The Press Box - Trump in Tulsa, Bubba Wallace, and the Temporary End of the Newsroom

Episode Date: June 22, 2020

Donald Trump had a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday, and the subject was not George Floyd or the coronavirus; Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker break down what was said (1:15). Next, they talk about the racist incident that took place after NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace called for the ban of the Confederate flag (27:20). Lastly, Curtis and Shoemaker discuss the effects that long-term work-from-home protocols could have on the newsroom (37:00). Plus: The Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Liz Kelly. Make sure to subscribe to the ringer's YouTube channel to watch the newest episode of Slow Newsday with Kevin Clark, featuring NFL MVP Lamar Jackson. And in anticipation of the NBA's return in late July, NBA desktop with Jason Concepcion is back to posting weekly episodes. Also up on our YouTube channel are the best clips taken from this week's Bill Simmons podcast, rewatchables, and higher learning with Rachel Lindsay and Van Lathen. You can find all these videos at YouTube.com. The Ringer.

No media consumers. This is the press box, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker of The Ringer here. We got a lot of stuff for you today. We'll talk about that racist incident Sunday involving NASCAR driver Bubble Wallace, who called for his sport to ban the Confederate flag. We'll talk about the temporary end of the newsroom. What a journalist going to do when they get lonely? All that plus David guesses the strain pun headline and the overworked Twitter joke of the week.

But first, David, Donald Trump had a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday night. His subject was not George Floyd. It was not the coronavirus. It was how Donald Trump walks down a ramp. And this was a steel ramp. You all saw it because everybody saw it. This was a steel ramp. It had no handrail.

It was like an ice skating rink. And I said, general, I have a problem. understand that at first. I said, there's no way. You're understood? I just saluted almost 600 times. I just made a big speech. I sat for other speeches. I'm being baked. I'm being baked like a cake. I said, General, there's no way I can make it down that ramp without falling on my ass, General. It's really hard for any clip to do the experience of watching that live justice. But I think my favorite part of the whole dissembling of the ramp incident was that he didn't actually really try to lie about anything. He just sort of like admitted it in all that's just ridiculous

glory, right? I mean, I don't know how many people and the audience. And again, I don't, I don't want to, you know, overgeneralize about Trump's supporters, particularly the live audience or, but like, I don't know how many of them heard what he said and were just like, yeah, that happens to me all the time and my leather sold dress shoes. But, by the way, anybody that owns leather sold dress shoes is probably familiar with the concept of scuffing them so that this sort of thing

doesn't happen unless you're just like exclusively a denizen of a ivory tower or marble floored mansion, something of that sort. Even then, marble sounds pretty slippery to me. Yeah, maybe you're right. But yeah, I mean, there is definitely something. I think we can all appreciate to just, if you say the thing, the embarrassing thing out loud in front of people, it becomes less embarrassing. You sort of own it. Yeah.

But Trump didn't seem to be particularly self-effacing, except in a few very slight moments, those are probably the best moments of his entire speech. He mostly just, he seemed like, like, the truth of the matter would bail him out when, in fact, the truth of the matter is what we were talking. Like, no one was making fun of him for the circumstances that led to him having to go down that ramp, except for me talking about the advanced scout, the advanced people, but he just, he walked out, it was just the

visual of him walking down the ramp was just hilarious, that's it, and it still is. His explanation did nothing to change that. In case you're incredibly confused right now, what Donald Trump was talking about was he gave a speech at West Point to graduates on June 13. And as he left the stage, a

video caught him taking David mincing steps, would you say, down the ramp afterwards? Is this the time the word mincing was invented for him? I'm not kidding. And David and I watch this Trump speech live on Saturday night. I'm not kidding when I say Trump justifying his slow walk down the ramp was arguably the main point of the speech. Arguably the main point.

Here's Trump doing some play by play of his journey down the ramp. So what happens is I start the journey inch by inch, right? And I was really bent over too. I didn't like that. You know, I didn't like this picture. This picture, I'm sure, will be an ad by the fakers. So I was bent over, right? And just freeze it right there, Erica.

What you can't see right now is Trump is actually walked away from the microphone. He is hunched over. And he is recreating the walk down the ramp for the people there in Tulsa. Anyway, please continue. And then we finally reached almost the end. and the fake news and most dishonest human beings they cut it off, you know why?

