The Press Box - The NFL Draft Content Machine, the Coronavirus Hall of Shame Part 3, and Listener Mail | The Press Box

Episode Date: April 24, 2020

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker are discussing the 2020 NFL draft: Roger Goodell’s demeanor, Jerry Jones’s setup, and all of our favorite moments (2:45). Then, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week (25:00), Part 3 of the Coronavirus Hall of Shame (29:10), and listener mail (40:40). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, what's up, everybody? I'm Jamel Hill. And I'm Van Lake. We're proud to introduce our new podcast, The Wire, way down in a hole. We're going to recap, break down, and analyze every episode of the iconic HBO hit series, The Wire, starting from the beginning with season one. First episodes hit you on April 15th. Now, every podcast episode will include recap, signature moments, foreshadowing,

key character, deep dives, little-known facts, and also awards, such as we love this show, but the Stringer Bell, Boy Award, my personal favorite. Who won the episode and more? So subscribe to The Wire, way down in a hole on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast, and we'll see you in West Baltimore on April 15th. Today's episode of the Press Box on the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by World Central Kitchen. Their relief team is working across Americas who safely distribute individually packaged fresh meals

in communities that need support. They're now serving tens of thousands of meals daily in some of our biggest cities like New York and L.A. They're launching initiatives across America to deliver fresh hot meals to hospitals and clinics fighting on the front lines while keeping local restaurants in business as well. You can directly help the heroes in hospitals and clinics who are fighting for us and you can help keep your local restaurants alive. Go to the ringer.com slash WCK to donate, please. We're trying to raise $250,000. and if you have the means, it's an unbelievably great and useful cause to help our hospital heroes, emergency workers, and local restaurants. Please give whatever you can. The money goes directly to

World Central Kitchen and it's a charitable donation. Once again, that's the ringer.com slash WCK. Hello media consumers, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker of the Ringer here. We've got lots and lots of great stuff to get to today. We'll unveil another class of the COVID-19 Hall of Shame, because there's been a lot of shame. We're looking at you, Shake, Shack. We'll answer your listener mail, including the question, how can we punish any journalist who uses the phrase,

the new normal? Plus, David guesses the strain pun headline and the overworked Twitter joke of the week. But David, let's start here. We talked this week about how E.S. ESPN's Michael Jordan documentary was a kind of emergency content loan for the sports media. Well, on Thursday, we got our bailout, our stimulus package. Listen to the sweet sound of the NFL draft.

Okay, here we go. With the first pick in the 2020 draft, the Cincinnati Bengals select Joe Burrow, quarterback, LSU. Now, if you're not a sports person, the draft is a spring pseudo event where teams get together and pick the best college players. This year, the NFL kept the draft on its assigned date despite the coronavirus and said, we'll give every NFL executive and coach a camera and just do it from home. So here's my question for you, David. How did the draft play differently for you, given the fact this is the only live sporting event? and I guess I put event in quotes,

but the only live sporting event we're going to see for months. Well, okay, first I want to stipulate, as we've talked about parenting through coronavirus, we've narrated our various living situations, quarantine situations, to some significant degree on this podcast. So I know, when I say this,

I realize that like the production issues that are specific to this time and place extend far beyond cameras and recording equipment and boom mics and whatever else. That said, I don't think there's any station, any channel that is, that should be more ready to go in a situation like this than ESPN. Because with the exception of Roger Goodell's basement tapes, and given that usually the draft picks are there in person, but just watching it, sitting back and watching it and experiencing it as an ESPN broadcast, with the exception of Roger Godel in the basement, everything felt

exactly like something I would see on ESPN at any other given time. And part of that is we're very used to seeing, you know, the Edwaters of the world popping in with bookcases behind them when their, when their voice is necessary for the interrogation of whatever news just broke. And we're used to these cutaways. We're used to, you know, mediocre camera quality talking head bits in, like, on the most watched shows that they put on. Also, the, you know, full credit to the, you know, full credit to the production team, to the graphics team, everything that was,

you know, everything that was pre-produced looked perfect. You know, I mean, there wasn't, there wasn't a hiccup at all. And,

you know, but a lot of the, but a lot of the credit goes to, everybody, all the on-air talent, all the production people who just made it feel seamless. There was not a hiccup.

There wasn't even extra time spent on joking about the oddity of the whole thing or the, or the, you know, the differences. It felt, it felt really,

really great. I say that, you know, given that Roger Goodell, every time he came up on screen, looked like he was welcoming you back from like an airing of Ken Burns Civil War documentary to solicit your donations or whatever. But like, aside from that, it was a beautiful program. I completely agree. And I'm totally with you. I thought I was amazed to how normal it looked.

And I think part of the reason for that is the draft is a TV show. Yeah. The draft is not sports, which is easy to forget because we all cover it. like sports. We cover it like it's a game. We give it all this, this kind of meaning and, and in fact,

ratings-wise, it's right up there with a whole bunch of NBA playoff games, like actual people playing against each other. But you're right, when essentially you have a show of people in boxes

and you have this extraordinary capability that they showed last night to toggle between all those people and then go out to the draft picks in their living room. You can have, have a show that looks pretty much like a show you had during normal times. Even though, you know, we're used to those top draft picks being there alive.

We're also used to the vast majority of the draft with those, you know, the draft picks are not there at all, right? There's, we're already, we've seen draft picks, you know, watching the draft from their living room with their friends and family one million times. So even though, I mean, the biggest difference, um, was kind of inconsequential to the way we're, we're used to experiencing it. And I can all, and I should also say that, that some of the changes that were just sort of, you know,

like necessary flourishes. Like, uh, I'm thinking specifically of the, the behind Roger Goodell when they would have like the, the, the, zoom group of like, all the different fans, like, you know, 30 different fans of the Cardinals or whatever.

