The Press Box - How to Cover the 2024 Campaign, Weekend NFL Audio, and the McMurtry Mystery Solved

Episode Date: November 27, 2023

Bryan and David revisit Chip Gaines's recent used-book purchase, with clarification on why this purchase was made (0:33). Then, they kick off the show with some audio—from a weekend full of football from the Hail Mary turned “Hell” Mary during the Jets-Dolphins game to the record breaking pick-6 by Cowboys cornerback, Daron Bland (7:30). Later, they talk through news from Futurism that claims Sports Illustrated has been using fake AI generated writers, before then predicting what we could see in the 2024 campaign coverage if Trump is reelected (23:21). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What would you do if you got scammed? Would you suffer in silence, or would you do something about it? Well, I got scammed once, and this is the story of what I did. I'm Justin Sales, the host of the Wedding Scammer, a true crime podcast from The Ringer. And for seven episodes, we're hunting a comment. A guy with a lot of aliases, a guy who's ruined a lot of weddings. And with the help of some friends, I just might be able to catch him. Listen to The Wedding Scammer on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

David? Yes. You texted me over the Thanksgiving break with an urgent update about Texas culture. Yes. We here at the press box had been wondering, why did Waco TV remodeler Chip Gaines by Larry McMurtry's used bookstore? And we apparently have some clarity now on that question. Yeah, this is thanks to my sister who lives in Waco and keeps slightly more breast of these matters.

than I do. So they're opening a hotel, or maybe they've opened a hotel. The concept of time is a little bit perplexing when it comes to the Gaines Empire because the remodeling of the hotel is happening on television or on HBO Max presently where a couple episodes in.

But I think the hotel's done, maybe? I don't know. In real life, I'm not exactly sure. But this enormous hotel, which has been just this big, building sitting fallow in Waco forever has a giant library in it and according to a magazine entry and you know whoever's lion eyes wants to look at the pictures of the interior it looks like that a lot of those books have made their way to the hotel library where people

could just reach out and grab one of them one would think so i mean i i have been to the silos. I have been to their same. A little I don't even know how to how to describe it. It's like a bit like a compound. It's like a strip mall like movie set of old timey

America and I mean that as a compliment. I would assume having been there that yes you can reach out and grab anything you want. It's a hotel, you know? A hotel you can reach out and grab books and magazines and whatever's there. A couple thoughts on this one is this is still the

singular story about the march of Texas culture in our time going from Larry McMurtry, the great novelist, the rethinker of the Western genre, the sort of guy puncturing all the myths of Texas history. Sure.

His books, his other life's work going to Chip Gain so that he can redo a hotel in Waco for a reality show on Max. Just follow that bouncing ball from one idea of Texas culture to another. That just pleases me to no end. Well, and also, I mean, you could also trace a line from, you know, the bookstore being in the smallest nowhere town in all of Texas to now.

I mean, I guess Waco is not exactly a Houston scale metropolis. I was going to say, please, David, do not insult Waco, but I realize you were talking about Archer City there. Yeah, no, no, Archer, to move from Archer City to, you know, what's relatively speaking, the big city, I think, is a little microcosm of Texas, too. You know, and when all of Waco was gobbled up as a, as a, you know, Dallas suburb in 10 years or something in a law come full circle, I guess. But, I mean, it's, you know, small towns don't have quite the currency in Texas that they once did. Kylie McDaniel, who is a baseball insider over at ESPN, DM'd me that on the show on Max, they said they needed 8,000 books to put in the library and the historic hotel. So it's presented in the show that Chip went and bought the store with over 300,000 books as some sort of whoopsie.

Where are the other 200? Yeah, we're all the rest of the books. That's a great question. And my other question is, does Chip Gaines really want like a great? library in this historic hotel? They have a big staff. I've been thinking about this. They have a significant staff.

