The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Bryan Curtis on Sports Media, the Magic of Radio Row, and Podcasts vs. Radio. Plus, Life Advice.

Episode Date: February 22, 2023

Russillo is joined by The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis to talk sports media! They discuss lessons learned from Fox’s Super Bowl broadcast, what it means to have a “no. 1 announcer team,” Bryan’s love for “radio row,” Tom Brady’s eventual broadcasting gig, the vanishing middle-class media jobs, sports podcasts vs. sports radio, and more (52:53). Then Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (0:24). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Bryan Curtis Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

on today's podcast we take a look at the media business with brian curtis who's one of the most thoughtful guys in media so just gonna talk shop with him and we'll do a little longer life advice this episode is brought to you by uber eats winner is here so be prepared and get almost with him and we'll do a little longer life advice with Kyle. Shopping? Total yes. Get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. He is the best asker of questions I think we have in the business right now. His name is Brian Curtis from The Ringer. He covers really a lot of things, but his Pressbox podcast is terrific on media. So I just want to hang out with him for a bit. What's going on? Let's hang, man. How are you? I'm good.

That's not one of your stronger questions, but I appreciate it. You set me up and then I just flopped immediately. Okay. What's up? Yeah, I love your fascination with this world. So I felt like this is a bit more evergreen with it. I wanted to start with the Super Bowl, even though it's now in the past from the time we've taped this to when it's actually going to air. Because it wasn't just about the broadcast, right?

It isn't just about the broadcast. It's this world of these moving pieces. The Troy and Joe Buck move to ESPN. It's ESPN going, okay, we finally need to figure it out for their own motivations to get a Super Bowl. And then Fox is like, what are we going to do? Then they announced this massive contract for Brady. The numbers have gone out of control. I was even bringing it up based on the Romo Nance stuff.

And Nance is sitting there going, I guess I'm just not going to ask for more money publicly, which I thought was sort of funny. He's like, I'm just bad at it. They know I never want to leave CBS, so you're right. So you have Kevin Burkhart and Greg Olson that have this incredible season. You know, like I'm thinking about it, ESPN's probably watching it thinking, we could have just stumbled into this

and solved our problems, but yet Olson's keeping the seat warm for Brady who's never done the job, and then he's like, I don't think I even want to do it in 23. I'll do it in 24. This is a like, I don't think I even want to do it in 23. I'll do it in 24. This is a very, I don't know that anyone cares about it as much as maybe people that are in it, but we are in a very

weird transitional time and I wonder how it'll be remembered. Can I back up one transition with you to 2020 when Tony Romo is having this crazy free agency and Monday Night Football is looking at Tony Romo goes, there's a way to solve our problem that we've had for years and years. We're going to hire him.

Tony Romo winds up getting, we know, $17 million from CBS. Somebody at Fox told me in that moment, this is not retroactive, they said, there's one lesson for us here, which is we need to have a number two guy who's really good so we don't get ransomed by our number one guy like CBS did. That was the lesson inside the building. And if you look back at this, the next thing Fox does is let Charles Davis, who was number two, go to CBS and they hired Greg Olson as their broadcasting insurance policy. And it worked, right? Greg Olson turned out to be really, really good.

Then Fox did a weird thing and went and gave Tom Brady $37 million. So, you know, whether that was how that worked out is up to debate. But I thought what was so fascinating about this is this is exactly what they wanted to happen. They wanted Olson to come in, get some reps on the number two squad and be there so that if Troy said, I need more money, they could be like, okay, this guy, that to me is the first key step in this whole process. Okay. Um, I already love where this is going. Okay. Cause you're being told we need Olsen so we can always have a two in case we lose our one. They have a two who's likely going to be very capable as a one. And it's like, now let's go hire the one who's never done it before.

Now, I'm going to tell you what an executive at ESPN told me one time. Again, over the years, later on, I was lucky enough, despite whatever my own frustrations were, I'd be like, why are we doing this? What's going on here? And I'd get an executive. Skipper used to pull me aside. We'd have our meetings once every eight months. And he was very revealing. And he was open and honest with me about a lot of stuff. There was a different executive where I remember he was telling me a story about trying to hire Kevin Garnett. And I was like, okay, are you sure? Like, are you sure it's going to be like, do you know it's going to work?

He said, well, the problem is, he goes, we have so many of these athletes that are big names now from this generation that have banked so much money. Now, guess what they don't want to do? They don't want to be doing highlights till 2 a.m they don't want to be doing afternoons in bristol you know recapping some stuff maybe if they have bigger picture goals but like a lot of people just do it to do something else and they're not thinking like the nate burleson path of like five moves ahead right which is very clear what he was doing and so you have guys that have a ton of money in the bank. They have a status where they're like, I don't want to do all this shit. So it's why Jason Witten out of nowhere has Monday Night Football, right? And he's going to get paid a big number. Because I remember when

I was asking about Garnett, I was like, how did that work out? It was like, look, he immediately told us like, I'm not doing weekends. We're like, okay. And I'm not doing this. I was like, okay. doing weekends. We're like, okay. And I'm not doing this. I was like, okay. And then I need this much money. I was like, okay. And then I would think, and I'd said to him, I go, why do you even put yourself in that position? You're not even sure if the person's any good or not. And it speaks to the audience gets what we actually want. We don't want the great broadcaster with the lesser name. We want the huge, huge star, even if they're not as good as the lesser name thing. And I think, unfortunately, that's kind of what the Greg Olson storyline is teaching us, is that here's somebody who's completely capable of locking us in. I still don't know how many people change the channel because of the announcers,

but yet, whether it was an Emmett Smith, who probably wasn't entirely ready to be on TV as much as he was, he wasn't going to not do the featured countdown show, right? He was going to do the big boy seat. He was going to get what he wanted because the audience wants big stars. And yet then when the person is in the job, it's like this cycle of what do you actually want? Do you want someone who's awesome at it or you default to kind of just trusting and having huge names out there, which is, I think, what programmers ultimately always do, because that's what the audience always wants. I saw Emmett on Radio Row and was remembering the ESPN years. Oh, yeah. When Emmett was a talking head, that was fun.

I think you're absolutely right. But I also understand this from the programming perspective. Don't you want to hire the really big names and figure it out? Like if the question is, do we want to see if Tom Brady can be a good broadcaster? Shouldn't, shouldn't we know? Shouldn't we give it a whirl? Maybe it turns out like Joe Montana did in the eight the 80s where everybody's like nope not the guy not the next john madden but you know look i'm i'm with you i'm i'm as a somebody who does this job i'm like i want the best broadcast doesn't matter if it's a tight end or if it's a quarterback who won seven super bowls but i also understand that this is showbiz and it's the entertainment business and tom brady as an announcer there's i want to see if he's good at this job and what he's like calling big games on sunday afternoons i still think there's more on this so i'm going to stay with it um it's got to be incredibly frustrating obviously to the the lesser resume player right it's like wait i'm I'm doing this job. I'm,

