The Press Box - Listener Mail. Plus, Author Jeff Guinn on His Book ‘War on the Border.’

Episode Date: May 21, 2021

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker are opening up the mailbag and answering your Listener Mail! They answer questions about Chris Cuomo (3:40), the ‘Friends’ reunion (19:14), NBA play-in games (28:05), and who could be the heir to the Dale Hansen throne (31:30). Later, Jeff Guinn joins to discuss his new book, ‘War on the Border,’ and his career as a writer (42:17).  Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Guest: Jeff Guinn Associate Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Bacari Sellers podcast tackles the most pressing current events through conversations and interviews with high-profile guests. Building upon his experience in South Carolina government and politics and his experience as a lawyer, Sellers will talk to his guests about all topics from the world of politics. Check out the Bacari Sellers podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. David, this week's Joe Biden conspiracy theory rests on the idea of whether or not he was actually driving a Ford F-WRD, 150 the other day, or whether a secret service agent in the passenger seat was driving for him. What I want to know is, was Joe Biden really like a rock? I think I'm mixing my truck metaphors there, but just go with it.

This has been fantastic for Ford, by the way. They should have insisted that he used an automated driver or something just to get this kind of attention. And what is it about Joe Biden that, I mean, I know that there's some, there was some like weird, some really dark conspiracy theories when he was campaigning and stuff. But what is it about him that just lends, that people are just so eager to find the conspiracy? Is it that he's so normal and likable that people are like there must be, there must be a murder cult in his history or something? Yes. I think the more inert you are as a politician, the more this stuff builds up around you. Because there's nothing to say about the way he's being president, really. It's like, I know he wasn't driving the car.

He wasn't driving the F-150. It's sort of like what they say about comedy, right? It's just like the boring, you know, the great that Trump or even Obama, or Trump was great for comedy. Obama was bad for comedy because he was just too steady or whatever. Maybe that's it too. Maybe Biden's just bad for comedy and he's bad for, or he's good for conspiracy theories. Were you amused that this was about the Ford F-150, which is kind of the all-purpose car of our

youth in Texas? I didn't know if that's where you were going to go. Yeah, my across-the-st street neighbor got an F-150 on his 16th birthday. And he was always out there while you know him. And he was always out there washing it and polishing it up while I was, you know, trying to ignore my 10-year-old maroon Mazda, passed down Mazda. in the driveway. Oh, my toy editor

Selva didn't have a clock. Yeah, that was, remember you would drive into the high school parking lot and not only would there be the gleaming new F-150 that a couple of kids had gotten their parents to buy for them,

but it would have the brush guards. Oh, yeah. As I, are you really, are you really driving through brush every day on your way to this school in the middle of Fort Worth? Oh, yeah.

Are you so rugged in your F-150? Oh my God. Coming up on today's show, we answer your listener mail, including questions about Chris Cuomo and Dallas sports anchor Dale Hanson, plus Jeff Gwynn, author of the new book, War on the Border, all that more on the press box, a part of the ringer. Podcast Network. Hello, media consumers, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker here, along with Erica Servantes. David, it's Friday, which means it's time for listener mail. and we need to begin with the two most depressing words in the English language. Oh, what are those? Chris Cuomo. Oh, no.

Big scoop in the Washington Post from Josh, Dossi, and Sarah Ellison. I will paraphrase, CNN's Chris Cuomo was on conference calls with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and his political apparatchiks because he was going to advise Andrew Cuomo about how to respond to sexual harassment allegations made by women who had worked with Andrew Cuomo. On these conference calls, Chris Cuomo encouraged his brother to take a defiant position and not to resign, the people said.

At one point, Chris Cuomo used the phrase cancel culture as a reason to hold firm in the face of the allegations. CNN has called the calls inappropriate, though Chris Cuomo. will not be disciplined. First, right off the bat, I can't tell which is more just odd slash depressing, whether it's that Chris Cuomo or that Andrew Cuomo is this sort of person who insists

on bringing his family on to work Zoom calls or conference calls or that Andrew Cuomo only knows how to talk to his family via work calls. Like, I'm not sure. Like, in what world, in what world does it not just mean? make more sense to have the meeting and then call your brother and tell him what happened in the meeting and see if he has any input, right? It's just, I mean, I know what world. It's the world of, like, highly powerful, functionally ineffectual men. I mean, I've worked for people like this who just bring everybody into a meeting as soon as they, you know, flit across their brain.

But it's just the setup for the whole thing. Yeah, it's inappropriate, but it's just weird. It's just weird. It's not like Chris Cuomo. is, you know, your cousin who runs a PR agency or something. You know, I mean, it's just like, he's just your brother who happens to be in media. It's just, it's a weird decision-making tree. And then, of course, the other half of that is, and maybe the reason we're talking about that, this is weird that Chris Cuomo would just be like, yeah, I'll hop on that call with many other people who can, who can testify to that if the New York Times ever calls.

I mean, it's just, you know, it's probably so ingrained to both of them that it would have never, that it never even crossed their mind to be problematic because, you know, their Cuomo's first and whatever the job description says second. But it's just weird. In the nine versions of this conversation, we've had about stuff like this, I keep coming back to the same point, which is that oftentimes it's not that a journalist is caught in an ethical transgression. it's that the journalist, in this case, Chris Cuomo, is loudly announcing that they don't want to be a journalist anymore.

By doing just what you said, hopping on this call with tons of other people who can leak. When you're in a room with a bunch of political advisors are on a call in this case, it's basically going to be public at some point. He's telling us he doesn't want to be a journalist anymore. Well, he told us that, he told everybody that a year ago or whatever that was. You remember that? I don't know where this falls. I assume this is after that in the timeline. My memory is a little bit hazy.

But he said he wasn't enjoying his job anymore or whatever. And then he ended up signing a big new contract. I mean, maybe that's the defense. Like, hey, guys, I told you. I told you I didn't want this job, but you insisted on paying me. You joke. But I think in a lot of these cases, it's that the bosses don't listen when the person says that. Yeah.

I thought the same thing about David Brooks at the New York Times when he was doing that Weaver's thing with Facebook. He was announcing he didn't want to be a journalist anymore. Chris Cuomo was telling us, look, I have my job as a journalist, and I have my family, and I have decided my family is more important. Yeah. And CNN just isn't listening to him say that. They're like, no, no, you're still a journalist. He's like, no, I'm not.