They show them on the show. It used to be Joanna would be like, you know, looking at fabric samples by yourself on the couch with her kid or something. And now there's like a big table with 15 people around it. And they're all making decisions together about the fabric samples. I wonder if they have a historian. I mean, the whole point is the hotel is a historical landmarks. They're having to negotiate all these things.

They should really have a Texas literary historian on staff. So that would justify it, right? Even no matter what you think of them, they're taking this ownership seriously. I mean, you can even find somebody to do it part-time like you or I. We are available. We are very available to go to Waco. Well, that part's negotiable, but yeah, we're very available to consult on libraries. You got it.

Yeah. Yeah, we'll consult anytime you want. No, that would just show that they're taking it seriously. There's a lot of smart, literate people in Waco that could... We didn't just go to the strand and say, you know what? We want one shelf of red books and one shelf of green books and do that books by the yard thing. No, we want real books. Yeah.

I mean, it probably says something about the state of books, too, that the difference in cost between 8,000 and 300,000 was a line item error. something very depressing. You could buy Archer City with an amount of money that would just disappear into a, you know, a shiplap budget line. They want to have real fidelity to a Texas personal library. And I was reminded of this when I was in Fort Worth for Thanksgiving a couple of days ago. You must have two distinct sections. One section is called Texana. and it's kind of the history and culture of the state.

And the other mandatory section is the Kennedy assassination. There is not a single bookstore or library in Texas that does not have both of those subjects well represented. Absolutely true. And every book about the Kennedy assassination must be 600 pages long. Oh, yeah. These are the rules that David and I will be enforcing when we are consulting for the Games Empire. Coming up on today's pod, we got Weekend Audio on the Continuing Plague. of the New York Jets and Desmond Howard versus Game Days Reporter.

We have a theory about how reporters should cover the 2024 presidential campaign. Is it about the odds or is it about the stakes? S.I. Goes AI. And finally, some notes from the Cowboys Commanders game I went to with my son on Thanksgiving Day. Oh, and a very, very, very tearful farewell at this humble podcast. All that and much more on the press box, a part of the ringer. podcast network. Hello, media consumers, Brian Curtis, David Schumaker, and producer Erica

Servantes. David, let's start with a little weekend audio. Got some stuff written down for you. And number one is the Robert Salas sideline no-sell. Go on. The dateline here is East Rutherford, New Jersey. It was the Amazon Black Friday NFL game, which from the looks of it was like any other NFL game.

except that the actor Adam Devine was doing commercials with the Amazon crew to lead you to buy more goods and services from Amazon. By the way, something utterly and unapologetically consumerist about giving you even more NFL football on Black Friday after three different Thanksgiving Day games. But you know what? I didn't mind. I'm just an uncomplicated consumer of America.

football. Well, I mean, you buy into the conspiracy theory. This is part of Amazon's move to get people to stay home on Black Friday and do their Black Friday shopping on Amazon.com as opposed to going out in the world. Sure. But as conspiracy theories go, it's like, you know, is that different than normal NFL game where it gets you to stay home and drink beer that they're advertising? No, no, no, no. I think the conspiracy theory is true. And I, for once admire it. Yeah. Yeah, no, it was that Friday needs some pro football. I mean, it's a made it felt it felt right.

So on the downside, Amazon had the Jets on Friday, Jets Dolphins. And with two seconds before halftime, the Jets get an I&T right near midfield. And they're like, wow, free possession. We got one play, let's just throw a Hail Mary. Maybe something good happens.

Turns out something really terrible happened, which is that Tim Boyle's Hail Mary was run back 99 yards by the dolphins for a touchdown the other way. The play was immediately dubbed Hell Mary. It was, as Kirk Herb Street noted on the broadcast, the most 20-23 Jets play that could possibly happen. So at that moment, David,

Amazon had something really interesting, which is that Kaylee Hartung, their sideline reporter, was with Robert Sala, the Jets coach on the sideline. After the most horrible thing possible has happened. I want you to listen to Robert Sala really pour his heart out here. Well, Coach, two huge plays by your defense to end that half, but then a crushing one for your offense. Yeah, that was unfortunate. We'll get back to a couple.

