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Speaker 1: That's getsold dot Com promo code toodcast for thirty percent off. Well,

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Speaker 1: joining me now is somebody I've never met, but I'm

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Speaker 1: big static to finally interview him because I've been reading

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Speaker 1: It's right Thompson. Who if these days, if there's a

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Speaker 1: great profile of a sports figure that you couldn't put down,

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Speaker 1: I promise you the byline was right Thompson. But right,

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Speaker 1: it's good to meet you, good to see it.

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Speaker 2: It's great to meet you, and it's a real treat

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Speaker 2: to be here, so thank you. Well, look, man, the

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Speaker 2: treats mine.

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Speaker 1: And I booked you because of a book that wasn't

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Speaker 1: about sports. It's about where you grew up. It's about

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Speaker 1: one of the most wrenching stories of civil rights in

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Speaker 1: our history, and it's a book called The Barn and

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Speaker 1: it's just everything that I love about your writing is

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Speaker 1: showcased in this book because it's both personal factual relevant. Look,

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Speaker 1: you tell me this was clearly a work of love,

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Speaker 1: meaning whether you had a publisher willing to do this

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Speaker 1: or not, I'm guessing you were going to write this book.

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Speaker 2: You know it. The barn Rymintill was killed was twenty

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Speaker 2: three miles from my family's farm, and I didn't you know,

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Speaker 2: the barn had been completely erased from history, and so

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Speaker 2: I really, look, I don't know the right way to

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Speaker 2: say this, but if you don't know something that essential

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Speaker 2: about the place that you claim to know best in

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Speaker 2: the world, then you're kind of not actually from anywhere.

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Speaker 2: And so it you know, it was important to me

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Speaker 2: to understand how this came to happen in this place.

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Speaker 2: And you know, like one of the interesting things. Don't

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Speaker 2: know if you've had this with your work, but you know,

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Speaker 2: when the public gets something, they you lose control over

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Speaker 2: sort of how it's you know, how it lives. And

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Speaker 2: so one of the things that was so interesting, it's

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Speaker 2: been so interesting to me is people understand that like

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Speaker 2: it's a story about nineteen fifty five and it's a

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Speaker 2: story about right now, and you know that that you know,

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Speaker 2: in a certain way, like separate from whether you were

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Speaker 2: for it or against it. Like in some ways, what

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Speaker 2: the MAGA project really is is an attempt to go

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Speaker 2: back before the civil rights movement. And so we actually

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Speaker 2: have a date for that, because you know, people point

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Speaker 2: to the murder of him Attil is the starting gun.

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Speaker 2: And so the America that was Great again was August

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Speaker 2: twenty seventh, nineteen fifty five. And so it's been interesting

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Speaker 2: over the last year as people have read sort of

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Speaker 2: a deep history that more and more feels like a

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Speaker 2: current events quoes.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting about what you said about why

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Speaker 1: you felt all you felt like here You thought you

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Speaker 1: knew where you grew up, and yet you didn't realize

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Speaker 1: what was happening where you grew up. I always say

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Speaker 1: I was both lucky to grow up in Miami in

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Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties, when I always say I was

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Speaker 1: born in Miama and then I graduated high school in Miami.

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Speaker 1: But I remember thinking about Florida's history, and during the

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Speaker 1: sort of the George Floyd reckoning that we had with

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Speaker 1: some various historical events, one that hit me hard that

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Speaker 1: I didn't know about was called Axe Handle Sunday, and

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Speaker 1: it was essentially a white supremacist, you know, race riot

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Speaker 1: that was started in Jacksonville. And I'm like, how come

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Speaker 1: we didn't tell that? How come I didn't learn that

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Speaker 1: in Florida history, you know. Never mind Black Wall Street

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Speaker 1: and Tulsa, never mind you with the barn. I mean,

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Speaker 1: this is a lot of the history of the South,

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Speaker 1: isn't it.

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Speaker 2: Like I'm going to read you a this is what

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Speaker 2: is being taught about it until the school in the

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Speaker 2: Mississippi Delta right now, and like so I have a

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Speaker 2: picture of this textbook and so just in case, like

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Speaker 2: you know, so this is what they're teaching. This is

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Speaker 2: like a current textbook to your point about Axe Handle Sunday.

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Speaker 2: In nineteen fifty five, JP Coleman, the Attorney general from

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Speaker 2: Choctaw County, was elected governor in Mississippi's first general election

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Speaker 2: after the Brown v Board of Education decision. Coleman promised

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Speaker 2: to keep the schools segregated. He proved to be a

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Speaker 2: moderating force during a very difficult time. Just after the election,

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Speaker 2: Emmett Till, a young black man from Chicago, allegedly made

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Speaker 2: a pass at a white woman in a rural store.

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Speaker 2: Two men kidnapped him beat him, killed him, and threw

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Speaker 2: his body in the Tallahatchee River. The coverage of the

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Speaker 2: trial and acquittal of his accused murderers, who later admitted

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Speaker 2: their guilt in an article in a national magazine, painted

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Speaker 2: a poor picture of Mississippi and its white citizens.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's twenty twenty five textbook.

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Speaker 2: Yes, and so like, oh my god, God, no, I know,

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Speaker 2: and so like we're not when you wonder, like sometimes

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Speaker 2: when you turn your TV and you're like, well, who

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Speaker 2: are like what is like how is my reality so

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Speaker 2: different than this reality? Because you know, you see people

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Speaker 2: who how could you possibly think that? And you know,

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Speaker 2: one of the reasons there's such a war on black

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Speaker 2: history sort of disguised as a war on like the

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Speaker 2: excesses of loocism, which, by the way, like you know,

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Speaker 2: those are two very different things. They've been lumped together,

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Speaker 2: and so like, the war on black history is being

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Speaker 2: waged by people who have been rewriting history in textbooks,

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Speaker 2: specifically for fifty seventy five years, you know, and you

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Speaker 2: know in Mississippi. I don't know about growing up in Miami,

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Speaker 2: but in Mississippi, the trick to understanding the state is

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Speaker 2: the accusation is always the confession and so and so.

