The Ringer NBA Show - The Challenges of Making 'The Last Dance,' The Stories Players Tell, and Quarantine Comforts With Jason Hehir | The JJ Redick Podcast

Episode Date: May 11, 2020

JJ and Tommy sit down with filmmaker Jason Hehir to talk about his Michael Jordan/Bulls docuseries 'The Last Dance' and explore what went into making the immensely popular project. They break down the animosity between players during that era (23:07). Jason reveals what went down during the supposed "Jordan freeze-out" in 1985, and then they draft their favorite quarantine comforts (48:09). Subscribe to The JJ Redick Podcast here. Hosts: JJ Redick and Tommy Alter Guest: Jason Hehir Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the JJ Redick podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by World Central Kitchen. Their relief team is working across America to safely distribute individually packaged fresh meals in communities that need support. They're now serving tens of thousands of meals daily in some of our biggest cities like New York and L.A. And they're launching initiatives across America to deliver fresh hot meals to hospitals and clinics fighting on the front lines while keeping local restaurants and business as well. You can directly help the heroes and hospitals and clinics who are fighting for us, and you can help keep your local restaurants alive. Go to the ringer.com slash WCK to donate. That's the ringer.com slash WCK. We're trying to raise $250,000.

And if you have the means, it's an unbelievably great and useful cause that helps our hospital heroes, emergency workers, and local restaurants. Please give whatever you can. The money goes directly to World Central Kitchen, and it's a charitable donation. Once again, that's the ringer.com slash WCK. Welcome to this week's episode on the JJRa podcast with Tommy Alter. This week we have a very special guest on. It is the director of the last dance, Jason Hare. Really excited to have them on.

We have a fun conversation. A lot of stuff about the last dance and a lot of stuff about some of the comparisons between 90s NBA and today's NBA. Let's get right to do it. Jason, what's up, man? Thanks for joining us on this week's episode. of the JJ Reddick podcast with Tommy Alter. It's a huge pleasure to have you on, man. Thanks for having me, man. I know you're doing a lot of these right now. And there's a lot of

background available. But just for the listener, can you just talk a little bit about how you got attached to the Jordan Project? Mike Tolan from Mandalay Sports Media, is the production company on this, came to me in July of 2016, invited me out to dinner in New York and asked me if I'd be interested in being a director for a multi-part series that utilized this like urban legend footage that was in the basement of the NBA vaults since the 997-98 season, that they had embedded cameras for the whole season. It is true. There is footage because we had all heard about this and said like, how much could there possibly be? It is true. It's there. There's footage. And Jordan has just agreed to be a part of the project, which meant that the footage could be

used because that was the condition upon which they shot it. Because Adam Silver told him at worst, this will be the best home movies of all time for you and will only allow this stuff to be seen if you give your sign-off. So almost 20 years later, he gives a sign-off and they asked me if I'd be interested. And of course, it was like capital YES, yes. It stalled for so long, the negotiations

between like all ESPN and Netflix and MBA and the Jordan brand stall for so long that I went off and made the Andre the Giant documentary for HBO. It was gone for more than a year doing that, came back, and they still were like, dotting eyes and crossing T's and the timing worked out. And we started in January of 2018 working on the last dance. From episode one on, I've had the same like question.

And you're the perfect person asked this. What was the creative process like in making the decision to not just focus on that one season, but to really tell the whole backstory? And a lot of it, you know, centers on Michael, obviously. but there's obviously all the characters on that on that bull's team that that you kind of go into great detail with. It evolved pretty quickly from my initial discussions with them. The first time that I met all of the partners at the table, they said,

do you think you could make eight episodes that were wall to wall just the footage? And I'd only seen a couple of hours of the footage at that point, but there is no way we could do that. I mean, any basketball fan would have such a great time watching the best eight hours of this behind the scenes footage because just to watch a shoot around with these guys and recognize who's doing what and how they interact with each other is fascinating. But they initially asked, like they said,

we don't want to do, or do we have to do present-day interviews? Michael's been interviewed a thousand times about all this stuff so you can just use archival for him. You don't need him. And I think there was a concern among some of the partners that present-day interviews, people would be giving revisionist history. And my thought was that enough time had passed that the truth would come out

and people would be comfortable telling the truth. So we had many discussions about that, which were cordial and respectful. So pretty quickly, I kind of like just went underground for a couple of weeks and came up with this 14-page outline for an eight-episode series at that point that went back and forth in times. There were two timelines. There was the 97-98 season, and then converging with that was 84 to 98, and how the Bulls evolved from there with Michael, of course, as the main character.

So by the time you get to episode 10, there's no more flashbacks, because the timelines have converged. So it was easier to say on paper than it has been to edit and tell the story because there's so many... Someone asked, why wouldn't you just tell this chronologically? Well, if we told it chronologically, you'd start with the birth of Phil Jackson,

like back in the 40s. Like, that wouldn't make sense. You have to set the stakes at the beginning. Like, why is this the last dance? Well, then you have to introduce Jerry Krause and Phil Jackson, And you have to tell a little bit of their backstory for why there was so much tension there. You have to tell a little bit of Scotty's backstory to say why he resented, why he signed a bad deal, a conservative deal,

and then resented the fact that they didn't re-up with him or rip up the contract and renew it. So you have to know about Jerry Rinesdorf in order to tell that story fully. So more moving parts than I've ever had to deal with. I think one of the fun parts for me has been the converging timelines. Because like in the 90s, I was about two things. It was Duke basketball and Michael Jordan. And my earliest sports memories were around 91, 92. So I don't remember much of the Bulls Lakers series,

but I remember watching Bulls Trailblazers. By the time the Bulls' sons rolled around, like I was all in on basketball and all in on Duke. So I was watching basketball all the time. But to get the footage and the stories from the 80s, and even Scotty's evolution, to get to the point where he is an all-N-B-A player in the early 90s. That was really fun for me to sort of live for the first time.

And I'm sure there's a lot of people that grew up in the 90s, you know, that were maybe born right around the time Jordan was winning his first championship, that don't have a great recollection of those early teams. And it's all sort of just, like you said, urban legend. And so to see that sort of play out has been really fascinating. fascinating and a lot of fun. I think that that's one of the things that's been eye-opening from me, because I look back and I remember, I'm older than you,

so I remember those years vividly. In fact, by the time the shrug game happened, people of my age, a lot of us were sick of Jordan and the Bulls at that point. They had won so much. It's like we got sick of the Cowboys, we got sick of the Bulls. Remember how great someone is, you get sick of them. It's when they fall and rise again. It's like this Tiger Woods thing we just went through.

That's when you're like, you have a new appreciation for them. But looking back at it now and studying it with the detail that I've had to study it with in order to tell the story, can we swear on this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead. That's how fucking hard it was every year to do this. Like, JJ, you're a pro athlete and you know the sacrifices that are necessary and what goes into it. I can tell you the sacrifice is necessary to make a documentary for a couple of years. But it's very easy to look back on the 90s and think they were the best team. They had the best team every year.

and they just won six out of eight because they were the best team and they had the most talent on the floor at the same time. So much more goes into it than that. And you can really go down to specific plays in each of these seasons where everything could have fallen apart. In 93, they go down 2-0 and the press is, he's under more scrutiny than he's ever been under and decides not to talk to the press for the first time in his life.

