The Press Box - The Shootings in El Paso and Dayton, LeBron James vs. His Former GM, and Playboy Rebooted | The Press Box

Episode Date: August 6, 2019

The shootings in El Paso and Dayton (03:00), David Griffin on LeBron James (27:45), the reinvention of Playboy (40:00), and Quentin Tarantino’s box office numbers (47:45). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, it's Liz Kelly and welcome to the Ringer podcast network. Up on our site, The Ringer has just published their first ever fantasy football rankings. Our NFL experts, Danny Kelly, Robert Mays, Danny Highfits, and more rank and analyze the top 150 players in 2019, with printable and mobile cheat sheets to take with you wherever you're drafting. To check out our rankings and for more preseason coverage, listen to the Dannessie Football podcast or head over to the Ringer.com. David, in the wake of two mass shootings last week, America's favorite astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson compared the rate of carnage

to that of car accidents and the flu only to be attacked by the band's smash mouth on Twitter after he did it. This is where we are. What I want to know is what other face-off between a famous TV scientist and a 90s punchline band would you like to see?

Oh my God. Wait, is this the first time that Smash Mouse's weird Twitter account has made it onto the show. I think so, yeah. If so, I'm glad we're finally discussing this important media development. If I were booking this like WrestleMania showdown card of all scientists versus what 90s bands? Yeah. I mean, what it? Scientists. Should you do like Dr. Oz versus counting pros or something like that? Yes, Bill and I, Bill and I the science guy versus like third eye blind. Is that the appropriate thing, uh, the appropriate look? What would they be fighting about? I mean,

what I want to know. It would have to be something about, you know, gravity and stepping off that ledge, my friend. Mr. Wizard versus Sugar Ray? Who am I missing here? What is there? Is Mr. Wizard still around to mix it up on Twitter?

I don't know if he's alive, but in this hypothetical, we can definitely go with that. Yeah, you just want to fly? Well, I'm sorry. It takes a lot more. Don Herbert, Mr. Wizard left this earth in 2007, by the way. All right. So I can't put Carl Sagan on the card either.

That's right. We hear the billions and billions and billions of Twitter fights of media podcasts. This is the press box, a part of the ringer podcast network. Hello media consumers, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker here. Tons to get to this week, including LeBron James's former GM going on a fast break through the media to apologize to LeBron James. We've got the reinvention of Playboy, a really bad tweet from a New York Times editor and a harrowing story from the world of Quentin Tarantino's box office returns.

But David, I think we need to start with the twin acts of domestic terrorism over the weekend. One was in Dayton, Ohio, where a man named Connor Betts opened fire in the Oregon district there, killing nine. The other shooting took place at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, allegedly by Patrick Cruzias. He killed 21 people at the most recent count after publishing an online manifesto about the Hispanic invasion of Texas and quote unquote needless to say there. I think we should start here, at least with the media angle of all this awfulness, which is a question I saw raised a couple times in the wake of the shootings, which was, do we publish these kind of manifestos?

Should the press quote from them? Cruziuses, and again, this is at this point as we record this, his alleged manifesto, 2300 words. It was called an inconvenient truth. I wonder what Al Gore thinks about his. old documentary being used in such a way. He said, if we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can be more sustainable. He referenced the shootings at the mosques in New Zealand.

He said he supported the Christchurch shooter and his manifesto and said this attack his response, as I said to the Hispanic invasion of Texas. What do you think we should do about these things? I mean, I should say, it feels sort of like we're jumping into this conversation midstream because many, many people have been having it for way longer in this podcast has existed. But, yeah, I mean, I feel like, I feel like on some level it's more of a philosophical argument than it is a practical argument, right? I mean, I think that, you know, my gut instinct is that it's going to be out there one way or the other, and, you know, maybe there's something to be learned from quoting from it. But just, I mean, it's actually, you know, not totally the similar argument to a gun control argument, which is that,

You know, just because, you know, just the people who want it aren't necessarily going to find it. The people who this is going to adversely affect aren't necessarily going to get their hands on it if it's, if it's, you know, not red on the air, if it's not widely distributed. So, you know, in most instances, you know, I'm sort of a information nihilist and I think that, you know, just put it all out into the world and it'll be fine, but or what will happen will happen. but I do see the argument for not putting it out there. I think that, I mean, I don't want to get it. The argument goes basically like this, that if you put it out there that the next guy, probably will probably be a guy,

will see this and write his own version and do a similar thing. We'll be inspired by it in some way. Sure. That's the argument. And the counter argument, I would say, would be that this keeps happening, and racist terror from white shooters keeps happening and that as a society, we should try to understand what the hell is happening here.

