The Press Box - The Latest on Trump and Impeachment, Robert De Niro the Resistance Hero, and Covering 'The Joker' | The Press Box

Episode Date: October 1, 2019

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker continue their discussion on Donald Trump and the push for impeachment (03:00), before going through the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week (20:30), Robert DeNiro getting political on ‘The Irishman’ press tour (22:30), the coverage of ‘The Joker’ (26:00), and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello friends, welcome to the trailer for the Road Taken with C.T. and Beio. I'm Beio, a.k.a. Chris Beio. I've watched Chris bring his sunny positivity and shredding baselines to stages all around the world for the past 13 years in the band Vampire Weekend. And I'm C.T. Which is short for Chris Thompson. For the past 13 years, you've been my sneakily dark rhythm section partner. We've embarked on a massive world tour and are excited to experience all the thrills and boredom that entails. To help us process our own experiences along the way, we'll be having conversations with peers, idols, and maybe a rando or two.

The Road Taken with CT&Bel, part of the Ringer podcast network coming soon on all podcast platforms. David, as we were about to record this podcast, Rudy Giuliani's Ukraine documents were subpoenaed by a House subcommittee. what I want to know is what Trump-Ukraine revelations will come down before we finish recording the podcast. There's so much that could happen.

I think we reversed jinxed it last week when you were like, I hope nothing happens and so we don't have to record over the weekend. So maybe we could just keep doing that. But really, everything's on the table now, right? Yeah. Giuliani could appear on a talk show on cable news. Giuliani could just be screaming outside the office.

office right now? I mean, anything could happen. Giuliani could return a reporter's phone call. He could text a reporter some incriminating information. Chris Collins just finally resigned. I mean, by the end of this podcast, every pro-Trump congressman could be out. I mean, he could just find a reason to walk away.

There are a lot of options here, and none of them are good. You know, I'm never quite a believer in the news dump. You know, just everybody claiming that every time anything happens you know, on a Friday afternoon is a news dump. Yeah. But Placito Domingo, was that who resigned?

Placido, yeah. Placido Domingo, excuse me. That, in the wake of the Trump, Ukraine impeachment fury, that was kind of the mother of all the news dumps. That was a legit, left the Met opera. That was incredible because this really, this is one of the great opportunities. If you have something terrible, you just let a rip right now. Exactly.

You got about two more days and everything will be forgotten instantly. Yeah, no, I think that's right. I think we have total cover now. Literally anything could happen. We are the embarrassing and incriminating news of media podcasts. This is the Press Box, a part of the Ringer podcast network. Hello, media consumers. Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker here.

Lots of juicy stories to get to today, including Robert De Niro Resistance Hero, the pre-reviews of the movie The Joker, an NFL quarterback faces off with a football writer and the overworked Twitter joke of the week. but David we got to start with the very latest on Donald Trump, Ukraine and impeachment, because over the weekend we learned a little bit about the president's mindset going into his fateful phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. Particularly with regard to Trump's weird and improper request that Zelenskyy investigate not only Joe Biden, but also helped Trump prove a debunked theory about Ukraine, not Russia,

hacking DNC emails back in 2016. For the latest on that, here is Thomas Bossert, Trump's former Homeland Security Advisor, explaining Trump's thinking to George Stephanopoulos. The details are both convoluted and false. And during your time in the White House, you explained that to the president, right? I did. It's not only a conspiracy theory.

It is completely debunked. You know, I don't want to be glib about this matter, but last year, retired former Senator, Judge Gregg wrote a piece in the Hill magazine saying the three ways or the five ways to impeach oneself. And the third way was the higher root of Giuliani. And at this point, I am deeply frustrated with what he and the legal team is doing and repeating that debunked theory to the president. It sticks in his mind when he hears it over and over again. And for clarity here, George, let me just again repeat that it has no validity.

Here's a question I have for you, David, at the risk of getting back a shrug emotion. knowing what you know about Trump, do you think he actually believes the debunk stories about the server and Joe Biden helping his son Hunter in Ukraine? Or do we think he knows their bullshit and is doing this as a big game? I'm not sure there's much of a distinction between those two things,

or at least not one that matters. But I think I lean towards option A And at the risk of sounding like MSNBC talking head, I really think that, I think that, you know, Tom Bossert's statement on Sunday gives us sort of the clearest window, even incidentally, into the mind of the president that we've had. I mean, maybe just because it reinforces some of our preconceived notions about him. But the idea that repeating it over and over again is what makes it stick, right? The idea that like hearing the same can speak. conspiracy theory repeated lends at credence. I think that that feels right and it feels like the implication there is that Trump begins to believe it if he's heard it enough times. He's interesting, right?

