"Parenting First Take" (and the Super Bowl Halftime Stakes) with Mina Kimes

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out.

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

I put it way too close to my face.

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I can't remember who said it, but someone said that I have an older sister vibe with you, which I at first took as a compliment, but then I don't like being thought of as older than you.

I'm like two weeks older than you.

Yes.

I say all the time on the record that I've looked up to you as an older journalist for

so much of my career.

Happy birthday, belatedly, to my birthday brother.

Speaking of our familial relationship, that's pretty wild.

Libra gang.

Libra gang.

I induced, as you know, because I was like, I got to have him on Pablo's birthday.

The other reason was that he was trending gigantic.

Remains gigantic.

Still gigantic.

What's the toddler combine?

What are his numbers look like?

I think, so we're about to have the two.

We haven't had the two-year-old appointment, but you get the percentile.

I'm pretty sure he's still 90th weight.

Size is above average.

He's definitely leaning out a little bit, though, now that he runs around.

So, you know, but he's still very large.

You're disappointed.

I like the idea of having an extremely large son.

He doesn't know his own strength, though.

Like, sometimes he'll accidentally push me and I'm like, ow.

Yeah, I like, I just have Nino pushing a sled, you know, like a blocking sled.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's very physical.

He likes physical stuff.

He goes to like baby gym.

Does Violet ever do like the little, do they have that in New York?

My gym?

We did, we did Ninja Class.

Yeah.

Various, just like, yeah, padded floors that you can just like bounce off of.

On one hand, you're like, this is like equinox money for someone to just like sit on the floor while the children roll around.

But on the other hand, like they do like balance beams and

it's a lot of ball pits.

Yep.

Violet showed up one day, or at least as I experienced it, showed up one day at home and was just doing like forward rolls.

It was like repeated series of forward rolls.

I was like, holy shit.

Yeah.

That's a real, did she want to do gymnastics?

She did, did she play any sports?

She's in soccer.

How's that going?

She is one of the most methodical

and deliberate, but slow dribblers.

Like the videos are of her just like making sure she is perfectly nudging this along, but she is the slowest and most careful of all of the

prospects in that class.

Did you play soccer growing up?

I played through grade school.

Just through grade school?

The Manhattan Kickers.

Did you stop with basketball till high school?

In grade school.

I tackled.

Did you play any sports after grade school?

No.

I mean, wait, yes.

Varsity, Lincoln-Douglas debate.

Oh, my God.

Do you now want to brag about your high school soccer career?

No, I just can't believe this has never come up as you were a sports writer that you abandoned sports after

elementary school.

People just looked at me and they were like, this guy must have the credibility to talk about the greatest athletes in the world.

They didn't really ask follow-ups.

Wow.

You played varsity soccer.

I did.

And I played club soccer through high school as well.

So I played a lot of soccer and it took up a lot of time and energy.

And

that is something I'm not quite looking forward to, like the ubering aspect of being a sports parent where you're just driving them places constantly, it sounds like, but it was a big part of my upbringing and important.

I think for girls, playing team sports is so valuable.

Yeah.

I mean, look, right now,

Violet is so young that it's all obviously co-ed.

But when she's in games

and you're on the sidelines and you start having opinions about the tactics, that's when you become a sports parent.

I can't wait for that.

So by the way, relatedly, what I'm realizing as like a

sports parent to be is that also a lot of these clichés are true.

Like parenting, my feelings, my circuitry being activated.

Violet, who started kindergarten now last month, September, there was a point where we

Liz and I brought her to

the curb and put her on the yellow school bus.

And there's a point at which she's like waving out the window of this yellow school bus, like receding across the horizon line.

And I'm like,

crying?

Yeah, I'm like, of course.

Like, I'm just, I'm just that.

I'm that guy.

I'm that dad now.

Everybody said that.

But then you go to like the sports side of it and you're like, ah, yes, valuable lessons about teamwork.

Right.

And what it means to stand up for yourself and how to assert yourself in mixed gender environments.

And I'm like, oh, yeah, this is

also real.