And I don't mean that in the sense of understand, understand this guy and what can we do to help because who gives us fuck? But just understand how we stop future attacks like this and how we identify people who are going to do stuff like this. And that just seems like that. like a, that just seems like a gigantic public good that to me would outweigh whatever concerns you have about suppressing the information. I don't think anybody's agitating or arguing for a law against it, I mean, against distributing the stuff. And I think that it is,

in some ways, it's a, it's, and it's not a matter of taste, but it's, I think it's a matter of, I mean, I think it's a little bit of a case-by-case basis, right? I mean, it makes, like, I can understand and I appreciate the decision made by, you know, outlets like CNN to not say the name, to not report the name of the, of the terrorists in question, right? It's not to, because there's some argument that publicizing their name was sort of like glorifying them and that will encourage other, you know, people who are adult in various ways to follow that, follow in those footsteps. I guess, I guess going along those lines, I don't see any reason why you can, you couldn't just say mainstream television outlets don't go like repeating, you know, probably

shouldn't be like trumpeting, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the quote's from the manifesto. But if you want to find it, it's, like, readily available on whatever government resource or, or just, you know, some sort of drier print outlet than, you know, than the television option. But, yeah, I mean, I think, I think in some ways it's going to be on the outlets, it's always going to be on the outlets to sort of police themselves. I get the CNN thing about not naming the guys. And, you know, I'm all for not doing the glamor shots treatment that the Boston Marathon bomber got from Rolling Stone back in the day on the cover. That's obviously glorifying, glamorizing, et cetera, et cetera.

But, you know, these are these are gigantic news events. And if you're trying to imagine a hypothetical person deciding whether to do this, you know, the fact that CNN, at least in my drive in this morning, is live on the scene in El Paso. 24-7 talking about nothing but this and the fact that they just don't name the shooter. I mean, I'm not sure that would be enough of a discourager. And I just think most information should be free. If this, you know, the manifesto thing is available somewhere online, I'd rather have it available where reputable news outlets are going, look at this racist thing.

This is why it's wrong. This is why these ideas are evil. I'd rather have it in that form annotated than just oh look what I found on the internet so the more that the more that it's attached to that I think is better and yeah I'm just Shane Bauer from Mother Jones tweeted this not publishing manifestos clearly isn't preventing mass shootings

and the performative I'm not going to publish the manifesto but let me tell you what I think about it take is annoying and unproductive we should all have access to this material I don't know it all it all feels like it all feels like the press's version of thoughts and prayers to me like now now this awful thing has happened uh 20 plus people are dead in el paso nine more in date now we will we will do this one sort of gesture it's one thing uh as is our kind of way of saying never again but that's not going to do it you know and and i don't know it just feel it feels to me i think it comes from a good place but it feels to me mostly symbolic and performative

and not something that's really going to make a difference. Well, I mean, yeah, I think largely I agree with you. I'm not sure that performative, I mean, I think it's okay to be performative, performative in some ways, and this is probably one that's for a greater good. I don't think there's a lot of back patting going on, although it might come across that way. I mean performative in the sense of like, we think this is what we should be doing

without really thinking very hard about whether this is going to make a difference or not. You know, it's sort of like this, just everybody goes into this, into modes and these kinds of things, rather than rethinking the issues. That's all I mean about it. I agree with that. I'm not sure that it's a net negative thing, though. The other big media story here is 8chan,

which is the message board where this and two previous attacks have been announced. Those were the Christchurch attack and the one in Poway, California. Frederick Brennan, who started the message board in 2013, tells the New York Times, shut the site down. It's not doing the world any good. It's a complete negative to everybody except the users that are there. And you know what? It's a negative to them too.

They just don't realize it. One of the providers, Cloud Flair, said it was going to stop working with 8chan on Sunday night. The site went down at 3 Eastern Time. But this is, again, one of those things. It's an interesting idea in putting pressure on providers, right, to stop sort of doing these things is, you know, to stop, you know, working with sites like this is something that's worked for other white supremacist sites in the past. Yeah. And it's an interesting strategy, but this just feels like something that's going to, it's going to, it's going to be out there somewhere in the world.

But I guess you make it harder for these things, the ideas you make it harder for people to find this stuff. Yeah. I mean, I think that's pretty simple. I think that it's, you know, I'm not, I'm not, it's always a little bit uncomfortable when people just kind of, go after, you know, a provider of any sort to take, to see service to anybody, no matter who it is. I mean, it's, it seems like, you know, when it's a, when a campaign is mounted, you can't help but feel like that campaign could be mounted in the opposite or any, a significantly different direction at some point in the future. But this did seem like, I mean, as far as these things go, a fairly organic version of it. I mean, it was, this is Cloudfare who had previously defended their right to host H. Chan, kind of just realizing,

it was not, it was, you know, well, it was either too much of a PR headache or that they had, they had, you know, exceeded the bounds of whatever philosophy the hosting site had to keep them up. As recently as Sunday afternoon defended it before making a different decision Sunday night, if I remember right by. Yeah, I mean, I think when they were, when they took down Stormfront, I mean, this was the same company that was hosting Stormfront. And Stormfront has found it very difficult to continue. without them as the host because they couldn't really find anyone else. Now, Aitchan, I don't think is going to have that issue, but certainly might be slower and might be less, you know,

might hurt the site in any number of other ways. But when they took down Stormfront, I think, I mean, the daily stormer, sorry, I think was the previous case. If I remember correctly, it came down to sort of not just a philosophical. I mean, it was largely philosophical, but there was also the issue of moderation. And I think that, in that, you know, when terrible stuff was up, it didn't come down quick enough, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, at some point you have to look at Cloudfair, not as a moderator, but, you know, I mean, you ask the question of how much they have to be aware of the stuff that they're hosting. And I think it's a fair, I think it's fair to say that on Sunday when they were pressed that maybe they didn't, maybe didn't know fully what his site, I mean, what the site they were hosting had been turned into or evolved, slowly evolved into. But it's been no secret that H. I mean, that H. Chan has been, you know, a petri dish for a lot of this kind of stuff for a long time. It's, if you visit the part, the kind of more sterile versions of parts of the internet,

