The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Irresponsible NBA Story Lines. Plus: John Hollinger on Gobert, Ja Morant, and the Clippers' Future Problems, and Esoteric of Czarface on Underground Hip-hop and MF DOOM.

Episode Date: May 27, 2021

Russillo shares his thoughts on some NBA story lines that have surfaced based on early playoff performance (2:15). Then Ryen talks to former Grizzlies VP of basketball ops and current senior NBA columnist at The Athletic John Hollinger about Rudy Gobert, Ja Morant’s electric playoff performances, minutes restrictions, the future of the L.A. Clippers, Suns-Lakers, and more (19:00). Next, Ryen talks with Esoteric of the hip-hop supergroup Czarface about starting out with 7L in Boston in the early ’90s, linking up with Inspectah Deck and eventually forming Czarface, working with the late, great MF DOOM, the new Czarface and MF DOOM album 'Super What?' and more (54:00). Finally, Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:24:00). Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: John Hollinger and Esoteric Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

okay before we let you go we keep it real on this podcast so i have like two quick ones for you because we haven't talked about this okay but when i went to be like oh i'll hit up hollinger and then i was like oh he unfollowed me what was them i'm not great on twitter but what do you think was your breaking point with me where you were like you know what fuck this guy like i it was it was it a grizzlies observation? We know it wasn't anything political because I don't know that I touch on any of that stuff. Hey, we get it. You like the SEC.

I don't think I'm not anti-UVA, so I don't know that it was that. I just, for the staff here, we want to know. I was like, oh, okay. And don't follow me now because I brought it up because I'll block you. All right? I'm not looking for the follow. Do you remember when it was like, all right, enough of this fucking Rosillo guy?

I think I was working for the Grizzlies and was streamlining some of the media people out of my accounts. Yeah, all right, maybe. That's John Hollinger, who at a time worked for the front office of the Memphis Grizzlies. We'll get to that. But on this playoff season, his Gobert MVP vote,

breaking down some of the other series, and also esoteric of Zarface, his career, and specifically working with the late, great MF Doom and LifeAdvice. Okay, before we talk to Hollinger, some hoop stuff there, his time in the front office and member of Zarface, esoteric, there's a couple quick little things that I want to do because I could do a bigger open on this if I wanted to, and I would title the podcast. I could do like 30 minutes solo on this if I really wanted to and come up with like 10 of them,

or I could go deep on just a few. But I'm going to keep it shorter here and have Cerruti join me for a bit of it. And that is just irresponsible potential storylines after just a couple games of the first round of the playoffs, right? Because we've already seen coming off of game one in that first weekend, what I was trying to do with Bill the whole time, remind yourself, remind yourself, game one, it's game one. It's all we have to look at. There's going to be different stories in game two. Utah still has a Ja Morant problem. And Ja is just another level. And considering where you'd be at with him in the regular season. If you wanted to argue against him, you could say,

okay, yeah, but you know, is he really make other people better? Does he play enough defense? You know, is he, is he a little bit too much about himself?

He can't really shoot, can't really stretch the floor. And you looked at how golden state played him in the last regular season game. And then it was like, wait a minute. Now, should I take this guy over Zion?

Because that's actually happening right now. I want to ask Hollinger about it. Cause he was still sort of with Memphis when they were using that number two pick, but he wasn't, which is, you know, he'll explain it. But Cerruti, I do think the Ja Zion, because we just had, I mean, Ja do what he did against Utah here. And you can say, hey, it's the number one seed, but they didn't have Mitchell and they missed Mitchell again for parts of game two, whatever. The Jazz figured out a way to do this. We're talking about 73 points his first two games.

I'm not there yet, but there is nothing like the playoff glow up for the young generation of NBA players the same way we had with Donchich last year and John now. There was never a conversation about Ja over Zion

considering what Zion was. Now it's happening after these two games. And beyond that, it becomes, well, how is Ja not a top five point guard? Because that's what happens too, is you'll have guys say, that guy's not top five, like that's crazy. And everybody gets super pissed about it. And you're like, all right, put together your list of five

and tell me where Ja is. Because I think most people accepted he was closer to 10 than he ever would have been five. But again, after his performance this game, one, two, doing whatever he wants. I mean, they just can't stop him. I mean, they can come up with schemes and unless you want to build a Giannis wall and keep everybody else open, he's just impossible right now. Yeah. And I remember like around the draft, there was a, there were a few people that were saying, Hey, you know,

jaw over Zion. I just see, I see the, like, what is Zion going to be in the NBA? And I was kind of, I don't want to say I was one of those people, but I was entertaining the idea of, OK, I can see what job is going to be in the NBA. I don't know if I can necessarily project what Zion would be. Now, Zion lit it up this year. He had all of his stats in the regular season, basically, other than like assists. I mean, all the advanced metrics like they all go to Zion. He's been the better player. But I think there maybe are a couple arguments for Ja and that, okay, he's doing it in big games. He beat Steph head-to-head.

He won two straight play-in games to get into the playoffs. I think you could argue that is the Grizzlies roster that much better than the Pelicans? And Ja is the best player on the team, and he led them to the playoffs in the same conference, right? And this is also a league that kind of seems to favor guards and wings and that type of player. So I think you could,

I understand the argument of saying, hey, I think I would take Ja for five, ten years over Zion. I wouldn't, but I can see how you would get yourself to get to that point. My problem, my only pushback from it, and you're right, like Memphis isn't worlds better than New Orleans talent-wise,

but Memphis knows everybody's role. They know exactly who they're supposed to be, what they're supposed to do. And if Valanciunas has foul trouble, then they have a fix for it. I love Desmond Bain. I love that guy. I love his comfort level. And he kind of figures out exactly which hole to fill, depending on the group that's out there with him. Because I mean, at some point, he was just straight up spot shooter for him and felt like he hit everything. But I'm telling you, in college, he can do more. And the more he's trusted with in the NBA, like Bane is –

I don't want to get too crazy with it because you can also say, if I'm another team, I'm calling about Bane. Well, guess what? They're not trading him to you because he's super cheap on this rookie deal to back into the first round. But I love what he does. But Memphis knows their identity. Everybody knows their roles.

New Orleans clearly doesn't. But if the conversation for the entire season was how high is Zion as a player, not just Zion versus Jalik. Is Zion bordering a top 10 player? Should he be all NBA third team? And then two playoff games later, we're going, no, Jaws,

the guy that's where I'm like, okay, yeah, I don't know. I don't know that you can go for five to six months with an accepted ranking of players. And then it all changes because of two playoff games. But again,

if you're sitting there arguing that Zion's at home, I can't say anything back to you. I think the reason that I ultimately would not say I would take job for Zion. I would stick with Zion is because Zion has that weird thing where it's like he could be he has this thing where he could be a generational guy. He could be something we've never literally never seen before in the league. I know what job is. There are guys like job, like maybe not an exact carbon copy of him, but like, all right,

job's a great player. But it's easy to project that. I think I would be I would still take Zion's upside and what he could potentially be as this Draymond Green, LeBron, Sean Kemp hybrid, and I would just say if it ends up not working out in five to ten years, then I'd be okay with that because I took a chance on his unbelievably broad talent. Right, and honestly, what if De'Aaron Fox had 60 points in his first two playoff games and they were one and one?

There are so many point guards that we wanted to do this with. And I'm not saying that Ja has probably done more than a lot of those guys that we talked about. De'Aaron is one of those guys. Like, oh, De'Aaron, is he creeping into the top five? The top five point guard thing seems to change like every two weeks. It's unbelievable. That position more than any other one is totally volatile. And, you know, if Ja has like a a if they get bounced in a couple games here he

has a slow start to next year then we'll completely forget about them and it's not going to be fair but i just think the point guard position in general it's we change that list so often i don't even know what to make of it the two others that i would have done speaking of point guards and you know i caught a bunch of shit i think when i brought up the booker part of like you know i don't know what his long-term ph thing is. And for anybody that, you know, look, you want to give me a hard time about it, it got aggregated a certain way. But I mean, everybody in NBA circles that knows what's going on has talked about this potential, you know,

Knicks landing spot for a handful of guys, whether it's Carl Anthony Towns ever gets upset, what he wanted, ask out. You know, you can't ever say no to any of this stuff anymore, by the way. Kawhi taught us one thing, and that is never assume anything with a team's best player because the Knicks have staffed guys with connections to Utah, and they've staffed, obviously, another coach who has a connection to the Kentucky guys.

So it was always like, well, if Booker ever got upset, don't ignore what the Knicks are doing over there. If Carly, Carly Anthony Towns ever got upset, you know, Donovan's guy, you know, he was in Utah. He's over like, that was the whole point. So the reason I bring up irresponsible potential storylines would be if Chris Paul's way more hurt than he seems to think he is. Um, and he didn't look very good with that change, the Booker part of it, because Booker Paul, Paul loves it there. Booker's happy as hell. Booker having Chris Paul is a completely different situation than missing out

on the playoffs again and thinking, okay, you know, where am I going to be at now? Long-term with this team to ignore that as a potential possibility is foolish. Um, so I'm certainly would never do that with any of those guys, but I,

I get worried about it. Like how much could the Paul conversation change if now instead of the one-year player option, which is a massive, massive number, he's still under contract, but there was a thought that maybe he opts out and then he does a shorter deal for more overall money, less annually. It happens. Maybe it wouldn't. Maybe they're like Paul enough. You're like, hey, we'll pay the option. We still want to sign you after that. Who knows? I don't know the answers to those things, but Paul not being healthy, if it were an early exit, and then you're really worried about his future health-wise. But that in itself, as I'm

finishing the thought, is irresponsible. So I'm going to stop myself there and get to the next one that's an irresponsible storyline that's less irresponsible. But if your Kawhi angst and his future with the Clippers is at zero, I would say adjust the dial up a little bit on that one. I don't have info on this. Kawhi is as unpredictable as anyone. People that would say it's only leaned in one direction that Kawhi ultimately would sign the extension because of the money and being a little bit older, and they're going to pay him whatever they can pay him and pay him beyond everybody else. For somebody that's been on an injury maintenance program now for multiple years.