If they lose game three, it's a wrap. That's it. We're not having this conversation because he probably would have left and either not come back or would be talking about he did lose one. So many times this thing could have. gone haywire and and they overcame it. So it was fascinating to go back and look at it, not from 35,000 feet, but from ground level. In watching the episode about that 93 series with the Knicks and Doc was there and it brought me back to something that Doc said while the

Warriors were making their run. And early on, in reference to the 2015 team, sees that you got to have, you got to have luck to win a championship. And the Warriors, of course, took offense to that, but I don't think Doc meant that that they were lucky to win. I think what he meant is exactly what you're saying that during any run, no matter how much talent you have, there's a game or two during those runs or a play or two where if it goes the other way, the whole thing's off. The whole thing's fucked.

You think about the Charles Smith finish. I remember that so vividly and sitting in my chair watching on television, like if this goes in, like I would be devastated. Devastated. If they call a foul, if he misses by an inch, if his hand is one half an inch lower, even if it's not, they easily could have called a foul on that. We watched it again and again and again. I was like, dude, he had someone committed a foul here.

You don't get like a strip in two blocks and whatever happened within those eight seconds without there being some sort of foul. I understand you swallow the whistle at that point of the game. But you could extrapolate it over to football with Brady. like I'm a Patriots guy, but there's so many times that that could have gone either way and we're having a different discussion about someone's greatness. They were still just as great for better or worse

before David Tyree makes the helmet catch. It doesn't mean they're better or worse as a person. It's just their legacy grows, the mythology grows because of it. And it can hurt you if you're a guy like Charles Barkley or Patrick Ewing who's going against Jordan during these runs. can be devastating to your legacy. The Barclay footage in episode 6 was a great thing for his rep

because I think a lot of younger people don't realize how good he actually was and they just know him as the TNT dude who's just funny and like yeah, he made a bunch of all-star games and stuff like that. But when you see him in action and you realize how close they were to actually winning that series,

it changes the perspective if you were not a diehard fan in the early 90s. And he was known, it's the way that body types and conditioning have evolved. He was known as the round mound of rebound back then. And we're looking at him now, like that's slim Charles Barkley. Younger people are like, holy shit, I can't believe that he was that skinny because Charles is a much bigger guy now. But he was known as like tubby back then compared to the players, you know?

I think he was only, he's listed at what, like 6'6? I thought that I read somewhere. He's only like six, four and a half, and led the league in rebound. Like, his athleticism, pound for pound, was absolutely off the charts. Speaking of luck, I don't know if either of you guys can explain this to me.

How did Bowie happen in the draft? I can give my answer to then JJ as an extra. I want both of your answers on this. Because Hakeem is an obvious, there's an obvious reason why happened. But how did Bowie happen? You talk about luck, right? So back then there was a coin flip.

There wasn't a lottery. And the bottom two teams flip the coin to see who would get the first pick. So Houston gets the first pick. Anyone who was going to get the first pick was going to take his Keem Elijah on. Even though Michael was player of the year that year, the NBA was built around big men. This is another thing that Jerry Krause doesn't get credit for is that he built that dynasty around a two guard, which was unheard of back then. You build it around a point guard and a big man. You build it around Magic and Kareem.

You did not build it around Byron Scott. So Akeem goes with Houston because they had won the talk. Portland had Clyde Drexler already, who was in many circles considered to be on par with Michael, or even better at that point because he had more of a pro pedigree at that point. They also had Jim Paxon, who I believe was an all-star then, John Paxon's brother. So their back court was set. If Michael went to Portland, then I think he would have emerged as a starter pretty soon, but he would have been like coming off the bench immediately there. Also, his personal development, if he went to Portland, Nike was right there. He had to make his own way in Chicago.

was a million reasons why he became who he became because he went to Chicago and nowhere else. That's why they took Bowie, by the way. It's a big man league and they already had Clyde Drexler. If the coin flip goes differently and Portland gets the first pick, they're still going to take Clyde Drexler. Houston would have taken Michael Jordan. So a coin flip away from Michael Jordan going to the Houston Rockets to play with Ralph Samson. That is how he would have had to make his way. They still would have made that team around Ralph Samson. Who knows what Michael's career would have emerged as? He still would have been of the greatest. I don't know that they would have relied on him as much in the early going as they relied on him in Chicago. The other thing, too, is that he came this close to signing with

spot built. So instead of wearing black and red Nike's right now, we could be wearing orange and yellow spot belts, and that could be the shoe. There's so many little things that had to happen exactly right. David Stern came on as commissioner the year that Michael was a rookie and reinstated the dunk contest. And when I was that eight, I cared about the dunk contest more than the finals. Michael Jordan was not on my wall hitting a jump shot. He was on my wall dunking. David Stern knew that and brought that aspect back to the league.

If Michael's not born in 1963, then he doesn't turn 21 and 84. He doesn't leave to go to the NBA in 84 when ESPN starts broadcasting games nationally and internationally, and David Stern comes on and recognizes how to evolve the league. So many things had to happen perfectly. That's my San Luis answer, sorry.

Gladwell should have wrote a chapter on Jordan in the Outliers book. He should, he should have been in there. He should have been in there. I think you nailed it in terms of the league for a long time was just built around big guys. You know, Iverson as the number one pick in 96. I think it was 96 or was it 97, whatever year that was. You know, that was an anomaly to be a point guard taking that early.

I want to go back to one Charles Barkley store I have. So when I was coming out of the draft, I had hurt my back. I had done all my West Coast workouts, and then I had to work out for like four or five East Coast teams, and they ended up just being interviews. And so I came to Philly, and Billy King was the GM at the time, met with me, met with Mocheeks, and then Billy took me out to dinner. I can't remember where we went, but Barclay was sitting at the bar, and he was having a burger at the bar, and Billy went and introduced me to him.

And Barclay was like, hey, man, there's no way you're going to be able to be able to be a two guard in the NBA. I said, okay. He said, yeah, you need to, you need to be a point guard. And I said, okay, he goes, you're just, you're just too small. And I remember thinking to myself, like, what, why do I have to change positions? Like, I'll make it work. Anyways, that's it. That's all I got. Well, that's his mentality. He said in the doc, like, that was the moment. It took until 1993, the middle of the finals for him to accept the fact that he was not the best basketball player on planet Earth. So as Michael wins the first one, as he shrugged, against Portland. Chuck is at home watching thinking, I'm better than him.

And you could be better. You have to have that mentality, I guess, to function like that. But that's, what are you, six, your six three? I'd say six four barefoot. I'm close enough to six four. I was measured at six fourth the combine barefoot. And you was saying that you're not, you're not big enough to be a two guard. He's, he's a half inch taller than you and he's a forward. My biggest issue is my alligator arms. I just don't have a wingspan. Do you guys think a book like the Jordan rules could happen today? That's what I was I'm going to ask you about JJ because I'm really interested in. Obviously, the fishbowl that those guys were in that Michael was in the 90s, we showed how he's trying to cope with that. But I remember reading stories a while back, you got a shitload of like hate mail and stuff at Duke, right? Like email? Yeah. And phone calls in the middle of the night from Maryland fans. I had to change my number a bunch of times. They would just keep getting it. I never found out who the leak was. So what do you think would happen now? If you were the same kind of lightning rod, polarizing. figure in basketball now with social media the way it is now, how do you think you would have

reacted and what would you have done to cope with it? Yeah, I think it would have been harder to cope with it. Like I've been open about this. I had to see a therapist for three years at Duke. My sophomore through my senior year, I saw a therapist once a week just to kind of help me deal with that and what felt like a fishbow. And, you know, that's, that's a very relative sort of feeling depending on, you know, what situation you're in. But I do think the, uh, the mental health conversation that athletes are starting to have out in public now, um, I think that's a direct result of social media and the microscope that's kind of put on on players. I think it's harder. I think it's harder to be an athlete now. Like, at least for me, as a

kid like i didn't know a whole lot about jordan or barclay or reggie miller like any really anything about their personal life or what they stood for and i know jordan kind of touched on the republican thing in was it episode five five it was five yeah so you know it's it's so much easier now to sort of get access to the other side of an athlete which can be a good thing but it also obviously he creates sort of, you know, an even bigger fishbowl because it's just, just more shit on you. And it's controllable to a certain extent. Like if you want to be showing your house, you can do that. You can do Instagram lives every day.

