The Ryen Russillo Podcast - The Things You Forgot About the NBA, With Kevin O’Connor. Plus ‘Hightown’ Creator Rebecca Cutter: From Pilot to Production.

Episode Date: July 9, 2020

Russillo is joined by The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor to discuss some things we may have forgotten about the NBA in its three-month hiatus that will be interesting to see come playoffs time (1:20). Then Ryen talks with Rebecca Cutter, creator of the Starz series ‘Hightown,' a show about the opioid epidemic and organized crime in Provincetown, Massachusetts. They discuss the show's inception, the process of shopping it around to different studios, the attempt to capture life on the cape, and more (35:00). Finally Ryen answers a listener-submitted 'Life Advice' question (1:00:20). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's episode is a great one podcast on the ringer podcast network it's brought to you by state farm just like basketball the game of life is unpredictable talk to a state farm agent get a teammate who can help you navigate the

unexpected the unexpected uh ivy league canceling fall sports i don't know i don't know what's to be unexpected anymore honestly when it comes to some of this stuff scary stuff out there get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected talk to a state farm agent today the plan is kevin o'connor we're going to talk some nba stuff you may have forgotten about and then my new favorite show i got two favorite shows on television right now it's yellowstone and hightown more of you probably heard about yellowstone but hightown is really cool it's on stars the season's just about to finish up and the creator showrunner producer rebecca cutter she's an awesome story and she is going to join

us and talk about her show. So we've got two different things we're doing. And at the end, trust me on this one, you're going to want to hear this week's life advice. So we're going to kind of sprinkle one of those in most of the pods, like one. I don't know that I'll do three because it takes me forever to answer one anyway, but people do seem to like them. So that is the plan. Okay. He's got a podcast here with Chris Vernon, and he also covers the NBA, the written word as well. Kevin O'Connor. Okay.

Kevin O'Connor joins us. I was texting with him a little bit last night just because I feel like there's going to be things that pop up where you go, oh, and even in my prep and trying to get ready for the relaunch of the season, there've been a few things that I come across. I go, okay, that's right. That's a real thing there. Before we get to any of that stuff, because we kind of have this concept of like three things that we may have forgotten.

As I was going through the teams, I usually like to find a team, Kevin, that I think may be over it, but I can't really find that. It still feels very new, whether it's Milwaukee's resentment after last year, different personnel pieces on a lot of top East teams, Toronto motivated post-Kawaii, which I think to most people, this is still pretty amazing they've done this. Even when I'll talk to teams, they'll include Toronto as a real contender, and I'm surprised how often I hear that. It doesn't mean they're wrong. I'm surprised I hear it that often. And then with both LA teams, these are still newer versions of this. So I don't have this team that's really good that I feel like is going to show up to Orlando and go, eh, this sucks and completely underperform. That team exists. I just

don't know necessarily who it is. And it's certainly not because they've had so much success that they're not as motivated as they normally would be and with the variables this year with coronavirus with them being at disney world there's so much more variance with what could happen it's almost sort of hard like if you're putting power rankings together which i'll i'll be doing on the site it's i'm looking at these teams and it's like i don't know i mean who's not gonna decide not gonna last minute? Who's going to test positive when they arrive there? Which team is not going to deal well with being on campus? It's all these factors that make it so much harder to predict ahead with exactly what you said. Like with Houston, for example, I'm going to mention them with our topic today.

But I have no idea what to expect from them. With Harden and Westbrook, they're a team that I've liked a lot for years. But with this new situation, is it going to be a good thing playing at a neutral site I don't know it's going to make this people talk about asterisks for this NBA season every year has an asterisk in its own way with injuries and whatever else um and I don't buy that asterisk talk at all but it's certainly going to be different this year time around yeah I mean look you may not do it and people come to anybody that does this for a living to be like, Hey, give me your picks. But I keep getting back to that. Well, I don't know. I don't know

if Harden is more motivated because of playoff failures or Westbrook. Are those, are those two guys like, this is awesome. Like let's, let's take it. Like people are really looking at Houston. I've noticed this and I'd be curious to see what happens with your power rankings. But they jumped like five spots in the ESPN power rankings from the end of the season. I mean, they're still a six seed, okay? Now, they probably match up really well against Denver.

They've beaten Utah. You worry about Utah's entire thing. But we're really talking about four months ago, four-plus months ago, and what does any of that stuff mean? It's, it's really, really hard to go. Well, because I felt this way about you in early March. I mean, the whole Capella trade thing, like they had a really good record. They were 10 and two after they traded them, they lost four in a row. They got smashed by the Clippers. They won their last game against Minnesota. What does any of that mean? And I could also see a version of it where Harden's like, ah, this sucks.

You know, like that's that he has that in him where he's like, ah, this sucks. I don't want to do it. I did read the article talking about how he's doing yoga. Maybe that's why they jumped up five spots in the ESPN power rankings. But I can do this exercise basically with every single team where I think that's what kind of leads me back to the Lakers a lot is that at least I know LeBron is probably looking at this as another chance in a closing window to get a title. I can't imagine that he's not more motivated than everybody else. Oh, I mean, I think LeBron is always more motivated than anybody else when it comes to playoff situations. And, you know, with Houston or any team for that matter, we're just using Houston as an example here,

but it's true for any team. We just don't know how they're going to deal with these extremely unusual circumstances. We don't know. And the way you feel mentally is going to impact the way you perform on the court. So James Harden has been getting in better shape. There's a great article written by Kelly Eco

on The Athletic a couple weeks back about him being in the best shape of his life. he certainly looked like it but how does that translate when you're stuck at disney world you know and it's been six weeks you're there already and it's getting into the first round of the postseason we just don't know so it's harder than we don't know to make your pick that's that's it it's just we don't know i want to get to the asterisk talk for a second there but the best shape of your life stuff like is it good that yokich is down 40 pounds i know jamal murray was saying he's moving around he looks great he's super athletic i don't know like why is why is yokich dropping 40 pounds a good thing i'm that's a real number 40 pounds they're saying i read this

morning 40 i don't think that's even true by the way for the last season i reported that he was 275 at one point and he definitely does not look 275 right now no he doesn't but that could be just the cut of the the zip ups i don't know um he was big at the beginning of the year close right yeah yeah you know maybe it's 40 pounds from the beginning of the year when he showed up, right? Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it's 40 pounds from the beginning of the year when he showed up. And the thing is, he was still putting up numbers. He just looked totally out of shape at the beginning of the year. And I do think that every superstar has their own beat writer that is obligated every six

months to write that this person is in the best shape of their lives. I think they're like, once you're a top 20 player, the NBA just assigns you a guy. It's like, hey, this is going to be the person that just says you've never hit the gym harder. And just so you know, we can use a lot of the stuff we used from six months ago. We're just going to print it up again. It'll be like the beginning of the season, the beginning of the playoffs. It's just it's part of it's part of the CBA. A lot of people don't know about it.

Well, I mean, nowadays, players can do that themselves on Instagram and everything else can post videos, pictures, all that. All right. You know what I pictures, all that. All right. You know what I did like? Because you're right. No matter who wins this, they're going to get trashed. It's just the way it works. It's what's going to happen.

I mean, I've said about real NBA champs going through it the normal way. So I don't mean to be real or fake because this isn't fake. I want this title to be appreciated. It's not going to be. It's just not because it's just not the way. We're not nice about these things. There's 29 fan bases that are going to be mad that one of these other fan bases wins a title,

so they're going to knock it. But yeah, the chances are there's going to be a couple really good players on one of these really good teams that test positive, and the public is going to have a really hard time processing all of that, and we likely will just go straight express lane to negativity. That's absolutely going to happen.

