The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Conor’s Last Stand? Plus: ‘Mare of Easttown’ Creator Brad Ingelsby

Episode Date: July 13, 2021

Russillo shares his thoughts on Conor McGregor’s injury in his loss to Dustin Poirier at UFC 264, and all the speculation around McGregor's future (0:45) before talking with screenwriter-producer Brad Ingelsby about his industry origins and some of his work, including ‘Out of the Furnace,’ ‘The Way Back,’ and ‘Mare of Easttown’ [Warning: SPOILERS!] (9:00). Then Ryen and Ceruti discuss Italy’s UEFA Euro Final win over England (47:00) before Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:02:30). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Brad Ingelsby Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

And I said, look, I have these two scripts I graduated with. Whatever you think you can do with them, have at it. I mean, send it around. He sent it around. He got me an agent at William Morris at the time. And like a month later, the agent's like, hey, we're sending the script around. We just got Ridley Scott on. He's going to direct the movie.

It's Leonardo DiCaprio. I mean, I was literally selling insurance with my dad. He was calling me saying, hey, you got to move to LA. This thing's about to sell. That is Brad Inglesby, the creator of Mayor of Easttown, and also talking about the first time he wrote a script that looked like Leo DiCaprio was going to start a script

when he was in his 20s. That's fun. I want to talk about fighters in general after a big UFC weekend. We get a little soccer with Cerruti too, and life advice. So let's go. I'm going to start today's open

with the UFC result from Saturday. Dustin Poirier taking out Conor McGregor. It was a doctor stoppage as McGregor is screaming from inside the octagon. Now, if you saw the fight, I thought the first couple of minutes, McGregor looked crisp.

He got some great kicks in. He was standing up Poirier, which is what he wants to do. But Poirier at this point is a superior fighter. And honestly, even through McGregor's incredible run from previous years, if you could find a way to get him on the ground,

that was going to be a weakness for him. But it was an absurd scene, and I was entertained by it. I'll admit, as absurd as it was, I was entertained, and I'll probably buy the next McGregor fight, which will happen because I don't understand why we're in this rush. Anytime a fighter has a bad result, we're like, oh, that could be the end. And I'll get to that a little bit later too. But Poirier beats him up on the ground.

They actually get free. It looks like McGregor's going to get up. They go to face off. There's only seconds left as they're in their stand-up. And then McGregor backpedals and breaks his leg. And then there was this argument about whether or not there was a check on a kick. And McGregor's like, there was no check! And he's just screaming there with a bloody ear and a broken leg

as Poirier just handled himself perfectly. I think there were a lot of Dustin Poirier fans, even guys that were rooting for McGregor, that respected and loved the way Poirier carried himself after the fight, after the result. As McGregor's just sitting there watching the whole thing. Now, McGregor's made the relationship for his fans more complicated

over the years, depending on the litany of things that you believe and what, you know, what you believe that's out there, whether it's the cell phone incident, Miami, punching an old guy for refusing a shot of whiskey in Ireland. And then, of course, there was a sexual assault charge against him, which then ended up being dropped because of a lack of investigation. So a lot of times with any of this stuff, again, if you keep getting into trouble, then it's like maybe you're telling us something about you. But I'm not defending him. I'm not defending him. I just I will tell you more often than not, if you ever hear me when I don't really know, I don't feel safe in assuming

one way or the other unless there's overwhelming evidence that we can all read and rely on. But I have very little or I would say low expectations for fighters in general as people. And even with Conor McGregor at this point, I mean, this is a very convenient relationship. I pay you to entertain me. You take the cash and I'm entertained. That's what it is. I don't know if that makes me a bad guy, but I think it makes me a more realistic guy. I have low expectations for a lot of people, certainly those consumed through the public eye.

So when somebody gets caught up in something and I'm not talking of the more serious things, but just things, but just a guy, all of a sudden we find out he cheats on his wife, and you're like, oh my gosh. We're like, wait a minute, what? A guy in power cheated on his wife who had all sorts of options all the time? No way. That never happens. So I just kind of roll my eyes, at least to the reaction to it, because I myself never have high expectations for anyone unless I think or I truly do know that person. And as I said, McGregor's made it more complicated for those that have rooted for him because he's carried himself like an ass in certain cases because whatever the heel role he was going for,

which he's played so well, he's definitely felt like he's crossed over and is saying some things. But I've also heard people say like, oh, I hate McGregor. I hate him. That's why I'm rooting for Floyd Mayweather. I'm like, well, okay.

That's as complicated, if not more so. So I'm not here to pick sides and all that kind of stuff. I'm just, well, okay. That's as complicated, if not more so. So I'm not here to pick sides and all that kind of stuff. I'm just telling you the relationship is very simple. He fights, I watch the fights, and then when he's done fighting, even though I always enjoy it, I don't really think about him all that much more. People are, because there's such a lower approval rating of McGregor now, though, I think people are a little loose with the facts about who he's been as a fighter.

He was 4-2 at one point, went to 19-2, won multiple weight classes, you know, multiple belts and multiple weight classes, and doing things historically in the UFC that we've never really seen done before. He loses to Diaz, Nate Diaz. He beats him in the rematch. He beats Eddie Alvarez. And then he lost three of his four. Now, if you say four or five and include the Mayweather result, honestly, you're just kind of telling yourself that you hate him so much that that one, to me, doesn't even count as a loss.

Losing Duke Khabib, who, and I'm just going to give you that awesome pronunciation there, because I don't know that I ever quite nail it every single time I've done it over the last few years. Losing in that way everybody who kind of knew the UFC, even though you kind of held out hope for, like, I don't know, McG everybody who kind of knew the UFC, even though you kind of held out hope for like,

I don't know, McGregor can sometimes do the impossible. That was just, it wasn't somebody he was going to beat. And the result of that was not all that surprising. And the aftermath was kind of disappointing on both ends because McGregor's just not going to admit anybody got the better of him, really. I mean, he might say it, but then he'll tell you how he's going to win the rematch. And Khabib had such a hard time with all the promotional and shit talk stuff that I think he took it so personally that you're like, no, this is how McGregor is going to sell this fight. And you should be happy about it, but nobody's going to be happy when their family's

being insulted the way McGregor would do it. So obviously he's crossed that line into kind of this wrestling heel figure, which again, at least he's actually fighting. Okay. At least he's actually fighting. These guys are least he's actually fighting. These guys are doing damage to each other as opposed to a wrestler. Sorry to the wrestling fans that are out there. Now, when I run through that record and then some of these more recent losses and then to lose to Poirier again, it's like, oh, this guy's done. He's not done. He's already said he's not going to be done. You can find 10 high profile media members all talking about McGregor being done. And what I think it becomes is kind of this contest

to be the most dramatic person ever. As if you're Bob Costas reciting a eulogy during a national broadcast. It's like, did we see Conor McGregor leave the Octagon for the last time ever in his career? I mean, have you ever met any fighters? Have you ever hung out with any guys that like really do this? And I would imagine most people haven't because I don't know what your deal is, right? And I'm not saying like I'm at cronk in my spare time. But when you look at McGregor's upbringing, and I think this happens a lot of times with athletes, and one of the rules in my job is to never be so personal that it's nasty, even though sometimes that's hard to resist. You don't want to call people stupid. You don't want to say this is a

dumb person, but I think sometimes we would solve ourselves a lot of, or I would say save ourselves a lot of time by saying like, look, sometimes the educational level of somebody in the background in general is a better indicator of where that person's head is at. I remember the first year that I had a job in sports, 2001, Trenton Thunder. I reference it all the time. And there's so many lessons that I learned in just that very short season in that some of these kids from other parts of the country

that maybe don't have the educational background that you're lucky enough to experience, right? And you're thinking, this kid is right out of high school and all he's doing is playing baseball year round. He's just finding a different place to play baseball. So you're not gonna be a season. So your perspective on things and life in general is going to catch somebody else who's been through college and had a few more years under their belt. You're going to catch them

kind of off guard being like, all right, do I spend time dissecting this person or do I look at their background and go, okay, maybe I need to factor these things in more than instead of holding up someone to some standard that probably isn't even realistic. And I'm not talking about an intelligence thing here, McGregor. I'm basically telling you, this is a guy that grew up in not the best town, but not exactly like the worst town either in Ireland, who wanted to drop out of high school to become a plumber, was plumbing basically full time, quit plumbing, and then decided he was going to work on fighting because he was getting in scraps all the time because I get some soccer stuff. And then his

father was like, this is a loser move. And again, the son ends up being right. So there's a lot of entitlement there with McGregor who was like, no one believed in me and here I am. And I became the king of the world in the fight game and putting together nine figure deals. So it's hard to tell that guy he's ever wrong about anything. But if you look at that background, I think that's the key to some of the answers of like, well, what's, why would he fight again? Well, he's going to fight again because he likes fighting. Sure. He can own proper, proper number 12. Sure. There's probably some entertainment deals out there for him. And honestly, I think if he fought some lesser fighters, he'd probably win a bunch. And I'm

not saying if he beats a guy who's ranked 10th in his division, that all of a sudden Conor McGregor is back, which is what will happen when he does win another fight in the UFC. And then everyone will ask if he's back. But as ridiculous as is he back to the standard that we're used to may seem impossible. It's just as ridiculous to suggest that he's done

as if he's never going to fight again because the guy likes fighting. And again, that's the arrangement. I will pay to watch fighters fight because they're different. And look, I's the arrangement. I will pay to watch fighters fight because they're different. And look, I can keep buying the fights, but I know that I'll just make sure that my standards or my expectations are lessened both for the fighter and sometimes even the man. This is something I've been looking forward to for a while now. I've been a big fan of his work going back to Out of the Furnace, which we're going to talk about as well.

But he's the creator, writer, and the man behind Mayor of Easttown, which everybody watched on HBO. It's Brad Inglesby. So I guess my favorite part of doing any of these interviews, especially with somebody who's creative as yourself, is kind of the origin of this whole deal. Because I know a lot about you. This is the first time we've ever talked. But I loved Out of the origin of this whole deal. Because I know a lot about you. This is the

first time we've ever talked, but I loved Out of the Furnace so much. And I don't know if people really got it. We can talk a little bit about it, but I think for anyone that's seen that, and then they watch Mare, they go, okay, tonally, there's some stuff here that makes sense. So give us your background, because I know I've read right out of school, you write the script, which again, it's one of my favorite movies of however many years it's been out since 13. Um, give me the backstory to all that as you're sitting there working as what an amusement park thinking about being a writer. Yeah, that's funny. Right. So I wrote, um, it used to be called low dweller. It was, so I went to AFI and at AFI in order to graduate, you have to write

two scripts. That's kind of like your grad that's, that's the requirement. And at AFI, in order to graduate, you have to write two scripts. That's the requirement. And so I wrote two scripts. One of them was called Low Dweller. But I didn't really want to stay in LA. I didn't really love living in LA at the time. So as soon as I graduated, I moved back to Philly, where I grew up, was selling insurance with my dad. And a buddy of mine, he called me up and he had just gotten a job. I think it was Focus Mike was at. And he said, listen, I just got a job at Focus. I'm looking to produce some movies.

