The Press Box - Older Parents During a Quarantine, Sports That Are Trying to Come Back, and Listener Mail | The Press Box

Episode Date: April 9, 2020

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker are joined by producer Jim Cunningham to discuss worrying about their parents during a quarantine (2:00). They then talk about the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week (19:58), sports that are trying to return ASAP (24:15), Bernie Sanders leaving the race (32:15), the Wisconsin catastrophe (35:00), and finally Listener Mail (37:50). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. I just wanted to make sure you're listening to podcasts on Spotify. Here's how you do it. First, search for your favorite podcast on Spotify's app. They have a library of over 750,000 pods at this point. So let's say you're searching for the rewatchables or the Dave Chang show or the ring or NBA show. Once you find them, click on the follow button. That's how you subscribe. Then click on those letters near the top of the app that's a podcast. All the pods you're following will pop up separated by episodes, downloads, and shows. Wait, it gets better. On Spotify, you can adjust the speed of the pods to seven different speeds.

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best of all, it's free. Download Spotify on any device, and you're good to go. Should you be embarrassed that you're not listening to podcasts on Spotify? Well, I don't want to app shame you, but the answer, unfortunately, is yes. Make the move. Listen to podcasts on Spotify. Back to yours. Hello, media consumers, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker of the ringer here.

We got a lot of great stuff to get to today. We'll talk about the various and variously kooky plans for sports. leagues to start pumping out content ASAP. We'll talk about Bernie Sanders dropping out after the nightmare of the Wisconsin vote. We'll answer your listener mail, plus David Shoemaker guesses a strain pun headline and the overworked Twitter joke of the week. But David, let's start here. On Monday, we talked about what it's like to be a parent during coronavirus.

Now I want us to have the companion discussion. Okay. What's it like to be a grown up kid like us? and worry about your parents during this pandemic. Oh, man. Well, I mean, I should say up front that my experience has been, I think, a little bit more peaceful than a lot of the people that I've talked to. I mean, just anecdotally, it seems like not only is the over 70 set the most susceptible to the coronavirus, but they also seem to be the most just like woefully oblivious.

But again, that's totally anecdotal and based mostly on the conversations with ringer staffers, and other close friends. But, I mean, my point of view, I mean, my situation, I don't think, is terribly unique. I will say one thing that's unique about it is, I mean, slightly unique, because I'm the adult child of divorce. My parents split up when I was 30,

so, you know, worrying about my parents kind of took on a new definition in adulthood. You know, I mean, it's not, I mean, my concern for them is framed a little bit differently than if they had split up earlier or if they had stayed together, obviously. But it is a real thing. I mean, by the time we were getting out of Dodge,

It was, you know, a little bit, I was calling both my parents in North Carolina, and they were just sort of like very clear-eyed about it, but not in a very personal way. And both of my parents have jobs that kind of put them in harm's way to some extent. And my dad's a preacher. Thankfully, they called off church really early and did not bus anybody into services or anything nutty like that. They've been conducting, he's been conducting church over the internet almost exclusively on YouTube and stuff like that. My mom is the works the front desk at a retirement community. Wow. And has been determined, has been designated essential employees and essential employees. So she's been going to work on a fairly regular basis. They actually had to move. I don't know if this matters.

If this falls in the worrying category, but I'm constantly checking in to see what they're doing. They see like how safe she is. They're doing, they basically took her desk from the main lobby for two reasons. one because they needed the space for what I'm about to describe it, but two, because the people who live at the retirement community were congregating at her desk because they didn't have anywhere else to go. Like they were just sort of, so they had to stay inside the buildings.

So they just kind of started moving further and further away from their normal routes. And they were just like hanging out at the front desk eventually. And they had to move the desk to keep them from standing there. So they moved her desk into like what was formerly, I believe some sort of janitorial room that was right off the main lobby. now the main lobby is, I think, just used for, they have volunteers there who are taking the temperature of every essential person coming in and out. I mean, UPS people dropping off packages, et cetera, and doing the best they came to screen. So my mom is a doorway away from this.

And, you know, being taken good care of, obviously everybody that lives there is, I mean, it is everybody's great interest to make sure everybody there is completely safe. But she is there every day. and, you know, I mean, she is kind of in a potential hot zone. I don't know. It's a lot. It's a lot. But I mean, I guess the end of the story is both my parents who would be doing a very, very contrienged job. But it's just, you know, it's, it is definitely sunken in. It took a little while. But everything, but they're, you know, it's still a constant concern. Yeah. My mom is, I think, almost in the same boat mentally. She's retired, former high school counselor.

And it's the same thing. Clear eye to use your word about it, but also it's this process like it is for everybody about sinking in. And a funny thing about this to put ourselves in their heads for a moment is it we live in this world where everybody's living longer, right? Everybody's being told you can do so many more things past the age of, of 70 than you could ever do before, right? And then coronavirus comes along. And all of a sudden that silver fox on the cover of AARP magazine, they're like, oh, I'm sorry, that person who's living their best life and going on vacation and going to restaurants and having that extra glass

and they're like, oh, wait, you can't do that anymore. You in particular can't do that anymore. And my mom said this to me the other day. I was really struck by it. She's like, I've never felt so old in my life. I've ever felt, you know, more like I'm old because I have to follow all these rules even more stringently than everybody else. Yeah. Because I'm at risk. And, you know, like it's just so striking to me because like I said, society has been telling people for so long, you're not old. right? 70's the new 50, 80s the new 60, whatever it is. And all of a sudden it sinks in that like, oh, wow, we're in the category of quote unquote old people who have to really watch out for this. Yeah, that's, that's really true. And I think that that's, you know, I think from a distance where we're all kind of sitting, and I speak for our entire generation here, I think that it's something that we, you know, I mean, this isn't unique to us. I think you're always in denial about your parents more. to a certain extent until it's a real reality and kind of coming to grips with that and what is, you know, as clear right as you might be, I'm speaking about us now, it's still a rather intangible thing, you know, it's always intangible until it's not. And it's, you know, it's hard to know exactly the kind of conversations you should be having, you know, I mean,

