The Press Box - The George Santos Fib-O-Meter, Shannon Sharpe, and the Chorizo Pun Mystery

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

Bryan and David begin the week talking about the Dallas Cowboys' playoff loss against the San Francisco 49ers and discuss the role they play as a content machine (0:34). Then, they break down and rate the multitude of fibs told by U.S. Representative George Santos (7:17), before weighing in on Shannon Sharpe’s altercation with Memphis Grizzlies players at the L.A. Lakers game last week (26:40), and highlighting New Jersey restaurant Meemom's and their pun-y menu item “Chorizo Me Crazy” (37:06). 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

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Listen now. David? Yes. If I've learned anything in this business, it's that when you have a debate show, your first segment should be about the Dallas Cowboys. Yes. And if it's playoff time in the NFL,

and the Dallas Cowboys just lost in fairly agonizing fashion to the 49ers, your first segment should definitely be about the Dallas Cowboys. Oh, of course. Yes. I was thinking yesterday and last week when I wasn't just pounding my head against the desk in front of me. This is one of those years that just prove that Cowboys are the best content machine sports media could ever want. Take last week's game against the bucks.

Cowboys are just beating the doors off Tom Brady. Great. Cowboys win. Everybody likes Cowboys, right? this revs everybody up. But in the midst of this win, they have a kicker, Brett Maher, who cannot hit an extra point. So it's like the most cowboysy game ever. Even success breeds a storyline that could lead every single debate show for the next week. It was unbelievable.

Oh, yeah. What other team in any sport would function so perfectly for our nation? sports take artists. It was just like, you can like the Cowboys, you can hate the Cowboys, you can play a Cowboys fan on TV or play a Cowboys Detractor. Either way, you win. Yeah. Yeah, it's true.

I've told the story before on this podcast, but I always think of those Grantland days long ago when we had a little bit of the peak behind the curtain at ESPN, and I realized that it was not an accident. The photo of Tony Romo ran atop the NFL power rankings on such a regular. basis, even when the Cowboys weren't necessarily a top to power rankings, that photo just drew more clicks than any other quarterback in the league, right? It was, it's unlike anything else in sports, right? Every time someone's like, oh, this is the new America's team or whatever,

it's like, no, it's just, there's nothing, I mean, I'm sure you compare it to the Yankees or something in baseball, although you just, baseball doesn't drive traffic in the way that, that other sports do. And or the way that football does anyway. And it's, it's pretty incredible. And you can tell now, I mean, listen, I think content wise today, a loss is better than a win. But of course, a win keeps things going, keeps the content moving, right? So you can see, you can kind of see everybody just milking it today. I was, you know, watching the very beginning of all the shows this morning from the top.

And I was there when Stephen A. Smith came. just performatively strutting into the get-up studio where there was a seat just waiting for him and he had a cigar in his mouth, I believe, just ready to roll. Cowboys content is like nothing else. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would almost think that Jerry Jones is playing into this at some point, right?

I mean, it's not a conspiracy. Like, it's on some level he knows that a cowboy's, that another cowboy's dynasty would somehow, be a net negative for content and profit. I remember, like, I think it was the last time I interviewed him. He was talking about some of the off-field stuff that, you know, just hovers over the entire franchise and was just admitting that that stuff increases the amount of talk about the Cowboys. Pretty sure the term he used, and either this was with me or someone else, I can't remember

it was spicy. Some of these stories are very spicy, very spicy. very spicy and yet that drove the train and I think that's what makes a day like this incredible because you and I have both flipped past

first take in like May and the lead story is how far will the cowboys go with Dak Prescott? And then you have a day like today where the big story kind of is how far will the cowboys go with Dak Prescott

like the news caught up to the Cowboys segment it's this far, Ryan. This is exactly how far? I was at the stadium for that game yesterday. Mm-hmm. And it's a little bit of a weird spot for me as a Cowboys fan. But I thought about it this way.

If the Cowboys beat the 49ers, this will be an absolutely terrible place for me to watch the game because I'll have to sit on my hands. Yeah. But in the highly likely event that the Cowboys blow it. This will have been a fantastic decision because, hey, I got some work done. Yeah.