that attract people, like the 8-Chane crowds, there's a sort of vibrant argument, chicken and the egg argument about whether or not, similar to guns, similar to whatever else, that these crazy people, that, you know, eliminating access to these sites won't stop these crazy people from being crazy, and it's not the sites themselves,

the sites are all ironic, et cetera, et cetera. But, you know, it's really hard, it's really hard to buy that. And Frederick Brennan, aka Hot Wheels in his heyday, is a great example of someone who was, you know, fully in on the, um, on the kind of nihilism of free speech argument and, uh, and,

and, you know, consequences be damned and has since, you know, to whatever degree seen the light. Um, and he's not the first person in that, in that situation to do it.

They started the creator for Chan, uh, went through a similar kind of conversion at some point, which was the predecessor to eight Chan. Anyway, long digression. But yeah, I mean, it's, it does seem silly to say take down the site, especially when it's like an open message board to take down the site would make a big difference. But, I mean, I think it's really hard to imagine that it, I mean, it's clear from the contents of the site that they're glorifying, whether or not it's ironically, not most people aren't getting the joke.

If the average news journalist isn't getting the joke, certainly a lot of these prospective killers aren't getting the joke. Terrorists aren't getting the joke. People are glorifying these acts, are glorifying white. supremacy are creating memes and and and and continuing the legacy of these killers, these terrorists after their acts, whether or not you're joking, I think that a civilized society can agree that it's appropriate to condemn these jokes and to not, you know, if this were happening at your family reunion, you would kick your uncle out. And I think it's fine to say like that website doesn't need to be hosted by my web server. These shootings already have a political

resonance in the 2020 campaign. And I like that. the point that the Washington Post, Dave Weigel made in his newsletter, the trailer. He writes, the El Paso shooting could be a defining moment the Democratic primary and presidential race, not because the candidates are scrambling for an advantage, but because they're in agreement. The 2020 Democrats share the same agenda on gun control, and they've confidently called the president a racist and handed him the blame for white supremacist violence. For example, here is Beto O'Rourke, who is, of course, from El Paso, side of one of those shootings talking about the president. Is there anything in your mind that the president?

can do now to make this any better. What do you think? You know the shit he's been saying? He's been calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. I don't know. Like, members of the press, what the fuck? Hold on a second.

You know, it's these questions that you know the answers to. I mean, connect the dots about what he's been doing in this country. He's not tolerating racism. He's promoting racism. He's not tolerating violence. He's inciting racism

and violence in this country. So, you know, I just, I don't know what kind of question that is. That's Beto being a press critic. Interestingly, he sounds like a lot of people on Twitter criticizing New York Times or major papers for not labeling Trump's rhetoric to be racist. Wigel goes on to note that Elizabeth Warren had held back when reporters asked whether Trump himself was racist this weekend. She did not. So the shootings, David, had an interesting, haven't had an interesting sort of effect on, on calls. causing Democrats to sort of go places they hadn't gone.

Speaking of which, Trump also said in his remarks about the shootings, God bless the memory of those who perished in Toledo, as opposed to Dayton, Ohio. And as I was driving in, Tim Ryan, presidential candidate from Ohio, addressed those remarks on CNN. It's hard. I mean, it's just, it's heartbreaking because he's showing a diminished capacity, mental capacity to be able to lead. And that's what I see when I hear that. I mean, this is, this is an, you could grab anybody on the streets of the United States and they would know Dayton and El Paso after the last 36 hours. And to have the president of the United States, it just shows the level of disengagement. It's indicative of what else he said during that press conference,

how disconnected he is from what's happening in the country today. I just, I think he has a diminished mental capacity to be able to deal, with the big problems that we have in the United States today. Would you make a rolling that out a phrase he was definitely determined to get in there a couple of times, diminished mental capacity? I mean, that's not a thing that's going to stick with me after, I mean, through this whole thing. I don't know if it's a decision to, I mean, politically to try to go a step further than the competition in the primary. I don't know if it's, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I think at this point, I feel like that argument has been bandied about in so many of these circles for so long that I think at this point, to me, when I heard it all it did was it seemed like a sort of excuse. I mean, it seems like this is actually, it does, it sort of gives some explanation to the fact that Donald Trump backs the way he does, you know? He's not a racist because he has a mental, he's diminished mental capacity. He's a racist because he's a racist.

Yeah, I mean, it's just, I guess what's interesting to me is that a shooting, the shootings like we saw this weekend are so just horrific that then you have the sort of effect of Democrats saying things they wouldn't normally say. Those are not, you know, the idea that Donald Trump is a racist or that Donald Trump is, as, as Ryan says there has some kind of diminished mental capacity or not odd things to see on Twitter here and there, especially. among writers. But it's interesting to me that this, this kind of event is just so breathtaking that then candidates advance two steps up the board and go there. You know, again, it's just like, I mean, this isn't the first time Donald Trump has made a mistake when he's talking, when he's talking about the shooting. So, yeah, but I think that it's, I think that it's relevant in the same way that we've talked about, you know, I talked about Biden recently, but another candidates too, um, how,