it's, it's, we're all in a sort of difficult position because you don't want to, you don't want to, you know, you don't want to be, well, I mean, I was going to say you don't want to be every, you know, become your parents and sort of be tisks tisking them every day. But I think for a lot of us, we've already become that. You know, we're parents ourselves. But, you know, it's a tough situation. I have, during this whole coronavirus thing, become my parents to my mom. Absolutely. I am a helicopter son now. And, you know, I feel this started when you and I are probably in our 20s or 30s, and you started to have those, your parent would do something that they probably shouldn't have done and you'd have that tough love now mom conversation you know and and and your mom at

that point would say well this is certainly a reversal because I used to have these conversations with you right now I feel like I have that conversation every three or four days now because my mom's doing something wrong but just because like a parent like she was with me way back when I'm probably still is I'm so worried right and I find my saying the exact same words that I said to me it's like I'm just saying this mom because I love you I don't want anything to happen to you I know I'm being annoying I know I seem annoying but I just don't want anything to happen to you it's just amazing how that's come all the way back around again just down to the wording and down to that just raw emotional you know just it's just like you know

I guess I finally understand is what I'm trying to say right I understand to a certain extent with my kids, but that just fear that something is going to happen, that's going to be something stupid, right? That's just going to be some little thing that's going to lead to somebody getting sick or something. I just want to say, I get it. I really do. And, you know, I think I've sort of told my mom that about 19 different ways over the last three weeks when we talk every day, usually in the late afternoon. I wanted to ask if you had the obligatory technology conversation with your parents. By that I mean here's how Zoom works. Here's how like some part of prime video or Netflix that you didn't previously understand works. Have you been down that

road? No, thankfully not too much. I mean my dad and his wife seemed to have figured out how to do his YouTube messages and everything to a functional degree. So, you know, so far so good on that count. And, you know, we've got FaceTime and, you know, such technologies down pat pretty much since, you know, at least since the baby was born for sure. So, I mean, we're coasting right now. But I know my wife's family is all in on, like, you know,

different messaging apps and different face, I mean, different video conferencing apps because, you know, various technologies involved in the sheer number of people. So, but they, everybody seems to have adapted pretty quickly. I'm pretty grateful for that. The one my wife and I have done is when we rent a new movie on Amazon, like we watched that new Emma, new version of Emma the other day.

So my mom and I share a prime account. So I can call my mom and say, okay, we just paid $15 to watch Emma. So for the next 48 hours, you can watch it too from Texas. And I'm not mentioning any names here, David, but if you want to motivate your 70 plus year old parents, tell them they can get something for free over the next 48 hours.

They're going to push that button. I can't wait until Jeff Bezos hears this and takes away the free Amazon account. She's been dining out on all this time. Just blew everything. I mean, it just, to me, one of the hardest parts of this is you and I, I feel really lean into the role of loving, you know, son. and we're really, really, really, really close to our parents. You and I are famous about getting on planes and going home all the time.

We don't need a holiday to do that. And it just makes you feel so helpless because you're like, I can't do that. You know, I can't do that. I even had the conversation with my mom the other day. She's like, if anything happens, I don't want you getting on a plane. I mean, just think about that for a second, you know, and I'm valiantly going to try not to cry in this segment. but you just can't help, right? At the time when, you know, again, knock on wood,

hopefully everything's going to be a fine, but they may need your help like they've never needed it before because you are literally endangering your parents by doing that. I mean, that to me, and they are thousands of miles away as they are in your case and mine. I want to bring in our producer Jim here too. Yeah, please. Because his situation is, I think, emotionally similar to our

but even more so, because his parents are in New York City, which is such an epicenter for coronavirus cases. How have you been holding up, Jim? I'm all right. I mean, it has been brutal. My parents are actually in Westchester in the suburbs. My sister's in New York City, though. So if that makes it any better, any worse, I'm not really sure.

But yeah, it's been really hard from being so far away. As you were just saying about getting on the flight, about two or three weeks ago when Trump announced the international flight bin. I bought a ticket that night. I think I spoke to both of you guys, possibly. I was just going to fly back to New York before some domestic flights were canceled or whatever it was going to be.

And I was just torn. I bought a flight for like three hours later. And then I canceled an hour later because I was thinking, you know, I can't even go see them and be with them. So I'd still have to like FaceTime from wherever. And God forbid they got sick if I did go back to New York. And then that'd be hanging on my head, whether or not I brought it from the airport,

because they were just telling me to come back, but they weren't taking it as seriously at that time, which has been rough. Because now, like you were saying about feeling like you're becoming the parent for them, that's how I am. I ask every day, like, you know, first it starts with how was their day,

and then I, like, try and subtly more, try and figure out, like, if they left the house or what they did. And then there's been times when I try and FaceTime them, like I'll FaceTime my dad and he doesn't pick up, and then I facetime my mom, and she doesn't pick up. up and I'm just wondering if they're ahead of the house.

I'm like, what the hell are these people doing? And I'm like, I'm basically my parents on like a Saturday night when I was in high school wondering where the hell I was, like what I was doing. It's really strange. I've seen a couple articles about people writing about how their spouse or partner is suddenly watching them work. Like, you know, you're usually away all day. Oh, God.

