The Press Box - The Year in Media, Iran, Don Imus, and the Outros | The Press Box

Episode Date: January 4, 2020

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker discuss all things media from 2019 (03:00), the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week (20:00), Thursday night’s events in Iraq (22:00), the end of Julián Castro’s presidential campaign (28:45), the passing of Don Imus (36:15), and listener mail (46:30) before Jim Cunningham wraps up the show with 'The Press Box' Outros - Volume I. (57:45). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly, and welcome to The Ringer Podcast Network. We've published some great episodes in the month of December, including a rewatchable with Quentin Tarrant to talk about her redoubted Gerwig to talk about her new film Little Women on The Big Picture, and Adam Sandler and Kevin Garnett appeared on the Bill Simmons podcast to talk about their newest film on Cut Jems. Happy New Year from The Ringer. David, we're back. Pressbox is back. Yeah.

What I want to know is, how do you? did you spend your holiday vacation? Finally, a question I can answer. Let's see. We drove back and forth between New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania a number of times. It's basically just like, you know, it feels like sometimes it can feel like a pain in the ass, like packing up and getting out the door. But at some point you realize that this is basically the commute that many people in like the Dallas

Fort Worth Metroplex happen to their jobs every day. So I'm not, you know, nothing to really complain about there. I celebrated my birthday. I won't disclose my age. You know, it's impolite for you to ask. But my birthday, my baby son's birthday is the day after my birthday, and his cousin's birthday is the same as mine. So we had a triple bowling birthday party at a bowling alley in New Jersey.

That was, I don't know, I don't know, one of my favorite birthdays of all times. I guess it was my favorite, for sure, for sure. Don't disclose your birthday because then you'd be disclosing my age as well. Same here. Great Santa stuff under the tree. Lots of family time. Lots of Star Wars content as a family time.

Leavened or offset, I guess I should say, by me staring at a computer and wondering why I can't write. I mean, that's just, you know, why don't I have the ability to make journalism? So that's a always a potent holiday combination. We are the Chevy Chase and Beverly DeAngelo of Media Podcast. This is the press box, a part of the Ringer podcast network. Happy New Year media consumers. You've got Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker of the Ringer. Back with you with our first show of 2020.

Lots and lots to get to today. We'll talk about Thursday nights events in Iran. We'll bid farewell to the presidential campaign of Julian Castro. We'll bid a second farewell to radio host, Don Imus. And we've got a supersized bag of listener. plus the overwork Twitter joke of the week. But David, I want to start here on January 3rd by looking back at the year in media.

And here's the problem with doing this segment as I was jotting some notes down. How do we do this so that everything about 2019 in media doesn't sound completely apocalyptic? I'm not sure we can. Where's the smiley face? Do we dare like, in the second? segment by saying, but you know what?

Storytelling. Great storytelling. We'll triumph at the end of the day. Fuck that. I mean, if 2019 taught us anything, it's that that might not happen. Great storytelling, great writing, great reporting, great website, great whatever it is.

It might not crawl through the sewer pipe. And this is the first year of my career. and you know, I've been doing this for a couple of decades now, where when I talk to young people, I could no longer sort of put up the front of, it's going to be okay. We'll figure it out. I don't know how we're going to figure it out,

but we as a media industry will figure it out. I couldn't say that this year. I really couldn't. And my answer when people said, is it going to be okay, was I don't know. What about you? you. I mean, I don't have any, I don't, I mean, I don't have any, you know, obviously data or inside info that would, I could say to make anyone feel any better about it. I'm not sure if the, if the job, I, I feel comfortable that there will be jobs. I just don't know what they'll be. And I don't know if they'll be, you know, as plentiful. Although they're, you know, we could not have imagined, you know, anybody, I mean, anybody. I mean, anyone.

web property deadspin or anyone else employing the number of staff they had 10 years ago, right? So, I mean, there's those, the, the opportunities I think will continue. I just don't have any idea what they'll look like. But I, but overall, I mean, it's hard to be hard to feel optimistic after 2019. Yeah. And is it like, it's, there's a head count question, but there's also of like, how much will those jobs pay? Yeah. Are those going to be full-time jobs? Are they still going to be really, you know, good jobs? Are there going to be jobs that allow you to be a great writer and reporter, or is it going to be kind of a maven style job where you're this kind of entrepreneur kind of doing your own bit for the company? Like, I did a piece right at the end of the

year on this guy in New Orleans, Josh Katzstein. Really good reporter. He was a Saints beatwriter for the New Orleans Times Picayune. Had a sadly typical 2019 where his newspaper was basically swallowed by a competing newspaper in New Orleans. It still exists in name only, but it doesn't really exist. So he lost his job.

He was a really good reporter and the kind of guy who I think in a previous time of journalistic shittiness would have said, okay, what's my next gig? What do I do now? And when I went down there

and hung out with him, he was selling CBD products because he, he didn't necessarily want to go get another newspaper job and have the same thing happen in six months or a year. You know, and I think that began to happen more this year. People who saw themselves as journalists, who their entire, you know, professional sort of worldview was like, I am going to do this. I can't imagine doing anything else for a living. This last year was kind of the year they started imagining doing something else.

Yeah. I definitely think for the people who couldn't imagine doing anything else, that's been a real shift. There's also always going to be, you know, some level of attrition to other careers. And I think, I mean, you know, at least for my personal experience in journalism and publishing in New York City, you know, there's always going to be people who left to do other things. who found, who just found other lines of work along the way. And there's, and I can definitely sympathize with looking around and feeling like there are people around me with a lot more career certainty ahead of them than, than, you know, I or my, even, you know, coworkers have, just in the kind of general sense.

But that said, yeah, this is definitely, you could definitely sense a shift this year. And if they're, you know, we don't want to be in a, brain-drained situation for the good of the, you know, journalistic, you know, community, for the good of the country, I mean, the world, for the, you know, for the good of the readers. And just in general, it's, it's really disheartening. You mentioned Deadspin a second ago. Here's another very 2019 thing. Your favorite publication, your favorite, dare I say, journalistic brand gets taken over.

