The Press Box - Predictions for Tomorrow's Midterms, Bottom-Five Senate Candidates, and the Musk-Twitter Meltdown

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

Ahead of tomorrow’s midterm elections, Bryan and David discuss overarching pundit projections, touch on the most contentious elections, and weigh in on the news that Donald Trump could announce his candidacy next week (6:20). Then, they revisit the chaos on Twitter with Elon Musk restricting accounts, “legalizing” comedy, and bringing back former employees (32:40), all before reminiscing about Parade magazine, which will no longer print its paper version (38:16). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week, and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Associate Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The time has come to get ready for the 2022 World Cup. And what better way to prepare than by revisiting the World Cup's most amazing goals? I'm Brian Phillips. I'm making a podcast about the history of the men's World Cup, told through the stories of 22 iconic goals. The show's called 22 goals. It's out now on the Ringer Podcast Network, and we're having so much fun. Yes. I was in Austin last week. Austin, Texas.

Do you want to hear first about the barbecue I ate or the old vanity fairs I bought at half-priced books? Let's start with the barbecue. Dude, I ate so much barbecue that I had to stop eating barbecue. This is a sign of old age? What's the diagnosis here? I'd like to think not. I'd like to think it's a sign of too much barbecue.

If I had told you, if I had told you with 100% uncertainty that the, that the barbecue diaspora was going to take place the way that it has, that there would be like good to great barbecue restaurants in every major city, usually multiples of them, wouldn't it have still been shocking that there was so much room for barbecue to grow in Hill Country? in central Texas. It's crazy that every time you go, there's like three new places to try out. And new sides on the barbecue menu.

Oh, oh, wait. Now this I want to hear about. This is actually a symptom of what you're talking about. It's like get off the plane. What was it? Tuesday. I go over to a place called Style Switch to get a late lunch. I'm looking at the options.

I know what I want to do meat-wise. But then I look over and it was like, oh, wow, Brussels, sprouts. On the barbecue menu, I like Brussels sprouts. Yeah. I eat Brussels sprouts at Brooklyn seasonal restaurants and California seasonal restaurants. But here they are at the barbecue place.

How did they do them? Was it like a colored green style Brussels sprout thing? Or was it just like a balsamic? We're getting in too deep here. How did they do it? Well, I think the go-to for the barbecue side dish or vegetable is spicy. Yeah. Like we can't have mac and cheese.

We must have green chili mac and cheese. Sure. So they were like kind of spicy Brussels sprouts. Next day I went and looking at the options going, oh, potato salad, cold salt. What am I going to do? Oh, wait, here are some nice green beans with diced onions in them. Not like canned green beans, but full, fresh green beans. Remember when the only green thing on your barbecue plate was the pickle?

Oh, yeah. And now I could take a picture. send it back home to jealous family members and be like, look at this. Well-rounded meal. Exactly. Finally, I'm eating well. Also went over to half-priced books in Austin. Remember that franchise from our youth all over Texas?

And I accidentally kind of wandered into the magazine section. There was somebody, dude, who had dropped off every issue of Vanity Fair going back to the late 80s. Not the not. Not the Graydon Carter era. Not, you know, just Matt Damon on the cover of Vanity Fair, but we're talking Diana Ross on the cover of Vanity Fair. Kevin Costner the first time on the cover of Vanity Fair. What?

Like someone just dropped off an entire, is this like, is this like Larry McMurtry runoff? Like is just people just like, or did somebody try to donate a library to the University of Texas and like this is the stuff they didn't care to archive? Yeah, the Harry Ransom Center did not want your old vanity fares. Mr. Woodward and Mr. Bernstein, so please donate them to half-priced books. And they were two bucks a pop.

Two bucks. That's a $5, $6 purchase on eBay plus chipping. Sure. I say never having done such a thing myself, of course. Two bucks a pop. So then I'm like, how many vanity fairs can I fit in my suitcase comfortably? Mm-hmm. Because a vanity fair is heavy.

a teen to brown vanity fair is very heavy we got a lot of ads in there they're like uh like like small town phone books yeah small town phone books exactly right oh dude what it just i bought how many did you get 20 i went i bought 12 and i went back and bought 10 or 11 more so i think they were 23 wait you went back on a separate day yeah sick person because of the vanity fair like you're like, I didn't get that, that, I should have gotten the, who would, who would it have been? It was a Jack Nicholson one, holding a babies. There was a Matthew McConaughey one. But to answer your question, yes, I am that sick person. I should host a media podcast. We should have a spinoff where you just read old, old issues of vanity fair.

That's going to be after the election. The whole busing Twitter thing ties down, you know, we need some content. Do you see James Wolcott's column in the week of the month of February 1988? There'd be an audience for it. Coming up on this here media podcast, what your favorite political analyst is telling you is going to happen in tomorrow's midterm elections. Maybe with a little bit of a wink, a little bit of a nod, we fill you in. More news and notes from Tuesday. We're going to talk about Herschel Walker and Dr. Oz and some of the,

the other worst Senate candidates in recent American history. Plus more on Elon Musk and Twitter. Farewell to a magazine that everyone got if no one actually loved. And is it news that an athlete wants to own a professional sports franchise? All that more on the press box. A part of the ringer. Podcast Network. Media consumers.

