An Invite-Only Halftime Show, the King of Commercials, and Taylor Swift's Secret Weapon: Your Super Bowl Mysteries, Solved

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out.

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

Prince is the only person, maybe in the world, in the history of the world, that could make the Super Bowl his big.

Right after this ad.

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Please drink responsibly.

It's so cold in here.

My nipples are hard.

I didn't need to know that.

I'm just letting you know.

Although, I guess now everyone can see that.

Don't look.

For the podcast audience,

this non-mailbag mailbag is starting in a way that

is more about Ryan Cortez than I'm prepared for already.

I like that.

Give the people the number: 513-85 Pablo.

513-85-Pablo.

That is our number.

We're a detective agency.

We solve crimes and journalistic inquiries.

And this is our Super Bowl edition of the non-mailbag detective agency episode that we like to do.

Yes, and I think the first call is one we should play first because it mentions my name first.

So let's play that call first.

I guess.

Okay, Cortez.

So I saw this on Reddit and it couldn't be more accurate.

I cannot stop thinking about it, and I was hoping you've noticed this too.

Pabo's laugh.

Does he sound like a cartoon character sobbing?

That's a very specific kind of shade.

And I don't agree.

Well, I agree with the color, and I disagree with the colour.

Sorry for enjoying my job.

Why am I being shamed for enjoying the job of hosting this show?

Nobody's saying you can't laugh.

We're, you know, picking out how you're laughing.

Let's take a listen at how you laugh and see if this color is onto onto something or not.

Bro, I mean, he's kind of on to something.

You do sound a little bit like a cartoon character.

I just keep this.

I just play it again.

Yes, let's play it again.

Play it again.

We need to hear a couple more times, please.

First of all, that caller's right.

My favorite thing you do laughter-wise, where I feel like I've reached the pinnacle of a Pablo laugh, is when you suck in air while trying to laugh, you do this thing where it'll be like,

but there's still a laugh coming out.

My favorite.

And so I think there is an element of

character,

athletically speaking,

isn't great.

The thing about my laugh, which I'm now self-conscious about in ways that I already was, but now just more.

Dominique had previously texted me something about my laugh.

He texted me at 8:51 a.m.

on December 1st, a Friday.

You laugh like a comic book villain who has just executed an ingeniously elaborate plan, which results in a minor crime.

I think your name should be Rube Goldberg or Mischievio or the Inconveniencer.

And I would give that the laugh it deserves, except now I really

well.

Dominique is right.

The color's right.

Next question, please.

Hi, Pablo.

This is Catherine.

I'm here watching my first Miami Heat game, and I really have to ask you, what the hell is that mascot?

It's going to give me nightmares.

Thanks so much.

So for people who don't remember the Miami Heat mascot, so I guess I don't remember it either.

What is it?

A big, giant, fat bird.

You know, in Miami, they have signs on a lot of the bathrooms that say, please don't do cocaine in the bathroom.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

That bird looks like a bird that's done cocaine.

That's what it looks like to me.

Let me look this up.

His name's Bernie.

He's been the heat mascot.

He's been sued quite a few times.

Conor McGregor punched him.

So when you say a bird, I'm now realizing I did not identify this as a bird until you mentioned the cocaine part.

And now it feels like a bird whose nose has been damaged to the point of needing surgical repair because of the amount of cocaine he's done.

Not from Conor McGregor punching it, but from the cocaine.

Isn't this thing also just like it's Bernie?

It isn't this like fire?

Isn't this like heat personified?

You think this is a bird?

So the technical definition is that it's sort of an anthropomorphic version of the heat logo,

the flame, the basketball on fire.

That's not a basketball on fire.

That's a cocaine bird.

We solved it.

We're good here.

I don't think we've solved anything.

I only have more questions about all of this.

Next.

Pablo just caught the latest episode.

And let me tell you something.

Cortez actually undersold how amazing love after lockup is.

If you don't know what somebody means when they say, motherfucking crack, then you're totally missing out, my man.

That wasn't even a question, but a great call.

What are we doing?

Our A-block?

This is how we're beginning our non-Super Bowl or Super Bowl, non-mailbag, mailbag about the Super Bowl?

It's not my fault that our callers are watching Love After Lockup and the Miami Heat.

Another thing I don't actually even understand.

So, what this caller is referring to, right, is an iconic moment in Love After Lockup.

This couple, Clint and Tracy.

Clint is your non-prison person in the couple.

Tracy is the prison person in the love that's...

Clint is unprisoned.

Unprisoned, hasn't been there, okay?

He falls in love with this girl, Tracy.

Tracy's got meth problems and does this thing and that thing.

She's missing teeth, but he calls her my goddess.

I guess I should not ask what this thing and that thing are if you said meth, but not those things.

Correct.

He's obsessed with her, right?

They end up breaking up, and there's this pivotal moment where he calls.

