CHUCK KLOSTERMAN Talks Football, Violence, American Identity

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This episode is brought to you by The Home Depot. The Home Depot has everything you need to launch your holiday season in style. Upgrade your yard with this year's hottest holiday decor, including the show-stopping towering Santa, oh, I like that one, and his impressive reindeer, both 8.5 feet and both designed with incredible detail that stands out day or night. When you want decor that delivers impact, The Home Depot has it. Make your home Santa's favorite stop with the holiday decor you want. All waiting for you. Valerian: How much do you attribute, like, it's like success on television to Cletus? What? Cletus. Cletus? He's the robot that plays electric guitar. Oh, yeah. How do you know his name? Because I like sports. Yeah, I know, but I like sports. You see him getting defensive? He wrote a book on football. I know, I know. This is going to be, it's like-- You don't even know who Cletus is? I am, that's right. You're tight, you're tight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You could have consulted with me. You should have had a hold. I thought you were talking about the Simpsons character for a second. I believe his name is Cletus, and if his name isn't Cletus, I'm going to be really embarrassed, because someone's looked that up. It's Cletus? Yeah. Dominated once again. Yeah. Flip that. Yes. Flip that. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Baby, baby, shoot ♪ ♪ Oh, my Adam Friedland Show ♪ ♪ Oh, my Adam Friedland Show ♪ ♪ On my TV ♪ ♪ ♪ Hello, and welcome back to The Adam Friedland Show. I'm Adam Friedland. First off, I'm doing Helium Comedy Club, February 19th to the 21st. And also, I will be in Los Angeles at the Regent Theatre, May 9th. Here's a link in the description. There is, there's a, there's a link. It's a different word. There is a link in the description. There is a, there is a link in the description for tickets. For tickets. That's fine. I'd like to thank our members for supporting us here on YouTube.com. As always, you guys are the ones that make the show possible. You keep the lights on, and if you'd like to join at the second or third tiers, you can get your name in the credits of this fine program. Click "Join" at the top of the page, or click the link in the description below, and there's also a link for a Patreon if you prefer Patreon. And, guys. Merch is available at theadamfreeland.show. Check it out. My guest this week is American author Chuck Klosterman. Chuck is known as one of the country's premier cultural critics, tackling any and all facets of pop culture through his writing for the last 30 years. His newest book, Football, is about exactly that. Football. The game's past, present, and future. It's a perceptive look into what entices us about the uniquely American sport, and it's on the shelves now, so check it out. Football. Got the big game coming up. You might want to read it. Read it before then, so you can understand the big game. Now, before we begin, I'd like to introduce a new segment called "My Two Cents," where I give my two cents on topics of the day. Today, in honor of our guest, here's my two cents on football. Like Chuck Klosterman, I'm a football fan. Or at least I was up until they started doing that so-called "dancing" in the end zone. If I wanted to see that garbage, I'd stay up past 10 p.m. and turn on VH1 or. Whatever happened to scoring a touchdown politely? Handing the ball over to the official, saying, "Thank you for being you." "Go you," that's what I would say. "Go you." Getting back to doing your job. And if you want to celebrate with your win with a dance, we could just please keep it classy. Instead of the jerk or the soldier boy dance, how about the foxtrot, the bolero, the Viennese waltz? But hey, that's just my two cents. Please, welcome. Please enjoy. Chuck Klosterman. I like that. Our next guest is the writer Chuck Klosterman. His new book, "Football," is out now. Everyone, check it out. Everyone, Chuck Klosterman. What's up, dude? Hey. I'm really excited. Well, it's great to be here. I appreciate you having me on. I guess I was a bit nervous. Because, you know, I've seen clips from your show where the subject comes across as a moron, but that's not your fault. Well, I try to be the moron. Well, the straight moron or the straight man, yeah. Certainly not. Certainly not straight. Don't tell the family, Ollie. My girlfriend's cousin is doing sound. This is not making the episode. I'm a big fan. I used to read you from the time I was, I think, late high school. I know, it's weird to hear that, but I understand it. It's cool. I think the way I found out about cool things, because it was prior to Spotify or whatever, I'd go to Barnes & Noble and open up Spin magazine. I'd write names of bands, and then I'd download them on Kazaa. And through that process, I became familiar with you. Well, when I was at Spin, it was the early 2002 to 2006, and it was strange because the perception at the time then is like the cool part of Spin was over. Everyone believed that had happened in the past. But I guess when we left, ten years moved on, and people said the same thing about our little period. Yeah, I remember I read your books, and I thought it made me feel cool, I think. But for the audience and the people that don't know you, effectively what you kind of write about is kind of, it is the nonsense that me and my friends spend hours over. Like, you know, what would have happened if Drew Bledsoe. Drew Bledsoe, you know, didn't get hurt, you know, like speculative kind of. But then the intersection with that and culture, I suppose, yeah. Well, it just, it seems completely unmeaningful now. The idea of writing about culture seems very common. It was less common in like book form when I first started publishing. It was seen as sort of this strange gimmicky novelty thing, and now it's like, it's not weird at all. Yeah, I think for me it was like David Foster Wallace and you. I mean, those were the two guys that were writing about like. Yeah, yeah. Oh, really? Oh, for sure. I thought pretty equal, actually. No. Were you guys, like, did you know him? Never met him. Never met him. Never met him. Do you think he would have been mean, you think? No. I don't think he would have. What they always say about him is that he was very kind. That doesn't necessarily mean he was nice. Yeah. But everyone had always said that, at least outwardly, he was, you know, over the top kind. That it was rare that someone had an encounter with him that was negative, although now, like, there's like a biography about him. It completely changes the way that everyone. That he stalked that lady, right? Yeah, yeah. Yes. And there's. And the one thing that's a little disenchanting is like, I mean, he was. He was probably the last writer who really did sort of influence me, like, in that I would read this and I was like, I wonder if I could do something like that. And I feel like you become a writer when you stop that. But the thing that was kind of a bummer is it sounds like the most interesting things from his nonfiction work were the parts that he made up. Yeah. And that was. Because, you know, those are the things that are so memorable. Like he wrote this very famous essay about going on a cruise ship. Of course, yeah. And there's one section there, like, where he's playing chess against some random little kid and it's just. It's an amazing passage and he's memorizing these moves and all these things. And maybe it turns out, like, that didn't happen. So the thing I remember most is the thing he added. But, you know, that's creative nonfiction, I guess. Two things that that reminds me of. One is, did you see the last Scorsese-Dylan documentary? Yeah, I did. The Rolling Thunder. Oh, that one. Yeah, the fake documentary. So, yeah, it was like half fake, which kind of made it, like. But there was something about it that was true. You know what I mean? Because it was half fake, like, narratively, it's like we buy. Basically, when I learned about Bob Dylan or the Beatles, it's like looking at a picture of your parents before you were born, right? It's not real. Like, you weren't there, right? You create a story, right? And that's what I found to be the brilliant thing about that. Yeah. What I found to be brilliant about that film was if someone liked Bob Dylan but knew nothing about the movie, so they just came into it cold, I wonder at what point in the movie they would have been like, "Oh, yeah, this couldn't have happened." Because if there's one. You know, he wore, like, white kind of pancake makeup for a while. Yeah, like. And in the movie, he's saying, like, "This girl went and saw Kiss, and she came back and told me about it." You know? And then, you know, Bob Dylan has written with Gene Simmons. They have some relationships. I was like, "Could it be?" You know, I knew going in, though, that this wasn't all real, so, but I was thinking about myself. Like, when would I have figured this out? I don't think we. I think people probably would have bought it, because it was presented as a documentary. you know and people know Bob Dylan's real that and and also it could you know like it doesn't matter at a certain point right it doesn't well I mean I think Dylan would say it absolutely does it that he would probably argue that whatever myth you project down him is the most important thing about his identity outside of the music yeah yeah have you have you seen that that film I'm still here the walking Phoenix that's kind of like that's one of my top five favorite movies ever actually basically it's this documentary that you later find out is it was like kind of a project that Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck we're doing for a year which is he presented that he was going crazy and wanted to be a rapper and he was he went on Letterman famously that was the big thing he's almost like the promotion for that movie was as important as the film right and I wouldn't find at the end there's like he goes to Costa Rica or something or like I forget he goes to someplace where his father lives he's in a like a rain forest and he goes in this like lake and there's this baptismal kind of scene at the end but you realize like this man is exhausted like it doesn't matter if it's fake or if it's real because it happened right like and kind of that blurring I'm like oh that's what art is you know and like that's it kind of like made a huge impression on me shortly after I was probably reading stuff written by you yeah what's interesting about that though is because of when it happened you know in the 21st century as opposed to happening in the 70s there's almost an assumption there had to have been from them that of course people are gonna realize that this isn't real where there was a time when you could have done something like that and the artifact would just be what it is and people would say is this real is it not real it's I don't know if they were like steering into the fact that we can do this because eventually people will know or if there was actually if that was the last attempt to legitimately fool people into thinking something false is actual I mean like I said I would guess that there were some people the when spinal tap came up they might have watched the first few minutes of it especially when there's talking to the people in the you know the crowd shots they might be like well this yeah I just never heard in this band the band anvil had a documentary and people wondered is this real or felt that amazing documentary anvil and is real and I will say I was a little kid I thought spinal tap was real did you I thought it was a real band what age did you see it at maybe five Wow yeah cuz I saw it when I was like a junior in high school exactly yeah but uh it must have been like 93 why are you watching this is spinal tap at five my parents let me watch anything yeah they covered my eyes for the sex parts though well there's no there's no sex in that in any movie oh yeah yeah but cover my eyes like sex and let me watch my what was the most insane thing you saw at the earliest age like would they let you watch nine