Brian Curtis, David Shoemaker, producer Erica Servantis here. Let us start with the midterms, David, which are tomorrow. yeah, they're here. If you've been watching cable news or reading just about anything, have you noticed that we have moved to a little bit of a pundit consensus on what's going to happen tomorrow? Yes. The consensus goes something like this.

The Republicans are going to take the House, but the Senate is a little bit of a toss-up thanks to some of the candidates, Republicans picked in their primaries, thanks to the fact that Democrats have a little bit of a happier map to defend than Republicans do. Is it funny that we're all singing the same tune and also singing it in an era

where dumboes like you and I can get online and just read 538 and go, yeah, here is my prediction about tomorrow's events. Yeah. Because I look at the same date everybody else is. Yeah, we're not really like, well, I guess we are sort of aggregating it.

We're not really, like processing the data the data in any sort of way but we can read the site and just be like well it's like looking at betting lines yeah well i think i think i think i think i know where i would put my money um it is it is weird it's weird it's weird again like i keep saying this is like you watch the tv you watch cable news read the front page the new york times even and it's just about like poll projections you know and and i and i get it to some extent because i've been thinking about it a lot, you know, that this is, the Times, you know, is like the paper of record in a national way, right? It's a national newspaper now, and that's the sort of way they cover it. Although,

you know, if you go back in time, I was like looking at midterm coverage from 20 years ago, you know, from like from the, or sorry, from like 40 years ago from like the 80s. And, you know, they, they were parachuting in to towns in Pennsylvania and to battleground states and giving pretty breathtaking, like, you know, anecdotes about, about plant closures and shifting political pressures and what the candidates were trying to do to sort of establish a foothold and an identity in a changing landscape. You know, it felt like a very different thing. And it's not to say they don't do that now, but what do you do? How do you lay out your homepage in a world where you're trying to get every person in the world? You know, and it's,

It ends up, I mean, the fear is that it ends up being this sort of like mush in the middle that doesn't really amount to much except projecting, right? Like, you know, the place where you can wear a lot of these places, where a lot of outlets online written word on TV, feel like they really can have an advantage over the rank and file, over the average, you know, blue checkmark on Twitter, a paid blue check mark on Twitter is is reading the numbers, you know,

and just sort of like projecting the future. And if they're right, they're, you know, that's great. But it doesn't make for a lot of, it doesn't really feel much like news, you know? It's like the statement of a fact that hasn't happened yet doesn't really news. Are we talking about Steve Kornacki, John King, projection as the votes come in?

Are we talking about the prognostication that's happening now? I'm talking about now. I mean, I think that the King, Kornacki stuff is, it's not just defensible. It can be really entertaining and it's helpful. Because at that point, the votes are being cast, right? We're not, we're not, we're not imagining some, you know, future voter. And I know the polls are reliable and whatever else, but it does just seem a little bit nihilist at a certain point where it's just like governing party, you know,

the party that has the presidency always loses in the midterms. And now our polls are reflecting this. And now there's no reason to go out and vote because we all know where this is headed. I mean, it all just sort of seems empty. So I'm glad you brought that out because we should talk about the historic inevitability of the president's party losing seats in the midterm. I was reading this from the American presidency project at UC Santa Barbara today. In the 22 midterms from 1934 to 2018, so it's a big span of time, the president's party has averaged a loss of 28 house seats.

and four Senate seats. The President's Party gained seats in the House only three times, but gained seats in the Senate on six occasions. The President's Party has gained seats in both houses only twice, that is, since 1934. This strikes me as a very interesting place for pundits to be. Because if you accept that there is something of a historic inevitability that the Democrats are going to lose tomorrow

and lose pretty significantly, at least in the House, then can you really write in that story you want to write about the Democrats screwing it up? Biden, you know, talking about democracy instead of talking about pocketbook issues, fill in the blank for whatever story you want to tell about what has happened over the last two years. Biden not prosecuting, moving to prosecute Trump and his allies strongly. Or just, you know, Canada's not wanting Biden to be there or Biden deciding not, Biden's schedule sort of in a broader sense.

It all seems like just a sort of sound bite in search of meaning, you know? I mean, it's all people are just trying to figure out what to do in real time. And they're kind of starting at the end and working backwards. Exactly. And, you know, if we take, let's say, 28 House seats and four Senate seats as the baseline,

you can certainly go. from there and say, well, this was worse than the average midterm loss or less bad than the average midterm loss. But a lot of this just feels like I'm going to, I have this story I want to tell about the way the Democrats screwed things up. But the fact was the Democrats almost certainly were going to lose this time around. And as you say, you're just working backwards in this weird way. But as a pundit, don't you have to have a story? Because what are you going to do on cable news? You're going to say, well, this always happens.