If I just started, like, neglecting my ringer duties because I was, like, you know, on tour with my country music band, I think that the general. I don't actually have one for the record. My guess is that the, you know, the ringer Bill or Sean Rue would call me and probably start from the point of view. Like, hey, I'm proud of you for this band thing. It seems like that's what you want to do. Right. Yeah. Isn't that the opener?

You're not turning in any art assignments. You're not showing up your podcast. You are playing music gigs and sleeping all day. Yeah, I don't, the answer is not like have HR give you a talking to. And the answer is listen to you when you say, you, want to do something else. It's really puzzling because I feel this happens all the time that it's not, again, it's not that somebody's caught red-handed so much as they're announcing. They're announcing it to the world. I don't want to be a journalist anymore. I'm tired of being tied down to these moral and

ethical rules that the profession is governed by. I don't want to do it anymore. And the boss says, no, yeah, you do. Actually, you do. And they, no, no, I don't. And they kind of make you still be a journalist. It's very, very weird. do want to point out one thing about the CNN statement about Chris Cuomo. CNN said this. It was inappropriate to engage in conversations that included members of the governor's staff, which Chris acknowledges. He will not participate in such conversations going forward.

Now, that brings up an interesting question, which is, is the transgression here that Cuomo was on a call with other political advisors? and if he had just picked up the phone, as you say, and called his brother after the conference call and offered the exact same advice about standing firm and cancel culture and all that stuff, would that have been okay? Honestly, I feel like morally that would be okay. I mean, I don't think there's any job where the line is drawn, like, don't talk to your family and don't, you know, give advice to their family, although if there's an exception, it might be this one.

I mean, you know, it's, but that's weird, right? It's weird to say that I can be a political advisor to my brother in private. I just can't be a political advisor to my brother when there are four or five people on the line. Yeah, but I think we make exceptions for this all the time in life, right? I mean, if you're on like a, you know, if you're on a jury and you're not supposed to tell anybody what happens and then you go home and tell your wife about it, you're not going to get put in jail. You know, I mean, it's, it's, these are just sort of like unspoken assumptions in life. We talk to our families. But I agree with you and from a practical point of view, or from an, you know, not from

above practical point of view, it's, it looks bad and it doesn't make a lot of sense. So I think actually, if I'm drawing where the line should be here on what went wrong, we have to go back a few months when Chris Cuomo went on the air and said, hey, I cannot talk about my brothers, these allegations against my brother because I am hopelessly compromised on this. and then secretly was advising his brother what to do on this. Right. Yeah, no, no. And I think that there is a distinction.

I don't know how to legislate it between, you know, being a shoulder for your brother to lean on and like actually specifically mapping out his PR strategy, right? I mean, there's somewhere in between there, there is some sort of not so bright line. But you're right. He excused himself from talking about it on the air, which cuts both ways, right? I mean, I'm sure on some level he would have liked to and people would have liked to hear him talk about it, knowing that he's thoroughly compromised, but he sidestepped it. And then, and then, yeah, that would have been the point in time to say, obviously, I talked to him about these things. You know, I mean, obviously, it's not just the moral conundrum does not arise from the fact that we come from the same mother. It comes from the fact that, like, we talk all the time and advise each other in life.

I mean, that's a, that's, I think that would be a fairly, a fairly normal admission. I do, I guess it's worth, I was, I was on Twitter today and I saw Eric Wimple was tweeting about this. And he, he, he, in one tweet listed the Chris Cuomo situation that we're talking about alongside John Meacham writing speeches for Biden and not disclosing that when he discussed his speeches. And also, um, Hannity and Tucker advising Trump, uh, behind the scenes. And then subsequently, I think, subsequently he tacked on that Hannity paid for Gingrich to fly on his jet to interview for the VP job and a couple other things that were, you know, very specific and kind of over the line despite, you know, labeling self something other than a news,

a newsman. But the Meacham thing is, I guess, kind of instructive because we discussed this at the time. This is, being a talking head on MSNBC is certainly a less whatever, morally restrictive role than whatever Chris Cuomo has. But the most shocking, the most galling thing about the Mietam situation is that he didn't just say, well, I helped write this speech. Like, no, it wouldn't have affected his reality, or I've been advising the campaign. It wouldn't have materially affected his role as a commentator at all to say that.

It might actually make him more compelling in a certain way. way or give them a different sort of set of insights. I mean, we can set aside the Hannity thing and people can kind of rate their, rate which one they think is worse. Wimple actually puts him in that order that, that I think, I think this is, oh, no, no, he says, Cuomo and Meecham are both bad and then the Hannity thing is worse because he was like, you know, advising Trump and Manafort and people like that, you know, off the, off the record.

So you can kind of, I guess, take that, you, I guess you could make your, own decision on that. But it's, um, it does just sort of come down to, you could have said the thing when you said the other thing, right? You could have just said this thing out loud. And, you know, journalistic ethics aside, I don't think we'd be complaining about it right now. It comes down to leveling with your audience. Yeah. Like if you saying, telling your audience, I'm taking a pass on this is different than saying, I'm taking a pass on this and also advising my brother about what to do politically about this. You're just not leveling with your audience.

And that to me is a much, that's, again, if we're trying to draw lines, that's much a bigger deal than, oh, somebody at the Columbia Journalism School said it was a bad thing. You're just not telling your audience a truth. You're just not. CNN says Cuomo won't be punished,

as I mentioned earlier, to which the New York Times' James Ponawazic tweets, the phone calls were punishment enough, I guess. That's a good line. Nick Field, David, asked us, what does this say about the legacy of Jeff Zucker? I've kind of got a semi-counterintuitive take on this. So there's the Jeff Zucker built up Donald Trump into being this great businessman and TV star thing,

despite all the political junk Donald Trump was spewing to the universe. We can just put that aside, if that's even possible for a second, talk about Jeff Zucker, CNN. Okay, debit side, Chris Cuomo. there is quite a bit of positive Jeff Zucker CNN. Is there not? There are a lot of good things about Zucker's tenure at CNN, yes. I think so. I mean, I just think if you look at CNN right now, it's cable news, right?

We're absolutely grading on a curve. But I think you could find a pretty good, a pretty good group saying, hmm, Jake Tapper, Anderson Cooper, Brian Stelter. people seem to have kind of come around on Don Lemon, which is not something I would have predicted four or five years ago. I don't know. As cable news goes, does that seem like,

you know, the worst, again, it's totally different cable news than it was when we were kids. But I don't know. I don't know. I don't know that this is going to be really the demerit when we look at Jeff Zucker's record.

