The Knicks (and a Crowded East) With Zach Lowe, Plus Anthony Jeselnik on Book Clubs, Roasts, and Stand-Up Comedy in 2026

Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new groupie setting mist from Mavily New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible, all-day comfy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue. Just plump, dewy, hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new groupie setting mist from Mavily New York. Maybe it's maplane. The Bill Simms podcast is brought to you by Fandall. We are also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network where I put up a new episode of The Rewatchables on Monday night. We did law-abiding citizen. A movie that I never expected would be on The Rewatchables, and yet I kept getting sucked into it and so did Van Lathen, and we decided to podcast the baddest. So that went up on Monday night. Really fun when I actually Craig Coralbeck joined us as well. Coming up on this podcast, Zach Lowe is in town. We had lunch. We said, "Fuck it. Let's turn on the mics. Let's turn on the cameras. Let's go." So we talked about basketball for an hour. And then Anthony Jesselnick, who has a new podcast coming with us at the end of the month, Jesselnick Book Club, which has been a YouTube series for him that we are now bringing to the Ringer and Spotify as well, and that's launching at the end of the month. And if you wanted to see him, by the way, he's doing stand-up all over the place. Go to AnthonyJesselnick.com and see where the tour dates are. He's even going to be in Portchester and Philly this week. So yeah, if there's not an or Easter. All right. So we are going to take a break. We're going to bring him Pearl Jam, and then my friend, Zach Lowe. The Bill Simmons podcast is presented by Fandall, the NFL is here, and it's the most rewarding season ever on Fandall with the all-time Fandall Rewards Club. Every eligible bet can earn you points. Win or lose, you still get points. The more points, the bigger the rewards you can unlock, head to fandall.com/bs to start earning with Fandall Rewards Club. Twenty-one plus select states are 18 plus DC or Wyoming. Game problem call 1-800-Gamber, call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat Connecticut. Zach Lowe is in town. We're taping this on a Monday afternoon. You were just here. We had lunch. I was like, we have, we're near the studio. We should just tape something. And then we were like, what should we record? What do we do? So we have an idea. But I did dawn on me as we were eating lunch. I have known you now for 15 years, dating back to the kind of heading into the 2011 season. And we tried to hire you for Grantland for year one. And I don't even remember what happened, but you ended up staying at S.I. And chickened out is what happened. Something got screwed up. No, I think we screwed up. We screwed up like chickened out. No, it's chickened out. Yeah, it's chickened out. I thought we screwed it out. I was like, this is this new thing. Is it going to work? Sports Illustrated is this like hallowed brand. It was like just a very backwards way of looking at it. It's not spotting the trends. I didn't spot the trends very well. Interesting. The whole time, I felt like we effed it up and then a year passed and I was like, that's it. That was our one chance. They're going to figure out how good he is. We stayed in contact and then the next summer, that was it. And we worked together for the last three years there. But I'm trying to remember, what were the things I told you? Like the, I'm trying to remember the advice I gave you other than don't make yourself crazy. Because the big thing was you were writing like, you were writing like two, three times a day. So at SI. Yeah. I think your advice, like, so you're talking advice to like, no, I was like, all right, here's what I think can happen. Yeah. I think you, you were big on just, you're writing too much. You're trapped in this blog cycle, like when blogs were a thing. That was what I was doing. I caught it. The hamster wheel. Yeah. And you need to get out and meet people and like spend more time doing that and less time just churning out every bit of content possible because that's the only way you're going to write things that are truly meaningful or, you know, then your other advice after that was start a podcast and I said, no, I don't want to start a podcast and it turned out to be. You didn't listen to me in that for like a year. I don't think it was a year. I think Jacob Jacobi intervened and was like, he's not going to drop this. He's very persuasive. You just need to do the podcast. I think once we came up with the name, you got more excited. Yeah. The low post. It's a great name. Now, I remember the hamster wheel thing because I remember reading you back then and you had all these great ideas and then you would have to move on to the next thing two hours later. And I had been in a little bit of a similar situation when I was on my own. Yeah. So I was like, all right. What if he's just concentrating on three of these ideas a week? But then the other thing was like, go, go meet everybody you can. Like we sent you to that one all star weekend, we're not to write and you were like, I don't have to write anything. I was like, don't write anything. I vividly was in Houston, Texas. Yeah. But not only did I go, I filled in for you because you were supposed to do the BS pod with a bunch of players that they were going to bring in like one by one, the Marcus Aldridge is the one I remember. Oh, yes. Something happened. And you like got delayed and much like today, you just sprung on me at the last minute, like, Hey, you're doing this in my stead and I was like, wait, what's happening? The Marcus Aldridge is coming on and like, it was I forgot about that. And then I had a bunch of players and we were all, me, you, I wish I could remember the full cast. Jacobi was definitely there. All at a bar in Houston at one of the fancy hotels where everybody was. Yeah. And that, and like there were rumors that Jordan had been there earlier in the night. No, that was the four seasons. It was okay. I didn't want to, you know, Jordan and Oakley had been in the bar at some point. And that's the first time I laid eyes on World Wide West. He came into the bar, said hello to people and left and it was like this ghost had come in and just like vanished through the wall and I, I was like, wait, that was World Wide West. That was a fun all star. World Wide West. A world champion. He's World Champion. Wide West. It's crazy. It's crazy. What happens with that? Because I wonder how long those guys stay there now. I think it's a fair question and one many in the league are wondering. Westerly on. They kind of did what they said they're going to do. They took over in 2020. They've been there six years. Gerson left. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what happened there. Wes is, I'm going to say 63, 64 rings. Looks great. He's at all. He looks great. Yeah. Nobody has any idea how old he is. But I think he's around there. He on's probably around the same age and they did what they set out to do. And that's, you know, how many, what's the shelf life for that team? Two years as a contender. Why is it just two? They're not old. You know what? I would say two because I've been thinking a lot about this because I was doing a lot of historical. I was working on, I don't know what I'm going to do with a second book of basketball or with the helmet. Whoa. With fingers. Well, it's been my summer project and working on stuff. And I became really fascinated by that Warriors five year run and how much it took out of them. And all the stuff that they've said about it since and how, you know, they basically played six seasons in five and they put a hundred games a year and they barely made it through the fifth season and literally broke down as the playoffs were going in the fifth season. And then you think about what happened with the Celtics recently where that was probably a four year run, but even if you go back to 2020 and the bubble where they made the conference finals, they suck in 21 finals in 22 conference finals, 23 finals, 24 and then they run out of gas. And I just wonder the NBA is like, if it's a four year run now, it could be and they got to pay everybody. Right. You said the seller cap too. Yeah. What's left for Leon to do? One thing is like pay Jalen Brunson. What Jalen Brunson has expected and earned cats up for an extension now. I do have a feeling all of those guys like Annan Obie's up for an extension pretty soon. Hearts up for an extension now. I think they have realized like there is some value, there is some enormous value in being a hero in New York City and this team works. And I bet I bet they'll all take other than Brunson who has already done his part taking less. I could see them all being like, you know what? That's fair. We'll accept that. You know, whatever to say together. Towns is making like 58 million a year. Yeah. It's a $61 million player option for next year, I think. So that could break them apart. But I do. I was actually talking about this as somebody last night over dinner, like does it matter at all that they just cruised through like playoff year number one as it wasn't their first playoff year together, but that long playoff run number one almost after the conference finals year that it was not like a 24 games slog of over times and crunch times to win the title. The middle two rounds of the playoffs were like just in and out blow outs all that stuff. I don't know how much that matters, but there's a little less shred than some of those runs. I think about as one of the many things I defend Duncan with as he's about to get dismissed historically as a top 10 guy and I have him seventh. No, there's no. Who is going up dismissing? It's already happened. Well, who's going up ahead? Who's vaulting over? Because there's a bunch of people now in their 20s and 30s who didn't see him play, who weren't there. And who are just looking at basketball reference and be like, he was only 20 and 11. So how is he better than Kobe? So who's retiring and that's going to jump into the top 10 LeBron, obviously, but leave that aside. But like Durant is not better than Tim Duncan career wise step step, some of the better than Tim Duncan. Some of the people that are already there are. passing Tim Duncan. Like, I think Kobe now, the consensus is Kobe, we should, we should just we can't do this. But Jerry West, like whatever, but we going back to the miles point, just know, but think about the miles Duncan had where O203 and this, but you know, he's he's backed back MVP, O3, I think they played his O3 or five where they played the most playoff games possible to put like 27 or something. I should have, I should know this because I just went back and researched all the season, he played over 4,000 minutes. He was like 3,100 regular season minutes. And I think 1,100 something playoff minutes. And then they also did the O4 Olympics. So he went from didn't go great. And O4, they lost, I think in the Western finals were the on the Derek Fisher thing. O5, they make the finals, they do it. O6, they lose to Dirk. O7, they go all the way. And then they kind of started, you know, they they created there for a couple of years. But you go back and look at that five-year window and all the miles are put on him. Like he was never the same after that. No. And he was basically on one leg from that point sense. But also still really good all the way toward the end. Yeah. Basically. Yeah. Look, if you and I are just going to have to do one Tim Duncan was amazing episode every year. If that's the price that everyone must pay for him to remain a top 10 player, like it's just indisputable that he's a top 10 player. Durability, consistency, and on self-confidence about your stats. Don't make us do it. America because we will do it. We'll do it. But he didn't like they'd wait. All he cared is that they won. He didn't care if he had like 18 and 9. Ever he didn't care if he had shots. And he's that he was the backbone of that whole era. But anyway, like stick about that. So when you go back to the next like they have. This is three straight. Basically pretty long runs conference finals, conference finals. Right. We're not the conference. No, second round. Competence before they've chickened them, helped break the streak. Right. So if there's two years left, that's a four year run by the time that's over the guys are in the early 30s. And I think it becomes less realistic according to NBA history. So two years here. I'll tell you as a Connecticut resident. New York. I like to say New York City adjacent. I mean, just to prove the significance of what happened. I feel like I've spent my entire summer talking about the nicks. Every single person in my life in Connecticut still wants to know about the nicks. Were you really at game four? What was it like at game four? What was the tip? What was the city like? Where were you? What was the vantage point for OGN and Obie's tip? Every it's just nonstop. I had a Jets fan friend of mine, Mark Semino, who's also like a lifelong next fan. And he was texting me after the Jets game because the Jets had their typical terrible collapse with bad clock management, the whole thing. And he's like before the events of June 13th, 2026, I would have been really upset today. But now I don't really care. And now it's a date. It's June 20th. The Red Sox date was October 27th, 2004. And June 13th is now the next day. That's the year that that's the day they win the World Series. That's the day when the World Series. The Robert Steele was I think the 19th. I think we won on the 27th. Yeah. I'm old now. I can't remember dates. But yeah, June 13th is going to be the day. So we look at the next. One of the things we thought about is. We're working now. We're going to work now. It's a little weird. Just like I still think the next to me, I wouldn't say prohibitive favorites. But there, you hate when I bet my life. They're easily my bet my life team in the east. I think unless they have injuries, I would expect them to be back. I don't know why that wouldn't be. Injuries, wear and tear, backup center situation, not quite what it was. I think they can fix it. You know, they snuck in those last week like all the guys that they signed for like non-guaranteed training camp deals. There were good players like Bruce Brown. They'll add another guy who helps them get through the season. But they'll miss Mitchell Robinson. But I agree with you. Like I'll pick the. As of now, I'm picking the next to make the finals. We said before about what it meant to the city and all that stuff. Like Brunson's hosting setter alive this week. Crazy. Crazy. What were the ads of that? What six years ago? What were the ads of the Nick's winning a title versus Jalen Brunson hosting setter alive? I think that had to have been higher. How many teammates over under three and a half Nick's teammates appear on the show? I mean, if Towns. You think it's everybody? If Towns isn't involved in the show, he might actually crash the show and have to be removed. Well, the one no-brainer's heart is coming on within 90 seconds. Josh Hart will be on within 90 seconds. I think Hart and Bridges together, right? Because that's like the Villanova. I think as a New Yorker, like a true blue New Yorker, you have to have Alvarado on the show. He's got to be. He's got to appear. And so now we're already up to like five guys. I can't wait. It's a lot of pressure on Joe and Brunson. This is the. He's out of his comfort zone. There's been athletes who've gone on and kind of bombed. And there's been athletes who've gone on like paid man and kind of changed this whole post-playing career by like, oh, he's kind of funny. There was something interesting that happened at the US open when a Shelton one to make. I think the finals. I think it was the semi-finals when. He beat to you. He beat Big Foe. And there's Dune the interviewer after. And he's like, yeah, man, I was looking around the stands and like, Jalen Brunson's here. And he talked about it. It was like, Jalen Brunson is now like Frank Sinatra or Leo DiCaprio. But he is. I think that's what happened. I think out of like, beyond winning the title and now being in my opinion, one of the 50 greatest players have ever had because of what he did and the burden that he had. I think he's on that level. Fifteen. Fifty. I was going to say. No. Fifteen. So you're a good person for this. I just said to some of my pod last week, I don't know if any player's fame level has increased more in one two-minute span than OGN and OB's ever in the history of sports. OGN and OB went from like, well-known NBA like everyone we thought is a good three and D guy NBA nerds all knew him. He's like world famous now. He's on shows. He's, yeah, I was going to say football where you have like the random David Tyree as the helmet catch because it's easier to have like a famous knock-em-butler. Yeah. But it's almost like the spin-off of that question is somebody that was already doing really well, but wasn't a famous celebrity. But then became a famous celebrity because of the sports moment. Yeah. I think he's probably more famous than he wants to be. No. It's also crazy. I mean, there are so many crazy things about the next thing, but the hypothetical OGN and OB and we have all these NBA players and we always talk about upside down side and ceiling basement and in and OB was always like, well, if he's healthy and he can carry big minutes, like there's no better way. And it was always the if, yeah, but and then not only does he, he's probably their best player for the first part of the playoffs. He was incredible start to finish, had one. And they made the probably the second greatest play in the history of the league on the tip. What's number one? I still think the reality shots the greatest. If you actually, and we've discussed this before, but if you go back and look at the, I think he's the only one in the history of the league that makes that shot. He's backpedaling. He knows what the moment is instantly and he's practiced it for whatever reason, because he's an OCD maniac his entire life of like, if I'm ever in this situation, where my team gets a rebound and I have to get a shot off, I will backpedal these seven steps and be able to release and I won't step on the line. I don't think anyone else can have done it. So the good pod one day when we're prepared is the greatest, greatest start. I mean, people have done the like the biggest momentum swinging plays in terms of championship odds and it'll be would be right. I think I did this on my pod, actually. I think you did some version of it. Was second in terms of like single play that swung the odds of an NBA finals, not game, not game seven. We did this. We did this. And it was the only one that was bigger was Ori's shot in 2005, Spurs, Pistons, game five, where she'd inexplicably abandoned him after he's the in bounce pass or he makes a game winning three. Was it just that? Didn't he have like, I think he had like 21 of their last 35 points. Yeah, I think crazy. He like lost his mind. Big shot, Bob, Hall of Famer, you put him in the Hall of Fam? Not only did I put not only what I put him in the Hall of Fam. He when I did my pyramid, no, not I had him like 83rd because I think he's unquestionably the greatest role player of all time. When you look at all the different things he did, even if you go back and you look at for some reason, some Kings fan sent me a long email because they were upset that I had the clippers as the most incompetent franchise in the history of the NBA. Oh, they wanted their team to be vilified. What else do we have to do to get that? Just go back and look at the box score from game six and game seven and in '02. How do we not have this title? And for some reason, I went back and basketball effort. They have all the stuff now that they didn't have one in my book, break it down by the quarter, by the half. So you can go and you can watch. So I went and I looked at the second half of game six of how many fouls the the Kings had. They had like 24 fouls and the and the Laker shot like 34 free throws. I think she's just in the second half. I think it was there's the number in the fourth quarter of free throws is astonishing. I mean, I go back and I read Jonathan Abrams-Malice and the palace piece from Grantland like once every two years or not Malice and the palace. He wrote the Kings. The Kings. He just read the couple great ones. I just did the Malice and the Palace run last week. Yeah. And I rewatched like the fourth quarter now and then just I love those Kings teams so much. And that was it was the reality was it's to me. I feel the same way about them as I did with the 94 next. Like ultimately like your biggest moment of the season. And it's just not in Thank you. capable enough fans like like the next step 94 next team really came down to John Starks had to make a shot and none of the next fans really a hundred percent trusted him. Well, the