Get ready to play second half. What did you see unfold on that Hail Mary attempt? Typical Halmerry, give them credit, made the play, rented down the field, and just unfortunate. You've seen some mistakes on offense. What do you do to get your guys out of that mode? It's a young group. We just got to keep our heads up, keep trying to find plays, keep putting stringing plays together, and attack the second half.

Thank you. All right, thank you. You realize how deeply ingrained coach's cliches are when he called that a typical Hail Mary. No, they do not typically run the Hail Mary back 99 yards for a score the other way, coach. Also, re our conversation about Carissa Thompson and Sideline reporters the other week. Is there any more proof that the form is, if not completely broken, pretty broken, when that's the interview you get after the worst play humanly possible? Yeah.

I think the more dramatic the play, the less likely are to get absolutely anything about you. Because the coach is just like, I can't let myself be seen as vulnerable or angry here. Yeah, and I think if, I mean, at a bare minimum, the coach is distracted. Right. Yeah. Like how do we, how do we regroup from this? Got to keep our heads up.

As he said, that's one of those that like as, as, you know, long as the odds might be of getting a good interview, I am absolutely in favor of them doing that interview. Because if he just blows his top or even just says massive stink face

when they come over to him, it's worth rolling the dice. The upside is so high. I mean, if that had been like Lane Kiff, or, you know, one of our favorite college football coaches, you might have gotten an amazing moment there. Yep.

It's the NFL, so it's a little more boring. While we're on the subject of the Jets, can I make a proclamation that the national media should not engage in any more Jets talk for the rest of the season? It's over? It's over. We set this thing up when Aaron Rogers went over there at the beginning of the year, and we were going to have a season full of Jets talk.

And it was a fantastic story. quarterback, did CPS anything left? We got a great defense. Could they come out of the AFC and be in the Super Bowl, gave them all these big national TV windows? They're awful. Aaron Rogers lasted less than one series.

They're not interesting anymore. We should just stop right now. I know we set ourselves up to do this, but somebody just needs to turn the switch at NFL headquarters or at the headquarters of the NFL media conspiracy and be like, okay, no more of that. That's not even interesting.

Like, if you want an interesting bad team, let's go with the Patriots. Now, that's interesting. They're horrible. It scored seven points against the Giants. No more Jets talk. Turn it off. I knew it was going to be bad when I saw Greenie over on the SPN reading an email early in the season saying, could the Jets win a Super Bowl with their defense like the 85 Bears?

Holy God, this is going to be a lot. long year. Stop it. Second up, David, or next up. We've got Desmond Howard and Pete Thamble. This is Dateline Ann Arbor, Michigan. ESPN's College Game Day was

there from Michigan, Ohio State, number two versus number three, which turned out to be as awesome as advertised. I saw at least one NFL reporter doing a bid on Twitter about college football and how it's played and all that stuff. Tough week to do that.

given Michigan, Ohio State and the way the Iron Bowl turned out. Yep. But as you know, Michigan has been embattled because at least one of their staff members took part in a sign stealing scheme. And Game Day's insider Pete Thammel had been reporting on this. Now, as often goes in college football, Thamel got some threats. So instead of him being surrounded by Michigan fans at the Game Day set where he usually does his hits, the show put him inside the stadium where he was a little more secure.

Well, Game Day analyst Desmond Howard, who of course played for Michigan, had some thoughts about that. What are we, week 13 now? I think so. I don't know. So we've been doing this 12, 13 weeks. He's always been in the crowd giving his reports.

I'm like, what the hell is beating the stadium for? I don't know. That kind just threw me all off. Like put your big weight pants on, do it in the crowd like you don't do it. Hey, come on, I'm surprised. about that. I thought he would be out here.

He's got him from the lunatic friends. We're taking care of it. Security, we'd be okay. These guys are nice out here. These are nice fans. They're not going to do it. Don't we take swine. That's all.

