Speaker 1: Welcome to what I'm calling the branching out episode of
Speaker 1: the Dave Pash Podcast. I'm your host, Dave Pash, longtime
Speaker 1: ESPN play by play announcer and voice of the Arizona Cardinals.
Speaker 1: We are presented by bet MGM, the official sports betting
Speaker 1: partner of the Arizona Cardinals and Hila River Hotels and Casinos.
Speaker 1: You can also follow us on Twitter at pash pot.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the things we wanted to accomplish
Speaker 1: with this podcast was to make it unique by having
Speaker 1: on guests from the world of sports and entertainment to
Speaker 1: talk more than just the Arizona Cardinals and the NFL,
Speaker 1: but of course making that part of a conversation. So
Speaker 1: when the NFL schedule was released and the podcast was
Speaker 1: in the works, there was a particular guest that I
Speaker 1: wanted to get on to talk about the cardinals Week
Speaker 1: one opponent, the Tennessee Titans. Actor James Rode now known
Speaker 1: as James Rode Rodriguez. He stars in the ABC drama
Speaker 1: A Million Little Things, which debuted in two eighteen and
Speaker 1: is entering year four in prime time. But Rodda is
Speaker 1: best known for playing fake psychic Sean Spencer in the
Speaker 1: TV show Psych, which ran for eight seasons from two
Speaker 1: thousand and six to two fourteen and still lives on
Speaker 1: in movie form Psych three This Is Gus is due
Speaker 1: out this winner. Rode is one of the nation's biggest
Speaker 1: Tennessee Titan fans. In fact, if you follow him on
Speaker 1: Twitter or the Titans for that matter, you will see
Speaker 1: them retweeting each other constantly. Rode talks about how he
Speaker 1: became a Titans fan, his thoughts on how far this
Speaker 1: team can go this season, and where he was during
Speaker 1: the Music City Miracle January eight, two thousand. Rode also
Speaker 1: talks about his hit show Psych, his favorite episode, his
Speaker 1: love for Val Kilmer, and wrestler slash actor John Cena.
Speaker 1: Sports as a way of bringing people together, especially in
Speaker 1: a family. If the game's on, it's a great reason
Speaker 1: to gather together as a family and root for your
Speaker 1: favorite team. A good TV show has the same effect.
Speaker 1: It certainly did for my family. No matter how busy
Speaker 1: I was my wife three kids were from two thousand
Speaker 1: and six to twenty fourteen, we always found a way
Speaker 1: to watch the TV show Psych together and then watch
Speaker 1: the reruns over and over again. So if you're looking
Speaker 1: for a good laugh with obscure references to nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: music and movies, some cool mysteries, some semi spooks on
Speaker 1: everything from the Exorcist to werewolves, vampires, and even one
Speaker 1: flow of The Cuckoo's Nest and The Bachelorette. Do yourself
Speaker 1: a favor and check out Psych. Now. Here's James Rode
Speaker 1: Rodriguez on the Dave Pash Podcast. James, before we started
Speaker 1: the interview, I talked about a million little things PSYCH
Speaker 1: and I definitely want to go back and touch on
Speaker 1: those things. But when I saw the schedule and that
Speaker 1: the Cardinals were playing the Titans Week one, I knew
Speaker 1: ILL wanted to have you on because you're such a
Speaker 1: huge Titans fan. I always see you tweeting about the
Speaker 1: Titans during the season. I always see the Titans retweeting you.
Speaker 1: I know you're from San Antonio, so I'm guessing you
Speaker 1: were an Oilers fan at some point. Tell me how
Speaker 1: your fascination with the Titans started. Yeah, man, you're pretty
Speaker 1: intuitive there. Yeah. I grew up in San Antone. You
Speaker 1: get to choose between the Cowboys and the Oilers. My
Speaker 1: entire family were diehard, like obnoxiously die hard. Cowboys fans,
Speaker 1: so I thought it as an opportunity to piss everybody
Speaker 1: off and go against the grain. And you know, the
Speaker 1: laugh was certainly on me for a good chunk of
Speaker 1: those early years because the Oilers were horrible and the
Speaker 1: Cowboys were winning Super Bowls. But it all kind of
Speaker 1: balanced out as I got into my twenties and and
Speaker 1: it was really fun to watch the Cowboys suck for
Speaker 1: a while. And now I have to be honest, it's
Speaker 1: been so long since they've done anything that it's really
Speaker 1: not even that satisfying anymore, uh, to watch them, to
Speaker 1: watch them be crappy. So that's that's what it was.