So why would he turn down any of that extra money? But you don't know with him. And if they get bounced in the first round to think, unless it's like some secret done deal that I don't already know about, I got to tell you, like it's, it's a weird, it would,

because it's Kawhi, you would have to be so worried. Like, what if this guy just says, eh, nope, I'm going somewhere else. And for anybody like, oh, he would never do that, he's already done it. He's already done it. So I really wonder how weird the Kawhi projecting stories could get. Not saying they'd be accurate, but how weird those could get

if the Clippers get bounced in the first round. I want to talk about two instances that happened last night that I knew would lead almost every show today. And I wish I could have bet money and made money on like, oh, I bet you this will be the topic. And that's the fan interaction and the bullshit that we saw in the Sixers-Wizards game. And then it looks like Trae Young got spit on or spat on by a fan at MSG. I don't know exactly what happened there. I've seen the film, but we know for 100% that Westbrook had popcorn dumped on him as he was entering the tunnel. I find it really weird that a Celtics fan would show up to a Sixers-Wizards game, by the way.

But when I hear about the punishment debate topic, I check out. I just do. And I know you kind of have to do it, but it really becomes like a contest to be the most pissed off about what actually happened. No one who's real is defending the popcorn throwing guy. Like, the guy's an asshole. All right? I don't know where our listeners on, on the heckling thing. Right.

It can get to an age where you're like uncomfortable to be around. Like I get younger guys being drunk and yelling stuff. Like it's, it's, it's kind of like part of it. And maybe some of you never did it. And you think even young guys doing it is stupid. I just have more of a threshold of,

of tolerance for younger guys acting like idiots and saying stuff, but certainly not anything that we saw where you're actually like dumping stuff on a player because I mean, it goes without saying it's absurd, but watching it on TV. It's like, wait, you're mad. You think you're mad about what happened? Wait until I get my five minutes and I'm going to show you how mad I am because then it's like punishment. You go, okay, well, what needs to happen? Like, all right, ban him, ban him from the arena for, for how long? Cause nobody's going to say 24, 25 season seems about right. And then he can come back 25, 26, because then if you said that, it'd be like, you're not taking this seriously enough. Like, all right, what's, what's the right, our banner for life. Okay. I'm sitting here being like, all right, fine. Ban him for life. I don't care. You think I care about this fucking guy? I don't.

I don't care about him at all. But I am auto-tune out on let's come up with the right level of punishment. So it seems like, so you know how fierce I am on this topic. There is a disconnect, right? or siam on this topic um there is a disconnect right there's a disconnect i believe between you know famous people public figures and non-famous people non-public figures despite what you may think about your wellness page on instagram junior at wisconsin but there's almost this idea that hey well if you have this life and you are this person and you are famous, then this is what you signed up for. And when I'm in a moment where I want to feel better about myself by dumping on you, I get to do it. And you're supposed to just deal with it and you're never supposed to react.

And that's just the deal. That's the deal that we've all made here in American society. And I'm sure, you know, look, it's not like it doesn't happen in Europe either. But, hey, famous person, deal with my bullshit because that's just the deal. And I don't think it's ever been worse than it is right now because we have access to all this different stuff. But when something bad happens in a game, I'd ask somebody like, well, what, what do you think? What do you think there is a version of this where it never happens? Like, do you believe that that's even possible? Do you believe that we get to a point where you have thousands of games, millions of fans,

and that there's going to be a 0% incident rate? Cause that's just not going to happen. It's not going to happen. You know, LeBron jumps in. I mean, what Westbrook went off and he has every right to be super pissed off. You lose, you're hurt, you're in the tunnel, they're dumping popcorn on you. A guy that would never say anything to your face in a real interaction where there could be something costly happening physically, that guy would never say anything to Westbrook. I mean, honestly, anytime you've ever had anybody come up to you and then as soon as it's face to face, it's always like, oh, I mean, hell, even on Twitter, you can be like, what are you talking about? If you do that, then they'll say like, oh, big fan. And then they

retweet your reply. But when I'll see, you know, LeBron tweet about it, like the NBA has to do something. NBA has to do something because there's also something that's happened more and more in society. And that is, is there any way that I can make my current situation look worse than it actually is? Right. Is there a way that I can present this as situation look worse than it actually is, right? Is there a way that I can present this as if me, NBA player, is a victim in this case? And in this case, yes, Westbrook is a victim and certainly Trey Young in that spot at MSG. But when I see LeBron go like, the NBA needs to address this, literally the incident had been minutes old, first of all. And I know that LeBron's doing it to make sure the nba is held accountable but do you think this is an actual nba problem because i'd ask you again is there any version of live

interaction with fans and players in these settings where nothing is ever going to happen okay because that's just not that's not going to this isn't adam silver's fault there's there's nothing to do to make sure this is avoided a hundred percent so when it happens it's kind of like hey we're all going to sound off and show you how mad we are. The media is going to jump in and be like, the NBA needs to step up. You need to ban this guy. Fine, ban him. You need to embarrass him, arrest him, simple assault. Fine, go ahead, do all those things. I would never argue against any of it. But when it's presented as the league needs to do something, like beyond what? Like empty the arenas forever? We just tried that, by the way.

And I don't think you're going to want that on the revenue split. I'll never forget the first wake-up call of heckling where I felt like an absolute asshole. Middlebury, Vermont. UVM, Middlebury, lacrosse game. UVM wins. We're all going back to the parking lot to our cars. Middlebury player on a golf cart. I think he was actually hurt and he was being carted off to like a training room. And I said something like, yeah, you know, we got you or something stupid. It wasn't nasty.

It wasn't like that. It was just me, a bunch of guys. We're all looking at each other. He's carted off. We're all non-players going back to the car, excited because those are all roommates. They're all our best friends. It was a nice win. And the Middlebury lacrosse player just looked back and was like, play a sport. And it was one of the top five loser moments of my life where I felt like such a fucking clown. And I was like, yeah.

I have no retort. None. And he was so dismissive, and he was so right, and he delivered the line perfectly, and there was just silence amongst my group of friends because he was right. And trust me, it didn't bother anyone as much as it bothered me to not be a Division I athlete. So he hit me for a long time. It's been almost 25 years. And just for anybody who's on the heckling, antagonizing players side of thing, just bring that lesson with you next time you're sitting in the Loge section. Excited to have John Hollinger join us.

He was one of my favorite guests back in the day, back on one of the original podcasts going back well over a decade now. Yeah. ESPN, senior NBA with The Athletic and part of the Memphis Grizzlies front office from 2012-2019. It's been a long time, John. What's up? I'm doing great. How you been? Good. So there's a bunch of stuff that I want to get to. And, you know, we've been trying to book you for weeks. So now to have you on the day after that Gobert, uh, game, probably not great timing for some of the discussion that I wanted to have. Uh, I'm not an anti Gobert guy though. So I don't want to do that first. Um, I think the big, the bill and I were talking about too, cause you have an MVP vote, correct? I do not have an actual vote, but no, I wrote a column as, as if I had a ballot,

but I do not have a ballot. All right, you don't? But no, I wrote a column as if I had a ballot, but I do not have a ballot. All right. Yeah, because probably the front office thing, they probably weren't in a hurry to give it back to you anyway. So you never know. I don't know how it all works. Okay. So your MVP ballot, if it existed, but for the purposes of the athletic, was what?

It was Nicole Jokic won. Then I had Rudy Gobert second and Steph Curry third. Okay. I think the Gobert one is the one that blew a lot of people's minds. Sure. So let's go. I think people understand the defense part, I think, right? Like he's going to be defensive player of the year. He's the best defensive player in the league right now,

protects the rim, all that. I think his offensive value gets underestimated. Like the whole system revolves around him even though he doesn't have the ball in a lot of ways he's running around a to b to c screen screen screen rim run rim run rim run and he he's kind of like the energizer boner bunny even though he's so big that he keeps running around to do all this. And he's so effective as a rim runner because he's just so long that the whole defense has to suck in. And that's what makes all the three-point shooting they surround him with so effective is that these guys are taking, you know, lick their fingers, corner

threes, because the guy from the weak side has to suck in so hard to take away the lob to go bear. So I think as an offensive threat, he gets really underestimated. And so to me, Utah had the best record in the league, and their system is built around him, not just defensively, but offensively. And so in terms of

value, I think, and he didn't, the other thing he and Jokic both had going for them, of course, is they didn't miss any games, whereas most of the other contenders missed considerable time. And so when you ask yourself who was the most valuable over the course of this regular season, to me, he was second. The numbers for Gobert have always been something, like, I remember the first time seeing them

and understanding, like, years ago. I remember, like, I'll never forget, because Zach Lowe, like, was going back and forth with me. He remember like i'll never forget zach low like was going back and forth with me and he's like hey who do you have for this or whatever and he was like have you seen some of the gobert numbers and i go they're absurd the on off court stuff yeah the net rating defensively for him because you know as somebody who has basically been one of i would say one of the most important voices in analytics being understood and just the value of the things that we look at versus what we used to look at traditionally. You deserve a lot of credit for that. So when you started to understand those, you'd go,

this is real? Like this on-off is real with him? Like this is crazy how far away. And if you look at some of the box score plus minus stuff where he is defensively the same way that I've argued Steph offensively in comparison to the rest of the league is off the charts and all those things are great I think the problem with having him second overall at least on my side of it is that when I went through I was going through synergy and his per possession stuff like I think it's 82 percent of all of his offensive players are like dependent plays it's almost like tall Klay Thompson Klay's first two years where everything was clay off of someone else. So he's not, people have a lot of trouble with the MVP, not being the guy dribbling

the ball 15 times and then taking a 20 foot pull up. Right. Like that's just our idea of what the MVP should be. Right. And he's not that guy. Exactly. So he's also creating a lot for other people without ever touching the ball. So I think that's the part that gets missed so how would you look at it then from a front office like would you when you're looking at him and you would hear say a media member just trash gobert and say all right yeah but a lot of this is just hard rolls it's offensive rebounds if you post them up no there's no there's no stretching the floor and the way we're so enamored with bigs that can stretch the floor all that kind of stuff. What would you talk about in a front office conversation when you would know that there's so many people in the media that look at Gobert and actually

think he's incredibly overrated now, or look at your vote and think it's absurd? I just know from our time in Memphis, we heavily, heavily interior team. We could not score against Utah. I mean, that's, that's how you can see his value, at least from our perspective is like, if we beat them, it was like 76, 73, you know? And this was, I mean, and this was even kind of the younger version of Gobert who's probably, you know, wasn't quite at the level maybe he's played this year. This to me me, has been his best season by far. Even, like, even last season, I thought he actually slipped the lid a bit from his previous Defensive Player of the Year level, and this year he's gone back up and even exceeded it, to me.