I'm awesome at it. And yet you already have a replacement for me. Um, it's, it's a bit of a gamble, but like, I'm even thinking like back to the Musburger days towards the end, the DSPN, when he greeted you on Saturday night for a college football game, it felt like a huge deal. And even Musburger admitted he had lost his fastball a bit. He's like, I'm not, you know, When he greeted you on Saturday night for a college football game, it felt like a huge deal. And even Musburger admitted he had lost his fastball a bit. He's like, I'm only doing last names or whatever. So even if there were little mistakes where he wasn't peak him or crisp, and you can't expect somebody to be at the peak as long as he was doing it, but it felt like a bigger deal. And I wondered even if in the Superbowl, there were moments where it was like, wait, am I, am I thinking this isn't Joe Buck and Troy because they're not as good? Or is it just a very simple thing of like, well, it's Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. So it, these guys are awesome. Like they're, and they are right. It's almost like going to a movie where you think, Hey, I don't

know any of these actors, but this movie was really good. Or a movie where you think hey i don't know any of these actors but this movie was really good or a movie where you love the actors you're like does this movie suck but these guys are huge stars so i'm kind of tricking myself into believing that this is a big deal and i think that's all part of the formula and trying to figure this out and why we have the decisions that we do it's absolutely uh true I got two takes for you on that. One is Brent and Al and even Joe and Troy become big stars in a very, very different media universe

in the network era of American TV. And if you were on television, if you were calling football games on Sunday, you were just a star on a different level. So I do wonder if somebody like Kevin Burkhardt, who's getting his first really, really big job in 2022. And same thing with Greg Olson, if you're just ever going to hit that level, not because you're not good, not because you don't, you know, you're not as, you don't have the stature of those guys, but just because you're coming on TV at a totally different time. I mean, look at Chris Collinsworth whose resume as a players, fairly similar to Olsen's played two super bowls. Like he's been

on network television since 1990, you know, like he got this whole era when Alf was a big TV show because it was on NBC and he just, you just get this weight to you that I just wonder if these guys will ever get again. So that's, that's, that's take number one. Number two on, on whether they felt big is when I watched that broadcast, I think if you and I could crawl into those guys' heads, it was two guys who were doing their first Super Bowl and going, you know what? Let's call a great game. Let's do what we do, but let's not put super heavy fingerprints on this. Let's not try to make this our thing like we would if we're Joe and Troy right now, or even Mike Tirico, again, who's been on TV since the early nineties and Chris Collins were, let's sit back a little, let's, let's be really good, but let's not

make this a Kevin Burkhart and Greg Olson broadcast to the extent we might, if we'd been on TV five to 10 years, that's just my psychoanalysis, but I think I'm right. but I think I'm right. Yeah. It's almost like me trying to find the path to come to the conclusion that I'm just going to share with you now is that you can think as an audience member, you can think that you know what you want, but ultimately the television executives make the decisions that provide us with what deep down we really do want. You could be a football fan who goes, no, no, no, I want all the X's and O's. I don't care if you're a backup linebacker. I just want the best possible broadcast. But I think the default of the audience is almost always, the majority of the audience goes, who the fuck's this guy?

And it doesn't matter how great of a job he's doing. It's just a sip. I think the audience goes who the fuck's this guy and it doesn't matter how great of a job he's doing it's just a sip like i think the audience whether it's the way we are talked to by public figures whether it's movies whether it's television shows and in sports broadcasting i think the majority ends up getting what they actually want and that these decisions especially somebody who's on air you know you're walking around he's being like what the fuck are we doing? Like, why do we do that? That doesn't make any fucking sense. No, that's the wrong take. That's the wrong, it is not the business. And the business is ultimately doing the right thing. Even if it feels like over the last few years, there's so many people going, why are these networks doing all of these things?

The networks are giving us exactly deep down what we actually want. So what you're saying is if we get a truly bad number one team or an unworthy number one team, the network's really screwed up because there's a certain acceptance of the audience. Like, okay, it's the number one team. I'll roll with these guys. In some case, I don't even know who these guys are. So if it's something that just feels really, really wrong, then somebody actually did screw up deeply at the network level. That would be the way we label it. I've brought this analogy up too many times, but it's Carl Anthony Towns, Christophe Przingis. There were teams that thought Przingis was just as talented as Towns. It's like if you draft Przingis and you're wrong, you get fired. If you draft Towns one and you're wrong, it's like, well, whatever.

He was a guy from Kentucky and he was huge and he could shoot. If you're going to be wrong at the highest level, don't try to be different, which is why I would watch. Not to beat up on Emmett Smith here, Emmett Smith was only taking the highest profile gig. I also felt like there are times ESPN had so many, and this is me trying to be fair to ESPN, is that I'd ask them sometimes, what's going on with this? And they'd be like, we kind of just throw them in head first and see if they can swim. There was very little coaching, I felt like, but there was also way more people. When you think about the actual number of former athletes and non-athletes, of all the

people that are on air at ESPN, that number is so massive in comparison to the networks where they have these retreats once a year and it's like a really family style deal. They can invite it. Everybody's there because it's such a smaller number. So I think there can be more coaching. I think there's more attention to the specific talent um where at espn it's kind of like if you drowned you drowned and we'll just replace you in two years and when i thought about like emmet and you know i thought jerry rice actually got better later on um you know i felt bad for whitten but

i mean we had him on this podcast years ago and that was like a depressing episode. Cause he was just like, you know, this ended up kind of really sucking, you know, it didn't work out. Um, but what are you like, what are you going to say to Emmett Smith? Hey, we're going to have you do, we're going to have you do like raps. We're going to get you warm, you know, for a year. We're going to have you do some, we're gonna get you warm you know for a year we're gonna have you do some

some sunbelt games you know like he's just like no i'm gonna count my money in golf and i'll see you guys on sunday i'm not doing any of those other things i think the coaching part is really underrated in this and i think fox is really good at coaching people up the fact that charles davis the number two guy on cbs that fox's number one announcers are the number one guys on espn the fox now has two new number one announcers and everybody's like those guys are really good um kevin burkhardt who never done national stuff and olsen who was straight off the playing field yeah and then joe davis on the baseball side replacing bucks that guy's like a roadie i mean he's phenomenal you know that guy's like a pro. I mean, he's phenomenal, you know?

So there's like a talent spotting part of that, but there's also a thing of like, what if we can turn somebody into a really good announcer? What if we get guys who are toolsy, to use the baseball prospect word, but we can kind of coach them up? And to me, that's the interesting lesson from Olsen here. Is it, you know, that Olsen should go and replace Collinsworth in a few years at NBC because everybody wants to turn every announcing story into a woge bomb? Maybe. Okay. But is the other story that there are just more of these guys out there than we think there are? And you can find them and you can turn them into number one announcers everybody's like talking about what's greg olsen gonna do with his future well i guess that's interesting you know who's

gonna retire in two years aaron rogers you think he has any interest in being an announcer i do i do i well he really wanted that jeopardy gig if he practiced you know you think he wants to give his opinion about football on TV for lots of money? Yeah, I do. So I just think there's a bigger universe of these dudes. And if you have the right producers, the right infrastructure, the family thing you're talking about, maybe it can happen. Okay. You hit on something else. I'm going to follow up. Do you think there are actually a large number of people out there that can do this? Maybe the question is this. Maybe I'm answering it, so I apologize. But maybe it's that, yeah,

there's a lot of people that can do it. There's very few people that can do it at that elite level. And that's why everybody's freaked out the last couple of years. I think there's more than five is what I would say. I think we treated it in the last couple of years like there are five people that can do this job. Hey, here's $17 million, man. We got to hold on to you. We need you so badly. We can't grow our own talent.

Whereas I bet there's at least 10 to 15 people that could step in with, you know, some or minimal coaching and do a really good job. Absolutely. Does any of this matter?

To the viewers? Hell no. Yeah. You know what was the most important thing about that Super Bowl? You and I could nerd out about, you know, Olsen coming back on a replay and explaining an RPO,

explaining short motion of Travis Kelsey on that first Eagles drive, or his first Chiefs drive. You know what was important? It was a close game. That's what mattered to Fox. That's why that number was so huge. You had a game with big stars

and it was really close. That's what matters at the end of the day. So I guess to follow us then, why go through all of this? I'm happy everybody's making all the money that they're making, by the way. There's not a moment where there's people I may not even like on the air and I'll be like, great, keep driving the prices up. Okay.

But think about what we're saying. This musical chairs, do they have enough depth they're giving brady all they're doing all these things and all of us would say and anybody was like do you even really care maybe it's a bit like officiating where you notice it when it's bothering you or it becomes something on social media but it hasn't it doesn't actually impact the decision of what you're going to consume ever. I would say a couple of things to that. One is the guys who produce these games want them to be really good. Their whole thing is not, hey, we're just going to roll out generic pro football product today

and everybody's going to watch it because it's pro football. They want it to be really good. So, of course, they want the best guys. And if the price of the best guys is $17 million, then, of course, they want the networks to pay them. No, that's part of it. There's a certain face of the network aspect to it. To go back to how network television has changed,

when you and I were growing up, there was an entertainment division, and there was a news division, and there was a sports division. Sports was often number three of those. And there were people in all three of those that were huge faces of the network. Entertainment and network TV does not exist, basically. News barely exists.

