The Press Box - Charles Barkley “Retires,” the Journalist and the Brat Pack, Agony at the U.S. Open, and CNN’s Big Debate

Episode Date: June 18, 2024

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and David kick off the show by discussing yet another Charles Barkley “retirement announcement” (0:42). Then, they close out this NBA season with talk of ESPN adding an active player to their pregame show (13:14) and JJ Redick potentially being the first podcaster turned NBA coach (15:50). They then discuss the upcoming presidential debate and why it will be a huge night for CNN (19:40). Later in the Notebook Dump, they get into the Brat Pack documentary and why it is an interesting, secret media movie (32:01).  Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, my name is Dave Gonzalez, and I haven't read any of the books in George R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. I'm Joanna Robinson and I've read every book in Georgia R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. And I'm Neil Miller and I have also read those very heavy books. Years ago, we hosted a Game of Thrones podcast called A Storm Spoilers, and we're thrilled to head back to Westrose to cover the second season of House of the Dragon on the Trial by Content feed. We'll be using our book knowledge to dive deep into each episode and answer your lingering questions. So send us a raven every week to Trial by Content at Gene. email.com.

Follow and subscribe to trial by content on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast to join us on Thursdays where these two will explain to me which Targaryen is right. David? Yeah. Should we put a bow on the NBA finals? Oh, please. Let's just be done with it.

Barry it 10,000 feet under the earth. Like a time capsule. We can either open in 100 years or just forget the location of and never reverect. visit again. Boston Celtics are the champions. They beat your Dallas Mavericks four games to one. Yeah. Series ended Monday night.

And of course, the big story of game four of the finals, David, was that Charles Barkley is retiring. You said that with a straight face. Congratulations. I didn't know how to render air quotes in a podcast.

Yeah. Charles Barkley is retiring. Mm-hmm. I'll at least make him through the Zoom for you. Here's what he said after Game 4 on NBA TV. You know, that's been a lot of noise around our

network the last few months. And I just want to say, I've talked to all the other networks, but I ain't going nowhere other than TNT. But I have made the decision myself no matter what happens

next year is going to be my last year on television and I just want to say thank you to my NBA family you guys been great to me my heart is full with joy and gratitude but I'm going to pass the baton at the end of next year I hope the NBA stays with TNT but for me personally I wanted you guys to hear from me because I'm not doing any more interviews don't y'all be calling me

nobody calling me now I don't want to totally Nick write this thing David something may have changed in Charles Barkley's life there is perhaps something that we don't know going on here but

one might say in fact one might have written in the ringer.com over the last couple of weeks that Charles Barkley is an expert at negotiating his television contracts through the media and that the way he does this is to say things about his future prospects that are as interesting as the things he says about basketball. So that you must quote these things.

And that this puts pressure on all of his potential employers to then come around and offer Charles Barkley wonderful contracts to do more television. Yeah. And one of the strategies he has employed over the years is to threaten to retire from television. Yeah. In fact, he's been doing this for over a decade. There's a funny story when I was writing the aforementioned Ringer article, which is called Charles Barkley is open for business. That a decade ago, he said, that's it, guys, I'm retiring. I'm done.

Calling it a career. He'd already been on Turner for about 15 years at this point. And Turner executives arrived at his house with tons of expensive wine and pasta and meatballs. And they ate and drank into the evening. I think Charles said they went into his backyard and were playing at his putting green in the backyard. And at some point in the wee hours of the morning, a Turner executive, and this is all according to Charles Barkley, brought out a golf check. Like the big oversized checks they give you when you win the tournament. Like a publisher's clearinghouse check.

I guess no one he knows what that is either. The publisher, an Ed McMahon check, yes, if you will. And Charles Barkley could not believe the number that was written on the check. And at that point, he decided, as he put it, Chuck's going back to work. Mm-hmm. So he was retiring until someone paid him a ton of money and then he decided not to retire anymore. Right, right. We don't know if the, I mean, this is again his telling.

It's not straightforward. that was the plan, but that certainly seems like he learned at that point what's necessary to get those golf checks. Yeah, that's the funny part about all this, because I don't know that Charles Berkeley isn't telling the truth. Yeah, I agree. I think it's more that he's saying what pops into his head at any given moment. Yep, which is why we love him.

Which is why we love him. but to take those proclamations seriously when they are different than proclamations he made that also got aggregated a couple of weeks ago. It's pretty funny because he spent the last month talking about, hey, I'm about to become a free agent. Yeah. I'm great. I got an outclos of my contract. I can't wait for the networks to line up and pay me money. Yeah. Or he said, hey, you know, I might produce inside the NBA myself and bring along all my friends and we will stay together. Yeah. These are completely different than what he said the other day.