and a half weeks or something when you were a kid or like faces of death were you watching this I wasn't watching like yeah yeah I was watching I wasn't watching red asphalt the driver's head movie like last house on the left you're like oh he'll love neighborhood I was watching mainly just like this snap I was watching a lot of Dolph Lundgren Jean-Claude Van Damme shares Schwarzenegger yeah I was watching all I watched all of those movies with my dad a lot of the like secure the parameter yeah lock it down like a lot of that and then a guy's neck gets now yeah but I think this is kind of like a tangent but I think because they cover my eyes for the sex and let me watch all the killing I think killing I didn't want to do it because because it was it wasn't a taboo but sex I was like I wanted to do sex because it was against the you know it is a common thing you'll hear people say it's like they'll be this you'll be like oh it's crazy you know we'll let kids watch violence but we won't let them watch sex but actually I mean it actually makes sense because the fact the matter is people are going to encounter sex in their life and if they watch a film version or pornography or whatever these things are an early age is gonna warp their perception of this thing that's actually gonna happen to them they're probably not going to encounter like a mass shooting and if they do I would almost want my kid desensitized to it I would rather have him be able to be like I I understand that this can exist in the world you know it's like it does seem weird to to demonize sex more than violence but the fact of the matter is this sex is something that's part of the life of the average person's life yeah violence is not one time my guy did a splits and then punched me and I was like yeah I was comfortable with that you could happen you don't look at a damn I've seen him do the splits and punch a guy so I was like this is finally it's I mean if there ever was it's happening if there ever was a zombie apocalypse there are plenty of people ready for that like they have learned what to do like where to shoot it or you know those are some of the worst people in society the ones with the sticker they're like zombie defense unit or like on their car those are the worst guys well them and and Patriots fans I guess okay let's get let's get to you because I'm going back to the David Foster Wallace thing you guys were both kind of doing this social criticism I guess or what would you how would you describe like kind of what you've made your bread and butter doing well you know he would have said that he was a novelist and he also did nonfiction and it was kind of journalism and it was kind of cultural criticism his journalism was really essayistic or whatever I suppose for me like I worked at newspapers for about eight years and it was it was very like I loved the job you know but it was limiting and I wanted to be able to do things outside of that and I was like the only way to do that is books because I wanted to sort of write about things in a way that I don't know was more kind of entertaining interesting in a different way you know so I suppose it's cultural criticism I guess a girl has ever read one of your things ever yeah like it's a little maybe a triple digits it's a little bit like being in rush I think yeah where it's like it like it was but I will you know this was a bit you know I wrote this first book Fargo Rock City and it was just about listening like the hair metal in the Midwest I would do book readings and like 14 people would show up and they were all exactly like me yeah exactly like they looked like me and then I wrote sex drugs and Cocoa Puffs and the biggest change about that is it book readings there were suddenly knowing more people but like a third of them were women that was a that was very surprising yeah nice you think is sex you put sex well no I think I talk about John Cusack in that book I don't know I'm not sure what it is I'm not sure how why have you know and then but and now it's like Kenny your career goes up and now I'm kind of on the other side again sort of moving I assume by the end it'll look the last time I write a book it'll be like the first one we're like fourteen people exactly like me yeah yeah that's kind of beautiful yeah it is yeah that's how it is that's how it goes forever it's a rise and fall yeah yeah you got it it's kind of that's kind of what life is right yes yeah yeah yeah the book is football I think it's for it's for yeah it's great for your book club it's uh it's been compared to the to the to the gay hockey Netflix show right yes I'm getting that everywhere yeah yeah you have the the QB one and of course the center yes yeah yeah they're really good relationships right there yeah I mean exactly it was right there the whole time you know guys how are you the first guy to realize that there could be something between a center I'm sorry I have the brain of a one-year-old I literally that would be good material for a one-year-old okay um going back to the DFW thing though you guys I mean he's from Champaign-Urbana right you're from North Dakota right do you think coming from a place like you're from North Dakota like I I never think of North Dakota well yeah it doesn't make it easier for you to be an observer of culture right I'd say the main thing is it makes me in a better position to do criticism about mass culture because that was the only culture that gets to like a place where I was from yeah you know I mean even yeah I've mentioned this before but like you know like that John Cougar Mellencamp song like small town yeah I assumed he was talking about like my town with like 500 people turns out he's talking about like Bloomington Indiana which to me would have seemed like a big place like I like I I didn't recognize how bizarre where I came from was to most of the country until particularly till I moved to New York and I would be talking about my hometown and people would ask me questions like did you grow up in a Russia did you grow up in the depression like it I know that's in America actually those people are idiots what what Dakota the people that think that's Russia well I would be more the description of what like I would describe like how a wedding would work in our town and people would be like that it would seem like something that you would read in a Russian novel yeah yeah like the entire town get to go to the reception and they would drive the fire trucks out of the fire hall that's where the dance was you know the families supplied all the booze and the sandwiches and anyone could come it was just a totally different thing did you say the first and the last name like a Russian novel were you like Bob like Bob Lundgren like you know how they say yeah yeah I mean some people just go by both names I feel like you're somebody I feel like people refer to you by both your names um and sometimes people just refer to me by my first name which is I always think surprising people who don't know yeah they just say Adam Friedland to me yeah that's how I mean I would if I said just your last name to someone that was going on your podcast I'm not sure they would know who it was and if I said both names they usually do yeah is that good I don't know yeah you're one of my heroes Now you're making me self-conscious. Why would you say be self-conscious? conscious about that no well i know what it's like why would that make i know what it's like where you grew up dude you do yeah there's a guy obviously that's in minneapolis and he works at a car uh like dealership right there's that his father-in-law owns right and he's been you know am i on to something here you know a guy in minneapolis yeah and are you describing the plot of vargo or something which is okay yeah so you grew up playing football though right was it because they were just there you were just one of the there was not enough well i mean in truth were you wearing glasses under the helmet contacts then contacts i wore contacts in high school because you were a popular kid 23 kids in my class so it was like the difference between the most popular kid and the least popular kid was not that big of a casual so that's what so the girls had to play football too not no no girls you know they uh because in north dakota girls basketball happened during the fall they happened at the same time those seasons really um but uh it also was the 80s so no nine on nine correct we played nine man yeah right because why because it wasn't enough guys yeah i mean that's like in small in some states you know like in texas they have six man in wyoming they play eight man these are if you're in but we played nine man so it's like on offense you remove the offensive tackles on defense you remove the cornerbacks and then you try to play football it is close to the conventional way with those you know and then all the teams use two tight ends basically so it's still a five-man line if you were watching a nine-man game you probably it would take you a while i think before you realize there's something wrong here yeah like you know but did did like kids try to go brett farve lambo no sleeve uh sometimes yeah yeah yeah i mean that had to suck well it was cold sure yeah did you have those like black heat blaster things are you kidding me you didn't what is what the there with the in the cold like that that's not how it was where i grew up that was not there there was i can't remember i mean we i remember that like they would they canceled school for two days one time because the wind chill was going to be 85 below so they canceled school on thursday and friday and almost everybody was upset why every parent was upset all the teachers were upset some of the kids were like this is crazy and then we still played our basketball game that weekend like we still came into town for that you know wait so wait because everyone loved school so much no it was just the idea it was it wasn't that we loved school but it just it seemed absurd why didn't you move to arizona this is ridiculous you people up there hi well that's a you know it's really that they have two senators it's like don't get me started on north dakota are you one of the you're an abolish the senate guy i mean it doesn't make sense i didn't mean to bring that up but yeah it doesn't make sense well it doesn't it depends how you look at it i mean well yeah i mean like because you know god forbid we like let like uh i don't know like like minorities vote or something that's what the senate was there for well it just regardless well okay well let's talk about sports brother let's talk about sports um okay yeah but you're on a farm you had uh youngest of seven siblings correct really what what kind of farm was it a snow farm yes we raised snow by the bushel you know we had for snow cones yeah you know um yeah well when i was a when i was a real little guy it was like wheat and we had dairy cattle then we got rid of the dairy cattle right before that became lucrative and went into beef cattle and did that until that got and just before that got lucrative we sold all those my dad wasn't always the greatest businessman and by the end it was just what was considered row crops corn beans things that are grown in a row and we didn't have animals anymore and then my brother took over the farm and then now he's retired and now it's uh we don't it's out of out of the hands out of the family we sold you guys sold the farm yep sold the farm how did it feel to sell the farm hey it's time it was time to sell the farm yeah i remember my family too when they when you sold the farm yeah we sold the farm where are you you said you're from the southwest yeah it's like new mexico a lot of you're from las actually from las vegas i grew up i grew up in uh yeah we moved there when i was like first grade yeah but like your postal address was yeah las vegas las vegas nevada yeah what was that like uh you and jimmy the only boring yeah yeah um it was well a it was like uh the fastest growing city in america at the time like white flight america so uh everyone was from somewhere else uh tract housing kind of like it looked like that show weeds have you seen the show weeds all the houses look the