Because when I was 10 feet short, I said, General, I'm sorry, and I ran down the rest, right? I looked very handsome. That was the only good thing. Disagree on multiple grounds there. The version of the video that I saw at least the first at the beginning

certainly had him making that weird closing lope down the ramp and he did not look particularly handsome when he was doing that nor heroic nor athletic nor whatever other thing he might want to call it. Yeah, I always find myself looking

for moments when I can identify with Trump on anything because I can't on any matter of politics, certainly on the more gruesome aspects of his personality, which we'll get to here in just a moment. But

I do know that feeling when you're going down a hill, especially as you get older, and you first try to walk down the hill really slow, and then you're like, I can't do this. This is actually just not working, so I'm just going to run down the hill really fast. And that's how I will get down with that. I do understand that, right? There is something to that. Now, whether the fake news media, quote, unquote, trim that off the video, I don't know. But I do understand the impulse there at some level. throughout this speech, throughout this portion of this speech

in which he was diagramming his descent down the ramp and subsequently discussing drinking water, we'll get to that. He was accusing the fake news media, again, pointing to the actual media members in attendance, and saying that they

have twisted the truth to serve their anti-Trump agenda. But again, he's just admitting to everything that happened and step by step. He's diagramming out the thing that ran on the news. And by the way, it's really much less of a fake news media sensation or that moment compared to the attention it got on social media, which is presumably not the target of his hire.

Yeah. And the other funny thing he says is he's talking about the media taking all of this out of context. But then he just goes off and says, well, something is actually wrong with Joe Biden. So he's saying don't look at a video of me Taking small steps and try to infer something that's wrong with me But let me go ahead and do that about Joe Biden Anyway, after West Point, Trump called Melania to check in

Listen to how that went But I call my wife and I said how good was it, darling? She said, you're trending number one I said to our great first lady I said, let me ask you a question Was it that good the speech that I'm trending number one because I felt it was really good. No, no, they don't even mention the speech.

They mentioned the fact that you may have Parkinson's disease. That's true. Of all of the lies he would go on to tell. That's the way. I think that to me was the most galling lie of all that he called Melania to ask her how she thought his speech went. Upon leaving West Point, I don't know if you can do an FOI request to actually get a transcript of that phone call

but my guess is that one didn't actually take place. Now at that same June West Point speech, there was another video of Trump having to use two hands to kind of bring a glass of water to his lips. In Tulsa this weekend, do you think Trump quickly moved on to the economy in his speech? Or do you think he did yet another long riff on why he held a glass

that way to protect his silk tie. The answer may surprise you. You had on a very good red tie that's just sort of expensive. It's silk because they look better. They have a better sheen to them. And I don't want to get

water on the tie. And I don't want to drink much. So I lift it up the water. I see we have a little glass of water. Where the hell did this water come from? Where did it come from? and I look down on my tie because I've done it.

I've taken water and it spills down into your tie. It doesn't look good for a long time. And frankly, the tie is never the same. So I put it up to my lip and then I say, because I don't want it to just a case. And they gave me another disease.

They gave me another disease. What Trump is doing there at the end is actually drinking a glass of water on the stage with one hand to prove to the audience that he could do it. Now, Saturday, David, was the first Trump campaign rally in three months. We have protesters in the streets of the United States. We have the coronavirus raging in parts of the country.

Trump did not move on from those two perceived slides, the ramp and then the waterglass, until the 36-minute mark of his speech. There were all kinds of detours about how Trump had gotten a sunburn at West Point, et cetera, et cetera. And I just want you to just, just again, just, Before we move on to what he actually said, just listen to the evident disappointment in Trump's voice when he dismounts from all this complaining

about his treatment on social media and starts reading the teleprompter of the speech he was actually supposed to give. Okay, that's enough of that. I wanted to tell that story. Does everybody understand that story? The left-wing anarchists tore down a statue of Thomas Jefferson.

Now we're getting into the real store. Did everybody understand that story? Okay, where was I? Joe Biden is a member of Antifa. Oh, yeah. It's just completely different tone in those two things. The big news, David, from Saturday night was that Trump had a bunch of empty seats. Team Trump told us they got one million ticket requests.