And sports is the big thing. So I think what some of these dudes are surfing off of is I'm the face of the network now. I'm this. I'm, I'm it, right? If you're watching CBS or NBC live, it's because of the thing that I am calling. And you're right. Maybe you'd watch just as much if somebody else was calling it, but I am a bigger part of the network now than I have ever been before. Just because of the way the media has changed. The whole world's changed.

It does feel like it's, you know, here's the poster. Here's Joe and Troy at an upfront. Here's Tom Brady shaking hands a couple events a year. I feel like there's a baked in value that you can't exactly say, hey, this is the number. This is what this number means. And once the Romo number happened, then you knew it was just going to follow. It's a bit like the NBA where the cap went up that year and it was just like, all right, whatever. Whatever the new number is, this is the new number. This is the new number, but there's, that's the value part of it that, you know, maybe ESPN felt like in the years of trying to just figure it out and not being able to get it

right for a bunch of different reasons. And I, you know, this is a spot where I feel like I want to call out different people or cause that's not really what I want to do. And some of these people I'm friends with, but i think the espn price is a bit like okay we enough of this enough of this like let's have something where there's no doubt and we don't care because now whatever our number is the number is just solving the problem and i would say the same thing for fox when they announced the brady thing just lost our two big guys to ESPN. Let's get a press release that says we just hired Tom Brady not only to announce NFL games, but to be this ambassador

to the network. Wasn't that the word they used? It was going to be like Mr. Fox. I was just imagining him ripping off the head on the Masked Singer every week. Can we get Tom Brady back again? Just one more time? It's absolutely a poster. It's a press release. This is what we mean as a network now in this changing world. Yeah, and you could also

say if the rights fees keep going up and up and up, then everything associated with it goes up and up. Money, maybe this is too much about money i don't care but you know like i worry about so many former colleagues and people that i was really close with when i look at the live rights numbers which will you know i don't know when that bubble is going to happen i don't know if it is you know maybe maybe there's some tapering

off at some point but it's it's not it doesn't feel like it's anytime soon. And with the expense, it feels a bit like the investment for the on-air part is that we've got our small group of heavy hitters because we have so many more expenses, which again, they're raising their own, the price of their own product, which is airtime. But then it maybe cuts out this middle class. You know, I know nobody's going to cry over the SportsCenter acre making less or whatever, but you know, there was this lane of jobs that was always there that was a really good life. And if you were one of the special ones, you could then, you know, maybe become like a guy, right? Really become a franchise person. And now that franchise person feels like being associated to the biggest live rights package,

being one of the handful of biggest opinion people in the country, and then kind of filler everywhere else, which is not the way it was not that long ago. No, both on ESPN and network TV back in the day. Jack Aroot was a big star. I mean, we were making big stars out of everybody. You could be the pit guy at the Indy race

and you'd be kind of a big star. And I've wondered that question too. It's like, where is this money coming from? If live rights go up like this, if your talent for NFL, your biggest games go up like this, it's going for NFL, your biggest games go up like this, it's going to come from somewhere.

It's not like networks. Oh, we're just going to pay everybody else the same amount of money. And you're right. Middle class gets squeezed. Those are those people who really good, had a really nice job for a long time. That's the job that sort of goes away or gets really, really reduced in price. Yeah, it's still a good job. It's still a good life.

But the ceiling, I don't think, is there for you the way it was easily 10 years ago. I would argue less than 10 years ago. Yeah, and ESPN, that's part of daily programming. It's just different than it was 10 years ago. So you're right. You're going to pay Joe and Troy. You're going to pay Stephen A. You're going to pay Joe and Troy. You're going to pay Stephen A. You're going to pay SVP. And then you're going to have this whole group of people that still

would have existed at ESPN at different stages. And they're just not, it's just not going to be the same. No. And it was already happening. And I'm not even saying that it's wrong. It's just a pivot. It's, you know, there's plenty of industries. It's like, I remember how valuable this person was, you know? And it's like, And it's like, okay, you have a stockbroker. You have somebody you're checking in with all the time. Not to say that stockbrokers aren't, but you get the point. That was something when kids were going to college, when I was graduating, being like, I want to be a stockbroker.

It was like, oh, wow, that sounds interesting. You can be around money. Jackaroo, quick anecdote. When I was bartending trying to get just talking out loud trying to trying to be somebody who was like yeah i think i want to get into sports i think i want to do this we had a regular it was like you know jackaroo's my cousin and you're so and you're so desperate for any kind of like you're trying to break into the business like oh really i'd love to pick his brain. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Never happened. Can you bring him in here? Yeah. But I'll never forget Jackaroo. Not that I

would have, but there was this glimmer of hope I had that night when I'm serving this guy beers. He's like, oh, you want to get into sports? Jackaroo's my cousin. I was like, okay. Look out world. I love that you had a Jackarooo'-root nugget. There you go. I love this show. I can go anywhere and you've got a nugget. Why do you love Radio Row so much? It's the ultimate power ranking of celebrity and how much you're worth. We power rank everything.

People like us, well, once in a while, we look at those podcast rankings. How popular am I? On Radio Row, they just line you up. If people don't know, the better interview slots are later in the week as you get closer to the Super Bowl. Thursday is kind of the peak because that's a big night for Super Bowl parties.

So your NFL starting quarterbacks want to come in. So it's the job of every PR person to bring somebody in on the right day. If you're Solomon Wilcots, speaking of network guys, Monday, you're a Monday guy. That's your day. If you are Clark Hunt, Clark Hunt, the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, one of the trophies named after your dad, your Tuesday guy, you know, that's not bad. Stephen A., Thursday, you are Thursday, and you are going to fill up on Thursday.

And to me, there's just something that is so raw about that. It's just out there. We don't have to pretend, you know, that, oh, is he good or is he better? No, no, there's a ranking. And that's part of what I love about it. So you love it. You'll always love it. Yeah.

I mean, I, I would, I don't know how many more radio road diaries the ringer's gonna publish but i would just love to do that every single year i was talking to paul pabst who produces dan patrick show and oh we got you know we're out of the giants facility you should have come out i'm like yeah maybe next year maybe maybe that's my bit speaking of face of the network there was a story where they installed new security things where you had to wave your badge to get through it and dan patrick didn't have his with him and he just yelled i'm only the face of the network as he went past it which even if he meant it he his delivery would still be one of the funniest things ever to me and i say that as a compliment that story not

not to call him out because he's kind of kidding but he's also not which is perfect dan patrick the perfect combination of of confidence and humor um which is why i've always liked him so much okay when i went to radio row the what it inspires in me was do not be at one of these tables when you're in your late 50s i remember this moment miami 2020 you showed up for like five minutes and then you were like cadarious tony running the punt back on sunday afternoon trying to get out of there well you were just like i'm out no don't want to get pulled in to any well here's what i don't like though is when people show up to it going i don't want to be here it to any interviews. Here's what I don't like, though, is when people show up to it going, I don't want to be here. It's like you showed up. You were here.

And I taped my podcast. I actually taped with Woj that day. And then I think I did Slow News Day. So there was a day where I had to be there. But my dislike of it is how many people show up and then are annoyed that they're being bothered are they really annoyed though ryan yeah well my thing is like don't don't act like if you're the one that came here so if you don't want to be here leave like don't what you think was going to happen today so you're arguing that they go that's part of the that's an act yes okay in

almost every case. And I saw it happening in real time. Give me an example. Give me your best story from last week. Well, there's this whole class of people that host shows on radio row and then spend the rest of the day going on other people's shows. I don't quote Donald Trump a ton, Ryan, in my work, but it was kind of a swamp, a sports media swamp, if you will, just kind of a permanent class of people that were always talking. And you

know, Mad Dog was doing people's shows. He did my show there. I said, Trey Wingo, you know, was coming off the thing, Kenny Mayne, they're walking around doing it. It was just people doing shows all the time. And I understand there's some commerce that needs to be done. Your employers want to be done. But at some point, you just like doing shows. You like doing hits. And the whole idea, if you're kind of the mid-level network guy and you're wandering around and you're turning people down for interviews, how many times has that happened in your life? What a great day. I didn't even think about that.