There's a reason why all the cliches about parenting end up, it's a pretty universal experience.

The same feelings and concerns are activated for everybody.

Give me a non-parenting cliché

that you believe in, that you think people should be aware of.

Like a take, like a hot take.

Give me a take.

Essentially,

you're doing parenting first take.

Oh,

oh,

I mean, this one is

increasingly the older my kid gets, the more I, and this, maybe this is a cliche, so maybe it's a bad answer, but I believe I'm meeting him more than shaping him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He just is who he is.

And I get the once-in-a-lifetime experience of watching that become reality.

But it's for all of the time I spend worrying about the tiny little things.

What if we don't do this language thing?

What if he starts preschool?

Ultimately, he just kind of is who he is.

Yeah.

We are, we discover, we find out more than we are able to like inculcate.

Um, we can't all be everybody, I think part of all the sports parenting stuff is that you want to be like Richard Williams or Earl Woods or whatever, and it's less that and more like figuring out, oh, this is who I'm living with.

Yeah, and that's going to be a big, like, he might not want to play sports right now.

He looks so physical and active, and he loves tumbling, and he's like just a boy in every, like, just such a boy.

I mean, my son is just such a little bro.

What does that mean when you're two?

I can tell you what it means.

I got him a, his little, he's part of this toddler crew and I got him this little stroller.

They all have, because they were all fighting over another kid's show.

It's clearly a hot item on the playground.

So I got him a little one from Target.

And the next day,

I saw him with the stroller and he turned around and he had put a dump truck in the stroller.

And he was pushing around the truck in the stroller.

He sounded like a baby doll.

Yes, instead of a baby doll, because that was his most most prized position.

I feel like that pretty clearly illustrates what a little bro dump truck and big bus weren't his first words, but they were maybe his first compound words.

Big bus, dump truck, forklift.

Are you

not exposed to any of this?

Because you have a little girl, like the little boy universe.

Like, for example, he has so many books about trucks.

It's crazy.

Yeah.

The most popular kids, like just Goodnight Construction Site, Trash Truck.

there's so much content around

trucks.

I like that we are absolutely raising our children again or allowing our children to just express the most traditional gender roles allowing is the key.

Yeah, I thought that Violet was into construction

as a kid as a kid and she and she is but then compared to my nephew,

Miguel, who is like younger and like there is an amusement park of trucks.

It's like sick in a tractor.

If a trash truck, especially one that makes noises, drives by,

my son, it'll be like full Bugs Bunny eyes, hard eyes.

Everything stops.

Pepe Lebieu turns around.

We have to sit here.

We have to watch it.

We have to comment on it.

And then he like can't tear his eyes away from it.

He thinks it's the best thing in the world.

I'm looking up.

Okay.

This is, this is what it is.

Diggerland.

Oh my God, that sounds like his dream.

Berlin Township, New Jersey.

The one and only construction theme and water park in the U.S.

Look at this.

Hold on.

She's just not into this stuff anymore.

She is, but it's just like she's wearing princess stuff.

And I'm like, just

like, look, there's like crane truck, excavator.

It's diggers.

The other thing about these truck-based books is they're all like cinematic universes.

Do you you ever go to, we just go to Barnes and Noble and like hang out.

So you go to the kids section now.

It really is like all content.

Like there's obviously a lot of original and new ones, but if there's a hit like Goodnight Construction Site, then there's like 20 spin-offs, like Goodnight Construction Site, Valentine's Day edition.

Because every single one of these popular books has a full spin-off series

and you have to get them all.

Has Nino gotten a whiff of like words he shouldn't say?

And does he know about it?

Yeah, there's a few.

Yeah.

What are the words that I don't know?

It's a lot of eschatological stuff.

It's a, I mean, it is saying poop to Violet is like the funniest

in the world.

Yeah.

My

brother-in-law got him a fart machine that makes different signs of farts.

And he is just at the age where he understands it's funny now because he sees people's reactions.

He's starting to develop like humor now, right?

And starting to see people's reactions.

By the way, do you think people enjoy hearing us talk about our kids?

