Jon Stewart on a Knicks Disaster, the Soto Era, His ‘Daily Show’ Comeback, Bad Biden Coverage, and New York Fans | Plus: Is an OKC Title Now Inevitable?

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Coming up, OKC Minnesota Game 2 plus Jon Stewart on the Knicks and life next.

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Speaker 1 We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. We did Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

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Speaker 1 So stay tuned for that. Coming up on this podcast,

Speaker 1 a long, long conversation with the one and only Jon Stewart.

Speaker 1 And it's weird because I scheduled it before we knew that the Knicks were going to have a calamitous game one loss. But we talked about the Knicks and New York sports.
We talked about his career.

Speaker 1 We talked about everything going on in the country, the Mets, you name it, we talked about it. It's a long, long combo.
So I wanted to run that as...

Speaker 1 you know, the majority of the podcast, but wanted to put a little something at the top after watching OKC Minnesota game two.

Speaker 1 So we're going to talk about that right after Pearl Jam and then a lot of Jon Stewart. It's all next.
Let's bring in our guys, Pearl Jam.

Speaker 1 All right, recording this part of the podcast, a little after 8.30, right after game two, OKC, Minnesota. OKC throttles Minnesota.
And I got to be honest, I'm a little concerned.

Speaker 1 I'm a little concerned for the rest of the playoffs because it feels like OKC, who is already a great team, who was already 68 and 14 during this season, they had their plus 12.6

Speaker 1 point differential. In the playoffs, they're plus 14.
I mean, we had lots of reasons to already be concerned that they were going going to rip through the playoffs and be a juggernaut.

Speaker 1 The Denver Series going seven.

Speaker 1 Maybe open the window to, oh, maybe minute.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Their defense is just too good.

Speaker 1 This is turning into some 2000 Ravens kind of stuff football analogy.

Speaker 1 89 Pistons, which was a totally different team

Speaker 1 because they

Speaker 1 were really built around the nine-man concept. They didn't have the true superstar as great as Isaiah was.

Speaker 1 This team is built around SGA, who just scores between 30 and 40 points a game, no matter what the defense is doing,

Speaker 1 how many guys they're throwing traps

Speaker 1 45 feet from the basket. Doesn't matter.
He's still getting in the basket. I think he had 38 or 40 tonight.
He was just fantastic.

Speaker 1 He's got this head-to-head battle against Anthony Edwards, who everybody wants to be the future of the league because he's young. He's a little Jordane, he's American.

Speaker 1 And SGA is just handing it to him in this series. Opponents in the playoffs are 40% field goal, 30% from three against them.

Speaker 1 Heading into this game, they had 18.3 turnovers a game that they were forcing. And the defense is just so much better than anything anyone else is doing.
We have four teams left.

Speaker 1 And I just don't know if anybody can touch this team. Vandal doesn't think so either because they're minus three 10 to win the title at this point.

Speaker 1 Indiana might be our only chance because they don't turn the ball over. They're built around their guards.

Speaker 1 They play this kind of funky pace that makes you come to what they want to do and the pace they want to play at. And maybe they can miss OKCF, but honestly, I don't think it's going to matter.

Speaker 1 We got to this case, this point a little bit with the Celtics last year where the math just becomes the math.

Speaker 1 If you have somebody that's winning 80% of their games that's winning by between 10 and 15 points a game that is deep and young and has defense and home court advantage, to flip it on on them is going to be almost impossible, which is why, you know, if there's a winner from these first two games, other than OKC and other than Indiana for the comeback of the century yesterday, Denver's got to be feeling better about everything that happened.

Speaker 1 You know, they take this crazy juggernaut of a team to seven and then get killed in game seven.

Speaker 1 But just even winning three games off this team when you don't have a bench, when you have four guys, it's kind of nuts in retrospect.

Speaker 1 OKC might only lose three games in this entire playoffs the way this is going. So they're 78 and 17 for the season right now.
And if you go historically,

Speaker 1 I did this last year because it seemed like the Celtics had a chance to go 80 and 20 in this season.

Speaker 1 The Bulls were 87 and 13 in 1996. That is, that's the mark.
I don't know if anyone's beating that in our lifetimes. Lakers in 72 were 81 and 15.
The 97 Bulls were 84 and 17.

Speaker 1 17 Golden State is 84 and 16. And then the 67, 76ers were 79 and 17.

Speaker 1 And this OKC team right now is 78 and 17.

Speaker 1 84 and 17 is in play, which means they would basically force themselves into the all-time conversation, even though we've been watching them going, I don't know, they're a little young.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Jalen Williams, is he a good enough second bandana? I don't know about these three-point shooters.

Speaker 1 They're basically going to bulldoze their way into the all-time conversation if this keeps going.

Speaker 1 And the thing that scares me, not just for the playoffs, but for the history stuff, is that it feels like they're getting better.

Speaker 1 It feels like defensively, the whole flying around like pitbulls thing, now they're turning it on and off. You know, in the second quarter, by the way, I bet on Minnesota today.

Speaker 1 I thought Minnesota was going to show up big time. Scott Foster was there, the extender.
I was just like, all right, this is all the makings of, whoa, I can't believe Minnesota tied the series.

Speaker 1 And in the second quarter, they kept getting it to one point, two point.

Speaker 1 OKC,

Speaker 1 they do that thing they do. They get a stop.
They get a basket. They get turnover, they get a basket, they get another stop back, and then it's a nine-point game.
You're like, what just happened?

Speaker 1 I was just talking myself into

Speaker 1 Minnesota being up at halftime, and now they're down 10. What just happened? And I think OKC has more of those than any team I can remember.

Speaker 1 You know, there's been some great defenses over the years, and I still feel like the 90, the 90s, the early 90s Bulls, and the 96 Bulls, and the 89 Pistons.

Speaker 1 There were some, the 04 Pistons were amazing.

Speaker 1 This team has a really weird gear where all of a sudden they can go on an 8-0, 10-0 run, and it feels like a fluke as it's happening. It's like, oh, that was a dumb pass.

Speaker 1 I can't believe he dribbled it off his foot like that.

Speaker 1 They forced these teams to have the dumbest turnovers. Teams are throwing terrible entry pads.
There was a play, there was a sequence today where they tried to get the ball to Randall twice.

Speaker 1 One time, Defince Endro just misses him by five feet. It was like an intercepted pass, like in football.
And then the other time, he almost throws it away again.

Speaker 1 Like, teams can't even throw entry passes against these dudes. So, the relentlessness of them is really something else.

Speaker 1 And, you know, if they ended up sweeping the Timberwolves, that's usually a good sign for the finals, too. In the last 10 years, the only team, there are five teams that had conference finals sweeps.

Speaker 1 Only the 2018 Warriors didn't go on to win the finals. And that Clay gets hurt, Durant gets hurt.
That was a stupid year. For Minnesota, my only note, other other than um

Speaker 1 it feels like randall got broken over the last three halves not a good sign for them and and the fact that nas reed can't hit threes anymore for whatever reason they missed a bunch of corner threes i actually liked how patient minnesota was today and they just kept missing like those get over the hump rally threes from the corners um

Speaker 1 my biggest note for them

Speaker 1 it's round three of the playoffs and you have an older team that's really physical. Where's the physicality? Why aren't you trying to bang this team around?

Speaker 1 Why aren't you trying to turn this into like an 80s type of series?

Speaker 1 There was one play where McDaniel shoved SGA from behind and they, of course, they had to review it because God forbid you touch anyone.

Speaker 1 But I was like, why isn't that happening more? Why aren't they talking shit? Where's Ant? Why isn't Ant talking shit? It's almost like he knows OKC is better than him.

Speaker 1 So the one thing I want to see from them in game three is like, go back to the Minnesota team.

Speaker 1 I remember that Minnesota team that even against like LeBron and the Lakers was talking, talking, talking the whole time.

Speaker 1 There's a chance Minnesota is just not that good and that they lucked out playing that weird Laker team in round one and then Curry gets hurt in round two.

Speaker 1 Can't be ruled out.

Speaker 1 It did feel like they found something late with Ant and Reed and McDaniels and Alexander Walker and Conley, where they basically just put Gobert and Randall, took them out and tried to match athletes with them.

Speaker 1 But that's not going to work for four quarters. They have to get Gobert going.
They have to figure out how to get Randall into that 20 to 25 points again.

Speaker 1 But, you know, again, this goes back to OKC as an answer for everything. They'll just put Lou Dord on you.
They'll just put Caruso on you. It just doesn't seem to matter.

Speaker 1 I still feel like the Clippers in the West were the team that matched up the best with OKC.

Speaker 1 And, you know, this is

Speaker 1 going to be the playoffs that we look back and we're like, man, the playoffs were drunk that year. There were so many weird, crazy games.

Speaker 1 And one of them was at OKC, I'm sorry, the Clippers Denver game four that I went to that I keep mentioning that ended with the Gordon L. Eopdunk.

Speaker 1 And I still feel like the Clippers win that game, they're in the next round.

Speaker 1 And I think the Clippers OKC, that would have been the best chance I think anyone in the West would have had of beating them. And this is a conference that just had Denver take them to seven.

Speaker 1 I think Indiana does have a chance. I don't think the Knicks with,

Speaker 1 you know, basically seven guys, with the way that OKC would be able to just throw everybody at Brunson, they'd be able to attack towns.

Speaker 1 I think it would be really hard for the Knicks on both ends in a seven-game series against them. Indiana, probably not easy either, but at least they could do the offense,

Speaker 1 you know, the run and shoot,

Speaker 1 try to mess them up. And, you know, maybe it's Indiana's playoffs.
They've had three of the greatest comebacks in the history of the league. They had the single best comeback win I've ever seen.

Speaker 1 I tweeted it right afterwards, not knowing that,

Speaker 1 what was it, one out of, it was the first out of 977 playoff games where somebody came back from that deficit with three minutes left. It felt that way watching it.

Speaker 1 I was like, I'm pretty sure I've never seen anything like this before.

Speaker 1 It's the Neesmith game. It's the Halliburton, the bounce, only the Kawhi against Philly, I think a ball has ever bounced that high and gone in in a key moment.

Speaker 1 Halliburton gives the choke sign, but then it's going to overtime. And it seems like that is the biggest, oh my God, that's going to come back to Haunt him.
Didn't come back to Haunt him.

Speaker 1 And then, you know, the other legacy of that game is how nervous the Knicks fans got. You can't blame them.

Speaker 1 They haven't won a title since 73, but you could feel the nerves coming through the TV on the OG free throws and the towns free throws. So, what's Friday night going to be like,

Speaker 1 you know, it'll be a drunk, nervous New York crowd. It'll be an Indiana crowd playing with house money.
And

Speaker 1 I'm not sure it's going to matter because it seems like OKC is just clearly the best team.

Speaker 1 Sometimes that's that's the way it goes we'll see can they be historically great can they finish 84 and 17 or 84 and 18 could they walk among the gods we're gonna find out uh

Speaker 1 interesting basketball weekend ahead and speaking of interesting jon stewart is coming up and we talked for 90 minutes and it was fantastic and i can't wait for you to listen to it we're gonna have it right after this break Fandu is still your buddy for the NBA playoffs.

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All right, we're taping this on Thursday morning.

Speaker 1 Sadly, we agreed to do this well before Nick's Pacers game one. Jon Stewart is here.

Speaker 1 I didn't know if you were going to cancel. I didn't want to get away from that.

Speaker 2 What do you want, Sammet? What do you want?

Speaker 3 Why are you bothering me?

Speaker 1 You were so happy like a week ago.

Speaker 3 This is the power of the playoffs.

Speaker 3 This is how it goes. This is the elation, the joy of each victory with the knowing knowledge of you're about to be emotionally thrown over a cliff, and it's

Speaker 3 fuck man.

Speaker 1 But you didn't go last night, you sent your son.

Speaker 3 Who he went, he went with his boys.

Speaker 1 He's is he a blank slate for playoff disappointment because it's been so bad.

Speaker 2 What is his history?

