The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Kings Have Warriors on the Ropes, Eagles Center Jason Kelce on Jalen Hurts’s Contract and Career Stories, Plus 'The Wager' Author David Grann

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

Ryen opens with reactions to the Warriors going down 0-2 to the Kings and Draymond’s ejection, plus why he’s not loving how the Sixers look, even up 2-0 on the Nets (0:58). Then, he chats with Eagles center Jason Kelce about Jalen Hurts’s new contract, the Super Bowl loss, what went wrong with Carson Wentz, and more stories from his career (18:18). Next, author David Grann talks about his latest book, 'The Wager,' which tells the story of a wild 18th-century shipwreck (56:09). Finally, the guys close it out with some listener-submitted Life Advice (1:32:40). Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Jason Kelce and David Grann Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I don't know. Do you like Tool or Primus music-wise? Where are you with that? I don't even know what we're talking about. There you go. Not a fan. Tool is a band, right? Tool is a band.

What kind of music do you like? I listen to pretty much anything. Tool is like heavy metal, right? Yeah, but it's like artsy heavy metal. Artsy heavy metal. On today's episode, run through the Sacramento Kings up 2-0 on the Warriors.

What it means for a very early part of the playoffs. So maybe don't listen to that part. We have Jason Kelsey, who's had an incredible career. And we're just going to hang out with a man and talk football, talk Eagles. A lot of Eagles in there. And then David Grant,

who wrote a book called The Wager. It is out today. It's one of my favorites. Some history there. Cape Horn, sign me up. Cape Horn, that's all I need to hear. I'm in. And then life advice. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Winter is here, so be prepared and get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost anything? Well, you can't get a ski slope, but dish soap, definitely doable. Sunshine, that's no. A bottle of wine, yeah. And a snow day, again, no. But blueberry muffins with the delicious crumb topping, total yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details.

Not really tails from the couch, but I also will admit I feel kind of dumb with only two series being a game two and the other one's only one game in. I try to remind myself and everyone else every single playoff year, sometimes game one is the most misleading of all the games. And we start going like, all right. But watching Sacramento do this two games in a row uh there is a problem in golden state okay so there's a bunch that i want to get to here but the challenge for sacramento coming into this was really two things right it was the inexperience of this group which is not something you know one ever goes like you know what i really like i like this team that's never had to play in these games before. And then also the defensive numbers.

But we knew when we looked at kind of the playoff landscape, it felt like it was more open than ever before. And I know there's also times where people are like, oh, you guys say that. And no, I don't think we do. I think it's like usually three teams. And you're like, okay. And now there's always going to be one major injury, usually a second one that kind of alters history here.

And then we forget about that injury. We've been over that stuff in the past because you can play that game with literally every single champion. Even if a lot of the years, the NBA champion we got felt like the right team and felt like the right player. But when you look at the Lakers, I think, you know, that's a series where you go, is this really happening? Is this going to happen? And I had those moments. I don't know that it's good for a podcast. Maybe if I was doing a daily radio show,

that's where we end up all contradicting ourselves. It's like, I got three hours today, and the Lakers looked awesome in game one. And if they're playing Sacramento, and if Phoenix can't figure things out, and even though Denver looked incredible, a slightly different challenge there for Minnesota going up against Jokic as opposed to Jalen Williams and Dario Saric, you can start playing that game where you start projecting all that stuff.

And that's where you start making mistakes and get a little bit dangerous. But going into it, as I said, it felt wide open. And there's one specific number that tells us historically it was more wide open because the lack of dominance at the top. Now, the lack of dominance also can be that this is just a different sport in the regular season. It just is the lack of priority. It doesn't seem like anybody cares about home court anymore the way they used to back in the day. But Boston was the number one team in the NBA this year in point differential at plus 6.5. That's a really low number.

And if you go back historically, it's the lowest point differential leader in an NBA season since 86, 87, also the Celtics. So I thought that that was a telling thing. You know, different times, whether it's the Lakers putting together the run at the end of the regular season, I remember during that Knicks peak, Bill and I were, they beat the Celtics

in that overtime game, quickly went off, and we're starting to go like, are the Knicks actually a contender here? And as we're talking it out, I'm going, you know, this is going to sound like it's negative, but it's also true. If Brunson and Randall are your NBA champs, like, where does that rank on NBA champ duos? And Brunson's everything, man. He is all that.

He is beyond. But it'd still be the worst duo of any recent champ I can remember, unless you're going to go with Dirk and then whoever the second guy is on the Mavs. But Dirk standing in the game at the time when he won in 2011 and beat LeBron, it's beyond what Brunson and Julius Randle are, right? So Philly is a team where when you start playing the what's possible game here, it's like, man, are they really going to take out one of those top two teams in the East? Well, let's see what Giannis looks like. I imagine we're probably like a week away from a Rob Williams injury again, which completely changes who the Celtics are. Just an aside on the first game last night,

I did not like what I saw from Philadelphia. I know they won. I know they're clearly the better team, but they're beating a sixth seed in Brooklyn who's really a 13 and 15 team with this group. It depends on which day you want to start counting the standings, but they're a below 500 team, this group. They should be beating them. They'll probably take a game off and give one away. Maybe they sweep. Who knows? They're the superior team. But what I didn't like is that it's an NBA team where there is some continuity here. They know what's going to happen. It's the second game. They're double teaming Embiid like crazy. And they're doubling Embiid because they position him so far away from the basket, which is both good and bad at times. It's good because you should be able to operate

from the double team. And as you're watching it very early in that game, I'm like, this should be a huge maxi game because this should be easy for them. I mean, sometimes they were triple teaming Embiid because the Nets were screwing up the rotations or the guy coming over to double wasn't paying attention to somebody else already being there. And you're like, man, all you guys have to do is move and cut and Embiid so far away, which in this case can be good against this double team, just move off of it. And this should be easy. But at the same time, like as that game played out in the first half,

you're like Brooklyn should be up more. And they actually shot it really poorly. They were below 40% for the game, but I'm only being harsh about Philly because I'm looking at them as, well, what's your goal? Your goal is to get out of the East and then see what happens. And you shouldn't be afraid of anybody in the West so when i'm looking at any of the teams going can this actually be a championship team uh it's the same thing back with the knicks where you're going like all right this is really good but is it going to be that good that would be weird by the way harden the refs are not having it zero free throw attempts in the first two games of this playoff series they're just not they don't give a shit anymore like cool dribble and fall into a guy forward. On the drives, he's just not getting those free throw

attempts. All right. So back to what we're talking about at least a bit with last night. So whether it's the Lakers, Philly going, is this possible? Phoenix may be getting more of the benefit of the doubt than they should because we know who they are individually. Sacramento, the Knox, which I brought up plenty of times, they were 24th on defense. And post-All-Star break, they were 24th as well. Golden State after the All-Star break, you want to go, wait a minute.

They were terrible on the road. Their defense was terrible on the road. All of you guys that took them seriously, there were all these signs. You shouldn't have taken them seriously. Maybe that's all true, but Golden State was actually seventh on defense after going 15-9. This is more of a credit to Sacramento

here a couple games into this. I don't think it's, oh, Golden State sucked and their defense sucked and Sacramento's beating just a completely... They were marketed a certain way coming into this series. No, I defense sucked and Sacramento's beating just a completely like they were marketed a certain way coming into this series no I actually just think Sacramento's playing that well which is like the best version of events here for the Kings because Golden State actually was a pretty good basketball team and you add Wiggins back to it you're going no no this is

this is real this is really it's not because Golden State's so flawed. I think it's because Sacramento's this good. To the continuity point, we had mentioned, I know, throughout the season about possessions. The Fox, Kavon, Barnes, Keegan Murray, Sabonis lineup played just under 1,900 possessions together. That's 329 more possessions than the number two most played lineup in the NBA this season. That's the awesome Atlanta Hawks group. All right. Their defense two games in, and I hesitate to even do this because you start looking at some of the advanced stuff being like, man, their pace is this. You're like, it's two games. What the fuck are you talking about? Right. But I think it's important when you frame it with who Sacramento has been on defense in the regular season and then go, okay, they're allowing 109.6 points per 100 possessions in these two games against Golden State.

Again, it's Golden State here, and that number's eight points better than who Sacramento was after the post-All-Star break there, those last 20-plus games. There's no stopping Curry, right? You're not ever going to stop Curry. Curry's had some pretty good games here, back-to-back games, I think. But the extended pressure against Curry is screwing them up. And for whatever reason, Golden State's going into this with an arrogance of getting into their offense that doesn't really make any sense to me.

The way Sacramento got out in the second half and just extended some of that pressure, which slows you down to getting into your offense, it probably means one less action because Golden State's going to keep running and running and running. And if you're not getting settled until 14 seconds left in the shot clock, that screws you up. And Sacramento's doing an awesome job with it. And it feels like Golden State's just kind of going two games in,

like maybe we'll tighten it up in game three. The thing for Golden State, as much as I still think they're a good team, they're not good enough to be this arrogant anymore. They always turned the ball over during their championship runs. They were always careless with it. Curry, who I love, has a couple passes every game. You're like, what are you doing? But it never mattered because they overpowered everybody. Everybody was in their peak point of

their career offensively. They had a little bit more depth and they always were an awesome defensive team, except for maybe the last stretch, right? The peak Golden State years, that was one of the best defensive teams in the NBA almost every single year. That was one of the best defensive teams in the NBA almost every single year. There's a funny story, which I guess I'll tell. But when I watch De'Aaron Fox take over these games and have moments where, and it's awesome that it's not from three, where he's just like, all right, get your head down and make something happen.

Now, granted, he had another huge three last night, but it's the drives. It's the relentless drives. It's him getting any kind of edge. And that despite his offensive prowess and the clutch numbers this year, it's also funny too, when you think about how an NBA star, the perception value of them can change dramatically in just 12 months. Like Fox missed a bunch of shots last year. It looked really frustrating. It looked like he was frustrated. And then you start wondering, like, is he just going to be one of these big stats, bad team guys that doesn't really mean anything? And yet, I don't know that the rest of us nationally have caught up to realizing, do you know how special this dude is? Again, here's a story. I was on vacation. I'm not going to say where. I was with a girl. And usually, anything towards day four or five,

I was like, all right, I just want to get home. But I also knew I had like an extra day because we weren't flying out together. We had like an extra day. And I was like, that's going to be some awesome Philbrook, Rosillo time, beach, solo, perfect little bonus vacation day. Anyway, her flight got changed, probably not canceled. And there was a moment she was like, fix us. I was like, man, I really just want to go back to the beach or go home now. I wasn't into it. But Sacramento, their teammates can look at De'Aaron Fox and say, fix us. And he'll want to. And he can. And he is one of those guys, once everything breaks down, it's a very short list of players who, in the playoffs,

go get us something and get it all on your own. And that's what he's been able to do. So whether it's the continuity part of it, I also think they deserve credit for the Barnes transaction in not trading him. Last year, before the deadline, the price was really high. They were pushing to get into the play-in game. I think there was frustration around the league being like,

what the fuck is Sacramento doing? Who do they think they are keeping a guy that's decent at a good number? And now, granted, they have a decision to make on him, but Barnes, he does just enough. He's still only 30 years old. He can play defense. He can hit a shot. He's played in huge

games. And it's kind of funny that looking back on it, we always look at the bad teams and we're frustrated they won't move a player to be an asset somewhere else. And look, whether it's fans, teams were doing it too. And now it's like, you know what? We don't like what we're being offered. He's a good player. He's not the best. And we'll just keep him. But that's added to this continuity that they've had. Whenever you're young and you lose, you only lose because you were young. And when you're old and you lose, you only lose because you're old. Those are the rules.

That's the only way we're allowed to do this. So I'm not telling you, hey, we should all start to really like young teams in the playoffs. There was another part of it where I felt like with Sacramento's three seed, is that just because of them or is it because of all the weird things that have happened around them? Whether it's Phoenix, whether it's the Clippers, whether it's the Lakers, the Memphis stuff with job. But I don't know if we, we have a moment in the NBA where like looking back a couple of years, remember when the nets had that group and I'm like, wait, this group hasn't really played that much together, and now we're just supposed to buy in that it's all going to work? And they got hurt again, and that had more to do with it

than the lack of continuity. Going back to 2019, when Kawhi played 60 games for Toronto, I remember because it still felt kind of new. I was like, so he's just going to kind of play when he wants to, and then they're going to turn it on, they're going to be fine. Yep, it's going to work. I don't know that that's a goal, but we're seeing it not play out. Well, look, it's one game in for Phoenix.