You can do that. You can show like, you know, off-season workouts with these. I think he would have been terrible at it and hated it. Like, he is the world's richest gym rat. Like that's what he cares about is, is the. basketball and I know that sounds like painting him with like this perfect brush, but that's what he cared about all along. He was acutely aware and he said it in episode five that his game did all of us talking. That none of this McDonald's and Haynes and Gatorade and Nike, none of that was there

if he was averaging two points and three rebounds. He was acutely aware of that at all times, that if that goes away, it's all gone. That's why you have the Jordan Dome and you'll see it in episode eight when he comes back, they had to build him a dome so he could get back into basketball shape while he was shooting space jam. Because what does he care about being in a cartoon movie? Because that's the fruits of his labor, but the labor is working out. So he was shooting all day and then working out on weights with Tim Grover and then playing pickup games, like the greatest pickup games maybe of all time besides Martin Carlo that summer. I was thinking, as he was talking about that, I was thinking a little bit about Kobe and just

how into basketball Kobe was. And it seemed like he recognized that as much as MJ. Like everything comes from basketball. Everything comes from my greatness on the basketball court. And I wanted to ask you this because you spent time with MJ. And you got to interview Kobe as well. It seems to me like both those guys somehow were able to relax a little bit after the fact. like they were so driven and so wired as players.

Maybe they channel that into other ways, but it seems like there's that adjustment period for athletes where you actually like have to learn how to turn that off. And it can be really frustrating. I think that's right. It's just human nature. I don't think your brain, it's Darwinian. Your brain cannot operate that intensely your whole life

or your engine would just burn out. But that's why it was really fun to hand Michael that iPad, because that was like a portal back to that. It's like a magic trick. As soon as he touched that thing, he was back in the 90s. Because I can read him a quote from Isaiah or whatever, but when he sees Reggie's face,

and you'll see this later on in the series, when he sees Reggie saying something and hears his voice and you see his facial expressions on that thing are fantastic when he's looking down at those things. He doesn't even have to speak. You can tell that he thinks that what Isaiah is saying is bullshit just by his facial expression. and when he sees Gary Payton explaining that, like, they could have stopped the Bulls if he was guarding him from game one.

Like, those are my favorite parts of the doc because that's when I think the realist version of Michael comes out. That's when that competitor comes back out. I don't think that that Michael is, that version of Michael is there when he's playing with his grandson. But I do think it's there when you sit there and you talk to him. He has a photographic memory of these series, as I'm sure you're not surprised. That all, that idea came from one of the first times I met him. My brother and I were looking at Jordan clips when I got this job just to be like, holy shit, I can't believe we're going to, like, we were saying, we got to use this,

we got to use this. I've run stuff by my brothers all the time because they're basically like my audience. And they're not even in the business. And there's one clip online. It's like seven minutes long and it's all of the Jordan fights that he's gotten in. Any confrontation, any like my favorite, my two favorite Jordan clips are when he's standing over Barcliffe, over Ewing at the garden, when he screams at him after the N-1, and when he throws Scotty Pippin out of the way and says,

fuck you, baby, to X, to Xavier McDaniel. That's because he's defending Scottie Pippen, it just fires me up. So there's a whole reel of those cut to music. And we were talking about it, and I called it up and I showed him. He locked in. Took my phone and was just like doing this and smirking and like mumbling to himself, like giving commentary. Like, yep, that was at Marcus Square Arena.

I remember that. They threw him out. They didn't throw me out. It was like, we have to use this. Like, people need to see this Jordan, like, reliving these things. So I do think that they've relaxed quite a bit, maybe competitively. But, like, look at Kobe. That passionate a guy is not going to stop being passionate about something.

He may not be as passionate about winning an NBA title anymore. And look at how he threw himself into other arenas. Imagine what he would have done for women's basketball. And what Gia would have done for women's basketball, it still doesn't make sense to even be discussing that. But Tommy, we had we talked about this a little. bit with Seth Curry last week. But this, like, hatred that players of that era had for each other, I just feel like it doesn't really exist on that level anymore. Do you guys, do you guys have any

theories? Why? Well, I want to hear Jason's answer, but I guess my, the thing that we've talked about with a few different guys is that it's not necessarily that it doesn't exist as much as it's, it's more passive aggressive. And it's not, it is not manifested in, uh, these specific ways. that very clearly Isaiah and Michael hated each other then and they hate each other now. And it was one of the iconic moments from last weekend is nothing has changed in 20 years. And now it just seems like when those things exist, guys will take smiling Instagrams together, but it doesn't mean they actually don't feel the same way. But Jason, what do you think?

It's a testament to the growth of the game and the growth of technology. So those guys weren't exposed to each other more than a couple of times a year. So you might see them in an All-Star game or at the finals or at a charity. game, but there's so many events now that the NBA sponsors that players see each other at. There's so many sponsorship deals and it's global and they're going on trips. These trips where they're flying first class to all these countries and doing promotional trips for a shoe company. I think there's a lot more interaction both in person and definitely online with these guys. And they share trainers in the offseason. The game has just grown in every

facet. So they have more exposure to each other. And the more exposure to get to someone, the more of their humanity emerges, and the more you're like, you know what? Whatever. He's not like, fuck you for walking off against me in 91, but we can have a beer about it and laugh. Magic and Larry famously weren't close. Ezra Edelman did his doc, the Magic and Larry doc, which is still one of the best films I've ever seen. It's incredible. Go see it if you haven't seen it. It's like mandatory viewing for any basketball fan, especially. They didn't like each other until they filmed a commercial together and spent time. Magic had a meal that Larry's mom cooked, and they got to know each other as people. So I think that players of today, either online or in person, have way more opportunities

to get to know each other as people. But like you said, it's way more passive aggressive, because I'm sure there's plenty of people who hate each other's guts. They just can't say it the way that they could back then. It is a lot of passive aggressive. It's also very easy to throw shade on social media and not have it sort of escalate. But then when you play them two, three weeks later, you just don't acknowledge that person. But there's not that, there's not that. There's not that like just like in your face like people choking each other just doesn't just doesn't happen anymore how often in a locker room setting are you guys like showing each other's shit like did you see what he said about this oh all day long really we're always sharing things either on the

group chat if we're not together or on the bus plane yeah we're always sharing we we talk about everything that's going on in the NBA I was going to say one more thing about like the exposure level, I think the USA basketball program, the way they redid it in 05-06 with that first sort of world championship team and then the redeemed team in 08, where prior to that, they would bring these guys in, you know, starting in 92, you'd bring them in, you'd practice for two weeks and then you'd go play the Olympics. And now it's like every summer these guys are getting together, even when there's not a competition. There's still like, you know, a two or three week time in Vegas, whether you're, you're hanging out with each other. And these are the greatest