It's already happened. I mean, I remember, what was it, three, four weeks ago, you turn on first take and all it is is if the Lakers win the championship, is LeBron going to get an asterisk for this? And the way I look at it is even if a star player were to test positive, these are the circumstances we've all been dealt. This is what we're all dealing with here. That could happen to anybody, star or not.

A star can get hurt and get stepped on and be out for the rest of the postseason. It happens, and it has happened. And we saw it with Zaza, Petrulia, and Kawhi Leonard. You could say, did the Golden State Warriors deserve anaza, Petulia and Kawhi Leonard. You could say, did the Golden State Warriors deserve an asterisk that year? Cause Kawhi got hurt. Maybe you could say that for their,

cause they advanced after that. And the Spurs got hurt, but that's just what happens. That one. I always push back a little bit on, not because I love the Warriors, but because it was game one and the Warriors, at least it's shown us a pattern of being pretty good. So I know Dr know doc river i know a lot of the guys like when the clippers were the most hated

ever when every team hated him and doc was like oh a lot of the guys the warriors play get hurt you're like come on man sure and that's the thing though it's like you could pick something from each postseason and say absolutely deserve an asterisk for that. And this year, coronavirus is something we're all dealing with. Every team's dealing with on that Disney campus. So if a guy tests positive and is a star player, I mean, we'll see how I feel in the moment. Maybe I'll feel differently at the time if that actually happens.

If it's game six and Giannis tests positive in the Eastern Conference Finals, maybe I'll feel different. But it's the situation, and every team has to deal with it. Every player has to deal with it. And for teams, in conversations I've had, it's going to be treated like it's an injury. You're out two weeks. You're out two weeks.

It's no different than if you pull your hamstring. And it's obviously different because it's a serious virus that's running throughout the world but from a strictly basketball perspective it's just the situation that they're unfortunately we're all unfortunately in right now and so if that's different in terms of asterisks or not we'll see how this plays out hopefully and this is you know true for the whole league and all the coaches everybody there hopefully they do an awesome job at this and there's no you know outbreaks afterwards when they arrive on campus and that happens this week like fc dallas with mls they had what four or five positive tests on their team after getting to disney world all right get after arriving there two weeks ago so hopefully that doesn't happen here and we'll find that out sometime next week

once this testing really starts rolling i felt like there was a marketing pivot though where it then went from you know how much will this champion be questioned how much will they be discredited to actually this is the most difficult championship to win because of the mental channel like there was and i'm not even knocking it i'm just saying there was a real kind of funny pivot like austin rivers had said it then yannis had said it was like actually this one's going to be the hardest but it's just we already know what's going to happen people are brutal about this stuff with with all sorts of different things i mean derrick rose is like coronavirus is like 10 derrick rose acl tears you know that when when he went down with the

bulls almost 10 years ago bill even brought up like hey what does that really mean for lebron i was like come on man really um so i i wonder if you had yannis asymptomatic test positive game six nba finals if they'd be like well he looks fine i hope not i i hope not i hope not right i'll just leave that one alone i'll just leave that okay let's do three things we may have forgotten in the months away from the nba i'll let you go first all right i'll i'll since i mentioned the rockets earlier uh rockets so much rocket yeah they did i mean with with that they traded clintlla. And I know with Houston, you know, we already talked about this. It's not that I forgot necessarily. It's just at the time the deal happened and in the weeks afterwards

when they're playing P.J. Tucker and Robert Covington at the 5-4 a lot, I'm thinking to myself, like, we're about to see one of the greatest small ball experiments ever. And that just sort of has sort of faded away, you know, from the center of my focus with the NBA season comeback now. But now it's starting to pick back up for me. And I'm just thinking about the potential matchups for them and what Houston is actually going to do.

You mentioned Denver. They all have always had Clint Capella as a primary defender against Jokic. But if you're having PJ Tucker or a smaller guy or Covington having to defend Jokic, I am just really excited to see how Houston is actually going to do this thing, how they're if they're just going to stick to their small ball ways here and play a bunch of guys six, nine and under, or if they're going to roll out Tyson Chandler and a certain certain matchups in certain situations and play with the rim running big that they have in the past with

Capella or Nene and a bunch of other guys. Yeah, there's math that tells you that four-man unit with Harden, Westbrook, PGA, and Covington is really successful. I think the fifth guy that's shockingly, well, maybe not shockingly because it could be limited possessions, but Daniel House, I think, is the best fifth member of that stuff um denver played houston four times um

houston was better but harden didn't play in one of the losses you know i don't know what i'm supposed to do with some of these results because it's now completely different and we're so far removed from it and hello was on those teams too he was on the floor with houston in those matches i mean he's right i mean these are when you're going back to october like i'm really supposed to go well you know they got him in game one i mean i don't know what any of that stuff means so that matchup i would think houston would be okay with denver but then if they get utah i mean we're're still talking about a Houston team that was a six seed when the season ended. One of the ones that I keep reading about is when they beat the Lakers when they went really small. I feel like the Lakers just got totally freaked out. Like if they had to play them again the next day, they would have killed them. But in the moment, they're like, what the hell is going on here? They were just so thrown off that I felt like that's why the Lakers lost that game more so than that. They just were incapable of matching up against this small Rockets team.

Sure. And that's sort of the point here that you made earlier about how much does any of that mean? Probably less so than it does in a normal year when those October-November games don't necessarily mean much in April, May, and June. And for that, you know, Lakers-Rocketsets matchup I believe that was at Staples Center it was that Rockets victory and for Houston that's what I'm excited to see because they have this you know training camp here for a couple weeks ahead of the season what can dan tony install that's gonna have them be an adaptable team or are they gonna continue and just do what they've always done a lot of high pick and roll you know constantly playing small or are they gonna have new wrinkles in order to

counter-attack to what other teams are doing when they're actually game planning during a series because you're right if the lakers faced them the next day they probably would have come back with something different and done something different against houston because there are exploitable holes that a small actual small team has people talk all about small ball so there's a lot of lengthy players in small lineups and houston has some of them but they do lack height and they do lack size and weight which the lakers do have with 80 dwight howard javale mcgee or even just playing 80 at the five that clippers blow out after they had gone on that big run that 10-2 run with acapella that clippers blow out felt like oh wait i think this might be more what it is the next blowout didn't make any sense they had that

weird phoenix loss in there too i think somebody was missing in that Phoenix game, but I don't want to do 30 minutes. I don't know with you, but I constantly feel like that's what we keep getting back to. All right, let me do something a little bit different then, because I'll ask you it this way. Is Giannis actually just a cooler James Harden? Now I've been of the belief that there's a bigger separation between regular season and postseason basketball the last few years than maybe ever before, and that you become reliant on some of these styles that just play out a little bit differently in the playoffs i know that people have been always saying that a tougher defense less position all these things i actually think that separation has grown and when i look at yana specifically some of the numbers are insane a plus 16 net rating per 100 possessions with

yannis on the floor this year but with him off the floor, they've been plus four. You're like, all right, that's pretty good because last year in the playoffs, the Bucs were a minus 10 when Giannis sat. Now, the reason I mentioned Harden. Now, let's look at usage rate. Big usage rate guy. I feel like usage rate explained a lot of the spikes in some of these performances, but nobody ever seems

to really want to believe me. Troy Daniels, number one, by the way, for those keeping score at home, did qualify. He is not part of this conversation, Kevin. Luka's number one in usage rate at 38.5. Giannis is number two in the NBA at 37.1. Harden's right there at number three, 36.7. Harden last year was like at 40.