king of those kings, it was like Doug Christie, it was Terkalloo who wasn't totally ready yet. It was Chris Weber who wanted no part of the situation. Pager infamously as an air ball and over time, they just they weren't they didn't have the one guy who's like Mike, baby was kind of the only I got this guy, but they needed the second one. And he also got elbowed by Kobe in the face, but Kobe allegedly fouled Kobe, right? Kobe took him out, Kobe guarded him down the stretch of one of those games, too. But you go back and watch Shack and Kobe in 2001 in particular, but any of those three p.e years and they have games or it's like, how did anyone ever beat this team? Like they were just, they particularly know one one, when basically nobody beat them ever when they tried. It's so weird. Even watch the spacing from back then. Oh, yeah. And I didn't even know how you compare errors anywhere. I almost feel like I feel like basketball kind of has to end with the 2010 finals. And then there's like this new version of it that comes the year after. And it's like this, it's almost like movies where movies have these different errors where it's like silent films and then black and white. And then like in the early 70s, the modern movies come in and just feel different. You watch the stuff from, I don't know, pick it, pick any finals. It does look different. Two bigs who can't shoot on the court almost all the time. The 86 Celtics in Game Forward, for some reason this was on one of the socials. And I was like, okay, I'll watch the last three minutes of this. And they had Walton and Mikael and Bird. And I think they had a fourth forward out there with the guard. And they're just all crammed in and Mikael is getting double teams. Nobody is spacing it, but Bird actually spaces it and hits a three. And he has so much bit like nobody is within five feet of him. And it's just like, how did they not realize that that's what you should do? And that would have gotten to Mikael or whatever. But we didn't really realize it until like 2013. Darryl Mori unemployed, unemployed GM Darryl Mori. It was like, you know what's, you know what's a big deal? Three is 50% more than two. Right. I think we should do that. You know what else is good spacing? Yeah. I wonder who gets credit for the spacing. I wonder who figured that out the best. I mean, you got to give Antonia a lot of credit. Maybe the O9 Magic. You're going team what? Yeah. Stand there and go. I'm just trying to get different teams that probably figured out because they really spaced it out around Dwight. And then they would shoot more threes. But then they would also have the mismatch of Dwight against whoever trying to get the rebound. I think the most tactically underrated coach in NBA history is Rick Adelman. Like in terms of spacing, inverting the floor using his bigs as passers, like the elbows. Like he was, I'm glad he got his due and he got in the Hall of Fame. I had been advocating for him to be in the Hall of Fame for like 10 years before he got in. That's also deserves a lot of credit. I don't know why we're talking about this. This is what we just thought we'd turn the mic sign and go, well, we were talking about the next. I could do movie reviews if you want. I just watched a bunch of scary movies. Well, you said, well, why are you on a scary movie run? My wife was out of town. Like, I got to watch all these movies before she comes back. She can't tolerate them. Obsession. I'll just do one word reviews. Obsession. Fine. It follows. It's liked it follows. It follows as good. Scared me a little bit. Good gimmick too for just to talk about in life. The invitation. Have you seen the invitation? Who's in that? I've seen everything. I know. It's the dinner party. Yes. It's a dinner party. Yeah. It's a dinner party. I don't think I've ever been so uncomfortable for two straight hours of my entire life as I was watching the invitation. I mean, that in a very good way. Did you see the invite? That's new, right? Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogan, Ed Norton. No, I have not. So don't be Cruz. I should do that one. I don't know if your wife would like it. She's got a very plain. Very. No, plain movie or too good to watch. It's like a dialogue. Oh, that's a good plain movie. Yeah. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Fandall. I want to talk about Thursday nights because Thursday and have football got even better with Fandall. Well, how did that happen? With early win, a fast start could be all you need to win big for Falcons versus Packers. Just bet the money line. If your team jumps out to a seven point lead at any point in the game, you'll win instantly. I would do this with the Packers. Whether you're team scores in the opening drive, builds an early touchdown lead, whatever you want, whoever you picked, you could be celebrating before the games even over. Seven, nothing. You're done. Check out Fandall's early win for Falcons versus Packers, do the Packers in the Fandall app. Just another reason why this is your most rewarding season ever on Fandall. Twenty one plus select states are 18 plus DC or Wyoming restrictions, pi c terms at sportsbook. At Fandall.com, game problem called 1-800-Gamber call 888-787-777 or visit ccpg.org/chat Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Look, it's right here. It's football season. You can now get Bogo deals every single week on game day favorites like wings, pizza, fries, snacks. I like all those things. My Sunday routine because I know I have the podcast at night. I go a little healthier on the Sundays. It's not something I would normally do, but when I know I have this, I want my brain to be working right. Usually, you should try to find the best possible salad place. Maybe a deli that has some soup and like a wrap. I know. I'm old. I can't do it like I used to, but that's what works for me, whatever works for you, do it on Uber Eats. Basically, whatever game day calls for, you can get almost, almost anything on Uber Eats with deals every week, Uber Eats, official on-demand, food delivery partner of the NFL, and you can order now. For alcohol, you must be of legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly product availability varies by region C app for details. All right. One, do Eastern Conference quick? Mm-hmm. Yeah. You're into this. So Nick's at the top. So we should mention, you mean house or you do overunders? Yes. House is coming out to LA. You can't come, but you're going to be in the TV. We're going to make it work. So these aren't futures. Like, we're saving all the futures. Yes. I have two questions for you. The first one is it feels like we have 11 playoff teams in the east, but there's only eight playoff spots, and I'm giving Nick's 76ers, Celtics, Raptors, Pistons. This is an order of the odds to win the conference. Caves, Miami, Orlando, and then Indiana, Atlanta, Charlotte. Three of those teams will not make the playoffs. Okay. So if you had to lean, who's not making it? If you had to lean right now, and neither of us are nearly done with our prep and the season doesn't start for a month, but we're, so this is more like a, like a leans, okay. Where would you lean for your three that you don't think are making it? I'm Xing Charlotte out right away, and the odds suggest that we should their way below. There's a big gap between them, and then Atlanta and Indiana above them. I was surprised by that over under for them, but maybe I shouldn't have been. I think it's 39. For sure. You thought it would be higher? I mean, that team was last year was what would they finish the last two thirds of the season? They were like 37 and 19 or some crazy both ends of the floor, some pretty dramatic drop off. I guess it would be Lamello based. And you know, Lamello, they got a lot of youth, they got a lot of depth. I think they're going to be a good team. Like don't get me wrong. I just put them number one. Like the seven, seven teams who have not won a playoff series in the 2020s, I ranked them number one is like the team I was like to be the GM of. But I don't I think in this field, I'm a little lower on Atlanta. I think then the overunders and the lines are. I just think they have a lot of questions to answer about. Was there defense that was a top five defense for the last like 40 games of the season? Was that a real thing or was that a product of like a little bit of luck and a lot of schedule going? Is that real? And if it wasn't real, do they have to play a bunch of their shaky to non shooters more together? Because they're their best defensive players. What does that do to their offense? They have like very little size. I'm a little I'm a little worried about Atlanta. So I'll take Atlanta and maybe they asked that they took the lottery pick who we have no idea if he's going to help them out or all this year, which is fine. They're playing the long game Atlanta sitting there like just watching. I don't think they care if they're good. Yeah. I completely agree. They're playing the long game. Some of the assets, well, maybe some of these other teams will make panic trades to try to get into the playoffs. They never got involved in Yannis, right? And we'll be the last man standing whenever the next big thing that actually fits us. They had some improbable stuff happen last year like Alexander Walker just turning into a 20 point score. I don't know if that was real or not, but we'll find out what's up for all. I mean, I love Nickyle. He was making like crazy. No, he was like making like a list scoring shots like off the dribble corner threes with hands in his faces. Like that hands in his face that probably was real. I just kind of want to say it again. He's real. I think you say the second time. So we have the same first two. I had the most questions about those two and so does Fandall and so does the betting public because they are not in the top nine. So who's your third then? Go ahead. Just say it. I know. I know who you're worried about. This is it. It's hard. So it's, is it, is it fair to say it's down between Miami or Lando and Indiana? I would, I would put more teams in the list for more. Would you put the trade in there? I think someone. No, I think Detroit. Well, we got to see what happens with Durin. Like the fact that they did a Sartonson before Durin and on a timetable like where like I don't know if Durin was even close last year when he was in a SARS boat of like going in deer 4th year. versus now he's done with his fourth year. That's an interesting one. I still expect that deal to get. I thought it was interesting. And the Thompson's one got 50 million more than the other. Well, a man has been better. I mean, a man had 18 points of game last year. But I wonder if that's like with the brothers. Obviously, they're twin brothers. They're on it. You know, I would hope that it would be like, we just got almost $400 million guaranteed to us. Like, we're good. Should we buy a house together? Well, you only have one kid. And I have two. I was trying to figure out how I'd manage the egos of that with those were my two kids. And it's like, a man got 205. I saw her got 155. Maybe they can do like, didn't the Morris twins just have one big? They just had like one bank account or like one day they considered it as like we collectively made whatever. You guys made $360 million guaranteed. Share it. Yeah. You guys are good. But this is what anyway, I will say. I do think one of these teams toward the top seven is going to underperform because of injuries or randomness. The safe pick is Orlando. I will say Orlando for now. I just have enough questions about their offense. And just to sort of. It makes me nervous when teams are going into a season knowing like if this doesn't work, someone is getting traded. Like just the financial reality is someone's getting traded. And so I'm a little nervous about that. But I also think Orlando. New coach. I think he's a good coach. I think Sean seems a good coach. I also think Orlando. I've said this for as like being slept on as a top six candidate. So I guess I'm speaking out of both sides of my mouth. I don't know. But if you're forcing me to pick, I'm picking Orlando. I think Detroit. It has too much like built in infrastructure to fall that far. I don't understand the darn thing at all. It like it feels like a real. Stale mate on what each side thinks the person is worth. But I think if you ask the general consensus of people who are smart and who fall. The week like us. I would say it's a huge mistake to pay any center $40 million in up a year unless it's Yokech or somebody like on that level. So what would you do? I don't know. The Sacramento thing. Sacramento loves me. That's become one of my favorite. They're winking at me again. These reports. It's like, why do I have to take what these agents are telling me? A hook line and sinker. Like just for the scoop. Like just to say, he's got max offers already out there. Like, okay. Maybe, maybe it does. I don't know. Like fine. Who cares? This is like the classic Darryl Mori move of where in this case, he did have the max or offer with Harden. Where the teams. It's like, oh, you know, Harden's agents. It's like, yeah. Okay. He's stuck at four for 15. It's like. Fuse with us. That's five for 80. No question. But Matt, we'd max him out. And now you plant that in the agents. Aaron is like, I mean, he used to repass that. And now you're. So I feel like teams are, teams are seeding that. Let's game it out. Like, let's, let's go back like two months to, to pretend like there's a little, or a month and a half to pretend that there's a little more like flexibility among the other 29 teams who now have their rosters mostly filled, et cetera. You could pay Joe and earn $40 million a year. Which it seems like is going to happen. Because even the reports of them being a part are like, they're now just like 10 million a part of five years. It's like they're at 190 and he's at 40 a year. So yeah, you're basically figure that out. Be, um, dare him to take the qualifying offer. I think the deadline for that is October 1st and where he has to take it or not. You know, I'm rooting against that. What? Because I want Cooper flag to be the first person ever to do that. Okay. You know, you're really, you're open about this. Because he's from New England. That's it. He's a Celtics fan. You're just that soft to soft-hearted. He's from New England. Yeah. That's how you're going to phrase it from Maine. First of all, his family is the first family of Maine. Like screw the bushes and Kenna Buggport. It's the flags now. Okay. I didn't know you were this bad. He's with like maybe six Celtic fans on my level playing on the way to practice. DVDs of the 86 Celtic games. This is like the Celtics family. You just got legitimately upset at me, I think. I just like this is this would be like if my son was was Cooper flag. Yeah, we'll see what happens with the Dallas qualifying offer. If your son were. If your son were Cooper flag, you'd already be investigated by by walktel. Hey, I'm. The deal. There'd be a paper trail of like you emailing. Just unsolicited emails to Brad Stevens being like just telling you Brad. Like I know you're not going to reply to this email. But Pablo text to me. Hey, it's Pablo Tore. Can we talk? We'll come for the minimum. Oh, man. It's. Don't count us out. Don't count us out. Or would you sign and trade during would that be your move? I would. I would. I don't. I think when you're paying your center in this whatever this seller kept system is. Over $40 million a year on top of Thompson and Kate, I don't. You're not winning the title with that. So Thompson take your moves. That's your team. So Thompson taking a deal. I don't have. You sprung to something. So I don't have my laptop. But it's a percentage of the salary cap where it's like viable for the three of them to get paid. If they get during it like 40 or 38 or 37. Yeah. No, it doesn't have. Financial. It looks. But what's your team at that point? Okay, so here's the counter and I get I get what you're saying. And I think it's actually maybe the smartest courses. I think I don't know. But you do need a center. Like you need some center long term to pair with Kade. And he he pairs of them bad as well as you're going to get. But the playoffs were not good. Not for 42 million a year. He's either 22 or barely 23. He's almost 23. Kade and Kade and Kade loves him. Kade loves him. And also he's kind of better. He's worked on stuff. He's improved every year. So I just think like again, it might be the right move, right? Because you trade him to flash back two months ago. You trade him. You get let's just make it up a decent player. Three first round picks in a swap. Something like that. Then you have to then parlay. It's like the Celtics with the Jalen Brown Paul George trades. Like it's the next move that is going to define whether the controversial one. Whether the controversial move is the right move or not. And so you have to actually make the next move. And it's I think harder. I think a lot of GMs would be risk averse and say like, I don't know if I can make that next move and get me something that fits at least as well as this. Which yeah, the playoffs are ugly. We won 60 games last year. I don't know if anyone's winning a title. Paying and non impact center. He's an impact center. But you know, I mean like a super. Obviously wasn't. I mean, let's be honest, he wasn't. The other thing is Shenguin is like 30. A year. Yeah. It's something like that. It's a little more than that. I think it is about that. 30 low 30s. I just think that's the price for the non-Yoke center's for me. Would you who would you rather have for the next five years Shenguin or Durin? If I were them and I could flip Durin for Shenguin, I would think about it. Because I'd just rather I feel like they're at the same level and I'm just saving money. If I ran a team, I would be so obsessed with this cap and how to do this correctly. Because one mistake you're set back for three years. Because Shenguin is like they're not really similar players, but just in terms of like. Not at all. The percentage of the cap that has now been devoted to them by young up and coming teams. A little Houston is like half young, half not. Is somewhat similar. And they both have these sort of like Shenguin is not really three-point shooter. Although he's dabbled Durin is not at all. Shenguin is rough defender. Shenguin is not a rim protector. Durin that's the that's the wild card is Durin's defense. Can he become a top five defensive center, top six defensive center in the NBA? Shenguin will never be. Aren't there a complicated advanced stats on that with Durin? Yeah. Is it numbers are all over the place like some of his represent well some don't. I think he's just okay right now in totality. The body type and just the athleticism is so enticing in a way that Shenguin will never have. But Shenguin also like as a passer as a post-up threat is on a completely different level. And it's also been Shenguin didn't play with the point guard last year. I'm pretty sure point guards matters though. That's one of my work in theories. They do 20 or great 20 or great theories. But this is what we were talking about the east and who's falling out right. Well, wait a second. One last thing on Shenguin. Trying to think of him and Kade together. See, one thing with Durin. I thought I really felt like he gave them a lot of their fuck you last year in a good way. But he, you know, he really just a bad ass game to game. Really, really competitive. And I do think that was a big part of why they won 60 games. He's super physical. I just don't understand what happened to him in the playoffs. And I almost wish he could. Like even if he gave a press conference and he's like I put so much pressure on myself with this new contract coming that I created in the playoffs. And that was what happened. I'd be like, okay. It's an acceptable explanation. He's so young that I'm willing to just be like the pressure of the moment team scheming for him a little bit more like in that first round series against Orlando. Orlando's just entire game plan was we're taking him out of the series. We're taking the Kade during pick and roll out of the series. We're switching everything. We don't care who that leaves on Kade if it's an unfavorable matchup. We're just not letting him roll to the basket on impeded. And I think that just fucked with him. Who was the team that was kind of undercutting him on the aliebs? Probably Orlando. I mean, cause they were going under screens on Kade and trying to switch underneath during. to prevent him from. They were basically trying to make him. Yeah, it was Orlando. They're trying to make him just think about it as he was going up in the air. And it didn't seem like it fucked up a little bit. And they still made it to game seven of the second round against the reality is they're going to pay. They'll they'll get he'll be one between 195 and 200. I mean, I don't know the middle. I've been like 98% certain that like every podcast to do. I'm like, look, he's