Speaker 3 His history is so. Listen, I've thrown him down on

Speaker 3 Mets,

Speaker 3 Giants, Rangers, and

Speaker 3 and the Knicks. So he's actually not faced the, like,

Speaker 3 like I was trying to explain to him: like, this is not even the most catastrophic loss that we've faced in the playoffs at the hands of the Pacers.

Speaker 3 Like, this isn't even, you know, you've got to understand, like, the 90s was just this, because we were good in the 90s.

Speaker 3 The Knicks were really good in the 90s, but just could never overcome either, you know, Jordan's greatness or

Speaker 3 lajuan's greatness or just reggie miller's pain in the acidness

Speaker 3 or you know but we faced the pacers like six times yeah in the nine seven times and lost in like crazy ways like like patrick ewing a seven foot one with a i think a 28 foot wingspan missing a finger roll right like game seven like you just literally he could have just just dunked it and decided let me just see let me see if it'll bounce off the back of the rim.

Speaker 1 But it all circled back with the four-point shot and the worst call in the history of the playoffs.

Speaker 2 What? Worst call?

Speaker 2 The seven-second continuation. Yeah.
Larry Johnson.

Speaker 3 Let me tell you something about Larry Johnson. That was, as a matter of fact, and I'm glad that you brought this up because it's important for us to discuss this.

Speaker 3 Larry Johnson suffered at the hands of that end one.

Speaker 3 And I'm glad that he got the call because he was a fragile flower. You know that Larry Johnson had a very bad back.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 3 And for any of those players to put his vertebrate in jeopardy like that, I thought was I actually thought it should have been a flagrant two and an ejection, like when Starks head-butted Reggie Miller.

Speaker 3 Do you remember that? Oh, yeah. Starks start.
I think it was

Speaker 3 game three. It might have been, yeah, game three.
Uh, Knicks were up. Starks headbutts Reggie Miller, and then Indiana goes on like a 30 to 10 run, runs away with it.

Speaker 1 Reggie Miller goaded him into it.

Speaker 3 Oh, Jesus. Yeah.
It's, it's non-stop. I mean, but I, I have to tell you, like.

Speaker 1 So he doesn't know it. Your son was there.
Your son's what, 21, 22?

Speaker 3 Yeah, he's 20. He's 20 years old.
Yeah. And so, but he's in, he's as passionate about it as I am.
Yeah. And loves it.
I've got pictures of him, you know, at the games with his SpongeBob backpack.

Speaker 3 And his, you know, he's five years old.

Speaker 1 Pointing at Eddie Curry and Zach Randolph, wondering why they're starting two bigs.

Speaker 2 He kept saying,

Speaker 3 he kept saying, so they've taken Rick Mahorn's ass and they've put it on these two players,

Speaker 3 but they don't have the rebounding ability of a Mahorn. They just have the ass.

Speaker 3 But yeah, so

Speaker 3 he just loves it. And he's got a pretty good, being raised as a Nick and Met and giant.
and

Speaker 3 Ranger fan, he's got a pretty good tolerance for the beatdown. He's got a pretty good tolerance for the raised expectation followed by crushing disappointment.

Speaker 3 I've raised them right.

Speaker 1 Well, the Giants piece of it, it was at least the one nice thing you did because, like, I have a couple of friends who are Knicks Mets Jets.

Speaker 1 I know, but the Knicks Mets Jets combo is almost like

Speaker 3 in many ways.

Speaker 2 I'm on the spiral of hell.

Speaker 3 Can I tell you something? And this is true. There are states that will take away your children for that.
There are that.

Speaker 3 They will will bring in Dyfus

Speaker 3 if you go down that route for too long. But the nice part about it is he always has

Speaker 3 his excitement around the draft or things like that.

Speaker 3 Like there really is a, because there are so many sports teams here and it is really a non-stop, you know, and I'm always listening to the fan or, you know, so whenever we're in the car, he just sits back and laughs at like Joey from, you know,

Speaker 3 Queens or, you you know, Frankie from Islam. Like, what are they doing?

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 3 So he, he loves that shit.

Speaker 1 So I had some, I talked to a bunch of Nick fans last night and today, some of whom were there.

Speaker 3 Are you on a crisis hotline? Is that what you're doing?

Speaker 1 No, it's just a lot of people reach out to me.

Speaker 2 I'm like a sports therapist.

Speaker 1 A friend of mine said, bad man. A friend of mine said the Charles Smith game is still the nadir.
and that nothing has will ever compare to walking out.

Speaker 1 First of all, the vibe at the end of the game and then this complete silence leaving the arena, he said was unparalleled.

Speaker 1 That that was number one. That's always going to be number one.

Speaker 3 The Charles Smith game was the most excruciating, let's say, 7.3 seconds of a Knicks, you know, because there were so many opportunities there for him to just, you know, I think he had three offensive rebounds in that sequence.

Speaker 3 Something crazy.

Speaker 1 Might have gotten fouled at least twice.

Speaker 3 But that was back when they didn't call. I mean, you look at the scores of these games and, you know, like they beat them down 82 to 71.
It was a highest scoring game.

Speaker 3 And, you know, I mean, these games were Reggie Miller.

Speaker 3 That was the shocking part about some of the Reggie Miller performances is you'd see a game where it was like 82-76 and Reggie Miller would score 25 points in the last fucking quarter.

Speaker 3 Like he would go off in a way that was just like now,

Speaker 3 you know, there are these guys that are pouring in 40 points, 30. You know, last night, Brunson, Cat, you know, Nesmith putting up, I don't know, threes out of nowhere.

Speaker 1 He had eight threes.

Speaker 3 Eight threes out of what, nine? Something crazy.

Speaker 1 Well, that's what's different now: is these heat check guys don't have to be Reggie Miller anymore. They can be Nismith just going bonkers for a half hour.

Speaker 3 Didn't you have Nesmith? Wasn't he your dad?

Speaker 1 We trade him in the Brogdon trade when we got Michael Brogdon.

Speaker 3 Oh, well, there you go.

Speaker 1 Well, he turned into Drew Holiday, which turned into a title. So we still somehow considered a win.
But

Speaker 3 I don't even want to talk to you. You fucking like, here's the thing.

Speaker 3 If you were a Knick fan, you wouldn't even be able to still talk to me right now after what you went through with the Celtics, but you have that

Speaker 3 16 championships that have stocked up. You have a resilience in your body.
New England has been on the most outrageous championship run that will sustain you.

Speaker 3 You're like camels that have just come out of your bodies.

Speaker 1 Like, I got COVID early, but then now my system can fight it. You're like, you know what you are?

Speaker 3 You're like Sherpas at Everest. Like you don't actually even need the oxygen.
You just go up there and you climb up and it doesn't even fucking matter. Well, I will tell you

Speaker 1 when they lost the first two Knicks games, I did not feel that way because that was

Speaker 1 a double choke job. being up 20 in the fourth quarter of two games in a row.
It's and uh

Speaker 3 but once you've won the championship the year before, like at a certain point, you go like, oh, you know what? Hey,

Speaker 3 that was a terrible thing. But hey, we won the championship last year.
That's what I'm saying. You have a food reserve.
Like, we've been starving, dude. We won in 73.
I'm 62 years old.

Speaker 3 We won when I was 10, 11 years old. You have the picture over your head of

Speaker 1 the big four there.

Speaker 3 Yeah, big five.

Speaker 1 That's a four or five. I can actually.

Speaker 3 That's five. That's five.

Speaker 3 You can't see because of the little block there, but it's Willis Reed, Dave dave debusher bill bradley walt frazier and then dickie barnett who just passed away actually but uh and that's them in the locker room after uh i think the first championship so when did you have enough juice to start getting nicks tickets like when you had the mtv show when did you start yeah when did you become a regular

Speaker 3 oh i was a regular before that but not in the in the good seats but once i started having a chance to get into the good seats, well, then you're, you just try not to pull the card too often, you know, so uh, but back in when this was first happening, they weren't great.

Speaker 3 So it wasn't until Mello got there and Stadamire

Speaker 3 that you even had competition. Like back.

Speaker 1 So in the 90s, you could just get them.

Speaker 3 Oh, no, no, no. 90s, I didn't have 90s.
I didn't have the juice. I didn't have.
I didn't have the juice. No, I could get the occasional.
Like what I had the juice for in the 90s.

Speaker 3 Not even after the faculty? Like, that's fucking, that's hardcore. That's, I didn't think you'd go after the acting career this soon.

Speaker 2 That's what I thought we were.

Speaker 2 I left the factory.

Speaker 3 I'm coming off a loss. I'm coming off a terrible playoff loss, and I should be received with a certain TLC, a certain kind of

Speaker 3 and graciousness.

Speaker 1 You did die halfway through from you turned into an alien.

Speaker 3 Did I die? Or did I, in the closing scenes,

Speaker 3 in the bonus credit scenes, come back miraculously with a patch over my eye and a thumb bandage?

Speaker 3 That was the one I could never, I always asked Robert Rodriguez, I go, let me get this straight. How do I come back? Like, didn't that dude fucking put a pen through my eye?

Speaker 2 I lost the lower half of my body and turned into an alien and lost my eye.

Speaker 3 The whole thing. And Robert's like, ah, it'd be funny.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 3 We don't have to have a, you know, it's a sea creature that, you know, comes to life in a swimming pool and turns people into, you know, you know, who defends your acting career. Who's that?

Speaker 3 Should be nobody, but go ahead.

Speaker 1 No, our beloved, our beloved James Baby doll Dixon.

Speaker 3 James Dixon?

Speaker 2 James Dixon.

Speaker 1 We were going through it.

Speaker 2 Before it Augusta.

Speaker 1 And first of all, playing by heart was good and you were good in it.

Speaker 3 Are we really going to go through that?

Speaker 2 No, I'm just quickly. No, we were going through it.

Speaker 1 And he was like, baby, John, John could have been, if he wanted to go that route, he, you know, he goes in a medium baby doll mode.

Speaker 3 Yeah, he couldn't have. John, John couldn't have.
Here's the thing about James, and it's very lovely of him to try and defend it, but he's probably being contrarian.

Speaker 3 When I was first starting, because, you know, James and I worked together for the whole time.

Speaker 3 James and I met in like 87, 88.

Speaker 3 He, he was working in a mail room and I was still bartending at fucking Panchito's down on McDougal Street and just doing gigs at like the bitter end and all this other stuff.

Speaker 3 So we've been working together since then. So he would, as a like junior, junior guy, every now and again, get a little, you know, a blurb off of like.

Speaker 3 back page and send me off to a commercial audition. And I went to one and I come back.
And like, you know, you'd hear something.

Speaker 3 So I think I called him up a couple of days later. I go, hey, man, did you hear anything about that commercial audition? And he goes, oh, yeah, I don't know what you did in there, but they hated you.

Speaker 3 And I was like, what? They were like, yeah, I don't, I don't, I think they thought like you couldn't act. I don't know if you need to take like lessons or anything.
And I was just like, you're my guy.

Speaker 3 I'm staying with you forever.

Speaker 1 So you like the bluntness?

Speaker 3 Hey, dude, we're in a business where nobody tells you the fucking truth. So to have a guy that will be like, hey, I think that might have sucked, is the most valuable thing to have in this industry.

Speaker 3 To have somebody that'll look at you steely-eyed and tell you when you suck is the greatest thing.

Speaker 3 And because it can be a business of self-delusion, you know, and you always try and do that with comic. How many times have you met a comic who come off stage and be like, I crushed that?

Speaker 3 And you're like,

Speaker 3 I think I heard some, there was some light murmuring, but I don't know if I would call that, you know, but they're just dudes that are just like, I'm invincible.

Speaker 3 Uh, so it's always good to have somebody uh in your corner like that.

Speaker 1 That was such an interesting era when you're trying to take off as a comic, you know, way pretty internet.

Speaker 1 It felt like you had a whole class of people that all went on to do all these different things.

Speaker 3 These guys at the they were all at the comedy show, and you're talking about David Tell, Ray Romano, uh, Louis C.K., Nick DiPaolo, Alan Habey, like fucking hilarious uh, Laura Keitlinger, Susie Esmond would come by.