Clint calls his mom.

She left me.

She has a problem.

And his mom says, what's her problem?

And he he just goes, Mother crack.

I hate that I can't even laugh anymore without thinking about what I sound like.

She left me for her addiction.

What is her problem?

Mother

crack.

So the thing was crack.

Well, that thing, I mean, there's a lot of

things.

How many of them are crack?

You know, more than one.

She's the next crack.

Yo, Pablo, can you find out who um

or can you figure out

the.

Oh, so you kind of want calls that make sense now about Love After Lockup.

Because some of the other calls sound like that.

I love our listeners.

I am worried also about

it.

I'm not here to make fun of that person.

Like, Jen, what the hell were you doing?

Hold on.

What happened?

What?

That's the call that we teed up?

Producers behind the glass.

Was that their only call?

They called again, apparently.

Play the real call.

Let's see what this this help me help you call her.

Yo, Pablo, can you find out the qualifications to be the person of the year for Times magazine since the 1920s?

They had a rough go at it.

Yeah.

Good and bad people, I guess.

So,

yeah, peace.

So, I'm familiar with Time magazine.

The hell is Times magazine?

I believe he's referring to Person of the Year, which has had good and bad people on both sides, as it were.

I have a weirdly personal knowledge of this question because I happen to have been in attendance at the Time Person of the Year banquet.

So this award, Time Man of the Year, it used to be,

it did go to like,

I'm looking through the list here.

FDR won it, but so did Adolf Hitler.

Joseph Stalin.

There's a lot of just like,

okay, yeah, very historical, serious.

Nikita Khrushchev, shout out to you.

Sounds like a sham to me.

Like, they're just picking famous people.

They don't care.

They're not doing anything.

Well, so lately, the question would be, like, how did you go to Taylor Swift?

Well, it's because, yeah, much like everybody in our business now, Colin Cowherd included.

Silver Fox.

Pandering to the Swifties,

there is some element of like, wait, can we get Taylor Swift to come to this?

Yeah.

And by the way, she's also kind of the biggest pop cultural figure of the year.

Well, yes.

Maybe not historical, political, like military, right?

But it's not a bad choice.

It's not a bad choice.

And people are looking for clicks, which is what it is, and magazine sells and YouTube hits.

So we should probably do our own person of the year,

right?

So I feel like...

Who should we give it to?

Well.

So the thing about Taylor Swift getting the award was that she did not show up that night.

She was not there.

She's too big even for Time magazine.

I'm looking at this Taylor Swift Time person of the year cover, and I'm like, if we're going to get into the Pandering Wars, let's give it to the other person on there.

That same cover.

There's only one other thing on there.

Well,

think a little bit more anthropomorphically, Cortez.

Talking about the cat?

I'm talking about her fing cat.

Oh, my God, bro.

Look, they're not going to.

The Swifties aren't going to listen to this.

All they need to know is that we have given an award to this cat.

What's the cat's name?

Like, Fluffy or something?

Benjamin Button.

Congratulations to Benjamin Button, Button, the cat.

Pablo Torre finds out person of the year.

Person of the year.

You get it?

I also do a great cat impression, if you want to hear it.

I don't.

That cat sounds like a cat who's touching its own notice.

Please, please take us a break.

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Whether you're celebrating a big win or simply enjoying some cocktails with family and friends, Remy Martin 1738 is the perfect spirit to elevate any occasion.

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

Learn more at remymartin.com.

Remy Martin Cognak Veen Champain, afforded an alcoholic volume reported by Remy Control, USA Incorporated in York, New York, 1738.

Centaur design.

Please drink responsibly.

Can we get back?

Are you still shivering?

Bro, is my nipples are okay.

We we got to get past the your areolas and go to the journalism.

I'm just trying to please

we have a reported journalism non-mailbag mailbag.

What you got for me?

First voicemail of the real mailbag that's not a mailbag.

Hey, Pablo, love the show.

I'm getting excited for Usher's halftime show and was just wondering who you think was the greatest halftime performance of all time.

Thanks and go, Chiefs.

I like that we finally gotten a topic in which you have zero expertise.

I don't care about Usher.

The funny thing is- You don't care about music.

No, that's not true.

Now you care about us.

I love music.

My ideal halftime show would be like if you could resurrect Lane Staley and do like a hologram of Alice in Chains.

Fing lit.

Second choice, maybe Rage Against the Machines.

They're still alive.

You discovering rock and roll during the pandemic.

Delightful, I know.

Has completely changed the trajectory of your life and your tastes.

That sounds horrible.

That sounds lit.

Come on.

You want the resurrected, like a hologram or like actually like the skinny, drug-filled hologram of my boy Lane Staley screaming into a microphone as loud as he can.

That would be

or you could just say Prince.

Okay.

Prince in Miami in the rain was

not just like a great halftime show.

That's just one of the greatest concerts of all time.