going to sign with the business. The closer this gets to more, I'm like, maybe something funky is actually going to happen. I don't know. I still look certain to pay him. I think you're right. If they could get subbonus and like future Kings pick. No, I'm just trying to think of, but then that just set you back for where you are now. And then Kade's like, I love playing with that guy. What'd you trade him? Subbonus is good. Subbonus is good. I just don't I don't think as you know, I would have traded for him already. Subbonus? Yeah. Not for a Detroit, but just subbonus has been out there in the front of the store with the 50% off sign for seven months. And it's like subbonus rebounds. You can run offense through him. He's played in big games. He has some deficiencies and he's a little overpaid. But there's only I think two years left them to deal. Yeah. I thought the corporation got them clippers. It was going to be interesting to see once this all settles down. And particularly like once the season starts and teams, teams start going different directions and they anticipated who's worse than who's better and they have other expiring expiring expirings are like, fuck it. We'll take Anthony Davis. We'll take whoever, like I'm just we'll take subbonus. We'll take whatever whatever. We'll they will we extend them because what else are we going to do? You didn't report this. No. Anthony Davis and the Wizards have delayed their extension talks. That was reported a couple days ago. Was it really I missed that? Yeah. That read that on the ticker. Can you delay the things that are already delayed? Is it like a delay on top of it? But we found out as something can be delayed that had no chance of happening was my interpretation of that. It's like when your flight is delayed two hours, but I'm going to say I'm not above going up to the counter. And if I'm at the gate and being like, just be honest. Just be honest. Just be nice guy. It's like a fake two hours or is this like a like, should I go get a beer and a burger? Like what are we talking? Should I prepare to get a car right home? Like what's happening here? What's really happening? We ever figure out why Dallas traded Anthony Davis? Why did they trade them? Just see, it seems like he immediately had more value than for what they traded him for from the moment they traded them. Well, they got too crappy takes right. Well, they get too crappy picks. They got nothing. They got the fucking beyond the poo poo platter. It was like yesterday's poo poo platter that was in the freezer. I think they did get a couple assets like some tradable goodies, whatever. And they got they got off a guy who doesn't play and wants $55 million to whatever million dollars a year. Even they didn't have to pay. It's not like they were forced to pay in that. Look, I agree. I kept them for the summer and waited for somebody like Golden State to be like, shit, we might be able to get LeBron if we also get that. It's a good point. It's a good point. I think it was a we've just got to turn the page. Last couple of years, they're almost making me wonder if Dallas does know what they're doing. They have a they have a new regime now. So, all right. So you have Orlando as your third playoff team, third miss, miss the playoffs. If I, if I had to pick, but I'm not, I don't feel confident about that. I feel confident in Charlotte and I feel pretty confident in it. And I don't feel confident in Orlando. It's still lying for me. I think I would take my Amy as the 13. I don't really love the stuff they did this summer. And right as I was like, I don't really love what you did this summer other than getting honest, then they did the Pellay Larson extension. And I was like, man, you did the Yovic one last year. That was awful. I don't know who they thought they were bidding against for that contract. That was, I'm still haven't seen him play three games in a row that I liked. But then the Larson who I like Larson last year, I just don't know in this market where things have gone. Who's getting these contracts? These are contracts we were handing out 10 years ago. Why are you paying people 15, 16, 17 million with this new market where every summer now, there's going to be guys available like Amphorne assignments for six. Why are you paying 16 and why are you locking yourself in a, you're not winning the title. I just don't get you like that. Um, is this like a reverse reverse jinx where you're so scared of Miami and the zombie? I'm not, I'm not scared of Miami at all. Okay. I'm really not. I don't, I don't, nobody's been able to explain to me how a band out of Bion, Yana's are going to successfully play offense together. Still waiting to see somebody break that down. Um, on Pellay Larson, I think he was going to start before they got clay. Yeah. I, they love him in a way that I don't think they ever have loved Yovitch. Like they really believe in him. And yet I was still surprised at the deal. Like when that, I, I just thought if they could get him for 11, 12 million a year, maybe, but like I'd basically the mid level, I was a little surprised. I think you'll, I don't have any good game show. I feel like we just did a zoom and you called me or like Pellay Larson extensions in any guesses. Now it'd been like three for 25 higher, three for 29 higher. We just would have been going for like an hour. It'd be like three for 50 higher. Like what? Um, four for 60. Yeah. I mean, look, the heat. Yana's and Bam, they do overlap a lot. It's the number one question on their team. How is this going to work? The number two question is they have acquired a lot of shooting, but none of it is pull up shooting. Really? I think they're going to struggle in that sense. I just trust who's playing defense on this team? Gunnus, Bam, Davey on Mitchell. Who's guarding Jason Tatum? Andrew Wiggins. Andrew Wiggins. Okay. So in a little bit of Bam, I think because Bam and Yana, so I would do so much defense, like they'll place them. Andrew Wiggins did guard Jason Tatum really about four years ago. I mean, so Yana's Bam, Andrew Wiggins, Davey on Mitchell and Pellie Larson. Yeah. That's my crunch time five with maybe Clay Thompson in there. Could be. Could be Clay. They have a lot of guys. That's welcome to the plan. Well, look, they have been, they, they generally thrive in the play. And so if you're asking me like if you're just asking me who's making the playoffs, they can get in through the play into now. If you told me I was getting 75 Yana's games, I, you have my attention. 65. What would you put? Like 60. You used to bet your life. 60. 60 would be like over under 59 and a half. You'd go over. I would go over. So it's going to be around 60. Peena and I had the over under. I don't know if you saw this of how many they clipped it on Instagram. How many the over under how many games Philly's projected starting five plays in the regular season. Oh, and I think I set the over under 22 and a half. Yeah. You would go over. So it beats 39 games. It's right there. Like it might be under. Yeah, it's under. It is the Philly thing. I'll be fun because there's like four different Philly teams all happening at the same time. We'll have you like, we don't have a beat tonight team that we don't have LeBron tonight team. We don't have been beat or LeBron. We might not have Jalen Brown tonight. It will just it'll just every night. They'll keep us on our toes. I'm going to enjoy it. I think Boston Philly and maybe Cleveland have a little bit more. This could go wrong volatility to them than is being talked about. I think they're all. Boston. It's already been factored in. The most likely outcome is that they're all about good and meet expectations. I just feel I mean, the downside for Philly is obvious, right? Just like injuries, chemistry, whatever. I just I'm fascinated by the calves and like Peyton Watson, how that's going to work offensively. Do they have enough depth? Is this is this hard and Mitchell Allen mobility? Is that really a big four that's taking you where you want to be? And yeah, I know they read the conference finals. It was a pretty unconvincing run to the conference finals and they got shalacked once they got there. It really hurt. We down them on it because it was so bad. I mean, when they got there, but it's still there. It's a 30 team league. Okay. Wow. I didn't expect this. No, I'm just like I final. It's like you're 2019 blazers that you love. I did like that team, but like you make the final four. That's not nothing. No, it's not. It's not nothing. And they should have won game one. And they completely fell apart. And then the Ackinson quote happened and all of a sudden their season was over. I did feel bad making fun of the Ackinson quote. Again, on Twitter last week, when I said at that point, the meds had a better run differential than every team in the American league last week. And analytically, they were a playoff team. I felt a little bit bad. It is that bad of a quote though. It's going to outlive him. It's going to be in our lives for the next 50 years. And I'll probably be dead when it's still going. Most shocking. So you reminded me of Cleveland game one. Next come back against Cleveland and game one. But that wasn't shocking because I'm going to stop watching. I'm going to make. I'm going to make you rank the shocker surprise factor of the three landmark Knicks fourth quarter. Come back. Well, I was going to say the knee Smith game was more shocked than all of them. So I argue with my next friend was like legitimately over. They all are obsessed with the end of the game. And like it was one of the greatest games that have been at an incredible comeback. I just don't never gave up. It's the most shocking. The Haliburton knee Smith game is still more shocking to me than the other side what that game is called. I think it's probably the knee Smith game. He really has Haliburns had a bunch of different games right knee Smith. Haliburnd that was the greatest run of clutch shot making maybe in the history of the NBA in one playoff run. I'm so excited to have them back. And I like that. It's, you know, the Tatum thing was, was weird last year where he came back and they put all these big minutes on him and I think they made a huge mistake and said that at the time. So Auburn's got a good 18 months here. We haven't talked about them, but they're down in this, in this group with Orlando. Yeah. They have the 10 best odds. To me, they're a playoff team. I'd be shocked if, I think Zubat says such a game changer for them and I, he wasn't as good last year as he was two years ago, but they've never had anybody like that. So when I talk to people around the league about like, all right, so what is the, why are the numbers low in Indiana? Like give me, give me the Indiana, can't get it back argument. It's Halberton. It's Halberton. We don't know what he's going to look like. It's, it'll take Zubat's and Siacum some time to figure out to fit together, but it's like without a spacing five like miles away. See, I don't agree with that because I feel like Siacum plays, oh, there's some, Kawai similarities who Zubat's played with, right? He's played with six, eight, scoring forwards who have the ball at the top and, you know, I don't know. He's going to, he's a smart player and so is Pasco. And the one I hear more than any of that is people are really worried about their depth. Like TJ McConnell lost a little bit of a step or half step last year. And then it's like Ubre top and J Huff. Maybe Jaris Walker, maybe Ben Shepard, why maybe Jaris Walker, well, just like who's in the rotation. If you got to go nine deep, who's, who I like Ben Shepard, I like all those guys. Well, the Kelly Ubre signing was a shot across the bow at Ben Shepard and Jaris Walker. Like, hey, if you can't play like this guy at least comes in and does what Kelly Ubre does. It was really good in the something serious, like guarded both wings. I'm higher on their depth than most than the skeptics are like, I think Ubre is solid. I think I'll be top and fits them like a glove. They'll play him at the five sum if the Huff thing doesn't work out. McConnell, not like McConnell was so essential to their finals run. It's just like a come off the bench and fuck the game up guy that him losing a little bit of juice last year is worrisome. He's listening to this podcast right now in the weight room going, I'll show these fucking guys. The best he's never ever had. Toronto seems to have for them that the fourth best odds was the other thing that jumped out to me for the East, they're, they're plus a 50 and I just think it's putting a lot of stock and Kauai who's at 35 and who, you know, is pretty checkered 2020s from a playoff standpoint, from a durability standpoint, availability standpoint. But this is, so yeah, you're talking about win the East. Yeah, I'm just like, that's what I can't just looking at the, at all of them, that one jumped out of me too. Like they're the fourth best odds. I'm very high on the Raptors as a regular season team. I just don't know why anyone would expect Kauai to be able to get through. You're talking three, three, three playoff series after a functional regular season. When again, I will repeat it until the proverbial cows come home. He has not finished a second round playoff series since 2020. It's not completed one. The clippers competed in several of them. He was either injured for them or got injured in them, got injured in the first round. He won two playoff series in seven years. Three. Well, he won. You're right. He won two. Yeah. He wasn't there for the end of the Utah series. So I just like, I would love the idea of the Raptors making the finals. I just don't think Kauai will play three playoff runs without getting injured or I would bet against it. The Celtics tidbit. Yeah. Hugo and Shireman, phenomenal shape. The entire organization has been stunned by the work they put in over the summer. I like from my mouth to God's ears. So now I'm picturing like Celtics HQ at the practice facility where all the offices are. You know who doesn't have baby fattenwear? Hugo. This is what I'm picturing them just walking around like Mike Zaron runs into Brad Stevens like Brad. You see Hugo today with his shirt off. Looks great. Looking great. This is all they're talking about. No, I think this happens. But did you see Baylor? Like he's benching a little bit more like I was watching him in the way when he was grunting. Like just forget Derek White and Jason Tatum and Mitchell Robinson. Like just we're obsessed with our sixth and seventh or seventh and eighth guys. Also Paul George, Mike Conley, Vets. Good luck, guys. Mitchell Robinson, Vets, some adults. Nice mix. Look, I think they're going to win a lot of regular season games. It is funny now, more and more stuff's coming out where why they did that trade. At least we know why they did the trade. What more came out? It's just they thought they ran their course with those two guys and that was that. They hit the wall and they didn't want to do this now instead of a year from now. And that it wasn't sustainable. I mean, you will never forget the trade. You were getting a colonoscopy. Well, I found out from my wife. Delightful experience. But if people haven't got their colonoscopies, I loved every minute of it. I walked out and the doctor was like, you need to come back in seven to 10 years or whatever it is, five to seven years. I'll come back next year. I was like, I'll come back in three. Hey, tell me when. You think it's safe for all come back in three. You know, great rest. I got a cookie and some juice afterwards. I didn't even find the prep that bad. I kind of enjoyed the prep as like a mental challenge. I liked the prep and I would do it again. And he was like settle down. You don't need to come back in three years. But if you change your mind, you know where to reach me. So out of the two of us, whose fingers are more likely to work this year? I mean, I think it's your fingers are like a plus five hundred year, like minus three if you need to, it's been so long you're like one of those guys who's been in a like in a frozen sleep in space for 12 years. So you wake up out of the pod and you're like, what's happening? I was like, what was the movie I watched where they, oh, the aliens, we did, we did rewatch both aliens. She woke up and it's 55 years later. That would be me writing might be what happens. I turn the document on and then might be the most scared I've ever been watching on movie. Sweep over middle school aliens. I was like last hour. I was legitimately terrified. I think the first two aliens, each of them are masterpiece movies and I like being scared. I like the sensation of being scared. That was one where I went over to the other side of like, I like being scared. I like being scared. I like being scared. I'm ready for this movie to be over because I'm too scared. You know, at the UCLA game on Saturday, I met the future of UCLA basketball who is the best 17 year in the world. This kid, they got the Serbian. Okay. Oh, the guy who's making like $6 million to be here and I know, I don't know if you've watched this. I'm just, I'm going to be the first person to tell you this. This is going to be your favorite player five years from now. Right. Six foot nine. Just going, going, going, but passer. But like, little Luca, but like, honestly, like a little magic, Johnson, with the way he goes. Like, and I asked him, I was, because I asked if he had played with the Oak Ridge before. And he's like, no, I haven't gotten a chance to play with him yet. But I was like, oh, you met him. I met him. I met him. Like, I talked to him. And he was like, he hadn't played with him yet, but he really wants to. He's been in America for like five weeks, but I was like, I watch your YouTube clips. It's clear. Yoke Ridge is tripled down to your generation in Serbia is like, oh, yeah. So we might have all these, the second generation, Yoke Ridge from Serbia, all of these kids who are going to be playing like the 86-eltics. Well, someone has to shoot at some point, but yeah, this will be your favorite player. You didn't answer your own question. For what? Like, what three teams are you not, are out of the blue? Well, I have two of them. I have Charlotte in Atlanta. Oh, you answered Miami. You answered Miami. Wow. I would lean more toward Miami. It's Miami Orlando. It's one of the Florida teams. And I would lean toward Miami because I don't trust you on us to play 70 games. And that team was a 500 team last year who lost, you know, some key people in what turned out to be a really terrible trade for Milwaukee. I saw a video of Hamehakez couldn't bring his dog into a restaurant in Milwaukee. Yeah. You're really different. Yeah. Yeah. Different times. He was, he was living his life in Miami and I was in Wisconsin. Speaking of dogs, here's something that happened to me in Los Angeles in my hotel. Okay. Never seen this before. Guys staying at the hotel. I was in the gym, went to gym workout this morning. Crowded gym in LA was like, there's eight people in a hotel gym. That's pretty crowded. Yeah. Guy brings his dog. Never seen that before. And it's like a big dog. It's not like, you know, I love dogs, but I always had a control of dogs. So he's, he's in the gym walking around the dogs just me and during around the gym while the guys on the treadmill. And so I, I go to the elliptical machine because this is my old man workout there. I'm going to do the elliptical. The dog is sleeping underneath one of the pedals of the elliptical machine. So that if I press down, I'm going to like, smush the dog. And I'm like, what's, what, I'm not sure what my social, like what I'm supposed to do here. Do I get the guy and be like, yeah, you get the guy, so it's a bad job by the guy. So what I did was I just got on the machine, hoping the dog would wake up and move and he did. Yeah. But I'd never, I'd never had to, I'm almost 50 years old and it was a social situation that I had never been in before. People bring their dogs into grocery stores here. I mean, you see that in New York sometimes. I'm, I love dogs, I'm a good set, yeah, dog shouldn't be where food and drinks are and dog and the gym was a new one from dog and the gym's interesting. Yeah. Um, why did we talk? Oh, so Miami. Yeah. I just, I guess I just trust Janus plus BAM plus Spowe plus, they're pretty deep plus plus that in Europe. Really? Yeah. But like, so that, all right. So we have enough faith in the next, obviously, Celtics, pretty proven. track record of Mizzoula ball winning a lot of games daily Detroit. I'm just I'm gonna skip Philly for a second Detroit. Me personally like they won enough games last year by being tough and nasty and really it'll be one of the most dramatic falloffs not in the history of the league. I think they're over under it's like 48 and a half or something we're not gonna spoil it but like I just think by giving a shit about every game to the degree that they do it's hard for me to see them falling out of the top six. Cleveland has enough raw talent that despite what concerns I might have fit wise I feel like that's enough of a regular season four. Toronto we talked about Cleveland not winning 45 games would be shocking. Now the question is if this was what was that year when Phoenix didn't make it when they were like 40 and 34. Yeah they tried to tank at 14 or 15 with droggage as they all the boy all the point cards. 