The Press Box - Conan and the Oscars, Trump and Zelensky, and More WaPo-Bezos Fallout

Episode Date: March 3, 2025

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and David kick off recapping the Oscars, including Conan O’Brien’s performance as host (0:34). Then they discuss the following stories from Washington: Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky meeting in the Oval Office (18:39) Finally having the Jefferey Epstein files (33:20) The Washington Post losing over 75,000 subscribers (41:23) Then in the ‘Notebook Dump’, they discuss Jimmy Johnson’s retirement from television (52:37) and former Biden officials' explanation of the 2024 election (58:09). 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

Hi everyone, it's Amy Polar, and I'm launching a new podcast called Good Hang. In preparation for that, I asked some of my friends to send in some videos and give me some advice. Just be yourself, and the guests will come. Don't be the celebrity that this is their like sixth thing they're doing. I love true crime and cooking podcasts. Is there any way you could combine the two? Well, everyone has an opinion and a podcast. So, join me for Good Hang. It's rough out there. We're just trying to lighten it up a little. David?

Yes. Let's start with some Oscars talk. All right. I want to start before the ceremony even began because Harrison Ford, our guy, Harrison Ford was going to be a presenter. Mm-hmm. He canceled on Saturday because he had shingles.

Oof. According to Entertainment Weekly. Now, does it seem weird that we would know that? Yes. that is one would think the sort of medical information

you'd want to keep private although I guess at his age maybe it's better to let everybody know that you have shingles than let them assume something worse

he's 82 so if we heard Harrison Ford is under the weather we want to have all gone uh oh yeah then we need to get the in memoriam

get the edits ready oh that's that's dark people speculated he was supposed to be up there with Mark Hamill because Mark Hamill was kind of weirdly alone and looking a little unsteady in the moment. Oh yeah. So maybe we would have gotten a cool. That would have made sense.

Another pre-show rumor, Kamala Harris was allegedly going to attend the ceremony. Oh. And everybody's like, wow, is she going to be on stage presenting? Is this something we should get mad at? Like the fact that she signed with CAA. Then about an hour before the Oscars, Doug Emhoff, her husband, tweet in a photo of Harris at home, her hair tied up,

filling a bowl with nacho cheese Doritos. As one does, yeah. As one does. So she did not go to the ceremony. She ate Doritos at home. By the way, Harris' longstanding love affair with nacho cheese Doritos, one of my favorite parts about it. Oh, yeah.

somebody who keeps track of their visits to Jersey mics and like uh-oh we did cool ranch last time we must pivot to nacho cheese Doritos do you have to specify nacho cheese Doritos aren't those just Doritos that is the generic Doritos yes yeah okay just making sure there wasn't some like new cheesier time i'm kind of remembering a green bag that might have been a plain Dorito but just like a like a corn chip I could be making that up but there might have been been like Doritos full stop. I have no idea. But yes, that was that was nacho cheese was Doritos.

And even Cool Ranch kind of became Doritos 1B. Yeah. Like I know this is flavored, but this is the flavor. Yeah, they're everywhere. They're regular art now. You do choose, but from between one and the other. How'd you think Conan O'Brien did as host of the Oscars? I thought he did great.

I thought he did great. It seems like he, you know, the lot has been made of the lack of politics. In his joke telling, that was clearly emotive. And I think sometimes it's a lot more fun to see somebody out there with a sort of degree of difficulty, the self-imposed degree of difficulty, right? Like, I'm going to do this whole monologue standing on one foot. And it ends up being a lot funnier for it, you know, once you sort of like realize what's happening. I mean listen Conan at his best has always been sort of a well I wouldn't even

apolitical I think using that term brings too much politics into it he's just sort of a yuckster he's silly he you know he's a sort of person that like is just inherently funny and doesn't have to go for like easy you know well late night show monologue gag like gags to be at his funniest and I thought he really leaned into it I thought he was I thought it was a really good, really good host. I think so too. His monologue, I bet if we went back and looked at the entire Uber of Conan monologues, that would be a top fiver.

Yeah. He was not a great monologue guy even in his late night high period. No, it seemed like he was just sort of checking a box. Like he was funny when he was sitting at the desk surrounded by characters and, you know, kind of being the ringmaster of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and Pimp Bot and George Book. mouth. He was at his probably at his funniest when he just would

like overreact to a guest saying something not, you know, just like it regularly to the innocuous. When he was grabbing his collar and doing, you know, just like funny physical gags for no, you know, for whatever reason just to like pump up a bit. That was, that's Pete Conan. He was good at looking uncomfortable.

Yes. Fantasy was talking about how he hit the Hollywood sweet spot, which is you are totally full of yourself but you are also. making fun of yourself at the same time. We should note that is also the podcasting sweet spot, including here on the press box.

Absolutely true. I sniff my farts twice a week, but I'm a real person like you. I farts. That's us. Come back next week where we talk more about farts. We talk much, much more about farts.

I am fascinated by Conan's media journey. Because you mentioned late night, he's a beloved guy, especially for people in our age bracket. He goes to the Tonight Show. It gets canceled. He gets usurped by Jay Leno. He moves over to TBS and falls into this absolute black hole of American culture.

Yeah. I'm not sure it would be possible to be on television every single night and be more obscure than Conan O'Brien was for that period. Yeah. Which lasted, I looked this up, 10 and a half years. Sure. It was a really, really long run on. TBS. I mean, it's a funny thing. Those late night shows have such a weird place

in our culture, but they will continue on probably for the rest of our lives because they're cheap to produce. There's an endless stream of content. There's always stars wanting to promote their stuff. TBS is weirdly like a more appropriate, you know, looking at it now, a more appropriate

place for a show of that scale than NBC late night, but like what else is NBC late night going to do then continue to have my God. The shows it has. I mean, it's, it's, but yeah, it was. Those are a weird, that's a decade relatively speaking in the wilderness.

My son, Owen's gotten interested in political comedies. He's watching the daily show, the John Stewart ones on Monday. And then he'll sometimes watch those, because now everybody aggregates every political joke. Sure. So we were watching the Jimmy Fallon monologue the other day. I had not

watched Jimmy Fallon in any form other than SNL 50. And holy crap, man. It's like it's not even supposed to be funny. I mean, it is so bad. It's not like, oh man, this is not my cup of tea. I like different comedy. It's like, this isn't comedy.

We're just coming out and doing a thing called monologue that is like, you know, potato salad food at your cafeteria. And in four minutes, we will then do something else. Yeah. Very, very funny. But back to Conan. So he's in the late night black hole. And then in 2018, he starts doing his podcast.