Speaker 3 It was Colin Quinn was in there.

Speaker 3 And you would watch these folks. You know, we'd hang out there all night and

Speaker 3 you're working for nothing. You're working for hummus.

Speaker 3 You know, if you were on the schedule during the week, it was 15 bucks. On the weekend, I think it was 50.
45 or 50.

Speaker 3 But mostly, and I was working as a day bartender at Panchito's. So, you know, Panchito's like a Mexican place?

Speaker 1 What was it?

Speaker 3 No, it was an Indian restaurant.

Speaker 1 I don't know if it's a guy named Bob Panchito, who's a mixed fan. It's a sports.

Speaker 3 It was a guy named Bob, actually. That was, that was a nice,

Speaker 3 yeah, it was this really like

Speaker 3 early on blender drink Mexican restaurant, not a chain.

Speaker 1 You know, imagine like some margaritas, frozen margaritas, all that stuff.

Speaker 3 Dude, every learning, learning, being a bartender there was a nightmare. You had like a three, four, five page, just frozen drinks.

Speaker 3 They'd like a creamsicle and a Greenwich blend, you know, and you're just, but as the day bartender, I don't know if you've ever been a day bartender in a restaurant, but nobody comes in.

Speaker 3 You're the prep guy. So you spend your day cutting limes so that the night guy can fucking clean up.
That's your role.

Speaker 1 Because you couldn't be the night guy because you're a comic.

Speaker 3 Because I'm a comic. So I couldn't make the money.

Speaker 3 I could only make the drinks for the night guy to make the money and then i'd go work for hummus it was a it was a and i have to say happy as i've ever been just loved it loved it loved it imagine that you're 24 25 years old you're in greenwich village i'm living down uh uh near canal street you know sharing a room with a dude i live in a little loft bed he lives on the bottom of it and you're living this like bananas dream that nobody ever thought you would ever do like it's not like uh i was destined for greatness like it's not like people you know were like that kid's got it like it was a ridiculous whim and so to just head up there no plan uh no idea of where this thing was going to go i worked in catering kitchens and uh bartended and all kinds of other odd stuff

Speaker 3 and just the ability to like walk home at three in the morning through greenwich village and soho to get down to canal street after sitting around with a tell

Speaker 3 and and quinn and those guys like come on

Speaker 1 so you go

Speaker 1 you go to new york and you're basically like i'm going to try to figure out how to be a comic right and you're just putting it together

Speaker 3 six week lease in an apartment I was seeing Jesus. I used to work in

Speaker 3 bars down in Jersey when I first got out of college. And I was working at this one place called City Gardens.

Speaker 3 And it was like a legendary punk club in Trenton, New Jersey.

Speaker 3 And when I say, like, like bad brains, black flag, suicidal tendencies, misfits, like all the great punk bands of that era would roll through between New York and Philly.

Speaker 3 So Trenton, it was this weird shithole, like a warehouse, you know,

Speaker 3 in the middle of like this very

Speaker 3 kind of dangerous place. It was a very dangerous place.

Speaker 3 And, but all the bands that would come through, I'd get to interact with because a bartender, you're up in the green room, you know, you're bringing them beers and booze. And so you're,

Speaker 3 you might not remember this. You might be too young, but do you remember Martha Quinn of MTV?

Speaker 1 Of course.

Speaker 3 Oh, okay. So she was everybody's pixie.
Everybody's.

Speaker 2 I was an only child. I remember every

Speaker 2 moment of MTV.

Speaker 3 So she was everybody's pixie and adorable thing. Well, there was a band called Stiv Baders and the Lords of the New Church, and Stiv Baders was the lead singer of Lords of the New Church.

Speaker 3 He's on stage. He's an addict.

Speaker 3 Opiates, errant, whatever. He's on stage.
He's sick as a dog. So

Speaker 3 he's vomiting. He looks like we need to get him.

Speaker 3 This is before they would do IV treatments for hydrate people. So he looks dehydrated, near death.

Speaker 3 I go upstairs to the green room after the show. He's lying there, kind of

Speaker 3 sort of comatose, and I'm bringing booze in for everybody. And Martha Quinn is in there on his lap.

Speaker 3 And he kind of revives every now and then

Speaker 3 and is making out with her. And I was like,

Speaker 3 boy, this industry is really, it's not what it appears to be on television. So it might be a little darker than what I had originally surmised.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Oh my God.

Speaker 3 It was a wild place, but it inspired me because I talked to these guys and they'd be like, what do you you do? And I'd be like, Uh, I get you drinks. And they're like, Is that it?

Speaker 3 And I'm like, Kind of. And it, it, I always had this idea in my head, like, I wanted to try to be a comic or be a writer or some shit.
And they were like, So, what do you do? Why don't you do it?

Speaker 3 And it, it kind of propelled me to one day. I just sold all my shit and got a U-Haul, drove up to the city, and that was it.

Speaker 1 Well, it probably made you realize how haphazard everything is.

Speaker 1 And that you think in your head when you're growing up, oh, there's this whole process, and you got to do this and this, and then you get this, and then you realize, like, oh, yeah,

Speaker 1 maybe you just throw caution in the wind for six months and it might work out, it might not.

Speaker 3 Right. You just make decisions.
And I remember telling people, and they were just like,

Speaker 3 what? Like, it's one of those things they were like, I don't think that,

Speaker 3 I don't think any part of that sentence that you just said makes sense. Like,

Speaker 3 I'm leaving and going to go to New York to be a comic. And they'll be like, what?

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 it was a ball.

Speaker 1 in the late 80s. The best case scenario for being a comic is maybe you get a 12:30 show someday, maybe you get to tour the country.
Like, what in your head? Who's who's your role model?

Speaker 2 Like, scientists for the country, yeah.

Speaker 3 Well, no, those guys were so far above and beyond.

Speaker 1 Look, I mean, like, if you're shooting for the stars, who are you looking at?

Speaker 3 That's the thing. I wasn't shooting for the stars, right? That, like, I wasn't thinking like that.
I think

Speaker 3 maybe that was partially how I was able to kind of endure whatever indignities get thrown your way. Like, how many times can you go to Carlos in the kitchen of Panchitos and go, hey, man,

Speaker 3 any chance you could make me like dinner and then maybe a breakfast too that I could put in a tin and just take with me? Like, it's a lot of indignity.

Speaker 3 You know, you're, I'm a grown man at that time. Like, I'm not, I'm not a kid.
I'm sharing a room. Like, when was the last time I shared a room when I was a kid?

Speaker 3 Like, when was the last time you shared a room? You know,

Speaker 3 I know how to drive. I'm old enough to drink and I'm sharing a room with the dude.
Like,

Speaker 3 it was,

Speaker 3 you know,

Speaker 3 you did, I didn't think, oh man, I'm going to do my own. They're going to discover me like they discovered Seinfeld and Roseanne.
And it's going to be, and you're on.

Speaker 3 It was, I hope I get good enough to pass the club. Like

Speaker 3 there were milestones, but the milestones were much closer to your face. than what you would imagine.

Speaker 3 You know, I imagine for you, sort of a simply, like you think to yourself, I'm going to create a podcasting network and a

Speaker 3 conglomerate of writers and sports. You know, you don't, you think like, how am I going to get good at this?

Speaker 3 How am I going to get good enough at this that they'll let me work here for the $15 I might be able to get? Holy shit. How do I get here? So they'll let me work on the weekend.
Like that's where,

Speaker 3 like, they put cash money in your pocket. Like if you could do five sets at different clubs on a Friday night, six sets, Atel was the king of that.

Speaker 3 Attel was,

Speaker 3 he would do like nine or 10 sets in a night.

Speaker 2 Like, really?

Speaker 3 Oh my God. The most industrious, like,

Speaker 3 you would barely see him. He'd wander in real quick with the cigarette dangling, go up on stage, bang out 20 minutes of fucking hilarity, pop into the subway.

Speaker 3 right uptown because you had to go the circuit was the seller downtown boston comedy but you also had comic strip Catch a Rising Star Uptown, Stand Up New York, although they did like weekend bookings.

Speaker 3 So you had a bunch of places, but you had, you had to travel. Caroline's at the seaport, then in Midtown.

Speaker 3 So it was like a little, little troubadours.

Speaker 1 How long did it take you to get good at it?

Speaker 3 I'll let you know when I get good at it.

Speaker 2 God.

Speaker 1 Well, when did you feel like? Okay, I actually feel like I somewhat know what I'm doing here.

Speaker 3 I think it was,

Speaker 3 and I wouldn't know, you know, the dates, I can tell you the process of it was I worked at the seller, which was just a few doors down from that bar I was working at. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And this guy, Go Grun Fest and Rick Chrome, who sort of ran it and booked it, let me hang out there every night. Not obviously on the weekends where the real comics were.

Speaker 3 And they would put me on every night as the last guy.

Speaker 3 So Sunday to Thursday, I'd go on at one in the morning, 2.30 in the morning, depending on, you know, comedy center, the comedy seller back then wasn't what, what you know it as today, which is like Monday night, they're doing three sold-out shows for, you know, and packing it in.

Speaker 3 And it's all just like

Speaker 3 really great, really established comments, like best shows you would ever see in your life. And then even in the middle of it, Chris Rock will show up and like bang out a set, you know, crazy stuff.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 3 you know, they would put me on every night and

Speaker 3 you learn how to be yourself. You learn how to be yourself on stage, which is the only way you can create a kind of

Speaker 3 sustaining comedy career.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 3 I remember doing that. And you just, you do reps, just do, you know, what it felt like being like a gym rap, a comedy gym rap.

Speaker 5 And,

Speaker 3 you know, it was you and the wait staff. and the occasional table of like drunk Norwegian sailors or whoever might wander down there because the place wasn't packed.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 It's not like they started the show at eight and they ran it till the last person left. And I was the guy

Speaker 3 getting your reps in. And that's when I started to feel like I figured it out in a way that didn't feel embarrassing.
If that's

Speaker 1 well, plus you're allowed to make mistakes.

Speaker 2 Like I look back when I had my columns.

Speaker 1 Before I got to ESPN, I was on my own for four years, just writing columns. And some of them were good, some of them were bad.

Speaker 1 I'm making a ton of, but I was able to make these mistakes with not a big audience, right? And then you learn from that. And then by the time you get the audience,

Speaker 1 you have enough of a feel of what's going to work and not work.

Speaker 1 So I was so frustrated those four years. I'm like, is this ever going to happen? Should I go into real estate? What should I do?

Speaker 1 And then you look back and you're like, oh, that's actually really good. It played out this way that I spent that much time trying to figure out how to get good at something.

Speaker 1 Because then when it happened, I was ready for it.

Speaker 3 You were in Collum College. Like that's,

Speaker 3 it's an essential learning experience, but that's also what you have to want. Like it sounds like you wanted to be a writer,

Speaker 3 not a star. And the people that

Speaker 3 I always

Speaker 3 really loved were the people that wanted to be

Speaker 3 comics,

Speaker 3 not stars. They might get good enough to be like the way I sort of looked at it was, if I get good enough, it'll be like bartending, like something you can make enough money with that you'll be okay.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 3 And then occasionally people would show up. Like, I remember when Chappelle showed up, I mean, he was like, every now and again, somebody would come in that's just built different.

Speaker 3 Like a lot of us are, you know, you're in there doing your work a day sets and trying to make your way and kind of build.

Speaker 3 And then a kid will come in and you just go, oh, well, that's just touched by God. That's just a different, that's just a weirdly different prodigy.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I always felt good at not feeling

Speaker 3 mad about that.

Speaker 3 Like I remember seeing Dave and just going like, I love that. I love that that kid can do that.
Rather than feeling like, why is that guy so good?

Speaker 1 Because I was being threatened by it.

Speaker 3 Right. Because I watched a lot of guys

Speaker 3 where bitterness stole whatever shot they had. Like, I always tried to maintain that feeling of

Speaker 3 no matter, like, people will say, like, when did you think you made it? And I'm like, here's when I made it. When I left Trenton, that's when I made it.
Like, everything else is gravy.