Or because I, I, I, I sometimes

realize that if people don't have kids, I really try to remember they do not want to hear about your kids.

I feel like that's a risk I'm willing to take.

Can't hear.

Let's talk about our kids.

My take, my last take in the kids section of today's programming is like,

it's okay to not throw a birthday party.

Ooh, that's a hot take.

Because what I've learned is that every kid needs to invite every other kid.

It's a whole thing, and there are a zillion of them every weekend.

Yeah.

And

I just think

we cannot do that.

We cannot do that.

You want to opt out.

Yeah.

I'm sure your five-year-old daughter would be totally cool with not having a birthday party while everyone else in her class does.

I can't wait for Violet to find out that we're not throwing her a birthday party at Diggerland.

So Nino just had a birthday party.

It was Elmo-themed.

It was what themed?

Elmo-themed.

Elmo-themed, great.

Yes.

Yeah.

So I was just asking her, I'm like, what kind of stuff do I have to get?

And all my parent friends were like, you got to get this, this, this, this.

So what I didn't account for was it was Nino's first exposure to juice, apple juice

in particular.

He's never had like pure uncut apple juice.

And at this party, so it was in a little play area.

So the kids were all penned in, which was the kind of most important thing at this age.

And every time I turned around, he would be like,

it was like watching like the beginning of like Requiem for a Dream.

And I swear to God, that party was two weeks ago.

I wake up, I take him down to get his breakfast, and he looks at me and he goes, apple juice?

And I'm like, we don't have that.

And he gets so mad.

And it's been two weeks and he's still thinking about the high of drinking.

He drank like four apple juices at his birthday.

Can you blame him?

I mean, it's good.

Nina's going to, this is like what happens when your parents are super strict.

The strictest parents raise the most

uncontrollable children.

I wasn't allowed to eat sweets growing up.

At all?

No, we were, but not like, we ate like a lot of fruit.

I didn't have like junky cereals.

So when I would go to like my friends' houses, like Lucky Charms, holy shit.

Oh my God.

Encountering a loose charm?

Damn.

Did you ever eat in college the charms out of the lucky charms?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I got to college and I was a menace with the bad for you foods cafeteria.

This is like when you discover that they just sell the stuff in an Oreo.

Oh my gosh.

Just stuff.

I also like gained a lot of weight because I stopped playing soccer, like, not a lot of weight, but like, I didn't realize that it turns out when you don't work out five hours a day, you can't have Taco Bell four times a day.

It took me a while to learn that lesson.

But no, I'm not even that strict with Nino's food.

It just, he just literally, it's funny because he's had like cake and cookies, and it's nothing has hit like apple juice has hit his system.

Nothing.

You got to get that apple juice live read on your show.

I know.

Sponsor me.

He saw me drinking a beer and thought it was apple juice and got mad the other day.

He was like, Mama apple juice.

I'm like, this isn't apple juice.

It's special mama drink.

Special mama drink.

The subtext of all of this is that both of us are now 40 years old.

I know.

I hate it.

I know.

You're wrapping yourself in a very

luxurious sweater.

Thanks.

It's very soft.

It looks very comfy.

If you're like me,

which I think you are to a degree,

you're not trying to think a lot about that.

Like mortality, mortality, like what is it?

Look, I had a great birthday.

I choose not to dwell so much

on, like, yeah,

what does this, what does this mean?

What does this mean?

Yeah.

I don't know.

Does it, did it hit you?

Um,

not so much in

like I'm taking stock of my life and what I'm doing with it.

More so, it does, it does feel like, wow, I'm in a really different phase of my life, but I would say a lot more of that is having, it's because my son's birthday is two weeks after mine.

And I think it was funny for me to like have his birthday, but even ahead of my birthday, which is like supposed to be this big momentous birthday, I was thinking much more about his birthday and planning it and what that means.

And

I suppose that's the such been such an overwhelming change in my life and how I see the world and think about things and all of that, that it's kind of subsumed me and my own personal milestones.

If that does that make sense, yeah.