players, the greatest American players, at least, you know, in the world. And obviously, the European guys and the guys in Asia also playing their national teams. But I think that's, that's also been a component to guys hating or not hating each other. And as we saw with the big three, and as we saw with, you know, DeAndre, Kyrie and Kevin, like that bond that they formed while playing for the national team ultimately led them to team as, as, as, as, NBA teammates. Look what he did in the dream team. Michael says that's his favorite part of it was the practices, he was fascinated to see other people's work ethic or lack thereof and the camaraderie, that he was staying up all night playing cards with magic and guys that he knew but didn't know that

well and now are lifelong friends of his. Like the fact that Ewing and Larry Bird came out of that as lifelong friends, like there should be a doc made about their friendship. Just the more exposure you have to each other. My follow-up, JJ, to that for both you guys, is what happens when you add money into the equation? Because, obviously, with Scotty throughout the doc, that's an ongoing theme. But then even with Michael and Jason, JJ, and I were talking about this the other day, you know, he didn't really get paid until his last couple years in the league. And so when you start having these conversations and all the pettiness and this about attention,

but then you have a guy like Scotty who is just by any metric drastically underpaid for what the value that he brings. I guess my question is sort of twofold. A, for you, Jason, when you were making this, do you think that that was just as pervasive a theme throughout the franchise as it seems? Then, JJ, for you, is that a thing that people are still paying attention to all the time? How much guys are getting paid? Yeah. It's all anybody talks about. It still is really what matters.

Look, if there's a guy on a rookie deal in his third or fourth year, he knows all of his comps. He knows, I can't believe this guy got four for 80. I'm going to go kick his ass. Like, it's definitely out there. And again, this is sort of the inherent problem with professional team sports is that there is a hierarchy. And there is a finite amount of resources to hand out amongst the players. And, you know, if you're a tennis guy, if you're a golfer and you want to pursue greatness, you can do that in a very selfish way and that's fine.

But if you choose to do that in a team sport in a very selfish way, that creates problems. That definitely creates problems. That's why Rod Thorne said to David Falk, you're trying to make my guy into a tennis player. He didn't care if Michael had a good backhand. He's talking about the fact that he didn't. want this to rip apart the locker room. And maybe we didn't do a good enough job diving into that.

But that is what Rod meant, is that there's going to be resentment in the locker room. And early on, I think there was, to a certain extent, there was kind of a, especially with an organization like the Bulls back then who were mediocre at best,

there was an understanding that it's practice and you're going to go through the motions. And certainly you don't want a rookie. It's like when you go play pickup and you're like, some guys picking you up full court. Like, just calm down. That was Michael coming in.

He said, first day, I'm identifying the best guy on the team and I'm going after him. Then I'm going after the best guy at my position. Like he came in guns blazing, but he was so good that he gained their respect. But early on, I'm sure they were like, I've talked to guys who were on that team. Like, was their resentment? Yes. And there are some guys who were no longer with us, so I think could have spoken even better to it. That's one of the things we don't cover in this.

And I'm surprised that people haven't brought it up yet. I'm sure they have somewhere that I haven't seen is the supposed freeze-out. in 85 at the All-Star game. So that may or may not have existed. All the research that I've done says that it did not. They clearly were kind of arching their eyebrows at this kid who came in with his own shoe deal, wearing his own warm-ups to the dunk contest. Everyone else was on Converse then, except for like Gervyn and Moses, I think, had Nike

deals. Wearing gold chains, he, like, I think Isaiah's version of this, or if you talk to someone about Isaiah's version of this. is that in the elevator at the All-Star game, they didn't speak to each other. And Isaiah thought that that was arrogant and aloof. Michael's version, I know is, I didn't know what to say. Like, I was just kind of like, I was thrilled to be there.

He said, I went out and I bought a fur coat. I invited my whole family. I couldn't believe that I was now part of this fraternity. So he thought it was out of respect that he didn't want to bother Isaiah Thomas on the elevator. It wasn't like I'm better than you. But he also scored four points or seven points or something. He scored enough points in an All-Star game for a rookie that he couldn't have been frozen out. And also, you can't, as a Magic Johnson, can't freeze Michael Jordan out from the other bench.

Like, it doesn't make sense. Isaiah did say on record with me in the interview, he said, I was not Isaiah Thomas yet. This is the 85 All-Star game, okay? I'm in a locker room with Larry Bird, Gervyn was in that locker room. Who else would have been in the East locker room at that point? Dr. Jay, like he said, you think I'm going to go around and tell Larry Bird to freeze this kid out? I didn't have the clout to do that. So it's a convenient story.

Michael said he wasn't aware of it until he came back to Chicago. And everyone asked him about this freezeout. And he said, I don't know what you're talking about, but it pissed him off. So he went, they played Detroit first game after the break. And Michael, in his words, in the interview to us, said, okay, I'll show you a freeze out. 49. He had the ability just if he got pissed, he could flip a switch and say, okay, don't forget. The vindictiveness is on another level.

I love it. I love it. I was once frozen out of an All-Star game. True story. Really? Not an NBA All-Star game. But yeah, it was. Carmelo. Carmel. At least that's what was told to me. What was the reason?

You could play in two All-Star games as a senior in high school. So we go to the McDonald's game in New York City. It was like Mello Amari and Rashad McCants were on my team. And they all had like pretty good games. But I got the MVP. And I don't even know if I really deserve the MVP because a lot of my threes that I hit were we were already up like 15, 20 points. But I had like 26 points. I get the MVP. So then the next week we go to the Jordan game in Washington, D.C. And what was told to me by two different guys on the team was that Mello was going around telling people, JJ's not going to get the MVP again. I'm taking every shot. And if you look at the box score, I'm just saying. I'm just saying, I have no ill-wil towards the MLO.

What? You never asked him about it? No, I've never asked him about it. We're going to ask him about it on this show. You're going to come on the show. We're going to. I want to actually know if he actually did tell people that, though. He took like 26.

He took like 26 shots that game. I think I took like seven. In an All-Star game. In an All-Star game. Yeah. Right. Did you get the MVP? No, we lost.

We lost. We lost. Jason, speaking of freeze-outs or just stuff like this, with, you know, in the episodes that aired Sunday, it gets into Scotty not coming in the game. Were you surprised by any, when you were making this, anything that came out of that interaction after the fact?

First of all, I had to go back and obviously look at the footage and all that. There's a couple of things about the game itself. The difficulty of the shot that Tony hits is like off the charts. Like Tony was, he's one of the guys. I wish we could have more time. We just, we did not have the time to do like deep dives into these guys.

Ron Harper, we could have done an episode about Ron Harper. We could have done two episodes about Tony Kukoch and his story and coming to the States and being perceived as soft when he might be the least soft guy who's come through the Bulls franchise ever given his background. So the difficulty of the shot was one thing. The other thing was that was such a notorious incident that I had always remembered that as them losing. So going into the project, I was thinking, oh, we got to do that thing when Skye sat out and they lost the game because of him. Like, no, they won, which is even more awkward and bittersweet. the interesting thing about it or the confusing thing or challenging thing for us is that so everyone

kind of comes to his defense to scotty's defense because he was a beloved teammate more so than I even realized in present day interviews I didn't realize that Michael in practice was like the bad cop and Scotty was the good cop scotty was the guy who would like patch you on the back and say like you'll be all right if you miss a couple of shots he would feed you again until you started making him and michael was the opposite by all accounts so they come to his offense Steve Kerr and bill Cartwright and BJ and those guys come to his defense. But then Scotty turned around and said he would have done the same thing now. And it's not the bow you want to tie on that story.

You want him to be like, yeah, I fucked up. I shouldn't have done that. I'm glad we won. I learned a lesson. We were all better for it. But then he said, like, if I had to do it again, I would have done the same thing. So we were like, do we leave this in? Is it antithetical to what they just said?