same so were you there like during like the unlv basketball period or was that i was there the tark the tark years were like right i like i guess as we were moving there like maybe right uh before yeah yeah i mean like our age her sean marion sean marion so yeah i used to i used to go watch unlv because like if we're just talking it feels like we're the same age but if we talk about the past it won't be that way well i mean we're i mean we're both old souls you know we love rooting tooting football we love you know no i guess it yeah that was like i guess to segue i i think to put in context like if we're like talking about things happening right now the national championship is happening tonight tonight yes are you excited you're excited you're you're you're like a and john cougar mellencamp uh she'll be more excited than me is the uh he has a little place to watch the games at indiana stadium his own little cabin on top of the stadium so historically uh we have um this team indiana which was historically just they're supposed to lose historically the worst program in college football history and it's it's kind of a tradition as as uh it is that like you know lsu is good or something or like you know ohio state but even more so because like you know alabama and these schools texas they have down years there was no up years for indiana at any point yeah you know i mean they had years where they weren't terrible that was the highest they ever ascended to and so so i'll let you run with it but like how would you characterize their rise in the last two years like uh and how related related to the nil of course and the transfer portal and like what you know when that all came into being when the nil stuff happened and the portal stuff happened i think everybody who followed college football would have thought football was like well it's you know some team that we've never really expected to be dominant is going to take advantage of this and rise up and i think people thought like oh maybe it'll be a school like liberty or maybe it'll be you know uh uh you know it'll be a school like oregon or i guess have been good or whatever no one thought it would be indiana i mean their coach just understands this stuff more deftly than anybody else he's a good coach anyways he would be a good coach in the old style but he's really great at this i mean he just you know he came from james and madison and he took the best guys from there he built that you know that was a like a sub division program and they moved up and then he brought them all over he just really knows what he's doing and he somehow is able to be both things like he's both like this very modern sophisticated evaluator of talent who understands that everything has changed but he seems to coach the guys in the traditional bob knight like tough bear brian yeah i mean maybe not to that level but close yes i mean nick saban i mean he came from that coaching tree yeah and and correct me if i'm wrong like this is tonight we're gonna see some like 23 24 year olds i think the average age for the for indiana is like 23 and a half yeah yeah let's get into your book and we're gonna go back to like the nil and the college stuff and like um your book pauses that probably in 50 years you don't think football will be a relic it won't be extinct it'll kind of be like uh i don't know marching band music it'll be like good well john phillips susan yeah yeah it'll be like something from the olden days right like well i i have a suspicion that it will be like a niche interest yes it won't be the scent like right now like everyone's like there's no more monoculture except for football and taylor swift and i think in 50 or 60 years i don't think even football will have that role i don't think it's possible yeah i mean and i know it seems crazy like everybody i when i get injured for this book everybody wants to talk about that last chapter and i understand why because it seems counterintuitive it seems more likely that football would actually swallow up every other sport in america and it would be the only sport anyone cares about but i don't think that's i don't think it'll happen i mean i'll be dead i'll never be able to be proven wrong if i am but yeah so right now 2026 it's incredibly popular it's like the most popular thing you cite this statistic that 93 of the top 100 view like highest rated programs was it last year 2023 it went down a little bit it went down a little bit in the election but still it was but it was still in the i believe in the high 80s or 90s um yeah what what and then the uh there were like four more that were college games yeah yeah so one thing that that kind of made me realize is like probably it's it's a product of how we consume content these days like like the survivor finale probably would have been on that list like uh 25 years ago right there's no live there's no live well you're saying like the event the first season of survivor yeah yeah like or like the you know like the the the the american idol finale like yeah yeah there are no events anymore other than kind of uh football right like those these are the things that we consume live still we'll like go on streaming and we'll binge like a show or something but like these are the things that like collectively americans will sit down and and watch together yes but even like when you look at other countries you would think that there would be kind of a similar phenomenon and it's not this dramatic yeah it is like the dominance of football in the united states now is it's like it's actually like an underrated phenomenon yeah it defies logic in so many ways you know it's interesting because i remember 10 years ago in the last 10 years there were a couple moments where i'm like this is just isn't gonna like continue and first was the concussion like thing about i mean we've seen shocking things happen like you see sandy hook happen and then they don't ban guns like we saw junior say out for me like when i was a kid i used to get si for kids and i remember like the two the two like guys that would always be in si for kids were grant hill and junior say out right si for kids really cared about the interfield man of the year yeah that that was bigger than the mvp man because it was like oh look it's a good person as well you know and i you know that's i mean there was a guy for the bears who committed suicide and he shot himself in the chest and he specifically left a note it's like so you can study my brain well i thought junior say out did that as well well he killed himself but i think it's i think you did the same thing i mean it's they they were able to look at it i think they were i don't know actually i'm not gonna say i don't know i don't know i didn't see the autopsy and then we got joe von belger like we've we've had these shocking events happen and i'm like this cannot continue but that conversation was much more prevalent 10 years ago than it is now exactly and part of the reason i mean the nfl did something very brilliant i mean i guess arguably diabolicals anytime there was somebody who came out and it was like i'm a scientist i have troubling you know information about this they were like we're going to hire you to help you know so they so that was like that's the smartest thing like an oil company yes yeah um and then also the other thing i want to bring up was kaepernick i remember i was like this is terrible pr for the nfl like they're you know this doesn't look good that we saw this guy in the in the super bowl and i know what i totally agree with you when you say it's like bad pr but this is also what sort of sets football apart from all these other things is that people actually care about the thing about you know like bad pr for baseball and hockey and nba that's like that is meaningful it doesn't really matter what happens in the world outside of football coverage because people actually care about the product you know whenever people talk about sports in general and you know they're saying like well you know the nba they're really great at sort of marketing these guys and you can see them and like you know like that the 20 most famous nba guys are certainly more famous than the 20 most famous non-quarterbacks yeah you know um and you know in baseball they're like you know can we get otani to be a personality but that's a mistake it's a mistake to build your thing around the individual because feelings about them change and the individuals change football by having this almost faceless automaton world where we're just like watching this simulation of warfare or whatever with just clash of colors that's what people like and that's why it doesn't really all these other things don't damage it the way they would damage other like like you know boxing was damaged by it's by the perception of violence to it football was not damaged by the perception of violence in it it's kind of like that they have analysts that are offensive linemen right i said this to nick wright like i don't want to see you unless you really did awesome things like sacks why would you why would you say that i don't care what jeff saturday has to say about a game but i want to see some guy that just like you know used to slang it used to dunk so gary danielson was a great analyst for a bunch of years don't care yeah so you'd rather see tom brady you rarely see tom brady because he was better on that that makes no sense yeah tom terrific of course yeah but so like i don't care i don't want to see the big old guys and maybe it's just they're not my taste it's a taste thing but they're talking now you're not looking blah blah blah okay how about greg olson you like greg olson he was tight end uh yeah he was because only because of that rap song he made at the university of miami i know what you're referring to it's a good song well it is yeah you guys all added a new idea oh have you heard that song yeah yeah the seventh floor crew oh my god yeah i after the show i'm gonna tell you what do you call himself uh well let's look it up right now he discusses his third leg i believe in this it's very funny he was uh he used to rap with his teammates but he was at miami they got him big trouble and then uh he said he got great but g reg did he call himself i can't recall the exact i got a third leg if i named g reg and i got a third leg that's that's very interesting do you think the third leg helped him uh at the carolina panthers uh he made a more charismatic confident guy i suppose you know and that probably transferred over into the field so so let's let's zoom out again but tell us the story of football just tell us like no no seriously i know oh yeah because it's this ridiculous thing okay but it is okay first of all here's here's how i see it it's this ridiculous thing where you see these first of all they're mushing right and you can tell these guys are just mushing their heads right and you got the big guys mushing their heads then you have this whole like arcane set of like tort tort law right where like they have to go and like hyper complicated yes you have to go read the the federalist papers to like understand like you know that's good for them though it's good to have a good one i mean that's valuable did he break the plane and did he you know because okay how do you how do you feel about this then they have a chain they literally have two flags that are chained that they have to bring out and they have the the guy come out from the changes football of the physical world that's good yeah right and then they have you know okay so the origin like okay you know what the believed origin of football american football is and it's a pig they're throwing a well yeah his skin yeah yeah um the belief that it's hard to verify this but the kind of the the kind of the consensus about the origin of football was after the civil war there was this belief that young people were supposed to be young people were supposed to be young people were supposed to be young people were supposed to be young people were supposed to be young men were no longer going to men were no longer going to men were no longer going to face conflict they were not going to be face conflict they were not going to face conflict