There's really not much to talk about. Yeah. I mean, I think in a larger sense, the story is this is, you know, the narrative is for, well, much longer than the past, you know, six years, but certainly for the past six years is that the country has sort of been intractably set, right? That, like, you know, that so many, that the only swing voters in the world are like 18 people in Ohio and Florida, you know, and everybody else is just die hard, you know, they, candidate hardly matters, except for most.

globalization. You know, everybody is just so ideologically confined at this point. Well, then, you know, you would think that that, that a situation like that would actually create a more beneficial landscape for the governing party, right? Because why would there be, why would there be the shift? Is it strictly get out the vote? You know, why would every midterm go against the presidency if the same people are voting, presumably for the same parties, right? I think that, you know, coloring in the shades on, on that sort of broader explanation of the electorate is to some extent helpful. But yeah, I mean, it's, it is interesting. It's going to be interesting to see how they, how they frame it all. In terms of races, we're most interested

in seeing the result of tomorrow night. Pennsylvania and Georgia have got to be right up near the top. And don't you feel that Dr. Mehmet Oz perhaps soon to be. Senator, Dr. Oz, and Herschel Walker, a little bit of a match set in terms of GOP candidates. Yeah, we've talked about them both before, but I think so. I think so. I mean, we've, you know, I talked to come at both those guys with various theories over the recent weeks. But I do think, I mean, in the sense that this is, that the electorate is a little bit, sort of, you know, most voters have sort of concrete political party.

allegiance, maybe it doesn't matter if these candidates are just off the wall. Maybe the most important thing, especially in a Senate race, it's just national exposure. And even if your candidate is getting on TV for doing bad stuff, stuff that should be problematic for the election,

I mean, for their electability, if they're on, if Herschel Walker has, is in the A block or the B block on every Fox News show every night, then that's a net positive for his campaign. And that's got to be certainly part of the calculus, right? Same thing for Oz, although he seems to have been both a little bit, I don't know, his campaign's been a little bit all over the place,

and he's also been, like, slightly ignored when it suited everybody. But at the same time, I mean, the very basic question of his campaign and the Hershal Walker campaign is why, who thought this was a good idea? But I guess if we're talking about them, then that's exactly the point, right? Because they're getting national exposure on very important battleground states. And that's what's going to help mobilize voters, I think. So the resume goes something like this. Trump's endorsement, number one.

Number two, the Trumpy political resume of I am famous outside of politics. I have a name people know. And number three, as you say, I am ready and able to go on Fox News and talk to Sean Hannity a couple times a week. Yeah. Which is essentially like my campaign platform. So matter how I screw up on the trail,

would I leave to be desired as a candidate, I am ready to go out there and be a national Fox News celebrity candidate. Yeah. And I think that, listen, I mean, I don't really know exactly how to put this into words but the the most Democrat turnout, the Democrat voter turnout has been most successful in elections that are, well, built around like ideas like hope and change,

sort of aspirational campaigns. And the more that you have dodoes getting your candidates stuck in the mud, I think that probably depresses some of that vote, right? I mean, there's nothing aspirational about just like paying attention to the Georgia campaign right now. I mean, there is, you know, certainly, electing, Warnock would be a huge benefit for a lot of reasons. But I think it just sort of gums up the works.

Herschel Walker is an interesting one in this guy goes because he hits all those notes you talk about. But he is also outside of the political sense, a legitimate local hero. Sure. There was an interesting piece by Maya King in the New York Times this week that was wondering whether the University of Georgia's football success this year would help Herschel Walker. Herschel people don't know. Big star in the 80s at Georgia won the Heisman Trophy. Georgia, for everyone paying attention, beat the heck out of Tennessee in a one versus two

matchup on Saturday. Now, there's no real evidence in this piece that that's happening, but I am intrigued by the idea that Georgia good in some perhaps small way equals happy feelings for Herschel Walker, who reminds us of the glory days of Georgia football. Yep. Which if we're talking about a very tight race, and by the way, a race will almost certainly go to a runoff unless somebody gets over 50% here on Tuesday night. We'll go to a runoff in December. Could be interesting on the margins. The other one from Pennsylvania that was interesting this week, Oprah Winfrey, who was a talk show host created the Dr. Oz that we know from television came out for John Federman. I gave the world Dr. Oz. I helped make Dr. Oz. But for a Pennsylvania Senate race,

you should vote for not the guy that I helped create. That was pretty interesting. Yeah. I mean, I don't think anybody was too shocked by it, although I kind of wish we had been, you know, tracking up there. I wish there had been like an Oprah tracker over the past several months just sort of building up to this.

that would have been some good anti-content, right? Well, we all got lulled to sleep by Mark Burnett, never coming out against Trump. Oh, yeah. Remember the media was constantly like, can we get somebody from NBC or get Mark Burnett to admit that the whole turning Donald Trump into a celebrity again thing, giving him new life after his 80s, 90s run was a mistake? And they pointedly refused to do that. I think we were looking the wrong way.

Oprah was there waiting the whole time ready for the big announcement. Speaking to Donald Trump, he's going to run for president again. For a third time, Axios reports that the announcement is likely to come one week from today. That is November 14th. Matt Gets, Florida congressman said on Twitter today, he should just declare tonight. No need to wait until the midterms are even over. Let's just do it right now. And we hardly needed Axiote.

or a Trump-friendly Republican congressman to tell us, listen to Trump in Iowa, David, offering a not-so-suttle hint about his future plans. And now, in order to make our country successful and safe and glorious, I will very, very, very, very probably do it again, okay? Very, very, very, very probably. I want somebody to diagram that sentence. in order for X to happen,

I will very, very, very probably do why. I'm sure that quite lines up. He also made a stop in Pennsylvania for Dr. Oz, and Trump got to talking about the man who could be his biggest rival in 2024, Florida governor Ron DeSantis. Tell me if you hear Trump beta testing a new nickname in this soundbite.

