The Press Box - ‘The Press Box’ — The Empire Wins (Ep. 364)

Episode Date: October 13, 2017

The Ringer's Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker discuss the comments Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones made regarding kneeling during the national anthem (02:30) and how the media covered the 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' trailer (20:30) and then honor sportswriting great Dan Jenkins (37:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. I wanted to tell you about Black on the Air. Hosted by the one and only, the great one. Larry Wilmore, even though he's a Lakers fan, I still like him. I think he's talented. But he has all kinds of guests on from Neil deGrasse Tyson to Al Franken to Bernie Sanders. You name it. They're coming on.

Pop culture, politics, newsmakers. And then at the beginning of every podcast, Larry does a little riff about whatever is either sticking in his car or things that he's enjoying. Although he has been enjoying much lately. the way the world's going, but Larry will riff on anything. And then he has guests on, it's great. If you liked everything else that he's done, comedy-wise, if you love this Comedy Central show, you will love this podcast.

It is a medium that he has built for. It's called Black on the Air, hosted by Larry Wilmore. Get it wherever you subscribe to your podcasts. Brian? Yes, David? I have some bad news for you. What?

I've just been informed that you've been suspended from the ringer. What? Because of one of your tweets. No. Do you care to hazard a guess over which tweet it was that got you this indefinite suspension? I'm just, my mind's going through all the milk toast tweets. I've lobbed out there over the last 48 hours. Do you think it was saying that Jerry Jones' anthem policy is an actual distraction?

Is it? Definitely not. Do you think that, do you think it was taking on Trump with Trump misses having someone to talk sports with? I think that's an actual quote? I don't think I'd get suspended for that one either. Well, anyway, all of that was not true. It was a joke. But it's fun to imagine what it would actually take to get one of us suspended from the ringer.

Can you imagine? What would you have to tweet? I have no idea. We'd probably have to go in on Roman Raines on Twitter. Go all in. Talk about how gambling is like violates my Christian morality. Be against gambling. Yeah.

Just totally out on basketball, I think. Not negative about the NBA, but just like this is really boring to me. Every ringer tweet about basketball just respond. with just like bored boredom. Yeah, but how many of those would you have to do? A lot. Before it became like, dude, we need you to get to take a time out. It would take a while, man.

You're off Twitter. It would take a while. This is the press box on the Ringer Podcast Network. Howdy. I'm Brian Curtis, Ringer editor at large. He is David Shoemaker, Ringer, art director, and host of the Mask Man show. And here on the press box, we talk about issues and concerns in the media in a way that doesn't sound like we're talking about issues and concerns in the media.

On today's show, we will tackle. the Jamel Hill, Jerry Jones, Mike Pence, whatever it is, and explore the ways in which public figures say they just want to move on and yet slyly keep the story alive. We'll also talk about the dropping and collective selling of the trailer of the new Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi. And finally, the greatest sports writer Fort Worth, Texas, ever produced. Dan Jenkins is being honored with an award.

We talk about it and how awesome it is to have gone to the same high school. Oh, yeah. It's Mr. Jenkins. But first, David, a segment called Ben the Knee. The, how do we even start this? Let's just start with Jerry Jones. Let's do it. To me, Jerry Jones is the center of this bizarre latest chapter in our national football

dramedy. So I think all of us who were, who side with the players who feel sympathy to the kneeling players in this thing, were sort of upset that the story was fading away last Sunday, right? that, you know, the original cause of police violence had been lost and had become basically a First Amendment thing in totally with Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder locking arms. And all of a sudden, two things happened. One, Mike Pence walks out of the Colts 49ers game. Jeez. Makes a dramatic exit.

We understand why that happened. And then after the soul crushing, at least to me, Cowboys lost to the Packers, Jerry Jones comes out in the postgame in his typical 20-minute postgame spiel and says, We've kneeled in support of each other before the national anthem, and we've stood for the national anthem. We've always done that. And there is no equivocation. It will stand for the flag. If there's anything that is disrespectful to the flag, then we will not play. If you disrespect the flag, you are not going to play.

You're going to be on the bench for the Dallas Cowboys and just reopens this can of worms in the most dramatic way possible. That's so weird. Do you have any sense of? why Jerry would do this? Well, I don't think you mentioned Donald Trump in that in that introduction. Sorry. As far as things like the known knowns, like you understand why Mike Pence did what he did. I think we can at least take Occam's razor and figure that one out.

I think the same sort of goes for President Trump, right? I mean, it seems like this is rich soil for him to tell. Every time he comes back around to it, it seems. It may distract from some of the problems that he has. It also really specifically targets his base. There was an incredible graph that came out today that I totally am forgetting who did it. It was in New York Times that charted Trump voters' opinion of the NFL. And it just like plummeted over the past couple of months.

Right. Whereas Hillary Clinton voters thought the NFL was just fine. Yeah, exactly. But you understand why he did it. Now, I don't know. It's really hard to wrap your mind around. what Jerry Jones thinks he stands to gain from this. Unless it's, I mean, some left field, unless it's a cabinet position or something, you know, like, I don't.

Ooh, I didn't even think of that. I don't know what, I can't, I just can't wrap my mind around. They say Rex Tillerson is on his way out. Jerry would never call Donald Trump a moron. I don't think in so many words. No. I mean, but Jerry could do it. Jerry could call him a moron.