Because he's both a purveyor of false information and at the same time a mindless consumer of false information. so he's sort of like Sean Hannity and a member of Sean Hannity's audience at the same time. Trump I'm talking about. And I just I think you're right. I think there is something to the repetition. It's sort of like he might

he might have been told at some point that it was false but if he reads enough about it and if people around him tell him enough about it and if the Fox News just wall of sound that he seems to be engulfed in at all times talks enough about it. Any distinction in his mind of whether is this true or not just kind of fades away.

And he just stops thinking about that question. Honestly, if you, if you, you know, pressured me, I'm not sure that there's a huge difference between that and some of the other people that you mentioned, the Hannity's of the world. I mean, I think that some people might come at the subject more kind of more cannily. You know, some people might have some,

some, or at least have started with some remove between their on-screen personas and their real, and their real selves, but I don't think you can really do that job. And this is not specific to the right wing or anywhere else, you know, I mean, like, with the exception of pro wrestling or, like, coast to coast a.m., I'm not sure that you can, like, be a presenter of false information without, at some, on some level, buying in yourself. You know, you kind of go, your life becomes the rabbit hole that you, that you, you know, start your journey down. And it wouldn't surprise me if it was Hannity himself, who was constantly in Trump's here talking about this nonsense, you know? I mean, it's, we know that they speak on the phone. And it's, I mean,

it's just, it's a very, it's a very specific breed of conspiracy theory that, like, is almost as much as it's going to, as much as it can see, could conceivably deep six, you know, the Biden campaign, if, if it were widely believed, it's just, it's just so, such a very specific almost minor conspiracy in the grand scheme of things I don't know

it's a very interesting one for him to have glommed on to like that first off how dare you defame Art Bell a long time

and out deceased host of Coast to Coast A.m. who really is a god among us or was a god among us still may be among us if Art Bell

was right about a lot of things second I guess the fact that Trump went to the president of Ukraine and asked him to investigate this stuff, doesn't that argue that he did believe it?

Because if he knew it was a con, if he knew it was fake, why would you ask somebody to investigate the fake thing? Part of the answer to that, if you want to take, I mean, if you want to ascribe to Trump that he doesn't believe it,

I mean, he built his national reputation during the Obama administration on a fake investigation, right? I mean, he knows the value of a show investigation for political gain when he supposedly sent people,

to Hawaii to investigate Obama's birth certificate, et cetera. I mean, it is feasible that this is, that all, that he saw the value in being able to say, people are investigating this, the very best people are in the, or in Ukraine, you know, digging up documents. But birth reason feels a little different because I never believed that he believed it. You know, I don't think, I don't think so either. I never seriously believed it. So that one to me falls on the side of, ah, this is just, this is just for the rubs out there. I'm going to just keep repeating this. if somebody believes that it'll be of some advantage to me. But this is the,

I mean, this is why people say like, you know, I mean, this is the, the, the deep problem with like, you know, the internet today is that you start off as a joke. You start off like meaming on 4chan. And the next thing you know, like, you really believe that there's like child sex rings going on in basements in Washington, D.C. You know, I mean, like, it's a slippery slope. Speaking of purveying myths and lies, on Sunday,

Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani did this week and face the nation. Here he is on the latter talking to Margaret Brennan about what Secretary of State Mike Pompeo might or might not have known about Giuliani's activities regarding Ukraine. Did Secretary of State Pompeo know you were doing these things? Did he ask you to do these things?

He did not. Mr. Volker did and then Mr. Sunland did. But when I talked to the Secretary last week, he said he was aware of it. He told me that he was aware of it. He told me that he was aware of it. So you're saying the Secretary of State didn't instruct you to set up these meetings. The same day that Giuliani was on face the nation saying that stuff,

Joe Biden's team sent out of note to a bunch of media people saying, stop booking this guy, quoting their letter, giving Rudy Giuliani valuable time on your air to push these lies in the first place is a disservice to journalism. So here's my next question for you. On the one hand, Giuliani is going on these shows with the ex-examination. express purpose of putting debunked stories into the ether. He has said this. On the other hand, Giuliani is Trump's personal attorney and often has actual information. So if you were EPing a

political talk show, would you put Rudy on or not? Man, I think that given the parameters largely self-imposed of the Sunday news programs, I think it's hard to justify putting them on. I think that there's a way that you can put Rudy Giuliani on a news program and an interview program. I think that the implicit, on the one hand, on the other hand, of the setup of all of these things, even a one-on-one interview is just conveys a level of gravitas that is not, that has been, that's not deserved in this case. And so I really have a hard time doing it, but you see the problem they run up against because, you know, there's, there's, There's certainly been times in scandals past, or not scandals, in arguments in situations past where there was no one made available.