And your spouse and partners just didn't see you second to second. And then they just see how weird you are during your working life. And you're like, oh, I feel seen. I feel our parents are feeling that. They suddenly feel seen because you know their whole schedule. You know exactly like I know when my mom's going to the grocery store, if she's going to the grocery store. I didn't know that before. Right.

I didn't have that. My mom and I are extremely close, but I did not have that level of detail. Right. And the other thing I've been shocked by is just how much my mom does slash did. And, you know, it's just like, you know, it's again, it's the total, you know, know, dumb sort of son thing of, oh, I'm busy man and going everywhere and doing everything. And my mom will be just fine watching movies up. No, no, she was busy. She had all these social engagements. She had classes at, you know, at the college and, and all these

and, you know, tons of stuff to do. And that's all been curtailed. I'm like, wow, I learned a lot. Yeah, I actually said to my mom at one point, I was like, you didn't leave the house the first 20 years. I was alive. I was always wondering when she would ever leave the house and she never would leave me alone. And now she has to leave all the time. It's amazing. I feel compelled here to talk about how lucky we all are, how privileged to have parents who are secure in terms of housing, income and health, because that's clearly not the case of the rest. A lot of the rest of the country.

Benji Sarlane is a great political reporter over at NBC, former colleague of mine. He was tweeting last week about his dad, Bob, Sarlan, who is in a nursing home. And he says, Bob Sarlin lives in a nursing home where 200 plus residents across five facilities have COVID-19. 200 people. Now, imagine that. Imagine the fear we're all enmeshed in here if they were in that kind of environment.

He said the staff at the nursing home got one in 95 mask a week and one gown per shift. and they cannot isolate sick people within those nursing homes. Benji and his wife were calling, not as reporters, but just to kind of find out some information and saying, no, we're reporters, but we're not, this is all off the record, this is all personal, and found that the caregivers were actually saying, no, no, we want you to publicize this because we need help and we don't have help. In the case of Benji's dad, he says his dad is disabled,

from a stroke and requires special care. Even scarier on April 2nd, Benjee Sarlane tweets, my dad tested positive for coronavirus tonight, but is doing well at the hospital. He appreciates any prayers. And then four days after that, he said he's still in the hospital receiving oxygen, but stable and in good spirits. The whole thing is very unpredictable, though.

So taking it all day by day. So again, just to shine a light on, you know, what a happy, knock on wood, happy, privileged everything position we're sitting in. It is rough. And people, again, it's just that utter helplessness, right? You know, you can't, sometimes you can't do anything. And, you know, even in this wonderful world where we can buy cheap airfares all the time and go see our parents much more than we could have like 30 years ago, you can't do it.

You can't push the button. And I don't know about you to, but man, that is a feeling of how. helplessness with my mom like I do not ever remember experiencing. Absolutely true. One more note on this. I was talking to my mom on Tuesday. She had just listened to the previous edition of the press box. And her first question, I am not making this up.

Oh, no. Is David okay? He sounded kind of weary on the last podcast. Oh, man. I probably was. Yeah. I don't know as a writer. This is maybe off subject, but as a, both a writer and a podcaster, I'll say, I'll put it

this way. I'll start with the writing part. I used to write at night because I had a day job. And I would usually write the date, like on deadline, right? I had to like turn in something by midnight. And so I would leave work and maybe take a quick nap. And then I would go and I would start writing. And sometimes I would just like, you know, put a beautiful bow on it at 10.30.

or 11 o'clock or something. And sometimes I just wouldn't be done. And like at 12.15, I just kind of like faked an ending and turned it in and hoped for the best. And I started getting like more positive feedback for the ones I didn't finish than the ones that I actually thought were perfect. And I was like, I'll never figure it out, but I don't feel bad about turning them in that way anymore. And then with podcasting, it's the same way. I feel like I have an exact inverse opinion of like of my performance vis-a-vis the way people respond to it. So I actually, you know, I think I felt a little bit tired earlier this week,

but I just was hoping that would work out for the best, you know? I guess your mom can see through me. I guess this was the day after WrestleMania, too, so you were busy. But just, just know, Mrs. Curtis noticed the difference. And she's worried about all her kids. 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. please send your nominees to at the press box pod.

David Stephanie Grisham is out as White House press secretary. She will be replaced by Kaylee McAnney. During her nine month run, Grisham never gave a single briefing to the press. Not one. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write. If a press secretary is fired in the forest and no one was ever briefed,

did it ever have a job? thanks to living internal for that one. By the way, even in the Trumposphere, what a star-crossed position press secretary has been? Like Sean Spicer, who was the most trolled man on planet Earth, now looks like Mike McCurry in this whole thing.

I mean, he is the figure who's actually come out of the best, I think, which is really terrifying. David, other news. On Wednesday, the L.A. time. Food Twitter account tweeted the following during coronavirus people are

scrambling to get eggs oh man that was a relatively safe pun but in the replies people took us into the realm of a thousand and one knock knock jokes some examples the yokes on them

the decision whether to click for me was over easy and my favorite I was going to read this but I'm a let you finish I'm a Let you finish. Thanks to Ray for that one.

And David, we've talked about what a shit show the White House coronavirus press briefing is on a daily basis. Couldn't possibly get worse. Well, on Wednesday, this happened. So one of the biggest rating hits of the coronavirus, aside from these briefings, has been a show on Netflix called Tiger King. And the man who's the star of this is a former zoo owner who's serving a 22-year prison sentence. He's asking you for a pardon saying he was unfairly convicted. Your son yesterday jokingly said that he was going to advocate for it,

and I was wondering if you've seen the show and if you have any thoughts on pardoning Joe Exxon. Which son must be done? I had a feeling it was Don't. Is that what he said? I don't know. I know nothing about it. He has 22 years for what? What did he do?