They said we're going to pack 19,000 people into the BOK arena and have this big outdoor overflow area. that will be so full that Trump will have to give a speech there too. He's going to give a speech outside, he's going to give a speech inside. Well, according to the fire marshals, Trump only drew about 6,200 people, which didn't even fill up the arena. The outdoor stage was taken apart

before the speech even started, much to Trump's apparent wrath. As the ringers Justin Charity noted in a piece that's up on the site now, reportedly the one million ticket requests included countless registrations from subversive K-pop fans and TikTok users. Oh my gosh. Well, you know that campaign's going well when the campaign manager is loudly pushing back

against any insinuation that the ticket allocation process might have been gamed by K-pop fans because he so fears for his own job security. And that's eating up oxygen from the competing claims from the White House that, you know, there were nefarious actors afoot. Or also, I guess, Trump's claims, kind of vague the night of the speech, were that there were bad actors outside on the streets, protesters or whatnot,

who were somehow that prevented the speech that he was supposed to give before the speech, the outside speech to the overflow crowd. And I guess implicitly prevented people from getting in to the speech. Explicitly, yes. That was part of it. And by the way, didn't you love when we started having those funny pictures of all the empty seats and immediately the Twitter scolds showed up and said, well, you know,

attendance at a rally does not mean that Trump is going to lose the election in November. That is not, can't we have our fun? Can you give us like 10 seconds to laugh at this before we get the, well, you know, that doesn't mean Biden's going to win. Well, listen, I don't want to insinuate any sort of media bias on anyone's side,

but I did flip it. I think towards the very beginning of the speech, I think from MSNBC, which had a sort of, was, you know, the camera was pulled back and there was a lot of empty space

in the sea, or in the floor space in front of him. It looks sort of like, you know, like midnight at Hillary's victory party, you know, or, you know,

after all the results that started rolling in. And then you flip over to Fox, and it's like, it's a, it's a tighter zoom, a very, a really tight zoom.

And you wouldn't know from looking at it, that there were, you know, that there wasn't 20,000 people crammed in there. Dude, this is so true. And I've been talking to producers about NFL games in the fall and what's going to happen when there are no fans in the stands. And so many producers have told me, no, you're just going to shoot the game tight

so that you can't see the stands, right? Cameras are going to be a little bit tighter on the players. That's what Fox News did to the Trump rally. They shot it like an NFL game in the fall. And I noticed absolutely the same thing. And he was all of a sudden he was like, oh, well, there's no more shots of the empty stands here. This place looks like it's rocking.

Yeah. You know, on MSNBC, before I flipped over, they were talking about how Trump was starting on time or relatively on time, which is unusual for him. And that was probably they implied it, or they guessed that it was because he was so disappointed with the crowd turnout that he wanted to sort of get the speech over with. It certainly looked like he was, you know,

he got into a little bit of a zone once he got out there. He didn't seem like he was overflowing with disappointment, although most of the post facto reporting, from, you know, Politico and the Times and other places have definitely, you know, assured us that he was, in fact, very disappointed with the turnout. Yeah. I saw Mark Liebovich just tweet that, that we're up now for another week of Trump is seething stories. You know, this is just like a recurring. This is like every month of his presidency.

There's like a three or four day period where Trump is seething. Trump is currently seething, apparently. Yes. Yeah, Trump is indeed seething. You know, he has a lot of time to seethe. You know, I mean, he's all that, he's, he's, he doesn't get to go on the road as much as he wants. I mean, maybe now he'll be out there more. And, you know, according to John Bolton, he's only, he's taking the bare minimum of intelligence briefing.

So he's got a lot of seething time built that. Maybe that's what was it, what was it, what was it, what was it, what was his personal time? Executive time. Executive time. A lot of executive time to cede. Trump never got around to mentioning George Floyd in the speech, the New York Times noted, never got around to mentioning the destruction of Black Wall Street in Tulsa. He did get around to some racism, though.

If you remember, David's CBS reporter Ouija Jang, she's the one who asked Trump a few months ago about coronavirus testing, and he said, ask China. That was his response to her. And she said, why are you asking me that, Mr. President? Well, back in March, Ouija Jang tweeted that an anonymous White House official referred to coronavirus to her as the, quote, Kung flu. Okay. On Twitter, there were some people that said, I don't think that's real. That's the fake news media. Ah, here's Trump Saturday night.