It still exists, but it's not the same thing. thing. It's a zombie. It is, to use a word I tried to use earlier this year, it has been mavened. It has turned into something else. That happened a ton in 2019. We focus on like Deadspin and Sports Illustrated because they're in the sports writing world and they were big national publications. But if you pick up a whole bunch of local newspapers in America, they've been mavened. They're the same name. Yeah. They come out. mostly at the same frequency, but they're not what they were at all. And they're not, they're not even trying to be what they were because they're owned by companies that are trying

to draw as much money as they can to squeeze as much money as they can out of subscribers who have an historical attachment to the paper or think they should subscribe to the paper. And all they're doing is putting out something with that title. That's all that matters to them. so they can draw more money out and draw more money out. And to me, like when I think of this year, man, that just seemed to be, that just seemed to take over the journalism world to a crazy extent that I can't remember it any time in the past.

Yeah, I mean, obviously there have been a lot of, you know, the Bane capitals of the world have been doing this sort of thing with other industries and other sorts of companies for a long time. but it does just reach this sort of like just endpoint of inanity in newspaper publishing when

yeah I mean of course anybody could look at I mean anybody could look at the state of a newspaper and say like the most profitable way to go forward is to fire everybody and hope that all the old people subscribing don't don't I mean continue to renew their subscriptions out of habit

right? That's what they've done. No I know I know but you look at that and you're, but no one can see that. I mean, no one should be able to see that and say, like, that makes that, I mean, no one should be able to, no one thinks, should think that makes any sense, right? I mean, it's like, I mean, it's like, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's cutting off the nose despite the face, right? I mean, it's, the fact that that's anybody's idea of a way forward is just, it's sort of mind boggling. But I guess all you're trying to do is repackage the asset,

then maybe that makes sense. I don't. That's what it is. It's, it's a good way forward. If you don't give a shit about either news or the newspaper. I went back to Fort Worth in October, Fort Worth, Texas, our old stomping grounds for the annual Texas Oklahoma football game, which is a gigantic sporting event in North Texas. I pick up the Fort Worth Star Telegram the next day, and they had AP wire copy for the game. This is 30 miles away. AP wire copy. Yeah. And I'll tell you the problem with when,

when you have your local publication gets hollowed out like that, what do you do? Because, you know, your first instinct, I think if you, if you like journalism, love journalism like we do, is I'm going to support journalism. I'm going to put my money where my mouth is, get out my credit card and subscribe. Guess what? You're giving money to the bad guys. The bad guys are going to take your money, but they're not going to make the newspaper anybody. Right. In fact, they're probably going to make it worse. So you're screwed there. You go, okay, I won't do that.

I'm going to give my money to someone else. Who? Who is going to cover Fort Worth, Texas, like the Star Telegram did? Who's going to cover pick any city in America? There's nowhere to go, right? I can go to the athletic and get that sports news that I was missing. But where am I going to get it all in one place? Where am I going to get all that other good stuff that's going to tell me,

you can't. So they've put people who want to help and want to do the right thing. And again, like I say, want to put their money where their mouth is in his terrible position, man. And that is that part of this whole process is to me in a way the most maddening and the craziest. Like what do we do if you're in that position? Yeah. I mean, what is the next generation?

I mean, sorry to make this sort of. of, you know, about the children out there. But I mean, what is the next generation of journalists going to do when they, when they say, oh, maybe I want to write for a newspaper someday and then they pick up the newspaper and realize that none of it's written by anybody within a thousand miles of them, right? I mean, it's, it's, I agree. I mean, it used to be that for nonprofits you would, you know, or this sort of, you know, an organization you really want to support.

You're right. You would take out your checkbook. you would donate, you would, maybe you would make a, maybe you would pledge a 10 year subscription or something like that, you know? And but that's, again, that's the opposite of what you can do because all it's doing is putting money in the pocket of people that don't care about what you're, what you're buying.

It's, it's sad to say, I just don't even, it's hard to imagine what the way out of this is. I mean, frankly, it's hard to imagine that, I mean, that anybody thought this was a good, gambit, but I guess it's working out for somebody out there who's trying to, you know, multiply pennies or whatever. Here's one more bit of terrible news from 2019. I don't even know if this was a 2019 thing, but it occurred to me more in 2019 because

I'm slow, which is that it's become really, really hard to make people, even people that are sympathetic to the media understand why Capital J fully employed, quote unquote, professional journalists are important. Once again, drawing from my own experience here. My uncles, whom you know, are huge Dallas Cowboy fans. They love the Dallas Cowboys. They send me two kinds of articles about the Cowboys when they email them to me. One is from blog aggregation services. And the other is from Dallas Cowboys.com. So they are not supporting the kind of sports writers, the kind of professional newspaper people, athletic people that we're talking about. They're not doing that. And they're not anti-mainstream media in some kind of Trumpy way. They just don't see the point of it.

Because they're like, well, I just go to all these random things and I find everything that I need. So why would I do anything differently? And to sit down and explain to them, no, no, you need to send a credit card payment into the Dallas Morning News every month of the athletic or by the way, we could do this with political news. You can do whatever you want. It's really hard because there's just so much stuff out there. Yeah. I don't even know how to, I wouldn't even know how to make the case. Yeah, I was thinking about that when, when Deadspin shut down, that I was, you know, looking at, I mean, deadspin, and also Splinter news before

that, same parent company, same silly you know, keep politics out of my, out from in front of my face philosophy. And immediately in the aftermath of those sites disappearing, you kind of, like literally the next day, you go in and you might type DE into your browser window or you might, you know, whatever.

You seek it out. But I was kind of surprised with how quickly I forgot. I mean, I stopped trying to check. You know, I kind of thought that I'd be doing that over and over again muscle memory or mental muscle memory for weeks and months. That certainly was, that's what would have happened if, you know, what named the website from 15 years.

If, you know, if salon.com or slate.com had disappeared 15 years ago, I would probably still be typing those into my browser window today, trying to figure out what happening. I'm trying to just get my local dose of bloggy news. But I think that we're going to, different place now, that when things disappear because of the volume of information that you talk about, you find other outlets really, really quickly. And that's to say nothing of the fact that we know working from the, you know, on the inside of digital media, that so much traffic is driven

not by the homepage, but by, you know, Facebook and Twitter and everything else. That it doesn't, it literally doesn't matter what the outlet is that produced the content. It doesn't matter who wrote it. It almost doesn't matter what the content is. It doesn't matter if the headline matches the story. What matters is that, you know, you click through. And from a reader's perspective, I mean, it's hard. I think you're right with saying it's impossible to explain to somebody, you know, what the value of journalism is.