Guess how it turned out. It's like placing a bet on against your team. It's like, hey, I'm either happy because they win or happy because I won. There it is right there. Ladies and gentlemen, always work during a Dallas Cowboys playoff game. Got 30 years of evidence. Quick sidebar before we transition to the real show. Are you excited for the impending Jerry Jones'

Jeff Bezos divisional rivalry if Bezos Indeys Bios Inde buys the Washington commanders do you think

do you think there's going to be some spicy interaction between those two? Very spicy that will be

kind of cool because they just come from such different worlds of success yeah like I

change the way people shop for things and I change the amount of Dallas Cowboys stories on

first take and does discovered some oil way back when or sold natural gas. Yeah. Or whatever it was. Yeah. I like that billionaire versus billionaire rivalry meeting of the minds, whatever we call it. Coming up on today's show, David, George Santos has not exactly been truthful with the American people.

We go lie by lie to dissect just how untruthful. plus Shannon Sharp versus the entire Memphis Grizzlies franchise. Hmm. And the weirdest pun, David and I have ever tried to untangle. All that and more on the press box. A part of the ringer. Podcast Network. Immediate consumers.

Brian Curtis, David Shoemaker, producer Erica Servantes here. David, I realized over the weekend, as the Cowboys were blowing it, that we have never talked about congressmen. and I use that term loosely, George Santos. As nearly everybody knows by now, George Santos made up big chunks of his resume and his life story

and got elected to a U.S. house seat in Long Island and Queens. First question, I think, is what do we call this guy? A bunch of readers have sent us stories about the embattled representative George Santos. I saw one. about the disgraced? Like he's still in Congress, but somehow also disgraced at the same moment. A lot of people have used the headline, the talented Mr. Santos.

Yeah. Good illusion, but are we sure that he's talented? I got elected. He got elected. Also, listener Josh Campbell tweets this at us, the George Santos stuff has Fabulous, rising up the only in journalism words chart like a bullet. It's rare that we get to use. The journalists get to use Fabulous and not be talking about one of their own.

Right. That's usually an own goal for journalism. Not for congressmen. Though we do occasionally get the college football coach. Remember when there was that wave? Oh, yeah. They would get a job and then the resume would have a little fudging on it. Yeah, that was a whole thing.

That seems like more innocent times, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. So I thought what we should do for George Santos is just line up some of these claims that he made, some of these embellishments, real or alleged, and we can just grade them on a scale of one to ten. One being the least serious, 10 being the most serious. All right. Because not all embellishments are the same, and we need a little bit of a power ranking, as we say here at the ringer to separate.

Okay. Embellishment number one, Santos claimed he attended the Horace Mann School in the Bronx. Not the case. I'm supposed to give this in a way. Says New York Magazine. Where do we put attendance at the Horace Mann School? I'm going to put that fairly low. I've always thought that embellishing lying about where you went to school, be it.

high school, I mean, I think in terms of college, because we didn't grow up at a place where anybody cared what high school you went to, although I understand the significance of Horace Mann, you know, in New York or the Northeast. I've always thought it was such a weird gambit, because on the one hand, you can 100% get away with it. Like, I could have, you know, I could have easily showed up in New York claiming a Harvard degree or, you know, Stanford or whatever. Getting away with it on the front end is not the problem. It's just, you just open yourself up to so many problematic situations when you don't know if, you know, your boss's husband's going to walk in and be like, hey, a Samford guy. What year did you graduate? You know, like, you don't,

you just, there's going to be so many people that did experience the thing you're lying about, that it just seems like not really worth the effort, right? So that said, all of that said, it's something I've certainly thought about. So I would say it's relatively low on the problematic scale. I went to a prestigious high school that, to be totally honest, I was probably, you know, socioeconomically prohibited from going to begin with. And so whatever insecurity or whatever belies or underlies that, I'll give that like a two. I agree. Speaking of the economic part, though, the kicker here was, he said, my parents fell on hard times, which was something that would later become known as the Depression of 2008, and that's why he had to leave Horace Mann before

graduating. George Santos claimed he graduated from Baruch College in New York, did not, in fact, graduate from there or any other university. He later admitted. Where does that fall on the scale? I mean, slightly higher because it's, you know, the stakes are a little bit bigger, but it's not crazy. Baruch's a great lie, too, because, again, you could, it's a good school, especially