Trump at 71, Ron DeSanktonius, 10% Ron de sanctimonious listener John asks us does the old guy still got it? No, I mean, listen, it'll catch on if Trump says it over and over again,

but that sounds like someone doing like a trying to do the Trump bit. You know, that sounds like an S&L sketch about Trump giving people nicknames and not really like what Trump would do. But then again, Trump's always excelled in self-parody. A couple of writers, by the way, pointed out that Roger Stone was using the term Ron DeSanctimonious on true social.

So, you know, like in a movie where they convene a writer's room where they want ideas, the Trump, Ron DeSantis' Riders room came up with Ronda Sanctimonious. And that's a time where I think someone should stand up, perhaps Trump himself and say, you know, I like to say there are no bad ideas, but that's a terrible idea. Yeah. I think we'll watch some other stuff. How would you go after DeSantis? What would your nickname be?

Oh my God, you're putting me on the spot. I think you got started right, but Ron DeSanctimonious. I don't think sanctimonious is a great political epit, particularly a Trump political epitette. Yeah, it's a little bit too wordy, a little bit too highbrow. DeSantis did have that weird commercial, but still. He should just lean into the Brady stuff that we were talking about the other week, how apparently he's on texting terms with Tom Brady, and we're, Will that bother Trump?

Trump should just be like, just say, oh, yeah, look, look at this little, look at this happy couple. You know, like, Desantis texted them all the way to a four and five record. Good job, you know. But hey, first place in the NFC South. That's kind of like Trump, right? Yeah, 40% approval rating. I almost won the election. Listen, as mad as Trump has got to be about the popularity of Ron DeSantis and not just being like, you know,

anointed on the back of, you know, 12 white gilded horses or whatever with the Republican nomination. Making this a Trump to Santa's race, I think, is a huge favorite to Trump. And I think that the more that people kind of harp on that, having just done it, harp on that sort of dynamic and that relationship and then being the top two, I think is just going to just gift-wrap this whole thing for Trump. because Trump is better on the stump than DeSantis? Well, you could say a lot of different things about DeSantis,

but I think at the end of the day, the easiest thing is he's an untested Republican governor. He's just, is he, is he, is he degrees better than Scott Walker? I mean, is it like, I just think that it's really easy to look at somebody in that position and just be like, oh, yeah, this guy could be president. And then is that guy ever president? I mean, in this day and age, you know, I just think, I think there's a lot of, he's going to get,

have a lot of issues with his record as governor and his past and everything else. I just, and I just don't think on a national stage, he's going to, I mean, he's also so much shorter than Trump. And we know how everyone to work about history. We talk about historical trends.

I think putting those two on a stage together is just not going to work out for him. I think we talked about this four years ago, but there's always a couple of candidates who have an amazing presidential resume. And then we get to that very first debate where there's like 10 candidates. on the stage and you hear them talk for the first time, really hear them talk. America says, oh, wait, eh, that's not going to be president. That guy's not going to be president.

Yeah. That guy's not going to win the nomination. In honor of Herschel Walker and Dr. Oz, I made a list, David, of bottom five Senate candidates. Now, okay. It's very TBD, because Herschel and Dr. Oz could become senators, in which case, they're not on the list. But here are my criteria.

Number one, I just went back to the year 2000 because it was a nice, neat place to end. Number two, these Senate candidates had to be running in a state where their party, Republican or Democrat, could easily win. So these are the worst of the worst? Or what's the correct? These are five bad ones. Let's not overstate the case here. I have to be in a state where you can win because a Democrat could go to Wyoming and say, you know, I want to run for Senate on the platform of here are some interesting videos I saw on YouTube. They're not going to win anyway.

So those kind of candidates are out. And number three, final qualification here, you have to have lost because we know there are some lousy Senate candidates who won. Well, they weren't that bad. And if we have Senator Dr. Oz on Tuesday night, you're not on the list. All right, here we go. Number five, David, Martha Cokley of Massachusetts. Remember 2010? Democrats had 60 seats in the Senate.

60 seats. filibuster proof majority. We can get some stuff done like Obamacare. Here we go. Then Ted Kennedy died. And Martha Coakley ran against Scott Brown. Mm-hmm. Now, this seemed like kind of a layup.

Republicans, all the news stories said, had not had a senator from Massachusetts in 37 years. Martha Coakley did not turn out to be a good campaigner, took a vacation during the campaign. had an infamous line where she was talking about her plans and said, as opposed to standing outside Fenway Park in the cold, shaking hands, as if that would be a crazy thing for a Senate candidate in Massachusetts to do. I picked up Obama's biography, and there's a passage about this.