Anytime you're over 40, I think you should write thank you notes to the rest of your teammates every month or so. So the reason I bring this up, and on off, defensively,ly it's not even close so i'm not going to do that but when you run this style that is so connected to this one person doing this thing that's so impressive whether it's yannis finding a way to get to the rim people collapsing and kicking out to an array of shooters or it hardens not only his amazing shooting ability, his driving ability, his availability, his passing has always been incredible.

I think the reads are so locked in his head. I'm not saying the reads are easy, but they're easy for Harden because he knows everything. It's like a quarterback that's been in the same offense forever. And even though there are different variations of what Houston does, he just, his reads are perfect. Do you think that there's a part of you that worries about Milwaukee the way I worry about Houston going,

yeah, I understand who Giannis is. I get all of these parts of it. But there's a real regular season dependency on him for the other four guys that have not proven it with Milwaukee. He's very short run with this group. But in a lot of the way same ways we've seen some of the disappointment with different Houston rosters in some ways I'm with you um I've written about this in the past in regards to Westbrook you know those guys that

have those super high usage percentages tend to fail in the postseason and usually fail early. But at least historically, a lot of those guys had to do it. With this Milwaukee team, to your point, he doesn't have to do it necessarily. So being so focused on one guy is concerning. But I will say this, the difference between this year and last year, you mentioned how great they are with him on the floor. They're still pretty good without him. The fact that with Middleton, with Bledsoe being a bit better this year and last year, you mentioned how great they are with him on the floor. They're still pretty good without him. The fact that with Middleton,

with Bledsoe being a bit better this year than he was last year with some of their younger guys, whether it's D Vincenzo or some of their older guys like George Hill, being able to keep that team afloat without him suggests to me that if they're in a situation in which Giannis is really getting so much defensive attention that they gutter on stuff through others that they can't. that if they're in a situation in which Giannis is really getting so much defensive attention that they gutter on stuff through others, that they can. And with this Milwaukee team, they are so great on the defensive end of the floor,

number one in the league by far over anybody else. That gives me more confidence in them, in addition to the fact that they do have some other guys that can help out if Giannis isn't able to really run the show because of a certain way that he's being defended. So this is a little bit different than other instances, whereas with Harden or Westbrook in the past with OKC, if that guy was contained, what else do they have? Milwaukee does have other answers. Okay. I like what you did there. All right.

Your next one. Next one. Let's go um a bench guy here did you forget he was on a team with avid bradley sitting out rondo will likely be taking more minutes i kind of forgot just how bad rondo was this season uh obviously shooting numbers, average only seven points per game. One thing that I found this morning looking this up, when LeBron is on the court without Rondo, the Lakers assisted over half their baskets, over half. But with Rondo on the floor, that drops to about a third.

Ball movement's worse with Rondo on the floor, which is part of what has made this Lakers team good, despite having superstars. Ball movement with stars, AD and LeBron, and their offensive rating with LeB worse with Rondo on the floor, which is part of what has made this Lakers team good despite having superstars. Ball movement with stars, AD and LeBron, and their offensive rating with LeBron and Rondo drops by six points per 100 possessions rather than just having LeBron on the court. So you're thinking about Rondo's going to have more minutes,

more time on the floor, likely with Bradley out, and his shooting issues, even though he shoots 39% on spot up threes, defenses don't defend him. They don't worry about him. The number isn't what you're looking at in percentage as much as amount of attempts. That's what is indicative of the respect the defense is giving a player.

So Rondo's going to play and they're going to have to rely on him. And you see all this hype this past week about Rondo, supposedly looking rejuvenated at Lakers practices. But people who realize like Rondo, well, Rondo's never going to be fat a day in his life. Like people get that, right? Well, yeah, that's what I'm saying. He takes his shirt off and it's like, oh my God, he's ready to go. I'm not buying it.

I'm not buying it until I know you see him at your gym all the time, right? Working out. So you know that he's always going to be ripped with Rondo I'm not buying it until I actually see him starting to give effort on the defensive end of the floor which he hasn't done in years and the off and the offensive end for the Lakers look they're they're my pick to win the final so I'm not this isn't changing things for me but the fact is is that with Rondo I do wonder if he's eventually going to be somewhat of a weight on LeBron and what they want to do with that offense and will they eventually go to an alex caruso will they throw quinn cook out there even though he's quinn cook so with rondo i i will be

interested to see if we do get some sort of playoff rondo that elevates his play and thus makes the lakers even more of a of a strong bet to win the finals than they already are. You know what's funny about Rondo on offense, because you're right about defense, I felt like he's looked really active and good and engaged physically. He's had some moments where I go, wait, where was this guy last week? With the Pelicans, he turned,

he looked like a completely different guy in a very short amount of time. So there are moments at the beginning of the year, and then you would watch it and be like be like yeah but he's not playing well it doesn't matter i have a quick little follow-up i already know the answer the answer is probably no but i wonder if there was any part of the lakers that if dwight had said i'm not going to come play in the bubble where they would have been like awesome now we can just play anthony davis at five more i mean they're going to be doing that regardless more in the postseason, but they keep saying they're not going to,

which is the, this is the dumbest little drama ever. I think they do it because they want to just make sure he's as happy as possible. Cause he doesn't like doing it, but they're better. They're just so much better with him at the five. They're going to be closing games with them at the five,

right? They have to be. And that's why I thought of the Dwight thing, even though, yes, I understand the answer would be especially in these circumstances have as many available bodies dwight has been a massive massive upgrade versus the dwight that we thought that they were going to get oh but he's been so good deserves a lot of credit for that too to accept the role for really i wish he had done this you know five years ago yeah and started rolling to the rim instead of posting out but it's nice to see yeah uh lebron

also makes his world as easy as possible because everybody collapses he and javel just clean up on this stuff but but i couldn't help but think if he had said hey i'm not coming if vogel and his staff go okay now we can play hey sorry anthony we have to play it to five way more now but it's not gonna happen no of course and that would get that would make it easier for them to get more skill on the floor as well what you know whether i you know mentioned caruso and cook uh some of the smaller guys on their team and and not that you necessarily want to play quinn cook i'm just saying in a scenario where maybe rondo is not doing so hot out there and you do need to improve your shooting curious to see what that lakers closing group will be.

But again, it's not really going to, I don't know that it really matters as much with the way those two guys have played. I don't know what else to do here. I got a little Celtics one, but I feel like I've already done that a little bit. The blame Horford Philadelphia campaign. You know what?