But both of us are actually out of our depth, admittedly.

I have been to one Super Bowl.

The real veterans who go to the Super Bowls, they're just going for Super Bowl week and they're leaving before the game actually happens.

Veteran savvy to not actually go to the event, but I wanted to talk to somebody who did.

And so that's why we brought in someone with, I would say,

incomparable jurisdiction over this subject when it comes to, yeah, the people that we know.

Someone who actually knows what he's talking about.

That would help.

So, Dave Fleming, I've summoned you here because you have been to how many Super Bowls?

At some point, Pablo, you lose track.

So, somewhere north of 25.

Cortez, this is the authority that

neither of us have.

This is Phlem.

This is an expert with Grace Withers presence.

Yes.

So Phlegm, the question is simple.

What is the greatest halftime performance you have ever seen or know about having covered a zillion of these things?

I should point out, right, I've seen some shit at the Super Bowl over 25 years.

I have played Madden with a Playboy bunny.

I have almost been killed by, no, knifed at a Denny's from a Hell's Angel member.

I've seen fans dig through mountains of horse manure to win tickets.

And obviously, along with the Super Bowl, I've seen a ton of musical performances, but there is one that stands out above all the rest.

And

it's actually kind of a secret.

The absolute, without question, best musical performance at a Super Bowl belongs to Prince,

but not during halftime.

It was during a secret press conference where he did a surprise impromptu 12-minute face-melting concert for the unworthy, unwashed media members in 2007.

Nothing but media members?

It was 800 credential media members.

It was, Cortez,

it was pleated khakis and and soiled polo shirts and sweatpants for as far as the eye could see.

Explain how it is that this press conference becomes a concert.

How does this tend to go normally?

What's happening instead?

So it's 2007.

We're at the Miami Convention Center.

It's the end of the week.

And by the end of the week, I mean,

you are just, you've had 15 steak dinners.

You are hungover.

Your clothes are dirty you just want the freaking game to start and usually the last decent press conference is when they bring in and they're obligated the the halftime entertainment is obligated to hold a press conference before the the show right and there were rumors all week that it was like well prince doesn't do press conferences so this is either going to go epically south or who knows what's going to happen hold on hold on how soon into it do you realize like this is weird something's going on here well I showed up just for the traffic accident aspect of it, right?

I'm like, Prince is either going to get testy or angry, or he's not going to speak.

He's just going to stand there.

Something's going to go sideways.

And so I came in a little bit late.

All the seats were filled, and I'm standing against the wall next to the stage,

just waiting to see, right?

And what you notice is, wow, there's instruments on the riser.

He is

truly an icon.

100 million albums, six Grammys, five American Music Awards, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, one of the greatest performers of our time.

We're so pleased to have Prince.

The producer of the halftime show introduces him.

He comes out of a hallway.

A guy hands him his guitar.

You know, the one from Purple Rain with like the cheetah print.

And Prince is dressed in this like, it's Miami, So it's like an, it's like a coral jumpsuit or something.

It's just like perfection.

Of course.

So then Prince comes to the mic and he goes, contrary to rumor,

I'd like to take a few questions right now.

And so somebody stands up in the in the press corps and begins to ask a question.

And in the middle of the question, Prince goes, one, two, three, and jumps into Johnny Be Good.

who is the reporter who asked that question we got to know yes the head of nfl uh uh media and and publicity brian mccarthy

I talked to him for this because he was in charge of that press conference.

And I said to him, I'm like, I don't know if it's a secret, but I've been dying to know who the reporter was that Prince cut off in the middle of his question.

That Prince dunked on.

And I always thought it was just some poor guy who was probably so nervous from like the Green Bay Gazette.

Yeah, from a Journal Sentinel or a Gazette or something.

But I'm breaking news right now.

We are breaking news right now.

It turns out it was an inside job.

Believe it or not, it was the musician Chris Isaac, who was working on behalf of Extra,

who was there as the special talent.

It was the musician Chris Isaac.

What?

Yes, who was working for one of those

entertainment TV channels?

It was a bit.

It was a bit.

It was a psyop.

It was a psyop, an actual psyop perpetrated by Prince and Chris Isaac, playing the role of one of us.

And so, how does he follow up Johnny Be Good?

He goes from Johnny B.

Good to another lover.

It is very rare, it occurs to me, Phlegm, for the NFL as this institution that is demanding control at every turn is not aware of like what's about to happen here.

And so the NFL, what is the NFL thinking?

What is that guy, Brian McCarthy, thinking as Prince is getting in deeper and deeper into a set list that only he knows?

I think they're thrilled, first of all, because I think they knew going right up to the last second that Prince could just do a double bird and go, you know, F y'alls, I'll see you on Sunday or whatever.

And I think they knew right away he was not someone they could control at all.

There was no discussion of what he should play, what he shouldn't play.

That was really left up to his camp.