2014 Philly I just I can't wait to see it because what if in B place 30 games and LeBron plays 45 games and suffers a hamstring injury and is old. Like there's some downside potential with Philly. Like now Jalen is a good Jalen and Maxi is a pretty stable floor I guess that's what the numbers are betting on. And second year VJ. Yeah. Yeah they're in the Pat Steeler's game yesterday they're TJ what JJ what was talking about Rodgers. And he was saying how Rodgers wasn't 100% last year because he heard his back doing squats. And he was like yeah the whole year his back just wasn't right but you know he's old and I was thinking like that's LeBron's going to be what 41 this year. It's already 41. Yeah so it'll be 42. New years he was in his birthday. Yeah 42. That's the problem you get old is you have little injuries like that and even if you're Superman like he is you know they don't you just it's like oh my hamstring hurts and then it just hurts for like a month and a half. So we'll see. I imbede to me this is the I mean I had all the maker breaks this is it. Like if you can't get a full season out of them they share then it's never going to happen. But what do you gotta redefine full season though full season's got to be like I'm saying like if you can't play he's played I looked it up he's played over 2,000 minutes twice. But I mean I just expect I would be wildly happy as a basketball fan if he played 55 regular season games. Why not just playing once a week. Fine whatever I don't know whatever the problem is when he gets in a groove he wants to keep playing and they can't kind of stop they can't kind of stop him from himself. You know that's always been the issue with it. Okay they should be like it should always be like come from a position of strength. Just sit out we wait till the Friday game that's how you're going to have to handle them. I don't think they will. And then LeBron I think is going to have a huge F you in a shoulder this year. There were certain the Lakers didn't want him since February like anyone who thinks there's any other answer than that you're fooling yourselves and just look at. I thought he left the Lakers on his own Polish anyone who believes that. But it was also interesting that like San Antonio I don't know I never got to San Antonio one. You have to show me on that one. If I'm San Antonio I'm like we just made the finals already. I just I'd rather LeBron James or Tobias Harris for one year. So you're telling me rather Tobias Harris. There it just there's a lot that comes with LeBron. I got to really change the way my whole team plays. If I get LeBron do yeah yeah. I mean not all the time like it was. Did you watch their last of four minutes of all their playoff games last year like I kind of felt like they needed somebody like LeBron. Oh yeah. And he had some nice last four minutes against Houston in particular when everyone else was injured or Reeves was just coming back. I don't know. I just I thought I really liked that the most for everybody. I get why Wembee I'm sure wants to make his own way in his own career and probably wants no part of the circus that comes with LeBron. See I would. Maybe LeBron wouldn't want it either. I would have ranked them behind among good teams behind Minnesota and Denver as like the most fun sensible LeBron. Was he living in San Antonio. He just respects the franchise that much. Maybe he does. I mean Rich Paul angled Darren Fox there. Well the one thing we learned from I can't believe we're talking about LeBron. The one thing we learned from this Philly thing is it was the decision he thought he could make to try to win the title. Yeah. I don't think there's any other reason he went there. It's not like I've always wanted to play for the Sixers. But that's something listen he was going to Cleveland. I don't know what happened. I can't wait for the story. And it's filling something happened. Unlike to your point about Minnesota in Denver. He is gets to live in New York City playing for the Sixers. So there's like it's not even maybe like Philly. And House has talked a lot about the golf quality and Philly. But he's not even going to live there. He's going to live. I mean she's going to live everywhere. I'm sure. But yeah. It's all leading to House playing with golf with LeBron somehow. I who knows. Can't roll map. Can't ever roll out House with golf. All right. You have a podcast. People are going to hear this on Tuesday. You'll be doing a podcast that is also going up on Tuesday. All Western Conference with Ramone. And then you'll be back. We're going to do overunders both conferences. I think October 12th 13th range is what we're looking at. I'm trying to do a week before the season. I felt the season starting on the 20th this year. And I felt like when we did it last year. But too early. We did it too early. We did too early. I think this has happened. Yeah. I think this is going to be better for us. All right. Zach, good to see you. Always fun. Hey, Fando is making this your most rewarding season ever. And what does that mean? Well, boosts, promos, teasers, a new rewards club, teaser recommendations from the regular one of seven crew. We got a bunch of stuff. And we're going to have some fun. We're going to compare different betting scenarios and pick, which is more rewarding within each scenario. Here's what they laid out for me. Two teams, six point teaser or hitting an underdog parlay. I mean, I hitting the underdog parlay, especially like if you had the Raiders last week or the Saints, that's the best because you're taking a flyer in it. But it's also you put some brains and some thought into it. Winning a bet on a last play defensive TD or a Hail Mary. Hail Mary is obviously the winner. There's nothing more fun than winning a Hail Mary other than maybe a last second half court shot. When your favorite over under futures or correctly predict the exact order of the NFC South. Well, the NFC South is impossible to predict. Nobody's ever done it. So I would say winning your favorite over under futures because it's actually realistic. Using rewards club, profit boost tokens or game intelligence, trick question. Fandole provides all of them. So you don't have to choose. You get all those things. So every week, check the Fando app to see what's waiting for you and make it and telling you, it's going to be your most rewarding season ever. Catch and setting your makeup then forgetting it's even theirs. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours with flexible all day comfy grip. Maybe it's bling. Anthony Jesslinik is here. It's been a while for us. It has been a few years. Yeah. I'm always available for you when you want to podcast, but you're a busy guy going around. Now you have a new thing that's coming to the ringer that you've been doing for a while. I do. I'm excited that we can finally announce it. Yeah. It's been negotiated for the last three and half years. Yes. It took a while. I mean, I just started Jesslinik Book Club in January. And I thought maybe I'll do it for a year and then see if I want to take it somewhere. And you guys came knocking fast. That's tired. You guys knew we had to get in there early. And now September 30th, it'll be on the ringer coming on and weekly. Weekly. Yeah. That was we really had to twist your arm a couple of times. I didn't know. I mean, I've been doing it in my living room, trying to get people to read books and was prepared for failure, trying to get guys to read books. And my audience is 85% man. I'm like, I'm prepared for failure, like no one watches. And then it took off and just kept getting bigger. What was the first one you did? The first one I did was Jim Thompson's The Getaway. Right. And people loved it. People loved it because it has a crazy ending. Yeah. They liked hearing me talk about it. And when I was talking about it, I was like, Oh, I enjoy this. I'm good at this. And then I interviewed an author. I got my friend of mine, Isaac Fitzgerald at Skylight Books to promote his book. And it was so easy and fun and funny that I thought, Oh, I can't do this every week. And then I committed. So not only am I going to be doing the book club, getting guys to read a book a month. We'll be talking about new releases, getting in guests. We've already got some. We managed to find and get Greg Rosenthal for the first time. How did you get it? I'm fine. I mean, we had to go through a bunch of people. Yeah. But eventually his wife re-lented and let him come on the pod. That's one of my favorite things. That's like your lifelong friend. Yeah. Absolutely. Just random other. And for some reason, it's never worked for the ringer, even though we all know each other. He'll be here one day. One day we're waiting. We have a seat. He's the last employee left at NFL Network, like the dead last guy. Everyone else is either at ESPN or gone. Right. But one day we'll get him here. Now that I'm here, I can bring him in. This is our powers come on. You're the gateway drug to Greg Rosenthal. Exactly. Exactly. We've got a bunch of like celebrity guests, fun guests. I think it's just going to be a fun hang whether you read the book or not. That's the thing that surprised me about the book clubs. People would be like, I haven't read this book yet. But listening to Anthony talk about it made me want to read it. So even people listen to it, but haven't read the book yet. It's like when you would watch Cisco and Eber back. Back in the day, you haven't seen the movies yet. They're not even out yet, but by based on how they talk about it, makes you wanna see it. You know, I describe the whole book. You know, I'm spoiling things, but I think that's okay if the book is great. - Yeah, 'cause we had that with rewatchables, where people will tell me, they'll listen to the episode, and then the side if they wanna watch the movie, if I hadn't seen it, I'm like, we're like deep-diving this movie. - Yeah. - You're just listening to the episode raw-dogging it basically without knowing what's happening in the movie. - Yeah, but if they see people passionate, they just wanna hang out and listen to people talk about things, and with social media now, we're like podcasting everything. I think people just wanna feel smart. You know, it used to be about influencers, and people wanted to hear you talk about money, and talk about like the inside baseball stuff, and now they just wanna feel smart, so they wanna feel like they watched the movie. - Or pretend. - They're smart. - Pretend they're smart, sure. But I think people wanna watch a book club, I think now was something that couldn't have happened a few years ago here at The Bringer. But now, you know, you've seen what happens with movies today, TV today, I think it's all about books now. Like books of the New York Times. - Well, I noticed, what was that one, and this isn't one you would do in the book club, but that one that came out the book like nine months ago, the lady in the Hamptons, who was getting divorced, I don't know where. - The stranger? - And it became like with my wife and her friends, it was all they talked about for three weeks, was this book, and everybody had read it, had the opinion of it, and one person knew a friend of hers was friends of hers in high school, and I was just like, Jesus, books, we're still doing this. - Yeah, it's happening. - When something hits the zite, guys, now that I'm weekly, I would do the stranger now. And we came up with a bit, The Bringer Versus, whatever, and calling it, where somebody on your staff, and I didn't know the staff. Like, I've never seen a podcast in my life, you know, so I was coming in here, fresh. - You're here in the room, you're fresh. - This is the most attractive staff I've ever been a part of. - We're trying. - We got in a Zoom with like 20 people, and I was the ugly one, I could not believe it, but I said the staff, you know, put out a challenge, challenge me. I'm reading the fucking dungeon crawler Carl right now, which I never thought I would read, but I'm gonna talk about with one of your staff members. I think Mallory, I wanna say. - Oh my God. - Maybe I'm wrong, but-- - That would be the longest podcast you've ever done. - No, we'll see. I can cut someone off if I need to. - She's three hours ready to roll every time. - Yeah, we love her. I've been working with her for 14 years. - She was down to read that book, and I'm halfway through it. Now, it's something I would never read, but I just want to talk about what people are reading, you know, getting guys to read the stuff. - But you're talking fiction, primarily. - Primarily, yes, unless something really hits like, I was thinking of you the other day, I was reading about Daryl Dawkins' autobiography. - Oh. - That is like the most fucking-- - Autobiography, even I don't have that. - Autobiography, I think believes in autobiography, and it's insane. And I was like, oh, maybe that's how I get bill on the show, is you read Daryl Dawkins' autobiography, and we talk about it. - So, you would have to recommend it to me or vice versa. - I think we just have to agree in advance, whereas other people, I'm like, challenge me. I forget one of the guys' names gave me like a list of five books and says, if you want to read one of these, I'll come on and talk about that. 'Cause your staff is great. I want to mix it up with the ringer staff. - Well, you have like the 250 page limit, though. - For my book club, the year one is 250 pages. I think this month's book will be doing, our first episode of the ringer is the glass hotel. It's like 300, but it's a quick read. You know, there are some books, there's a 250 page book that takes you a month, because it's so dense, and the language is different that I'm trying to pick good writers. - And I'm doing David Foster while I'm symphony just. - No, I would never, I read that book. - That was like 8, 8, 10, something like that. - And then there's a whole ringer. - Then there's like an index you have to go to to read the book, and which is impossible. But you know how, if you're ever in a car, and someone gets like, hey, take your phone and put some music on, and you're terrified, you're gonna be judged by what you put on. - Right. - I feel that when I'm recommending books for the book club, that like this has to be something that I love, and I think people are going to respond to. - And what are the genres that feel like they suck you in the most? - I mean, it's about the writing more than anything else, because I've had books of the-- - Style. - I've had a crime thriller. I've had like a book about like a memoir of divorce. You know, like a fictional memoir, but it's just the writing is great, and I fly through it. You know, I keep talking about the sense of accomplishment you feel when you finish a book versus binging a TV show. You know, we're finishing a video game. I mean, these are all great art forms. - Yeah. - But you don't walk out of the Odyssey feeling that you've accomplished something. But if you finish a book, you feel like, oh, I did something with my time, that I'm kind of competing with doom scrolling, more than TV and movies and sports. - Right. Like one of the things I thought was interesting about you is you said your favorite writer that you read was Joan Didian, and I was like, oh, he's like, he's really in this. - Yeah, I mean, she's the best. - That's like a deep cut. - Well, one of my favorites when I was growing up was Brett Easton Ellis, and his favorite was Joan Didian. It's like, once you get into it, and reading 12 books a year is the goal, you know, for Justinant Book Club, but I'm hoping that by reading 12 books, it makes you want to read more. And the more you read, the more you enjoy reading. It's like working out, you know, it's hard at first, your muscles are sore, but once you get into it, you know, you get those endorphins going that you want to read different kinds of books. You don't love every book you watch, like you don't love every movie you watch, where you enjoy seeing movies, and you get this education as you go. You know, it's like a Tarantino-esque, like I see with the reference there. I see what they're talking about now because I have this education of film. - Well, one of my ideas for you, 'cause as we were trying to figure out how to do weekly, I think you have to have some easy ones, some layups. And I definitely wanted you to do at least one, like 90s comedy autobiography, or 80s or just something where-- - But I think-- - I didn't even know what it would be. - I think all of the, when you said they wrote these back before the internet, but it was also a book where like the book tour would be talking about the crazy things that were in there, yeah. But we didn't have the screenshot era, 'cause I think there's like a distinct before and after with the biographies and the autobiographies from like basically pre-2010 posts. You can see it in the magazine features too. - Yeah. - People would say crazy shit. - Oh yeah. - And it would be like, you might see it, you might tell like your wife or whoever, like, whoa, which you see would-- - But this guy said in GQ, and then they would go away. - But they would even do that on the-- I mean, yeah, there's like the John Wayne Playboy interview that's like insane. - I was telling you how I always been reading all these Playboy interviews, and these directors are just torpedoing actors. They're torpedoing other directors. And you're like, oh my God. Anyone did this. Now we have Tom Cruise say nothing for an hour. - I know. I mean, I missed the days of Sean Connery admitting to beating every woman he's ever dated to. I got on in the TV interview. - Yeah. - And being totally cool with this-- - Yeah, he's like, look, you know? - Was great. - But I can't make it up without breaking some eggs. - Autobiographies aren't as much fun for me as the unauthorized biography after they die. - Right. - When you can just go to town. - Who's the one who did that? Kitty Kelly? - Kitty Kelly. - Think that was her name. She would do like somebody would die and she would have the unauthorized one after. - Oh, yeah. - And it was always like, you're getting all your sources from like the valet. - Yeah. - And like somebody who was her maid for two years. And I wouldn't say it was the best collection of people. - You won the warts and all. I just want the warts to be quite honest. But now like everyone makes their own documentary. They produce them. And it's like at the end, it's like, now I have an animal shelter and you're like, I don't care about this, you know? You want to make yourself look good. There's always one thing they want to correct in the record that I hate those documentaries. I want to see something that's brutal. But even better, it now is defictionalized version. Like this is book, it came out a couple weeks ago called Life of M, my Rachel Cusk. And Rachel Cusk is like up there with Joan Didian for me as one of the greatest writers of all time. And she wrote this book, it's like about Natalie Portman. Like it, she doesn't say Natalie Portman. - I read about this. - It is Natalie Portman. And that is like under 200 pages and it is a character assassination. - But didn't Natalie Portman know she was doing it or like participated a little bit in the beginning and then backed out? - In the novel, it's like, they become friends. They both live in Paris. And it's like, I would love to do your biography. And she's like, great, that would be great. And then sees the project at the end and is like, I hate this. And that's the end of the book. We don't know what's fiction and what's not. She never says, I'm actually friends with her. This is based on her, but it is her. And it's wonderful to read. I know critics haven't been as kind to it, but I loved it. - I'm underrated this weekend now. You got me excited about it. - You will fly through it. Like that's what I'm really looking for is that book that you just start and you can't believe how fast you tour through it. - So, are you a Kindle guy or you? - So, this is a sad story because I don't think, I read. So, I mean, my whole library is just all books. Like books I actually read. And I think it's the biggest reason I've ever been successful is I just read. I was an only child. I read everything. And I have to read everything on the iPad now. The route is, I need to, I bet I said I need to get my eyes fixed. - Put the phone on. - And as I got older, the books, the print, unless I have like perfect light. So I read in the iPad and I don't, and what ends up happening is you end up reading faster or zooming through or like, I don't think it's the same experience. So the way I, what really has to happen is I get to get my eyes fixed. - I love the Kindle. I feel like I'm a reading machine. You can highlight things and go back to them if you want. - Totally. - And I'll buy the physical copy to have on the shelf. I like physical, I get a lot of advanced physical copies. - So these are Kindle. I do Apple Books, whatever that on the iPad. - I think the iPad's worst because you get the blue light. The Kindle's got that white light. - Right. - It's warm and it doesn't hurt your eyes. 