Speaker 1: But then, you know, amidst all of that, I really
Speaker 1: did come to love that team, to love the Oilers,
Speaker 1: to love the old Campbell oilers, uh, to truly love
Speaker 1: the Steve McNair and Eddie George oilers, which which are
Speaker 1: the team that moved to Tennessee. So it was a
Speaker 1: really easy decision for me to go with the team
Speaker 1: when when they moved to to Nashville, because I had
Speaker 1: no allegiance to the city of Houston. I really love
Speaker 1: those guys like that was probably the warn moon run
Speaker 1: and shoot was a fun team to watch, but they
Speaker 1: always flamed out in the playoffs. So it was really
Speaker 1: the Eddie and Steve teams that I think define the
Speaker 1: franchise for me and now here I am dude, just
Speaker 1: all these years later have to bleed blue and tighten
Speaker 1: up every year. Well, they're obviously one of the best
Speaker 1: teams in the AFC, so you've got a lot to
Speaker 1: cheer about. Last year, the end was a little bit
Speaker 1: disappointing in the playoffs against Baltimore. What are your thoughts
Speaker 1: on the twenty twenty one season. Are you picking this
Speaker 1: team to make it out of the AFC because obviously
Speaker 1: of Kansas City, you got Buffalo, you still have Baltimore.
Speaker 1: Cleveland's going to be much better. But there are people
Speaker 1: out there that feel the Titans because of the addition
Speaker 1: of Julio Jones, the passing attack is better. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I'm cautiously optimistic. I don't think for a playoff team,
Speaker 1: I don't think our defense could have been much for
Speaker 1: us last year. So the idea that we got a
Speaker 1: couple of new pieces, you know, hopefully can put a
Speaker 1: little more pressure on the quarterback excites me. We got
Speaker 1: a couple of new kids in the secondary. It'll be
Speaker 1: a trial by fire. But if they're as good as advertised,
Speaker 1: then I feel like we should make improvements on the
Speaker 1: defensive side of the ball, and then on offense. You know,
Speaker 1: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And we even
Speaker 1: added Julio. Now I think everybody should probably keep their
Speaker 1: Julio expectations in check. This is the thirty two going
Speaker 1: on thirty three year old Julio who's been banged up.
Speaker 1: But the good news is he's not having to come
Speaker 1: in and be the alpha dog, right He gets to
Speaker 1: come in and take advantage of all the double coverage
Speaker 1: that A J. Brown's going to see. So it's a
Speaker 1: long way of saying, yes, the team looks pretty good
Speaker 1: on paper. Cannon Hill continues to sort of defy expectations
Speaker 1: and just get the job done and nobody gives them
Speaker 1: any respect, and I think that I think that drives
Speaker 1: him to play even better. But yeah, for me, I
Speaker 1: think number one, I want to see some improvement on defense,
Speaker 1: and then I feel like I can say, without sounding
Speaker 1: like a Homer, we can play with anybody in the FC,
Speaker 1: no question. Any given Sunday, I'd like us to be
Speaker 1: there right there with the Chiefs and the Bills at
Speaker 1: the end. At the end of the day, your description
Speaker 1: of Julio sounds a lot like what we're saying here
Speaker 1: about AJ Green, who's now with the Cardinals after all
Speaker 1: those years in Cincinnati, thirty two years old, coming off
Speaker 1: an injury. At one point was one of the best
Speaker 1: receivers in the NFL. He's been great. James watching camp,
Speaker 1: he looks like he still has it, And I think
Speaker 1: if Julio and You've got a J Brown, we've got
Speaker 1: DeAndre Hopkins out here. So I think there's some similarities
Speaker 1: with the teams. Last year, obviously you couldn't go because
Speaker 1: of COVID. Normally do you try to go to Nashville
Speaker 1: to go to some Titan games, depending on your schedule
Speaker 1: and what you're working on. Definitely had a nice streak
Speaker 1: going there for a while where I probably made it
Speaker 1: to one home game like seven or eight years in
Speaker 1: a row. It's been tough in recent years, not just
Speaker 1: because of the pandemic, but because I can't seem to
Speaker 1: stop getting jobs that are in Western Canada, So it
Speaker 1: does make it tricky. Although this year I have a
Speaker 1: big fat circle on Titan's Rams in LA because that's
Speaker 1: a much much easier trip to jam into a weekend
Speaker 1: and yeah, God willing, I'll I'll be there and we'll
Speaker 1: we'll win. Do you remember where you were and what
Speaker 1: was happening during the Music City Miracle. It's one of
Speaker 1: those you know, it's it's kind of like when Tyson
Speaker 1: got knocked out by Buster Douglas. It just kind of
Speaker 1: burned into your into your brain. I just moved to
Speaker 1: Los Angeles from New York. I was living with my
Speaker 1: best friend in an apartment that we had rented but
Speaker 1: not yet furnished because I was about to start a
Speaker 1: job on a television show and it all happened pretty quickly,
Speaker 1: so we kind of rented it side unseen got there,
Speaker 1: had no furniture because everything was on order, but we
Speaker 1: did have a TV and we were sitting watching the
Speaker 1: game on the floor taken out, and when the Music
Speaker 1: City Miracle happened, we already jumping up and down and
Speaker 1: had all this extra real estate because there was no furniture,
Speaker 1: So we were running around in circles like jumping up
Speaker 1: and chest butting one another, like just you know, towing
Speaker 1: the line of some real emotionality and then we proceeded
Speaker 1: to watch that replay pretty much on a loop for
Speaker 1: about two weeks because it was it was truly the
Speaker 1: most amazing sports moment for me in my forty four
Speaker 1: and a half years. It was just it was incredible.