And so we knew general time, you know, time length.

And also keep in mind, NFL Network was still relatively new.

They covered this live.

So they carried this live the entirety of it.

And they said that was, you know, some of the greatest entertainment they could imagine to have live on NFL Network.

And so they were grateful that he agreed to play,

but he wouldn't tell them what.

They rehearsed a bunch of songs.

He wouldn't tell them what he was going to play, what he was going to say.

Prince is the only person, maybe in the world, in the history of the world, that could make the Super Bowl his big,

right?

He made, Prince made the Super Bowl look small.

That, that's what he did.

He made the NFL look feeble.

And it was like they were just grateful to be in his presence.

All due respect to Taylor Swift.

But what Prince does, he doesn't just exceed your expectations.

He kind of says, f you while doing it.

I mean, and that was exactly the vibe that Brian McCarthy describes in that they were worried worried he was going to half-ass it.

And somebody with Prince goes, oh, no, you don't know Prince.

He doesn't do anything halfway or even 100%.

It will be amazing.

This is Prince.

He doesn't go quarterway.

He doesn't go halfway.

He goes all the way.

This guy, he's just a higher form of human being than the rest of us.

I can barely get my mic hooked up for this interview.

Prince is like, he's in the middle of like a menage a trois and he's doing a guitar solo, right?

It's just like, and he's not even sweating.

Are you immediately thinking to yourself, this is, I'm witnessing something special?

Like you, you are standing along the wall and he gets to the crescendo, I guess.

What is the crescendo?

How are you describing your emotional reaction to that?

It's stun silence.

It's again, it's like watching a UFO land in your backyard.

You just, no one could move.

No one knew what to do.

No one, do we cheer?

Do we cry?

Well, journalistically speaking,

it is our code, Phlegm.

We don't applaud, certainly not at a press conference.

Yeah, and I think Brian McCarthy tried to explain that to Prince going in: that he's like, look, these are media members.

They're probably not your target audience, and they're trained like not to applaud or whatever.

And that is funny because as that now we're into like the sixth, seventh, eighth minute.

and um so prince does another lover then he does

he does the rock lobster guitar riff from the b52s

just because he can then he goes into uh get on the boat

people

get on the boat But you can see, you can see what's happening.

He's starting to get pissed that because he's like, it's okay, you guys.

You can, you can stand up.

You can, he's, he's starting to like get mad that people aren't, that he's not winning people over.

By the end of this, does journalism itself applaud what it has just seen?

We blew it.

We just, it was like the greatest moment.

Just completely embarrassing.

You're including yourself.

It is embarrassing.

Why didn't you, you know, how important this is.

Why didn't you stand up and be the force you want to see?

I blame you.

And I blame myself.

I should have like streaked across the stage or something.

I do remember like screaming and like, or like going, yeah, and just like, but the people right in front of Prince, again,

just, just no reaction.

And you can just see him slowly start to check out.

And it's just like, oh my God, we insulted Prince.

We insulted Prince.

So I was lucky enough, I grew up in the 80s in Detroit.

And he used to start all of his concert tours in Detroit with like, it was like a week of dress rehearsals.

So

in my like high school and college years, I saw Prince probably 10 times

and nothing compared to this.

12 minutes, right?

That felt like an hour.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dave Fleming, thank you.

What a reporter.

Thank you for your reporting and

you

for not betraying it and acknowledging what you were seeing at the time.

Yes, huge regret.

Thank you very much.

Now I have to live with that.

And I know Prince is among us still.

My deepest apologies to you, sir.

And

man, thank you for blessing us with your presence because we did not deserve it.

Next caller.

Hey, Pablo.

The Super Bowl has me thinking about the relationship between athletes and brand recognition.

Who has the best stat sheet when it comes to partnerships, sponsors, endorsements, cameos?

Which athlete has the best marketing resume?

I mean, there are some some great, especially out of the NFL, there have been some great commercial actors.

Yeah, I think of Jimmy Butler myself.

Okay.

Mikhailo Ultra.

Not even close to the list that I'm thinking of.

I won't dance.

Oh, yes, I will.

I won't sing.

That stupid Mikkilope Ultra commercial where they can't even like pretend to be the Miami Heat because they don't have the logo insignias, legally speaking.

And they put them on screen for like two seconds only.

Very disrespectful.

But the NFL, Peyton Manning, of course, an old-timer.

Baker Mayfield, plausibly living in a stadium.

At home with Baker Mayfield.

Hey, the rain's coming.

Furniture's going to get soaked.

One of the great accomplishments of commercial acting, in my opinion.

Cam Newton had one too, right?

Cam Newton was pretty good.

Russell Westbrook had when we threw one out of the stadium.

OJ Simpson, actually.

Nobody does it better than her.

Nobody does it better than her.

Yeah, famously running through that airport.

But there is only one

when it comes to like the prolific nature of a commercial pitch man, there's really only one answer to this question.