Like, are we just contradicting what everyone said in confusing this? Or do we have an obligation? to say what Scottie thinks, even if it confuses the storyline that would be neater. And we elected to go at the latter because Scotty had to have the last word. It was just bizarre to me that he said, like, through all that, I'd still do the same thing again. Maybe he meant like they'd win the game and he would still take a philosophical stand, but I found that bizarre. The thing is that by episode 10, man, I think that people forget or don't even know

the degree to which Scotty had to tough out game six. his back was gone in those playoffs. And the first play, the first bucket the bull scoring game six of the 98 finals is a Scotty dunk. And he pulls his back out on the way down. And anyone who's pulled their back out knows, like, that's it. Your back goes into spasm. You cannot move.

He's doing the bad back run where he's got his like elbows back and he's hunched over. And he's going like heel towing it up the floor. He played the entire game, like he didn't play every minute. But he never came out. They thought he was going to be back in the trainer's room. that was it for the night. He kept on going back in for treatment and being a decoy. And every once in a while, he would hit a little baby hook in the lane so they had to guard him. But he toughed that out. He's almost in tears at the end because he's in such pain. So Scotty will get his due, I think,

by the end of this, Jerry, you're going to hear people say some stuff about Jerry Krauss that I'm happy they put in. I really wish we could have interviewed Jerry for this thing, man. I hate being cast that we vilified this guy because that was not my intention with this at all. Did you explore at all the jock tax that has been instituted and the legend has it? It's because of Michael Jordan. Did you know about this? The jock tax? The jock tax.

Like how athletes pay taxes in every municipality and every state we play? Not at all. Okay. So the legend has it. It was because, you know, states, Jordan was making like $30 million in his last couple years and all these states like Ohio and these municipalities like Detroit and Philly that also have, you know, levy attacks on income wanted a piece of that. So I did a little research anyways.

And I guess it started in 91 with the Lakers series. California decided to tax Jordan and all his teammates as a retribution for, for beating the Lakers in the finals. Like the days they spent in California, pro-rated. Right. So we pay duty days. Yeah. So like if you go on a, if we go on a West Coast trip, let's say, and we spend like three days in Portland, Oregon, which has basically a 10% state income tax. And then you go down to California for another four or five days. Let's say you hit Sacramento, L.A. Like your next paycheck, you know, you're paying like duty days on like, you know, anywhere from 10 to 13 percent. Your money is just, it's just gone. It's pretty insane. But so the Illinois governor, 92, passes this law called like Michael Jordan's revenge where now he's going to start taxing incoming players and athletes and we had been taxed before this

but it didn't become a thing until the 90s because of Jordan. We didn't. I did so much economic research. When they said 10 episodes, first of all, I remember vividly in April of 17 we were interviewing Hulk Hogan for the Andre the Giant documentary in Tampa and I got a call and they said how many episodes do you think it should be, we think it should be eight.

And I was like, I had just seen the defiant ones, and that's one of the best things I've ever seen in my life. And I was like, it should be four. We should, our goal should be for people to say we're copying the defiant ones in every way. Like, I don't care if people say we're derivative, that thing was flawless. So I said four, and they were like, what about six? And I was like, we could stretch it to six, but like, I think that's the limit. Then May 15th, 2018, yeah, May 15th, 2018,

is when they make the official announcement that we're making this doc, that's the first time that I found out it was 10 parts. I thought it was 8 up until then. I thought they had gone from 6 to 8 and then 10 parts. So I thought we were going to have to go in so many directions. I read all these economic books. I was trying, I was going to make this just like a doc

about the 90s starring Michael Jordan and about like Bill Clinton and all these things. I panicked. I was like, we don't have enough. How are we going to fill up 500 minutes? just talking about the 97-98 season and like the Bulls titles and not make it just like such a basketball heavy dock that people are going to tune out. But I never heard that story. That's, that's like deep in the economic weeds. That's funny. One thing we have to talk about is the

memes that have come out of this. There's the security guard, Obama. How did you phrase it? Former Chicago resident. Former Chicago resident. Did you, and then honestly, we were talking earlier about even just your visual trick of having Michael look at the iPad. It's completely become a meme. It's been everywhere. Did you anticipate any of these things when you were making this? Did you see any of these things sort of coming into fruition? No, we joked that like the height of this hysteria possibly would be to get mentioned on

SNL. And if they had like, if like Kenan Thompson was like sitting on that bench looking out at the water and a black button down, and like we came around and there was him instead of Michael or something like that because I thought that would be like the indelible image of the doc because it was the first one that you see. Certainly did not think former Chicago resident would take hold at all and certainly didn't think that people would then be asking me, like accusing me of being a Republican and disrespecting.

Like some of the notes that I've gotten, like it's the opposite. I revere this guy. Like I thought it would be cool, like kind of a cute thing to say former Chicago resident and to inform people that that's why he was speaking. Like I would love to say 44th President of the United States. And as you saw later on, he does become that. And now I've seen people say like, well, they corrected it. After the criticism, they corrected the graphic.

Oh, we didn't because it wasn't relevant. The first time we got the rough cut back for episode five, the graphic was there. And Obama is saying these incredibly articulate things about what's expected of an African American who's in the spotlight now. And it said, former Chicago resident. And I was like, who fuck did this? We're not using former Chicago resident. for this. The joke's over. He's the former president of the United States.

The John Michael thing, that's the security guard, John Michael Wozniak, who, rest in peace, passed away in January until the day that he died was the caretaker and security guard at Michael's house in Chicago. Michael lives like full time elsewhere, but he still has a house back in Chicago

where he resided when he was on the Bulls, and John Michael took care of that house until that day, up until January. The first time we saw him, had the same reaction two years ago that everybody else in the world had was who the fuck is that guy and what is that hair. So he was like a running joke for us for like a month and then it got boring. Like I say that not derisively and they did a really good story in the athletic of writer

trackdown John Michael's son and said that like he would get the biggest kick out of this of anybody and he like that hair was his calling card and he kept that hair as long as he could. But the shrug like it just shows you the relationship he had with those guys, the Snip brothers. And we go into it or in episode nine, because there's one of those Snip brothers who was actually like Michael's father figure, and we get into that. But they're like among the only guys who could effectively talk shit to him and come out winners. There's very few people who come out on top in this documentary competitively, and John Michael is one of them. Well, this is, I guess, a question I had off of that for both of you guys. People have talked about this and written about this over the

last couple of weeks, but do you think there's a world where something like this can ever exist again with an athlete now that we're in this age of documentation all the time? I do. Yeah, I'll give a short answer that I do, that there's still a lot of stuff that people aren't showing us. There's certainly a different mystique

around Michael than there is a guy like LeBron because Michael wasn't doing Taco Tuesday and we didn't know as much about Michael's life as we do about LeBron's life. But I think there's always, if tapes get unearthed in 20 years of LeBron's final season with the Lakers behind the scenes and in the locker room and stuff,

that's something that people are always going to want to peek at behind the seats. Yeah, I think if there's, I think for a documentary of this nature, like you obviously have to have the footage. I mean, that's what makes this so unique is the footage from 97, 98. I think in general, though, you know, any public person, whatever they choose to sort of portray to the world is ultimately just a projection. There's very few people that are like so raw that it's really them. if it ever became like let's say LeBron,

like if there's something that we don't know about LeBron that was worth telling a story about, then yeah, that that could exist. And we had footage of that. But I think most guys now, you know, you're portraying this image. I'm going to be a fashion guy. I'm going to be a gamer.