This one surprised me. I'll do one that really surprised me because I was trying to find somebody on a team that I went like, oh, that was kind of my Tobias Harris joke that I tweeted out where it was like, Tobias Harris is on the Sixers, but it didn't really pick up. Miami's actually, because I was doing a Miami Sixers thing, okay? And Miami, I think Pelton had the number. It was a great number. Miami's played more zone, it was a great number miami's played more zone uh defensive zone possessions against the sixers than like 20 teams have played zone all year long so like just to understand that in three games miami's played more zone against philly than a third two-thirds of the league had actually even

played all season long and we know that the offensive combo of imbeed simmons and then horford because philly people want to act like Horford's the only reason why there are some issues there. That that's a net negative, which is still pretty fascinating offensively. Defensively, it's really good. But Miami's middle of the pack in defensive efficiency. That surprised me. I was surprised to see Miami, this heat team that's been a lot of fun and a bit of a surprise

to see them 14th in defensive efficiency with spo his system and some of their personnel that is quite surprising especially with bam out of bio turning into the player that he has i mean both ends of the floor great defensive player i feel like i bored you a little bit with that one like i closed i didn't well i closed with a cover song or something sorry no zone defense is exciting we're seeing teams do it more and more and and it could be something like a breaking ball for a team in the postseason we're seeing the raptors do it more often nick nurse i mean he's not not afraid to throw it out he did in the finals last year going boxing one against stephen curry we could see it more often this year boxing one that's that was the ultimate ultimate respect all right

your last one last one um since i just mentioned the raptors i'll i'll go with them i sort of forgot that they were number two in defense this year i knew they were top 10 top five but number two uh i i kind of forgot that and they were fifth last season so they've actually been better this year and i think one of the reasons why it might have slipped my mind here is because so much of the focus over the course of the season was about pascal siakam early in the year putting up mvp candidate level numbers even though he fizzled a little bit yeah i did a little much better yeah yeah still really good yeah i mean he was so off the charts those first i don't know a few weeks of the you know i mean the mvp thing was a real deal but like i said kind of at the beginning i i don't know if

i'm wrong by pushing back on nba guys when we're just sitting around talking and i go there's just a few of them where i i'm like wow another another guy's including, you know, hey, Lakers, Clippers, Bucks, Raptors. And I'm like, what? Because everybody seems to be very hot on the Celtics right now. And I would be hotter on them if I had seen them all play together more. And the whole season, despite some really good numbers from Boston, I don't know. I imagine Kemba's fine. He didn't look great after the return. from boston i don't know i imagine kemba's fine he didn't look great after the return again this is over four months ago but the small point guard thing in the playoffs um does scare me that's real it's a real thing especially in defense and and what you just mentioned about we haven't seen

boston play together with toronto that's one of the reasons why i think so many people are hot on them right now is because they do have continuity. They do have chemistry. They do have experience. And this was a team. Obviously, they're worse without Kawhi. It goes without saying. No kidding. But this defense still, they beat teams up, man.

They have so much length and size. They can play big with two bigs with Ibaka and Gasol, or they can go with just one of them. They can even go super small if they want to. Put Boucher and Siakam at the four and five if they really want stretch the floor on you yeah I mean I mean like Toronto can play any different type of way they want to and you're thinking about to sort of bring this back to the beginning we don't really know how this is going to work out at a neutral site here and a team that does have this chemistry and experience together maybe they have an edge over a team like the celtics who on paper are a better team you think about what jason tatum was the last month and a half or so of the season

think about what they could be with kemba walker being fully healthy not dealing with that knee problem he had on paper boston is better because they have that scoring star, those star scorers and a really good defense. But Toronto does have what a lot of teams don't have here. And that's experience and chemistry together. Yeah. And like we did that thing with JJ months ago where he mentioned how amazing Toronto was defensively on their closeouts and,

and defending rotation. And I was like, no, no, keep going. Like, tell me exactly. Cause there's always these moments where if you're lucky enough to talk to somebody that's really doing this for a living. And I think you're going to agree. There's awe when Toronto was talked about with nurse, like, like it makes me go, Oh, I'm not, I'm not doing a good enough job understanding everything you're doing because this guy's a lifer and this is a 30-year career, or this is JJ Redick who's played in the league

over 10 years, and he's laughing a little bit about how amazing they are at some of these defensive concepts. And it pisses me off when I'm like, oh, I wish I recognized this as quickly as you guys did. Sure. And I interviewed David Griffin for the Pelicans video I did a couple weeks ago, and he brought up Toronto. I mean, obviously, everybody wants to be like the champions. Yeah, everybody brings him up. And it's not just because they won. Right. And you would agree. This isn't just because they just won the title.

Go ahead. It's because of the way they did it. It's because of the way they won with size on the defensive end of the floor. It's because of the way Nick Nurse coaches, and even during the regular season, just always comes with a different game plan. It's almost more like an NFL team, week to week, game to game for the NBA. It's very unusual. Most coaches tend to stick with their system

over the course of the regular season, and they roll with it very little game plan and game to game. But the Raptors do it differently, and that's because of Nick Nurse and that staff there i mean people like you said it's not just because they won the championship this isn't like with golden state and people are like oh we should go small let's do what they do with dream on green this is let's get two hall of fame shooters in the backcourt you know yeah exactly i love that it's like oh maybe they with some there's there's something different here that that the raptors have sort of innovated

when it comes to game planning because of Nick Nurse. Good stuff. You can follow him at Kevin O'Connor NBA and promote whatever else you got going on here at the Ringer. Started a new video series on the Ringer's YouTube channel called The Restart. Last week, we did a video about the Pelicans and the postseason playing tournament.

And this week, we talked about the Wizards.ards bill dropped out and talked about how this is a team there right now nobody wants to watch but in the coming year or so we're going to find out if they're going to be the next contender or the next team to blow it up with bradley beal turning into the star that he has and uh you guys you and verno have the podcast coming out which day tuesdays and fr, me and Verno. All right. Sounds good, man. So check out those podcasts,

and we'll probably talk to you once the season gets started. Thanks, man. Looking forward to it. Thanks, Ryan. All right. Thanks to KOC. Let's talk about Mack Weldon because I wanted to. Oh, no, it's also an ad.

But, hey, that's cool because they've been on my mind. Mack Weldon makes the most comfortable underwear, socks, shirts, undershirts, hoodies, and sweatpants that you'll ever wear. Their mission is to make sure that all your basics and beyond are smartly designed with premium fabrics and shopping for them is easy and convenient. And you know what? Joggers are in right now.

It depends kind of on your age, if your body type, if you're hitting it right. You know, some of the different stuff that you see girls doing on Instagram. Don't be afraid, guys, to do some of that stuff. You're throwing a pair of joggers. You're going to hear compliments. It's just math. But Mack Weldon brings it on the jogger side

and you don't have to take out a home equity loan. That's the other part that's nice. And you know what I like? I like their t-shirts because sometimes I just want to throw on something that's not compression. Although, again, shout out to any guy that's wearing a compression tank to Kroger's. But what I like about the Mack Weldon shirts is I'll just throw one of those on to work out.

It kind of feels like just getting back to the basics. And it's just so comfortable. So Mack Weldon, they even offer a line of silver underwear and shirts that are naturally antimicrobial, which means they eliminate odor. They want you to be comfortable. So if you don't like your first pair of underwear, you can keep it and they'll refund you. No questions asked. Just keep the underwear. Say, hey, it's not for me.

So what's stopping you from just doing an order right now? All Mack Weldon products are great for working out, going to work, going on dates, and just everyday life. Hear that, guys? Dates. Like, hey, what am I doing this weekend? Well, I wasn't going to work, going on dates, and just everyday life. Did you hear that, guys? Dates. Like, hey, what am I doing this weekend? Well, I wasn't going to go on a date, but my Mack Weldon Henley showed up. So look who's grabbing an Aperol spritzer. The folks at Mack Weldon have even created their own totally free loyalty program called Weldon Blue.

Level 1. Oh, damn it. I can't. Even I don't have access to this. Level one. Oh, damn it. I can't. I even I don't have access to this. Level one gets you free shipping for life. And once you've reached level two by spending $200, Mack Weldon will start giving you 20% off. I'm having a hard time even reading this. I'm so excited. 20% off every order for the next year. So here's how you do it for 20% off your first order. You don't even have to be level two. Visit MackWeldon.com. Enter the promo code RyanRosillo. That's going to be a tricky one for you spellers out there.