All sport.

After all sport, the game was a breeze.

Now with an age of beard, I got my mojo going strong.

I gotta get a whopper.

You don't know Buick.

Attention, Cruise fans.

Carnival is bringing you three and four-day mini cruises.

But Chris Cruci is different.

The Comcast has way better HT pitcher and the most HD choices.

Just fill it, Joe.

But I bet I love Kellogg's Frosted Flakes more than you.

Do I use new Gold Bond men's lotion to look good or feel good?

Yes, I do.

Introducing Icy Hot Pro.

Go big at JC Philly, style and value for all.

It's crunch time.

My name is Shaquille O'Neal, and I'm one of the Power Balance Generals.

Want to thank Snap Sports?

Original Soup, man.

No soup for you.

Get your anonymous online quote with low payments and ride with the general.

When I first joined the board at Papa John's, I brought some big ideas.

We're going to need more pepperoni.

So I just want people to know that there's more.

We had to stop counting Shaq endorsements once we got into like the 50s.

That's a lot.

Yeah, that's a lot of

pepperoni.

It feels low.

My takeaway was that he's really good at this.

He's very charismatic.

He's a good actor.

Why the hell wasn't Kazam a better movie?

You're asking, why is the least discerning commercial actor of all time not in a better movie?

I'm asking why one of the most charismatic people I've ever seen on screen wasn't a better genie.

Yeah, it wasn't a better seven-foot genie in 1998 or whenever the the hell it was.

Next.

What's up, Pablo?

This is Brandon from Los Angeles.

I thought that flag football is going to be an Olympic sport starting in 2028.

Does that mean we're going to have a dream team of like Patrick Mahomes to Tyree Hill versus like Lamar Jackson to like whoever?

I hope so.

Let's go, Team USA.

So I want to start start by saying the Pro Bowl or whatever it's called now was dumb.

Flag football has some things about it that display the behavior of dumb in terms of like, how are we going to know when the flag was pulled?

Oh.

Oh,

you're already thinking about people who are like

defrauding the referees.

Yeah, like if somebody's going

and they're so quick.

What if they pull the flag 10 yards back?

It's an instant replay nightmare.

We're going to have to constantly vet out when was the flag actually pulled.

I cannot believe you pointed to your head like that was.

Think about it, bro.

ASMR, you could hear it.

The thing that people need to respect about flag football at the very least, despite it being, yes, dumb in lots of respects, is that it's already a thing.

So there is a flag football national team.

Oh, really?

They're the best in the world.

The men are.

They have a quarterback,

this guy, Daryl Dussette.

He played in college or something?

No.

Okay.

He played intramural at Xavier University in Louisiana, apparently.

Played intramural.

And now he's a gold medalist in these world championships that happened recently.

And he actually had the occasion at said Pro Bowl weekend extravaganza thing

to talk to Tyreek Hill.

And

I don't know if he came away loving the NFL as a result.

Tyreek, when they announced that flag football was an Olympic sport, you were one of the first people to post about it.

What does that mean?

It means that I will be competing.

That's what it means, baby.

You feel me?

I'm out there.

And who the quarterback?

For who?

The USA team.

Talking to them.

But them boys are gonna pick you off left and right, boy.

Your receivers ain't gonna get open.

You say our receivers are not gonna get open, but y'all can't pull flags.

So I'm pulling the flags.

I know how to play flags.

I grew up playing flag football.

My mom ain't want me to play tackle football.

I grew up playing flag.

So I know how to do all

that.

All that.

I hate that Tyreek Hill did the thing that you just did.

Looks familiar, right?

The institution of flag football, out of deference to them, because this is actually Olympic sports somehow,

we ended up talking to the CEO of USA football, this guy Scott Hallenbeck, and he explained how it is that the NFL

might actually get involved in trying to get some gold.

He's the CEO, so I mean, he must have like done intramural or something at least, right?

Flag football is different than traditional football or the NFL football as most people know it.

First and foremost, for its

really the creativity, the elusiveness, the fast-paced, high-scoring aspects of it, we'd start with the field.

So it's a 50-yard by 25-yard field.

So tight, narrow, five-on-five versus 11-on-11.

Zero contact.

The hardest position right now within flag is definitely defense, partly because of the contact rules, partly just because it's challenging to cover these folks in a small field.

Flag pulling is a distinctly different talent.

The offensive players are constantly dipping and spinning and obviously trying.

They have something called flag guarding.

You can't do is put your arm out or effectively cover the flag in any way.

You almost have to run with your arms up.

A lot of times you see these guys spin and dip in that respect.

So the conversations about the potential of NFL players being on Team USA and Ultimately Olympics is obviously one that we take very seriously.

We're super excited about.

You want to go beyond the idea of an all-star team and really create an integrated, cohesive unit.

There is no question there's a difference between the quality of NFL tackle football and, of course, flag football.