Obama saw those Fenway Park quotes, and this is his account here, no, I moaned grabbing David Axelrod by the lapels and shaking him theatrically. then stomping my feet like a toddler in the throes of a tantrum. No, no, no. My shoulders slumped as my mind ran through the implications. She's going to lose, isn't she? I said finally. That is Obama's own account of the Martha Coakley Senate candidacy.

Why not up losing by five points? Number four, Todd Aiken of Missouri. This is 2012. He was running for Senate against Claire McCaskillard. Uh-huh. Made some comments about abortion in the case of rape, quoting, first of all,

from what I understand from doctors, that's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. Oh, my God. Actual quote. Todd Aiken lost in Missouri, which was already trending red by 15 points.

Number three on the list, Judge Roy Moore of Alabama. Remember Judge Roy Moore's 2017? special election. Doug Jones. Yeah. ABC News reported eight women have accused

Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore of sexual misconduct or impropriety. Roy Moore wound up losing endorsements, including that of the state's other Republican senator, Richard Shelby,

lost in Alabama by 1.5% of the vote. First Republican Senate candidate to lose in that state since 1992. Wow. Number two on the list. Sharon Engel from Nevada.

Sharon Engel was running against Harry Reid in 2010 was ahead in polls for a time during that election. We always know when the Republicans and the Democrats can, oh my gosh, we could beat Harry Reid. You know how much futility the Democrats invest in trying to do that to Mitch McConnell. This is from Wikipedia. I love this for our purposes here. Engel was criticized during the campaign for largely avoiding answering questions from the press, both local and national.

After the campaign ended, it was revealed that the campaign developed a code word to alert office workers if the media entered campaign headquarters. It's time to water the plants. It's time to water the plants. Sharon Engle lost to Harry Reid by six points. And number one on my list, David,

very uncientific list, but here we go. Number one, John Ashcroft. In 2000. Oh my gosh. Everybody remembers him as George W. Bush is in battle to attorney general. In 2000, John Ashcroft lost to Missouri governor Mel Carnahan by two points. Now, no shame in that.

Mel Carnahan was a popular governor of Missouri. There was one thing, David. Mel Carnahan was dead. He had died in a plane crash three weeks before the election. John Ashcroft lost in an individual. in any case. Will Herschel, Dr. Oz, or a number of Democrats, join that list? Find out in our special Election Day live show tomorrow night.

It's going to be on Spotify Live. We want you to turn down the sound on CNN or MSNBC because we will be making fun of them and turned up the sound on us. We're going to take questions too, aren't we? Sure, yeah. Spotify Live makes it really easy. You just push a button and, and, and then we can turn on your audio.

Get some first time, long time sports radio. You have to say first time long time, yeah, when you start. Everybody there who's always tweeting at us, first time long time, we will be taking your calls on election night. Coming up in 30 seconds, more on the Elon Musk Twitter meltdown and farewell to a magazine. But first, David, let's do the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious. all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time.

Send your nominees to at the press box pod where they are always gratefully received. Speaking of politics and pro wrestling. Oh, God. The mayor of Knox County, Tennessee weighed in this week on drag shows. The mayor did not want kids involved in all ages drag shows. This has been a depressingly common issue

among Republicans. But the only thing in this case is the mayor in question is Glenn Jacobs, who for two decades portrayed a character named Kane in the WWE. Yeah. Kane has drawn the line. Ben Collins tweets this.

Kane, when I was growing up, a colleague of yours named Sexual Chocolate, impregnated a 75-year-old woman in a storyline in which she eventually gave birth to a human hand. I was 10 years old when this happened. If you walked through hellfire and brimstone to make the same joke, congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week.

That was for you, David. Oh, I appreciate it, man. My favorite one was by Sean Ross Sapp, intrepid pro wrestling reporter journalists. He said, he replied, my guy, you were in a storyline where someone pretended to fuck the corpse of your dead girlfriend and said

you had a burned little weaner and there were literally thousands of kids in attendance. That's true. Cain's got a lot to answer for it. He was reading no stories at the time. So what's the benefit to this? In the notebook dump, we got to come back to this whole Elon Musk

Twitter inferno that's happening. I really don't know where to start because it feels like we've had about nine stories a day on Musk and Twitter. There was the one where Elon tweeted, comedy is now legal on Twitter. Then as a lot of people pointed out, we got a follow-up tweet saying, going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying parity will be permanently suspended. And some of those suspended seem to be parody. Elon Musk. Many of those suspended, yes.

I saw Christopher Hooks, very good writer down there in Texas. Apparently his account was restricted. He had tweeted, Twitter has reached its highest potential in the ability to watch its owner cope in real time with having made a $44 billion mistake in the same tone I would take if I had

drunkenly bought a jet ski. Now, why did that deserve suspension? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's a bad, you know, it's, it's, it's, I think that all the comments about this being just a terrible decision on Musk's part, or maybe true, but sort of beside the point now, right? I mean, it's not like, it's not like this is going to end with him just going like, like two weeks from now, like, oh, wow, now I, what have I gotten myself into? I guess I'll see if there's a way to get out of this.