Speaker 3 Like, you, you tried the thing. Like, that's all you can give yourself is an opportunity and work your ass off at it.
But like

Speaker 3 you always try to maintain that kind of feeling of

Speaker 3 proud of yourself, no matter what happened, because

Speaker 3 you did the hard thing, which was to cleave yourself from your old life that

Speaker 3 would have been fine.

Speaker 1 Well, the funny thing about your industry at the time is you have all these damaged people who are really good at what they do. And a lot of them are just pre-naturally bitter.

Speaker 1 They're just gonna be bitter anyway, and

Speaker 1 just super mad at everybody who's more successful than them.

Speaker 3 That's part of the comedy industry, but I didn't find that to be the general, like that. Was the whole reputation of comics is like damaged people doing a damaged thing? Like,

Speaker 3 they were the funniest, smartest,

Speaker 3 nicest,

Speaker 3 like, often warmest people you'd ever come across. Like, we all have our shit, but this idea of like, what's up, sad clown?

Speaker 3 Masking your pain, like, it didn't feel that way. It felt like people excited to be in this very fertile, creative environment.

Speaker 3 I mean, we all worked, we wrote for like Caroline's Comedy Hour, and Comedy Central came on board in the middle of it. And like, some of us got like little jobs there, like, but it felt,

Speaker 3 you know, I can only imagine like a creative scene that, if not relevant, was at least

Speaker 3 like

Speaker 3 it was, it was, it was constructive. It was like you felt the excitement of it because we were getting to do what we wanted to do.
Like it was a crazy, wonderful, weird, dumb life.

Speaker 1 I think the thing I was always jealous of from afar,

Speaker 1 when when I moved out here to work for Kimmel and he was dating Sarah.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 And Sarah had this whole web of people, and it was almost like a sports team. Yeah.
She knew everybody. And she wasn't there.

Speaker 2 She was down there,

Speaker 2 too.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And she was unbelievably good.
Another one that was just young, but really fucking good.

Speaker 1 Kind of knew what their voice were.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but the way they all pulled for each other and how they knew everybody and they were all, it was, I was like, wow, this is not what I expected from the comedy industry that it was a little more rowing the same way than on the boat than I'd

Speaker 2 kind of thought.

Speaker 3 You would get a dick or two, but it was the exception, not the rule. And even the people that you thought like, wow, that, that person's dealing with a lot, they generally didn't take it out on you.

Speaker 3 You were part of their support, not a part of their attack.

Speaker 3 So I have nothing but ridiculously fond memories. And I'm sure there's a little gloss of nostalgia,

Speaker 3 you know, that carries over maybe some of the tougher times.

Speaker 3 But I think if you didn't, if it hadn't been

Speaker 3 somewhat painful and somewhat of a struggle, I don't think it would mean much

Speaker 3 in the aftermath.

Speaker 3 If you didn't feel like you had to develop, you know, it's like when you talk to a guitar player and, you know, and they play unbelievable and then they show you pictures of like the blisters on their hands and you're like, yeah, that's no blister, no solo.

Speaker 3 You know what I mean? Like, it's

Speaker 1 part of a process from the MTV show. Like, you probably do this show.
What did it last? Two years?

Speaker 1 Three years?

Speaker 3 Two, I think. Yeah, something like that.

Speaker 2 And then it's done and you move on to other things.

Speaker 1 But now we're in this YouTube video era and all these clips come back from it. And one of the things that's amazing about that.

Speaker 2 The MTV show? Oh, yeah. Well, one of the things that's amazing about it,

Speaker 1 you had unbelievable music on that show. Best part of that.
And a lot of these artists, like, that's kind of, it was kind of the prime apex of their careers during this amazing music time.

Speaker 3 We had

Speaker 3 that was, we had a guy named Bruce Lee Gilmer, who was the music booker, and Beth McCarthy was the director of the show. And she had been a director at MTV, did all the live, like, if you ever watch

Speaker 3 Nirvana Unplugged or those kinds of things, Alex Coletti had come up with

Speaker 3 the concepts and was doing the unplugs, but Beth was directing them all.

Speaker 3 You know, and you see, even in that Nirvana unplugged, that little moment where like Kurt turns and smiles

Speaker 3 to the camera, that was Beth going like, are you having fun here, Kurt at all?

Speaker 2 Like,

Speaker 3 but she's,

Speaker 3 to my mind, like the greatest live music director of all time. Like, she's just phenomenal.

Speaker 3 She went on, she did, you know, Saturday Night Live, but she directed our show, our dopey little show, for the whole time it was on.

Speaker 2 She was

Speaker 1 the peak of alternative.

Speaker 3 That's right.

Speaker 1 Hip-hop's coming super hard at that point.

Speaker 2 Yep. Just

Speaker 2 everything is

Speaker 1 humming in 93 and 94.

Speaker 3 When we were done at MTV, we went over to Paramount. And I think the first week on the air, the musical guests were Public Enemy and Johnny Cash.
And like, that was the breath of it.

Speaker 3 Biggie Smalls was on,

Speaker 3 ODB, Wu-Tang,

Speaker 3 Mike Watt came on, and Grohl played drums while Eddie Vetter and Pat Smear played guitar for him.

Speaker 2 Like

Speaker 3 it was

Speaker 3 insane. Slayer,

Speaker 3 Danzig, like it was

Speaker 3 the breath of it.

Speaker 2 Played mother, baby. Played mother.

Speaker 1 Now that was somebody who knew what his persona was.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 No, I love those guys. And they were all like,

Speaker 3 again, like, I know the reputation, like,

Speaker 3 oh, everybody comes on and there's attitude and all that shit. None of it.
Like, they were all hanging out in the green room with, you know,

Speaker 3 Trent Rezner and Marilyn Manson. Like, it was crazy.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 3 it was so much fun, but the music was so good and such an important part of it. And, like, we were able to sneak in, you know, guided by voices and

Speaker 3 bad religion and bands that were like not not quite mainstream, but really great.

Speaker 3 You know, Buffalo Tom.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 Canon Crows were in there. I remember.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you had a bunch of them. Just, it was an incredible.
That was my favorite part of

Speaker 3 the show.

Speaker 3 Loved it.

Speaker 1 I thought the show, I don't know. I thought the show was good and it had a weirdly important place in pop culture because MTV, that was the height of MTV.
You know who did all that shit?

Speaker 3 You know who didn't? Well, were the executives that were in charge of the program when they canceled it? No, the MTV one actually, we did really well in the ratings.

Speaker 3 It was when we went to Paramount and got syndicated, is when that's when it went.

Speaker 1 I blame that on baby doll

Speaker 2 completely.

Speaker 3 I told him, I said, don't do this.

Speaker 1 No, no, he's like, baby, it's a lot of money. We got to do this.

Speaker 3 No, it was what happened was Arsinio left, and Paramount owned MTV. And so they bought us

Speaker 2 to do that. That was it.

Speaker 3 But we didn't realize, like, you'll be on at three in the morning in Houston and 11 o'clock at night in you know atlanta uh

Speaker 2 but

Speaker 3 even that was a great experience and to go to our earlier point when you get canceled and your name is on the like when they come into the office and go that show with your name on it yeah i've had the experience it's done by right yeah it's not great but

Speaker 3 what's better than waking up the next day and going oh

Speaker 3 I'm still alive and I can still write jokes and I can still do the shit that I love to do.

Speaker 3 And it won't maybe in that venue, but I can go off and do it. That's the crazy part about,

Speaker 3 I think,

Speaker 3 the way that people view the kind of stereotypes of the businesses that we're in. And I heard Jack Antonoff actually sum this up really well.

Speaker 3 I can't remember the interview I was watching, but Jack Antonoff was talking about going into music. And he would be like, I'm going, I'm thinking about going into music.

Speaker 3 And everybody would say to him, What are you crazy? Music, what do you think you're doing?

Speaker 3 But if he had said, I want to be an astronaut, they'd all be like, Yes, fantastic. But then he goes, But how many? There's like seven astronauts.
Music is everywhere.

Speaker 3 Like, why wouldn't they say, Oh, you love music? That's amazing. It's everywhere.
And that's, they view these careers as like not safe,

Speaker 3 as a lark,

Speaker 3 as an indulgence.

Speaker 3 But comedy is everywhere. Sports are everywhere.
Writing is everywhere. Like, why wouldn't you say to somebody, oh, if that's what you love, you'll probably work your ass off at it.

Speaker 3 And you'll probably end up, you might not get to here, but you might be fine.

Speaker 3 You might make enough to make a living and have a family. Like,

Speaker 3 why wouldn't that be encouraged?

Speaker 2 I think so. Yeah.
Go ahead.

Speaker 3 No, I was just going to say, so that when the cancellation came, as hard as it was, it was also freeing.

Speaker 3 Because I realized like, oh,

Speaker 3 I still get to do the very thing that I came up here to do.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, I think the difference now, the potential of becoming either famous or successful seems easier because we have all these different levers you can pull now.

Speaker 1 Like somebody could just start a video podcast on YouTube

Speaker 1 and actually get an audience pretty fast.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. Right.

Speaker 2 You just feel like they do that, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, they definitely do. So, first of all, you can have an audience too soon.

Speaker 1 Second of all, you have the potential of this could happen to me soon, which I think skews the brain chemistry a little bit where you're like,

Speaker 1 why isn't this happening yet? It's been three months. And I think what was different about our generation was

Speaker 1 you never

Speaker 1 really thought it was going to work out. And if it worked out, that would be great.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 1 there was no, yes, it wasn't like there was like this prize in the bottom of the cracker jack box. You're like, man, I really hope this works out, but I have no idea if it is.

Speaker 1 Now it feels like it can work out, which I think why people even get more and more frustrated when it doesn't.

Speaker 3 You know, yeah, maybe, maybe the key to our generation was a utter lack of confidence.

Speaker 2 That was Gen X.

Speaker 1 I mean, and right before Gen X of like,

Speaker 2 yeah, this actually might not happen.

Speaker 3 There were viral sensations back when we were younger, too. It was just a different mentality, you know, it, it, they didn't have the, you know, I'm sure there was a, you know,

Speaker 3 an analog to Hawk Tua, you know, back in, you know, but it was like Donna Rice or one of those.

Speaker 2 Right, right.

Speaker 3 Donna Rice. It's exactly, that's the perfect analogy to, although, yeah, somebody that came up through notoriety and maybe infamy.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 But didn't necessarily have something attached to that, but then took those opportunities beyond that to go on all kinds of, you know,

Speaker 3 write a book or be on shows or that kind of shit.

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This episode is brought to you by Apple Watch.

Speaker 1 Real talk for a second. You think you're crushing it with sleep?

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Speaker 1 slash Apple Watch Series 11.

Speaker 1 iPhone 11 or later required. One of the things as we get older and we watch how culture changes, like one of the things that's so interesting to me is the late night host piece.

Speaker 1 Like it seems like CBS is just going to dump the 1235 spot that used to be.

Speaker 1 This breeding ground for new comics, right? It'd be like, or new hosts, or this would be either you put somebody who's established or you put somebody who has a chance to basically become you.

Speaker 1 And now there's two problems with it.

Speaker 1 One is the audience has just dwindled to the point that it's like Kimmel and Colbert and Fallon and Seth, and maybe those are the last four we're going to have in a network.

Speaker 2 But then the other piece is,

Speaker 1 if you're going to try to get somebody young up and coming, is that even a good move for them in the same way? Are they just better off being on the road going around?

Speaker 1 I would think those people would rather be Nate Bargazzi, who's now doing basketball rings.

Speaker 2 That's the issue, right?

Speaker 3 I I think those people would rather be the biggest comic in the country. That's not really how it.

Speaker 1 But 10 years ago, Nate Bargazi, or five years ago, probably gets the 1230 thing over happening, over having happened what happened to him, right?

Speaker 3 Because the old model is how it happens, you know what I mean, or a sitcom or something along those lines or other things.

Speaker 1 But now you're just better off going to the people and going on tour.