Because it's sort of like, you know, it's like when you're, I mean, you have two beautiful kids. It's like when you're raising a young child, you can't explain to them why they're not allowed to do certain things until they're, you know, well into their team. You just have to say no. And then eventually because otherwise the explanation won't make, you know, because the repercussion is so far down the road, they don't have the ability to wrap their heads around that. And that's the situation that we're in that that you describe and that like, like, yeah, you might not, you might not know that like all the blog posts that you're reading are just empty calories. you might not, I mean, but someday you're going to wake up and you're going to be like, I used to like to read these things and there's literally nothing to read anymore. You know, there's nothing, there's nothing with substance. Right. The guys and gals that supplied these blog posts with material don't have jobs anymore. Right. Or there's only one of them instead of three of them. And that's bad. I guess if I have to tack on a smiley face to 2019 and it's related to that point, you and I are both people who. make this stuff and I think even more so were people to consume and read this stuff. Given everything we've said, is it possible that at any point in recorded history,

it was a better time to be a news consumer than it is right now? Even with that hollowed out local newspaper, even with everything I just said, look at the feast before you when you fire up your web browser or pick up your phone, look at all the shit you can read. look at all the stuff you can learn. Yep. And again, that's, it just goes back to, that's, that's what's so hard to explain to people. How do we tell them, journalism is in crisis when, when they look and say, well, my reading's not in crisis.

My reading looks great. I could read 900 stories about Iran today. So many explainers, so many more than I could read 20 years ago for free. so you're telling me that journalism is in crisis it's funny but again as a consumer we can read stuff from all over the world we can read more and more and more

than New York Times is hiring every political writer on the planet the Atlantic is hiring every other political writer on the planet look at all this shit I don't know that that was supposed to be the happy ending but I'm not sure it was it was the ironic happy ending I want to time capsule this conversation so we can have it in 2020 because we're either going to have, we're either going to truly be grim or we're going to look back and laugh and say, remember when we thought we were all dimmed. We discovered the secrets of digital advertising in 2020.

So it's all better now. All right, David, time for 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 are always gratefully received David in a series of tweets former president Barack Obama listed his favorite books, movies, and TV shows of this past year. One of the latter

was Fleabagg peered on a lot of top ten lists. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write not enough people are talking about how this means that Obama definitely knows that Fleabag opened with Phoebe Wallerbridge masturbating to it. him. Thanks to Hugh Hartzog for that. Amazing story out of Junction City, Kansas, David, a police officer from nearby Harrington, Kansas, walks into a McDonald's, buys a cup of coffee. The officer

claims the McDonald's workers wrote fucking pig on the side of the cup. Posts a picture on social media. Turns out to have been a hoax. McDonald's workers, did no such thing, and the police officer resigned. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write, Blue lie shattered. Blue lie shattered, yeah. Wow. Thanks to Andrew Whitlock.

And finally, on the matter of Julian Castro, withdrawing from the presidential campaign, I don't think this tweet was overworked exactly, but it was really funny. Are you ready? Okay. Pete Buttigieg is now the only member of the CIA to best a Castro.

Oh my God. You took the Buttigieg CIA rumor to its logical endpoint. Congrats! You made the not overworked but really funny Twitter joke of the week. David in the notebook dump a quick word on Iran. On Thursday night, we learned that the U.S. had authorized an airstrike that killed Iranian Major General Kassim Sop. Soleimani in Baghdad,

Soleimani, whom the New York Times calls the spy master at the head of Iran's security machinery, and it was classified as a terrorist by the United States, was a huge political figure in Iran. You and I are not going to sit here and pretend to be experts on Middle Eastern politics or make predictions about what this means. I do want to bring up what's about to happen in the media, because we are going to have this big debate, and we already are on Twitter last night about what the U.S. should do and the role of the U.S. in the world.

It's going to be really different, isn't it, from the one in 2003 when we were talking about invading Iraq? I just like, is that kind of consensus, foreign policy consensus, as it turned out, totally wrongheaded consensus, even possible now in the age? of Twitter in the age of everything. I mean, think back to just how many people lined up on the invasion bandwagon back then. I mean, you might even take Trump out of it. How do you see that being a different conversation than it was almost two decades ago?

I think two decades ago, there was a sense of inevitability attached to almost everything in politics. And I think that what you've seen over and over again since then is a reaction to that, right? And part of that is, you know, dissatisfaction with the way that our, you know, the voters don't feel like their votes are counting

or that their elected leaders are responding to their preferences. But also in the age of social media, like nothing feels, like everything, nothing feels inevitable. I mean, maybe it is. And maybe it still is just as inevitable when the wheels of war start turning. But it definitely feels like with the proliferation of media,

I mean, I mean information throughout through social media, and also with the amplification of like individuals' voices that way, it does feel like it would be hard for, you know, march to war to sort of, you know, go in the same route that it did all that, you know, not that long ago. Yeah, I was reading an old David Carcolon from 2003. This is how it starts. This has been a tough war for commentators on the American left.

To hope for defeat meant cheering for Saddam Hussein. To hope for victory meant cheering for President Bush. And he's talking about how like how tough it is to be anti-waran in the media. I don't want to argue that we're in this, we've hit this nirvana of, you know, anti-warism at the moment, but it just, it just, it just, it just feels like the, the chessboard is totally different. Like, we're not ruled by political journals like we were in 2003. I don't know exactly how different the editorial pages of the newspapers really are, seem probably pretty similar. But just feels like there's just much more of an outlet.

Well, the curtain is thrown back in so many different ways, right? I mean, 20 years ago, we didn't know. I mean, of course, there were names, you know, in the Bush White House that we could attach various, you know, stances to. But it wasn't the same way that we feel like we know and understand John Bolton or Susan Rice or Samantha Power. You know, all these like these foreign policy, you know, advisors that have really distinct points of view from, sometimes from the people that employ them. And, you know, the idea that there would be dissension or, you know, just, you know, healthy disagreement, I think makes it more feasible. I mean, it makes it easier for the average person to understand the options. But, but yeah, I mean, without it, like, in the absence of, you know, foreign policy magazines, as you said, it sounds sort of laughable, but it's not a small thing.

right i mean no much and in in their in their way and listen far be it for i mean it's definitely definitely not i don't want to make it sound like i'm saying those magazines were a political far just the opposite right i mean they had they were steeped in in a very usually a very particular political mindset but usually the the politics was driven by foreign policy and it was often driven by the the political the political uh mindset was you know stemmed from foreign policy positions, you know, a lot of the time. Now I think, now I think it's the reverse where everything's being driven, driven by politics. And I don't, and people say that all the time.