He would have gotten out of it if he could. Now he's just, now he's just, you know, marching forward. He tried to get out of it. It didn't work. I am. Yeah, I feel like every day I have a different conversation about what the future of Twitter is going to look like. And every day, I'm sort of in a different place. But, yeah, the, the checkmark thing is, I don't know.

I mean, I know my timeline. is now like just radically overfilled, oversampled with, you know, people, notable people discussing exit strategies and, and just like deliberately antagonizing Elon Musk and stuff like that. It's, I don't know. It's hard amidst all of that to really imagine what the future looks like in a week, let alone in a month or a year. But it does just seem like, I mean, in retrospect, I guess it was pretty amazing that Jack Dorsey and all the other people that, you know, have been running Twitter over the past however long have not just had their roles as leaders just portrayed as like just one never-ending punchline. Because Elon Musk lends himself to that. But I think that like staying out of the fray is its own skill when you're working in a platform like this, right?

when you're basically, and also facing this really, really real, well, I guess real is a, your mileage may vary on the use of the word real. We're talking about like venture capital, but there's real tension between basically running a public utility and trying to make X times money off of it every, you know, every year or like being able to project that you're going to like quintuple your profits. It's unsustainable. You know, and just to be able to like just to just to sort of steady, just to keep the ship afloat, I think, is it turns out to be one of the most impressive skills of some of these, some of these, you know, tech bigwigs. There's been a real college football message board quality to the musky era of Twitter.

Mm-hmm. Where we have like really, really serious moderation, but only on very narrow grounds. like I remember the old days my University of Texas message boards you know somebody would be like would be some pose like wow that was really offensive or misogynistic and that was okay but then it was like oh

we have outed an Oklahoma fan so he's got to go like that's that's where we draw the line yeah does feel like we're in a kangaroo court where there's certain things that are just not going to go a listener Andrew Johnson

asks will y'all mastodon how many plans to go over to Mastodon. I've not even tried. I'm just waiting for there to be a consensus on this thing. I mean, you know, unless someone actually does set up a public utility that's just like a Twitter clone, like people have tried to do like Reddit clones and stuff like that in the past. It's hard to imagine, and even so, it's hard to imagine what the migration will actually look like. It's actually probably less complicated in some sense than it feels because, you know,

the people that we and the listeners of the show probably interact with on Twitter on a regular basis is a pretty narrow group compared to, you know, Instagram or Facebook, some of these other platforms. But no, I don't, I don't think I'm going to be a trailblazer here. Just everybody set up shop and let me know where you went. I'll be there eventually. Yeah, we're not going to be early adopters. I think is definitely my answer. We're too old to be early adopters. I think us being early adopters would hurt the cause of whatever is being adopted. David, occasionally on this podcast, we have said goodbye

to a publication. Always a sad duty. Well, we have to do it again. Next Sunday, November 13th, we are going to be saying goodbye to the print edition

of a magazine that has been around since 1941. I speak of Parade Magazine. You thought I was going to say the New Yorker Esquire. No, no. I speak of Parade Magazine,

which arrived on my lawn on Sunday with Sly Stallone on the cover and an ad for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy on the bottom of the cover right there in the corner. Wow. I can't believe it's over. I can't believe it still exists, except for, I mean,

if it weren't for us tweeting, I mean, us texting each other about Parade Magazine once every, you know, six months or so, I would be shocked to learn that it exists, but I'm even more shocked to think that it's over. It is amazing how present Parade Magazine has been in our lives from the very beginning. So if people don't know, back in the newspaper era, when everyone got the daily paper in print

and especially everyone got the Sunday paper. Yeah. Parade magazine came to your house every week. And when your parents were spreading out that giant Sunday paper which weighed 19 pounds, Parade was kind of the Andy's Mint that would be pulled out of there and enjoyed after you read the front page in the art section and sports and everything else. Like, oh, here we go. I got a national magazine with my local newspaper. paper. Yeah.

Your parents would let you have it, you know, which was sometimes a point of contention when it came to the Sunday paper, you know. You might not get the sports page first or the arts page first. You could have parade. But parade was, yeah, I mean, listen, it's not like we went to, it's not like we went to school on Monday and just like grabbed our friends and were like, Dan, did you hear what Marilyn Voss Savant wrote yesterday or whatever? I mean, it wasn't like we talked about it all.

whole lot. What were the cartoons that were only in there? Those like one panel cartoons? Was there like a oh no, was it not Marmaduke? It was. Okay. This is why you're confused. It was called Howard Huge. Howard Huge, the other big dog. And it looked like Clifford and Marmaduke, but it wasn't

Clifford and Marmaduke. There you go. But it's not like we talked about those things, but we, but it was, parade was the parade was like the New Yorker of, you know, the rest of America. It was, and I mean that, in very specific sense, which is that, like, it was, like, if you live in New York City and literally every apartment you walk into, there's a New Yorker on the coffee table, that, the only thing with that sort of, like, that sort of permeation is, was Parade Magazine. Now, that wasn't the

only magazine at most households, you know, this was a, this was a magazine era, but like, you know, Sports Illustrated, maybe, but that wasn't at every home. My dad was a sporting news guy for for the longest time and not anything, no other sporting periodicals. You know, you get Newsweek or time or people at that point. You know, generally not necessarily all of them. Yeah, I mean, the one that hit the most household, certainly was parade. Whenever I hear people in our peer group in the media saying, yeah, you know, just always remember my mom or dad reading through those issues of the New Yorker that came to the house

and me, I was like, it did. The New Yorker, really? The New Republic came to the house? Yeah. I didn't know what that was, but I knew what parade was. I don't remember parade stacking up on the bedside table like the New Yorker.