Let's see what happens. But they just looked like they were confused. And maybe there's even a part of it where you could talk about Durant's run where they went 8-0 the regular season with him, but they beat Charlotte. They beat Chicago, Dallas, Minnesota, Denver twice without Jokic, San Antonio, and Oklahoma City. So were we tricked a little bit there? So as I mentioned, Phoenix and some of the other teams that are trying to figure this out as they get into the playoffs,

maybe all the respect should be there for Sacramento because it's like, no, we are young. Nobody ever loses in the playoffs. You're like, you know what? They were too medium, their age. Yeah, not too young, too old. They were just too medium. Maybe the point, the lesson, at least two games in here,

because who knows what's going to happen when Golden State goes up there, goes back home, is that they can be young, but they actually know who they are much more than a lot of the other teams in the playoffs. I want to talk about Jermon Green as I close this out here. The free throw situation where Sacramento was in the bonus, what, a minute and a half into the third quarter, I thought they were fouling Sacramento.

Pretty simple. Draymond, you could see it was just getting really frustrating for him. He had an awful stretch there in the third quarter where he had a bad pass to Wiggins on a cut. Then he actually hit the ball away from Curry, which led to a turnover. Then he almost did it again. Watch for this in game three. I don't know why Golden State is so confused with just getting the ball in. They had another awful turnover on a Peyton inbounds last night too, where it's like, where's where's your head with this so fast forward or maybe we go back by the way at the end of game one there was an altercation in the baseline where

basically sabonis and green were just wrestling each other as the play was down at the other end clearly they were both like trying to hold each other up trying to figure out who was more valuable at that end of the court but at 9187 golden state still had a chance. And even after the Draymond shit happened, they got it to a point. 703s left. Draymond, I don't think, was playing well. He'd gotten a charge on Sabonis. There was also another play in the baseline, which Kirkland, the official, called on Draymond,

where they were getting back to the other end of the court, and he stuck his ass out and knocked Sabonis down, who can also flop, too. They called the foul. They overturned it, which I was actually surprised by because it was pretty clear that was a very seasoned Draymond Green official move there. It was like, I know what you were doing. So then they overturn it. So all this history is going on. Shot goes up. Sabonis is on the ground. He did grab Draymond Green's leg. And then Draymond Green tried to resuscitate Sabonis with chest compressions,

even though he was still alive, with his foot. It was excessive. It was stupid. He deserved to get thrown out. But then he went on and did his wrestling shit, where he started yelling at guys behind the bench, straight up just calling dudes a pussy. Went to the camera and says, you've got to love this shit.

As he's ejected, as his team is trying to fight for their playoff lives down a game on the road with seven minutes left, that's selfish behavior. Somebody sent me a text last night and said, do you like Draymond? And I said, yes and no, because I respect everything he does as a competitor, as a fighter. He's a big part of this run. Would it be different if he were on a different team? You would never, ever run a play for him, ever. I mean, he's a different offensive player now.

He's so much more reluctant than he was during some of those other, again, when I say peak or prime years, I mean that Golden State run from the middle of the teens on. But it's still kind of shocking to me that he could cost, arguably cost his team a championship in 2016 and put himself in a position to not only get ejected, but I don't know if he's going to get suspended or not because it just didn't stop. And the funny thing too is no one from the Golden State staff or any of his teammates even bothered because they know there's no point. And if you've ever talked to Draymond Green, I remember asking him in person on a radio show in Toronto All-Star Weekend.

And I was like, do you regret any of the stuff from 16? And he was like, no. He thought I was the asshole. Like, why? Why regret it? He like mentioned his contract. I got a ring and all this different stuff. You think most of us would be like, maybe don't do that again.

Now, the stakes are not the same. First round game two against Sacramento as they were in the finals in 2016. But to see this play out again, that's the part of him where I'm like, man, there's a lot of yeses when I think about Draymond. But there's some real peak no moments.

And we got another one of those last night. Jason Kelsey, Eagles and also now podcast host, his podcast, New Heights, with Jason and Travis Kelsey. Comes out on Wednesdays. You get it wherever you get your podcast. Joins us. Good to catch up again, man. What's going on?

Yeah, it's been a while. Great to see you again, Ryan. Yeah, what did we do? Last time I think I saw you was on Greenlight. Yeah, we did like a movie podcast or something. Yeah, it was definitely outside of my expertise, but it was fun. Chris is always a good time. He's always going to make it fun.

Yeah, Chris is a good connector. He just really is. And we'll talk about him a little bit later on. I don't want to start with Chris Long content because people are like, seriously, this is where you're going to start we got we got Jalen Hurts under contract. Your QB gets a big deal. It's kind of cool that it was without the drama that we see in other places. Let's go back to the beginning, though.

You've been in the league a bunch of years at that point. Jalen comes in. We know his college resume. But what was your first impression of him? comes in we know his college resume but what was your first impression of him you know um obviously he came in in somewhat of a controversial manner we had just signed carson wentz to this big deal uh he's selected in the second round and there was a lot of noise on why you would pick a quarterback in the second round when you just signed a long-term contract with a another quarterback so i think you know think the atmosphere in the locker room was tense a little bit.

And he's a quiet guy by nature. So the first thing I do with quiet guys, I try and talk to them. I think if you allow him to remain quiet, that's one thing. I think you can facilitate a good environment just by talking to your teammates. When you ask questions, a guy is going to respond. And for whatever reason, and I don't think this happened like trying to do anything, but we ended up sitting next to each other in a couple of meetings. And I've had a good relationship with Jalen pretty much from the get-go. And I've had a good relationship with jaylen pretty much from the

get-go and i don't i still have a great relationship with carson um you know my job as center is to try and facilitate a good environment for whoever's a quarterback and uh you know jaylen obviously being new i wanted to see what he's about want to see how he sees things how he operates uh offer kind of my frame of reference when needed uh but also just get to know the guy and um man right away i think he was a mature he was mature for a young player you could see he had a a driven attitude and a desire to improve and gain knowledge and soak up whoever was talking to him which i think is a great mindset for any rookie to have. Obviously, his college experience alone told you that this is a guy that wasn't going to be

probably rattled by a lot of things. What happened to him in Alabama, having to transfer to Oklahoma, and then still dominating at a completely different university. and then still dominating at a completely different university. You know, I mean, you got to be a tough-minded individual to sustain that alone. And then what he was brought into in the NFL,

another situation that I think, you know, I think it was controversial at the time, which I think just, not with anybody trying to make it a little bit awkward. I think it's going to be a little bit awkward. which I think just not with anybody trying to make it a little bit awkward. I think it's going to be a little bit awkward. And I think he handled it really, really well. And he's continued to handle that well. He's continued, you know, a lot of people say,

how's he changed in the short amount of time he's been in Philadelphia and he's changed. Obviously as a player, he's improved's improved but man I think he's been pretty much the same guy since he stepped foot through the door when he went through everything he went through at Alabama the way he handled it I was like is this even real could you be this good at this already at this age and right basically he's basically every step of this the pro career for him it mirrors what we saw from him in Alabamaabama and i almost feel like i don't know how you are but when i see somebody so put together that way he just has like that command i never think it's real i'm like there's no way you could be like it seems like fake yeah what what is what

is it about him that makes it real where like the teammates you guys know and it's just such a it's such an awesome feeling when you start thinking about that guy behind center and you're like, okay, we like him, we trust him. And he's just like, he's a backable dude as opposed to sometimes you have a quarterback. You're like, I don't know if this is the guy. Yeah, I mean, you know, you can tell with any teammate for the most part, whether it's authentic or something that's like a front put up just to appease fan bases or whatever. And I think that is apparent with how you are all the time, right? And this is who this guy is. I think he was a coach's son.

I mean, I know he was a coach's son. His brother coaches. I think he's very much been brought up in this football attitude mentality his whole life. And it's apparent. And he has the good combination of you know he's humble knowing that he can get better um but at all times man he's confident

he's very confident in himself he thinks he's a he's a bad man when he's on that field and um i think that's an important trait for any great quarterback. I think you have to have the confidence to know that you can compete with anybody out there, but if you're overly confident and think you're the best thing out there, man, I don't know if you're going to be focused on improving the way every player needs to be. He was mature the moment he stepped through the door with everything that happened to him in college. He's certainly carried that through since he's been in the league. I think that mentality, how he leads, all that, I'm sure, played a factor in the Eagles being confident and giving him the type of deal that he just signed. Extremely happy for him and his family. It's unbelievable. Those that he just signed. So extremely happy for him and his family. I mean, it's unbelievable. I mean, you know, those numbers are just absurd.

It's great. I love quarterbacks. It's a great position, man. But that is so crazy. But really, you have to do a better guy. Do you send Hertz a text after it's announced that it's the most on paper money, which we all know the nfl

contracts but when you're the quarterback and you're good it'll just get reworked so the number comes out at 250 plus million can you send him a text i i called him right away and he changed his number like two days before so i think he he had an idea that this was coming out and he's like i'm getting ahead of this thing and uh he facetimed me back uh quickly. And I was like, God damn, that's good money. I was just blown away. Nine digits, man. When you're in the nine digit category, that's like a whole nother realm of,

you know, just we joked around a little bit about that, but it was more, you know, I just want to emphasize how proud I am of how he's gone about earning that. You know, I mean, it hasn't been the easiest round. This isn't like, you know, a first round draft pick who had a great college career, has been the top prospect his whole life, never had any adversity. This dude's had so much adversity along the way. And he's answered it.

Not only has he answered it, but he's held like his dignity and his in his level of and i you know um he doesn't make excuses and he doesn't do that publicly but i also don't i really after knowing him for as long as i do i don't think he does it to himself anybody that doubts him anybody that says he's not good enough, he doesn't make it like this personal thing, spout off on social media, which I think is very, very common right now with young players in general. And I'm just really, really happy with the way he's done it, man. He's just gone out there and proven it. I think as players, we get wrapped up a lot of the times in exterior narratives from either media members, coaches, fans.

But at the end of the day, if you go out there and ball out, if you go out there and play well, you write the narrative. At the end of the day, they can't deny that. And that's something that he's done. He's let his play on the field

do the talking. And that's very, extremely admirable on my end. I'll admit, I doubted him coming out. But I also doubt. I watch all day on Saturday, and I'm lost now. Who's going to be good at quarterback? And I thought his arm was always strong enough. We all know how strong he is as a guy.

We all know. But it was just a matter of, is, is he getting through this? And then when you, when you won all those games with him, I was like, I don't know if this is real. And then I remember last year. And by the way, I was late to it because it was after the Tennessee game where I went, holy shit, is this guy good? You know? And it was, it was his development where there's other quarterbacks that maybe look the part, but they don't necessarily even develop all the other stuff. I'll never stop talking about this

position. I'll never stop admitting how clueless I can be at times because I'm still shocked how often the right guy doesn't work out and it feels like the wrong guy does. And I don't even mean to say that about Jalen as the wrong guy, but this was not only him as a person, but it was his own development. And for me this year, finally, at one point I went, wow, I think he's actually going to be the guy, which is all the franchise is ever hoping for. Yeah. And you know, quarterback is the hardest position to evaluate. There's so many variables that go into the success of that player. Um, besides just the intangible, great attributes of that guy himself. I mean, the team he's around, the coaches he's with, how good his offensive line is, what

his receivers look like. You're talking about what's the system like? Does the system fit him? Is the play caller know how to utilize whatever that player is? I mean, there are so many things that go into whether a guy like that pans out. And then you tag on all the intangible things that we now know, I think everybody knows Jalen has, but those are things that you can't tell just by watching tape or, you know, a guy coming out of college.

So I think quarterback is by far the hardest position to evaluate. And there have been guys who have done great in certain teams and areas and then gone out and changed landscapes, and it hasn't gone well. There's been guys vice versa that have done poorly, and then all of a sudden they're in a new situation. I mean, Nick Foles won a Super Bowl in Philadelphia, and he's largely struggled in other areas.

And, you know, I think it's just a impossible it's an it's not impossible i think a lot of people mess up quarterbacks i don't think anybody's batting 100 on quarterback i mean it's just the hardest position in sports probably to evaluate um because of all the variables involved but yeah no you, you're right. You're right. Okay, so let's go back to the end of the season. I know that's not as much fun for you as it is for Travis. You lose the Super Bowl. Was there a day that week where you were 100% sure you were going to retire?

Man. You know, I think that I was definitely leaning towards retiring. I don't want to say 100% because I didn't end up retiring. But I think, you know, especially after a season like that, I mean, it's long. We played 20 plus games, including the Super Bowl. So it's a very grueling season. And that takes its toll on you.