You know, no one was available to talk about it on the Sunday talk shows. And you kind of see the awkwardness that, you know, the conversation proceeds in in those cases. But I don't really know exactly what you do when it's like, you know, you have Giuliani and Jim Jordan, Stephen Mill. I mean, when it's, I mean, can a news program just open up and say, like, listen, the only people who were willing to come on and defend the president were like two-bit hacks who look like, you know, who look like, who come across like villains from a John Grisham movie from 1992. I mean, it's like they're all, it's, it's all so, I mean, you can just see the pain

on the faces of Jake Tapper and George Stephanopoulos and Margaret Brennan just trying to just understand what is going on in front of them, you know? I mean, and it's, it just, I don't know. I mean, like I said, I think that there's a, I think that there is a value in this nonsense being aired and presented as, and, you know, if it can be presented as such, or at least framed in such a way the viewer can, can deem it such. But the way that they do it is just seen, I would just say no. It's funny with Giuliani, though, isn't it? Because he's a little different than some of the other Trump people. I think when it comes to like Cory Lewandowski and Kelly Ann Conway, their lie to information rates. ratio is like 99 to 1.

They're not going to, they're not going to tell you anything. Yeah. And those are just useless. And really the only sport is the CNN anchor yelling at them and getting into a big argument, making kind of weird TV out of it. Giuliani, I would say, despite the vast amount of misinformation, he pumps out in every appearance, including this one, it's more like 80, 20 or 70.30. And that thing you heard that we just played is him saying, Mike Pompey,

told me he was aware of my activities with regard to Ukraine, which may or may not be true, but that's an important factoid in the upcoming congressional investigation. Did the Secretary of State, you know, deputized Julian I to do it, have knowledge of Julian I doing it? That's a big question. So I guess the question is, do you suffer through six minutes of, and by the way, and when I say suffer, his first six minutes of this interview were a complete train wreck. I mean, George Soros being mentioned multiple times, him holding up affidavits in front of the camera,

saying, look at this, this affidavit has this in it. Stuff that just was completely useless. The interview was not a good interview. Margaret Brennan will not be putting that on her Emmy reel this year, I'm pretty sure. But then you get that little headline that made it into a lot of publications afterwards. So I guess that's the question is, are you willing to suffer through all that just to get that little bit?

Yeah, I mean, it's a valid question. And maybe the answer is you find a way to separate the wheat from the chaff or whatever. I mean, I know that people will complain if you don't air a live interview or an interview in full in the day and age. But I'm not sure that the important stuff really, I mean, you're right, it matters. It matters. In real time, does it matter? I mean, in real time, it just seems like it's just nonsense, you know? And so, honestly, I understand the, I understand the, I understand the, I understand the,

argument you're making, I just, I think it's tough. I think it's tough no matter which way you do it. It's one of those cases where print feels like the better medium. Because when I see him quoted in the New York Times, it's clear that the New York Times reporter has sat through 10 minutes of just wild nonsense, but then printed the one kind of interesting or germane fact that Giuliani gave up. Whereas in TV, you're obliged to hear all the parts of the print journalist cut. I was also fascinated by this. I don't know if you saw this in these articles about Giuliani's appearance, but So this week and Face the Nation asked for Joe Biden to come on those shows and refute him essentially. He would be Joe Biden would be speaking for Joe Biden.

The Biden campaign said no, partly because Biden has done almost no or maybe even zero Sunday morning talk shows, preferring other forums. But according to Michael Grinbaum in the New York Times, Biden came back, his campaign came back and offered a representative, Cedric Richmond of Louisiana. you can put him on, he will represent us on there. And then the news program said no. So they were holding out for Joe. So they had Rudy Giuliani on. And they're like the only way that you're getting a response on here on our air is to have Joe Biden himself come on and refute these claims. That seems like a pretty high bar to me.

And I guess you're making the point that if Biden never comes on these shows, that that's a big deal. And you shouldn't, you know, reward him by just putting endless surrogates on. but that seems wild to me that if you're going to have Giuliani who we know will just say anything, that the only, that the way to get, to get your, you know, message onto the program is to have the candidate himself. Yeah. Yeah. It's like if you call somebody out, do you, I mean, are they obligated come on? No.

I mean, Joe Biden should just be, should only be obligated to send his, you know, I mean, I don't know what, what, what Joe Biden's equivalent of Rudy Giuliani would be. maybe you could find like George Pataki or something and wheel him out there to the show but Ed Rendell would be my first nominee but please continue. Ed Rendell would be fantastic. Ed Rendell is exactly that's this is the that's basically the Giuliani zone or whatever we're calling this now. I think Ed Rendell basically blazed that trail 15 years ago. But yeah, this is Ed Rendell would be a good use of him.