Just, you know, to play at that size with that level of energy, I think the whole game is really underestimated um yeah look i i've seen you know i've made a joke this year that that boston when they played utah seemed to be the only team that didn't understand what gobert does at the rim like you'll say like hey challenge shot blockers and it's like yeah but don't challenge him and game two game two with memphis is a great example of it because I think there's two sides of the argument with it too, where you go, he changed that game in that a couple minutes stretch, not just with the two blocks that he had, but he had three hard rolls where he finished.

And it was like this two minute stretch and that kind of changed the game. And then, you know, Mitchell came back in and then Memphis just wouldn't go away. So credit to them. But I think there's another part of it where you go okay John Morant who's basically a drive guy he's not stretching the floor at all he goes for 70 plus points only behind Mike and for his first two playoff games ever so if Gobert is making that kind of impact how come Jaws putting up those numbers which again I think I already know where your answer is going to be but some people will see it as simply as that yeah I. I, I mean, to me watching those first two games, I mean,

John got a lot of those points, uh, off, off a flow off stopping short of go bear and making that floater. And they also, I mean, obviously game one too, they had the thousand on go bear and they kind of abused favors in the

minutes he was in the game. So they, they got, they got some money there too, but I mean, John Moran was tremendous. I mean, it was the other answer, obviously. I mean, he, he played great these last two games. so they got they got some money there too but i mean john morant was tremendous i mean was the other answer obviously i mean he he played great these last two games yeah because if you

go through it and i pulled it up um you know if you go net rating defensive rating i mean net like this is where i did a filter this morning 55 regular season games which can even eliminate some of the guys because so many guys missed games. Yeah. But, you know, Gobert's net rating, and this is basically the guys that played 55 games regular season. He's number one in the NBA at plus 16. And the guys that are behind him are Niang, Ingles, and Royce O'Neal in the NBA, which tells you because those guys are out there with Gobert. The first non-jazz player is Giannis, who's plus 10.

He's five points behind Gobert, which is just a galaxy away when you start to look at some of these numbers. But then I'll look at, okay, well, what happens in certain playoff matchups? Because we've seen it in the regular season too. What is Steph looking to do? He wants to get Gobert and he wants to attack and stretch him away from the floor. Chris Paul of Phoenix plays Utah and Chris Paul's healthy. It's a long ways away if it even happens. I can tell from the regular season matchups, he's hunting for Gobert. So in the context of like numbers versus what's

actually happening out there, I think there's at least, that's part of my argument for at least not having Gobert second overall in the MVP vote where I go, I still have a hard time with him with some of the stuff, even though I do understand the numbers and how impressive they are, that we still have guards that are going, I actually want him because in a switch and getting him further away, I can expose him more than I'm worried about. Well, the other reason you want him on the switch though, is that that means he's not at the rim. Right. Right. I mean mean like if you get

because like if niang's out there you want niang the problem is once you get by niang you still have to deal with gobert at the rim whereas if you have gobert out on the perimeter with you and you get by him okay i can finish over bogdan vish like that's not a big deal so i think there's another piece of that too and it's also part of just playing with a five is that people are hunting him to try to get him away and get because i don't care who gobert is once he says to start backpedaling against dame against chris paul against steph it's just he's it's it's going to be over for him the same way it's hard for any it's why they do that with all their pigs right yeah and that's kind of why i

always love garnett and why he'd be the perfect five now is that you never want to switch like you were like actually i don't want you out here because i can't get past you which was the absurdity of what garnett was in his prime yeah and i mean you saw that last year with bam out of bio a little bit where and now teams have figured out to attack miami they actually have to go other places and and not try to get that switch with bam and instead try to kind of maroon him on the other side of the floor if he can. Yeah. Cause the jaw, like they go to Quinn Snyder and you know, everybody's like, Hey, how can you stop this guy? And he's like, we got to stop him going vertical. And you're just like, good luck. Cause you can't like you can Conley tried O'Neill tried. And you're right.

Because the dangerous part about jaw who had put him in that floater group, maybe trace the best data. I mean, I don't have the floater numbers in front of me i think steph's terrific as well but when you can stop short and then even jock can stand there for a second or two and everybody's freaked out about what he's going to do and it actually creates space just by the anxiety of what job because his jump is quicker than everybody else his verticals insane and he makes i mean he makes floaters you watch where he's like jumping sideways five feet and then shooting the floater like the the degree of difficulty on his floaters you watch where he's like jumping sideways five feet and then shooting the floater. Like the degree of difficulty on his floaters is actually pretty impressive. Like Trey Young's floaters are pretty good, too.

But Trey's more straight line, like his floaters are impressive because he's running full speed and then shoots a floater. And you're like, wow, you can do that. And with Ja, it's more just the athleticism of his floaters where he's moving so much left to right or north-south in space while he's taking it. Yeah, the angle part of it is really impressive. It's almost like these mini Euro steps involved in also getting off to like a Zion level jump. We did this in the open a little bit because I'll ask. And you were gone just for our listeners and you were gone before jaw was was taken correct uh yeah yeah right i mean it was it was there was there's some gray area there but effectively yes maybe i'll ask you about the grayer uh okay because we do know this like when got when front offices have changeover yeah i think it always blows fans minds

away that they're like why are these guys change They made the change after the season, but I was still employed by them. I was still technically employed by them when we drafted Ja, but I wasn't in their room. All right, but you were part of the... I imagine they're not going to not want you as a resource. So we're... Because now, as we touched on in the beginning, it's like you're starting to hear people be like, hey, Ja should have gone one. I'm not necessarily ready to go there. But where are you on that?

So, I mean, Zion was pretty awesome this year, right? Yeah, it wasn't like he wasn't good. Right, right. It's still probably, you still probably default to that. I still think the thing you wonder about Zion is the longevity. And, you know, so if you're going to get, you know, are you going to get 10 years of job at this level in five years of Zion at his level, you know, before, before everything breaks down? I think, I think you can, I think it's fair to ask that question.

Yeah, it is. And I also have moments with job where I feel like he's going to have the most slam ball ish type ACL injury we've ever seen in a basketball game. Right. He's so wiry and the forces he's putting on that body. I know. You kind of cringe sometimes and wonder. Or if he's just going to crumple in a heap going for one of these poster dunks on the wrong seven-footer. Yeah.

I know. I don't want him to change anything about it, but some of his landing. But you're right. I mean, it's safe for bet if you're going health-wise, it would still be Ja over Zion. Was there ever any... You said you weren't in the room, I guess. I mean, it's safer bet. If you were going health wise, it would still be jaw over Zion. Was there ever any, you said you weren't in the room, I guess. I mean, was there ever any discussion? I mean, all I know is like, I've been, you know, up until that point,

like I had gone on scouting trips to see job because I was still part of that front office. So like we, we really liked me. We didn't know we were getting the second pick. Remember, we were still like in the playoff race, the first half of the season, and then the bottom fell out and, and we moved up from nine to two in the lottery also uh so it wasn't really a uh a heavy debate at the time but the other guy everyone was talking about was barrett and like we knew we liked job better than barrett like we were pretty sure about that um so uh yeah

job for zion it didn't really come up that much. I think Zion was such a default for everyone at number one. That would have been hard. Yeah, but I'm glad you answered the Barrett part of it too because going into that year, Barrett was supposed to be one. And then pretty quickly you were like, yeah, that's probably not going to happen. And then you could just hear, as you guys do, more and more people that I would talk to,

like, have you watched Ja yet? Do not fall for the competition thing here. This guy's's nuts. Like it's, he's all that. And he's in the conversation. Um, the thing I always liked about you is you always felt like a different media member when you were in the media. So what was the biggest shock to you? Once you transitioned from media to working for a team? Um, biggest shock. Uh, i don't know if shock is the right word but the the amount of time you have to spend uh or the amount of time a front office spends dealing with things that aren't really about the basketball i guess uh and and that's actually increased and i mean i talk to people this year i I know with

the COVID stuff, like it's taken over their lives and they like, can I just watch a game for like one hour, you know? And thankfully that's starting to calm down now, but a lot of the stuff with the health and maintenance of players has become a much bigger deal, even from the time I started has become a much huger thing. I mean, you saw it with the Mitchell thing with game one, there's just so many more people involved. It's not just the trainer doing, you know, thumbs up, thumbs down anymore. And so that, that's a whole layer I think that's been added on that, A, you have to do a lot of work just to understand,

and B, to manage and kind of have all the left hand and right hand know what everyone's doing and have all the processes nailed down. And when it breaks, you can get a situation like what happened with Mitchell in game one. And when it, you know, when it breaks, you can get a situation like what happened with Mitchell in game one. Yeah, the minutes discussions have been, you know, a completely new world in the way that we talked about it. And I would say I think it almost leans towards obsessive. But I mean, obsessive in that I still think there's a lot of guesswork. I think a bunch of smart people will get together.