Speaker 1: So you're a couple of years older than Cliff Kingsbury,
Speaker 1: the head coach here with the Cardinals, who, like you,
Speaker 1: was born in San Antonio. How familiar with Cliff were
Speaker 1: you growing up? Because he was a really good high
Speaker 1: school football player, excellent player at Texas Tech, and now
Speaker 1: a head coach in the NFL. Yeah. I had certainly
Speaker 1: heard of Cliff, and I knew he threw for buckets
Speaker 1: of yards in that air raid offense, and I was
Speaker 1: I remember being a little disappointed that, you know, we
Speaker 1: didn't get to see that translate in the NFL, because
Speaker 1: I wanted one of those Tech quarterbacks to sort of
Speaker 1: like prove he's not the system part. Maybe Clip would
Speaker 1: be that guy. But there's a lot of Texas dudes
Speaker 1: to put up really gaudy numbers in high school because
Speaker 1: Texas just, I mean, football rules Texas. So you know,
Speaker 1: I when I was in high school, we had guys.
Speaker 1: I remember, we had a guy at Baylor. He started
Speaker 1: at Justin high school, which beat us, and then he
Speaker 1: went to Baylor and he put up big numbers there.
Speaker 1: His name was Gerard Douglas and we were all just like, yeah, dude,
Speaker 1: sky's a limit. And see him in the NFL. Nope,
Speaker 1: just you just never know how it's going to go.
Speaker 1: But boy, Texas Texas spits him out. Well, it's interesting
Speaker 1: because Cliff was on this podcast and I asked him
Speaker 1: because he coached Baker Mayfield's coaching Kyler Murray. Now but
Speaker 1: Johnny Manziel, who didn't make it in the NFL, but
Speaker 1: that's not because of the air Raid. But now you're
Speaker 1: seeing Patrick Mahomes, who we coached a ta Baker Mayfield,
Speaker 1: other quarterbacks from that air Raid system having success. And
Speaker 1: I asked him, hey, if you were playing today, you know,
Speaker 1: would would you have made it? He didn't really want
Speaker 1: to answer that, but I but I agree with you, James.
Speaker 1: I people I think forget how good of a player
Speaker 1: he was at Texas Tech. Yeah, and he was a leader,
Speaker 1: and you know, he had intangibles, which is obviously a
Speaker 1: big thing that we probably don't talk enough enough about
Speaker 1: because every year we watched the combine and we and
Speaker 1: we listened to all the pundits and it's just all
Speaker 1: these athletically gifted like freaks, right, But then if you
Speaker 1: look at the ones that actually stay, have staying power
Speaker 1: and succeed in the league, and it's because they have
Speaker 1: those other things. You know, they know how to lead dudes,
Speaker 1: they know how to you know, be grace under pressure,
Speaker 1: you know how to read defenses. It's all it's all
Speaker 1: the stuff that that you know, you can't really put
Speaker 1: a price on. But it's always those guys you know
Speaker 1: that that pop and go on to have great careers.
Speaker 1: You're also a Spurs fan. Are you as much of
Speaker 1: a Spurs fan as you are a Titans fan? And
Speaker 1: who's your favorite Spur of all time? I'll be honest, man,
Speaker 1: I got really we're all spoiled with the Spurs. I
Speaker 1: mean playoffs, I don't know, four hundred and ninety years
Speaker 1: in a row, five rings. I can't lie and say
Speaker 1: that I was as hardcore of a Spurs fan growing
Speaker 1: up as I was an Oilers fan, because I wasn't,
Speaker 1: but they were certainly my team and it's been incredible
Speaker 1: to watch them win and watch Pop's legacy unfold and
Speaker 1: very very grateful as a sports fan to have a
Speaker 1: franchise that has won some championships, but who I would
Speaker 1: probably trade four of those five for one super Bowl. Man,
Speaker 1: that's the big cahuna, and my first love is always
Speaker 1: going to be the Oilers and the title favorite Spur
Speaker 1: of all time. It's really close between Tim and Manum.
