The Journalist vs. The Interviewer, with Adam Friedland

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out.

I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

Let's say our value premise on three.

One, two, three is justice.

Just kidding.

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How's your summer been, good?

It's good.

It's good, man.

You've been working the whole time?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just finally took a break.

I was going to say, but

you're in the midst of like prepping

your Frost Nixon.

Well, I had Frost yesterday.

Oh.

I had the millennial Congressman Frost.

Do you know him?

Maxwell Frost?

Oh, that's a real thing.

That boy, a freak.

He elected 25.

The first year you can get elected.

I just Googled him.

I recognize this person.

He's the first young bull.

Because the Democratic Party shanks any other child, like young, you know, like Zoron.

Yes.

They don't want any new talent.

They just want like, you know.

So he, he.

He wants Smeageol and whatever.

He may.

He's their precious.

And I think that he's the one that snuck that got through.

He's like progressive.

Are we on the show?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're going?

Is that okay?

I didn't know.

You did the sneak attack on me.

Yeah, I did.

Dude,

I have studio Envy right now.

Hold on.

Because you came to me first.

I did it like, voila, Pablo.

Yeah, it's a full-on theater.

You have a mid-century showroom of this is, this is the most gorgeous.

You have 27 people behind the camera.

That's right.

I feel like a multiracial rainbow coalition that we've assembled here to surround you.

Is it every single race is represented?

The United Nations.

Yeah, you have flag tests would indicate.

You have the flags everywhere.

We have a rice cooker with a soccer ball in it.

Oh, nice.

Can we restart?

This is mostly what I do.

Can we restart it?

So welcome to Pablo.

Pablo Torre finds out.

My guest today, Pablo Torre, Adam Friedland here.

We're like, we're, we're quite good friends.

We're coming out of the closet as friends today.

You did something when I left your studio.

I parted?

No.

I've been holding it in the whole time.

I don't know if you even caught this because I did, and I was like, is it embarrassing?

Are you going to be able to do that?

No, no, no.

You just said, you said on the way out.

I was in there.

You were premiering the Sarah Jessica Parker episode.

Okay, so you're like, as I said, the president of girls.

So, or like, you're like, you know, you're the number one.

You're the reluctant leader.

Yes, father of the country.

So I just want to ask you, as Your Majesty, Your Highness, Mom, what the answer is to some questions I have about girls.

Okay.

Okay.

So when they say take these fries away from me, are you supposed to physically do it or do they like, do they say they taste good?

I don't know what to do.

Yeah, fabulous.

Really, the peak.

It's a hard thing to summit.

The peak is not nice.

Well,

oh my God.

Your peak, well, your peak was the Frost Nixon

over with in LA with the

king of Boston.

That's right.

Fair.

Okay, let's start again.

Welcome to Pablo Torrey Funsound.

You told me on the way out, you're like, love you.

Oh, I say, I love you a lot.

Yeah, and I said,

it's embarrassing.

Oh, you have issues with that?

No, I just didn't know if this was, I was calibrating.

Like, is that

am I one of many people who he tells that to?

Or did I just.

Yeah, yeah, I'm a hoe.

Yeah.

No, no, no.

What's your body count on the I love you?

Oh, my God.

God, I'm Chamberlain.

Yeah.

Neville Chamberlain, not Will.

ha ha ha ha

uh no uh i it slips out yeah it slips out i i genuinely i it's only to guys great it's only to guys great i can't say you can't say it's like a platonic female friend but not anymore not anymore not in this not in this culture yeah that's right uh thanks for having me dude dude it's it's funny that you have been can we call kornheiser

I will call Tony Kornheiser at the very end of the episode.

No way.

Yes, and we'll see what happens.

We'll just see what happens.

Will he pick up?

We'll find out.

We will authentically find out.

I am not going to be able to stop thinking about it until the end of the episode.

Football is upon us.

Saturday college kickoffs.

Sundays, of course, it's the pros.

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So go ahead, treat yourself to a little luxury, and try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

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Remy Martin Cognac, Feen Champion, 14 Alcohol by Volume 40 by Remy Control, USA Incorporated, Incorporated, New York, New York, 1738.

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Please drink responsibly.

I want to convey to people that you are

the voice of the generation.

Many people will be excited that you're here.

Others, I think, should be introduced to you, maybe.

Yes.

Thank you.

I want to establish that, you know, various headlines that may have appeared in GQ and otherwise.

Not true.

I mean, there are photo spreads that indicate all of it.

Very embarrassing photos.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What was the headline?

I want to get it right.

Is he the millennial Adolf Hitler?

I believe it was.

Adam Friedland could be the millennial Jon Stewart.

Period.

Thank you.

But does he want that question mark?

That's as far as I read.

Actually, I read the first sentence or the first, the beginning of the article I read, and then I was like, I got scared.

and nauseous.

I watched my girlfriend read it.

I was like, I was like, is it a hit?

Where's the hit?

She's like, no hits so far.

And then it's long, right?

It's very, it's exhaustive.

And it's very, it is rightfully complimentary.

Oh, okay.

I would say that.

Thank you.

Your lip is quivering

in the photo spread with,

again, just a real crackling, masculine, emotional openness.