I also love the story. Did you see this one about the college students who scooped the nation's media? Kurt Volker, who his special envoy to Ukraine or was, resigned on Friday. That was big news, but it was not broken by the usual national media Bigfoot's, but by a student reporter at Arizona State University's state press newspaper. Yeah. Volker is executive director of an institute there at Arizona State. And so the story of his resignation was discovered by a student reporter and editor named Andrew Howard, who is 20 and a junior.

what happens when you break your first big political scoop, David? You get a depressing prize. You have to go on Morning Joe. And so here's Andrew Howard making his Joe and Mika debut. Well, the first thing we did was talk to the, I talked to the editor-in-chief and said, you know, Volker works as the executive director of the McCain Institute, which is an ASU program.

So we wanted to localize the national issue of the whistleblower complaint. and in that, you know, our reporting led us to find that he was going to be leaving his position with the State Department and so we just reported that as best as we could. We were really just doing our jobs trying to localize a national issue. Are we sure this guy is not better than the normal people they put on Morning Joe? A lot less preening in that voice, wasn't there? This seems like a normal.

Could we get him as a part of the regular panel? Oh my gosh. That is a slap in the face to Mike Barnacle. I can't believe you would go there. Maybe I'm exquisitely sensitive to this because I like Andrew Howard and the product of a state school. But let us listen to this question

a few seconds later on Morning Joe. This was from the AP's Jonathan Lemire. Andrew, it's Jonathan Lemire. Congratulations on the story. I can certainly tell you that when I was on my college newspaper, I was not breaking any sort of national news. I mostly was writing about the pretty terrible Columbia Lions football team.

Oh, was that the Columbia Lions? football team. You went to Columbia. That's what you wanted to remind us of. What a welcome to journalism moment for Andrew Howard. Yeah. You know, and guess what, Andrew? They're going to keep reminding you of that your whole career.

They went to a fancy school like Columbia and you went to Arizona State. This guy's only prayer is to go and get into sports writing. But guess what? We have some of those motherfuckers over here. you're never safe anyway I just love that what a moment what a moment I could totally identify just somebody just saying oh yeah you know me he could have said you know I was writing about campus food and other crap when I was in college or you know I was more interested in the football did now I was interested in the Columbia Lions fantastic stuff all right david time for

the overwork Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to at the press box pod where they are always gratefully received. The cheapo and I guess cheerful retailer Forever 21, David, has filed for bankruptcy protection. I don't know if you ever had a chance to walk by it at the mall when you were on your way somewhere else. But Forever 21. Now in bankruptcy protection, it was an overworked Twitter joke to say Forever 21 is changing its name to Chapter 11. Thanks to John Z. Xavier deal for that one. I know a little easy.

A scoop, David, from basketball writer Mark Stein. He writes that NBA teams were notified that they must certify and submit the precise height and age for every player within the first week of training camp.

The precise height and age. A lot of gags. Here's one. Can't wait to find out Buddy healed is 6.3 and also 37 years old. Maybe even better. Now do it for Tinder. Thanks to Mike Roussack and Hugh Hopkins.

And finally, Scott Tobias, Jake Christie, Charlie Gilmer, and usually J.B. sent this one in about the latest on Hurricane Karen. A tweet read, Karen is now a tropical depression and could fall apart at any time. A lot of great stuff. We've all been there, Karen. Also sounds like a Karen. And this really exquisite Goodfellow's reference from Dave Itzkoff. She's currently ringing the intercom of Janice Rossi in 2R and telling her to get her own goddamn man. If you provided a perfect segue to our segment about Robert De Niro as a resistance hero,

congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke out of the wait. All right, David, time for the notebook dump. And speaking of Goodfellas, Robert De Niro has been on a press tour for the Martin Scorsese movie, The Irishman. Yeah. De Niro was on reliable sources with Brian. Stelter this weekend. You thought De Niro and Joe Pesci was, you know, one of of cinema's most immortal combos. Wait till you get a load of De Niro and Brian Stelter.

Let's listen. This guy is, should not be president, period. And when you say that, folks on Fox come after you. I remember the Tony's when he got up there and cursed. A lot of criticism of you. Fuck them. Okay. Well, you know, this is K-Bor. So it's not an FCC violation, but it is still a Sunday morning. Well, we're at a point is to go that way. Let me say something. Why do you choose to go that way? We are in a, we are in a, we are in a moment in our life in this country where this guy is like a gangster he's come along and he's said things done things we say over and over again this is terrible that we're in a terrible situation we're in a terrible situation and this guy just keeps going on and on and on without

being stopped hmm let's fit in a break let's squeeze in a commercial more with robert an arrow in just a moment i love i love stelter just throwing into commercial whoo that's let's cool down that one. I got so many things that I love about this clip and this appearance. One is that De Niro chose to do cable news, but he did a show about press criticism. We couldn't get Jeff Jarvis, so we got Bob De Niro. Oh my gosh. Second, he, as a guy who has played gangsters,