Any scripts you have lying around, anything you wrote at AFI that you want me to give a read because I can actually get things made now. And I said, look, I have these two scripts I graduated with. Whatever you think you can do with them, have at it. I mean, if you think there's anything there. So he read Logewell and was like, i don't think it's right but i can get you an agent and at that time i was like dude i i don't have any i don't have anybody in my corner you know send it around he sent it around he got me an agent at william morris at the time

uh and like a month later the agent's like hey we're sending the script around we just got ridley scott on he's gonna he's gonna direct the movie with leonardo dicaprio i mean i i was literally And a month later, the agent's like, hey, we're sending the script around. We just got Ridley Scott on. He's going to direct the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. I mean, I was literally selling insurance with my dad. He was calling me saying, hey, you got to move to LA. This thing's about to sell. And so it got sold. Obviously, Ridley wasn't going to direct it.

Or ultimately, he went on to do other things. Leo went on to do other things. But the script was there. And Scott Cooper came on as a director and got an amazing cast and made that movie out of the furnace, which was that it was based on the script of The Lodeweller. So just a stroke of luck that my friend Mike, he was able to get the script in the right hand. So it's good to have an advocate like that. I think for anybody that's outside of the business and then what you're starting to get in, it's certainly on the

broadcasting side for me. The first time I got an agent i was like this is awesome this is unbelievable like does he wire me money when i need it and they're like no like it doesn't actually you do most of the work and then they help kind of facilitate the closing part of it but it's on you to get all this stuff done but i can't so how old are you when you're selling insurance and guys in la are saying hey dicaprio's in for the lead i think think, Ryan, I was probably 26, maybe. You must have been losing your mind. What were your friends saying? Oh, it was, I mean, it was totally unbelievable.

You know, it was, I remember like, you know, the script ended up selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I remember my agent calling me the morning they were sending the script out. He's like, hey, we just got an offer for like 20 grand. I'm like, take the deal now. Take it right now. Like, just sign it. He's like, no, let's see if we can get a little bit more. And like, as the day went on, the price kept going up and up and up. So it was, it was a surreal moment. And, um, like I said, I just feel really lucky that I had those guys in my life. Mike, who was my friend, um, who was willing to send the script. And I think that's what

writers need. I think, you know, you can do so much of the work on your own. You have to write a script. The words have to be on the page. But then you really do need an advocate who says, you know what, I believe in this script, in this piece of material, and I'm willing to go out and I'm willing to get it in the hands of the right people.

And we all need those people in our life and any part of life, really, as friends or allies. But I think I've been really lucky to have a few of those people in my life. Okay, so it always blows my mind that when I look at the reviews, really as friends or allies, but I think I, I I've been really lucky to have a few of those people in my life. Okay. So it always blows my mind that when I look at the reviews and again, you know, whatever it's like out of the furnace doesn't do as well.

Like on rotten tomatoes, I think it's in the fifties. Um, did you think people had a hard time now for those that haven't seen it? Um, Christian Bale's the lead Casey Affleck's his younger brother. Who's a war vet. They're in this,

I kind of like to call like Vermont is almost the south of the north. PA has a lot of that as well. The south of the north is kind of like these towns and these backwoods part of it where you're like, what the hell's going on in this town? And that's kind of where this is set. And I'm just trying to do a quick run through for people that haven't seen it without ruining it either. But Christian Bale is like, you know, he's the hero of the movie and you're rooting for him the entire time casey affleck's a total fuck up but bale ends up in jail with this awful set of circumstances do you think that timeline from when bale goes to jail and gets out that people were just they wanted their hands held a little bit more because there's no way i don't understand why people couldn't understand appreciate this more i guess is what i'm saying yeah i think you know it's a hard thing with movies I think sometimes you know it's I think that movie in particular has a real it's it's kind of movie from the 70s the vibe is really 70s it's a character driven piece it doesn't have a lot of explosions and there's not a lot of action in it. It's really a character study of this man and his brother, really. And it's some shot at redemption and lost dreams and regrets. And I think sometimes audiences... In the 70s, those movies were expected and appreciated in

a way that I think maybe audiences now have been trained to want more things to happen or, wow, this is slow. Whereas I think European audiences have much more tolerance or higher tolerance for stories that don't necessarily have those, that every 10 minutes something doesn't have to jump out at you or scare you or move you in some way that you can just get lost in a character's life. And that can be meaningful in its own way. So I think maybe that is why it didn't get out there in a way. But I think it's strange, right?

It's hard to predict what connects. I was just editing... At the end of editing Mare, we had no idea. I mean, truly, that's the thing. You just never, ever know. And I think a part of that is you just get so close to something that you can't be objective about it in any way. And so it's always hard to predict what's going to hit

and what's going to bomb and what audience is going to respond to and what they're not going to respond to. And I think the only thing you can do as a creator, my experience is that when something goes out in the world, you just have to be happy with your contribution because it's a collaboration and every movie has 100 moving parts. And it can say written by me, but the production designer has to interpret what the scene... So it's a bummer the movie didn't do better but i'm proud of it and i think at the end of the day if you can say i'm really proud of something that's that's really the best you can do you know yeah you're 10 minutes in you're like rossillo had me on and asked me why

my movie didn't do better this is awesome i have like two more things and then i want to get to mayor yep your first and I know you have a couple other scripts, so I don't know the timeline of like all the different things you were working on at the time, but it's safe to say like, that's the big first one. How weird was that for you being new to it to see how much gets changed from the words on the page to what actually gets out on the screen? What was that like? Yeah, I think that was a real, like, I would say that even my script, which was called the low dweller was differenteller, was a bit more of a revenge movie, I would say. It was a movie really about the folly of revenge.

This guy came home, he had done something terrible, comes home, tries to reconcile with his brother. His brother gets killed. All that was the same. And then he tries to get revenge on the guys that did it and then realizes that in doing so, he kind of gets everyone around him killed. And so I think Scott's version was even more of a drama than my script, which I would say my script was probably more of a thriller that there was a kind of journey and it probably had more of those actiony beats for better or worse. I think Scott did a beautiful job with the actors and the movie has its own kind of appeal and momentum. And the acting is brilliant because Christian and obviously Casey are just amazing.

Sam Shepard are just amazing. But I think that's a part of the business that I had to learn early on. And I'm really glad I did. It's like, it's a collaborative art. If you want to write something that is going to be read or seen exactly as you've written it, then you should write a book or even a play.

You probably have a better chance. And I say that to a lot of young writers who say, I'm not going to change this or I don't want to change this. It's like, guys, like that you better like I would I would leave just because you have to be flexible. And that's not to say you can't be vigilant about the things you care about or the meaning of a story. But you have to be flexible. I mean, I can't tell you how many times on mayor they were like, hey, this thing happens on a bridge. Well, oh, the bridge is closed down. We can't shoot in a bridge. Where's the scene going to take place? And you have to be able to move quickly and still get the emotion of that sequence out in a classroom or a basement. And so you have to be always flexible. And I think the key is like,

what do I want to get out of the scene? What's the emotion I need to get? And how can I do that in different ways? And you have to be flexible. Okay. One last thing on it. Cause I have to ask bail because I think bail is probably my number one. I remember even being a little kid and seeing him as a little kid in empire of the sun. I don't know how I ended up at the theater by myself watching that, but I think it was because it was Spielberg. I was like, Oh, you know, or ET I'm like, I'm in. And then all of a sudden i'm like this guy's insane and even as a little kid i could be like this guy is unbelievable yeah and i always think too and i know how kind of hollywood works so it wouldn't be like you're like actually rossillo he sucks to deal with

i've heard that he's awesome and that he has this this rap because that leaked audio when people were like no the guy he went against nobody likes and that's why bale lost his mind on him and he was sticking up for everybody so if you just took that out of context you think christian bale's the worst and then other people i've talked to that have worked with him were like no no he is incredible so yeah having said all of those things although you can agree or disagree taking any direction you want but i no here's the thing i i didn't have a lot to like i wasn't on set for that one so i have no stories to share the only story i can tell you which which I admire, is that I ended up... I didn't go to set on Out of the Furnace at all. So I didn't really get to meet with

Bale at all. Actually, it was all Scott. He was on set dealing with Bale. The only story I can share is I ended up working with a first assistant director who was on Out of the Furnace on another movie I did. And he said to me, I got sent to pick up Christian at the airport on Out of the Furnace. He was coming in. He was arriving to do the movie. You know, he's probably going to be there for a couple months. He comes down. He comes down the escalator in like a T-shirt and jeans and like a duffel bag. And this guy, Jamie, is like, well, let's go get your luggage. He's like, nope, it's all here.

He literally came in character and was like, this is all I have. I'm going to be living out of this and let's go. And so that gives you a sense of his commitment to the acting and the performance. He literally came down like a t-shirt, a duffel bag, and that was all he was going to have. And he was ready to just jump into the character right away. So I admire that as a, as a creator, someone who has that level of commitment. So the scene when he gets out of jail, yes. I want to know if it's, it's the writing, if it's the direction, or if it's bail. But it's unbelievable what a subtle scene it is, is that he gets out and Casey Affleck's like, how's it feel? How's it feel?

And he's like, oh, it's all right. It's all right. And he just got out of jail after this horrible thing that was a total accident. And he starts jogging as if he's running away from the jail.'s it's natural because you would think that's what that guy would do like i'm running i'm running and meanwhile the car is there and it's like hey do you want to drive he's like yeah i want to drive i want to drive was that bail or was that you or was that someone else i i think that you know i think that had changed i think that was in scott's version of the script and my and i don't remember exactly but my guess is it was probably Bale that he was able to take a scene and trans, you know, and just get inside the

character's head in such a way. And that's what you get from these amazing actors is that they can take something on the page and transform it into something that you could never have written. And I think that's, I mean, I don't remember the script. It was so long ago now, but my guess is it was probably Christian taking the intention of the scene in that case that Scott had written and making it into something that you could never have imagined just becomes better. And that's when you just have to stand back and go, I'm just going to watch and take this moment. And it's, it's just serendipity and I'm just going to use it. And we're going to put that in the edit, you know? in the edit you know that's why he's insane because there's little things you can tell it's him like when he punches casey when he catches him at the otb in the middle of the day which is usually a bad which is by the way incredible like okay all right best intro ever this guy's the otb on a tuesday afternoon um and he's like how much how much and then he punches him real quick and it's like natural like no one saw it coming and i go i bet you bail just went ahead and did that

all right so out of the furnace, go check it out. I'm trying to be efficient here with my time. Okay. Give me your timeline of, as a creative person here, the inception of an idea, mayor of East town from whether it's general observation, obviously you understood the area, um, you know, whether it's close to where you're from, you know, I've read all about the background. You don't want to do it exactly the same time you understand the area. So you want to tell the story. How do you take your process of the inception

of an idea to us getting to see it by week on HBO? That's a good question. I think that was an idea I had. I think it was really a desire to... I think more than anything, Ryan, just to write about home. And yet I know

if I wrote about my childhood, it wouldn't be interesting. No one would want to watch it. It's just not all that appealing. Season two, he sells insurance. Yeah, exactly. Here's Kate Winslet selling life insurance policies around town. How interesting is that going to be? So it's like, how do I write about home while also having the show be entertaining? And I remember having a conversation with a police buddy on the East Coast. And he was telling me about his early