I saw those.

They made me take the picture on the floor, like the sexy one.

I was like, can you not use it?

And they use it as the main one.

I stopped the floor part.

I was like, I'm not can we not do this and then they used it the main one yeah they're like can get that elbow crooked at 45 degrees I got basically every comedian's group chat just I I instantly knew I was like everyone's killing me right now they had people text me they were like this is terrible you look I hate this I had a photo taken in the studio right over there in front of that vortex for New York magazine and they had me do a pose at the very end.

I was like, can you just like hold your

chin in your hand?

And I was like,

they're not going to use this.

And they use it.

And then I look like, you know, Professor Sexy.

So one of the sexiest people.

Filipino, Dr.

Evil.

Yeah.

Pinoy Evil.

Yeah.

You are genuinely beyond being the host of Come Town, which is a show that I can't even begin to explain here.

It was like a comedy podcast.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nick and stuff.

Super, super influential.

And this is very sincere.

A super influential, wildly successful, generationally

identifying.

unscripted improvisational podcast with you and two friends.

Yeah, it was like

we just acted like children for an hour.

Yeah.

It was a comedy podcast that we did for a while.

And I'd never, we didn't listen, I'd never listened to it at the time.

And on YouTube, they're like fan-generated clip comps.

And I've listened to it since.

And I was like, it was so funny.

We thought it was terrible.

at the time.

We're like, that sucked.

But

yeah, it was so funny.

I guess.

Yeah.

Turns out.

out, yeah, turns out they were the fan, the fan clip accounts were onto something.

I think the fan cams, the Adam fan cams were onto something.

We had a no-media policy that Nick instituted, quite, quite intelligently.

I didn't appreciate this, and well, also, the name prohibited us from like, I think we were like said, like a podcast whose name we can't write in in this fine publication.

And

we, I, I guess that's how the show grew, right?

So, because, like, because of the fans were making these like compilations.

We had no idea at the time.

It was cool.

It's the best thing.

It's organic.

Yeah, yeah.

A street team, if you will.

Yes.

A volunteer army.

Yes.

A volunteer army of ugly men.

Yes.

Yeah.

Your proud boys were just.

Come on, dude.

Come on.

No, it was hot, six-pack guys.

It was sexy.

Also, like, like our staff, a multiracial coalition of very proud boys.

Yeah, yeah.

But I say all that to say that the show that you do now that I visited,

it's it's not that.

And it is something that I love.

Thanks, bro.

And part of what I love about it genuinely is the sincerity of effort that I witnessed that is quite real.

Yeah.

You're putting work into this and it's not, let me sit down and just see what happens.

It's like, no, you're, you're prepping and you're structuring and you're producing.

Yeah, it was like, I think it was the first time I tried in my life.

35 I decided to try.

Well, it was the first time I tried since the L sat.

Oh, God.

You told me you were going to tell me.

Oh, what is it?

That's right.

What was yours?

This is an exclusive.

I've never said this.

Yeah, what was your

first time I got the LSAT?

You went to heart.

No.

So I took it.

So the story, the legend.

I took three.

You took three?

Yeah.

I took two.

Three.

But the second time I thought I,

my,

my second cousin is a psychiatrist, so I told my parents I needed

Vivance,

which is like the most intense ADD medication.

You were like, it's going to make

it work.

And

it turns out

being on drugs, that my score was not enhanced.

So, yeah.

Okay, one, two, three.

161.

Oh, wow.

161.

That's the one.

The final minute of the Ivy League.

No, no, no, the first time.

Oh, yeah.

161.

161.

Okay.

And the final time.

Was that, wait, did you say your score the second time?

No, the second time is a wash.

What does that mean?

Because I was on drugs.

Oh, okay.

I was drunk.

I was drunk.

That season.

Yes.

Okay.

I was on PED.

I thought it was PEDs, but it was.

You're getting nervous, Gen.

I'm getting the same nervous.

I know.

This is real.

I got the dinosaur game my third time.

It fed my ass.

I would have been the president of the United States if it wasn't for the dinosaur game.

No one knows what we're talking about.

If you don't know, so I recently learned that on the LSAT, the most, the thing that I consider, we both considered clearly the most like fearsome section is logic games.

I was no, once you figure out the system, you know, they took them off for the snowflakes.

That's what I was about to say.

The snowflakes.

They're gone now.

I can't believe it.

That's, I mean, it's just.

We should go to law school.

We should retroactively.

We should quit.

Retroactively, we should get our stats adjusted.

We should leave our women and start a personal injury law firm.

Extensive plastic surgery, start over in a new town.

Yeah.

Pose for photos at very particular angles.

Yes.

And put them on billboards.

I think we just wrote a movie.

I got a 161 the first time.

Okay, same.

And then I really?

Literally, same.

Oh, my God.

Okay.

This is getting, this is very relatable.

So you know what you beat?

You beat me or you didn't beat me last time?

Yeah, I got a 171 the second time.

Whatever, dude.

So, so you think you're better than me?

I didn't need that to know.

Did you apply?

Did you apply?

No, no, no, no, no.

I never did.

Oh, I did.

I deferred twice to do, and I told my parents I wanted to explore my stand-up comedy?