You're worn out physically. You're worn out mentally. And certainly losing a Super Bowl, you're worn out emotionally. I mean, even winning a Super Bowl, you're going to be worn out emotionally. It's a lot. And trying to figure out whether you're worn out emotionally. I mean, even winning a Super Bowl, you're going to be worn out emotionally. It's a lot. And trying to figure out whether you're going to do that again at that time, I think is really hard to be in the headspace of being able to commit to that again.

So that's one of the reasons why I take my time. Most of the coaches that I've talked to, guys that have made that decision, all advised giving it time to kind of like, hey, let yourself recover, let your head clear a little bit and then come at it from a fresh perspective on whether you want to do that again. And I mean, to be frank, I still wake up and especially if I haven't taken anti-inflammatories,

I'm like, man, am I really going to do like another one of these, right? Like you wake up, your ankles hurt, your knees hurt, you're trying to lift and things you could do 10 years ago, you just don't do anymore because it doesn't work. And, you know, that's something that is still in my head, but I started taking anti-inflammatories again this week, and I feel really good about where I'm at. I'm feeling better now than I've ever felt about doing another year.

Your entree into the NFL, though, does remind me a lot of Jeff Saturday, who I got to know at ESPN, where it was like, who's this guy? I'm like, all right, maybe get some training camp snaps. I got to tell you, your Wikipedia is fucking brutal to you too, man. It actually says. Well, it's just so unnecessary because, all right, for those that don't know, you're the first Eagles rookie to start every game at center, all right? And there's another vet who's in your way.

You're a sixth-round pick. Nobody thinks you might not even make the team for getting starting. And it was funny because it was like he got all the first team snaps before the third preseason game and despite allowing a sack and a hold was named starter and it's like that's not necessary why is that in there why why is that in there it's like even though he sucked in the third season. Yeah. I mean, you know, I, I was drafted into a very fortunate situation. I know I was a six round pick, but you know, Howard mud who coached Jeff Saturday was my offensive line coach. He wanted a smaller athletic guy.

And, um, I'm assuming whoever wrote that, uh, was a fan of Jamal Jackson potentially. I'm assuming whoever wrote that was a fan of Jamal Jackson potentially. And Jamal at that point was probably the better all around player than I was. I mean, he had played in the league for seven or eight years, but he was just a different mold than what Howard wanted. Howard definitely wanted a smaller athletic guy like he had in Jeff Saturday, drafted Kevin Mawai, I think in Seattle as well. He wanted the guys that could move out and do things out in space and run the plays that he wanted to run. So I remember three days in the camp. I mean,

the, after the first day we had pads on, um, he came up to me and say, Hey, do you, do you want to play this year? Yeah. Yeah. I want to play Jeff. Of course. I heard Howard. I want to play. And he said, um at howard i want to play and he said um you know make sure you know the playbook because i like what i see the coaches like what they see just make sure you can make all the calls and do everything mentally and um you're gonna have a good shot and not every rookie is granted that type of you know situation but, but I think there's some parallels here too because I didn't know how much more I wanted to do on the Hurts topic and then pivot that into Wentz.

But Jamal's been the guy. You're this dude like, wait, you're going with the smaller guy from Cincinnati? Did you have long hair back then? Did you grow the hair out after you did a few starts? I think I grew it out after a few starts. I think was short to start yeah right smart i think that's the right move because you can't be a backup with long hair right yeah whenever i see college teams and it's like dude you don't even play and you are completely decked out like you gotta tighten that up until

you get first team snap so was like the offensive line is a brotherhood. Although you guys probably are so good at just thinking team first, because that's what you have to have in your DNA. I just wonder, I'm asking, was there any resistance perhaps to you? And I'm sure Jamal wasn't thrilled with it, but yeah, I mean, Jamal wasn't thrilled with it. He still wanted to like, you know, sure. Whenever it comes in the middle of a guy's career, when you're not on the tail end of it, which I don't think Jamal thought he was at that point, I think that he wanted to play. And he was professional about it. He would still help me out and offer advice. But I think there was a little bit of resistance. I know there was probably more resistance from other guys. more resistance from other guys. Todd Harriman, who I'm really good friends with now, later told me that

he went up to Andy Reid, actually, before the season started. Basically, I don't know exactly how he said it, but it was kind of like, are we really going to play this rookie? I think we're better off with Jamal. Andy's response

was something along the lines of, at some point, you know, uh, you know, at some point you got your start and your chance and your opportunity. Like, let me do my job. Essentially. You kind of shut them down. And,

uh, that was it. And, you know, Todd and I are great friends now. And I don't look at that any other way. You know, Todd was doing what he thought was in the best interest of the team and the

group. And he obviously had played with Jamal for a long time. And I was a young player that, you know, I had a lot of question marks. And yeah, I think people got over that quickly. And once I was the starter, once that like competition level had stopped, everybody was in on just trying to make the line the best

it could be. And Todd helped me immensely that year and throughout his tenure in Philadelphia and Jamal for that remaining year that he was there helped me out. It was, but I mean, it was a competition in training camp and guys were upset because they knew that they could see as I got more reps, they know they're going to get cut. And that's kind of the nature of just humans, but for the most part, everybody was great. Yeah. And I guess I'll ask it one more time and kind of go back to the beginning.

And obviously you shut me down if you want to, because I think a lot of us that watch Wentz, like I was like, man, they're moving up for him. And I mean, he would have had an MVP probably in 17 and then he gets hurt. And then you're just like, okay, well, it's a health thing. And then Jalen comes in and i still wasn't sure i'm not even sure the eagles were sure of what they knew what they had at that point and then wentz goes to goes to the culture like all right he'll be good and it's funny too because when you look at the stat line it actually looks like it was a good year but it didn't feel like

that if you were watching every single week and then he ends up in washington and then you know it kind of goes back to the eagles thing where it's like was he right to be annoyed about the situation sure but then there was all this stuff where it was going back to foals and everything i think there were a lot of people jason that have no idea that we're speculating about wentz and i know he's your buddy so i don't expect you to be like yeah dude he actually was a dick there for two years. But it's a really fast fall from where he was at. And that's why we're like, man. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Carson, I mean, he had a bad run there with, you know,

tears his ACL, backup quarterback wins a Super Bowl. So that's going to affect you, I think. Even if Carson's too proud to ever say that or admit that, I think it does affect you. Then we finally move on from Nick Foles. Carson's starting to get some swagger back. Draft Jalen, right? And then Carson goes, or before we drafted Jalen,

I think he had the injury to Jadavion Clowney in the playoff game the year before with the concussion, which I think affected him more than he let on. Um, so, you know, it was, it's kind of like just this one thing after the other, uh, combined with, we were just getting worse as a team, which didn't help Carson play better. Um, so I think, you know, all these things lumped in. I think Carson was in a really, really difficult situation. I'm sure if all of us had like a do-over, there's ways we would

re-handle things. I know there's ways I would handle things differently, but I always felt, and I always felt, and I know... What would you do? What do you think about? What's the one thing you would think about? One of the things that I would... One of the things that I would

be more vocal about with Carson was his communication with guys and his communication in particular with guys on the offense. I think that he had a tendency, me and him had a great relationship. We thought about the game very similarly. Centers and quarterbacks usually have a great relationship.

You have to be on the same page. I don't think at times when things started going south, he had a strong enough relationship with certain receivers and guys that were able to weather those storms. Because when you're winning, nobody in the world had a problem enough relationship with certain receivers and guys that were able to weather those storms. Cause when you're winning nobody in there and nobody in the world had a problem with Carson Wentz in 2016, 2017, not a receiver,

not a coach, not a fan. Everybody loved him. And when you're winning, nobody has a problem. Like nobody has room to complain. Uh, but when guys numbers start not showing up,

the wins don't show up. Nobody has room to complain. But when guys' numbers start not showing up, the wins don't show up, everybody looks for these reasons to show why they're not the reason that they're struggling. That's just what happens. A receiver is going to look to, well, I'm not showing up because we're doing this, this, and this, and that's what this guy wants to do. Quarterback's going to say, I'm not performing because of this, this, and this,

and that's like the coordinator or whatever. Coordinator's going to blame it. It's always the finger point starts. And the stronger those relationships are within a team, the stronger the leadership is. It just weathers those storms long enough for guys to continually take ownership. And the finger pointing just never works. It's a zero sum game. You're not, once you start assigning somebody else as the reason you're not performing well, you have given up on

you having control in your performance. And it's just not a good way to go. And I think that that happens when guys don't have close enough relationships. Right. And when you genuinely communicate with a guy, when you show that you care about the other guy and you communicate that, I think that it's reciprocated and you get to more of a real reason about approaching and improving rather than maybe turning. So that's something as a veteran guy now that I wish I would have known a little bit more back then. And I don't think any of it was malicious. It certainly wasn't malicious on Carson's side.

I don't think it was malicious on anybody on the offensive side. I just think that those, it just wasn't something that was set up and done on a routine basis so that when those struggles started happening, you could weather that a little bit. And to some extent, once you start struggling, it's going to happen. It doesn't matter who you are. You can be the greatest guy on earth.

If the losing keeps happening, it only buys you a couple more losses. Once you get three, four losses in, man, it can turn south pretty quick. I'm really impressed with the Eagles though as an organization because you win that title six years ago and I know clearly this year doesn't end the way you want it to,

but whether it's Howie Rose been going, all right, I have core pieces here, but I'm going to build it around him. Especially when you have a quarterback who's at a cap number where you feel like you can spend a little bit more elsewhere. And then for him to see in Sirianni, somebody who was like, I don't care. Like, it's just so funny to me looking at Sirianni's intro press conference.

And yeah, it was unimpressive as hell. But it was also the first time a guy was being asked to do that. And people that knew him, people that I knew that had any kind of football relationship with him were like dude this guy's the best yeah and i was like okay and i also look i'm gonna compliment you whether it's your personality which you know i know a little and also through mutual friends you know whether it's fletcher being around forever or graham being around forever you know i know maybe lane isn't isn't like the vocal disney movie leader but you know, watching him with that groin injury, get out of his, of his stance and, and backpedal and fucking fight all day long.

I think it's a massive, like top down credit to this organization to go through some serious drama and reinvent yourselves like this. And I think it's because you do have a lot of guys in this team that, you know, in the simplest terms, get it, get what the goal is when there's just a lot of teams that don't necessarily have dudes that even know what that means. Yeah.

And, you know, this is my 13th season and I've been through it with four different head coaches. You know, that's one thing that I think, I think the Eagles have really done a great job of even when it's time to retool or rebuild, I think Howie likes to call it retooling, it's not a complete wholesale yard sale. This team was great before I got here. The organization's been outstanding since Andy Reid. And I think I learned the locker room culture and the way to go about my business

and the way to communicate with teammates and everything from Brent Selick and Todd Harrimans and all these guys before me. And they learned from those guys before them. And I think the Eagles always have a pretty good tenure guys on the roster. I think that Eagles always have a pretty good tenure guys on the roster. I think that they value, I know for a fact, Jeffrey Lurie values emotional intelligence,

but I think they value keeping pieces around even in these changes. Jeff Stoutland has been the offensive line coach now with his third head coach. Jeff Stoutland has been the offensive line coach now with his third head coach. They keep pieces around so you're not losing that sense of team and loyalty a little bit, which is a bit of a facade because the moment you're not performing in this league, you're done. But, I mean, they've done a phenomenal job, I think, throughout all of these transitions of somehow keeping that. And that's helped each coach kind of hit the ground running. I mean, we did the same thing with Doug Peterson in 2017. That was only his second year. And we were in the Super Bowl. Flash forward five years.

Nick Sirianni's second year. We're in the Super Bowl. And both of those coaches heavily scrutinized hires at the time. One for a press conference and another, I think just not many people, for whatever reason, believe that Doug Peterson was a guy. But either way, I think we had strong locker rooms

in both of those instances. Howie did a great job of putting together incredible rosters that had a great blend of older players who got it. We made acquisitions of some older guys that got it and some young guys that had a lot of talent. And that blend just really worked for us. Okay, let's go back to 2017. Are you surprised Chris Long only had eight assists

considering how caring he is and how giving he is for others? Eight assists? Eight assisted tackles. That's all Chris had. Yeah, that's what it says. How many sacks? But he had a few sacks, especially in the playoffs. Five, I think.

Yeah, he had a few big plays in the playoffs, especially. Yeah, he's the playmaker. He's a big playacks, especially in the playoffs. Five, I think. Yeah, he had a few big plays in the playoffs, especially. Yeah, he's the playmaker. He's a big play guy. That's right. There were rumors you were going to retire because you were afraid of stunts from him in practice years ago. Just think, he almost ended his career six years ago. That's what I heard.