And the podcast has this funny effect, which is almost bigger than his television show. And it reminds everybody what they loved about Conan. Exactly. Yeah. It's weird because he left and he was kind of doing a bit where he didn't know what he's going to do with his career or he didn't know if he had a career. The travel show briefly, his podcast was, right, called Conan O'Brien needs a friend. It was like, I just am like, I'm just trying here. right

and yet you know being detached from a late night show just being and I think just sort of having the freedom to be present on social media and do all this kind of other stuff just to really kind of micro target relevance has done a

it has done them a great service in terms of his well relevant yeah you don't have to like have a monologue or have a bad interview with a celebrity that's about their new movie, you can just be Conan. Yeah. And that gets him back up onto this plateau that when Jimmy Kimball says, hey, I want to take a

year off, we're like, what about Conan O'Brien as host of the Oscars? Yeah. Not necessarily a name you would have imagined in that slot. He did a fantastic job. Mm-hmm. A couple of highlights. I was so happy he noted that the Oscar starts at 4 p.m. in the afternoon in Los Angeles. My wife and are like, maybe we should all take a walk with the family.

and there's a whoa, the Oscars are starting in 20 minutes. Yeah. Definitely the weirdest thing about living in L.A. It's just the time that national broadcasts start. Football is weird, but the Oscars are even weirder. Four o'clock in the afternoon. Yeah. My favorite small moment, this was about 50 minutes into the show.

I don't know if you caught this. So they go to commercial and they show three or four commercials and then did that thing where you kind of peek back inside the theater to let you know that, hey, we're going to show a few more commercials, but as the announcer said, the Oscars will continue in a moment on ABC. Yeah. And all they showed was a visual of Conan

with a huge pipe in his mouth, like the old school thing your grandpa smoked and a pointer. And he's pointing at a map of Europe. And all these people, including a fully-costumed Deadpool, are just sitting on the floor intently watching it. It lasted like five seconds.

It was never. mentioned again in the show and I was like man that is old school late night Simpsons Conan vibes yeah absolutely doesn't detract from the ceremony it's just there and if you spotted it you're really happy yeah you mentioned the lack of mentions of Donald Trump mm-hmm achievement in editing Donald Trump out of the broadcast yeah did that surprise you at all well um not terrible I mean, you would think that that, I mean, for an institution like the Oscars, at least a broadcast like the Oscars, where continued relevance is always sort of the conversation. Yeah, you try to, I mean, there's no reason to be, like, overtly political, uh, from a host point of view at the risk of, it's not even just like alienating viewers.

I mean, I don't know if the handful of people that would feel alienated by Trump jokes really your target demo, but just in terms of distracting from the narrative of the show. the following day, right? I mean, you wouldn't want, you don't want to wake up today and have all of the Oscar winners overshadowed by Trump's reaction tweet, you know? I agree. And I think it goes to what you're talking about, which is the Oscars is not just a funny three plus hours about movies and celebrating acting and celebrating filmmaking. It seems to be about determining if anybody will ever watch a movie again. So every choice like, do we, we talk about Trump is this political? Yes.

Carries all this meaning beyond, even just beyond, I think, the Trump true social post. It's beyond like, will people just be mad at the movies and never watch the movies again? So much is at stake here with this industry that's in transition. Conan did sneak one in there. It was three hours and five minutes into the ceremony. Here's his one and I think only reference to The Donald. You know, Anora is having a good night. Yeah, that's great.

Yeah. That's great news. two wins already. I guess Americans are excited to see somebody finally stand up to a powerful Russian. So we didn't get the name Donald Trump in there, but everybody

got it. Yeah. I thought Adrian Brody might get us there because his speech, which was going on and on, took a little turn there at the end, but it turned out to be kind of a general message against hate. We need to love each other. don't other people

didn't quite though get us anywhere especially specific a couple other notes for you. Sean Baker who was on the podium all night winning all kinds of Oscars for Anora. Yeah.

Made a plea about theatrical exhibition. Okay, a let's all go see movies in the theater and not wait for streaming. Dude, you and I are both old media types. We buy books. We go to movies if we can.

Yeah. We want to buy magazines, new and old, love to just glory in that vanishing era of physical media. Yeah. I support Sean Baker. I've taken my kids.

I want my kids to understand that movies are not a thing that happens on a phone. There's something that happens in the theater and can be enjoyed. I just got one problem. It's a terrible financial deal to go to the movie.

movies. It is. We went to see Dog Man a few weeks ago, which I don't believe will be represented at next year's Academy Awards. And it's like tickets are 50 bucks for the three of us, me and the two kids. Oh, yeah. They pay 45 bucks. Then you buy popcorn and Coke and that's another, what, $20, $25 at the movies?

And I'm like, do you understand for $15 I can buy a subscription to a streaming service that has about one quarter of all the movies ever made? on it. For $15, we can just watch movies all night. Then we can watch White Lotus. Well, not the kids, but you know what I mean. It's a rotten, rotten deal. And again, I love it.

Somebody who has a print newspaper came to the house this morning. I want to buy the New Yorker's 100th anniversary issue because that seems cool. But you were doing it against massive financial interest. Yes. As a consumer. That's totally right. I mean, we want our kids, like you said. to appreciate the things that we appreciate.

And we take them to the movies and we, you know, show them a good time. And, I mean, movie experiences that, frankly, we didn't have. I don't think I had the option to get all those popcorns and coax and stuff that my kids will inevitably get. But yeah, but when your kids are just like, nah, I'd kind of rather just stay home. So I can, like, you know, watch a movie and look at my phone at the same time. You're kind of like, okay, I'm not going to fight you too hard on this. I get to save a hundred bucks. Right.

We don't do anything. We watch a movie and don't spend $100. Yeah. Sounds like a good deal. Last thing for you. Best live action short film last night was won by a movie called I'm Not a Robot. Mm-hmm. Which I watch.

You can watch it on YouTube. It's very funny. It begins with a woman sitting in her desk and she is doing one of those, I'm Not a Robot features that you get to confirm your identity. where it says, please pick out all the pictures that contain crosswalks. You know what I'm talking about? And then it goes from there. I will not spoil anything else.