I think if we, you know, made tears. of the things that we and people that, you know, other people that pay attention to media broadly defined talk about that nobody else talks about, just like the existence of Jeff Zucker would probably be in the very highest tier. I'm not sure that his legacy matters a whole. I mean, it's like, no, it matters to media columnus. Yes, and that and that's about it. I mean, it's, I mean, we saw Todd last night that he might be staying on after saying he's going to leave, he's going to leave

because his apparent buddy David Zaslov, his discovery, might be taking over the whole operation. But, yeah, I mean, when you have a job like Zucker's, you can love him or hate him and dissect all of his moves down to a microscopic point. But like you said, it's cable news. You're kind of working around the margins, you know, with everything that you do. I'm not sure regardless that it even matters. I'm already regretting partially defending him.

So let's just say this. CNN could be a lot worse. It could be a lot worse. We talked on the last show, David, about SportsCenter anchor Kenny Maine, who is leaving ESPN after being asked to take a pay cut. Clay Horning wrote a column about Maine in the Norman transcript newspaper in Oklahoma, quoted some of the things we said on the show very nicely about Kenny Maine. And by the way, actually mentioned the name the press box, unlike the New Yorker.

So score one for the Norman transcript. And I just had one additional thought about Kenny May. that I wanted to share here, which is, it is amazing to me, not only that he was hired and given such a prominent job at ESPN, but just like cable news, you got to go back 25 years and think, oh, wait a second, Kenny Main became a star in the course of delivering highlights. He did not have the Stephen A. Smith job where it's like, okay, here are five minutes. Max Kellerman is going to be quiet and look into the camera and you just get to. to be Stephen A for five minutes.

He was doing a new show, a highlight show. And yeah, they could do those longish 30 second intros, which nobody would tolerate now. But you were expected to become a personality in the course of narrating like slam dunks and goals and hockey and stuff like that. That's just a completely different trick. And I don't think, I don't know if I,

you know, even I appreciate how different. that is than the universe everybody's in today. This is a chicken and the egg thing, so don't take this as me contradicting you, but let's not forget those commercials. A huge part of establishing any of those guys as a personalities, absolutely. I think just the fact that his voice,

it wasn't, you know, how many times have you heard, especially when we were younger, you hear the sportscaster voice and then see a face that doesn't match it, you know, or something. But like Kenny Maine was like, it was a complete character. You know, I mean, it was a full, it was a, it was a, it was a full bodied, like everything

about it was, was just Kenny Mayne. And, and that's part of what made him so special. In important media news, David, can I direct you to the new issue of People magazine? Please. Which has the cast of friends on the cover. Okay. You may have heard on every account on Twitter that there is a friends reunion show coming to HBO Max later this month.

something caught my eye about this. I don't know if I, I think I've mentioned this on the pod before. I can't get off the people mailing list. I really, I really try. They just keep sending it to you? I just,

well, no, not even the, not even the hard issue, just the emails. Oh, I have unsubscribed six ways to Sunday, spam.

I just, I can't get off. I just get people magazine alerts constantly. And I only make fun of it on Twitter, but they just keep sending it to me. Anyway. I clicked through and I read the article about the friend's reunion. And I was struck by one quote from Matt LeBlanc, which has got to be the obligatory TV reunion quote.

Every time people get back together to relive memories, someone must say this. Here is the quote. It's funny. When we do get together, it's like no time has passed. We pick up right where we left off. Yes. Like someday, if you and I have some giant fight and the press box is canceled, and then 20 years later we get back together to do the show and reminisce about old

overworked Twitter jokes, one of us is going to have to say that. Yeah. That's just the rules. Someone's going to have to say, like, David and I sit down, turn on the mics, and it was just like, just like we'd never left. It's just like riding a bike. Yeah. It was so natural when we got back together. I know this maybe as an, we can shoehorn this into a media discussion.

question. Am I, is it, am I dintz or are these reunions? And I guess you, the Fresh Prince of Bel Air had one, whatever, are they deliberately blurring whether or not this is a new episode or just the cast sitting around and high-fiving each other for an hour? Because when I heard they were having a friend's reunion, I was expecting that to mean a six-episode mini-series of where where are these characters gone? And judging by the trailer, it's them sitting in the old apartment and doing trivia about the show they were all in.

Mm-hmm. Which is fine. We have some reboot creep. Yeah. Everything, I just assume things are reboots now. You're right. Maybe it is just reboot creep. Maybe it's, I mean, and also, I guess,

I guess I just would, I guess I'm just sort of shocked with the, I mean, Friends is a huge deal. Don't get me wrong. and probably a bigger deal even than when we were watching it every Thursday night. But it does seem like there's a whole lot of media attending, you know, a People magazine cover. It's a lot of fanfare attending the sort of thing that used to happen on like a Wednesday episode of Oprah. Well, I think actors and these networks realized, oh wait, we can bring back a 25 year old TV show.

We can reboot it and have new episodes. And it'll be this huge thing. We'll all get lots of money, see Full House and all the other shows that have done this. and then I think there was a secondary realization of, oh, wait, we can bring back the TV show, but we don't even have to bring it back. Yeah. We can just like basically do a podcast. I was about to say, it's kind of like the, it's kind of like the never-ending argument

about how, you know, prestige podcasts take lots of money and lots of staff and lots of really brilliant people working on them. It's like, or you can just have two dudes jabbering at each other for an hour and the results, the listener results are basically the same. you and I have squeezed the lemons of old sitcoms for all their worth. Sure. Not really not professionally, just like us sitting around talking an apartment.

When Mark Cooper of hanging with Mr. Cooper appeared on Twitter earlier this week, I think we both rushed to our phones to text each other. Oh my God. It was like a claxon going off. It was unbelievable, unbelievable. But even I'm kind of like,

okay, I'm all good with this. You know, we've squeezed every job. drop. I'm still just fascinated. I don't need to return this, but I'm totally fascinated by how Matt LeBlanc knows how to say that. Like, you know, like, like when there's a baseball player, young baseball player, I know, like Mike Trout, I assume he's hearing the other baseball players in the locker room say the cliches. So he knows, okay, you know, that, that wily old veteran over

there said, hey, we're just going to, you know, pick up our bats and try to win the tomorrow. So, okay, that's what I'm going to say. Did Matt LeBlanc learn this from like Elliot Gould? when he was on Friends? I don't know. I think it's, I think maybe it's one of these things that sort of borne into us as,

as, you know, human beings. It's like, if you ask me how my visit with my mom went, I'm probably gonna, like, say one of five things that is just sort of like, you know,

I just push a button and it comes out, right? And these, there's certain things that we're just sort of like trained to respond to, you know, questions with.

