. How he addresses the fact that, A, this is a really boring, like, I know exactly what you're going to ask because we all know what you're going to ask. This is like the most like rote thing ever, which I think is a reasonable critique, but then

also be offended by the thing that you know they're going to ask, the thing they ask every game. Yeah. And wouldn't you rather have them actually ask the. question than just completely lay up on the question you want. I mean, you know, as somebody who considers himself the Dwight McDonald of sideline question critiques, half the time, it's not even a question about the thing we all just watched. And she's actually asking the question.

I don't know if he didn't like the way that second, you know, comment came out or just got thought tonally that was weird or whatever, but I almost feel like we should have more sideline interviews that go this way. Because that means you're asking a provocative question. You are putting your finger on the pressure spot. And saying, coach, offense hasn't been very good. What are you going to do? Rather than, you know, what does this mean to this team?

Or just go the other way. I think every sideline reporter should just start their interview with, guess what I'm going to ask right now and see if they get it right. Yeah. Answer the question you think I'm leading with. Who knows what you're going? Yeah. I think she did a great job there.

nothing to apologize for except from him. Naming the football audio feature. We did get a lot of response to that. Here's some suggestions. Flag on the play by play. That's from Ben Patterson. Pigskin Payback from Michael Farrar. Playback.

I said payback. Grid irony. Both Phil Sofer and David Keller suggested that. And the review booth from Kyle Green. Maybe something there. What was the first one? The first one was flag on the play-by-play.

It's a little bit long, but that one's great. Should we keep thinking about this? Yeah, grid irony is pretty great, though. I feel like if no one else, if that's not already the name of a thing, we should just eat it. It's a bad pun if nothing else. Anyway,

Brian. at the ringer.com, you too could win a press box button if you have the right name for our football audio feature. Speaking of features, David, how about America's softest target? Oh, God, we got a new one, huh? We do.

Joining such luminaries as Nico Harrison, Joe Biden, all the people that ran Joe Biden's campaign and Kamala Harris's. Let me introduce you to Keegan Bradley, the captain of the U.S. Ryder Cup team. There were no pro-kegan Bradley forces on Twitter on Friday. or Saturday? No. I mean, they were getting them

for the pairings. They were getting them for the course set up. You and I had a conversation after the Masters of Spring and I asked you if Rory McElroy had actually blown the Masters as he nearly did.

What would have happened? Yeah. I think we got to look at it on Friday and Saturday with golf Twitter. You think. Everybody was on fire. Mm-hmm.

I mean, you know, congratulations. You know, Kyle Porter, Kevin Van Valkenberg, Joel Beal, I see you out there on the course, Paulo O'Ggetti, Shane Ryan, everybody. Because not only was the U.S. melting down,

but then all the patrons there on Long Island, I guess we don't even want to call them patrons there, fans on Long Island. Yeah. A bunch of them decided to just MF the European players up and down the course and we're getting thrown out and the Euros were going right back at them. It was unbelievable.

Yeah, it was quite an event, yeah. It's almost like it was professional wrestling or something. Don't go there. By the way, NBC put Nick Faldo on their commentary. Nick Faldo has been retired from CBS for a while. And we knew where his heart lies. And oh my gosh, that first day when Europe was kicking some booty, I mean, he was in the full Bobby the Brain mode there.

Just saying when he knew that everybody hated having him say. I love that so much. If you need a good wreck, too, Andrew Grudadarro of The Ringer, wrote a really great profile of Brandel Chambly. That's up on the website. It was so good. Such a great piece. Go check that out, please.

Over at the ringer.com. All right, David, coming up in 30 seconds, Leonardo DiCaprio and how the interview sausage gets made. But first, let's do the overword Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to at the press box pod, where they are always

gratefully received. This week's winner, David, jokes about watching four hours of football Sunday night, only to have it result in a tie.