Not to suggest for a second that a Tariq Hill,

Lamar Jackson, et cetera, et cetera, can't make that transition.

Of course they can.

They're elite.

amazing athletes, but there is time, especially on the defensive side.

It takes time to, again, transition.

Just look at even the Pro Bowl last year.

Get a big bag.

It was really interesting to watch the inherent natural body movements, right?

There will be moments where someone's catching a pass and they're running through the defenders.

Almost every play, there would be a flag.

So like taking the time to really understand that and learn that.

Everybody needs to make that transition.

Now, again, is that a month?

Is that three months, six months?

We don't know that yet.

That'll be a sort of work in progress together to sort all that out.

I would argue that Christian McCaffrey probably would be an amazing player and flag.

I actually lean on the defensive side because I know that's where I think, frankly, the gold medal will be won

is really a Sauce Gardner, Jalen Ramsey.

I mean, they will be very successful in this style of game.

It makes it very fun.

I think it would be really cool to see a blend, Lamar Jackson at quarterback and, you know, someone else, one of our current elite athletes or those that are coming up through our 15s, 17s, and sort of 20 20 and underage groups that are playing in college right now, et cetera, that might have a chance to represent their country.

NFL teams are never going to want to do this.

You know who is going to want to do this?

I mean, employers are going to let their players play flag football.

No, you're right.

Rip an ACL.

You're right.

It's a liability.

And so the person that I think of that would want to do this the most, Antonio Brown.

No, Dominique Foxworth.

Oh, my God.

Like, competitive as hell.

Retired NFL players who are delusional about

how good they are.

And like the whole video that we just watched was about corners.

How good they are.

That's a very good point.

And he's going to get hurt.

Absolutely.

It is perfect if this sport is not played by NFL players or like the actual flag football, like national world champions, but just like gas bags on TV.

Who have nothing to lose.

Who can do their jobs while in a wheelchair?

Well, that's nothing to lose except embarrassment.

Yeah, he claims claims to run like a 4-3 or whatever it is.

No, the thing about it is, no one will talk more shit about it than him, and no one is going to get hurt quicker than that man because he hasn't played in so long.

I'm telling you, he's going to get hurt.

Yes, who's laughing like a mischievous villain now, motherfucker?

Still me, actually.

Still me.

Okay.

That was me doing DiPablo.

Impression of the.

Get it.

Back to the job that we're here to do.

51385 Pablo.

Great phone number.

Super Bowl, non-mailbag, mailbag.

Call.

What's next?

Yo, Pablo, first time, long time.

So my favorite social media account is Arbor Mega Sports.

It's so good.

But the guy claims that he does it with no AI.

That makes no sense that can't be true right so i love this question because this guy is somebody who has been fascinating me every nfl sunday especially and so when

when the super bowl happens cortez and a hundred bazillion americans are watching this those who are on social media are gonna see inevitably this guy, Art Put Make It Sports, this account with hundreds of thousands of followers, instantly locate a painting, a work of art from history as far back as like the Renaissance and match it to something that just happened virally in the game that we're all watching.

Apparently, this guy has a big following.

I found out about him because he did this to

Jason Kelsey.

No, I haven't seen that one.

He jumps out of the Buffalo Bills like Skybox and he's compared to immediately like the perfect work of art.

I saw the one he did to Dan Levitzard, which I thought was pretty good.

Oh.

With Dan's hair and it's going everywhere.

And I thought, oh, yeah, yeah.

I was like, okay.

Like the the sad, the saddest European clown.

And how he does it.

I wanted to investigate this and find out for myself how he actually pulls this off so quickly.

Like, is he cheating?

Is he on some sort of art PEDs?

Right.

Is it machines?

And so we invited him, the man behind the account,

to sit where you're sitting right now.

I should say that my favorite Twitter account is sitting across from me, which is a very disorienting thing to have Art But Make It Sports at Art But Sports here.

And I should say that I don't know what your actual name is.

So who are you, really?

Just beep, boop, boop.

That's a robot.

My name's LJ.

I guess LJ Raider is my full name, but I tend to not say my actual name on the account.

The account is me.

It's nobody else.

It's just a dude who is wearing a sad Nick sweater.

Yeah, although this this year, maybe we have a chance.

This is just getting sadder.

It's getting sadder.

But LJ, okay, so it's just you is one thing that I've already found out.

That's news to me.

The second thing that I'm here to verify is that

you don't use artificial intelligence.

Correct.

So no AI to do the matches.

If I go to a museum and take pictures there, I have them all on my phone.

I don't take a picture of the name plate because I don't have enough space on my phone and that takes twice as much time.

So if I do end up using a photo that I've taken at a museum, I'll use Google Lens on that photo to pull up the title, the artist in the year that I use in the caption.

So I don't have those memorized at all, which would be absolutely insane.