Oh man, it was really embarrassing.

I came out of the closet as a clown to my parents.

And my father said he was going to sue me.

And I said, that's not how the courts work.

He's like, you promised us you'd be a lawyer.

And yeah, so then.

And then I told my parents this is what God does send me on.

It's oh, God, it's nauseating to remember that.

I think I was too lazy to do law school.

So I started doing stand-up comedy.

It's what a stupid idea.

what is what a

millennial like what to tell my parents i want to be a i'm not even good at stand-up comedy i told my parents i wanted to be a sports writer that's a real job i don't think it's that much more real than

clown i'm so jealous of that job no because there's actually you get you get paid by a company that's true i was getting drink tickets for 10 years yeah and working as a paralegal my real passion anyway to go back to what we were saying initially which which was um yeah we we kind of we changed the show and uh nick it was nick mullins credit to him like this how everything happened like it would start as a joke because i was the least popular i was the schmuck of come town and uh we're like what if we made the least popular guy in come town into like a public intellectual dick cavity esque um

uh talk show host And then it kind of became a real thing.

I kind of started to enjoy doing interviews.

And now we're three years in.

And yeah, now the show's, you know.

And now you're like really good friends with Chris Cuomo.

I think Joe's got it.

Really?

Yeah, he's sick.

Are you going to vote for Joe Biden?

I think.

When you say he's sick, you mean that he's dying?

No, I think he's awesome.

Oh.

He's got a, he has a Corvette and stuff.

I don't know.

We'll see.

Yeah, I think, I don't know.

I love the dynamic.

Genuinely.

Yeah, well, I mean,

yeah, I did his show on News Nation.

You have been.

So I was on a panel with Andrew Yang, and I can just tell that I don't think me and Andrew Yang liked each other.

I did not get the sense that you guys were vibing.

Well, because they were telling me what anti-that the campus protests are killing, that they're killing people at Columbia or something.

It was insane.

This isn't just about anti-Semitism.

It is about the growth of fundamentalism in America.

When you have kids who are openly pro-Hamas, It's not just anti-Semitism.

And you guys are going to have to vote and donate in a different way and not forget who was for you and who wasn't.

You got to this moment.

You got to stop with the kids.

As the Jew on the pen, Andrew, you're Jewish or no?

No, I'm Jewaging.

I'll say this right now.

I'm Jewaging.

We're acting as if kids are protesting at a college and it's the first time ever.

No.

We gave $25 billion to a war and kids are protesting it.

It's not pro-Hamas.

It's the most noble thing in the world.

Some of them are voting.

No, it's not.

They're kids.

And there is an anti-and it was violent on some of these.

Okay, listen, guys.

People are being attacked and killed.

I mean,

this has gotten very, very hard.

And it's hateful.

There's nothing wrong with being against what's happening in Gaza.

But I'm just telling you, I've never seen Americans support terrorists.

Don't think that 18-year-old

kids are the problem right now.

Guys, I got a 169 on the LC.

I got a 169 Yang.

Okay, I got a 169, Yang.

How much money does that get me every year?

No.

So we started this talk show, and now I do interviews, and it's been really fun.

And tomorrow's a big one.

We're not going to say what it is.

I was going to say, well, that's the Nixon part of the Frost Nixon.

He's my favorite president.

In terms of the writing, the writing on Nixon is the best.

The writing about.

The screenwriting of that character is...

He's an incredible guy.

Do you know about,

he's a guy that just lost his whole life.

And everyone's like, oh, you're Richard Nixon.

He beat Kennedy.

And then America was like, we'd rather have a papist, we'd rather let a papist with a criminal, like steal an election than Richard Nixon.

Yeah, he was like, he looked ugly at that debate.

You think JFK benefited from pretty privilege?

No, I think he benefited from dead people in Illinois voting for him, probably.

Okay, but here's the best, one of the best Nixons I'll give you right now.

When he liked Pat,

who became his wife, and he was like,

do you want to go out with me?

And she was like, no, like, you, you're Richard Nixon.

And he was like, well, can I chaperone you on dates with other guys?

And he did it for 18 months.

Richard Nixon.

That's great writing.

Cucked himself.

Well, no, he got to.

To win her heart.

He broke her.

I mean, she broke.

Yeah.

She.

Eventually was like, I'll be with Richard Nixon, I guess.

But yeah, he was, he's, I think.

I visited.

I did.

I was at a wedding in, in California, and it was within driving distance of the presidential.

Did you go?

Yes.

Yeah, we love Nixon.

I got a shirt of him shaking Elvis' hand.

That one.

That one, Elvis was on fat Elvis.

Yeah.

The anti-drug thing, right?

I believe that's that must be why Elvis was there.

Yeah, and he was on a ton of like speed at the time and fat somehow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He has the, I mean, he has.

Which is such a funny idea is that like the kids are going to like Elvis to tell them not to do drugs.

This is exactly why he was there.

So King of Rock and Roll visited the White House in 1970 with one goal.

This is the subhet of an article, to have Nixon grant him a federal NARC badge.

Which is,

that's the movie.

That's a Shaquille O'Neal move.

Yeah.

Like how Shaq was deputized by Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Where's Arpaio at the?