They'll get somebody on the medical side to say this. Yeah, this is the way to go about it. And then I'm like, okay, but do you know that? Are we just trying to make something more complicated? And it's already complicated enough. Sometimes I'll argue that people will try to make simple complicated. In this case, we know the minutes and health and projection and what's the best way to have maintenance for these amazing athletes. And it's like, are you trying to make it even more? Did you ever feel like you understood something better or was it just guesswork with more data? you can say, okay, we know these loads correspond to this amount of risk, but you can't definitively say like, oh, minute 37, that's it. He's going to snap in half. And so it becomes art more than science at some point. But I do think though that it was necessary to put in guardrails at certain points,

like especially when we had Mark coming back from the foot injury at the beginning of that next season. I think those guardrails are really helpful to prevent a re-injury. And, you know, we were able to get him through the whole season and made the all-star team. So you can see where the benefit comes in but it it could be the process of getting there can be hugely frustrating for everybody including the players yeah i can't i can't imagine because you've got coaches and if they've been around longer some assistants are gonna be like you'd be kidding me and then this isn't the way we used to do it and also i mean the player like they're competitors they were like, they want to be out there. And like, even if, you know, even if they're obviously injured to the point that like something is dangling, they're like, come on, man, let me go. You know? So when you're just saying like preventive rest, you're not going to play tonight. They're like, what? Like, what are you talking about?

about. So that whole discussion, I think now, thankfully, as times have evolved, I think there's more understanding even on the player side now that, okay, this is a thing that can help extend my career and keeps me healthy and whatnot. So there's benefits to it, but it's still a very tricky discussion to have all the way around. Just to understand what's happening than to herd all the cats and get everybody pointed in the same direction as to what your strategy is going to be. How challenging is it to actually pull off a trade? It's weird. Sometimes it depends who you're dealing with and depends on the complexity of it. I've actually had a trade that was done in one call with the guy on the complexity of it i've actually had a trade uh that was done in one call with the guy on the other line literally just going okay and and uh i've does that make you

nervous are you like wait a minute maybe i don't want to do this no it was uh it was close enough to the trade deadline that i i thought that was it was when you see once you get within a couple hours the trade deadline all the bullshit goes away and people just, I can swear in this, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. And because people just have to show their cards, right? And so people that have been bluffing with you for three months, they eventually have to come clean if you haven't taken the bait on their bluff. So it's interesting, though, because there are some teams that you just know that it's probably not going to happen. Like just whatever the personal dynamics are of the relationships in the front offices or just the way the person on the other side operates, you just know that, okay, we're probably not getting a deal done with this team like ever. Yeah. Cause I think we're all the people that, you know, have, have covered it and have done it for a long time. And we've seen more, um,

transition. I, you know, I don't know if David Kahn has ruined it for media members forever, but, um, I don't know if you're tight with Kahn. So I apologize if that's, that's, uh, no. Um, but the relationship part of it is completely dismissed in your ability to do the job. And whether it's the agents or other front office people, I mean, player to player, there's just going to be a different level of conversation. It doesn't mean that they're going to trust each other. As you know, on the media side and the front office side, there are, there are decision makers that talk their players up to a point where it's just absurd. And then there's other guys that just like to talk

and there's other guys that will never talk because they feel like just by talking on the phone that they could subconsciously give you some kind of lean that's a competitive disadvantage, all these different things. So I always feel like it's so much harder to find ways to change your team in the NBA. I mean, football, you can make all sorts of cuts. Coaching has more of an impact. Baseball, there's less financial

restrictions. But for an NBA front office to say like, hey, we have a real need and we got to figure something out, there's still a pretty good chance you're never going to be able to address it. Yeah. Or you have to grossly overpay to address it. Yeah, because you just have a limited number of partners between the salary cap and the type of players who are available that could actually address your need. And then the position of those teams, like if there's somebody on another team who you're like, oh, he'd be perfect here, but that's the team we're competing with

at the top of the standings, then obviously they're not going to trade you that guy. the team we're competing with at the top of the standings, then obviously they're not going to trade you that guy. So you end up sifting through some maybe suboptimal options that can still help you or overpaying a little bit. I mean, when you're a contender, those are the types of discussions you're having, definitely. And we were kind of in that position for the majority of the time I was there. So it does get tricky. Did you go into it thinking like, I'm going to have an approach,

like I want to always be positive? Because you have to worry about the ownership conversations that happen where owners can get on the phone with each other. Depending on who's president, GM, who's making decisions, who might be more forthcoming. I would almost wonder if you'd have your guard up a little bit more because you'd be like, hey, John, you know, I was calling about the roster.

And then you're sitting there being like, we love Bryce Cotton. Like, what do you mean? You know, like just talking your own guys up. Like what your strategy was as a guy talking with other front officers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Usually you want to be somewhat truthful because the team, like if a team doesn't know what you, what you're trying to do or what you're looking for, it's, it's hard for them to imagine and be creative in terms of ways to help you that you might not have thought of.

It's just so much harder to arrive at a, at a trade at that point. So if you're actually serious about doing something, it does help to be somewhat honest about it uh where it gets tricky that like when they ask you about a player on your team typically even if the guy sucks you're gonna be like oh we love that guy what are you talking about and then uh you know as it gets closer to the closer to the trade deadline you call them back and they're like actually would you take a second round pick to take them off our hands, you know? But the bigger picture, I think it's like, the best approach to me is like relatively honest with about like a 20% fantasy layer on top. And that to me usually gets you to your best outcomes where you're still talking about things that are somewhat realistic. So they're going to stay on the phone with you. They understand what they're, what you're trying to do.

Um, but you're not, uh, negotiating against yourself either. Back to this season. Um, who did you pick for the finals? Uh,

who did I pick at the start of the season? I think I, you can do now. I mean, if you want to, right, right. Well,

if you want to give us the star, I know how some guys can be like, well, I picked in the beginning. And you're like, all right, I think I think I had the Clippers. And did I have Philadelphia in the East at the beginning of the year? I think I might have. I mean, this is before Brooklyn got hardened, obviously. I mean, right now, I mean, Brooklyn has the most talent. To me, it's the question of can those three guys all stay on the court through an entire playoffs? Because all three of them have had some pretty serious health issues recently. And so, you know, is the wear and tear of the postseason going to knock them out? If they're all three on the court, Milwaukee and Philadelphia are really interesting matchups because they don't have the

size to deal with them. But I just wonder if they're just going to score so much that it doesn't matter. Does Brooklyn make you change the way you look at like what the acceptable level of defense is for a team? Yeah. I mean, not really. It's more like,

I mean, you're just trying to do points scored versus points against, right? Like if you have the best offense ever, then you can, you know, what's acceptable for defense obviously changes. So I think they're just inevitably, their pathway is just being so ridiculous on offense that it doesn't matter. Now they've actually played some pretty good defense in these first two games

against Boston, but I also think, you know, Boston to quote our former player, Matt Barnes, Boston brought some spoons to a gunfight. Yeah. Now, Boston, when you go in 20 minutes for Jabari Parker and he's actually getting buckets for you, you're probably in some trouble in the playoffs. Would you rather have this Brooklyn offense

or the Golden State one with Durant? Oh, that's a great question. I mean, do I get to keep Draymond? Then I'd rather have my defense, right? If you say, hey, this, because we realized that too, historically, and I brought this up before that, yes, Brooklyn per 100 is who they are, but they're per 100 in today's game which is still absurdly more offensive you know than even five years ago so four years ago um so i look my point is that i get what the numbers say but i'd rather have those five guys from golden state than i would these five thing the thing that golden state had that brooklyn doesn't yet have is kind of the they were so in sync with each

other you know that it wasn't just that they were all individually awesome. It was that then, then their, their system, like it just all fit and worked. So Brooklyn, Brooklyn's Brooklyn's getting there, but there's still a lot of your turn,

my turn to, to them. And that may still take a while to, to get out of their system. You pick Phoenix in the first round over the Lakers. And clearly, we know that this is before the Paul part of this. So that changes everything. He's not looked good when he's even been out there.

I think his projection of his own health is probably a little bit higher than it feels like, at least what we've seen. We'll see what Game 3 looks like. I was surprised because I just felt like with the size, there were moments in the regular season and Davis in that last regular season game who just dominated Phoenix. And then, you know, for Davis, as much as I love him, he always feels like he needs a bit of a wake-up call sometimes to get himself going. But what was it about that matchup when both were healthy that you still liked Phoenix coming out of it? The biggest thing to me is I just didn't think LeBron was 100%. percent. And I don't think he's looked a hundred percent in these first two games. So I thought full strength Phoenix was good enough to be not full strength

Lakers. And I thought that bore out in, in game one. Now game two, obviously it didn't, didn't work out the same way. They just were able to load up so much on Booker without, without Paul being there. They do, they do need Chris Paul full strength by, I would say, game four at the latest in order to win this series. And so we'll see how that plays out. But, you know, the other thing with the Lakers, I think, you know,

I didn't allude to this when I wrote about it, but Monte Williams coached Anthony Davis in New Orleans. I think he has a pretty good idea of what you want to do against him to take away some of his strengths. If you make him a jump shooter, he can make them, but you're not scared. It's not messing up your defense. It's just like, okay, great shot.