they were not going to be involved yes and they and it was going to involved yes and they and it was going to involved yes and they and it was going to soften society and that we were so they were like we soften society and that we were so they were like we need to find some surrogate for going to war and need to find some surrogate for going to war and need to find some surrogate for going to war and watching all your friends die or whatever watching all your friends die or whatever watching all your friends die or whatever so they invent the sport of football the foot so they invent the sport of football the foot you know they kind of create this game and then it evolved sort of in a way it evolves for you know 70 or 80 years and it kind of intersects with television and ends up becoming the thing that we think of now yeah but that i mean that that is kind of believed to be the origin of the game that it was it was it literally was supposed to simulate the experience of going to war for young men and who is the first modern football player you say jim thorpe right well no no the first modern football player that's a really hard question because i like i suppose in some ways it was jim brown yeah in terms of he's the he's probably the person you can go back the furthest and make a real argument that if we literally transported him yeah like just in a time machine or whatever he might be able to still play i mean some ways like johnny unitas and sammy ball were the first sort of modern quarterbacks but it's a hard question because the modern version of football i mean like no sport adopts technology and modernity as much so the it's much different than say baseball where the way baseball was played by babe ruth actually is not totally unlike the way it's played now yeah yeah yeah um and and so in terms of uh like its popularity like how did that evolve over time especially in the last 30 years well it was already the most popular sport in the country in the 70s but it wasn't perceived that way because it was still like baseball's the national pastime but already it was a sport that was played by the people of the country in the 70s and it was a sport that was played by the people of the country in the 70s and it was a sport that was played by the people of the country in the 70s and it was a sport that was played by the people already by then people cared about football more because of the television experience you know and i mean it's just it's like almost the perfect marriage of these two things football is the ideal product to show on television nobody would no one could have obviously anticipated that from football's side or television side yeah and how much do you attribute like it's like success on television to cleatus what cleatus cleatus he's the robot that plays electric guitar well i think that i think that widened sort of its popularity among mechanical prog rock fans yeah yeah and there was a segment of the audience that was maybe underserved who and fox came up with that i don't know the cgi electric because it's awesome when you yeah it obviously worked i mean you know his name it's like how do you how do you know his name um because i like sports yeah i know but how do you where did it where is that i mean i like sports but you see him getting defensive he wrote a book i know i know this is gonna be it's like cleatus is i am that's right you're got your yeah yeah yeah like you could have consulted with me i would you should have had a whole i thought you were talking about the simpsons character for a second i believe his name is cleatus and if his name isn't cleatus i'm going to be really embarrassed because i would look that up it it's cleatus yeah oh you got a fast team dude dominated once again yeah i like that yes flip that put that out going down to zero penguin by the way um so it was this proliferation on television right like tv rights deals kind of like uh proliferated football well in a way that like yes i mean but also you know football is different in the sense that they have this real strict salary cap and no guaranteed contract so as the money is inflated in all these sports football has been able to almost benefit more because they don't have to pay as much to the talent it seems kind of satanic a little bit no well i mean yeah you're pushing your brain for two seasons and then you shoot yourself in the chest but at the same time the nfl is probably the greatest example of successful socialism in the united states so you should be into that is it so i mean they do all revenue sharing they're you know they they they sort of invented that pete roselle said we're going to do this we're going to do this and none of the big markets wanted to do it and he's like it's going to happen yeah and that's why every six years or eight years or whatever it is the likelihood that some random franchise will be good again keeps happening you know if it but like it's not fair if you sign a contract and then like they're like oh it's over you mushed your brain too much so what would be fair i'm not saying i disagree with you but company that's making the most money kind of like there's remuneration for mushing your your brand yeah well if you're saying that the NFL should definitely pay for the guys with CTI sure sure they stand by a contract that you've signed yes yes I mean I think it's cool that Bobby Bonilla gets a million dollars every year I just like it is a cool fact everyone loves to mention that that comes up every year I think it's cool yeah I just think like fuck the mess whatever give him a million dollars um yeah I guess it's like um there is an aspect of that uh about how it's a it's better on tv like like baseball is a sport that's better live well it can be both yeah if you're if you're in a nice ballpark on a nice day it absolutely is better live there's no question but sometimes it's not if you sometimes it's you know uh especially the way they've changed the way baseball is broadcast now it has become again a good thing to watch on tv I mean like basketball games if you're courtside it's awesome if you're in the rafters it's bad the best shot actually the best place to sit is really where the camera is for the best shot actually the best place to sit is really where the camera is for the best shot the show yeah hockey's better live that's the only sport that's obviously better live you can't follow the fucking puck when you're watching on tv also you can't most most sports try to to like transfer the live experience to television and you can't transfer the feeling of guys like hitting the plexiglass but football doesn't try to do that the live experience of watching football and the televised experience have no relationship yeah um american culture is is is awesome like like right like if you go like to the middle of nowhere people know who mickey mouse is right american monoculture has proliferated like if you listen to the rolling stones like mix singing in an american accent right yeah like for sure we're we're so powerful especially in the 20th century onwards as a cultural exporter why is this the one thing that it's such an outlier because it's the one thing that hasn't proliferated yet somehow it's the most fucking popular thing that we have going on here well i mean that's actually your really good question you know i think it probably is that football is almost as you stated unnecessarily complex right it's a hard thing like you can't just get 22 guys together and play a football game like you can but it's not going to be anything like what football actually is it took basketball a long time and if it hadn't been for you know the you know the original dream team i think that a lot of these countries would still be probably 40 years behind us in basketball it would be something like that but i think it's really important to implement it and also implement it for kids because you know football really isn't a great game to suddenly start playing when you're 19 and you need that kind of infrastructure um and i also think that uh i think probably you know it's popular in germany i i it's not really well i mean not the rhyme fire what i'm saying is i i i do they still have nfl europe well i don't think no the london dragon yes yeah or the barcelona dragon the barcelona dragon the barcelona dragon the barcelona dragon yeah i taught a semester of school in leipzig germany in like 2008 and i was surprised how much awareness of american football was there but you know at the same time i think that you know when people you say how american culture is is just this wonderful thing and you know as americans we can feel that way but i think for a lot of other countries they see it as sort of oppressive and football represents like the one thing they were able to stay off like i i remember when i was teaching this class and all the kids were always like america has no culture that was their big thing and i'd be like well all you guys love hip-hop and they're like well that's an immigrant culture and i was like well really like you know it's not an immigrant i just thought it was a very funny perception of what they thought of hip-hop well they were immigrants 400 years ago during the slasher but yeah um no i i guess it's yeah but it is it is weird isn't it like surprising it's surprising it's like why are the beatles like uh well they're from england no no but like why are the beatles like hearing old rock and roll records right yeah like chuck berry records yeah yeah or like muddy waters records yeah and then giving us back our culture in like a new exciting way like that's that cultural exchange has always been like fascinating why are you going to tokyo and there you see american culture everywhere but it's like they've advanced it and like you know just fashion wise or whatever like they've taken our culture and they're obsessed with our culture and then they've enhanced it you feel that way about film do you feel that way about film that the best films are now made outside of the united states no i'm not that kind of guy no no there are great films made outside of the united states but i i don't i i think because rock music is the clearest example yeah where that you know um and there are other examples you know of it can you describe kind of like uh briefly like how you see the decline working in the next 50 years yeah i mean it's it's hard to do briefly because like yeah obviously it's a long section of that book and yeah but if i describe it briefly it's going to seem like too simple but like i think that the that there's going to be this kind of this cultural shift where people have less of an interpersonal relationship to football outside of it as an entertainment like a distracting kind of entertainment like they won't have played their father won't have played maybe even their grandfather maybe they didn't know anyone in high school who was on the football team or whatever uh they just see it as this thing that's on saturdays and sundays and monday night and thursday and they watch it sort of to kill time and i think that's that's the thing that's the thing that's going to happen so it's they're they're they'll still like it it will still be very popular because it's kind of a tautological thing now football is what you watch on sunday so that's what you do on sunday but it won't mean as much and i think that the economics of advertising are going to change in 50 or 60 years and suddenly these huge deals that it's not they're going to disappear entirely but these huge deals that uh that you know fox gives or you know amazon prime gives or whatever the number won't go up the number will either stay the same or go down but then at some new contract but the players are being like we're not going to take a reduction in salary the league will be like what are we going to do go to 22 games they'll be this you know there'll be a big work stoppage and what will be different about this future work stoppage is that people won't miss it the way they would now i mean there were strikes nfl strikes in the 1980s and people were very you know they cared a lot they like we get these games back if that happened now it would be like a catastrophe people would