Well, it wasn't as thick, okay? It was more of an insert, you know, but yeah. A few of the go-to features were great. You mentioned Howard Huge, which is part of a comics featured called Laugh Parade. By the way, that was apparently discontinued in 2007.

So we've been in without Laugh parade for a while. I know you may not have noticed. There was a very famous and continues to be a very famous column in the inside cover of parade called Walter Scott's personality parade. Is Walter Scott still with us? The original Walter Scott, aka the original guy who wrote his name is Lloyd Shearer,

he wrote the column from 1958 to 1991. Walter Scott was like a Dear Abbey style pseudonym? Yes. You didn't think the... You're just shattering my childhood now. You thought that was real? Is there a pun that I'm missing? Like Sir Walter Scott?

All right. Kind of a nice little nod at great literature there. So an LA-based guy wrote it from 1958 to 1991. He then sold it to Parade Magazine. sold the column to, it was in parade, but he owned it. Oh, okay. Sold it to parade. And parade just for the record was like sold to the newspapers, right?

I mean, it was basically just supplied content. You had to, you had to pay for it, though. I mean, it was a big deal for your newspaper to get it back in the day. So that was something your readers would look forward to. I don't know how to describe the Walter Scott's personality parade other than... I do. It was a Hollywood press release written in question and answer for him. And it was wonderful.

It was like these fake ones, like, like, I mean, it would be these like relatively giant stars, right? For the Q&A section at the beginning of an insert in your like local newspaper, it would be just like, wait, was it the same as in step with? Yes, right? No, that was a separate in-step of James Brady was later in the magazine. But it would be just like, it would be like, oh yeah, so this was just the Q&A one, right? It wasn't one celebrity.

In-step was one person, but the Walter Scott's personality parade to be like, Hey, what's got, I've been wondering, what's going on with, what's going on with stranger things? I really haven't seen that show in a while. This was, of course, not been the thing. And it would be just like, funny you ask, stranger things is coming out in one and a half weeks, starring the wonderful, you know, and it would like list us to new hire's names. It'd be these incredibly perfectly timed questions that only the man going by the name of Walter Scott could provide the answers to in an era before the internet, right? Yes. Or, you know, what's Suzanne Summers' next project? I loved her work. Funny you should ask.

This Friday on ABC. The new show, step by step. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, yeah, because it would always be back, the questions would always be real backdoor questions, you know, it'd be just like, it would be, you'd be supposedly surprised by this answer. You'll never believe this. She's coming back right now. And I'm totally making this up or it's a fever dream, but I seem to remember. remember that those questions would be signed a ampersand in Ardmore, Oklahoma. Like really fake names? Yeah, a name that just didn't feel like an actual human being

had written that question into Parade Magazine at this one time. I do find out from the LA Times that Walter Scott's personality parade, the original author, Lloyd Shearer, said he did not make up queries, but the questions he used often were composites. also notes he would receive

4,000 to 7,000 letters a week. Parade had a circulation, according to the New York Times, of 20 million in 1980. Holy molly. And an estimated readership of 40 to 50 million. The other big feature, besides the personality parade, besides the cartoons,

besides in-step with James Brady, which was another celebrity column, was Marilyn Vos Savant, whom you mentioned. who how would you describe that column people would have a kind of a math problem yeah or a as one does as one does and again before twitter before the internet you would be like oh maryland vose savant who has a very very high IQ that was her claim to fame mm-hmm she will help me answer my question she was like the kin jennings of of her era right she was

She said a nationally established genius, and she was there to help answer whatever brain teasers you had plaguing you. Don't worry, David. Parade magazine is not going away. It's just going to be online. So every Sunday, our moms can dial up Parade magazine. No, parade.com. Parade.com. Okay.

And enjoy all the wonders of Parade magazine, just like they. always have. There's a, yeah, it's just a lot of celebrity stuff, very low-fi, how to safely deep-fry a turkey for Thanksgiving, is there under the food and drink section, how he became a caregiver for my grandmother. Wow, this is pretty intense. There is sort of a seeming overabundance of fixer-upper and yellowstone content, which maybe shouldn't surprise anyone. That tracks. Absolutely. Okay. I just clearly. clicked on best buys for kids, which is one of the options on the top of the home page. There are some great looking gift guides for children.

I mean, Christmas is coming up? Is it something we shot? The top article on the page is Tesla ATV for kids recalled over safety concerns and risk of injury. I didn't know that Tesla made an ATV for kids. Looks very cool. But that's some more bad news for our guy, Yolung. The Parade magazine, news you can use.

Fighting for you. The big story in sports, David, where the Washington commanders are going to be sold or allegedly sold by Embattled owner Dan Snyder. And I noted that Kevin Durant, NBA superstar and native of the Washington, D.C. Greater Metro area, says, according to the athletic, that he is interested in joining the next ownership group of the commanders. Okay. Now, I believe that Kevin Duran is really interested in that.