That's R-Y-E-N. That's right. My parents did it. R-U-S-S-I-L-L-O. So that's Ryan Rosillo. You go to MackWeldon.com. Promo code RyanRosillo for 20% off your first order. I've mentioned the show Hightown before.

I just really like it. It plays a lot of the beats that you would expect in television dramas on premium, but this just works. It works better. It works different. Obviously, and I'll explain it with Rebecca, who is a show creator. Again, Rebecca Cutter, Hightown show creator. The finale airs on Starz this Sunday. That's 8 Eastern, also 5 Pacific if you're out on the West Coast. And it takes place in Provincetown on the Cape, close to where I grew up. So that's probably another reason why I like it. So we're going to talk some television. Rebecca Cutter. Okay, it's one of my favorite new shows on Starz, Hightown. I kind of thought there

was a chance it was going to be biased and really like it because it's Tick Bliss out on the Cape and for the fact that there's just a lot of stuff about the Cape and islands that people don't understand and the creator. And someday I'm really excited. I've been really excited to do this interview with her. It's Rebecca Cutter. All right, let's start with the idea. And I know you're working on Gotham and some other shows as a writer, where it goes from, hey, I have this idea in my head, and now I'm actually going to write it down. So take us kind of through that process

and then eventually to the actual pitch part of it. So I was working on Gotham. I was feeling I had kind of not fallen into that job like luck, but I had worked on The Mentalist with Bruno Heller, who was the creator of Mentalist and Gotham, and he had taken me with him, and those were my first two jobs. So I had never gone out for staffing season, which is a big deal out here if you're a staff writer. There's sort of a season, and you go out, and you try and take a bunch of meetings and get your new job. So I didn't really have a pilot sample. So I guess that's the hacky answer is that I needed something.

But the answer of where the actual spark came from, I mean, this story, the kind of thematic bones of this story has been something I've been working on for a very long time. The idea of the surplus, like, you know, bottoming out, Elkie, party girl who stumbles into a mystery and kind of through this investigation kind of saves herself. That was like a theme, a grain of an idea I've been working on for a long time. And then my father-in-law was a fishery service agent. You know, I grew up in a province town and married to a man from Cape Cod like you know sobriety a bunch of those elements so that was also the back background noise um but then I just got the idea one day driving of Jackie Quinones this you know sort of hard partying lesbian fishery service who's a year-rounder in Provincetown and from there I was like I'll figure out a fucking mystery that like but once I had there I was like, I'll figure out a fucking mystery that like, but once I had her, I was like, that's a show. Um, but I didn't pitch it to anyone. I just wrote it. Um, and I just

wrote it thinking like, I'm just going to leave it all on the page. And this is just to have a sample to show my voice. And I'm not, I didn't think in my wildest dreams, I was ever going to sell it and see it on TV. So when I finally gave it to my agents at CAA, I was like, this is just like a little sample thing I came up with so you can get me my next job. And they're like, oh, no, we can sell this. So then I was like, oh, that was like a very pleasant surprise to hear that. Wow. Good news, you know? Yeah, right. I was like, OK, so you say, let's see. Yeah, and then they sent it out to producers and Jerry Bruckheimer TV read it

and, you know, Christiane Reed there like went over the moon for it and it was their first premium cable thing and she just really wanted to do it. And then we went out and did like, it's called a drop-off pitch, which is just like a 10-minute pitch and then you give them the script afterwards to read, so.

There's probably maybe more on the pitch thing thing but i want to stay with the idea first because i think we all understand and you more so than people that are just consumers of this that there are certain beats there's almost certain rules and there are rules because it seems to be what the audience consistently wants like when you really try to bend things i'm going to try all these different things and usually the feedback you get to be like this audience consistently wants. Like when you really try to bend things, I'm going to try all these different things. And usually the feedback you get, it'd be like, this doesn't really make any sense. There's a reason there's three acts, there's a reason there's all these different rules.

But with you going with Provincetown, for those that don't know, is basically in the summer, it's like a gay escape. It just is. I remember as a young kid, the first time I walked through it, I was like, whoa,

like what's going on here in the summer? But the fact that you first time I walked through it, I was like, whoa, what's going on here in the summer? But the fact that you have the local element to it, which is something that I've always had to explain, my entire life, I am from Martha's Vineyard, massive eye roll. I think we have butlers in a yacht parked out front. And you're like, you just don't understand. Yes, the real estate is worth more, but it's just the year round part of it, the winter time. I'm so glad you did this because even though, you know, the pilot takes place at the beginning of the carnival and the tourist season, there's just so much more to these areas. And it's like, people don't ever want to believe those other nine to eight months exists. Right. Yeah. That was really important to me. I mean, I think, think and I grew up my parents had a place there

we went every summer I've been going since the 70s to Provincetown but then you know I married a guy from Brewster and and he always gets mad because he hears me say that and he's like you make it sound like I introduced you to like the seedy underbelly of k-pop which he certainly did and his parents live in a nice place you You know, it's beautiful, but it's completely different going there in the winter. And it's frankly, I mean, it's a little depressing. It's isolated. It's cold. Everything's shut down. It's not the same place. You know, this employment is very seasonal. People make all their money in this. A lot of people make all their money in the summer and then have nothing really to do all winter. And I remember, I mean, my parents were in the field of alcoholism.

So I think I, but I remember always hearing growing up that like alcoholism spiked, like it's really bad in the winter. And there was always like a heroin problem in the winter and like the fishing fleet. So there was a lot of, I think that dichotomy of like this most beautiful place in the world, this wealthy touristy place,

that's a party versus the sort of bleaker other side of it. That was very important thematic thing for me, you know, that we're exploring both sides of the thing. Yeah. I remember I took one winter off from, from college and I decided to stay and work construction and I worked a door at a place and the male female ratio is, is atrocious too, because it's a lot of construction guys. And then there was like one hostess from new Bedford. And I thought like 10 guys are going to murder each other just to ask her out because it was like the ratio was, the ratio was so bad.

Okay. So you have, um, you have Jackie, the main character in your head. I've heard her described as this female Don Draper. I will admit that because of a lot of the rules and a lot of the rules are being, I would say boundary-wise, are being broken and have been for years now for people that are out in this part of the country that understand the industry more. But you're thinking, okay, I'm going to have a cop, but she's not even a cop. Then you make her marine fishery, which I think was really important because if she was a cop, then it would be different. So when you started trying to make this powerful female, like non-traditional character, do you think that the industry is in this place where it's like, that's great. It's so different. I want this. Or it's like, hey, great concept. But how many people are actually still going to watch something that's being presented so different from so many other different TV shows?

Right. You know, I try never to like second guess what the industry is going to think of something or like even the audience just because for me, I'll get really stuck in my own head. So I just saw her clear as day. I'm like, well, that's my marching orders. Like I have to just write that character. So I, I mean, everybody that read it, well, I won't say everybody that read it loved it because only one network tried to buy it. So obviously, you know, eight other ones didn't like it, but, or didn't like it enough. But I never heard that as a criticism. Everyone always said like, this character feels really fresh. This, you know, this, I, it was never, it was never discussed like, well, could she just be straight? Or like, well, could it be a guy? I mean, it was never, that was never the response.

So I think people were ready when they were ready. And also because it was a spec script, it was already written. It's different when you're selling an idea, I think, because thinks they can they have they have they have two cents to add right but when it's a script and it works it's much harder to just give a note to give a note because if it's already working you're not going to fuck with it too much the other thing that i've noticed is i find myself having sympathy for the bad people and despising the good people. And that's not easy to pull off. And, you know, you don't want to sit there and feel like, sorry for the, the gangster. And, and the way you kind of have the cops balance each other out,

like there's, there's good cops and bad cops, but it feels far less, not like you could sit there and say, oh, hey, I'm going to do this thing where you're struggling with who you sympathize with. But it feels very natural and not forced at all. Did you do that consciously to have that kind of? I totally didn't is the funny thing. Oh, no kidding. So I'm glad it worked. Well, no, I knew Ray. Who's your lead detective on this, Ray Bruzo?