Let's go down the other end. And, uh, and there's not a ton of shooting around all that for the Lakers either, especially if LeBron isn't in superhero mode. So, uh, I still think the Lakers are, are going to have some issues scoring, uh, unless they can get that version of LeBron back. they can get that version of LeBron back. What would you do if you're running the front office for the Clippers and they get bounced in the first round by the Mavs? Update my resume? No, I'm kidding. I mean, Ballmer is not known for his patience, so that's going to be an interesting thing there. I think it's interesting because the focus has been i think on the guard situation and how they don't have a real point guard and it puts a lot of pressure

on kawaii and that's part of it but the part i don't get is them getting lit on defense like you have kawaii leonard paul george patrick beverly like you you have elite perimeter one through three and luca is just shredding you these first two games and they they just look confused uh like not not on the same page of what they're of what they're even trying to do let alone whether it's the correct tactic they're not even executing the tactic correctly uh Just so many bot switches and stuff you don't expect from a veteran team in the playoffs. It's been really odd to see. But if you were going to do something with the roster, I think you probably try to trade for an upgrade of point guard. They don't really have any assets left, remember, after that Paul George deal.

But what do you think George's market? What if Kawhii's like hey i'm coming back but i'm done with george i mean what george's market that's that's the other part of it and what are you what who's who's even out there for you to trade paul george for right i think that's the bigger question like what okay we want to get rid of paul george okay what what are we parlaying him into who's the other star that's out there right now i mean that's part of why john wall and russell westbrook got traded for each other there was just nobody else left for them to be traded for right between their their contracts and where they were in their careers so something something else has to happen in another city where somebody of that caliber is available to become kawaii's new tag team partner that that's the real tricky part okay before we let you go we keep it real on this

podcast so i have like two quick ones for you because we haven't talked about this okay but when i went to be like oh i'll hit up hollinger and then i was like oh he unfollowed me what was them i'm not great on twitter but what do you think was your breaking point with me where you were like, you know what, fuck this guy. Like I, it was, it, was it a Grizzlies observation? We know it wasn't anything political. Cause I don't know that I touch on any of that stuff. Hey, we get it. You like the SEC. Um, I don't think I'm not anti UVA. So I don't know that it was that I just, for the staff here, we want to know. I was like, oh, okay. And don't follow me now because I brought it up

because I'll block you. All right? I'm not looking for the follow. Do you remember when it was like, all right, enough of this fucking Rosillo guy? I think I was working for the Grizzlies and was streamlining some of the media people out of my accounts.

Yeah, all right. Maybe. That's the honest answer. I wish I had a more humorous answer than that, but I think that's what actually happened. All right. Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough.

Okay, so then the other one, this one might be a little dicier because I don't know if I want to bring up the player name. Okay. I won't unless you want me to. Okay. But we were I thought we had a good relationship but I didn't I didn't ever like work you as a source you know what I mean like I just I didn't bug you all the time I'd say hi every now and then there's a couple times we talked pre-draft and we would just chat about some players I always felt like we were on the same page and it wasn't like I was like hey tell me everything you're doing with the Grizzlies because I also also know we don't have, you don't ask guys those kinds of questions.

And honestly, you know, unless you have the best relationship with someone, they're not going to open up that way to you. Right? Because we weren't that kind of close. I asked about a player that I actually didn't have a ton on, a foreign player in the draft. And you were like, don't waste your time. Sucks. Can't play. And I was like, oh, oh all right he's still playing oh shit okay and i'm thinking that he's a first rounder so i was like did he

just go like and you ended up you guys never had him you never you know so i could tell you who the play but it was it was funny because i was like did he just lie did he just lie to me to be like i'm just gonna lie to rassilo about this or maybe you just didn't like this guy i don't know i mean it's tough for you now because you're you're dealing blind here because you don't know the i'm not i'm dealing blind but i'm pretty sure i probably whiffed on the guy because i i don't think i would have said that just as a smoke screen yeah that's what i thought it wouldn't have been it wouldn't have been worth I would have said that just as a smokescreen. Yeah, that's what I thought. It wouldn't have been worth the trouble for me to smokescreen something like that.

Because like I said, it's not like we picked the guy, right? No, you never had him. Do you want me to tell you who it is or do we want to just not go there? If you're 1% hesitant, we don't have to do it. Don't do it for the sake of the pod. No, you can tell me after the show. Okay, all right, perfect. We'll do it that way. Well, we're not going to be able to keep in touch, though, because I'm going to do it. Don't do it for the sake of the pod. No, you can tell me after the show. Okay. All right. Perfect. We'll do it that way. Well, we're not going to be able to keep in touch though,

because I'm going to block you. Please check out Hollinger's work on The Athletic. The playoff coverage has been terrific. You guys do a great job. And as always, appreciate your time. Thank you. This is a real treat for me, and I hope for some of you who know who he is or at least are going to learn about him today esoteric so czar face rap group new album super what is out and for fans of mf doom it's his chance to hear him again um before we get to

the mf doom part of this because i definitely want to talk about your story. And I know about you through my brother. My brother's a lot cooler than me. He was first a DJ, a music producer. Now, I mean, he's making his music. He's doing all those things. But he used to go to like, was it Middle East? And he would go to some of those like underground shows. And he opened for Mr. Lift one time when he was super young. And like it blew his mind because he was like he was so cool to me he saw Jay Live do the deal where he Jay Live does the intro where he's mixing his own while he's rapping over the top of it so he's freaking out and then he knew about you and he's like you got to check out Tsar Face you got to check out Esoteric you got to

check out this whole deal because you know it's Inspector Deck from Wu-Tang and this whole deal like so what was it like for you what was your start like because Boston as as we all know is not exactly a place where it's easy to break out and rap yeah right um I think we just started out like anyone else that grew up on the culture of like hip-hop in the late 80s early 90s young TV raps had a huge impression on all of us and you start you know really falling in love with the music and then of course you want to create some yourself and it just i fell in love with it and it started probably realistically i think i first recorded a record really early 90s and uh started doing talent shows at like the shabu roller rink and um a couple other

spots then graduated to the middle east in the western front it's just kind of a boston cambridge thing for a while and then soon there's an independent hip-hop boom you press your own vinyl and it goes everywhere and then the rise of the internet and then people in italy know your name and then you're going out to italy doing shows there and it's like wow it gets to your head but um yeah i think i think uh it's just the timing was was was right on our side because in 1988 i was i just thought it was magic making a record there's no way you could do it without a record label how many people told you we're the exact we're almost the exact same age um the comic book references are hilarious to me i'm like i'm probably like you or i get mad at the secret wars movie because i'm like the

comic was was way cooler and what they did this isn't this isn't secret wars like what are you guys calling the secret wars that's not what this is um which is such a i'm afraid to even expose myself that i understand what that means, but I can't imagine how many people were like, what are you going to do? Like how many people told you to not pursue what you've done with your life? Um, a lot, man. And I think that's the fuel, you know, you want to prove people wrong. You want to let them know that, you know, you're nothing is really going to take you out of the game. You're going to stand strong and get up, you know, you fall down eight times, get up nine times. I feel like it's been like that forever

for us. But I think that gives us a lot of that energy. People doubt us. And then, you know, but here we are, you know, and a lot of our contemporaries have trailed off and done other things and we're still doing what we love, you know? So I think in the beginning, you know, my dad actually was who I think most people would think would be the person that would want to steer you away from something like that but he was actually uh he embraced it he encouraged it and then he started trying to fall in love with hip-hop and like you know listening to stetsasonic and epnd and things like that And he supported me in that way. And I think that he was an English teacher.

So I learned to play with words a little bit. And I felt like I could impress him, even though I know, you know, it's not Shakespeare. But it's, you know, a way of using the English language in a way that, I don't know, that's effective. Touches people in a way. Who was your guy then growing up i mean i imagine we probably have a lot of crossover on like the first because i just you know look i remember everybody first of all was run dmc because you're like this is so cool because it was like it felt like it was only them and that's only them for the way we were exposed to it not you know living in a city or at least for me you know i'm not speaking for you not being in new

york city at the start all this stuff and then you know whether it was i mean shit rob bass was cool for us in junior high you know um rock him was probably like the first guy and then you know this west coast thing comes in but yet it's you know stetsasonic to me was like how are these guys not more popular you know what i mean and i remember the first time i heard guru's voice and manifest and i was like oh my god like what is this like who is who's this fucking guy and then right you know you learn later on like how much you know dj premiere and the whole deal um d nice i that whole tape and then getting to know derrick jones you know d nice getting to know him later on in life and be like no i'm not kidding you like that was i made our i think seventh grade basketball team come out to that might set up a tape cassette and come out to my name is d nice and that was our

layup line deal and my dad was cool with it he was like yeah whatever whatever you guys want to do but uh who are those voices for you early on that you were like okay you know this is what i'm about now first of all i think layup lines and coming out to hip-hop back then it was a was a staple for a lot of a lot of kids even the kids that were into guns and roses and aerosmith and all that stuff they were cool if we came out to public enemy or you know because there was you know there's the kids on the team that loved hip-hop and the kids on the team that love guns and roses and all that stuff but like nwa there's a middle ground right there you know what i'm saying and you could you could uh you could really express yourself.

Like we'd walk into gymnasiums with a big radio, blast the PE or something like that. It just gave you a little bit of energy. But my guys, Chuck D, KRS-One, Guru, EPMD, Cool Keith, Ultramag, you know, and really any one of these guys, man. You know, I was saying the other day, I was talking to Dec about the Mount Rushmore of MCs. And we have the same ones, you know, there's Cool G Rap, KRS, Chuck D.