has insight into Trump being a metaphorical gangster. Yes. also great also stelter just getting really rattled by uh denaro's use of the f bomb there isn't there an argument that this is like the cleanest robert de nero monologue of all time i know has he never heard of robert deno before this is kind of crazy i don't if you saw the video of this but he looked it looked like an s and l sketch he's sitting there kind of like in a no tie you know but a jacket over kind of like a polo shirt or something looking very uncomfortable like an actor playing robert deno

on the set of reliable sources. Just looking around. Oh, it's unbelievable. Speaking of the Irishman, I also want to talk to you about Joe Pesci's big media moment this weekend. He was on a panel at the New York Film Festival where the Irishman played. And you know my obsession with people who ask questions that include the phrase talk about. And often you get the side eye from the coach or the player because you're not,

you're not really asking anything. You're just, you're just commanding that someone address a subject generally. Well, Joe Pesci got to talk about and here's how that went. I'm wondering if you could talk about

coming aboard on this project after, it's been a while since you've appeared in a film, but I think that the last one was Bob's film, The Good Shepherd. Yeah. No. So no, David, he will not answer the talk about question.

He is, he, we always talk about pissing off Greg Popovich you know like that's not a guy or Bill Belichick I think in the power rankings of people I wouldn't want to piss off in a press conference saying I think Joe Pesci might be number one yeah yeah I think that's right

purely for movie reasons you know not I mean I'm sure he's a lovely guy but anyway that was funny on the subject of the Joker got a movie coming out and yet another cinematic treatment Joaquin Phoenix this Friday will apply the face pain of everybody's favorite comic book villain. Love this tweet from film critic Scott Tobias.

It feels like the Joker has already come and gone and been completely picked over, but it hasn't even opened yet. Still, for it to play in theaters really seems like overkill at this point. Part of the reason Tobias is saying that is because there's been so much pre-release pressure that has been exerted on the movie and the studio Warner Brothers. You will remember the 2012 shooting in Aurora, Colorado during a screening of The Dark Night Rises, where 12 people were killed, many more injured. Well, five family members of the victim sent a letter to Warner Brothers asking the studio to use its clout to support new gun laws.

According to the Hollywood reporter Sandy Phillips, whose daughter Jessica was murdered in Aurora, says that the Joker is, quote, like a slap in the face. The Hollywood reporter goes on to say she's concerned about audiences connecting to and even emulating the film's protagonist in a cultural climate where mass shootings have become commonplace. Now, I'm a gun laws person, as in a more gun laws person. And at the same time, I was kind of like, I totally understand that as a political issue.

I do understand that there is some overlap into pop culture, even if, you know, movies don't, don't cause people to do this kind of thing. Why exactly are we doing this now with this movie? is it because of the Batman connection to the Dark Night Rises? Is it because... Yeah. You know, what,

do you have a sense of why we're picking this anti-hero to kind of go in on and before we even seen the movie? I think the shooter was inspired by the Joker in that case, or it was... I think that was actually debunked, by the way. Oh, really? I think, yeah, I read over the weekend that that was not the case. He had dyed his hair red,

but at least the idea that he was saying, I'm the Joker, I'm the Joker, and the shooting is not true. Well, yeah, that's sadly not too surprising. But, I mean, I think the Joker symbolizes a lot of things for the, and again, I'm with you on gun control laws for the most part and don't, you know, don't want to make light of the situation or anything. But this is, I mean, the Joker has a very specific place in our pop cultural mind,

especially after, you know, Heath Ledger's performance. where it was just he's this sort of anarchic sort of, you know, just the sort of symbol of everything that's uncontrollable about the culture. And obviously there's a lure to a certain very small subset of kind of misanthropes there. But I think the allure to the pro-clutching crowd is a lot greater, right? I mean, that he symbolizes this sort of problem that we can't put a name to. that said i don't know i mean i think why now is it is a good question i'm not i'm not sure i mean this is not this will not be the first or last time that that you know people got overly outraged

about comic book characters um and what and all that they represent i mean this is a problem that uh you know dates back in american culture at least to um the seduction of the innocent the terrible book that Frederick Wortham wrote in when was at the 40s and accused Batman Robin of being gay and eventually led to like basically just the Comics Code Authority that made it very difficult for children to buy comic books and blah, blah, blah. I mean, it's a, it's a 54 was a year of that book, by the way. But it's, I mean, it's, listen, it's a problem with comic books and with video games and with all kinds of nerdy subculture things that enough adults weren't exposed to,

either because they're too new or because they're just too subcultural. and it's really Dungeons and Dragons, another good one from the 80s. Really easy to, to point your finger at those things and accuse them of things that you don't understand

because you're just groping for ways to understand things. But it's, I think what's interesting about this one is, you know, this Joker movie is going, what people are going to say

coming out of it, I think, is like, well, that wasn't a superhero movie at all. And I'm not sure that makes it better or worse in this,

in this, you know, through this lens, but but yeah, it's, it is a very weird time for people to be, for people to be, uh, taking that,

making that argument, I guess. It's in fairness to the Aurora victims families. They're not trying to pull a movie, just to be clear in case I go. No, no, that part, that part, that part I thought was, was, was restrained by, by, by, you know, the traditional standards. You're right. Not, not, not telling anybody to picket it or, or, or sit it out or anything, just merely saying,

I hope at the same time that you're releasing movies like this, you are also interested in using whatever power you have to think about gun control, think about this problem we have in America of mass shootings. And here's the interesting part of this to me. And again, I'm with you. Play the movie. Let's go see the movie. We'll figure it out and all that kind of stuff.