experience as an officer at a little town. And he was saying it was basically a dozen officers. We had one detective who was in charge of like kind of all the crimes that had to be investigated. And we had a station that was, it used to be a train station, and we converted it into the police station. So you just start to like accumulate these little nuggets of things that you kind of, I always say, like you put them in a piggy bank, it's one penny at a time. And over months, you look at the piggy bank, and you've got a little bit of money in there. And I feel like that's how I've always written is, it starts with a character that I like, in this case, Mayor, I was interested, I didn't know much about her. And then it was the police station idea. And then it was another character. And you just start to put the pieces together. And then you kind of step back and you realize, well, I've got a little bit of money now. I can go spend some of this. And so that's usually how it happens. It's just

like it's the accumulation of these ideas and just even scenes or lines of dialogue that start to accumulate. And then after a while, the aggregate of all that is a lot. And so that's how it started. And then I think I had the story in my head for like, you know, eight months before. But I see the problem I had, Ryan, with Mare, and I've said this before, and it was really the hiccup is like, how do you end the show? That was my big issue. Because I've seen

enough of these mystery shows to know that if you don't get the ending right, then everyone goes, well, that was a waste of six, seven, 10 hours. And so I was just so convinced that unless we could land the plane, and again, what does that mean? In my mind, it meant it had to be surprising, but it also had to be incredibly emotional. And so that was tricky. And so I hesitated to start writing it. And then one day I was just thinking about all the characters I had laid out all the all the pennies in the piggy bank. And I suddenly was like, this is a spoiler alert warning for Mayor of East Town. If you have not watched it as much as we don't want you to turn off the podcast, please come back and listen to this after you've watched it. Or if you have no interest, keep listening listening But this is a mayor of Easttown spoiler alert and then one day I was just thinking about all the characters

I had laid out all the all the pennies in the piggy bank and I suddenly was like oh It's it you know the spoiler alert like oh, it's Ryan. It's Lori's it's Lori's son, you know Because that would mirror mayor's life. It would be credibly emotional It would be in terms of the themes of the show, incredibly resonant. Um, and so then it was like, okay, now I can write the show. So once I knew where it ended, then I felt confident that all those pieces I could string out over, over the course of, of, of the seven hours. So when you landed on Ryan, what was that moment like for you? Like, were you at the office or were you, were you like, Oh wait, I figured it out. Or you're like, wait, would that work? Or, you know, like,

what was that part of it? I think it's the two emotions. It's like, Oh my God, I've gotten it. And then you, and then you got it. So after like the initial excitement, you're like, okay, wait, but is that like, I got to see the pieces again. Like, am I going to be able to make the pieces fit? But I think there's like, it was definitely a revelation. There's a light bulb moment where you go, oh my God, that's it. That's what it is. But then you have to step back and go, okay, now looking at it practically,

how do I weave that idea into the story I've laid out? So it's excitement at first. And then it's like, okay, now I got to get to work. How do I make that work? But I was convinced once I landed on that, emotionally, I was pretty confident it would work. Because it's just in terms of the themes of the show and the friendship between these two women, I felt like it was going to make an impact. So it was funny reading people kind of talk about Mare going like, oh, what a great idea.

Like he had us guessing every week. It's this old school drama. And you're like, yeah, it felt like 2016. It was like this old school drama. And you're like, yeah, it felt like 2016. It was like, so old school, you know, like, oh my God, we have a show that comes out once a week and we're trying to figure out what happened. Um, and it was a less weird twin peaks because twin peaks just decided like, I don't even know if anybody cares anymore. We're just going to make this weirder and weirder. But back then, I mean, that blew us away when we were in high school. We're like, why can't we believe a TV show like this exists? So I'm going to do this.

This isn't like a critique or anything because I'm not that much of an asshole. But do you go, okay, like I'm going to give you a little guy, Pierce, who kind of is like the bait and switch because anybody who's reading a book in a bar by himself is a weirdo. So you're like, I'm going to mess with the audience here. I'm going to like i'm gonna mess with the audience here i'm gonna let you think it's the dad i'm gonna let you think it's the cousin and then we're gonna bring in james mccard who plays deacon uh mark burton who by the way that guy's an absolute scene stealer every time he's on camera i'm like who is this guy and how come he's not in everything because he's unbelievable how good he is so you have to be kind of whether you come up with the ryan as the murderer at the end you know i don't know if you're outlining it in reverse if you're writing in reverse or if you're going okay but now that i know what i'm doing because you're the creator how do i mess with everybody every single week

so i guess that's not as much of a question as it is observation like how do you balance like i'm just fucking with people every single week and I can't make it obvious either because then it's like the payoff isn't there. Exactly. Yeah, I think, I mean, it's true. I think that's, that's really the, that's how you have to lay it out. And it seems like a bit of a cheat, but I think the trick is like, how do you, how do you give them, how do you have them leaning one way in a way that's believable and organic

and isn't, isn't feeling like a cheat cheat even though in many ways it is a cheat and so it has to be i think the i think the trick we tried to do is always have it feel grounded in in believable character moments so even when you were trying to have an audience look this way when they should be looking this way that at least when they were looking this way it was believable that they should be looking this way, that at least when they were looking this way, it was believable that they could be looking that way, if that makes sense. Like, even when it went to Deacon Mark, it didn't feel like it was, oh, this is ridiculous, that you went, well, he's kind of fucking weird, and he's a little strange, and maybe he did do this. And so that every time you had them leaning a certain way, you know, in their heart of hearts, they probably knew they shouldn't be leaning that way. But there was a part of, there was a small piece of them that was loud enough

saying, well, maybe it actually could be. And I think that was the trick is every motivation had to be earned and believable so that even the most, you know, seasoned audience members would go, we're only in episode three. It can't be the priest. That there was at least a voice in their head going, well, but they could always like then dismiss them and then he could come back around. And so it was always like, how do you make every suspect a believable suspect? And then Guy Pearce was obviously a red herring that we had in there. He's just hanging out. He's a writer, but he's like, he's not, he hasn't been successful. Women are all over him. He's into mayor again, as as a bartender when you read a book at a bar by yourself like that's all sorts

of red flags uh especially that late in the night and i do think it was a little divey for a guy to be reading some sort of novel but i'll let that one go uh but see though all this stuff because you're right like it couldn't just be oh it's the priest you know like whatever because then the audience even though the ryan part felt oh, that was a little misleading. It's like, well, that's the whole point. What I thought was genius the way you did it is that, you know, it was kind of a no wasted scenes rule where the open of learning who Mary is is perfect. The old couple that calls, hey, it's this thing with the shed. And then you've forgotten about the shed until now.

The shed is important again. And, you know, then, of course, reverse engineer like me thinking of, oh, OK, that's why the lunch scene happens with Ryan. So we can see this side of his anger, even though it's totally excusable because of what motivated his action. But then I thought back because I watched the pilot again last night. When you show Ryan doing homework on a Fridayiday night right after mayor leaves i was like look i would have never not a million years i'm not that smart i didn't pick it up in the pilot but then i was like let me go back and see the first time we're introduced to ryan did you make that just a little off on purpose that you wanted him doing something homework on a friday he's like i don't want to fall behind and you're like like, what a psycho. Take us through that. Well, that was the idea. That was our idea there. And again, you know, it was, you had to be

so cautious with, and that was the trick of the edit is how much of Ryan do we see? But, but, you know, I think what I love about that observation is exactly what you said, which if you went back and watched it, here's a kid that at the time it feels completely innocuous. But if you were to go back and watch it and go, oh, here's a kid that at the time it feels completely innocuous. But if you were to go back and watch it and go, oh, here's a kid that he always wants to be on the homework because he never wants to cause any trouble because he knows that these things have happened in the past with his parents.

And he had to get through them and he's gotten through them, but he doesn't want to be the cause of any issues in the family because there's enough issues to deal with. And he doesn't want to be the one that causes any issues with his parents. So it's a very subtle hint but it's enough of a hint that if you were to go and watch it again you go oh this is a kid that's like really cognizant of the family issues that have happened in the past and doesn't want to be the cause of any pain and so it was a clue we put there intentionally obviously at the time it feels like a total

throwaway line. But if you were to go back and watch it again... But that's the trick is how you plant these seeds that... Because you never want the audience to feed. So you want them to be surprised but never tricked. And that is always a balancing act. How do you make these moments feel earned? So when you get to the ending, it's surprising and yet emotional and not like...

If you blinked an episode too, it was the guy at the bar behind Guy Pearce, you missed them. That was the one thing I really wanted to avoid, where the audience would be surprised by that, but it wouldn't resonate in any way. So we had to have both of those things. And that was a part of the edit. How do we have enough of Ryan, but not too much of Ryan? How much... Did you ever have a moment where you changed your mind, where you're like, no, it's going to be this person? I never changed the killer. There were definitely tons of moments right along the way where we were going, well, in this episode, we can actually be leaning into this one a bit more than there was in the script or we can be everyone actually suspects this person.

I mean, the one that I never understood, but I cannot tell you how many people texted me about it. It was Siobhan. Like so many people said, I think it's Siobhan. I think it's Mare's daughter. She's the one that that did it and that was really never a part of the scripts we really never aimed to have Siobhan as a suspect but that was one that people really latched on to yeah she was just so nice it would have been so disappointing because Siobhan had so many different things that she was trying to balance and I think you always felt like you know it's the group of characters you root for, you're rooting against, you're always rooting for her. So I think that probably, you know, it's a weird thing about, um, at least television. I remember

somebody explaining to me, it's like people lose all day when they come home, they want to win. And that was probably the kind of TV we grew up with, um, where like, you know, we like sad songs, but we don't like sad movies or TV shows you know like so it's like give me like oh siobhan's good you know she's a high school kid going through all these different things and she's had this awful family dynamic but she's kind of strong throughout it so yeah um okay a couple of things here um i haven't even talked about kate winslet yet who chris ryan one of my co-workers here at ringer compared her to the miami heat lebrron James version that we got in this show, which I thought was perfect because she nails the accent, which is very delicate.

It's not easy to do. I know you've been asked about that a million times, so we don't have to worry about it. She physically plays the role perfectly and she's pissed off at everybody, but she's important. And I don't know, take me through the first moment when she was like, okay, I'm in. And then I imagine it's even better than you thought it would be once you got it on screen. Well, yes and yes. I mean, I think it was crazy with, I mean, it's crazy with Kate because this process, which let me just say, never, ever, ever happens. We sent Kate the scripts. So I think I had written two episodes. We sent, you know, we said, oh, this would be great would be great. I don't know if Kate would even be interested.

I'm sure you know some of this stuff about actors getting them to read stuff. And it's just a whole process. Are they going to read it? Do they have time to read it? Are they available? There's so many variables that go into an actor signing on to do something. And we sent it to Kate. And within like two days, she'd read the script and we were on a call.

And I remember talking to her and she was at her house. And she she was like i read the two scripts and i love it and i want to do it and it was i mean totally shocking because she had no idea where the story went she didn't know what the ending was and for an actor like kate to sign on after reading two scripts and also i'm not steve zaley it's not like like I've won nine Oscars where there would be some expectation of the quality of these scripts, you know, continuing. So a testament to Kate's conviction and desire to play this woman. And yeah, and then to have an actor, like you were talking about Bale in that scene, to have an actor who can take what you write and then just enhance it, amplify it, elevate it in ways. That's what Kate was always able to do.