But I want you to listen to the acceptance speech by director Victoria Warmerdom and see if you hear a surprising thank you. To our amazing publicist, Marianna Mendes, the rest of the Joshua Jason PR team, my managers, Mark Mouye and Priya Satiani, the New Yorker. Legends King Magnuson So yes, that is the New Yorker that I just mentioned Which had its 100th anniversary The New Yorker released this film

This is the second film That the New Yorker has released That has won an Oscar Stutterer won an Oscar The New Yorker's PR department tells me back in 2016 Also for Best Live Action Short And listen to this line from one of the articles about the New Yorkers film releasing apparatus.

Since the launch of the New Yorkers video department, films released by the magazine have received 19 Academy Award nominee. Are they all live action shorts? Well, there's a lot of shorts you can have, right? So there's live action, there's documentary shorts. Was this like a marketing thing? This is just like when we're pitching a podcast of the ringer, and you're like, there is actually no podcast that covers the fruit and vegetable

industry. That's why I think we should do this. Was this the New Yorker just saying like, we just like, should a bare minimum investment in this. We can just be a multi-Oscar winning platform? Absolutely, because where were the shorts going to come out? Yeah. If you were lucky enough to live in New York or L.A., you'd see it at the theater where they'd say come in and watch all the nominated shorts as one package.

But if the New Yorker can release it and promote these really interesting movies, be they documentary or feature, I shouldn't say feature, but short films, then hey, you've got the market cornered. Yeah. Kind of amazing. Anyway, go watch, I'm not a robot on YouTube, if that's your thing.

Coming up on the podcast, David, what in the world should we make of that Trump Zelensky confrontation in the Oval Office? We tell you all the secrets contained in the Epstein files. Wait, there were no secrets. And what happened at the Washington Post? since Jeff Bezos laid down the law in the opinion section. Plus, I explain why former aides to Joe Biden

and current Dallas Mavericks officials have helped me come up with, wait for it, a half-assed think piece. All that and much more on the press box. A butter the rigger. Podcast Network. Hello media consumers, Brian Curtis, David Shoemaker, and producer. Ryan Waters here with you.

David, I got three. Washington stories I want to talk about. Great. Let's do it. Number one, Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky. Ah, she's shriek. It's Friday in the Oval Office. Ukraine's president,

and I use that word purposefully, had come to the White House to sign an agreement about minerals, and then all hell broke loose between Trump and Zelensky and J.D. Vance, who was sitting on a nearby couch, our friend Jason Gay texted

what's the term for when a wrestler doesn't know they're in a work and I wrote back I know just the guy to ask oh like when a wrestler starts getting to real like when things are getting like a way so that like one wrestler is unaware that he's in a stage production basically and another one is aware that they're in a stage production

so was the idea that Zelensky wandered in thinking this was a real meeting and Trump was just ready to perform? I think that was a lot of people's idea of this. But then Trump actually seemed to get upset because Zelensky wasn't playing along, right? I mean, I just wanted to introduce the idea

that geopolitics is like professional wrestling. I figured that was a kind of different think piece than the one you and I usually. I mean, listen, there's a, there's a, There are a bunch of matches where a wrestler will sort of try to play tough, even though that's not in the script. This is not exactly what happened here by any stretch. But like, you're supposed to lose, but, you know, my family's in the audience.

So I'm going to like look, I'm going to make myself look good. And then the wrestler who is supposed to win just beats the actual crap out of them to teach them a lesson. These things happened. But that's not really what happened here. This was just like a, this was more of the reverse, right? I mean, I guess I don't know if you want to pick a winner, but, you know, Zelensky was, I guess, supposed to back down in the Trump construction

and didn't and just kind of came out looking, well, I don't know, I don't know, what's the general consensus on how Zelensky came out looking? It seemed like the, I mean, Trump certainly didn't look great. He looked more petulant than anything else. But, you know, he still gets to be president at the end of the day. Well, this is what's interesting.

I think if you watch the clips that went around on social media on Friday, versus the entire meeting in the Oval Office, you might come out with different conclusions to your question. Because if you watch the whole thing, Donald Trump is, of course, just chewing scenery. He's talking about Joe Biden, of course, because that's extremely relevant to what's happening right now. He's talking about CNN's low ratings.

that was actually discussed in this Oval Office session with Zelensky. By the way, when he talked about CNN, you start to hear some Trump apparatchik, I guess. Maybe it's a Trump-friendly media member laughing loudly in the background. Remember when the old Olberman show on MSNBC, he'd make a joke and you could hear the cameraman laughing? Yeah. Kind of reminded me of that. But then Zelensky, when he gets a chance to talk, and this is again, before things go completely sideways, he is also performing.

Yeah. He is an actor. he is talking about, hey, you know, we need security guarantees before we talk about any deal. He also has all these pictures of Ukrainians taken prisoner by the Russians that he hands to Donald Trump on camera. Yeah. Shows them to the assembled media and the cameras and then hands them to Trump. Trump clearly not expecting this to happen in front of everybody. Mm-hmm.

So he's performing too. Yeah. They both have this. Then around the 40 minute mark, that is when J.D. Vance buts in to whack Joe Biden some more. Because again, what is especially relevant here is what Joe Biden did or didn't do. Vance's point is, hey, Biden was doing all this tough talk. Mr. Trump over here, President Trump is going to try diplomacy. Yeah.

That's what's going to end the war. And then it goes back to Zelensky and he asked J.D. Vance, hey, wait a second. What about this whole history of Russian aggression in Ukraine? Yeah. This goes back to the Obama administration. He says there was a ceasefire in 2019. We all were on board.

And then Putin invaded my country anyway. Yeah. So what is that act of diplomacy that you are going to perform that is going to stop Putin once and for all? Here's a little sound from that exchange. Mr. President, with respect, I think it's disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around and. forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the president for trying to bring it into this conflict.

Have you ever been to Ukraine that you say what problems we have? I have been to. I've actually watched and seen the stories and I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, Mr. President. Do you disagree that you've had problems? So two notes about that. When a politician says with respect, do they ever actually have respect for the person they're addressing?

It's like the old Mike Kinsley rule whenever a politician says frankly they're about to tell a lie. Number two, do you hear the just awful genius of J.D. Vance in that exchange? Yeah. Zelensky says, have you ever been to Ukraine? Have you ever actually been to Ukraine? And Vance, you can hear the gears worrying. This is why he beat Tim Walms in that debate. He's like, you know, I haven't because I don't want to go on those propaganda tours of Ukraine that you're given out.