Yeah. So Ray is the narcotics officer played by James Badgedale. And I knew that he would be sort of polarizing, right? Like, he does pretty shitty things. Yeah, he sucks. I mean, he kind of sucks. Yeah. He kind of sucks.

But then I think you kind of are rooting for him with Rene. I think people fall into the romance of it and are rooting for them. And I think you, I think he's fun to watch, but yeah, it was very conscious that he was not a good guy. What I've been surprised about is when I read like commentary about Jackie is, I don't even think she's that much of a mess because I was kind of, I was a mess in my twenties. and so to me she's just like kind of like a person but so many people are like unsympathetic to her brand of messiness so I'm like I'm always like oh that oh I didn't really intend for that to happen but

but I think thank god that Monica Raymond is such a good actress that you're you can't keep your eyes off her and you believe every single minute it, whether or not you're frustrated that she didn't pull her shit together in time to do what she needed to do. Yeah. Why do you think Monica, she just, she's so believable in this character. It's,

it doesn't, again, there's just so many parts of this that never feel forced, which is why I like it so much. Why do you think it's so believable for her? You know, I mean, she'll say she, well, she's an incredible actor. She went to Juilliard and she's just like, she's so technical. Like literally if you give her a note, which I very rarely do, cause you don't need to, but if you do, you like see her, like take a minute. And in my mind, it's like the little ping ping pong it's like going through and like hitting off some things in her brain and then like out pops a take it's like

the exact thing you were looking for or even the thing that you didn't even know that was what the note was really about like she can just do it like she's just really I just think she's an amazing actress but she's also you know she was hungry for this role she'd been on the Chicago show for so long and she wanted to do something different something messy she's an amazing actress, but she's also, you know, she was hungry for this role. She'd been on those Chicago show for so long and she wanted to do something different, something messy. She's queer in real life. She was excited to play, you know, represent her peeps and like do something really messy and different. And so she, she just came in and like crushed it.

I really love. And I, I, I pretty sure you wrote the line because it's in the pilot, but when she, her character meets ray so she's seen the dead body and he's kind of sizing her up because he's trying to figure out what her deal is but she explains it so in such a formal way where she's like well i'm law enforcement fishery service and then he just says there's like oh didn't you guys have like a bunch of people smuggling drugs in and he just looks she just looks at him like hey asshole it was 40 years ago like shut the fuck up and you could so easily could have just said hey shut the fuck up to like start the animosity but it was such a killer line because she didn't have to say fuck off she was

saying it in a way it was like are you seriously bringing up the shit from 40 years ago and it's like the end of the scene and i thought that line was so perfect to kind of like sent set the foundation for those two that are going to have this back and forth the whole first season well thank you yes i did write that line very good line um all right so pilots i i feel like um everybody's in a rush in the first few minutes to grab everybody's attention like that seems to be another like billions i was kind of joke i go once you see paul giamatti being pissed on a few minutes into the beginning of billions you're like okay here we go like guys being urinated on so buckle up um you we we started for those that you know this is the spoiler alert part of this but um immediately somebody's killed and it kind of sets up everything for season one

but you have monica's character like already going to rehab by episode two and i thought oh well then again i could like clearly she's gonna fuck up again but did you have a hard time with how quickly you wanted to try to have her turn her life around or was that knowing that the way the stories go is as you said this isn't always a straight line here for sobriety um i almost felt like in a way i was like man they already are going here with this beat this feels really early but now it makes sense right um well i always knew that you know somebody said once like this this show was a trojan horse because you're actually doing like a character study of a lady getting sober, but like you're sneaking it in with a crime story.

So I always knew that the kind of her investigation and her sobriety were like going to do that the whole season and like that one would affect the other. But my original idea of the pilot, and i think because i've worked in network television was that jackie and ray had to be teamed up by the end of the pilot and there was a version of the outline where that happens like at the end of the pilot she's like i've figured it out let me join your team and i'll tell you and i'm just glad you didn't do that you know what i mean it's sort of happened it's so much more organic the way that you do it where you could see notes somebody's saying no they have to be in like more scenes together because they're like, I think 20 minutes before we even meet Ray.

And I was like, that's cool. Like, I like that we haven't met yet. Sorry to interrupt. Go ahead. Yeah. No, it's fine. I couldn't. My friend Molly, who was a writer on the staff, but I was friends with her before.

she, I joke, cause like in the first version of the script, like I was going to have Jackie find a TBD fish clue at the crime scene that at the end she figures out and tells Ray. And I, I was like, Molly, we need to come over and we're going to figure out TBD fish clue. And like, so she still breaks my balls about TBD fish clue. Cause I never could come up with it. Cause it's the wrong idea. You know what I mean? And then when I just was like wait no this is about her getting sober like she just goes to rehab at the end that's what it is um and it I think it makes the show feel different because you're like oh it's not 100 just a crime procedural there's you know a big part of it is this emotional arc that she goes through um but yeah it is it's a little hanky like it's not what you're expecting in terms of the crime but um yeah did you have a rule being from mass about people trying to do the accent

yeah so rachel morrison and i the director of the pilot she's also from cambridge um we were kind of like no one's doing accents like if they can do it if they come in and they show they can just nail it or they're from there we'll let them but like nobody else should try and then you find out that like every actor just wants to do a Boston accent and it's so hard like you just can't like there was a guy I go where are you from in real life he goes Colorado I go great just give me your best Colorado accent like I you don't need to do it and then like the second I left set he did it but like I ended up kind of falling in love with it because it's an attitude as much as anything and so it does help some of their performances

um so I kind of you seem so frustrated right now i actually feel like your facial expressions like i'm getting the real honesty out of you more so than your words because you're like yeah i know man like i get it because what you could always tell an actor to be like hey it actually skips different pockets geographically it just does there's certain towns that just don't have it and you're from that town there you go that's you're out you're like you're from you're from that town. There you go. That's you're out. You're like, you're from, you're from Barnstable. You're good. Yeah, I know. Um,

I actually thought we did. I, if I compare it to some large budget movies with some big name actors who tanked the accent, I think we did pretty good. Are you talking perfect storm right now? No, I'm talking about black mass. Black mass was not good.

13 days. Costner is another one. Um, I've told the story before cause I don't want to i'll share with you but we had walberg in doing um the marathon movie promo when i was back at espn and i just asked him like what's your rule in the accent he goes i'm adamant about it like you get one shot at it and as soon as i know you can't do it i just tell you you can you can't do it. But I also think Wahlberg can kind of like get away with it a little bit more. But then I was giving him shit about somebody else's accent. I was like, well, you didn't say it to this guy. And he just gave me this look like this big smile going, I couldn't say it to that guy because he's a guy's a monster. So it is funny, though, because everybody, if you're an actor, you're a performer your whole

life, you're like, oh, I'll figure this out. I still can't believe how many English people are so great with the American thing. Like that must be just a layup for them because there's so many people. I'm like, wait, that guy's English, too. Like what the hell's going on? But no, I don't I don't think it's I'm not bringing it up because I think it's bad. I just think it's always really interesting. It's somebody from. No, no.