And I don't want to just, you know, repeat that sort of canard. But, and listen, and there have been wars and military operations that were, that were 100% for politics in the past. It don't, and that's certainly nothing new. But it does feel like everything we're looking at now is through, I mean, this entire, it, whatever happens. with Iran will be viewed through the lens of politics. And no matter what happens, you know, Republicans will be lining up on, on news, television to support the president's actions for the most, I would say, you know, for the most part. And Democrats, the opposite. And it's not, it's just a different world. I'd also say it's a more opinionated world, right? And part of the reason those journals were talking about had such cachet was that the media wasn't as voicing and opinionated as it as now. So that just changes it too, right? Cable news wasn't as built out as it is now. It was beginning to get there.

You know, Twitter didn't exist. I think a lot, almost every publication now just has a lot more opinion in it generally. So, yeah, I'm just, again, this is just to raise the question because it kind of hasn't happened yet. We'll probably do another segment out at some point, but I'm just so interested how a debate about war or American aggression happens in 2019 in 2020 excuse me here we are versus 2003 can i talk to you a bit about the castro campaign david on thursday former hud secretary in san antonio mary hulian castro dropped out of the democratic presidential race with some soaring music in the background here's a snippet of the farewell he released on twitter and given a voice to those who were often forgotten

but with only a month until the Iowa caucuses, and given the circumstances of this campaign season, I've determined that it simply isn't our time. So today it's with a heavy heart and with profound gratitude that I will suspend my campaign for president. Kaster was at a little over 1% nationally in the real clear politics polling average. About half that in Iowa.

He hadn't been in any debates since November. but his campaign feels a little bigger than just hard numbers, I think. How do you think you'll remember Castro for president? Oh, God. I don't know. I mean, his campaign does feel different than the campaigns or some of the others that have, you know, that have closed up shop and that seemed like there was great potential for them at some point. I don't know quite how to put it in the work.

I think that I really like Julian Castro. Just about every performance he gave in a debate, I thought was good. His campaign speeches, I thought were, I mean, were strong as policy positions were, you know, he found ways to differentiate himself. And while I didn't agree with everything completely, I appreciated what he was, you know,

what he was trying to do. But, I mean, I think there's a lot of ways. the post-mortems for this Democratic primary will be really interesting. Whoever writes the big book on it, I think, is, you know, it's going to be a lot to take in. You know, I don't know why it didn't work out for him. It's impossible to say now.

I mean, the stage certainly looks a lot different without him and Kamala Harris and some of the others up there. But, you know, I think that he had a, his claim to the Obama legacy it was obviously drowned out by Joe Biden his his I think the 2019

2020 I mean it's a rough time to run as a candidate who had articles written about them for the past 20 years about how they will be a future president you know I mean it's it's a Cable a harvest yeah exactly and I don't I don't know that that's

that really is a reason why those these campaigns didn't work but you know it's a new there did seem to be it it did seem like there would there would be more traction for his candidacy and the fact that there wasn't I think is just more evidence that were sort of in uncharted territories when it comes to that said I guess that's that's not true because you look at the people who are left and it doesn't really look like uncharted territory up there on the debate stage you know it looks like very chartered territory sometimes I think these campaigns don't work out and they just don't work out yeah You know, it just, it just wasn't. And I've seen a lot of people try to draw big, big conclusions from him dropping out. I'll total, if you want to talk about the even greater whiteness of the Democratic nominees, I'm with you. If you want to talk about campaign finance, I'm with you. But there's also a part of this where you just, sometimes you just don't get any traction. And as we talk about with Cory Booker, even Amy Klobuchar, it just, you just don't. You know, I will remember, as you said, his debate performances, ripping into Beto O'Rourke in June over decriminalizing border crossings, ripping into Biden in September. Are you forgetting what you said just two minutes ago? Interesting, Castro's favorability went way down when he attacked Biden. Liam Donovan made this point on Twitter yesterday, says clearly Castro had broader issues in terms of getting traction, but this is indicative of the dynamic that helps to insulate Biden. nobody is willing to come at him directly lest they end up like Kamala Harris or Castro. The other thing is that Castro really did, I think, help move

this campaign in a progressive direction. Ryan Lizza Politico tweets, by far the greatest impact he had on the race was pushing the field on the issue of decriminalizing border crossings. He rolled out the plan in April. Warren liked it and adopted, and most candidates were soon pushed to take a position. Could be a big issue in the fall.

Castro campaigned in Flint, Michigan and Puerto Rico. go, right? Drawing attention to those communities. Dave Weigel tweets that Castro joins Washington Governor Jay Inslee as the only 2020 Democrats who ended their campaigns with elevated reputations. Castro shook off his image as an amiable lightweight and really moved the ball on immigration, impeachment, housing. Yeah. So there's that. I think that the point you were getting at about, I mean, talking about his debate performances and how his favorability numbers went down, I think that's a really salient point. I also think that, you know, it's, it's tough to over, it's, it's tough to overstate how much, how entrenched candidates get now by, by their performance in the polls.

And I'll go back to the word I use in the first segment, the seemingly inevitability of it, right? I mean, it's, it's, if all we're looking at is polling numbers, and Joe Biden, comes in with all this huge name recognition, unless, I mean, your only option is to get a huge bounce. If you're not one of the top couple candidates, your only option is to, is to swing for the fences and go for just a ridiculous bounce coming out of the debate, because otherwise, what does, what, what, what, what interest does MSNBC or Fox News are CNN have in talking about the plausibility of your campaign? And if no one's, if no one's discussing you as plausible, then, you know, that, I mean, honestly, like, the only path forward is like what Trump did four years ago,

which is make himself so irresistible to these television networks that he created his own plausibility. Unless you're doing that, I don't know how you, I don't know how any campaign can rise above Poland. Poland is supposed to be reflective of what the voters are doing, right? it is. But now it also becomes this sort of like self-fulfilling prophecy. And all we cover is the sort of, you know, the circular nature of the whole thing. I don't know. It's disheartening. I'm with you on wanting to read the after action report here. I know the I know the game change series has been canceled.