Like, I'm going to go there and turn some shit down. Massive ego boost. I'm just, I'm totally booked. I'm sorry. I just got to go. I'm sorry,

you know, nerdy football podcast. I just don't have 10 minutes. How many times has that happened to you? It's got to feel good. That's great. I didn't even, I didn't even i didn't think of that

like hi yeah we got randy scott he's here with legos the plug is just my favorite part too by the way what i could say that about randy because we are we're friendly so i was trying to pick somebody that would get the joke but what were you saying yeah tell me what you're doing with legos that's the question and you could just hear the radio host die like halfway through that question you know give me give me super bowl memories let's talk about the matchup and then just halfway through just dead what are you doing with legos oh gotta ask i'll tell you right now and i like jake laser we were neighbors for a while really good neighbor invited me over a few times

but when you book Glazer be ready because you're only doing what he wants he is the most he is the run game of Radio Row like early Cowboys we'll prop Emmitt Smith back up like we booked

him then he brought somebody else. Then he was only talking about the thing that he was talking about. We tried to get a couple football questions in. Nope. Not doing it. Cannell and I, we got our asses kicked for eight minutes. Jay got up.

I was like, all right, man. Good seeing you. Danny and I looked at each other. I was like, what just happened? We were on Jay Glazer time is what just happened, which I respect. I think back on that and be like, you know, he just showed up. We had Tebow once show up with a sleeveless thing, and he was eating avocados just out of a bowl the whole time. And he was like, I'm hearing about avocado.

I was like, all right, do you think you're going to play quarterback again this year, though? He's like, man, do you know how many grams of protein it's just in one avocado and then you know of course there's somebody behind him from avocado and you're like fucking hey so that was i think that was the last show i ever did was was 16 or 17 with Cannell. The beginning of 17, I think, is what it would have been. And then I did Radio Row, the Miami. Then obviously everything's kind of messed up since.

But yeah, I mean, for me, now with the trade deadline before the Super Bowl these last two years, good luck. This thing is, you drop in like the busiest 48 hours of my year right before the Super Bowl. When I was in Arizona, I didn't do anything. I was going to ask you this. Do we think it's a good idea for the NBA to

drop trade deadline into Super Bowl week? I understand why they did it. They've been very accommodating to the players here, especially considering everything that's gone on the last couple of years. Part of that was starting it earlier, having more gaps in's gone on the last couple of years. But part of that was, you know, starting it earlier,

having more gaps in between the less back-to-backs. I mean, NBA's done everything you could ask for them. They give them a spring break around All-Star break.

And then part of that led to, depending on where you were in the game thing, you know, your season calendar versus the real calendar, they moved it up.

I don't like it. I'm being selfish about it. I think there was some conversation about like, oh, the NBA must love this, having all these headlines and dominating it. And these shows that are live from Arizona have to talk about the NBA trade deadline because Durant just got traded.

I think all of that is the most worthless bullshit ever. These fake chips that people stack up where it's like, oh, they got them talking about it. You know, I just don't know. Like, is there a check involved? If there's no money involved, I don't really know where the value, I think it's all make-believe ego stuff

that doesn't even really matter. I would rather it be a couple weeks after. I don't like it. I think you could live on your own. You actually wouldn't be caught in some of the Super Bowl stuff with it. I totally get why they did it. I'm not passionate about it one way or the other,

and obviously I'm selfishly motivated by the overlap. I love sports radio segment scoreboard. Yeah, I bet Roger Goodell and those 113 million viewers you're about to have, they were pissed that we did a Durant segment. So we're on the same page with this like people smart people say it all the time and i'm like well it doesn't it doesn't fucking mean anything it's like the old revel stuff of like butler getting to the final four is 180 million dollars in awareness revenue like Like, okay, well, can I take like 90 million? Like, where's my check? It doesn't mean anything. It's all bullshit. And so the first time I heard somebody say like, you know, bad news being released late on a Monday or, you know, excuse me, late on a

Friday, then something else worse happens on Saturday, right? So something transactionalional happens the team doesn't want to have to deal with they release it on friday then something even worse happens on saturday and then the guy comes up to you goes you know i tell you who's real happy is that this is the thing on friday about what happened on saturday the first couple times i thought that was actually interesting but now i don't like yeah man this is this is what this is how it gets done. So whatever small little ego victory lap the NBA could have for having a bunch of Durant segments on shows that would have only been doing the Super Bowl. Okay, I guess I get your point. I just don't feel like it's a real equitable thing.

Not at all. Can I tell you my best radio row experience? Please. Jim McMahon. Jim McMahon. Jim McMahon. He's a guy. He was a Wednesday guy. But here's the thing. Jim McMahon is not watching football these days. And he did six and a half hours of Radio Row.

So let's think of the Russillo interview here. We do 85 Bears. We do Super Bowl Sh shuffle. Maybe we're doing the after effects of football. If we don't want to get too grim, but you know, you probably throw something in there. How you feeling these days, but he would not answer questions about current football players. Like a Chicago reporter came up to him. It's like, what do you think of Justin Fields? Like, I have no opinion. I got nothing. So what are you doing with Jimahon for six and a half hours he's not watching football yeah i look i know it from i know it from i think as as well as anybody on the on the broad spectrum you know a radio station in boston that nobody listened to, doing Radio Row, Houston, Jacksonville. And credit to everybody back in those days for trying to make us feel like a

real show and a real station. We were sporting news. They'd cut a ton of people. They laid a bunch of people off. There was only three of us left that were doing a local show that was like a real show you know and um anthony pepe was our our marketing guy who then they made the host of the show this is how bare bones it was getting and pep would make sure we all felt like we were still a real show and you do that monday through friday, and you would be so fucking pumped. You're like, wait, we can get Phil McConkie? Anthony Munoz? Anthony Munoz is an all-timer. And then, yeah, and then you're on South Beach.

Six years later, I'm on South Beach, you know, six years later, I'm on South Beach with Van Pelt at the ESPN stage. And that's when you're like, no, don't want him. Don't want that. They can come to us. No phoners. Doesn't matter.

And now, look, now I think Zoom and podcasting has changed a lot of it. Without it, maybe, you know, maybe I would be setting up a desk and having a stage and making all sorts of demands and saying, I need this. I need this kind of presence or whatever. I just kind of like doing my thing. But I love how much you love it. All right.

So let's go back then. You had Chris Mad Dog Russo. love it. All right. So let's go back then. You had Chris Mad Dog Russo. You had Mike Felger on, which is a really kind of personal thing to me because I grew up listening to Mike and the Mad Dog, even though I was a huge Boston fan, because I just liked that show better than the EEI show. I worked with Mike Felger. I actually tested with him to be his permanent co-host at the first ESPN affiliate in Boston, which is very short lived. And then he ended up over um at the fm station and now has the number one show in the city so listening to you talk to this why would why was it that those two were so interesting for an entire episode of the press box russo kind of speaks for himself just because

he's been around so long he's kind of the mayor of radio row and i just love asking him about the mechanics of sports radio you know what, what's the worst month? What are you doing the week after the Super Bowl, Chris? And after the interview, he gets up and goes, Brian, you always want to learn about the radio. That is the reason I talk to this guy. He wants to learn about the radio. Just the guy I want to talk to.

Felger to me, and you'll be even better on this than I could ever be it's just the approach he takes to boston sports radio like you know if you hear it to hear him tell it it's all about like i talk about what happened last night in this very very particular way and if i got to be number one there was a a moment in that interview, I was like, yeah, you destroyed WEI. He's like, well, I wouldn't say destroyed. I'm like, yeah, we're Sports Radio. We're going to lay up here.