I would put Ice-T on there, too. But it's interesting talking to him about that stuff since he was, he got right in the very early nineties when he could still look up to somebody like Big Daddy Kane in the same way I would. But, you know, when Wu-Tang exploded, they exploded and it, it just, the levels, the levels changed, you know, where I was and where deck was but it's just interesting for his perspective growing up in new york so how did that come about then like how did how did the inspected deck connection with you and then the foundation with 7l and czar face like how did that go from holy shit these this is wu-tang and now like i'm in a group with them yeah uh we made our first record with deck together in probably 99 um and it was for a 12-inch single and deck was a feature and back then getting a feature from somebody like expect deck was just unheard of and the feature game then was not as uh it didn't seem like such a staple for people like you have to fill up a record with features nowadays we drop a record

you know people want to know who the feature's on it. I'm like, man, we're the features. We should be the reason you're buying the record. Not because... But I think it's just a reflex for people. Even if the greatest rapper of all time is going to drop a record, I still want to know who the guests are

just out of curiosity. But yeah, 99, 98 or something, we made our first record called Speak a Real Word with the Deck. And then I was starstruck out of my mind. We recorded it in Brooklyn. And when he first recorded right in front of me, he wrote the rhyme probably in about 15 minutes and just delivered it maybe two takes max.

And I was like, this is why it's back to deck. Because it's just an effortless thing for him. So we kept a relationship throughout the years where we'd send him beats, he'd reject them or he'd take them or, you know, we try to, we just kept in touch. And then in 2000 something, maybe 2010, Stephen Hill had the idea of forming a group with Inspector Deck, which to me was just, Harris, I just didn't think we could ever pull that off.

I didn't think Deck would ever be down to it, down to do it. And he was, he was down to do it. And then I, I was just blown away by that and decided to come up with a, some type of a, a figurehead for the group, some type of a, you know, a representation of the music and came up with our face and the character. representation of the music and came up with our face and the character and that has transitioned into comics and action figures and uh that world yeah i mean you got you guys described czar face as a hero and a villain um and if if you don't know if you're listening to this right now and you're like what the hell's going on here's the deal you guys have fun with it you know you have

i was lucky enough right before everything kind of shut down i got to see up in la and i'll admit like rap concerts usually it's not my number one to-do list you know i'll be like all right some guys yeah sometimes you're like i don't know and i was like you know i wanted to come see you guys because i'd had so much fun and going backwards and learning about everything and it does have such an old school feel to it so for guys our age that maybe look at rap now and like i you know i don't really know what's going on which isn't entirely fair by the way but um that's what draw me you know draw me to you guys but you're fun about it it's it's a fun show and it is kind of about the beats first which you know i don't want to speak

for you guys but like there's there's a musical element to it that is beyond um some other smaller shows that you may go to where you feel like okay i got it you know yeah i think um it kind of came out that way naturally because that seems to be our common ground me and deck you know what i mean he grew up in tilly hill projects in staten island you know and i grew up out here in mass and it just, I can't talk about some of the things that he grew up with. And I think we connect on the pop culture stuff because we both grew up with comic books. You know, he told me he used to steal, steal comic books from Method Man back in the day. And Method Man would go into a store and he'd take the ghost rider or whatever

it was, be out. They fostered their love for comics that way. And I think that's a meeting point for us and having fun with it. And we're both, you know, as you said, you and I are the same age and Dex right around there too. And, you know, you can't really at this point in your life, you know, be glorifying some of the things you might have glorified at a younger age everyone was a little bit wiser now you know we just uh i think that's kind of where we you know make the music and it comes off fun and i do remember when you came out to that la show you hit me and you said uh forgiveness on the la hat and i was like i was mortified that you were there because i you know because i saw a picture of you and you had the Red Sox hat on.

And I was like, damn. But I was caught up in the moment, man. Plus, you know, Mookie, Manny, you know, my, my, Loretta, whoever else went to the Toshers, man. I still like the Toshers. It's a great hat. I'm not going to lie. I used to rock one during the summer when I was back home years ago. So it's

it's somewhere around here was there was there ever like when you were hanging out because look you've had jizz on who i think is like ridiculous when when i mean liquid swords is still a go-to for me i i don't know that there's 10 rap albums i'll go back to as much as that one yeah um you know you've had method man on so you've worked with these guys and as you mentioned you're a little starstruck was there any resistance or like you know expected x bringing you around you're like i'm gonna i'm gonna start working with this guy and guys are like like what was that evolution of those relationships like with dudes learning about you for the first time being like who's this guy like what are you doing oh yeah yeah totally yeah that's what's one of his his stories he likes tell. He got so much shit for working with us.

These white boys, I can't believe you're fucking with these white boys. Why don't you fuck with us? We're finishing this and doing that. That's Dex's words telling me. But I think the music kind of speaks for itself. And clearly it's been rewarding for us to continue. Well, you know,

we, we've made about five or six records, maybe more, maybe, you know, maybe probably more, um, together.

And we got to, we have a good working relationship and I think he respects what I bring to the table with the lyrics. And obviously I respect what he does and we just, you know, we got a good thing going. For MF doom fans doom fans you're gonna want to check this out as well because you'd worked with doom for a long time um you know the way it's he's such a hard guy to describe like rap is so much about i'm cool i'm gonna take your girl i'm gonna fuck you up and doom could just could make you

feel stupid but he didn't want to be cool about it like he was almost making fun of himself in so many different ways and if anybody were ever explained to me like yeah there's this guy it's doom wears a mask and he cuts up all these these weird sound bites and you'd be like what are you talking about rap skits on albums and he's what does he do and then i found this interview from beef on the sample for beef rap where it was actually a vhs cartoon that he had a dr doom cartoon where there's this weird part where doom's mad and he's telling like his his uh you know one of one of his guys that he bosses around yeah yeah he's like he's like all right you know lasers

we're gonna do and there's just just like it might even be two measures where it's this collection. And MF Doom was like, all right, that's what I'm using for the sample in beef wrap. And you can hear it where there's a part of a laser going off in the cartoon. And because they didn't have the real audio, they used the sample from the VHS tape. And so it's still in there. And when you hear it, if you have an ear, I mean, some people do, some people don't. I hear it. I'm like, oh, that's perfect.

And I couldn't get out of my head. And then he was, and he built the whole song around it. And, you know, I'm, I'm just, I just am so enamored with him as you can hear me. And I'm obviously T this back to you because you were friends with him. You worked with him, all this stuff. But like when he has a line where it says, if these walls could talk, they probably still wouldn't listen. And you're just like, this guy was on another level of storytelling but in a way his style was

storytelling where he was still just talking to himself and yeah it's just it's so different and i got my rap friends were like what the fuck are you listening to because you know you don't work out to it necessarily you don't throw it on at parties necessarily, but it's just a collection of brilliance and different ways that he could do things that there's never going to be anyone like him. There's just no point. No one would even bother trying to be like him. It'd be impossible. Right.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. And that, you know, as you said, a guy with a mask, you know, I remember going to a Doom show in Boston, bringing maybe the second or third date I ever had with my now wife. This was probably 2003, maybe. I don't know. We were just I don't know. We're just kind of getting together. And I knew Doom was playing down the street, this place called Hibernia. And I'm bringing this girl who's, you know, she likes hip hop and stuff.

and I'm bringing this girl who's, you know, she likes hip hop and stuff, but, you know, we're probably, you would think we'd react the same way your buddies would about describing the scenario, you know. So we go in and yeah, like this is the guy we came to see and he's in the corner of the building with no stage. There's probably

30, 35 people there total and he's got this mask on and he's rapping and the 30 people there know every word they're going crazy and this was probably right on the right before uh mad villain dropped that he in adult swim uh raised his profile a lot and people really caught on to his his brilliance of course there was the underground core dating back to the 90s um but you you add, he just had a way with words and he could speak about himself in third person. He could take on different personas. He could say things that, you know, a villain

would say, but not necessarily Daniel Dumoulin would say as a person. You know, he just had a way with bending words, making the most obscure words rhyme multisyllabically syllable for syllable for so you know five syllable rhymes themes it's just uh you're right there will never be another one okay so that's i'm so glad you gave me your first experience seeing him when was the first time like verse maybe meeting him but meeting him knowing that like okay i might be working with this guy like i i don't want to speak for were you friends you friends with him? I mean, was he a close friend? Well, we grew closer over the past four or five years working together. But we shared a bill with him, his first show as MF2, because he came out as Zevlovex, KMD, under third base in the, in the, um, early, uh,

early nineties, late eighties. And, uh, you know, and then reinvented himself as MF Doom. I was a huge fan of KMD, huge fan. I mean, because those guys took the music in a different direction and it wasn't all Raiders hats and death threats. It was more, you know, uh, common everyday things. And I made me feel, I don't know, put me in a good place, good mood. And then we, we wound up doing a show with him and it was his first appearance as MF Dune,

but I knew it was Zev Lovex from KMD. I don't know how many people knew that there, but I am now on the stage with an icon to me, somebody I had on my wall and it's just completely different because everyone else in the bill i consider my peers my equals regardless of talent but he was just on another level and now here i am uh about to wet my pants because this is this is zelda x and you know he became mf2 so I guess we had a series of run-ins throughout the years. Some of my best friends at Brick Records put out one of his early collaborations with MF Grimm, shot the, you know, photographed the whole thing, did the graphic design and so forth. We just had a long history, but timing has a way of making things work out.