He could just, all he has to do is grin and affect the drawl. And he can get away with calling anybody a moron, I feel like. You and I grew up in Dallas Forrest. We have been Jerry Jones observers for some portion of our life. Yeah. To me, two great through lines through Jerry Jones's life. One is making money. Absolutely.

Put that aside. The second is just, you know, doing whatever he can to support members of the Dallas Cowboys that he thinks are going to win games, Dallas Cowboys players. Sure. Bill Parcells once said he is the greatest enabler there ever was, Jerry Jones. Yeah. Typically, we see this in like, you know, Greg Hardy or Pac-Man Jones, like Michael Irvin. How did you tolerate these guys? How did you enable them as aware?

But there's also like he signed Michael Sam because he thought probably Michael Sam was, A, a way to make money for the Dallas Cowboys, get attention, draw, you know. And then also that maybe he could help and he wasn't afraid to do that, right? I don't know how this accomplishes either one of those things that Jerry Hill. Jerry has no political conscience. I just don't believe that's true at all. I don't think Jerry cares about this at all. But I'm just wondering like how do you how does this help either the bottom line or the Cowboys win games? It seemingly would hurt both to take a hard line stand on this.

Yeah, I agree with what you said. I think if Jerry cared about it even an iota in either direction, he would not have locked arms and yield with the players two weeks ago. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't. That was the ultimate cop out, right? Yeah, but it doesn't. That was the ultimate. Let's just get over this.

If he were, if he were actually on like politically line aligned with Trump on this issue, he wouldn't have. done that, I don't think. No. If he were on the other side of it, if he were the biggest Con Kaepernick supporter in the world, I think he would have realized how petty it looked for him to do that in the moment, right? I mean, he wouldn't have done it if he cared. But it's really hard to see what he's trying to do. I think that the only, I mean, maybe there is a financial stake.

Maybe Trump's just kind of baseless fearmongering about taking away tax breaks or exposing, you know, what the, what the, what very. governments have given the NFL. Maybe Jerry Jones is scared because he took, I mean, it wasn't even that much money. How much money did he end up getting for the AT&T stadium from the local? Right, but from the city of Arlington, like not. Yeah. Not the federal government.

Sure. I mean, I just can't imagine unless he thinks he's running cover for the rest of the NFL, unless he thinks he's sort of like taking a bullet. So, wait, can I, said I, it's in my Jerry Jones conspiracy theory here while you come out on this is every time we read one of those giant ESPN magazine pieces. Yeah. It's always about how Jerry is decided he wants to run the NFL and not Roger Goodell. Well, notice that he did this like two or three days before the NFL came out with their statement of can we move on.

So maybe he knew that's the way the NFL was going and he wanted to be first in a way. I mean, that to me makes as much sense as anything. Sure. Like, why would you want to, like, make the Dallas Cowboys the face of angry owner, you know, threatening to bench players who peacefully protest? My mind immediately goes to question as to how that would functionally happen and then who would be left to run the Cowboys and all the conflicts of interest in hearing that. But let's set that aside. If that were true, it makes sense, right? It almost is like the, you know, prior to Trump being elected,

it was sort of like the liberal dream scenario of Trump getting elected where he runs so far to the right and then he gets in office and he's just like, well, that got me here. Now I'm just going to be. Surprise. Yeah, now I'm just going to like do whatever I wanted to. That, I mean, that makes a certain amount of sense that if they're looking for someone to place Goodell,

then Jerry Jones could be like, listen, I've got half the country on my side. And once I get there, I'm just going to make everybody. happy. Yeah. I don't know. That's more compelling than anything else. Yeah, because he just, he doesn't. I mean, you know, it's funny.

The Cowboys have like a great history of non-activism. Sure. It's hard to find the Jim Brown of the Dallas Cowboys. Oh, yeah. They had this sort of like, there was this great book by Joe Nick Potoski. It's like this giant history of the Cowboys. And he said that the Cowboys wanted to market their old quarterback Craig Morton as, as the silent majorities Joe Namath.

just to say nod Joe Namath, you know. And Roger Staubach actually kind of became that guy who was in the Navy and had a crew cut. Yeah. And it was definitely conservative bleeding. Definitely became that guy and became that guy. Yeah. And kind of Cowboys lore. And they just, you know, no cowboy has knelt for the anthem at all, at all.

You know, they've just kind of, however they've, whether they have guys who just don't care about that. But, you know, they are very, they are America's team in the sense that we are going to be, you know, you know, as blandly likable to America as possible. That's exactly what I was thinking. The America's team branding is just on par with nothing else, except maybe like the Rolling Stones calling themselves the world's greatest rock and roll band or whatever. But like they are America's team in the way that like they just want to avoid this

discussion altogether, right? And that's what... Seemingly. Except for, you know, setting just Jerry Jones's recent actions aside, you would, it seems like, you know, they align with sort of the polls, which is just like, let's just talk about something else, but then Jerry goes and stirs everything up. Not shockingly, that little press conference after the game.

And he doubled down on the radio on his radio show because it's the Dallas. It's Jerry Jones. So Jerry Jones has a radio segment, of course. Unlike just about any other owner in any sport. But anyway, there was a players only meeting this Wednesday. And then there was a players and Jerry only meeting. Again, tell me where in the NFL. The players are meeting with the owner midseason.