No, he'd be okay. One of Reese Davis's big gifts as a television host is his Southern charm. Yeah. Which makes him able to kind of diffuse any situation, even when he himself is making a critical comment. Just the look on Reese Davis's face. there when Desmond said, why isn't our reporter here with us?

It was just the ultimate, why are we going here right now? Yeah. And it's very much to his credit or skill as a television host that he's able to just turn that around and slide out on an uncomfortable moment. Yes. You make him calling out one of your colleagues for not being on the set and being in the stadium when they have gotten threats to, as David said from the, Davis said from the lunatic Fringe.

A lunatic French. We've never got anything like that, the press box, right? Never had to be from a secure location. Never had to cancel a remote from a theater that we were going to perform in. Oh, man, not that I'm aware of. It's really funny with Game Day, too, because Kirk Herb Street moved from Columbus, Ohio, because of fans that were getting on his case. So this happened before on the show.

Surely we understand that college football could be a very, very weird thing. Third up for you, David, I got Tony Romo word salad. Okay, let's do it. Dayline Arlington, Texas, Cowboys Commanders on Thanksgiving, Cowboys quarterback Daron Bland got his fifth pick six of the season. Oh, yeah. Setting a new record. Unbelievable.

I'm going to give you Jim Nance on the call, and then I want you to ask. Great call. Does Nancy's partner Tony Robo actually add anything to that call? Second and ten. There it is. Good history for how all he's real bad for the quarterback's always, but wow. He has great instincts. His decision making of when to just adjust and turn and go.

It's next level. And that is the record in the history of the National Football League. Well deserved, Glenn. That is a cool moment for the Cowboys defense. And you saw excited Quinn was the defense coordinator. To steal a line from my old boss, Mike Kinsley, what is the theme of this passage? What do you make of complimenting your partner

on the call he just made on a big play? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think what we're more used to is people, clearing out for, you know, if your partner's really on, if your partner, if your partner's really on one, you just say nothing. You lay out. This was, I guess, the opposite.

Tony Rom was like, well, I guess I got nothing to add to that great call. But I'm going to talk. It was such a great call. I've got nothing. What else can one say? Right. But I would take that over 30 seconds of, you know who's really good at football, DeRon Bland?

You know who's happy? His defensive coordinator. you know what he has great instincts like can we just talk about the play for a moment yeah maybe something tony i was at this game with my son owen fascinating experience first of all it's always fun to actually go to an NFL game because your interface with it is so different than it is on tv yeah and of course at ATT stadium we're up in the upper deck so we're looking at the giant screen like if you don't crank turn your head at all you're just facing the world's biggest television or at least the biggest television my son

has ever seen sure so i'm always tapping on the show on by the way just remember to mix in some actual football on the field while we're here it's like the conversation you're always having with your partner about screen time it's like no no he's just actually you're watching tv like let's also look down to the field i know this looks like all 22 but let's look down and actually watch the football unfold in front of us. So it'd be different than at grandma's house. Also, Dolly Parton was the halftime show. Yeah. That was a tough one to explain to a 10-year-old.

Just like who she was or? Yeah, I think a sense of. The performance itself. I mean, dude, everything. The Dallas Cowboys cheerleader outfit that she came out wearing. Yeah. Cowboys cheerleaders being an element of pro football, I just kind of ignored when we, when we're there, you know, and does not talk a lot about this. There's just a lot of explaining and I just didn't know where to start exactly. Missouri did a big subject. When she hits,

when she breaks under her second queen song, is he like, oh, does she sing these songs? Is that what this is? He hadn't heard of Jolene, but he had heard of, we are the champions.