But I'd look forward to somebody who has all like I, I'm not sure I really understand what's happened to Elizabeth Warren over the last month and change. I really don't. We've talked about some of the things of them. I don't understand why she's, her fortunes have turned downward this, apparently this sharply. But I'm eager to read the thing at the end because I think, I think there's a lot of, a lot of nuance here and a lot of, this will be an interesting story to tell. Let us talk about Don Imus. Yeah, David. Don Imis died. and all the kind of news-wired Twitter accounts were faced with the same problem. What do we call a guy with a significant body of content who is remembered not wrongly for a racist meltdown? And I don't know if you notice, it was at first on Twitter it was legendary radio host Don Imus.

And then it was controversial radio host. And finally, the consensus we came to is shock jock Don Imus dead at 79. because Shock Jock is kind of both a compliment and a, you know, a reminder that there was bad stuff in there. If you've never heard Eymus in the morning, here's a sample from 1994. You know what it irritates me about Stern? And I'll tell you what irritates me about David Letterman, too. And nobody's been a bigger supporter of Letterman for since he came to New York and he doesn't need my support. Sorry I brought this.

No, but I mean, but he lets that punk puts that punk on his television program and lets him talk about ripping me off, about me ripping him. him off. I mean, that's so preposterous. It's just outrageous. And my only point is that even if he is a maggot, he still ought to be, you know, he still ought to be able to say whatever he wants to say. And the FCC ought to get out of Infinity Broadcasting's business. And the essential point I made was that at infinity, at least we're abiding by the law, and the FCC isn't. So the biggest story recently on Don Amos, of course, was his comments in 2007 on the Rutgers women's basketball team. His racist comments on the Rutgers. women's basketball team.

Mm-hmm. Which is interesting because Imas lost his MSNBC show in the wake of that. There was also he lost his CBS radio show and then had to sort of come back

in slightly different form. But I'm always amazed at how guys like him and you could put Howard Stern in the same general category kind of exists. existed pre-cancel culture. Yeah. Like they,

they said something cancelable basically every day or every other day. Mm-hmm. And they existed in this weird zone where old media would get really flabbergasted and angry. Think to Howard playing, you know, the reels of all the people saying this shock jock is saying terrible things. But then they would just kind of keep going. Mm-hmm.

like there was there was just a spot carved out where it's oh well you know there was a meltdown okay uh keep going that's really weird to me to think back to that now yeah i mean to to say something i mean i guess there's something there are probably some things that a lot of what they said or don lima said was probably is probably more offensive would seem more offensive now than it was the time and there's probably a lot of stuff that he said that would seem less offensive um but it is hard to imagine that you know that anything that he said you a world in which anything he said wasn't, you know, parsed out and broken down by soundbite and published all over social media.

It was a different world. And, you know, he was able to, I mean, although he was literally canceled, he sort of avoided the fate, like you said, of cancel culture right up until the end. A couple of notes about his show. One is at least in later years, it seemed kind of weird that he was not necessarily. the biggest character on his own show. You'd listen and you're like, is he, is he talking? Or is it just Charles McCord and Bernard McGurge?

Is he, I miss it, is Imas here? The kind of also the purposefully old fashionedness of the show. Yeah. The Imas in the morning program, I believe, is what he called it. Yeah. those sort of cowboy outfits, which Oh, yeah. Looked like they were from a completely different era.

I saw some people saying, you know, IMAs had these insulting and disgusting remarks on the show, but in private he was big on charity. I'm sorry, the charity was on the show. There would be whole shows devoted to fundraising for kids with cancer. That was not the private side of IMAs. That was the public side of IMS as well. Right.

He also interestingly had this big, Renaissance. And I remember becoming aware of it in 1999 because there was this Newsweek cover that I looked up. The headline was the importance of being Imus. And he went from this guy who was pretty fully in the shock jock realm to a combination of proto morning Joe. And he was literally in the morning Joe time slot on MSNBC. Oh yeah. Combination of Morning Joe and the Oprah Reese Witherspoon Book Club. Remember that? I mean, he was like, he was like the guy who was telling you what to read. He was the guy on there saying, you know, you should read this A. Scott Berg biography of Charles Lindberg. Maybe this is the time to interject that I was, that I was on I miss in the morning. like five years ago.

I just still find that to be absolutely incredible. Promoting my book, The Squared Circle, Life, Death, and Professional Wrestling. It was certainly the highlight of my publicity tour. Well, that are Fox and Friends, but just for the, just ridiculous, that's the whole situation. David has been canceled, by the way.

I got to tell, I mean, it's the set for this, I mean, it's a TV set, right? You walk in expecting radio, no matter how many times you've seen it on TV, and it's just a TV set. So you're just, it's a giant wallless fish tank. My fish tank's the wrong word. It's a giant wallless just arena of, with like a table that's sitting in the middle

and cramed cameras hanging over your head. And his absence was sort of what I remember most about it then. He was there and he was when we were on the air, he was, you know, the most vocal person. But during, but, you know, in the commercial break leading up to the, the appearance, my appearance, he was, I was, I was, you know, marched out there, putting the I'm about like 50 feet away from across two giant tables. And he was just sitting there in complete silence until we went on the air. Other people kind of were tasked with making small talk with me.

And it was, you know, a lot of the sort of like, why did you write this book? You know, and like, why am I supposed to care? It seemed very much like he was surprised by my appearance and by the segment of general. But yeah, he was, he was, I don't know if he was, you know, had any, it didn't seem like any particular interest in recommending my book to anyone. but I felt honored that he would allow me to come talk about the book in the first place. I mean, that's that you got the eye mistreatment. This is a book about professional wrestling.

Why the hell should I read a book about professional wrestling? I also just found, like, so during that period we're talking about when he becomes a Mr. book and Mr. politics, you had that whole dynamic of your Evan Thomas's and your Maring Dowds and your Margaret Carlson's. or people like that anyway, would come on there like on a near daily basis. And it was almost the same dynamic as Barstool, where he was daring them to say something terrible that would get them in trouble. And Washington, D.C. reporters. And, man, I say this, some of my best friends are Washington, D.C. reporters.

But these are the people who are most desperate in the world to be a part of the Cool Kids Club. gosh, they want anybody who is singling them out and saying, come out of your boring world and come into my slightly more dangerous world. They're going, yes, I am there. So they all agreed to this thing of going on this show with this guy who was saying terrible things, but they said yes, because they were getting a little bump out of it. They were selling books. They were doing it.