It was an overwork Twitter joke to tweet a picture of you flinging yourself into your big screen, watching a test pattern or writing, I'll go F myself. If you did any of those things,

congrats. You made the overwork Twitter joke of the week. All right, in the notebook dump, have you seen one battle after another yet. I have not. Have you? No. You and I were always going to be

at best week two guys. Yeah. With this movie. I'm very excited to see it. Though I did see the whole thing erupting on Twitter last week about the box office of one battle after another. Yeah. I'd also like to introduce a new feature here at the press box

called I'm sitting this one out. We need to normalize not having an opinion on everything. It's really okay. I know that podcasting and social media has just made us all into opinion havers, but like we don't need to have an opinion when everyone dies. You don't be like, wow, he was one of the greats. All right. Be like, we got it. Thank you very much. You know, like that we'll just let the general sentiment carry us on that one. And I have no opinion about the box office of this movie. Anyway, as part of the,

Selling of one battle after another, Leonardo DiCaprio and Benicio del Toro went on the Kelsey Brothers New Heights podcast. If you need another reg, please check out the Superior Big Pick interview with Leo and Paul Thomas Anderson. But in any case, this anecdote got a lot of love from that podcast. I finally got an agent. They said, your name is too ethnic. I go, what do you mean?

It's Leonardo DiCaprio. They go, no, too ethnic, they're never going to hire. Your new name is Lenny Williams. I was 1330. I said, what is Lenny Williams? Well, he took your middle name and we made it. Now you're Lenny. And my dad saw his photo, ripped it up and he said, over my dead body.

So much over laughing there. I love that so much. Yeah. The overlapping is, it's worse in video. It really is. Now, that Lenny Williams anecdote got aggregated coast to freaking coast. Sure. I mean, oh my God, guys, did you see this?

I watched that and I'm like, you know what that sounds like? It sounds like an anecdote that an actor's people fed to a late night talk show host back in the day. Sure. Even today. It's kind of an icebreaker. Yeah. Here's a funny story. Uh-huh.

Well, I did about one and a half minutes of Googling. Oh, no. And if Google hadn't been completely broken, it would have taken me about 10 seconds. Yeah. Here, David, is Leonardo. DiCaprio on David Letterman's show 30 years ago, literally 1995, four days before the basketball diaries came out. Oh my God.

And listen to how this interview kicks off. No, I don't do my taxes. Oh. My mom does them for me. Is mom reliable? My mom's very reliable. That's right. Good.

Would you like a steak dinner? Can we get you a nice big, thick steak? No, thanks, Dave. Tell me a little bit about your name, if you don't mind. Leonardo DiCaprio, it is a very rhythmic, very poetic sort of sounding name. Very nice. Thank you. Thank you very much. Is there a story about that? Your parents have something. Actually, I do have a story about my name. Let me hear it. Well, the first time I got an agent. They thought my name... How old were you?

I was about six years old, seven years old. You got an agent at six years old. I tried to get an agent. I didn't succeed because they wanted to change my name to Lenny Williams. They thought my name was a little too ethnic, so they sort of dissected it and said, hey, Leonardo Lenny. My middle name's Wilhelm, so they changed that to William's. Let's get back to your given name again. Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio. Wow, that's a good one.

That's great. So much there. I think it played better now. Leo's become a better actor or better pitchman. Yes, he has. Better patterer. He also relocated the anecdote from age six or seven to age 12 or 13, so that was pretty fun. But don't you love to tell in an interview like that?

Is there a story about your name? It's literal. David Letterman has the pre-interview notes right in front of him. And he is asking the most leading question imaginable. I was like, David, Shoemaker, is there a story back in the old country about your name? Some of your relatives makers of shoes? I mean, just hilarious. And again, I have no judgments about this.

I'm not going to high horse this baby because, you know, who cares, I guess, at the end of the day. You gotta imagine people going out on these like podcast tours at this point You're telling the same bits over and over again Certainly back in the days where you would do radio junk hits or whatever You were telling them the same jokes Yeah and that's fine with me because sometimes we'll be doing research for an interview And somebody will have just told a funny story at some point Back in the day and I'm like

Shouldn't I just get them to tell the story again? Yeah Because nobody listening to the podcast knows the story What's funny to me is the aggregation apparatus Oh, okay. Where people are like, oh my God, you know, readers of, I don't know, people, you must know this funny thing. And there's just, there's no, both no ability and absolutely no interest in being like, has this story been told before? Yeah.

Do we know this? Again, it's like page two of Google. Like, oh, you know, he's Lenny Williams. I got it. but it's just like information moves in the most asinine way now. And so everybody's like, oh my God, Lenny Williams guys. It's true. Somebody should just be combing through old letterman interviews and trying to get those to go viral.

Well, people do that. There's whole Twitter accounts are just like, here's the thing that was on NFL films. That's true. Check this out. And I was like, well, that must be fun. Just harvested that from somewhere in the green. great TV beyond. Yeah.