Oh, my gosh. And it was really funny because the cowboy beatwriters had some amazing tweet. yesterday like Zeke and Dak usually talk on Wednesdays. And they talk like once a week. Just did not want to speak yesterday. Jason Witten, who is the go-to bland quote in the NFL. You are standing at your locker. You're going to tell us how much respect you have for your teammates and how great your

opponent is this week and all that stuff. Just nowhere to be found. Jason Witten didn't have anything bland to say about this. That's how divisive this was. And honestly, as you said from my controversial Twitter account, this was a distraction. Yeah. This was an actual distraction, not the fake sports writer distraction of Colin Kaepernick or whatever. This was an actual distraction for a team that is, by the way, two and three.

It is, I mean, it's funny because that's just one piece of the puzzle. As you broke it down, we didn't even talk about Jamel Hill, right? I mean, there's a seemingly unlimited stream of articles on the subject. that are just, it seems like every article is just in search of a means to wrap one's head around it, right? Because all these things are connected. Right. We know that intuitively. The lead of the NPR story was sports, politics, and perceptions of patriotism collided once again when President Trump tweeted early Tuesday about ESPN Sports Center host Jamel Hill suggesting she is the reason for the network's poor ratings.

But then, of course, the piece gets into Jerry Jones, gets into the entire NFL. Wow. It's a very, like, I keep like just a word doc of all Trump and sports. Right. It's turned into the most complicated and longest documented that I have saved on my computer. Because there's just so many fucking things happening at once. It's insane. I mean, we talked about the Pence pieces.

Trump was on Hannity on Wednesday night saying the NFL should have suspended Colin Kaepernick. Then you have Jamel who goes into Twitter. And as I read her tweets really talks about. boycotting the Cowboys Sure. As from an intellectual, just like here is something that could happen. Let us talk about this possibility.

And it should be said, it was one tweet in like 100 tweets that evening. It wasn't like, you know, a call to action. And somehow gets read as Jamel Hill calls for a boycott of the Dallas Cowboys, which is ridiculous.

And, you know, and you just imagine if any of that stuff had been on her show, you know, like you could see the ESPN Kiron, right? Should Cowboy fans unhappy with Jerry Jones boycott? question mark.

Right. And even if Jamel had absolutely come down, yes, that nobody would have cared. Like that just wouldn't, that wouldn't have even been like a noticed, particularly noticed segment. But somehow this would become this giant Twitter catastrophe. And she's suspended. Yeah. I mean, I mentioned this to you off air, but in Joe Pompeo's piece in the, in Vanity Fair this week on the subject,

there's a great line where he, here's the quote, another ESPN employee with thorough knowledge of the social media policy emphasized that regardless of the rapidly changing nature of Twitter and other social platforms, the central conceit of the policy is, quote, think before you tweet. If there's something you're not going to say on your TV show or radio show, don't say it on social media. The crazy thing is that this is something that would have been more at home if it had happened on the six, right? I mean, Jamel Hill could have said that, could, like you said, you could imagine the Chiron. This is not, this is not a particularly shocking thing for any ESPN personality, let alone Jamel Hill to say on the air. For some reason,

And it's only in this weird vacuum of Twitter where anything can be taken out of context and be, and, you know, public figures can easily be dogpiled by their detractors. That that's when it really, I mean, listen, the people who are criticizing Jamel Hill on Twitter, I guarantee you're not watching her on TV. So, like no one's there watching ESPN to be offended by this. Yeah. It's like what you and I talked about part of my take last week, was weirdly what happens on Twitter is sort of a bigger deal of than what happens on linear television, even a giant network like ESPN. and somehow the same comment you make on Twitter just becomes this like outsized thing. Whereas if she just like you said, said on six, it's just like, eh. It's easier to retweet, you know, something you disagree with and to like go through the effort of like somehow downloading the video and reposting it.

Yeah. And I think so part of the frustration within ESPN, if you're an employee there, is that somehow like this is the way Donald Trump is acting. This is the way Jerry Jones is acting. This is the way Mike Pence is acting as an agent Trump. This is the way all these Trumpy sort of people are acting. Jamel Hill is the one who is suspended here. Jamel Hill is the one who is feeling the consequences. What?

Yeah. I mean, I understand that's not, it's not all connected that easily, but really? Obviously, two people working to two completely different jobs, but Donald Trump did literally call for a boycott of the NFL. So it's not, I mean, it's not like just that's what should be totally off limits. No. I also think, you know, so Goodell, when they released the statement, this week of what we're going to do, which was kind of like, let's get past the anthem thing. It was essentially, it was very, very, that's been correctly called incredibly bland,

but its basic message was stop protesting. We want to help you players, but just stop protesting because this is a big headache for us. As soon as he releases that, Trump fans like Laura Engram and Mike Huckabee are tweeting, that's it. Donald wins. Yeah. He dunked on him. He got Gidel, Gidel, bent the knee to Donald Trump.

And this is like what you realize, you can't make deals with these people. Like they don't want to, they don't actually have a good faith concern about this. They want to embarrass you. They want to score points. They want to dunk on you in Twitter parlance, right? They just want to, that is the goal. And bizarrely, you're not going to, you're not going to be like, okay, we've come to an understanding. Yeah.

And bizarrely, that, like that sort of reaction is what's making the situation so much more problematic, right? No, the NFL players who conceivably would have accepted another means of protest. You know, we will, you can air your grievances on NFL.com once a week. You know, whatever. There's like a million ways that you can imagine this, you know, the protest taking another direction. They're not going to back down now. They're not going to back down now that Trump is acting like he's won, he's won, you know. Of course not.