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Speaker 1: My god, we see that with Trump now, the joke

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Speaker 1: is always projection, right, whatever he accuses opponents have done,

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Speaker 1: it's exactly what either he's doing or wants to do.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and so that's been true Mississippi for a very

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Speaker 2: long time. And so, you know, I mean, like sometimes

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Speaker 2: it feels so disheartening because like there's an entire history

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Speaker 2: of the state that like I certainly didn't know, and

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Speaker 2: you know the degree to which, uh, you know, all

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Speaker 2: this is tied to capital markets. You know, the plantation

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Speaker 2: where Mattil was killed. Until very recently it has been

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Speaker 2: owned by a publicly traded company. So if you had

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Speaker 2: a four oh one K with Vanguard Fidelity or black Rock,

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Speaker 2: you owned a tiny piece of the plantation where Attill

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Speaker 2: was killed. And so, like, I mean, so much of

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Speaker 2: the scholarship around America's original sin feels like it stops

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Speaker 2: at the water's edge, you know, I mean, like it's

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Speaker 2: some ways the biggest flaw of sixteen nineteen is that

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Speaker 2: it wasn't radical enough, right, you know that, Like they're

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Speaker 2: like it stopped at the water's edge as opposed to

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Speaker 2: following the money to Manchester and Liverpool in London and

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Speaker 2: sort of how you know, you know Manchester which is

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Speaker 2: where Rolls met Royce and also where Mark's met Engele,

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Speaker 2: you know, and like and so like. It is interesting

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Speaker 2: when you start following the money about how a murder

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Speaker 2: happen and on a piece of land in Mississippi, you

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Speaker 2: end up very quickly seeing that like, oh this is

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Speaker 2: you know, this is not just some backwoar water where

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Speaker 2: America can store its sins. This is like deeply connected

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Speaker 2: to the whole world.

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Speaker 1: So one way that I try to have some optimism

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Speaker 1: about this fight that we're having about Franklywood is recent history,

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Speaker 1: is that there are still a lot of us alive. Now,

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Speaker 1: I was, I went. I started school about six years

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Speaker 1: after desegregation in Miami.

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Speaker 2: I think you were.

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Speaker 1: You were just after you started school just after desegregation.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Missisi. Yeah, Mississippi desegregated in nineteen seventy. So the

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Speaker 2: first class in Mississippi that went to an integrated school

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Speaker 2: all twelve years, graduated from high school in nineteen eighty two.

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Speaker 1: Okay, those folks are still alive. Do you hold out

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Speaker 1: the hope? And this is a weird way of saying

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Speaker 1: it that when the last person who was essentially raised

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Speaker 1: and segregated America passes on, that maybe we have a

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Speaker 1: different we are able to have a different, more honest

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Speaker 1: conversation about the first fifty years of the twentieth century.

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Speaker 2: No, and because the right answer in the test is

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Speaker 2: painted a poor picture of Mississippi and it's white citizens.

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Speaker 2: And you know, like, you know, one of the things

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Speaker 2: people always ask me is because the barn where until

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Speaker 2: was killed is it's just a barn. It's a guy's barn.

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Speaker 2: You know, he has his Christmas decoration. Why is it

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Speaker 2: in a landmark? Yeah, well there you're you know, that's

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Speaker 2: a good question. And so it's in the process of

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Speaker 2: being turned into one, which is an interesting thing. But

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Speaker 2: like right now, it's just a guy's barn. And so

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Speaker 2: people always ask, well, you know, how can he sleep

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Speaker 2: next to it? You know, from his barbecue grill by

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Speaker 2: his swimming pool, you can see it. It's like right there,

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Speaker 2: and so people, how can he do that? And I'm like, well,

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Speaker 2: every single authority figure in his entire life, every coach,

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Speaker 2: every teacher, preacher, every scout master, every elder, every friend

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Speaker 2: of his dad's at the hunting Camp. Every single person

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Speaker 2: with authority in his entire life has told him his

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Speaker 2: entire life, a very specific version of this history. And

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Speaker 2: so like, I mean, you know, in some ways, like

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Speaker 2: you know, Mississippi is you know, Mississippi elected Ray Mabes

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Speaker 2: not that long ago, right, you know, and like Mississippi

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Speaker 2: was a place that really had a moment. Miss Mississippi

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Speaker 2: had a bunch of democratic governors in a row through

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Speaker 2: William Winner, who I'm sure he.

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Speaker 1: Ran, and they all wan on promising to improve public education,

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Speaker 1: which is really like this was the one through line

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Speaker 1: that got him elected, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and you know William Winter sacrificed his

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Speaker 2: political career forcing through universal kindergarten, you know. But so

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Speaker 2: Mississippi was a progressive enough place that in nineteen eighty

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Speaker 2: eight they elected Ray Mabes, and so he know, my

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Speaker 2: worry is that the opposite of what you suggest is true.

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Speaker 2: That you know, the Irish, you know, the Irish remember

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Speaker 2: the defeats long after the British have forgotten the victories.

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Speaker 2: And like, my worry is that the further this gets

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Speaker 2: from actual human beings experience, and the more it becomes

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Speaker 2: the sort of property of myths that the like that

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Speaker 2: we that we end up in this situation where it's

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Speaker 2: actually auguring in on itself. But I mean, you know,

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Speaker 2: the I don't know. I mean, like the question you're

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Speaker 2: asking obviously is the central question, right?

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Speaker 1: No, I I guess I look at it this way, like,

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Speaker 1: is it progress that most of us now view the

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Speaker 1: gone with the Wind as a bunch of fictional garbage?

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Speaker 2: I think it's incredible progress because you know, I mean,

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Speaker 2: I was just talking to somebody this morning about this.

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Speaker 2: You know, Kentucky was a neutral state during the Civil War.

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Speaker 2: They had three times as many citizens fighting for the

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Speaker 2: Union Army as the Confederate army. And now when you

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Speaker 2: go to Kentucky, I mean they draped themselves in sort

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Speaker 2: of the old South lost couset mythology. So like the

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Speaker 2: question I love to ask about the state of Kentucky

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Speaker 2: is is this the only place in the world that

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Speaker 2: claims to have lost a war at one?

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Speaker 1: Have you been to West Virginia? Look, let me tell you, dude,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I find it hilarious that West Virginia and

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Speaker 1: Virginia have essentially traded. It's West Virginia. I'll never forget

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Speaker 1: when the governor chose to join the Southern Governors Association.

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Speaker 1: This was about twenty years ago, and I'm like, does

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Speaker 1: the governor understand the history of West Virginia? What are

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Speaker 1: you talking about?

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you know, I mean to your question

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Speaker 2: earlier in my answer, you know, I mean what is history?

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Speaker 2: You know, also like West Virginia, though, like West Virginia

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Speaker 2: does have Pepperoni roles. That's their union credit. I like

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Speaker 2: a Pepperoni role. I used to cover the LSU football

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Speaker 2: team when Nick Saban was the coach, and one time

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Speaker 2: his mother, who's from West Virginia, made us all Pepperoni roles.