be like what am i going to bet on how what's going to happen in the future i think that's the thing that's going to happen in the future i think that's the thing that's going to happen in the future what's my life like now but i don't think like the p like two generations removed i don't think that relationship will still exist it'll still be this popular thing but a distraction can be replaced and i and and football is like it's not one of these things like where it's like it's too big to fail like it's too big to stop kovid was a great example of this when they had to play those games like that's when you really recognized like major league baseball and the nba had to go to the bubble and all these things yeah these leagues could not exist if they didn't play those games but they had to play those games like they kind of tried to position it almost as if well you know people are stuck at home they the fans need this we need but that wasn't i mean like the big 10 was not having classes but they were still having their football games they had to do it you know and that showed the fragility the as the culture changes it's the big things that can't adjust the small things are flexible what games were you getting in the 80s i was in a lot were you getting 1 p.m 4 p.m and then okay first of all it was before college football there was one game a week which was bizarre sometimes two but usually just there would be one game on saturday on the last time there was a work stoppage i mean like oh during the work stoppage yeah yeah was there was well was after i would i was there that 10 hours no no no no no there wasn't have that there was there was most of the teams played at i guess would be like one o'clock eastern 12 central or whatever yeah there would be a few sort of national games at for me three o'clock usually the cowboys it was the afc game it would be like the broncos or a west coast team there'd be the monday night game there would be occasion there'd be games on thanksgiving and the occasional thursday but like for me as a kid when in the 80s i would watch you know the vikings were the local team i'd then watch the national game and then i get to see half of the monday night game and i have to go to bed yeah that's that you know so everything it was like it was a and you know it's a strange thing it was like now there's almost this assumption that if you say you're a football fan you're you're supposed to have watched every game you're supposed to have like seen everything and know everything that's going on that pressure wasn't didn't even exist for journalists like it used to always be a big controversy that like somebody would win the heisman trophy and they'd be like well it should have been a guy from the pac-10 or the pac-12 but none of these media guys watch the pac-12 game it's too late or whatever like that that'd be unthinkable now it would be unthinkable for someone to say well i voted for the heisman and i voted for a guy you know from florida because like i can't stay up for those weeks and i'm like i'm not going to be able to play for the heisman west coast but that was that was a totally normal thing that that conversation came up anytime like you know like herschel walker won the heisman over john elway many people said it was because well nobody sees stanford play they play so you know the same thing has happened actually in soccer like tv rights deals have expanded you like um there's something called match of the day in england where the only way you could watch like um uh every team highlights was there was one program on the bbc um you would usually just get one game you couldn't get games in italy you couldn't watch games uh on the continent um in fact like uh the old arsenal i'm an arsenal fan like their old manager george graham uh in order to like scout players would have he would get every newspaper from around the country and he would read and say oh this guy that's up in uh at leeds is like uh he's young and he's good and then they'd sign them based on like uh just just reading the local beat writers, right? Like there wasn't like video scouting even back in the day But I mean there was that was also a higher trust society They trusted those guys way more than they would now you would never do that You would never make a decision out based on media reports of a guy's talent, right? So so in the Premier League like I watched I watched soccer and we get it before Basically football starts on this day or Saturday morning also before college starts and that's basically how it is there were three blocks of time primarily blocked out and in the same way as As it is and if anything is better for television because it's a kind of a dedicated amount of time Like it doesn't actually like you don't have overtime. That's to me the biggest upside soccer has yeah If you start watching a game, it's no one's an hour like you can say like I'll meet you at the bar at this time Yeah, you're gonna be able to make it the wife won't be I was a little kid like in the late 70s nearly 80s. The only way to watch see soccer was on PBS PBS on like Friday and Saturday night would sometimes show Yeah, like a Premier League get it would I mean it was I remember Mike me and my sister thought it was hilarious I was the first time we ever heard nil meaning zero. Yeah, so we would say that but it was like, you know But that was that's how sort of arcane it seemed at the time would be something you'd see like Masterpiece theater upstairs downstairs and Premier League soccer, but functionally like there's this aspect of the weekend, right? Like in their society The British underclass and they actually the when the Queen died they canceled the games that weekend and it was like there was a big Uproar because it's like we go to the football, right? That's what they say the football like you work your ass off during the week You're fucking miserable and then you go to the football right now You know, they could watch games like all day in the way that we can on Saturday watch the college games on Sunday You you know, you could like have a crappy week and you could be like this is what I do on Saturday and Sunday I sit on my couch. I drink beer. I watch football There's a there's a demand for that content to fill that aspect of people's time. Oh, it is right Yes, so like so when I'm thinking about the decline of football, I'm like, what are they gonna do like if that happened now? Absolutely, I think two generations removed. I don't think that person will exist in the same way Just the thing you say about drinking beer. It's shocking to me the statistics of like How like a senior in high school and like they just never drank in their life or do I get I think that part of life? Is going it's just going away now. It may come back certainly enough time, you know things wax and wane or whatever But it is it is hard to think about the future of a sport without kind of projecting the present on it in the same way It's hard to think of the past right without projecting that like the the present on it It's just it's a human nature to do that. I don't think our populace possesses the capacity to throw a brick Sometimes and I think it's because there's too much Mandalorian, you know what I mean? Or there's like or there's this all day on Sunday, right? It's just like just like shit things can be falling apart outside But like we're gonna want to sit down and just like watch this Just I think I totally agree with you. Although I think for a slightly different reason. I think that like, you know, I Maybe we're saying the same thing but like a a Bad sort of dead-end life in America is still not necessarily a terrible life to experience right because there are so many ways to find meaning within that like even if I mean the Mandalorian is an interesting item but Yeah, possibly like that. That's something like that the idea, you know, I Mean like what you're saying about football in that way Like that's different as like a Noam Chomsky argument that basically that these things are a serious capitalism yes, or that that this is a way to basically to to Sedate the populace and have them feel as though that there's something meaningful in their life and they won't think about things that are actually meaningful Of course, I've thought about that. I mean I write about it a little in the book, but I Also think it's meaningful to us. I mean, yeah, that's it's like you can't it's One thing that I you you see especially in sort of like the social media world is sort of this idea that like well You shouldn't care about anything if I can point out something That's a more important thing that it's that somehow you are morally failing if you have an investment in this thing That when these other things are happening that matter so much more But of course if you shift those things there's still a person who's gonna find the next thing it's like well, yeah, but yeah, but the climate or he's like, you know, it's like I I just think that that is a Kind of an idiotic. I'm not saying that we should yeah, I know I know you know, I'm not in any way saying you said I'm saying this is something that I kind of think about but like, you know sort of at what point Do you have to weigh your actual individual experience? against what? Is happening in the world and how much you're supposed to? Devote your thinking toward that beyond like saying like this is an opiate of the masses It's a way that we can kind of cope with reality You know in a large way like I think about Arsenal all week long I think about our fucking starting 11 against Nottingham Forest all week long and it's I'm a loser I feel like a loser that I care but I fucking do care, you know, well, I mean you say it's a way to cope with reality I mean Sports are part of reality. Yeah, granted what's happening on the viewer on the court reality? Yeah, well, no the hard reality like it's happening Yeah, part of the world to like what's happening on the field is a simulation of things There is a unreality to what's really going on. The stakes are completely fabricated Yeah, like, you know one thing that's really interesting is and I'm like anybody else, right? It's hard for me to sit through a preseason NFL football game doesn't seem like it means anything. None of them mean anything No one's gonna die But yet, but you know, I with a Super Bowl play the next year, right? Yeah, exactly It's it's still there like every every suit every scheme every sporting events an exhibition. They're all exhibitions they're exhibition you know, we we impose these meaning on to them and I have liked yeah, so it's not like I'm Beyond this I feel the same way, you know, it's like I Traveling for this book tour. I was missing some of these football games. I hate missing him or whatever, but you know I wouldn't feel that way if I was traveling at the end of August and I was missing the Hall of Fame game I would have never occurred to me. It's like oh my god But yet it's they're actually more there's more similarities between those two things in a macro way than there is a difference Yeah, I see where you say you don't talk about like what could potentially replace it very much Yeah, I don't think anything would replace. I think that that You know, I mean I hate always just saying monoculture monoculture, but you know, it's I was interesting deal like So I'm sure you know this like so what's the highest rated television program of all time a super? No, I mean saying like it like a broadcast show. Oh MASH the last episode for me. Yeah. Yeah, so that and that will never ever be Beat like everyone has said statistic because of the proliferation of cable the way things work There will never be an audience for a television show like that again And yet what were they talking about when that show was on they were like the monoculture is over. We have cable television now Yeah, who's you know USA Today is making it's like all these the exact a very similar argument was being made at what? We now consider to be the apex of the monica So I think that there it's just a continual erosion of that of this shared I mean, you know, there's so many things and I sound like a thousand years old but like things