And, you know, I don't get too much into the thing. The one thing I think they, one thing they're touching on here that is interesting is, because this movie has been advertised relentlessly as this is dark, man, this is, this isn't Caesar Romero. This is, this isn't even Heath Ledger, right? This is, this is way, this isn't even a superhero movie. This is just way dark shit, you know, you're going to go in there. The fact that that kind of movie is being released in America after all these mass shootings.

Sure. After all these, you know, just un-understandable things. you're talking about, that we just can't wrap our mind around. And here comes this thing, wandering into that pop culture, political, evil moment. That gives it more resonance. And so it's not nuts for people who have been directly, you know, harmed and affected by a mass shooting to come in and say, by the way, as long as we're, you know, using this movie, is this movie as long as the movie is surfing off this, this thing that's out there in the culture, let's, also try to understand it and make laws so that it doesn't happen again.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. But maybe I'm overly sensitive about this. But it does seem, but I mean, it just seems, I guess, I guess to me, I mean, I don't know, this movie I don't think is, I think, to assume anything about it, at this point is probably an error. I'm very excited about it. But I guess to me, as a diehard comic book nerd, the disconnect is it like, when a villain gets his own, gets to be the star, it usually means he's becoming a hero.

So maybe this is, maybe that's not going to happen in this movie, but by comic book, by the, by the archetypes that years of reading Combooks have instructed me on. It feels like this is, this probably isn't the right time to, to assume that the worst, to assume the worst about the Joker. But, you know, this might not be the case. The other thing from a media perspective here is these movies are so important. And it, you know, financially for the studio, especially Warner Brothers, which is, you know, groped around how to make superhero movies. and movies with all these characters, unlike their pals over at Disney. And so it's very hard for the filmmakers or anybody to even have a conversation about this stuff because they're so worried about the movie getting skunked by some bad publicity.

So what they do is just tune it out. You saw it the premiere of The Joker this Saturday here in Hollywood that photographers could show up and take pictures on the red carpet, but they were no longer allowing red carpet interviews. That was totally prohibited because they just didn't want to even, even just like, you know, from extra or whoever's there on the red carpet, even entertain a question about how this could connect to the real world at all. They release this really stilted statement. This is Warner Brothers to the Aurora family, as I mentioned earlier. Neither the fictional character Joker nor the film is an endorsement of real world violence of any kind. Now, I totally understand

the second part of that. The fictional character Joker is not an endorsement. of real world violence. I mean, it just sounds so, if we may speak for the Joker, this is not what he's saying. I mean, this is like a decades old character. I don't know if you saw this too, Dave,

but early this month, Joaquin Phoenix, and I think this is kind of what kicked all this off, set down for a profile with Robbie Collin, film critic over the Daily Telegraph. Colin asked him, as he says, he says, when I put it to him,

aren't you worried this film might perversely end up inspiring exactly the kind of people it's about with potentially tragic consequences, consequences. Phoenix stared at him. And Colin writes, why he eventually mutters his lip curling up at one side. Why would you? No, no. And then Phoenix stands up, shuffles toward me, clasps my hand between his and walks out the door right in the middle of the interview. It takes an hour's peace brokering with a Warner Brothers PR to get things back on track, Colin writes. Phoenix panicked, he later explains, because the question genuinely had not crossed.

his mind before. So that's also fascinating to me is that the filmmakers, and I totally, again, I totally understand of thinking this as a work of art, as something, and I am, I am on that side of this argument, but that you didn't even really think of the way that this would interact with the real world or you didn't really want to, or you didn't want to think about it before this movie came out, because that just strikes me as something, again, given how many times we talked about mass shootings on this stupid podcast, given the amount of talk there has been in the culture about this,

that you wouldn't have an answer or have at least you kind of explored that question a little bit before the movie came out. I mean, at some point you have to be honest about the questions that you're asking about what you're proposing, right? I mean, is the answer that we don't have cool bad guys in movies for fear that someone would emulate a bad guy? Is this just like we can't have our heroes smoking cigarettes for fear that people want to go out and smoke?