He allegedly hired someone to murder an animal rights activist, but he said that he didn't do that. You think he didn't do it? Are you on his side? Are you recommending a pardon? No, I'm not advocating anything. As a reporter, you're not allowed to do that. You'd be criticized by these. Would you recommend a pardon?

I'm not weighing it on time. I don't think you would. I don't think you would. Go ahead. You have a question? I'll take a look. Is that Joe Exotic? That's Joe Exotic.

That's Joe Exotic. Go ahead. That was CNN's Jim Acosta there at the end, trying valiantly to get us back on track. It was an overword Twitter joke to write, Joe exonerated. Joe exonerated, thanks to Garrett Blackburn. By the way, can I just think, can we just indulge?

Just bask in the fact that Trump when presented with this just cockamamie question and that one of his sons that, like, tweeted about it, was he like, which was it done? Yeah, I guessed it was Don. I think we could all guess it was like, even he is fully, like he's fully cognizant of the perception, like the widespread perception of his sons and daughter, I'm assuming to. Anyway, go on.

Yeah, I guess what struck me too, about the way that was phrased was one of the breakout hits of the coronavirus. I saw somebody refer to the thing John Krasinski is doing on Twitter. Yeah. That way the other day, one of the break, let's not use the term breakout hits of the coronavirus, right? Especially the term breakout is particularly unfortunate. Certainly one of the most infectious things that this is for this coronavirus has given us. I hate the whole bad look, bad optics thing, but just stop it.

Please, nothing should be a breakout. out hit of the coronavirus. If you find the White House coronavirus briefing and Tiger King to have the exact same amount of redeeming value, which is to say none, congrats, you made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. Time for the notebook dump.

And David, don't you know those big sports leagues that have been on the shelf for a while have been sitting back saying, what's important is the health of the country? We'll only come back and stop playing when it's appropriate and not a second sooner. Ha ha ha, ha, they didn't say that. They are

trying to come back and give us the content that so many people crave. Got a couple of examples for you. On Tuesday, ESPN's Jeff Passon published a report detailing a plan by Major League Baseball to get the baseball season started by May. That's next month with all the games taking place in Arizona. The plan would require, quote, players, coaching, staffs and other essential personnel to be sequestered at local hotels where they would live in relative isolation and travel only to and from the stadium. I recommend our colleague

Zach Cramm's piece on this. He wrote, it's one thing to ask MLB players earning an average of $4 million per year to leave their families for months to play a game, an extraordinarily tricky thing, of course, but even aside from the inherent difficulty such as situation presents, players could have children born in that time

or family members die from the virus or any number of other circumstances that would complicate a case for complete isolation. But when that ask extends to work, workers in lower tax brackets, the whole notion transforms from foolishly optimistic to heartlessly rapacious. What did you think when you heard of the whole MLB plan? Yeah, I think I co-sign everything that's accessed. I mean, it's optimistic is, I think,

the nicest way you could possibly put it. I mean, you know, the NBA, we're going to talk about the NBA in a little bit too. I think that there's, we're at this weird spot where I think we're edging towards a consensus that a plan needs to be in place. We as a country might benefit from organized sports, depending on how long this thing's going to go. But it does seem to be a sort of like we're at this crossroads between kind of a volunteer-based plan, which doesn't seem to be, you know, which would not nearly replace what is lost. And this sort of MLB trial balloon, which is just absolutely bonkers in the opposite. direction. Now, I will say that I floated this idea way before the coronavirus, and I'll take

credit for it because I got so roundly laughed at at the time. But we were at a no no ideas or bad. I don't even know how this came up. We were talking about like what the future of sports were in some All Hands ringer meeting. And I was like, you know, if you look at, if you look at like basketball, I was talking about basketball in particular, but look at sports these days, like none of the athletes live in the cities they play in unless they happen to play in L.A. None of the owners are from or work or live in the cities where they own their teams. no one's watching no one's going to live games anymore we're all watching them on tv no one has i mean the allegiance for your local hometown team is going down and down people just pick the teams they like

based on NBA league pass we're basically edging towards some sort of like sci-fi movie where there's like 12 teams playing basketball on the moon and you can and it's just like beamed into different places and i actually pitch like why don't they just you know if there's small market teams forget about it should move all the teams to texas and california and florida like who's going to complain uh but with what we'll leave one in new york just for fun and uh and uh and and and And everybody laughed to me. But like, really, that's what's being pitched right now. Like the best way forward in this crazy world that we live in is like, you know,

like some battle dome on the moon where everybody is just going to fight for supremacy. I mean, it's really, it's, it's, it's almost mind-boggling. The NHL's idea was to finish out the season in North Dakota. Yeah. I just love we're going where the coronavirus isn't or isn't in huge concentration, which totally reorders what you're talking about. Like, you know, we have tons. If you grew up in North Dakota, you're like, man, it sucks.

I don't have a, you know, a professional team in the stadium, even though we've got everybody over there in Minneapolis. I don't have like a team I can root for right here. Oh, no, we're bringing the whole NHL to North Dakota. That's an idea. The NBA looked into options to stages, playoffs under quarantine, with whole teams in the same hotel, to which LeBron James responded,

I ain't going for that shit. So that's, that didn't go over so well. My favorite, though, this is absolutely my favorite. Dana White saying he was close to buying a private island where the UFC fighters would come in via private plane to have fights.