Also looking at this people cover with the friends, it feels like we're right at the end of the cultural era where you assemble everyone for a print magazine cover like this. You and I have been looking at these all our lives. Not so much a reunion, but like a first look, you know, on EW.

Yeah. Or I guess the British one is Empire. And if you have a really, really good one, maybe you got Vanity Fair. Exactly, yeah. In the old days, that was kind of like the high watermark. I just feel we're at the end of this moment.

Yeah, I think so too. well for one thing you know back when those like vanity fair young hollywood issues or whatever would come out you you would there would always be like minor kerfuffles about whether or not all those people were there or whether they were Photoshop together or even before Photoshop just you know however cut and pasted together it was um now you look at this people magazine cover and you're just like like it seems impractical that they got all five of all six of these people together right i mean they were together to do the show but it's just you assume the opposite and you're right I mean, you don't really need a magazine assembling a crew.

You don't need, you know, assembling this crew and you can just Google and, you know, all you need is Google to find out what Matt LeBlanc. Matt LeBlanc this year looks like or, you know, best actors in Hollywood. You know, it's all sort of there at the fingertips. But you're right. It is a sort of cultural institution. And it has a certain look to it. There's a very specific, as an art director, I should know what this is, but a very specific, like, photograph style. Yes.

is just the sort of like Annie Leibowitz doing Star Wars sort of style. Like it's sort of like clear but clear Matt, clear but a little bit matte and, and, and, you know, important looking. It's, it's, if it goes away, I guess I'll miss it. And if you have multiple actors, one actor must be leaning on another actor. Like here, Jennifer Anderson is leaning on Matt Leblanc. I feel I've been looking at group magazine cover. with somebody leaning on somebody else

through my entire life. By the way, let's not forget the lower tiers of the first look, reunion magazine cover. If you didn't get the biggies, you got like TV guide. Remember that was like nine different covers

of Star Trek Deep Space Nine? And then if you really, really slummin, it was parade. Those were the levels. Story in Politico, David, about Matthew McConaughey running for governor of Texas,

maybe running for governor of Texas, because he's not in yet. once in a while on this podcast, we do this thing where we just call a halt to something that is happening in the media. We've heard it. We're all done with it. I would like to call a halt to something because the lead of this political article goes like this. All right, all right, all right. He might.

He might. He might. Yes. There you go. That is exactly what I felt. Folks, we're all good with the all right, all right, all right jokes about Matthew mconeh yeah the drawbridge has been raised that political article got got over the got over the moat but that's it yeah we'll only be accepting time as a flat circle jokes for the next three months and then we're

going to move on to something inappropriate from one of his earlier films the best one i feel was the first one we got months and months ago that said are matthew mccanaheys politics going to be alt-right all right all right that was so good yeah and then and the one about his memoir that i'll right, all right, all right. Yeah. That was it. That's the end. It's it.

It's all over. So this is the official note for all of journalism. And if you see one, please contact us and we will contact the author directly. Let's do some actual mail from Gabe Hernandez. Thoughts on the NBA play-in games. I think they got marketed with these same stakes as an NBA playoff game, but never really had that big game feeling. Yes. There's a lot of, there's, I have so many thoughts.

about this. To me, the most telling moment was, and I might have misheard this, but on inside the NBA, either last night or the night before, they were discussing who merited, I think, I think they were discussing whether or not Seth Curry merited an MVP conversation, you know,

MVP conversation. And Kenny Smith said, he might not even make the playoffs. And so, and so I'm left there trying to figure out whether or not to play in game. It's a play in game, so I guess they're not, they're playing their way into the playoffs, but it is also sort of the playoffs, right? I mean, it's like

we're, uh, you, you, you've achieved a level that lets you play this special game. I mean, that you are playing off to, with a chance to win the, the NBA championship. So to sort of, to continue that phrase, to raise the draw bridge between those two things, it's just sort of

mind-boggling. This is my, this is where I come down. I think it's fantastic. And the game quality, I mean, for the Lakers Warriors game alone, that's all, it's all been worth it. Um, but I think it's fun as a fan and I think that it's but in so much as it's supposed to

kind of raise the stakes and bring in, bring back the sort of, you know, peak people's interest for the playoffs and real ends and maybe you know, halfway fans or whatever. The urgency of the game is what's, is really what the marketing is, right? I mean, the fact that it's not exactly play or go home, but it's sort of play or go home. The problem with that is that I've had several discussions over the past week trying to explain what's happening to my family and none of them understand what I'm talking about.

I'm not sure that I understand it well enough to even talk about it. But they're like, oh, so if they lose this and LeBron doesn't get to be in the playoffs, like, well, not exactly. He'll get another chance. You know, I mean, it's, I don't think they could have built it any better. It's a brilliant construction. But I think that the complexity of it makes it like, it's like that what, what, we're, Yeah, I mean, it makes it just a little bit too, it makes it feel a little bit different. It feels like a little bit of, it doesn't feel like real playoffs.

Playoffs are just, it's either Sweet 16s, I mean, it's either NCAA tournament style or it's the, you know, the seven game, five game series style. It's sort of like beyond logic. It's just so, so simple. And this is just so complicated. I thought the NBA's use of the phrase win or go home was particularly funny. Because one, yes, this is postseason sports. So win or go home is not exactly a weird concept. That happens all the time every year.

Number two, as you point out, this whole round was built on the idea of not win, but not exactly go home. Finish ninth or tenth in your conference and you get to keep playing more games. Lose that first, you know, play in game and still get to play another play. game. So it's not actually win or go home so much as we're delaying when or go home by a few days. Very weird. This is from Augie Hayes. Legendary Dallas sportscaster Dale Hanson announced he is retiring in September. Dale Hanson, who was a huge star in Dallas when David and I were growing up, came to national prominence a few years back when he started doing these very progressive monologues on the 10 o'clock news there in Dallas

one of which got him booked on Ellen. Augie Hayes wants to know who is the air to the Dale Hansen rant throne. Is there an heir to this? First of all, farewell Dale Hanson. Can we get Dale Hanson on the show? Our friend Jason Gaye suggested it

and it seemed so obvious. It's crazy. Dale Hanson is a legend. He should just be a permanent, he should be a permanent third co-host. I mean, he's free now, right? He can do. Dale Hanson's amazing.