And this really does, I mean, this is a very minor point. But when you, a minor gaff, if it underscores a preconceived notion about you, then it, it can have a lot of, it can carry a lot of weight. And this is just like the greatest preconceived notion about Donald Trump is that he doesn't, you know, give a fuck about these, about situations like this, that he's, that he doesn't, has no compassion and certainly has no, no interest in engagement when it's, you know, the sort of very fine people he sees chance. before. So I mean, I think that it's, in this case, it's a, it's a, it's a, you know, two-second meme, but it, you know, there is some, there is some legitimacy to discussing it. If Democrats have been emboldened, Republicans have struggled to respond to the shootings, according to another piece in the Washington Post. One rhetorical conceit we saw was to blame video games. Here is the president of the United States. Second, we must stop the glorification

of violence in our society. This includes the gruesome and grisly video games that are now commonplace. It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence. We must stop or substantially reduce this, and it has to begin immediately. I thought we got in tipper gore from the mid-90s back there for a second. R gruesome video games. I thought we're going to talk about hip hop there for a second, but Trump stopped with video games.

Tim Scott, Republican Senator from South Carolina, who dealt with his own shooting at the Emmanuel Church in Charleston in 2015 was on Face the Nation this weekend and defended the idea, the much debased idea of thoughts and prayers. The good news for our community was that our community came together through prayer. A lot of folks say that prayers don't matter why I will disagree with them vehemently because of prayer. the five, the nine family members forgave the shooter and brought unity into our state in a way that we have not seen in the history of the state, frankly. You see the kind of rhetorical sleight of hand there. You, of course, don't need to deny anybody the ability or opportunity to heal with prayer after a mass shooting.

Yeah. Whatever works. But praying after the fact does not stop the mass shooting from happening in the first place. How, like, how wildly must one be grasping at the straw? I mean, how far, how just far gone do you have to be, to be defending your thoughts and prayers tweets against the fact that those tweets have become, have started to become ridiculed, justifiably ridiculed?

Like, it's not just, no one's stopping you from tweeting your thoughts and prayers. It's just people are joking about it now because they're pointing out just the atomic level of uselessness that those tweets have. No one's stopping you from tweeting these things, but you feel the need to defend the necessity of the tweets? I mean, come on. Engage with the issue for a second. It's just scrambling up to higher ground, right? Some people would say we shouldn't pray after an event.

Like, no, but nobody's saying that. All right, David, let's segue awkwardly to the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Please send your nominees to at the press box pod where they will be gratefully received. While we were busy with debate pods, David, the MLB trade deadline happened. And this is one thing I can safely say that you only engaged with in your duties as an art director, because I was sitting next to you during the MLB trade deadline. Got a couple of jokes about that.

We got one from Mark Feinsand, MLB.com reporter and MLB Network Insider. he writes that when he reported that the Astros had traded Tyler White to the Dodgers for a minor league pitcher named Andre Scrub. Andre Scrub. His mentions were filled with a joke. Tyler White was literally traded for A Scrub. A scrub. That's good.

Thanks to Mark for that one. That's a great social cue for our 1999 music week, of which no scrubs featured very prominently. Nice plug there. Another recurring bit, David happens when a player gets traded to the Oakland A's, the financially constrained franchise that plays in one of the crappiest stadiums in the world. It was an overwork Twitter joke to say, why I'm joining the athletics. Because the Reds told me I had to, thanks to a guy named Samuel Evers for that one. And can I tell you a story about Samuel Evers, David?

Please. I was in New York last week to do those debate pods with you. and I'm on the subway. I'm on the four train. And this person comes up to me and says, are you Brian? And I said, yeah. And it was Samuel Evers.

And he said, I recognized you by your voice. Yeah. On the four train in New York. And there's two things that are amazing about that. One is how flattering to be recognized in any capacity, number one. And number two,

and more importantly, my wife was with me. What a moment in our marriage. When I can turn to her. and say, did you hear that? First of all, I'm glad she was there. I'm glad she got to share in that moment with you. Second of all, I'm especially glad she was there

because if she weren't, that must mean you were just talking to random strangers or yelling out, just yelling words into the air on the train, which I wouldn't put past you. I'm glad that there was someone there that you were talking to. Anyway, thanks to Sam for making my day and then some. A couple of more jokes from the Democratic debates, David. One was about, remember Joe Biden trying to spit out the name,

of what he thought was a web address and turned out to be a number you were supposed to text. It was an overwork Twitter joke to say, to paraphrase Biden saying, if you agree with me, go to, and then Biden spits out the nuclear code sequence. Thanks to Marcus Crats for that one. That was quite a moment. Another one during the interminable playing of the national anthem that began both nights of the debates. It was an overwork Twitter joke to say, which candidate will have the balls to take a knee? Thanks to skirt Rambus.

And I put that in there because I believe, David, we actually made that joke during the podcast afterwards. So we are guilty. If you imagine one of the Democratic candidates going the full Kaepernick like we did, congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. All right, David, before we talk about LeBron James and his former GM, let's take a quick break. Today's episode is brought to you by Luminary, a new podcast subscription service with some of the best content around. I'm excited about Luminary because it's the only place you can.