That actually felt in something, that was better, that was better than the normal thing, right? I mean, it was more egalitarian in some ways. I mean, it was, it was, it was, it was less, um, like, deliberately sort of antagonistic. Uh, and, and it, and it was, you know, it worked in its own way. You know, I mean, I thought in some ways, It was, they could probably learn some things from the way this draft was presented for future drafts.

I also thought just the hosts, I went over to ABC, which is kind of doing what was billed as a kind of a more mainstream draft thing, not quite as nerdy. And it was basically the college game day crew, Reese Davis, Kirk Herb Street, those guys. They were doing an amazing job of busting each other's chops in that TV way, despite the fact that they were not sitting together on a stage as they normally are. it is really hard to bust somebody's chops remotely, especially when you've got like four people in the picture. And the way that they were able to sort of keep the camaraderie of their normal Saturday morning television show in the fall and translate into that, I thought was pretty wild.

And that takes a lot of TV talent or a not inconsiderable amount. I'm not sure if you're implicitly patting yourself on the back for being able to bust my chops remotely twice a week. But, no, but I agree. I only watched a very little bit of the ABC broadcast. But yeah, I mean, you can tell that the sort of, you know, the reps were paying off. They're very accustomed to busting chops to the point where they can do it with their eyes closed. What was more revealing, David, the bland whitewalled McMansion that every coach and GM in the NFL apparently lives in?

or the try-hard bookshelf that every ESPN reporter constructed as a backdrop last night. Oh, man. I mean, we'll talk about some of the exceptions, I think, to the blandness of these, of the coaching backdrops. But, boy, did that, the coach draft Dens, whatever you want to call them,

as a whole, said more about the just inherently, destructive, depressing nature of the professional coach's lifestyle than any number of like Jimmy Johnson eating burritos and sleeping on his office floor stories could ever do, right? I mean, it was like, oh, like, why does his at home office look so bad? Oh, because he's only there for 15 minutes a week through most of the year. I mean, it's just. And he's rich.

And he's rich. He's, the coach is rich. You can get people, you can get somebody, you know, who knows the couple down in Waco to decorate your house. Like you have that kind of money. And you just didn't really get it done at someone. Just like, was there one wall you saw in a coach's house that was not white? No. Did anybody come up with like even a tope or something to paint a wall? That was incredible to me. You know, we always, we always opened this up. There's always a coach story and it gets these controversial arguments about, you know, is this certain coach? Was he a good father? Was he a good

parent, like coaches are not humans. And you realize at times last night, they don't do they, of course they don't do normal things. They don't have time for that. And that was really funny. The journalist try hard thing. It just makes me laugh so much. Sal Palantoneo, longtime ESPN guy had Mark Liebovich's book, Big Game, about the NFL very

prominently in his backdrop. He has made fun of in that book, which told me that Sal Pal has a sense of humor. I might not have suspected Sal Powell of actually having. Daniel Jeremiah, draft guy who was on loan from the NFL network last night. I don't know if you saw this. He had two interlocking gears behind him on the wall. Oh, yeah.

Now, is that like a family values kind of thing? Like, our world goes around because we turn each other, or is he like a fan of the movie Metropolis? Like, what was that? I'm pretty sure that's like available for sale in like the, you know, the expensive section of the Target Home Goods Department. This is just a tick of draft coverage, but I think it was especially in vogue last night. I don't know if it was the virus or what was happening, but did you notice how every coach

and GM after they would make a pick was over smiling for the camera? Yeah. Now, I don't know about you, but when I send a piece into fantasy or when you file like a new piece of art or a story, there are sometimes. times when I'm smiling, I get that shit eating grin, like, ah, job well done, Brian. But there's a lot of times like, well, that'll do for the moment. And I'm going to have to fix that one up later. But every coach looked like they just made the greatest pick of their lives last night. Well, you know, you're drafting in the first round. You hopefully feel that way.

Dave Gettleman, you know, might have had the other look on his face, although he's probably, you know, he's rushing to put a mask on, I guess. But the, but yeah, no, I agree. I mean, I think, I think to take it a little bit at phase value, no pun intended, they are projecting the hopes and dreams of the entire fan base, right? I mean, if Zach Taylor is not grinning ear to ear, then every Bengals fan is going to be like, well, we've just made the, the next 30 years, the next 20 years of my life are ruined.

Yeah, we had the number one overall pick and he seems disappointed. This could be really bad. One more quick aside about the, forgive me if you were going to go here too, but one more quick aside about the various man caves and, you know, decision desks that we saw at the coaches' homes last night. I saw a lot of tweets that were immediately comparing Zach Taylor's little basement Hobbit Hole

to Cliff Kingsbury's palatial living room. If you listened to the press box segment about the differences between having kids and being single and didn't quite grasp the distinction and what those two lifestyles look like in quarantine, re-listen while you're looking at those two photos. Refrain from making fun of Zach Taylor's basement for one second and realize that he has kids around.

He's got a whole family he's dealing with. And Cliff Kingsbury is just like living the life. And I'm sure, and I bet Kingsbury complains about being in quarantine a lot more than the other coaches in the league too. Totally right. Like Cliff Kingsbury was living in a Michael Mann movie from the 80s. He was the villain or something. And yeah, I'm sorry, having kids is fantastic.

But as soon as you have kids, you will no longer be living in the Michael Man movie. Like that dream that we all had or having the apartment in the long goodbye like that Elliot Gould had, that's all going to go by-bye, right? You're going to have an apartment or a house with just stuff, just stuff all over the place. And that's fine. But you're right. That is a very distinct. Whatever room you were using as your draft headquarters, you were taking that room away from your baby.