I don't know. There's not going to be someone else inheriting the Dale Hanson rant thrown. At least nobody like Dale Hanson, right? I mean, he was in a very specific place where he could, where he garnered so much respect and comfort with the audience by being on the evening news. Can we define that place just a little bit? Because I don't know that people quite know it. The place is that you were part of the anchor man generation of local news. So you, you gain this just huge amount of local. cred that you could not gain in the same way now. Like somebody's going to have Dale Hanson's job at Channel 8 there in Dallas, but they're not going to have Dale Hanson's job. Yeah. I always say that about newspaper columnist.

Somebody's going to be a sports columnist at the Boston Globe in 10 years, I think, but they're not going to have Bob Ryan's job. Right. Or Peter Gammon's a job or Dan Shaughnessy's job. It's just not going to be the same job. So we had all this just like notoriety built up. And by the way, all this skill at writing and just like making love to the camera and everything. Nobody's better than that.

In local news, the Dale Hanson. But then he also had the Texas thing. Yeah. The idea that there was this guy in Dallas delivering these monologues. And I'm pretty sure you and I grew up with Dale Hanson watching him do sports. Like when I first saw the

aggregated Dallas sports anchor Dale Hanson has a model, you know, goes viral on Michael Sam. I was like, uh-oh. I was like, uh-oh. Is this like, is this like a bat like did something terrible happen but the idea i think for national people like oh my gosh there's this guy in dallas texas who is in a red state who is delivered that was very very

powerful and anyway that just helps set him up on this trajectory totally totally i mean the fact that it was counterintuitive i think was the real selling point for the in a national level but he was anybody was great at what he did you know sometimes it takes that surprise that sort of you know to kind of cut through your preconceptions and get you to listen. But yeah, I mean, the generation, there's so much about the generation, you're right. I mean, it's like now we always talk about,

oh, the glory days when like every American trusted Walter Cronkite or, you know, whatever. You know, you just watch the national news and everyone kind of believes that as like a universal truth. But for the longest time, that really was your, you know, for a lot in a lot of markets, that was the local newscasters. And, you know, in Texas, in particular,

when you have all the ways that he's been tied into the Dallas Cowboys and feuded with the Dallas Cowboys and whatever, I mean, he's like, you feel like you know him on a personal level. And that's, that's, that is also an oddity for his generation of trusted news sources, right? That there was, there was a personal side of the whole thing. And just to be so tied in, like I said, like we both said, to football and to, to sports, makes him even more sort of part of the family than just your average newscaster.

But he's, yeah, I mean, I don't know, given all that, it's hard to imagine anybody sort of taking up, occupying the same space in our media ecosystem. But if you want to, I mean, given that it's not going to be a regional sportscaster claiming the throne, what are the criteria, Brian, for that, for who the next Dale Hansen will be. Well, I feel it's almost too easy to be the next Dale Hansen. Like, anybody can look into their phone and cut a promo. Right. About progressive politics or social issues or whatever you want to do. It's just, it's almost now the zone is too flooded. Like I said, it was the fact that it was a local TV personality doing it. That was the magic of it. Yeah. You and I could have that and like we would get three tweets. I mean, that would be able to like, oh, good job, David. You know, you're really telling it like it is, but nobody would care. it's that it was somebody from a particular time and particular media time, a particular media place, a particular actual place. That's what was the magic of Dale Hansen. One more from Gershier, David.

When is the last time you all saw each other in person? Do you guys have any plans to get together for the summer family trip, guys trip, work trip? I was just texting with somebody the other day who wanted to have a drink. and I was just like, you know, a work-related thing. And I was just like, yeah, sure. And then he hit me back up, like, so this was probably two weeks ago or something. He hits me back up two weeks later,

and he's like, well, do you want to pick a day? And I was like, you know what? That sure might have been a little bit. Like my eyes might be a little bit bigger than my stomach on this thing. I'm comfortable with the winding down of coronavirus, but I'm also like not commuting to work. I don't know when the,

I don't really know what the structure of my life is at this point. You know, like I don't, I honestly, if you ask me when a good time to take the evening off would be, I don't know, you know, it's all just, it's all very hazy. All that said, well, I'm sure we'll see each other soon. I mean, it's, but it's, it's, we'll be, um, when, when people worked out of offices, you and I would be in each other's towns several times a year. I don't really know what the answer is, though.

Yeah, I was planning on being the, East Coast is summer, so maybe we'd get some together. I've had this vision actually, this is not a joke, but for like, I don't know, like a year that when you and I and I and Eric are all in the same place at the same time, which I guess will probably be in L.A. at some point, that we will take a photo together and put it on Twitter like, oh, my gosh, the people that make this podcast are actually in the same place again. Now I feel it's going to be a little like the Friends Reunion cover on people. Like David and I will both be competing to be the Matthew Perry.

He looks different than I remember guy. Just, yeah. Love the pod. He's yeah, we sure he's okay. All right, David, time for 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 gratefully received.

as mentioned over the last three days we have enjoyed the first ever NBA postseason play-in games it was an extremely overworked Twitter joke to write this is the most embarrassing play in tournament performance I've ever seen thanks to Tyler Edwards

Russell DeLeon and Karshon we had to know that was coming that's just like the absolute right down the middle overworked Twitter joke thank you guys for pointing that out to us somewhat predictably David we learned this week that a number of Republican U.S. senators are opposed to establishing a commission to investigate the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Right. It was an overworked Twitter joke to insist that the insurrectionists weren't chanting, hang Mike Pence. No, no, they were friendly. They were chanting, come hang, Mike Pence. Come hang. Just see, that were just tourists. I want to get a picture with a VEP. And finally, David, a tweet from Florida State Representative Anthony Sabatini about

cancel culture. We really do need the foghorn sound effect every time that term is mentioned on this podcast. I think we had it for a while. We're bringing it back. Anthony Sabatini, Florida tweets, if Socrates,

if Socrates was out philosophizing in American society today, he would be canceled real quick. It was an overworked Twitter joke to point out that in fact, actual Socrates was exes by being forced to drink hemlock. Why was he executed Wikipedia for, quote, corrupting the youth of Athens and

introducing strange gods? Yeah. Socrates was canceled. I don't know. He was canceled in a way that is different from losing your tenure job at the university. I just don't know how to put this. Thanks to Paul Middlough. If you think drinking hemlock is the ultimate form of cancellation, congrats.