like Johnny Carson there was meaning to that in the sense that that even people who did not care about the tonight show or watch it knew that that's what Was on and that's what he was like in all these things and those things are just not gonna be part of life Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's just that's done. I want to we were talking before the show about So I'm a big soccer fan. I mean for me football kind of like the tuck game I remember when I was a kid I'm a Raider fan and probably part of me my waning interest in in football I have a friend who's a Bills fan. So I'll watch I'll watch with him I love Joshi and it breaks my heart what they go through especially like kind of from According with Team Arsenal, I've never seen them win the league in 22 years. Do you like the book fever pitch? I know I Like the movie with Jimmy Fallon about the Red Sox Okay, no, no, but yeah I know Nick Hornsby was an Arsenal fan but if they are this fucking team that like it's they say it's the hope that kills you And it's kind of the there's a lot of it's very Bills II But like for me the tuck game I was like it just wasn't fair and it was like, you know Charles Wilson had that strip and like it was just like It's just like it broke my heart. I was like, well fuck this shit. I loved those Raiders teams I love like the the West the rich can rich get in West Coast offense like Jerry Jerry Ryan era That's Jerry Jerry Rice's last ride like fucking like that team like Gannon would go like he'd go like 51 for 60 for 63. Do you remember like all those? You know, he had been he'd been with the Vikings and yeah, he's always like, oh well this guy he's near he but when it Was the end of his career? He sort of became this different person there was something really lovable about that team But beyond that like I I watched soccer now and part of it is is as a as a product, you know Much is made about that statistic about 11 minutes of actual action within the four hours of an NFL game But like there is for 245 minutes of just flow. There's no commercials, right? Like I I fucking hate commercials. You could just sit there and watch the one thing. It's not interrupted And like in terms of gameplay, it's just I feel like it's the best even in the NBA the last two minutes of a NBA game like with the fouls and like free throws it's just like there is it the game kind of slows down if anything football has the best last two minutes I think well I mean my argument is basically that you know there's there are kind of three kinds of sports there's one that are kind of almost these non-stop mesmerizing hypnotic sports soccer basketball boxing to some degree auto racing then there's these very cerebral sports like baseball and golf where almost all of the importance is based on what will happen what just happened what could happen later like the action is just a very small part of it and it's all kind of prologue to the end yeah and then the third one is football which is a cerebral game in the sense that they're all or all these stops and all this sort of you know it's like chess match but the moments of action are so hyper kinetic and violent that it creates almost the illusion or maybe just I guess the sensation of real intensity in a real kind of dynamic thing so I mean like the idea that there's only 11 minutes of action in a three hour football game that's always used like as a criticism of football but 11 minutes is the right amount yeah it's like the perfect for the way I think people and this is like a weird thing to say that I can't get in other people's brains but I think what people say they want from entertainment and what they actually do are very different I think that the way our mind works actually it kind of contradicts what we would say consciously is our desire going back to the soccer ball game I don't know if you've ever played soccer but I think soccer point one thing that I've found is really special is that there is a different Talent a development system with that was interesting youth academies so like when a player plays in a youth Academy and then breaks through into a first team it's um almost as if it's like they are it's a fan stream right because they've been playing with uh like that Arsenal have guys that were there when they were nine years old right and the cool thing is when they're playing like the under 15s they're playing the under 13s or whatever they're wearing the same uniforms as the guys in the big stadium yeah and you could tell that there's there's something that means so much like no one's in the Jacksonville Jaguars youth Academy right no one's like dreaming for the time that they're 10 years old and like playing on the Jags well I mean I guess a kid girl who goes to junior high in Jacksonville you know and and but then they get drafted in Buffalo yeah they have no control yes they can't enter the right the pipeline right yeah and and then there are other stories of like kids that have been cut from academies like there's this guy on Arsenal right now was cut when he was uh I think 14 years old and he worked his entire career to get back to Arsenal now he's they we just signed him again he's 25 years old I think now um and there is like there's a romance in that where you could like members that we're all members of the club right then we have a board of directors we have a manager and then we have our first team right and there's a there's a there's a sensation of like um when someone comes through an Academy and has been there for a long time and their family has made sacrifices to drive them two hours to training every day when they're like a little kid because of a dream of the family there's like an assumption of that they're one of our own right um Kobe Bryant was my favorite basketball player because he was with the Lakers for 20 years he felt like one of our own and um in American professional sports we kind of don't have that like romance I think well you it's it's really interesting because the way you describe it does sound very romantic now you could describe it in the exact same terms and some would say like so you like the corporate nature of these soccer factors I mean what is interesting that what you say though is that particularly you know like in the Northeast here in the Pacific Northwest there's a lot of places where increasingly I think there's a lot of pressure on parents to not let their kids play football right and now in some places that's not going to change it's not going to change in parts of Texas it's not going to change in Georgia and in Florida and amongst the underclass yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but yes well I mean what do you mean the end like like poor like uh like poor kids are still like they're it there's the version against football amongst like uh it corresponds with uh yes it's like the people watching football the people playing football are increasingly getting separate which ironically in the NBA it's uh socioeconomically it's it's uh changing I know yeah I know it's like the idea this kid is like basketball is your way out like no it's not yeah um what is interesting though it's like let's say that this continues to happen that it becomes almost you know most high schools for insurance reasons or just because of lack of interest they stop playing high school football eventually that's going to impact these college programs I wonder if in some future world this is how the NFL could find a way to keep talent they're like they could start this system that starts like you know if you if you're growing up in Jacksonville right if you want if you're one of the parents who wants their kid to play football we will make this happen we will create a youth Jacksonville Jaguar football league the best of those kids will move up to an advanced league they'll you know admit by that time college college will be a completely different thing or Bama could be in the NFL right theoretically not not in the University of Alabama but like kind of the Crimson Tide or something some some sort of replacement of that because effectively college athletics is well at Alabama longer than uh other places is a professional sport now totally now everyone now everyone is Nick Saban well it is it is interesting how that is a thing that people say now it's like the SEC finally like now everybody can yeah you know everyone is the SEC what is interesting is that like it's hard it's really hard for them to deny that because prior to that there was like the it doesn't exist anymore but like the Southwest conference this was like those were all the Texas schools in Arkansas before this got changed and there's a like there's a documentary called pony excess about SMU yeah and there's one yeah well that's in the documentary they were called the pony Express okay yeah there was a 30 for 30. yes okay yeah but there's like one guy in that documentary who's like there were schools giving one million dollars to players who didn't win a game which was basically saying like Baylor was giving one million dollars to God because everybody you know I mean that so the idea that this has been going on forever of course everyone knows it what was it but there still is like it is very different now it has been sort of like they've leveled the playing field obviously in this way um and I think in the short term that's actually going to kind of create a spike of interest in college football because places like Indiana are going to have this experience I think I'm watching tonight and I haven't watched college football in years oh really because I want to see I want to see like well a it's the clips of that quarterback after the game I'm like that guy that guy is that guy's hilarious I guess yeah wait actually you know he's getting paid three million dollars a year I believe to be in Indiana right yeah um his high school like senior thesis was on why uh uh NIL shouldn't exist I did not know that I did not know that but it is yeah he is a he has an interesting way of talking it is it is somewhere it's like somewhere between like AI and like a Christian musician promoting his record it's like a weird kind of strange like he's like a guy from striper and a machine but it's like uh he's great uh well but yeah like that's a great example like you're kind of interested in this I do think that in the short term that this is going to increase interest in college football in a lot of different places I think long term it's probably going to be catastrophic for the idea of what college football is because college football offered all these things that the NFL didn't like a regional quality a real emphasis on history the idea that when you're watching two teams you are in some sense rooting for the kind of kid you imagine going there right Wisconsin is going to is going to it's going to be 12 12 14. yeah final score well they play that stuff there was a regional quote all the conferences and all these and that's going to disappear like they're all going to play the talent's going to be equally distributed just like in the NFL in the NFL all these teams fundamentally play the same it's very rare that you see a team in the NFL who play you know sometimes there'll be an outlier on one end or the other but for like the 15 or 20 teams in the middle they're basically carbon copies of each other because when everybody has talent you can't make a guy disappear you can't use the system to what smarter guy in college you still could you could still do these things something like Mike Leach you know he would like sort of this passing game for Texas Tech or when he was at Washington none of those guys like a spread office well yeah or just like system-based like you used to hear like the system quarterback yeah yeah and that basically meant that like if you were a system quarterback it open and as long as you could be accurate somebody like kellen moore when he played at boise state i was like there's no way this guy is not going to see at the nfl he seems like he hits this guy every time but then when he got to the nfl there was no shot he was right yeah um but because it was green yeah blue yeah yeah well no no i'm going to go when he entered the green