Yeah. That you're leading around your country. You're like, oh, wow, so you haven't addressed anything, but now you've weirdly accused him of being a propagandist. And then anybody that goes to Ukraine fell for his propaganda show there. I just, I mean, that is just absolutely perfect J.D. Vance. Yeah. It's like the whole thing of like, I've been dealt this terrible hand because I have to defend things that Donald Trump says that don't make any sense. But I'm a good enough debater that I can find some chicken salad in there somewhere.

Yeah. Sure. I mean, it was a, I don't know, the propaganda thing, I guess. I mean, it was a capable debate line. But it doesn't really hold up to any sort of scrutiny. It doesn't make sense, but it's like. So it's so it isn't. So it's impossible to.

certain reality in this in Ukraine because of the way that Zelensky conducts tours like it's just it's so it's wild but you see the skill there oh yeah that's why he got picked for this job that's why in a certain sense he's flourishing at this job by the way

speaking of which I'm reading Ross Douth that's New York Times column you know I've talked about Ross Douth that enjoy reading his columns for a different point of view yeah and he's casting Donald Trump as this uncomfortable teller of truths like we want to believe if we just send enough javelin missiles to Ukraine, eventually they're going to win the war.

Where the truth is, it's probably going to be a stalemate for years and years and years. lots more people are going to die. Donald Trump is merely saying this reality out loud. This is the gist of his column. And I'm like, you know what else Donald Trump is doing? He's lying about the causes of the war. Yeah. He's lying about Zelensky being a dictator and Putin not being a dictator.

Yeah. So you don't get to do teller of hard truths. And also, you're telling. wild lies in public about what's happening in Ukraine. Sorry, those two things don't quite go together. No, they don't. I mean, the entire premise of, I mean, also the, hey, I want peace over and over again. I want peace.

It's just like, well, that's only being defined one way, right? I mean, we all want peace. Yes, I think that would be ideal for everyone. And the invocations of World War III are just seem, I mean, it's not spurious, I guess, but it's like, yes, this is a war where like the entire world seems to have a vested interest, right? But it's a very small-scale war. If you don't want World War III, then maybe don't drive a wedge between the United States and European allies to have enforcing everyone onto different sides of this conflict, right?

I mean, that's World War. It's like he's provoking a World War more capable than he's defending against one at this point. Trump once again had a sense of the moment as content. Yeah. He said near the end, this is going to be great television. Knowing that he had just delivered must-see TV for political reporters and normal citizens alike. Also, David, one reporter who was present decided to step in and find some meaning in all this chaos. Second question for President Zelensky.

Do you ever, why don't you wear a suit? Why don't you wear a suit? You're the highest level in this country's office and you refuse to wear a suit. Just want to see if you, do you own a suit? Yeah, yeah, problems. A lot of Americans have problems with you not respect. Really? I don't have such. I will wear a costume after this war will finish.

Okay. Yes, maybe one. Maybe something like yours, yes? Maybe something better, I don't know. We will see. Maybe something cheaper than, yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

So is that the worst question that has ever been asked inside the White House. I know there are bits of bad ones, but I'm ready to declare a winner. I mean, despite the fact that it's, you know, a historical or at least ignorant of the fact that many world leaders have worn military dress or altered their dress during a wartime,

America included. It's, I feel like this is an answer that everybody knows. Like, did, was that Ducey? Does he actually not know the answer to the question that he's, that he's pledged, that he's pledged, that he's pledged aware. Oh, is not? It wasn't?

It was it. It was a Brian Glenn of a real America's voice. Okay. Yeah, but is he not aware that like this has, this has been sort of Zonski's public stance since the beginning of the war? Is it sort of like, I'll be dressed like this till it's over? I mean, it's pretty straightforward. And what's the issue here is?

I don't think he's disrespecting the office. I mean, Jesus Christ. Is he, what's his name? Peter Glenn? Brian Glenn. Brian Glenn. Is Brian Glenn asking this question of like Elon Musk? and it is

ridiculous like t-shirt and topcoat combo like is this is it only for world leaders like emissaries from other countries that have to dress up it just seems it's just so ridiculous and a lot of people are offended by this

no one's a what are you talking about this is like the Obama tan suit controversy this is just drummed up we don't like you so we're going to talk shit about the way you look nobody that agrees with that line of questioning, but let me put it this way. Literally everybody that would root on a question like that, literally every single person is wearing a hoodie right now.

Okay. Yes. They're wearing a hoodie. At best, like, podcast are clothes. They're not wearing a suit. Yeah, no. They're not wearing a suit. Can I tell you more about Brian Glenn of Real America's voice?

And please do. according to a profile by Politico's Adam Wren he is dating Marjorie Taylor Green Oh my God He is also part of the new media So the AP Not part of the pool anymore But the chief White House correspondent

I don't know if there's lesser There are lesser White House correspondence The chief White House correspondent of Real America's voice Made it Also by the way in the Oval Office Tass the Russian state-owned news agency. They got a reporter in there.

White House later claimed that was a mistake. Okay. How does that happen by mistake? I just don't understand. Like, I just thought it was, I thought we had just met with Russia, like we're semi-friendly with Russia, okay. Like, you can disagree with that.

But like, when I heard that they were going to be there, I just thought that they were going to own it. It didn't seem like it was that galling compared to what Trump had been saying in public. Same. I had the exact same reaction. And I was like, oh, wait, you're actually distancing from this. This isn't part of the new media. We got sage steel and now we have Tass, the Russian

state news agency making an appearance. Maybe the most memorable part, at least visually of that whole exchange was Marco Rubio slumped on the couch next to J.D. Vance. If Bill wrote about politics instead of sports, he would have coined Rubio Face. That you're going to do body language talk here. Okay. Yeah. We had Romney Face. Remember that back in 2016 when he had that meeting with Trump and he's kind of turned around looking shocked and yes weirded out add rubio face to the list final note for you so that was Friday we're all still processing and I'm writing down notes of the podcast and I wake up Saturday morning and learn that Trump was granting a posthumous pardon to Pete Rose yes WWHallel

famer and major league baseball hit king when i was a kid listening to sports radio i knew david that a host had run out of ideas when they started talking about pete rose should pete rose be in the hall of fame is mj really better than wilt i was like all right you got nothing today no that's why but that's why the pardon makes perfect sense it's perfect early march content right The Super Bowl is over NBA playoffs are ways away. Baseball is just spring training. We got nothing to talk about here. So, you know, let's pardon Pete Rose, man.

I love it so much. Washington story number two, we finally got the Jeffrey Epstein files. Oh, my God. Jeffrey Epstein, if you've lived on a different planet for any part of the last decade, was a million years. if you lived on an island there, that would have been.