I think if you're like going to business school, but like you can disappear into Baruch, right? You're like, you live in Manhattan. You're not in a dorm. Maybe you are in a dorm. But, you know, you could, there's a lot of commuters that go there and stuff. So like, you could just be like, yeah,

I went to, I graduated in Baruch. Oh, same year as you? Well, they wonder if we overlapped, you know. But like you, there's not some implicit knowledge that you would have to, you know, that you could expose yourself. So, you know, less difficult to pass off, but slightly more problematic.

I'll give that like a three and a half. New York Times got their hands on his actual physical resume. In addition to writing Baruch College Bachelor of Economics and Finance, he added some details. 3.89 GPA, summa cum laude graduate, ranked in top 1% of class. So you've got to appreciate also the details of his time at Baruch College. And here's another one.

George Santos claimed he went to Baruch on a volleyball scholarship and that his team, quote unquote, slayed Harvard and Yale while he was at Baruch. That seems like the worst, the most untenable lie, right? Because, I mean, I feel like if he was coming in, if I was interviewing him for a job, that would be the first thing I would Google. And not out of disbelief, just out of just like, holy shit. I got to read about this Baruch volleyball team that slayed the Ivy Giants. Did you think there'd be like an SB Nation long form?

Yeah. Yeah. Or, I mean, here's the thing. You could tell me you went to Baruch College and I could Google you and not find anything and I would totally buy it. But like when there's sports involved, most of that stuff is like, box scores available online, right? I mean, there is just some online record of this. No, you know, I actually don't. Let me adjust.

I think that the lying about going to Brooke in the first place, I'll give it a four. I'll raise that at a three, five, because at some point you are, you are applying for jobs that you're not qualified for, in most walks of life that doesn't matter, but it is, but it potentially could matter. So I'll give that a four. And I'll give the volleyball thing like a, well, how much does it matter? I'll give it a one, you know. Is it a good, is it a problematic lie?

Because you might get caught. Okay, well, then we're in the three territory there. I was going to say there's a certain creativity that perhaps can be rewarded when you're doing the grade. I don't think anybody's stories about their college life is entirely true. So as much extracurricular as you get a pass. New York Post reported that Baruch did beat Yale but not Harvard during this period. And what was interesting about that fact check was it was unclear whether they were fact checking just the games or whether Santos had actually played volleyball at Baruch. I didn't quite get the answer I wanted there.

Santos also added this, David, because every sports story must also come with a sports injury story. Oh, yeah. A sacrifice both my knees and got very nice knee replacements. Knee replacements from playing volleyball. That's how serious I took the game. My cousin, as an adult, blew out his knee playing volleyball. I feel like blowing out your knee or knees is more likely than having your knees replaced. I mean, you would have to play just an incredible amount.

on a volleyball. That's like a very serious. Replacement. I mean, that's like a lifetime of physical toil and a very, you know, on a heavy frame can leave the double knee replacements. But, you know, again, that's where it gets problematic for me on like a personal level when you start embellishing like, you know, medical issues. Not like I have a moral objection to it, but that's where the red flag start popping up,

right? If you're going that far, then you're doing this, I don't know, for some more deep-seated issue than just resume embellishment. New York Magazine says... By the way, I'll give that a five.

Okay, five. Well, I mean, I don't know. Does it matter if he has knees? No. Yeah. And I'm not totally sure where, again, some of these, very hard for anybody to totally fact-check that.