And also, you know, she's country, but she's kind of not country. And then she just made this album that is purposefully and deliberately very not country. Also,

you know, he hasn't been to like, a proper concert and be like, concerts usually last more than nine minutes. Sure. And you haven't heard the full version of any songs. It's funny because when we were 10,

there was probably no performing artists less in need of explanation than Dolly Parton. Sure. Right? She was just, Dolly Parton was just sui generous. Like, Dolly Parton is Dolly Parton. You took one look at her. At 10 years old, you're like,

got it. Totally. I mean, You know I talk all the time about that just vocabulary, cultural vocabulary of the 80s and 90s, where there's all these people you did not have to explain who they were. John Wayne, Howard Coasell, Dolly Parton was surely in that group. Oh, yeah. And somebody would just start talking about, I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. Even if we were 10 and probably couldn't name a Dolly Parton song, we'd seen it with a Muppets or something.

You know, there was some, there was some cultural, which anyway, He was working from square one here. Well, yeah, you should, you should just figure out how to explain it to him and then, you know, just explain it to the world. You can have your own explain it to a 10 year. Not explain to me like I'm 10. Explain to my 10 year old. We've talked about doing a Southern culture podcast from time to time. Maybe that'll be the proof of concept.

All right. How to explain Dallie Part to a 10 year old. Coming up in 30 seconds, David, a new theory about how to cover the 2024. presidential campaign. 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. Speaking of that halftime performance at The Cowboy Game, which included, as mentioned, Jolene 9 to 5, and some rock covers. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write.

Dolly Parton actually changed the lyrics to We Were the Champions. because she's singing it for Dallas Cowboys fans. I also enjoyed this tweet from our pal J. Kang. Dolly Parton at 77 singing, We Are the Champions in a Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders outfit. If Biden did this, maybe the whole age thing wouldn't be so much of an issue. Thanks to Bob Gassel for that one.

If you're old enough to remember when the Cowboys were champions, you're old. And congrats, you made the overwork Twitter joke of the week. All right, a couple of items for you in the notebook dump here. There is a story that just came across the wires, or at least my Twitter account, from Futurism. The website, it's by Maggie Harrison.

The headline is Sports Illustrated published articles by fake AI generated writers. One of my Twitter commenters remarked, S.I. meets AI, David. Maggie Harrison went in and found some authors like Drew Ortiz, who had this as his author bio, Drew has spent much of his life outdoors and is excited to guide you through

his never-ending list of the best products to keep you from falling to the perils of nature. Crazy, a human didn't write that one. Nowadays, there's rarely a weekend that goes by where Drew isn't out camping, hiking, or just back on his parents' farm. The only problem, Harrison writes, outside of Sports Illustrated,

Drew Ortiz doesn't seem to exist. He has no social media presence and no publishing history. And even more strangely, his profile photo on Sports Illustrated is for sale on a website that sells AI generated headshots. Where he's described as, wait for it, quote, neutral white young adult male with short brown hair and blue eyes. Which as we know describes a lot of sports writers over the last 10, 20 years. Yeah, they could have been, to their credit, they could have been searching for the headshot of some specific former employer. Right.

Employee, sorry, but yeah. Once upon a time, Frank DeFord was a neutral white young adult male. More weirdly, Futurism called Sports Illustrated about this. After we reached out with questions to the magazine's publisher of the Arena Group, all the AI-generated authors disappeared from Sports Illustrated site without explanation. our questions received no response. What do we make of Sports Illustrated reportedly crossing the AI frontier?

Is it weird that I'm more put off by them just creating fake people than the AI generated stories? I mean, that feels like an escalation, I suppose. There's no law saying you can't have AI generated content as distasteful as it may be. We'd have a lot of arrests if that was a law, yes. But when you're putting it out there that these are being written by human beings, and it's not, that seems a little bit problematic, like even from a legal point of view. It's almost like you don't want readers to know that it's AI generated copy. It's almost like you think it's important.

And again, reportedly, as this story says, that your copy was written by actual human. Yeah. because you think people would rear up if they were if they knew they were being served AI generated copy by AI generated humans. Remember when we were just afraid

Sports Illustrated was going to become a content mill? Yeah. Which turned out to be true. Yeah. Now, I don't think we, this was a version of the future.