Speaker 3 Some of that is just ubiquity, right? So people don't,

Speaker 3 those sort of talk shows do provide i think a kind of weird repetitive uh habit forming like i go to bed watching the tonight show or colbert or kimmel and i wake up watching gma or the tonight you know that's always been kind of the

Speaker 3 The idea of it is to lock people into a brand.

Speaker 3 I have a CBS lifestyle. I have an NBC lifestyle, you know.

Speaker 3 And if you look on YouTube, there's still millions and millions of people.

Speaker 3 The ratings traditionally are maybe not the same, but I would argue the reach of it is maybe bigger.

Speaker 3 It may not be monetized through advertising dollars in the way that they think makes it an efficient use of network capital.

Speaker 3 But in terms of its ability to permeate, and people to see it, I think it's still really, really large. You know, you

Speaker 2 shifted to YouTube and Spotify.

Speaker 3 You look at Seth will do a bit, you know, on it's 12:30 at night, which was never like a huge audience thing, but he'll get millions of people watching it on YouTube or Facebook or whatever the hell people watch stuff now.

Speaker 3 Mulaney's doing a cool thing on Netflix, like

Speaker 3 just allowing himself to do

Speaker 3 to just be as creative as like old-time Letterman on a weekly basis on Netflix. They've given him kind of the leeway to be able to do all that stuff.

Speaker 3 I think what will ultimately happen is you'll still have

Speaker 3 something that resembles it, but maybe not with the infrastructure. We're

Speaker 2 carrying

Speaker 2 old,

Speaker 3 like the way I look at it is like, I run a tower records. Do you know what I mean? Like people are always going to want music.

Speaker 3 But I'm still the guy who's like, well, come into my giant building and let me show you the new CD rack. Like, I'm, it's just a delivery system of something that I think people will always

Speaker 3 find

Speaker 3 somewhat interesting or appealing.

Speaker 3 But without the brick and mortar, like you, you watch a Z-Way or somebody who's doing something really interesting.

Speaker 3 Creativity finds a way. Like great, funny, interesting people find a way to make topical commentary or interviewing interesting for people.
And

Speaker 3 that's always going to be

Speaker 3 something that I think will have appeal. It just may not have an appeal with 250 employees in a giant theater.

Speaker 3 Right. With people coming every day.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Right.

Speaker 1 Well, it's interesting with you. You're just doing Mondays now.

Speaker 2 Oh, right.

Speaker 3 God bless. That's interesting.

Speaker 1 And your show, and you on that show still feels like it has the same impact, but you're not having to do the, you know, you're not pitching every day.

Speaker 2 You're pitching.

Speaker 2 You're now a starter.

Speaker 1 You're not, you know, you're not throwing the 120 innings to Nathaniel.

Speaker 3 I come back in.

Speaker 3 I do that thing now that like Aaron Rodgers can do, like where you do the thing where you're like, I'm going to go on a darkness retreat and then maybe I'll sign in September, but I don't want to go to practice.

Speaker 3 Is that okay with everybody? You know, it's that kind of shit.

Speaker 1 Did you worry? I mean, obviously, you know what you're doing, but you hadn't done that show and then you're doing that for sure.

Speaker 2 Were you nervous?

Speaker 1 Or did nervous energy? Like, what was it?

Speaker 6 What was it like to just do it again?

Speaker 3 Well, look, the muscle memory, I think one of the advantages I had is the people that

Speaker 3 the really talented, creative writers, producers, and all that of that, you know, it's, it's a, it's an organism. It's a mechanism.

Speaker 3 And the people that did it when I was there were still there, only they had all leveled up their skills, like they had all done boss battles.

Speaker 3 And so now I was walking back into the place where it was the comfort of all these people I love. Like, I will say, we have a fucking ball.

Speaker 3 Like, I know that that's, I think everybody works hard, but it is fun. Like, they're great people.
I love being around them. They've leveled up their skill levels.

Speaker 3 So, that part I wasn't nervous about.

Speaker 3 I was

Speaker 3 man, it's a weird,

Speaker 3 it's hard to describe the feeling. The first day I went in to do the show, and I'm sitting behind the desk in rehearsal.
And a lot of the camera guys, this guy, Phil, this

Speaker 3 TQ and Richie, they're all behind the cameras. It's like people that, you know, I've been with for 30 years.
So I knew them all. So it's not like I was like, where am I? Who are you?

Speaker 3 You know, the comfort was there.

Speaker 3 We did the rehearsal, but when I put the suit on

Speaker 3 and I came down and I sat behind the desk in the suit and I looked into the camera and saw on the monitor myself at the desk in the suit with the script, had the pen, the whole deal.

Speaker 3 But I look like this now.

Speaker 2 But you're older. Yeah.

Speaker 3 It looked like.

Speaker 3 Do you know those like Instagram posts where they're like a friend group that takes the same picture every 10 years?

Speaker 1 like there's that one year where everybody looks old all of a sudden, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And that was daunting

Speaker 3 because

Speaker 3 it was a very strange, like kind of melancholy feeling of

Speaker 3 the evidence of,

Speaker 3 you know, decrepitude is too strong a word, but you do look at that and think, oh shit,

Speaker 3 like

Speaker 3 it was

Speaker 1 explicit evidence of passage of time well that's the that's the phenomenon of like high school graduations college graduations weddings when right when we were younger and we'd watch the parents crying and be like those fucking idiots why are they what are they so upset about but then you get it as you

Speaker 3 get older like fuck and as your kids get older and so as i sat there

Speaker 3 It really was a stark feeling for me. And also wondering if the audience would be able to

Speaker 3 get past it to just hear the jokes and see all the thing, or if they would be distracted by this image that they had seen for so many years that was now so clearly in a different, you know,

Speaker 2 a different age demographic.

Speaker 1 But you were out there. It wasn't like people hadn't seen you in seven years, right?

Speaker 3 Not much, man. I've been out there a bit.
I've been on Steven's show a bit, but I really don't,

Speaker 3 you know, James will tell you, I don't like to do shit. I like to be home.

Speaker 2 And not only will he tell you, it drives him crazy. He just feels like you're costing him money constantly.

Speaker 1 It's like four more country clubs he could belong to.

Speaker 3 Oh my God. That's so funny.
Listen, I put enough, I put enough

Speaker 3 distance on his pool that I feel very comfortable with the choices.

Speaker 1 Do you realize what John could do? Do you realize if he just committed for one year, what we could do?

Speaker 3 he'll tell you that the worst ones are the advertisements, the commercials people would come with.

Speaker 2 And he'd be like, what?

Speaker 3 Then you don't understand. This is, they don't make deals like this.
And I'd be like, I don't care. I don't.
I don't use that product.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 1 he just wants enough that he can brag about how much he helped you.

Speaker 2 He has and the great deals, the great deals that he gets. All he wants to do is brag about the deal he got.

Speaker 3 The best at what he does of anybody I've ever seen. And part of of it is he's so, he doesn't play games.
There's no bull, like, he's just like, this is what we're doing.

Speaker 3 He doesn't try and trick people. He doesn't strategize around it.
He doesn't try and take shortcuts. He just does his fucking job in a straightforward, like clear-cut, honest manner.

Speaker 3 And the people that appreciate that are great to do business with. And the people that don't appreciate that are people you wouldn't want to do business with in the first place.

Speaker 3 Because there are, as you have probably figured out by now a shit ton of liars in this business all

Speaker 1 on every level yeah and sadly i have to deal with them on the executive side now and it's it's not great

Speaker 3 the uh no the part of it is absolutely i'm sure not what you got into what's the part of this that you love the best

Speaker 1 i think it's elevating people

Speaker 2 who

Speaker 1 have something that it could go to another level and then watching it happen i think is the most fun part which i think you've had an incredible amount of experience with too like you think of the

Speaker 1 daily show tree when you watch somebody that and you and you can watch them go from here to here. And if you have like a tiny part of that, I think that's the best part.

Speaker 3 Watching people level up, whether as writers or the executive producer of the show, Jen Flance, who's the executive producer of the show, who like that show wouldn't happen without her.

Speaker 3 If you're looking at the special sauce, like she is, she's, you know, the keeper of the formula to the crusty crab. Like, she knows what's up.

Speaker 3 She was a PA when I got there

Speaker 3 in 1999.

Speaker 3 She was in the building before I was. She was a production assistant.
And you just watched, she was just a killer, just smart as shit.

Speaker 3 And like, you just watched her get better and better and better and level up and level up. And, you know, making her executive producer was one of the easiest decisions of my life.

Speaker 3 Like it's just easy.

Speaker 1 When that first show you did back, you did all the Biden stuff and people were surprised that that was your first thing and it immediately became polarizing.

Speaker 1 And then we look back and it's like, all right,

Speaker 2 even the time was right for that show.

Speaker 3 People were mad.

Speaker 2 Yeah, really mad at you. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Why is he doing this? Why is he

Speaker 2 bringing all this up?

Speaker 3 Called me a threat to democracy.

Speaker 1 There was a while there. It was like you and Charlemagne, and I don't think anybody else was saying anything.

Speaker 3 Oh, Charlemagne.

Speaker 3 I love listening to him. He just fucking, he just cuts through it.

Speaker 1 But it's just been crazy to watch the last year. And especially you did your show on Monday about Jake Tapper's book when he's on TV the whole time,

Speaker 2 not saying anything.

Speaker 1 And then it's like, I've got some news. I thought that was,

Speaker 1 you know, that's why your show, I think, as long as you want to do it, it's so essential because you're just taking these little things that are happening and then.

Speaker 1 tweaking them and presenting them in a way we're like, oh, yeah, that's kind of fucked up.

Speaker 3 Well, I think the process is it continues to be sort of what it always was which is it's not a re-examination of news it's really a kind of re-examination of the most what you think are the most absurd aspects of these institutions that we like to me that first biden bit we did was that yeah like i just i was watching this

Speaker 3 with a sense of like, am I insane?

Speaker 3 Like the idea that we're not looking at this as that, you know, we are supposedly in the most dangerous election of our lifetime, the only way we will fend off forever fascism.

Speaker 3 And we're not going to put our best foot forward and we're going to all pretend that

Speaker 3 this guy who

Speaker 3 did fine, did a good job, but like, this ain't fucking, you know, peewee football. Like, this is the presidency.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 3 it just seemed utterly absurd to me and then i remember we had come back it was right after the super bowl i think and

Speaker 3 traditionally i think during the super bowl the president has an opportunity to address you know do an interview in the middle so this is the run-up to the election you have a chance to do an interview and get to and they decided not to do it but rather put out tick tocks of him like eating chocolate chip cookies right and seems like a red flag

Speaker 3 and so we ran a big montage of everybody saying the idea that he's too old is ridiculous. He's the sharpest guy.
You don't understand. I think it was you don't understand.
If you were in the meetings,

Speaker 3 you would see someone at the top of their game.

Speaker 2 Sharp as attack.

Speaker 3 Sharp as attack. And the joke was, ooh, has anyone thought to film that? Right.
Because the shit we're seeing does not engender.

Speaker 3 Because what happened with Biden, and this sort of brings it around to comedy. Like

Speaker 3 the worst thing a comic can be for an audience is fragile.

Speaker 3 Like, if you're in the audience and you're worried about the comic, not in a mean way, like in a way of like,

Speaker 3 I don't think this guy's very good. This is going to be rough.
And he's like stumbling.

Speaker 3 The spell is gone. It's a fragile spell.

Speaker 3 And if that's the way you're viewing the president, and that is the way when you couldn't deny that when you watched him, there was trepidation, that he wouldn't get through it and he would fuck it up.

Speaker 1 Well, the other piece of it was it was the private conversations we were all having about it weren't being captured in public conversations. And that's always when

Speaker 1 you know something is off. Because all the conversations I was having was like, What the fuck's going on? He seems,

Speaker 1 is he at Parkinson's? What's happening? And that was two years.

Speaker 3 Those conversations were taking place

Speaker 3 everywhere except on the news where they're supposed to take place. And I think,

Speaker 3 you know, I've always said the truest part of CNN or MSNBC, the truest part of the broadcast is in their green room. If you go to the green room of those 24 hours, you'll hear the truth.