If it's just to show off a scar, that's like a two. If he's like, you know, collecting, disability that's like, yeah, oh, five, six. I don't know. It's kind of hard to tell. New York Magazine said Santos claims in his campaign bio that he and his family ran a real estate portfolio of 13 properties. 13 properties. Santos also said that he wasn't getting rent on those properties because of COVID exemptions. He was using that to kind of rail against the

COVID rent moratoriums and stuff like that. Not true. Turns out, George Santos lives with his sister. he admitted to the New York Post. So a claim of 13 properties, where do you rate that one? I mean... I like the number. I like the very specific number. Well, I think referring to it as a real estate portfolio

is also just unbelievable. God, I'm torn on this one. I feel like he might... I mean, it's a big lie. It's a big lie, but I also feel like is he is that more morally problematic than what the real life manager of 13 rental properties probably would have done in the same span of time to his tenants or whatever i mean you know so like it's uh it's it's it's it's it's tough that's a that's a that's a that's a tough one i mean we're

certainly we're certainly amping up the you know the the cumulative effect of these is certainly it certainly headed upward that he had just been that he did he applied for harvard at volleyball you know but then when you join it with a couple things. If it's more like the volume knob is turning up here, then like these things can be individually rated. Did he apply for any loans? Did he break any laws based on this misinformation? Or is he just a guy at a bar who's like pretending to have money?

You know, if it's just the latter, that's like a, what, three? I don't know. Sure. Also really funny was the specific wording he used when he came clean to the New York Post. Quote, George Santos does not own any properties, he said, referring to himself in the third person. Yeah.

This was also wild. He said he had a charity called Friends of Pets United. Friends of Pets United. Does he not have a charity called Friends of Pets United? Well, let me read you from New York Magazine here. There were no social media accounts for the organization, no IRS records, and no evidence of the charity being registered in New York or New Jersey, where Santos claimed to have operated,

the Times found that Friends of Pets United held one fundraiser with a rescue group in New Jersey in 2017 for which he charged $50 entry. But the group that through the event said it never received any funds and that Santos made up several excuses for why he didn't have the money.

All right. Well, yeah. So that's more problematic. You're taking people's money for a fake charity. One with a terrible name, too. Friends of Pets United. Do you think he called it like Fopoo? Or do you think it's like an FPU?

You think it was like a pooper-scooper type of pun there? No, I'm just trying to think of, like, it's just a dumb name. Like, I don't know. I wouldn't even give it. I wouldn't even go to any sort of punny credit there. We'll give that one a six. There's another dog thing here. Quote, again, from New York Magazine.

Santos also allegedly stole money from a disabled veteran who came to him to help fund a life-saving surgery for his dog. according to Patch. May 2016, Richard Ostoff, who was living in a tent in central New Jersey, learned that his pit mix would need a $3,000 surgery. Veterinary technician told him that a man named Anthony DeVolder could help him raise the funds. After Friends of Pets United put together a GoFundMe,

they got the money for the surgery, Santos then refused to give the money to Ostoff, whose dog died less than a year later. Santos has denied this. story. Wait, who told the guy about Friends of Pets United? Anthony DeVolder. No, who brought Anthony DeVolder into this? A veterinary technician. I mean, this is so, this is so tangled. This is another reason

we should not compare this to the talented Mr. Ripley is because some of these stories are almost incomprehensible. Yeah, it's true. My mind immediately goes to like, did, did Santos slash DeVolder somehow like recommend himself, right? Do you insert yourself into a Facebook chat? Like, hey, I'm a veterinary tech, you should talk to friends of pets United and then use that to steal. This is obviously way more problematic. This guy needed the money. The dog needed the surgery.

It's just mean. And to lift his spirits, I mean, you know, the expectations and to steal. So that's like a seven. Okay, we'll take a seven on that. This is also from New York Magazine. Now we're getting to the serious stuff here. It's unclear if his mother's death was related to 9-11.

Wait, let me reorganize. That last one was a six, and the general frenzibets United, we'll call that a five. Okay, you're now downgrading those because of what's left to come here? I forgot we had 9-11 on the horizon. So Santos had tweeted that 9-11 had, quote, claimed my mother's life, said in another tweet that his mother was in the South Tower on September 11th. We're in New York, Mag, weeks after Santos's lives were made public, two genealogists found document showing that his mother was in Brazil in September 2001.