We're going to... Oh, you just gently overtook them in the ratings to get a 24 share or whatever you had in the spring. It's the approach and this whole idea of here's how we talk about sports, which is something you do all the sports, which is something you do all the time, which is something I do all the time on different topics. How do what's my approach? How do I land this plane? And it was to me, it was totally fascinating. Yeah, I look, I don't have

a bad word to say about Felger. I loved working with him at Comcast. You know, I was hustling whatever shift you had for me. that $200 check was huge. And so that also meant if I did the six and I did the 10, I'd get 400 bucks. That also meant that Felger, who... The funny thing is people think I'm unfriendly. I didn't have much to do. I'd watch the game, but then I'd stop in and talk with him in his office. And he had... After 10 minutes, he was over it. It didn't matter who it it was he didn't want to sit there and talk he didn't he didn't want to like you know whatever i'm in my late 20s a little bit older you know he's starting a family um here's a felger because felger is like impossibly honest impossibly honest like he's not we could talk about the show and his

approach and how different our approaches are uh but I'll never forget one time he married Sarah Underwood, local newscaster, everybody knew who she was. And I was like, how did you meet her? Which is essentially like a guy asking another guy, how'd you pull that off? And he was like, I think she was at a low point, honestly. And I went, okay. And I don't even think he was trying to be self-deprecating he was just like i don't know i was like yeah but you know like you you got a cool job you're on the air you know you don't think that and i'm in but again you understand like i'm in my late 20s so

i'm still kind of thinking of like if you're talking to the opposite sex you have something cool like hey what do you do oh well i'm on tv and i and i do all these different things i was like do you think you know maybe her interest in it i hope i'm not like i don't think he would care about me talking about any of this because it's more about him and i was like you don't think that that was appealing that you know you have this he was like what are you talking about this oh the pads you can't block the bill like he was like i have the dumbest fucking job it's not remotely appealing there's nothing attractive about what and that kind of got me into his head about like the way he is he knows he's kicking ass but he's i don't know he's

nicer about it with that than almost any other topic because he's incredibly negative. Whenever I'm back home and I listen to Boston Sports Talk Radio, which is really at one point what I thought I'd be doing five days a week, and then to see everything that had happened with them and where I was positioned at the time. And at that point I was at ESPN, so I didn't really want to go backwards. But I was like, I don't even know if I could ever do this anymore. So it was kind of funny where he was like, we just always want to find a way to be negative and be critical, even if good things are happening. And I thought to myself, what an awful four hours every day. And he loves it. And we were very different. And I'll tell you, when I tested for him or with him, it was a really weird deal. place was fucking not run well it was a mess uh it was i'd done a month it was the friday before the weekend i didn't even know if i was coming in on monday i had to call the program director to be like am i coming back in on monday or is this thing run its course and they're like yeah we don't really like the way you do stuff i was like okay fine i just needed to know and so

felger and i i think it was this is what probably ended it was the Sox had blown a game the night before classic bullpen meltdown, whatever. He opens the show, goes off. You can't do this. You should assign this guy. This manager's an idiot. How do you do this? How come not this right-hander instead of the left-hander? He goes on and on. And he just turns to me and I was like, I don't know, it's May, like 20 more of these are going to happen. We go to commercial and he just looks at me exasperated and he goes, I don't know how you do the job that way, man. I go, I can't do it any other way than how I honestly feel about it. Yeah, the bullpen let him down, but there's other stuff we don't really know.

He goes, how do you do it? How do you do six months going, that doesn't mean anything? He's like, how do you do it? How do you do six months going? That doesn't mean anything. He's like, how do you do six months your way? He's like, I can't, nobody does it that way. You can't do it that way. You can only do it this way. And that was the end of our partnership. But I do love the guy and I think he's awesome at his job. I just wouldn't want to do it that way. And you wouldn't want to do it my way, right? No. And every second for him, right. Has to be invested with something with edge, with meaning we can't meander. That's the,

it was a great moment with me. We're sitting on radio row. We have a little ringer table. There's just me and him. And he goes, you know what a podcast is? Cause somebody had told me, ask him about podcasts.

Of course, cause I love to hear what sports radio guys think about what we do. And he goes, you want to know what a podcast is? And he puts his feet up on the ringer table, literally up in the ring. He's like, you know what I watched on TV last night? Let me tell you what I watched on TV last night. What are we talking about again?

I mean, just absolute contempt for the form and for the reasons you're saying. Like, what are you doing? What are you doing talking about what you watched on TV the last night for five minutes? Where's the intensity of this, where's the feel where's the seven amazing minutes before we get to that low t-center commercial so we can get the audience back after the break it's just it to me fascinating part of the reason i love radio row i love those kind of interviews where you're just like wow okay interesting yeah look it is a much longer term radio guy i don't feel like i'm being defensive of podcasts because i get it but when i'm in the car and it's like oh you're taking calls for four hours today

really that was the idea right like hey falga i think you know peyton pritchett you know you should be statin over smat. He's a better shooter. I think he's a better fucking leader, whatever. Okay. The number of calls that I've ever heard in any city where I've gone, what's the percentage of calls where I was like, you know what? Good point. I hadn't thought of that. So that to me at this stage, I would never.

But look, Felgager hating podcasts the least surprising thing ever so to branch this back out you know so this doesn't become too much about you know the boston part of it is do you think there's such a hard and fast pivot to podcasting that we've lost the appreciation for live radio no nobody on radio row would let us forget the appreciation for live radio, you know, looking around. I was Jim Rome. Hey, what's he doing over there? You know, it's kind of a Disneyland quality to radio row, which by the way, I love too. There's bad dog. There's Romy, you know, there's, there's Doug Gottlieb pulling a roller suitcase. Wow. What is this? I'm right in the middle of everybody right here. Um, and I think there are lessons that inform it, right? Calls in 2023, it would kill me.

It kills me when I listen to radio and hear that stuff. Uh, sports updates every five minutes kills me when I listen, you know, but then I think me as a mere podcaster, when I talk to those guys, think me as a mere podcaster, when I talk to those guys, they're, they're always have something interesting to say because they figured this out right in a different medium. And it's like, whether it's urgency, whether it's a way you talk about things, whether it's coming in and making sure that everything you do has a purpose rather than just sort of wandering into a segment and be like, this is about Patrick Mahomes. No, no no no what is it about patrick mahomes that you're gonna say i mean to me that when i need to re-appreciate sports radio which is a medium i grew up with i love it um it's that right that these dudes just know how to talk about stuff and i figured it out and you know and can we can all whatever whatever you know

novice podcaster like myself whenever i listen to that i learn something whatever you know novice podcaster like myself whenever i listen to that i learned something do you like it less now that you've done it because i mean you the on-air part for you i imagine really impacts the way you then feel about covering the people that do it right makes me appreciate it more i think when i listen to bad radio now for a bad podcast i'm like i know exactly what happened i understand that the co-hosts weren't on the same page that they're not talking to each other they're just doing monologues and so we get monologue one followed by monologue two followed by monologue three because i by monologue three, because I've done that. Oh, they're just,

I listened to a bad podcast. I'm like, Oh, that guy's just trying to sound smart. He's not, he's not, he's not listening to his cohost. He's not communicating.

He's just like, here are seven things to make me sound really smart. Okay, great. Congratulations. You get an a plus in football today. Well done. Um,

so I've recognized bad, but then when I hear it done really well, I'm always like, oh, wow. That was really good. You know, that was awesome. That was it. So I think it's probably

given me a new appreciation. Yeah, the monologue thing is a really good point because I think when first take was going through stuff, I would be like, wait, how is the show formatted now? You go seven minutes and I go seven minutes? Because I remember when I was first getting involved

and talking to some of the TV people at ESPN and trying to find a way to be on some more shows. Kevin Wilds, who's now on the air at Fox, who's a really, really smart television person, but he was behind the scenes. And I remember one of the lessons he taught me, he goes, you know, when we watch PTI, this is when they were still trying to figure out like how to make beetle and cow herd, like be the best they could be. Right. Like that was, there was this branch of coaching underneath the Horowitz crew, Jamie Hortz, like that group was really good with just the way they approached the on-air people that they were working with. Like they, they took pride in trying to make everybody as good as they could possibly be. It was weird. Cause there was like this offshoot of like, how do you get in with those guys?