Speaker 1: But I yah, gosh, you don't have to choose man
Speaker 1: you don't. I don't if you like both the same
Speaker 1: look they've They've been equally important to the Spur success.
Speaker 1: It's true. It's true. I also love David just because
Speaker 1: he was such a gentleman. But I might have to
Speaker 1: go Manu. I might have to go Manu. Okay, I
Speaker 1: you know, I do NBA for ESPN, and the most
Speaker 1: intimidating thing. A lot of times as the play by
Speaker 1: play guy, you have a reporter who does the interviews
Speaker 1: and you've probably seen these, the interviews in between quarters,
Speaker 1: and Greg Popovich is never in a good mood to
Speaker 1: do those interviews, and a lot of times I gotta
Speaker 1: do them if we don't have a report of the
Speaker 1: play by play guy. Now, if I'm working with Jeff
Speaker 1: Van Gundhy, I'll ask Jeff, hey, can you just go
Speaker 1: do it? Please? So I don't have because he'll be
Speaker 1: nice to you you're a coach. But I'm telling if
Speaker 1: there's a Spurs game in LA, I'm gonna say, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask, can we get James Rode to come do
Speaker 1: the interview with Pump? Dude? I would gladly get my
Speaker 1: head bitten off by Pop. It would be an honor
Speaker 1: and a privilege because, you know, beyond you know, his
Speaker 1: legacy as a coach, which is obviously cemented, I just
Speaker 1: have so much respect for Pop the man. You know,
Speaker 1: the stances that he's taken over the years, how I've spoken,
Speaker 1: he's been, how he doesn't really care what anybody thinks.
Speaker 1: He just sort of he knows what he feels right
Speaker 1: in his heart, and he's always sort of stood by
Speaker 1: his laurels, and you know, and you kind of sort
Speaker 1: of see the Pop coaching tree has sort of followed
Speaker 1: that route as well, because you know, because he's such
Speaker 1: a great mentor. But yeah, I just what a great
Speaker 1: guy for sports period. Look, I know people listening are
Speaker 1: interested in your takes on the Titans, the NFL, of
Speaker 1: the Spurs, but they also want to hear about your
Speaker 1: acting career. A Million Little Things and of course psych
Speaker 1: Let's start with A Million Little Things in four premiere
Speaker 1: September twenty second, you play Gary Mendez. Anything that we
Speaker 1: can look forward to with season four that you can,
Speaker 1: any nugget you can throw out there about season four, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's having been on another show that that
Speaker 1: kind of that was that was blessed with a long run.
Speaker 1: We're we're entering that phase where you really gotta put
Speaker 1: up or shut up. Like I feel like it's the season,
Speaker 1: you know, season three and fours of shows that kind
Speaker 1: of dictate whether they're gonna be able to maintain the
Speaker 1: level that they're on or they're gonna start sliding. So
Speaker 1: I think we all kind of feel that going into
Speaker 1: season four, and we kinda we just want to kind
Speaker 1: of blow it out of the box. So we've got
Speaker 1: some big stuff coming up that should be fun for
Speaker 1: the cast, fun for our fans. Anybody who actually watches
Speaker 1: A Million Little Things knows exactly what to expect as
Speaker 1: a baseline, which is, you know, a bunch of middle
Speaker 1: aged people making terrible decisions and paying yearly for it.
Speaker 1: That'll never change, Uh, it'll be. It'll be as hardcore
Speaker 1: and and and dramatic and painful as it ever has been.
Speaker 1: But I do think there's a sense of responsibility of like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's you know, let's keep the level up. Let's let's
Speaker 1: push hard um quarterback franchise quarterback, right. I mean, you
Speaker 1: enter your foy. This is the year. You gotta you
Speaker 1: gotta win it. This is it and you never know.
Speaker 1: I mean, TV is such a fickle industry. You just
Speaker 1: don't know when when the end is going to come.