I read it. I do not remember that. I do remember the Patriots ran a bunch of stunts that were pretty vicious, but in practice, Chris, I don't remember him being the big stunt guy. He was very good around the edge and working him and Lane Johnson had a lot of fun battles.

That was a fun matchup. They ended up becoming unbelievable friends, but I can still envision Chris long arm and laying into the pocket and laying getting frustrated and trying to beat him. And those are fun battles to watch. Um, yeah, I mean,

I'm not, you know, I think Chris was, was a high draft pick and always wanted to be, um, like the unbelievable, uh, stat guy from a sack perspective.

But I, I don't think that that ever, uh, gotten the way of him being an outstanding teammate. So I don't think that although he wanted the numbers and he hit any at times, even like, let you know,

he wanted the numbers. Um, you know, he was at all times a great person to have in the room. And, um, you know, he helped Fletcher Cox great person to have in the room. And, you know, he helped Fletcher Cox play probably better than he's ever played. He got the most out of everybody in that room being the older guy. Yeah. I can't like,

that'd be the most devastating news ever to hear. It was like, actually wasn't a great teammate. You know, he was, he was built to be the guy that gets it. You know, there's some stuff from St. Louis that he, you know, he told me a story about one thing. I'm not going to share it, but I was like, He was built to be the guy that gets it. There's some stuff from St. Louis that he told me a story about one thing. I'm not going to share it, but I was like, God damn, you're smart. I was like, that's an incredible way of approaching this thing. And he just, I don't know, he's the right guy.

You got to have a, there's 53 of you. Well, I mean, this will sum it up perfectly i've played with countless teammates in my 12 years chris is one of the few guys that i call routinely every year for advice in his perspective um i think that what you're saying is right He thinks about things a different way. He's incredibly intelligent. He has a great mind for navigating different situations and he's helped me immensely in a number of different categories. But I think defensive ends, I don't think I've ever met a defensive end that doesn't care about a stat line. I think that's just a part of being in that position.

But he has a way to look at it holistically. And from a teammate perspective, his perspective in anything I've ever asked him has always been well thought out and added value. And to have a guy like that in the room is invaluable in my opinion your podcast with your brother um what was it like watching him host snl dude so i was there and i know right you were in the crowd and he he killed it like i i did not expect him.

I knew he was going to do well because he has the personality for it. And, but, you know, they're reading off the cue cards and my brother is not the best reader. Like he's good at acting and everything.

And I'm wondering how this is going to go. Neither one of us are great readers, but he, you know, he, every performance you could see him do better and better and warming up and when it came time for the live show man it was like

lights on that was the best one he had the entire week and I don't think that's any surprise but I just it was it was so fun to watch him on the stage see the skits that he was doing I mean some of the things these writers can like the American girl skit.

I was like floored that they were even doing this. But the more impressive thing through the way, I mean, Travis was impressive. I had never been to an SNL taping. I had never seen anything like that. I mean, dude, the amount of people necessary to make that thing go off and the stage people, the hair and makeup, everybody's got like their own pit crew for every person. And after you're in one skit, you're running around. And it was honestly, it was like game day. It was like a Sunday game.

And obviously, we have all these people around us that help us get ready, whether it's trainers, strength staff, you know, coaches. And it felt very, very similar. And it was really cool to see how that all happens and what it takes to get it ready. And, you know, I'm always fascinated at watching, like, you know, how stuff happens, you know, how stuff's made. Used to be a great show on, I don't know, Discovery or whatever that was on. I love how stuff happens you know how stuff's made used to be a great show on uh i don't know discovery or whatever that was on i loved how stuff gets made i would watch because it was like a canadian narrator right i was living in a hotel in connecticut at the time and i'd be like oh shit and then i gotta know how this is made i actually thought there was a way to do it a little bit

better it felt a little canadian for me. I don't know what that means necessarily, but sometimes it would move a little too fast. I would go, wait, I feel like we're missing a step on these buttons. Yeah. I don't know what it was. We can go deeper. Are you a big Deadliest Catch? Are you on the gold?

I liked Deadliest Catch a little bit for a couple seasons and then i got out of it i i was what were my favorite man those were i don't even are those still up and i i used to love uh pawn stars um i liked i never liked pawn stars yeah i i liked it now when i go back at it it's like cringy like it's so fake it's terrible but i loved it at the time i was all in on pond stars what i didn't like is like the the middle guy rick who's the main guy was the son and then his son was doing it and then it was like it was almost like watching billy donovan's first interviews after he played for rick patino i know you're not going to get that reference but i do not know the father you know you roll in with the rolex and he's like oh it's

got a scratch on it and you're like oh okay here we go we're already knocking the price down you're mentally giving the customer an idea that he's at this disadvantage sure shitting on his item as soon as he walks through the door yeah and then once the son started getting more involved he'd be like yep i don't know this binder is a little weak and i was like you got to come up with a different game you can't run you you're just stealing rich game yeah right which you know every episode every guy would walk in yeah you know you'd be sitting there with a brick of gold he's like oh there's a smudge mark on it so i never i never got into pond stars although i loved gold loved Gold Rush, but I admit, I don't know, it's really fucked up. I was rooting for everybody

to fail, and then I felt really guilty about it. Yeah, I was feeling really guilty about it, because something would break and something would go wrong the first couple seasons. I was like, oh my God, these guys suck at this. And then I pivoted. I don't know if I got nicer as I got older. Then I was kind of hoping everybody did

well, but then Parker was so shitty to all of his staff. And then he was killing everybody because he was better at it. But he was just so nasty to all the dudes that worked on his crew that I couldn't watch it anymore. And one of my close friends produced it. He was the guy that did Christo, who would do the post show. And he would go out there. We went to college together. And so I was just harassing him all the time.

But he was a pretty tight ship. He wouldn't tell me much about what was going on yeah i'm just trying to think of you i'm trying to picture you i mean i i watched a couple seasons of gold rush um because i don't even know if that was what it's called but yeah yeah and then uh i think i watched like a season of ice road chuckers i definitely was on that channel a lot in that like era of shows that was just kind of like on repeat. What was the, uh, oh my gosh,

the, uh, the lockers with all the, the random junk that they would bid on, uh, storage wars. There we go. Kyle,

Kyle. He normally doesn't turn his mic on during interviews but he couldn't he couldn't go any longer that confusion so do you think that you do you think travis is fucking up your tv aspirations to host one of these shows is my long question is he outshining you well travis has been outshining me forever so there's no way uh that that's gonna get any more so um yeah i think uh travis that snl i mean this dude could legitimate i could see him being in movies now after that performance like and um i think my mom and i have always talked that that's something that we could see him doing, just his personality fits it. And I think he would want to do it.

So, yeah, I think there's a lot of other things hurting my movie aspirations than my brother. I don't think that that's going to hold me back. But I think Trav, for sure, I could see him hosting game shows, going the Michael Strahan route, being in movies. I think all that stuff is on the table for him. I appreciate the time, Jason. Again, you want to check

out his podcast with his brother, New Heights, out every Wednesday. It's an incredible career. First team All-Pro five times, six-rounder to that kind of number. It's an unbelievable resume, and we're happy you're coming back another year. All right.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. It was a blast. The book, The Wager, is out now. David Grand, the author, who has an incredible resume, The Lost City of Z, The Devil in Sherlock Holmes, and, of course, Killers killers of the flower moon which is a movie that's going to be

coming out on apple tv later this year it says october uh martin scorsese leo dicaprio probably heard of those guys will be involved so david this is uh this is an awesome resume now i'm going to tell a little backstory i'm going to share this with everybody i saw your book kind of like promoted because you know everybody's everybody knows what we're all thinking and doing now on our phones and laptops. And it was like, hey, a book that may interest you. And it was like the wager. And I check it out. I'm like, okay, sailing the seas, mutiny, the whole deal, 1700s. I was like, all right, this is perfect. I go, I'm going to pre-order this. This is how I did this book I already am. I'm going to pre-order it months and months ahead of time, knowing I'll forget when it shows up one day. David sends me an email. I don't make

the connection. He's like, Hey, I have this book coming out. I'd love to come on and talk to you. You might like this. And I'm like, yeah, I think I would like this. And I say, okay, yeah, let's, let's do it. And then I'm like, yeah, actually I already pre-ordered this whole thing. I read it and here is David. So thanks for joining us today, man. I knew my target audience. david so thanks for joining us today i knew my target audience you did i was like what is this i was like who's hitting me up and then i went through it i go not only am i into this i already bought it it took me literally just days to read it it moves fast it's a great read um and the opening line in the prologue is maybe my favorite part i got off to a hot start quote the only impartial witness was the sun.

So let's start at the beginning of this journey. 1740, England, what's going on? Yeah, so there is an imperial war between Great Britain and Spain. Great Britain is seeking to expand its empire into Latin America. And it sets this expedition off on a secret mission to capture a Spanish galleon filled with treasure, which was known as the

prize of all the oceans. And the wager ship was one of the ships in that expedition, in that squadron. It ends up in disastrous condition after the ship runs aground and they end up castaways on this desolate island. So what I knew was the staffing of these ships they didn't exactly have zipper back then um can you help us better understand the press gangs and like just the the royal navy trying to find a way to get their numbers up on these seven ships that were going to go out kind of treasure hunting among the Spanish ships themselves.

Yeah. So these ships were really interesting. I learned a ton researching this book. I mean, they were the engineering marvels of their time. They were three-masted. They were loaded with cannons. They were both lethal instruments because they were designed for war, but they were also designed to be the homes of seamen who would live together for as long as three years at a time. But the most important element of all was they needed skilled seamen to operate these vessels. And the British Navy had exhausted its supply of volunteers. And so it sent out these press gangs who would literally just look at people walking down the streets and ports and towns coming off boats.

If you had like a round hat that looked like a seaman's hat, or if you had a little tar on your fingertips, which meant you worked on a ship because tar was used on a ship, they would just round you up and make you forcibly and unwillingly go on this expedition. The craziest part of all though is they were still short of men after rounding up hundreds of pressing men, that the admiralty went so far as to round up soldiers from a retirement home and take men who were in their 60s and 70s, many of whom were missing an assortment of limbs, and who were so ill at the time they had to be lifted on stretchers. I don't mean to laugh, but it's just so dark. Lifted on stretchers onto these ships. Everybody knew they were sailing to their death. The seeds of the destruction of this expedition can be traced right back to its launching. Yeah, because it's a ton of boys. It's hundreds of people that don't want to be there you have members of the army that have no interest in the sea whatsoever and they're hurting for numbers so bad so these seven ships

take off as as this being the start and you think that part of it's bad like look i've read enough about just these voyages to know it's not the greatest time ever but my god was this one of the all-timers can you get into more detail about not understanding scurvy like it's fucking hell at water it is and and this expedition particular so first like so the first first they find out they're being chased by a spanish armada then they try to round cape horn and for listeners who don't know Cape Horn, these are among the worst, if not the worst seas in the world, because it's the only place on the earth where the seas travel around the globe uninterrupted for 13,000 miles. So they accumulate enormous power. So as these ships are coming around the horn, you know, you can have a 90-foot

wave dwarfing their mass. You have the strongest currents on Earth, and then you have the winds that were blowing at hurricane force and can accelerate to as much as 200 miles per hour. There's a great line from Herman Melville, who later made his way around the horn. He compared it to a descent into hell in Dante's Inferno. And so at the very moment when these ships are just being battered, being flooded, nearly capsizing, and they need everybody to persevere, the men begin to succumb to scurvy. And they have one of the worst outbreaks of scurvy ever recorded at sea.

Their hair begins to fall out, their teeth fall out. And something which I did not know about until I worked on this book, I just had a vague idea to describe it, which was it can affect your senses. And many of the semen described the disease getting into the brain and the men went raving mad. And hundreds and hundreds of them perished and their bodies were just thrown unceremoniously into the sea. And before they understood that it was a lack of vitamin C and other deficiencies, which was why sailors became limeys, there was a thought, at least some of the medical books that you dug through, and maybe it was referenced in other

books that you had studied to put this story together. But what I had never heard before was there was a common belief prior to figuring out the vitamin deficiency part of it, that it was just something that the ocean did to the human body. It was almost this mythological thing. And so that you would see some men with scurvy buried up to their neck on a beach, feeling as if the connection to actual land, to mass, would reverse whatever the ocean did. Like, just insane. Yes.