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Speaker 2: So you know, West Virginia of course has turned its

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Speaker 2: back on its entire reason for existing, but it still

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Speaker 2: has the Pepperoni roles. Suck fair enough.

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Speaker 1: Well, look, the capital of the state that had the

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Speaker 1: capital of the Confederacy I think seceded from the Confederacy

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Speaker 1: about fifteen years ago.

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, and all this stuff. I mean, it's

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Speaker 2: you know, my high school American history teacher in the

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Speaker 2: eighth grade, Miss Halcombe called it the War of Northern Aggression.

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Speaker 2: You know, this is not that long ago.

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Speaker 1: Well, we used to laugh about this. I mean I

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Speaker 1: was raised with that, you know, all this stuff, but

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Speaker 1: the fact that that mythology just sort of did take hold,

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Speaker 1: I mean, that really was damaging. And I don't think

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Speaker 1: we fully appreciate how damaging that is when you just

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Speaker 1: allow the pop culture to oh, that's hilarious. Oh that's funny.

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Speaker 2: And also, like, I mean a real like interesting comparison now,

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Speaker 2: because you know, you have a lot of people now

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Speaker 2: who campaigned on saying wild stuff and now actually have

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Speaker 2: to govern. I mean, one of the things, you know,

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Speaker 2: the people who were agitating for secession in eighteen fifty eight,

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Speaker 2: fifty nine, eighteen sixty, like, these were just bomb throwing politicians.

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Speaker 2: It never occurred to them. I don't think that anybody

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Speaker 2: would actually do this shit, you know. And so like

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Speaker 2: you know, in the big argument for the Civil War,

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Speaker 2: this is not the conversation I expected to have, but

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Speaker 2: this is fascinating. But no, but the argument for the

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Speaker 2: Civil War was that that this is you know, cotton

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Speaker 2: was oil, so Mississippi was Saudi Arabia, and this is

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Speaker 2: the world's most powerful commodity. And so the sorry that's

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Speaker 2: a jet, I'm right by lax. So that was the

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Speaker 2: world's most most powerful and important commodity, and that Europe

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Speaker 2: and all these textile mills would be so desperate to

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Speaker 2: get the southern cotton back that they would stop the

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Speaker 2: US and make the US settle the war. The problem

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Speaker 2: was is that none of these politicians, I guess were

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Speaker 2: actual cotton farmers. Because every cotton farmer you know, we've

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Speaker 2: been doing it a long time, will tell you that

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Speaker 2: the most important thing to know when trying to predict

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Speaker 2: what the price is going to be is something called

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Speaker 2: the carryover. And that's how many bales are sitting in

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Speaker 2: warehouses waiting to go into textile mills, and so what's

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Speaker 2: the carryover and so, because that determines how much cotton

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Speaker 2: people need. So the largest carryovers in history to that

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Speaker 2: point had been eighteen fifty nine and eighteen sixty, which

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Speaker 2: meant that Manchester, England didn't need a single bail of

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Speaker 2: Southern cotton until at least deep in the winter of

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Speaker 2: eighteen sixty three, by which point the war was lost.

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Speaker 2: So all of these eighteen year old boys who got

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Speaker 2: convinced to go fight for something went to these far

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Speaker 2: away fields and died in the most painful ways possible

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Speaker 2: because their leaders couldn't bother to learn basic microeconomics and like,

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Speaker 2: and so that's sort of like unwilling uncu the desire

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Speaker 2: and almost pride and being uncurious and stupid like has

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Speaker 2: real impact on actual people's lives. And it's just like

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Speaker 2: it seems like we just you know, do it again

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Speaker 2: and again and again and again.

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Speaker 1: No, it's it's actually I look at this era and

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Speaker 1: I keep saying, well, we get through these. We've had

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Speaker 1: these other similar periods in history, we get through them.

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Speaker 1: And then under my breath, I say, well, it took

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Speaker 1: a civil war to get through one. It took a

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Speaker 1: total economic collapse, the Great Depression, essentially to get us

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Speaker 1: to figure out that we had to regulate business, right,

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Speaker 1: like we do have to have catastrophic moments essentially close

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Speaker 1: to death as a country before we pull out of

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Speaker 1: the death spiral.

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, and like the idea that you know,

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Speaker 2: the modern Klan really was sort of came back like

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Speaker 2: say nineteen twenty two ish, right, and the you know,

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Speaker 2: the March on Washington was nineteen sixty four, So what's

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Speaker 2: that forty two years? Yeah, so what's forty two years

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Speaker 2: from today? You know, Like, I mean, these are long

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Speaker 2: roads back. I mean, you can vandalize something very quickly,

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Speaker 2: but it takes a long time to put it back together.

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Speaker 2: I Mean. One of the things that I like, really

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Speaker 2: am proud about about this book though about the Barn,

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Speaker 2: is that there is a sort of playbook of people

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Speaker 2: who resisted really powerful forces and have managed despite sort

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Speaker 2: of all of the all of the things conspiring towards

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Speaker 2: a rasure to keep this story alive. You know. I

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Speaker 2: mean Reverend Wheeler Parker, who was Immitt Till's first cousin,

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Speaker 2: best friend, next door neighbor, rode the train south with

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Speaker 2: him in nineteen fifty five's the last living eyewitness to

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Speaker 2: the kidnapping. He and I went to the African American

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Speaker 2: History Museum in DC, and uh, you know, when he

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Speaker 2: came out of the room wherem Attill's coffin is, I mean,

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Speaker 2: he was just making noises and like, you know, this

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Speaker 2: is a guy's a Kojik minister. He's one of the

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Speaker 2: most sort of you know, this guy's a professional speaker.

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Speaker 1: And so yeah, and.

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Speaker 2: So we're like halfway up the you know the sort

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Speaker 2: of ramps, you know, we kind of go back up

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Speaker 2: until he can talk again, and then the thing he

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Speaker 2: says is we got to make sure people remember, like

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Speaker 2: we can't let people forget. And so, you know, I

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Speaker 2: got invited to this thing in Chicago. I was actually

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Speaker 2: just you know, this is odd, but you know, I

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Speaker 2: worked for ESPN, So I was just having breakfast with

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Speaker 2: the basketball coach Phil Jackson, and we were literally I

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Speaker 2: was literally telling him this exact story about.