Speaker 3 You'll hear people that are involved in politics, that are politicians, that are consultants, that are journalists, that are analysts. That's where they tell the truth.

Speaker 3 Can you believe this fucking guy? There's no way he makes it through. He can't even get up.
That if we do this, it's a disaster on the

Speaker 3 cameras on, red lights on. You know, I don't, he's able to get through certain legislation.
I, I wouldn't say that it's a detriment. I think it's perhaps it's his experience that could help.

Speaker 3 But if you go in that green room, that's the truth. And our show has always hopefully been

Speaker 3 a kind of presentation of the absurdity between what's going on in the green room and what's going, what they're putting out as the official version and how those differ.

Speaker 1 Well, ironically, that also happens in sports.

Speaker 1 Because I remember, yeah, I remember the first year I did NBA Countdown and Magic was on the show, and we'd be in the green room talking about stuff to talk about in the show.

Speaker 1 And half of the thing was trying to get Magic to say the stuff he said in the green room on TV. But that red light.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, that red light really scares.

Speaker 1 There's just repercussions with every sentence you say, especially if you're ad-libbing on camera or

Speaker 1 you're talking for 30 straight seconds and the words are coming out. Sometimes you can't control where the words are going and you're trying to make a point.
It's either too hard and you end up,

Speaker 1 you end up kind of receding and being more careful. And that's

Speaker 2 what you see.

Speaker 3 You know, shifts in tone, I don't mind. It's shifts in absolutes that I always mind.
And I think,

Speaker 3 like I've always said to the people at Daily Show, I go, look around this room. Like when you leave here.
These will be your only remaining friends. Like you can't look at it like,

Speaker 3 I need to maintain access.

Speaker 3 And I firmly believe that if you stick to what you think is true and defensible, you'll be okay. We all fuck up.

Speaker 3 You know, we all say something that's intemperate or like maybe didn't come out the way you want it to. And when you own that stuff, when you need to, you should.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 boy, when we put on this, and you and I are wrestling fans, when you put on this Kfabe.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And now I'm starting to feel like the whole thing is K-Fabe. The whole thing is,

Speaker 3 you know, we talked about it on the show. It used to be the, it's not the crime, it's the cover-up.
I feel like the whole thing is cover-up now.

Speaker 2 No matter who's out there.

Speaker 1 You're talking about authenticity, which I think feels in 2025 like the single most important word.

Speaker 2 Right?

Speaker 3 But they still think of authenticity as a strategy, which is the antithesis of authenticity.

Speaker 1 But that's, I think, what's shifting is authenticity, just in the purest form, is now becoming the thing you want.

Speaker 1 Because we see this with athletes and celebrities, what, and I think social media has a big part of this. They're presenting this version of themselves or this version of what they should say,

Speaker 1 how they should act for the public, and you don't kind of really know what's behind it.

Speaker 1 And then over and over again, we find out, oh, that person was a maniac, or oh, that person got caught, you know, behind the scenes saying this when they actually said this in public.

Speaker 2 And I think a lot of the ways they did that. Is that intentional?

Speaker 3 Is that for athletes? Do they have people

Speaker 3 kind of that are working with them on that to make it that way?

Speaker 1 I actually think the decision was kind of the turning point.

Speaker 1 And there's social media pieces too, but the decision went so bad for LeBron and was such a bad kind of move and it's kind of just such a bad unforced error that I think it made it reconfigured how people think about when they do something.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 Do you, do you have to think about all the ramifications, good and bad? And then that leads to this weird social media personas everybody has now that you've no idea.

Speaker 3 And then you see somebody, if you look at it and go, well, geez, if somebody who is as great as LeBron can face a backlash, I guess what chance do I have?

Speaker 3 I mean, Jordan was very, you know, famously was like, I'm staying out of the fray. And, you know, but then you see the 30 for 30s and, you know, the last dance and all that.
And you're like, ooh,

Speaker 1 the gambling stuff with him was way worse than I think people remember i mean he's he's giving interviews on the pregame show like i do not have a gambling problem it's like watching politicians right um but now i still think there's some really i think we have some athletes now that feel authentic to me right um in everything they do and you kind of know who they are we don't have to do the list but right

Speaker 1 and then there's some people that still feel like they're trying to present some version of themselves that they think we want versus whatever it actually is you know and ultimately they get called out for it.

Speaker 3 I think, you know, there's that, right? You know, there's always,

Speaker 3 you know, you know, what's interesting?

Speaker 3 Tatum faces that a lot, which I think is you sort of, you look at a guy who's just so good and won a world championship, but even in the midst of winning a world championship,

Speaker 3 people,

Speaker 3 that's the wrong way to say, you know, what he just said mimics what Kobe just, you know. And I thought that was so

Speaker 3 fascinating that here he was at the peak of this. And he clearly, like, with his boy, which, like, you're just like, oh my God, this is a moment's moment.
Like, this,

Speaker 3 and then you look online, and people are just, fuck that guy. He's doing, that's, that's not real.
And you just think, oh boy, the other thing that I forget, the other piece of it is

Speaker 3 we face relentless, we live in a culture of relentless comment, relentless commentary.

Speaker 3 And those that are in sports or entertainment or

Speaker 3 politics,

Speaker 3 you know, those relentless comments, as they exist in the ether, but I think they ultimately begin to have a kind of molecular weight to them as well, that

Speaker 3 a heaviness. And you carry that.

Speaker 3 You carry that around as a little bit of extra weight as you're going through this other journey that's really hard to do in the first place, especially

Speaker 3 on them.

Speaker 1 Yeah, if you're looking for it, how do you do it? You're in the comments.

Speaker 3 But people say, I don't go in the comments. That's nonsense.
You know, I don't, I don't check that stuff. Yes, you do.
It's like saying, it's like being

Speaker 3 in a comedy club, right?

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 3 whenever you're in a comedy club and you're doing a show, there's going to be a table of people that like aren't having it, just not feeling it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Social media is then you have to ride home with that table in the cab and hear them talk their shit.

Speaker 3 But to suggest that, like,

Speaker 3 I don't listen to it, like, people are calling your name. You're not going to go, what? Like, of course you know about it.
How can you not?

Speaker 1 Well, there's different knowing about it and then obsessing over it.

Speaker 3 Oh, that's yes. No question.
You have to learn how to.

Speaker 1 I try to avoid as much of it as I possibly can because I think it's, I think it's damaging. It's, it starts putting,

Speaker 1 you know, it's like being, it's like being in a room in high school and you hear people in the bathroom talking about you.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 Are you just going to stay there and be like, oh, cool. I hope all five of these people just rip me apart for the next 10 minutes.

Speaker 2 I'll just stay here.

Speaker 1 Or do you just kind of be like, all right, that's kind of fucked up?

Speaker 3 Were there,

Speaker 3 I remember when I was just leaving the show is when like the internet was kind of coming. to bear.

Speaker 1 Like, well, we talked about that because I remember talking to you at the end of 2015 and you left. And it reminded me of my dad retired from being a superintendent in 2009.

Speaker 1 And one of the reasons was because the phones were coming and social media was coming.

Speaker 2 He's like, I got to get out.

Speaker 1 I don't know where this is going. And I don't want to be in charge when this heads to where I think it's going.
And that was kind of your mentality when you left the daily show originally.

Speaker 1 You were like,

Speaker 1 I see where this is going and I don't like it.

Speaker 3 Right. It stole, I think, a lot of the joy of it to some extent, but also the relentlessness of the news cycle and the redundancy of the news cycle.

Speaker 3 I sort of got to a point where I didn't know how to creatively elevate the show anymore. I just didn't feel like I had the ability to do that.
And I felt myself checking out

Speaker 3 to the extent that it wasn't

Speaker 3 fair. You can't, you shouldn't just stay in a place because you can, because they'll let you.
You know, you don't want to just coast.

Speaker 3 Combining that with my kids were at that age where, like, I needed to be there. You know, they were seven, eight, nine years old.
Like, I needed to be there in a more

Speaker 3 explicit way than I had been able to throughout the run of the show.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 all those things kind of coalesced into a very clear feeling of.

Speaker 1 You kind of know when it's time. Yeah.

Speaker 3 This is, this is the right move. I've always said one of the best decisions I ever made was accepting the job.
And one of the other best decisions I ever made was when I left.

Speaker 3 Because I'll never,

Speaker 3 I will never, I would never have been able to get those years back. Just even the like driving them home from school

Speaker 3 every day. And you just hear shit you wouldn't hear.
I was there at the crying times before, crying because they didn't want to go to school and crying because they didn't want to go to bed.

Speaker 3 Those were the only two times I got to see anybody.

Speaker 3 So having that

Speaker 3 experience broaden out, like

Speaker 3 priceless, you know.

Speaker 1 But then you come back and now you're in a weird.

Speaker 3 Now they went to, they go to college and I'm like,

Speaker 2 well, that's the other thing. You find out, oh, my kid's 15 now.
He barely wants to hang out with me.

Speaker 2 Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 1 I guess, I guess I'm just an ATM machine now. And then occasionally we have dinner.

Speaker 3 That's so fun. I was saying that to Paul Reddy, he was on the show.
I was like, you know, I think I made a mistake when I was

Speaker 3 a little younger in that I didn't make any friends. And so when my son and my daughter went off to college, I was like, huh.
Hey, honey, you want to watch a game and eat a sandwich?

Speaker 3 And he was like, no.

Speaker 1 New John Hamm show and Apple

Speaker 2 jump in a couple episodes. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 But you're in a spot now where I feel like you could do Monday and Thursday and probably, but

Speaker 2 don't add. I was just saying.

Speaker 2 I'm in a spot now

Speaker 3 until

Speaker 3 the company is bought out by people that don't want anything to do with the daily show. And then who the fuck knows what's going going to happen?

Speaker 3 I mean, look what they're doing now at 60 Minutes and CBS News and everything else.

Speaker 2 I was going to ask you about that.

Speaker 1 It feels like

Speaker 1 we're in an area now that we've never been in in my lifetime.

Speaker 3 Oh, it's insane. People

Speaker 1 like the NFL and five other things of my life that I just felt like would go on for the entire time until I die. And now I wonder if it's going to exist.

Speaker 3 Wonder if it's going to exist because

Speaker 3 an interview, they aired an edited interview, which is how all all interviews air. Now, you can make

Speaker 3 comments about, well, I think I didn't like the way they edited it in the way that oftentimes people don't like the way they edited it, but it certainly doesn't rise to the level of

Speaker 3 libel, slander, or whatever the fuck else they think they're doing with a $2 billion

Speaker 3 lawsuit. It's a purely subjective editorial decision that are made every day, including on Fox News and OAN or whatever it is that Trump feels like.
But what you're seeing now is

Speaker 3 all must pay tribute to the king.

Speaker 3 And the price of that,

Speaker 3 the price of peace is different. You know, ABC had to pay 15 million.

Speaker 3 Bezos had to pay 40 million for a documentary on Melania.

Speaker 3 Zuckerberg had to pay. They just pay trip.
They just put money into the pot

Speaker 3 so that hopefully they don't get they're paying like what does that remind you of michael protection money right it's protection money so ultimately at the end of this does trump burn our country down for insurance money like where are we headed

Speaker 3 but the reason why the guy from 60 minutes and the reason why the head of cbs news left is it's not even about the money which i think is they've said is upwards of like 50 million Imagine paying 50 million dollars for fucking nothing just to get somebody to approve a merger.

Speaker 3 A, it's bribery,

Speaker 3 but B, the reason they all left is part of the deal is they have to apologize.

Speaker 3 And in that moment, these people who have built careers on their excellence and their integrity

Speaker 3 had to look and go like, all right, well, I hope I've done well enough that I can weather this, but there's no fucking way

Speaker 3 that I'm going to apologize for doing my job the way it's supposed to be done just because this one guy is offended by it.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 3 ultimately, what an awful precedent that these media companies

Speaker 3 have set.

Speaker 3 But,

Speaker 3 you know, now he'll go after Harvard and

Speaker 3 Comcast or whatever the hell else he does because a policy of appeasement always leads to more conquest.