That just, yes. It's so crazy. But you know what's interesting? I happened to be working on that section of the book at the very time when COVID was happening. And it was like the beginning of COVID where you were like, can I touch the package? You know, like things like now we realize, oh, actually that's fine. We could have totally touched the package.

We didn't need to leave the package at the door for too long. And you could see back then the lack of scientific understanding leading to just utter paranoia and wild theories. And yes, one of the theories was the sense of, well, why when they get back to land, do they often get better?

So maybe there's something in the property of the land if we bury them. And what they didn't know was it was just a lack of fruit and vegetables in their diet. They just needed vitamin C. Of course, the great tragedy was this expedition had stopped in Brazil before it came around Cape Horn. And it was stopped on an island. There was actually limes. They had plenty of limes, but they didn't know they needed them for the ships. And of course, they didn't have refrigeration back then.

So they didn't actually bring fruit and vegetables on ship. So in any case, that's what happened. I want to ask about the terminology. Oh, yeah. It has nothing to do specifically with the story, but as soon as I saw it early on, I was like, I love this. I was like, I love this. The number of phrases that we still use today that are directly related to nautical adventures. Give us your favorite ones here.

I have a few that I had underlined as well. Well, what's so interesting, too, is like I always say about history is it shapes the present even when we're completely unaware of it. So I didn't know that for all my life I've been speaking these idioms that derive from the age of sail. And there are so many great phrases. Piping hot was the bosun's whistle when the hot meal was coming. Pipe down is when he wanted that you would blow his whistle for the men to quiet. Scuttlebutt was one of my favorite. Scuttlebutt was basically just a barrel on the ship, which they would fill with water. The seamen would get the rations of water, but what would they do? They would kind of wait around the barrel while they waited for the rations. What would they do?

They would gossip. So we use the word scuttlebutt. One of my favorites, which came later, was the phrase from Horatio Abel Nelson. When he wanted to ignore a superior's order and signal flag to retreat, he decided to put his telescope up to his blind eye. So to turn a blind eye came from that. I could go on and on. I couldn't believe, I'd never heard the blind eye one. So instead of, you know, he just basically was like, he looked through the telescope with the wrong eye on purpose and now it all makes sense.

It's like, oh, you're turning a blind eye, which means you actually know what you're doing. And it'd be like, why would that ever start? I mean, the scuttlebutt thing was actually just a real piecing the definition of what scuttle and butt would be. And then three sheets to the wind, which everybody's been saying forever. You come out of a bar, you say three sheets to the wind. the wind which everybody's been saying forever you come out of a bar you say three sheets to the wind and so three sheets which i think everybody knew but i don't know if they know the specific origin if it's when three sheets were turned that way then the boat moves in a manner that's completely unpredictable trunkard yeah there you go i'll give you what i'll give you one more of

my favorites because it was just like i was just like you got to be kidding me under the weather under the weather you just always said okay under I was just like, you got to be kidding me. Under the weather. Under the weather, you just always said, okay, under the weather, just mean, well, you mean you're sick. You kind of feel under the weather. It just seemed like, I don't know. It seemed like a nice metaphor. It turns out to be literal. When seamen were sick on a ship, they no longer served on watch. They were allowed to rest below deck. So they were quite literally under the weather. So that's why we say under the weather. Just a couple of boat nerds here. All right. Okay. All right. So we now are a few months from England. They're making their way towards the Drake Passage, which is the tip of South

America to the tip of Antarctica. And when you look at it on a map, which I don't spend a ton of time on that part of the globe looking at that map, it's always a little reminder of, to your point, all of this water converging on an area that it's best 600 miles wide. It's a crazy funnel. Can we start kind of with the ominous tone, though, that you have about this trip? Again, as we understand all the people that are on board not necessarily wanting to be there, probably over 50% of them, in this treasure hunt chase, essentially, after this other boat from the Spanish Armada. But St. Julian, I thought the history behind that with Magellan and Francis Drake, you do a really good job of kind of planting the seed of like, understand mutiny. Like people may not like their workplace conditions now and go,

what's the big deal? This was not cool back then to not exactly like your superiors. Yes. And these expeditions, because of their extreme condition, because they are these kind of laboratories testing the human condition under these extreme circumstances, can often lead to insurrection, rebellion. If you have a tyrannical leader, an abusive leader, you're just exhausted or you just want to go home. And so they stop at St. Catherine, which is this island, I mean, at St. Julian, off Brazil. And when they are there, they discover the place where on Magellan's expedition centuries earlier. 1520, yeah. 1520. Yeah, there had been a rebellion and Magellan had one of the men hang there And Magellan had one of the men hanged there and killed.

And then, of course, Drake came later before my expedition I wrote about, but comes later. And in the very same place, he's paranoid about a rebellion. He probably accuses someone falsely and ends up killing, hanging this man falsely in the same place. hanging this man falsely in the same place. So the men on the expedition, on the wager and part of the squadron, they go to this place and they can kind of just feel these infernal spirits and they want to get the hell out of there. Of course, it's more like a prophecy than anything else. Right. And they kind of, you know, I don't know if it's the,

how it's just, oh, whenever I read any like papers from people from the past it kind of speaks to like you think hyperbole is out of control now like back then a guy wouldn't you know a guy could could have a fucking ear of corn delivered to his house and he would say on this majestic day this ear of corn changes the path of man and you're like relax yes it's very florid yeah right right so whenever i'm reading about the drake passage part of it in saint julian and it's like the isle of blood and oh yeah the water they were acting they were describing the waters if it was still red from the murders of mutinous uh revolt so all right we're we're still we're still technically seven ships in we're making around cape horn and this is like clearly people had heard about it now 200 300

years removed uh you know columbus got to what he got to east south america in 1494 which i thought it was really interesting that the pope just said hey hey, the West side of South America, that's Spanish, the East side, Portugal, done and done, get to work, start stealing all their shit. So people knew about Cape Horn in 1740, 1741, moving on. What happens to this group as they're trying to make this pass? So very few had rounded it. They didn't even know the right time in which to round it. It was such a frightening part to seamen that the Spanish, after they colonized much of Latin America, after trying to use the horn as a way to kind of move their ships and for transport and cargo and trade, decided so perilously, they decided they would just

sail to Panama and then haul the goods from the ship from the Atlantic overland through the jungle where many of them would die of yellow fever and malaria, and then put them back on another ship on the Pacific side. So that's how dangerous these seas are. And as we discussed, it is this crazy funnel. are. And as we discuss the, it is this crazy funnel. I mean, there is like, you know, whenever you delve into something, you start to, you know, I had always just heard that, okay, Kapor and bad seas, but I had no understanding why, you know, I didn't understand again, that the seas just flowed uninterrupted around the earth, 13,000 miles accumulating that power. Then they enter

that funnel, that Drake panel. There that funnel that drake panel there's also a shallowing there's a sudden shallowing in the terrain so the water goes from very deep to very shallow all these just generate these massive uh oceanic forces from 90 foot waves to these unbelievable winds uh to seas that uh you know, just incredibly powerful currents. And these ships just become bandied about. They just become bandied about like as if there were no more of the rowboats. And the other thing that's really interesting about these ships is even though they were these engineering marvels of the day, they're made of all very perishable materials. They're made mostly of wood.

And so even though they're made of hard oak, they're very vulnerable to the elements of the sea. So a couple of the ships go, we're too small. We're out of here. Yes, they retreat. And the other part of this is throughout all of this weather, they're trying to stay in communication. They're trying to stay aware of each other. And so the fact that they would even know, like, hey, we don't know if those guys are dead forever, if they went back to England.

It appears the lead ship and the wager are separated here and the wager finds itself in a precarious spot. Would it now be Chile where it's we're talking what the southwestern kind of tip of this area where it's not just getting past Cape Horn? Like when you look at some other stuff, when I've looked in the past at looked in the past at the Astoria book, where it goes all the way around. You had to shoot it way west of South America to not even mess around with that coastline, which seemed to be just as dangerous as any other place you can get in trouble. Yes. The ships, that was something that was really interesting, too. You just take things for granted. I mean, I figure there's not cell phones, but when you suddenly realize they're on these ships, there's something that was really interesting too. You just take things for granted. I mean, I figure there's not cell phones, but when you suddenly realize they're on these

ships, there's no way to communicate. So the way they would communicate with each other in the storm, they would fire their guns or they would hang lanterns. And it was their way to signal. And they're desperate to stay close together because they know if they get caught on their loan by themselves, there'll be no one there to rescue them. But in the storm, all the ships scatter. As you said, some turn back. The wager finds itself all alone, alone to its own destiny,

somehow manages to get around the horn, but up the Cape Achille, which is still, the skis are still in the winds, are unrelenting. And they are sailing like so many seamen back then, partially blind, because they did not know their longitude. To know their longitude would have required a reliable clock. And those had yet to be invented on ships. They have to rely on dead reckoning, which is a little more than a leap of faith and some informed guesswork. And it turns out that their estimation of their longitude of where the coast of Chile is, they didn't have good maps. I mean, there weren't enough British people going along here. Turns out to be wrong, and not just wrong,

but wrong by hundreds and hundreds of miles. And suddenly, the wager is barreling, and it hits a submerged rock in what is known as the Gulf of Depenas, which translates as the Gulf of Sorrows, or as some prefer to call it, as I call it, the Gulf of Pain. That name should have told you everything. Yeah, right.

Get the hell out. Let's avoid that spot. So the ship is taking on water. There's no way it'll survive. They are at least near land. What happens next? Yeah, so they hit this rock. The rudder shatters.

A two-ton anchor falls through the bottom of the ship, leaving this gaping hole. Then another wave comes in and kind of sweeps the wager off the rocks after it hit. And it's careening through a mine full of rocks with no rudder to steer by and with water pouring into the ship until finally it crashes into more rocks, a cluster of rocks, and the ship begins to completely break apart. The planks shatter, the decks cave in, the masts come down. All the water starts filling in the bottom of the ship. The rats are scurrying up where those who were suffering from scurvy, who weren't able to get out of their hammocks. They all drowned as the water came in, but the ship did not completely sink yet. It became sandwiched between a kind of pillar of rocks. And as some of the survivors climb up to the remnants of these ruins, they peer out in the distance and through the mist, they can see an island. So they get to the island. I think this would be a good part. I mean, I could have done

this a couple of different ways. You do great character development, backstory of each of the people, the captain of the wager, David Chee. Let's just update the audience kind of on his story arc now leading to this point of his ship has crashed and they're about to hang out on this deserted island with any man that can make it to the to land alive yes so um i tell the book kind of an unusual structure from the perspective of three individuals three members who were on the wager one of them is captain sheep he was somebody who back on land was kind of always dogged by debts he was chased by creditors he was kind of frustrated andgged by debts. He was chased by creditors. He was kind of frustrated and bitter without a success. He had always found refuge in the kind of very regimented wooden world of a ship. And on this voyage, he had finally attained what he had always dreamed of. He had been named

and become a captain of his ship. That's all he ever wanted, all he had ever longed for. And then, of course, the ship wrecks. He loses his ships. He loses his dream. And he suddenly is, in a weird way, on land, set at sea because he has lost the structure of the Navy. And now what is he going to do? And how is he going to maintain order? And so he believes now that they're on land, he should still be the commander because he

was the commander of the ship. He still has the title and he wants to govern by the same kind of regimented hierarchical way in which he had governed on the ship by the laws of the admiralty. Had people turned on him yet? had people turned on him yet? Or, I mean, was it just kind of the classic, like subordinates just eventually are going to turn on their captain? Because, I mean, as we mentioned before,

like that's not exactly something that was healthy to do. There was all sorts of punishment. It was understood that, you know, this is the hierarchy of the military here, but in these extenuating circumstances, how does that play out both historically and kind of in this story?

Yeah, so I mean, Cheap was very brave. He was very courageous. He was also very stubborn. He lacked some of the instinctive qualities of leadership. There had been some grumbling building after he went around Cape Horn when he was so determined to kind of fulfill the mission that he'd been sent off, where others on the ship

were like, you know, maybe we should change course and head further out. And he was just so stubborn. So some grumbled about the wreck, could it have been his responsibility? But the real tensions build on that island. And he lacks some of that steady composure and the ability to fully inspire. But he's a complex figure, as are all the men on the island. They're all deeply fallible, but you can understand them. They're not reductively good and they're not reductively evil. And one moment you could see this great act of selflessness and gallantry, and moments later you might see an act of shocking brutality. Yeah. I'm not going to tell the rest of the story because I want people to know that once they get there, there's a real Lord of the Flies

kind of feeling. It reminds me of one of my favorite lines in any book I've ever read in Sapiens that essentially the first man once upright after 30 was like, all right, there's too many people. And then they would break off and more people. And then once they get to 30, it was like, we can't, not everybody's has the same goals. Like some of us are carrying this group and it's just, I don't know, man, we are wired a very specific way. And once they got to the Island, they realized I don't want to be with them. And these guys don't want to be with these guys. And then the most amazing part is they feel like they're left for dead. It becomes a race to go home to tell the story that most benefits the person who is home. So I'm going to leave the rest of that up to the audience to go ahead and track this down because it is that good of a book.