Yes. And that's the funny place he leads reporters, especially reporters on my beat into. Because I saw a lot of people saying, well, Charles Barkley is very, very honest. He's very honest. But I don't believe he's retiring. Yeah. And I'm like, wait a second. You're saying he's an incredibly honest person, but you don't believe what he just said on TV.

Yeah. And instead of Charles Berkeley is honest, I think the word they're looking for is Charles Berkeley is interesting. Yes. He has a way of saying the interesting thing. And of course, we reporters love it because he comes on our podcast. He comes on our radio show. He gives quotes for our article.

And people read those interesting quotes. Well, yeah. I mean, he's also sort of forthright and unabashed. There's a million other adjectives you could throw in, all which go in. go into making him the sort of public figure that journalists are enamored with, and justifiably so, and make him different than everybody else, just about everybody else who does his job, right? That doesn't necessarily translate to honesty.

You know, I mean, if you were making a joke about, you know, what he had for dinner last night or just whatever, like you, it's like you don't take it at face value. You accept it as a joke, but you, but the, but the deeper meaning or the, or the, the, the, The willingness, the willingness to go there. I mean, you know, evokes a certain honesty that, you know, in the sense that we just don't see that that much from talking heads of his own. You're walking right up to take Charles Barkley seriously, but not literally. Yeah.

As we once said of a certain public figure. Mm-hmm. No, it's true. It's like you are disarmed because you're like, oh my gosh, he's saying things that are, that are newsworthy in a way that's a famous person on television, not to mention a famous person like Charles Barkley, who is famous way beyond television, never says to me. But there becomes a time where, one, you think, am I just being used as a vessel to negotiate Charles Barkley's next contract? Yeah. Should we just run away and aggregate everything he says,

like the athletic and other outlets did when Charles Barkley made this proclamation the other night? Yeah. Don't we need like 19 warning labels on this? Yes, you need multiple warning labels. It is interesting when you think about the aggregation game because certainly the thing that's going to, well, one might assume that the thing that's going to get the most clicks is Charles Barkley is retiring, right? Like that's the headline that people will click on

and end up on your site and make you add money or whatever else. But there's also an incredible online currency in being right first, right? You know, and I mean, for a lot of the just real crass aggregators, it doesn't really matter. You'd have both versions of the article up at the exact same time. But it is interesting to go with the Berkeley's retiring when the person writing those words fairly probably assumes that Charles Berkeley is not retiring. And then at the moment where that becomes clear, you know, had the ability, you realize you had the ability to have been right and chose the, chose the literalist interpretation of what was going on. Yeah.

Or you could just aggregate it twice. Charles Barkley's coming to Amazon. That's it. Yep. And you get your payoff both times, though you mislead everybody the first time. You're like, you know, folks,

is he really retiring? If he does, it's huge news. Now, again, even if Charles Barclay retires, like he says, he's going to retire, inside the NBA is going to be on TV next year.

One more year left on TV. Yes. Yeah. I mean, the show, that's that, we even, risk overlooking that when we're having these conversations.

But the one thing, you know, I mean, I guess it bears mentioned. I mean, the one thing that sort of changed since the last time he's making these proclamations, I mean, he's talking about coming back and producing the show himself and correct me if I'm wrong, is that T&T now seems poised to potentially stay in the NBA game in a much, in a much smaller fashion, and potentially in a way that would be much less desirable for, Charles Barkley T&T Turner employee, right? So whether he's doing the same thing that he's done a million times before or whether he's sort of like doing the Urban Meyer gig where he's like retiring just so he can triumphantly return, you know, two months later, freed from his contract and

his contract obligations and everything else. I mean, that I think that, or whether it's some combination of the two, I think is sort of interesting to think about. It is. And I, and I saw a couple readings of that. You know, is Charles Barkley trying to give Turner some leverage as they... Oh, that's a different one. Okay. Stay in the NBA game. Like, is he saying that my destiny and Turner's destiny is one destiny. Yeah. Because remember, and again, if we want to go back, like Charles Barkley was like, hey, Turner is the NBA. It's great for me. I'm a free agent. Yeah. My pals may not be... That's not that important to me. I want to go out and make the best deal for me. These are literally things he's said over the last month. But if you're Turner and you're trying to

stay in the game for that mythical fourth package or just preserve whatever leverage you have. Is Charles Berkeley giving you some leverage here? Charles Berkeley doesn't need any more leverage himself. He cannot possibly need any more at this point to negotiate a great deal. But is he doing a solid? Is he doing something that's slightly less distasteful than he was doing a month ago? And he's like, well, my colleagues, big shrug, I'm a free agent. Well, I mean, that's true.