That would have been a tough moment that we might have had it out of the podcast. Millionaire facing sex trafficking charges when he died in prison in 2019. According to the New York Times, he is believed to have sexually abused more than 200 teenage girls and young women over three decades.

So Pam Bondi, the new Attorney General, went on Fox News and promised, David, that the documents are coming. We are finally going, to show you the documents. Now, if we can just strip away the mega and trumpiness of this whole thing and talk conspiracy theories for a second. Please. Why did I will release the files become a go-to for politicians over the last couple of years? Well, I think that part of it has to do with just like the new media sort of broadly defined that, you know, there's, I mean,

we have to overfocus on Rogan, but he's a perfect example of like the sort of person that when he sits you down, he's going to close with, hey, what about those UFO files? What about those JFK files? What about, you know, it's the sort of thing that,

I think everybody on some, I think people like Obama have given interviews about this, you know, post facto. It's like, you know, this is average Joe stuff. Like, I'd love to be president to change the country for the better,

blah, blah, blah. But also I'd like to get my hands on all those files that no one's allowed to see, you know? So I think there's, a lot of that. Also, I just think this campaign in particular, I mean, he did it eight years ago, too, but I think this campaign in particular, Trump just kept latching on. There's like kind of low-hanging fruit, like kind of low-stakes, low-hanging fruit, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime. I mean, even a lot of his foreign policy stuff is just like, just like, you know, average Joe, I can

fix this stuff, you know? Like, I can just say yes, because no one's going to call me on it later. this turned out to be one that could actually it ended up being they were called on it for a couple of reasons one because like you know child abuse and sex trafficking and conspiracy theories is such an inherent part of the sort of activist right at this point

also because Donald Trump is grading it seems all of his new cabinet hires on their like media output or whatever and Pam Bondi's going to go out there and know and that's the first thing everyone's going to ask her so like in order to like six seed at a Fox News interview. She has to say,

hell yeah, we're releasing the documents, you know, so then it becomes an action item. I don't know. This certainly is a... I mean, and there's just a lot of people that are obsessed about this online, like I said. So, you know, as soon as Trump got in the office, he starts, people start asking about the day one pledges, you know, that he made a few weeks in.

He's got to actually kind of do something about it. Of course, in this case, they didn't do anything. They gave people binders. You know, they were, it was like, it gave somebody like a few people some commemorative, like, you know, office printouts of shit that was already in the public domain. It's just a very, very bizarre theater. So to your point, they gave it to right-wing influencers. Mm-hmm. Will Summer, who's kind of a veteran right-wing influencer spotter over at the Washington Post ID, D.C. Drano.

lives of TikTok, Mike Sernovich coming out of the White House with the binders you mentioned. You like how old school touch the binders are? I mean, this is people were doing Warren Commission research in a binder. So that's that's kind of amazing. The binder said the Epstein files colon phase one, which is part of this, by the way, with conspiracy theories and with secret documents, there's always a sense that. something else is around the corner. We haven't found everything. This is what...

Wait, there's a sense for... I don't disagree. There's a sense from who, from the conspiracy theorists or... From the people, from the researchers, from the people doing their own research. Yes. Yeah.

It always regenerates like a character in a video game. It's like Donald Trump, when he was president, the first time when he was president, says, I will unseal the JFK assassination documents. Yeah. And then one of the first things he did this time

when he became president again was like, I have, directed that all the JFK assassination documents be unsealed. Sure. And when these turned out to be a dud, you saw what Pam Bondi did. Hey, somebody within the FBI is keeping you from seeing the real documents. Right. Never mind that the flight logs have been public and searchable for years,

that the so-called black book, which is apparently multiple black books, was posted by Gawker a decade ago. Yeah. No, no, no. Okay, so that was what we gave you this time, but look, there's something else out there. Perhaps a single damning document, a client list, because that's always part of this, right?

There's always going to be one document that is handily going to lay out all the evidence that people actually want. Yeah, I mean, in some ways, that's the allure of conspiracy theories there, right? It's a, it's a, it's not just secret knowledge. It's like attainable knowledge. It's like I can, I can, by reading this one website, I can understand the world better than people who've dedicated their lives to the scholarly pursuit of this subject, right?

And so, yeah, you, you, you, the, the, the, a lot of the online conspiratorial chatter about the Epstein, uh, cases has, has, has been centered around this client list, which as far as we know doesn't actually exist, right? But it's like, but there, but, but, but it's spoken of as if it's a concrete, uh, thing that is being that is lying in the arc of the covenant in a wooden crate somewhere and like the FBI storage facility if only Pam Bondi can acquire

the staff of Roche you might be able to exactly show us where that is it's just very I mean it's and now the Trump administration somewhat you know hilariously is put in the position of trying to

like provide context and truth to these like sort of conspiracies and lies that they've abetted up to this point, right? Now we got to, we got to print these binders,

you know, we got to, we got to figure out what phase two is going to be. They don't know what phase two is because they're not actually interested in releasing the truth. We just got to find new fake FBI agents to offices to blame for this,

you know, for the lack of information. It's all just, it's, it's, it's a performance. It's just, it's kind of, it's kind of incredible. It's amazing about the Epstein files in particular is that Julie K. Brown,

reporter at the Miami Herald wrote about years ago now, wrote about how one of the lawyers who was partied to the sweetheart deal Epstein got the first time he got in trouble. It was Trump's labor secretary. Mm-hmm. That was, that was an actual thing that happened. Yeah. That was in the newspaper, not in the white binder. Also, Jacob Shamsian, a business insider has a very useful thread.

He's covered a lot of Epstein stories laying out, here are the documents that have been in circulation for a long time. Here are the ones that would still be useful to see for people that want to make a good faith effort to understand this case more. Oh, you mean like the stuff that was cataloged by the FBI during the raids, yes. Yeah, during the raids, yeah. And it's very good because it just helps people like you and me who probably haven't been paying a ton of attention to this. Here are documents that actual journalists want to see. A third Washington story for you. You and I have not gotten to talk about Jeff Bezos

and his remake of the Washington Post Opinions section as something that will be stumping for quote, personal liberties and free markets. You get a problem with personal liberties, Brian? It's part of what's so amazing about this, isn't it? Don't you think Donald Trump and Kamala Harris were both for personal liberties and free markets in the last election? Absolutely.