I mean, I think about the therapy scenes and they're just absolutely... I mean, the one scene that always stands out to me as just being absolutely incredible is when she goes and visits her grandson's doctor and is talking about his diagnosis. And she finally lets out that she wasn't able to figure out her own son. And her performance in that scene, I remember editing it and being like, we're just going to stay on her the whole time because it's so powerful. This woman just put up such a front.

And you just see a glimmer of the regrets and the lost hope that she had with her own child. It's just absolutely heartbreaking. And that's what a great actor can do. Take lines that on the page may work to a certain extent, but make them into something where every viewer is able to feel that pain and empathize. And Mare's a tough character to like at times. And to have that scene, I felt like in that moment, the audience was on her side, just because they were able to experience that pain and regret of losing a child and maybe feeling like I didn't do enough or I could have done more. pain and regret of losing a child and maybe feeling like I didn't do enough or I could have done more. I was like, I think we're good because even if she makes bad decisions,

we've gotten all these people invested in her character arc in a way that I don't think we're going to lose the audience now. And so she's just incredible. And also, I would say this about Kate. She's just the loveliest, kindest person to everybody. We've all worked with people. Some of them are nicer than others. But Kate is, from top to bottom, every crew member, just the loveliest person, kind to everybody. She's the hardest working person I've worked with. So it was a dream come true for me. Now, for those that also, I probably should have put this in the intro.

Brad also wrote the way back with Ben Affleck. So this is, all right, my guess is after watching The Way Back, and for people that don't understand Brad, Brad is a basketball guy. His family's a basketball family. Did you play in college? No, no. I played in high school. Not well, right.

Yes, my brother went to Notre Dame and played at Notre Dame. Right, and that's the one that's a coach now, correct? He's a coach at Delaware now. Right. Okay. All right. So one of my biggest pet peeves as a sports guy is like immediately going, like I always, I joked about, they should just, Hollywood should just pay me like a million bucks a year. And I'll show up every time there's a sports scene.

I'll say, actually, you run from first base to second base, not second base to first. I'll be like, all right, I'm out of here. I've seen shots where it's edited. The guy's sliding into second base the wrong way or whenever there's a jailhouse scene where they're lifting and you go put more than 95 pounds on the bar it's jail okay so i it's it always drives you crazy so kate's character is a big time local legend high school basketball player she never touches a ball right and ben in the way back i don't remember seeing him ever touch a basketball so have you dealt with like two of

the biggest actor actresses of their times in basketball roles somewhat ben certainly more than kate in this one where you were like actually let's not have you touch a basketball because it might not look good well i would say ben i mean for first of all i think he's wonderful in the move his performance is incredible he's awesome he's awesome right he's awesome he's not the most athletic guy and so and so in the script we actually had a scene that that we were trying to do and what we were going to do rise do i think they did it in the movie called i tanya where they did um which is a great movie by the way yeah it's great face replacement so that they had the skaters but you can make it look like Margo

and so we were going to have a scene where he goes and plays a pickup game and you get to see what a great player he was in his prime and we were going to do the face replacement so we were going to do it but I don't think Ben would have been out there actually doing the playing because I

he's you know I think I wasn there, but I believe he worked out with Gavin. And the idea was we'd get someone who's, you know, and also we wanted to have it be a guy that played at such a high level where, so any, anybody like you who watched the movie that really has an expertise in the sport would go like, wow, this guy can really ball. And so it would have been asking a lot of Ben. Cause we wanted the scene to be about this guy kind of like really taking over. But listen, I had the same allergy you have, which is if either do it well or don't do it at all. And I think we landed in the place of like, well, let's not do it at all. You know, we actually shot a version of the, of the game where Kate makes the shot and we were going to have it playing on like

an inflatable screen. And it was actually pretty good, but the, but just the episode constraints with time and things, we said, you know what, we'll get the idea of the girls talking and we'll cut it out. So we did actually shoot that, but it wasn't Kate playing, but we recruited like a local, uh, college player to come in and play Kate who looked enough like Kate, we could possibly pass it off. Okay. All right. Yeah. That's interesting. Cause I felt like in the way back, I'm like, wait a minute, because I had heard like Ben isn't super athletic, you know?

Yeah. And again, if you're not, you can't then fake it in your 40s. You either get that muscle movement down as a young kid or you don't. So, and honestly, things have worked out for Ben. So I think he's probably okay with it.

All right. Last thought here. He's doing fine. I think he's okay because my buddies back in Boston were like, well, dude, he's a Cambridge kid. What'd you think? And I'm like, all right last thought here i think he's okay because my buddy's back in boston we're like well dude he's a cambridge kid what'd you think and i'm like all right relax everybody like i probably still trade places with him even though if it's jumper might might not be tight enough so what's up with the season two stuff because this is this is a different challenge

like what what can you tell us about a possible season two here for Mare? You know, it's a tricky one, Ryan. Listen, you know, I love Mare and Helen and Siobhan. Like, I love these characters so much. I would love to do it. I think the trick was, like, how do you do it well? And I think the big issue that I have in terms of cracking a story is, like, what happens to Mare personally? I was convinced and I am convinced that, you know, we put her through such emotional trauma in season one and she kind of arrived at this place where she was able to confront the thing that's been haunting her. And my worry is like, are you ever going to

be able to recreate that emotion or even come close to it? And if not, is it still worth doing? Is there a different story that's worth telling? So, I mean, you know, never say never. I don't know what the idea is. I'd love to tell another season of Mayor because I love her as a character and the chance to work with Kate again would be a dream. I just, I wish I had the great idea. If you have one, let me know.

I'd love to hear it. I don't know, man. This one, because people are going to be so pissed off at you if it's not just as good and not saying that you can't make a season two that's just good. But, you know, I don't,

I know, I know, I know it's, it's hard, right? I mean, that's, that's the big,

that's the, it's a flamethrower character. Like I was writing down the notes. Cause you know, sometimes like I'll, I'll joke when I'm looking at stuff and you're like, already you're layering this too hard. And it's like,

okay, cool. Make a really simple. Then you're going to watch, you know, cause we're talking about somebody whose son commits suicide. You know, she's, she's a a mess personally her ex-husband which i love that move of having him live in the lot behind with a new wife you know the daughter is going through her

changes as a high school kid into college um and you're also you know the sheriff basically and then you know i mean you you layer it so hard um but, but I, I don't like, I like that there were no layups with her, that they were all complicated layerings, but you, you almost emptied the toolbox in a way because you made her so good that that's what would, if I were you, obviously I'm, I'm not telling you, I, I, I don't want to, you know, have a successful TV show, but that would scare the shit out of me a little bit. Cause you're like, all right, what do I, what do I do where it's not like she's time traveling and now I've lost everybody. Right. That way. It's so true though. It's exactly what you said. It's like, you sort

of emptied the toolbox a little bit. Right. And how do you bring, how do you bring back another set of personal emotional circumstances that doesn't feel, um, artificial? That's the big thing is like, Oh yeah, you can bring in something and go like, oh, oh, the best friend we never told you about has just died. And it's like, yeah, but that's not real. It's also not the nuanced version of a story we want. And so that's the thing is, if we could do it in a way that was organic and emotional, great. But if it's just going to be we're conjuring a story just because we have a chance to, I know I wouldn't do that. And I know Kate absolutely would not want to do it. So that's the trick. And listen, I hope we can get there one day. I hope I can, I can wake up one day and have that, had that same moment I had with Ryan and go,

oh, there's the story. It's been sitting here the whole time, but I don't know what that is yet. That's why people as great as the Sopranos is like, it's great. This is not a criticism, but people have no idea how awesome a tool it was to be like all right this cousin's out of jail season three and it's like oh you know there had to be no investment in the character because you just believe that there was a cousin that everybody loved and all of a sudden bishami's in the show and it's believable and so all these people were getting out of jail or like back in a town and you're like all right we'll kill him and then there's another uncle that was in jail.

And you're just like, what a great mechanism for any showrunner. Oh, totally, totally right. Totally right. I mean, that was genius. And they had, I mean, and they were always able to reinvent the story and still keep it emotional, entertaining. And listen, I give like, I think about those shows that were out in the past, all the episodes you had to produce each year. I'm like, that is overwhelming to me. I did seven and they almost killed me. Think about those seasons.

What's it like doing, right. And so like for people that don't maybe understand, like, like the showrunner will write the pilot and he writes now and then they'll rewrite most of the episodes, but you still have a staff of writers that are writing everything. So I just sharing this with people that maybe don't know that this wasn't really the case. Like this was all on you. What was that like? You know, I think in this case, you know, I don't know that this wasn't really the case. Like this was all on you. What was that like? You know, I think in this case, you know, I don't know that I would do it again. You know, maybe with mayor, I would look into it just because like, if we ever did a season of mayor, it was, I don't want to say it was never easy. It was always hard, but I felt like I could write

the characters in a way because I grew up there and I knew some of the voices. And so it was, it was almost, I don't want to say easier than bringing in a writing team and having to coach them on, oh, this is where I grew up. This is what they sound like. This is what it was almost like, you know what to have to go through that kind of education of the place would almost just be easier for me to do it. And I think it was, it was incredibly hard. But I think what it was, on set, it was really helpful in that, that I had such a knowledge of the story that if we ever had to change something, Ryan, I was able to be like, okay, but that's, here's the ripple effect of this change. It's not just in episode one that we have to change. Now

in episode six, this is what's going to happen. So I think it was helpful that I created the whole story. And so whenever there was an issue on set, something that needed to be changed, I had such a knowledge of the whole story. And I had written every word of every episode that I could say, well, if you just change that one thing, here's the domino effect. And if we're going to change it, here's what we have to do. We have to layer in these things. And so I think it was helpful that I did it. It was a lot of work. I don't know that I would necessarily jump into that. I would love to have other people giving me ideas, but in this case, it was, it was a fun one. Everybody that watched it, loved it. I mean, rare. Do you have that kind of approval rating

on creative stuff anymore, man? So you should feel proud about that. And, uh, my favorite part is probably just getting to talk to the guy behind out of the furnace. Cause I used to just get pissed at my friends. I'd be like, you haven't seen it. And be like, Oh, you know, I got a 52, like, shut up. Just watch it. It's Christian Bale it? And they're like, oh, you know, I got a 52. Like, shut up. Just watch it. It's Christian Bale. It's Casey Affleck. Woody Harrelson. You're going to love it. That first opening scene in Out of the Furnace,

I'm not going to spoil any more than we already have. You're like, okay, I'm in. And it was a random thing for me because I was like, how do I not know about this? It's Christian Bale. I was like, done. I bought it on a flight and I think as soon as I landed, I was just texting everybody being like, what the hell? Hey, Brett. Watching it. Yeah, done. I bought it on a flight. And like, I think as soon as I landed, I was just texting everybody being like, what the hell? Hey, Brett. Watching it.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for taking the time to do this too. We're huge fans and, you know, love the basketball part of it too. So I hope everybody that hasn't seen it will come back and listen to this part of behind as we give you that big spoiler alert. All right.