Was this a Stephen Seagall movie from our childhood that I'm forgetting? Or is this the best or worst boxing novel from the 50s that we have been forgotten by mankind at this point? This is literally the backstory for Enter the Dragon. Like this is 100% a combat story that we've been living with our whole life. Just imagining our whole lives.

And then the New York Times reported the other day that he was going to hold this next pay-per-view on reservation land in California. Because he can evade the laws of putting people together. That is just wild. That is absolutely wild. The NFL is off right now. But of course, they're going ahead with their NFL draft. event here in a couple of weeks. There was this whole Peter King column I read with interest on Monday because all these NFL guys,

or at least the people who write about them, are making it seem like this huge sacrifice that they're doing what they would normally be doing, except they're doing it from home instead of at the team facility. Yeah. I saw the Kansas City Chiefs Twitter account put up a picture of Andy Reid in his basement watching tape the other day with the little goat emoji. So wait, you're telling me that Andy Reid is incredibly admirable because instead of being at the office watching tape in the off season, he's watching it from home.

Shouldn't Andy Reid be doing something else right now? Is it that important? How admirable that he's just still watching tape in the middle of a pandemic. I guarantee they were like, I guarantee they were like 18 chief staffers that had to come into his home to set that system up and to wire the whole thing. Like people's lives are at risk because of that setup. Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, no, it's all so funny. It's all so funny. I mean, I think I said before that there will, I think there is a real technical,

there's a big technical question marks around how this draft is going to go without a hitch. If somebody's internet goes down, then, you know, I don't know if you get a pass or if it's just going to, you know, if Bill Belichick's probably just sitting in his room, just waiting, just laying in wait for someone to go over, the person before him to go over on there a lot of time and he's going to make multiple picks, you know? I mean, it's, I think the, you know, the bigger your organization is, the more problematic it's going to be.

But yeah, these are people doing their jobs. I mean, this is. Yeah, somebody raised the idea of the Zoom bombing happening. So if you've got your whole scouting staff on the Zoom call and you're like, okay, let's pick this guy here because we think the other guy we really like is going to fall to the next round. Like what if a team, another team infiltrated that call? Oh, yeah. But again, at the end of the day, you're calling in or however you're getting into the NFL and you are picking.

a player. That's all you're doing here. I saw Chris, I think it was Chris Ballard said this in Peter King's call him. They'll make a 30 for 30 on this draft one day. They will, really? They're just going to, this is such, such an inspiring effort. Also, Roger Goodell is going to apparently announce the picks from his home under one plan. Did we really need Roger Goodell? Is it not official until he says it? I mean, can it not just be like the NCAA selection show where the player's name just pops up on the green and that means he's been but taken, does Roger need to pronounce all the names? Well,

no, I mean, I think Roger just felt bad when he saw that Andy Reid photo. Now he feels like someone needs to see him doing his job from his like Armour or his, you know, Barkleonger as well. There we go. The goat, Roger Goodell announcing announcing names even from home. David, a quick word on Bernie Sanders.

He is finally out of the Democratic campaign after that ghastly scene of voters in Wisconsin trudging to the polls on Tuesday with masks on. The general election matchup now will be Joe Biden versus Donald Trump. Officially, here's Bernie speaking about his defeat. And so today, I am announcing the suspension of my campaign. Please know that I do not make this decision lightly. In fact, it has been a very difficult and painful decision. Over the past few weeks, Jane and I,

in consultation with top staff and many of our prominent supporters, have made an honor the assessment of the prospects for victory. If I believe that we had a feasible path to the nomination, I would certainly continue the campaign, but it's just not there. I know that there may be some in our movement who disagree with this decision, who would like us to fight on to the last ballot cast

at the Democratic Convention. I understand that position, but as I see the crisis gripping the nation, exacerbated by a president unwilling or unable to provide any kind of credible leadership and the work that needs to be done to protect people in this most desperate hour, I cannot, in good conscience,

continue to mount a campaign that cannot win and which would interfere with the important work required of all of us in this difficult hour. We touched on this last week, David, but isn't it amazing how hard it is for a mega news story, a mega political news story like this one, to break through in a time of pandemic? Yeah.

I mean, just kind of shocking how quickly we got to, and a brief word on Bernie Sanders. I mean, the reason why we're doing this podcast twice a week is because of Bernie Sanders. I mean, because of the presidential election, right? I mean, that was our central focus for so long. And the campaign became a footnote, not just his campaign, but the campaign in general.

I mean, the primary contest in general became a footnote to what's going on around the world, I think is, you know, all the explanation that you really need for what happened. Although it is interesting to think that, you know, that this sort of puts, at least for Sanders, might have put the reality that he was facing into a starker relief for maybe it made, you know, maybe the appeal of a sort of quixotic candidacy, you know, a message candidacy was obviously kind of out the window. But it is, it is kind of interesting to think of how Sanders himself got to this point. As soon as I saw the picture from the Wisconsin primary, uh, that was going all over the place the other day. This is the picture of the woman wearing a mask in line to vote. And she was holding

of a big sign that says, this is ridiculous. And behind her, you saw this whole line of people wearing masks who were sent out there to vote because the Republicans in Wisconsin would not delay the election, wouldn't cooperate with the governor's attempts to delay the elections. That was the moment I was like, this is over. There is no way that Bernie Sanders is going to make people do this anymore. It's just not going to happen. And I believe that comes from, you know, as much from. political calculation is as Bernie himself, just being like, I'm not going to subject people to this.