I'm going to be whatever it is. And then you have footage of that. And there's nothing new about it. There's nothing new about it. But if you're, if somebody was willing to be like super vulnerable and and really get down in the weeds, then, then yeah, you could, you could do something. I think there's other sports too.

Like, I've never seen Coach Kay out of a suit or a polo shirt. Like, if footage emerged even from the early 2000s or when you played for him, of him like at home game planning and screening tape and like actual, it's kind of similar in that we've all heard the stories about Michael. And we've all heard the stories about how filthy and foul-mouthed, crazy Coach K is behind closed doors, I'd be fascinated to see something like that. So I think maybe the NBA is kind of a different social animal, just the way that its players interact with social media.

And it's different than any sport today. But any peek behind the curtain in another sport, I think there's definitely an appetite for it. For sure. Yeah, I think I think the footage, I guess you're saying the footage would ultimately have to be from a decade or two decades or three decades ago because the footage, it's easy for us to access it right now. By the way, if there was a documentary on Coach K with archival footage, it would, there would definitely need to be footage of him gardening, because that's his thing. Yeah. That's where he goes to his Zen place, is out in his garden. It's a big shearer.

That's how we start. A perfect, like, bed of soil and a big spade going into it. That's how the doctor starts in. Seven years from now when that, when Coach Kay is in our next, in our next, pandemic when we, the 12-hour coach K doc. Yeah. What, what amazing timing, though. I mean,

it's, it's to have it ready, to have it ready. It was, it was going to be this year, that it was going to come out, it was come out in the finals. It was going to be this year.

And then we have this fucking pandemic. He's an alien, man. I'm convinced that Michael Jordan is an alien life form and it's not a human being. Like, like he, there's a couple of things.

Like, so Hannah Storm told me, and a couple of women have told me this. Hannah Storm, I think Andrea Cramer, was another one. They've said, like, Michael was the first person to tell me I was pregnant. I didn't even know I was pregnant. He just came over and said, like, when are you going to start telling people? And Hannah said, she was like, what? Like, you're pregnant. Like, it's,

and so we left the, and then he canceled the interviews a couple of times and there were huge storms that hit Florida and he had canceled the interview on us. And he was just like, the right time is the right time. Like, it's not the right time right now. And then there's like this hurricane game would hit. We're leaving the interview in September. We just finished. And this was our third and final interview. And he gets up and says, all right, guys, take care. I'll never see you again. Goodbye. And he left. Like, he was half joking. And I'm thinking, that's kind of fucked up. Like, we're going to see him at the premiere. Like, no, he knew this pandemic was coming. He's like, he's back on his home planet right now. He just knows he can see the future. He's a different life

form. Like, we're all convinced in the edit room that this guy is not of this planet. It's the Larry Birdline, right about about Jordan dressed up as God disguised God yeah guys what what are we taking solace in during this quarantine I think we should I think we should rank a few things that have really just been sort of comforting to us they could be guilty pleasures they could be just old standbyes like whatever whatever it is that's helping you get through this quarantine Tommy why why don't you start are we doing one one are we staking it or am I doing five let's take it what Let's snake it. Let's take it.

Let's take it. Are we doing it draft? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Romcoms. JJ knows. I've rolled through, I'd say at this point, 25 rom-coms in the last two weeks,

most of which I had not seen before, through varying levels of enjoyment for myself. We're going to rank those specifically on a different show. But it's very soothing to know at like 9 o'clock after I ate my dinner, and I got nowhere to go, and I have limited number of people to talk to. I can just sit and watch something that like I've never, I never would have thought to make a plan to watch this ever.

And I wouldn't watch it on a plane. I wouldn't watch it like in transit or anything like that. And so my feeling in general is like with these, they just, I don't want to watch disaster movies. I don't want to watch anything that's too like heavy or dark or anything like that. Just popped them on. And now I've seen them. So I don't have to go back to the well.

I need you to send me a good list of Ron. Oh, I got it. I got it. You said you did, you did watch Notting Hill. Yeah. You watched Notting Hill. And what were your thoughts?

Is that, is that? Notting Hill is strong. Notting Hill is in the top. Notting Hill is in the top prop, for me probably top six, top six or seven. Is that a tier one rom-com or is that a more tier two? I'd say it's on the, it's on the brink of tier one. What would be, who's the, who's the goat? Who's considered like the, the Jordan of.

I can't make the, I can't make the declaration yet. There's a science to this. I don't know the, I don't know. the genre well enough. I know if there was one there was like, all right. Oh, who's the consensus? And then everything else. I caused it. I, I, I set a tweet out asking this question, not meaning to like get people all riled up. I basically sent a tweet out saying, is the consensus that Meg Ryan is the MJ

of rom-coms. And people got into my mentions with Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock for some reason, Reese Witherspoon had some stuff. The Audrey Hepburn stands from like back in the day. It's a thing that people get fired. up about. Those are the George Mikan stands. Yeah. All right, Jason, you're up. There's two bars in my neighborhood, and one is like a close walk away, and another one is like a little bit further down the river if we want to venture. My girlfriend and my dog and I are huddled up in this apartment. But there's one bar that you, they have cocktails to go and you have to go in like all masked up and everything and there's like axes on the floor where you stand. It was a restaurant,

and now they just eliminated all the restaurant and they just made this barricade with stools and like a high top table. And we're regulars now at that bar. And everyone like, the neighborhood still goes and stands outside the bar instead of inside the bar and they talk to each other from like eight feet away. But it's when it's like five or six o'clock when the sun starts to set a little bit, I know I'm walking over there to get a bourbon and Coke. I walk in. They know my name. They know my order. They come over. It's the closest replication I can have to like a normal like cheers bar scenario. But that's become like not a guilty pleasure, but that's like the end of the day like happy hour drink place. And it's kind of like we're all in this terrified Mardi Gras situation. So the cops are

kind of looking the other way with a lot of stuff. So there's people walking around the neighborhood with blatant open containers. And it's not like anyone's partying because we're staying away from each other. But like we can walk along with our dog off the leash and have cocktails walking around. And like that's, that's if we can take solace and like little happy moments like that, that's what we try to do every, every night is walk over there and then have our own little tailgate looking on over the Hudson. I think nationwide, there should be just New Orleans style rules towards open containers. I agree.

Not just in the pandemic, just in general. I completely agree. There's nothing better. You're at dinner, right? You're at dinner. And you're like, you know what? I want to go home, but I also kind of want to have one more. And it's three blocks away.

What do you do? You leave with the drink. It's great. Yes. It's fantastic. My two are very, since it's, it's on me now, I'm going to, I'm going to pick two. So, so number one, the movies I've been watching are actually all disaster movies. I feel like I'm already in a dark place.

Let's just lean into that, you know. I'm already, I'm already scared and terrified. Let's just lean into that. And so the latest one that I watched was I rewatched 2012, which is just a terribly written movie with the plot lines with with john cusack's character are just so bad they're just so bad it's a terrible movie is that the one does that have to do with the the library on fifth ave in new york doesn't they get that get like drowned and overtaken or is that a different that's the day after tomorrow that's the day after tomorrow that's the dennis quade movie yeah and a young jake jill and all

and then the second one uh is very simply just just a uh a wine opener i mean that is just me great comfort. That has given me great comfort. Where are you getting in your wine? The new invention of a wine opener. No, it's, I mean, it's like, some days you're just like, man, I just, if I could just get to, like, the kids bedtime, you know? What's your feeling on an electronic wine opener?