You're stealing that from your child. I want to talk to you about NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who we heard from just a second ago. When the draft is normally held in front of thousands of fans, Godell gets booed whenever he announces a pick. It's kind of a wrestling thing where the crowd is saying, we love pro football, but we disapprove of you. We just don't like you at all.

Well, last night, Goodell had fans record themselves booing in advance. And then he played the booze on the air as a branding opportunity for Bud Light Seltzer. You cannot make this up. Listen to just a little bit of that. It's a draft tradition and one that I genuinely enjoy. Let's hear from you right now. Oh, come on, guys, you can do better than that. Let's go.

Oh, Strayhand. Come on, let's go. Come on, you guys can do better than that. All right. It is a draft tradition and one that. that I genuinely enjoy. I mean, that would have been a rejected ad read on the press box. Too mechanical.

I felt Goodell last night. First of all, I think we're not allowed to say anything nice about Roger Goodell on Twitter. Here's something nice. Whoever did Roger Goodell's makeup last night, he looked fantastic. I mean, he looked better than any of the TV professionals. I just thought he got a glow up that was just incredible before the draft. Two, he was obviously having so much fun with the idea that he was in control of everything, that he was not standing out on the stage and the fans were going to do weird stuff.

He did a TikTok with Jerry Judy, the wide receiver from Alabama last night where he was doing this real sort of awkward white guy dancing. In the middle of the first round, he kind of inexplicably changed. changed clothes. Did you notice that? Yeah. He was going to the Mr. Rogers thing and had a sweater for the second half. Did you feel that he was to this place, David, you talk about making changes and he's like, why don't we just do this forever? I know we'll lose out on the hundreds of thousands of fans and the merch sales and all the stuff that goes with the live draft, but I love this because I, Roger Goodell, am finally in control of this league in a way I've never really been in control before. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me. It wouldn't surprise me. I mean, I'm sure he's, he's, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he's, he's, he, he's, he's, he's always a very silted at times. Uh, but he clearly, it's just indulged in the whole premise and was, uh, and, and I would, I mean, he, he probably, he probably enjoyed that a lot more. I'm sure on some level he can appreciate the booze, but you said it was like a pro wrestling thing. All, all every pro wrestler worth of salt will tell you that, you know, getting booed means you're doing your job.

you know, especially if you're playing the villain, which Goodell implicitly is. But 100% of the wrestlers will tell you that, 50% of them still go home and cry, right? I mean, they still feel the pain of it. And I think you put Goodell in that second camp. I want to talk to you a little bit about how the draft plays during coronavirus. And specifically in this case, the ad crunch, the traffic meltdown and the other things that are hurting media entities, particularly sports media entities right now. The draft, and I wrote about this a little bit this week, is this giant content bomb every year. Guess what? Right now, it's the only content bomb we have other than the last dance documentary.

And to use a word, I did not hear during the broadcast last night. I take a very realpolitik attitude towards this stuff right now. I think a lot of draft stuff is really dumb. I think a lot of, like a lot of elements of the NBA offseason, I suspect sports writers, make a bigger deal of the draft than they probably should because it gets clicks, you know, because they see that's where the action is rather than doing something that may be actually important and useful for fans. But you know what? This year, screw that, right? We need the clicks. And if this thing prevents a writer or a behind-the-scenes

TV person from getting laid off, if it kicks that furlough that was going to kick in in April into the summer sometime, then I'm all for it. This to me is we can still make fun of the draft, we can still make fun of Roger Goodell, and we should, but in the short term, I don't see an option other than going all in on something like this and just hoping that staves off some of the hell that is visiting media companies right now.

I mean, yeah, assuming that, you know, there's no, none of the team IT guys get sick and we have to deal with that rolling tragedy or whatever. I mean, I totally agree. I think that as much as everybody was, I think, right to sort of question whether or not this moving forward with this on schedule was the right move. I think that from a programming and media sustainability standpoint, or even just from a programming standpoint, I mean, they could have, they could just stretch the draft

itself out over like four weeks, and I'd be totally happy with it. Why not? Let's just do 10 picks a night into perpetuity, you know? It's a TV show. why can't it be like the last dance? And we're going to confront the morality question about games coming back, right? Baseball, Biodome Baseball, Biodome NBA in Las Vegas, well, I guess formerly Las Vegas before the mayor decided to talk. But, you know, those ideas are complicated and they actually carry, as you say, a lot of a little bit of danger to them, potentially.

You know, we don't quite know what we're getting into. The draft is not. The draft is a show. So, of course, they could go on. Right. It probably should have been four weeks. I should have done like around, you know, every Sunday for the next like two months and just see how far that takes us. I do cringe when I hear the NFL people talking about how the draft is going to be

a tribute to the real heroes, right? Or any of the fake heroism that GMs come up with when they're talking about, oh, we're all doing this from home. Yeah, yeah, thanks, guys. You know, thank you very much. What a sacrifice on your part. But I did think last night was kind of a, if we ever watched this again, and I'm not sure who watches old drafts, but I do think this will be kind of a document of its time. You know, did you see that like when those player parties were going on when they were announcing to pick?

Instead of like two dozen people there, there were like two people around the player. Like his parents, it almost looked like you were shooting your holiday card, you know, on the couch there to send out. the news anchors not wearing makeup for the most part. Yeah. Curb Street had a crazy 5 o'clock shadow that I have never seen before. And I guess the other one was Mike Mayock, who's the Raiders GM. He made a pick. And then you could see the refrigerator door opening behind him.

Time to go get a snack or something, you know, after we made the pick. Yeah. But I don't know. I mean, it did. I don't want to elevate the NFL at all in this. But it did, just watching that thing, it did look like this is what work from home coronavirus culture looks like, at least for, you know, a fairly privileged slice of humanity. Yeah, I think that's right.