That's how much I enjoyed it. this must have been an incredible maze of trying to figure out your own personal bias of like, which character you believed in, which ones you didn't. And you're very neutral in the book, but I think I can still kind of tell based on the information presented. Yeah. So, I mean, what's so interesting to me is when I came across the story, I was like, wow, this is one of the craziest sea yarns I've ever seen. One of the greatest tales of survival. But one of the things that interested me so much was not only what had happened on that island, but what happens when some of these castaways do come back to England. And after everything they've been through, they could be hanged for their alleged crimes. And they publish these kind of wildly conflicting accounts. And so after waging a war over all

the elements, over scurvy and these typhoons and these tidal waves and starvation and these castaway voyages, they suddenly begin to wage this war of the truth. And there is information, misinformation, there is disinformation, there is even an 18th century version, an allegation of a kind of fake news. And so what was so crazy is when I was researching this story, it was at a time when we were having these battles here in the US. So I would go to these archives and be like looking through these crumbling, dusty manuscripts. So like, if you just blew on them or touched them, they might disintegrate. And you'd be reading about, oh my God, I'm like, they're fighting. And then I would come home and you like flip on the news or read the paper. You're like, oh my God, it's the same damn thing. But so you had to kind of walk through,

you know, it was like being on Twitter or something where you're just like, everybody's just, you know, they're trolling you. And what is the truth? And how do I get the truth? And so, yeah, you had to, you know, drill down on the accounts. The amazing thing is that there is a surprising trove of these firsthand documents that have survived. I mean, that... Right, the real documents, the journals from these survivors. Yeah, these documents, they went around the

world. Some of them were like in flooded ships. Some of them were on the shipwreck. Some of these documents were kept when they were on the island with quill and paper. I mean, it's kind of crazy. And you can actually go read them. And so, you know, you have to kind of wade through them and corroborate them. The interesting thing is they mostly agree on the general facts. The manipulation is more subtle and I think often more true to the way we deceive and the way we deceive ourselves and the way we shape our stories.

It's less about an outright lie than what they leave out of their accounts. My favorite example is one senior officer will say on the island in his account, I was forced to proceed to extremities. I mean, you could not think of a more bureaucratic system, say out of Germany and Nazi. It's like this mere banality, forced to proceed to exterminate. Then you pick up the other account and you're like, oh, he shot him right in the head and he bled out in my hands. And you're like, so I did make this unusual decision to kind of be transparent about the war to kind of show how it's playing out.

So you get to see these three competing accounts. I think by showing each three, you probably get a pretty close to the truth, although you can never get perfectly there. There's no omniscient God, you know, unless you were the impartial witness of the sun where we're subject to some of their spin. But I do think you could get pretty close to approximation and you see how we often shape our stories. And so what's, to me, what really fascinates the story, it's like, it's crazy yarn. It's about society, civilization sent into these Hobbesian states, but it's also about truth. I mean, it really is about the nature of truth, how we tell stories and how nations tell stories and manipulate their stories. What do they leave out of the narratives?

every time they had a certain form of government and leadership, they'd be like, well, this doesn't work. I'd be like, let's go do this one. And then they would cycle through like whatever it was. And then it was like, you know, what wasn't bad was this one. And it was like, I think that's more reflection of us than it is any form of government or leadership. And when you follow the three narratives of the characters that you use, like one character, I think most of us, after you read the book, you'd be like, character, I think most of us, after you read the book, you'd be like, okay, I think I trust this character. There's one where you go, that's not great. But then you're also like, that's not that bad. And then there's another one where I'm like, maybe you did something terrible, but I totally understand why you did it.

I totally agree. I'm being vague here, by design but the thing that reminded me of kind of today is that one of the characters decided he was just going to tweet as much shit as he possibly could to sway the opinion and it's like if somebody actually is that i can't tell of like do you have something to hide you're being so proactive about sharing your story and the other person was like i don't want to tweet but they were like i have to kind of so maybe i'll get a burner account and and it's all to save your life okay it's all to save your fucking life and look on top of this we didn't even get to it so when this is optioned

into a movie i don't know if the directors will understand how important and how just visually how much fun it will be to see a battle between one of the ships that we kind of lose track of and the Spanish target here. I wonder if they'll just say, hey, it's too much to shoot another one of those scenes. We'll cut that part out. Even though I loved it. It was like a great little surprise in the book.

I was like, oh, here we go. And your account firsthand of this battle where one ship's completely outmanned. On the last finishing thought you got to go there you got to check it out and when you see the pictures of the coastline and how jagged this whole thing is to think of these dudes in a 20-foot raft or canoe trying to paddle around it at all and it never working you're like oh now that i've seen the pictures i understand why this would never work especially with guys this this week, you know, hanging on to life.

Oh yeah. Yeah. So I, you know, I spent the first two years researching the book in a way that is suited to my very measly physical attributes was within a lot of archives kind of thought that's where I would do all my work. But after about two years, you know, you always have that kind of gnawing feeling like, what don't I know? And I always just had this style like I'd never been to that part of the world. Can I fully understand? Because your description of each of the individuals, I think, I really appreciated because you're not trying to necessarily absolve them or even necessarily sympathize with them,

but you're always trying to understand them. And I was like, how can I understand what they went through on this island unless I went there? So I found this Chilean captain who could take me. And I got sent a photograph of the boat. And I was like, oh, okay, this looks good. This looks big. And then I got to Chile. I won't get into how long it took me to get to this place, but I'd take multiple planes, cars, ferries. I finally get to this island, Chilliway Island, which is about 350 miles. I'm curious, though. How long from the domestic sort of easy destination to this one? It took four days. No kidding.

Yeah, four days to get to Chilliway Island. And that was the island where we were then going to depart from on the boat. And it would be about 350 miles journey south to what is now Wager Island in the Gulf of Payne. And when I got in, I looked at the boat. I was like, oh, that doesn't look like it did in the pictures. It looks really pretty small. It was wood heated. It was heated by a wood stove.

It's winter out. It's about 30 degrees out. It's kind of raining or sleeting. And, you know, there's just a few people on board. And then we can't even get out of the port. The Coast Guard closed the port because the weather is so tempestuous. I didn't know that was true. I mean, I know you go to Bartholomew's Vineyard and stuff. I always thought that you wanted to commit suicide at sea. You were allowed to. I didn't know that. There they literally said, no, you cannot leave this port. So we were not allowed

to leave the port. So one day passed and we're like stuck on the ship. Day two, day three, finally day four, they let us out. We slip out at dawn. We enter these channels of Patagonia, which are actually calm because they're kind of sheltered by the ocean. These little islands that you're kind of winding through. Darwin passed through them on the Beagle. And going through these islands is very chillingly beautiful. But then after a certain number of days, the captain says, now to get the way to dry, then we must go out into the open ocean. And so we head out into the open ocean. And that's when I got my first glimpse of these seas. And yeah, they're pretty terrifying.

You know, they dwarf the boat. And I think part of it was just the boat was just very top heavy. It was really designed for channels, not for the big ocean. And so we were just like a tin can gets just tossed about. I could not stand for like 10 hours a day. I had to sit on the floor of the boat holding on because if I were to stand, I would have just been, you know, heaved across the boat. I had all the kind of, and I'm used to sea, I don't normally get seasick. I had, I was like an experiment for every like advertisement at four in the morning for seasickness. I had patches going and bands on the wrist and Dramamine.

I was like a drunk on Dramamine. And then I had to pass the time so I put on a recording of Moby Dick, which in retrospect was not the most soothing thing to have done. So here I am just being tossed about in these seas listening to Moby Dick.

But the captain was very skillful. He really was. He was a very capable commander, very steady, very composed. He led us through these seas. He gets us through the Gulf of Pain. And I won't make this story go on too long, but just one thing that was remarkable was we're coming through the Gulf of Pain.

He points to some islands and he says, oh, that's Hobbes and that's Smith. I'm like, God, those are such English sounding names. He said, I'm familiar. And I had brought some of the journals with me from the castaways. I looked at them. It turns out that that was where some of the castaways had been forced to be abandoned when one of the transport boats sank and there wasn't enough room for them. So they'd been left on this island. So that's like their epitaph. And most contemporary seamen, including the captain, had no idea why they were called that. They were just like, oh, that's Hobbes. That's what it says on the map. But nobody knew that that was where these men

had been abandoned. And then we make it to Wager Island, and it is as desolate and wind barren and as cold as the others described it. I now appreciated that they probably all had hypothermia, which was a term they wouldn't have used back then. They would just say we were freezing. I now understood that. And I could find virtually no food. And I began to understand why this British officer described it as this place where the soul of man dies.

And I was like, okay, I get it now. I get how challenging uh this environment but then perhaps the most remarkable thing is that one part of the island somebody in our group says come over here take a look and there's a little icy stream and in it were these wooden timbers about five yards long bound together by these wooden pegs they are timber from an 18th century ship, which is believed to be His Majesty's ship, the Wager. We knew what they were because they'd been discovered

by a scientific expedition several years earlier. And that is all that remains. So after all that furious struggle we just talked about, all those warring narratives, there's nothing else. And the only sound I could hear was the eternal hush of the sea so I was just very struck by I couldn't have written the story had I not known what an amazing ending that was great that's perfect to see the timber left over from the ship and you know to be there at a current time and think about the lack of resources because this place is so hard to

access there'd be no reason to be there there was no wildlife essentially that was like bound to the area uh even the natives that at some point in the book come and visit them they're like you know okay good enough we'll see you guys never like we're not coming back to visit you because we don't even hang out here, but good luck with everything. Incredible work. So much fun and a fun, easy read to like, I'm not given the hard sell to the audience on it,

but it just, you know, sometimes in history, you'll look at the old font and you go, okay, I got about eight months to go on this one. This was, this was a lot of fun moves,

a lot of surprises. And of course, an end that we didn't even share with you that is worth checking out. So thanks for all the work on this, David. Thank you so much for having me on the show. I really appreciate it. And I didn't even get to ask you about the Knicks. Good luck against Cleveland. Okay. I hope it ends better than it did for the wager. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari.

355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. I want to thank Primus and Tool, who played a joint show last night in L.A.

And your boy made it out on a Monday night and then came back and watched a Golden State game. So there was a fork in the road at a point last night where I was like, this could be an epic night. And it was, and I was like, you got, you got stuff to do, bro. You got stuff to do.

So really he's just chomping at the bit here. Well, one what's promise like live. And two, you're also, you're kind of like a tool, like roadie super fan. Now this is pretty intense.

How many times have you seen them? This wasn't the full version of tool. It was, uh, like, roadie super fan now. This is pretty intense. How many times have you seen them? This wasn't the full version of Tool. It was Danny, the drummer, and Justin, the bass player. So, the guitarist. And there was no chance, like, you know, again, the joke. The first time I saw Tool, and I have a friend who's very close friends with Danny. So, I've had access to be able to go and hang out. And the first time we get like stuck in traffic. So he was like, do you want to just go back and hang out with those

guys for two hours? And I was like, wait, you don't. He's like, yeah, of course I do. It's like, I'm fucking with you. So we all hang out. We're having a great time. And then I was like, is Maynard coming by? And it was like, Mike drop the lead singer they were like no dude he's not coming by to like hang out with you especially and it was like okay okay so yeah it was half a tool and primus uh live was was even better than i thought it would be and we got hooked up i mean we got totally hooked up where um we got to see it from this vantage point. It was incredible. But yeah, it was a Monday for the old guy.

And you were like, what do we do? And then, you know, hanging out after. And they're like, well, there's a thing after. And I was like, the thing after is me trying to figure out a fucking Sacramento Kings open. So there you go. There you go. Because the other thing, too, is like when you do this job you

can't just hide in a cubicle you know yeah that was the thing i always try to explain to my friends i was like you know espn you're having a bad day it's like okay cool talk about fucking roethlisberger's legacy for three hours today you're not just like chucking pedialyte yeah you can't just hide in the back and send everything to voicemail you know so uh i was actually trying to figure it out i was trying to count last night i was like how many shows have you ever been hung over in your career and i i came up with the count i think i have the definitive list i think it's six yeah wait are you hung over right now no not, not even close. So you don't like it.