People are putting themselves in danger. And to the extent that I guess we're going to have these primaries at some point, they've almost all been delayed at this point, but to the extent that I, that me being in this race is just putting any single person in harm's way, there's just no way he's going to do that. No way. And at that point, I was just, I don't, I don't see how we can do this. that photo was taken by a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel intern named Patricia Mcnight. Welcome to the big leagues. That was an absolutely incredible news photograph that captivated everybody. Should we say a word about Linda Tripp?

Yeah. Huge figure from the 1990s. Linda Tripp has died of pancreatic cancer. She was 70 years old. If you don't know who she was, she was the woman, government worker, who set part of the Bill Clinton scandal in motion. by secretly taping her pal Monica Lewinsky and acting as a go-between

with reporters and other people on the right. Do we have anything to say about Linda Tripp, RIP? I have no idea what to say. This feels like the test case for just mention and move on. I mean, I think it's worth noting, certainly. Her impact on our young lives and the way that we view politics, I think, cannot be overstated.

But I don't know if it was an inevitable. or, I mean, at the end of the day, you know, what she did was, will not be viewed by history as particularly admirable or particularly, you know, momentous. But yeah, I mean, it did shift the way that everything that we will, I mean, every conversation that we'll ever have about politics is going to be viewed for the lens that she helped create. Totally. Monica Lewinsky herself tweeted yesterday, no matter the past upon hearing that Linda Tripp is very seriously ill, I hope for her recovery. I can't imagine how difficult this is for her family. Let's do a little listener mail, David. We do this every Thursday. Send us questions about anything at the press box pot.

Anything at all. Our first one comes from Mark Casey. I love this question. What is the most approachable, non-threatening, homemade face mask color? It's a real debate in my house, and I say teal.

Dang. I mean, white slash like very pale medical green or whatever. No, I'm saying anything in the in the actual like a real face mask could be this color category is both by one definition more approachable because you, you might be mistaken for thinking that that's it's safer. And but it's also there's also something kind of off putting about someone that might have just come from a medical facility. Yes. It's chillingly medical. I wouldn't vote for that at all.

But so if it's just, if we're just talking about homemade t-shirt or scarf-based masks, yeah? I don't know, there's something, teal seems a little bit like insouciant. Like there's something a little bit like, like, there's a little, like, lack of seriousness there.

I would probably say like a yellow. Like yellow has a sort of like formal, kind of metaphorical function, but it's also like playful. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, if it's got to be a solid color, I think that would be my choice.

Yeah, teal kind of sounds like our moms who were talking about earlier. That sounds like the color of earrings or scarf they would buy at this point in their life. I was going to say, it's like this repurposing old scars for them. Uh-huh. This letter is from Dave Shockey.

He writes, David and Brian. What are you most looking forward to doing when the quarantine ends? This is apart from just getting away from your kids for an hour or two because we all know that's number one for everyone. What are you looking forward to, David? Two things.

One, and by the way, I share this feeling with my kids and my entire family. I don't think the first thing I do is going to be to sprint. But number one is chain restaurant. Every time we go to the store, we pass, there is an intersection that has a Texas roadhouse on one side. And wait, what's the other Texas steakhouse? And a longhorn steakhouse. Yeah, they're across the street from one another. and it is taken everything in our power

to not just pull over and just like gets him to go order from one of those places because I think at least one of the two is open. So yeah, I mean, but it's not just the food because the food is the thing. It's sitting down, my brother-in-law lives in New Orleans and, you know, has been quarantined inside his place with his fiancee for a while now, just said, was talking to my wife, his sister the other day,

it was just like, I just want to order appetizers. Like, that's all I want. And I associate with that so much. I just want to go somewhere where I can get some like fish bowl drinks, some appetizers that probably don't play off the main course very well. A nice big juicy steak, you know, maybe like a 64 ounce beer in a frosty mug of something, you know, something in that variety.

Just somewhere where I can plop down in a leatherette chair on a leatherette bench in a booth and just know that my butt will be there for like an hour plus while I'm just consuming. Like that is the dream. That's number one. But then the other thing, which I guess is similar, but it's a, it is a desire that we've all, my whole family has had that doesn't, I mean,

it's a thing that we've done that's fun, whatever, but it's overwhelming us. It's like the desire for like a cigarette when you see somebody smoking one in a movie. It's like we want to go bowling. Like I think it's, I think because it's the most irrational, the most, like the wrongest thing you could do right now

between like it's germs in every direction, but just to be in a bowling out. alley, eating trash food, again with the giant frosty beers. And just like, just being there doing this thing out in public, it just, for some reason, I just cannot stop thinking about it. It seems so blissfully normal. Yeah. And I think that's probably why it's powerful.

Our pal Kyle Koster has a question about big and rich. If you have a question about big and rich, you get right to the front of the line. He writes with the college game day theme song, now an. an explicit threat. Do Big and Rich have any legal exposure to worry about it? Here's the college game day theme. We're coming to your city. Has never sounded so chilling as it does right now.

I would, by the way, like to just go ahead and sponsor a class action suit against Big and Rich, which has nothing to do with the coronavirus at all. Can we just, can we just get that in the pipeline anyway? We're not suing them for either. Just just just just please move on. along. The existence of big and rich is being called.

Yeah, I love this. Did they break up? Or is that, I'm not just thinking of Brooks and done. I'm not sure if they broke up. I think one of them is a, is a Fox News Starwart and seems to be doing a whole lot of stuff on his own.