Oh, he's dead.

I think he died.

Sheriff Joe.

We're going to find it.

Mariposa.

We're just hanging out right now.

Googling.

This is how we talk to each other.

We change the subject every two sentences.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio is 93 years old and thriving.

Good for him.

You guys are going to enjoy Pablo and I changing the subject 17 times, saying, you remember this guy?

Do you remember Mookie Blaylock?

Do you remember?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Olerude.

This will cut down.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

We're definitely going to exhaustively

trim this.

So, what's up?

How you doing?

Can we call Cornheus?

Do you consider yourself a journalist now?

I don't know.

What is it?

You know the, you didn't go to J school?

No.

What are like the rules of it?

Well, that's part of the problem.

Have I broken any of the rules?

I don't know.

But I think part of the issue is that there is no good answer that's

widely known to that question.

Like, what does it take?

There are certainly the Columbia Journalism School has a philosophy on it.

Various other august institutions have journalism programs.

So there's no like DSM of like the rules.

Yeah, there's no like there's 700-page text that tells you whether you're clinically a journalist.

So, so no one, I mean, but there are journalistic ethics, right?

Yes, yes.

Right, yeah.

I mean, you've worked for news organizations like

ESPN before.

Sports Illustrated is where I started.

That's like a real publication, right?

And they, who taught you the rules then?

Who's your

funny thing is that like, so my first job, the job that I chose yeah instead of going to apply to law school was as a fact checker

and that was not like a seminar it was just like a thing you started doing like you're truly the lowest rung of a newsroom ladder that's the that's like the the mail room yes except in this case you saw you saw you're like spostra you were like in the tape you were doing the tape i was grinding yeah you were grinding and you worked your way up and you had to cross off every single word in an article to make sure it was true and that really did like convey the foremost i think principle of of whatever journalism should be defined as, which is

you have to try and be as accurate as possible.

Yeah.

I think that's probably task number one.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

But like journalism to you, how would you define it actually?

I don't want to just give you my takes.

I mean, when I have like an interview that's more substantive, I have like a friend of mine who is a journalist who, I mean, we do research for the interviews.

And so he

like works on the like a research packet for me.

And we like talk about, I don't know, I, I don't really, how would I define it?

The newspaper?

I don't know.

Is that what journalism?

I googled it when I first started doing interviews.

I went on Wikipedia for journalism because I didn't know how to do interviews.

And I watched a bunch of different, um,

like, I was like, who's good at interviews?

And I watched Rogan.

And what he does is like, he's like, well, he agrees.

Like he, he's very exuberant and he like

and easily impressionable maybe.

I don't know.

I'm trying to say it in a nice way.

He's a colleague.

He's a friend.

But like he'll have like Bernie and he'll be like, that's right.

Joe Rogan is a great listener.

I'll say that.

He's a great active listener.

Well, when a guest is on the show, they feel like they're crushing.

Yes.

Right?

So he'll have Bernie and then he'll have like, I don't know, like a Holocaust revisionist and he'll be like, that's trippy.

And then because you feel like you're crushing, take it out.

He's a friend.

He's a good, whatever.

And because

people feel like they're being convincing, he can get more out of them.

I think that part of what Rogan is there, though, is a really good interviewer.

But I think part of the definition of journalism is that that's not exactly the same thing.

I don't really know what anything is anymore.

It's a schizophrenic world and comedians are now public intellectuals.

All I know is this, I really want to be careful not to speak from a position of authority like I hear a lot.

There are a lot of people nowadays that think that they that aren't wolf blitzer that have podcasts that uh will say things like I had a congressman Ro Khanna on and that's why I ask I can't be like

I can't ask him like what do you think about HR 270 like I'm I'm not a

I don't know like I'm an idiot I'm a like I'm a comedian like uh you know I'm not Ezra Klein so like I'm not but I can't ask

but I can ask someone uh like

you like, no one likes the government.

Why do you want to be in the government?

Like that, I feel like.

Asking really good questions, which I think you do.

Yeah.

And I think you're really good, frankly, with people who like seem to regard you as an alien of some kind, especially, and or people that you seem to not respect a lot.

I'm not, I'm trying to do genres of guests from my point of view that you have.

Well, I think what it is, is this, is like, so like when I watched Rogan, I was like, can I emulate that, like, that, and no, I can't really emulate that because my voice is annoying and jewish and like so what i do is what like what's comes natural to me is that i can just self-deprecate and i can be like listen like you're sitting next to a guy who pooped his pants on a podcast once and so like that is a factual yeah i'm a schmuck like so like so america doesn't people don't like know-it-alls right it's the same reason why like federman had a like had a stroke and like was struggling through a debate but dr oz was such a was so smug that they're like we're gonna vote for the guy that like was having trouble talking right so during the pennsylvania senate run yeah um john fetterman yeah john fetterman um and uh the guy that wears the hoodie to congress which is come on we can all agree put on a shirt you know like i feel about john fetterman the way i feel about nba coaches honestly where it's like you could dress up John,

but at least they're wearing like golf, like business, like Friday business casual.