It's a disease without question. Has more names than any disease in history. I can name Kung flu. I can name 19 different versions of names. Oh, my God, he admitted it. that is just like the kind of platonic ideal of the of like just the bad trump joke where he goes in with this like totally unworkshop dad joke that you i'm sure just sounded good to him when he like said it to his aid and they chuckled or something but yeah this this disease that has so many names it has like what four or five if you want to be racist and it is and he can't even name the second one like if you put him on this spot then he wouldn't have been able to say coronavirus i mean it's just not There's also this wild admission about coronavirus testing. And what we've done with the ventilators and with the medical equipment and with testing, you know, testing is a double-edged sword. We've tested now 25 million people. It's probably 20 million people more than anybody else.

Germany's done a lot. South Korea's done a lot. They call me, they said the job you're doing. Here's the bad part. When you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more people. You're going to find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down, please.

Team Trump tried to say he was joking after that. Uh-huh. Okay. I'm actually, I don't think it's, I don't think that's necessarily wrong. I just think there's some things. you don't joke about. There's something just so beyond the pale that like it doesn't matter if you're joking when you're the president saying you got to slow the testing down. I mean, that's like, but wait, wait, wait. Let me clarify. There's a hundred percent the chance that Trump said in the

Oval Office slow the testing down. Yeah. Like, he made that comment 100%. Now, whether they actually slowed the testing down, I'm willing to, I'm willing to wait for the reporting, but there's 100% Trump ordered that to happen. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, listen. There were just so many moments in this little diatribe alone where it was clear that his grasp on just the concept of illness was just as tenuous as hell, right? I mean, that like a virus, like he, like, that,

I mean, it really felt like he thought that you could stop the virus by pretending it didn't exist. And to think that, and I mean, I presume that's not true given the benefit of the doubt, But presume it's not true that you can't stop the virus by pretending it doesn't exist. I presume he doesn't actually believe that. So far not so good on that score.

Well, I mean, I just don't know how you can say any. I mean, that's, you know, we have rules against saying things are beyond the pale. But he barely talked about it. Yeah. I mean, he barely basically didn't address. I mean, the one thing, when he got to the second half of the speech, we got past the ramp, we got past the drinking water. we got past that whatever that was then he started to try to make the case against joe biden at least begin to outline like how is donald trump going to attack joe biden in the fall

and i think this clip basically again he he's kind of going on and off prompter here so it's really hard to follow his train of thought i think this clip kind of gets at where he's going and maybe some of the drawbacks of where he's going on that if the democrats gain power, then the rioters will be in charge and no one will be safe and no one will have control. Joe Biden is not the leader of his party. Joe Biden is a helpless puppet of the radical left. There's this really weird tension between the different, I mean, you mentioned it before, between the scripted and unscripted parts of the speech. But this one I thought was particularly tension filled because

the scripted parts weren't like some like high flying pro-American you know monologue they were as like weird and conspiratorial and in the weeds as most of his regular

speeches and to hear him giving it in that sort of like I'm reading us for the first time voice was just kind of it was bizarrely unsettling right I mean and I don't think that the line of attack is, well, I mean, I think it's kind of pretty despicable. It doesn't surprise me that he's taking it.

But it sort of surprised me that he seemed like he wasn't really prepared to deliver it. That of all things seemed like something he could have workshopped a little bit more. I agree. And if you listen to the crowd, and I saw a bunch of people on Twitter make this point, the lines about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the anarchists and the protesters and all those, those lines got a big cheer from the crowd. The lines about Biden really didn't because sitting there arguing that Biden is going to be a puppet of the far left doesn't really match anybody's idea of what reality is, right? And that's what Republicans say about all Democrats at some point.

But that is that that does not seem like a winning message. No, I mean, it's more of, I mean, it's a kind of a big idea argument, right? Like, I mean, if you if you kind of pull all the pieces together and deliver them coherently, then, you know, Joe Biden, who was barely squeaked out of a primary with these like, you know, far left opponents running, you know, all those opponents running the left on various issues. And now he's just hiding at his basement and so like to say. And avoiding, again, from Trump's point of view, avoiding the kind of onus of leadership while these left wing forces run wild in the country. I guess you can see the thread of what could be an argument there. I just Trump was not just, I mean, not prepared to make the case. And you're right. I mean, I don't think people are inclined to immediately see Joe Biden in that way. You have to make the case.