Speaker 1: So you want to make sure that you're l weighing
Speaker 1: it no matter what. That way, if the plug gets pulled,
Speaker 1: you know, you left it all on the field. And
Speaker 1: I think we're all collectively of the same mindset, like,
Speaker 1: you know, let's do this, let's leave it all out
Speaker 1: there and then come what may. Psych the TV show
Speaker 1: ended after a great eight year run, But you're still
Speaker 1: doing Psych movies? Are you currently filming Psych three? And
Speaker 1: how's it going? Psych three is in the can. We
Speaker 1: had a blast making it earlier this summer. When it
Speaker 1: will drop is up to the Peacock streaming service, which
Speaker 1: is a thing that you have to subscribe to, I believe,
Speaker 1: But offers a free subscription where I think you just
Speaker 1: have to watch lots and lots of advertisements. But you know,
Speaker 1: my gut is they usually like to drop Psych around
Speaker 1: the holidays just because it's blue sky, feel good and
Speaker 1: people are always together with their families watching TV. So
Speaker 1: if I had to guess, I would say no November
Speaker 1: December for Psych three. But don't quote me on that,
Speaker 1: because those decisions get made above my favorite YEP. I
Speaker 1: certainly understand that. And I got a geek out though, man,
Speaker 1: because like another reason I wanted to have you on
Speaker 1: because we have mostly athletes and coaches on. We've had
Speaker 1: Kurt Warner on, You've had Buddha Baker, Cliff Kingsbury, Steve Leavy,
Speaker 1: Bryan Greasy, Mena Kimes from ESPN. But like when I,
Speaker 1: along with the Cardinals came up with the idea for
Speaker 1: the podcast and trying to get guests from all walks
Speaker 1: of life to talk sports, I wanted to get you
Speaker 1: because Psych is It's not only my favorite show because
Speaker 1: I still watch episodes from ten years ago, but like
Speaker 1: my kids, and my kids don't get half the jokes.
Speaker 1: Could half the jokes are from from your air and
Speaker 1: my air of the eighties. And it's funny because so
Speaker 1: I was in Batman Versus Superman Donna Justice. I had
Speaker 1: a small role that actually got cut out of the movie,
Speaker 1: but if you watch the Snyder cut, it's it's in there.
Speaker 1: And I'm a football announcer, so I'm not doing anything
Speaker 1: different than I normally do. And it was funny man,
Speaker 1: because Zack Snyder is directing, and he's directing our scene,
Speaker 1: and he's laughing during our scene while we're doing the scene.
Speaker 1: And I figured it out after talking to him after.
Speaker 1: I think because he's used to actors, he's not used
Speaker 1: to real broadcast masters, that it made him laugh. He
Speaker 1: just got a kick out of it. And the reason
Speaker 1: I'm bringing that up is I'm curious your character, Sean Spencer.
Speaker 1: How much is James Rode Rodriguez like Sean Spencer. First
Speaker 1: of all, congratulations for pop in your chair. You're a
Speaker 1: film star now. It doesn't matter if it ended up
Speaker 1: on the cutting room floor or not. We all know
Speaker 1: you were there. Dave, you did it. I have the
Speaker 1: pictures to prove it. James, I still lugan. Bill and
Speaker 1: I were not supposed to take any pictures, but we did.
Speaker 1: We Henry Caville wouldn't deal with us, but we did
Speaker 1: it when he wasn't watching. You found the truth. You
Speaker 1: found the truth in that announcer. He had a life,
Speaker 1: he left the stamp, and now we all know about it.
Speaker 1: As far as Sean goes, you know, I grew up
Speaker 1: admiring Val Kilmer in a very sort of like hero
Speaker 1: worship sort of way, and Real Genius for me, was
Speaker 1: probably one of the seminal films that made me think, hey,
Speaker 1: I might want to be an actor. So when I
Speaker 1: read the script for psych I immediately saw it as
Speaker 1: an opportunity, you know, to pay tribute to Chris Knight
Speaker 1: in Real Genius, and that's basically what I started doing
Speaker 1: out of the gate was almost like an homage, almost
Speaker 1: like a love letter to that character. And then because
Speaker 1: we lasted so long and the show went in so
Speaker 1: many different directions, it's impossible for any character that you
Speaker 1: play for that long to not start taking on, you know,
Speaker 1: elements of yourself. That's just sort of it's inevitable. It's
Speaker 1: also a lot of fun. I mean, Julie and I
Speaker 1: were doing sort of bits that were in jokes for
Speaker 1: just us and putting them on camera because we could
Speaker 1: if the line becomes a little blurry as it goes along,
Speaker 1: I would say, you know, no human with any common
Speaker 1: sense can live their life the way that Sean does.