I mean, in a lot of ways is the people who are like, you know, like we mentioned before, at least prepared or least accustomed to working at home. But yeah, I mean, it's, listen, I think it was a huge success. I think coronavirus or no, I mean, like I said, there's a lot of lessons. gain from this, but judging by the reaction that we saw online and just amongst our peers, going directly to your coach's house to do a one-person war room or two-person war room was just incredibly compelling, maybe more compelling than anything that goes on in the draft. And I kind of wonder if they find a way to exploit this in future years.

Like every draft is like the first section is just like the amazing race where a coach has to like, where there's, you're like drop, you're dropped into an unfamiliar space and there's just like a stack of keyboards and CPUs and monitors. and it's like, all right, you have four hours to get your draft room ready. And we just see what everybody comes up with. Or every draft room, even if it's just simple, every draft room is empty. And then you have like six hours to decorate it with a gift card to like Michaels. You know, and just everybody just wants to see more per one more coach draft rooms.

And I think we run with this idea. Isn't Jerry Jones, you know, or the Cowboys just going to win because he was on his $250 million yacht apparently last night? Could we talk more about the yacht? Was he on the aisle? I honestly don't know. I just saw the headline. Was he on the yacht because he just happened to be on the yacht? Or did he somehow think that was like safer?

Like he had his own private satellite he could deal with there or something. Like what was it? Yeah. I think it was the Dana White Fight Island sort of theory where if I'm just away from all the rules, right, I make my own rules on this thing. I got to say when they went to him early in the night and he's sitting on this couch that was just full of like white cushions and it was a white background that kind of had this portal design.

And I did not think it was the yacht, but I'm like, what room of Jerry Jones's house looks like this? Like it just, it didn't look like even a rich, a rich, poor anybody, it doesn't look a room in anybody's house.

Yeah. And then I think it was Don Vanada who put together like looking at pictures of the yacht that he was actually on the yacht. Now maybe he is like going to be the Ricardo Montelbon figure in the show you're talking about, you know, where he's got to control it pulling all the strings.

Yeah, there are GMs and coaches. are trying to figure this out, but that was wild. What a flex and probably an inappropriate one during the coronavirus. I am, dude, I am totally, as somebody who writes about TV, totally obsessed with TV anchors not wearing makeup. Because this is a huge part of their lives. And you look at them, I'm looking at all of them, and you and I are looking at each other in a Zoom call right now. We look terrible.

So let's just put that on the table. But to see a TV guy or gal at 8. 80% of their usual glamour. There is something just very, you know, humanizing about that and something that makes you remember that these are real people, not this talking head person that appears on your screen. I don't know. Something amazing about that.

All right, let's do the Overword 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 David we know that social distancing is what has prevented the horrors of coronavirus from getting even worse well on Friday

despite the advice of experts everywhere the state of Georgia allowed a bunch of non-essential businesses like bowling alleys tattoo parlors and barbershops to open it was an overworked Twitter joke to write state of Georgia announces it is reopening while they have a 28 to 3 lead on COVID-19.

Oh my God, that is fantastic. Just because it's a pandemic doesn't mean we can't make jokes about the Atlanta Falcons blowing the Super Bowl. Thanks to Charles Pryor the 3rd. And can we just take a moment to talk about how amazing and durable this overworked Twitter joke is? The Atlanta Falcons themselves sent out a tweet last month that said our offices will be closed until March 27th.

in the wake of the coronavirus and somebody responds, the Falcons continue to be the only ones to allow a 328 comeback. I mean, incredible. Oh, my God. David, the number one ranked men's tennis player in the world, Novak Djokovic pulled his own state of Georgia this week. Jokovic was talking about a possible coronavirus vaccine. He says, personally, I am opposed to vaccination.

and I wouldn't want to be forced by someone to take a vaccine in order to be able to travel. This is in an online chat. But if it becomes compulsory, what will happen? I will have to make a decision. I have my own thoughts about the matter and whether those thoughts will change at some point. I don't know. It was an overwork Twitter joke to call Novak Djokovic, Novax, Jokovic. Novax.

All right, that's good. Thanks to Tiri Cote and the Kirk Heinrich maneuver. God, what a great name that is. And finally, in TV news, David, Westworld has been renewed for a fourth season. Clear out David's schedule. There's going to be another podcast. Season four.

You should see the look on David's face right now. Oh, my God. Folks. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write. HBO announces that all three seasons of Westworld were a simulation renews it for a first season. Thanks to our pal, Scott Tobias. If you punned on the idea that watching Westworld

is like being trapped in Westworld. Congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. David, we're going to unveil the COVID Hall of Shame, volume three. But first, a quick message. Perhaps you're looking for that perfect gift for mom or another loved one in your life on Mother's Day. Kind of hard to find that gift, isn't it?

Well, you need to check out skylight frames. Nowadays, staying in touch with those we love is more important than ever, and the easiest way to do it is with Skylight. A beautiful photo frame you can email photos to any time from anywhere. Multiple people can send photos to the frame, so it's a great way to keep large networks of friends and families in touch. It sets up effortlessly in under a minute, and everyone in your family can just email photos to Mom Skylight, and they'll pop up in her home in seconds. I know our moms would absolutely love this thing. You can even swipe through photos on its 10-inch touchscreen, pre-load it with your favorite photos for a special Mother's Day gift. If you don't love Skylight, they'll offer you a full refund.

Now as a special holiday offer, you can get $10 off your purchase of a Skylight frame when you go to skylightframe.com and enter the code press box. That's right, $10 off your purchase of a skylight frame. Just go to skylightframe.com and enter the code press box. that's S-K-Y-L-G-H-T-F-R-A-M-E dot com code press box. All right, David, time for the notebook dump. We have been kind of unveiling over the course of weeks a corporate hall of shame for the coronavirus. Guess what? We got more nominees.