Yeah, and I don't think they're going to get there. And it just, this all feels like informed by Fox News, right? If you look at Fox News, like it's, he's going through the gallery of people they attack on a nightly basis. Mm-hmm. But Joe Biden is harder, right? People know. People have an opinion of Joe Biden, or they associate Joe Biden with certain things, right?

He won the Democratic primary for a reason, right? So, you know, but he ran on a very, very particular platform during the Democratic primary. So it's saying he's aOC, he's Green New Deal, he's this and this and this. Ooh, that's a weird one. Unable to land any punches on Biden, David. I want to leave you with this sound clip. Trump was able to focus in on a familiar.

familiar enemy. She doesn't want those bird killing machines to go round and round. You want to see a lot of birds that are dead go under a windmill sometime. Donald Trump is literally tilting at windmills. All right, David. Now it's 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. Send your nominees to at the press box pod where they are always gratefully received.

Did you enjoy David some of the. news pictures of like one guy sitting alone in a completely empty section of seats at the BOK arena there in Tulsa over the weekend? Yeah. Yeah. It was it was a sad scene up there. A couple of good gags. Number one, a Trump rally is now the easiest place in the world to socially distance.

Also like this one. I still think Josh Rosen can be good in the right system. Thanks to Andrew Redston and Johnny Rads. Story on the front page of today's New York Times, David, quote, Theodore Roosevelt statue will be removed from the Museum of Natural History in New York City. The memorial has long prompted objections as a symbol of colonialism. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write. How about replacing it with a statue of Robin Williams?

Yes, that is a night at the museum joke. And yes, it was made by Ben Stiller, among other people, thanks to Javi Perez. And finally, this happened when we were thinking about other things, but I bring it back now. In response to the protests across America, David, the Paramount Network canceled the show cops. Canceled the show cops. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write, wow, they already defunded the police. Thanks to Jeremy Rapunage. If you're willing to let an ancient Fox show be the first step on the road to societal change, congrats.

You made the overwork Twitter joke. of the week. David, we're going to talk about bubble Wallace and NASCAR, but first, this message from the ringer.com. If you've been dealing with acne, redness, dark spots, or wrinkles, finding treatment that works can be complicated. You need skin care that actually performs, but getting started can be overwhelming. Thankfully, there's a solution. Roman makes it convenient to get customized prescription care that really performs. Just grab your phone or computer, complete a free online consultation. You'll hear back from a U.S. licensed physician within 24. hours. If appropriate, a doctor will prescribe a custom blended treatment based on your skin type and

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Confederate flag from events and facilities. That was a big deal. Well, on Sunday at the NASCAR scheduled race at Talladega in Alabama, a member of Wallace's team found a noose in his stall. To repeat a fucking noose, here's ESPN's Marty Smith last night. I love Talladega, Alabama. It's my favorite place on the NASCAR tour.

It's my favorite race. I love the staff here. And then some... I'm about to say words I'm not allowed to say. Something like this happens. In the garage area, in the garage area of Richard Petty's race car? For a young man in Bubba Wallace who has galvanized so many people because he was willing to stand up for something that is so long overdue. And NASCAR's current management level, executive level, agrees that it was time to take this stand.

And then somebody goes and does this. you're not just hurting one or two people whomever you are, you're hurting a whole lot of people who have made the decision that it's damn sure time to go be better. And it pisses me the hell off. And it pisses everybody else in the sport off who care, who care not only for Bubba,

but for every single person that he is standing. up for NASCAR has launched an investigation that the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division might get involved. Bubba Wallace himself says in a statement, this will not break me. I will not give in or will I back down. I will continue to proudly stand for what I believe in. I mean, I often find myself saying, I can't say it any better than Marty Smith did. But he really nailed that, I think. you know, kudos in Ascar for making this, you know, the decision to ban the Confederate flag in the first place, it would be nice, I mean, and, you know, not taking anything away. It would be nice to have a little bit more of a definitive statement from them.