At least they're wearing like like yeah they're wearing exactly so like what i can do is like

is if a guest disarms if i'm like you know like just you know like uh and if i can like make them relaxed then you know if they if they're self-aware enough to realize i don't want to come across as a know-it-all schmuck i'd rather you know then they'll kind of drop their guard and i can like you know then i can kind of talk to them in a more natural way yes and i don't think people are used to talking to someone like as as unremarkable and mediocre as me.

So like them trying to make sense of it, I think is kind of an advantage that I have because I'm so I'm just

like, you know how AI is going to take all of the jobs.

Like I don't think that they can do something that's just so

like just so nothing.

I don't think like a computer could emulate something so stupid and unremarkable, right?

I think that's my advantage in life.

I think I'm always always going to have a job doing this.

Do you think Chris Cuomo is going to listen to this and be like,

he was working me the whole time?

No, we got along, I thought.

But that's that example, by the way, isn't it?

It is like Jock nerd.

That was the dynamic immediately established.

I was dunking.

I think that he was the nerd.

Well, but that's, that's, that was the joy of it, was that it got to, it got to be

Chris Cuomo having to like reckon with the fact that you

also

knew what you were doing and he started to play along.

I know ball.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely.

I know sports.

So

that's kind of, I think, I think when you're doing interviews, you have to kind of like, it's like when you're starting stand-up, you have to like look at the thing that's, when you're starting stand-up, you're like, what is fun?

Like, what makes my friends laugh?

Right.

So when I was doing interviews, I was like, what's the thing about me that's like makes people feel comfortable?

So this gets me back to like the definition of journalism to me, because I think.

Asking really good questions,

asking them charismatically or strategically, which we've been describing, is not quite journalism.

But the thing you just said about who am I doing this for?

I think journalism has a defined answer.

Yeah.

And that answer is, and I'm going to break out the scare quotes, the public interest.

Like that's who I'm trying to serve.

That's the real distinction to me.

There are like substantive cores of each one of them that I'm trying to get to, but I have to get to it in my way.

Which is, by the way, and I, I am a subscriber and an imitator and somebody who tries to do the same thing.

It needs to be stupid to get smart.

I believe that as well, like fundamentally.

If you

like, I had this like internet debate guy, Destiny, on the show.

Oh, I know.

And I know,

I didn't really know who he was before I started doing the research, but I saw that everyone who was interfacing with him online, I didn't know that it was a thing that you could be famous for online, which is having an argument, right?

What feels like satisfying for you while you're doing one?

I don't want to step on any toes and open the most

divisive issue ever for a prior guest, but I did a lot of preparation for the Finkelstein interview.

People said I cooked him way harder than you.

I don't think that ever, I don't think we ever debated anything about it.

Not on your debate.

I didn't watch a 17-hour debate on Lex Friedman about Israel where some goy is popping off about my shit.

I'm.

So everyone,

he's like a guy that can read a ton and get all the stats, right?

And you're not going to get more stats than him.

So what I realized was like, you got to come to someone like that.

Everyone's trying to get more stats and more documents than him, and he's going to have more than you.

So you have to come to him with no documents and no stats.

And that's like kind of what, like, if I'm approaching someone and saying, like, you know, you're wrong, or like, I know and you don't know, then it's going to be adversarial.

I did high school debate.

Destiny is a familiar character.

Lincoln Douglas?

Yeah.

We're the brother.

We're like the same

guy.

We're the same guy.

Let's say our value premise on three: one, One, two, three.

Justice.

Just kidding.

But the thing about Destiny, which I enjoyed in your interview of him, was that you did not try to high school debate him.

And I think part of what you do really well, which I admire, is that you find conflict, verbal rhetorical tension.

while not doing it in the way that a high school debater would.

You check facts insofar as I can tell, but that's important.

I don't want to be a journalist.

I just think that people just don't care anymore.

People just aren't reading it.

They're probably on Twitter looking at people getting killed and like, well, you could, Twitter is Sodom and Gomorrah these days.

It's so scary.

I can't look at it.

Did you see that like that, that stat that like a super majority of accounts on Twitter are

just bots at this point?

Really?

Yeah.

Really?

So everyone likes Jewish people still?

Because I was getting nervous there for a second

but I think your point is is a fair one also that like the the reality of how we get news and

probably more people are like you know Rogan's probably getting 10 times more people than Anderson Cooper every day but as a sports fan to bring it back to the guy that was the peak of my career uh-huh I also think that like modern journalism like what Bill Simmons did in sports is a really good way forward, actually.

We should disclose sports is doing good, you're saying.

I think that identifying your fandom and not pretending like you're this omniscient voice from nowhere.

Oh, being a home.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, like just disclose it.

It's okay.

I respect that about him as a Laker fan, even.

And that's, by the way, so our friendship really did escalate when I'm like, all right, Adam loves

to phone call people.

People get really annoyed by it.

But yeah, I'm a phone call guy.

So is Tony Kornheiser, by the way, like, just refuses to have the deposition records, the discovery refuses that.

But the point being that, like,

you,

as unapologetic Laker fan,

calling me and talking for an hour about your fandom, I'm like,

you still can be somebody who writes or covers sports as a fan.

You just got to disclose that part.

Sure.

And that's okay.

But the NBA media is just all Boston.

yeah, right.