You made the overwork Twitter joke. of the week. All right, David, in the notebook dump, kind of a personal interview this week. When I was a young, would-be journalist in Fort Worth, like elementary school age, I didn't have any relatives in the business, but I was really lucky because one of my Cub Scout leaders was Jeff Gwynn, who was then a writer with the Fort Worth Star Telegram. And I have this memory, and I might have been wearing a Cub Scout uniform at the time of wanting to be a sports writer. I had said that out loud, I think in second grade, never wanted to be anything else. And my mom shoving me forward to Jeff Gwynne and saying, right, tell him what you told me.

Tell him what you want to be when you grow up. And me, you know, being a little kid going, I want to be a sports writer. Jeff Gwyn was the best mentor I could have possibly ever asked for. The first thing he did was get me a byline in the Fort Worth Star Telegrams kids section. How's that for memories of 90s newspapers? He encouraged me. He challenged me. He made me believe that I could actually do this for a living.

He was just fantastic and continues to do that to this day. He has left the Fort Worth Star. Telegram and has become a huge author writing books about Charles Manson, Jim Jones, the OK Corral. The new one is called War on the Border, Via Pershing, the Texas Rangers, and an American invasion. We mostly stuck to the book, but talked a little bit about Jeff's career at the end. Here is Jeff. All right, Jeff, the revolutionary Poncho Villa is one of the main figures in war on the border. Can you remind us first who Poncho Villa was? Pancho Villa. for a few years was one of the most prominent entities in the entire North and Central American continent.

He was a revolutionary who first tried to throw the federal president out of office, succeeded. He got crossways with the other revolutionaries, thought America was his dear friend, turned on America on a dime, and right up until 9-11, led the last very successful terrorist raid on American territory. which led in turn to a lot of other violence and problems that persist to this day. And while he was a revolutionary, Via basically had his own PR apparatus. You write in the book. What did that entail? Well, you know, I once wrote a book about Charles Manson and wrote the reason we're talking about him all these years later is he knew how to sell himself to the public. Pancho Villa had a greater gift for self-promotion than any other historic figure I've ever written about.

in Mexico, he would identify with the common people claiming he was one of them, even though he'd throw temper tantrums and slaughter whole villages. In America, he understood that the American public wanted to feel superior to Mexicans. He dressed appropriately. He wore a big sombrero, loose shirt, peasant pants, drooping mustache, became a caricature for the speedyginstasy. Gonzalez cartoon character later on. In fact, he was very incisive. He was an expert in battle. He played both sides against the other. And in doing that, he brought Mexico and America to the brink of war. It almost happened. And Pancho Villa is the reason why. All right. So you talk about war. How does Via come to attack the village of Columbus, New Mexico in March, 1916? Well, America actually helped him out here, though they hadn't meant to a few years earlier. America, without permission for Mexico, came in and occupied the seaport of Veracruz in Mexico just a couple years earlier. It was a flimsy excuse that turned out not to be true

the minute we were there, but we didn't want to back out and lose face. So we're a presence in Mexico, unwanted by the Mexican people, for 10 months. before that group is pulled out. Via is trying to overthrow Venustiano Carranza, who's the Mexican president, and his administration is recognized by America as the official government of Mexico. Via is trying to make a case to the Mexican people

that Caranza is sold out to America. I'm the only leader you can trust. Look at me, I dress like you, I live like you, I talk like you. So his goal, was to goad America into coming back into Mexico without the permission of the Mexican government. He had to do something to incite this. If that happened, Via could then claim Karan says letting the Americans come in again, I'm the only one who will fight them. Come to me instead as your leader.

So he picked an isolated town across the border in America, led just over 500 troops in to attack, ransack the town, murder as many civilians as he could, steal army horses and mules from a little camp there, plea back into Mexico, but not so fast that the Americans wouldn't follow. Once he goaded American forces across the border in Mexico in 1916, he thought everything would then follow the way he wanted. It didn't, but it was a very cruel and clever tactic, and it did work. Is it as outlandish an idea as it seems to, I'm going to provoke America, they're going to follow me into Mexico, they're going to follow me into Mexico, but not capture me, because that

would end the whole thing, and they're also going to stay long enough to turn the Mexican people against Karanzas government? It seems kind of like a crazy idea. Well, you know, there's a lot of things in history that seem crazy from 1916 to the present day, aren't there? And again, VIA had a great sense of timing. Demagogues do. And the whole idea, because Mexico has been so resentful of America anyway, all the way back to the U.S. Mexican War, when we took a million eight square miles of Mexican territory away, Mexico used to own the land right up to Wyoming in Southwest America. So this resenting. is generational. Think for a minute about Afghanistan today. When we send in forces and we're

fighting enemies that seem almost prehistoric to us. But their feuds last generations. And the antipathy there is never going to change. So Vian knew what he was doing. He understood his country. He understood America couldn't tolerate. This. kind of insult. And so that's why it worked. It wasn't crazy at all then. It was bold. But again, we've seen many examples in history where some bold action can trigger an almost unexpected result. So you mentioned the U.S.'s response. What did that entail with the punitive expedition? Well, it was screwed up from the beginning. John Pershing, who's the general put in charge of the punitive expedition is put in an impossible position. Now, the American public expects him to go

into Mexico, this backward country, nab this terrorist, this bandit, this uneducated peasant, hauling back to America for punishment, or at least destroy the Vyestis, his army. So this would never happen again. At the same time, World War I is going on over in Europe. Woodrow, Wilson and the Wilson administration are trying to keep us out of it. The American army is small. It's smaller than Belgium's national army at the time. Most of the troops are raw. They have no real training. They don't have proper weaponry. The last thing that Woodrow Wilson wants is for America to get involved in a war with Mexico, now that we couldn't win it, but it would take away so many of our military resources, we wouldn't have any opportunity to influence the war in Europe,

let alone go in if it turns out we have to. So the administration orders Pershing to do this. Go down into Mexico, capture via or at least destroy his following. But whatever you do, don't upset the Mexican government or the Mexican people. Make sure they know this isn't Veracruz. We're not coming in to stay again. But the minute they get there, the Karan's administration doing exactly what be expected is saying you've got to get out. He doesn't want to be seen to be the one letting the Americans in. And suddenly the Mexican army, the Mexican federal army is surrounding the expedition on three sides. We're very close to war here.