Thanks, Steve. Okay. We have a million follow-ups on the paternity thing. Like a million. We might just have to do that when it's a slower day. So let's not do it now. All right. Okay, here we go. Life advice, life life advice rr at gmail.com here we go uh am i turning into the old guy from

banshees of in a sharon 36 years old yeah yeah no kidding people were a little upset that i didn't give enough of a delay on the spoiler alert for succession last week god we did like two different spoiler the fucking la times i mean come come on like what we do it so you guys are saying we handled it the right way yes i historically don't give a shit about any of this like it's the internet stay off it if you don't if you can't if you can't handle it stay off it i'm not like it is the internet this isn't a this isn't like a book club or something where we have to wait till we meet to talk about it so whatever man so don't listen to the show is that what you're telling people uh i thought you should have dying this week was way more crazy no you you you gave a

pretty very clear instruction of what we were doing if you didn't follow follow the instructions, I guess I'll have to go back and listen. I thought we handled that just fine. And there was like a pause. If I heard succession and I didn't see the episode, I'm just instantly going to stop whatever I'm listening to. You have quick hands. I think I could have done a better job. I haven't listened to it. I think I actually could have done a better job.

You know what I could have done? I could have done the thing where I'll ask a question where I'm kind of putting the guest on the spot a little bit and knowing that they may not have the right answer, but I'll ask it and then I kind of ramble for 30 seconds where I'm resetting the question. So now I've given them time to think of an answer, which sometimes works and plenty of times it doesn't work. I probably

should have said, hey, I'm going to do a little spoiler alert here and then talked not about the spoiler. I think I could have done a better job. So next time somebody did just fine. Yeah. Okay. All right. 36, 5, 9, 2, 10. Don't max out. But 13 reps is my current combine number on the bench. That's great, man. It's really good. Long time buddy. Let's call him Frank, who I can no longer tolerate. It's such a great line in that movie. He was just like, I don't like you. I don't like you anymore. We've been friends for over 20 years, and he's part of my core group of guys.

The problem is that all the other core friends are married and have kids. And at this point, so they're rarely available to hang out. Me and Frank are single and don't have children. We both pretty much lay low on the weekends. I like to get after it on, or excuse me, lay low on the weeknights. That guy's not going to Primus on a Monday and get after it on the weekends. He hasn't done anything in particular lately to piss me off. Then a couple of months ago, I finally got around to watching the Banshees of Anna Sharon. I enjoyed the movie and laughed out loud quite a few times, which is rare for me. It really is a good movie. I realized in watching

that maybe it's okay to stop hanging out with a longtime friend if he isn't bringing much to the table. I get that maybe that's not the stop hanging out with a longtime friend if he isn't bringing much to the table. I get that maybe that's not the lesson I should have learned after watching the events of the movie unfold, but I digress. Yeah, I don't think you have to worry about the rest of the parts of the movie, worrying that that's going to happen to you. See, we didn't even tell you what happened. Frank's got some annoying tics. He always likes to ask if I've seen a random movie, and if I say no, he always responds with, You've never seen fill

in the blank. Sometimes now I just lie and say yes to avoid the inevitable response that I know is coming. He also constantly fact checks things I say in real time. For example, if I tell him I saw a crazy sports app the other day and give him the star, he'll immediately pull out Google to confirm

what I tell him. I just saw this two days ago. Worst of all, Frank is super cheap. We split a birthday gift for one of our buddies years ago, and he never paid me for his share, a hundred bucks. I bought him dinner and drinks a few months ago because he left his card at home. And then the following weekend, he smoked me up on a joint or two. A few days later, he texted me and asked me if I Venmo'd him 10 bucks for the hookup. up on a joint or two a few days later he texted me and asked me if i venmoed him 10 bucks for the hookup and i said if anything you owe me money for the weekend prior he responded touche and didn't venmo me anything get this guy i like this guy yeah i love the touche and then disappears

touche is a real conversation ender isn't it yeah uh He constantly comes to my house and brings a six-pack, crushes it, and then clears out all the beer and alcohol I have. We did have one friend that did that. There would be get-togethers, and he would bring two beers for himself in his pockets. Then everybody knew. They were like,

which two beers do you think he's going to bring? He'd be like, well, the best part is he's going to keep one in his pocket while he drinks the other one. And he'll drink it fast enough that, and then it's on. And that's his version of bringing something to the table. Then it's a case race.

Right. Then it's like, okay, whose beer am I now going to drink? What we want to do is have somebody just come in with a full blown vest with all these pockets and try to put like a 12 pack and then stand there and never put the beers in the fridge, although that's sort of punishing yourself

because depending on how fast you drink, well, it's going to be pretty warm. All right, so constantly comes to my house, got that, cleans out all the alcohol. I like to keep alcohol in the house when I have guests, but most of my friends bring over a 12-pack or a bottle and leave what they don't drink, not the other way around every time.

He asked to come over to my house multiple times over the past couple months, and I keep making excuses as to why I'm not available. My question is, do I confront him over his constant cheapness and tell him to bring a 12-pack because I don't want to see a sixer in his hand again when he knows he's going to drink way more than that? Keep in mind, he is sensitive, so I don't know how he'll react to a call-out. I generally like to avoid confrontations,

or do I just continue to be mostly unavailable to him I don't want to completely Cut him out of my life just hang Out one on one less often because He tends to annoy the shit out of Me he also by the Way shout out to Kyle and Poughkeepsie Check out Tavern 23 The old Rennie's

Great food and vibes Kyle already knows I'm going to check it out When I go back for the wedding. Believe you me. Captain P. Yeah, I think you kind of summarized it pretty well at the end here. What do you want this to be? You know?

In the movie, in Banshees, it's pretty clear one guy's totally good, never seen the other guy again. A little tougher in a village in Ireland 100 years ago. Maybe longer. I forget which year. So, yeah, I think it is longer than that. But I'll look it up as we talk. You should have your friend Google this for us. It sounds like you still kind of want to be friends with them.

But there's kind of like an awkward part of never phasing somebody out. The phase out. Eventually, they know they're getting phased out unless they're oblivious although i kind of respect the relentless guy who fights the phase out he's just like i'm not going to be phased out like i'm not going to be phased out we had a buddy like that in college he's still one of our all-time friends but in the beginning it was kind of like what's this guy's deal i don't know i think there was one of our friends who was like super rich who didn't like him just because he wasn't rich. It was like, dude, that guy's from like a poor family. Uh, again, you know, fucking right down the middle over here,

but he just relentlessly kept, he avoided all phase outs. Wouldn't, wouldn't pay attention to him. So I don't know if that's going to be part of the problem here too, because it sounds like he probably annoys the shit out of way more people than just you so yes it's super easy to be like hey let's just talk about this thing but i think in a a maybe few drinks in subtle like hey there's no beer left or do this when he brings a six-pack over have him drink then have nothing in the house hide it it all. Right. And then he'll be like, oh, there's nothing else here. And then you just kind of like, let them have it in a really funny way where you could be like, oh, wait, did I not get your order? Did you text me an order ahead of time

of what you wanted to drink after you were going to drink all the stuff that you brought on your own here? Like, I think there's a way where it feels like it's a little bit more playful, but you're making a very direct point and you're planning this out maybe you do it a group maybe you do it in some other front of some other people so you don't feel like it's this one-on-one Dr. Phil shit where you're like hey man you know just want to talk about kind of you and your general vibe here and how people are feeling about it I think it's one direct harsh harsh verbal slash which seems playful but it isn't hopefully it stings him a bit and perhaps he'll alter course here. Cheap guys don't usually decide to not be cheap all of a

sudden. Some people are cheap because they have no money and then they stop being cheap because then they have money. And then there's people that are just always cheap. It doesn't matter what the cashflow situation is. But I would think one direct verbal slice here just put it on his radar and and develop from there i think it needs to be on his radar because right now he's probably operating his vessel without any radar whatsoever yeah i'm in the middle of a phase out right now and um i'm never i'm never gonna be like you get faced out no i'm phasing something i'm in the middle of it no way um unfaceable um yeah he's just you know guy went sober and proud of him happy for him he's zero fun now he always wants me to come over to his house no no i'm not saying i'm not saying like oh you don't drink you're no fun even though it's kind of that is a little bit what i'm saying

so fuck him no no no i mean he was he used to be way fun because he was a terrible drunk but but i mean like now like i stay in contact fun because he was a terrible drunk but but i mean like now like i stay in contact with him because you know and you really i realized that his life like his friends were just centered around drinking just centered around the bar and then he had to stop and and everyone kind of disappeared and i'm i've been sort of you know i've been texting with him back and forth and i've all he wants to do is wants me to go over to his shitty apartment and like watch him mess around on pro tools for like music. That's not really going to go anywhere. And I just, I can't do that anymore. He doesn't, he can't be in the bar at all. He can't like, he there's really nowhere else to go. He doesn't want to like, I mean, I wouldn't

be like in the Canyon walking around with him, but it's like, there's nothing to do. All he wants is to come over and check out the new tunes, dude. So I've just been, uh, I've been in the middle of that phase out and I'm never going to say, Hey dude, you suck since you stopped drinking and I don't want to listen to your shitty music, but I do come up with excuses. I do. Sometimes the text doesn't get answered and then I'll answer the next one. And then I'll maybe even reply to the one I didn't answer two weeks ago. I think, I think there's a way to just do this, you know, without, without having to be like, Hey man, I don't, I don't like your, your relentless Googling. I don't care about your movies and stop drinking my beer. You could just be like, just not around. And this isn't, this isn't banshees because you know,

you're not going to see this guy everywhere you go and he's not popping up, tapping on your window, right. To see what the fuck's going on. So I think you could, you could probably just continue on this path and just maybe don't even answer a text every once in a while. Yeah, keep it going. Like, it's not like he's excommunicated, but if you just, he's already sort of getting the idea.

So I think, I think you could just continue, move to phase three of the phase out or whatever. You know, I haven't seen Banshees. But he doesn't want to permanently phase him out though. Like he's still, so there's some delicacy here where you can here where this can't be a friendship ender.

That's the point. That's what makes it a little tougher. Sorry, I jumped you, Saru. No, no, I haven't seen Banshees, so I can't speak to that portion of it. But I think Kyle brings up a good point because in your life, you have kind of like the people that text you and they get an immediate text back. You know, your close family, your close friends. And then you have the group that you'll give it an hour, you'll give it a day. Maybe you respond to one out of every two or three. And that's kind of an easy way to fate. That's sort of an easy way to put someone subtly, I think,

in their place of where they are in the pecking order of friendship. And you can sort of scale that and do it slowly. Like you just start not answering to every text and then, you know, every other text or whatever. And then you start not hanging out as often like it just kind of slowly goes in that direction um so i think that's kind of the best way to do it the other thing you could do is why don't you instead of you know instead of just like being a dick about the beer situation can you just start giving them orders be like hey man we're short of beer could you pick up like a like a 30 on the way over? And put the onus on him to actually start buying some of this stuff. And then when he shows up, you have like a secondary fridge where you have like backup supply that he doesn't know about.

But your main fridge, like it looks empty. And if he doesn't bring it over, then it's like, oh, shit, like you ruined the party. You're supposed to be the beer guy. So maybe that's kind of like a subtle way to like get him to stop being so cheap about the beer thing. Because he's going to one, not be able to drink your beer. he's gonna kind of be the downer that guy that didn't actually bring the beer when it was his task so again i don't have the the banshees background of this thing but i think there are like subtle ways you can kind of like you haven't seen dude i have it because i heard it suck but you guys said it was good so i don't really i don't know who told you

it sucked everyone just said it was like really boring and i know i'm a big feral guy i'll watch it i just haven't had the time recently obviously uh but i will watch it but everyone kind of said it was boring no or am i getting i'm i'm getting that benedict cumberbatch movie though the dog one mixed up you're probably thinking that one mixed up i think it's out of that one number snatch yeah i know i know this is not a there are no cumberbatches on this podcast but uh yeah i don't know. I feel like I heard people say it was kind of a drag. Well, I wouldn't say it's uplifting. Yes, I would agree with that. By the way, it takes place exactly 100 years ago, 1923.

But that village there, no Wi-Fi there. So, you know, there you go. Okay. Let's do another one here. Right? We covered it? All right. My roommate is Jimmy G.

Levels of handsome, but doesn't know it. How can I empower him to break out of his shell and get some action? Whoa. This guy really wants this other dude to hook up, I guess. 511, 170. Lift three times a week. Pretty grotesque sky hook. That's funny.