So thanks, man. Appreciate it, Ryan. Before we want to get to life advice, because it actually kind of piggybacks what we did last week. We started talking about moving to Europe for a dollar. So Rudy, who looked into Italy, and I got to tell you,

he had the tweet of the weekend, is Italy back? Nobody's asking that question. All right. So Rudy, they beat England on PKs. There's a bunch of stuff that we can get to. I was taking notes. I was excited. the tweet of the weekend is italy back nobody's asking that question um all right so rudy they they beat england on pks there's a bunch of stuff that we can get to i was taking notes i was excited i made sure i was home in time to watch it i'm i'm finding myself as i get older a little bit more drawn to these events if you can't appreciate the pageantry and effort and the

emotion part of this uh and i regret being a shithead 20 year old who didn't i just honestly i got more mad at soccer guy than the game itself and there's something else that's dawned on me too as much as it sucks when there isn't as much scoring like i wonder hey will we like soccer more if it were like more five three games and all that kind of stuff there's something to be said of when you're down one oh as impossible as it may feel to score a goal knowing that you're just a goal away from tying the whole thing up like maybe those of us that are a little too american a little too outdated you don't realize like actually that's that's kind of awesome in a way where every other sport you can kind of tell like unless it's a back and

forth game you don't have as good of as good of a chance and look even though england scored immediately um the amount of pressure that italy put on them it just felt like it was inevitable and they felt like the more class side i would would say, throughout much of the game, Steve. That's well put. And I will say really quickly before that, I love that after every major soccer thing, there's always and it's always on Twitter. Everyone wants to change the sport. Now I saw like McAfee and no disrespect to McAfee, but it's like, hey, why don't we

make the goal bigger? People are like, oh, why don't you PK is like, why don't they just keep playing until someone scores a goal? It's like, well, every single time we try to change the rules of the game, it's the most popular sport in the world, man. Like, I don't know what to tell you. Like, they're not concerned with, like, whether or not they're going to Americanize the sport. So I think we need to stop doing that after every single tournament.

By the way, when I was younger, I was a big, let's make the goal twice as wide. Make it double the size, yeah. I used to have a theory of, like, two goalies with huge paddles and make the goal. But I knew I was doing that just to be a dick. So that's that's why. So go ahead. It's like they're doing just fine without you. It's OK.

But no, it was a great I mean, it wasn't actually a great game on the field, but there was a ton of drama. Right. And, you know, the whole it's coming home versus coming Rome thing was really cool. And it's played in Wembley in London. So everyone's saying, is that a benefit to the English squad or is it something that's going to creep and come back to haunt them, which it kind of did, I think, a little bit.

But the worst thing that happened to England was going up 1-0 in the second minute of the game because they basically closed up shop and decided to play defense for 88 minutes and then the entire extra time. And that's just not... I mean, listen, I think Italy were the better team throughout the tournament.

They beat more teams. They beat Belgium. They beat Spain. The penalty, the Sterling penalty against Denmark was a joke, too, so think Italy were the better team throughout the tournament. They beat more teams. They beat Belgium. They beat Spain. The penalty, the Sterling penalty against Denmark was a joke, too. Oh, it was terrible. I mean, but listen, you got to credit them because they were the better team. They were the better team. They should have won that game, but the penalty was totally BS.

But I would say overall, Italy fully deserved that. And it's crazy because Italy, just what, in the 2018, so those three years ago, really, the last World Cup, they reached their lowest point in the history of that nation as a soccer country. They missed the world cup, which for Italy is absolutely ridiculous. It should never happen. And they were at their lowest point.

And so for the next major tournament, for them to actually win the freaking Euro in this weird year, and then win the final against England in London, that's a, that goes up there. That's one of the biggest accomplishments really of probably this entire national team and the Italian national team has ever had. It's, it's pretty amazing. That's one of the biggest accomplishments, really, of probably this entire national team, the Italian national team has ever had. It's pretty amazing.

A couple thoughts here. What I don't like, and maybe that's just non-soccer Twitter, is England scores, it's like, oh, this is over. And you're like, how do you mean it's over? What are you talking about? And as much as people could, I think the uneducated part of it's like,

oh, well, the other team's up and then you just kick it around for 90 minutes. Like, that's a little harder to play keep away for 90 minutes than it is, say, 10 minutes, especially when it's a lesser team, right? And we're talking about talent-wise. You can see it happening earlier in the tournament,

but I don't know. I mean, I watched a bunch of games. It's a great game to watch as far as, you know, if you have something else you're working on, like I'm working on my draft profiles, but I would have it on all the time. So I mean, I watched a bunch of games. It's a great game to watch as far as, you know, if you have something else you're working on, like I'm working on my draft profiles, but I would have it on all the time. So I felt like I was like, hey, here I am again watching soccer. But I just I just enjoyed it.

So here's here's a question I had for you, because. Puerto Rico there when he got hurt at the end, is he the best offensive player on Italy? Chiesa? uh he he certainly was in this tournament he's really young he plays for juventus which is probably the biggest team in italy uh but he wasn't starting games earlier in the season like he came off the bench a lot but he was a complete spark and he was a firecracker and was unbelievable offensively and is really kind of a one-man show he's a lot like uh that guy i'm trying to get like an example in the nba but he's all offense but never passes like he's just a one-on-one player in a lot of ways so he's not gonna like put a lot of balls in the box or help everybody else out but he could score a goal on his own as good as anybody in the tournament

and this was kind of his coming out party but when they lost him they lost him i was injury in the final and they lost leonardo spinazzola against uh bel. He tore his Achilles. Those you could argue are their two most important players the entire tournament. So again, for Italy to win the tournament at the end, minus maybe their two most important players. Yeah, it was in PKs and PKs do kind of suck and it's a little bit of a crapshoot. That was, it was just wild

that they were able to overcome that because they're not, England is way more talented than Italy is. Italy just played better as a team. They're a much better team. They seem to care a lot more. The camaraderie was there. And it was awesome to see. England's a younger team, too. So you could say that, no, you know,

maybe they'll be back and this will kind of be the beginning of a new cycle, which it could be. But I just come out of this like obviously I'm biased, but this is it was just an impressive accomplishment

from this Italian team that is something I'll never forget. All right. So when. What is it again? Kaseya, you you said kiesa which uh translates to church yeah federico kiesa there you go sign me up let me know when you guys dad actually was a baller too uh played like 20 years ago i think he won a world cup i want to say all right so kiesa goes down and i thought okay he's flopping right and then i thought at some point too and

you can sit there and say like that's what he's saying these guys are speaking english most of the time because they're yelling at the ref. So even the more foreign clubs or whatever, obviously not England and Italy in this case, like whenever you're watching the guys yell at each other, it looks like a lot of times they're actually speaking English. And Pickford, the goalkeeper for England, who's just a psychopath, the whole he screams at everybody the whole time. And I know goalies are a bit like chefs and drummers and rock bands where they're always they always feel like they're a little off because of the job that they have um but and he's terrific by the way so it's not like you know it's not coming from nowhere as a goalkeeper but he's yelling at everybody the whole fucking game and then he stands over case and he's like hey get up and he's saying i can't feel my leg i think what he said to him and i'm like jesus

christ dude like you can't feel your leg meanwhile that had all this momentum and I'm thinking okay but him stopping time here I'm like is this actually taking away from Italy's momentum and then you're like oh he actually can't walk like he wasn't he wasn't flopping whatsoever so in the moment I'm going all right he's doing what everybody else is doing and it's almost like you're selling the next call you know you'll go down and you roll around forever and then the ball comes near you pop up and the name are and you look good again but i guess it's part of it is is selling the next call and yes all that stuff really frustrates me like the sterling penalty going back to the denmark game like that's that's an altering altering call where there's really even if

we're talking about touchdowns and inbounds out of bounds reviews on certain basketball plays when you're talking about that magnitude of a call like that's the part of it that seems really frustrating even when they reviewed the sterling penalty and you're just like jesus you like you guys reviewed it and you still gave it to them um the pks themselves some people love it some people hate i don't know what you're supposed to do when it's soccer and it's going to take like you want these guys playing for four hours like that doesn't seem to make a ton of sense to me. But I know that a lot of the traditionalists hate this. Your thoughts. I mean, the traditionalists being Americans.

Yeah, they hate it. It's not the it's not Americans hate it. I think Americans don't understand why you would play 120 minutes. And all of a sudden, you know, I saw some guy with that be like, if you finished a football game, an NFL game, it just had a field goal kicking contest. Well, it's like, first off, field goal kicking is such a unique and weird part of the game that that's not at all a good analogy to use. Yeah, terrible.

But again, if you... Delete your account. Very, very good. If you played 120 minutes, the amount of running that you do and how taxing that is on your body, and in this tournament, because of COVID and all these different things,

they had five subs, where they usually have three. So you argued already they had fresher legs and they then they would have in the past there's really you can't just keep going you can't that's how guys are going to start getting hurt like that's just really dangerous for the players then you can say oh and you don't just keep adding subs and adding subs or i've heard a few people say hey why don't you take like a guy off every 10 minutes you just take a guy off so you play like nine on nine or eight on eight but like imagine that'd be like playing one-on-one

basketball hoops like full court like that doesn't make any sense. It totally changed the game. It actually makes the guys run way more. And there just isn't a perfect way to end it. And it's a cruel, like for the neutral. Yeah. PKs is amazing.

It's the, I would, I say like, you know, if you miss a PK for a big national, in a big national tournament, I mean, there are guys that have not gotten over that and their careers have been

ruined because of it, because you just can't come back from that mentally. It's so difficult. I mean, there have been guys have been vilified in their home country because they've done they've missed the penalty in a big spot um so it is it's an imperfect way to finish a game but there's really no like what other situation sports is there more drama than a penalty kick shootout where you're one of five guys um and if you chances are if you miss

then you're gonna blow up for your team so i i get it's not perfect, but I don't really have an answer for what the other alternative would be. So I'm okay with it. Yeah, I'm totally okay with it. I like it. I don't understand how you're going to keep running around. I mean, we could sit there and Americanize everything again where it's like, you're right. I mean, we've been so obsessed with change in sports these last few years. And I would argue some of the change that we've forced through has made shit worse.

And the pageantry part of this, like I'm telling you, why would you want to why would you want to change a bunch of that stuff? The other great thing about penalty kicks is that for those who don't know, Danny Connell, my former co-host, was convinced he was like the only guy that knew how to stop him, even though he never played soccer. So he was convinced that no, he was the guy that was like, there's no way it should be that hard to stop penalty kicks. And you're like, do you have any idea what you're talking about? And he was like, and then at the college football hall of fame show

that we did, I went to kick some penalties against him and I've never played soccer except for when I was on the maroon team when I was five. So I have no skills whatsoever. I just bombed to like over the goal and classic canal fashion

was like yeah i see i told you and i go dude i don't know what i'm doing and then i beat him in the throwing contest of a football and then he said that i didn't so that pissed him off the rest of the day so i mean danny used to have these theories he was convinced he was like the only guy that saw how to defend penalty kicks and no one else in the world had ever figured it out and that it shouldn't be that hard to defend when i'm amazed they don't all go in wasn't that van pelt dude didn't van pelt i mean he's six seven so actually he might be a decent keeper uh if he he says it's alive but six six he identifies as six six sorry excuse me that's my bad i should i shouldn't i should know better than that uh i think both those guys were like yeah what like why isn't why isn't

there a better percentage on saves? I mean, basically what happens, there are two things that really happen. You have penalty takers like Jorginho, who actually missed, who they will slowly walk up to the ball, right? Pogba does this too. It's just kind of like a game of chicken, really, where you are waiting for the keeper to move either one way or the other, and then you slot it the other way. And they're not even really kicking it with that much force or that much skill. They're just playing a game of chicken.