Showed it to you. Big Week in Media Piss Tests. I love this line from the New Yorker's political scene podcast. Back in looking at Watergate. I mean, we have had sort of persecutions using the power of the government against perceived enemies of a president,

but it was considered the biggest blot on our history. And we've rivaled that, if not, surpassed that. And what's remarkable, of course, This is Trump is Richard Nixon on steroids. You knew where that was going. That's a great media piss test.

Richard Nixon on steroids, thanks to Patrizio. Adam Waltonbaugh also. Richard Nixon literally on steroids might have been the greatest politician in American history. You think you would have had much different abilities than he did as Richard Nixon very much not on steroids? And I could you imagine Richard Nixon just like benching 400 pounds? Yeah, I think it would have just changed all aspects of Richard Nixon if he'd just been taking us to the gun show at the Western White House every day. Listener Adam Waltonbaugh also points us to a Friday tweet from Cash Patel, who is of course the director of the FBI. The wildly false accusations attacking this FBI for the politicization of law enforcement comes from the same bankrupt media that sold the world on Russiagate.

it's hypocrisy on steroids. Thank you, Mr. FBI, for your contribution to this feature. Pretty weak one, Buck. I also wanted to run this by you as our book knower. So there's a tweet from Jeff Stein in the Washington Post last month that he was going on leave to write what he called the definitive biography of Bernie Sanders. Then I am flipping through the book catalogs, as I like to do. and coming from Knaf in February

is a book called Bernie for Burlington The Rise of the People's Politician by Dan Chyerson. 592 pages. I would hope it would be pretty definitive. Pretty definitive at that line. Yeah, exactly. Why has Bernie Sanders entered the proper biography zone? That's a good question.

I mean, it just feels like a bet on him running for president again in 2020, right? But isn't he out? Isn't he hasn't he kind of, isn't he actually not running? Well, he's out there on the road all the time. Is he just the fact that he's going to be, he's going to be the kingmaker? Yeah, that's true. I mean, it's a really interesting. I mean, at some point you're making some really craven double bet on future success slash death.

You're like, you know, parlaying that with the end of the retirement and or demise of the person. He's definitely getting up there. He was talking about his age the other day. He is all but ruled out at 28, 28 run. There we go. He's probably not running. And I think in general, we've seen the politics. I mean, this is a little bit of sooth saying in this, but I think you don't have to be too insightful to realize that the next.

kind of left lefty movement is going to be a lot more reminiscent of Bernie Sanders than it is any of the other major presidential candidates of the past 10, 20 years. And if that's the direction that half the country is moving,

then I think Bernie Sanders is going to become more of a sort of not just establishment figure, but it's, you know, piece of establishment history. This is Mamdani, AOC, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, and I just think in general. I mean, yes, yeah, absolutely.

But I just think, I just think in general. I mean, I think that there's a, I think that the, that the, the positions that Bernie Sanders had to sort of simplify himself to during his two presidential runs, I think will be the starting point in terms of like liberalism for the next democratic field. Now you think? I think a lot of it certainly. And certainly not going to be like semi-toxic like it was in other cycles, at least a large, you know, a large, swaths of the party, if I can use the only term.

I mean, I think that one of the biggest ways that you can make inroads into potential Trump voters is talking about universal health care. It's worked really well for Bernie Sanders as he's gone around the country. That's just an example. But also, there's not just a common sense, human decency, morality issue. There's also just the political issue, which is, you know, it's a lot easier to sell than all the other medical, you know, medical industry, reorganizational movements that we've tried so far.

It's a lot simpler just to sell. universal health care than whatever else you want to call it. That's a number sticker. Yeah, it's just, and I think that there's a lot of simplicity to, in large part, too, because of the sort of obvious nature, even though a lot of us had blinders onto it, that Bernie Sanders isn't pushing for so long. I mean, I think that, I think it's going to be a very Bernie primary season starting up in a, well, when is it, what are we officially starting?

I mean, it'd be 2028 would be the first primary, right? Yes, so that means 27 will be consumed with president. Everyone who held declared early in 2027. So 2026 will be midterms, you know, those visits. So it's immediately after the midterms, basically. Yes, people like Andy Beshear going just helping politicians in New Hampshire, not running, just wanted to make an appearance on their behalf. How are you helping them?