It was funny because I really did break my own rule. Like, you know, you just you get swept up and you're like, it's making this guy so happy to drop his R's. Who am I to tell him not to? I'm just going to do it, you know? I mean, Jackie doesn't do it. Like most of the characters don't do it. Junior, I thought, did a great job.

Junior does a very good job. It's not every word. That's what I always try to explain to everybody. Anybody that tries to do every word, it's like, no, that's not what it is. You're fucking it up. Yeah. explain to everybody is anybody that tries to do every word it's like no that's not that's not what it is you're fucking it up yeah um okay so if uh if we look back at the first season actually you know what i want to ask this quick how did provincetown feel about this because it's actually not do you feel most of this on long island and then do some scenery okay all right yeah did provincetown care then because i mean if it's not shot there maybe

they don't care i don't know yeah no well we had a very hard time getting them to let us come there that was very contentious because we wanted to come after memorial day um and the chief of police particularly had a big problem with us um and it ended up going to like, I'm going to get the naming, like the town selectmen vote. And it, and we won like three to two. Um, and there was a filmmaker there who's actually, she was the producer of the HBO documentary, um, Heroin Cape Cod, which was hugely influential. And she lives there and she fought really hard for us and got people on board. Um, Lise King and uh but yeah but then we got there and like it was still cold when we got there it was wearing like my north face and there

was nobody there the first week I mean it was like it was fine and we followed the rules and I think and I think mostly people were happy to have money coming in and people and something exciting and like you know the carnival scene like all those extras came out. I mean, I think ultimately they want to have a good time and have industry in their city. So I think it worked out fine, but it was tricky. And then I think the response that I've gotten from people on the Cape, like I was terrified. I was like, I am not, I can't go back there like they're gonna fucking hate me um but I've gotten so much I mean I've got a few like really stank dms like you're ruining my town but like I've gotten I've seen so much commentary about like if they just got into the show and

you know there is a obviously it's a little exaggerated for television, the sort of level of the crime. But I mean, there is that shit going on there. And I think a lot of people recognize. The, you know, creative license, but also that it's based in a reality. So I've actually been very pleased with the response from people there. Yeah, because it doesn't it doesn't like the lead up. I was like, oh, wow, are they going to do this? Like, wow, Cape Cape is the mess. and it doesn't really come off that way it doesn't

even though i try to explain to people like yeah the winner is a little different now i don't know the full i don't know the end of season one yet um so i'll just i think somebody might have sent me some of the the final episodes but i wanted to wait i just was kind of looking forward to the routine instead of binging because I actually feel like a lot of these shows lose. It's just the way we binge now. I think it kind of screws up the way we process shows. They're not written to be binged still. Why would you want to write something and be like, okay, now I know this person's going to watch six straight hours of this show.

So it's almost like it doesn't breathe enough. And so I've kind of want to wait it out when you do something like this and it's successful um and like everybody i mean whenever you're pitching the show it like one of the first questions is like what's season three what's season four now that it's worked like how far in advance have you thought out the rest of this because that i would think is is the part where it gets a little scary because you're like all right we told this great cape story now what are we doing in season two like they go to they go to have you thought out the rest of this? Because that I would think is the part where it gets a little scary because you're like, all right, we told this great cape story. Now what are we doing in season two?

Like they go to Bourne. Season two is written, I'll tell you. So I feel pretty good about that one. Season three, knock wood, there is one. I will have to figure that shit out. I don't know. It's a good problem. But you know, yeah, exactly.

But it's more of this, I mean, it's funny because I did, I remember when we were pitching it and I was like, yeah, what is season two? And like, does she become a cop? Does she move to Boston

and go to the academy? Is it like, you know, her climbing up those ropes and like, you know, army crawling, you know? And then Christianian again and jbtv was like no it's like mad men what's season two of mad men it's more mad men like it's the same drama it's the same players it's just and i was like oh yeah i don't need to like reinvent

the wheel every season it's it's an ongoing story of these people's lives yeah i think um whatever whatever kind of gets scary like if you were to say you know the elevator pitch of this it's like okay it's a murder but it's this drug crew but there's a guy in jail behind it all the cop is kind of dirty he's dating the stripper that's with the guy that's behind bars who's orchestrating all this and by the way we have a gay fisheries person who's already in and out of rehab as a tiger you're like holy shit but it it feels like you have to have all that stuff now like you have to make it so layered that you go like well how the hell like how do how do i top that like how do i add to that where now it's it's like it never feels like it can go in reverse story-wise and the stakes and the risk that you're taking.

The good thing that I found for writing season two is that like. Hopefully, if I did my job right, season one, you really care about these characters and you're really curious and excited to see where they'll go next. So, I mean, because I used to write for The Mentalist and so I don't know if you ever saw that show but like the way it worked was we'd sit around a room be like what would be fun to watch The Mentalist do like oh I want to see him go bowling and then we would like break a story around him bowling so like not that it's the same thing but like do you want to see Jackie in a committed relationship like what does that look like you know you've never seen that or like you want to see Ray doing some you know i don't want to spoil anything but like you get invested in the characters to where

them doing different sort of emotional things and real life things feels exciting i'm making the season two sound so boring right now like no i you know what this isn't even fair i haven't seen the end of season one and i'm asking like oh do you have enough do you have enough conflict for season two so i didn't really do you any favors yeah there's tons of conflict for season two wait till you watch the finale you'll see where a lot of things are going to be different season two um but yeah season two is 10 episodes but i paid so yeah there's there's plenty plenty of stuff do you think anybody's going to do a yeah, there's plenty, plenty of stuff. Do you think anybody's

going to do a season where everyone's wearing masks? Like, who's going to take the COVID storyline on and just do masks for everybody?

I think the medical shows will. But I read somewhere that like all the medical shows are like throwing out everything they had and rewriting everything There's going to be so many bad mask storylines in television. so terrible yeah i'm actually debating because season two takes

place in the fall of 2019 so you're just gonna miss it you're just gonna miss it so we're doing a winter thing then so that's season two yes see the great thing too is you have a highway on the cape so if you have any storylines that are you could be like well they can at least get on a highway and go somewhere else yeah perfect there you go uh the finale is this sunday on stars yep and all right look i hope you had fun i i really enjoy the show i know how hard this is and how much work you put into it so thanks for taking the time rebecca thank you so much for watching and inviting me on. I'm really happy that I'm glad that you as a Martha's vineyard guy is into

it. That means a lot. So, and we hated Provincetown anyway, growing up because they're a big rival in basketball. So, you know, you weren't going to offend us.

I'm just kidding. Fuck them. All right. Okay. Yeah. Hopefully you'll check it out. Go back and on demand some of that stuff. If you have stars stars because I really like to show. So trust me on this one. We have some people asking to do a Yellowstone recap. I don't know. I guess I could. I just finished up David McCullough's Panama Canal book. I don't know that I want to recap it because I just finished it and it's good. It's not my favorite book ever because it has some slow moments.

When you're like 50 pages of mosquitoes, you're like, okay. Although the way they took care of the yellow fever. You ever get the yellow fever, Kyle? I don't think so. Any STDs, anything like that? Mono.