I don't think we could totally crystallize. But yeah, this was it. wait for official comment from Sports Illustrated about their new contributors. The other thing I want to talk to you, David, is about something interesting I saw on CNN, particularly the Reliable Sources newsletter by Oliver Darcy. 2024 campaign appears to be fairly locked in. Donald Trump, runaway leader in the Republican polls versus we think Joe Biden.

Sure. So then the question is, how should reporters cover such an election. And Jay Rosen, who is the journalism professor at NYU, had an interesting little phrase. He said, not the odds, but the stakes. He expanded on that in an interview with Oliver Darcy. He said, the stakes, of course, mean the stakes for American democracy. The stakes are what might happen as a result of the election. So what he's arguing is that when political reporters talk about Trump v. Biden. They should begin to shy away from

odds, horse-racey stuff, and as much as they can make clear what's going to happen to America and American government if Trump gets reelected. What is your take on how that might manifest itself in 2024 campaign coverage? Well, I mean, I think

not just if Trump gets reelected, I think that's a good way to cover national campaigns in general, you know, what will happen if Joe Biden gets reelected would be a much more salient angle, I think, to cover than the way it's normally done. And I think it's right. I don't, I think that, I don't think that we've suffered for any lack of journalistic philosophy in the Trump era. I think it's, it's been more of a practical matter of not it's not the concept of coverage it's covering right and and and for all of the philosophical breakthroughs and conceptual redirections that various news

outlets have tried it all sort of ends up sounding the same you know it's like no matter what you're making for dinner that one ingredient always ends up being what the thing tastes like so yeah i I mean, I agree with it in principle. I don't really... I guess the question is, like, how many stories are going to fit into that rubric, right? I mean, doesn't it just seem like every single story will find it will be the... We'll feel like it's the exception to the rule, and then the coverage will all feel exactly the same in the end? I think that's the right question to ask, because, of course, we agree with this, right?

Like, we should outline exactly what Trump wants to do if reelected. He's saying it. It's not a secret. You know, he's making autocratic noises in his reelection campaign. This isn't like 2016. He's like, who could know what a Trump presidency would be like? We know. And he's promising that plus more.

But then the question you bring up is the right one, which is, what does this actually look like? Because there's plenty of coverage about this, just like there's plenty of coverage about the horse racy parts of the election. What are we talking? we need to remember this in every single article that's written about the campaign. Donald Trump, comma, who if reelected, has vowed to X, Y, Z, comma. Yes.

You know, as a principle, I think it is right that, like, you don't want to sort of normalize him to such a degree where you just forget about this. For long stretches of time, whether that's on TV or in print or however you're consuming the campaign. But at the same time, it just becomes an interesting question of how much does that just figure into quote unquote regular campaign coverage? Yeah. You just push the brakes and inform viewers as much as you can. I guess I think that's a good idea again in principle.

I just don't quite understand what that would look like or sound like. Yeah, I don't either. it's it's one of those things but it's one of those things like i think you and i would agree it's like you do have to talk about this because that's what that's what's going to happen again he's promising that this is what's going to happen and even if as you say we've you know sort of jumped over a lot of the philosophical hurdles about oh we're just treating it like democrats versus republicans okay we're not doing that for most people are doing that anymore oh we're just treating this like Canada is going to do X and Canada B is going to do Y.

No, we're not doing that anymore. We understand the stakes. It's almost like you have to take these old sort of forms of journalism and figure out how you're going to put this information into them. Yeah. You know, I saw a story the other day that the Biden campaign, which had been like media, stop covering Trump. Yeah.

Stop falling for the bait. Well, now that the polls look really bad, the Biden campaign is like, please cover Trump. Because we want you to remind people who it is, they say they're going to vote for in all these polls over Joe Biden. Yeah. We need to bring that information back up to the, to the four, which is kind of funny. Yep. I don't know.