Well, you're a big star. You're a big Tyler star of democratic politics I could like Listen I would understand If you were

You know The sort of person That's on MSNBC Prime Time a lot As a talking head But that's not Andy Bashir Like I just don't know what the I think he's a great dude

I just don't like What are you doing besides Well whatever That's where stations of the cross You got to go out there When it comes to Bernie I think there's just a functional thing here that he's around still.

He is not shy about doing interviews. So if you're a biographer, that's a great place to be, as you say, David, right? Somebody who's a kingmaker, somebody who's really influenced American politics over the last decade plus, somebody who could give you interviews

and tell you about that process, potentially. You know, that's an exciting place to be if you're contemplating. It's true. The access is really, important and I do think that there's just a general like I mean there's probably been a lot of just change the conventional wisdom about Bernie Sanders right I mean I don't know if two years ago

he would have been accepted as someone who you would want to publish a biography of you know will there be enough people interested in that is that there those the people that probably say Bernie Sanders Bernie Rose don't buy books I'm sure people someone has said that out loud you know does it help that the Democrats lost the last election does that make Bernie as a book subject somehow more viable? Well, I mean, just other kind of democratic politics didn't work at least. Yeah, I mean, like look at the world. Like Bernie Sanders is out here like speaking to mass audiences on a weekly basis.

They buy books. There's plenty of people there that are. I mean, and Kamala Harris, I guess, has her own book out that she's out promoting, but this is going to be a, you know, a two-week boomlet. Like we're not, we're never going to hear from her again, I'm sure. and it's just there's no one's it's just it's it's a totally different thing i mean it's no one cares what she has to say what tim walls has to say i don't say no one but you know yeah it's a i think it's a very hard you know hill to climb yeah speaking of uh presidential

politics martin murray of bow new hampshire says a reminder that the capital of the granite state is pronounced concord not concord is that offensive well it's kind of a Louisville, Louisville kind of thing. Wait, excuse me, Louisville, Louisville, yeah, Louisville. I mean, I don't get mad at Louisville. It's not like...

You notice, I never say that around you. I respect you. No, I know, well, yeah. I think common sense, it's not a mispronunciation. If you're like, if it's like the way that it might sound if you had a British accent, that's not a misproncation, you know, it's just I'm saying it a different way. It's not like Houston and Houston. No, that can really bothers the people.

San Pedro in California. I was rewatching the usual suspects the first time forever the other day and they said San Pedro and I'm like, does you mean California say San Pedro? It's all been corrupted. It's time for a feature, David, that has always been corrupt, down to its very bones. It's time for David's shoemaker guesses,

the strain pun headline. Last Monday's headline about the reopening of a Paris tourist attraction was the comeback of Notre Dame. Today's headline comes from alert listener David Turner. it's from New York Magazine. You have to believe me when I said the other day,

you know, Ben Terrace has been kind of quiet since his big John Federman feature over New York Magazine. And then he has a new one about Christy Noem, the Homeland Security Secretary, and Corey Lewandowski, whom the magazine says, Noam is dating and has become a kind of enforcer

at DHS. So think of a classic Tom Cruise movie as you ponder what was New York magazine's strained upon

headline classic Tom Cruise movie I'm thinking far and away for some reason that can't be it What a weird thing to come to your mind

is a classic Tom Cruise It's a love story This is going to be about the Lewandowski portion of the story Cocktail Rain Man More classic than that.

Or even more classic than that. Days of Thunder. Oh, sorry. Top Gun. Thank you. Top. The enforcer. The guy who's just laying down.

Maybe a hockey player who's, you know. Oh, what's it called? An enforcer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I know what you mean. Top. G. What's the word?

Top goon. Goon. God, why didn't I think of that? I'm an idiot. Top goon. Anybody groaning at me right now. I hear you. I feel you.

I agree with you. David's learning. He's trying to do better. He is David Chewaker. I'm Brian Curtis. But thanks a magic by Kyle Williams. Coming up, we got two more episodes this week. Wednesday, it's a special 25 for 25 double-hitter.

Joel did interviews with. with Jalani Cop of the Columbia J-School and Spencer Hall. Everybody's All-American. J-Loney on J-School, Spencer on the weird internet. That's coming up Wednesday, and then Thursday, Joel and I'll be here for our usual show.

Shoemaker, I'll see you next Monday with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.