John Williams. Like Cerruti, I heavily dabble in the under desk treadmill. Yeah. I've been using it. It's funny. John Williams. Like Cerruti, I heavily dabble in the under desk treadmill. Yeah, I've been using it. It's awesome. I sound like such a loser, but that's fine. I'm reaching out

because I'm at my wits end trying to empower my roommate to get some action. For context, most recent graduates living in a two-bedroom apartment in the young section of a major city.

We both lucked out, got very good starting gigs. I'm doing software engineering for a tech company and my boy's working in the young section of a major city. We both lucked out, got very good starting gigs. I'm doing software engineering for a tech company and my boy's working in the marketing department of a pro sports franchise. Let's just make it even more vague. On paper, this dude is the perfect catch, 6'2". In a city full of short kings,

maybe we need to figure out which city this is. That would be great. Full of short kings? Yeah, like if there was some sort of if like a city we're losing yeah like if there was some sort of like yeah we're losing tax dollars like you know our average height is like two inches below every other major city let's just start marketing ourselves that way like have you ever wanted to be tall when you go out you know welcome to fort worth uh fort worth feels tall though so you know i just was trying to come up with a city. All right.

So he's a chiseled 225 face of a Greek God. Also, he works for a pro sports team. All right. He is the tier of handsome that in college, when me and the other guys would pick up girls at parties at bars, they'd always mention how person X was their top pick and wish we could talk to them. Or wish he would talk to them. Always? I would always mention that.

Boy, that's an aggressive that's an aggressive u-turn you're hitting on somebody and she's like i wish fucking dave would take me home he won't even look at me what's his deal i'll go home with you but jesus you guys live together some girls went as far as even shooting their shot at him in classes or climbing onto his lap if he was sitting on a couch at parties, the problem was that these more outgoing girls were not of any desire by my roommate. In my personal experience, hot girls,

coincidentally, my type or the type my friend likes wants to be approached. And my friend is very, very shy. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. I always kind of think it's funny.

Like when excessively hot girls, like no one will ever talk to me. They're like, yeah, cause you're going to say no to all of them. That's why. I also love that. He was like, hot girls, my type. ever talk to me they're like yeah because you're gonna say no to all of them that's why i also love that he was like hot girls my type oh you're in here into hot girls no i read that wrong he said coincidentally the type my friend likes right but again yeah you weren't totally off i read it wrong which would have made the email a lot funnier but yeah it's not like this is my buddy who likes lot funnier, but yeah, it's not.

This is my buddy who likes really unattractive people. Oh yeah, he's a good time. Big personality guy. Right. As me and all of our other college friends have been on hookups and gotten girlfriends over the years, my friend has made remarks about how depressing it was that he was still a virgin. Oh no, Cerruti, don't call this

guy out. Or that he would be single forever. I've had countless attempts the past five years at hyping him up or wingmanning him, but he always gets cold feet in the end. It's been even worse post-graduation as my friend doesn't even want to go to bars or parties anymore. I tell him that every girl he meets just wants to jump him.

Or that if he downloaded the dating app, he'd get a bajillion swipes, but he scoffs at me. Your first guess might be that he's just not that into girls i was wondering if we would get there uh which i too have posited but he's talked in enough detail about his types of girls he sees from afar that i really that i don't get that vibe okay maybe all right uh i think a big sexual right you know. I don't feel super comfortable with like email probably like, well,

wait, dude, you know, like I don't fuck. I think a big part of it, uh, may have been that growing up, going to all boys,

private school, and not really developing any comfort game with talking to women. I really care for his wellbeing and he's generally a great, great dude. We're still very young with a whole life ahead of us. And I try to reiterate that he doesn't have to rush to do anything before he's ready. I can just see this eating away at him

and want to motivate him to take the leap. I sometimes get angry because I know that if I looked like Bradley Cooper, this guy's really pushing the positives of working for a pro sports team.

But yeah, whatever. I'd be shooting my shot at the Duchess of Cambridge Doja Cat or a goddamn Insta-butt model. There's a Brazilian butt lift girl at the gym now. Guys are just... Not keeping their cool.

Guys don't know what to do. Guys are freaking out. Are people talking to her or are they just like... Nobody's talked to her. Nobody's talked to her. I'm not talking to her, but... Guys are looking at each other. I remember I told the other story about how the guy just went for it even that guy doesn't know what to do that guy talks to everybody

all right so love the podcast uh look there's a couple different ways of looking at this the simplest one is maybe you shouldn't care so much about whether or not your roommate hooks up. Granted, I know, you know, you're looking at him and his attractiveness. It's like you could have this whole world in front of you and you're not doing anything about it. But we had a roommate who'd never, who didn't hook up. He just didn't. He was, his standards were like absurd. Like, where do you think you are, man?

We're in Vermont at a school, you know, some, some really attractive people walking around, but like your, your entry level, like your, your safety, you're like going safety school, the sore bone, like this isn't what, and then you just kind of realize that i again not to be like weird about it but for some people the idea the act of like being intimate with somebody else is so sacred is something that they're protective of that they can't imagine being that way with somebody that they're not fully attracted to and you know look it can be sort of complicated. You're like, dude, relax a little bit, loosen up the standards a little. But we get in an argument with one of the roommates about it all the time. And he'd be like, man, you know, it's been six months or whatever.

And we're like, that's your fucking fault, dude. Like, you know, mix it up every now and then. Make out with somebody at last call. Bring some kids back. You know, people like staying up late do what the rest of us are doing and he wouldn't do it and he just wouldn't do it and eventually like everybody stopped caring granted he didn't look like this dude apparently but that might be the first part is that you might have more of an issue with it than he does i'm gonna keep it short i

don't really have any i I just got a plan. I'm not going to do advice. I just have a plan. I know you say he doesn't, he doesn't like to go to bars, but you said he seems to be like, oh, this great guy. So he's probably a nice guy. You got to get him to the bar. That's my, that's my, that's my advice for a lot of things.

This time it actually lines up perfectly. You got to get into the bar. You got to say something's going on at work or you just need a buddy to hang out with and you need to get him to a bar, pick the right night of the week and you find to get into the bar. You got to say something's going on at work, or you just need a buddy to hang out with and you need to get them to a bar, pick the right night of the week. And you find two chairs at the bar, you get the drink and then be like, yo, I'm going to the bathroom. Like just find the right spot around the girls who, you know, are going to like be on him. And, and you just be like, watch my seat. I'll be right back, go to the bathroom and just

stay away for like, I don't know, seven, eight minutes, see if anything happens. And you can do this all the time i think you could well you can't you can't like go to the bathroom every every 10 minutes but like there's a way to set this dude up when you know girls are at the bar feeling a little loose as far as like would they come up to a dude or wait for a dude to come up to them and it sounds like he's not going to do that so i think you just you just get him get him in position and then just clear out and then come back and see if anything happened cal's coaching him up it's just a plan i don't it sounds like just go out to a bar but he said that was i mean listen there's nothing wrong with that advice and i've used that advice many times over and it's been completely correct but i'm just saying but i think he's saying like he doesn't want to do this he doesn't want to do that you got to make it seem like he's doing something for you right because he wants you

to get off his back he doesn't want to want you to bother about not hooking up or not doing this he doesn't want to go out to the bars because he knows you're trying to cause him up you just got to make it seem like that really the genius part of this plan and it is the genius part is you got to make it seem like he's doing you a favor by going to the bar you got to say you're going through something i don't know somebody's sick stuff's hard at work you're losing money or something i don't know i think all of those things are are well said and i get it i think my point would be these guys i think are fresh out of college so they're probably already going to bars it sounds like they go to he says he doesn't do that anymore so he doesn't want to

do it anymore he's not interested in it he's been trying to get him to do a bunch of different stuff so that's why i think you gotta you just gotta get him to the bar i mean the long long and short of it is you just gotta get him to the bar that's where that's where this happens he's gonna feel gross about doing the swiping thing if if you care if you want this guy to you know you cash in on his looks while he's in his 20s then yeah that's what you gotta do you know what this reminds me of it reminds me of you know, like the NBA center who like his whole life, people are like, oh, dude, like, you know, he's seven feet. He's got some skills.

He's like, oh, you're so talented. You're so talented. And he just like doesn't even like playing basketball. But yeah, by the way, that's a lot of situation. That's a lot of centers in the NBA right now. If you talk to James into it. No, there's there is a a well-established theory philosophy. I don't even think it's a theory because it's it's presented by. No, there is a well-established theory, philosophy.

I don't even think it's a theory because it's presented by... There's a lot of guys that are really tall that play in the NBA that fucking hate it, but their entire lives they were told. So, Cerruti, I love this analogy. Yeah, and you got a bunch of 5, 10 guys being like, Oh, man, I can't believe Andrew Bynum doesn't want to put in the work. He's got all this. He was gifted everything, all these talents and skills, blah, blah, blah,

blah, blah. Just because this guy is hot and is a good-looking dude doesn't mean he wants to be about that life. So I think, why aren't we asking him what he wants? He doesn't want this. He doesn't want... It sounds like you want him... Yes, there's a friendly thing of like, hey, you're a good-looking

dude. You should be going out more and hooking up more that's one thing but do you also secretly like maybe want him to be your wingman so you can make it so life can be easier on yourself like I just kind of feel like we should be asking what your friend wants like I feel like it's a little bit selfish on your part to just assume that just because he's hot that he should just be hooking up with all these

girls like he just doesn't want to do that maybe he wants to hang out in his basement play video games maybe he doesn't like he doesn't have the same lifestyle that you do so while i think it's a noble thing and i think you're being nice i think it's a little bit selfish all on the table i imagine a 30 for 30 on this guy and he's like you know my whole life people were just telling me to smash and i just wanted to play super smash brothers yeah right like i just i didn't want to smash as much as they wanted me to smash. It was just really hard for me to adjust to.

There's one paragraph I can't get past. And this may just not be what he's interested in for a bunch of different reasons. But the fact that he keeps telling you how depressing it is that he's still a virgin and that he's going to be single forever now let's let's play this game that one doesn't make sense it it could exist it you could have a friend that for whatever reason his personality whatever's going on in his head right all that shit we don't share with everybody that it's like he has a real problem of of not figuring out like you know

the physical part of this like it's this apprehension you know it's like i believe that would exist for somebody in this case it happens to be your roommate who apparently is a fucking smoke but i don't i don't know i don know what, like, I think you have to be really delicate here if he's this good looking, actually has interest in girls, is openly complaining about the direction of his life and the lack of romantic interest. Like, I don't think you can go like hard at him here, man. I think you, like you add all that up.

If it's all, you know, I don't know. I don't want to sit here. We speculated about a bunch of different things, but I think maybe it's kind of back to like what you both are saying here is that who's this email about, you know, it's, it's, it's cool. You care this much about your friend and your roommate. I do think that that's happened. Nobody's giving you a hard time for that, but you know it's it's it's cool you care this much about your friend your roommate i do think that that's happening nobody's giving you a hard time for that but you know if he's just not if he's not wired that way like it's going to be up to you to get over it more so than him and if

you know if he's 30 and goes you know i fucking wasted all those years i could have done whatever or maybe he finds his path and he's totally happier like you know it's it's really going to be way more up to him instead of you like we could go oh hey plan out a double date or put him on an app or you know a girl that you're really tight with be like this is the dilemma but then again she's going to tell all of her friends you'd be like hey the jimmy g without game is coming tonight so they're all going to be fucking weird about it. And he's going to figure it all out here too. I think, I think you just need to be very conscious of like,

what, what does he think about what, what are his feelings where he's telling you openly that this is bumming him out while then never doing anything about it, despite ample opportunity. And that can be something that just as a friend, especially when you're younger and guys are kind of tough with each other younger,

like we're just kind of shitty because we don't really know how to talk to each other and we repress it all and all this different stuff. But I would just say like, don't be really pushy about it because if this is, if this cocktail is all put together and this is kind of where he's at right now his best friend his buddy if you're this close you know i don't know i guess i'm just trying to be nicer about it as opposed to how i answer the question of my something should be going there's got to be something going on whether it's like melting down when he's like

sealing the deal maybe he gets anxiety maybe he's a never nude like tobias um i don't know yeah it's yeah there's got to be something. There's got to be a reason. You're right. This doesn't add up. Maybe you should go to therapy. Yeah, we'll leave it at that. We'll leave it at that.

Okay. That's life advice. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Steve. Life advice. We already gave out the email at the top of it. Thanks to an awesome podcast. Today was great.

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