Speaker 1: And there was a Peter Pan quality that was always very,
Speaker 1: very fun to play because we know that in our
Speaker 1: real lives we have to think about consequences and other
Speaker 1: people and responsibility and being pragmatic and practical. So, you know,
Speaker 1: being able to play chart that didn't think about any
Speaker 1: of those things was so much fun and probably something
Speaker 1: frankly never have as much fun doing. Again, the show
Speaker 1: was so well done. The way they connected you as
Speaker 1: a child with your dad, Corbyn Burnson, and then fast
Speaker 1: forwarding to how an incident from your childhood then played
Speaker 1: out in the whole fake psychic world was just It's
Speaker 1: just hilarious and so well done, and it's got such
Speaker 1: a cult following. You call them psycho, so I guess
Speaker 1: I'm a psycho. Do you embrace that people connect you
Speaker 1: with Sean Spencer because you've done so many other things
Speaker 1: and obviously what you're doing now with a million little
Speaker 1: things on ABC is completely different from you playing Sean Spencer.
Speaker 1: I love it, man, That job changed my life. It's
Speaker 1: also a group of people that that I love deeply
Speaker 1: that will be in my life forever. We were, We
Speaker 1: really did become a family. It's kind of us. It's
Speaker 1: a cliche when you hear that about any job, but
Speaker 1: I think the truest version of that is when you
Speaker 1: kind of the least expected, and lightning is in a
Speaker 1: bottle and planets a line and something happens and you
Speaker 1: just never saw it coming. And that's exactly what Psych was.
Speaker 1: And and for eight seasons, you know, we were we
Speaker 1: were living a dream. You know, we were on a
Speaker 1: fledgling network that was still kind of trying to find
Speaker 1: an identity, and as a result, we got a really
Speaker 1: long leash and an opportunity to become what we became,
Speaker 1: and by today's television standards, that is so rare, so
Speaker 1: kind of everything had to fall into place. And as
Speaker 1: a result, you know, if Pike ends up being you know,
Speaker 1: the job that defines me, hell yeah, I'll take that.
Speaker 1: It was a pleasure and remains such a pleasure and
Speaker 1: a privilege to play that role. And we have the
Speaker 1: most unbelievable fans, of which you are one that continue
Speaker 1: to have an appetite for this silliness, and we're happy
Speaker 1: to keep delivering it as long as we can. Do
Speaker 1: you have a favorite episode? I can only imagine you've
Speaker 1: been asked that at nauseum. You know I have, but
Speaker 1: it kind of changes. I love different episodes for different reasons.
Speaker 1: You know. I'll bring up Tuesday to seventeenth because not
Speaker 1: only was it spoofing one of my favorite genres of movies,
Speaker 1: which are slasher films from the eighties, it was also
Speaker 1: the first time I ever stepped behind a camera. It
Speaker 1: was my directing debut. Everybody was so incredible. Everybody stepped up,
Speaker 1: brought their a game. It was an experience that I
Speaker 1: will never forget for as long as I live. And
Speaker 1: the fact that it's kind of become a cult classic
Speaker 1: within a cult show, I think is a testament to
Speaker 1: what we were able to accomplish on psych So that's
Speaker 1: my answer for today. Gotcha, man, No, that's a great one.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about working with Corbin Burnson
Speaker 1: because one of the best sports movies of all time
Speaker 1: is Major League and he plays Roger Dorn, who's the snobbish,
Speaker 1: you know, baseball player who used to be great and
Speaker 1: was a high price guy, but now has fallen in
Speaker 1: love with the life. What's Corbin Like, I assume you
Speaker 1: had seen Major League prior to working with him. What
Speaker 1: was it like to work with him on psych I'd
Speaker 1: only seen Major League about four hundred times. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the club man, Yeah, so I was. I was quoting
Speaker 1: it left and right, and you realize he probably gets
Speaker 1: that a lot too, but it was still it was
Speaker 1: a great ice breaking kind of point for us. And
Speaker 1: we could bond over to immediately because you know, he's
Speaker 1: he thinks very fondly of Major League as well. He
Speaker 1: had a good experience. He and Barringer were really good
Speaker 1: buddies back then, and so, uh, you know Corbett is
Speaker 1: he's a really interesting cat man. Like, yeah, I remember
Speaker 1: like he was sort of like at the top of
Speaker 1: the mountain in the eighties, Like he was people's sexiest
Speaker 1: man alive at one point, um when he was on
Speaker 1: La Law. And you know, like I said, it's a
Speaker 1: really fickle industry. Success can be really fleeting here today,
Speaker 1: gone tomorrow. But what you have in Corvin Burnson is
Speaker 1: a guy who just stuck with it man, Like you know,
Speaker 1: he's the Donnis Haslem of Hollywood, right he just he
Speaker 1: kept his he kept his nose down, and he just
Speaker 1: keeps working and working and working. And sometimes it's good stuff.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's just work. But he always knew that work
Speaker 1: but gets work, and that's that's how you stay in
Speaker 1: the game. So he's a great presence to have on
Speaker 1: any film set because of the perspective he can provide
Speaker 1: and the reminder that, hey, like all of this could
Speaker 1: be gone in a in a flash, so a make
Speaker 1: sure you appreciate it. But also, you know, don't be
Speaker 1: an asshole. And he's also you know, he's kind of
Speaker 1: a it's kind of a hippie and and it's a
Speaker 1: really spiritual dude. He's a really interesting guy to sit
Speaker 1: down and have dinner with because he can go all
Speaker 1: sorts of places and talk about all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1: And yeah, man, he was a good TV dad for sure. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: you guys had still have great chemistry in the movies,
Speaker 1: but on the show, just awesome chemistry. You mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: Val Kilmer, your love for Val Kilmer. I just watched
Speaker 1: the other night, uh, the documentary Vale, which is really good.