I mean, it's a long way of saying, yes, I too do not choose to engage with what this means for me personally.

Yeah.

It's the most conventional dividing line of

we were young, now we are not.

And I think both of us

benefited and in my case, at least, like, you know, took pride in the fact that, look at everything that I'm up to.

And I'm not even this age yet.

And now I am that age now.

Yeah.

And I feel very proud.

And this is not a woe is me in any way.

It's just, it's just, I think everybody feels like they're still young is my hypothesis.

Like we're not unique in that.

Yeah.

But, you know, it's undeniable that we are not.

You know what I think I feel now

that I think is is very much like, well, I'm a gerryashm millennial and I'm 40.

And the biggest difference between me and is I

and I don't think this was true 10 years ago when I was 30 thinking about people in their 20s.

Maybe some of this is due to having a kid, but like I worry a lot more for people who are younger than me and I don't envy them.

And I think it's a really hard time to be in your 20s.

It's a really hard time to be growing up.

And

I don't think I felt that way when I was like, when I turned 30.

But I don't think that's about me and my age so much as it is like the world and the state of things.

So that's a fair point.

Well, so your kid to kind of bring this full circle is three years older than mine.

Yeah.

What is something that I have to look forward to in the next three years

as we now turn two?

It's the greatest,

God, to be the most cliche person.

Like still to me,

the feeling I chase the most like a drug.

Apple juice.

Is your personal apple juice?

Sweet, sweet juice.

It's just Violet laughing.

Does she still laugh at your jokes?

But what's happening is that she is laughing less on command.

Yeah.

And so it used to be a tickle.

was just like enough 100% success rate.

Oh, no, I can't.

And now it's just sort of like, oh, no, there's, there's, you know, she used to ask for like,

there's this thing we do where she's like, I created these, or maybe she created these two characters, Barnaby and Theodore.

Theodore is a rabbit, Barnaby is a lion.

And I would tell her a story, a Barnaby and Theodore story, in which like I just tell her, like, one day.

You were making your, making them up on

Riffin.

Okay, storyteller.

Just, just, you know, you know, people use Chat GPT to do this now for their kids.

It's so depressing to me.

Yeah.

Just like putting in.

Yeah, like make up a story about a rabbit.

You're a great dad

you love to tell your kids stories about so i'm just like making inc but now it's like the bar is like i need to be better at it yeah you gotta level up yeah so i've been accused of like and viola says something like that was too short

i'm like trying to end the story and i need to like have character development yeah

like my go-to move is like

something to look forward to this sounds challenging and

but it what it is is like when it when you succeed it's it's it's it feels more like communication yeah where there's a back and forth i'm like that's true yes this is

different but fulfilling um yes and you feel like you're just like actually getting to know that person more right like i can't just do the story where they get hit with a shrink ray which is like 90% of my

shrink rays yeah yeah and there's a guy who lives on the 10th floor of our building who has a shrink ray and we always go to visit this guy gym and he has a shrink ray and she's like you gotta we gotta vary up god i am stories here now you've given me a fear i didn't even know i had which is the day that my son stops finding everything i do to be the funniest thing in the world i think i've mentioned this before like i'll pull out stuff from like 90s humor he thinks i invented smoking

He's like, wow, my mother's a comedic genius.

She should be playing the Riyon Comedy Festival.

Play her a million dollars.

These jokes are incredible.

He also, like, do not go in there.

It's like you just are all Jim Carrey.

My character is the tickle monster, and he, and I, and I give him a look, and he just knows it's coming.

He just loses it, and he starts running away.

So I do that, too.

And I think you have a character here.

We call it a tickle monster.

Oh.

IP violations.

That's my character.

Tickle monster, parentheses, Pablo's version.

Do you do like a menacing walk towards him?

I just do.

I do this.

Oh, that's it.

You do two index fingers.

I walk like I'm in the ring.

Like, I'll flip my hair forward and like crawl.

It's actually quite terrifying.

It's amazing.

Maybe that's why he screams and runs away.

I just like how so far all of your mothering is ripping off movies you've seen.