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Speaker 1: Knowing Phil Jackson's probably more interested in this than anything

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Speaker 1: you want to ask about basketball.

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Speaker 2: Way more. And also you know, he's a Chicago guy.

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Speaker 2: And so I said, I got invited to what would

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Speaker 2: have been him Until's eightieth birthday party. And we go

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Speaker 2: into this like parish hall essentially in Argo Summit in

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Speaker 2: Illinois suburban and it's where the Argo starts plan is

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Speaker 2: they make like kros syrup and and so we're like

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Speaker 2: we're sitting there and I slowly realized that every living

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Speaker 2: person who knew him at phill is in the rooms.

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Speaker 2: So like when I started doing this, there were probably

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Speaker 2: twelve people, and now they're dying in front of me.

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Speaker 2: Now they're probably eight. And like there was this moment

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Speaker 2: where his aunt, I think her name is Thelma, stands

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Speaker 2: up and in this really really quiet voice says, I

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Speaker 2: wasn't there the night he died, but I was there

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Speaker 2: the morning he was born. So and you know, people

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Speaker 2: talk about him until like he's a symbol, and sure,

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Speaker 2: he absolutely is, but he's also like he was a boy.

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Speaker 2: You know, it was such a specific age.

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Speaker 1: You know, he uh, you never got to become a man,

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Speaker 1: despite in Mississippi history books.

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Speaker 2: No, and like, you know, he was just like he

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Speaker 2: was that unique age of boyhood where he was starting

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Speaker 2: to get his In his fourteenth birthday, his mother heard

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Speaker 2: him and his friends playing Spin the bottle. But he

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Speaker 2: also like loved comic books. So he was that age

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Speaker 2: where you know where you're kind of maybe sorry.

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Speaker 1: Four or fourteen.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you sort of like maybe you're interested in

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Speaker 2: maybe trying to kiss a girl, but you still like

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Speaker 2: Spider Man, you know, and like that that's such a

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Speaker 2: specific age of boyhood and like and you know, right

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Speaker 2: now in Chicago there is a like a storage facility

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Speaker 2: that the family keeps. I guess they don't really know

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Speaker 2: what to do with it. And in it is his

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Speaker 2: toy train. We I think as long as there's a

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Speaker 2: room in Chicago where Emmitt Till's toy trains there waiting

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Speaker 2: on a boy who's never coming home. It is incumbent

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Speaker 2: upon every America and almost as an act of patriotism

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Speaker 2: to say that name over and over and over and

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Speaker 2: over again, like as some sort of shibboleth. It's like

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Speaker 2: a prayer on what we want to be.

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Speaker 1: There's a reason results matter more than promises, just like

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Speaker 1: there's a reason. Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury

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Speaker 1: law firm. For the last thirty five years, they've recovered

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Speaker 1: twenty five billion dollars for more than half a million clients.

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Speaker 1: It includes cases where insurance companies offered next to nothing,

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00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:48,480
Speaker 1: just hoping to get away with paying as little as possible.

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00:20:48,560 --> 00:20:51,639
Speaker 1: Morgan and Morgan fought back ended up winning millions. In fact,

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00:20:51,720 --> 00:20:54,800
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania, one client was awarded twenty six million dollars,

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00:20:55,320 --> 00:20:58,359
Speaker 1: which was a staggering forty times the amount that the

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00:20:58,359 --> 00:21:01,679
Speaker 1: insurance company originally offered. That original offer six hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars twenty six million, six hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars. So with more than a thousand lawyers across

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Speaker 1: the country, they know how to deliver for everyday people.

395
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Speaker 1: If you're injured. You need a lawyer. You need somebody

396
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Speaker 1: to get your back. Check out for the People dot Com,

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Speaker 1: Slash podcast or now Pound Law, Pound five two nine

398
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Speaker 1: law on your cell phone. And remember all law firms

399
00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:25,520
Speaker 1: are not the same, So check out Morgan and Morgan.

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00:21:25,600 --> 00:21:32,320
Speaker 1: Their fee is free unless they win. Look what you've

401
00:21:32,359 --> 00:21:35,000
Speaker 1: done here, I think is so important. Where you take

402
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Speaker 1: a symbol of a larger moment in history and sort

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Speaker 1: of and by unpacking that symbol you learn a bigger story.

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Speaker 1: The best history books are what I are, the undiscovered

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Speaker 1: history that gets resurfaced. And I assume this is this

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Speaker 1: is you know, is this.

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Speaker 2: A one off for you?

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Speaker 1: Or do you want to pursue other sort of symbolic

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Speaker 1: ways that history got buried that you could uniquely resurface.

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Speaker 2: You know, I have a couple of things kicking around,

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Speaker 2: you know I and like, I guess I'll beit a

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Speaker 2: test this with you right now. I am very interested

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Speaker 2: in a book that I haven't figured out the structure

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Speaker 2: or even the characters of it that goes from the

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Speaker 2: last US soldier off who's out of Saigon in seventy

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Speaker 2: three and when those before, like you know, before Saigon fell,

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Speaker 2: but from seventy three to NAFTA, because it feels like

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Speaker 2: so many of the seeds of our current predicament were

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Speaker 2: sown in that period of time. And like, you know,

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Speaker 2: the last US soldier to get on the last transport

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Speaker 2: out of Vietnam was killed in the Pentagon on nine

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Speaker 2: to eleven. He was there as a civilian contractor. And

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Speaker 2: like in like the way those things, you know, the

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Speaker 2: way those things just start turning in on each other,

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Speaker 2: you realize, oh, this happened yesterday. I was just in

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Speaker 2: in Vietnam for vacation, and I bribed a security guard

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Speaker 2: to let me on the roof of the old CIA

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Speaker 2: headquarters where that famous photograph is the helicopter where the helicopter. Yeah, people, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: And dude, there's all all of the mercury lights lands

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Speaker 2: government made Chicago, Illinois, Like all of that stuff is

431
00:23:24,520 --> 00:23:27,600
Speaker 2: still there. It's like we left yesterday. It's like in

432
00:23:27,960 --> 00:23:31,240
Speaker 2: like so like I'm into the history that is hiding

433
00:23:31,280 --> 00:23:34,639
Speaker 2: in plain sight. And you know, and you know, in

434
00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:40,159
Speaker 2: the history of Mississippi. You know, what's the great Malcolm X.