Speaker 1: You talk about how things can change in a heartbeat,
Speaker 1: not just for VAL's career, but for his life and
Speaker 1: what he's dealing with now, basically having to speak after
Speaker 1: a tracheotomy, you can't really understand him. And I assume
Speaker 1: you've already seen the documentary of All the eighty because
Speaker 1: you had Val kilmeron I mean, jud John Cen is
Speaker 1: not an eighties guy, but you, Judd Nelson, You have
Speaker 1: all these eighties movie stars on Psych as special guest.
Speaker 1: Who is the coolest? And then tell me, if if
Speaker 1: it wasn't Val, what was it like meeting Val Kilmer
Speaker 1: when he was on Psych? Well start with Val, because yes,
Speaker 1: the documentary I would I would recommend it to anybody,
Speaker 1: whether you're a Val Kilmer fan or not, just because
Speaker 1: just the sheer volume of archival footage that he managed
Speaker 1: to hold onto over the last thirty some odd years
Speaker 1: is so fascinating because you realize, like there are no
Speaker 1: iPhones back then, like this young handsome dude was walking
Speaker 1: around with like an old school of VHS camcorder, like
Speaker 1: getting like with tapes, like getting all this incredible stuff
Speaker 1: and then holding onto it for all these years. So
Speaker 1: it's a real treat. For that reason alone, it is heartbreaking,
Speaker 1: But I do think it's it's sort of shed some
Speaker 1: light on a very complicated artist that we've heard a
Speaker 1: whole lot of stuff about, some good, some bad, and
Speaker 1: you just sort of see a portrait of an artist
Speaker 1: who's never quite been at peace. And I thought it
Speaker 1: was really well done. And I was really happy to
Speaker 1: see the love and reverence that his children have for him,
Speaker 1: because it's like, no matter what or if he can
Speaker 1: ever sort of be at peace with his career or
Speaker 1: what happened to his brother, it's like he's got he's
Speaker 1: got those two children that he is his whole world,
Speaker 1: and it was really nice to see them love him
Speaker 1: back so hard. So that was sort of the aspirational
Speaker 1: element of it. Meeting Valve was a dream come true.
Speaker 1: You know they say never meets your heroes. I'd heard
Speaker 1: all the stories. It was the We shot two things
Speaker 1: in the entire run of Psych in Los Angeles. Every
Speaker 1: thing else we shot was in Vancouver, but twice we
Speaker 1: shot in LA. The first time was a little piece
Speaker 1: with one of my best friends, Jimmy Simpson, who played
Speaker 1: Mary lightly on a video that he had left for
Speaker 1: us in the third Yang episode. We shot that in
Speaker 1: LA and then val was the last thing we shot
Speaker 1: after this series was wrapped, his little piece we did
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, and he could not have been more
Speaker 1: of a prince like, Yes, he was aware that we
Speaker 1: adored him. Yes, he was aware that we referenced him
Speaker 1: more than any other human being over the run of Psych.
Speaker 1: But I doubt he had ever seen an episode and
Speaker 1: he did not have to come and do that, but
Speaker 1: he did, and he was a sweetheart, and he made
Speaker 1: himself available and we all just kind of talked and
Speaker 1: hung out with him for you know, half a day.
Speaker 1: I have nothing but positive things to say about Val.