Of course not. Or that an owner has dared to say, in Jones's case, has dared to say, like, I have the right to suspend you because of this. Yeah. I just think at that point, you're right, totally. David, it's time for a little segment we call Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week. Yes. We celebrate a joke that's so obvious, so within the grasp that all of media Twitter

makes it at exactly the same time. We've actually done this now enough that people on Twitter are sending us overworked Twitter jokes the week. Keep sending it, man. So this is, thanks, thank you Joshua Walker and Jack Noonan. Loyal listeners. They have separate Twitter accounts or they share one? They're separate.

Okay. They're not like a tag team. The killer bees. It's like a 70-year-old email account where it's just like. The wife is on it too. The husband and wife. I love those email accounts. You remember, David, on Sunday a video surfaced of Dolphins' offensive line coach Chris Forrester snorting white powder through $20 bills that appear to be cocaine.

I think that's the legal nice way to say this. I don't know if you see where we're going here, David. I have a guess. Quote from Twitter. I think it's kind of bullshit that the Dolphins offensive line coach was fired for researching offensive lines. Boom. That's Pete Backburn of CBS. Here's another variation.

Dolphins offens hashtag Dolphins offensive line coach resigns after video leaks of him taking offensive lines. Hashtag only in Miami. It's from Miami's Grant Stere. By the way, the offensive offensive thing. I remember there was a commercial from our childhood where it was a bleach commercial. where the kid came in a really dirty shirt. Great. And mom was like, you must play for the offensive line.

I'm like a deliberate mispronunciation. Like, that's just a great, that's a great standby joke. That's really great, man. All right, David, I want to talk to you about the Last Jedi. But first, a quick break. Hey, it's Bill Simmons. I want to tell you about the ringers gambling podcast. It is called Against All Odds with Cousin Sal.

And you're not going to believe this, but it is hosted by Cousin Sal. The biggest degenerate gambler that I know. He's such a degenerate. He has three other degenerates that he calls the degenerate trifecta. And they break down every conceivable gambling thing you would ever want to gamble on. They even take it to Captain Morgan's Make Believe Casino, where Sal makes up props on all kinds of things, sports, pop culture, you name it. You are going to want to get your gambling advice from these guys.

Cousin Sal, he's been a staple on the BS podcast for the last 10 years. So good that we gave him his own podcast. Check it out against all odds with Cousin Sal. subscribe wherever you get your podcast. So David, this is the, if we had to do a runner-up for overwork, Twitter joke of the week, are you ready? Yes. Were you watching Monday night football?

I was not. I was watching Monday Night Raw as one might be. Right. I forget you have other Monday night responsibilities. So right at the beginning of halftime before this trailer, the most wanted trailer in the history of movies drops. Yeah. All these stormtroopers marched out onto the field. Yes, I saw a clip of that yet.

So this was another great Twitter joke. Did you see when the Star Wars stormtroopers marched out on the field during Monday Night Football right before the showed the Last Jedi trailer? And then people would say bold strategy to showcase the Stormtrooper color rush uniforms on Monday Night Football. That's actually from the ring or Twitter account. There were several others. Okay, this color rush thing is out of hand. When I found you. So we had noted Star Wars fans, Sean McDonough announced the trailer for the last Jedi.

We saw it, right? We got to see Luke. Sure. Got to see Ray. We've got to see Supreme Leader Snoke. And then we started a peculiar ritual of modern journalism, whereby journalists who in their very soul hate hashtag brands hate corporate mind-fucking of any kind. These same people race to their computers so they can write about this advertisement for a movie. You and I are both lifelong Star Wars fans here.

Yes. We are probably part of the problem on Twitter in some way. Oh, yeah. But how do we square these things? We're also both employees of a website that rushed a review of the trailer up there. Which I read and loved? Yeah, absolutely. As a diehard fan, there's nothing I love more than reading the, you know, sell-by-sell breakdown of everything that happens in the trailer.

You know, over on Star Wars Reddit, there's a thread that's about, you know, I mean, that's looking right now, it's like 10,000 comments deep about this thing. I mean, it's crazy, and it breaks down the music cues and what we're supposed to gain from it. I was actually thinking about director Ryan Johnson when you were talking about Roger Goodell in the last segment. Sorry, Ryan. This happens all the time because, you know, Godell puts out, you know, the official memo from the NFL, and half the people on the internet are just like willfully misread it, right? Ryan Johnson famously said, you know, if you really don't want to be spoiled at all, you want to go in fresh the movie, then maybe you should avoid the trailer because obviously there's going to be some stuff in there.

and the internet ran wild with this. Ryan Johnson asks you to not watch the Star Wars trailer. Which would be shocking. Right. It would be galling. He does not want you to see it. He also had a great moment on Twitter where some, I even forgot who it was, but somebody ran with the story that he didn't,

that he was very elusive as to who the last Jedi was. And he just responded in a tweet and he said, it's Luke. That was so great. I love it. I think that the, you know, I mean, that's been just an incredible point of just willful ignorance on the part of the internet broadly defined where it's just like he thought it was so clear to him what the answer was that he didn't have any interesting answers and we're in search of this like interesting hook now this brings us back around to just the concept of reviewing a

movie trailer where everyone on the internet is in search of this hook right you're in search of a way you're it's it's you know click farming just like a lot of stuff with you know jemel hill and and the nfl trump tweet yeah in trump tweets this is a means of just getting people to pay attention to a thing, to your version of a thing that everyone has access to anyway. Right? It's like, this is the internet equivalent of putting a fancy label on your bottled water,

so people choose that over the water fountain. Right? Right. Or giving it a cool name. Exactly. I'm still, you and I are old enough men that this is still amazing. It is amazing that everyone has to do this.