Because they seem to have a completely different approach to like coaching and, and wanting everybody to be the best as opposed to like, sometimes you felt like there was resentment as an on-air person, you know, like, wait, what the fuck's going on here? Like, what are you pissed at me that you're a producer? Like, we all made decisions, man. Like, so Kevin Wilds had told me, he goes, you know, one of the great things about PTI is we count handoffs. They can be just as simple as Wilbon going, that's right, Tony, or whatever.

And those mild interruptions, interruptions where you're not taking over the conversation, you're interrupting just to be heard from, to break up the monotony of the other person making their point. And on top of everything else, we're looking at a clock there. They're what? A minute to barely ever having two minute little lineups there. And they were like, we counted in the course of like, you know, a two minute segment, they had 61 handoffs where they counted a handoff as any time the other person made a noise. And that was the goal to have all of these shows. And so I know I'm guilty of it because I do so much solo stuff too on the monologue part, I can be like, okay, I'm just going and going and going because it's my own habit in the way that I

do most of my stuff on my own. But that was something I never appreciated until I was doing it or trying to do it and then being coached by somebody that actually understood it in a way that very few people I think work with talent. So it's a subtweet of all of us and it's a note to all of us who do this without commercials, without a clock that we're watching, it's like make one point. Don't make seven points. Just make one point. Unless you're monologuing. You know, you started the show for 20 minutes. Yeah, I can't follow that one, unfortunately. Okay, everybody but

Ryan Russillo when he's doing his monologue. I just always tell people because I hear this on by the way, you know who did this in the beginning of the year? Greg Olson. He would come out of a replay and like, here are seven interesting things about this replay. Like, nope. I need one. I need one thing. And he tightened himself

up over the course of the season. But that applies to all of us. Just say one thing and the mic's coming back to you. And then you can make point number two later. Perfect way to end this. Do you have anything else? I'm doing handoffs. Little noises let you know I'm here.

Hey. I was like, that's a handoff? We like watch the tape. I was like, that's a handoff? Like, yeah, it's a handoff. But it also speaks to like the subconscious part of you that enjoys PTI for as long as people have. They're like, oh, that relationship is going to be damn near impossible to ever replicate. Brian, you're the best.

I appreciate it for those who want to hear more on the business and so many other things too, not just on this. You can check out the PressBox podcast with Brian Curtis. Thank you, my man. Great to see you, Ryan. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari, 355 Cabriolet. What's up?

I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life advice. Lifeadvice. RRGmail.com.

Okay, we have one that's a little dated, but it still applies. Valentine's Day Caper, 5'11", 175, former college soccer player with a body match. Trying to finally put some meat on my bones. Via Jeremy Scott Fitness, great workouts, fully endorsed. Look, we're huge Jeremy Scott Fitness fans here.

We've already talked about them, and it actually got a little awkward, so we're going to keep it moving. I live in a major U S city. And about a month ago, I went online to get a reservation for me and my girlfriend's favorite restaurant. No, not crazy expensive,

but awesome place and hard to get in. When I booked the reservation, I wasn't thinking about Valentine's day specifically, rather just trying to get a date on the books for a nice dinner in a few, a few weeks out. Wow. This guy's a real planner. Wasn't that a Tuesday?

Yeah, whatever. A few weeks out on a Tuesday. guy's a real planner. Wasn't that a Tuesday? Yeah, whatever. A few weeks out on a Tuesday? Okay. I don't know, dude. Valentine's Day? Yeah, it's the 14th and it's a Tuesday, so you just had no idea.

One of my all-time favorite nights of our time. It was the best. All right, coincidentally, the last day they were accepting reservations for online happened to be Valentine's. Me and the old lady never do anything fun for the holidays, so I figured it'd be as good an excuse as any to go out to a nice dinner. I booked the reservation and off we go. That's about what we'd spend on the dinner anyway, so I didn't think twice about it. Fast forward to the night of, dinner's great. And when the bill comes, the person who I believe to be the owner, at least the manager of the restaurant, brings the check.

He tells us that the dinner was prepaid online. We only owe the balance of the corkage fee for the wine that we bought. I hadn't remembered prepaying, but having made the reservation four plus weeks ago, I didn't think twice about it. We paid the small fee and went home. So this is where the whole planning thing comes in. He's four weeks out being like, you knew deep down right then and there you didn't pay for that dinner by the way right but you're thinking okay maybe there was a chance that night after checking my credit card

statement it became clear i never was charged for the prepaid dinner fee i think what may have happened is that there was some sort of glitch in the system between making the reservation before they had declared the valentine's price fix menu and that somehow we were not forced to put a card down. Clearly the dilemma I face is, do I call the restaurant and inform them of the mistake and offer to pay, or I take the freebie, chalk it up to a W in the column,

being fully ready to accept the next time I take an L whenever that may come my way. I can't think of a better crew to give a ruling. All right. Nobody would pay for that dinner. Like we can sit here and talk about it. You tipped, right? You tipped it out.

So that karma's there, right? Yeah. Of course you tipped. But there's no way. Like we could get into it and say, hey, it's a small business, potentially eight restaurants. Like, yeah, okay.

Nobody would call them back after being told it was free zero is a low number it's not much higher than zero people that would then say i'm gonna do so i don't i don't think you even though you know i think everybody wants to put all these things in the same bucket going back to the chipotle sauce dilemma which by the way the last chipotle i went to they did have the little plastic ramekins for you to go hot sauce to go if you wanted to. I don't know if it was the podcast. It's changing the world, but sometimes you like to think it is.

In this one, this is a different category of things altogether. I don't think you need to feel bad about this. I think it is a W in the column. This isn't even a caper. This is a small lottery win, guy. You're like one in a million. This is a small lottery win, guy. You're like one in a million. This is a small lottery win. This is not a caper, just so you know.

Yeah, I'm trying to think of like, what's the counter? All right, if you knew the owner of the restaurant, okay, fine. That's different altogether. Yeah, I don't know. Everything, we always get follow-ups, and people will try to present some argument that we didn't think of. And there are times you're like, oh, I hadn't really. Everything, we always get follow-ups and people will try to present some argument that we didn't think of. And there are times where you're like,

oh, I hadn't really thought about that. There's other times it's like, actually, that was addressed. In this one, I think it's such an overwhelming number of people that would go, yeah, dude, that's just a win. That's just a win.

So I don't think there's really much to add to that. Yeah, me neither. I think I'm okay with all the you're a bad guy response to this because that's all right. Sometimes you just got to win one and some people go without winning for a long time. So I hope, I hope that boosted your spirits, pal. Good luck. deal. 34, 6'3", 228. In shape. Live five days a week. Wear my home jersey to the Super Bowl.

Brag. I was told I should be in the tunnel warming up, so I'm feeling pretty good off that high. Hey, that's what 6'3", 230 will do for you. Good friends of mine got engaged a couple months ago. That's if you're working out at 230. And quickly planned for a destination wedding in Mexico. The bride texted me from my email and physical address to send an invite.