In 2003, Fatima de Volder applied for a visa to enter the U.S. in the document she wrote she had not been in the country since 1999. Is it significant that they're genealogists? Why were the genealogists figuring this out? I don't know. I'm just trying to trace the lineage. Not totally clear there either. Is that just what they happened to do?

Was this one of those where we had that whole conversation about how journalists failed to smoke out George Santos before the 20, 22 elections. So now it's all hands on deck. Yeah. We need journalists. We need genealogists. Everybody. Right.

So he lied about his mom being killed in 9-11. That's like, well, I mean, is that just like a 9.5? I don't even know, like, I presume it could get worse than that. There are greater human tragedies, I guess he could claim. but that's, you know, and the only saving grace there is it ever, like so many people have just sort of like not fake, but just

everybody has there, or a lot of people have gussied up 9-11 stories. There have been a lot of, and there have been a number of public stories about people lying about their involvement. It seems like a weirdly, not, if not common, then like,

attractive thing for someone with a certain sort of mental instability to, to latch on to. But yeah, I mean, that's just that, That's just so wrong on so many levels. New York Mag also notes that Santa said, quote,

my grandparents survived the Holocaust. There's your 10. Fled persecution during World War II. Yeah, 10. I don't even need to read anymore. By the way, can we talk about the journalism backlash

that accompanied this story? Mm-hmm. Because this was broken in December by Grace Ashford and Michael Gold in the New York Times. And then there was this weird soul-searching period where everybody said, now wait a second, why didn't the New York Times or some other paper in New York break this before the election? Right.

Which on the one hand is a reasonable question, I guess. But on the other hand, it's just so funny when journalists break a story and the immediate reaction is, well, why didn't they break this sooner? Yeah. And somehow we wind up blaming the journalist for the bad political outcome. well yeah it's a good i mean it's still a legitimate question right it's not like why i guess it shouldn't be why didn't you break this sooner pointing at the person who eventually broke the story um but there was i mean there have been stories that have come out that like the gop whatever the congressional election committee was like we want nothing to do with this guy that there were people

that had it seemed to have a very good idea of yeah what did they break this story um i mean You can, I mean, I think the lesson here is probably no one's going to break the story. If you're, if you're, if the opposition, if the opposing campaign has not done the, is not doing the research for the journalistic establishment, then you can get away with basically anything, right? Because there's just not enough journalists out there, you know, on the pavement. There's not enough journalists getting paid to do, to do this stuff, right? Everything's a sort of zoomed out approach and, and, and there's not enough local papers and local beat. writers to be taking it all on. And also, like, let me, let's be honest.

People should be looking into, you know, fact-checking everything that someone says when they're running for a, you know, certainly when they're running for national office. But being a fabulous like this works on some level because it targets a very sensitive part of like the human condition, which is like when someone says something straightforwardly to your face, your first instinct isn't, this dude's full of shit. Let me Google it, right? when someone is like, tell, what is your, tell me about your life, tell me about your family, I'm going to like assume that like, just even if it's crazy, I'm going to assume that the next

five minutes are you telling the truth, right? I mean, that's just how, that's just how human interaction works. So, you know, it's, it's, there's some defense there, I guess. Coming up in 30 seconds, David. Wait, now, Shannon Sharp is the undisputed host everybody's tweeting about. but first let's do the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter

made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to at the press box pod where they're always gratefully received. I didn't have a great one this week, so I'm going to go to this one from our friend Evan Grossman who writes this, if you made a joke about us not wanting any of your smoke, you made the overworked Twitter.

joke of the week. Which brings us, David, to the case of Shannon Sharp. Last Friday, the Lakers were playing the Grizzlies. Shannon Sharp, of course, is one of the hosts of Fox Sports's undisputed. And while he was sitting there watching the game here in Los Angeles, he had, what only in journalism word is appropriate here? Altercation? Confrontation? I think either one works. He had it with John Morant of the Grizzlies. T. Morant, who is John Moran's father.