When the Rutgers thing came up, there was this whole parade of people. Will you apologize for being on IMAs? And oh, well, you know, that's a tradeoff. You know, I liked what, I liked what being on that show did for me. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the, I mean, it is, we discussed it. I think we talked about the Howard, about Hillary on Howard Stern. But, you know, a lot of his interviews kind of took the same tact where you kind of had to,

or they made the same term where you kind of had to apologize. apologize no matter what happened on the show. It's a, it's, you know, I think that foreshadowed a lot of what was to come in media. I'm not sure it's all for the, for the good. Two more memories of IMAs. 1996, he did the radio and television correspondence dinner, a.k.a. the White House Correspondence dinner. And just bombed.

Like, it was really not funny. I thought he was just going to get Bill and Hillary. And it was like Michelle Wolf, but not funny. I mean, it was really bad. 1995, Senator Alphonse de Mato from New York went on Imus and did a racist impression of Judge Lance Edo. That sentence, folks, might not sound like it makes sense. I just invite you to look it up.

Can you imagine, David, if some right-wing media figure did that today. It'd be a huge deal. This was a sitting U.S. Senator went on IMAS. Did the thing. Let me take you a listener mail, David. Because we hit up everybody on Twitter and said, send us your end of the year question,

so we got a bunch of them. This is from Andrew Brennan. Given listeners' affection for the opening, David, of each non-debat recap episode of the press box, would it be possible for Brian to record several other first names with the theme music to be used as custom ringtones.

I would pay at least 99 cents for Andrew. That's from Andrew Brennan. Jim, can we, can we queue up the opening theme song, that lilting piano? Because I've got a list here. I'm just going to read them. I'm not even in charge. Here we go.

David. Pick up a color teeny, David. Sit back. Here we go. Andrew? Miranda Ivanka Todd

Rex Cherry Jim All right if you didn't hear your name we'll do it in January 2021 thanks to Andrew for that got another one day

this is from filthy mouth wife guy love your name he asks what media sources do you guys pay for that's a good question I'll let you go first oh man what do I pay for

speaking of the end of media I pay for the wrestling observer newsletter does that count that's journalism I pay for I mean I feel like I pay for cable

which gets me just about all the TV and internet reading I could I mean yeah I mean it's not even cable it's a cable service over the internet I don't know I don't know if I, I don't know if I have any like ongoing print magazine or newspaper subscribers.

Oh, the New York Times, definitely. Washington Post. I think that's it for newspapers. And I don't think I'm trying to think. I don't think I have any existing magazine subscriptions, although I must be wrong. There's no physical magazines coming to my house anymore. I'm trying to think what I just am still getting charged 10 bucks a year. if there's anything out there, I don't even know.

Isn't it funny when you make this list of one is like, I'm pretty sure I subscribe to stuff and don't remember. Mm-hmm. And also I'm pretty sure my partner subscribes to stuff. Yeah. And I might also subscribe to that thing because we just didn't tell each other. Right. My list is the New York Times on paper,

which is probably more than I pay for anything else in a calendar year. Like literally like it's a car payment or something. That is literally my biggest expenditure of the year. And I love it. I wouldn't trade it for the world. Washington Post online The Athletic Airmail

Rivals.com Because who doesn't need the latest university of Texas football news Wow And SiriusXM Because Los Angeles And because traffic

Yeah But And I'm sure there's more Like I said I'm sure there's two or three magazines That are coming to like Our old apartment in Brooklyn And I have no idea

Exist anymore This is is for David from the Mexican delegation. Which wrestler has the best shot of getting elected to public office without breaking K-Fabe? Oh my God. So do I explain the question? Can I just, let me do the short version.

A wrestler stays in character, stays in his wrestling character. Which one would have the best shot at being elected to public office in the United States, presumably in the United States? I mean, I think the answer in or out of K-Fabe is John Sina. It's certainly more so than the Rock in terms of K-Fave. I mean, I think John Sina could generally, could, the character of John Sina, not too different from the real person, John Sina, and could probably, could probably, probably, probably has the cue rating to pull it off.

But if you want to go historical, I mean, listen, I think Hacksaw Jim Duggan bringing the two by four in the American flag to the ring. I don't want to be, I'm not trying to be too funny, although I guess I am when I say that like I could see him winning a debate with just a couple of, you know, a couple of thumbs up and a hoe here or there. He, I think, I think of, you know, the rest of my child, that he might have the best shot. I don't know. Can you think of anybody from our, from our youth? Are there any like, like the mid-all-American Lex Lugar certainly would not have gotten his time? He's dead now, but I would love to have read the headline.

Davey Boy Smith goes to Washington. I don't think that would have been legal, but still, that would be fantastic to watch. You know, you can be president, right? But you can be. Right. Yeah, he could win something else. Jim is suggesting Sergeant Slaughter. Oh.

I think the era of the electable general is passed. But Sergeant Slaughter, if it hadn't been for that false step, he had, you know, endorsing Iraq during the Operation Desert Shield, he might really stand a chance. Yeah, and this whole Iran debate, a lot of people are saying, why should we listen to the people who led us into war with Iraq in 2003? Why are we listening to Sergeant Slaughter? Why isn't he suffered the same fate as the neocons? This is one more, David, from Dan Perricone, and I love this one.

And I think I know exactly where we're going to go with it. What's your favorite guys from Texas just moved to New York story? Oh, man. Do you have an answer for this? okay you and I were not what we would call big cultural Texans when we were there in the sense that we were not you know we didn't have a huge brush guard on our F-150 we you know didn't have Alan Jackson tapes and George Strait tapes just falling out of the the car radio but when we moved to New York we cultivated this kind of Texanness at a distance. Sure. And for a year, two years, you and I wore almost nothing,

but cowboy shirts. Oh, yeah. The ones with like the, those like pearl buttons and everything. And a car, like car hard jackets and all that stuff. We looked like Don Imus walking the streets at the Lower East Side. I hope it doesn't betray too much to say that when Brian, I moved to New York, let's see I left tech Brian left Texas before me we both kind of like took or took turns like moving but I ended up in New York about 10 months before Brian got there and when um and when he arrived we got an apartment together he arrived at our new apartment I guess I had already moved in and Brian was wearing a was wearing khaki shorts and an undershirt and sandals he had just spent a year working on the Microsoft campus at slate.com and basically said I've been wearing this every day.