I mean, Charles Berkeley doesn't need leverage. You know that. I know that. People are listening to this know that. but he's still kind of chosen that path, right? I mean, there's nothing prohibiting Charles Barkley in any of the previous moments in time where this has happened from just doing the old, you know,

I mean, I guess you always have to have some sort of public leverage. But there's no reason why he could have just gone directly to the top and said, you know, again, to evoke the college coach thing, just to do, just to pull a Nick Sabin and ever, be like, I think I need eight more years on my deal, you know, to really make this season sing. But, you know, doing it in public has always worked out for him. I mean, that's part of who he is. And I think that's, you know, it's, it's always fun to watch.

It is. Like two years ago when he was doing his flirtation with live golf. Yeah. Turner signed him to a new 10-year contract, which is what he's got right now. By the way, bigger, what has a better chance of coming true? Charles Berkeley retires from television or Charles Berkeley, as he declared in that clip, isn't doing any more interviews. Talk about we'll believe it when we see it. ESPN, David, over the course of the finals, decided that their pregame show was so good that it needed an active NBA player to sit in. So that it could be even better. Yeah. The team of Stephen A and Bob Myers and occasionally Perk, who got in there for Game 4, was joined by Josh Hart for a couple of games. he was good Paul George

Yep who I saw at least one person on Twitter called pregame P I was gonna say this is what they mean by playoff P

right he's the right there on the place yeah and and that's good because Julius Randall was there for game 5 and you also saw Joel Embed

do that cameo with pregame P for game four yeah and as usual the conversation became about them yeah

will Joel and Bid ever make the finals which is I know what all of America was thinking before they watched the Czechs notes Celtics and the Mavericks play in the finals. So funny how the NBA pregame show is like the NBA media

generally where the thing before us is less interesting than possible free agency that lies a month away. So the big news was Embed doing the little side eye over there to Paul George, hey, you know, maybe the Sixers can make the finals if we just had a couple more pieces like this guy

right here it's such a beautiful NBA transaction unfolding in front of us as a studio show. I mean it is interesting and it is fun. You know, there's a lot of just

large-scale criticism of NBA broadcasts and coverage and stuff. I mean, even going to the stuff where it's like every, any football fan can like, can like read a football schematic, right? You could, like, you know, when you're looking at a play drawn up in a piece of paper, you know, you recognize it. And that's not the case in basketball almost at all, despite the, you know, the,

the widespread intelligence and like the podcasting fear and, you know, the play savvy schematic saviness on the, in podcasting in other, in other places. But it's tough, you know, it's way, it would be great if they could find ways to make the finals themselves a center of attention because there should be enough. interesting things to grab onto. But it's not, but that's not to say that like having, you know, Joelle and Bede and,

and Paul George flirting with each other on TV, uh, is not great TV. You know, that's, at least it was interesting. Oh, it's absolutely interesting. And that's when the Celtics were up three. Oh. So at that point is, as, as happy as I am to be a critic of ESPN, I'm a little more forgiving because it's like, whatever keeps our attention. Yeah. Series is over.

As we record this Tuesday morning, I guess we're waiting on whether J.J. Reddick becomes the next Lakers head coach. Yeah. Whether he's going to be toasting a nice red wine, glass of red wine with LeBron James, not on a podcast, but at Lakers HQ. Yeah. In Southern California. Mm-hmm.

We can do a whole segment about that if and when it happens. Yeah. But that would still be a remarkable booth to the sideline transition. Oh, yeah. Something we've seen a lot in NBA history, including his predecessor, Doc Rivers, who went straight from ESPN's number one team to the Bucks. Yeah.

But I was watching a little bit of Mind the Game podcast the other day, and he's drawing up, this is JJ, drawing up plays on a whiteboard, so that everyone at home can understand what they're talking about. And LeBron James is doing a thing that veteran basketball players do in the huddle, which is go, yep, Yep, yep, yep. Yeah. Like, I know what you're talking about.

I'm paying attention to you, but you're not really telling me anything new right now. Yeah. You could picture that happening in the Lakers Hustle. You could. I mean, it was, there was auditioning for the job, and then there's auditioning for the job. Yeah, I mean, listen, I'm as big picture shocked by this, if he becomes coach as anybody. I just feel like, like, I think I'm always a little bit surprised. when somebody gets a head coaching job in any of the major sports without kind of working the way through the ranks at least a little bit, right?

And I mean, even like with Steve Nash went to coach the Nets, it was like he'd been a special consultant or something with the Warriors and whatever. Sounds like a wrestling term. Yeah. You know, then that felt like a stretch. I mean, there was a story that the Lakers Brass was really impressed by some of JJ's podcast contributions with LeBron James is and any. certainly is incredibly like smart and and heady and and thoughtful about all that stuff. But it always just, it's mind-boggling to me that you would watch it. You'd be listening to a podcast or watching a video. You can be impressed by someone's like personality by their moxie, even by their intelligence. But if you're there running the team, aren't you the, should you be just saying like, like, yes, but that's only like 2% of the equate, like whatever I can see on YouTube

cannot possibly be enough to judge a coaching candidate? I don't know. I guess they're always doing these interviews and offices and they get it wrong most of the time more from the not. So who knows? That would be huge. That'd be huge for podcasting though. We get our first podcaster coach. It really would be. And the Lakers feel like the front office that is most susceptible to being like whatever is on a podcast translates directly to what we need to coach our basketball team. Yeah. Well, I mean, you might put the kings ahead of them because. You know, they've had, their owner was, you know, had those, when he first took over the team, had those famous, like, what if only four guys played defense ideas or whatever. But they seem to have moved past that. So, yes, the Lakers might be top in, tops and susceptibility now.