'Cause my- - My eyes are going too. - I changed the light on it, made it a little better. The Apple books though, they'll have sales. They'll have books that'll just be like $1.99, $2.99, but they'll be like real books. I'm like, all right, I find. And I saw my own book on there once for $2.99. No, I was, the book came out 17 years ago. - Okay, that's better. - I was like, I'm kind of excited. It's on there. I hope this will make somebody buy it. - See, I have real money. I'm a twin comedian. So I got a Ford, a full price book. - I got the full price book too. - I'm just saying like, books like, I don't want to spend $20 and then I don't know if I'm gonna read it, but it's like, when night and night I'll check it out. - I have a lot of books I've bought on the Kindle. I mean, I never touch because I read about it. The copywriter does a lot of the heavy lifting for me 'cause there's so few books for guys now. Everything is the woman on the fucking train or the woman who found out her husband's having an affair that when I see a book that's written for men, whether it's by a woman or not, I buy that book and then sometimes I just don't get to it. Something else excites me. I get excited by new books because there's a hype there. I compare it to watching "Saturday Night Live" as it airs, as opposed to watching it a couple days later. You lose something when you're not watching it live. The reading at the week of is fun for me. - I used to get, I mean, I buy so many books on Amazon. I've had Amazon since like 1998. And one of the reasons I love buying the books was, I knew when they come I'd read them because I ended up buying it. Versus in a bookstore, you can talk yourself out of it. But when you're like buying them online and be like, "Oh, I'll get that one too." But now I have it, all right, I gotta read it. - That was how I knew the book club was taking off. It was not just the video count, but Amazon was selling out. I announced the book and Amazon was like, - Your book influencer. - It'll be like four weeks, you'll get it. But I partnered with a place called bookshop.org. It's like the anti-Amazon. And they were like, "We guarantee we'll get them to reprint these books that you're picking." So I'm picking books that are three or four years old. Like we'll make sure we have hundreds of copies so that we don't sell out. Because Amazon was like, we can't keep up. - 'Cause the other one's eight books is the other one. That's, they have the older books. - Yeah. - Yeah. - There's good, but there's like five or six of these sites. I think the Barnes and Noble one does good with, they have a bunch of, a bunch of inventory. - Look cool, I don't go on the site, but I do enjoy going to a Barnes and Noble now. - We have a great one on the grove. - It is great. It is great. For us. - My first job in LA was working at a boarder's books on La Sianniga. I worked there for like three months before they fired me with cause. I was a terrible employee, but I loved working at bookstore. - What are we doing in something that customers? - My job was to be the security guy. I had to help customers, but it was also like stop people from stealing in everyone's stall. They allowed almost people to come in and read books. So it was mostly wrangling them, but my job was just so boring that like, if you see someone stealing something, let them, don't stop them. I'm like, I don't have anything to stop them with. - Right, but I was just, I got so bored that it became clear. This guy doesn't want to be here anymore and it got me out of there. - We had a great bookstore in Coolidge Corner in Brooklyn, which is right next to Boston. Brooklyn Booksmith. - Is it still there? - Still there. So many of these ones are gone. Like there's a couple in LA that there was one on sunset that actually just got hit by the water flood. - Not the book soup. - Yeah. - You got hit? - It got hit and I don't need, I'm not positive it's reopened yet, but there's not a ton of them in LA. - No, there's a few and they're good ones. Skylight Books is great. Last bookstore, both locations are really cool. But Book Soup was my jam. - Yeah. - But in the past, since the pandemic, the pandemic almost helped books. You would think it would shut bookstores down. - Yeah. - But this place bookshop.org I've partnered with, said that since they've started, 'cause they give part of their proceeds to help local bookstores. - Nice. - Things have opened, then have closed every year since the pandemic and that used to not be the case. They were getting shut down by Amazon and Barnes and Nobles kind of putting more money into it. I like when you walk in and see what the employees have written on cards. Like what they think is good, then that like gets me to. - We don't have that anymore. - It's really like, 'cause video stores are gone. - Yeah. - So book recommendations. I didn't even know what else would you find where it would be like. Johnny really loves this William Goldman book. - I tell you what you do is you subscribe to just like book club on the ringer. And I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna tell you exactly what's up every week. If you want new books, if you want old books, if you're like, "Hey, I love this, what else is like this?" That's the big thing with the book is you find something you love. And you're like, "What is the author of anything else?" - Yeah. - Or what is in the same vein that's been good. - You can do some mail back stuff potentially. - I love mail back. I mean, at the end of the book club, people will ask about the actual book and then their questions like, "How do you read on a Kindle?" You know, do you like the percentage on the corner? Do you like, you know, how do you juggle multiple books or audio books okay? People get insecure about their reading 'cause they don't know what's okay. Like people who forget the book they just read. - Yeah. - You know, I read 50 to 100 books a year. I can't remember most of them by the end of the year. That's okay. Just the actual art of reading or the act of reading, letting words come into your head is the point. It's okay to forget everything. People who review books for the New York Times say they forget everything. And that's just natural. That doesn't mean you're not reading well. You know, your brain's like a nightclub. You've got to, you have a capacity. You've got to kick some stuff out. - So if a book stays with you, that means it really hits you in the heart and the head because it's okay. - I had a lot of weird things with books. Like 'cause I would read, I read everything like through college. And then I stopped reading fiction as much when I was really trying to get my sports calm going 'cause I was trying to like figure out my style. And my brain's a little spongy. So if I'm reading like a certain writer, it'll like mess with the writing. And so I stopped reading, I basically stopped reading fiction like in the mid 90s. And I really gravitated toward non-fiction stuff. - All sports stuff. - Collections, sports, and I really love sports and TV movies and some like real life stuff. Like I would go on phases. Like I had a Watergate phase in 1992. And I read every Watergate book that was possible to get. Or like JFK assassination, stuff like that. But for the most part, like any sports book, anything about movies, anything with essays, I always liked like the different collections of essays. But so I'm a complete opposite of you. I was always non-fiction and you were more of the fiction stuff. - Getting sucked into a story and liking the character. And it's like the empathy you walk a mile on someone's shoes. You know, someone who's completely different from me, you feel like you were them. If you watch John Wick, you're sitting in the theater and you kind of feel like John Wick, read a book starring John Wick like you are John Wick. And that to me is more valuable than non-fiction. I'm not trying to knock non-fiction. But I think everybody, whatever works for people as long as you're reading. - A lot of guys just think fiction is like not serious or it's a waste of time. And I think it could not be less of a case of being a waste of time. I think you're getting empathy. And you're getting information. Most of the things I've learned have been from reading novels. But non-fiction, I forget these facts. You know, I forget, and a lot of it's in Celsius, you know, which I can't handle. So I like fiction over non-fiction. But I think I'm sure we'll have some non-fiction in there. I've got Andy Rector coming on. So he wrote a book about the making of the movie Elf. And so we're gonna have him on and just see what happens. Yeah. I mean, you see an Elf, right? - Yeah, I like that. - I have not seen Elf. - Really? - I swear to God. - It's kind of like a Christmas rotation Elf. - It is, but you're not gonna believe this. I'm not the biggest Christmas guy. My birthday's three days before Christmas. So I'm always been kind of mad at Jesus. And so I have avoided most Christmas movies. I don't like-- - There's a story in one of the first strings. - Jesus is only five foot one. That was a story that was going around this way. - I mean, I definitely heard he sucked the basket. - Five foot one. - He was terrible. - It seemed short. - And people, Christians seem really into finding out more facts about Jesus. They want to know what color he was, what was his height. - Now we know his appearance, literally five foot one. - Where did you hear that? - He was 10 past or out on one of my text threads. - Jesus was the short king of Nazareth. - His five foot one, a hundred and ten, but this is, you know, Gajillion News again. - A hundred and they weighed him? - Apparently, the scales back then. - Oh my God, yeah, I mean, that must have been good news for the carpenter who made the crucifix. You know, like, don't worry, he's only five foot one. - This would go fast. I used to read a lot of collections and stuff. Like short story collections? - Yeah, short story collections and also, like, magazine. But my favorite was, at all short story fades. But my single favorite is Raymond Carver. - Raymond Carver is amazing, a master. Everything by him is fantastic. - So when short cuts, the movie came out that was like a collision of different worlds for me. - I was psyched and then I was let down by it. I thought I didn't really capture him, you know. You know what, I love, did you ever do this? When I was a kid, I wasn't allowed to see rated our movies for a while. When I was like a little kid, I was a big reader early on. But I could get the novelization. I got the novelization of "Jaws the Revenge" and the novelization, it's amazing. The shark kills fucking everybody. And in the movie, he kills like three people. And they bring one of them back to life in the director's cut 'cause the Jamaican's got mad. But the novelizations of like predator was awesome. And they would do, I don't think they still do them. Tarantino did one after once upon a time in Hollywood. He's got a new one coming out about like a cliff booth that I can't wait to read. - It's coming on December, yeah. - The movie is, but then he's writing a novelization where I think just a continued story. I don't know if he even wrote the script for. - No, he wrote, I think he wrote a fictionalized book about cliff booth that I think he's timing toward when the movie comes out. - Cool, yeah, I'll definitely read that. - One of the things I was doing, it was just a boredom thing during COVID and then I kind of kept going with it. But I was, you know, we've done, at this point, we've done like 400. to rewatch those movies, but a lot of them were movies that came out of a book. So I was like, oh, this will be fun to get the books for different rewatchable movies. Now I have like a hundred of these books and you forget like how much movie IP came from. I mean, the easy ones to remember, like, jaw is Godfather shining, but there's a shitload of other movies that just started as either a short story or a book. But a lot of times, I don't think the book is always better. Like the Godfather, the book is insane. Like, it's got that subplot about like the woman with a, like, the janitor. Yeah, they're like, what, they get there. But then the movie would have been amazing. The closest I can think to the book is as good as the movie and they're both masterpieces is no country for old men. When I remember seeing that movie in New York the day it came out being obsessed with it. Like, I can't wait. I'm going to see it right away. Buying the book to fly to L.A. and reading it on the flight, like, it's a short book. And then seeing the movie again when I landed. And like the combination of the two in your head, like, there were lines of dialogue. I thought we're in the movie. There were just in the book that it's the perfect. If you read Fight Club. It's very, that's right. Fight Club's another one. It's like, it almost fills in the blanks of the movie that it can really help to read the book afterwards. I think they're both equally valid and important. Godfather's funny, because there is that whole, there's all this extra stuff that they when they're making the movie, they must have been like, uh, yeah, stay away. The book jaws has like a lot of local politics. A lot. We were like, this is not a lot of the mayor. Yeah. A lot of the mayor. Trying to figure shit out. And even if the horror was a good book, there was a good 70s, 80s ones. Like, you know, shining was obviously amazing. Yeah. But like, Shawshank Redemption was, um, what do they call like those half books? A short story. I mean, it was like more than a short story. Yeah, it was like novella. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Stephen King, I mean, doesn't mess. I'm still fascinated by the fact that he hates the shining the hates the movie and won't give it up. He may, he, but there was some sort of contractual thing where he wasn't allowed to criticize it anymore. Really? Yeah. I think there was, he was so critical of it. I think something happened where they were like, I mean, they missed the boat. I mean, that's, that's, it's over. But you read the book and I can see having read the book because Kubrick just did his own thing with it. He pushed back. They made a different version of the kind of a Stephen King blessed. The one with the guy from Wings. Yeah, as Jack. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it was like, the same chops as Nicholson. Yeah. No. And comparing the two was rough. Yeah. Did not, did not enjoy that. But the book is great. The book is great. So our author is starting to try to butter you up now. I think it's about to, when this gets released, I think it's going to come in. But we've had no problem. But no, but this is like, we think you're going to love this book. I've gotten a lot of feelings hurting. I've gotten a lot of that. I've gotten a lot of like, I self published this. It sounds like it would be good for you. Yeah. Because guys are having a hard time getting published with books for guys. I'm hoping I can change that. But I, if people reach out to me, it's dead in the water. If you reach out to my manager, you kind of know what you're doing. And I'll usually take that book. But the heart of you, you like finding your own. I like finding my own shirt. But I'm now, I'm deep enough that I know an author, like, I've got a guy coming on who wrote a book called The Art of Fielding. Have you read that? Oh, yeah. Amazing book. He's got a new one coming out. Chad. I read that book with an H. Chad Harbach something. Chad Harbach. Yeah. He's coming on this. He's already going to be a guest. Those are the last fiction books I read. It's an incredible, it was an easy recommendation to people. It's 600 pages, but it's great. Yeah. He's got a new one called The Brightness. And he's going to come on and talk about that. So if I know the author, it's an easy, like, yes, give this to me. And they have a thing. What your staff told me about it called netgalley, where I just wrote, like, I'm the book reviewer for the ringer. And I request books in advance. And I get it right to my candle. And so that has changed the game. Oh, it's like reading it for TV. Yeah. I don't ever want to be trashing books on the show. You know, I want to read things that I love and tell people to love them too. And just get people, get people reading. But Chad Harbach, I'm really excited about the hard thing is that we're in LA. And most writers are in New York. Yeah. So it's like, hey, I'd love to come on. I'd love to do a zoom. And in the beginning, we want to keep it in the studio. I think there's a tension to being in the same room as me versus being on a zoom. That I don't I used to do. I used to interview everybody in that pre-COVID and post-COVID. It's just post-COVID is way different. I just don't like the zoom interviews. I don't think it's the same and it's harder to control. Yeah. It's easy to just sit there and smile. Yeah. You know, when you're really like face to face, you have to think about things as a pressure there. So especially in the beginning, we're going to we're going to keep it in the studio and have people come to us. But I've been surprised that people who are willing to come out here to talk to us. We've got this woman named Paula Boomer wrote one of my favorite books of last year called. Oh, fuck, what was it called? Paula Boomer. Paula Boomer wrote this amazing book. And it's basically like a different take on American Psycho. American Psycho as a loser. And the guy's just a total piece of shit that you hate him the entire book and cannot wait for him to get his comeuppance. And I loved it. It's like a furious book. It was in my top 10 and no one else's top 10. And she's like, I'll fly to you to come and we'll talk about we'll talk about. I mean, they probably the book company should probably send these people here because it's going to probably help them. I think that's what's going to end up happening because I'm the only guy doing this. Yeah. There's a lot of women doing it with Reese Witherspoon's making a ton of money because she buys the rights to the book before she has it in her book. Yeah, I don't like that. Boy, they hold up the book and that's it. Boy, they do the thing if you see it on like TikTok where they hold the books backwards. And like these five books change my life. And they talk to you for 20 minutes and then they show you what the books are. I hate that. Like, you're going to know upfront what we're talking about. And I want to make you excited to read the book as excited as I am to have read the book. My 21 year old daughter reads a lot of the kind of books you would expect her to read that get made into Amazon. Like eight episode shows and movies and like, kind of things like young adult or like, yeah, like those YA, like, somebody's vacationing in Martha's Vineyard with her uncle and there's a murder and you know, those kind of things that she reads all of those. And she always knows from the book when it's going to, oh, this will end up being a movie. And I do think they look at that there is like a market for that. But we're saying when it's like this, like trying to turn Zodiac into a book is like a whole. Yeah, into a movie. I mean, it's a whole different. I mean, I grew up at like, I read a lot of hardy boys case files. There was like a modern day take on the hardy boys. That was I like, I love those things. I'm sure you read Matt Christopher. So I had every hardy boys book. Like, I had a bunch of those, but those were kind of like corny even by the time we were kids. Hardy boys, very cool. They were like, they were like at a Comic Con, you know, solving a murder. And it was wait, the blue books, they'd be like, who stole the candle? Like that kind of shit. But this was like scary monkey on the front. Mm hmm. Matt Christopher was, I always felt like he, the best sports younger person writer was Alfred Sloat, who did, uh, he did a couple great ones, including Jake. We ended up doing, we did a 30 for 30 short about him. Okay. And then Matt Christopher was kind of like the volume version of Alfred Sloat. Okay. And those guys both nailed that John. I read all of those nailed it because there was, I'm a kid in from the 70s. Like there were, there were no books. There were no books geared toward me. Yeah. So any book that was, you would eat them up. Yeah. Now I think they have a million in them now. A million of them. Yeah. Yeah. Well, some of the other ones kind of hold up. I think so. I'm Matt Christopher. I remember Matt Christopher one where it was like a kid gets kidnapped and forced to play on like a junior hockey team. And what the fuck is going on? Like I thought this was going to be, you know, I remember