Did the New Yorker have to do this? Did that, is that as far as it reaches now? Was there a New Yorker last Jedi trailer breakdown? I was going to spring this on you. Go for it. But this is the opening graph from one of the reviews. I want you to guess the source. Look who's back.

Fans saw more of Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker in the 154 second trailer unveiled Monday night for Star Wars The Last Jedi than they did in the entire 135-minute running time of Star Wars The Force Awakens in 2015. That film featured only a brief gliton. of the Jedi Knight in its final scene, but he appears to be back in force,

ha, ha, ha, ha, for the next installment. It's a pretty generic lead there. Yeah. London Review a book. Actually, not too far off. The answer is the New York Times. Wow. Wow.

The New York Times of all sources has to go in with the same way. Listen, good for them. You know, I'm glad that they're covering this beat because this gets them in closer to writing an article that I'm going to love the hell out of in three months, you know? But, I mean, it's crazy. It's crazy how this, you know, how far this art form has conquered the Internet. Yeah, because it's like, you know what I want to read a review of and have deep thoughts about the Last Jedi, the movie?

Yeah. Like the full movie. Because it's, we have, we are in this moment. I think Andy and Chris talked about this when The Force Awakens came out, that you can have a director like J.J. Abrams, who's really good at making trailers. Mm-hmm. Like, they, he knows, you know, his whole, so much of his creative work is about hitting those little nostalgia soft spots. Mm-hmm. That, of course, when they make the trailer, he can string them together in such a way that everybody's going to be really happy.

Yeah. Like, trailers are meant to, if not, fool you into seeing the movie to absolutely convince you that you have to see the movie, which I did. By the way, I bought tickets immediately after the trailer when you were supposed to. I have my, I have my seats, right? I'm ready. But, like, you are reviewing something that is supposed to trick you into seeing something, right? It's like reviewing the Tide commercial at its essence. I mean, that's what it is.

I mean, what is the difference? Well, I mean, you mentioned J.J. Abrams, but there's a lot of these instances where the people cutting together the trailers are not the directors. You know, and sometimes without the oversight of the directors. And, you know, you referred to this in an email as the suicide squad problem, right? Where the trailer is actually so much better than what you have in the can that you end up. The movie we wish me made. Yeah, exactly. I mean, Suicide Squad is an extreme example because there were reshoots that came out of the fact

that the trailer was so well received and the movie didn't match the trailer. I don't think we're, you know, seeing any of that in this Star Wars film, although, you know, it might be the only one if that's the case. But when you read some of the more in-depth reviews of the trailer, and by the way, I mean, like,

just before we came on the air. Some of the more in-depth reviews. You know, I was, you know, I was, you know, I was, you know, drooling over, over the, you know, the vulture, you know, scene-by-scene review that, that Abraham Reisman did. I did read that.

That was good. But, I mean, you know, when you refer to certain things, you look at every scene, you break down everything in the background, you keep referring to things as Easter eggs, you know, like, I'm not talking about this article in particular, but just in general conceit, they're not Easter eggs. I mean, these are things that are deliberately put forward to peak the interest of every fan of Star Wars

and, more broadly, every fan of movies. Yeah, that's like if the Easter Bunny knocked on your door and put the egg in your hand. Right. Exactly. It's not like, where are you going to find this? It's right here, buddy. If there's any media that we consume, where it's safe to say there are no accidents, it's in the trailer for the new Star Wars movie.

Oh, that's good. Yes. Every beat, as they say. Yeah. Is just right. Right. Every bit of, you know, it's just enough new, right? Just enough nostalgia.

Mysteries teased, you know. The, you know, the Who is Snoke thing is teased just enough. the Luke Ray training is teased just enough. We got to see like one scene of the other people so we don't forget that they're in the movie. Also, I was thinking about this. Like I was talking to our pal Justin Varyer about this because about the NBA, how like the NBA is the most interesting it's ever going to be right now. Right. Right before the season.

Yes. Because all the possibilities, you know, Golden State doesn't have like a 20 game lead in the standings. Yeah. You know, where everybody gets really bored and I'm like, oh, that Oklahoma City thing turned out to be a dud. Yeah. Right now you can kind of believe. We might have published, you know, one of our only pieces about the Nets all season just now. Because now it's like there's hope.

The idea of the Nets is interesting. It's the same with Star Wars, right? Even if the movie's good, it's never going to be more interesting than it is right now. When we see like the Porg, you know, oh, look at that little new thing. What's it going to be? What's its role? What is the little AT, I look this, of the ATM6 Gorilla Walkers, you know, right? The new AT AT ATs.

What are those going to be? What are they going to do? Because they might be in the movie for like 10 seconds. Sure. But right now, they are unbelievably interesting. Because you can imagine they'll have a much bigger role than they ultimately may. I mean, the other basketball parallel is obviously just like the never-ending season, right? Part of what makes the NBA so compelling is that they've lined, I mean, Bill has talked about this a million times,

they've lined up the postseason and free agency and the draft in such a way that like the NBA is a year-round sport, basically, right? So you're always on the edge of your seat to see what's going to happen next. in the same way, the sort of, I mean, Star Wars isn't the only example, but it's certainly the prime example, unless, you know, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is. But it's this, you know, Star Wars promotional industrial complex that we're all complicit in. And that's not knocking anybody to say it, you know, but like what makes Star Wars so exciting. I mean, as a diehard Star Wars fan, you've been through this. When they announced, when they announced the new movies, it seemed like they were so far away, right? whatever it was, two and a half years away or three years.