Today, coach JJ tomorrow, general manager Ben Solek. Oh. It could happen. The GM transition is easy, you know. I mean, we've had our, you know, Sabre metrics guys running front offices and just about every sport. So I can buy that. It was fun working with you, Ben. We loved it.

Every moment of it. All right, David, coming up on the podcast, we've got a presidential debate next week. Really? What are CNN's demands of other television networks? Plus some very compelling U.S. Open TV, the journalist in the brat pack and a fresh sample of media piss test.

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 Brian Waters here. David, I'm like a cartoon character that is comically rubbing my eyes at the thought that we're going to have a debate next Thursday. Between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, of course, having a debate this early was part of the plan,

at least part of Team Biden's plan. Put them on stage early. If something goes awry, there's time to turn the show. around before the election in November. Alex Thompson of Axios has the final CNN debate rules. We're going to have podiums. I suppose that's not a surprise.

No props or notes. Thompson writes. I don't know what prop you would bring to a debate. Well, it seems like every election cycle now, there's some viral clip of congressional candidate that pull something out, even if it's just like something out of their pocket. Right? You got to have the, look, here's the graph that I'm referring to. And then while the, while the MZ is just like, nope, no, no, no, you can't, no, put that away.

No graphs. Yeah, here's the giant check that Warner Brothers discovery was going to give Charles Barkley, but we've got extra money now since we lost the NBA. Thompson writes that each candidate gets a pen, pad, and bottle of water. This seems important. Mike's muted except when it's their turn to speak. Oh, yeah. Remember last cycle, Donald Trump decided to go into the first debate with Biden and interrupt him at every turn, which made Donald Trump lose the debate.

According to Thompson, CNN says by their calculation, RFK Jr. is only on the ballot for 89 electoral vote, so he is unlikely to qualify for the debate. All right. So it will just be Biden, Trump. You mentioned the podium thing. You said that, I mean, obviously, that's not a surprise if you've ever watched a debate. debate that there will be podiums, but it does, it does bear mention the sort of bizarre conspiracy theory slash rumor or whatever that's been going around and been broadcast on Fox News that they'd be sitting down for the whole debate so as not to, um, uh, expose Biden's

frailty, which is not true. And we have had those debates before. I seem to remember a Clinton Perrault, Bush the elder debate. Yeah. And a politician never looks so unnatural as when they're sitting on a stool. Like, politicians are kind of supposed to be behind podiums. Yeah. They don't know how to sit naturally and they feel like they're posing whenever they're sitting. Like,

they're taking an author photo. I've been on stools doing, you know, interviews and stuff. It's terrible. It's no place. There's no way to sit. But, you know, anything went in those debates. They even had graphs in those debates, right?

I mean, wasn't Perot out there with the, I think, I think that was like his commercial. Oh, that's just in my memory. Okay, that's good. I don't think it was like a scholastic video where you're being on a graph to explain a point to the crowd. Next Thursday is a big night for CNN. Stephen Bataglio of the LA Times

says this is the first time in history that a single TV network has landed exclusive rights to present a general election debate. That's happening because both campaigns through the commission on presidential debates, which usually puts these things together into the trash can. So the network

could come forward and just say, hey, we want to produce the debate. CNN got the first one. They're sharing it with the other networks. So you'll be able to watch this basically anywhere. But in sharing it, CNN, David, is imposing some rules on the other networks. These are the rules via Bataglio.

CNN's on-screen logo or bug, as it's often called, must appear throughout the simulcast. Okay, that's, seems reasonable. Bataglio continues. CNN is also requiring other outlets to refer to the event as the CNN presidential debate. So if a network runs any on-air promotions or advertising for the telecast, it must be

referred to as the CNN presidential debate simulcast. Yeah. In program guides and TV listings, it must be called simulcast, colon, CNN presidential debate. I love the form, anything with a formal colon, you'll get a laugh out of me. That's great. Listen, it's pretty, that's pretty restrained on CNN's part. You know, they could have insisted it would be just like the CNN is better than us presidential debate. CNN, the only place for news presidential debate.