Mono. They call that the kissing disease. Yeah. That's an old school reference but i uh i didn't know that much about the yellow fever but what they did down there in panama so i don't i guess i could recap it there's a guy noah who works at the ringer he and i were talking this past week and he was like i love your history recaps more than anything like they wanted me to do a history recap pod, but I also know what's going to happen is that if I really bill it as a side project where I read a book and then once a month

just do a 30-minute summary of it, you think NBA Twitter's rough? You think Rockets people are rough? You think tax bracket Twitter's tough? Wait until you get into historical recap Twitter. Like, hey, that's not the hey treaty dickhead that was a revised edition treaty which meant that all cargo was taxable you know i don't know if i want to deal with that i don't i'm not a history expert i just like reading books about it

so um i don't know tbd on that one because then i also to do it right I know what I'll do Kyle is I'll sit there in my dining room and I will open the page to page one and I'll start flicking through again trying to outline do like a nice written out timeline of the best way to properly recap it and I don't know if I want to do that I definitely didn't want to do

it with Rockefeller because that was even longer did I lose you? I'm going to do a one-off on a book that you know is going to crash. I should have done it with Mayflower, Philbrick, but I don't even know. I don't know. That book is probably my favorite history book.

You know what? I'm going to do a Philbrick right now. I'll do Yorktown. favorite history book. You know what? I'm going to do a Philbrook right now. I'll do Yorktown. I'll do Yorktown, Washington, Boats, Prestige Worldwide. I'll recap that one

because it's a shorter book and Philbrook kind of gets to it a little bit quicker than Chernow and McCullough do, which is just a style thing. That's what we're going to do. Enough of this. Life advice. We've got to come up with some sort of sounder for life advice. Can we do that, Kyle?

I'm going to send you something. I'm going to send you... Are we going to take a shot in the dark or are you going to send me something? No, do... You know what? Go to my go-to. We'll edit this in after.

So whenever we... Right before we read the first life advice, I want you to always play Ben Affleck's speech in Boiler Room to the kids where he's like, I'm a millionaire. But the part where he throws his car keys, he's like i'm a millionaire but the part where he throws his car keys he's like cabriolet all right i'll get on it yeah but to have the car key line

in there more so than any of the other stuff okay you want details bye i drive a ferrari 355 cabriolet what's up i have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. All right, now I'm motivated. Okay, this is, we're going to leave some names out of here.

This is a tough one. This one bummed me out just as I read it. And it got sent late at night or it got sent early in the, maybe early in the morning. You always wonder when you're getting three 30 AM emails, you go, Oh, like if you're emailing Kyle on the life advice feed at three 30 in the

morning, um, you're not going to get the help you need probably. Okay. But this looks like a six 30 in the morning. So this was just dominating the the help you need probably. Okay. But this looks like a 630 in the morning. So this was just dominating the guy's day. He woke up. We're going to leave names out of this. You're a sports guy. So here's the email. You're a sports guy. Here are my stats. I'm 33. I worked for my father, our family's pizza place started by his father. I'm very single.

I know what you're thinking already. Probably fat, unmotivated, has a no-show job and rides his dad's coattails um wow you're like you went like bunny rabbit on us at the end of eight mile you know i am a fucking bum i do live in a trailer with my mom um i wasn't ready to think any of those things yet. When I think nepotism, I don't think pizza first, to be honest with you. Pizza is not the first line of work where I go, you know where nepotism really pays off? That's in the fucking pizza business. All right. This is true. Many of my counterparts in similar situations, but I, even at my most critical, wouldn't lump me in with them.

All right. So a bit of an elitist at the pizza place. While I am unmarried, I do own a home. We're going to leave out the town because this gets pretty weird. I make a very reasonable wage. I put in nearly 60 hours a week. I'm also finishing up an 80,000 word manuscript about my favorite rock records and how I, as a millennial, came to love rock music, vinyl, and the people who introduced me to the bands I love. Quarantine has not been idle time. I even managed to maintain my reasonable weight, 5'10", 2'12". Stocky.

I'm going to categorize you as stocky. Despite losing access to the gym and working with pizza all day, I'm a little rough around the edges, but not the typical slob whose father owns a pizza joint. I feel like the father-son pizza duos are just getting shit on. The whole concept

of them getting dumped but here's a couple things i'm noticing in this paragraph very self-aware he is obviously smart just sentence structure alone i've noticed some things because i'm only getting worse at writing sentences which is not great if you're a writer um and then in spare time just banging out manuscripts on the history of rock music and what it means to them so this guy is smart he works hard he's stocky he's not fat but i think fat for him is like just an extra and a professional kind of and you know what all right so here let's get to his problem because it's not senate structure at all i I would say, hey, you're good. You don't need me. Here's my problem. I've fallen in love with one of my dad's employees.

Uh-oh. When I first read that sentence, it said, I've fallen in love with one of my dad's. And I went, what? Like, that's great. You should have a lot of love at home. But no, his dad's employees. Like, I got hit by the thunderbolt

like Michael Corleone did when he first said, when he first saw Apollonia. In love. She's 20. I'm fucked. We've engaged in mild flirting. She's been to my house for social reasons before. And we've had really in-depth conversations

because she's incredibly capable of them. Ah, this screwed my mood is lifted when she arrives and when she smiles at me at the best part of my day i hate it in a moment of weakness i sort of profess these feelings to her creating an awkward situation where i had to self-report on to my dad our boss for making her feel uncomfortable. Oh, my God. I got to be honest. I read the first paragraph. I was like, oh, okay. And then the second line, I was like, this is good. I didn't read the rest of this email yet.

Okay. So let's just rewind there. In a moment of weakness, I sort of professed these feelings to her, creating an awkward situation where I had to self-report on myself to my dad for making her feel uncomfortable. She's really self-aware, you're right. Yeah. Then I profusely apologized. She accepted my apology, but now things are awkward.

Her coworkers, my subordinates in a way, now readily engage in gossip and the passing of misinformation about me. Because of this, I have no ally in the room there. I'm isolated on an island and I have to see her five times a week. I'm peerless because everyone's either 10 years younger or 25 years older. I'm also the number two guy in the company. What's worse is I'm forced to deal with the dread of excitement when she's about to walk through the door and the sheepishness of nervousness every minute we're around each other. My friends think I'm a moron.

My father's disappointed in me and my house is still without the warming presence of a female. transforming presence of a female. Um, this went from great sentence structure to self-awareness to a tad creepy. Uh, you said on the pod with Bill in April quote, if you aren't doing the thing you've been putting off right now during all this shit, then you aren't ever going to do it. I started to kick into high gear on my book because of that advice. And I'm confident I will find a publisher. I know you have something good for me here okay um yeah well good luck on the book this one's tough man because i don't want to be insensitive to the work part of this where you know it's also a pizza place so it's not like she works in a different department it's a massive corporation so you're

going to be around her all the time and you like her um but the number one thing is you can't you can't make her feel uncomfortable right so it sounds like she's accepted the apology and now you're good but i think the only way uh to really solve this is you should actually organize some sort of social gathering like i don't know what their acceptance of you is now, if it's just some funny thing that happened, or if they're like, this is the creepy guy who works for the boss and we don't like being around him. I don't have the answers to these things, but I would hope, um, as long as this has only been just, Hey, I kind of like you. And she was like, peace, you're 33, I'm 20'm 20 um it's not happening that maybe you could just do a friend zone maybe not a pizza party because you guys are on pizza a lot but do something where everybody's in

the same so they get to see you away from the place not at your place but like a social gathering where everybody gets together and maybe even poke fun at yourself a little bit and just try to move past this. That would be probably the best thing I can do. But obviously, I'm dancing here a little bit because I don't really know how far the weirdness got to the point where you had a self-report on yourself to your dad because your dad's sort of HR and owns a company. Anyway, good luck with that book. And, you know, maybe get on a dating app. Somebody who really likes rock music.

All right. That's this week's podcast. We will be back next week. Please subscribe. Rate and review the Ryan Russillo podcast, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. Have a great weekend, everyone. you