It's just about to happen. And why doesn't war break out at that point? Is it just the looming specter of World War I and Wilson doesn't want to get involved there? Not really. You've got at this point, the National Guards called out in America, over 150,000 National Guardsmen down to the border. Pershing, surrounded on three sides in northern Mexico, is saying, let me go in and fight them. We can take the Mexican army, and he could. But when it comes right down to it, and Mexico even has an invasion plan for the United States, their armies are going to go into,

to Texas and capture Laredo and San Antonio. They don't really believe they can hold them forever, but they think they can break through the National Guard troops and then have something to bargain with with the American government. Let's call the whole thing off. Let's everything go back to normal, just pull the expedition out. But the reason that it really stops is that America, if we go to war with Mexico,

can draft 10 to 12 million men of fighting age and bring them down to Mexico. The entire Mexican population at this time is about 15 million. And so Karanza realized Mexico is probably going to be overwhelmed. Doesn't mean he gives up on bloodying America's nose and maybe getting some territory back. But direct war isn't going to do it. Of course, the Zimmerman Telegram comes in not many months later. You write that there was a young second lieutenant named George Patton on the punitive expedition. What did he do during that period?

I have so much enjoyed writing about young shavetail lieutenant George Patton. Now, you've got to forget Blood and Thunder Patton, George C. Scott from the film. What you've got here is a 30-year-old lieutenant trapped in an army system where you can't get promoted except by seniority wants more than anything else to be famous. he's at Fort Bliss with Pershing stationed in El Paso and Pershing when he's picking the troops to take with him does not pick Patton and oh my God George is going to be left behind in El Paso everybody else is going to get the glory he's got one thing working for Pershing is courting Patton's younger sister they are dating in El Paso now Patton doesn't exactly say sis put the pressure on Pershing, tell him there's no good night kiss unless I go. But she helps make it clear to her boyfriend that the big brother really wants to be there. Pershing is fed up. He actually says to Patton's face, why should I take you ahead of anybody else? Patton says, because I want to go more than

anybody else, which was probably true. Still, he's not picked. To get Patton off his back, Pershing calls him to crack at dawn one morning and says, look, how long would it take you to get ready if I said you could come? And Patton said, oh, I'm already packed. I can come right now. Pershing said, I'll be damned. I guess you get to come. And Patton winds up making some of the first strides in his career on the punitive expedition? He does something that really is a major feat in Army animals. During the expedition as part of a patrol, he leads the first completely motorized attack in American military history, three jeeps going into a deserted rancho after some deista leaders. And Patton, who clearly loves this opportunity, manages to dispatch a couple of the

dastards with his ivory-handled pistol and to take the bodies back to the American. camp for identification, straps them on the hoods of the jeeps. The way you display deer after a successful hunting trip makes a point of driving back to the American camp through villages of Mexicans who've been hostile to the expedition and in front of the newspaper reporters afterwards who are embedded carves notches on his gun handle. It was a great moment for him, but it was also an important point in Army history. We're switching over from cavalry to cars. And this is the first time that it happened in the field. Given that it was compromised from the start, was the expedition seen as a success in the United States? It was mistakenly seen as a failure, Brian. VIA survived.

He not only survived, but the expedition is finally being pulled out. He's recruited about a thousand and more new followers, and they're attacking all over again in Mexico. So that didn't work. But what did happen was this. Pershing did something. He had amazing foresight and patience. He was sort of locked up in northern Mexico, couldn't go in any direction. He's frustrated.

He really wants to fight his way out. But he's been ordered not to do that. So he realizes he's got 10,000 troops, most of them who still really aren't battle-ready. And he uses the last five months in Mexico to actually train the troops to be able to fight. He puts them through maneuvers, artillery practice, everything, to the point where four months after the expeditions withdraw, the United States enters World War I. Germany has estimated that even if America did that, it would take at least one year, probably 18 months, for the American military to advance to a point. they'd actually be any kind of formidable foe. Instead, Pershing commanding the American troops right away has a nucleus of trained fighters. World War I swung on Americans' entrants into the war. And the reason we could give such momentum so quickly is because of Pershing and the way he trained his troops on the punitive expedition.

You mentioned via's recruiting. Did he think his gambit was a success? Okay, I've lured American forces onto Mexicans. soil. They have chased me around for months and months and months. Did he think he made out like he wanted to in the whole deal? Well, the problem for VIA is even as he was fleeing from the punitive expedition trying to not to get too far ahead, he also tangled with some federal troops, and many of these recruits had been forced into service with him, told, you know, we'll kill you and your families if you don't come along. And a couple of his forces who had been recruited that way, shot him from behind and pretty much destroyed his left leg. So for much of the punitive expedition time in Mexico, Via isn't fleeing gallantly from them as he thought. He's badly wounded,

these hiding out in caves and little villages trying to heal up. Just as they're about to leave, he finally heals. He did not personally, while the expedition was there, get to lead valiant battles against them. He missed that. But he did get the Yankees back into Mexico. He had worked up the wrath of the civilian population, especially the poor people. And for a time after the punitive expedition left, VIA is again a military force. Ultimately, he's beaten back by the Mexican Federal Army and fails again. But he got what he wanted. He got America into Mexico. He got the people furious and turning to him as, as their rescuer. So he didn't fail. He didn't win, but he didn't fail. Jeff, as you studied the way Americans and American politicians thought about the border

a hundred years ago and think about the border now, what parallels jumped out at you? Well, I can't say what parallels jumped out. Every parallel jumps out, Brian. In the book, one of the things I turned up that shocked me was the first plan to fence our border and keep out unwanted Mexicans was in 1903. By 1912, it's been announced that the American government is going to build a 1,200-mile fence, a barrier from the Pacific to the Rio Grande. And some of these barriers actually start to be put in place. 1915, 1916 again, it never works. People who really want to can go over, under, around. A lot of the border can't be walled off because the walls would collapse if you tried to put them up.

That's happening right now. At the same time, because of the civil wars in Mexico, you have thousands of refugees trying to flood into America where they're going to be safe, get away from the violence. when these folks come, they're starving. Many of them are sick. You've got old people. You've got infants. People who can't care for themselves and need not only immediate medical care if they get into America, but are going to need to be taken care of forever afterward.

And there's resentment on the American side. We can't take all these people. Plus the suspicion that maybe they're sending their bad ones over. Maybe they're trying to put them. are bad people in place. Everything we hear today is the same. 1913, 1914, there are terrible, horrible, isolated camps for some of these refugees where other, you know, outsiders say, but how can we do this? It's inhuman. And the government's saying, but we can't take care of them all. We've never as a government tried to work directly with the Mexican government to figure out a proper immigration policy.