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Terms apply. All right, David, time for the notebook dump. Let's start with LeBron James versus David Griffin. David Griffin, if you don't know, was the GM of the Cleveland Cavaliers when LeBron James and the Cavs won the 2016 NBA title. Griffin is now GM of the New Orleans Pelicans. And he sat for a profile with Jake Fisher of Sports Illustrated and made a few loose comments about his time in Cleveland that made some news. On the weird franchise building you have to do when LeBron plays for your team, he said, quote, everything we did was so inorganic and unsustainable and frankly not fun.

I was miserable. Literally the moment we won the championship, I knew I was going to leave. He said of the stress of doing the job. The reason is LeBron is getting all the credit and none of the blame and that's not fun for people. They don't like being part of that world. Of LeBron winning the title in 16, he said, there wasn't a lot else for him. I don't think he's the same animal anymore about winning.

And he also said, I just totally lost my joy for the game. LeBron's camp told ESPN they were shocked at the comments. LeBron himself seemed to sub-tweak Griffin when he said, all right, all right. Enough is enough. The throne has been played with too much. And I ain't for horseplay ether coming soon, along with a bunch of emoji. per ESPN.

This is my favorite part of any one of these stories. Griffin and a person close to James spoke to each other after the SI story was published. Dot, dot, dot. And James's camp encouraged Griffin to clear up his stance

on the record. I almost said clean up. It would have been the same effect. Clear up his stance on the record, sources said. This is an amazing media transaction here. David Griffin gets a profile written about it.

David Griffin expects said profile to be a happy thing, which by the way it was. The whole thing was about here's the guy rebuilding the Pelicans and what he's been through in his life, had some personal details about he and his wife trying to have children and all, lots of different things about it. He says a couple of things about LeBron. Obviously LeBron or LeBron Inc. gets mad. And then he has to hustle out and. clean up what he said.

Did you appreciate this whole bit as much as I did? Because I just loved it. I just loved every second. It did become, I mean, yeah. I mean, the sort of comedy was, was there. I mean, it was hilarious. Because nothing was wrong here. No.

Nothing he said was different than anything we know about LeBron. No, no, no. And not just that. But, I mean, one of my favorite parts of the story was the sort of, it's sometimes subtle, it's sometimes not so subtle word that came bubbling up from media Twitter where people were saying or report quote unquote reporting secondhand that David Griffin had been saying all of these things

off the record for some times. It'd be really weird to see him deny them outright. That was when like the media tour was going on. A lot of people who were kind of stretching the off the record now in this moment of necessity, you know, to point out that David Griffin's never been shy about this stuff. And I think that I mean, there was actually some indication that he was a little bit difficult.

It was a little bit difficult to keep track of being on and off the record with David Griffin more so than some people. And I saw some theory that maybe he was a little bit too loose with that in this interview and certainly wasn't suspecting or expecting this to be the outcome on the SIP. Certainly the Sports Illustrated piece. certainly if you if you if you if you if I mean to accept the sort of sad state of modern media for for 30 seconds you can imagine a situation where he says these sort of things sort of curry favor to to you know have like some sort of sense of of engagement with whoever is covering him and then the reporter sure yeah with the reporter give the reporter some juicy stuff they can tell their friends but they can't write and then expect you were going to put it in the piece yeah

And then in this piece in particular, you know, you, this, this, I mean, again, stipulating this is, you know, this is an evil, sad media world that we're living in, that he go to the piece just, I mean, you go to the SI or whatever outlet just to say, hey, we want to pitch you this puff piece on David Griffin. And in the process of, you know, kind of getting the SI to write exactly what you have to write. You kind of, you know, spill all this tea about LeBron James. And then the SI people are just like, you know, let's just put it in. That's our, that's the get, you know. Of course. Jake Fisher isn't stupid. I don't know of them at all, but I'm doing a piece on some guy named David Griffin, and he tells me interesting stuff about LeBron James. So what am I going to pick? Interesting stuff about LeBron James or interesting stuff about David Griffin. I picked the LeBron James one.

Yeah. I know an NBA Twitter, David Griffin is a big deal, but let's be serious here. Griffin hustled over to the ESPN show The Jump, which is the NBA show of record. to defend himself or at least clear things up, clean things up, and he said this. When I was speaking about being uncomfortable and, quote, being miserable, it was my inability to deal with that media scrutiny. It wasn't the man himself. It was everything that came with a team led by LeBron James.

It had nothing to do with being miserable with LeBron. We had and have a very positive relationship. So that was one issue. I wasn't miserable with LeBron. I was just personally miserable. Oh Well, it's kind of great Well,

Brown was the biggest figure in the franchise, but he didn't cause any of my misery. It was all self-inflicted. Okay. Okay. And I said, by the way, let's just let this clip run because I want you to hear more

one more bite of Griffin talking about the SIPs. The other thing that bothered me the most, and frankly, none of this really matters other than the fact that it's inherently wrong. The story was all designed to be about the Pelicans and how our past

and how everything we had learned through our failings, we were going to apply to how we want to build this Pelican's family. And the writer got a great deal of information from many, many people in the organization about our team and what we were trying to do. So I was disappointed that the story really became about me and a sensationalized version of quotes that were taken totally out of context. And quite frankly, none of the information was new information. I've said this many times in media while working in media for the last two years prior to coming back. So I was just disappointed with the way everything got presented.