Is that, is that cheating? Well, so I have, like, the one that, the quick one where it's just like, you pop it on. Yep, yep. One of those. Yep. That I use for the newer bottles, newer corks, less chance of damaging the cork. And then I have a Duran, which is for the older bottles. But Jason, answer your question, I have a cellar where I'm at.

So I have my own wine. I'm going out for like wine every, like I've been to the grocery store like five times in eight weeks. And I really try not to leave the house. So I have wine here. And you're this, that's not your own home. You're like renting that or visiting and you're just raiding the wine cellar? I'm renting a home.

around the corner from the home that I own. Okay. Which has no furniture in it. Okay. And is being painted. Every night, JJ's getting wine drunk and watching disaster movies. That sounds like. It just explains a lot.

That is my ground talking in shape. Like, like, wasn't there a conference call today with the NBA? It's later today. Yeah. So how are you guys staying in shape? Like, what do you do? Do you have a hoop in your driveway? So I have access.

So that's actually been my, that's number three. I'll just say my third one, which is I, I feel. And it's a guilty pleasure because not everybody has this, but I have access to a gym. So I've probably in the last, this is week eight, I took, I was quarantined the first two weeks. So like the last six weeks, I've probably been in the gym, you know, every day, but four days. You know, and then I have a little weight room in the basement of my, my actual house that I've sort of rigged together with some random equipment. It's not a real weight room, but it's just like. an empty room and I put some weights and stuff in there.

So I'm doing that. And then there's a great, there's a great hill actually that I can do hill sprints on. So that's the other one. Like cardiovascular wise, I feel like I'm a decent shape. I wonder who the highest, like the most prominent name in the NBA is who's like,

fuck, I haven't done anything. I'm serious because there has to be someone who doesn't have access to this. Not out of laziness, but just, I haven't gotten a shot up in eight weeks. you know, there's got to be someone whose name, rank and file

NBA fans would know and be like, wait, that guy hasn't played in eight weeks? Right, right. I also am fascinated to know there's got to be pickup games going on that we don't know about that these guys are breaking, breaking laws, breaking crime.

You think NBA, you're saying with NBA guys? Yeah. I don't think so. Or am I just a conspiracy? Well, what's hard, what I would say is hard is if it gets out, you still want, dude, you don't want to deal with the headache.

Yeah. Everyone has a phone. So it all takes as like three guys walking out of one gym. And someone's like, what were you doing? It just becomes like, who wants to deal with that? So the gym I have access to, I go on a side door. I don't see anybody. Okay.

And like the third or fourth day that I was in the gym, this random kid and his mom walked through the gym to grab something on the other side of the gym. So I'm kind of like, what's going on? So I finished my workout and I go to leave. and he's out in the hallway. And he's like, yo man, can I get a picture?

And I'm like, under any other circumstance? Yeah, you can get a picture. But no. Like, first of all, I'm not even really supposed to be here.

And also, like, I can't be like next to you for a picture, man. Like, what the fuck? I'll just, I don't know you.

I'll just give you some money. Just go away. I did tell him. I was like, look, when things go back to normal, like, we'll work out together.

I'll do a shooting session with. you just not right now right now you know so all right let's get back to the i by the way hold on has you hasn't yonis come out and said he had he doesn't have a hoot i think he has i don't know that would because that like the MVP of the NBA is this going to affect the playoff race by the way i need to ask a degenerate gambler among us i'm not saying any of us are or maybe i am but i had you guys, by the way, in the over-under this year. I had your over. And I think I just saved like $300 because there's not going to be 82 games played, right? By the way, I made that bet.

What was the number? What was the number? 39 and a half. And I made that bet the day before Zion got hurt, I made that bet. I thought it was a lock. And then Zion got hurt the day after. So I've been just counting. We still could have got there. We still could have got there. You think so? You would have had to go, I did the math. You would have had to go like 16 and 4 or something like that. Yeah. We did the math too. How does it? How does, how is big? How is Vegas dealing with that? Well, to offset that, the only bet that I've gotten to make in the last whatever is I made it like two months ago. Early on, you could bet when the NBA was going to come back over under May 5th.

And I hammered over May 5th because I was like, there's no way. This was the end of March. I was like, they're not getting this. I didn't have any insider information, but I was like, we're not getting back to this at all. And it went from like April 22nd to April 29th to May 5th. And then it was off the board. So I got a little bit of, I got 150 bucks from that. That was the one profit that I've made in this pandemic.

I like it. All right. I've been watching a lot of YouTube concerts, Glastonbury, Coachella, mostly festivals, not like one-off shows, just to see what it's like to be in that setting again. Because I know we're not going to actually get to experience it for a long, long time.

I would recommend if anybody's look, if anyone's on a YouTube, on a YouTube deep dot, and they want some good stuff. Glastonbury in particular is a festival. It's about an hour outside of London. And they have all the big...

It's like Coachella on steroids. They have all the biggest acts. And probably about 90 to 100,000 people. JJ, Win Butler's actually. His Arcade Fire doing Glastonbury, them doing Wake Up. I think it was from like 2007, 2008. It's just amazing.

You'd be like, it sounds weird that you'd enjoy watching a video, performance of this that you weren't even at. But the combination of like the quality of the performance and also just the quality of the footage is so good because the festival partners are the BBC. So it just looks amazing. I think it was the first, I think that was the same Glastonbury.

Maybe it was a year before or after that Jay-Z came out and did Oasis. Yeah, it was a year after. That's another good one. Yeah. Yeah, because they were making, they were saying that he shouldn't have been headlining it. He came out. He started his set by singing Wonderwall. It's a, there's a lot.

there are a lot of gems like that on YouTube. So that's one. The other thing I've been doing a lot of, which JJ knows is, um, well, sort of baked goods with, with marijuana in them,

uh, which I would strongly recommend in any state where this is legal for people to do. It's just as a great, there's two, there's two benefits. A, it's calming. Uh,

it makes you feel better after you eat them. But B, you also get to learn how to cook a little bit. Like, it's not like you're just going and having somebody drop it off for you and then you just go and eat it or smoke it. Like, you got, it takes a long time to make. And so I would, I would strongly recommend anyone listening at home who has not tried this to get into it, but be safe. You and I are having

very different quarantine experiences. You have, you have no kids. You're watching rom-coms, doing deep dive on YouTube concerts. Who's the one making pop-brines and those are in the 20-Brownies? This is unbelievable. He's, AJ is just housing wine and watching movies about the end of the world. I'm just trying to get through the fucking day, man. All right. All right, Jason, you're up. I'm going to suck at this, man, because we, I just finished episode 10 yesterday.

So I have been doing very little butt working on this thing. And my girlfriend didn't see Breaking Bad. So we're binging that every night. And when that gets too dark, the antidote is Big Mouth on Netflix, which I highly recommend. Where are you at Breaking Bad right now? I've seen it already, but we're on the rewatch for just about at the end of episode of season three. So it's right before half measures and full measures. I don't want to give anything away.

Hank's in the hospital. He just got shot. It gets way better. Yeah, I know. And it's right after the Fly episode when they were stuck in the basement with the Fly. I think it's a Pantheon show. It's a top three show ever. I mean, that's why I've been begging her to watch.

She hasn't seen the Godfather, which I'm. I'm begging her to watch with me. That's a good one. She didn't see Sopranos. She didn't see Mad Men. There's like basics that... We were going to watch Sopranos, JJ, me, JJ, and Sean Feeney.

And we watched a couple episodes and then JJ went back to watching disaster movies. You know what? It's not a time in the day. There's not a time in the day for me. It's daunting sometimes to be like, yeah, it's almost like homework. Yeah, it's hard.