I mean, is that, I'm not, maybe that's helped. I don't know. I'm not sure that like, that like, you know, the rule is just is, is a good idea one way or the other. But I agree that you have to be as an artist, at least in the modern age, you do, I mean, there is some responsibility of self-awareness. So there, or not a responsibility, but there is some, there, there can be a reasonable expectation of that. So yeah, exactly, that you're just going to talk about. You know, if asked about it, you, you have some answer for it rather than running away from everybody. By the way, I also learned from Robbie Collins, uh, profile. You know how Joaquin Phoenix lost all this weight for the role? He had an eight-month hardcore diet, Colin Wright, of a single meal per day of an apple, steamed green beans and lettuce. That was it. And when Colin asked him, wasn't it hard? Phoenix answers, not really, you just eat whatever the fuck they say.

That was his answer. Joaquin Phoenix, what fascinating dude, end of himself. David from the world of pro football, I want to talk to you about the Houston Texans. not their loss to the Panthers 1610 on Sunday but Mike Randall who's a fantasy football guy of the Action Network putting up a clip from the postgame which was an exchange between Deshaun Watson

who was the Texan's quarterback and a reporter he tweeted it as if Watson had dunked on the reporter wrote Deshawn Watson 1 Reporter Zero let us listen to what Watson actually said The coverage they were playing is there anything you guys can do as an offense to manufacture more opportunities for you to try them downfield or was that kind of the only two or three opportunities you had in the game?

I mean, you know what covers they were playing? Well, you said earlier. I'm just asking. No, no, no. I want to. It's cover four. Yeah. So what the states are doing, they're playing deep and they're guarding number two.

Corner sink and they trap two. And so what they're doing is keeping everything in front. The linebackers are playing anything across. Kiki is playing in the middle. He stops everything acrosses the middle. he jumps everything in that and the safety is charging on number two

so if the safeties are pulling low then we can't take that we have to hit double moves we did the post because Reed stepped up on two with an out

over the top I didn't hit it same thing with hop in route safety jumped up he went vertical I didn't hit it as I was only two

after that they played back curve of two six bus which is safety Reed comes in between

Keeley the outside linebacker he plays deep I gotta get rid ball. Thank you. So as several people noted on Twitter, David, that was actually pretty much a model exchange between sports writer. Yes. And quarterback full of information that got weirdly cast originally.

And again, it was just one person, but cast as a reporter getting dunked on by the quarterback. Did that, does that proceed because he asked him, do you know what coverage we were in, they were in at the beginning? Is that how that got misinterpreted and we all got off on the wrong foot? I think it was like the sideways smile to the, or the, you know, to whoever he was looking at next to him. He being Deshaun Watson, that's what had me ready for the dunk. And then when he went, when he went back and he not only did he say, and then he said, I guess he said, do you know what coverage is, but he's immediately kind of apologizing, right? He's just like, no, no, I don't mean it. I don't mean it, I don't mean it, you know, like, literally do you know so I can, like, formulate my question. I'm formulate my answer.

Yeah, it was incredibly informative. And I think it, you know, like you said, like you said, like you said, it's a banner exchange between reporter and subject. The reporter in question was Aaron Rice of the athletic, front of the pod. And he just tweeted, or he tweeted thanks to Deshaun Watson for giving a detailed answer about the Panthers coverage strategy. I didn't think he was trying to dunk on me, and I'm not naive enough to believe I know anywhere close to as much as him.

Everyone wins. Yeah. I just, I think, I think part of this too is like there's a misunderstanding from people on the outside and often, terrifyingly, even from the journalists who were in the locker room, that you were in there to get quotes. I almost said quote, unquote, quotes. You were in there to get quotes as opposed to you were in there

occasionally defined in a really interesting turn of phrase, but you were also largely in there to get information. And, you know, when you're talking to a player after the game, you, the journalist who doesn't understand, as Rice is saying in that tweet, that doesn't perfectly understand what you've just seen on the field, you're going to the players and just tell me what happened. Tell me so I can understand and I can communicate this to readers. That's what you're trying to get half the time.

You know, that's like the question of the pitcher who gives up the game winning home run. What were you trying to throw? You know, what happened on that pitch, right? you're trying to get some information as opposed to just something that can be a freestanding paragraph in your newspaper article. Yeah. And that was like that's that case where he's just literally trying to understand. And then Deshawn Watson, rare for an athlete, especially after a loss, is actually willing to go into this huge amount of detail with it.

So that was, that was pretty incredible. I know it's going to shock you, David, that Kevin Durant got involved in the story somehow. Oh, yeah. Because it involves relations between players. Yeah, Chris sent this along. Durant got into a Twitter canoe. He said he learned a lot from watching the clip. Also, he says, wild to me, but nowadays, you don't have to have that much knowledge to get a job.