None of this matters other than it was inherently wrong. Seems like that part would matter. Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that, I think that sort of the most interesting part about this, he could have just put out a statement. Like that really, like, I did say those things or many of those things that does not,

the outcome does not reflect my feelings about LeBron James or my time with the Cavaliers, and I apologize for the misconception, you know, for the misconception. But he didn't. He went on the jump, like you said, the platform of all real-time NBA corrections, I guess, and did so apparently at the behest of someone in LeBron's camp. And I think that that's sort of most intriguing and most sort of questionable, right, that I mean, you would want to make it right and you'd want to make it right to somebody. If you, if you, if you, if you, if I said something bad about you and, uh, someone put the audio

of it on Twitter, this would be a great controversy, by the way, Brian. Um, and you were, and you were, and you were just like, that'd be big. And you were like, well, that's great, but you have to apologize on Twitter. Because, you know, I would like, I, I can understand the logic there and you do it. You kind of have to do what the aggrieved person says if you want to make it right in some ways. But at the same time, these are, these are business competitors. I mean, these are two people who, I mean, if you want to just assume LeBron has a significant amount of control over the Lakers, you know, do it. But these are representatives of two teams that just made a massive trade in the NBA, right? And now one of them has leverage over the other one.

Enough leverage to make someone go on television and publicly apologize. Well, I mean. Yeah, no. And I'd say two things. One is it just, it's like the point he was making when he said those things was that LeBron was so powerful within the Cleveland. in franchise that it made my life miserable. He was so powerful that it affected everything in these crazy ways. Now what he's doing by coming forward and cleaning up what he said is saying, LeBron is

so powerful than the NBA that it makes my life miserable even when I say like things to a Sports Illustrated writer. It's the same point. Yeah. It's just being made in two different ways. The point at the end of the day is LeBron is all powerful. Well, listen, I think that that's the point. I mean, I think that that's what, from the point of view of LeBron's camp, I don't think they care.

I mean, I think at this point, especially, they don't, they don't, I don't think that, are we sure? Like you said, this stuff has been out there. I think they're smart enough to know that it's not about the content, it's about the perception, right? And if they were, and if, you know, there's a difference between, there's a difference between, like, talking shit about your buddy when you're sitting together in a bar and then, and then, you know, saying it with a straight face to, like, a girl he's trying to date. right and this was whatever the meta whatever metaphor i'm trying to pull here this was the latter but say i want

let's cast the roles of who's the who's the girl he's trying to do here i think i think that what david griffin said in explanation if not you know the contents are super wishy-washy whatever else but the explanation i think was right i mean it was just like yeah i've said this stuff before it's just the way it was framed and i think i think on the one hand lebron's camp was just like as long as the as long as the narrative that continues at this point is not that lebron is a terrible co-worker or you know a bad boss or whatever, then that can continue. But then also, you know, if you want to go down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, I think what I was saying before, I mean, maybe it's more advantageous to have a cowed David Griffin working at another team in the league than it is to,

you know, actually like get rid of the guy. Here's what I don't like. You can go on the jump and say, well, you know, here's what I really feel about LeBron. Here's what I meant to say. it is taking an additional step to attack the writer and accuse him of sensationalizing this and taking your stuff out of context. That is an additional step. And I don't know that public figures realize it when they're doing it because they're so desperate to put forward whatever PR thing they want to put forward that they don't realize you're attacking somebody else's reputation here. And you can do one without the other. Now, there may be some case where you truly feel like that. But that is the stock answer whenever you're unhappy with the way a story comes out is to say this is, this was sensationalized and taken out of context.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, the power imbalance is so severe in this, in almost all of those situations. Totally. And by the way, I didn't see this episode of the jump, but I would have, if this had been my dream show, we would have had Jake Fisher on for five minutes after this. Why don't you tell us what you think? Yeah. You know, you tell us.

And as of yesterday, anyway, he'd been pretty quiet on Twitter about the whole thing. But, you know, I always love that. And I think this was, you know, Griffin here is giving, gave an actually pretty full explanation of what he meant. But to me, whenever I hear, whenever I hear a public figure say, my quotes were taken out of context, the next question should be, what is the context? What was the context? You tell us. Because that's not an answer. Also, by one another funny thing, is that Griffin in the piece bashed Phoenix as ownership?

He used to work with the Sons. I didn't hear him come on and clean up those comments. And you know why? Because nobody cares about the Sons. Nobody cares. There's nothing to clean up. Yeah. Yeah.

The Sons bashing, that's okay. That part Jake Fisher got in the correct context and didn't sensationalize. So thanks for that very much. Department of Redisines, David, or reboots, maybe. I enjoyed a piece in the New York Times by an old co-worker Jessica Bennett about the re-rereinvention of Playboy. Boy magazine. Playboy is one of those outlets that has been rebooted throughout our entire lives. There's never been a part of our life where Playboy wasn't being reconceived. And Bennett says the newest version, at least according to the people who run it, is a newer,

woker, more inclusive Playboy. Bennett writes that members of the staff, you use terms like intersectionality, sex positivity, privileging, and lived experience to describe their editorial vision. Which leads me to the line, I just buy it for the intersectionality. That's my new joke. A couple of things you might not know, David. Playboy is now a quarterly. I'm not sure I knew that.