A few days later, received an email from her with booking information for the resort and the date of the wedding, November 4th. After repeated texts from her about rooms booking up in their block, I decided to go ahead and book my room. I, early days,

I didn't even know what they were talking about. I'm like, room block? What? Book now? There's a good chance I didn't even show up to this what i think there's a red roof somewhere around there i might just take my chances you're calling the groom like a week out being like dude hotels it's kind of dicey you didn't get on the block what what yeah we had a block it's a special rate oh daniel's opening up yeah six months ago dickhead I was so confused by any

of the organized adult stuff. All right. So anyway, he books the room for two people through the wedding planner. I recently started dating somebody and early results say it could turn into something but I'm trying not to get ahead of my skis. As such, I left the information of the second person in my room blank for the time

being, figuring no big deal. I'll tell them later once it gets closer to the wedding. When you RSVP. Right. The wedding coordinator followed up with me a few days later on Friday, saying I had to put someone's name down. I didn't get back to her over the weekend and my room was never reserved as part of the block. The bride followed up with me about new pricing since my room wasn't booked and the block got filled and that I should only need the new pricing for individual occupancy of the rooms. When I questioned that saying I had booked a double occupancy room, she responded by telling me, quote, you can totally bring somebody with you, of course,

just can't guarantee that they can get into the wedding with you since we pay per head for that. LOL. That actually isn't an LOL, but it was like a softening. Yeah. It's like me with exclamation points now. Like, well, I'll just go throw one in there every now and then it's like me with exclamation points now like i'll just throw one in there every now and then all my emails have exclamations now yeah it just presents you as like i just feel like all my text responses forever would just be like is this guy a dick and sometimes the simple answer would be yes but i don't know i just have have a good weekend without a without with a period without an exclamation that almost seems like a diss to me now it's just like have a good weekend period i don't know yes i pretty much need an exclamation that almost seems like a diss to me now it's just like have a good weekend period

I don't know I pretty much need that exclamation point just be like what the fuck is this guy trying to say to me yeah because when you just answer stuff sometimes and then it'll be like oh that and it'll be like I guess I came out bad over text what a complete sentence that answered the question yeah great great see you later what a shit

what a social reject this guy is he responded efficiently you know i've been thrown in soft haas now for like a year but i've noticed uh yeah i don't know i just feel like i had to adapt everybody else they don't live in the same city as me uh for at least the last two years and i didn't they didn't ask if i was seeing anyone um or not to know i wouldn't need a plus one i know weddings are expensive and space may be limited but i'm wrong i think it's a bit odd or not to know I wouldn't need a plus one. I know weddings are expensive and space may be limited, but am I wrong to think it's a bit odd to not get a plus one to a destination wedding?

Bringing someone and them not being able to eat dinner or drink with us at the wedding seems insane to me. This is an all-inclusive resort for the record. Is there any way to push back nicely without offending them? I wanted to go to the wedding to be there for a couple who doesn't love, because who doesn't love a few days in Mexico? Should I offer to pay for my plus ones portion? Can't cost too much more than two, 300 bucks. Uh, and it would be worth that to avoid

awkwardly watching all my couple friends make out in the pool the whole weekend. Yeah. This seems kind of weird. I, you know, the, the plus one thing for dudes, I mean, obviously I have more experience being a dude, um, than the other side i imagine it's the same for females as well but oh yeah a couple times the weddings like i just you know i wouldn't i you know it depends on kind of where you're at like if you're dating somebody you bring them right it's pretty much it would have been weird for you to go to the wedding without that person i think there was one wedding when i was dating somebody i was like i don't think you want to come to this one she was like yeah cool no problem um but there was other wedding when I was dating somebody. I was like, I don't think you want to come to this one. She was like, yeah, cool. No problem. But there was other times I brought her to everything. And then there was a solo stretch of weddings. And then I think there was one time I just was hanging out with somebody. And then I asked my buddy, I was like, hey, is it a plus one? He's like, well, are you serious about this person? I was like, no. He's like, yeah, well, then I don't want that person at my wedding. I was like, oh, that's like a you thing. Son of me. Isn't that like my determinant? Can I be the one that decides whether?

Yeah. Well, I'm into her now, but I can't promise you anything. Like what if we break up? Do I have to mail you a check for 200 bucks six months from now? So the plus one thing, the cost part of it, I kind of like destination weddings. And I also think that destination weddings are a mechanism to weed people out. And that's definitely the case for some of them. But specific to this one, you may have an out on like, hey, I booked it as the two and now I'm a one. So what can we do here?

I would actually follow up and be like, what are my options? I'm dating somebody. What are my options? I know she's planning a wedding. So you kind of want to avoid asking guest related questions to the bride in this case, if that's who you're closer to with this. But I think a very, you might want to massage it a bit here, but I think a direct, normally my rule on this would be like, just leave her alone. Just leave the bride alone. But this is weird. I do think this is kind of weird. Now, again, some would suggest that, Hey, the wedding it's expensive. The head count keeps going on and on and on. Uh, I would, I would be willing to just say, if you just ask and be like, okay, so I'm not a plus one, just so I have that clear. and then she has to answer that like

specific direct part of it then you have your answer then the second part of this comes down to like is the girl you're dating going to be annoyed because other people have restrictions that shouldn't happen and if she's annoyed then maybe she isn't the one on this one you could fly her down is she really really hot and she's going to be at a mexican resort by herself while you're at the wedding and doing all that stuff that's probably not going to go fucking awesome for you so if she's you know not distractingly hot but still attractive maybe you'll get away with it there it'd be kind of fun maybe then she'll mingle over the reception and it's not that big of a deal like for you to pull that off to be like i want you to come to mexico she wants to go to mexico

but i've got this wedding thing I have to deal with. And for her to ride along with that and the awkwardness of not being at the ceremony, which nobody wants to go to anyway, so she'll probably be fine. Is she a big drinker? Is there a chance she gets completely off the rails and gets hammered by herself because she's so bored, which can happen. But if she's cool with all of it, it might be like a funny deal. And then the reception just ends up being a free-for-all

and everybody goes to the bars. You're probably going to spend a lot of time with her anyway. Okay? But if you're trying to execute the second part of this, if you get the no to the follow-up on the plus one, she has to have, you know, you've got to know the full scouting report on her deal because this could be an absolute game breaker

where you get on the plane and everybody's like hey totally get it you do your thing i'm just gonna relax i love mexico i just started this new book it's gonna be awesome and then like 24 hours later she's going i just thought we still like would have more time together and we don't and like i kind of like had certain expectations and then all of a sudden you're like fucking a so this sucks this kind of sucks for you here i don't think you even did anything wrong i can't think now right kyle like no it's a it's a bit of a gray area though no i mean yeah you you kind of messed up some you know some uh online but he didn't which did right he kind of did he left something blank it's like you didn't do anything wrong if you were talking if you're doing this over the phone with somebody they would have

booked you but because you left some shit blank in some automated you know code system right and put you through like it's not a normal person if on the other end of the line would have got this done for you but it's like a technical mishap sure so yeah i think there is some explanation you could do but it's a gray area right he? He said a couple months ago, right? He met this girl and it seems pretty well. And this wedding is a couple months from now. So they might even be coming up on like a year together by the time this wedding happens. But you know, some people are really, I mean, the one, I mean, my, I went to my first like real wedding as an adult this summer. And that one dude was like telling us who gets a plus one, who does it based on like, you know, some, all of us, a lot of us had girlfriends. Some of them had a girlfriend for like eight months and he was like,

that's not even a real girlfriend. She's not coming. And people were like, Whoa, you know, I was, I was fine either way. He, you know, he let me bring, uh, bring mine. Cause you know, we're about to get married and stuff, but you know, there were other dudes, there was one, two, a pair of brothers that were both really good friends with, he wanted to invite one brother and not the other. And I was like, so he was like, some people are really serious about that. I sort of just for my things, I put I know who's got like plus ones. I know who could bring one and would decide not to. So I just sort of on the on the addresses of my things that I just sent out my envelopes

the other day, by the way, and I just put like name and guest or just name and anyone can bring a plus one. I'm just hoping they don't, you know, ruin me by everyone deciding to bring a friend for this wedding. But I think generally, like you just, you take care of them in the gift, right? If you're, if there's two people, your gift is twice as much, right? I mean, that's sort of like, that's sort of what you do. So, you know, I think, I think a good explanation, maybe with the wedding planner might get you like somewhere and be like, hey, listen, this is what happens.