435
00:23:40,280 --> 00:23:42,880
Speaker 2: Everywhere south of Canada's Mississippi. You know, I think there's

436
00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:45,960
Speaker 2: a way in which you have to understand Mississippi, to

437
00:23:46,119 --> 00:23:49,280
Speaker 2: understand America. And like, the thing that haunted me in

438
00:23:49,320 --> 00:23:52,280
Speaker 2: the process of reporting this book is that people don't

439
00:23:52,280 --> 00:23:54,920
Speaker 2: realize the Mississippi Delta, like Paul Simon had it wrong.

440
00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:56,639
Speaker 2: It is not the highway through the cradle of the

441
00:23:56,640 --> 00:24:00,000
Speaker 2: Civil War. Most of the Mississippi Delta was uninhabited hardwoods

442
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:03,680
Speaker 2: swamps until around nineteen hundred. Like the land clearing started

443
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:05,080
Speaker 2: like mid eighteen nine.

444
00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:07,520
Speaker 1: We didn't have the technology, right, no, and so if

445
00:24:07,560 --> 00:24:09,200
Speaker 1: you couldn't get life insurance if you lived to the

446
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:10,959
Speaker 1: Mississippi Delta until nineteen hundred.

447
00:24:11,119 --> 00:24:12,840
Speaker 2: So I have this map, I mean, so this is

448
00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:16,200
Speaker 2: like twenty years after Frederick Turner's essay, is twenty years

449
00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:19,000
Speaker 2: after we caught Geronimo, twenty years after the ok Corral.

450
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:22,760
Speaker 2: And like I have this map that shows the railroads

451
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:25,480
Speaker 2: and they haven't joined yet, and this is well after

452
00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:28,240
Speaker 2: like the Golden Spike out west, and they're laying these

453
00:24:28,280 --> 00:24:31,480
Speaker 2: railroads in Mississippi Delta. And you realize that the piece

454
00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 2: of land that is that it is in the middle

455
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:38,880
Speaker 2: of the gaps in the not connected railways is Township

456
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:41,560
Speaker 2: twenty two north, Range four West, which is the exact

457
00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:43,760
Speaker 2: piece of land where Emmitt Till was killed. And so

458
00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:46,320
Speaker 2: if manifest Destiny is like the you know, I love

459
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:48,679
Speaker 2: Greg Grandon's book The End of the Myth because he

460
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:52,720
Speaker 2: really deals with this. But like, if the well spring

461
00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:56,120
Speaker 2: of American identity flows from this idea of manifest destiny,

462
00:24:56,800 --> 00:24:59,920
Speaker 2: and if the place where we actually settle the continent

463
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:04,960
Speaker 2: wasn't somewhere out west with cowboys, but was actually underneath

464
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:07,560
Speaker 2: the bar the ground where emm Att Till was killed,

465
00:25:07,840 --> 00:25:11,600
Speaker 2: I think that suggests something fundamentally different about everything we

466
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:14,359
Speaker 2: know about American history. And so, like, you know, one

467
00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:17,119
Speaker 2: of one of the reasons the book is so in

468
00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:19,360
Speaker 2: noted is well one, I mean, in this day and age,

469
00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:21,400
Speaker 2: I think you have to show your work. Oh two,

470
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:25,760
Speaker 2: but two, They're like there are ten more immittental books

471
00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:28,000
Speaker 2: to be written, and like you just want to make

472
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:30,840
Speaker 2: it easy for the next person to strip it for parts.

473
00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:34,400
Speaker 1: Well, that's I mean, that's that's what a good history

474
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:37,479
Speaker 1: book is supposed to do, because you know most and

475
00:25:37,560 --> 00:25:40,240
Speaker 1: it's interesting. You know you can't help, but I always,

476
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:45,639
Speaker 1: you know, I've learned this. I'm obsessed with the the

477
00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:51,280
Speaker 1: era between Grant and McKinley, because you know, I'm one

478
00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:54,080
Speaker 1: of these people who the more I've learned about Garfield,

479
00:25:54,119 --> 00:25:56,560
Speaker 1: the more I've decided, Boy, if Garfield had lived, maybe

480
00:25:56,600 --> 00:26:02,320
Speaker 1: we passed a civil rights bill literally eighty years sooner

481
00:26:02,359 --> 00:26:05,320
Speaker 1: than we did that, he might have been that guy.

482
00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:08,679
Speaker 1: And it's always easy to mythologize dead presidents, right we

483
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:10,160
Speaker 1: did we do with Kennedy?

484
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:10,439
Speaker 2: You know?

485
00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:13,000
Speaker 1: I don't. And the more I learned, the more you're like, Eh,

486
00:26:13,080 --> 00:26:15,399
Speaker 1: Kennedy probably takes as the Vietnam Let's not pretend he

487
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:21,119
Speaker 1: wouldn't have. But I've read so much on the eighteen

488
00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:25,439
Speaker 1: seventy six election, which was sort of planted the seeds

489
00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:27,760
Speaker 1: of Jim Crow and got rid of reconstruction, all of

490
00:26:27,800 --> 00:26:30,720
Speaker 1: those things. And what you noticed so much is how

491
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:34,800
Speaker 1: much the whatever the author's politics is in the current era,

492
00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:40,480
Speaker 1: ends up helping to be their own conclusions about what

493
00:26:40,520 --> 00:26:43,359
Speaker 1: they discovered and reported on eighteen you know, And I

494
00:26:43,359 --> 00:26:45,639
Speaker 1: don't know if you you know, I don't think you

495
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 1: can separate that right from the writer from the from

496
00:26:49,400 --> 00:26:54,120
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, you know, how did you view

497
00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:57,359
Speaker 1: your job in writing this history book? Were you trying

498
00:26:57,400 --> 00:27:01,600
Speaker 1: to surface it by the way you understand today's politics?

499
00:27:01,640 --> 00:27:04,360
Speaker 1: Or by how what was understood back then, right.

500
00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:07,439
Speaker 2: I mean I think, well, look, I think certainly, you

501
00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:10,960
Speaker 2: know it is we get into the trap of judging

502
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 2: people from the comfort and safety of wherever we are now.

503
00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:17,679
Speaker 1: I mean take Woodrow Wilson's a great example. We've all

504
00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:21,119
Speaker 1: decided he's a racist now and should be almost erased

505
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:23,360
Speaker 1: from presidential history.