The Boston, you know, the group friends are friends

and Andrew Quoelle at Cookie.

Those people, those people, the Boston media muffins,

the little green hand.

Yes, I'm out of the closet as a Laker fan, and people just be aware of that.

Um, but you know, it doesn't feel you're unhinged.

I need him, I need him.

It doesn't feel the same with him as it felt with my

when the Lakers won in the bubble.

I like thought 30 seconds later, I'm like, it's different.

He's never going to be our, he's never going to be my guy.

Him.

I don't know.

I'm a Kobe fan.

And you know what kids do nowadays?

They're player fans.

Oh, this is the biggest problem for the NBA as a

business.

Really?

Yeah, is that kids don't watch games?

They follow players.

Does it make more sense, though?

I think it's kind of, that makes more sense, right?

By the way, that's exactly what's happening in media.

It's like, I'm not like a Genie Bus fan, right?

I'm not like a writ or like an outfit.

Now a Mark Walter, your new owner.

Yeah, we're going to do great things.

Yeah.

We're going to do some huge things.

He's also a friend.

But truly, like that whole thing, though, of like young people would rather consume an individual's stuff, Joe Rogan, instead of fill-in-the-blank institution.

Yeah.

So too is it in sports fandom, where I'm not.

paying attention so much to the team.

I'm paying attention to my favorite guy, whoever my favorite individual creator is.

That's sweet.

Yeah.

you know that's how that's how kids are apparently demographically trending yeah it's it's what's interesting is that um i think that we didn't know who guys were like prior to to like social media and stuff right like we didn't we thought like mj hung out with bugs bunny every day we thought like we didn't know that he was like um

sociopath he had hate in his gut you know we just thought he was like just a car like a nice guy because he was so insulated by nike and by the nba And David CERN, The Last Dance is another good case study in like is this journalism.

So, my friend Jason Hare directed it.

He does not identify as a journalist, but what he got Michael Jordan to say, in which he's crying, articulating his code of honor.

I don't want to do this.

I'm only doing it because

it is who I am.

That's how I played the game.

That was my mentality.

If you don't want to play that way,

don't play that way.

Break.

That's also like supreme perfect interviewing to get that part.

Not the goat.

Not your goat.

Not my goat.

But you're a good person.

What I'm saying is this is like, I feel really bad.

Well, like the distance between it's, I hate this word, like, but the creator and then the consumer is blurred.

Like,

there's a production and

there's a really good

interview with David Bowie, like in the 1990s, where he like predicts the internet, right?

Where he's like, the distance between the Beatles and Elvis and then the fans was just light years, right?

And what the computer is going to do is it's going to blur it.

I think we're actually on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying.

It's just a tool though, isn't it?

No, it's not.

No.

No, it's an alien life form.

What do you think, I mean, when you think then about the...

Is there life on Mars?

Yes, it's just landed here.

But it's simply a different delivery system there.

You're arguing about something more profound.

Oh, yeah, I'm talking about the actual context and the state of content is going to be so different to anything that we can really envisage at the moment, where the interplay between the user and the provider will be so in sympathico,

it's going to crush our ideas of what mediums are all about.

So now everyone gets mad at LeBron for

every single day for trying to do something and then stepping, like sideshow Bob, stepping on a rake.

But

I feel like now...

I have empathy for that.

part of his life.

I mean, like...

When he liked perfect booties on Instagram and it got caught and screenshot.

I have empathy for the fact that like he's kind of the beta tester of this

different dude.

He's our generation.

LeBron is the first millennial Jon Stewart Michael Jordan generation

and because he's the main guy like Steph can go to

to like what's that guy that concert Benson Boone concert

and like if LeBron wore that hat at a Benson

at a Benson Boone concert LeBron would have gotten killed.

What I'm fascinated by is like

there are all these, like, you know, you could read an infinite stream of opinions about you, right?

Like, there were three newspapers MJ could read, and, you know, he'd have the journalist killed, and then they, you know, whatever.

But these guys, like,

what I've come to understand is that these guys, that all of them are re like, LeBron does consume the LeBum accounts, even if he's not burner.

Okay, so this is this, so this is where That drives me insane.

What I should reveal to our audience is that you

don't get me in trouble now, too.

No, but you're the number one person who persuaded me to look into

did LeBron go to the Kobe Bryan Memorial?

I told my dad that, and he's like, you just ruined the playoff run.

He's like, the playoffs are about to start.

He's like, why are you ruining the season?

You convinced this podcaster that

it was people to establish that he never showed up okay this is an interesting thing that i'd love but you were the person who are like i you should look into this and i did and you were correct but let's be christian for a second okay the two of us are god-fearing christian men right

um

we never saw michael be nice or like be like uh uh tender ever right he was at his hall of fame speech drunk talking about byron russell and he's like if he wants to come see me it's like the

no one remembers Byron Russell except for

us.

Ryan.

The first.

Oh, was it by

Bowie always?

But it's everybody.

I know.

Everybody's.

How do you, is this

Brian Brown?

Baron scene?

Okay, anyway.

Can you imagine?

B-R-Y-O-N.

Can you imagine, like, the first time we ever see MJ,

like,

and it was a beautiful, it was one of the most beautiful moments ever.