This has inspired me to whip out opposite day.

Opposite day.

It's like that's a violet.

That's a great picture.

On opposite day.

All right.

Got her.

Got her.

No, but that I think

what you're describing is like, you know, whenever people always ask me, like, what is the best thing about being a parent now?

And there's a million things I could point to.

And

kind of how it rewires you to see the world in a different way and makes you a more like simultaneously like a more optimistic and negative person or like negative is wrong but anxious.

Like having a child in this world at this moment, like I feel better than ever about humanity because I witness like, oh, this pure sunshine.

But then you're also like, you feel concerned all the time and scared.

So that, that's big.

But I think what you talked about is something that I think is maybe the best part of all, which is, you know, a child is their own person.

You're meeting them and they get to, they surprise you every day in new ways and,

you know, some frustrating ways.

But like.

When you get older, you lose your like capacity to be surprised in a pleasant way.

And to have someone who reminds you that that exists is really nice.

Also, the next phase, I'm thinking about like kindergarten, like we just visited Violet's class and I'm like, you see, and maybe at two,

Nino's already doing this, but like the self-portrait.

Oh, gosh, yeah.

And you just sort of like see how they see themselves.

That's really nice.

How they see you?

How did she draw you in a funny way?

Oh, she has drawn me.

Violet will draw portraits where After like there's a disagreement with me and Liz in which she wants, she like loves seltzer.

that is her apple juice actually and so she's called spicy water when do kids start doing that spicy water an LA thing I mean it's an LA thing they all call it spicy water now over here on the east coast we know we know it as seltzer

whatever the hell you guys are are lying to your kids about um

we have we have seltzer anyway the point being like violet drew a picture of her next to me and Liz and she's like crying

and like and like we have like a can of like seltzer that she's like,

she's, she expresses her emotions.

Um, she's crying because you won't give her seltzer.

Yes,

it's really funny.

She's like emotionally holding us hostage by depicting us.

Uh, so Nino doesn't draw yet because he's two, he can only draw like a squiggly, angry line.

But he, in terms of like representation of me, he does something that is also equally very telling, or at least

kind of gets to me.

If

there's a commercial and there's an Asian woman, he'll point to it and say, Mama.

Oh, yeah.

And I'm like,

Nino, my guy.

Doesn't always have to be the Asian woman.

We don't all look the same.

I know you're two.

Yeah, there's, there's, I don't know.

I could do parents' talk,

it turns out, longer than I planned on doing parents' talks.

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You check your feed and your account.

You check the score and the restaurant reviews.

You check your hair and reflective surfaces and the world around you for recession indicators.

So you check all that, but you don't check to see what your ride options are in this economy.

Next time, check Lyft.

My timeline this week has been AI slop and bad bunny takes.

Yeah.

And sometimes the two merging.

I just think the NFL, from this perspective, from like the cultural perspective, this is what I wanted.

I actually did want to talk about it.

What a transition.

How do we get from

so good at storytelling?

You should have

been from the kids' book part.

There is a shrink ray.

Speaking of bad bunnies who are running away.

Speaking of

Theodore, a good bunny, I want to tell you about a bad bunny.

I just think it's so funny that the NFL is like suddenly this radically progressive institution because they chose the number one streaming artist in the world.

Yeah, I know.

It is kind of wild that for all of the

whenever people ask me about the NFL and like, you know, politics of it, this is obviously during the Kaepernick era.

There was more of a discussion around this.

But now that that's like kind of in the rear view, I always say like, the politics are money, man.

Like, I don't know what to tell you guys, like, this is not,

these aren't stands.

Like, they're what, but it is very funny that, like, this institution, which is, I don't think, perceived as being on one side or the other, the culture war has gone back to back with Kendrick Lamar and Bad Bunny.

I know.

That's, like, pretty interesting, right?

But yeah, like, they're following the money.

They're following culture.

They're They're following the international audience, especially with this move, which is any, like, it's impossible to watch, if you actually watch football in the last few years and not recognize that it's like the fight as a priority for the NFL right now with games overseas.