Is that rich? I think so. Has like a, I think he had a reality show and then separately has been, appears on, as a talking head a whole bunch. But I'm not sure if they formally severed their partnership or not. our friend Scott Tobias writes this David never too early to talk about 2028 right

curious to see what you guys think about aOC as a torchbearer for Bernie's policies on a presidential scale I think she attracts a broader coalition and might strike at a more demographically optimal time what say you oh man I think that uh I think it's really hard to predict. I think that she certainly has a certain level of national exposure that that is, you know, absolutely, I mean, it's worth a billion dollars. You know, I mean, there's nothing more, I mean, nobody would turn that down. But just the level of indignity that she faces at the hands of like the brightbark.coms of the world every day of the week, it's kind of hard to quantify. I mean, literally, I don't know how to quantify the amendment.

of damage that will do to her cue rating by the time that an election would actually roll around. So, I mean, it's tough to say. I think just it's separate from all of that, I think that she's an attractive candidate. But I think that I think that she's got a long way to go, you know, and I don't think, you know, I don't, I mean, I just don't think the American electorate is the same as the New York electorate. I think that certainly she can work the same sort of far, I mean, leftist kind of upending the establishment sort of campaign. But I think the issues themselves have to get a little bit, have to broaden a little bit. But who knows? Here's what I think. AOC may actually be a really, really clever politician. It hasn't been

tested on a national scale. Yeah. But what we've seen her do, not only in winning her election the first time, but just the way she's put herself out there, the way she communicates, um, uses Twitter, uses social media, all that kind of stuff. She, she's really, really good. And to see that tested in a national race where she knew what her vulnerabilities were, maybe, which I think Scott is implying here a little bit, she's not just kind of running into the brick wall in the same way Bernie Sanders is. She's like, no, no, I'm going to win, right? I'm going to figure out a way to be me and also win. I think that would be fascinating. Yeah.

And as you say, she's basically like Sean Hannity's lead story every night. So who knows, maybe she's just been poisoned for half of the electorate now. and it might just not work. But God, I'd love to see that. I think it'd be fascinating as a story. Chad Orzel writes this, David, if there were to be a mass move to vote by mail for the November elections, how many news anchors' heads would explode like in scanners over not having clear results on election night?

This is such a good point because do you remember 2018 when all those California ballots were taking so long to get in? because we vote by mail here in California. Yeah. You're at least allowed to vote by mail here in California. And Republicans, you saw just immediately, but it's like when we don't count the votes instantly, we go right to, what are they doing with the votes? Wait a second.

It's been a week. And the races are all changing. Republicans that were ahead are now losing. And it's over a week. They must be doing something wrong. There is something about counting votes quickly that puts everybody's mind. It doesn't mean you're faking it when it takes a week.

But I honestly think that would, just time shifting that would sort of blow everybody's minds. Yeah. I mean, despite the fact that the conventional form of or conventional voting methods of just, you know, ballot boxes and whatever else have been proven to be like corruptible a million times over in American political history, there is a sort of comfort in the sameness or in the normalcy of the process. And I think that anything else, I mean, as we saw in Iowa, I mean, any divergence from the norm, even if it's totally explainable, is just going to be met with, you know, torches and pitchforks. And people are going to assume that there's like something nefarious afoot, even if it's going according to plan. And I think that's a real challenge for, for our democracy, full stop, you know? Yeah, I mean, it's hard. I think viewing it through the lens of media is my, I mean, it's potentially really instructive.

I don't know the answer, but, like, I can imagine a, you know, a whole week of, you know, nighttime broadcasts on, on all the networks, especially if, I mean, if there's any of the coronavirus issues still floating around, I mean, it could be a media event, you know, I mean, it could be, they might be happy to have it that way from just a crass viewership perspective. Yeah, more content. It would also be just from, you know, ethics on the ethics side. It would also be, you know, interesting to see how quickly they dropped their aversion to the old school exit polls and telephone polls and stuff on election night.

If they thought they were getting a sort of a clear window into who the winner might be, I wonder if they'd jump back in that direction more quickly. This letter, David, is from fellow Texan Rudy Clanknick. Because I'm so desperate for good news, I weirdly find Fox News more compelling than the actual news networks. Yes, it's propaganda, but the Mattout Brigade are marching right off a cliff with a constant negativity. discuss. I have to be honest with you. I've watched so little cable news in general since, I mean, I think I've had like in the past

week maybe like a couple of 45 minute chunks where I was doing something else, but it was on. But in theory, in theory, I think what Rudy says makes a whole lot of sense. There has been, I've seen this and heard this a couple times of the last few days, people are like, I just want something positive in my life that doesn't. mean I want like fake info like oh we're all going to be back at work next week or the churches are going to be packed on Easter I'm not looking for that I just when I look at that CNN body count which is on television now all the time yeah I just can't my brain my emotions can't take that day

after day week after week so that is really interesting not sure that Fox News would be the only place first place I would go but yeah you can change the channel guys I mean like like you know the price is right is on like there's a lot of there's a lot of stuff to watch out there yeah but Drew Carey's wearing a mask, isn't he? I'm just kidding. From Gerard Gouet. Oh, I love this question. Why does Shoemaker seemingly laugh more slash harder on the press box than he does on the