Joe Biden as well. Well, we're still figuring out what this exactly means, but in the meantime, the Washington Post has lost 75,000 more subscribers, according to NPR's David Falcon Flake. Remember, the first round of the game, watched Jeff Bezos remake the newspaper, lost 300,000 subscribers. Some of those apparently came back because the Post was really good at covering Donald Trump. Yeah. Just part of the reason you'd pay it.

to read the newspaper. Now 75,000 gone per this next done. Those people left in reaction to that announcement? I mean, nominally. Since that announcement anyway. Yeah.

I mean, is there any way to do a section like this that isn't just tremendously boring? I mean, forget what the ideology is. I mean, in some ways, it might be this, it might be an incredible, a brilliant tactic

because people are going to pay attention to the Washington Post opinion idea sections now, right? Because there's going to be tracking whatever happens. But I don't know. I mean, you mentioned Ross's column earlier. I mean, there's certainly stuff in the New York Times that, you know, any of us will read on a given day. I don't know. I'm just trying to think of what like the interesting version of it is, though. I don't know. I mean, it feels like the Wall Street Journal's tried this for decades. Yeah. And. And And it's just a big skip because you're just like, this isn't interesting.

And again, it's not about what ideology you've picked. It's about the way you've decided to approach it. We will not publish dissenting opinions about these particular subjects. Well, then what's, okay. Well, then what is this? You know, you're going to read one or two versions of it. I think I get the idea. Yeah, it's a weird thing.

I mean, in some ways, despite all the chatter about, you know, the way that social media has sort of taken over the news, really, they've, they've swallowed opinion sections more than anything else. By the time the newspaper comes out, you've had your fill of takes on whatever happened the day before, right? But, and so the New York Times in particular, but a lot of these pages, it seems like they're kind of always on this great quest for the writers who are, who are, I mean, the phrase thought leader is thrown around a lot, but it's the writers who can sort of rise above the instant reaction.

The writers who can say something 24 hours later that's still going to be meaningful 24 days from now, right? And that's, that is an editorial mission, but it's not, but like, it's more about talent identification, right? Yes, absolutely.

So it's hard to, it's hard to imagine how you decide from the editorial desk that oh, this thing, that anything you say is going to make a section like that work. The thing is, it's cheap, right? This is why it does drive subscription to the post and the times

because it's easy to ask somebody to write 800 words. You're right, there's a certain art in picking the right people and having them execute the ideas week after week. That takes a lot. You know, that takes a lot of talent and it takes spotting the right people and also probably shoving some people off the platform

when they're clearly have run, run dry of ideas. But compared to news reporting, that's a lot of the way you get traffic and attention to your newspaper. It can be a differentiator. And you know, I've talked about this so many times. I'm always like, if you're going to ask me to pay for news, you're going to have to create some connection between me and the media organization that is beyond just you broke a story.

It's true. And I think making those people, you know, creating those opinion writers. making them into stars, you know, identifiable people. We know a lot of people gotten famous by doing those jobs. That's a kind of emotional connection. Oh, I can't wait to read what David has to say about this thing that Trump and Zelensky did in the Oval Office. And with the Post more generally, I mean, to me, when I think of emotional connections

between the Washington Post and Joe Consumer, you know what it is? It's Woodward and Bernstein. Oh, sure. This is the paper of those. guys, right? What you're doing now, what your reporters, your aces in the White House are doing now is a version of what those guys did with Richard Nixon in the 70s. And when you do stuff like what Jeff Bezos has done and get people like David Marinus, some of these OGs, even Woodstein themselves to come out and be like, this is a bad idea. Man, you said Woodstein

as a deliberate amalgamation of their names? I did. Oh, okay. That was, that was on purpose. Did you, this is a media podcast, David? Everybody knows what we're talking about. Have you been following at all the sort of bad Bernstein, I mean the bad Woodward News cycle that's been going on? With Bill Murray? Yeah. Yeah, but it was before him too.

I feel like there's been a lot of conversation about Wired, the, the Belushi book and how he was sort of like, you know, mistreated some of his subjects along the way or just sort of like told the story you wanted to tell, misquoted, miss took out of context or whatever. I thought that was, that's just what a weird

parallel to what we're talking about now. But he wrote the Belushi book. What was Bill Murray saying? He was just like, as soon as I read it, I was like, oh, my God, they framed Nixon because he knew, because he personally knew that the Belushi book was so off base, that like anything who could have been possible. And apparently there was an actual confrontation between Bill Murray and Bob Woodward at the Kennedy Center yesterday. Oh, really?

Ben Terrace tweeted this out. There's a picture of them. Like, and apparently it was about Wired, the book that Woodward wrote a, about John Belushi. That's so wild. So we are reliving some strange things here. Before we leave this subject, I was like good efforts at journalistic subversion.

In this case of Bezos' opinion section mandate, Eric Wimple, according to former posty Gene Wydengarten, wrote a media column, and the media column didn't run, at least as of last week, that was about these events. But then Dana Milbank

one of those talented opinion writers wrote this whole column being like, hey, if you're interested in personal liberties and free markets, the guy you have to worry about is Donald Trump. And then wrote a very long column, way longer than the usual 800 word thing, spelling out in detail. Here's what tariffs do to free markets. Here is what Donald Trump, when he is tweeting about being king and when he is changing the complexion of the news media, here is what he is doing for personal liberties. They're very, very skillful. It's a good one.

They got that under the wire. All right, David, coming up in 30 seconds, a half-ass think piece that I need your help with. But first, let's do the overworked 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, always gratefully received.

Last night at the Oscars, the Academy paid tribute to the James Bond franchise. which is passing from the hands of its longtime producers to Amazon. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write. They should have put Bond in the in-memorium segment. Yeah. Thanks to Eric Sherman. By the way, how weird was that Oscars dance last night that was celebrating Bond?

Yeah. Does that feel like something your grandparents saw in Las Vegas decades and decades ago and told you about like oh it was the most wonderful show i just don't know what like the the the the the planning meeting for this is like right like who when you're when you're pitching ideas for a james bond segment who is the one that says let's as anyone consider dance it's like if every what if everybody started dancing and singing some of the theme songs from james bond yeah by the way i've also seen a lot of people out there being like oh my god they're gonna amazon's going to make james bond origin story james bond muppett baby

I mean, they are just going to do everything James Bond when the producers who are giving it up were particular about what James Bond can be. Totally particular. Yeah. I mean, it was there was the broccoli family of said. Well, I mean, the broccoli's have a long and storied history in Hollywood and London, of course. But yeah, I mean, I'm not, are we worried about this? Are we worried about the sanctity of James Bond? Is there anybody

is there anybody that wouldn't trade a mediocre James Bond origin series on Amazon for having like three more Daniel Craig movies that they could have enjoyed along the way? Well, this is what I mean. Like James Bond movies are cool

because they're different. Like speaking of my son who also enjoys political comedy, I was like, I want to show you some James Bond movies and I was thinking, like, how do I explain that these,

feel really European compared to most action trailers. They just feel different. They don't feel even especially commercial a lot of the time. You can argue some of the later Daniel Craig ones got very actiony and felt more like that. But even the Pierce Brosnan ones, you're like, wow, what were the ideas here that made this movie? They just feel different.