It's very telling that they like, according to the reporting, wanted Taylor Swift

and went to Bad Bunny.

Like the motive in both is there are demographics we would love access to and there are zillions of people in those demographics.

And as they say, The Simpsons, money can be exchanged for goods and services.

So we want more money.

But then, like, I'm looking at the coverage of this, as always, and some of this is the most predictable, but like, the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, says, quote, well, it sounds like he's not someone who appeals to a broader audience.

So that's his take on like why Bad Bunny is just like this.

That's a little bit of a in and of itself, a crazy sentence that the Speaker of the House is weighing in on Bad Bunny playing.

He wanted Lee Greenwood.

Does he do what's he does one of the USA songs, right?

Lee Greenwood.

Yeah, he does the one song.

Oh, the only song, God Bless the USA.

I'm not like a giant Bad Bunny fan.

It's not that I dislike him.

I just haven't listened to a lot of his music.

It's very clear to me, though, among my.

He was right.

Mike Johnson was right.

I don't know any pop.

We talked about it.

We're both watched.

I'm 40.

I don't know.

Yeah, you're re-watching The Mask.

Meanwhile, the streaming artist astride popular popular culture is escaping our view.

But it's just very clear that like, if you speak Spanish

and you live in and around this continent, he's the guy.

Yeah.

So it's not to say like, how dare you not know who Bad Bunny is.

It's merely to say like, look how much money Bad Bunny is going to bring to the bottom line of

a sport that has only one consistent principle, which is like

growth.

The reactionary stuff I've seen has been along either one of two lines, one of which is that a lot of, I think, most of his music is not in English.

So that's a thing.

Or that he himself did a, has been outspoken about not performing in the U.S.

right now because of the ice crackdown.

And he had a residency in Puerto Rico.

I think I read somewhere was like, it was like a GDP booster.

Like it was like a crazy amount of money injected into the economy.

Which is, again, technically part of the United States.

So I think some of the back rush I've seen is in, well, he's been critical of this country.

And

I said this to you, but the craziest part of it all to me is like, there's a lot that's wild about it.

I feel like if he was announced as a performer 15 years ago,

it wouldn't have been controversial.

And it's wild.

Like that's in it, like a crazy thing, right?

Like that

we're moving backwards in terms of like how these things are perceived.

But don't you feel like that's true?

If this was 2012 or whatever?

I feel like we were far more culturally adventurous.

Yeah.

In terms of like what we're willing to tolerate as a matter of like what makes

political news.

Yes.

Right.

So in terms of what the Super Bowl is, like there are two ways to see Bad Bunny agreeing to do it.

Well, that's interesting, too.

So he agrees, despite all of this, knowing, by the way, that the NFL, in terms of its general cultural signaling,

is again, if they are progressive, it is in the service of an economic motive.

Right.

And so what are you, what are you aligning?

Yeah.

What does it mean to do it?

Yeah.

And recently the signal had been, of course, we want to get along with this administration

from the NFL.

Yes.

We're not going to, whatever.

We're end racism in the end zone, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Whatever.

It ended.

We ended racism.

The end zones were.

And those end zones.

Enough touchdowns were scored.

Mission accomplished.

His side of it, I think, is really interesting, right?

Because, like I said, he has been taking this,

what was perceived as a principled stand, and that's what led to some of the backlash.

And I saw some folks kind of accuse him of selling out, you know?

And I think I don't agree with that personally.

There's two things.

One, let's see the show first.

Like just starting there, right?

Like maybe before we talk about what he is and isn't accomplishing with this and let's see it, right?

I think that's a thing.

But I also think like

at this particular moment in American history,

when

so many

Latinos in this country are being targeted, harassed, families ripped apart.

I mean, I live in Los Angeles and seeing like just hardworking people afraid to go work to work and congregate in public.

But a moment while all this is happening.

The fear could not be more real.

To have the world's biggest artist take the world's biggest stage is in and of itself inherently a radical.

And more than, maybe that's the wrong word.

It's a powerful, like it, it shows people that they're still represented and they still have soft power.