Speaker 3 And it's tragic.

Speaker 1 And there's been a bunch of soul searching on the other side for the last year. On what's about the Democrat, liberal side.
On what did we do wrong? How did we get this?

Speaker 2 Oh,

Speaker 1 how do we fix this?

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, that's been, which has honestly resembled sports.

Speaker 3 Oh,

Speaker 3 you think it's, it's like a, did they fire the coach?

Speaker 2 And then they're going to be a little bit more.

Speaker 1 It's like one of those where it's like, we lost in the second round. What happened?

Speaker 2 What do we do now?

Speaker 1 Is it our drafts? Is our best?

Speaker 1 And the way that

Speaker 1 the liberals, Democrat side has approached it, it's almost like we have to blow this up and start over. And we, we have to rethink our.

Speaker 1 And I don't, I don't, I don't feel like it's a six-month fix.

Speaker 1 Um, because a lot of the same issues are on that side with, you know, authenticity, honesty,

Speaker 1 the same kind of media.

Speaker 3 The corruption of the system sets the stage for these kinds of disruptions.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 3 Like

Speaker 3 I'm convinced that the Iraq war and the way it was prosecuted and the fact that Bush and the Republican, you know, that

Speaker 3 the establishment Republicans that led that charge,

Speaker 3 that is what opened the opportunity and the door for Donald Trump to demolish and take over the husk of that party.

Speaker 3 They had so destroyed their credibility that for somebody to come in with a new idea, take a hold of that

Speaker 3 apparatus and turn it on its head

Speaker 3 was exactly that that was

Speaker 3 that was set. The ground was set because of the actions of

Speaker 3 in Iraq and all those other things. This and what happened with Biden and everything else will set the stage for a similar opportunity in the Democratic Party.
Whether or not someone

Speaker 3 is able to grab that apparatus and build something powerful and effective out of it will be the real trick. And we might not even know who that would be.

Speaker 3 But certainly the opportunity right now is there because the status quo, right, of that party is tainted. Everybody's got it on them.

Speaker 3 Almost everybody, which means that it really opens the door for somebody to walk in and go, I'll take your infrastructure, but the rest of you motherfuckers have to go.

Speaker 3 Or you have to get in line. And this is the new way that we pursue the vision for whatever the Democratic Party is going to be.

Speaker 1 Or you need one or two great people,

Speaker 3 which is another like, or one or two not so great people who just have the, I mean, I wouldn't suggest that, you know,

Speaker 3 Trump is a great person, but he was a person with a vision. And when things are in disrepair, vision goes a long way, vision and will.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 3 I think it's entirely possible. And I think it's actually

Speaker 3 the opportunity is there.

Speaker 3 I just hope that they seize it in the right way and don't just paper over, which is what you tend to think they're going to do.

Speaker 1 We have two years here to figure it out.

Speaker 2 Not you, but just

Speaker 1 the country. This episode is brought to you by Built.
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Speaker 1 That's j-o-i-n-b-i-l-t dot com slash bill. This episode is brought to you by Black Friday Game Day on Prime.

Speaker 1 It's Bill Simmons, Black Friday Game Day coming to Prime, and it will be an epic day of live sports.

Speaker 1 Black Friday football at the center of it all with the Chicago Bears taking on the Philadelphia Eagles at 3 p.m. Eastern.
This might be an actual round one playoff game.

Speaker 1 That's followed by the final night at Emirates NBA Cup group play

Speaker 1 and a doubleheader starting with the Bucs and Knicks at 7 p.m., Giannis in New York again, and the Mavericks and Lakers at 10 p.m. Boy, I wish those two teams had a history.

Speaker 1 The whole day starts with the return of the Capital One Skins game as four league PGA golfers face off with $4 million in the line.

Speaker 1 Black Friday game day tees off with the Capital One skins game at 9 a.m eastern before the big bears eagles football game at 3 p.m and it all culminates with a double dose of emirates nba cup action featuring bucks next at 7 p.m and mavs lakers at 10 p.m only on prime it's funny my friend ban latham was over last night who works who works for the ringer right and we were hanging out in the kitchen actually watching the knicks game and He was asking my son about what he's studying in history.

Speaker 1 And he was talking about the 50s and 60s and some of the things he's learning. We were talking about the 60s.
It was one of those weird kitchen conversations.

Speaker 1 We were talking about all the great people in the 60s, and then how many of them were

Speaker 1 murdered, or in the case of like Muhammad Ali, they would have let him box for five years and all the ways got fucked up. But we just had this unusual collection of awesome, interesting,

Speaker 1 one-of-one people all at the same time for whatever reason.

Speaker 3 That's right.

Speaker 1 And I wonder: can that happen again in the 2020s or in the 2030s? Is that even possible anymore? Where we would just have this

Speaker 1 confluence of, oh shit, hey, we have this person and this person and this person. Maybe we're in good hands again.

Speaker 3 I mean, I think circumstance dictates the people that rise to those challenges. And I absolutely think, you know,

Speaker 3 opportunity almost never goes

Speaker 3 wasted. Like,

Speaker 3 I think someone always steps up and steps in, maybe maybe not to the extent that we'd want it to, or maybe on the other side. But

Speaker 3 I always remain optimistic because there's too many, look, I do too. On an individual basis, there's just too many fucking good people.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 3 I don't think these things all go in sort of cycles and those cycles change. And as they say, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.

Speaker 3 But what people don't say a whole lot is, but it doesn't bend by itself. And there's a whole bunch of people trying to bend it the other way.
So those things are

Speaker 3 necessary.

Speaker 3 But I think you also have kind of, you have to have kind of a more clear-eyed view

Speaker 3 of what it takes to bend that thing and where you want to bend it.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 3 there were, how old is your son now?

Speaker 1 My son's a high school junior.

Speaker 3 Can I ask you a question? And this is a personal question. I hope, and I don't want you to be upset with me.
Does he forgive me?

Speaker 2 oh for the wrestling yeah when you ruined the wrestling event

Speaker 1 that you were the big surprise i sent you the video

Speaker 3 my son was like who the hell is jon stewart his son is like seven years old he's cursing me out yeah the kid the kid was cursing me out who what is this asshole who is this you were the big swerve in a like a pay-per-view yeah and my son thought it was going to be somebody else in summer slam

Speaker 3 and it was a match between Rollins and Cena.

Speaker 3 Cena was going to win his record championship, and I was the swerve. I jumped in.

Speaker 1 But we should explain. You were in the exact same position I was in with my son.
We're at that stage where you just want to impress your son.

Speaker 2 Your son loved wrestling, and you're like, this is the most important thing. My son was a couple of years older than your kid.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But this leads to you taking a giant bump, but I jumped out of the story.

Speaker 3 Boy, did I take a giant bump on that? That was, that might have been the dumbest move I think I've made. And I was not, when I took the bump, I was not a young man.

Speaker 3 I think I was probably like 53, four, five. Like, I was an old man taking an attitude adjustment from John Cena, which was stupid.

Speaker 1 We blamed, we blamed Baby Doll, me and Jimmy and Sal.

Speaker 2 Can I tell you something?

Speaker 1 With that one, we were like, you left them, this is the most unprotected you've ever left the client.

Speaker 2 He just got the thing where James attitude adjustment always has a problem.

Speaker 3 I do freelance. I do, I do go rogue and I do shit.
And then he'll just hear hear about it and he'll be like, what are you doing?

Speaker 3 And I'll be like, oh, it's just a, I got into a feud with this wrestler, Seth Rollins. You know, Nate loves wrestling.
So we've been going to the wrestling matches and all that.

Speaker 3 Don't worry. It'll be fun.
Oh, yeah, no, they want me to do SummerSlam. He's like, what? I was like, yeah, no, it's this thing.
I'll go. It'll be fine.
And

Speaker 3 so at SummerSlam, well, it's actually on Raw where I took the bump. SummerSlam is where I ruined the match for Bill Simmons' child, who I didn't think would forgive me.

Speaker 1 no, he's, I think he's forgiven you.

Speaker 2 The bump,

Speaker 2 I can't forgive the bump because that was crazy.

Speaker 1 Even if you were like 35, that would have been a crazy bump. That's a bump like past your 20s.
I'm not taking it.

Speaker 3 Part of it is I don't think ahead. So I don't really like quite understanding.

Speaker 1 Did they practice it with you, though?

Speaker 3 Practice.

Speaker 1 They didn't take you in the back and do like put you on the big nothing.

Speaker 2 So you had no idea.

Speaker 3 I think here's what he said. Just tuck your

Speaker 3 chin. Tuck your your head, yellow, your chin, and I'll do the rest.
And I was like, okay.

Speaker 2 And then

Speaker 3 yeah. So you got to

Speaker 3 do this so that I guess your head's not out. So you really, I think it's to protect you from like really because I don't know if you know the floor of the wrestling ring is not soft.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 It's it's hard. It's on springs, but it's hard.

Speaker 1 It still hurts.

Speaker 3 Like a motherfucker.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 So when we did it. Now, to be fair, WWE was very thorough in their medical examination prior to me taking the bump.

Speaker 3 About five minutes before I was supposed to go out there, a guy walks in. He goes, I'm the doctor.
I go, okay. And he goes, how you feeling? I go, I'm okay.
And he goes, okay.

Speaker 2 That was it.

Speaker 3 Any problems? You ever have a heart attack? No. Okay.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Any major back issues?

Speaker 2 You've ever been in a way.

Speaker 3 Oh, are you old and decrepit and made of hollow? Are you, do you have the bones of a sparrow? Here, let's get you out there right now.

Speaker 3 So I went out there and I'm up on Cena, who's gigantic and muscular. And he, and there wasn't, there's no like, oh, let me drop you down with the attitude adjustment.
It was the full.

Speaker 3 I hit and the electricity went from directly from the back of my head. down into my coccyx and through my legs.
Like it felt like an electrocution, like you you had plugged me into an outlet socket.

Speaker 1 It's probably like getting rear-ended in a car. It's like the same kind of sensation.

Speaker 3 The whole thing. And they're like, just play it like you're hurt.
And I'm like, I can do that. Yeah.
Cause I'm fucking hurt.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 But the one thing I really learned through the experience is if you're going to do something like that,

Speaker 3 tuck your shirt in.

Speaker 3 Because

Speaker 3 when you go down on an attitude adjustment on live television and you got that big old white tuna belly.

Speaker 1 Just popped out. I forgot about that.
The belly popped out.

Speaker 3 The little tuna belly popping out of the jeans.

Speaker 3 That's not a WWE superstar look. That's not,

Speaker 3 it was rough. That was rough.

Speaker 1 I'm glad you survived it. All right.
I took too much of your time. We got to end with the Knicks, though.
All right. Are you going to game two?

Speaker 3 So I can't. I've got,

Speaker 3 it's a holiday week. I've got some shit I got to do, but I'm hoping to get there next week.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 3 look, man, I've loved watching this team. I really do.
It's the most talented Nick team that I've seen them have in a really long time. Maybe

Speaker 3 since I've been really paying attention, except in the 70s.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 3 what I also like about them is they're good dudes. Like,

Speaker 3 they're just.

Speaker 3 easy to root for. They're hardworking.
There's not a lot of like,

Speaker 3 look at me shit. Like they're really, they're a fun,

Speaker 3 incredible group. This has been a ride that like you dream about a little bit.
It'd be great to get to the finals, but man, Indiana's a wagon. Like they're gonna, it's gonna be hard.
Um,

Speaker 3 but you know, they're not out of it. I don't, I don't view it like I viewed the Celtic series.
I view it like we could be in every game. But then, you know, look, what was it?

Speaker 3 138, 135, and before overtime even, like, we're playing the pacers style right now and i don't know if we can survive that yeah i don't know if we can survive that what do you think 1993 mike and the mad dog would have said about that loss last night

Speaker 3 mike that's it what they do they're gonna mike

Speaker 3 the waste of time these guys are oh yeah dog dog dog

Speaker 3 that is the most humongous loss the knicks have ever had dog they're never gonna you're never gonna see a loss like that again in the garden in the garden

Speaker 3 i've been going to the garden since 1908 i saw uh i saw uh tonnie fight dempsey i saw tunny fight dempsey in the garden 19 and that was the only time i ever thought uh same same kind of thing dog

Speaker 3 mike

Speaker 1 you you must have listened to that back in the day all the time right back in the dark yeah was anything better than when they did the oscars

Speaker 3 nothing not mike and

Speaker 1 ever ever that was to me that's that created podcasting mike and the mad dog decided they were were going to weigh in.