Dylan Brooks and a very fired up Stephen Adams. I was kind of doing other stuff when this went down and came in very late to the game. How did you experience this? I was watching it live. Believe it or not. I was not paying like strict attention to it,

but it was on right in front of me. It was really weird. Like it was, well, it was borderline inexplicable. And then it was never really explained. They went to the, to Mark Jackson calling the game. And he just kind of monologue about how we have to do better as humans, which made it seem weirdly more grave than it was. You know, like, I was like, oh, there's something very significant at the heart of this.

You know, this needs some sort of really deep pep talk to get us all through this moment in history. Did we ever figure out what the confrontation was over? Well, I did sense what Mark Jackson was talking about, just combing through Twitter an hour after the fact. Because everybody's sitting there trying to figure out should they be mad at this? Yeah. Should they be fired up and should this mean something? Or is this just one of those where we just like start having fun on Twitter moments? Yeah.

Well, I mean, I guess if you turn out to be a lot of. You have to hand it to Shannon Sharp in that situation. But I'll hand it to Shannon Sharp for wearing a sweater that immediately categorizes this as something we're going to have fun about on Twitter. Oh my God. That was an amazing part of it. Also, I do want to hand it to ESPN's Dave McManneman. for doing some just Johnny on the spot journalistic work on this.

When I was reading his tweet, I could not decide if this was one of those moments where Dave's career was just flashing before his eyes or if he was just smiling and having the time of his life. Could go either way. But he tracked down Shannon Sharp after this altercation confrontation and got the following quote, they didn't want this smoke, Dave.

They do all that talking and jockeying. He's talking about the grizzlies here. and I ain't about that jocke. It started with Dylan Brooks. I said he was too small to guard LeBron. He said, F me. And I said, F you back. He started to come at me and I said,

you don't want these problems. And then Jock came out of nowhere talking. He definitely didn't want these problems. Then the dad came and he obviously didn't want no problems. But I wanted anything they had. Don't let these fools fool you now. Wait. what is the, I mean, I guess there's the moment, there's the heat of the moment, and then there's, you know, the way you talk about it later, they could be totally different things. But what is the implication that any basketball player would risk suspension and some amazing, some incredible sum of money to run into the crowd and punch a celebrity over a verbal altercation? Because they were talking about LeBron, because he was talking about LeBron.

Yeah. And saying the basketball player was too small to guard LeBron. Yeah. I don't think many would. I mean, Shannon Sharp is an interesting figure here because not only is he a television celebrity, he is a former athlete. Yeah.

And a really, really great athlete. Yeah. As we were reminded in a television clip the other day. And a physical behemoth from whom no normal person would want any smoke. Yes. Yes. I'm just saying, like,

I think the words from him might characterize. a little more impact than words from guy in third row. Not that there would be a physical confrontation, but you would at least like, it would be a bigger deal. Yeah. If Shannon Sharp is saying this to me, then random dude in Laker Jersey is saying this.

I know, but it's just so, I mean, it's just so ridiculous that you would even have an opinion on the fact that they didn't leave the court to have a fight. Like, it would be like, it would,

it would be like, you know, it'd be like having, you know, a big plastic cup full of beer and offering it to, so there's a player on the court, just being like, well, what a loser. He doesn't like beer. Look at this guy. I wouldn't even, like, take a sip of my beer. What are you? What are you, like, anti-beer? You know, like, it's just, like, he's playing a game.

Of course he's not doing that. I know everybody loved the video of Shannon Sharp and the players, but I really want the video of Dave McManneman holding out his phone or reporter and getting this. quote. It's so great. Do you think he was doing concerned journalistic head nod while he was doing the quote? Or do you think he was just like smiling from your to ear? I hope he was smiling.

Well, no, he's probably, I would probably be doing the nod with a smile like bursting out from underneath. I'm going to ask him next time I see him. Is it? Do you think it's performance art? I mean, on. Sorry. What part? On Shannon Sharpe's part?