Yeah. It's really funny that the presidential debate is branded. Yeah. I was reading articles like that the Big 12, the college sports conference is, considering branding like the all the all state big 12 or something like that we've sold every possible sponsorship no they're talking about selling the word big like they're going to be called the all state 12 that was the last place that i are not all state in particular but whatever the brand is gets the gets the word in the title absolutely horrible are we going to do this like

you know sportscasters used to do where they would not give the corporate name of the stadium oh yeah game tonight in sacramento and they wouldn't mention arco arena yeah There's a debate. I'm not going to say the CNN presidential debate, but it is the CNN presidential debate. Jake Tapper and Dana Bash are moderating. We'll have more on that next week before and after. Also, this made me laugh. Politico tweeted out a new Joe Biden campaign ad. And in the tweet, they said Biden unloads on Trump in ad. Now unloads on has kind of hit the same tier as opens up. Yeah. In terms of selling an article or selling something on Twitter, you're either opening up or you're unloading on somebody. But in a political ad, aren't you by definition unloading on your opponent? Yeah. You're very rarely drawing a polite contrast.

Strikes a conciliatory tone. That is not the sort of things you normally hear. That would be news. Joe Biden has no beef with Trump in Newport. political at. I want to squeeze in a U.S. Open segment, David, because a couple of amazing things happened over the weekend. Bryson DeShampo, he was a live guy. He was a heel, a classic heel. Oh, yeah. In golf and sociopolitical terms. But with the passage of time in his own undeniable Brysonness, he has become a baby face. And he won the U.S. Open on Sunday, beating Rory

McElroy by one stroke. It was very dramatic television watching him get up and down on 18. Rasillo noted this on Bill's podcast, the U-turn everyone's doing on Deschambo. Because you remember, there was the live announcement. And not only was there the live announcement, Bryce and DeCambo went on CNN with Caitlin Collins in one of the most remarkable bookings in recent cable TV history and got into the Saudi human rights record.

I mean, it was wild train wreck television. And everybody's like, look at this guy. But now he's everybody's friend. He's going around. He's slapping fives with fans. Everybody gets to touch the trophy. He's the man of the people. Oh, yeah.

He's definitely the people's champ. So you're just watching the sports media kind of be like, do we like Bryson DeShambo? And both things can be true, right? We didn't like him, but he won us over. Yeah. It this way, but it is very funny to see the battleship being turned around in the middle of the journey like that.

Sure. Joe Missoula's has his own version of this with the NBA finals. It's like, we were making fun of Joe Missoula and now he's the coach of the NBA champions. Yeah. So now we get to think about this guy slightly differently. Mm-hmm. And what's funny about DeCambeau is it's not like he turned the page in his life necessarily, though perhaps I guess you could argue he did. He just won the U.S. Open.

Yeah. Like, oh, you win. Let's talk about you in a different way. The thing about the telecast that was wildly compelling is NBC showed both DeCambeau and Mademps. McElroy in this room. And I am told the room is the scoring room by Kevin Vedd Valconberg of No Laying Up, one of my favorite sports writers and golf writers. So you go in there and you're doing the thing with the officials, right?

You're checking your scorecard, all that stuff. McElroy was in there when Deschambe won the tournament. So we get to see Sad Rory. That's a shot we know from sports. But the Bryson shot was what was amazing because he goes in there with a score. card and NBC just takes a shot of him that I think lasted more than a minute. And you're watching a guy process victory. Yeah.

But not victory out there on the green with, you know, lots of people cheering and you're pumping your arms. A semi-private moment where he's just thinking about it. He's probably thinking about this way his life is changing. Maybe he's even thinking about the way people are thinking differently about him all of a sudden. He's done this thing. And it was some of the most compelling sports TV I've ever seen.

Mm-hmm. You know, thrill of victory is usually the less compelling shot. Yeah. Then the agony of defeat as the old ABC sports slogan had it. This was amazing. He was just like smiling, walking around, looking at pictures on the wall. Yeah. It felt like we were seeing something we weren't supposed to see.

Yeah. It was really, really amazing. Yeah. I mean, that's the best kind of TV. And sometimes you just get a, especially with these legacy broadcasts that have been doing things the same way for so long, you just sort of fall backwards into them something. Yeah, KVV said usually there's not like a mounted camera in this room. So we use, or you don't see that much footage of it, but it was, it was wild.

Other media subplot of the U.S. Open, Roy McElroy, who is a big minch to golf writers. Mm-hmm. He is a friend to the sports journalist. When he lost, and he made a bunch of bogeys down the stretch on Sunday, so it was a very, very bad loss for him, he gets in his car and he takes off without doing any interviews. And because it's a golf course, David, where there's access is different than it would be at a football stadium. The journalists are actually out in the parking lot watching as he is like squealing tires away without doing. giving the media any time. I don't want to high horse it too much,

but I think the implicit deal here is that you talk to the media when you win. Yeah. And you're lapping up all the praise and the happy questions and you also probably talk to the media when you lose. Yeah. I bet every golf rider will happily take the deal where Rory gives them excellent quotes behind the podium

and gives them excellent stuff on back. background on the course and allow him to walk away or drive away in this instance. But still pretty noticeable. A lot of people tweeted about it after the round. All right, David, coming up in 30 seconds, a Brat Packer made a movie about a magazine article. But first, let's do the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrated gag that was so obvious. All of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time.

send your nominees to at the press box pod where they are always, always gratefully received. We got a viral video last week, David, showing the NBA's James Hardin watching his girlfriend catch a bouquet at a wedding. Do you happen to see this? Yes.