So I use AI for that.

portion, but it's not to do the actual mashups.

It's just to save myself from taking a picture of that nameplate.

So a correction immediately is that this is all absolutely insane.

The idea that you see a photograph of anything in sports in life and you find a disturbingly close match to a piece of art from any period in art history, which is human history.

And you're saying, you're telling me right now that the only thing you use the computer for is to help name and identify the actual painting that you saw originally because you were out at a museum somewhere just saying like, oh, that looks interesting.

I've always sort of seen things through a sports lens.

And so going to museums, you know, I look at a painting and somebody might see, you know, something, something beautiful.

And I see, you know, the Knicks crumbling and the playoffs are,

you know, that's kind of where my mind goes.

And the problem is that I don't think people believe you.

Yeah, nobody believes me.

And so we're here today to test this.

We will put you to an actual scientific challenge.

You will prove to us that you can do this as just a sad dude in a Nick's sweatshirt

and just using his brain and not computers.

But I want to just show people some of the stuff that you've done, which makes people think that you are a computer.

Cool.

There are some all-time great ones.

This is even a sports one, but can we start with the Bass Pro Shops guy?

So this dude was naked in a Bass Pro shop, dived into the pool, emerged.

from the pool, just laying across the floor.

And you found what that matched this because it's incredible i think it's a bruegel yeah it's either bruegel or bosh so lj is looking at his phone for people not watching on youtube or the draftings network the catalog the handheld catalog of just apparently paintings yes a bruegel him and bosch tend to have scenes with lots of people and lots of naked people as well uh more bosh naked than bruegel gonna adjust my power rankings for nudity for nudity yeah yeah yeah

more than brugel but got lucky that it was well somebody in a similar position but then also the water yeah nearby i think is it was the levels okay so the levels to lj's matches here are what makes this beautiful i mean for instance just like taylor swift behind that frosted window yeah so actually the first image i saw was one that taylor swift was inside looking to her left out the window and i had something actually prepped for that like a vermeer with a woman looking out the window.

It's like a very just like common theme in art history.

You basic

Poland Vermeer.

And then I saw this version and just knew the, I guess, the red kerchief painting.

So, this is my high school art history.

This is Claude Monet.

I want to pull up the time that Draymond Green was

choking Rudy Gobert of just Rudy in the crook of Draymond's elbow reminded you of what?

John the Baptist with his head on the platter or some derivation of that title.

That moment,

I wasn't watching that game.

I looked down at my phone and it just blew up with images and different angles.

I think I did a few different ones from that moment.

It's the angle.

Like the, in profile, John the Baptist's, is that a severed head?

Yeah.

Yeah, okay.

So the severed, decapitated head of John the Baptist is at the exact same angle, nose and brow, as Rudy Gobert.

And it's, I believe that's like a platter of some kind.

Yeah, exactly.

So Caitlin Clark is somebody who is arguably the biggest name in college sports right now.

Iowa sharpshooter, person who likes to celebrate.

And so this is her celebrating, holding her hand to her left ear as if to say, like, you know, I can't hear you.

You found someone who is doing literally that from where?

There is a painting in the Met

depicting Echo

and that painting has hands on both ears

and so when she first pulled this out in a game I was like do I want to use that one and it didn't quite feel right because it was I don't know it just wanted to get the one hand so I started looking through you know art history theme of Echo and depictions and ended up finding this one and worked out pretty well.

I think I flipped it.

I think the original one has the hand on the other ear, but flipped it to match.

So

I want to test this self-described ability now.

Cool.

So what we've done is we've collected photographs that you have not seen before the moment that we present them to you.

These are things that I enjoy,

some of my favorites.

And we want to watch your process, LJ.

I think I mentioned this before, but this is terrifying.

I've never actually done this other than being in like the comfort of my couch and or just kind of on my phone.

I can imagine.

But let's start with the classic, right?

Let's try Bobby Yore on for L J.

God.

So this is Bobby Yore, fully horizontal, of course, famous photo, arms extended.

So, I mean,

this would be

like St.

Francis receiving the stigmata.

Yeah, I mean, that is, that's, that's, that's pretty good.

So, I want to give you something a bit distinctive to play off of.

Um, and so

this is me dressed as an orca.

This is me hosting the Dan Levittard show with Stu Gotz.

I am dressed as an orca.

My fins are to my face, and I am afraid.

So I think I've done this one before, actually.

This reminded me of a George O'Keefe painting.

Oh my God, of course.

With the, you know, the petals and

face and yeah.

You can say what George O'Keefe is mostly depicting.

Yeah.

I don't even know what you would say.

It's a vagina.

It's a vagina.

There you go.

But your face is the clitoris.

Georgia O'Keefe is a titan of art history.

And it's an honor to be compared to one of her vaginas.

Another paragon of the human form is Dan Lebitard stretched out across his pool table, wearing only swim trunks, looking confused, but also weirdly confident.