they play on a green field yeah yeah all right so i've been trying to be one of those people who hit their protein goals every day and some days i'm great and other days i look up and i realize i've only had carbs that's why i started using the high protein starter kit from huel it's five black edition ready to drinks plus black edition chocolate powder and it's honestly the first thing that's made it easy for me to stay consistent and by the way huel just launched in target nationwide so you can actually grab the ready to drink bottles straight off the shelf now which makes life a lot easier so here's how i use the bundle on days i'm running out the door or heading to the gym i just grab a black edition ready to drink it's a complete meal 35 grams of protein 27 essential vitamins minerals you get the whole deal no sweeteners uh it tastes good and it's 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available at your local deli well boar's head just did that bursting with flavor perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means planning your whole day around it presenting the fryer's turkey brand breast only from boar's head backyard tradition now available behind the counter visit your local deli today discover the craftsmanship behind every bite boar's head committed to craft since 1905. do you think bill's gonna be back in the nfl ever no no it's crazy to see what's happening it is it's it's pablo's ruining his life it's all pablo yeah um well that's that's an interesting thing no it's jordan yeah um but it's uh like it's in a sense it really does show that he is not interested in his perception well no because like well why do you say no because his his entire dominance i guess was about completely shutting out the outside world yeah right and this is completely goes against everything we know about him the the patriot way was that the locker i mean they they could have murderers in there we'd have no idea eventually we would but yeah but like uh the patriot way was about kind of just uh completely insulating everything from the media and be his personal life being a matter of media spectacles but he like he doesn't care what we think is what i'm saying oh it's like he doesn't care people like us sure like you know it's like it doesn't mean how were they this year at unc well you know they they it was the first game of the year the opening drive they look awesome and everybody was like aha this is like and then it was just kind of you know downhill from there and then at the end of the year they did play better but the damage was done yeah and sort of the the plan he has to make like he was like this is going to be like a like a way to get ready for the nfl like that's all our whole thing we're gonna be a factory for the nfl and the byproduct of this will be like we'll win the acc will be like we'll win the acc but that's not what it happened i mean it's he's probably just going to copy indiana right he's probably going to have like 45 year old or not 45. no i'll have like 28 year olds fine you'll find some way he's the dark lord he's palpatine it would be incredible if that happened i i you know i i i find him just intriguing and hilarious and i just i love listening to him talk i mean you've maybe you've seen this youtube clip where like a a reporter says like well this really isn't for my story but i have a i'm curious if you've seen this youtube clip where like a a reporter says like well this really isn't for my story but i have a i'm curious it's like why do you have to hold a roster spot for your long snapper like isn't that a waste of a roster specialty and he explained the history of kicking extemporaneously for like 11 minutes and it was like it was almost like this is the first time anyone ever asked him a question in a press conference and he was like i'm going to reward you for this i mean it's well that's the surprising thing about jordan hudson is like i had no idea he was into anything else oh you said i was like i mean i don't know well like sex yeah i was like it was bizarre but there was that famous footage that went above him like leaving some girl's house yeah the ring camera yeah i don't think that wasn't her house that was somebody else right oh he's a lotharia i thought so i don't know i'm pretty sure it's an airbnb that pablo like rented and then got it i know i know wait uh i asked i i asked uh nick wright this um do you think that if david stern were alive pablo would be dead uh oh you think that he would just be i think he would be in a dumpster or something well i i think that like uh a lot of things that silver has kind of allowed would not have been allowed so maybe they'd never be in the position for i know what you're kind of applying but it's like a lot of these situations i think that uh when when silver became the you know i interviewed him for gq i think it was and i was like this is a really first sexiest man in the world yes exactly yeah he's like this is a smart guy and he's really kind of personable he's a company man he's like a lawyer right well it is he is uh stern may have been the last pro sports commissioner who will be that way like I don't I don't think that I that I don't know if ownership groups will ever again allow someone I mean like it's like but he exploded the popular he did well I was born in the late 80s but like in the 80s the NBA was kind of not a thing what would the first time I was a huge Celtics fan and when they beat the Rockets in 1981 half of those games were on tape delay you'd watch them at 10:30 or whatever and then that did totally change that did by the by the end of the 1980s it kind of felt as though basketball and football might almost sort of be in like this like in a kind of collision course and then but then it was true it was too individually based because the two years that Jordan went away that was really showed the risk of that because there was suddenly there was the interest in the NBA went down and then when he came back the interest went back up and it was like that means they're not really into basketball they're into this person you can't build things around personality if you want to have long-term success wait that's I know can you just break that down like so Michael Jordan stopped playing basketball are you being sarcastic so why why would he stop why would he stop playing basketball well oh well his father died you know his dad died I thought his dad was yes his dad was murdered I was gonna say his dad would never let him stop playing basketball well his father's love was baseball though you know you see that maybe you heard maybe you've heard that yes so was he good at baseball well you know he did not have a high rate of success he you know he's been more successful than I think I would have been if I would have tried to play baseball but no he did not ever have a great so his dad got whacked you went to go play well it was a random act of violence is that really a whacking it's not like you know Joe Pesci walking into a room okay he was in a car this sounds like it sounds like you're making this all I thought that he just hung out with Tweety Bird Bugs Bunny I had no idea that Michael Jordan was playing so I mean are you sort of I actually believe you believe that he was forced out it seems plausible that the gambling thing maybe needed to cool off for two years I know if I find that to be a very credible conspiracy to be obvious to be honest and none of this is gonna air because he's a friend of the show Michael Jordan give it up for him his air I don't know I it's it seems bizarre that like I don't I don't understand how did a commissioner that was so powerful right could have had the biggest player in the world kind of leave in the middle of his career like that well I feel like David Stern as someone that was so kind of just viciously pragmatic and effective I feel like there had to have been more to that well when Jordan retired that first time they had won three championships in a row and actually the conversation then was sort of like well this is kind of like Jim Brown like he's leaving at the height for you left for civil rights to be a civil rights yeah you know he was a great actor we was phenomenal yeah you know it is and so it didn't what when he played baseball it did seem really weird but then the contract thing because the Bulls and the White Sox were owned by the same organization it made sense and then his if you're David Stern I mean if you if you if you if you were David Stern and you did this if it is true it isn't it is beyond brilliant because his return was one of the most thrilling things of like my memory of sports in the night yeah the 45 to 23 yeah well just the game he played against the Knicks and it was like he hadn't been back that long and it was like he is it's he is instantly the best player in the league again he has lost almost nothing yeah okay I want to I want to do a couple of hypotheticals with you okay yeah let's let's stay on the NBA if Tim Donaghy if it wasn't if the New York Post I believe didn't catch wind of the fact that he was yeah that was leaked to them yes what would what he was going to turn state witness state's witness yeah right I think that could happen I definitely could happen yeah my understanding is he was gonna wear a wire and then it became public knowledge that he had been caught in this scandal like how much would that have diminished the credibility of the the refereeing and the NBA at large well it would have been a big deal I mean I'm a huge deal obviously but I will say this because it would be an officiating issue it wouldn't have been as devastating as if a player point shaving situation happened yeah and they just just happened in college basketball there's all these guys now who got in you know in trouble for you know point shaving in a real obvious way but what is interesting is I just seems obvious now but it never occurred to me it's like it's always these point-shaving situations are always gonna involve teams that aren't good those are the teams you go to and because of that it won't bother fans in the same way like there's not gonna be a point I mean I'll say this and it'll happen you know Juventus one of the best teams in Italy historic team was caught in a match am i right yeah in a match fixing scandal and then they were sent down to the second division actually so I'm not saying it couldn't happen yeah but I'm saying that let's say you're a prospective guy and you want to you want to corrupt you want to pay off players and have them fix games it would be a huge mistake to try to get the kids from Duke or Kansas or any of these schools to do it if for no other reason those games are really visible and these guys but if you find some guy from a college that is never on television they're all in a football for it well what do you think of what's on a hypothetical what what do you think about the hypothetical what do you think about the hypothetical Beatles what do you think about the hypothetical Beatles movie yesterday well I actually saw it yeah really well cuz I know I I know something about it that to me would is too big of a flaw which is what the Beatles existed well no that like nothing else changed like well no no and Ed Sheeran didn't exist or he did exist well he's in the movie oh he starts writing Fred Sheeran yeah some some bands don't exist oh you know what they say people don't smoke cigarettes really yeah cigarettes are popular that we all know that the Beatles were famous for seeing yeah do you think that Drake will ever win best actor for brought for the audacity of hope Barack Obama biopic is he playing Barack Obama no but I've always said this in the last like 15 years that Drake will one day will he do I think he'll win an Academy I think for a bet for the I think for the Obama I think he'll be wrongly snubbed okay yeah exactly I think so yeah they'll give it to Kendrick Lamar for the for the Hillary Clinton but he's a Canadian can a Canadian play an American president if he's acting okay yeah I guess he is eligible to play it to be an actor I guess okay okay let's just stop calling these hypotheticals because having these aren't what's the best what is the best soup