James Hardin gives a very wide-eyed, uh-oh, kind of reaction to the bouquet catch. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write, yeah, well, let's see, how he acts when it's time to get a ring. Thanks to Donner Party All Night. If thinking about James Hardin made you feel slightly better about the Mavericks, congrats.

You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. All right, David, in the notebook dump. There is a new documentary on Hulu called Brats. Yes. You were familiar with Brats. Yes. I mean, you know, actually saw the icon on Hulu yesterday and almost click watch.

Didn't quite go through with him. It was getting a lot of run during the NBA finals. Yeah. He's like, you know, Andrew McCarthy, who is the former Brad Packer

and director of this movie was going to be on GMA. Well, I got a note from Sean Fennessey, who says, Brat is an interesting secret media movie. So I've worked up.

Uh-huh. This movie that was probably going to be a skip for me, I'm going to check it out. Now, if you are, under a certain age, the Brat Pack was a group of actors who took over

Hollywood in the early to mid-80s. Yeah. You want to list them off with me? Rob Lowe. Emilio Estevez. I was going to say, Emilio Estevez. Who else? Andrew McCarthy, who you mentioned, Molly Ringwald. Was Molly Ringwald? Molly Ringwald, definitely in it.

Ali Sheedy. De Me Moore. To me more. Yeah. I know she's in the movie. Who else is in there? I mean, everybody that was in those movies back then. It was in the breakfast club and Chariates of Fire and you're thinking of St. Elmo's Fire. I mean St. Elmo's Fire. Chariates of Fire is a

different movie. Although. Not a Bradpack movie, but definitely at the same time and place. That's Bradpack East. Yeah, that's a different crew. Brat Pack Wolfpack. We've got 16 candles that would be in the Bradpack Cannon. Yeah. There's also a lot of satellite members of the Bradpack. Like, Sean

Penn was kind of a member. Tom Cruise was kind of sort of a member. Yeah. Anthony Michael Hall is another good one. There's a great one. Mayor Winningham, you could gerrymander into the Bradpack. Yeah. So what's so interesting about this movie, dude, is that Andrew McCarthy is stuck on, vexed by this article that came out in New York Magazine. It was a cover story that ran on June 10, 1985. there's a pick in our Google Doc if you want to scroll down and appreciate the art treatment here.

And the headline of the article was Hollywood's Brat Pack. And it shows a picture of Rob Lowe and Judd Nelson and Emilio Estabez having a great time. Yeah. Living up their fame is written by David Blum. And Andrew McCarthy thinks this article just screwed everything up for the Brat Pack generally and for him personally. Yeah. So I went back, first of all, and read this article, which I encourage everyone who's just interested in reading cool old magazine articles to do.

It's really good. David Blum was able to just hang out with celebrities in that old magazine journalism kind of way. Yeah. He's at the Hard Rock Cafe, Pause for Laughter, with Lowe and Nelson and Estevez. And there are women, you know, coming to the table. and smiling at them and they're toasting over and over.

I mean, it's just one of those opening sections of a magazine article. You're just like, this is incredible. This is so well rendered, but it's also just amazing that this happened.

Yeah, that the journalist was there to watch it all. Totally. And Blum in this article coined the term the rat pack. The brat pack, yeah. Excuse me,

the Bradpack saying it was the version of the Sammy Davis, Frank Sinatra, 60s rat pack. but for the 80s. And he follows them around and they're trying to get into clubs without looking like they're trying to get into clubs and they're getting into movies without buying tickets. It's just a fantastic article. It comes out a few weeks before St. Elmo's Fire was released in 1985.

So McCarthy's whole argument is that this article and specifically this name gave the media and I guess society an incredible amount of power over all these people. Because they were just tearing up Hollywood, getting cast in movies, thinking about their careers. And then all of a sudden, we could be like, oh, you're a member of the brat pack. Yeah. You're reducible to us in a way. So McCarthy sets out and he talks to fellow Bradpackers, including Emilio Estab as Ali Shidi and on and on. Now, the problem with this movie is that Andrew McCarthy isn't a terrible interviewer. These are people who he's not seen in many, many years or many, many decades.