506
00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:27,760
Speaker 2: Which is I mean, you know, he was a product

507
00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:30,080
Speaker 2: of his era. And the other thing. So I've been

508
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:32,880
Speaker 2: I've been working on a book right now that is uh,

509
00:27:33,320 --> 00:27:38,320
Speaker 2: it's about a French spy and like VC government minister,

510
00:27:38,840 --> 00:27:42,399
Speaker 2: and so one of the things that's so interesting is

511
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 2: to go look at you know, you go read Robert

512
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 2: Paxson's history of VC France and you start to realize like, oh,

513
00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:51,639
Speaker 2: this was not this was a you know, this was

514
00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:55,480
Speaker 2: a French project where like, you know, the French far

515
00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:59,200
Speaker 2: right was going to use the Nazis to settle all

516
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:00,240
Speaker 2: of their old or.

517
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:03,679
Speaker 1: The Nazis didn't they there were people ready to embrace

518
00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: Nazis had already lived in Oh yeah, yeah.

519
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:08,639
Speaker 2: The French were writing their anti Jewish laws before the

520
00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 2: Nazis told them to. But one of the things that's

521
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:14,680
Speaker 2: interesting is you watch all these people trying to fence

522
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 2: sit because they don't know whether the Germans or the

523
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 2: English are going to win. And so you know, have

524
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:23,680
Speaker 2: you have General Vegan telling Churchill that your next will

525
00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:26,160
Speaker 2: be rung in three weeks. So what you have are

526
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:29,400
Speaker 2: people who have who's who never got out from under

527
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:32,719
Speaker 2: their sort of collaborationist decisions, and a lot of them

528
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 2: are just trying to sit the fence as long as

529
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 2: they can. And like the ones who sort of didn't

530
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 2: get wrapped up and brought down in all of the

531
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:42,719
Speaker 2: purges in forty five and forty six were the ones

532
00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 2: who understood enough about sort of military operations that when

533
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 2: Germany invaded Russia that it was over and that everything

534
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 2: else was in game, and so they could afford to

535
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 2: support the Allies. Robert Paxton, who wrote the the Great

536
00:28:56,360 --> 00:29:03,560
Speaker 2: Books about VC France, told me that he found the

537
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:10,200
Speaker 2: widow of Marshall Paton's chief of staff and she gave

538
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:13,920
Speaker 2: him his diary. And what he realized is there were

539
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 2: two diaries. There was one that was written that was

540
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:20,840
Speaker 2: I'm all about Germany and Italy and the New Europe

541
00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:23,520
Speaker 2: and the Fascist experiment, and the other one was all

542
00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 2: about Churchill and the Allies and like literally in real

543
00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:29,040
Speaker 2: time they were trying to go both ways. And so

544
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:31,120
Speaker 2: I think one of the things we do from the

545
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:35,280
Speaker 2: safety of the future is we don't understand that maybe

546
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 2: the only point, the only thing to do in a

547
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 2: world war is to try to survive it, and what

548
00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:45,680
Speaker 2: that looks like afterwards is often very very ugly, and

549
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:48,800
Speaker 2: the price that people pay for their survival is having

550
00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:50,960
Speaker 2: to walk around with the things they did to survive.

551
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 2: And so, like, I mean, that's a long answer to

552
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:56,040
Speaker 2: your question about eighteen seventy six. But I also think that,

553
00:29:56,160 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 2: like people are self interested, and people are in the

554
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 2: moment trying to read the tea leaves and figure out

555
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 2: what to do.

556
00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:07,600
Speaker 1: How'd you end up being a sports writer? I wanted

557
00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:08,680
Speaker 1: to be easily been doing this.

558
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:11,720
Speaker 2: I wanted to write about music, and I was randomly

559
00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 2: assigned to sports at the college newspaper. Like you know,

560
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 2: I was a big deadhead. All I really wanted to

561
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:21,600
Speaker 2: do is like, where were you at school? Uh, University

562
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:25,280
Speaker 2: of Missouri, Tigers, there you go, and uh, and so

563
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 2: like this has all been a very odd accident, uh

564
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:32,720
Speaker 2: you know, and so uh but yeah, I mean, like

565
00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:35,840
Speaker 2: the thing that's cool about sports is that you have

566
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 2: a group of people who are have nothing in comic

567
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 2: except they all want some sort of genetic lottery. And like,

568
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:45,040
Speaker 2: I'm very into tribal identity, and you know, I love

569
00:30:45,080 --> 00:30:47,200
Speaker 2: the line from the Episcopal liturgy we do this and

570
00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 2: remembrance of you, and like so much of the ways

571
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 2: in which really complex ideas about home and family are

572
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:58,520
Speaker 2: coded and handed down or through sports, and so like,

573
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:01,240
Speaker 2: I love the way that's sports is a carrying case

574
00:31:01,280 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 2: for people's mythologies and their family stories. And you know,

575
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:08,240
Speaker 2: so I don't know, like I've never I've always thought

576
00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:09,920
Speaker 2: that if I got bored, that I would quit, and

577
00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 2: I just have never gotten bored.

578
00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 1: So I had a conversation with Jay Dande recently, Matak

579
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:23,560
Speaker 1: we were talking about, you know, I had a you know,

580
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 1: why is it that sports in the forties and fifties

581
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:33,600
Speaker 1: was leaning in to essentially, you know, the New America

582
00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:36,520
Speaker 1: was leaning in on civil rights, even if the sports

583
00:31:36,560 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 1: owners themselves weren't always right. You know, look that some

584
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 1: of them were just doing it because they wanted to win.

585
00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 1: But in some ways sports was ahead of you know,

586
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:50,239
Speaker 1: we desegregated sports before we desegregated schools, and you know,

587
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:53,040
Speaker 1: so I've always held sports up as sort of, hey,

588
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 1: this is the cultural corner of America that can actually

589
00:31:57,080 --> 00:31:59,440
Speaker 1: bring us together and maybe it can help us solve

590
00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:02,840
Speaker 1: a problem for you know, you know, instead of the politicians.

591
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:06,040
Speaker 1: And then he brought up something he goes, but you know,

592
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:09,520
Speaker 1: we're not seeing that with today's athletes, that today's athletes

593
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:14,960
Speaker 1: have no interest in using a sports platform to fight

594
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:17,680
Speaker 1: for a civil right. And he pointed out the example

595
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 1: of the Latino ball baseball players have been pretty silent

596
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 1: about what's been going on with ice in America. Do

597
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 1: you see that change in the in the sports figure

598
00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 1: of today versus the sports figure that you and I

599
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 1: grew up with.