At the same time, we'll just invite anyone to search the words James Bond tie and find that you can buy the tie worn in. another day for $375.75. Like an officially licensed one? Oh, yeah. The Turnbull and Asser's shirt from The World is not enough for $515. And on and on and on again. So let's just cool it with James Bond was only a movie every five years. Okay, that's true.

But it's a necktie in 365 days. Did Amazon also get the rights to the chitty, chitty, bang, IP? It was that part of the... So I believe you can read Matt Bellany for more of this, but Barbara Broccoli was trying to get a chitty-chitty-bang-bang-bang reboot to complete the Ian Fleming thing. Are you being serious? Yes, yes, that's the best of the way.

I'm pretty sure. Beloni can correct me if I'm wrong, but I pretty sure I read that in his column and puck. That's great. All right, David, in the notebook dump. A couple of quick things before we get out of here. First of all, we just learned by the Colin Coward radio show that Jimmy Johnson is retiring from television.

Jimmy Johnson, a part of the Fox pregame show for virtually its entire existence, minus a few years that Jimmy Johnson went back and coached the dolphins. I was going to say, like, when was he not on it? But yeah, the dolphin's stent. That's so, that's, that's, that's so, uh, I wonder if he would have coached more had he been, had, I mean,

mean, had the show been around in the modern era, or if he had, I guess, come along later, it does seem like those shows now are less a final retirement home and more like just a halfway house. Yes. And it's always, I think, that way for coaches. Because if you're a coach, you just want to coach again. Yeah. The thing about Jimmy was, Jimmy was in the Bill Parcell's five-year mold.

I'm going to come in here. I am going to coach the ever-loving crap out of this team for five years. Yeah. And then I'm going to be exhausted and you're going to be exhausted of me and that's it. Yeah. That was Miami. That was the Cowboys. You know, we all, I love this idea that like, may, Jimmy Johnson could have been, you know,

but the Cowboys for 30 years like Tom Landry and won tons more Super Bowls. He certainly wanted to win more Super Bowls, but he never would have lasted. No. He doesn't have that personality. He ate a burrito every day, right? Wasn't that the story? I think I learned that from a Skip Bayless book when I was in high school, yes, that he would buy burritos for every day of the week and put them all in his fridge and just heat one up.

He went to like his favorite Mexican restaurant in person, didn't have like staff do this, at least in my mind, because he couldn't have had it. If he had staff to do it, they would have gone every day. But he didn't do his favorite Tex-Mex place and was like, I'll have my week of burritos, please, and maybe ate one there. But then the rest went in the office fridge. Pratt and tree slept on the couch. Yes. We'll have to eat a burrito. Really big in tropical fish. That was his other thing. Big tanks in his house.

Oh, yeah. A fish. I mean, I'm saying all this because, dude, he was such a gigantic figure of my childhood and later your childhood in Dallas, Fort Worth. He comes in. The Cowboys of Fire Tom Landry. That was a Luca trade-like moment of disturbance in the forest. And everybody over a certain age was like, I will never watch the Dallas. Cowboys play football ever again.

Yeah. Because I am so mad right now. I was 11 and I was like, here are my guys. Tom Landry, that was grandpa's guy. Yeah. This is my guy. He and Jerry Jones both. And I was just obsessed with him.

He was a great source of journalism. Like I said, Skip wrote a couple of books that involved Jimmy Johnson that were fantastic back in the day. Yeah, I was going to say good books. Yeah. And then he goes to Fox and he was like the ultimate. I remember hearing stories. You'd be like, I will be on your pregame show, but X many weeks a year, I will be sitting on my patio in Miami.

Beaming in before, this is before the age of Zoom, beaming in. And then only a certain number of weeks will I agree to get on an airplane for you to fly me to Los Angeles to do the show. It's a once a week gig. Yeah. That's like the modern equivalent of the Madden bus, except some more, more, I guess, you know, you get a lot more free time out of it. It was an incredible gig. And you know,

I hear people all the time like, why is, you know, what is it about the Fox pregame? Who is watching this? When you have Ringer podcasts, I'm like, people are watching it because the same people

have been on the show forever. Yeah. And people look at that and go, oh, those guys are friends. Yep. And I'm here experiencing their friendship, just like I am with a podcast.

Mm-hmm. This is why I like the show. They don't, Jimmy, and by the way, Jimmy was giving by far the most effort of anybody on that show in terms of like

understanding football. I think that's true. Yeah. There were a lot of low effort. I think they just need to run the ball more. It's like, okay,

you didn't watch the game. I know you didn't watch the game. But Jimmy would always seem to have a relevant point. It's true. Yeah, he was all, I mean,

he was always, he seemed like he was always very committed to that. I mean, he always seemed like he was, like he enjoyed doing it. He was so connected to the game. A lot of the-

talked like Jimmy Johnson, which was always kind of a treat. Yes, that's always great. And you're right. That's why the other reason why people watch Fox. I mean, there's a lot of coverage right after the season ended about how Fox was going to try to keep the team together, you know, how to keep Jimmy Johnson on.

Because I think that unity is such a huge deal for them. I mean, all those guys, Bradshaw Johnson, have looked the same since, like, the entire time they've been doing the show. So it seems sort of implausible that they'd be in their 80s or whatever. But no, I mean, they've been doing this for such a long time that it's going to start fading away. I wonder if they can, I wonder how long they'll be able to make it still feel like the same thing. Don't worry, Gronks got this. He's going to be the bridge to the next generation.

Do we have time for a quick half-ass think piece? Yes, please. Is there any other kind of half-ass think piece other than a quick one? Well, that's the best kind for sure. I always worry when I use that term that people listening to this podcast aren't totally sure what a think piece is. Mm-hmm. A think piece is a slightly elevated opinion column.