Yeah. Whole Foods made the, it's not something to cheer about, buddy. Whole Foods made the list this week. They're using big data to track the line. likelihood that a location's workforce will attempt to unionize. Oh my God. This is from a business insider report on Monday. The heat map, this sounds like Jerry Jones on the yacht.

The heat map is powered by an elaborate scoring system, which assigns a rating to each of Whole Foods 510 stores based on the likelihood that their employees might form or join a union. The store's individual risk scores are calculated for more than two dozen metric. including employee loyalty, turnover, and racial diversity, tip line calls to human resources, proximity to a union office, and violations recorded by OSHA. In March, Whole Foods, workers went on strike to demand, among other things, paid leave for workers exposed to COVID-19,

hazard pay and reinstatement of health care coverage for part-time workers. Whole Foods is, of course, part of the Amazon Borg, which is run by Jeff Bezos, who has seen his personal wealth, jumped by about $20 billion in the last. few months he also owns the Washington Post. Woo! Wow. Welcome to the Hall of Shame Whole Foods.

Is there anything even to say about that? It kind of speaks for itself. It's so sad. This is this sort of thing you see when, you know, when you rely on data as your god, then all this, all the morality sort of goes out the window, right? It's like if you can figure something out, why not figure it out, even if it's, like, deplorable? This one hurts. Shake Shack is on the list this week.

$349 billion was allotted by the government for loans to small businesses struggling amid COVID-19. Well, it's run out, and partly that's because corporations have been dipping into the funds. The poster child for that abuse was ShakeShack, who received a $10 million loan, which the corporation then returned after raising capital from its investors. Also receiving loans were corporations like pot belly, your favorite sandwich chain, and Roos Chris Steakhouse. Also, Axios, the media website got a loan. Surprise, this was all by design, David. Any business is classified as an accommodation or food service and has 500 or fewer employees at its individual locations is eligible for a loan.

Marco Rubio, who chairs the Senate Small Business Committee, said, this is not going into the pocket of shareholders or the pocket of corporate executives the money has to be used by employees and keep them on payroll. Shake Shack. Who hated Shakeshack before this? Nobody.

And they needed a loan to keep all those all those burger joids which now stretch out here to California in business. By the way, no one hated Shakeshack. And even though like everywhere I go, I'm like, you know, like driving to my in-laws place in eastern Pennsylvania and realize there's just a shake shack that's popped up on the highway.

I see these shake shacks popping up. I know there's a lot of them. If I actually put a pencil, a pin to the back of a bar napkin or something, I could probably figure out this company's gigantic, but I had no idea

how big this company had become. And more than anything, it's like, that's a sort of like, like I think people love the shake shack because it feels sort of like a, like a mom and pop operation. And now it's like, now it's put on full display.

This is like a major just, just megopoly in, in faux fast food. or whatever. I mean, if anything, they should have just like shied away from taking the money so that like they didn't pull back the curtain on the whole operation. Yeah. We said this a few times.

You can't say we're taking over the world and then immediately say we ran out of money. We're poor. Those things don't compute. Okay. You're either one or the other. So if you need the money, you are not. And that applies to the NBA team. It applies to everybody in this thing.

I want to get your comment on this because the W. W. made this list. Steve Bonifero listener asked what we think about the W.W.E. place in all this. From the empty stadiums to Vince McMahon to I guess Vince is now on the calls to the White House and the WWE laid off

a whole bunch of wrestlers the other day. How does that figure into the hall of shamingness? Well, I mean, this is definitely like too close to home to be totally even handed about a category, although, you know, I think I've historically been pretty fair-minded about this stuff. I mean, it's just ridiculous.

It's ridiculous. And it's ridiculous that the number of people that you find online sort of like, you know, like business 101 students who are in there on Reddit, like defending what WW is doing here. Even, I mean, people who've looked at their finances have determined that because of the new TV deals, they signed last year. If they didn't run another live show, you know, if they didn't,

if they stopped making money, if basically if COVID-19 continued through the end of the year, this would still be the most profitable year in WW's history. But because they're going to be making less money than their projections laid out and because that's an implicit,

implicitly that is disappointing the shareholders, the stockholders, because they're publicly traded. And they have to make this sort of move to show how, how they're still working and to their shareholders benefit. And, you know, I could go into a long diatribe about workers' rights and, you know, the way that they treat their employees in a lot of different ways.

And they've, they've come a long, WV's come a long way on that front. But if your employees, your fake employees are so expendable that you would just cut them out. I mean, just toss them to the wolves in a time of national, international crisis. Despite whatever severance they're getting, despite how many days they're paying them, it's just like, It's not, I cannot imagine anything more heartless and more soulless. This one, our final nominee for today, felt like a wrestling bit. On Wednesday night, Carolyn Goodman, the mayor of Las Vegas went on Anderson Cooper's talk show to talk about wanting to reopen the city. The interview got off to a rocky start, and that is an understatement. Listen to this.

There's a Chinese researchers have shown how this virus spreads. I just want to put up for our viewers. I just want to put up our viewers. This is a restaurant. Anderson, you are tough. We're back to China. This isn't China. This is Las Vegas, Nevada.

Wow. Okay, that's really ignorant. This is a restaurant. And the yellow circle, that's an ignorant statement. That's a restaurant. And yes, it's in China, but there are human beings too. That yellow is a person who is asymptomatic and infected. And all those other red circles or other diners who,

that one diner passed the virus to. All those other people became infected in a restaurant that had air conditioning and they believe it was the air conditioning which Pat helped the virus spread to all those other people. And you remember the Legionnaires disease in 1976 in Philadelphia came all through the air conditioning. You don't remember because you're younger. I do remember. I don't know about you, David. When I do interviews with subjects, I don't usually use the phrase, wow, that's really ignorant. I didn't say that to Tray Wingo

last week when I was talking to him. That's a bad start. Things only got worse from there. Goodman explained she wanted to use Las Vegas essentially as an experiment to test the dangers of reopening the American economy. Listen to this.