rock supergroup like why are the Wilburys as good as Tom Petty why is it like a super a super team like the is really good at basketball like if you have the best players like why aren't why does that like why isn't Asia as good as its various components of like why are the traveling Wilburys the best band of all time sigh well because I mean I don't know how seriously you want the answer I would like a serious yeah well because when they're no jokes when they're all coming together at that point in their career the ideas that we're doing this kind of like we're almost everyone is conceding to every other person nobody has a real vision like Jeff Lynne is producing the record but it's for the most part it's like well won't this be fun we actually produced some pretty good songs it's interesting that like you know it's it's strange when you know I think Bob Dylan was 47 when that band happened like he already seemed so well but like you know and like Tom Petty was nothing Tom Penny was like his 30s or whatever but yeah I there's you're not gonna be committed in the same way you know like or like a band like Velvet Revolver I guess that's it was a kind of super group so they're the best one you're so well no but I'm saying it's like they they would it's actually hard it's actually hard to come up with what what the best one I mean maybe the traveling Wilburys actually might they still might be the answer yeah well because that would that first record was pretty good and there's songs are memorable and and it was it also sort of changed the way people perceive those guys it made them seem much less serious and detached ever fun yeah okay what would David Foster Wallace were you alive have made of Trump because his obsession was television right like this is the television president it's kind of like well I mean it would it's weird because he was like he you know he wrote a long thing about I think I believe his obsession with John McCain I think it was like seeing him in this so the I mean the like I would think that he would think Trump is sort of like almost like the the greatest extension of everything that's gone wrong with civilization unless it completely horseshoed around and somehow he was like this is actually what America is not it's not good for America but this is like the dick like it would should be like to say interesting things about Trump is hard it is hard because so many people are trying to do it everyone's easy like he informs every conversation and it everybody Comedy, he's like defeated comedy. He did. Yeah, because he's funnier. Yeah. Yeah, but it's just like it kind of, there's so much runway in DFW to Trump that it's just like, it's so embarrassing that I live in Brooklyn and I'm saying I wish David Foster Wallace, I wish I could read David Foster Wallace on Trump. Well, it's weird because like, you know, in British Nellis' book, American Psycho, he talks about Trump constantly in that book. So at that point, Trump was just some guy going around New York being rich, you know. Yeah, we were talking about, Caleb Pitts, everyone, Caleb Pitts, everyone. Well, give it up for him. Guys, Jesus Christ. A little bit of energy. Have you ever considered using a studio audience? That would really change the vibe here, you know. We have, we have. And they slid out their damn chairs. They got so horny. Oh, really? Yeah, Amazonian women. I'm trying. I think, there is in that, in the, what is it called? Like the rock and roll circus documentary, The Dirty Mac. The rolling, yes. Oh, that, you know, yes. Okay, so that's like John Lennon playing with the stone. Mitch Mitchell, John Lennon. Also in that, Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath plays with Jethro Tull in that performance. That's the only time Tony Iommi plays with Jethro Tull. I'm sure, this is why women love going to my book readings. We're the same guy. I have this information. Okay, what would have happened if, if Mr. Mitch, Mr. Mitch Mitchell, perhaps to me. The drummer of Jimi Hendrix? The drummer of The Experience. I think one of the most underrated drummers in rock history. Great drummer. What would have happened had he joined, after the death of Keith Moon, had he, had he joined the, what do you call it? The who? The who. Wait, what? I don't know the name. The, the, the band with the Tommy and, what was it called? Yes, oh, they were a British band. The who's on, the who's on first, the what's on second. Oh, no, I, okay, let's move on, guys. Can you please support me in my dreams of being the. Did you, did you bring the Mick Mitchell just to set up that joke? No, no, no. So you could actually, I can't fucking believe you would do that. I didn't plan that ahead. That's not that, I mean. Chuck, I didn't plan that ahead. Okay. My brain is atrophied. Okay, I just, you know. Because it wasn't terrible. I'm not saying it was terrible. I think I have a brain tumor. I just did not think that that would be. It was a horrible joke. I mean, it was dog shit. Absolute fucking steaming pile of dog shit. Well, it was just an. In front of my fiance's cousin, no less. It's just, it was an, it was an arcane or obtrusive way to get there. What if he, what if he joined the who, though? Yeah. That would have been cool. Well, I think that he probably would have hung with them for a while. Yeah. You know, but they didn't, you know, they, they kept going anyways. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's like. Um, uh, what was the best post-Beatles career? How would you, who would you. Post-Beatles. Yeah. Um, so, okay, so Zeppelin started in 69. Well, no, no, of the, of the former. Oh, of the four. Oh, ooh. That's a great question. That's a wonderful question. The first three, John, are kind of top to bottom, unfuckwithable. Um, the, I mean, the best, Plastic Ono Band is the best of those records. Yeah. Paul's career was the best. Um, I think that All Things Much Past, in some ways, is like the record. The number one record of all. Well, I mean, it does, it does have, I think, there's, it's kind of samey at times. But. It's, I, I, if I think if I had to actually rank them, I would say Plastic Ono Band is probably a better record. But, it was, it was one of these things where it was like, it's insane that they didn't let him write more of the Beatles when that record came out. Like, a lot of, you know. Um, so really, it's, I mean, and then, but, you know, Ringo was in Caveman. So, it's like, you know. So, that's number one. Or no, was it, was it, no, not Caveman. Richard Starkley, number one. 3000 BC, whatever you're saying. Yeah, yeah. That's the best one? Well, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I appreciate you asking that question, though. Thanks. Why are they better? What? Why is England better at bands? Well, England was. Like, what's the best American band? The best American band. I guess Bob Dylan. Well, no. And it's not even a band. I would say it would be probably the Beach Boys, the Velvet Underground, the Grateful Dead, Van Halen, possibly Metallica, Creedence Clearwater Revival. Those are the six, I would say. But, like, really, with England, it's really. It's. It's five. It's five bands. It's the Beatles, the Stones, Zeppelin, Sabbath, the Who and the Kinks. Six bands. So, it's like. The Floyd, my brother. The Floyd. Okay. You can put them in there. That's actually. That's a good. I agree. That's seven. So, it's. And, and, and maybe. And it is probably seven of ten best of all time. That is weird. Why are we letting them bastards over there take our crap and then be better at it? Well, I just. I think that they. It makes me. It makes me want to. The Redcoats. They're our enemies. Well, yeah. Yes, that's true. How do we allow this to happen? But, that's. I would. I don't. I. It's kind of baffling when you think about it. Well, it might have something to do with the singularity of the Beatles. I mean, the way, you know, like, the Stones were just like a blues cover band. The first time they had a, like, a successful single, like, the Beatles wrote it for them. I know. In like ten minutes. So, it's like. It's hard to. They went around the pub and just wrote it. Yeah. Well, they've been like getting in a taxi cab or something. Exactly. Yeah. But, so that, that had probably a lot to do with it. That, that, that created this idea that it's like, well, this is what, we can do this. Like, I didn't know we could do this. I guess we can. Well, because it was, the 50s rock. Radiohead. Yeah. Well. It's a, it's a, yeah, that's a good. Yeah. Why are they beating us, guys? What are we doing? It's like seeing these goddamn Europeans come to the NBA. Will you, will you be troubled if Major League Baseball becomes. Becomes dominated by the Japanese? No, I like that. You like that? I like that. Okay. We, it's really fucked up what we did to them. Well, you think that's finally equating things? It's really fucked up. Like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's like a. We're the, it's the only time it ever happened. Yep. The only time. Yeah. And to them, it's really horrible. They handled it well. Did we say sorry like that good? How sorry did we say it? I don't know. I mean. We're like my bad. Truman was like my, my bust. Yeah. Did you say my bust? There seems to be like a sort of like, well, we did stop firebombing. All these cities, you know, but it's like, what's really interesting is when you hear how they pick these cities, I watched like a, like a, like I have some kind of a little documentary or might've just been on YouTube, like how it was selected and like, you know, like they didn't want to destroy, like, I believe it was like, they couldn't destroy Tokyo or something because they were like, that's where all the leadership is and maybe they won't have anyone who can even surrender. And like one city was bypassed just because one guy on the decision committee was like, I went there. It's a beautiful place. It's like, so they won't go Nagasaki then. It's very. It's incredible how the decision was made like this world time changing decision was made much more capriciously, at least in my opinion than I would have ever guessed. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think that there is a potential for soccer ever to take, to take the place of football in the United States? Because they've been, they've been saying that this is the New York Cosmos and Pele there. Absolutely. The sport of the future. Yes. Um, well. There was a time in my life when I would have said, absolutely not. Absolutely. There's no chance. At this point in my life, I would say like, I don't think so, but who knows? I mean, every big thing I've ever predicted, I've been wrong about, I think every big thing, the only thing I really got right is on. Do you gamble? Nope. Yeah. Cause I lose. I lose every one. I know. We had a, we had a new year's Eve party at my house one year and we all had to make predictions for the year. And we wrote them down in a book. And for some reason I said, Michael Jackson's going to die next year and there's going to be issues over his will. And I bring this up every new year's for the rest of my life. It's the only thing you got, right? It was the only thing I got right. The only thing I've ever totally got right ever that totally like I, I remember in 2016, I, you know, I had this friend who was just totally freaked out about the idea of Trump, you know? And it was like, we're watching the election results come in. It was like 8:15, uh, Eastern and she's texting with me and I'm like, no, don't worry. Like, he's not going to vote. I'm not going to listen. He's not going to win. It was like, I was like literally like minutes before every, every white person in America didn't think. Well, I know, but what I'm saying, it was like, it was 8:15 or whatever. Like it was, it was probably two minutes before and I was like, nah, I just, I am not good at knowing what's going to happen before it does. And read his book about what's going to happen. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. Follow us here and Whole Foods Market has everything you need for cozy meals, seasonal treats, and easy entertaining. 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