I need some clothes. Where do I go? I look like Mark Zuckerberg in that sweet baby Ray's clip that they always play. Anyway, go ahead. So yeah, so we had that's not like just the Texas fish had a lot of things. But yeah,

we had to go. That's when we went to buy the first round of Western shirts. What were we doing? Because I remember you and I would go to party. We were basically inseparable at that point. Like if we went to, if one of us went to a party, the other one was at the party.

Uh-huh. And we'd walk in like two rhinestone, Cowboys. And I just remember friends who'd known us for a while would just come up to one of us and be like, I didn't really know you guys had kind of gone Western, you know, like you would. I didn't even realize this shows you how much I knew. I didn't realize we were dressed alike. I thought as long as we were in different color Western shirts and our coats were different

colors and we weren't dressed alike, you know. And I remember at some point someone pointing out that we had the same outfit on. I was like, what do you meet? Oh, okay. I see now. Yeah, well, you know, I thought that it was a good look. I stand by it. We were rock in Texas for sure.

That's our favorite guys from Texas just moved to New York story. There's also a part of like the Texas culture and southern culture in general has followed us here or was, you know, was sitting here waiting for us. I've definitely eaten more southern food or probably eating more southern food, you know, generally broadly defined, but definitely eating more barbecue in New York than I ever did in Texas or the South. And, and, you know, Western shirts were a thing. And we didn't just like, you know, have those imports.

reported from from the south you know from from from laredo sold by the rack road at like you know the the vintage clothing store that everybody everybody in their mom was going to back then so you know i think that i think that it's there's a defense okay there's some defense there's some defense but a pretty dismal uh sartorial period in our lives all right time for david shoemaker guesses the strain pun headline all right last week's headline about a family that found an owl in a christmas tree they bought from home depo was I'll come all ye faithful. Literally every reader said it should have been

I'll be home for Christmas, which was way better and more on point. Our first headline of 2020, David, comes from Chris Gorski. It's from the current issue of the medical journal called Sports Health, a multidisciplinary approach. We love when the writers of medical journals

try to channel Esquire in the 60s. Yes. I'm going to read you the subheadline, David, quote, magnetic resonance imaging findings after surfing injuries. Magnetic resonance imaging findings after surfing injury. So I want you to focus on surfing injuries, surfing injuries that would require an MRI. What was sports health a multidisciplinary approaches? Strained pun headline.

It's got to be something with wipeout, right? You close? What about some other surfing terms? Hang tin. Hang loose. What is the wave do? When you're out there surfing. What is the word?

Don't I sound like I live in a surfing community here. Talking like that. Wave do? Is it like crest or crown or something like that? Maybe. Different, slightly different verb. Bray. Broke.

Break. Oh, yeah. Like a break. Them's the breaks? When the wave breaks you. Like them's the breaks better. They're having some fun over there at sports health and multidisciplinary approach, aren't they? They sure are.

That's the most fun they've had in years. He is David Shoemaker on Brian Curtis, researched by Chris Lameda. Production Magic by Jim. Jim Cunningham. We're back Tuesday on our usual schedule. More lukewarm picks about the media. See you then, David. See you later, man. David, I thought you were dead. Gone after one year.

I don't think they were being dishonest or anything, but they certainly made it seem like a bigger deal than in my mind it really was. Mm-hmm. David. Oh, my God. I like Post Malone. I like Drake. I like Bieber. I'm a fan of all these people. Oh, my.

Oh, my God. Everybody freaks out. I'm sure there's a drudge headline about it every single time. Who is buying the Betty White special issue of Parade Magazine? You know, the... And parades, the secret worlds of cats and dogs. I mean, if you're going to draw a line, you draw a line. Sex, money.

Oh, my God. Yeah, it's just totally different than somebody who was covering the Mets as a beatwriter. You know, that's not ideal, but that's not a moral catastrophe. You're coming to me. I'm not coming to you. You're coming to you. David, this is the moment whether we're going to win or lose everything. Yes.

Let's put on the blue shirt. Oh, yeah. If we got in the time machine right now. There's no better spot for a disgrace liberal to go. What a world. Yeah, that occurred to me. I got news for you. Yeah.

Have mercy. Question mark? If I agree with you, does that mean the segment's over? I think this is pretty despicable. That feels bad, doesn't it? when Trump steals your jokes. Yeah, he was a teenage edge lord. There goes the neighborhood.

David? Mm-hmm. Sounds like the name of a kid whose parent would pay a large sum of money to be on a division one lacrosse team. David? Yes. Sounds like the villain in an 80s ski comedy who is threatening to buy and shut down the fun but unprofitable local mountain resort. Okay, that's good. That's good.

That was great. That makes a lot more sense than what I was saying. David? Yes. You will always look like a huge dick. Shut up. This stuff happens? That just struck me.

It's really weird. An amazing, beautiful weirdo, and I think we should all sit back and appreciate it. The liberals are making us all soft. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, listen, there... Absolutely. ...is nowhere near as terrifying, alarming, just, like, physically upsetting as it is to see that happen in real life right in front of your... Right.

David? Mm-hmm. This sucks. I mean, listen, there was a lot of insanity. This is incredibly disillusioning, and this is such a freaking train wreck. Frankly, I think I came into it with such high expectations that I was a little bit let down by the lack of absolute insanity. You should get that blank, right? I don't know.

It felt like when you hear about your friend taking a break in the relationship. Good work. You don't have the right to go to Miami. David? Yeah. My career was better than yours. What in the actual fuck? I mean, it was just spectacular.

I mean, it was... It's like, all of a sudden, like, oh, this is good. Here we go. I'd watch this. I think that was the perfect... I cannot wait to have the same conversation a year from now about the XFO. What in the actual fuck? Yo, let's do this on the show, or at least a...

agree to it. That's amazing on about 15 levels. I mean, sure. I'm, I'm perking up a little bit. Come down and, you know, it's family day and get cheap hot dogs and everybody loves hanging out, you know, and that kind of... Firework show. Yeah, exactly. The beach boys are going to play afterwards. Oh, oh, oh, hot, hot. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, certainly these are the things that are incredibly successful multimillionaires go to bed, brewing at the end of the night. There was a lot of winky, winky, winky on Friday is dead. Yeah, no, it would be It would be interesting to see, you know. Am I spending my 70s locked in the White House as the president?