I'm saying that the numbers have been what they are. How do you know until we have a control group? We offered to be a control group. Anybody knows anything about statistics, knows that, for instance, you have a vaccine. You're offering the citizens of Las Vegas to be a control group to see if your theory on social distancing works or doesn't work. No, no, no, no, no, no, wrong. Absolutely wrong.

Don't put words in my mouth. You just said we'll be a control group. Excuse me. What I said was I offered to be a control group, and I was told by our statistician, you can't. do that because people from all parts of southern Nevada come in to work in the city. And I said, oh, that's too bad because I know when you have a disease, you have a placebo that gets the water and the sugar, and then you get those that actually get the shot. We would love to be that placebo side to you have something to measure against.

So all the data and you want to get the placebo. You don't want to get the actual... The group against the placebo, by the way, usually gets the short end of the stick. Yeah, that's a, I don't want to be, it's just so dumb. It's just, it's just so ignorant. Like, there's so, like, you understand, right? I mean, you see, you see the aerial photos of Las Vegas, right? I mean, you understand that Las Vegas is a city that's built entirely on, you know, it's like, it's

tourism economy, right? And they just want to pretend, they want to, you know, make everything go back to normal. They want to close their eyes and click their heels, and it's just not going to happen. You understand the impulse. But that's why we have elected leaders to be wiser than that, right? To steer us through times like this and not to offer us all up for, you know, I mean, it's like she wants the entire city of Las Vegas to be like the brave doctor who jabs herself in the leg with the syringe of the, you know, the unproven antidote.

I mean, you just can't, like, you have to be, you don't get to be a maverick if you're, if you're a mayor, you're supposed to be someone in charge. Yeah, and fortunately, Nevada governor Steve Sissalak is actually in charge of this stuff and says that Nevada is, quote, clearly not ready to reopen. I was just amazed at that interview for a couple of reasons. One, you heard a little bit there where she would say something really damning. Anderson Cooper would come back and say, wow, did you just say that? And then she would say, don't put words in my mouth.

and then just repeat the damning thing again. And then another part of this, I saw Jack Schaefer, our old pal saying this on Twitter, but Anderson Cooper asks her, and this should be asked of anyone wanting a mass reopening of the American economy right now,

including Brian Campdown in Georgia. You first, okay, if you think this is so safe, then you should be on the floor of that casino pulling those slot machines all night, that you should volunteer yourself. right if you think humans should be in a quote unquote control group put yourself in the control group you go out there and do it when when trump was liberate virginia liberate michigan you first dude

you you go do it if you're so if you if you think this is such a great idea guess what none of those people are doing that stuff i want to see brian camp on a stair master in Atlanta tonight. Go for it. Let's do a little listener mail. All right. Send us this at the press box pot as well. We do this every Thursday.

The first one comes from Patrick Anders. What's the better Michael Jordan book? Playing for Keeps by David Halberstam or the Jordan Rules by Sam Smith. I can take half a stab at this. The Jordan Rules by Sam Smith is a fantastic sports book. Of the ones that have been published during our lifetimes, one of my absolute all-time. I've only pretended to read the David Halberstam Michael Jordan book.

So you might have to help me with that one, David. I think I've read parts of it, but maybe never gotten through the whole thing. No, I mean, I definitely endeavored to read the whole thing. I'm pretty sure that I did. I mean, listen, the Halberstam books are better. I mean, it's a more comprehensive book. The Jordan Rules is a much more interesting book. And I mean, I don't know.

I guess Mederany has done this and short attention span has done this to me. but like I prefer I would prefer to read the Jordan rules and read the Wikipedia page of the Haberstam book at this time even though how ever Sam is a brilliant writer just like sentence by sentence incredibly good I think one thing that Jordan rules gets we're always talking about Michael Jordan's like cutthroat competitiveness this week and how that's revealed by this new documentary that's what the Jordan rules is about right that's the subject of the Jordan rules which is this idea that like oh wow Michael Jordan is a dick you know and and he's he's a dick in the service of winning, but he's a dick.

That's where all that was spilled the first time. And Jordan Rules is still a great read, a great companion piece to the documentary. This is from our good pal Hugh Hopkins, is the Jordan Dock and coronavirus life in general forcing the return of monoculture. We still have our niches and interests, but certain TV shows like the Tiger King in the Last Dance,

and mainstream cultural moments are becoming harder to ignore. perhaps we're craving community again. I don't think there's ever been an absence of the craving for a monoculture. I just think that there's too many options out there and people are, you know, kind of divided up amongst their various interests. This is, I think this absolutely is creating or recreating a monoculture because suddenly we're, I think many people have made the observation or the joke that, you know, we went from having too many shows, like more shows that we could ever possibly watch two months ago

actually being to be, you know, have nothing left on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, uh, two months later for so many people. Um, and I think everyone just wants something to talk about in the absence of sports and the absence of, um, grousing about, about how much money, like the new movie releases made this week. And certainly when in the absence of real, any real, like jokes to make about national government or the campaign or just our public officials in general. I think we're just desperate for something that we can all have the same conversation about. You know, we can just get together and talk about it, even though it's online.

Monoculture is fun. You know, but I think people of this generation, it's like, oh, yeah, that last season of Game of Thrones or something. You know, everybody's watching it together. Everybody's on Twitter. That used to be just like Thursday night. That used to be like, you know, season eight, episode 19 of cheers. And you'd even come to school the next day, and kind of everybody had watched it.

Mm-hmm. And it didn't have to be like event TV. But yeah, it, it's, you know, it's cool and it's cool when everybody's locked in on the same thing. Totally. Even if that is Tiger King or whatever it is. This comes from Rudy Clanknik. Can we create a kangaroo court and find any news person who utters the phrase the new normal?