It seemed like it would never get here. It seemed like it would never come. And then, you know, when the last movie came out, it seemed like, oh, the next, you know, the last Jedi is so far away, right? But it really feels like we haven't had a moment without Star Wars in our lives for the past five years. Yeah, it really makes you, by the way, look back at the gap between 1983 and 1999, 16 years and the way, like the analog methods that George Lucas kind of kept it alive. Sure.

You know, the novels, you know, the role playing games. A role play. Comic books. Only for you. Comic books. Yeah. Like some figure reissues and things. But it survived as cultural capital in a way.

In a way. And then it's now it's like they would never take that for granted. You know, it's like I was even looking at the Star Wars official Twitter account today. And it's like there's something with like a person who has worked with Lucasfilm reacting to the trailer. Yeah. Like it's that weirdly meta. Like we can't even let a day go by, which is not the trailer. I think that it's, I think that it's fair to say that, you know,

if Twitter and the internet existed, you know, all those years ago in the way that it did today, there wouldn't have been 16 years between the movies. There'd been so much pressure. Yeah. Every time George Lucas left his house, there would be people with cameras asking him when the next movie was coming out. Can you imagine if he had a Twitter account too? Yeah, I mean. I feel he would have tweeted like five times, but every tweet would have been, you know,

just invested with so much. Yeah. He would have been like George R. Martin. I was going to say the exact same thing. Maybe there would have been 16 years between movies and we would have been. writing constant blog posts about how George Lucas doesn't have any scenes shut. I do believe, by the way, that as kind of ridiculous as trailer criticism is, I do believe it's usually right that if people really like the trailer, it usually results in a good movie.

It may not quite line up to great trailer, great movie. It might be great trailer, pretty good movie. But it's usually on, right? When you see the Ben-F-like Batman thing and everybody's like, oh, this looks like crap, Like, they're usually pretty right. Yeah, I think it's easier with bad trailers. I think it's possible to make a good trailer out of a bad movie. You just put the right, you know, he puts sympathy for the devil in there and all in any trailer looks great.

But if you've got a bad movie, it's impossible to create a great trailer. No, no, I think you can. Oh, I think you can. I think it's hard. I mean, but it's just, I don't know. I think that what really, what's really important is that when you see a trailer like this and you're so captivated by it and so enthrased. it informs the way that you experience the movie, right? I mean, if you were not a, if you, if you go see The Last Jedi, you might not realize

you don't like it for a week after you've seen it, you know, because you're just so excited going in, and this is part of that hype machine. Absolutely. Certainly worked with the Force Awakens. David, it's time for new feature here on the press box. Yes. Many media institutions have a public editor or ombudsman who is tasked with keeping them honest.

Well, David, we've decided to outsource that particular task. our mothers in a new segment we're going to call mom budsman what we did by the way we should tell people we both basically solicited comment on our podcast right or did your mom actually know that this is coming out did your mom send this unbidden my mom all the text messages I've received from my mom about our podcast so far have have come unprovoked wow I mean I sent her the link to the podcast oh well that's what I meant oh yeah okay oh it's like she just like I wasn't I wasn't saying let's see what's on shoot I didn't tell her that we have she will be I'm surprised to learn that she is appearing on the podcast this week.

Here we go. The most comprehensive breakdown I've received from my mom was about our segment two weeks ago on Fixer Upper. Because, as you know, my mom also lived in Texas and has a deep emotional attachment to that show and to Chip and Joe, the hosts. Not to mention a really nice interior design sense. Well, I'm sure she'll appreciate you saying that. Yeah, she does. I agree. This is from Cherry Shoemaker.

David, I love the podcast you and Brian did this week. As a mom, I would have reminded you about the furniture line and rug line that Joe has. The magazine, the enclave of garden homes, chip is built in Waco, et cetera, and don't forget the bed and breakfast. But it was both fun and interesting to hear you both discussing your takes on current topics. Wow. Yeah. In the second week, she said, and this is great because it's meta-media criticism, she said, I know nothing about markets, et cetera, but there must be a gazillion folks who would enjoy hearing two smart guys muse over the event.

events of the week, which, by the way, thank you, mom. Can I have a couple of reactions to that? Yes. One is that she said, David began the message. That's such a mom thing. It's like, who else are you talking to? It's a formal letter, yes. She's using takes in the kind of pre-irony sense of takes, which I really appreciate it.

Yes. And two smart guys, right? Is there no more, is there no more better compliment from your mom than smart, you know, smart guys, such an intelligent, such an intelligent. such an intelligent story, David. Not going to use that word loosely. Here's a reaction from Mother Curtis. A little more generalized. Ready?

I'm ready. Brian. Cool one. This is so neat, exclamation point. I also note two spaces between sentences in mom communicates. Great work. On Monday nights in 1994, there were two young men who watched wrestling, and in 2017, they were all grown up and doing a weekly podcast.

It is obvious that you and David enjoy the podcast. And of course, the rapport has been in place for years. Smiley face. I knew a lot of the names that were mentioned, but not all of them. Please make sure I'm on the list to receive your podcast. The list. And if you listeners would also like to be on the list to receive our podcast. Sorry, out show.