He said, there was this kid, and he bothered me and he annoyed me.

And he used to call me in the middle of the night.

And

I was like, this fing guy.

And I realized

he's like a little brother.

And he was in pain about Kobe.

At the memorial.

And he's like, I love this person.

And if we accept the premise that...

MJ won't even speak, according to your former colleague, Stephen A.

Smith, that MJ won't even acknowledge LeBron's existence.

Can you imagine how painful he wore 23 growing up?

Can you imagine watching Michael who ignores you and thinks you suck and like and has been torturing you probably through the media for the last 20 years

about and somehow the goat debate is a thing when we see a guy who's 40 and 20, what was he, 24, 8, and 8 last year?

At 40.

Can you imagine how terrible that would have been for LeBron?

The stakes of that memorial service could not have been more emotionally profound.

Yeah.

Like that all is real.

Like the Shakespearean whole, like, there's everybody, like, Michael Jordan is, in the way that Bill Belichick has been, like, America's emotionally unforgiving dad.

But he was nice to Kobe.

But he then reveals.

after Kobe is not around to hear it, that he had always had this tender spot for this guy who was like trying to do Michael Jordan.

You're actually tearing up.

It makes me want to cry.

This is, again, I love the utter sincerity around your fandom.

You know, the,

do you know the Michael Jackson story?

What is, what is the, you don't know the Michael Jackson story?

About Kobe?

About Kobe?

So Kobe studied the greats, right?

It was like in his office, it was like Steve Jobs.

Oh, God.

Yeah.

It was corny sometimes the way he'd talk about it.

But like, it'd be cool because every summer he'd come back and he'd like go to Houston for a a summer and then have the dream shake.

He'd like add a new weapon every summer.

I love, I love that.

Yeah, I love that.

I love that.

We love that.

Um,

bald-headed Kobe, Slam Dunk Champion rookie, was a babe, he was a 17, right?

And uh, on that first offseason, he's like, I need to get a man's body, right?

So he was in Gold's gym and he's lifting weights in Marina Del Rey, California.

And he gets a call and he picks up and he goes, Kobe, it's Michael.

And he's like, this is a, this is a prank.

And he hangs up.

And

the person calls back.

He's like, Kobe, it's Michael.

I want you to come to Neverland.

And he goes out to Santa Barbara.

Tell me if I'm

so far.

This is accurate.

Fact check.

It was a gold gem.

He was, how did I get that right?

Okay.

He was at Planet Fitness.

And anyway, he goes out to Santa Barbara to Neverland.

And Michael, apparently, they have this conversation.

Michael's like, listen, I see you you and you're like me.

And people are going to heap you with praise.

People are going to give you everything and tell you you're incredible.

This is a paraphrase, but the quote from the- Am I close?

No, it is.

This is Kobe recalling how inside the French Normandy residence, otherwise known as Neverland, a 2,700-acre cornucopia of childlike delights, according to this ESPN the magazine.

Yeah, it's great.

Only good things happen there.

The two men share a meal of marinated chicken and organic vegetables.

He told me, quote, this is what you love.

This is your obsession, Brian recalls.

He said, I know what it's like to be different.

Embrace it.

Yeah, Michael's like, they're going to give you everything and they're going to take it away.

And

everyone who.

Everyone's going to love you.

And then all of a sudden, everyone's going to hate you.

This is where this is going to be.

And you cannot stop.

This is where Michael shows him the smooth.

He shows him like and he gives him a race.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So he shows him footage of Kobe had never heard of Grace Kelly Fred Astera Ginger Rogers before this private screening by Michael Jackson, in which he explains the inspiration for smooth criminal, by the way.

But the book, do you remember the book?

Jonathan Livingston Siegel.

It's a book about a bird who wants to fly higher than any other bird.

A novella about an outcast bird who's unwilling to conform.

And he said, we are that bird.

And when everyone hates you you cannot stop being great so again like i'm laughing because this is a mad lib but it's also you're

and it is it is what happened in kobe's career where like he emotionally this is exactly right he went evil kobe after shaq basically he got blamed for the breakup of that team and it wasn't his fault it was the much more the buses right They say that Kobe broke up that team and then Shaq is at a club, wins it, basically rides D-Wade's coattails to a chip.

And then he's at a club and he's saying, tell me how my ass tastes.

It's about P-I-G-A-K-A, Big Shaq.

Now that's the difference between first and last play.

Kobe,

tell me how my ass tastes.

And everyone's laughing at Kobe.

That is a great clip.

That's not that great.

Well, let's start.

I love Sheriff Shaquille O'Neal rapping.

Okay.

You're going to play the Detroit Pistons, and then the referees are not going to call a single foul against you guys.

Oh, God.

That's serious.

You want to hear really funny?

He got beaten by

Ben Wallace?

By a six-foot-two-center.

He played big, though.

I mean, he was amazing.

He played big.

My dad,

I think like four minutes before we were about to lose those finals,

my dad said, he stood up and he goes, We never go on family walks.

And

he's like,

and he's like, put your shoes on, everyone.

And me, my sister, my mom went on a walk with my dad where he was like five feet ahead of us, like walking as fast as he could because he was so mad.