To talk to the players and tell them they can't. Guard LeBron? No, no, no. Well, maybe. I mean, I don't know how if I don't, I don't really know how we chicken and egg, look back to the beginning of this whole thing. But, like, you know, his job is to be, we were talking about Jerry Jones' spicy comments or, you know,

spiciness scale earlier. I mean, Shannon Sharpe's job is to be, like, a success for him as if there were video clips of him being passed around Twitter all day. Now, you know, ideally that would be, an incredible take that he had on his show. But, like, being out there, being talked about, that's his currency. It just seems like, you know, I don't think that you would assume that he's trying to get into a fight, you know, into actual physical fight. But, like, you know, just to get people talking.

But, like, I don't know, is it a net positive for him that he's that everybody was talking about him? Probably so, right? And now, everybody wants to go listen to what he has to say on his, on the show, right? Well, and if we want to level up here, I'm pretty sure, and I'm not a, you know, I have not watched 100% of the minutes of undisputed, but I'm pretty sure Shannon Sharp is a LeBron advocate on the show. Right.

So it's part of the schick or it's in character. Well, yeah, it is, you say what people want to say, this is literally what he's doing on the show. Yeah. So there are videos passed around on the show of, him advocating for LeBron and now there's a video of him advocating for LeBron a courtside of the Laker game. I hate to make- He has apologized for this, by the way. Well, I think you have to, even if it was deliberate, even if it was part of the schick.

I mean, you just have to apologize so that you're allowed back at the arena. Or like what, you know, just there's some very baseline things that your employer will make you do, even if this is, again, the currency. And you know, I hesitate to compare anything in media to pro wrestling because it just, you gets done too much or whatever else. But it definitely felt a little pro wrestling-y, right? It's like, it felt like all those, how many times we watch wrestling

where like the foil of whoever is in the ring is sitting on the front row and the announcers are just like, what is he doing here? He's supposed to be suspended. And then he's like, well, he bought a ticket. He's allowed to be, he's a paying customer. It just felt so,

it just felt so over the top. But and and and it's it's going to sell tickets. It's going to, you know, it, it's, I don't know. It will sell what's going on. I'm not paying enough attention to undisputed. I'll be, I'll be honest about that. But he made his quote unquote return and had that phase off with Skip after the Hamlin injury.

Skip's tweet about whether or not, about how they should have kept the game going or whatever and Sharp was just so offended by it. And just, I mean, I think he was speaking for a lot of people out there. the vast majority probably of people out there when he did it, but it just felt like it had a sort of level of, I don't know, I hesitate to say a level of performance because that's what the show is.

That kind of show necessarily is, but it felt like there was a sort of double down effort on just performative outrage. Maybe this is just part of the show, and maybe this is just really a guy who got pissed off at a basketball player. I have no idea. well in there an old saying about wrestling that if it's on TV it's a work yeah yeah yeah I mean

that I mean that was the old the old online onslaught rick's gay a motto like if it's on TV it's you're supposed to be seeing it I do want to direct you to a quote from Dylan Brooks after the game mm-hmm he was asked to comment on Shannon Sharp and he said you can ask him he's the blogger or whatever he is I don't really care about that at all I don't really care about all that next question. Now, we're used to hearing blogger as an epitet for journalist. Like that David Shoemaker is a blogger over there at the ringer,

whatever he is. I'm not sure I've ever heard blogger for debate show host. Is he just delineating between, is he doing the old media, new media divide? Is that what this is? I don't know. I'm just sort of fascinated by,

you don't want to talk about Shannon Sharp. So it's like, he's just a blogger. What a moment. David, every once in a while, you and I, I think, are compelled to come forth as kind of the pun supreme court of America. We consider puns all the time on this show. We love puns. But this week, we hit a real doozy. Somebody on Twitter named Bobby put this out there.

Can somebody help me figure out the pun here? Is there one? I feel like I'm going insane. And what Bobby was referring to was a breakfast dish at a restaurant called Charizo me crazy. Chorizo me crazy. I did a little research, which means about... You have an answer?