I just always feel like whenever we have one of these stories of why doesn't the media cover, the answer is, yeah, they're already covered. Yeah. And the question is just the thing, the value that we think is a good value, how do we fit that into existing coverage? And I wish I had a better answer other than, you know, a comma phrase or a bunch of long dashes within a New York Times. That's what it always is, though. Long dash? Yeah.

You're a fan of that particular model of campaign? No, I'm not, listen, I don't think I, I feel like that's always the answer that we get to. How much can you fit in between the first clause and, you know, the point you're actually trying to make? Yeah. It's funny because I think sometimes if you repeat it so often, then it just becomes stuff that people skip over. Yep. Readers naturally. Not because they're, you know, bad Americans.

It's just because they read it so often that it gets normalized too. Yep. I mean, he's leading in the polls right now. again, despite saying all these things very much out loud. All right, David, we'll table that until we get a roundtable of political elders on this podcast to help us solve that conundrum.

But first, it's time for David Shoemaker guess is the strain pun headline. Yeah. Last Monday's headline about a new concert venue in the desert was Sphere and loathing in Las Vegas. Today's headline comes from James Hopkin. It's from the Guardian.

It's a story, David about a Christmas tree. A Christmas tree in Cambridgeshire. I'll read you the lead here, which is kind of funny on its own. Oh, Christmas tree.

Oh, Christmas tree. How wonky are your branches? A row has broken out, only in journalism. Great. In March, a town in Cambridgeshire over a lopsided tannan bomb erected in Marketplace.

the 30-foot tree has a significant tilt prompting some residents to liken the conifer to the leaning tower of Pisa and others to question its safety. Dozens of people debated the wonky tree when a photo appeared on a Facebook group with some calling it embarrassing and others praising the work of volunteers

from the March Christmas Lights Committee. Okay, so we have a big argument over a Christmas tree. What was the Guardians? Strain pun headline. ever uh christmas trees fur is it uh you are on the case sir fur a very funny phrase that involves fur oh what is it it's on the tip of my tongue for uh let's get a little heated you know we're scratching each other the animals are attacking each other the fur the fur the fur

I don't know. Fur flies. Fur flies over Cambridgeshire town's wonky Christmas tree. Word wonky also makes me smile. That's great. When I see it in that context. All right, before we go, David, we have some sad news to report here at the press box. Yeah.

We're losing a member of our team, a member who may or may not want to make a rare appearance here on the microphone. She is our producer, Erica Servantes. who is not going anywhere. She's, she's around. She just has tons of stuff going on at the ringer. So we are going to lose her from producing this podcast, which she has done now for more than three years.

It's crazy. Like going back to the pandemic and before the pandemic. It's been an unbelievable run. And I think one of the ways I would like to appreciate Erica here is the word producer doesn't do her nearly enough credit. No. It doesn't explain all that she does here at the press box, which involves, and this is an incomplete list, wrangling, wrangling us, rangling yes, massive amounts of organization,

running the entire technical end of this podcast, which David and I have shown ourselves completely unable to run on our own. And then the actual producing side. I always say the dirty secret of every podcast, including this one, is the thing you're hearing the host say is probably not something they said that way the first time. These things are not, these things are edited, you know. And we try not to be a Stanley Kubrick film over here at the press box. So some podcast are. But how many times have you said, sorry, Erica, three to one.

and then it's a lot counted on her and trusted her to make us sound like we are actually humans who can speak in complete sense she just done a fabulous job yeah i want to say thank you both it's been such an honor working and learning from both of you these three years and some my fellow texans um it's been lovely rooting for our longhorns and occasionally baler Of course, the Dallas Cowboys, and I'm going to miss you both. We are going to miss you so much, too. Thank you so much for everything you've done. Thank you for making this a podcast where just don't worry about things

because you've got everything so marvelously under control. And we are going to miss that feeling is, I cannot tell you, how nice that feeling is. Thank you so much. We wish the best to you, the dog, Timmy, and all of our mutual. sports teams. Thank you, Erica. So for the last time, he is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic. I sniffle here

by Erica Servantes. Shoemaker and I return Monday with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Ryan.