And if the goalkeeper like even hints at going left, they're going to go right. That could either work a lot and make you look like a hero or really make you look like an idiot. And in, in Jorginho, uh, his case,

he missed his and it didn't look that great. Or they're the guys that are just absolute skillers and go, I'm going to put it upper 90 and just bang this thing in like Harry McGuire, who broke the camera in the back of the net, which was actually pretty sick. But one of the things that the England coach,

Gareth Southgate, is getting crushed for today, which I've never seen before. And I was talking to my friends. I don't know if this is ever like a thing, but he made a couple of subs at the very end of extra time.

So like the 119th minute where he brought in two guys cold off the bench that had not kicked the ball at all to come on because they were offensive players to kick a penalty. And so much of penalty taking is being in rhythm and having confidence and less about skill in that situation that I just I just thought that was a huge mistake. I really did. And both those guys missed the penalty. All three substitutions that Gareth Southgate made, all three of those guys missed their penalty and

they end up losing, obviously, by one kick. So it made a big deal. So for me, it's less about I would have left the guy who might not been a great penalty taker. I would have left him in because he's that way. He's warmed up and he's got like, you know, his, you know, the adrenaline is there. Yeah. Versus two guys who, yeah, are probably really skilled, but haven't even kicked the ball other than like the pregame training. So I thought that was a huge miss by Southgate. Fair point. Yeah.

I mean, the last kid who came in looked like he was 15 years old and he just could he was he's 19 yeah i could also understand too like all those offensive players that england hadn't brought in and everybody's like look how deep this team is um i could tell immediately why you like grealish so much when saruti's never had saruti's never had any hesitation of just admiring the the football skill and attractiveness of some of the international guys. Yeah, I mean, Grealish comes in and people start to freak out.

Then, actually, if you watch him play, you can see some stuff with his movement and his quickness and his control where you're like, oh, okay, this is why everybody has his jersey and they're wondering why he's into the game. All right, so we'll end it with this. The whole coming home thing, does it count for all of it? Like, does it count for the World Cup too?

Does it count for this? Like, so it's just, we're still waiting on that coming home. Like, I felt like this is the most momentum I saw behind the coming home thing. But again, that's us, at least me on the outside, maybe not paying as much attention to it. I felt like that caught a lot of momentum and then everybody was tweeting it. I was like, wait a minute. So does that mean you just got kind of like say it's coming home? You can't do it for the club stuff right no well the whole point

is that and this is why a lot of people don't like england is because they you you could argue i guess the game was invented in england i mean who knows like i'm sure people were kicking balls anywhere around the world at various degrees in human history at various times in human history um but they kind of claim that they are the home of football right and the thing is i made this analogy i think on the last pot is like they act like they're this incredible nation that has all this like that the cowboys or the yankees with all these titles and they've really only won one world cup in 1966 and i think the reason behind it's coming home is twofold it's that they they believe they invented the game and two uh that there's a song that goes behind it too too, that a lot of the fans chant.

And this sort of generation of English players is probably their golden generations. They're now, you know, 10, 15 years ago with like Wayne Rooney and Theo Walcott and guys like that. They thought the same thing, but ended up not working out. But this generation of English players are really freaking good. Like they're I would argue, other than France, they're probably the second most talented team in the world. So I think the fans and the media sort of were like this is our time and listen they only played i think one away game the entire tournament and it was the final was in london so i think that's where the whole it's coming home thing happened i love the the play on i mean benucci who scores

the game tying goal uh he went into the camera right after and screamed it's coming to rome which is amazing i love the play on words there uh But I think a lot of neutral fans around the world don't like England just because they think they're too cocky. I'm one of those guys. I think you guys, you haven't won anything. So why are you talking so much shit? Yeah, who knows who invented any of this stuff really? Because there was probably some people

kicking stuff around there for a while. And then the anthem kicks up and you realize my country, Tis of Thee, is the first sample of all time perhaps. So who knows? All right, so right so there you go good stuff let's get to life advice you want details bye i drive a ferrari 355 cabriolet what's up i have a ridiculous house in the south fork i have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. It's time for Life Advice brought to you by V8. People have trouble changing routines because they try for big results

first, but switching up your routine in small ways can add up over time. Try skipping that sugary coffee shop drink and swap in a V8 plus Energy for plant-powered pick-me-up with caffeine from tea and no added sugar. Okay, life advice. Before we get to that, we had a close friend checked in on the biking incident. Oh, you know what else I want to address too here a little bit? Because we had a bunch of accountants check in

after I did my 2008 to-do list. And there was a couple of comments about, you know, you can't believe you thought you were broke. You're making a hundred bucks an hour. The ESPN rate for fill-ins was a hundred dollars an hour that you were on the air. So if I only had one shift in two weeks, guess how much Ryan made for two weeks? $300. And then people were like, wait, so I like you guys, some of you guys, how fucking bored are some of you that as soon as anyone says something it's like well wait a minute how can i figure out a way that

he might not have been telling the truth why would i tell you why would i lie about an hourly from 2006 why would i lie about um a 2008 tax bill so then the other thing was like how come you had to pay that much in taxes because i was um i wasn't a that much in taxes? Because I wasn't a full-time employee. That's it. I wasn't a full-time employee. So I should have put more aside, which is what I did. But I should have even more aside. And that's why I got whacked the first time I saved any money in my life.

I was like, wait, this game isn't a lot of fun. But the more entertaining portion of the feedback was my friend who was like you know what you need to do when somebody flips you off and you're kind of like eye to eye whether in this case bike cyclists car a little more dangerous but when the guy's looking at you and he's giving the finger letting you have it my friend likes to do this thing where he looks back at the other person that does a horrified face like they're about to hit something else and he says it works almost every time so like awesome so if the biker who's turned around giving you a four second middle finger he looks back at the other person that does a horrified face. Like they're about to hit something else. And he says, it works almost every time. So like,

so if the biker who's turned around giving you a four second middle finger, you know, he's looking back at you, not seeing exactly everything in front of him the entire time you would be behind him. And instead of getting mad, now you're going to be really quick. My friend has developed this skill. So now it's an instinct.

So I don't expect everybody to pick this up automatically. I didn't even think of it. I've never done it, but he was like, what you do is then you look and be like oh my god oh my god like you point as if he's about to drive into a truck and then the guy will turn and freak out because he thinks like oh my god and then he goes honestly it kind of relieves the tension and everybody like that guy feels like an idiot so then he's like I kind of lost that transaction and then you see him do something where you feel like you won and you didn't even have to yell at the guy. So to point to somebody being like, oh my gosh, you're going

to crash. Cyclists out there, give it a shot. Okay. Life advice, rr at gmail.com. Hey, long time listener. Love the show. Nothing picks me up on a long day. Some life advice. Okay. All right. Here we go. So my buddy, I guess, I hope we've changed the names here. here we go so my buddy i guess i hope we've changed the names here yeah i think he did i don't know i don't know if he did fuck it we're just doing it all right so my buddy west was with me on martha's vineyard chillmark not egger town for the fourth he lives in a small town in idaho has been texting with this girl let's call her suzy to make things easier for a few weeks lining up a date for when he would be back in idaho and feeling good about it important note, there really aren't many options in his small town and he's been on a cold streak. Uh-oh, Susie was visiting his small town in Idaho while he was on the vineyard and had some

of our other friends that were also going to be in Idaho to visit another friend of ours who lives there. Okay, one of our other friends, Turner, who was visiting Idaho from New York City, is the kind of guy we just don't trust to be a team player. So Wes wisely called him before he flew to Idaho and says, hey, man, I get that this is a bit weird, but you're probably going to meet Susie. The thing is, I'm excited about her. I've been texting. I would appreciate it if you don't pursue her. All right, we know where this is going. Since I think there might be a future there, our guy Turner, who was going to be in Idaho while Wes was on Martha's Vineyard. These guys like to travel, man.

Turner said, yeah, cool. I'll comply. So Turner ended up going home with Susie over 4th of July weekend. My other friend that was at the bar there where they were flirting and tried really hard to talk Turner out of it. In fairness to Turner, the girl was clearly into him and very cute, but it doesn't sound like he ever really tried to do what Wes asked him. If anything, actively pursued the girl. Wes is obviously pissed. Turner's acting like it's no big deal, showing zero remorse, and even extended his trip for another day to hook up with the girl. So we're all going to Croatia. Look at these guys.

Oh, my God. What kind of business are you guys into? We're all going to Croatia for one of the other guys' bachelor party in a few weeks. Wes planned the whole thing, which was a lot of work, and wants us to do something to send a message to Turner, who hooked up up with Susie that this is not okay and he needs to stop being such a jerk. One of the ideas contemplated is to disinvite Turner from the party in Croatia. That seems a bit extreme. Turner is also suspected to be hooking up with Wes's ex-girlfriend and now lives in New York. Granted, Wes dumped her three years ago, but if that's true, it seems pretty messed up. We have no hard proof of this, but in general, Turner tends to do a lot of

selfish stuff. We're all fed up with it. That in general, Turner tends to do a lot of selfish stuff. We're all fed up with it. That said, he's a core guy in our college crew of eight that is really close. We all generally like him. He's fun, but I'm starting to question why we have him in the crew. So what can we do to send a message

without disinviting him from the bachelor party? How do we get through this, stop being such a jerk? Okay, so let's start with this. Here we go. Turner is the guy that suzy ended up hooking up with wes is the one that was upset um suzy doesn't belong to wes all right so wes needs to get over that you could be upset you cannot like it it can bother you those are all things but like you got to kind of get over it and i mean look you tell a guy hey there's going to be this cute girl that i'm interested in but but I haven't really ever, you know, spent any time with her. And can you not hook up with her when then she wants to hook up with the guy that gets

out there? Like every guy is going to be like, hey, sorry, dude. You know, sorry, Wes. So Wes can be upset, but you don't like there's a level to how upset you can be on this one. So if now you're saying it's a pattern and there's some other stuff that Turner's done, this is where it gets a little trickier. Because even though you guys are pretty young, or wait a minute, 32. Okay, all right.

So you're kind of getting to that age. But look, I'll tell you for example, we have one of the guys that was in the group of friends that just couldn't stop hooking up with everybody else's girlfriend it was like his thing i don't know if he got off on it or what i think i've referenced this before and he also like there'd be a weird deal where if somebody was dating somebody and then they broke up he would like befriend the girl and then all of us would hear about like oh yeah they started hooking up again it was almost like he it really was weird like he almost got off on the idea that he would be hooking up with somebody else's girlfriend as opposed to just going out and meeting your own fucking girls. Like, why would you? And I look,

I ended up not liking him, um, which is not a huge surprise, but it just was a really shitty pattern. So eventually that stuff's going to catch up with you here. Unless like in this case, Turner's the coolest guy in the group, then maybe you guys are just more accepting of it all you know like that can happen too it's like hey we have this one bully in our friend group but he's the coolest out of all of us so we keep putting up with it all the time to disinvite him from croatia because of a suspected hookup with an ex from three years ago that was dumped by your friend and because he hooked up with a girl in idaho who the other guy had never really spent any time with. That's excessive.