I guess he means in the media. Got to look the part and know someone, law. Just information here to Kevin Durant, since I know a little bit about journalism, that was always the case in the media. You didn't have to know a lot about basketball to get a job covering it in the 60s. Durant goes on to say, truth of the matter, reporters have to ask better questions about the game.

They have to get educated. They are educated on how to get clicks. I don't subscribe to that entire thought, but I do think there is something to that, especially when, you know,

we live in the age of every Kevin Durant answer at his locker being videoed and put immediately to Twitter. There's something, there's something about that sort of chase after the game for that, perfect instant sound bite used to go out on television or radio now it goes out on twitter instantly after they give it but you can ask if you i think you know there's there he what he's

saying is ask me a good basketball question and and and let me see what i do with it now do i 100% believe kevin durant is going to get a great bass exes nose basketball question and be like let me let me at some length tell you exactly what was happening on the floor tonight no uh but that's an interesting strategy and it's and it's and it's something I think that, you know, again, if you're looking, if you're looking for good info in a locker room, that's not a bad way to go. No, I mean, I think to take this one step backward, I mean, I think that there's, you know, at the same time that there's, there's this concept that you would go in looking for a good quote or whatever. There's, I mean, we're, that's sort of

paralleled by this, it's not just quote culture. There's also the like the social media dunk culture that people are out there looking for dunkings, even when those dunkings didn't quite take place. And this is like prime example, right? I mean, this is, this is, uh, um, and so, you know, in so much as it speaks to a bigger issue with journalism, I think it has to be a little bit muted by the fact that like this whole thing was sort of called out unnecessarily. Um, but, but I think you're right. I think you're right. I mean, I do think that there's a place for, um, you know, it would be nice if we live in a perfect world where like, everyone could agree to, to, you know, the terms of combat or whatever and, and some of the, and there could be like a, you know,

a special interview room for people answering real questions and expecting real answers, even if they don't fit neatly into a gamer or whatever. But yeah, I mean, you know, who knows? Maybe Kevin Durant and Deshawn Watson will lead us to that promised land. And I'm all for good quotes,

by the way. We can have a quotes podium on this side of the media room after the game and an X's and O's podium, and I would visit both podium. I think both are good. I'm just saying there's another lane here and that's what our friend of the pod was was exploring all right speaking of places to get dunked on how about david shoemaker

guest is a strain pun headline yeah last tuesdays was for the greta good terrible this week's comes david from chris gorsky actually it's the second one because i put the first i actually left the first one in our google doc and you just said it on the air so we had to erase the whole segment whoops this week's second strain pun headline comes from chris gorsky uh he tweets at us and says geology pun alert, scientists studying tubes found in 500 plus million-year-old fossils wrote a paper, okay? Tubes?

Tubes. All right. I just want to read you the subheadline of this because it's amazing. Deathbeds of Ediacarren macro fossils or microbially induced sedimentary structures. question mark that was a that was a choice

I see okay that was a choice that's the big the big reveal at the end of the paper is apparently going to be which of those it is this is from the geological

society of America in case you missed it is ran on August 12th 2019 but the whole question is if I'm reading this correctly is whether these are

tubular soft-bodied macro fossils. So, okay, so are they, and please geologists, write in and correct us if I'm not getting that wrong. But they're wondering if there are the presence of tubular, soft-bodied macro fossils.

Okay? Tubular soft-in on the word tubular. Right. What is the Geological Society of America's strain fund headline? Totally too. It's not that hard. Is it totally tubular?

question mark you're on absolutely on the right track tubular totally tubular dude totally um uh

oh I don't know what I got um we had Shakespeare a few back is it tubular tube tube tube or not tuby yeah we go

is that it tube or not tube like TUB Y like tubi T UB EY Oh wow Tube or not to be

so let me read you the whole headline 2B or not 2B colon death beds of ediacarren macro fossils are microbially induced sedimentary structures that is the question thank God the main headline was funny

that's fantastic I love it that's my favorite one yet I think I just imagining geologists who are you know just just picking up this paper and and saying you know God it was great great pun on the headline you know great stuff to the author's L. L. Nelson and Emily F. Smith.

Anyway, great stuff from the Geological Society of America. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Research by Chris Almeida, production magic by Jim Cunningham. We're back Friday, bright and early. More lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you, Brian.

Here's a question I have for you, David. At the risk of getting back a shrug emoji. Knowing what you know about looking terrible. Very uncomfortable, completely useless. On the subject of David Shoemaker, stop booking this guy. No tie, you know,

but a jacket over kind of like a polo shirt or something. Fuck them. Yeah, exactly. Oh, yeah. Anyway, I just love that. What a moment. What a moment. I could totally identify it.

I guess to me, as a diehard comic book nerd. But guess what? We have some of those motherfuckers over here, too. But guess what? Fuck them. Are you willing to suffer through all that just to get that little bit? But anyway, that was funny.