He's beautiful.

So these poses tend to come up a lot, and there's a whole bunch of different ways that I could take it.

I guess what Venus of Urbino would be one of them.

There's an artist, Henry Moore, that has more sculpture-based reclining.

No offense to Tan, but maybe like if Botero has a reclining figure that would work well.

Wow.

So, just for people who weren't clocking what LJ just apologized for here, you're saying less sculpture, more flesh.

Rubinesque.

Rubinesque,

as they say in the world of art.

Meaning,

I think chubby.

Chubby.

But that was a thing that, of course, artists have quite valued in their subjects.

I'm reluctant to do this a bit, but it's an iconic photograph in the annals of sports media because this is maybe the most famous couch I can recall

in our business.

It is a couch that had Jason Whitlock sleeping on it.

His legs are white sneakers and all in blue jeans

out Out in front, and he is hitting a REM cycle, LJ.

Like, that is a deep ass sleep.

Look at the, like, it's recessed.

That's right.

He's part of the couch now.

It is a man

in the place that he feels safest, it feels like.

And

this angle of repose resembles what to you?

Yeah, so first, at first glance, and it would be a kind of a

juxtaposition in that Flaming June, which is on display at the Met right now, is very pure and beautiful in a similar pose to Whitlock, and then him on the other side being all gross and disgusting.

But yeah, Flaming June is the first thing that came to mind, even though it's like different colors and

predominantly orange.

That's a great one, though.

The coup de grace, though, for me, one I've always wanted to have you

make art out of sports with, is the famous image that changed college football's destiny because this is Urban Meyer at his own

bar.

Not leaving room for the Holy Ghost, LJ.

This is him kind of half sitting, but grinding on an unknown blonde-haired young woman.

And this was, of course, posted.

He gets...

ousted for this and more at Ohio State, and nothing is ever the same.

And so in this

grinding, this infamous grinding,

there is what?

There is Urban with his hand in a place where it shouldn't be.

There is also the hand, I should point out.

There's also a hand definitively and very clearly doing something it shouldn't.

But what does this remind you of?

I was like,

I then realized you were asking me what piece of art.

So

there's a photo that I took at the National Gallery.

It's called The Good Samaritan.

That's hysterical.

By Jacopo Jacopo Bassano.

Again, I urge you to go to YouTube or the DraftKings Network to see the Good Samaritan who has a similar level of desperation on his face, as well as an angle,

holding what seems to be a person in need who is similarly disinterested in what the person behind them is offering them from behind.

That is incredible.

But I want to bring it back to me near the end here because in the PTFO universe,

I've always thought of my own calves as a work of art.

And so this is me, honestly, I think more flexible than anybody who works on my show realized, unsheathing my left calf.

My leg is in the air.

It's pretty explicit, admittedly.

What does this remind you of?

Yeah, so two things.

There's a sculpture of a dog peeing on a building that I've used for the old Miss

end zone touchdown celebration.

Yes.

I want to say it was Elijah Moore.

Yes, Elijah Moore peed

during the Egg Bowl and cost him the game, arguably.

Pantomime peeing.

There's another painting that almost certainly will need to be censored, but a Gustav Courbet painting.

Women's genitalia has been a theme of.

I'm realizing that

this

entire

test has mostly resulted in you uh comparing me to female genitalia apologize yeah first first thing that comes to mind if this didn't actually look like this i'd be a lot madder at you for the record but for the record as well you and gustave gourbet

that's fair

now you know i don't like nicks fans so i noticed you know you had a knick's fan in my seat i don't appreciate that beyond that this is a show prides itself on journalism on reporting did you talk to anyone besides him?

We just tested him.

It's just one person.

Yeah,

we presented him with numerous examples and he generated it on command.

That could have been edited.

You're saying he has

those chess player anal beads where someone's telling him, spelling out Gustave Corbett.

All I'm saying is his ass.

I'm not convinced yet.

Just saying.

Fine.

If you have a lead

on

LJ Raider using anal beads,

513-85 Pablo, let us know if Ryan Cortez's theory holds any weight.

And are we done here so I can like, you know, warm up my nipples or no?

Put those away.

We are done, finally.

I should go to a doctor.

But seriously, do call 513-85 Pablo if you have any actual journalistic inquiries.

We will solve them for you.

And I hesitate to thank Ryan Cortez right now after all of that.

But Pablo Torre finds out is in fact produced by Michael Antonucci, Ryan Cortez, Sam Dawig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Loman, Rachel Miller-Howard, Ethan Schreier, Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Chris Tumanello, and Juliet Warren.

Studio Engineering by RG Systems, Post-Production by NGW Post, our theme song by John Bravo.

And we will return on Tuesday with one of my favorite episodes we've ever done, one of my favorite conversations with two of my favorite people, actually, as if that's not enough of a tease for you.

So, yeah, we'll see you then.