Just working out

with rage.

And so,

but anyway, yeah, apparently Michael was like,

do not ever stop trying to like be with your obsession.

Do not ever stop like trying to be as great as you could possibly be.

Go four for 28 every single night in your last game, and then you will take 1 million field goal attempts.

That is the most scores 60.

Oh, shut up.

That is the most beautiful sports memory of my entire lifetime.

I cried.

I legitimately called my father, and we were both crying.

Because, do you remember that last season?

I watched that game.

That whole season was

terrible.

It was a very

nauseating retirement farewell tour.

Well, no, it was so engineered by the league.

Every stadium that was like, like, you know, everyone acted like they were Kobe fans.

Exactly.

That's what was

so annoying about it.

Was like, it was a retired video.

Video tribute.

Every stadium did a video tribute and we were saying goodbye to him and he was done.

His legs, his knees were gone.

He sucked.

And like we were seeing him, he had that double-digit like points streak that got, he was scoring like six, you know, on 28 attempts or something.

Like, it was heartbreaking.

It was like, why are you doing this?

It's like nauseating.

And

we got him back one night.

We got,

it was, it's God.

Theatrically

it was perfect.

No sport is, I think, narratively, theatrically more interesting on an individual level because, again, it's like there's no better seat in sports, by the way, than being on the court for a basketball game.

It's like being on stage during a play.

Yeah, yeah.

And so you see the faces, you see the tears, you hear everything.

Like it is theater.

And so the NBA has these individualized, like virtuoso performances.

And the problem is that the kids today, the kids today, like they these goddamn three-pointers.

But no, but they individualized that phenomenon to the exclusion of actual games relative to us, relative to our parents, certainly.

And that's like the gift became the curse.

But the thing that we're talking about, I think the kids can understand because the beautiful moments are a 17-win team like winning that one game or Michael Jordan, like

this guy that we've never seen be like

this beautiful moment in this beautiful speech or kd talking to his mom i mean it's just like you have to real mvp that i mean that's one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen when you didn't eat you made sure we ate you went to sleep hungry

you sacrificed for us

you the real mvp

Because it's like you create a narrative and we love like to follow these people's careers and like human human and follow these stories right and that's part of the reason why tiger makes me so sad because like and when he won the masters so sad and when he went

and i just cried when he won the masters because

we're at the a we did you have si for kids

of course like buzz beamer do you know grant hill was big on uh in our era well grant hills he was like the role model he played the piano he was a nice boy yeah he went to duke his dad went to yale yeah yeah he went to duke what so tiger was like the good boy, right?

And then we found out that

he got ladies or something.

And then the Perkins

and then he went away.

Like we felt like deeply broken physically

from thinking that he's a team six.

Well, he did do all those Navy SEAL exercises.

His dad did used to say that he believed that Tiger would be on par, if not in excess of.

Gandhi when it came to his impact upon the world.

When we were kids, we were like, this guy's the greatest of all time, and he's also kind of a kid, right?

And he's winning tournaments by like

19 strokes.

And we're like, this is awesome.

Like, we're part of this thing right now.

And then

he went away.

We didn't get to see him anymore.

And then he came back and won the Masters one time.

And it was like, we saw our friend again one time.

And it was like,

I missed you.

Like,

it's, it's, that's, that's part of the same, I guess, a

phenomenon.

I love ball.

I just love sports.

It's very obvious to me that

your genuine love of ball is like the thing you're most passionate about.

I care about sports more than comedy.

I don't care about it.

I like songs and sports.

Songs, yeah.

I like movies.

Movies, songs, and sports.

Which is why Shaquille O'Neal is criminally underrated in your personal Hall of Fame as a recording artist.

As a actor, recording artist, and

ball player.

All right.

So what is journalism?

I think we should call at the end here.

Can we call Korniser?

Tony Kornizer and see if he'll tell us what it is.

Oh, this is, that's a good button on the episode.

You're a real pro.

Dude, you think I...

That's a great button on the episode.

I'm trying to land a plane here.

Land this f ⁇ ing plane.

He better, please pick up.

This would be one of the best days of my life.

I love him so much.

I know.

I mean, same.

Here we go.

Here we go.

Do you remember being home sick from school and watching?

They're about to take PTI, but we can sneak in.

Let's see.

Is Wilbon there?

Wilbon's gonna be way late.

So I think we have time.

Here we go.

Hold on.

Oh my god, I'm so nervous.

Please, hi.

You reached my voicemail.

This is good enough.

What do you want to say?

Mr.

Cornizer, big fan of Adam Freeland.

I just, you know, I would honestly,

if you'd like to come on the Adam Freeland show.

Come on.

Sorry.

Yeah, I just with Pablo right now, and

I just wanted to say

what is journalism question mark.

Yeah, but it's his voicemail.

Is he going to call us back?

Probably.

Yeah, just, yeah, I was wondering what journalism.

Love you.

Oh, love you.

Did we get it?

Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Walter Averoma, Maxwell Carney, Ryan Cortez, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McRae, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, and Chris Tumanello.

RStudio Engineering by RG Systems, sound design by NGW Post, theme song, as always, by John Bravo, and we will talk to you next time.