Instead of that being kind of a cool reunion, he's just unloading on them about this magazine article. It's like of a pal of ours from high school called up. It's like, Brian and David, man, I haven't seen you since the PHS days. Let's go out and have a couple of drinks. And you and I are like, wow, that sounds fun. And then they're just talking about this thing that happened in high school over and over again. You and I are looking at him like, really? This is what you wanted to talk about tonight?

Yeah. I mean, in some cases, it's just Andrew McCarthy talking and the person whom he's gone across the country to see doesn't really say anything. Yeah. He's doing all the talking. It's really, really strange in that way. But McCarthy's basically, his complaint is not only did the Brat Pack term sort of define them in a way, it made them seem like lightweights. Yeah, for sure. People that were partying and people for whom fame came really easy.

and his whole thing was, hey, I kind of lost control of my career at this moment. And I guess my life, I became, I became this, you know, this definable thing rather than

this actor who was after something that probably can't be reduced to a particular term. Yeah. So the movie ends with McCarthy kind of incredibly, again, that this is a documentary that he has made about this generation of actors.

going to David Blum's apartment to confront him about writing the article in New York magazine. This is not a press box production I want to add. This is a Hulu documentary. We're all built to this. So we're going to talk to David Blum about this article. And Blum is great because he's just like, you know, I don't feel bad about this. This was my magazine assignment. Yeah.

The article in a few places might have been a little mean if you're one of the people who was a member of this crew, but I wouldn't do anything differently. Yeah, and the content of the article, I mean, hardly matters. It's the, it's just the, the brilliant moniker, right? I mean, it's just, it's just, it's such a perfect turn of phrase that it kind of, I think everything that people assumed about them, just came from a close reading of the brat pack and not actually any reality-based content. Absolutely. Absolutely true. But what's interesting is when they have this confrontation, and maybe this has happened in your journalistic life, you see what's so fascinating is that this article means a ton to Andrew McCarthy.

Yeah, of course. He is, it's just like it has played this role in his life, fairly or unfairly. And to David Blum, it's like, here is an article that I wrote in my career. Yeah. I wrote tons of magazine articles. He wrote a really good book about 60 Minutes, which I've read and really enjoyed. Like, he wrote a ton of stuff. And to him, this was another assignment.

Well, I mean, I'm sure he would feel differently if he were, like, getting residuals off of the use of the name Brat Pack, you know? But it just, I mean, just can't plausibly play that big of a role in his life. You know, he didn't get a bonus for coming up with that phrase. He didn't get a bonus for writing the piece that changed the way that we look at these actors. You know, I mean, it's just he had to go on to the next piece. He did. And he even says in his interview with McCarthy, he didn't level up as a magazine writer as a result of this. He thought, oh, my God, I got it, right?

I hit it out of the park with this one. Tina Brown's going to bring me into her office. That's what he says in the documentary. And he had a very, very successful career as a journalist, but it just didn't happen that way. But you see how this kind of stuff happens, right? like the person you're writing about this is meaningful to them in an indelible way. And I think this could work with a positive article too or one that's just like neutral because it's about them.

But to the journalist, it's always to in a certain extent going to be an assignment. Even if you do it diligently, even if you really work hard to be as fair and, you know, as open as you can as empathetic as you possibly can be as a journalist. it's just going to it's a it's an article right you're in your job is not to be to make amelia west of as like you your job is to render these people in a time and place yeah i mean it's i mean i and i think that obviously you know in the in the era of of media criticism that we're in i mean that we've been in some form of fashion since like you know gawker launched or whatever there's we've seen our fair share of articles where the critique is that the the writer is is is

too self-obsessed or too interested in self-promotion to caring more about the potential phone call from Tina Brown than, uh, than, you know, the actual, then getting the story right in any sort of, by whatever, you know, metric you want to use. Um, but even that kind of fits with what you're saying, right? I mean, you're, you're more interested in the piece for whatever reason than the well-being of the subject. For sure, right? You're rendering the best piece of journalism you can, you can render. And, you know, you're stopped by your own limitations. In this case, you're not stopped by access because he had a ton.

But, like, you're doing the best job you can as a writer. And you're writing for your audience and not for the celebrity. I also thought, can you imagine if this article had come out now? Oh, yeah. First of all, you're not hanging out, you know, unminded with the celebrity. Yeah, yeah, access. I mean, that would have been almost unthinkable today. But also today, if you wrote an article with anything but this celebrity is the most fantastic person on planet Earth,

the Emilio Estevez hive on social media would have come forth and just hounded you. Yeah. Which might have discouraged you from writing that to begin with. Yeah. Balance of power was totally different back then. We've seen, I mean, there's obviously, there's still articles that you see from time to time. with incredible access, you know, I went out to the bar with so-and-so or, you know, just hung around the old neighborhood. And those things can be a little like trite in format at

times. But I think the general reaction, no matter how positively or negatively the light is shown, it turns out, I think more often than not positive because the all we really, I mean, the top line is actor allowed access, you know, actor allowed like human interaction, you know? And the journalist tweets it out like, guys, I got to hang out with. Yeah. So and so. Essentially selling the access as the thing that happened here. But there was a difference in power back in those days.