We never worked together until 2015. And then we hit a stride and worked on a couple of making things work out so we never worked together until 2015 and then we hit a stride and worked on a couple full-length albums yeah and again for people trying to keep up um that may not know about him i mean the kmd stuff goes back to like 88 and then you know the zev love x so it's just him he was different i mean he was different in that he was like he was reinventing himself with these different personas these different characters did it change how he was was it like an actor playing a different part and then you know playing a different movie part years later like how different would he be i mean you're telling me you got you connected more with the birth of doom

and all that kind of stuff but yeah but what was he like kind of you know just hanging out with as he was going through these different creative process well i think the the art the way he'd approach the music is the way a true artist would approach the music i mean the mask really represented um you know it took it tried to take the focus off him as a person and that gave him more of a world to explore and create a universe where he could be his character, Doom. And I think it was a stroke of genius. And he's a very private guy. One of the few artists that, as everyone clamors for attention on social media and does everything they possibly can to try to get their 30 seconds of fame or their 15,000 likes or whatever. Doom didn't have to do any of that.

Doom actually got the energy and the exposure through the mystery of it all, keeping the mystique. It's just a stroke of genius. And me, I can't help but go on Instagram and share things, you know, share things from my, my life. It's just something that is in, Doom was able to hold all that back and keep everything to himself. And that just, that just only made him stronger and only made them, the curiosity grow from everyone,

you know? Give me your best Doom story, being in a studio, working with him, you know, doing some of the stuff you guys did. We he recorded uh in parts unknown me and def recorded here so we didn't record the the albums together it was more of an email thing but we kept in touch a lot um virtually and um i think going on our first album i wanted to to put a skit together that was kind of a paid tribute to the first KMD album where they had a lot of voice acting and samples interacting with one another.

So him and I worked on that and I would have to, you know, ask him to say, get out of here and you're not going to rob that store. And he would because he would come back with, you know with a whole file of all of these soundbites. And then I would reverse engineer it to build dialogue around that for the skit. And anytime I sent anything to him, he would send it back intentionally misspelled and in all caps. He would change words in their meetings if i had a beat called meat in the subway he'd spell it meat in the subway like the food and he just had a really unique way of doing things it was just charming all the way around you know it was a real honor to be able to make even one record with him never mind you know a couple albums worth that had to

be an amazing feeling though uh to go from yeah you know i'll i'll do some stuff to like it felt like he was to be part of super what the latest release that we have and to be to be a part of it you know you're you're not looking at him as your equal because i know you wouldn't do that but somebody where it's like we're now beyond i mean i know i had that moment at least for me with some of the espn stuff for years where my buddies would be texting me being like you're on a show. You're on SportsCenter right now with this guy that we watched in college. And you're telling him like about something like, does that ever blow your mind?

And then go, you know, look, eventually you get numb. You walk out of the tunnel, you go on, you wave and and whatever. But there still had to be moments where you go, this guy's like excited to come on as our face out. you go, this guy's like excited to come on a Zarface album. Like he's excited to be a part of this. And the whole mask concept, I mean, not his mask, but the album concept where he was the guy, that was the whole battle, Zarface versus Doom.

That had to be an incredible moment for you, realizing like, I'm doing real stuff now. It is, you know, and I feel like part of, for better or worse, I always focus on what's next, what's next. And I think I don't let myself sit back and reflect on that of course it hits me but i'm always thinking and i'm always thinking about what what we what we can do next and with this super what it's much different since it came out um you know after he had passed and it's just a record that will always feel different,

hit different to me because of the nature of it. And it was all recorded long before he passed. And, uh, but it came out, you know, after, and it just holds a special place.

That in a weird way is, um, it's kind of a perfect Doom final chapter. I mean, he died in October of 2020. Yeah. And what, it had been months before anybody knew? I mean, did you know? Because the public didn't know.

Yeah, only a real small, small, small, small circle of people knew. I did not know. I learned it that day. And I, you know, if I dropped my phone, I was like, what? No way. And, you know, I think anyone that follows Doom in his career, you would think the first thing you think is there's one guy. There's one guy that could pull this off, pull off some type of a hoax or something like that, because you didn't want to believe it. You know, and it was true. And it was very hard to hard to accept for a while and um you know i spoke to his wife and gave my condolences and so forth and um it's uh i i you know he's his music will last

forever and as you said um there will never be another guy like that i mean his mask was inspired by dr doom right but through years, to be more wearable, it became the mask from Russell Crowe's The Gladiator. So that mask was fashioned after the Gladiator mask. Think about The Gladiator and how much money went into that movie and that production. Doom made that mask more famous than that movie ever could. You see that mask and you think,

you don't think Gladi think doom you don't think uh gladiator i don't you know it's an iconic iconic mask yeah my brother and i were like did you see that there's there's a website we bought some hoodies and they were like they have masks for sale and i was like yeah it's amazing but like what, what are we going to do? Wear them? I was like, if you're telling me you want me to get you one, um, cause I was like, they're, they're pretty cool, but I, you know, I don't, what am I going to do? Maybe on Halloween, you know? Yeah. Uh, it's, uh, I see a lot of things on Instagram. People tag me in with them wearing, wearing the mask and celebrating doing with in a sense.

And I think that's great. Kids dressing up as him for Halloween is just just amazing. You know, my son, he's he's 12 and he knows that we work with this MF Doom guy. And it's very interesting to him because he has the mask and it's almost like he's not a real person, you know, and it just puts him on a level as if the talent wasn't enough. The imagery really, you know, seals the deal. And through all the years of us working in the scene of indie hip hop, underground hip hop, it just, after all the years, we kind of came together and was able to to work on things and of course he's always will be on a different level so we're very fortunate it's kind of like when you know KG and Ray Allen got together after all these years playing in the league they form a team and uh win the chip with Paul I know I felt like I probably should have because you came out with

this Tommy Heinsohn tribute video that was incredible that you sent to me and I was like oh do you want me to you want me to get this out there and you're like no i just i just know that you worked with him and you know you just wanted to see it so then i was like as i was prepping for this i was like oh shit does he think i'm going to ask about evan fournier and i was like no i want to focus on doom a little bit more on this on this pod i just want to backtrack i'm not comparing myself to paul pier Pierce or Ray Allen or anything like that. I was more like the James Posey in this situation, but of that team or maybe in any house.

All right. You know what? I didn't take it that way, but you have an out in case anybody does. Yes. I'm a Leon Paul. Leon Paul. I love Leon Paul. Me too.

I love what you guys are doing. What's next for you? I imagine trying to put together some idea, getting back out on the road. you guys are doing what uh what's next for you i imagine trying to put together some idea getting back out on the road you guys are incredibly prolific with the releases so yeah yeah um we are uh yeah we're working on a couple different releases we have something really cool coming up that i can't talk about unfortunately but i'm frothing at the mouth to talk about it so eventually you know i'll spread the news about that but there's there's a lot of cool things in the works we're doing um a lot of merchandising a lot of stuff with arvin goods arvin goods is a sustainable sock company that does the

sock and i think a lot of the things you can't download um are a big source of income for us you can't stream an action figure. You can't stream a hoodie. So you go to czarface.com, you can buy things that you can actually hold and tangible and they got to, you have to give us money

for that stuff. Look, the gear is fun. The Arvin stuff is great. Your guy hooked me up a couple of years ago and then, you know, I have a sleeveless, I made some modifications

in one of the czarface tees and people kind of like, what is that? What are you doing there? And then I gave the socks to my brother and he thinks they're cool as hell so i'll uh definitely send you more uh he he'll be very he's a faithful listener of the show all right well it's at czar phase underscore so and that's c z a r for all the people are gonna have a hard time so just go cz and then it's gonna come right up in spotify or apple and

check these guys out. Cause if you haven't heard them, I'm telling you, if you appreciate any of the stuff that we were referencing there, you're going to enjoy them. So, um, thanks man.

And hopefully I'll get to see you out there again soon. All right. Oh, I can't wait, man. I think, thank you so much for having me on. You want details?

Bye. I drive a Ferrari three 55 cabriolet. What's up? 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.

Lifeadvicerratgmail.com Let's see. What do we got here? I feel like... Alright, we'll do this one. The Cushion Incident. Need your help settling a dispute with my wife about what we're now calling the Cushion Incident. Last week, we had a few friends over for some drinks and dinner. Six people, not including us.

So we're talking eight, folks. Keeping up with the math. It was a great night. Everyone had fun. That was that, or so we thought. The next morning, I noticed a small red stain on the carpet in our living room, a small red stain on the carpet, right beneath one of our cushioned chairs. Upon investigation, I uncovered a huge wet red stain on the cushion of our light-colored chair. The wine had soaked through the chair and onto the carpet. All right. So we're talking like, imagine an elevator of stain on cushion level going all the way to carpet level. So that's a heavy pour on that chair. Okay. So many thoughts immediately ran through my mind. Let me summarize some facts. This is like Knives Out, the movie. None of our guests were ever alone in the room. There were two brief times where either my wife or I were in the living room during those few

minutes. There were at least four or five people in the room at all times. There was never a solo moment for anyone at the party. Our friend I'm going to have to change the name just in case. Our friend Veronica was sitting in the chair most of the evening, but her husband Philippe also sat there at times.

Veronica and Philippe also sat there at times. All right. So Veronica and Philippe went, uh, occupy the chair, but combined a hundred percent of the time, based on the evidence we have here, we were all drinking red wine. So you can't be like, Oh, slow gin fizz guy at it again.

I'm pretty confident Veronica spilled the wine, but that doesn't bother me as much as the six-person conspiracy to cover it up. Did they not think we'd notice? Did nobody think to grab a napkin before they all decided, yeah, let's flip the soaking wet cushion and pretend it didn't happen? We could have saved the carpet, Ryan. I've asked all of our friends about it, but everyone says they didn't see anything or act fake surprised about the whole thing. I like that our guy knows that it's fake surprised. Add that to our notes, Kyle.