Just go to iTunes or Stitcher wherever you get your podcast and subscribe. I'm sorry. There's not an email, list serve at the moment. I just love the list. The list. That there was this thing going at. That's my mom's, I don't know, my mom bud's been experienced with my entire career is that stuff I'm doing, she's just not receiving it. Yeah.

That's somehow she's missed something. Sure. She's just worried. That is what she worries about. Sure. Yeah. That she's not getting like the circular in the mail that advertises where Brian Curtis is appearing this month. Segment number three, David.

On Friday, a number of us sports writerly types will gather in Dallas, Texas to present a new award the Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in sports writing. Oh, so great. Now, who is Dan Jenkins? A young sports writer might ask, well, that's what we're going to explain here. Former writer for Sports Illustrated, author books like semi-tuff and dead solid, perfect. And a denizen and product of Fort Worth, Texas. A place that you and I, how do we explain the greatness of Dan, David? Dan Jenkins is one of the greatest of all time when it comes to sports writing.

Sure. Yeah. My experience with Dan Jenkins is always, I mean, it will always be framed by my friendship with you because you were, you know, a Dan head before I was able to discover him on my own, you know. I knew him mainly as like a face on a plaque in the R.L. Pascal High School Wall of Fame more so than I knew him as a sports writer. But, you know, I think coming up through the sort of writerly ranks in New York, you look at Dan Jenkins not just as a writer whose style you want to aspire to, whose ability you wish that you could someday attain a fraction of, but also just the legend of the Texan displaced in New York and making a go of it, you know? Yeah, and how a writer ought to be, right? Yeah. How someone ought to carry themselves.

What was the story? I mean, there are legendary stories about the whole Sports Illustrated team of that period in time and how they would, you know, work until, they'd work until lunchtime. They'd go out for a three martini lunch and then just relocate the office to the local bar. Is that, am I getting this right? Yeah, it's a Chinese restaurant near the old time life building. And then that would lead to a regular, like, series of bars after hours?

Yeah, I mean, definitely. I mean, Dan's legend was that at all times he had three drinks in front of him. It was a scotch and water, a backup scotch and water, and a coffee. This is like two in the morning. Yeah, well, all those things had to be filled. Right. And somebody told me later that, you know, with Dan, it's like, one of the things he did is he would always eat this huge meal beforehand. Uh-huh.

And he would then show up, and he was stomach was full. So everybody else was getting kind of plastered. And Dan was certainly, you know, holding his own. Right. But he was kind of a little more with it. And he would often, he did these things called overheards. He would go to the bathroom and write down funny things, people said, expressions and stuff. And then he would use them.

And of course, the next day had forgotten them that they had actually said the funny thing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's funny because in New York, you know, he went to like, when you and I moved there, we were happily carrying ourselves and trying to carry ourselves in the same way. Oh, sure. You know, going to PJ Clarks, eating bacon cheeseburgers there. Right. But really, you know, in Fort Worth, he is like, it's really hard to explain.

Like, he is to Fort Worth what Philip Roth is to New Jersey. Right. You just walk into diners and there's an autographed pitch. picture of Dan Jenkins on the wall. Sure. And there's something that he, I mean, there's a way that he was able to transcend, uh, to, I mean, transcend regionalism in a way. You know, there's the old canard that like, in the, in the literary fiction world that,

uh, you know, like what is regional fiction or what are the regional writing? It's like any writing that's not said in New York or Boston is regional. You know, I mean, because like everything just sort of has this taint of being, uh, you know, some sort of like hillbilly gym or, or something if it comes from somewhere else. Dan Jenkins is, you know, Fort Worth Texas's greatest writer. One of Texas is the state's greatest writers of all time. And while you would certainly consider him, you know, wedded to that part of the country

as, you know, on a very inherent level, he was a, you know, his greatest sports writing transcended that entirely. He was, he used the drawl of Texas in a way to sort of, you know, get the, to imbue all of his writing with his every man status. Exactly. And that's the trick, right? He is of Texas, fully embraced Texas, and yet took that act and went national with it, right, without ever, like, changing into anything else.

His thing is, I think, you know, he was probably, and I'm sure he would say this, he was in Texas longer than he wanted to be. He was ready to go to Sports Illustrator, which he referred to as the Yankees. You know, that was the place to be. And he was a sports, he was writing, was first of the fourth press, and he was writing a sports column for Dallas Times Herald. And he was just like, Dan was ready to go. And I think, you know, he probably thought, you know, he always thought he was one of the best and thought he could do that. But yeah, then he gets there.

And these novels he writes, the characters are from Fort Worth, by and large, and went to Pascal High School, where you and I went to high school. Yeah. And yet, and he's telling it, and he will just stop these novels to tell like a funny story about Pascal, which is just totally made. made up. Sure. I'm sure had some truth in Dan's life. And those were bestselling books. David Halberstam raved, semi-tuff, in the New York Times when it came out.

And it's just, I think for us, like, reading that as a kid was incredible. Because it was like, not only does this dude go here, go to school here, he just took, he just took Pascal and took Fort Worth and made it into a national thing. Sure. The hardest thing about, you know, becoming a journalist, whenever people ask you for advice, you know, how do, how do, how to, How do I become the next Brian Curtis? I don't know about you, but, you know, I always tell people, especially if they're not in New York, you know, you have to get to New York. It's like becoming an actor. You have to get on the bus and get there and like figure it out and be available, you know, and be a good person.