Great way to raise money fast. Apparently this is a telethon and every time somebody says the new normal, we're going to raise money for virus relief. What do you think of that, David? I think it's fantastic. I mean, listen, we're all grasping at straws to kind of define in the moment what we're doing, what we're experiencing here. But yeah, I would happily embark upon any sort of fundraising endeavor that would make people just, like, think five seconds longer about the thing they're saying. It's actually a really useful phrase because we are right now thinking about what is media going to look like after all this is done, what are movies going to look like, what's TV going to look like, what's culture going to look like. I guess what's funny is when the news anchor uses it as this very like freighted phrase

where we've all been thinking about how this might be the new normal. Like, no, no, that's just a cliche. You don't need to do the dramatic pause right before you use it. We were talking about the decline of the indie bookstore Monday. Servicey question here from Ryan Hill. For us casual readers, what's the best way to pick a new fiction book to read off the shelf. Where's the rotten tomatoes for novels? It's so hard. It's so hard. And, you know, the rotten tomatoes used to be the person. I mean, for me, it was the person working in the

bookstore in the good independent bookstore, you know? I mean, you can go on good reads. If you find people that you agree with, then it's, then you can sort of, it's sort of like finding music, you know, without the music websites or without the reviewers that you know and love. You've got to, got to find like the person who's Spotify playlist aligns exactly with your tastes, right? And you sort of go from there. At least with like there's, even in the old days, we had like Pandora and we have Spotify now. We had algorithms that would help us kind of, they could help you stumble, sort of stumble, you know, crudely in the right direction. You know, Amazon doesn't really have an answer for this.

Even I who am aware of a lot of the books that are coming out and try to stay up on those things and keep up with writers. everything else. I find myself just like clicking through the people who bought this also bought this links on Amazon for hours and hours and hours trying to find a book that's first page grabs me, you know, and it's really hard. It's what we talked about with bookstores, isn't it, that you just sort of need human intelligence? You do, you do. I mean, my only advice is read old stuff that has been kind of categorized and catalogued enough. You know, if you can find, if you like Dashel Hammett, you could just like find the essays about him from, you know, all the good book reviews and just read every other book that's mentioned,

or at least like I said, you can go on Amazon and read the first couple of pages, right? And for, I mean, that's, that's, that works for older stuff. And for newer stuff, I would just say don't, like, it's sort of the opposite. Don't be hemmed in by, by your preconceived notions about what kind of books you like to read. I mean, I know this sounds just like something your teacher would tell you. But, you know, if you go to, if you go on Amazon looking for the best book about whatever, the, the, you know, the Civil War or something. I mean, maybe you'll find it, but it might not be up your alley.

I mean, better just to go in and just say, I'm going to find the best book I can find, or I'm going to, you know, I mean, just sample lots of stuff, see what people are reading, and be open to whatever you find. This comes from listener Jake Tuber. Assuming things continue to go poorly or get worse across the country, is there ever a point at which Trump supporters start to question the media narratives currently pushed by right-wing outlets, or is cognitive dissonance just too? strong. This is a fascinating question. And we've seen polling over the last week or so that's very

interesting because if you're Trump and you're trying to tell, you know, the world that the media is lying to you, things are not as bad as people are saying, things are getting better. These are themes he has pressed over and over again at just about every coronavirus briefing. you are trying to create or at least support this protest movement, right, that says reopen our state. We need the economy open. These restrictions are draconian. All that has been in place. And yet, you look at the polls and people right now at least are saying, we don't trust you. We think the economy should be much slower to reopen than you have teased out loud. So to me, you know, in terms of questioning media narratives, I can, kind of think it's happening right now. I think Fox News is much more positive and demanding about the economy reopening than at least what we've seen in polls actual voters are now across the spectrum, even conservative voters. Yeah, that's right. Whether or not this cognitive dissonance,

whatever, I mean, whether or not this amounts to anything, I think is the real question. I think it's really hard to, it's really hard to project anything in the Trump era. You know, it's hard to model out what, you know, how people are going to be, how people are going to react to it, over the long term. I think, and I hope that you're right. I mean, I do think that as opposed to some things like, even like unemployment or like the economy, which you can blame on, you know, your boss in the front office or, you know, in economic terms, you can blame on China. or Mexico or whatever else. I think that this is a,

I think that most people will draw a much more direct line to our centralized government as far as like finding culpability in this situation. And I also think that like, you know, job loss and everything else and, you know, economic hardship have been a reality for so long that as painful as they can be in, in personal experiences, they're also a little bit, we're also a little bit near to them. And I think that, I don't know, I just, I think, and, you know, I think for the, for the sake of this cognitive dissonance and sort of healing it. I think that people are going to be,

I think that people are going to be much more affected by personal experience here. You know, everyone's probably going to know someone who got really sick or, heaven forbid, that died from coronavirus. And I think that it's going to be really hard just to sort of shrug that off and say that it's, you know, the media is telling us a lie. So, I mean, hopefully, I mean, there's, I think that it's possible that this is the end of it. But who knows? This is from J.R.R.

with the governors from seemingly all 50 states, suddenly worthy of primetime cable hits, has anybody beyond the big names, Andrew Cuomo, Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, impressed or repulsed you? I got a couple nominees for this. Andy Bashir,

newly elected governor of Kentucky. Yeah, he's good. Has been really, I have not watched a ton of his briefings, but he has been getting a lot of good stuff. I think Mike DeWine, Republican from Ohio's probably on this list. And I think Jay Inslee,

who we saw, you know, very briefly as a presidential candidate. It's kind of a single issue, more or less climate change presidential candidate. He just endorsed Joe Biden a couple days ago. You know, I think his, him and the way he's talked about Trump,

the way he has refused, of course Trump is called him a snake, but the way he's refused to back down with badgering from the president's been pretty interesting. What do you think? I think all those names are good. I haven't really thought that deeply about it, But I'm a, I'm a big fan of Kentucky's governor and, I mean, as a former Kentuckian and,

and hope that he continues to get the attention that he, you know, so well he deserves. Kentucky's been an interesting test case, you know, to this whole thing because there were, you know, there was a much passed around article about comparing their response to Tennessee's in the sort of early days, early days of the quarantine, I guess. And, and the Kentucky looked, you know, positively in comparison. And then there was a more recent one that sort of compared them to, I think, was it New Hampshire, just in terms of like testing per capita and how Kentucky sort of paled in comparison. You know, I think they're going to be justifiably a test case in a lot of different directions. And Bashir is, you know, he's acquitting himself well so far.