600
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:33,920
Speaker 2: I think a couple of things. I mean, I think,

601
00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:36,920
Speaker 2: you know, they're the exceptions that proved the root. Like

602
00:32:37,120 --> 00:32:41,240
Speaker 2: you know, like Lebron James has put his literal money

603
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:43,680
Speaker 2: where his mouth is over and over and over again

604
00:32:44,080 --> 00:32:47,360
Speaker 2: and sort of great personal cost to his ubiquity. I Mean,

605
00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:48,880
Speaker 2: one of the things that I was just talking to

606
00:32:48,960 --> 00:32:52,520
Speaker 2: Phil about was could Michael Jordan. Would Michael Jordan have

607
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:56,480
Speaker 2: been as universally beloved now as he was in the

608
00:32:56,560 --> 00:32:59,400
Speaker 2: nineteen nineties, which was a very specific time in America.

609
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:02,480
Speaker 2: It was you know, and you know, I think the

610
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:05,520
Speaker 2: answer is no, Like I think that he wouldn't be

611
00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 2: allowed to fece, sit and be and be.

612
00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:12,000
Speaker 1: The North Carolina Senate race is one of my favorite examples, right,

613
00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety race. This was Helm's gant. This was

614
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:18,760
Speaker 1: a big deal of African American mayor of Charlotte, Jesse

615
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 1: Helms the and you know, the myth and I know

616
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 1: that we've never found the actual quote, right, but the

617
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 1: myth was he set that race out because Republicans by

618
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:29,120
Speaker 1: sneakers too.

619
00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:31,320
Speaker 2: And you know, one of the things that's so interesting

620
00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:34,440
Speaker 2: about that is that you know, like the like you know,

621
00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:38,160
Speaker 2: I think that like my favorite living American writer is

622
00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 2: this guy named Kisa Layman who's from Mississippi, who I

623
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:43,520
Speaker 2: just love. And so one of the things KSA and

624
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 2: I talked about in the context of Jordan is he

625
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:50,080
Speaker 2: was like, you have to understand the rural urban interplay,

626
00:33:51,120 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 2: especially as it relates to Michael Jordan, because if you're

627
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:58,960
Speaker 2: from this people say he's from Wilmington, which is true,

628
00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:02,400
Speaker 2: but really he's from link the country right outside of Wilmington,

629
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:05,640
Speaker 2: and you know, he knew his great grandfather, who was

630
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:07,959
Speaker 2: the son of a slaved man, and you know, in

631
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 2: his like, he grew up in a very rural life.

632
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:15,800
Speaker 2: And so the thing he say says about Michael Jordan

633
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:23,239
Speaker 2: is that his his chase of public excellence and universal

634
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:27,080
Speaker 2: acceptance is political in its own way. And so, like,

635
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:28,880
Speaker 2: I mean, I think one of the things is, you know,

636
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 2: there's a it always used to be better when there's

637
00:34:34,080 --> 00:34:37,400
Speaker 2: but to your point, there's a certain you know, the

638
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 2: quarterly earnings report, obsession with accounting, you know, the you know,

639
00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:47,000
Speaker 2: like that has invaded sports. Like the entire goat argument

640
00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:50,120
Speaker 2: is utterly absurd, and that is a product of a

641
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:53,319
Speaker 2: very specific America that didn't used to exist. And so

642
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:55,960
Speaker 2: if you know, if you look at sort of nineteen

643
00:34:56,040 --> 00:35:00,360
Speaker 2: forty five to say nineteen sixty, if you from the

644
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:03,800
Speaker 2: end of the war until Kennedy beating Eisenhower or Kennedy winning.

645
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:05,520
Speaker 2: I don't know if he beat Eisenhower actually I should

646
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 2: know that, but beat Nixon, that's right, So until the

647
00:35:09,160 --> 00:35:13,160
Speaker 2: end of Eisenhower's term, Like, you know, the the the

648
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:16,239
Speaker 2: ideal of an American man wasn't Michael Jordan, who was

649
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:20,840
Speaker 2: a zero sum cutthroat who prioritizes winning against everything and

650
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:24,080
Speaker 2: is lauded for it. I mean, the American heroes were

651
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:29,200
Speaker 2: Eisenhower and Jackie Robinson, and I mean Joe Demagia.

652
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:33,399
Speaker 1: Joe Demaggio, you got to marry Marilyn Monroe, and yeah,

653
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 1: I mean, that'd be a TV pitch man. He was

654
00:35:35,239 --> 00:35:37,920
Speaker 1: the first in some way meter coffee, right, he was

655
00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:43,000
Speaker 1: the first. He might be the first modern sports celebrity.

656
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 2: But all of those guys are rooted in a kind

657
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 2: of morality too, like you know, like one of the

658
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:53,200
Speaker 2: sort of you know, the postmodern death of the platonic

659
00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 2: ideal of a person you know, is certainly at play

660
00:35:56,160 --> 00:35:58,920
Speaker 2: with athletes, where it's just, you know, it's like the

661
00:35:58,920 --> 00:36:04,080
Speaker 2: Bill Belichick fundamentally misunderstood everything, you know. I mean it's

662
00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:07,880
Speaker 2: the idea that like, uh, like we still deal in myths,

663
00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 2: you know, I mean we you know, like, you know,

664
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:14,680
Speaker 2: Bill Belichick, who accidentally drafted Tom Brady, is one of

665
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:18,040
Speaker 2: the greatest coaches ever with Tom Brady and is below

666
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:21,160
Speaker 2: average without him, and like so like we are so

667
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:25,160
Speaker 2: quick to point to the coach as the genius, and

668
00:36:25,200 --> 00:36:27,799
Speaker 2: like that's left over muscle memory from that thing. You're

669
00:36:27,840 --> 00:36:31,440
Speaker 2: talking about about. You know, all the sports writers come

670
00:36:31,440 --> 00:36:33,919
Speaker 2: home from all the war correspondents come home from World

671
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:37,360
Speaker 2: War Two writing about Patent and Nimitz and Omar Bradley

672
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:40,320
Speaker 2: and Eisenhower, and they all go work for the sports departments.

673
00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:42,680
Speaker 2: And now they're writing about the coaches using the sort

674
00:36:42,719 --> 00:36:45,440
Speaker 2: of hand me down vocabulary. Interesting and like and like,

675
00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:48,400
Speaker 2: so a lot of that stuff still exists. Uh, you know,

676
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:50,160
Speaker 2: I think there are a lot of athletes who are

677
00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 2: you know, uh, you know, Dale Murphy is eligible for

678
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:57,239
Speaker 2: the Hall of Fame again and like should should be

679
00:36:57,360 --> 00:37:00,840
Speaker 2: in because like that's a guy who you know, lives

680
00:37:00,840 --> 00:37:05,719
Speaker 2: his American values. You know, Jackie Robinson is a huge

681
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:10,319
Speaker 2: like like archetype of what an American should be. And

682
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:12,440
Speaker 2: so like, you know, I think it goes in waves.