And, and, you know, when you read something like semi-tuff, when you read, you know, when you see that someone like Dan Jenkins started at Pascal High School and made it to Sports Illustrated, and made it to the cover story at SI, then it all seems attainable to. you. It's so very far away, but he makes it possible. And what's funny about that, right, is we're talking about a particular brand of, we're talking about a particular literary vision. Right. Nobody, I don't remember you in high school, but nobody said, man, I want to be a great novelist. Right. But sports writer, writer of sports writerly novels, was very attainable.

That vision was, that was Elaine. Yes. At Pascal, right out there. By the way, Bud Shrake was with Dan's best pal who also went from Pascal to SI. It was also a great writer himself. But, like, that was there. But no one said, like, I want to be the next Philip Roth. Oh, yeah.

Nobody said I want to be, you know, whatever. Name a great, F. Scott Fitzgerald. They said, like, Dan Jenkins. Oh, and people go, oh, yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah, you can wrap your mind around that. It bears mentioned here that Jenkins and Bud Trache were both contributors to the pantheret, Pascals, local newspaper, and as was, as were you in your heyday. I was.

I was. Yeah. I used to say funny because he had moved when we were in high school, he'd moved back to Fort Worth, Dan. And my mom and I would go to Luby's cafeteria and we'd see him. And my mom would say, why'd you go say hi to him? I mean, I was editing the newspaper that Dan

had edited 50 years before. And I'd be like, I don't want to do it until I've done something. I mean, I really couldn't do it until later my life until I had actually become a real sports writer. I just didn't, I just didn't think I was worthy to literally go up and say hi to him. Sure.

I didn't feel that way about Skip Bayless. I felt that way bad Dan Jenkins. I wanted to talk to Skip. But I felt it was almost like he was just so big and looms so large that I didn't want to. I think the funny thing now is, you know, I've interviewed him a few times, wrote about him for Grantland back in the day.

Sure. He's in his 80s. He doesn't drink or smoke anymore. And I asked him if he missed drinking. And he said, no. And I said, do you miss cigarettes? I said, yes. I thought that was great.

We had a little ceremony at UT when this award was announced a couple months ago. And he got up and gave an amazing speech. I think Dan's probably not won for big speeches in front of crowds. But he gave him a fabulous five-minute speech, which ended with a joke about, thank God, we didn't all go to Baylor. That's just like great. Talking about a guy who can straddle the line between Texan and. you know, New York writer so seamlessly.

It's worth, you know, it's worth pointing out that he was a diehard, you know, lifelong TCU, Texas Christian University fan. That's based in for, graduate and graduate and gave his archives, his, you know,

writings and letters to the University of Texas at Austin. And as managed as smoothly as possible to avoid any seeming conflict of interest between those two things. He has an incredible comfort in the way that he presents himself and his like little folksiness. And he just made, makes it all seem totally, totally reasonable.

There were some eyebrows raised. Eyebrows were raised. In the former Southwest Conference, let me tell you, with that decision, because he is so TCU. Speaking of people, as you mentioned before, who are reluctant to give speeches in front of others, I count myself in that group. And yet, I got up at your wedding, as requested. This was not an impromptu and read a few lines from SemiTuff. And by the way, for some context, there were two people who did readings at my wedding.

One read from the Bible. Yes. And one front read from, and you read from the other Bible. Semi tough. Do you want to tell the story, by the way, what happened at the rehearsal? Well, the rehearsal, I misjudged how long I had to read and how long what I selected to read would last. So not only did I go about five minutes when the intention was probably to go 45 seconds

or something like that, but I left in all of the curse words that were in the piece because mostly because I was sort of feeling it out. We had talked about it. We hadn't talked about specifically like editing out any of it. I was like, I'm sure it'll be great. Yeah. And because when you...

And I was laughing. And here's the thing. When Dan Jenkins, when you read the novel in Dan Jenkins' voice, there's nothing offensive about it. No. But when I get up on a microphone in like, you know, a tie, and I just pull it and I have these sheets of paper.

I'm in a little church in Connecticut. And I'm like so I start reading, it suddenly sounds like I am cursing the Lord Jesus by saying anything even slightly off color. So we had to go with the actual ceremony, a slightly edited. A much briefer and edited version. I think your mother-in-law was during the rehearsal was particularly stricken. Yeah, it was a small crisis.

We overcame it. It was totally fine. But I don't even remember what it, I have the, I couldn't find the, I did save the paper that the edited down version. I don't even know where it is, though. I do have my copy of Semi Tuff here in front of me. So I don't remember how exactly this, you know, what was taken out. One can imagine.

But the last scene is a conversation between Billy Clyde Puckett, who is the Dan Jenkins avatar in the book, played famously by Bert Reynolds in the movie. And Barbara Jane is sort of like just female best friend. And at the end of the book, they eventually decide that they're a perfect match for one another. And the last two lines, the last three lines, I guess, are we kissed again very seriously and held on to each other like we were in the back

seat of a car out in the woods on a cold night and the windows were fogging up. Say, whatever your name is, I said quietly. I think this deal might work out. And Barbara Jane said, it sure is hell might. I'll be a some bitch.

Now, kissing... I'm tearing up. Necking and necking and parked cars aside, And calling your future spouse whatever your name is. I'd like to think that that not only is, you know, it is an appropriate toast to your wonderful marriage, but also to the future of this podcast. There we go.

And both of which are going strong, I'd like to say. That's it for the press box this week. Thank you, David Shoemaker. Thank you, Brian. As always for doing it. We'll be back next week with more hot takes on everything. See you then. I'll be a sum bitch.