Like, you know, we will fire people. We will find out who did this, the people who did this, and fire everybody who could have possibly been involved. But yeah, it was a, I mean, it really, I guess the bright side is it really has the feeling of the sort of last gasp of a dying generation. But if that generation, I mean, if only that weren't such a dangerous, such a, you know, such a potent force in America right now, it would, I think it would be, it would feel a lot different. But this is just, it's just sad. Yeah, and I just, I hope it's a last gasp, but it sure feels like there have been a lot of last gasps over the last, over the last several years, decades, however long you want to make it. I mean, I've been, we're originally going to talk today about some of the reckonings that have come to the sports world as a result of the protests, right? I'm excited about a lot of things.

what's happened with college football players banding together, right? Taking a moment to rethink names like the Texas Rangers, our old hometown baseball team and thinking like, wow, that that organization was a tool of white supremacy. Should we be calling a baseball team that and actually having that conversation? Yeah. Rather than, you know, just blowing it off. but as exciting as some of those things are, you remember, oh, right, there's going to be this backlash, right? There's going to be this huge, ugly, racist, vile,

we can keep going here, backlash for stuff like this. That's about hate, that's about intimidation, right? Then it's just, and it's just completely sick. And I think this goes to a point you and I've talked about a little bit over the last couple weeks. It's one thing to say you care about racism, right? It's another thing to make a tangible policy change like NASCAR did. Now comes part three. And guess what? It's even harder. You've got to stand behind the people you care about in the face of a backlash like this, right? You have to stand up and say, this is our guy. And as you say, this will absolutely ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,

be tolerant. Yeah, you're right. I mean, even when they announced the ban of the Confederate flag, you know, I think there was a tendency in a lot of corners just to sort of, you know, you personify that in some sort of like, you know, Bubba cartoon who's mad that he can't wear his stars and bars tank top to the races anymore or, you know, someone who, I mean, that it's, you know, whatever. Like you have your Duke's A Hazard beach towel that you wear as a cape to the races or something like that. And it's just almost like a comical thing. And clearly the background and as we see repeatedly day after day, the present day reality of this is not comical. You know, it's a terrifying.

It's real issues of mortality, you know. And I, yeah, it's tough. And it's not going to be easy, right? I mean, I think this is a reminder that, guess what? This stuff is not going to be easy, right? And it's not something that got solved. I mean, we're talking about we're having fanless NASCAR races right now, which does, by the way, really raise an interesting question about who in the world got in there and put that in the garage area to begin with.

But also, this policy has not come under what's going to be its great tests, right? which is when fans come back to the racetrack in mass. Chris is pointing out before we came on today that outside Talladega on Sunday, there were protesters driving by flying Confederate flags. So this is the thing and it's going to continue to be a thing. I have been amazed, David, looking around sports world. We talked about the Texas Rangers. There's this new book, Cult of Glory by Doug Swanson.

And it has brought about it. all this change in Dallas Fort Worth, right? Statue came down at Dallas's Love Field. And now there's this whole idea of should we change the name of the baseball team, the Texas Rangers? That's, that's fascinating to me. We talked about college athletes. You got Kylin Hill, Mississippi State running back today, tweeting, either change the flag of Mississippi, which can still, which still contains the Confederate emblem, or I won't be representing this state anymore. And I meant that. I'm I'm tired.

Also, athletes at the University of Texas and UCLA coming together in demanding change. It's an amazing moment for sports. But like I said, I just feel that this is step one out of like 20. And now we get to see how all these institutions, conferences, commissioners, et cetera, try to follow through. Well, I mean, just as we're talking about this, news came across our desks that all of the, the entire field of NASCAR drivers for the Ta-Qo-500 Tala-Dega Speedway, push Bubble-Wa-Loss his car to the front of the field in support of him,

which is an incredible gesture. But, you know, one worries, one wonders if they'll even be, I mean, how much of effect this will all have? I mean, you mentioned the protests. And we see it coming down from the top, you know? I mean, one, you'd like to think that NASCAR are making this decision. decision would cause some people to think, you know, just, I mean, to reconsider some of their,

their positions and their morality and everything else, but, you know, I mean, we see, you know, President Trump's own administration, our own, you know, government is, making coronavirus guidelines that he jokes about to his base, you know, shortly thereafter, as if, like, this is some big onus that's all some conspiracy theory. And it's,

Just the, it is. It's, this is the first step, you know. I mean, all of NASCAR, drivers and, and the organization, have a long way to go to kind of hold the line here. But congratulations. Kudos to them for what they've done so far. It's what we've, you know, what happened in this case was particularly dark. Yeah.