Yeah. And that's the one kernel of, you know, an idea that Andrew McCarthy has here is like, you're a famous actor. But because this article came out, you can't stop this term from gaining currency. It was not an easy way for Andrew McCarthy to get on his Instagram with millions of followers and be like, stop calling us this. we hate this this sucks yeah you know

we we may in fact be a brat pack like organization but this is this is not what we want there was there was no ally back in those days

it just takes over you know the media had this kind of power that it doesn't have now at least in the same way and that was really really an interesting part of this to me

anyway brats it's on Hulu it's a media movie Sean was right in the most interesting way or in the most surprising way maybe I should say possible. All right, David,

let's do media piss test. Yeah. This is a regular feature here on the press box where we cataloged reporters saying that one thing is like another thing on steroids.

Dallas's very own Mark Mosley, one of our valued listeners, sends us an article in the dispatch which calls Donald Trump's vice presidential search the apprentice on steroids, the apprentice on steroids.

We got this one from David Kim, David. Over the weekend, the U.S. Open, the aforementioned U.S. Open was played at Pinehurst in the great state of North Carolina. Here is golfer Victor Hovland talking about how to play that course. In general, I think the best players play aggressively off the tee

and conservatively into the Greens. And I think this is basically that this course is basically that strategy just on steroids. That strategy on steroids. Finally, David, the Guardian has a story about steroids. Oh, wow.

About actual steroids. It's a steroid mention here called Trembalone. I'm going to quote a line from the Guardian's story. One older bodybuilder described it to me as like, quote, a steroid on steroids. I don't know if that's a failure. That just feels like a good turn of phrase,

but it definitely qualifies for the media of this test. This is not failure. This is just us, you know, taking a survey of the media. What is on steroids? Or what is peeing clean, as it were? Thanks to our good friend Kurt Young for that last one. I don't mean to belabor the point.

But if you say a steroid on steroids, are you using on steroids as a turn of phrase that we're used to, the way that we're discussing it or is he literally talking about steroids? You mean has the steroid itself been injected with a second steroid? I know he's not saying it literally, but he's just specifically talking about steroids. He might not even be aware that people say on steroids, you know, like when they're talking about the football offenses or whatever else. So you're saying for the bodybuilder, this may be, this entire feature may be going straight

over his head. Yeah, I think I think it's possible. He's like, oh, you mean on steroids? Like what we do when we want to bulk up? Yes, exactly. I am on steroids in the literal sense of the term. Yes. All right, it's time for a feature that is never chemically enhanced.

It's time for David Shoemaker guesses the strained pun headline. Yeah. Thursday's headline, well, I just have a pretty glum there. Thursday's headline about a crowded dock in San Francisco was 2,000 sea lions roamed just to make this dock their home. Today's headline comes to us from alert listener, in Seanberger. It's from the Oregonian, David. Oregon's Labor Day fires,

the paper report sent smoke into the Willamette Valley just before the 2020 grape harvest. More than 60 winery and vineyard owners are seeking to recoup their smoke-related losses by the local, by suing the local electric power company. So the fires and the resulting smoke has made these people

angry. What was the Oregonians strained pun headline? Well, there's so many. I don't know. The anger is throwing me off. I was going to smoke, it's in their vines or smoke on the, smoke on the water one.

Oh, I don't know. So it's smoke, it's anger, like smoke coming out of their ears sort of. Smoke and anger. Yeah. Smoke. Some other phrases with smoke, we say, Smoke them if you got them Smoke coming out of three ears

Smoke smoke Smoke signals Smoke where Where there's smoke there's Oh where there's smoke there's ire Okay Oh wow There you go

Where there's smoke there's ire Good stuff from the Oregonian And he is David Shue maker I'm Brian Curtis Brick Your Magic By Brian Waters Coming up Thursday on the podcast David Dylan Byers a puck

Is gonna join us Yes We'll talk about the deepening situation, for lack of a better word, at the Washington Post. Something we didn't get to today, but I cannot wait to get Dylan to weigh on that. Plus CNN, he covers all kinds of stuff over there, Puck. We have a bunch of stuff to talk about. And do I have this right?

Next Monday, you are out on assignment? Yeah, on assignment in New Hampshire, correct. On assignment in New Hampshire? You're on the campaign trail? You're getting ready for the 2028 primary? Can I turn it into coverage? Can I get work to write? Can I write this one off?

I don't know. We'll see what's happening. As your manager, I'm going to go ahead and approve that expense. Jason Gay is going to fill in ably for David. So two weeks from today, David Shoemaker returns with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.