He's in a really tough spot. But I think that I don't know if any of this, how any of this translate to a sort of national stage conversation. I'm sort of happy to let that lie for now. are you allowed to endorse candidates? Are we okay with that here at the Spotify and at the ringer? Am I personally allowed to? Yeah, because I'd kind of like to see

Native son David Shoemaker on a list of Andy Bashir endorsements at some point. He's acquitted himself well. Quote David Shoemaker. You know, that's David Shoemaker who knows how to pronounce Louisville. He's a real one. Finally, this question from E.J.

I thought this is really fascinating too. The omnipresent running tallies of deaths and confirmed cases on the cable news networks, particularly CNN, good thing or bad thing. Man, this is a rich question. Because I just sort of think this gets to this larger issue whenever we have something about this, and especially us here in the kind of non, you know, hard news portion of the media universe, where there's two different things, right? You should be paying attention to this.

There is no possible bigger story in the universe. And you should be not only paying attention to coronavirus, you should be trying to grapple with just how awful and deadly this thing is. And if having a running tally reminding you that, you know, what is it? What is the latest number? 50,000 Americans, 40 plus thousand Americans have died from this thing. Putting that in front of your face is not, is not nothing.

on the other hand, like all cable news, like that breaking news red alert that seemingly has been on cable news pretty much nonstop, you know, for the last 10 years, there does feel like there's something slightly exploitative about it. Yeah. That you're just, you know, that somehow you have this, this running, you know, clock just like they used to say, you know, 10 minutes until another state closes its voting, you know, or 10 minutes until the debate begins or 24 hours. There's something about it that feels like it was not put up there on the screen to be useful. How do you feel about that? Yeah. I know I think that interpretation is probably right. But I think that whatever inadequacy is inherent now in like the sort of cable news form,

insincerity or whatever else, I think at this point it's outweighed by, I mean, listen, there's still millions of people. There's so many people in this country that are not taking this seriously at all. I mean, even people that I know that would otherwise I would assume are like kind of, you know, smart, right-minded people are, it's easy to find the misinformation that you want to believe. And I think if for no other reason, having to forcibly come face to face with hard numbers and everything else, I think it's necessary. It's one of the things that jolts, non-believers or skeptics is a number like that, right? if somebody's telling you, oh, you know,

the media's making too much of this, that they start trotting out flu numbers and all that stuff. By the way, this many people have died from coronavirus in the United States. Or bring up a story like that awful thing of that nursing home

where 17 bodies were found. I mean, just there are certain moments, I think, where pure, awful numbers can sort of, I don't want to say win an argument, but just sort of,

make people pay attention in the way that nothing else can. For sure. And it may be that's the utility of it. Great question. It's time for David Shoemaker guess is a strain pun headline. Whop, whoop. Whop-wop. Monday's headline about a shuttered gentleman's club in Las Vegas was sorry we're clothed.

Sorry, we're clothed. Today's strain pun comes from Evan Liddiard. It's a book title, David. A little off road for us, but I have to share it because it's incredible on like nine levels. The pun comes from a Civil War book by J. Tracy Power. Okay. Power

Okay. Yeah. Power wrote a book about the Army of Northern Virginia. That's the Confederate Army that at one point was commanded by Robert E. Lee. Robert E. Lee. Apparently life in the Army of Northern Virginia was not good. Morale was low. Okay. Okay. So you've got Lee.

You've got terrible conditions. What was author J. Tracy Powers strained pun book title? Lee Lee Lee plus terrible

conditions. Dirty filthy Lee. I got nothing. You're going to have to lead me along on this one. What if I told you to think of a Victor Hugo novel and famous Andrew Lloyd-Weber Broadway show. The Phantom of the Opera?

No. What was the hunchback of Notre Dame? What is Andrew Lloyd, uh, uh, Quasimodo? Oh, Le Miz. I didn't know this Victor Hugo. Damn, an idiot. Lee Mitz, is that it? Mm.

Lee Miserab. Yeah, you're getting there? Lee Miserb. Yeah, oh, whoa, you had it. Lee miserable. Yeah, I don't even know. What would it be? Lee miserable? Lees miserables. Lee's miserable. That's great. But wait, there's more. Oh, great. Okay. Okay. Because I read a W.E.A. article about this. And that pun has existed since the Civil War.

Really? Because guess what? The novel Le Miserab came out in 1862. Soldiers were reading it during the Civil War. War. As you can imagine, some Southerners could not pronounce the title. So they were calling it less miserables. And then they decided, wait, we're serving under Robert E. Lee, we're Lee's miserable. Yeah. Oh my gosh. That's amazing. A strained pun since the Civil War. Amazing. I did not know that. He is David Shoemaker.

I'm Brian Curtis Research by Chris Almeida. Production Magic by Erica Cervantes. We're back Monday, David. We have anything on the schedule we want to talk about then? I'm sure we're going to talk about Michael Jordan again, but who knows? But who knows? Back then with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David.

See you, Brian.