Speaker 1 I feel like they created it when they weighed in on like the 94 Oscars or the Emmys. I was like, this is, this is the model for something down the road.

Speaker 3 It is stunning

Speaker 3 how influential they were

Speaker 2 and are.

Speaker 3 And are through broadcasting. More dog now.

Speaker 2 I think Francesco.

Speaker 1 But I was just saying, I feel like a lot of the people that have huge platforms now, and I include myself, were like massively influenced by that specific show because of the interplay back and forth with those guys.

Speaker 1 Yes. It's really

Speaker 1 podcasts that became

Speaker 3 the first take and all those other ones, I think, are in many ways

Speaker 2 direct shows.

Speaker 3 Yeah, absolutely. Those guys were, and when they came on the air, the fan was nascent, like it wasn't as big a deal.

Speaker 3 You had Stevie Summers, you know, at night doing all his stuff, and Dog and Francesa. And like

Speaker 3 it lit up sports in a way that, you know, for New Yorkers was like, this,

Speaker 3 you know, and now everybody does kind of their impression of that, but,

Speaker 3 but it's amazing. And to see, especially Doglake still going strong, it's kind of great.
No, he's. It's a long career.

Speaker 1 And with some chapters to it, too. Well, now the fan, you still listen to the fan.
It seems like some of it is a little performative because the clips are really funny.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Well, it also has to be.

Speaker 1 There's two bald guys just like absolutely losing their mind over the protection behind Aaron Judge or what that Juan Soto seems unhappy.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 3 and the problem I have now sometimes with the fan is a lot of the voices sound the same.

Speaker 3 Like the nice thing about Dog and Francesa is they were like hauling oats, like one guy saying high blues, and the other guy, and every now and again, but

Speaker 3 so that treble and bass really worked. Now you get shows that are like treble, treble, and it's you don't know who's talking, and they're all at the same pitch.
Yeah, and it's just

Speaker 3 kind of cacophony. And like you say,

Speaker 3 pretty performative, pretty obviously takes with like kind of holes in them.

Speaker 2 Still fun to listen to, but, you know, it's also old heads.

Speaker 3 We're old heads.

Speaker 1 New York Radio will never die. The, the, um, best.
The one thing with, um, I'm blanking on the, what's the guy's name?

Speaker 2 Um,

Speaker 1 Dog was on when he goes on first take

Speaker 1 and he does basically national version of the dog. That was the part I never thought he would be able to navigate the way he has.

Speaker 1 I always felt like it was that was a New York show with New York people.

Speaker 2 And I never thought he'd be aware. I never thought he would become a national treasure because I think he's great.

Speaker 3 He's so legitimately funny that I think that translates through it. And the way that he just runs through, you know, the whole idea.

Speaker 2 Enjoy his sports.

Speaker 3 And I gotta take a gummy. I'm gonna take it, gummy.
I'm gonna sit down. I'm gonna take a gummy.
And watch I'm going to watch the Yankees.

Speaker 3 You know, he just, he legitimately is just an entertaining personality.

Speaker 1 One of the things I learned from that show was how

Speaker 1 completely seriously they took everything. Like, they would talk about tennis.
Right. And Dog would have these passionate opinions about like Monica Sellis.

Speaker 2 Right. Mike, I think she might be the best women's player ever.

Speaker 2 Like right now.

Speaker 2 And it just, it just would go all in. I'd be like, wow, this is an incredible, incredible take.

Speaker 2 They were the hot take.

Speaker 3 But the nice part about them is they were a hot take

Speaker 3 in a sea of like lukewarm water. So it's so brutal.
Yeah, it so stood out for just its,

Speaker 3 as we said earlier, like there was an authenticity to it, these two guys.

Speaker 3 And just, it was brilliant.

Speaker 1 PGI was another one like that. I feel like those were, if you're talking about podcasting.

Speaker 3 PGI is a great one.

Speaker 2 The form, those two, the interplay and the chemistry is movant.

Speaker 3 I've always loved it. Cornhead, you know, those guys,

Speaker 3 you know,

Speaker 3 and again, like sometimes duos really are more than the sum of their parts. Like those guys are great on their own, but like dog and friends, as it were,

Speaker 3 together,

Speaker 3 it was just, it was magic.

Speaker 1 You know, who's like that? Larry David and Doc Rivers would have a great talk show.

Speaker 2 I'm telling you, they have it. The combo of those guys, it's like the fact that Harry David is doing dog.

Speaker 3 He's doing dog.

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 2 he was there last year.

Speaker 3 She's the greatest

Speaker 3 at all time. She's the best.

Speaker 2 What is Towns doing?

Speaker 3 What is he doing? Towns, drive the lane. You're bigger than he is.
By the way, when Towns was posting up on Drew Holiday, whoa, why would the Celtics put Drew Holiday on Towns?

Speaker 1 I think people try to Jedi mind trick towns with smaller people, hoping to bubble them in the face or bowl them over.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's why I was just like, what's going on here? Because every now and again, like, you'll see a bad switch, and like, somebody will end up on towns who's like 6'3.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 But this really, like, it happened enough where, like, oh no, that's the plan.

Speaker 1 People try to use towns against himself is the plan.

Speaker 2 Ah,

Speaker 1 the good and bad of towns. They hope the bad goes out.
Wait, last question. Are you worried about Juan Soto or no? He played, they played the Red Sox this week, and he seemed

Speaker 1 a little sullen.

Speaker 1 And sullen is the word I would use.

Speaker 3 You don't remember the first year of Francisco Lindor. You don't remember the first year of Carlos Beltron.
You don't remember. And by the way, you don't remember the first four years of Jason Bay.

Speaker 3 Like people come in there. First of all, Juan Soto right now is not failing.
He's not all-star Juan Soto, but he's still a very solid performer in a lineup that's underperformed recently.

Speaker 1 But you're not talking about the emotions.

Speaker 3 He's played a much better outfield than I think people thought he was going to play. And I'm not going to read the like facial expressions of

Speaker 3 a superstar that's going to be here for 15 years.

Speaker 1 Who already seems sad?

Speaker 3 Yeah, like I didn't, I never thought of him as like the happy warrior to begin with. Like I didn't bring him over here because I.

Speaker 3 you know, get excited about it because I thought he was super entertaining and gregarious.

Speaker 3 I just thought.

Speaker 1 See, this is what Mets Nation needed. They needed this defense.

Speaker 3 But we're always worried about everything. Again, you're talking about

Speaker 3 a fan base that, like,

Speaker 3 whatever will go wrong, whatever could go wrong goes wrong. Tyrese Halliburton throws up a fucking prayer.
It hits the back of the rim, goes straight up in the air.

Speaker 3 And in any other universe other than the New York Knicks universe, it goes over the backboard. Right.
That's the arc the ball is supposed to travel.

Speaker 1 It doesn't highest, other than maybe the kawasha at the highest that they

Speaker 1 a game winner has gone or a game tire.

Speaker 3 I've never seen anything like it. Uh, for God's sakes, the little stat track said the Knicks said 99.8% they're going to like only in New York.
New York Mets are going to go to the thing.

Speaker 3 Joannes Cespidus breaks his ankle riding a bull. Like, only shit that can happen happens to us.

Speaker 3 And over time,

Speaker 3 you expect it.

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 3 you know, that's what they've done with the Mets is already fighting the gravity of our history.

Speaker 3 What Cohen has been able to do with them, what Stearns has been able to do with them is to counteract the gravity of our history in a way that looks like we might actually be competitive for years.

Speaker 3 That's never been the case.

Speaker 1 That happened with the Red Sox when

Speaker 1 they,

Speaker 1 specifically when they got Manny in 2000. They actually spent money on him.
And it took a couple of years, but at least like the foundation was laid for like, oh, we traded for Pedro. We got Manny.

Speaker 1 Right. Now we can actually like maybe fight the Yankees.

Speaker 3 You also built a farm system that started to bring up studs.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Like that's the key. Like the Mets.
Even before when Cohen was there, they were still doing shit like,

Speaker 3 all right, well, we want to be good. Who are the oldest pitchers we can pay? Find me two of the oldest pitchers and pay them more than anybody's ever gotten.

Speaker 3 And maybe they'll, you know, make us good for six months. Now they've taken Stearns has come in and completely flipped the approach.
He's building a ground up,

Speaker 3 solid infrastructure. Will you win the World Series? Who fucking knows? The World Series is, it's a crapshoot, and the Dodgers are going to be there for a while, and the Yankees are going to be there.

Speaker 3 But they're at least

Speaker 2 be sustainably good.

Speaker 2 Thank you. That's what that's what the

Speaker 3 Leon Rose

Speaker 3 and Thibodeau have done for the Knicks.

Speaker 3 It's much harder to keep going in the NBA, but

Speaker 3 you know, because

Speaker 3 I don't know how you feel about this, but I feel like the NBA cap rules and all that other shit. No, they fucked it up.

Speaker 1 We've been talking about that on my pod constantly.

Speaker 2 They fucked it up.

Speaker 3 How are we not able to pay Hartenstein what we wanted to pay him? That makes no sense. We wanted to keep that dude.
I know. And we couldn't.

Speaker 1 The problem is, they reward bad teams who throw away seasons and get high picks.

Speaker 1 Is a better strategy than just like signing players smartly, making good trades, drafting well, and then you somehow get penalized for it.

Speaker 1 They shouldn't have been penalized for the Hartenstein thing because that was such a great,

Speaker 1 such a great signing. But then they had to do it.

Speaker 3 If they had been able to keep him, my guess is they probably.

Speaker 1 They don't do the towns.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they would have run it back, still would have gotten bridges, and then you would be a deeper team. Yes, I loved how when they were deeper, I'm I like that.

Speaker 3 Like, Indiana's built really well, they really are, and this is interesting, too. I wonder what you think about this.

Speaker 3 This is such a repudiation of like the super team. Like, these are great teams, but these aren't superstar teams, right? Other than like, okay, see, he's got

Speaker 1 the league is so much deeper now. You can actually build a team a little differently.
You don't have to have like the top heavy best two guys. You can actually go seven, eight, nine deep.

Speaker 1 That's what the Celtics tried to do. I mean, they had too many injuries this year, but right.

Speaker 3 But even the Celtics, like imagine having Tatum and Brown and then like having to worry about holding your team together. Like teams shouldn't have to worry about holding together like that.

Speaker 3 That's bullshit.

Speaker 1 You're preaching in the choir. Jon Stewart, this was great.
Thank you for all the time. I'm glad we finally did this on a podcast.

Speaker 2 It was so nice to get up with you.

Speaker 3 Yeah, good seeing you as well.

Speaker 1 All right. I appreciate it.
Thank you. Bye-bye.

Speaker 3 Go next.

Speaker 1 All right. That's it for the podcast.
Thanks to Jon Stewart. I had a great time.
Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well.

Speaker 1 Don't forget, you can watch all of the clips and videos from this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. You can watch the rewatchables on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel.

Speaker 1 You can watch everything we're doing as video podcasts. And heaven can wait is going to be the next next rewatchables on Monday night.

Speaker 1 I am also on the Prestige TV podcast this week talking about your friends and neighbors season eight.

Speaker 1 That's your friends and neighbors episode eight. Hopefully it gets to eight seasons, but the eighth episode, I think we're hitting the end.
Me, Joe Anna Robinson and Rob Mahoney.

Speaker 1 So if you watch that show, go check out the podcast that is going to be going up on Friday. Enjoy the three-day weekend.
I'm going to be back Sunday afternoon with Rosillo,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 will see you then.

Speaker 1 Must be 21 plus in president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in president, D.C. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLBRA or visit rg-help.com.

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