like the kid who only hit home runs, but the getting kidnapped and going to a hockey team where Christopher Pike was a big one for me as a kid. There were like horror books that were in between like the, what was the spooky one that like RL Stein had like literally horror for kids. Yeah. And this was like horror for teenagers. We were still like the moralistic but terrifying that I, uh, I loved, I love stuff like that. I really want people to read more. I think it's getting tougher and tougher because of all the different ways to do something other than reading combined with, um, it's harder to find stuff on with websites and Google change their algorithm. Yes. Target sustain some of these bigger pieces. Like I, like when we launched Grandland, that was kind of like the last real wave of really people getting behind like big high platform journalism, big pieces, big essays, big free pieces and just go on and look at it. I think people want to take control. I think people just don't know what books to read. You walk into a bookstore, you're overwhelmed. I'm just going to try to be like here. If you're like me, unless it's like Bobby really likes that, that, that, and they have those little like the blue color things with the wrecks. Yeah. Sometimes you're like better than all those guys. Fuck those guys. Yeah. And I've got some, I've had some weird picks. I've had some picks. People like I can't believe you recommended this insane book, but I like insane books. Right. If you were, if you've seen the movie, the coffee table, who's that? It's a Spanish horror film that came out like a couple years ago. Uh-uh. It's about, I'll spoil it for you. It's about a guy brings the baby, they just have a baby, brings a baby home. He accidentally drops the baby on the coffee, this coffee table. Baby does. And the rest of the movie is him trying to hide this from his wife and family as they come home. And they're like, where's the baby? Like, it's a horror comedy because everyone's like laughing and just they're excited about this. And it's the most terrifying, horrifying movie I've ever seen. And I watched it with the biggest grin just like, how did this get made? How did they get money in Spain to make this film with books? You don't need a budget. Like you can do anything with your imagination. I think film, especially with like AI and the studios consolidating that film has gotten worse. You've got to play to the masses, whereas books can play to the individual. And I'm just trying to find if you're an individual who likes me, who likes the ringer, I can find the books that will flip your switch. What thing that's definitely happened over the last 15 years is I think there's a sameness to a lot of the internet writing that from a stylistic standpoint. If you go back, I used to do this test, especially when we were trying to figure out Grantland, like, if you hide somebody's byline, could you tell who the writer is? Right. And back 15, 16 years ago, if you did that, you'd be like, oh, I know who that is. Oh, I know that's, and I think it's a lot harder now, whereas in books, I think people have a lot more time, space, and kind of the freedom to just be like, here's my style, or here's the way I'm going to write it. Yeah. The algorithm rewards imitation. You know, they call it the whatever the dead internet theory is. It's just like, you just do the same thing. You look at like Instagram, you can start doom scrolling. It's the same joke pulled by different people with no shame that, with books, you have to be at least have some original idea. And book critics aren't always right. You know, I think they're compromised in a lot of cases that it's like, this is just what I like, you know, and you have to trust me. And I think people, people do. I've been setting this up for years. Like, I didn't just decide I'm going to just start a book club, because I knew what could be come off as corny trying to hard. Like, oh, he's trying to jump on a trend. Like, for a year, before I started the book club, I picked a new book every Tuesday. Yeah. Like, the one book for guys by the copy readers I read and read it in a week and reviewed it, just so that my top 10 list in the year would be thorough. And that took off. And then I said, okay, let's do the book club now. Now that I have bonafides, anyone can hold up a book and say, this is what we're reading this month. They never hear about it again. But we're going in depth. We're for real. I think you should brand it differently than a top 10 list. It should be like a top 13 list or top 11 list. It's my top, it's my top 10 books of the year. Not like the top 10 books of the year. It's mine. Mine is very dynamic compared to what the New York Times would say. It's just like what at the end of the year when I look through all the books I've read, it'll be like 50, 60 books. What do I remember? What is stayed with me? What's haunted me? But this is, I say I like this because I think most of the time when people do lists like this, they're very conscious of what people will say about the list. I got a lot of you only have three women. You only have like, yeah, and it's like I'm just picking every book when you open it up looks exactly the same. Yeah. There's no matter who wrote it, you know, what their gender is, what their race is, every book looks the same. And that's what I'm going by that, that I don't, I don't pay any attention to that. But I think people would be annoyed if I did. I don't either. I did at the end of last year. I did this list of my fifth, the first 25 years of the century. There are all these lists about different movies. So I did a list of my 50 movies I watched the most times in the 21st century. So I was like, not proud of this list. This is just the list or going down. And the number 16 was limitless. And I was doing it with the with the Chris and Sean. And I was going down the list. And I got to, and it's like, look, I can't control the list. This is just, this is what the heart wanted. I've just watched limitless a bunch of times. Sorry, the book is better. The book is better. I saw the limitless book. Yes. Yeah. That was based on a book. Limitless is we takes the pills to make himself a genius. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The book is incredible. The book, the movie sells out at the end. I need the book for my collection. At the end of the movie, he's like, I weed myself off magically. And now I'm so genius, the book is not like that. The book ends badly. And now it's time for who's delivering brought to you by our friends at Uber Eats. You know who's delivering on game day, the rookie having a breakout, the veteran turning back the clock, the player who's suddenly having a moment Uber Eats delivers more than just wings for the watch party. You might get a Bluetooth speaker for the pregame beers and shelters for the tailgate cleaning supplies when somebody spills salsa in the second quarter. And you know what's going to happen. You can get almost almost anything for game day and Uber Eats on Sundays like Uber Eats. Here's who's been showing up. How about Bryce Young? Who would have expected this? I don't even think Bryce Young was picked in the fantasy leagues. 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You said something interesting in one of the interviews you did that you felt like there was a shelf life with being a stand-up and that you were very aware of, you know, there's a finish line here. How long have you been doing stand-up? It's almost 25 years now. Yeah. When did you feel like you were good at it? I would say, I mean, good versus great. I thought I was good maybe six or seven. I knew I was different. Enough that people were paying attention. I came from the alternative comedy scene. So like to get attention there and to do well consistently and then starting going on the road. It was after the Trump roast when I was selling out clubs and people were coming to see me. I was like, oh, I've got my own thing and I'm delivering on the promise, right? And then now nowadays you have to put out a special every couple years. So I would just tour everything and then when I ran out of places to tour, I do the special. And then by probably the third or fourth special, I was like, oh, I keep doing this. I knew that I was great. Yeah. And then you start to see people are like, when are you going to do something different? And it's like, I'm not. I like what I do so much. I want to go joke, joke, joke and try to make you think I'm going one way, go the other. That's what I get off on and stand up. Right. But the idea of going up there and being like, let me tell you about my life now, like sucks to me. If I went and saw Stephen Wright. And he was like, I'm going to tell you the story of my childhood. I'd be furious. I'd be furious. I want Stephen Wright to tell jokes. Yeah. So I think there's a shelf life on, I think for certain comics, don't it's certain comics age better than others. You know, I think Nate Bergatz is going to age incredibly well. Sebastian Minascalco has aged very well, but there's something that have not. And I don't know how well my thing ages. And then you say a lot of athletes retire because of the preseason, you know, because of training camp, not because of the games. Yeah. That I think I'll maybe I'll finish an hour and be like, I don't want to write another hour. You know, maybe I want to write a book next time. And if that's as satisfying to me as writing these jokes, then I'll keep doing that. But that's what all the athletes say. It's not they could still do it. I forget who told me that somebody put it the best. Wasn't paid manning. I can't remember. But somebody was just explaining like, I could still do it. Yeah. But it's the offseason and getting up and fucking mid August. Yeah. And knowing that I have to wake up at 5 30 in the morning to get my body ready for four hours for a game that is three. I just didn't want to do that anymore. And I hate to be a bad comedian who's just trading out the reputation. I'm on tour. I just started a theater tour last weekend with my newest hour. I had clubs for six months out in theaters. And I love this hour. I think it's a return to form. I call my last hour my pandemic hour. It was like, let me throw this together. It was like, I want to go up for 20 years. And I'm going to figure it out and get it done. And this time I really took my time and put out the best hour I possibly could. I've got some of my best jokes I've ever written. But after this, it's like, maybe that's it. And I might do a Tosh where Daniel Tosh isn't put out a special in 15 years. He just has the hour. And whenever he feels like touring, he just goes out and tours for a little while. That that sounds nice to me. Like Leno never put out a special. He just had the hour. The sign fell isn't done one in years. Yeah. They're just to have an hour that if somebody wants me to come out and do a casino or a festival, I have it. But we'll see what the special market looks like in a couple years. But I'm doing every other weekend one show a night because I'm getting old. And those two show nights, you know, three cities a weekend were starting to starting to fuck me up that that I think I can give my best to the audience if I'm doing one show a night. What's the process of getting this show ready? Like when you're starting from scratch. How many months are we talking? I mean, it's I came I came up pretty quickly with this one just because I felt like there was a fire under me. I was I was I was happy with the last special, but not as happy as I was with the one before it. And I was just like, let me kind of get back to basics. Yeah. And just right like I've got 70 jokes in my act right now. I wrote 1400 jokes to get those 70. And then was just hitting the Impounder trying them out. Yeah, putting them together. And the hour came together pretty quickly. And then I went into comedy clubs and felt like I don't really need to do a year of clubs. Six months will be enough and then go to theaters and just kind of save myself. Yeah, because I stopped writing, I don't know, eight years ago, but it was really the the process that I didn't feel like I could commit to the process and the way that I could stay at the level that I wanted to stay at. Was it like staring at a blank word document and hitting this first, like you felt like you're repeating yourself kind of thing? Wasn't even repeating myself. It was The air. almost like what we were talking about with athletes, like the sitting down and the process of it, unless I was doing it day after day after day. I almost like, I was compared to like golf, where people can, you can go out and play golf once a week and you'll be okay. But to actually be good at golf, you gotta play every day. And I was like that, like the best stretches I ever had as a writer were always when I was writing all the time. And it was, I was consumed by it. And it was all I was doing. And the busier I got and the more stuff I was doing, which is, I felt I don't play like it's something you can do as one of the four or five things you're doing. I didn't, I didn't want to get in that position. - I get that, I mean, that's one of the reasons I think I was as good as a standup as I became was because I never got into acting. You know, I never got, I never wrote a screenplay. I was just like, this is gonna be my thing. And I've got to commit to exciting nothing else. Right? If you have something else, standup is so hard that it's easy to gravitate towards the east. - Doing stand, but you're on a set for three months and then somebody wants you to write a book and you're doing that. And they're like, oh, shit, I gotta do my, and that's when it falls apart. - Yeah. But doing this, I mean, I'll be 48 in December. Like I think the fifties might be my book writing time if it works out that way. And but if I think of one joke after this hour is done, then I've gotta write an hour just to do that joke. - It felt like we had a run with comedy where the kind of stuff that makes you and I laugh probably. Everyone, you couldn't, there was a meanness factor that had to be toned down for a little bit. And then it came back post-COVID. And now I feel like it's back but it could only be in different formats. So I'm sure you're navigating that constantly when you're in these stuff. - Oh, definitely. I have to kind of answer. I was like, I always compare myself to you watch Deadwood, right? - Deadwood, in the past, yeah. - Like Deadwood in the beginning, elsewhere in Jin is the villain for the first three episodes. He's the guy who runs the town and then just worst people keep showing up. And then he's the good guy by the end of it, just because of everyone around him. And that's how I feel in comedy. Like I started out as this villain, like this character on stage. And then like real kind of awful people started showing up and I was like, oh, I hate this. That I think at post-COVID, there was a lot of that. There was a lot of, you know, the comedy used to be a lot of like, I'm a piece of shit and here's why. And now it's like, that time's a hundred. And it's not as clever. It's not a character. It's like what they really believe and they're kind of playing in that audience. I felt like I had to constantly kind of prune my audience. I didn't want the toxic part of it. I wanted to get rid of those people and respect the people that I'm entertaining. People buy tickets from my show. And sometimes you have to tell people to fuck off. And that's not the easiest thing to do. But when you have a big audience, I don't mind losing some people, just so I don't have the assholes. - We had that whole roast era in the 2000s in the beginning of 2010s, which was one of the best ways to even discover a new comedy. - Oh, it's definitely how I got discovered is how many comedians got discovered. You know, Jeff Ross built a career off of it. A Gerardo, that was like his whole thing. - I'm not going to do roast anymore. - Jeff Ross. - Yeah. - 2006. - See, I got a pivot. - See in six months, Jeff. Like, that's great. - We still make fun of him about that. - I mean, he's still the greatest. - He went the other, he's still, yeah. He's, I think pound for pound, he's been probably, he's killed the most times at a roast. - He found the right way to do it in order to keep doing it. Whereas I can only do three, Whitney did three. You know, most people did three and got out and moved on. Draughta was miserable at the end, like doing those things. - Oh yeah. - Hatered them. - I think-- - We still Lamp and Ellie did a couple of her. - She did like three or four and then we really wanted to get away from it. Like, it's not that fun after the first couple, but Jeff found a way to make it fun for him and for everybody else. - Well, now it feels like they can't happen without him. - No, I think he's, he's signed some contract that they can't do it without him. - He's just, even if you're, if we try to have him right now, I think he would just barge through the wall. Like the cool admin, like it would just be like, I heard you doing a rough-- - But the Netflix ones, I feel like have killed it even more because they don't edit-- - Yeah. The end of those things need to be edited. Comedy Central did everyone a service by editing those down and changing things around that. - Yeah, I went to, I went to though, Jimmy did, when I was working for Kimmel, he did, let's say Pamela Anderson, her Courtney love, one of them, Pamela Anderson maybe. - Yeah, Courtney love was there. - And it's a long day. - And it's, it drags people bomb. And you didn't feel it as much in the Brady one, but I thought the Kevin Hart one, you really felt like, this is what happens when you know to edit these things. - I don't know, I mean, they must have asked so many people before they got the Kevin Hart, because Kevin Hart's been being roasted his whole career thing. - Right. - So what are you going to say? And then getting people to, and people don't want to do it when it's live. It's hard to get to the celebrity if you get on Comedy Central because they knew they'd be protected in some way. - They were dead after the Chevy Chase one, 'cause that one was actually depressing. And I'm sure it was more depressing, the unedited version. You weren't involved in that one, right? - No, no, but when I got on the Trump, I was like, I want to watch these all. And they were like, good luck finding Chevy Chase. We burned that copy. And I found it on YouTube. But it was incredible because it was like a killer lineup of comics we were just unknown. Like Todd Berry roasting and no one knew Chevy Chase. So that's why it made it tough. - He has like no friends there. Now, nobody wanted to. And that's the hard thing. Even when they get someone with it, I think they're gonna get your friends. Like they got Rob Lowe and he's like, I'm gonna get you Amy Polar. I'm gonna get you Chris Pratt. And they can't because they're like, we're not doing this. Like we don't wanna sit up here and have people take shots at us. That it's, I think with the live, you really need hungry comics who want to prove themselves. And they really want the celebrities. And the celebrity's like, why am I gonna sit here? I'm gonna let some comics try to make their bones, you know? - That's how I met Kimmel because he did a, they remember Shaq had those roasts in like the early 2000s. - I remember a couple Shaq ones. I mean, there was like some brutal ones on that thing. That Jamie Foxx. - So that was the one I wrote a piece about that. And I think Jimmy was on that one or one of the other ones. And I was writing about how funny Jimmy was and he just reached out to me. And that's how I got to. - Oh, really? - But yeah, the Jeff Rose. Jeff Ross, that was, I think the highlight of his career at the Emmett Smith Rose. - The Emmett Smith Rose. - The same one as the Jamie Foxx. - There's so many stories about the Emmett Smith Rose that are incredible. - It's a legendary roast. - And I would encourage people to go out. - Kimmel did like the roast of Carson Bailey on, when MTV tried to do a roast. And the audience just didn't understand what a roast was. - Yeah, they're, and they would do every joke. They would do everything. But every comic could be like, it's a roast. Like why are you, why are you so upset? - What is, what's your, what do you think is the best standup special of all time? Anything you did excluded. - Oh, I mean, for your five. - For me, it's gotta be bring the pain, Chris Rock. You know, I've seen some great ones. Like Steven Wright's HBO special is, probably one I've watched the most, but bring the pain has everything. There was a great documentary about bring the pain. W. Kamu Bell did this for like AMC. Like you have to buy it on iTunes, but it's worth it. And it literally, he's talking to Ava DuVernay. He's talking to all the talks to Chris. And it's about like building that. Like Chris Rock HBO at one point was like, we need to get, we want some black comedians on HBO. - Yeah. - And they paid three guys. I think it was Chris Rock, Greer Barnes and like