It's hard. I made a to-do list like, well, I always I have a to do-lis on my phone and like two days after we decided to watch Sopranos, I realized that I had put watch Sopranos on my to-do list

and if something is on my fucking to-do list it's something I don't want to do. It's negative, yeah. It's also, it's, when you have one of these things, like the episodes are legit an hour and you got to run through six seasons, 12 episodes of pop at a minimum or whatever it is.

Like, it just is, I don't care how long, going to be locked up like this, like you're not finishing it with everything going on. So there is a reason to probably not start doing it. Yeah. Breaking Bad though is a good is a good one if you're going to watch anything. You can you can knock out two or three of those a night. Yeah. It's it's dark for these times especially. Given that from a guilty pleasure standpoint, the Golden Girls, they do like four straight Golden Girls episodes every night at 11 or so on Hallmark on one of those things. Oh, interesting. It reminds me when I hear the theme music, I'm back in my grandma's

mother's house when I was like eight or nine years old and I used to like my parents would go away and I had to stay overnight with her. It's just this like serotonin flood in my brain. Like everything's going to be okay. If I hear that music and I hear like the rejoin music with the strings and Blanche is making dumb jokes about sex and Dorothy is is, you know, busted on people. It's just a soothing. I can fall asleep to that. Or Cheers is another one that like just takes me back to my childhood. So old sitcoms, that's where I go for Seinfeld. I could probably like lip sync. all those episodes at this point, but that just takes me back to a comfortable place. To take it full circle to the last dance, I think that that's one of the reasons it's

resonating the way that it is, is that it's nostalgia and it's safe and fun and warm, and it reminds you of either watching those games or now you get to share those games with your kids or you call your boys who you watch those games with. The best messages I get is, like, my dad and I call each other every night after we watch these things and thanks for, I think it's just there are a dot. I think O.J. the most brilliant doc sports or non that I've ever seen. I think that the issues being tackled in OJ probably wouldn't resonate as much right now

as a doc like the last dance work because it's last dance is much lighter. And I'm not saying like that we just did a puff piece and it's nothing. But I think it's something that's like fun for people to watch. And if it was a different subject matter, then I don't know if people would flock or would gravitate to it the way that they are.

So Golden Girls, yeah. You're up to four now, guy. Close it out, JJ. I'm going to give you my last two. So about a year ago, every Sunday I started taking my two. I love donuts. They're like my one sort of guilty pleasure when it comes to sweets. And so every Sunday I take my boys, my two sons to get donuts.

And the local donut shop is open. And so I go in my mask. They stay in the car. I grab us donuts. And we go back to the house and eat our donuts. And that's giving me. And I think then to some sense, normalcy. It's our sort of way

of keeping track of what day it is. It's like, when is Sunday? Because some days, you know, you get, and you're like, wait, what is today? And then the last thing, and this is a shout out to Brian Coppulman, the showrunner from billions, but you know, the first cup of coffee in the morning,

I keep having this conversation with people, but if you drink coffee, there's something that is so special about that first cup. Brian Copelman calls it the Royale. and he's got a whole line of merch and mugs and t-shirts, raising money for charity. But there's something really special about that first cup of coffee.

And it's about the brightest way to start your day, I think, right now. It gives you a little hope. Every kind of coffee. Do you always make the same kind? Well, the donut shop has a stump town coffee. So I've been using some town. Grind the beans myself and kill it, you know. I'm going to sidecar tomorrow.

Good for you. I'm going to make sure to take a picture and send it to you. If you could overnight me six butter and salt donuts, that'd be amazing. It's a donut shop in Santa Monica. It's by far the best donuts in the world. That's a long shot. That's a trek for you, right? Yeah, but I'm driving.

Here's the other thing. I guess this is one of my guilty pleasures is usually driving in LA sucks because there's no traffic and there's no one on the road like I got takeout last night from a place in downtown Bevel which is a super good restaurant

that normally would probably take 40 minutes to get there from my house and it took 14 yesterday so just getting in the car and drive if you're in a place where you're able to do that and obviously New York is the is the worst place for that but most of our listeners, I feel like, are in a place where they can get in a car and drive around.

Just getting and driving and going to do an errand that normally would feel annoying is actually really nice right now. We may go up to Midtown today just because I want to see it. Like there was a picture I saw yesterday somewhere of like 50th and 5th, you know, at 315 on a Thursday. It's like ghost town. I just want to kind of witness some of these things for myself. and you can't do it with like Central Park and there's the park outside of my place. When it gets nice out,

people are like borderline irresponsibly crowding parks. On a rainy day like this, I feel like it would be just kind of a like, you want to check off the box and say that like I did, I saw something that no one else has ever seen before. I do the same thing, JJ, too, for, for normal seasick. And it's, it's kind of a royal twist because I get the same ice coffee from the same really good baby place in Tribeca.

But I seamless pick up an egg sandwich. from this place every morning. And that's my routine is I'll take my dog out or my girlfriend will take him out. And then I need to go on a walk just myself. Listen to a podcast. Listen to some music. JJ,

what's your ice coffee feeling? Hard pass. Yeah, me too. Even in the summer, if like I need that third cup at 2.30 in the afternoon and it's 90 degrees out. I just want a black coffee. I don't think I've ever finished a cup of black coffee.

Always ice coffee. Even if it's cold? I don't like to take it. it's a drug for me. That's it. I'm only doing it for the buzz and the rush and the smell. So I don't really enjoy the taste enough to like savour it. I've probably had less than 10 cups of hot coffee in my life. Wow. And so when it's minus six and I walk into my coffee shop here, they're like shaking their head at me. Like what's your problem? But I'm just trying to just trying to get through it. Let's be honest. I'm there for the egg and cheese. It's not the coffee. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Does anybody have any anything else to add? Tom, do you have anything else to add to your list?

Everything else sucks besides the four things that I mentioned. Okay. We should say that, I mean, the last dance, obviously, has been a huge source of comfort for me, and I know for Tommy too and for a lot of people. I will say this, to your point, Jason, about people like calling their dads and everything like that. It's certainly a, it probably would have been this way regardless,

but it's certainly a moment that almost everybody in my life actively plans their schedule around in a way that nothing else exists right now that is like this in any capacity. So it's like Sunday night, you know, wherever you are. Okay, block out Sunday night because not only to watch it, but for the commentary around it. And I think that that's partially a tribute to the circumstances, but also to the quality.

You know, if it wasn't good, people would have given up after two episodes. Sure. The circumstances are so outlandish, though, that it's like, there's nothing else to watch. What's surreal to me is that when I hang up on this, there's going to be an email that comes through to me within an hour. There's one final fix that we had to make tonight. There was like a technical glitch. And then that's it. It's done.

Wow. We'd always picture this thing. It's like we'd all get together. We're going to go to this bar, overlooking the water, this outdoor bar near the edit room. And like all 12 of us, we're going to like celebrate. And now it's just like, I'm sitting in my apartment, like maybe pop open some champagne or crack a,

beer or something. I don't know what to do, but it's surreal. It's, it's, it's almost, so it's three, three and a half years. What's the two and a half actual work, um, research was four years, but two and a half of actual, well, congratulations. Seriously, I'm finishing. That's amazing. And, and congrats on a great product. All right, Jason, thank you so much for coming on. Really appreciate the time. Um, and, and congrats again on, on the doc and, uh, looking forward to, to watching episodes nine and 10. We appreciate it, man. We'll see you in New York. All right, man. It's right.