One bit I didn't know anything about was the so-called Plonde-D san Diego. Can you explain a little bit what that was? Well, we also have to remember this isn't just one-sided. Americans can actually, there was a lot of horrific action towards Mexicans, both on our side of the border and on the other side. But the Plonde San Diego, which I had never heard of until I started this book, was a long-range plan. funded in part by the Mexican government and in part by the Germans, for raids to take place across the border in the United States by Mexican rustlers and criminals, anything to try to make America desperate for some kind of peace on the border. The Karanza government then was going to say, we'll step in and make the border safe. In return, you have to do things for us.

and there were about 50 raids over a course of a couple of years. And Anglos on the border, about 15 were killed, 27 were wounded. And it's a terrible thing. It should never have happened. It's also true at the same time. The Texas Rangers were committing genocide on Tejano's and innocent Mexicans on the border. And the death rate there, the death toll is calculated anywhere from 375 to 5,000. So both sides are doing this to each other. It's terrible and the resentments of that day are still with us now.

And Americans using the specter of the Plonde San Diego as essentially licensed to do whatever they want to do, including to, as you say, American citizens. Well, you know, even today we hear about these hordes of dangerous immigrants who are coming up to approach the border anytime and they're going to come over and they're just going to flood in here. and just cause havoc. And that was the same way that the Texas Rangers were reacting to the Plande San Diego, which was a terrible thing, but it was a few isolated rays.

Yet the public, American public, was sold as this is a full-scale invasion of evil Mexican. There's very little new under the sun, Brian. A few questions about your career, Jeff, before we go. When we first met,

you were working at the Fort Worth Star Telegram as a writer, later a columnist, and an editor. When did you start thinking you would want to go from daily journalism to bookwriting? Well, about the same day I started daily journalism. I think most people who were in journalism then or who are in communications now think about, yes, I'd like to write books someday and make that the only thing I ever did.

And I tried. And I had actually published eight books while I was at the paper and they sold in the collective dozens, even though I had some really sharp young people helping me with some of the research over the course of time. And then I got lucky with a novel that ended up selling a half million copies and let me give up my day job. I mean, the dream came true. I was very lucky. And ever since, this is what I do. Years ago, I remember you telling me this.

And apologies if I mangled it. You told me something like, out of every 100 people that want to write a book, one way, will actually get started on that book. And out of every hundred that start writing a book, one of those books will actually get published. So how did you make sure your books went from, became a real thing rather than just a notion? Well, the same thing I tell everybody who says to me, I want to be a full-time writer. You can't give up. I wrote three books before I was ever able to sell one. I had eight more published before I actually made a royalty check. But you keep trying. ultimately you can expect that you're going to be one of the very few lucky ones who can just go ahead and be a full-time writer.

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. The only way it can't happen is you stop trying. So anyone who's watching this and has the dream, look, it can happen. I think of myself as an inspiration to mediocre writers everywhere. You have published books about Charles Manson. You mentioned that. Jim Jones, the shootout at the OK Corral. Is there a through line for what interests you?

I always like writing about different periods in American history and trying to see how it interrelates to what's happening to us today. There's no vacuum in history. Everything's related. So I look for years in America's history from the settling of the West on. Subjects I don't think I know enough about but want to know more. And then I spend two years researching and another year writing. So it'll never end, but it's always fascinating for me.

Do you have a particular kind of reader in mind when you sit down to write a book like War on the Border? People who are curious, people who want to look beyond the mythology. Every one of my books, even the novels, is about the difference between mythology and the truth. I don't believe in alternative facts. I believe in giving readers de-facts and letting them make up their own minds. Finally, Jeff, you wrote about Charles Manson in nonfiction form. So I wanted to ask you this. What did you make of Quentin Tarantino's fantasy treatment of the Mannington family in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood?

I thought it was great entertainment. What comported with what you wrote? Spawn Ranch part of it, anything line up? I thought Tarantino captured very well the sort of weird atmosphere in Los Angeles at that time. Though what caught it best at least for me, the whole time I was working on the book, and going to have to hang out with Leslie Van Houghton and Pat Crenwinkel at Corona Women's Prison, fun things like that. I will listen to Neil Young's album On the Beach, which has songs about L.A. at that time.

If anybody wants to really get in the mood to think about Charlie Manson, play that album. You'll get the vibe. All right, Jeff Quinn's new book is War on the Border via Pershing, the Texas Rangers, and an American invasion available right now. Jeff, thank you so much for coming on the press box. Thank you, Brian. All right, it's time for David Shoemaker. Guess is the Strainpun headline.

Yeah. Last Monday's headline about a report from the Tennessee legislature was guns, germs, and deals. Today's headline comes from Balladwino, or maybe Balladwino. It's from the Sydney Morning Herald down there in Australia. Here's a setup. It's a story, David, about Oxford Street in Sydney, Oxford Street, which is apparently looking a little down at the heels, as they say. It needs a glow-up.

The subhead of the article is Plan to Bring City's Fated Boulevard Back to Life. So we're rescuing Oxford Street, which is hit hard times. What was the Sydney Morning Herald's Strainpun headline? Is it a shoe thing? Is it like polishing

your oxfords or re-souling? No, not quite. Oxford, Oxford, England, Oxford shirt, like an Oxford, Oxford, Oxford, Oxford University, Oxford. Maybe think of a very prestigious press box award. Is it, if you get on. Oh, Oxford, Oxford.

Streets not looking so great. Oxford, come on, Oxford. Drama, Oxford. You're going to have to wake up the street. You have to bring it back to life. Coma? Oxford Coma. Oh, that's really good.

Oxford Coma. Good work, Sydney Morning Harold. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Erica Servantes. We should clue in listeners on our slight scheduling change here at the press box. We do an episode on Monday, which comes out Monday afternoon or Monday evening, depending on when you listen. We are now recording the second episode of the week on Friday.

morning. So instead of Thursday night, you will get it early Friday and roll into the weekend with us. We got one question also, David, about UFO journalism. What do we make of this UFO journalism boomlet? Do we have someone

next week who can explain this to us? Yes. Yes. I'm so excited that Gideon Lewis Krause is going to be on the show next Friday. He just had an incredible piece in the New Yorker. about the, well, the phenomenon of UFOs and how the U.S. government started taking them seriously.

It is, it's been, it is an incredible little boomlet. And I think that New Yorker piece, if you haven't read it, is just, I mean, it's just a magnificent piece that really will allow us to get into all the little ins and outs of why people are talking about this now. Gideon Lewis Krauss, plus more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. And in two weeks, the hang-in-with-Mr. Cooper reunion show. Don Lewis, Holly Robinson, Pete. on out here. We'll see you then. It was like we'd never left. It was so natural.

We just picked right up back up where we left off.