someone else, like 100,000 to do a special, do a half hour. And Chris took the 100, and the other guys were like, great, shut up, did their set. Chris bought a backdrop. It was like CR, bought the rights to and living colors called the personality. - He's from the Eddie Murphy generation though. He knew how to do it. He was basically doing his delirious. - He won a cable ace award for that. And then HBO offered him an hour. He goes to DC, opens with Mary and Barry jokes. Like he really went at it. It'll give you a new appreciation for that special. - I watched all the Chris Rock ones like a year ago 'cause they're just all on HBO Max and you can find all of these. - Yeah. - And I was like a dead sports time. And I was like to have stuff on when I'm working. So I just put them on and that one was so fucking good. Even 30 years later, it was like, oh my God. As a kid, we'd watch it over and over again, just put it on. I think there was a Kevin Hart special that became the new one for the next generation. And I was at the comedy cell of people. Like my kids just play video games with Kevin Hart special playing on the side. And they just listened that over and over again. But bring the pain to me was, and I've seen all the carlins, you know, the carlins were great. So when HBO would only do-- - The carlins aged nicely. - They have. They have. - I always felt like he was like the generation before the generation of guys I cared about. Like that delirious was the most important one for me as a kid. Just 'cause watching somebody, watching Eddie do, he was already an SNL, watching him do all these different voices. And I just never seen anything like it. - I was a Raga. I saw Raga a million times before I ever saw Delirious. And I thought it was a let down. But probably because I saw Roth first. - Yeah. - And I was the more powerful gesture to that. - Yeah, but yeah, I don't think, I don't know what beats bring the pain. And killing him softly, Dave Chappelle, like young Dave Chappelle, was pretty amazing. But nothing has the fury and just nails. Like everything just hits perfectly. - I think Shane's thing that he did in Austin, that's basically YouTube only. - YouTube, I mean, he used to do it. - Something that looks fun on YouTube. - This was like four years ago or something. I think it was the one that kind of helped bring it back. But he's doing a lot of Trump stuff and different stuff. But that one was pretty fun from like, I just popping up on YouTube. - Oh, he just Trump jokes? - He did some Trump jokes. - I didn't know that. Does he do some impression? - He did some impressions too. - Yeah. - I think Shane's the most interesting comic right now to see where he goes, what he does. And he was doing a lot of movies now. I wish he didn't live in Austin, but I think he's a very interesting comic. - It's from the Austin. - I just think it's the Comedy Center. - The Comedy Mecca. - Comedy Mecca. - I just think everyone's kind of the same. You know, he's more interesting in New York to me or LA. And LA everyone's trying to be different. New York people are trying to separate themselves. When I lived in New York, everyone wanted to beat David Tell. - Yeah. - And just work on their jokes every day and then go out at night and try them out. And now everybody wants to be Joe Rogan. And I think that's a mess, you know? - I remember when I moved out here, and Jimmy was dating Sarah at that point. So she was like in all those circles. And I was shocked by how much everybody like revered to tell. As like one of the guys. - When you got to see him work every night in New York, I didn't understand it when I lived in LA and heard about him. But when I moved to New York, I was like, oh, I get it now. But in that at least, I started that scene with Joe. - Do you like his weird show in Somniac? - Yeah. - I liked it a lot better than the Pornow one he did where he watched like Blurred Pornow. - I watched a couple of those Pornow ones that I'm like, what's happening? Can somebody talk to him? - Yeah. - Why are we doing it? And he would bring stars from the movie and it just felt like somebody's vice, actually spilling into their-- - That was rough. - Yeah. - But he's, I mean-- - Yeah, that was your-- - Sarah's basically that chair comedy class, right? - Oh, I mean, she was above me. I looked up to her, I probably wouldn't have not a comic if Sarah's not around. - Yeah. - Because Sarah made stand-up comedy cool. Before that, you had to either be angry about the world or like a nerd. Like, look at my haircut and I wasn't gonna do that. But Sarah was like sexy and cool. And so I came around and it was like Pat and Oswald. - Yeah. - Zach Gallifinakis, Louis CK, Paul F. Tompkins. And they were all murderers, but all completely different. Like if you tried to be like any of them, you got caught out on it. And Sarah was definitely one of the best of those. - I was always struck by the community of everybody too. Like she, you know, like Jamie would have football on Sundays and like six of those people would come over and she was always popping around. She would even go do a set and come back. You know, I just did a set and it's like-- - Yeah. - You were just, you were just here 20 minutes ago, she's like, yeah, just almost like going to get like a cup of coffee or something. - Yeah, she's almost like pathological. She, I mean, she's a comic like, interbones. - Yeah, so what's the generation now? Like it feels like Shane has his own generation, right? Which I guess is like the Rogan-- - Yeah, Shane's in the generation below. But it's a lot of like the generation almost got ruined by, one, the pandemic kind of wiped out the alternative stand-up scene. - Right. - But like the really different people were just gone. - And now they're like-- - Two years where you couldn't even do it. - Yeah, and so that just every venue that did them was gone and a lot of them went into podcasting. People are like, I like you better on your podcast than I do on stage. So people have been prioritizing that in a way I think has been bad for stand-up. Good for them for making money, but bad for the art form. And a lot of them have gone into this like trying to find the algorithm, trying to be like the Matt Reif who blows up with crowd work. And they're just chasing trends. Was I think the comics that I always looked up to were like making the trends? For like 10 years people were at open mics who were trying to be me. - Yeah. - And they all failed. But now it's like everyone's trying to kind of just get their clip to go viral and that instead of caring about the audience in front of you. I don't know what happens this next generation. I'm a little concerned. I think the second comedy boom kind of-- you would hope there would be innovation, but it was more about like cashing in. - It's interesting 'cause I've watched a bunch of those killtonies 'cause me and my son both kind of enjoy it. It's like a train wreck. I'm not sure ultimately how it's going to set the tone, especially when it's on Netflix and it's you know, pretty huge platform. - Sure, but it's basically the gong show. - Yes, very much so. - For comedians. - But having your goal be to do one minute of comedy isn't going to help you. I think there's guys like-- - But like one of the guys ended up on SNL. - Sure, but that guy, Cam Patterson, he still cares exactly. He would have gotten there one way or another. But there's guys like Chris Fleming, who's like who is very different and has a grab at fan base. Joe Marcus Aresi, very different has a fan base. Roy Scovo's new special is amazing. The specials people just sort of pumping them out where you could tell who got a two special deal. Because they would say I've got a special ready. They'd be like great, he's a two special deal. You need the next one in a year. And you can tell that they had a year to put it together. You know, it's like that sophomore slump in albums. Where it's like, oh, you just went up there to talk. You're like, what else can I do to fill this hour? And it gets bad. - So it's like when the bands in the '70s and '80s, they would try to be getting out of their deal and they would just release an album. Just to get to this album. - Just to get to this album. - Yeah, crank up mixed tapes. - Gotta get one more album to get out of my deal. - Yeah, so I'm hoping that someone comes along and refreshes everything. But I don't pay attention to a lot of it. I've tried to stay out of the comedy drama because I started a lot of it a few years ago and was like, I did joke about Rogan in my last special that in the beginning of the tour, I have this, and the joke didn't change in three years that I was touring it. And in the beginning, we're like laughing backstage, like Joe's gonna love this joke. And then by the time three years went by, things had changed. And the joke was exactly the same word for word, but it was now, it had carried this weight that it was a different thing. That I think the pandemic really fucked up a lot of people. - Isn't that the point of stand-up accommodative for people to get snippy with each other? - I think so. - I thought that was, we have a 16 year history. - Not when you're just going like rotating podcasts, that I was like, I'm sick of these podcasts. I'm sick of being asked how I write my jokes. I'm tired of this kind of carousel of podcasting. And these, like-- - Are things different? This has been a unique refreshing take on podcast interview. - That's why I'm here. - That's why I got a fucking book club, man. As I was like, this will be different. And I'm excited to hang out with authors and not comedians because it just got, it was fun for a while. The beginning of the comedy podcast era was like, how open can you be? How vulnerable can you be? Can you talk about your addiction and your upbringing? - And then I took care for us as Cherry. - You did? - His first podcast ever was at my house in like 2010. - Really? - And we went for like, I was getting a lot of-- I was like, basically a lot of people's first podcast when I was at ESPN in 2009 and 2010. A lot of them didn't know what the format was 'cause there weren't a lot of podcasts. Jeff came on, talked, did his whole thing. It was right after he got bounced by dancing with the stars. - Okay. - With Sal. So told him he was safe and then he wasn't. - Was that the one? 'Cause I remember when-- I mean, that story is brutal. - It's an all-time story. - All-timer, brutal for Jeff. But I remember, there was a podcast. I don't know if it was that one or another one where you told him to his face. Looked him right in the eyes. And said, the best roaster of all time is Anthony Jocelyn. And I remember listening to the clipping like, "Oh my God, that's such a hard thing to say." And Jeff Frost goes, "Can I argue?" (laughing) And I was like-- - They definitely haven't. - Yeah. - I mean, you did have the championship belt there for a couple of years. - I had a run. I had the three run and then got out. - I also was a big supporter of your show. - Jocelyn McEffensive? - Yeah. - I liked it. - I think that when you did something different, it was hell to make. It was hell to make. And then I had a show called Good Talk. It was so fun to make and the pandemic killed it. We were a week away from filming season two. Well, I just sat across from a comic and we were goofy and silly. - Yeah. - A little bit of information, but mostly just messing around. And I love doing that. That hopefully this podcast will be more like Good Talk. But Jocelyn McEffensive was just, you had to rely on what was happening that week. - And if that show was good. - I did have a good story. - I asked her like Jeff's show. - Jeff's show was great. - There was this little funny era of these comedy centers, right as comedy centers was basically dying. - Yeah. - But they were still trying to do a couple things with comedians. And I thought some of those ideas were good. - The burn was great. The burn almost ruined me because I premiered right after his show. - Yeah. - It was like we'd combine those two in the one show where they had something great, but we were kind of competing with each other that was tough because we're friends. And he'd be like, hey, once this show ended, the season two, they never aired another episode. But they kept them under contract for a year, while my air show was airing. And Jeff would see me and be like, don't make it too much like mine 'cause they'll cancel me. And I'm like, I would love to take some of what you were doing and use it, but you really couldn't. They just had too much at once that it became tough like Tosh would be like, hey, that bit was something I did eight years ago. And I'm like, I'm not the fuck, I'm not watching your show. I don't watch Tosh for now. It's like I'm just trying to like get through the week here. But when you had like Oscar Pistorius to talk about, it was the most fun show in the world to make. But if you just had like Obama's new tax plan, it was like, what the fuck are we gonna talk about? - Yeah, how are we gonna talk about this? - I gave Jeff a joke a couple weeks ago. - You done? - Yeah. - Well, you know who he is? - He's got his who now. - You know how he does the rest in peace variations? - Uh-huh. - After Dali Parton died, I texted rest in peace. He said, could I have that? - I like that he asks now instead of just taking it. - Yeah, yeah, of course you could have that Jeff. - That's great. - So I think he took it. So wait, one last thing on the podcast thing, 'cause this is an interesting topic. Not your podcast, but you were talking about, it's easier to do a comedy podcast than it is to go on the road and just, you're staying at some weird hotel and you're bouncing around, you might have a shitty crowd versus like, you could just be in your apartment or your house and just doing a pod. - I mean, you're talking, do you think that's gonna hurt comedy? - I think it hurts to stand up as an art form. I think it's good for comedians because they're just pumped directly into the listeners ears where they watch every week and they become committed. They're like, I watch this every week, I love this guy and I will defend him to the death just because they're committed with their time and sometimes they're money if they're like Patreon fans that they'll never turn on anybody. No matter how bad the joke is and they'll pay money, good money to see you in a theater where you haven't been working it out. You just show up at the theater and it's like, well, I've been listening to this guy for free. I'm gonna pay 60 bucks, 100 bucks. And then they walk out being like, I prefer him on the podcast. Right. I think people would just transition full time and maybe eventually give up that theater money as these, it's getting harder to go on the road because of the economy and take up prices going up competition for these theaters. But I think podcasting is a good question. Is a podcast or the actual live podcast are hurting the competition for the theaters? Uh-huh. It's a regular podcast. Because you can sit at home. There's no theaters. No. These theaters are all made for bands in 1974. Yeah. But they're still fun. They're still like with a wheelchair in here and a couple of the other ones. Yeah. So basically between like you get down to 200, 300, you could go all the way up to like 1600. Yeah. But there's, I wouldn't say there's a lot of state of the art ones these days. No. I like, I like the wheelchair and a lot. That's why I played last year. I've done the wheelchair e-bell, which doesn't have fucking air conditioning. It's so old. Uh-huh. But I like the wheelchair and more. Um. Largo is still fun. There's like a small little theater. But I think just comedy got greedy and that they didn't want to do a small intimate show. They didn't want to go podcasting became a way to go do comedy clubs without having to do morning radio. And then it became a way to avoid comedy clubs entirely. Yeah. And there was something too grinding out in a comedy club before you got to a theater. Yeah. And made sure that hour was great. And I think people don't need a great hour anymore. They just need a reputation from their podcast. So all the podcast fans show up just to see that guy, just to see the celebrity. And the hour doesn't have to be that good and not until they do a special, when people see it and they're like, what the fuck is this? Yeah. Because when you're out on stage, everyone's going nuts because they love you from the podcast. It's like the equivalent of watching, um, I don't know, Steph Curry just do a shoot around versus playing in a game. Yeah. Very much so. You got to watch Steph Curry shoot some threes. Yeah. But not actually playing a basketball game. Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting time. I don't know where it goes. Cause in general, especially like, uh, I think people seem especially post-COVID. There's, you're a little more self-conscious, right? Definitely. You can be on social media. You can get instant feedback that, especially if you're like a growing writer, comedian, whatever. Like you get this feedback early on, you're, you know, doing this. You're not used to it. Well, with podcasting, the clip people have come out, I don't think, if they've, if they've like ruined you at all, I know it's important to put on, I just, it's the tax for doing it. You know, you're getting nailed by a 10 to 15 times. But you say one thing out of context and it's all the sudden it becomes this clip and then like, jessleneck versus and you're like, what is happening? Why did this become a thing? And they get more views than even your podcast. Well, that these big verbs to be like, jessleneck, a visceral, it's just true. Just true. It's true. Yeah. It used to, and the podcasting used to be like, no one's listening to this. Let's just talk. Yeah. And then that kind of changed. And now that you have bring the cameras into it, I think it's almost like going from like silent film to talkies. Yeah. That the ugly people are going to get fucking bounced out of this thing. Like we're lucky. But some of these people are in trouble. And I think a lot of guys who blew up during the pod during the COVID era of podcasting who really were making money are so sick of it. Like we'd love to quit, but can't. And I think you're going to see some people like that. I said, they can't comment on this. There's a couple of people I would love to jump in on that point and be like, like blank, but I'm not going to. I've been on a couple of years. You know there. Yes. Where it's like, you're running out the string. You've already sold the advertising. And you want to be doing anything else. But you are. Autopilot with vacant eyes. Yeah. It's like someone who's stuck on like a TV deal and they want to do movies, but they got to keep showing up for this. It's like Jason Segal and year nine of how I met my mother just being like, yeah, just get me out of this. So it'll be interesting to see. I mean, I just think technology is changing so much that podcasting has become so much more high tech. My last podcast, when I walked into these studios and you showed me around in the beginning of the negotiation, I couldn't fucking believe it. I felt like going from like basic cable to NBC, right? It was really just like, oh my God, like, you have good, like, you look at the stuff we did in 2020 and I always joke about this. But it honestly looks like we're in like a fucking bunker in Iraq. And that was like, look, the camera is like pointing up. It's just pointing up at my chin, like through your nose and you can't. It's fuzzy. Yeah. And I think what eventually people realize is, hey, it's not that hard. The equipment's also better now. It's so much better. It's not that hard to actually make this stuff nice. No. I think with you with the L.A. piece of this, even though I know a lot of the book people aren't here, I do think if we can build this pod up to a certain level, they're going to fly out the same way they would fly out to do a Kimmel show. Like the book companies will send them out to be on the show. Oh, absolutely. I think once we get going, I think the fact that I, if I announce a book for the book club, it sells out everywhere. I think it's a good sign. And when I start doing newer books, people are going to be like, but guys just don't buy books. And if I can get guys to buy books, they will do anything. It's like when Passion of the Christ came out and became this huge movie is because people who didn't go to the movies went to go see that movie. Right. And if I can get people who do not buy books and do not read the buy books and read, then I think it would, I think it'll, it'll really change the industry. So 250 page limit for the most part. For now, next year, I'll probably, I'll go 350 because people are getting better at it. But I'm picking books that are easy reads. I'm not getting anything. It's too tough. I may have some more time. And again, people don't have to finish the book or read it. It's on, it's on YouTube or wherever the spotifies. So you can finish the book later and jump in. Within