My wife is starting to doubt the stain happened on that night or somehow it happened without anyone noticing. She wants us to just forget about it, eat the cost and move on. Nope, I'm not having this shit, Ryan. All of these motherfuckers spilled some wine. Oh, excuse me. One of these

motherfuckers spilled some wine. I need closure. So my plan is invite the same group over for another party, flipping the cushion back over so the stain is on full display. All right, so there's a cushion on the chair. He's going to put that stain side up and then we'll see what happens.

I figure if I get everyone in a room and address it together, somebody is going to crack. My wife is very against this plan. She thinks it'll be super awkward. Yes. And needlessly confrontational. Perhaps.

I disagree. I just don't see how we can brush this under the rug. I didn't even think he meant to be funny there. Without at least confronting our friends about lying to our faces and ruining our stuff. True friends wouldn't act this way. Should I let this go? What would you do in my shoes? All right. A lot to deal with here. Okay. So I want to just double check one of our cushion

chairs. Cause the first time I read that, I thought like I have some of those chairs that are cushioned, but they're upholstered. So, and then I have slips over them and I got to make sure if you're a solo guy like me and you're always at one chair, rotate the chairs, folks. Just keep them rotate. When it's just you all the time, you have to learn to rotate your chairs and also your couch cushions. Keep those in rotation because I didn't do that. And after five years, I had two brand new side of the sectional and the chase. And then there was one part where you would have thought somebody slept on it outside for a decade.

All right. And I had to get it custom made. That sucked. Don't know why I shared any of that. I like where your head's at here, but there's one thing that you have to handle first. If you're going to do this version of Clue at your house with the same group where it's not about the party, it's a complete setup to get to the truth here, which is weird. Your wife is right about that part, but I'm not against it.

You have to be 100% certain that it happened that night. And this email doesn't get me to 100%. There's a little doubt here. I have a little doubt because the quote here, my wife is starting to doubt that the stain happened on that night or somehow it happened without anyone noticing. You seem to be 100% certain. She's not 100% certain. We don't add up to 100% average uncertainty here because if you do do this and it didn't happen at that night with the same six people that you invite back and you turn into a psycho, that's going to be irreparable for you, my man. This crew is never going to look at you the same way. Because if they actually didn't do it and this whole setup is to get the truth and they're actually innocent and you don't seem to believe that, then you're going to deal with some serious damage

post this investigation. Now, if you're going to do this, I would start here. I would not have the cushion on display initially. I would start with drinks. Maybe pick the pace up a little bit

earlier than you normally would for a pre-dinner setup. Get drinks in people. Then during the kind of kitchen island area that I'm imagining in your open floor concept. You then flip the cushion and then have all the chairs out as you say, hey, the small plates are being served. So now it's out there. Because if you go right to the cushion reveal, it's too early. People aren't going to be as pliable

on some of their commentary because they haven't had any drinks. So I would get drinks in them. I would flip the cushion in a moment away from everyone, have the chairs out, and then you have to read six faces

at once, specifically the face of the person that has the dirty cushion. And you're going to have to be like a poker player at the table. And then if you don't get a read that you want, you may have to let it go. I would let them initiate it. I would let them expose themselves.

But if no one exposes themselves in this moment, then I think you have to just look at your wife and know you're pulling the plug on the plan. Because this is like a Costanza deal. If you set this all up and you start right from the jump accusing people and nobody's had any drinks and what if they're incident, then a lot of these people aren't going to like you and they're going to

talk about you, man, for years. They're going to say, remember when fill in the blank here invited us all over for a second dinner to try to get to the bottom of a stupid fucking cushion being stained and it sucks about the carpet. I that part sucks um you know but what would you do here kyle not have a carpet i mean no i'm a carpet guy now but i think like i think this is kind of fun in a weird way and an infuriating way but my question is if people are eating dinner how do you spill

on the cushion if you're sitting on it? Like, wouldn't it be a met? Wouldn't it like a person be basically covered in wine at that point? Or would it be another time where maybe not everyone was sitting in chairs and somebody like knocked it over the table? Because if people are eating dinner, sitting down, how do you get out of there unscathed and then just hide this wine this wine thing like wouldn't it be all over you as well unless you're like standing pouring wine or something it's just like it doesn't seem like did you have any of your shithead buddies over that maybe nobody was sitting in that chair and there was like you're using the table as like a bar or something i don't know it just doesn't seem like

you'd be able to like if everyone's at a table just doesn't seem like the forensics of it adds up yeah I would it's fair all this is fair but would you agree that you've had moments drinking where something happened that defied physics yeah yeah sure yeah

right like it could have been some weird you know grabbing something from the salad tongs and then the person hits the glass and it like lands perfectly in between you know some skinny jeans and and then you get up at the same time it just seems like i would have to be perfect so i don't know yeah right i would just ask yourself did you have any of your buddies over or something at a different time for like a sunday game or something i don't know yeah when he says he called everyone to ask about it because i don't think it's the cost here i don't think i'm not getting a sense here that the guy's super mad about having to replace the carpet he's mad that

he may have been lied clearly a principal thing yeah all right because there's also another part of this is gonna be the only one we do here. But what if they all don't like you and they don't care they stained your fucking carpet? Then do the intervention. What's worse for the friend? What's a friendship bomb

or more detrimental? You falsely accusing them of doing this or them just straight up lying to your face and not telling you about it? Because they're both shitty moves, but one or the other has to kind of be true

unless the wife is lying, which... Whoa, whoa. This guy clearly thinks that it didn't happen. Well, I'm just saying, this guy clearly thinks that it happened that night

and the wife is having some doubts, so there is, you know, she could potentially be a suspect if we're talking real knives out here. You never know. But it's either they lied to you and their shitty friends or you're falsely accusing them and you're the shitty friend. There's no there's no win. You know what else we need to discuss, too? And this sucks, but because everybody's going to know exactly what I'm

talking about here. Would you guys both agree that there are different levels of friends where there's a friend you'd be like i'm not saying anything and then there's a friend that you go i have to say something yes and it doesn't even it doesn't yeah right it doesn't even apply necessarily even to a carpet here um yep there are guys that you know you've done something where you may have like um um, I've, I'll just call myself out here. I remember one, one time we, uh, we were, we were staying with some guys and, um, actually I, I'll just, I don't need to give you more details than that, but your boy ripped out a towel, a towel rod, um, your boy ripped out a towel a towel rod

of a bathroom and it wasn't it wasn't like a plan it just happened and my buddy opened the door because it was way to use the bathroom and he was like what the fuck I go dude I

my bad like you know I reached out and you know we got some sheet I reached out and, you know, we could, we got some, we got some sheet rock hanging out on the floor. And you just knew in that moment, it was like, I'm not going to say anything because there's somebody else that could be blamed. And it wasn't even that I just knew that it was going to, this person was going to already have like somebody over there with an estimate and he was going to want me to tape it. And, you know, it was just going to be a huge, huge hassle. I was going to ruin like the rest of the day.

I regret it now. I would never do anything like that now. But there's a different level of friend where I immediately would have walked out with the towel rod and gone, hey, my bad. This came out of the wall. I'm a big, dumb animal. And was this college? It's two years. I think it's a couple of years after college.

I think it was two. We're still talking to 90s here. So, I mean, because there's a grace period there where I think when you're young, where you're just it's expected that you have broken shit in your house. Yeah. If you have some sheet, if you have something exposed brick or like an exposed beam or something or whatever that's in the wall and some sheetrock that's broken, that's just kind of accepted when you're younger. But if you're if you know, if you're probably above 30, you have to tell the person.

Yeah. If you're over 30 doing this kind of stuff, I think that's a good cutoff line. I mean, look, I don't even like there was a time where I had a guy after a late night. He came back to my place and he was on the couch, passed out. And I went up to use the bathroom the next morning. And I was like, oh, man, he's he was banged up. And then I went to my bathroom. There's only one bathroom in the entire curtain rod, curtain, everything just destroyed.

I don't know what the hell he did, but he probably got up to go to a bathroom that he wasn't familiar with, didn't navigate it well, and just destroyed my curtain. The whole setup sucked, ripped out from not just the curtain ripped out of the rod. It was a circular rod around some old antique. I mean, it was an old, old apartment, but i also had a roommate that he didn't know and i was gonna have to deal with my roommate and the weird thing is like if you did it to me back then i'd be like whatever i'll figure it out or i'll fix it not as well as i should um but i knew this is a problem so i was like hey dude i'm like you destroyed my my shower he's like no i didn't i was like look i'm gonna tell you right now there are two of us and i know it wasn't you know it's like somebody farting in a cab where you're like all right i

know who did it no matter what and he was like no i didn't i didn't do it and i was like you definitely did it i go you know what i'm not gonna argue with you right now you probably don't need the argument but there are just people that handle it differently there's also people when you're really young where you can be like, hey, I have a dumpy apartment, you have a dumpy apartment, so you think you're a dumpy apartment, like you don't really care if something happens,

but the other person may be like, no, this is my home, this is where I live, and you're not going to disrespect it. And you're like, hey, I live in the same awful complex you do, so why are you acting like, you know, Home and Gardens is coming over here for a photo shoot in a little while. It's not happening.

So back to our guy on this deal. I like the plan. I like the whole deal. And we've probably planted way too many doubts about the email itself makes me think that this guy's probably well liked by the group. You had six couples come over and hang out with you and your wife. So it sounds like everybody kind of gets along here, but if you're going to go through this whole plan, like we said, you have to be 100% on this. Because if there's a chance it didn't happen then, and you just didn't realize it, and none of these people are guilty, it could be a real game changer for you. There you go. LifeAdviceRR at Gmail. We will be back Sunday, Bill and I, even with the holiday.

We're not going to miss any pods, so don't worry about it. We'll be good to go. All right. Talk to you guys soon. Thank you. you