And

I don't think that's insignificant.

I don't.

And it's a reminder of,

One, what art is capable of in moments like this, where we all feel pretty futile.

You know, I think a lot of artists feel like, what are we even doing?

And also like of values that this country is supposed to be about, which is like celebrating difference.

And that's, so he has the opportunity, I think, to do something like kind of important.

I will point out that like when Kendrick performed and

did his show,

it was less political than it was certainly like racially conscious

and personally

insulting to Drake.

Like the question there was like, what is Kendrick going to say about Drake?

And he said, quite a bit.

And Samuel Jackson played a role that was very well cast, but was not like actually.

It wasn't hitting you over the face with, yeah, like politics.

Exactly.

With politics.

So, in that way, like

you always wonder when the NFL makes this choice.

And again, this is a job that is not paid.

Halftime performer is not a paid job.

It is a job that you get paid through

the exposure and platform, which is unparalleled, as you said.

The question is always, like, is there an agreement to just like understand

we're playing to the biggest and only really the only big room left in this country?

Yeah.

Please don't abuse that privilege.

I think I was in the Kennedy thing.

I was interested in that regard.

I was like, is he going to do something?

I remember when Lady Gaga performed, that was also like, is she going to say, like, is there going to be?

And

routinely, no.

It's been just about the music.

I think, you know, I guess what I just feel strongly, though, is like the music itself is kind of enough at this moment.

I really believe like it's a big thing.

But yes, hearing Spanish on the Super Bowl halftime show feels, to your point, it does feel radical given what everything else is signaling to Spanish speakers in America.

I think back to the Kendrick, by the way, performance and there was so much.

This is sort of connected to what you're saying about like what's actually popular and what do people really want and who was actually like,

you know, there was all that talk about like, people are going to change a channel.

Nobody's changed a channel.

The ratings were insane.

And no one's going to change the channel this time.

They could put a football on a table and they would drop millions.

This game sucks.

Yeah, right.

Like a literal football, I mean, like

a children's book football.

Yeah.

With like a talking face on it.

I have one of those actually at my house.

People give me so much football stuff for my kid.

He now knows how to say, he says hut, hut, hike when he sees it.

Hut, hut, hike.

He probably listens to Bad Bunny.

He's two.

Probably knows the words.

Hugo.

He wants that.

Manzano.

Hugo de Manzano.

Dame Hugo.

Moss.

He says Moss, actually, when he wants more stuff.

He's a big Moss guy.

Live Moss.

Dude, did you order the new iPhone 17 Pro?

Got it from Verizon.

The best 5G network in America.

I never looked so good.

You look the same.

But with this camera, everything looks better, especially me.

You haven't changed your hair in 15 years.

Sylvies?

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What did we find out today?

That we

apparently are not going to talk about football.

Oh, we did.

We had a oh, shit.

There was a football story I wanted to talk about.

Yeah.

No,

genuinely, I am interested in the there's this football story that I want to actually talk about.

Okay.

It's a Seahawks story.

A Seahawks story.

A Seahawks story.

So what's the name of your kicker again?

Jason Myers.

So the Jason Myers thing, in which your Seahawks beat the Cardinals in a very dramatic

fashion.

From 52, the kick wobbles,

but makes it through.

And the Seahawks win it at the gun.

This field goal was clutch.

Clutched, yeah.

And it came with this like warning label around like

a prohibited substance.

It was not prohibited.

So he took a big whiff of smelling salts, which are not prohibited if you bring your own, which that might be the only instance in recorded history of drugs being okay if you bring your own.

They're not drugs, sorry.

Yeah, yeah.

Spanned substances, BYO.

Versus teen provided smelling salts.

But clearly it worked because he banged that sucker

It's weird to me that you haven't done this on this show.

It feels like something way up your alley to try smelling salts.

Do we have the salts?

No one has the salts lying around.

Yeah, bringing the salts in.

Wait, really?

Oh my gosh.

How did I predict this?

I almost forgot.

I'm like, what is the one thing we prepped?