the weekly show, we'll be talking to authors about everything, you know, all kinds of different stuff, pop culture. I mean, this story, I know it's too late, but like, you know, I knew this was going to be happening. Yeah. And that story about the guy from the prices right on the airplane, looking at a child porn message board. I was so fascinated by that story. I'm so mad. I'm not on the air right now to discuss this because that's, that is a, you should have brought a book on the plane situation, for sure, that I would that, I think, I think it's always like that. How flavor-in that it have to be that multiple passengers noticed it. Like, he was, he was the opposite of discrete. It was like, he was holding the laptop up and he was wearing a, the prices right jacket, which is incredible, incredible to me that I'm like, I was so mad. I couldn't discuss that story, that those things, I, now I'm like, noticing all these things. So now you have this little extra, little piece from the pod, I can't wait to get some like pretentious author on the show and ask them about the guy from the price is right, looking at a child porn on the airplane. Like, it's going to be, it's going to be fun. What was that conversation with the stewardess like, too, like, hey, three A. I'm sure it's like, three B. I'm sure it's like kicking someone out of a comic club with that like, we were just laughing, you know, like, yeah. That was looking at child porn, not bothering anybody, you know, he was like, I'm doing research. That's always a good one. I love when they said, I can't, the guy, what are you researching? The guy from the who who got off was a Pete Townsend, Pete Townsend, that was like I'm researching a book. And everyone's like, that book never came out. Yeah. You think you got to write that book then you committed to finishing that book that he never, he never did. He got off. He got off scot free. Yeah. There's weird shit that's going to happen every week trying to imagine you with some fiction author. Be like, yo, what about that price is right? Yeah. I mean, that might be a segment we just do every time. We'll get it sponsored, we'll get it sponsored by the price is right and, uh, and do it every week. Uh, well, I'm looking forward to this. I can't wait to come on. I'm going to really try to figure out. Uh, we'll find out the right book for you. And I would love to have you on. The one I was thinking was this Will Chamberlain autobiography that he wrote in the mid seventies. Really claims a hundred thousand women or whatever. No, it's not that one. It's the earlier one. It's about his life on the road and how he's misunderstood and it's got weird tidbits about him getting blown by stewardesses and first class and it's kind of amazing and he's mad at everybody. It's like your classic, I'm misunderstood. I'm better than you thought I was, but it's like pretty revealing. I'm into it. About seventies celebrities, but that was one I thought you might like, it might be too long. I love. The sports books I've ever read was like about three bricks shy of a load. Yeah, right. I'm junior. Yeah. Was like an amazing and all this behind the scenes, uh, stuff on the, that I love books like that. So you find the right book and you. All right. So that's helpful. I have a couple good ideas for this because we could do, um, the last shot by Darcy Fry. I have. I have. I have. There's like 30 great sports books. So I'll figure out a good one. I want to be challenged. I want to try to get people to get people to get the ball rolling on people reading again on guys reading again. And whatever I have to do to do that, I like, I'm much more willing to just talk about the books that I am about comedy these days. So it's, it's going to be a, uh, it's going to be a fun time. All right. So we're launching what day? September 30th. That's a Wednesday. That's the, like the book. Club will be the end of every month. And then every Wednesday will be the normal book club. But we've already got, we're a book through December. People are excited to be on this and we're going to have some fun guests, uh, starting with Rosenthal and, uh, and I'm, I'm looking forward to that one. All right. I can't believe you booked them during the NFL season. And he, I mean, he's doing. We're coming in. He's going to fill him on the cover. He's got a heart out on me. Yeah. 1030 to noon. Hard out. Like, okay. Okay. Big time. But he's doing like eight episodes a week over there. When did you become friends with him? Soft. The end of my freshman year at Tulan, and then we became best friends sophomore year. Uh, football related or other stuff. No, we were in the same fraternity. We were just in different dorms same year. And we were just the two funny guys. And then he started taking life seriously and I stayed funny. But like, we both, I think because we were both successful in what we wanted to do. Yeah. Like, we were roommates when he decided to leave LA and go try sports riding and I was fully supportive when no one else was, everyone else was like, stay in LA when you try to leave LA. everybody tries to keep you here 'cause they don't wanna think that they should leave L.A. And I was like, do what's best for you. - It is true, it ends up like it's a fun house mayor. - Yeah. - It's like if he's leaving, does that mean I should leave? - Yeah, and I was like, no, this is a great idea to go fully supported him and-- - Did you ever, I almost left L.A. moment? - No, no. I was like, because the only thing more embarrassing than telling people I was a comedian when you're a nobody, who's saying I used to do stand-up comedy. - So I was like, I'm going to ride this-- - Former stand-up comedy, if I have to. - I will never say a former. And then things just happened that weren't like an overnight success, but I would have a good show at Largo. You know, in front of that hip crowd opening for Sarah Silverman and think, I can't quit. Like I was dumb enough to think it was right around the corner for 10 years, you know. But I never thought about quitting stand-up. - But you never got sucked into the movie side though. - No, I mean, I would have had auditions, but I was terrible at them. Like stand-up ruins you as an actor. Because as an actor, you have to listen and I'm not listening to shit. I'm just waiting to see my lines. I've done some acting here and there. Somebody wrote apart for me. I'd be happy to do it. But the heartbreaker for me was Danny McBride wrote a role. He was like, I'm writing a role for you on Eastbound and Down. And Eastbound and Down, I was like, this is the greatest TV show I've ever seen in my life. And he was like, season three, we're going to have a Russian pitcher who's like my rival. Can you do a Russian accent? - Oh no. - And I was like, what do I do? And one of my actor friends was like, you always say yes. Whatever they ask you, you can write a horse, yes. And then you figure it out. And so I was like, yes, I can do a Russian accent. And then the audition comes and it became clear that I could not do a Russian accent. And they got like Baron Holtz to do it. Who was amazing, better than I ever would have been. But that was like, oh, I would have loved to have been on the show. And then I couldn't watch it after that. I couldn't watch the show anymore. And then I had auditions where they've said, that was great, can you do it faster? And I say no. - See, you would have been great and this is the end. - I could have shown up in this, this is the end. - You could have absolutely shown up. - I would have done a scene. - Cut Michael Saras head off, whatever it took. - I always wanted to play the villain. Like Craig Killborn in an old school. Yes, I want to do that. And it was one of me to play like the cute guy. - Yeah. - But I think maybe if they ever make comedy movies again, they bring me in as the villain. And I would love to do that. - Well, when you were getting all these chances, it was right after Dane Cook tried to be an actor and that didn't go well. And that was probably a cautionary tale for probably scared a whole generation of comics off. 'Cause he was in like a few rom-coms. - Oh yeah, he rom-combed it up. And then he got him an action star. - Yeah. And that was great. - That was terrifying for everyone. - Yeah. - But yeah, I never thought I'd be an action star. But I thought I'd do. - There's a documentary about him now. - Come on out the end of what I can't fucking wait. - How he lost his, he got built by his brother. His brother took all his money. - Never knew that story. - Yeah. - He brutal. - Like 20, 30 million. Yeah. And then he tried to go get it all back with a big arena tour, charging doubles, ticket prices, and didn't have the material, and then lost all his fans. Like lost everything because of that. And it's his documentary, I'm sure you did not cover it. But it's the first thing I've ever been excited to watch of Dane Cook, so I'll tell you that. Put that in the clip. - I did a, what was that show he had on HBO when he traveled in the van with other comics? - Torgasm. - Yeah, I kind of hate watch that in the mid 2000s. - Everyone hate watched it in his defense. It was supposed to be a DVD extra. And when he signed the deal with HBO, they're like, "We'll make it a TV show." But there's a part in there where he reads a letter to himself that he wrote when he was eight years old. And weeps tears, actual tears reading the letter. And I had a meeting with HBO as I'm like, blowing up, I'd done Aspen Comedy Festival. And I meet with this woman at HBO and she's like, "You're my favorite comedian, I love you." And I'll tell you why. She's like, "I saw you do a Dane Cook impression online where you made fun of him and I, she's like, I hate Dane Cook." We signed this deal with him. I argued against it. And I had to be the one to edit Torgasm. And it was the worst, like, six months of my life. And I put one scene in there that HBO fought me on, but I was like, "It has to be in there. I hate him so much. I have to put this in." And I go, "Can I guess the letter to himself?" But she's like, "Yes." It was the letter to him that I will always have fans at HBO for that. One of my passions is the guy who did on Torage being furious about the Jeremy Pippin, Adrian Griner commercial. But Pretend he wasn't mad about it. Now he's really mad about it. And now HBO had to do a cease and desist. I don't know if you've been following this. It did? No, I just saw it. I haven't seen the commercial. I believe that they would do that. I mean, Jeremy Pippin's doing stand-up now. I'm aware I follow him on Instagram. Why do you follow him on Instagram? I don't know. I don't know why I thought to find out that he's doing stand-up. It's, it's. Has any actor ever made the transition to stand-up? Not on purpose. I mean, you do it because you have nothing else. Like, Chris Katan went into stand-up. Yeah. And I lived in the same building as him, and I was just terrified he would recognize me, but he never did. And then Jeremy Pippin. But most of them, and Pippin would say he did it for a charity event and cut the bug. It's like, it's not a fucking bug, man. Yeah, this is like. You know, people want to see you. Right. But that's a meet and greet. Right. That's people who want to meet R.A. from Montorache. Well, the, the. I mean, at any time they've tried to have actors play comedians in a movie. Yeah. It's never 100% where Seth Rogen probably came the closest in funny people. I really like funny people. But I thought he was okay on stage. It was a live-down. He was good in funny people. I think the best one, from like having watched them all and done the reading. Like, there's nothing worse than the movie Lennie where Dustin Hoffman plays Lennie Bruce is brutal. It's really bad. But I think Tom Hanks and Punchline was really good. You think he was the best. I think. But unfortunately, Sally Field is bad. Sally Field was rough in that. But that was the 80s standup, though, at the time. But I've seen arguments that Tom Hanks should have won his first Oscar for Punchline. I'm going deep-died, but there was a comedian in the movie Fame. I've seen Famous Shot in Pittsburgh. I've seen Fame. I only remember the dance. And I remember the loop. I remember the chef from Mr. Rogers was in the movie. Yeah, but the guy who was the standup in fame was really, really bad standup. I believe in him. I think he's probably the bottom of the barrel for them trying to stand up in the movie. But it's so hard to do. People try to avoid it for the most part. Oh, yeah. 'Cause you can't just have that rhythm. But Hanks did a good job of it. You know what someone told me is that you see the TV show, Barry, HBO. - Hater? - Yeah, yeah. - Great show. It was originally supposed to be him trying to get in the standup comedy. And I would have, but there were like, there's too many with Louis and all these in the standup comedy now. But I would have loved to have seen that version of it. I think the version they came up with was great. But him trying to do standup comedy instead of being an actor would have been wonderful. - Do you notice like how, like Seinfeld's still doing stuff? - Mm-hmm. - And he's in shape. He's like 70 something. He's in shape. - It really cares about, and I was asking one of his friends about, like how is, like Seinfeld has, why is he doing anything? Like he's made, and he's like, he just loves writing jokes. It's like he's never gonna not love doing that. - Yeah, he likes being backstage. - Yeah. - He's been told he got 10 minutes. - I really liked his documentary. I thought the comedian documentary, I thought was excellent. - Change my life. When I say like 25 years, it's 25 years from October 16th, 2002, when I saw that movie in theaters. - Yeah. - I know the day, it was playing near me, and I went and saw it at noon, and told me how to do it. You know, just go to open mics and fail. If Jerry Seinfeld can fail over and over again, the ability hour, what's your problem? And I tell people all the time, and too bad like, with Harvey Weinstein, that movie's gone. Unless you own the DVD. - It's gone? - It's gone. - Really? - Netflix had it for a little bit when they did deal with Seinfeld and then it went away. Another Weinstein's in jail, like he'll never, it'll never stream again. You can't buy it on Apple movies. It's like, maybe it's on Roku or some shit. - Yeah. - When you have to own the Blu-ray or the DVD. But that movie is, that tells you everything you need to know. I think about stand up. - It's a great one. And then Leno is still at the Hermos of Magic Club, whatever the hell that's called. - I think it does. I see him at the improv now and again. I see him at watch events. We both end up at the same watch things, and Leno is still in the mix. Like Leno knows, he watches YouTube videos. I walked up to him, I was on your show 10 years ago. He's like, I've saw your clip yesterday. Like you're doing great. Like he's really still with it and there. He says he just goes to these small towns, where they have one theater that fits the whole town. And he just goes there. Everyone comes out. He has a great show. - He's like a hero in the town. - Then he's out. - Yeah. But he just loves performing. Which wants to do that. - Yeah. - Interesting. Everybody's hard for them to walk away. Even Letterman's told, I had him on my podcast a few months ago, but he's still doing that interview show for Netflix. - Yeah, he could go away. He doesn't want to. - No, he regrets ever leaving the late show. I mean, there's something to being important. And when you are the show, you are important. People treat you differently. People care when you get there. They send a car for you. You know, that I think when that goes away, that's tough for some people. Some people just want to be left alone. But those are usually like drug and alcohol people. But the sober people want that to feel important. - And one other person. Now, this is like one of my weird deep dive internet fascinations I did recently. Johnny Carson, he ends the show, ends the tonight show. He only has one other IMDB credit after it. And it was going on Letterman show to pretend to do a top 10 list. Like a couple of years later, he's gone. He doesn't do anything. Nobody sees him again. He's just like in Malibu playing tennis and smoking cigarettes. He wanted no part of anything. - And they'd announce that deal when he left, that he's gonna do specials once a year. No, he was a god. He's one of the only ones. And he was healthy for a while after, I know he probably won't answer. I mean, I read that book, his lawyer wrote about that. I read it too. And it's the saddest fucking thing. I mean, every page he had was his mom sounded brutal. I mean, he just, I think he had some demons. But I think he was, I think he was enjoying his drinks. He's been a big winner from the social media clip era of they'll have old Carson stuff with him and Ed from the 70s where Ed's just blitzed. And they're just openly talking about it. It's like, how is the sun TV? I know. It's just like, Ed, long lunch today is like, ah, yes. Yeah, the other one, that's the, I mean, the biggest winner has been Norm. Yes, I feel like Norm has actually, and there's a documentary coming out about him soon that I heard was great. But I think these little short clips have helped Norm. I think he's more relevant now than he's ever been. For sure. And I think a lot of it is like those clips on Conan, he didn't do a lot of specials. He did a few towards the end and he would badmouth. He'd be like, that was the word, the special would come out. And he would be like, I would tell the people, that's the word special. That's the word show, the whole tour. Yeah. But he'd sit in a couch with Conan with Letterman and just be brilliant. He was always like one of those people like the better, whoever's in the room, if they were better, he'd be better. Like because he had that, his own podcast for a while, that the clips will come out of him to be great. But if you actually watched it, it was pretty, pretty long and all over the place, pretty sprawling, but then there would be a couple of good nuggets in there. But when he would go on Conan, he would kill. Yeah. He'd give him five minutes and he was the master. He'd give him an hour and he's gonna fuck around for 55 minutes. Yeah. What was the, were you at the roast, the famous roast he did when he didn't tell jokes? No, I was pre-roast, but I knew people who were there. And they were like, he bombed. Yeah. The comics were laughing, but the audience was furious. The audience didn't know what was going on. Yeah. And then they sweetened it. It was amazing, but the comics were legitimately laughing. But a lot of those, some of those like most famous roast sets are people bombing, and then they sweetened it up. Comedy Central really did people a service by fixing up some rough sets. There were like genius, but just weren't appreciated by the audience. And that audience is drunk as fuck. I don't know how they do it on the Netflix one, but in the Comedy Central one, everyone's just got bottles of wine already on the table. And it's a four and a half hour night. I'm just throwing down the shirt and nail or whatever the fuck they put on there. I got heckled by this woman. If I get her name, she used to be married to Clint Eastwood. Sandra Locke? I don't know. I'd see a picture. She had like kind of red short hair. She was in unforgiven as like-- Frances Farmer. It may have been Frances Farmer. And she heckles the shit out of me for a John Redder joke. And I can't see her. I don't know what's happening, but she's bombed and just screaming at me for like the rest of my set, screaming. And no one does anything. And afterwards, I'm like, what happened? And people were like, oh, it was her right back there. She would like, I'm friends with John Redder. How dare you? It wasn't even like me to John Redder. Yeah. It was just like mentioning his name was brought up. Yeah. And screamed for 10 minutes while I finished my set. Even Rosanna's like, what's this bitch doing? I guess she was friends with Rosanna. And I walked past her in her restaurant like six months ago. And I wanted to stop. And be like, do you remember me? Fuck you. But she seemed like she was having a good time. I was like, I'll let it go. But yeah, those were those were the days when you could, those things could happen. Book club and a September. Just like book club September 30th, kick off on the ringer. People have been waiting for this. People have been waiting. I'm pumped together. Good to see you. Good to see you. Thanks for coming up. Thanks for having me. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Chris and Eduardo and Gahau. Thanks to Jesselnick and Zach Low as well. I'm going to be back on this feed on Thursday with an action-packed, all kinds of stuff on Thursday. I'm going to go big. I'm going to go like a 2 1/2, 3-hour pod on Thursday. Don't forget about the rewatchables with law-abiding citizen as well. And I will see you later in the week. Go over and set. 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