And like I said, congrats to NASCAR at least getting to step two, because we've seen so many step ones, right? I cut a Twitter video. I made a statement. Great. NASCAR actually changed a policy. great. Hey, guess what? A lot more work to do. Tons more work to do. Let's spend a moment, David, here at the end talking about the temporary end of the newsroom.

I raised this because a memo came down from the New York Times. I saw this via Margaret Sullivan about when employees are expected to actually go back to the New York Times newsroom. It says, we will not require you to return to any of our offices until at least January 2021, the Times says. Handful of offices outside of New York have already reopened or will reopen soon. In those cases, employees return will still be voluntary up until at least January 2021. No employee will be required to return before January if they do not feel comfortable doing so. I thought this was a good moment or a good excuse for us to talk about newsrooms. Because and here are two newsroom employees speaking remotely over the Zoom call right. now. Journalists have not been in these for a while, by and large. What are we missing out on?

What's cool about a newsroom? Depending on the newsroom you're in, you know, camaraderie, sort of interchange of ideas, free coffee, you know. That's one thing. Structure in life. I mean, there's a lot of things that are going to work in general, but as far as newsrooms in particular. You know, I think we all sort of glorify the, you know, the movie newsroom. The, you know, editor kind of like smacking a paper on his desk and yelling across the room for somebody to get on a, get on a, you know, get on a beat or whatever. Shoemaker.

But. Get down to City Hall and get me a story. And even if, exactly. And even if we, you know, it's not quite like that anymore. There is that, I mean, it's still meaningful, you know. It's still, I mean, being in the presence of your coworkers and, you know, everyone else can be really an important part of the job. Well, the best thing about Newsroom is journalists, right? Yeah.

Because other journalists, most of them anyway, have a beautifully jaded view of the world. That's what I love, right? I love walking, I love walking out of my house where I'm surrounded by family. let's just say had this big, you know, bundle of love and a certain way of looking at the universe. And then you walk into the newsroom and everybody's in there going, uh, did you read that piece by someone? So that really sucked. Uh, you know, it was good, but here's what was wrong with it. I mean, just everything is, everything is kind of jaded.

I love that about journals, right? I love this. I love the natural skepticism. I love the, you know, kind of way you relate to each other and relate to anybody in the business. I love the sense of that you're all on some weird shared mission, right? You've all picked this line of work. And I think some other professions probably have that,

but journalism has that in spades. It really does. You're all in this together in some way, even if you're competing with everybody else in the universe. Now, the downside is about newsrooms is that they are full of journalists. It's actually the same as the upside, right? Because like 1.5 seconds elapses

before someone cites a piece they just did that they would like you to compliment them on. So that happens too, right? There are some, there are awesome drawbacks. But I got to say, as somebody who lives in Orange County and, and,

you know, appears in the Ringer newsroom once a week or so, I have really missed it this last three months of change. I'm not sure I have ever been as professionally lonely in my life. As I have been for the last three and a half months. And Alan Siegel and Kevin Clark will tell you about the plane of tone of my voice when I pick up the phone and call them. I mean, it is just like, you do miss that reinforcement and you do miss that,

I don't know, that sense of just, I guess some of it is, you know, being patted on the head, frankly, right? Until like, hey, good job. Hey, hey, you're here. Hey, it's Brian. But some of it's just being around other people. And it makes me sad and it makes me lonely. We've gotten to this world where it's wonderfully, we can all do this kind of remotely now.

And it's not, you know, it's not like you said, like, you said like a movie from the 40s where the whole newspaper wouldn't come out if we weren't in the office together. But, um, but I don't know. I understand why we're doing it. I totally support it, but emotionally, it's hard. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, it's been said that, you know, one of the best things, one of the, one of the, one of the few positive things that's come out of, uh, coronavirus is sort of realization that we can do this remotely, right? I mean, that we have the ability to do this. And certainly to kind of back up a little bit from that,

one of the great things about doing what we do, especially once you kind of reach a certain level, is that you were always able to sort of do it on your own terms, if not fully remotely, right? That, like, you know, you might have a different working arrangement than the person next to you, but there is nothing physically prohibiting Brian Curtis

from spending a couple months in Australia or, you know, doing whatever with his family. It's a... For example. For example. But one of the worst things about it is that, yeah, is that you can do it on your own and that there's this sort of presumption that, like, you are sort of... You can function on an island.