It's ad-free. Its audience is a couple hundred thousand, according to the people who run it, so round down. The nudity was briefly gone, but now it's back. The Playboy bunnies, Bennett writes, are paid as freelancers and often continue to represent Playboy at public events. The company said it was working to provide them with health care benefits, which leads me to think that every media story is the same at the end of the day. It's all about benefits. Playboy, Coyne Doids,

chief executive is becoming a goop-like brand. That was his wording. It's working to expand into skin care, sex toys, sexual wellness, and get ready, cannabis. Because when your brand is,

when you're just totally done as a thing that people actually consume, you become like a cannabis brand. That's Willie Nelson at this point. You know, that's like Dennis Hopper in some, in some, in some celestial way is probably a cannabis brand at this point.

Yes, I'm sure that's true. That's the moment. Anyway, that's what I thought was, that was pretty good. Well, I'll be excited to see this evolution, this rebranding take place. Debate cleanup, David. Last week we talked about the second round of the Democratic debates. A couple of things we didn't get to. One is the obvious question is, when are people going to start dropping out?

And in the New York Times, Sydney, Ember and Katie Gluck say, not anytime soon. And here are the reasons. One is the Iowa State Fair is about to start. Nice. State fairs are important mainly during political campaigns. And more than 20 candidates, also Texas OU, by the way, but I'm glad to throw that in there. More than 20 candidates are scheduled to attend the state fair.

Even Seth Moulton, congressman from Massachusetts, who didn't make either round of the debates, has a speech plan there. 22 candidates are also going to the Iowa Democratic Ways. wing ding, which is a dinner that cost you $35 to attend. Michael Avenati was at last year's wing ding to tell you how fast history moves. Wait, is the wing ding, is that $35 for unlimited wings, too? So this is the thing. We explain everything in the newspaper, you know?

Albert Einstein, comma, a favorite scientist, a famous scientist, comma. We didn't explain the wing ding. And I went looking everywhere and everyone seemed to, everyone seemed to just, just, think that we all know what the wing ding is. I was looking into this for like a good five, ten minutes and I could not confirm that it's a wing dinner or what exactly it is. The wing ding. The steak fry, which is also happening in Des Moines in September, it's pretty self-explanatory. There was a fish fry right in South Carolina.

Do we just do the fish fry in South Carolina? Sure. Which was a famous thing, but the wing ding. So anyway, this is keeping it. The wing ding is keeping people in the campaign. The big problem for these people, David, in terms of, of dropping out as money. Moulton, Tim Ryan,

John Hicken, Loper, and Bill de Blasio, the Times reports each have less than a million dollars of cash on hand. They also have until August 28th to meet the threshold to qualify for the September debates. The Times thinks that only about 10 to 12 Democrats are going to make it.

So what you're saying is they're all going to stay in the race because they want to show up to the Iowa State Fair. Well, they've made a commitment to show up to the Iowa State Fair. All right. I can understand that commitment. I went to Cecil, Cecil County, Maryland, Cecil County. I'm not sure which one. Maybe somebody from Cecil or Cecil or Cecil County can drop in. I want to say, I prefer Cecil. Obviously,

it's close to your heart, but go ahead. I just always say, I just saw it written down. No one ever said Cecil or Cecil County. But I went to their state fair a couple weeks ago. It was a grand time. I saw the biggest cattle I've ever seen in my life. And I can understand the allure for work or play going to the Iowa State Fair. I wish I could go. There wasn't a man in red, white, and blue standing out front going, welcome to the Cecil County Fair. Yeah, Tim Ryan was actually there in case that's what you're asking. I didn't realize it until he was getting arrested. I think it would be John Delaney, by the way, isn't he, the Marylander among our presidential candidates? Just cleaning up for you there.

Bad tweet of the week, David. You and I shrug off a lot of criticism of the New York Times, but this one back on July 31st from Jonathan Wiseman, who is the paper's deputy Washington editor. Whoa. He was trying to get into a debate about Claire McCaskill's punditry, which we should maybe talk about it some other time, about what Midwest voters want. And Weissman fired off this tweet saying Rashida Tlebe and Elon Omar are from the Midwest

is like saying Lloyd Doggett or is from Texas or John Lewis is from the deep south. Come on. Yeah. Yeah. With a lot of bad tweets, you can at least understand where we were going. Yeah. And how the train got off the tracks. I really don't understand that one. Once this tweet was explained to me and not, this was, Jonathan Weissman's tweet nor his follow-ups did any, did not explain it at all. Once I figured out eventually what he was trying to say, I mean, I vaguely get it.

I mean, as someone who's like from the South but never lived outside of a big city in my childhood, I get vaguely what he was kind of getting at here. But this is not the kind of thing that you can be inarticulate about, right? This is not the kind of like offhanded, this is not the sort of like offhanded Twitter sarcasm that can just skate by, especially not when you're Jonathan Weissman editor for the New York Times. This is just like, I mean, wow, wow. You got to hear these things. Maybe you should just read your tweets out loud

before you press send because that's like I mean it just sounds so I mean it's just terrible. I just yeah And so the point the point he was trying to make is that From big cities if you're from big cities in the region You're not really from the region That was the not totally offensive point

He was trying to get across But it came off It actually is offensive though I mean I don't understand I don't I don't get it at all No I know I mean it's it's a many people take offense to it even if he said it if he if he said it articulately um as inarticulately as he as he said it it came off really offensive and then there's the sort of not even subtext but the meta text of him ideing these congresspeople in the exact same way

that president trump has when trump's explicitly explicit intention was to uh do racial dog whistles So when you're picking the same targets and you're like, well, they're not really from where they say they are. Wink, wink, wink. I mean, Jesus, it's just so ridiculous. I thought Lloyd Doggett being on the list, Lloyd Doggett, whose office I used to intern in when I was in college, really saved this from being a professional catastrophe for him.