Mask Man show, which usually has actual comedians as guests? No offense to Brian, but maybe offense to said comedians who can't make David laugh, much love. David, what say you? I got to tell you, like I have some of the people that have come on the Masked Man show, the comedians in question. Dan St. Germain was on. last week. He's hilarious. Well, for one thing, Dan is the kind of comic that, like, you feel, if you go see his set, it's a very nervous sort of laughter that he evokes. It's like, and then eventually you're just rolling on the floor, but the first,

first few minutes, you're just like, oh, man, it hits too close to home. But that said, I've cracked up a lot of times when Dan's on the show, but a lot of times I have comics that come on the Mass Man Show and all they want to do is nerd out about wrestling. And it's, it's like, yeah, it's just like nerd. It's not a lot of, not so much just straight up joke telling. But I think at the end of the day, it's just because, I don't know, I think that there's something different about the recording process. I think because we've been doing this on, you know, remotely for so long, I'm just sort of like literally waiting with bated breath, you know, waiting on every word Brian's about to say. And so I'm sort of reacting in a real time in a way

that I'm not always on my other show. I don't know. That's a good question. Yeah, I would just say Gerard, David, David is one of the nicest people in the world, truly, truly a wonderful human being what you're hearing is a charity laugh. That's, that's, there was another one right there. I heard it. Jim pushed the buzzer. I had to do it. Finally, David, from Megan.

What is the best story from when you guys live together? What is the best story from when you guys live together? Do you have something we can tell on the air? I'm not sure. Well, first of all, I do. I have one brief one. You mentioned this early. I mean, I thought about this earlier when you were talking about.

becoming a figure for your parents. The thing that jumped into my mind at that moment, not even knowing this was coming, was when we were first living together at a top floor place in a tenement house on Pitt Street in the Lower East Side, we had a private rooftop, and we were not big, we didn't go out a lot.

We weren't, like, huge, you know, partiers or anything, but we started throwing parties that were just epic because we had a rooftop. We kind of lived in the lower, side in an era where it was like a little bit of, it had a little bit of like exoticness to it. And, you know, people were just like interested to go down there.

And, and, and, you know, we got everybody together. We threw a good party, whatever. But I just, one of my favorite parts of the whole thing is the,

I remember you telling your mom, I think you were talking to your mom, like, right before the party started, you were telling her we were about to have it. And that we were inviting all these people over and how big to get. Like, you were totally straight up. You were like, yeah,

we went and bought a bunch of beers. We invited 200 people. We like, whatever. And your mom was just like, okay, well, remember to just have one or two so you don't get too drunk or anything. And I think at this point, you had like a plastic, a 32-ons plastic cup of vodka in your hand or something. You know, whatever.

It was like so hilarious. But I just remember hearing that and just, that was just an all-time moment. But you tied that nicely back to the beginning of the podcast. Yeah. We can, we can cut it off there. But the first thing that I thought when I heard the question, my favorite story, the thing that I ended up telling. And this probably said, this is, people always want to know about our friendship. But we lived together for so long, and we were friends for longer before, and, you know, been accused any number of times of just enjoying each other's company more than anybody else is in the world, and that's definitely true. But there was one time when one of our buddies had a bachelor weekend in New York, and we were, I mean, I don't think we

would count him, we wouldn't be counted amongst his best, best friends, but we were part of a group of like 10 or 12 or so that were there. And one of the day, the first day, or maybe it was just one day, it was just like a Saturday of like multiple activities. and the first thing in the morning at 10 or 11 o'clock, or maybe it was later in that, maybe it was afternoon was we went to a shooting range in New York City, which neither of us knew existed. You know, maybe it doesn't exist anymore.

But we went and we just shot 22s at like this basement shooting range in New York. But I got there first. We came set, we traveled separately. We probably was reasonable to expect we would have arrived together. But you would have been out doing something that morning, whatever. And I got there. And as I walked in, the bachelor said, who was there with his brother.

I was the first one in the door. The bachelor said, hey, where's your partner? And I was like, I don't know. He's out doing something. He'll be here soon. And remember, it's just him and his brother. Fast forward to four or five hours later, read a bar having some drinks.

And I'm sure there have been several other comments in that vein. Just because I completely went over, like never even thought twice about. And as we're walking out of the bar to go to a barbecue restaurant, at the Hill Country in Manhattan, just Texas barbecue. We were so excited. we're walking out and the bachelor's brother

silos up to me and he's just like, you're just making small talk and he's like, so how long have you and Brian been together? And I was just like, oh man, like I understand why, just trying to be nice, but I was so caught off guard. Like, you know,

I understand why you might have thought that. Like these moments are coming back to me throughout the day. And I'm like, oh, I understand why you might have thought that, but don't, I mean, listen, like, we're not, we're just roommates. Neither of us is gay. Don't even think about, you know,

just that's, you don't even worry about it, but don't feel bad at all. And at that moment, you walked up, completely unaware of this, only thinking about the barbecue restaurant. And you said, I'm going to eat my weight in sausage today. And I just turned around and walked away and left you with him. Oh, man. I completely forgotten about that.

Anyway. Wow. What a story. That might make the podcast. David's son there in the background is telling us it's time for David Schuemaker guesses. the strain pun headline. Let's do it. Monday's headline about a ballot initiative

that could reintroduce wolves to Colorado was Colorado throws wolves to the vote. Yeah. This week's headline is from Chris Staff and BW. It's from the Washington Post, David. Did you see the story where Nadia, a four-year-old Malayan tiger at the Bronx Zoo, caught the coronavirus?

Yes, I did, yeah. Scientists completely baffled as to how a tiger could get the disease. Okay? That is the point of the story. Now I'm going to give you a little bit of the headline here just so you can at least walk up to the pun. The beginning of this headline is

the mystery of how a tiger caught COVID-19 has experts. Dot, dot, dot. What was the Washington Post's strained pun headline? Chasing their tail? Hey, well, we're done here. Is that it? Good night, everybody. Yeah.

chasing their tails. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Research by Erica Servantes and Chris Almeida, production magic by Jim Cunningham. We're back Monday with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.