But I happened to see a news item a couple of days ago that Eli Manning would be interested in owning an NFL team if everything lined up and there was the perfect fit. And before that, I remember reading that Jalen Rose was interested in owning an NBA team if everything came together. So I do wonder whether it's news that people would like to own a lucrative sports franchise. Let me ask you a question, Brian. Would you be interested in owning a professional sports team? Yes.

The commanders are allegedly going to be sold for something like $7 billion. You like to get a little piece of that action? I would like to own a company that mince money that is worth $7 billion. If an athlete is really going to front one of these groups or be a part of one of these groups and buy one of these things, that's news. I got you. I'm with you. But if you were aspiring, like everybody, I think that's one of the things where it would be hard to find somebody's like, I'm going to take a pass on that. I do not want to own a sports franchise.

Yeah. Well, it just shows how far these athletes have come, both in terms of how much money they're making in terms of their, their, their, acceptedness and the sort of, you know, corporate establishment. I don't know if we did, when we were kids, I don't know if they had articles that were just like, like, Jay Novichick interested in joining the Ford dealership family of North Texas, you know, like, what I, like, I don't think that was really like a going news story. But, but yeah, I guess the, the bar is higher these days. If you, if you represent a region, then, I guess you got dibs on their next pro sports team for sale.

I got an only-in-journalism word for you. He's watching the big LSU-Alabama game on Saturday night, the other big SEC game of the day. Chris Fowler, play-by-play announcer for ESPN, talked about Alabama quarterback Bryce Young's preter-natural calm. Wow. And I got to wondering, not only is preter-natural and only a journalism word

or only in sports broadcasting word, is there anything that is preter natural besides calm uh preternat is there you have a preternatural sense a preternatural um yeah i don't know somebody tweeted at me preternatural ability yeah preter natural ability to something yeah there's only so many things in this world that could be preternatural because it implies a sort of supernatural right it's a sort of implies a Yeah. Only certain things fit into that one. Another only in journalism word was pointed out by our very own Roger Sherman. CBS Sports was talking about Georgia's aforementioned victory over Tennessee.

Tweet says Georgia's state's case for number one in Battle of the Unbeaten with an empathetic 2713 victory. What? So they were going with only in journal, only in journalism word, emphatic victory. but went with empathetic victory. That was a good one. We had some breaking of silence moments this week, too. David, Jack Dorsey broke his silence on Elon Musk.

Oh. We had Nancy Pelosi break her silence on the attack on her husband, Paul. Not sure we needed the breaking of silence tag on that one. Then we got a weird one from listener Noah Leiford. You saw that Bradley Chubb, defensive end for the Broncos, was traded to Miami at the NFL trade deadline.

Well, we got an headline for Mile High Huddle here. Von Miller breaks silence on Blockbuster Bradley Chubb trade. Now, the reason we would have wanted Von Miller to break his silence or would have been waiting for that is that Von Miller was also traded by the Broncos at a previous date. Right. And was also a defensive end, I guess. Yeah.

Was also a pass rusher who previously had been traded by the Broncos, but not this year. Right. Bon Miller breaks his silence on the trade of Bradley Chubb. Thanks, fun. All right, it's time for a feature that is always emphatic and empathetic. It's time for David Shoemaker guesses a strain pun headline. Yeah. Thursday's headline about the late insult comedian Don Rickles was the merchant of venom.

Today's headline comes to us from valued listener Richie Hopkins. It's from Politico. It's an article about defense contracts in Europe during the Ukraine war. Quoting here, David, European capitals are looking to restock their warehouses after months of sending their own equipment to Ukraine. And Eastern Europe, which normally turns to the U.S. for new weapons, is increasingly considering buying from South Korea instead, which it says can deliver them faster and cheaper.

So nations are turning to South Korea in a pinch. What was Politico's strained pun headline? Countries are turning to South Korea or European countries. But that's not so important in this case. We are turning to South Korea in a pinch. Is this going to be a soul pun? Mm-hmm. Soul of

Heart and Souls Souls sold their soul to sold bought and sold? We need to pick up the phone. So I'm calling the phone.

Mm-hmm. I think I don't think I know calling soul Oh, right on the doorstep. Calling all souls, calling, calling. Talking about a TV series here, perhaps we're punting off of. What? Better.

Oh, better call soul. Yeah. Better call soul. That's good. That's good. Better call soul. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis.

Production Magic by Erica Servantus. Please join us tomorrow. November 8th, we will be doing our election night podcast live on. Spotify Live. Join us, whether you're here in the U.S. or across the globe. We'd love to hear from me. I'd love to answer some questions, make fun of cable news, celebrate, have a good cry, etc., etc. Watch our Twitter accounts, and the Pressbox Twitter account in particular that night will give you a 15-minute heads up. And of course, this will all appear as a podcast the next day as normal, which you can listen to it there too. So David, it gives me great pleasure to say that you and I will be back

Tuesday with more lukewarm takes about the midterm elections. David, it's time to water the plants. See you tomorrow, Brian.