Or am I just locked in the White House full stop? Looking for an apartment. Need help finding an apartment. You can't make this shit up. So that's really qualified. I'm sorry, David. It's more like, I'm sorry, but I'm a hugger. And I like to touch people and that's what I'm going to do.

David? Mm-hmm. Sucking harder than he's ever sucked. Oh, man. That's really hard. Total, don't give a fuck mode. You would think that I would just be insane. There's a 1,000% chance.

Wow. Wow. It's like Larry Clinton and a hustler back in the day. Right. Yeah, what do you know? I did books. See you later, man. Rest in power.

David? Mm-hmm. Should we just blow this up? Yeah. And do something else. No. I didn't see anything wrong. with us? Yeah. What do you think about that?

Next question. What do you think about that? Next question. What do you think about that? I mean, I think it's a great question. And I think that's fascinating. What do you think about that? Oh my gosh. Um, yeah. That to me would be the wrong idea. Oh, no. It's about power, man. Yeah, and I agree. I mean, I realize that I'm not a aweshoxy sort of like Forrest Gump expert on Should cable news be covering this live? I mean, the video really, I mean, the audio doesn't do it quite as much justice as the video does. But this is just how, this is how locker rooms go, man.

Yeah. It's left us sort of searching for answers and chicken with his head cut off, robotic detached British man or something, you know, it's the strangest thing ever. Hello, darkness, my old friend. Robert. Oh, no. I'm Steve Croft. I'm Leslie Stahl.

I'm Oprah. CNN says I'm terrible and I'm actually a very offensive, awful person. Not a good interview at all. Fantastic, yeah. Yeah. Speaking of horrible controversy, hey kids, look at this. We got a sports magazine for a European billionaire who got tons and tons and tons of diamonds, the yachts, and the Rembrandt. Oh, did I?

We basically conquer the... the world. I mean, I might have needed a little bit of help. We're going to create this little franchise. Yeah. That was so simple. And yet, and we're not just going after Robert. We're going after Oprah. Yeah, I think that's right. David? Yeah. Scantily clad, 50 years old. This today? Um, yeah, it's crazy. I will not rest. I will not rest. Do you hear me? I will not rest. I was really having the trouble of reconciling this, but now I think I get it. I tell bigger lies than that every day, you know? And I think that most people can sympathize.

You should have seen what I've gotten past the NBC News Censors, man. We end tonight's broadcast on a personal note. Please don't do that. But radio really is the theater of the mind, isn't it? No. David? Yeah. I get the handbags.

I get the clans. clothes. I look the part. I'm not, you know, this nebishy guy behind the desk. I'm kind of, you know, somebody who's ready to walk out onto a runway. Yeah, I mean, that's true, but it's... We're going to make ringer-branded... D-shirt!

It's going to be awesome. We're going to have ringer... Coloring book. Ringered. Lunchbox. Ringered. Breakfast cereal. We're going to have ringer branded. Flamesgrower! Hey, my house is on fire. Can you help? Hell no. Please help. Please help. Please help. Come right now.

Hell no. This inconvenience is me. Brilliant asshole. Godspeed. And by the way, everybody's fire. David, we've got a big announcement about the press box this week. Yeah. I tonight announced everyone dies.

Oh, yeah, yes. Sureless, I believe. How excited are you? Very excited. David. Is there something wrong with that? David. Yeah.

You like kind of just threatening humanity at large? I can't hear you. Why are you? you treating them like a kind of high-class trash? Read a book. I am also fascinated by donkey sauce. This isn't the worst thing that's ever befallen American culture. I cannot say hell.

Strenuously, I disagree with that idea. And I yell everyone dies as I'm jumping out the window to escape the follow-up. You'll have to come through me. People have to come through me, too? Why are you totally full of donkey sauce? Is that a word? No. Yeah.

If you are old, I do not seek your approval. Wow. I don't care about your approval. Wow. But the truth matters. For sure. And this is the truth. Europe washed up psycho.

We're wearing a misfit tuxedo. How dare you, sir? I'm not sure. How dare you? You know, there's no like natural law about the way to do these things. It's pretty incredible. Yeah, I have no idea from aliens looking down on our culture level. We are the poop.

Holy moly. Very good word, yes. This is like a president slowly dying. What did you think of it? I thought it was good. I thought it was... Yeah. Is the phrase world's most famous, David?

Does that ever not sound insulting? We all knew this day was coming. Yeah. We want to see David squeezed into a tuxedo with the hunched over Guy Fieri walking next to it. We want to see what that looks like. My God. Are we on extremely safe ground now to say that even if Guy Fieri killed someone in cold blood,

I support this guy. Fieri. Yeah. Great news. I've got a, I've got a chateau or I've got a palace rented forest in London. Uh, wow. It's a really great beachfront property. Scary.

The whole thing just feels like the most unforgivable sin. I love that. If you want to be stoic about it, then yes. Let's see where we go. Yeah, here we go is right. David, this one is from the world of communicable diseases. Oh, my gosh. David Shoemaker ate a bag of with a knife and fork.

Dude, don't mention me by name. Sounds fun. That is so bad. That'd be great. Dude, you're not going to get me, you're not going to get me at my best when you're looking for related anything. I'm not sure I even understand what that means. God, yes.

Like, I just want to let you guys know that I had nothing to do with... I thought that was an incredibly, incredibly effective use of political theater, a political art. And I'm a lifelong fan of... In my heart. I work to deprogram myself. David, if he was wandering around Brooklyn... Abandon hope. Please do not.

Continuing public makeover of... An inarticulate, idiotic. That, to me, is something I can identify. When you're kind of nodding all... Yeah, I think that's right. No matter what incredibly dumb thing just came out of my mouth. You're a really old dude, an old white dude who did. And I can't really hear you with this earphone, by the way.

It's just people are crazy. No bullshit. We see that. How do I get that person's job? But in a way, that's what scares me is what's in his heart. Get this move. David Shoemaker is on a sign. Stop me.

David, don't be a smart-ass. I'll knock you the fuck out, bro. Oh. Get this motherfucker out of here. Oh. So David Shoemaker is on assignment today. I guess it's for tutus? Yeah.

Do you have a sense of why David Shoemaker is on assignment today? Well, who cares? What's that going to do? Really, what is the point? Why stage this? I do love human sadness. This is the department for you. Pretty yucky.

And, and. Breaking David Shoemaker doesn't have shit. Filthy mouth wife guy. Love your name.