Speaker 1: It was a wonderful experience. And as far as all
Speaker 1: of the the eighties callbacks that we did, which at
Speaker 1: one point kind of became, you know, the crutch of
Speaker 1: the show, like who can we get on next, I
Speaker 1: would say, you know, my favorite, it's probably Alice Sheet
Speaker 1: because we've become very good friends and she's a kook
Speaker 1: and she's awesome, and that character, you know, became sort
Speaker 1: of seminal for our show. But Rob Macchio is also
Speaker 1: a hell of a guy and a lot of fun
Speaker 1: to hang out with. And Billy Zavka, to keep it
Speaker 1: on topic, is also a hell of a guy and
Speaker 1: a lot of fun to hang out with the two
Speaker 1: guys from Karate Kid and now Yeah Kaikobra Kai John
Speaker 1: Cena I mentioned earlier that he was on one of
Speaker 1: the shows, and before we get you out of here,
Speaker 1: I just want to ask you, in your connection to wrestling,
Speaker 1: how big of a wrestling fan you are. Should we
Speaker 1: be giving wrestling more love as a sport or does
Speaker 1: it have its own category? In James Rode Rodriguez's opinion,
Speaker 1: you know, I was a wrestling nut as a kid,
Speaker 1: and then it kind of was like not as cool
Speaker 1: as beer wrestling fan um, you know, when I hit
Speaker 1: high school, so I kind of kind of drifted away
Speaker 1: from it, but then found it again on psych because
Speaker 1: we shared a network with Raw and SmackDown back then
Speaker 1: on USA, so we would do these cross promotional bits
Speaker 1: and promos with some of the talent. And I started
Speaker 1: watching it again as like a thirty year old man
Speaker 1: and remembering why I used to dig it so much,
Speaker 1: and I sort of slowly came back out of the
Speaker 1: closet and then just sort of said, screw it, I'll
Speaker 1: be an adult who can get down with some wwe
Speaker 1: I don't know that they themselves would necessarily call it
Speaker 1: a sport like it sports entertainment is the is the
Speaker 1: term they came up with. But for me, it's always
Speaker 1: been theater. It's just been it's so theatrical, it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's scripted. You have good versus evil and everything in between. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, for for the swath of Americans who who
Speaker 1: don't think they would like going into a dark theater
Speaker 1: and watching something like Hamilton, like I Got News, you're
Speaker 1: watching it every Monday and every Friday on Raw and
Speaker 1: SmackDown like you're a theater fan. You just don't realize
Speaker 1: because that's what wrestling is and that's what that's what
Speaker 1: it drops into our homes every week and on their
Speaker 1: pay per views. James, it has been great man. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for your time. Appreciate you taking us back
Speaker 1: talking about psych talking about a million little things, and
Speaker 1: then of course talking NFL football, your love for the
Speaker 1: Titans and hopefully Titans and Cardinals. Maybe they'll play Week
Speaker 1: one and they'll play in the final game of the season.
Speaker 1: It would be it would be incredible. I would take
Speaker 1: that bet in a heartbeat. Let's go Tighten Up, also
Speaker 1: seen as My Boy Go see all of his twenty
Speaker 1: nine Movies. Another really good guy. Thanks for the time,
Speaker 1: thanks for the interest, and let's just hope everybody stays healthy. James,
Speaker 1: thanks again, man I did man Rode knows his stuff.
Speaker 1: He is dialed in on the Titans and the NFL.
Speaker 1: Interesting too that when he was pressed to name his
Speaker 1: favorite San Antonio spur that he picked Manu Genobli. If
Speaker 1: you're a Sons fan listening to this right now, I
Speaker 1: know it probably makes your skin crawl. But Genoble was
Speaker 1: a great, great player. And hearing Rode's story about sitting
Speaker 1: in an apartment in Los Angeles with no furniture and
Speaker 1: running around going crazy celebrating the Music City miracle not
Speaker 1: surprising that somebody that's that passionate about his team, the
Speaker 1: Tennessee Titans, would remember exactly where he was when that
Speaker 1: iconic moment went down. It was great here Rode talk
Speaker 1: about Psych and how he embraces that everybody thinks he's
Speaker 1: Sean Spencer, and also how similar they are. Psych being
Speaker 1: one of my favorite TV shows of all time. Is
Speaker 1: cool to hear about his favorite episode and what it
Speaker 1: was like to have Corbyn Burnson, of course, was Roger
Speaker 1: Dorn in major League as his TV dad. Also his
Speaker 1: love for Val Kilmer and how he got to finally
Speaker 1: meet his childhood hero on the set of Psych. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to this edition of the Dave Pash Podcast.
Speaker 1: Don't Forget the Cardinals and Titans. On Sunday, We'll have
Speaker 1: another podcast for you next week. You can follow along
Speaker 1: on Twitter at pash Pod. We'll update you on upcoming
Speaker 1: guests and also take a look back at previous guests
Speaker 1: like Hall of Famer Kurt Warner, Cardinals head coach Cliff Kingsbury,
Speaker 1: and ESPN's meta chimes Steve Levy and Brian Greasy. We
Speaker 1: are presented by bet MGM, the official sports betting partner
Speaker 1: of the Arizona Cardinals and Hila River Hotels and Casinos.
Speaker 1: Thanks once again for listening to the Dave Pash Podcast.
Speaker 1: M