And it's a really miserable way to live, you know? I mean, I certainly have a different feeling about showing up to do podcasts and just seeing all your faces on Zoom than I would have... than I did prior to this whole thing, right? I mean, it's just like, this is a lifeline in a lot of ways. And I get the, you know, Ringer, or more precisely, Spotify, our parent company is, you know, had previously extended the work from home until next year.

And that sort of became, I mean, I'm sure they had a lot of good reasons for it, but to me it felt like it was just sort of functional declaration at some point. It's just like, we've been doing this, weeks or a month at a time for so long that we just have to sort of, just say something. even if it miraculously goes away tomorrow. We got to give people some stability,

you know, some ability to, like, predict the future, even in such an unpredictable time. But I think we are all, everybody's sort of shaken by just the prospect of 2021, you know? I mean, I can't, I mean, it's just, we've come a long way, you know,

but, I mean, in the, just in the past few months, but, you know, being in the, being in the newsroom, is fun. It's a good thing. You know what it's hard to do in the newsroom? What? Journalism. That's true. At least for me. Because, and this is where you can tell the difference between people who grew up working at newspapers and people who grew up like us working at book publishers and, you know, relaxed institutions

like Slate.com and stuff like that. Because the people that worked at newspapers, they've got like earbuds in. They're like showing you funny stuff on the internet. They're just, just getting up, walking all over the place and talking. And then you look down and they wrote a piece. You're like, when did that? When did you do that? When did you have the focus to make that happen? I can't do that.

I really cannot. And that's why if I want to write a story, I go home. I don't want to be at the office because all I'm going to do is talk to people. Right. I'm going to talk to those journal. I have those conversations with all those people I want to talk to. And I don't get anything done. but people who were at newsrooms from actual newspaper newsrooms

they have somehow mastered that art that they are constantly talking constantly doing stuff constantly walking around and yet at the same time committing acts of journalism I don't know that I'm ever going to reach that level or master that state I certainly haven't yet well let's hope you get the opportunity to try I don't quite know how to take that but

But thank you, David. All right. It's time for David Shoemaker, guess is a strain pun headline. All right. Something that requires complete silence. Thursday's headline was about NECO wafer's. Headline was NECO is back after being a wafer so long.

Today's headline comes from blue shirts breakaway, David. It's from Slate. The headline is a top of piece about the struggles of ice cream shops. As you might imagine, ice cream shops missed out on their usual springtime bonanza. Oh, yeah. Due to COVID-19. Also, you can't do take-out ice cream like you can do some other restaurant deliveries.

So ice cream is in a bad place. What was Slate's strained pun headline? Oh, man. Oh, God. Ice cream, frozen, um, uh, Scoops.

Where am I going with this? Lick was getting there. Lick was getting there. Getting licked? Are they getting, the industry is getting licked? The ice cream industry is getting licked was actually the slate tweet. There is a slightly different headline

on the story, though. Different pun? Mm-hmm. Ice cream. The ice cream industry is having. Spill. Uh, uh,

what is it is? A what? It's hot out. Oh, oh, it's, uh, meltdown. Meltdown? The ice cream industry is having a meltdown. Yeah, all right, all right. Getting licked was funny, too.

That's a good one. I would have also accepted we all scream for ice cream. Yes, that's what I should have said. That's exactly right. I bet that's been done a billion times, though. I remember it once worked with this editor and he goes, I'm so tired of whenever we have a story, about aquariums.

The headline is, this is the dawning of the age of aquariums. And I went, how are there, them in that many stories about aquariums that you even had a chance for a strain pun? But I have a feeling this is one of those.

Just use it over and over again. Who cares? That's great. That's the press box. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Research by Chris Almeida, production magic by Erica Servantes.

We're back Thursday with listener mail. DMs are now open. I sort of figured that out belatedly. we should also do an item on the state of the presidential campaign David either between us or with a guest that's four months away yanks uh plus i'm excited about this one joe biden's digital divide plus more lukewarm takes about the beating another step see you then david see you later right