All right, that's really excessive. Now, if you want to, you can call him out on all this shit. If it is festering and you feel like you have more evidence and he is a really selfish guy, you could do a friend intervention here. I don't know how that's going to go.

I mean, I don't know. Like you guys, would he fight you? I don't know. I mean, that would be kind of weird to take on seven different guys. But I think disinviting him from Croatia is excessive. But if it's that big of a deal and all you guys are talking about him behind his back, about this development, about this personality trait, then call him on it. Why the hell is everybody so afraid to just talk to each other

about it? Talk to him about it. Call him out. I mean, look, it's going to be really weird. If there was something that I did that seven of my friends decided like, hey, Priscilla, we got to talk to you about this. Like, unless you're one of those incredibly detached people, like emotionally, you're the least sensitive person ever. Like sometimes I envy those people. It was like, yeah, whatever, dude, I'm just going to keep it moving. But most people aren't really like that. I don't know if that's guys like this, but I think most of us walking around as seven of our closest friends. And in this case, like your core guys pulled you aside and said, Hey, what's your deal with this? Like, why do you keep doing this? Um, you would think that's going to have an impact. So it might all be better from that point on, but to take Turner's side here,

if like you guys started really giving me a hard time because another guy from the friend group who had never been with the girl texting me ahead of time was like, hey, don't hang out with her, even though she wanted to hang out with me and I'm attracted to her and she's attracted to me. I don't need your permission slip, man. So I would push back on that one unless, as you said, you're hinting at that this might be a pattern of behavior. So if it is a pattern of behavior and you guys feel like you have real evidence against him, then ask him. Hey, get it over it over with maybe you'll be stronger after the fact maybe he'll stop doing it maybe everybody stopped getting their feelings hurt but if the best evidence you have of this is him in idaho with old suzy suzy from you know boise then you don't well she said small town um

you don't really have much of an argument there man she's an adult our guy our guy turner's an adult and hopefully the rest of you guys are too kyle i agree um they are probably too old to bring boxing gloves to the backyard or do a quick shadow boxing session or whatever just to air it all out so i think talking is probably the the right way to do it but it does sound like also this one guy might be in the words of charlie murphy a habitual line stepper and maybe he's just flirting with the line and stepping over it for various different dudes so yeah i think just fucking talking about it maybe do it before you guys get drunk and it becomes weird yeah that's a good maybe don't do it on the trip either like maybe just

like actually do it in normal times and don't make the stakes so high that you're not gonna be able to enjoy the trip unless you get this thing off your chest that everybody's been upset about for i don't know years at this point yeah don't do it drunk i would i would definitely agree with that part although sometimes it can't it can only come out when you're drinking but or loosened up i don't know it's a fine line uh here's the other thing like our emailer could be there's times where like one person from the core group is super mad about a behavior trait of one of the other core guys and then he asks around to the other core guys it's like hey do you does this bother you guys and then everybody else might be like not really the idaho thing i'm sorry like if

i just you know does anybody care about Susie's thoughts and all of this? That's what I'm that's what I'm worried about. Saruti? I was going to say, it kind of reminds me of the guy that's late all the time in that. I wonder if this dude Turner is just he just wants the attention. Like he likes the attention of this girl. He likes the attention of him hooking up with, you know, the ex-girlfriends. If that's like an actual pattern.

I almost feel like this is like more thing about his insecurity or lack of security than it is anything else but my other thing was what you just said Ryan how many of the other guys actually care about this this might just be West did West send the email is he the guy is he like the guy the subject of the email no no we get a different guy it could have been like a friend asking for a friend thing when it's actually not but because if it's

not West and I guess you could say all right yeah it is it is a bigger deal within the friend group but if it's just West I'd be like you could say, it is a bigger deal within the friend group. But if it's just West, I'd be like, I don't know, man. How many other people are actually that mad about this? Well, they did reference the ex-girlfriend from New York City who had been dumped by the other core guy three years ago. I'd need to know a little bit more about it. I'm not even saying we don't need to do a big follow-up on all this

kind of stuff. That many guys are bothered by it. And there's a little bit of this, a little bit of that many guys are bothered by it and there's like a little bit of this little bit of that like honestly like when it happened with our guy none of us handled it the right way like the guy should have got his ass kicked once you know and no one did you feel like that would solve the problem no i don't think it would have i don't think it would have i just think the guy had like a weird deal where he, you were like, wait, he did it again. Wait, he did it again. I mean, it was just, it went on and on and on

and I don't know, whatever. Like I, it kind of, it kind of sucked for me because I told him off eventually. And then, um, then I kind of was like losing other guys that were closer to him, even though I was in the right and he was in the wrong. And then there was another moment where like, I was like, screw it. I don't want to lose all the other friends because of this. So I was like, all right, you know, bury the hatchet, bury the hatchet. And look deep down, everybody knew I had not buried the hatchet and we ran into each other. And I was actually like fired up because it was like a big group of friends that I hadn't seen in forever. And we were all drinking. It was getting a little late. And I was like, Hey, let's hit up some other place. And they're like, yeah, yeah, great call, great call.

And I went to the bathroom and everybody left. And then I was like, what the hell? And everybody was gone. And then the guys texted me in the morning and they were like, we got out of there because he was afraid that like, as the night progressed, that maybe the hatchet was going to resurface.

And I was like, you know what? That's fair. Ouch. I was like, that's, I was like, you guys could have handled a little bit better than that and treating me like some dude that you didn't want to see the rest of the night but they're like as soon as you left he was like can we please get out of here we'd please get out of here because he's gonna end up snapping as the night progresses i do kind

of like that he was afraid of you at least at least that makes that thing less yeah i i was like hey i was more fired because i was working all the time i was driving back and forth from from connecticut uh all constantly so i wasn't around at all and it was like oh we just randomly ran into each other i mean you know that look that shit sucks it was still 10 years after it had happened to me and you know it's the first thing you do you look at the other guy and you're like i'm not thinking about anything other than this. And he's thinking that he's looking at me being like, we're still not thinking about anything other than what happened.

You know, he looks way stronger than 10 years. Yeah. Now he's like, dudes, dudes think he's, he's like before we knew he was a loose cannon when he was skinnier. But now we're, now he's actually, but anyway, we don't need to get into that because there's another friend that's so mad that he's like i'm so i hate that everybody in the country thinks you're such a badass i was like all right well you know what why don't you

worry about other fucking things all right uh we're just giving out life advice to old school dudes from college right now left and right we're just i assume that guy's not in the circle anymore right you don't talk i don't fucking care i he's gonna hear it he's gonna hear it there you go what's up i called his house after i found out and his father wouldn't put him on the phone so honestly like you know be a fucking man about stuff and i was i was only 21 and the dad like started giving me a hard time on the phone i was like put him on the phone i know he's there he's like we're not taking your calls right now i was like you know what a man would address this and i hung up or something like that i don't know it was it was i get it look it's your son you know you're not

gonna take my side on anything but it was uh it was bullshit like my big thing is if you do screw up like you should at least all right hey yeah i did something wrong now we're gonna talk about it but that is uh it's not what happened and you know it's only been 20 plus years so it sounds like i've had closure on minute seven maybe i'm the wrong guy to be giving out any advice on anything uh okay okay um let's do one a little bit more straightforward. Is this one. It's got a little too personal. See, maybe we do a dinner bill. I think there was a dinner bill here.

Oh, no, wait. It's West Texas Jake. He checked. Oh, no. Yeah. Five, nine, 170. Great size. 255 power clean.

He still runs the 40 under four six it's incredible hey man totally forgot to keep you updated about all the stuff that's happening over the last two years uh the first year after the interviews i student taught at my alma mater where i taught seventh grade texas history and coach football for free that season we went 11 and excuse me zero and 11 okay 11 and zero excuse me, 0 and 11. 11 and 0 would have been better. They did not do that. They went 0 and 11. It was one of the hardest things I've done in sports.

Coached baseball until COVID hit, then took up golf during quarantine. Year two, I taught U.S. history at the high school, coached middle school and high school football, basketball, and track. Accepted a varsity football assistant job coaching running backs at 6A high school after multiple job offers to consider got a girlfriend six months ago and she's a great one look at this we'd love to call it again sometime soon let's have him we don't do this i don't want to i don't think i want to expand this out to the call and stuff that we

used to do in the espn pod but he gave us a phone number here saruti i think we need to have him on and i think we need to kind of just blast his resume out there he's probably the only person i'm ever going to do this for because I'd like all the athletic directors at the college level and all the different people that listen to the podcast. Maybe we can at least do a resume hookup here because he just was such a solid guy. It'd be horrible if somebody

like sends us another. You're like actually West Texas Jake sucks, dude. He's actually a guy that does go after people's girlfriends. I'm kidding, but it sounds like he's got a great girlfriend here. And let's do a bigger update with him at some point, Sruti. So put that in the calendar.

Yeah. He had like a bit of a nomad thing there, though. Like 0-11 football coach. Then he went to baseball, back to running back coach. Then he got into golf. Like that's a pretty good run there. And then he's got an awesome girlfriend now.

It's cool. I think he did more stuff in that sentence than I've done in like 10 years, which was... I was trying to keep up. up i was like jesus that's a lot of stuff all right this is this is a really long post interviews part of the pod but you know what we'll keep it rolling here okay what's up huge fan of the pod 511 170. It's a good size. Here's the deal.

A few weekends ago, my girlfriend and I both had to leave town and we couldn't take our five-month-old puppy with us. By the way, did you see that story about the dogs being returned now after the pandemic is over? Yeah. Yuck. My wife was bummed about that. Again, people ask me why I don't get a dog, and I'm like, I don't want to do that to the dog.

And then I'd see people do that. I'm not even the biggest dog guy, and that headline bummed me out. Probably got my day back together. All right, so anyway, we're part of a pretty big friend group, and we know another couple. Let's call them Samson and Delilah. Ooh, little real ones know. Is that that biblical let's not call them that um uh let's just okay so there we go that's the couple they have a dog of their own uh has watched other people's dogs in the past we're not super close to them but they've always been really cool and very friendly after explaining

our situation they agreed to watch our dog which is a huge relief to us is we didn't want to board them a it's pretty expensive b we pretty much we pretty much preferred that people we knew were taking care of them. As a way of saying thank you, we offered to take them out to a nice Neapolitan pizza spot for some food and drinks, which was not only a way to express our gratitude, but a great chance to get to know another couple better and pave the way for more outings. Flash forward to the night in question. There was an hour-long wait for a table when my girlfriend and I arrived, so we texted the other couple to meet us at a dive bar down the street. Flash forward to the restaurant is ready. We call for the check. Delilah and I both go for our cards at the same time. As I'm taking mine out, she stops, puts her back, and the server takes my card.