Because otherwise, you know, it's like, why are we only targeting people of color here? I just didn't get it at all. Department of box office, David. does anything make us dumber than writing about movie box office numbers? If you said writing about sports TV ratings, you're correct,

but we're talking about box office here. I saw the headline all over the place a couple of weeks ago, once upon a time in Hollywood is Quentin Tarantino's biggest box office opening of his career. Okay? Mm-hmm. The biggest open.

Seems like an uncontroversial headline. Here it is, once upon a time made about 40.35 million in its opening weekend versus inglorious bastards back in 2009, which made $38 million. There are two reasons why spreading this little ritz cracker of a tweet is really dumb. One is that once upon a time in Hollywood costs more than $90 million to make.

And glorious bastards cost $70 million. So if I told you two movies made about the same amount of money, but one was $20 million cheaper to make, wouldn't that be a more significant fact rather than this is the biggest opening of QT screen? That would seemingly be important. Yes. Here's the other thing. If we plug the figures into the old Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator, which is the only sane way to think about box office, glorious bastards, $38 million back in 2009 becomes $45 million, which is more than once upon a time in Hollywood. So pure ignorance got us to this place. And again, is this a big deal? No, it's not. But there's already so much dumb stuff in the world. And whenever I see extra dumb put into the world and in smart people or smartish websites retweeting extra dumb, there's no point to it. Other than you're just doing publicity for the studio or for the filmmaker, right?

It doesn't matter. If you really like Once About a Tom in Hollywood, that's great. It doesn't matter how much money it makes. It really doesn't. It certainly doesn't matter if it's like two million more than some other Quentin Tarantino movie, which you also probably liked. I just I just you know Yeah I mean the other option I mean the other explanation

and they're not disconnected is that you're just like fishing for engagement right and the tweet this is the biggest That is what it is So it does so if you're And you're accident is you're fishing for engagement And thereby accidentally doing PR for the movie But the but the fishing for engagement is

I mean geez that's what Like wait Huh? We do it everybody does it But like way to typify everybody's like like you know Complaints about the mainstream media Or whatever in the modern era that they care more about clicks and they do about facts.

I mean, if you're really just, if you're, if you're just walking just straight into that, that cliche, then like, well, like, have fun. Because it's a more exciting story to say that this was the biggest opening rather than this, you know, made about as much, in fact, perhaps a little less than another one of his movies. But again, it's just, it's a Monday, right? And everybody's like, it's so much more exciting to say this is the biggest than it is to tell, actually say what happens. happen. All right, time for David Shoemaker guess is a

strain pun headline. We never sensationalize anything. David, by the way, we have so many of these stacked up in our shared Google Doc that we may need to do a super cut one of these days. I'm telling you, we should do, we should do a game show. We should invite some other people in and do a strain pun headline game show.

And we'll bank it for like Thanksgiving week. I'm going to get one of those long, slender mics like Bob Barker used to use. Yeah, Drew Kerry still uses that mic, I think Oh, that's right, okay, Drew Carey currently uses, and we're going to do it. But we're going to burn them off one by one here on this show. And I got one for you, and this is so special,

it had to be a standalone. It's a Guardian column from Zoe Williams, well-known British columnist. Okay. And the subhead of the column is The Magical Wonder of Dried Chickpeas. What? The magic, I'll repeat,

the magical wonder of dried chickpeas. And this is exactly what it is. It's a kind of semi-comic love letter to dried chickpeas. Like the kind, like we have them in my house. Like you get a bag of dried chickpeas, like you get a bag of chips. Yes. These are not, these are not,

these don't have magic properties like in a fairy tailoring. These are just regular chickpeas. What is the Guardian's strain pun headline? Wait, what? All I have is say, say the subtitling. again? The magical wonder of dried chickpeas. And what do you do with chickpeas?

It's just Middle Eastern food? Mediterranean food? A chickpee is a legume. Oh, no. So it's a lagoon pun is what I'm looking for? That's right. And it's about how wonderful these chickpeas are? Uh-huh.

Well, it's just kind of a freestanding funny. Doom, room. Lagoon with a view. Yeah, legume with a view of you, a really good one. Panic, panic legume? It's a letter. Well, how would you start a letter? Oh.

To Lagoon it may concern? A legume it may concern. Holy shit. Who did that one? The magical wonder of dried chickpeas. Holy crap. Congrats to the Guardian. I'm not sure what to say about that.

For going there. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Research from Chris Almeida. Production from Jim Cunningham. More lukewarm. takes about the media on Friday. See you that. See you later. David? Hopefully, yeah. Welcome to the Cecil County Fair. Yeah, you just want to fly? Well, I'm sorry. Sex toys. What? And again, is it,

is this a big deal? No, it's not. What? But, what? There's already so much dumb stuff. Sure. And whenever I see extra dumb sex toys put into the world. What? And in smart people or smartish websites, Tweeting extra dumb? There's no point to it. Well, that's great, but you have to apologize on Twitter. Okay. Okay.