Yeah. You're not just saying Trump good, Trump bad. You're floating an idea about Donald Trump. Mm-hmm. So here's the idea I want to float today, David. I'm watching clips on social media with former Biden officials. Yeah. Trying to explain what happened to him.

Mm-hmm. trying to explain just what happened during the 2024 election. I saw one last week with Mike Donnellan, his advisor, with his former press secretary, Kreen Jean-Pierre. Yeah. But how mean those Democrats were after Joe Biden blew his debate against Donald Trump. Here's Jean-Pierre. It was truly, as my former colleague,

communications director, Ben LaBold said, it was a firing squad. And I had never seen anything like it before. I'd never seen a party. do that in the way that they did and it was hurtful and sad to see that happening. A firing squad around a person who I believe was a true patriot, a person who I believe did everything that he can for this country, a person who I believe, as I mentioned before, has done more in his, in one term than most president had done in two-term, historical things.

and I was shocked but what I was seeing. At the same time I saw clips like that, I saw little burbles from Dallas Mavericks officials about why they traded Luca Donchage. Yeah, more than burbles, but yeah, go ahead. Well, the big one was the Sam Amick story

where he was quoting anonymous sources or referring to anonymous sources saying they were worried about Luca being into beer and the hookah. There's also a Rick Welts news cycle in there too. I don't totally know that I knew Rick Welts was even working for the Mavericks. But here is the thing that these two entities have in common, aside from being America's softest targets. They are trying to answer an unanswerable question. Why did you trade Luca?

How in the world could you lose to Donald Trump and put him back in office? And it's so funny to watch people react to it because they're like, I'm so mad that you're not answering the question. Yeah. And I'm like, there is no answer to this question. Yep. Or maybe the answer is going to come in like 15 to 20 years because you just keep asking and asking, and finally something shakes loose. Yeah, you're right. I watched Joe Biden.

It's clearly declining, you know, whatever it is. And I messed up. There's not a suitable answer to the question. It's not that there's no answer to the question. but it's like suitable that's good yeah it's not it's like the conspiracy theories i was talking about before you're looking for you're looking for a freaking like you know da Vinci code for this we like if you just tell me this one thing all the evidence will fall into place but i i think in in both cases the answer is probably very simple and very unsatisfying right it's like you said it's like

biden wasn't up to the job i don't think anybody the any member of that firing squad was in denial of Biden's patriotism. I don't think any of them would have anything negative to say. I want Joe Biden off the ticket because I don't think he believes in America strongly enough. No. I mean, it's just so

it's sort of seems so, it's so beside the point that it seems like you, like they're missing the point. Like you understand why Biden campaign such as it was was such a shit show. It's like, really? That's what you're feeling right now? I mean, I guess it's human, it makes sense on a human level to feel that way.

And it's, I don't know. It just seems so misguided to say that out loud at this point in time. And it's a similar thing with the Lucas stuff. I mean, I've probably gotten more conspiratorial with the Dantridge trade than most. But, I mean, there's a version of events where at the end of the day, this was just like he wasn't the general manager and the new owner's guy. They had decided to move on and, you know, they just did it in this very specific way that, probably wasn't ideal, but that's the whole story. You know, it doesn't, we don't, we don't need you making up information or trying to fill

in the blanks with that really is the story. Yeah, it just, it just feeds the fire of people asking you to, demanding the truth. The truth is just freaking terrible and boring. No, totally. It turns out there wasn't a, now they tell us. Yeah. At least to the lucid trait. I mean, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson make.

have the now they tell us for the Biden stuff, but we'll wait for that book to come out in a few months. I do think this is one of those things that just rewards journalists for asking the question over and over again. Like I don't think we'll get the answer anytime soon, at least in the case of maybe the Luca trade. Sure. But I think eventually there's going to be a Nico Harrison thing. Somebody's going to ask him.

He'll be gone from the Mavericks. Luca will be retired with 20 championship rings and he will say something close to the real answer. Like we will endure the frustrating non-answer and then you will hit it at some point in the future. And it'll be the same with the Biden aids. You know, Biden will be long gone and they'll be like, you know, let me tell you what I saw.

Let me tell you why I did what I did. Why I stuck by him. I just think this is one of those things. It's a big long game, journalistically speaking. And that somebody will just happen to be the person sitting there that asks the question when they're ready to give something like an answer. Yeah. And maybe it's not totally satisfying.

Like they would never be like, hey, here's the really good reason I traded Luca. But it'll be something. Yeah. It'll be an answer. I got one only in journalism word for you. These are words you read constantly but never hear in human speech. This from the New York Times. Crypto scandal ensnars, Argentina's president.

We need Craig Gaines to explain to us why ensnairs is the choice here, not snares? Yes. I don't totally know if I know the difference between those two words. But speaking of things that confuse me, things that perplex me, it's time for David's shoemaker guesses, the strained pun headline. Yeah. Monday's headline about a great basketball season at St. John's was Johnny's Be Good. Mm-hmm.

By the way, I screwed up. Nephew Kyle, not an alum of St. John's, a fan of St. John's. Oh, God. My apologies to nephew, Kyle, and anyone else who was affected. and to St. John's. And to St. John's itself, if appropriate. Today's headline comes to us from Tron Lennon over on Blue Sky.

It's from the Guardian, David, a story about composer Johann Strauss. Uh-huh. You were always a big fan, lots of CDs. Big Strausshead, yeah. It is his 200th birthday this fall. I'm sure you already knew that. And according to the Guardians, Vanessa Thorpe,

there are various operas and museums and even cafes who are competing to honor. this master of the waltz. Okay? They want to lure you to see their tribute. These are in Vienna, I should add, though that's not particularly germane to the headline. They want to lure you to their Strauss tribute.

What was the Guardian's strain pun headline? Is this Strauss trap? Is that where we're going with this? Building a better Strauss trap? Is anything honoring Strauss really worthy of being called a trap? No. Strauss.

He's a master of the waltz. The waltz, yeah. So let's start with waltz. Let's start the headline with waltz, and I want you to come see my tribute. Waltz right over here. I want you to, I want you to walk over here to see my

Strauss tribute. Waltz. Waltz. Think about a little aerosmith here. Waltz. Wait, a waltz this way. Waltz this way. we go you get an aerosmith man one of my favorite pans i can't believe it took so long he is david

shoemaker i'm brian curtis plexia magic by brian waters joll anderson's here on thursday and you shoemaker you and i are back monday with more lukewarm takes about the media see you then david see you later brine