After leaving 20% tip, the bill came to $135. Surprisingly, Samson and Delilah start thanking us for treating them to the drinks. What am I, surprisingly? My girlfriend and I share a confused look as we didn't figure this to be part of the dinner we're treating them to, especially since Delilah was reaching for her card as well. But honestly, it's too weird to stop them from thanking us, then ask for half the bill. So we shuffle off to the restaurant. Well, right as we sit down, Delilah orders top shelf vodka martini to keep her company while she's perusing the wine menu. As this is a fucking pizza place,

my girlfriend suggests we all split one of the many bottles of wines that are reasonably priced. But Delilah shrugs off and decides on one of only the expensive options, one of the only expensive options on the list. Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, I'm looking at a draft beer list for my semblance of something reasonably affordable. As I'm starting to calculate all the money being transferred from the Paris Vacation Fund, my girlfriend and I have settled aside. That's going straight into the Grey Goose martinis and overpriced wine. That's when Samson leans over, replaces my draft beer list with a cocktail list and says, you pick my cocktail.

I'll pick yours. Which is just so outrageous. An outrageous thing for an adult to do. I was speechless. It keeps going. We agree on two stars. Two pizzas are dinner. The server comes over to take the order. Delilah starts improvising like Miles Davis and kind of blue and orders additional apps and side dishes on top of the agreed upon order. By this

point, I'm blankly staring off in the middle distance. No longer concerned about the money, but rather how my faith in the goodness of decency of man is being shattered before my eyes. The last straw comes as our table is cleared. The server asks if anyone wants dessert. Obviously, Delilah wants dessert. She orders some $16 chocolate mousse, has two bites, and finally retires

for the evening. All told, the girlfriend and I paid $400 for what we thought was going to be a very casual and simple night out to say thank you to this couple. We both do pretty well money-wise. We're not rich by any means, but we're already pretty taken back by what we felt was excessive ordering on this other couple's part. Honestly, I think I'd rather take my chances letting my dog roam free in the streets and do it again. So my question is, should we have intervened at some point? Maybe forced the issue of splitting pre-order drinks? Do we warn other dog owners? Or is this not as crazy as we both assumed it to be?

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks a lot. And if Kyle ever wants a dog watch for us, we'll treat him to dinner and he can order whatever the hell he wants. Okay. All right. All right. This is two different cultures colliding here.

All right. That's what this is. Because there's a bunch of words in this email that jump out to me. Now, should they have done what they did over 400 bucks? I think most of the audience is listening to this and be like, that's absurd. They watched the dog and they just went for it. Clearly, they have a way. I don't think they did it to hammer your bill on purpose.

I think that's just the way they live. They saw a dive bar. They saw a nice bar. They weren't like, hey, let's go to the nice one because they're paying. It's because that's the way they roll. They order top shelf stuff because that's the way they live. They saw a dive bar. They saw a nice bar. They weren't like, hey, let's go to the nice one because they're paying. It's because that's the way they roll. They order top shelf stuff because that's the way. I don't think this is some deal where you're seeing some scene from Veep and somebody gets whacked with the bill because

they're doing it on purpose. I don't think that's at all the case. My guess to the emailer and your wife or girlfriend here, I don't want you to be bummed out about this, but there's a bunch of stuff in here that tells me you're a bit on the cheap side. All right? I know that stings a little, and you like the podcast, and maybe you're never going

to listen to it again, but you say, hey, there's a dive bar that has super cheap drink specials. Okay? bar that has super cheap drink specials. After leaving a 20% tip, the bill came to 135. Delilah orders top shelf vodka martini. The you pick my cocktail, I'll pick yours thing is definitely weird. I'm looking at draft beer list. You mentioned the Paris Vacation Fund. You are very responsible with your money to the point where, again, cheap isn't the right word, but you are not somebody. My guess would be you're not online shopping all the time. So two different cultures collided here where some people, when they're out and about, they thought they were just going to get treated out to some nice night. I mean, you say that both you and your girlfriend do pretty well. So they probably know that you do pretty well. If you're among this, this group of friends, that's one of the first

things anybody asked about, like, Hey, what's that guy up to? What's his deal? Okay, cool. So they know you're doing pretty well. And they're thinking like 400 on a night out in the town when they watch your dog, like they're not doing this. I don't believe to screw with you, but this isn't the way you roll because a bunch of different references that you make. So you don't need to go tell on them to everybody else. Because by the way, there's a good chance there's somebody in the friend group that's closer with them than they are to you. So when you do that, you know, when people talk shit about each other, it used to always make me laugh when there were the ex-basketball coaches at ESPN that would talk shit about

me. And I'd be like, you're talking shit about me to like my best friends. And then when I get called on it, they'd be like, Hey, do we have a problem? Like, yeah, we have a fucking problem. Like you don't like me. And now I choose to not like you and I'm not going to fake it where you fake it. I'm not going to fake it. So we're good. You're like, Oh no, Ryan, that's not cool. No, no, no, no, no, no. We're not friends and that's fine. That's it. So I would warn you of that. Here's what you do. Don't ever watch your dog again. Don't ever tell him you're going to take him out.

All right. So it was a $400 lesson, which is a really expensive one. It sucks. It's too much to watch your puppy. I hope you don't feel like I'm being too negative towards you, but I can tell based on the structure of this story and five or six different references where you're talking about like things being reasonable versus not reasonable and stuff. You just don't like to spend the way this couple likes to spend.

So they don't think they're doing this to mess with you. And now you learned a lesson. And granted, one that was far more expensive than you want it to be. But as far as the intervening halfway through the dinner, look, salute to whoever that is with those kinds of stones. All right? I can be confrontational. I don't know that I ever be confrontational enough to the point where I'd be like,

excuse me, we agreed on two apps, a house wine, and then two pizzas, and that's it. And the dessert thing sucks some with you, like classic, whatever. But I don't think they were trying to rack up your bill just to mess with you. So, Kyle, I know like, hey, there's another tier financially that's listening to this being like, at some point you have to stop them. Again, build a statue to whoever it is that just starts telling everybody what they can and can't order in this kind of setting. I know there's a bunch of badasses out there that would say, I'd never let that happen. Okay, fine, cool. You and your girlfriend meeting a new couple and you want to cut them off in the middle of it. Congrats to you

make up shirts that you did it because very few people would ever do something like that. I think that's the best life advice you've ever given because I am this guy. This guy is me. I was mortified as you were reading this. And then as you were talking, it all made sense. And yeah, it's right. It's just different. Like I've been to dinner with Bill Simmons and I've been to dinner with my fucking dad and we're just different people. We order different ways. We got drinks at home type shit, you know? So yeah, it makes sense. And I think it was just really good to keep that in mind. And I think you fucking nailed it. Good job.

So Rudy, would you have told them to stop ordering stuff? No, no. I would have sat there and judged in silence like a real man. But hold on. I can't believe you guys are both going with this because, you know, I'm still so I'm 32 and, you know, my in-laws will take my wife, Maddie and I out to dinner at times. And I am very aware of not ordering

expensive shit on the menu. And by the way, they're doing fine. It's not like a thing where I'm... They're fine. They're both... One of them is retired. The other one's a successful realtor. It's not like a money thing.

So you're married for money? Definitely. Definitely. Looking forward to retiring and being a full-time dog dad at some point. But no. But I just feel like... Shouldn't there be some sort of self-awareness for you like first off it's not like they helped you put in like you know an addition on your house like you it was a very simple thing that you did for them so it's not like a 400 hour pizza night is

an insane bill that's a hundred bucks tops so i guess i'm against both you guys here i'm just surprised that i wouldn't say anything, but I think it's absolutely asinine that they would, that they would ball out like that for such a simple favor and not feel any like weirdness about that. I agree, but he's just saying they didn't do it on purpose. That's all I'm saying.

Like, yeah, like don't fucking go out with them again, but like, you know, they're not doing it on purpose. They like, if you brought it up,

they'd be like, I don't think those other people are cheap though. I'm not, I think I would push back on them being cheap i would be i don't feel like i'm very cheap and i would be annoyed by that that's just that seems like an unreasonable 400 for a pizza night to thank someone for watching your dog is very unreasonable okay but there comes a time when you're successful enough to like you know i don't say money's never an issue because money's always an issue no matter kind of who you are, unless you're like at this like elite level that everybody sends links about on on Forbes.

But I mean, there are people that order and keep track of everything mentally, and then there's people that just don't. And I know that I've been both. I remember being at dinner parties with buddies and I'd be like horrified because then some guys looked at it as like, oh, we're just going to whack it up 10 different ways with credit cards. And then dudes would be like ordering their second Jack and Coke before they got their first one because they were like, well, cool. I'll have seven Jack and Cokes and then other guys will have two Coors Lights and I'll have one. And again, we're all like right out of college. You're kind of like you seriously want to be wired that way. So again, cheap's not the right word, but frugal.

Again, cheap's not the right word, but frugal, if he's mentioning that, hey, this is a really good dive bar with great drink specials, he's actually thinking about those things, impacting the decision of where he wants to go out, where the other couple has never once in their lives ever worried about what the drink specials were. So we're talking about two completely different approaches. If he's already thinking about a vacation fund to Paris, then these people are very budget conscious. There's a ton of restraint. These are all good things that they have, but you can't hang with the people. Because look, I've, again, being a guy for a long time, I've been on the extreme

side of dating people where I'm like, wait, what do you think? You know, like what? You think I'm like, wait, how, like, what do you think? You know, like what you think I'm at that level. You know what I mean? Like almost testing me out to see what I'd be willing to pay for. And you're like, look, I, maybe if I could afford that, it's a fucking stupid thing to do. And I'm not going to buy another bottle for, for you and your friends just to like prove a point or something like that. And that's a, that's like a whole nother different thing because there's also been times i put that atm card in the machine and you're like please please have some cash in there and then i think one time i even pretended we were out with a bunch of buddies and i was like dude something's wrong with my car pending charges are tricky yeah you want to know what's wrong with your cars there's no money in there and you just turn

around you're like hey darren do you can i get 40 bucks for me thanks thank god to darren i think i still own that 40 bucks but yeah uh i i don't know i mean i guess so rudy's still more on the emailer side i'm not anti the emailer i'm just saying that his approach to this is very different than the people that and just don't go don't ever ever go out with him again no that's that's what i'm saying you're i don't think i wouldn't stop them midway through the meal and be a psycho about it but i think they're also allowed to be pissed off that this kind of took the turn that it did. And they end up spending way more than they probably should have or the other couple even deserve based on what they did for them. That's all I'm saying. All right. Life advice was brought to you by V8. Small changes can add up to big progress over time. When you see it start to work, you feel motivated to do more

like grabbing a V8 reach for a plant powered-powered pick-me-up like V8 Plus Energy, which has steady energy from tea, plus a combined serving of fruits and vegetables, and vitamins B and C. Okay, that was a lot of fun. Do a lot of different stuff today. I hope you guys enjoy it. Please subscribe, rate, review, spread the word about the podcast. And we're fired up, man. Fired up. We did a bunch of other cool things that we've taped and put together here. Just trying to map it all out. Probably for August as things may slow down there, at least for a couple weeks.

So we'll be back on Thursday. And Bill and I on Wednesday night. So there you go. Bonus Game 4 stuff. And also credit to Kyle Crichton and Steve Cerruti. Behind the Glass. you you