Four clicks here. I do have an answer. Or it's not satisfying, but I do have an answer. first of all this dish is at a place called me moms M-E-E-M-O-M-M-S in New Jersey I might need you to do a little me-moms press box shoe leather reporting it's kind of more northeast corner to the state there's a couple locations oh it's in brick yeah yeah it's out there by the by the by the by the shore um somebody interacted with me moms I believe on Instagram to try to get some answers and said teresa me crazy

Is it a play on words or is it a pun? And me moms wrote back, play on words, to which the person wrote, but I can't figure it out. What is the play on words? And me moms responded, Jamaica Me Crazy. I mean, Jamaica Me Crazy is a pun itself. It is not a source text for wordplay. Yes. It is a pun itself.

and it is like one of the first puns I remember ever in my life. Oh, yeah. It's like, remember where you see like a thousand and one jokes, those old books and you look through and there'd be all the jokes about school that would be under the heading school days, D-A-Z-E, and you'd be like, oh, wow. Then you'd see that pun nine thousand more times in your life. I felt Jamaica Me Crazy was in that category of just basic pun.

I am looking at the me mom's menu and number one, it looks delicious. I was going to say the same thing. Breakfast and brunch galore. Can you scroll down a little bit to Theresa Me Crazy and tell me that you and I would not order that? Well, I would 100% order that,

but it does stand out as the only thing even approaching a play on words on the entire menu. Oh, no, no, no, no. There's something called a chai-chino. Well, that's just like an amalgam on the guy that's a drink. Yeah.

I don't think there's anything on here that's, that is a play on words, let alone a pun. It is very bizarre. Charizo me crazy. Does sound good. Charizo and Pico de Gaio cooked on a Chipotle cream sauce, served over two eggs, scrambled, and toasted sourdough. God.

Oh, no, no, no. There's something on the French toast menu called. Oh, wait. We have an update. There's a lot of things that have interesting names, but nothing that's like a play on words. like a donkey Kong. I don't know what that is. Whatever. There's something called

Yolo and it means you obviously love Orioles. These aren't like wordplay. These are just cute names. There is something called... There's a certain flair for creativity. There's something called Aubrey, which I guess is if you would say is a pun? Plan words for on strawberry. It's just

AW-dash-Berry. And it's, I guess, cute. I don't know. We have any sponsorships on this pod left? Anybody get me moms on the horn. Give me some peanut butter, whole wheat pancakes stat, man.

I will call it a pun or whatever you want me to call it. We're doing that ad read. Fill in experience at me mom's here. Speaking of which, it's time for David Shoemaker guess is the strained pun headline. Yeah.

Last Monday's headline about the University of Georgia's national championship quarterback, Stetson Bennett was dude led the dog's route dude led the dogs route today's pun comes from valued listener P Marty NYC

it's from the New York Times David there is a little bit of a dispute in the great city of Omaha about streetcars Omaha wants to build a 300 million dollar streetcar system but one man stands in the way he is Warren Buffett.

Oh, no. Billionaire investor The Times reports in Omaha's most famous resident. I seldom take sides on local issues. Understandably, it can be off-putting too many to have a wealthy 92-year-old tell them what is good for their future.

Mr. Buffett wrote in the Omaha World Herald, I'm going to make an exception on the streetcar issue. Warren Buffett is facing off with streetcars much like Marge once faced off with the monorail one for Alan Siegel's piece.

What was the New York Times a strain pun headline? Okay. I'm just trying I mean, I can't not start with a street car named desire but I don't, but that you're signaling me like that's okay.

Here we go. Come on, I'm rallying you. I'm round third base, David. Myrams waving here. A street car named a street car named no this isn't even really a pun just just roll with that a street car named no

god no deal a streetcar named defiance no just just roll with not a street car named desire but a streetcar named not wanted a street car named undesirable a street car named

Undesirable. That's great. Streetcar named undesirable. I feel like you're just leaving Buffett on the table there, right?

There are like so many like puns you could just do off of his name. Buffett, both a surname and and only in journalism word. Yes. Indeed.

Buffett. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Erica Servantus. I'm back later this week and then back Monday with more lukewarm

takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian. How about just for the subtitle, a streetcar named Undesirable, the sub is just Warren colon cease? I like it.