And you just explain everything away. Maybe, you know, that's a good way to not have to talk to the bride about money because, you know, she already sort of did that weird, awkward, like money's making things weird. LOL. You know what I mean? She's already uncomfortable with trying to tell you this, but you just have to get her attitude on it. If she's like hard, no, I don't care what you say. I mean, you don't really have much wiggle room here.

So I think it's still kind of unclear where this person is on your plus one. It's like a shy person would have just taken this info and been like, oh, sorry, she said no. But I think you do have a follow up here. And I would maybe try to go through the wedding planner at first. But I think if you just explain this concisely, you might be able to fix this. No. Would you do it? Would you bring your fiance? Would I bring mine? Yeah. I think I have to at this point. Okay. But no, I mean, say it was like, sorry, dude, say I'm getting married in Cabo. I probably wouldn't get married there. Say I finally get married. It's Maui.

It's making Maui. And I was like, sorry, Kyle, it's expensive. I know things are going well, but it's not a plus one. Well, for you, I'd be like, dude, Lana, this is my first chance to hang out with Rosillo. I think I have to actually do it. But if it was a different guy, if it was Rudy, it would be different. If it was Rudy, I don't,

I don't know. I guess, I guess. Yeah. I would tell her like that. Let's, let's play this out. Let's play this out. Okay. Let's, let's eliminate. This is the first time I get to hang out with Ursula.

Uh, I decided to get married. I'm in Maui. It's like a four day retreat and my wife's, you know, doing well, but she's, she's in control. I actually, I probably wouldn't marry that person, but whatever. And I'm like, look, dude, I'm sorry. Let's say you've lost your mind. Any juice I had, it just, it's gone, squeezed, squeezed dry. And so the boat ruined you. You're not making, you're not making any financial decisions. She would be like, if this is going to happen, the first thing you're doing is getting rid of that boat. I'd be like, you know, it's not going to be the first thing I get rid of.

So let's, if I said to you, this is the question I'm trying to ask and get an answer to is if it was just non-negotiable, I'm not giving you a plus one. And then you said, well, I still get to go to Maui and the hotels are cheaper because I actually, you know, the booking people worked it out. I'm bringing my fiance. Would she be cool with four days in Maui knowing that you're going to have like a wedding day? It would be up to her. And I believe you got to be honest. I'm OK if you don't go. I'd rather you go.

If you're going to be if this is going to really, you know, boost your anxieties or whatever, whatever whatever it is, then I'd say don't go. I'd love to have you there. It's not like they're going to shun you for the rest of the three days, but there is going to be that one day at home. Maybe call your sister and then call your grandma and that'll eat up like two hours of the day or something. I don't know.

I think I would definitely give her the option. But also she's not like somebody new who I don't know how she'd react. I'd be like, hey, if you don't like the fact that you're not important enough to, you know, Rosillo, uh,

to be in this thing, if that would make you weird around this group for the whole time, I think that's totally fine to stay and I'll get you a t-shirt. I sense that you think you would be on the same page. And then once you got there, it might not be the same page. Yeah. I'd actually be so relieved that she was like,

no, it's totally fine. Yeah. Yeah. Totally fine. It's a tough move. It's a tough move to pull off. And the reason I bring up the attractiveness is that it's,

it's very simple. Like I remember one time going to a hotel deal where there was this pool and it was kind of like a scene and it was a well-known thing. So it was like what we were doing. And like, I went downstairs to get lunch to the room to like, cause I didn't want to eat the pool foodknown thing so it was like what we were doing and like i went downstairs to get lunch to the room to like because i didn't want to eat the pool food and so i was like i'm just going to do this i come back 30 i come back 30 minutes later and she's surrounded it's like a

back of hiatus right and i just go you know you get you know what you're getting you know you feel lucky at times that that somebody that desirable would would be in a deal with you right but and i was like what's going on she's like oh this guy's a you know producer i was like yeah no i told him yeah i'm like oh okay great like did you exchange emails like yeah we did the guy was he wanted your email too did he yeah okay cool so i'm just saying saying if it's that level. Yeah, it's always great when the guy asks. I want to get in touch with you too. Do you?

Do you really? But if you're in Mexico and she's at that level and you're at a wedding and you come back and she's like, hey, I met Don. Don who today? Don Julio. And you're like, I don't think that's his real name. Just be prepared for it. Just be prepared for it just be prepared for it okay you want to do one more yeah let's do one more it's a light show it's a yeah there's no

there's no opening i didn't know if i had a clipper suns open today i was i didn't i just didn't have it i didn't have anything on eric b enemy it's like it just some of these other workshopping bigger picture non-time sensitive ones i just like i wasn't able to hash out and get an ending form so here you go we'll give it give her another one to you all right what's up guys recently graduated from a small liberal arts college in the south i ran track and cross country broke four minutes in a mile shout out wow that's cool that used to be impossible right yeah decades ago i now spend my days trying to lift weights and put on muscle That used to be impossible, right? Yeah. Decades ago. I now spend my days trying to lift weights and put on muscle because that's what every ex-endurance athlete wants, right?

Anyway, I graduated from college not knowing what I was going to do with my life. I'd interviewed for different jobs and nothing really stood out to me. I was just going to do whatever job, do whatever job, I guess. I interviewed for it, was semi-interested in and got offered, of course. I started working for a big tech company last fall and cannot believe the money I make. It's right around 100,000. And honestly, I feel a little guilty. It's not a sales job or anything. So the money is always coming in. It's not a demanding job by any means either. I just feel like there's more I should be doing. I don't know. Do you have any advice on what to do?

I don't know exactly what I'm asking, but I know I feel a little guilty having this job. How should I use my money as a 25 year old with no student loans or debt? I have a girlfriend. I'm not ready to propose, propose to yet. What would you do in my situation? Just keep living, paying rent, et cetera. Love the pie. You know what I would do? Not write that fucking email ever. That was, are you serious? We had this like two, like two months ago. You were the pie you know what i would do not write that fucking email ever that was are you serious we had this like two like two months ago you're like you know nobody everyone always like wants more no but there's no guy out there who's like i can't believe what they're paying me and we just fucking found him we found him we just maybe that's it maybe this If this is real, shut up is my advice to you. Just fucking have a big smile every two weeks when you see it pop up on that direct deposit. Okay?

If you have no debt, save it. Save as much as you can. Also, spend a good chunk of it too. Yeah, get that IRA popping. Yeah, get that IRA. Yeah, the IRA. Get that thing started up. You have a massive...

The only thing I could say to you negatively is that if it's a big tech firm, how established, is it big or is it we could all be out of here

with leftover vests in six months? Right? Yeah. Right. You working for Bird Scooters? You know, like I'm just,

I'm asking, like, what do you mean by big tech? Solid? Just bank the money and be happy that you are doing

this well and never share this with anybody. Don't feel guilty. Never. Don't feel guilty. Like, you know,

some of us have to win early. Most of us don't. some of us have to win early most of us don't some of us have to yeah maybe that that first review just be like you know i really just think uh could use a little more responsibility but yeah don't go too heavy on that but yeah because you got a good thing going so maybe just at the end of the year just be like you know i think i could just i've been hungry for a little bit more but that's it don't go crazy that is good advice like to keep this train rolling just make sure you uh you know you you present the illusion that you offer some kind of value every now and then yeah never be a problem it shouldn't be hard yeah never be the opposite of what most of us like at our jobs.

Just go like, I'm going to be the non-problem guy because I got none. I got none. If your only problem is feeling guilty about being overcompensated too early without any other concerns in life, just ride this wave of non-hassles, man, because they're coming. They're coming for all of us. All right? And maybe you're too young to be more self-aware of what it is like

to have a non-hassle few months as a fucking adult but i would make fucking t-shirts for this phase of your life okay keep the karma good too don't do anything that's gonna come back you know pay pay for that guy's valentine's day dinner i'm just telling you, man, those letdowns, they're coming. Enjoy this immensely. Agreed. Not much else to add. That's it for the podcast. Brian Russo, the bring your Spotify. you