Oh my God, I've never actually

experienced this.

Instant energy and mental clarity.

How long does it last?

Wow.

A fleeting moment.

100% natural.

This is

boom, boom, nasal stick.

Mine says instant energy and mental clarity, and it has kind of like a monster energy looking logo.

Where did you guys buy this on the internet?

Let me see.

Look at the ingredients on that one.

It says ideal for athletes in tiny text on the bottom.

Ingredients.

Ammonium carbonate.

This feels more

illicit.

Yeah.

So I just

shake it and then unscrew it.

They're saying don't put it too close to your face

This is meaning of

smelling salts

Oh my god

oh no

close to my face You are actively crying right now

I feel like I could kick 20 fuel goals

Oh, f.

That was so strong.

Holy shit.

Oh, Jesus.

You know what that felt?

That felt like...

That all went into one nostril, too.

That went entirely in my left nostril, and it felt like I just got shot with a chlorinated pool.

Jesus Christ.

Yes, it's the chlorine feeling, but like times a million.

Oh, my God.

Did it give you, I mean, if I was.

My left eye is tearing because it went in my left nostril.

My right nostril, I think, is congested.

Oh, this is, it can't be that strong on the sideline because people would be freaking out constantly.

I'm ready to f podcast.

Jeez.

Boost focus.

I do feel focused.

I feel incredibly focused.

I have instant energy and mental clarity.

Holy shit.

Yeah, that should be illegal.

Oh my god.

That should be illegal.

Do you think this would actually help you kick a field goal?

I feel like I I could kick a f ⁇ hole through this wall.

Oh, God.

Wow.

Yeah, that is, I see, I always thought it was not like that.

I thought it was more like a coffee type feeling, not like a being injected with compound V type feeling.

I feel like somebody just walked up behind me and hit me with the opposite of a tranquilizer.

I just don't think I'm going to forget that smell for the rest of my life.

It's just like it just permanently

sold a share of my brain to

this ripoff monster energy drink smelling salt.

You hit it though.

It really does feel like jumping into like a pool

that's been like chlorinated.

Because too many kids have been peeing in it and they like, no, they got to really chlorinate it.

Like that's what the inside of my brain smells like.

Oh my God.

Can you imagine just like doing this before NFL live?

I don't think this would actually help my performance in any ways because I feel focused, but not in a good way.

Do you feel focus, strength, and energy, which are the three icons that are?

I definitely don't feel strength.

I feel like somebody with a gigantic hand slapped me in the face.

Trying to describe to the podcast audience what's going through my mind right now.

I feel like I dunked my head in cold water.

I pulled my head out.

Somebody slapped me in the face.

What I found out today is that these smelling salts, much like everything I've learned about parenting and everything I've learned about uh aging,

is a cliche we should respect.

Um, that's a good one.

Yeah, I learned that I'm gonna have to start innovating my own stories for my kid, which I haven't even thought about that.

I'm gonna have to start getting more creative, and maybe I'll have to take some of those before bedtime.

I know what Barnaby and Theodore are doing next.

Smelling salts, they're ripping some salts,

somebody stop me.

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.

Our studio engineering by RG Systems.

Sound design by Andrew Bersick and NGW Post.

Theme song, as always, by John Bravo.

And we will talk to you next time.

Dude, did you order the new iPhone 17 Pro?

Got it from Verizon, the best 5G network in America.

I never looked so good.

You look the same.

But with this camera, everything looks better, especially me.

You haven't changed your hair in 15 years.

Selfies, check, please.

With Verizon, new and existing customers can get the new iphone 17 pro designed to be the most powerful iphone ever plus a new ipad and apple one with eligible phone trade-in and unlimited ultimate best 5g source root metrics aid in united states 1 each 2025 all rights reserve trade and additional terms apply for all offers see verizon.com for details you know how everything's a subscription now music movies even socks i swear if it to continue this ad please upgrade to premium plus platinum uh what no anyway blue apron this is a pay-per-listen ad please confirm your billing oh that's annoying at least with the new blue apron there's no subscription needed needed.

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