683
00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:14,759
Speaker 2: I certainly think we are in a you know, a

684
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:16,960
Speaker 2: moment of reductiveness.

685
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:20,920
Speaker 1: No, I think that's true. I look at your career

686
00:37:20,960 --> 00:37:22,400
Speaker 1: and I think of Richard ben Kramer.

687
00:37:22,560 --> 00:37:24,719
Speaker 2: Do you take that as a compliment, Yes, I mean

688
00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:27,959
Speaker 2: what it takes is like to what it takes is unbelievable.

689
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:30,759
Speaker 2: And then you know his Ted Williams story, that.

690
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:34,080
Speaker 1: Ted Willives' profiles, you know, sorry to not say this

691
00:37:34,120 --> 00:37:36,320
Speaker 1: about one are your profiles. It's the greatest sports profile

692
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:37,279
Speaker 1: I've ever ready.

693
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:39,960
Speaker 2: And it's not close. I mean, like you know what

694
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:42,319
Speaker 2: I mean, like I'm trying to think of what might

695
00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:45,320
Speaker 2: be the second best, and I mean, you know, maybe

696
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:48,640
Speaker 2: Gayta least on Joe Demaggio. But like, I mean, there's

697
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:52,520
Speaker 2: a you know, it's probably like Frank the Ford on

698
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:53,240
Speaker 2: Bobby Knight.

699
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:55,960
Speaker 1: And Albert stam on October sixty four. Whether you believe

700
00:37:55,960 --> 00:37:58,120
Speaker 1: that's a book or really a big lung magazine piece.

701
00:37:58,160 --> 00:38:02,400
Speaker 1: I could argue it's all like Albert Dammon was a magazine,

702
00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:04,000
Speaker 1: Like what's the difference.

703
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:06,200
Speaker 2: You know, I mean like like uh no, I mean

704
00:38:06,239 --> 00:38:08,359
Speaker 2: like that that I mean that Richard ben Crimer story

705
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:11,200
Speaker 2: is crazy. You know, there's like this a legend. Somebody

706
00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:13,320
Speaker 2: should fact check this for me. If there's a legend

707
00:38:13,719 --> 00:38:15,960
Speaker 2: that Esquire tried to cut it and that he went

708
00:38:16,040 --> 00:38:19,759
Speaker 2: into the office himself like during clothes and restored all

709
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:22,520
Speaker 2: the cuts. And I want to believe that's true so

710
00:38:22,719 --> 00:38:25,640
Speaker 2: badly because it is. It's like the biggest like fuck you,

711
00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:28,640
Speaker 2: Like I just love like, you know, no, no, Richard

712
00:38:28,640 --> 00:38:33,279
Speaker 2: ben Krimer, You're gonna run his whole story. H did

713
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:34,720
Speaker 2: you know him? Did you know Richard?

714
00:38:35,160 --> 00:38:37,640
Speaker 1: I never got to meet him. He was he was

715
00:38:37,760 --> 00:38:40,600
Speaker 1: not far. He was in Annapolis. I knew he lived

716
00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:42,920
Speaker 1: in Annapolis. I mean, look, that book was my bible.

717
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:47,200
Speaker 1: That's what I I you know, and I I'll be honest,

718
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 1: I actually think it it taught us a bad lesson

719
00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:50,719
Speaker 1: in political journalism.

720
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:55,080
Speaker 2: Let's do this what what lesson did it teach? Well?

721
00:38:55,160 --> 00:38:58,319
Speaker 1: That that that there is this sort of different I

722
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 1: mean it made us. What it did is that it

723
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:06,200
Speaker 1: turned us all into pop psychologists as political writers. Yet

724
00:39:06,239 --> 00:39:08,160
Speaker 1: I found my what's that right?

725
00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 2: No?

726
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 1: Because I love I'm obsessed with trying to figure out

727
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:15,200
Speaker 1: why do these people think they can be leader of

728
00:39:15,200 --> 00:39:18,120
Speaker 1: the free world. They look in the mirror and they

729
00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:20,560
Speaker 1: think I should make the decisions for three hundred and

730
00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:24,200
Speaker 1: fifty million Americans. I think that is a sickness as

731
00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 1: a part of me that thinks that that's a sickness.

732
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:28,320
Speaker 2: It's a total sickness. I mean, the act of warning

733
00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:30,359
Speaker 2: the job should disqualify you from it.

734
00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 1: Yes, that's sort of that's a that's a great you said,

735
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:35,320
Speaker 1: this is why you're such a great writer. It's a

736
00:39:35,360 --> 00:39:39,440
Speaker 1: great way of putting it, and yet you know it

737
00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:42,839
Speaker 1: is in some ways. He said, you know, look, there's

738
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:46,760
Speaker 1: a there is a DNA that's different with a presidential candidate.

739
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:50,200
Speaker 1: And here's the failed, failed versions of it. And you

740
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:53,239
Speaker 1: will see the successful versions of it over here, or

741
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:57,520
Speaker 1: you'll you'll figure out why it is. And I think

742
00:39:57,560 --> 00:40:02,000
Speaker 1: it I think it cheap in political reporting. It's not

743
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:06,400
Speaker 1: Richard's fault. He did a tremendous service. It's the problem

744
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:08,800
Speaker 1: isn't copycatters, right, It's.

745
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 2: Like the problem. The problem isn't Richard van Kramer. It's

746
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 2: all the people who tried to do it. The problem

747
00:40:13,080 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 2: isn't Gary Smith. It's all the people who wanted to

748
00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:17,799
Speaker 2: write in second person to imitate him. The problem isn't

749
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:20,440
Speaker 2: Bill Simmons, who does this as an incredibly high level.

750
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:22,799
Speaker 2: It's all the people who just think they can riff

751
00:40:23,239 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 2: and like, no, you're exactly right, like the cheap imitations

752
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:31,040
Speaker 2: of a high wire act, always for sort of like

753
00:40:31,760 --> 00:40:34,440
Speaker 2: you know, culture bending in that way I mean that

754
00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:36,319
Speaker 2: you know, well, like what, let me ask you this, like,

755
00:40:36,840 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 2: so is that book more for you than like the

756
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:41,440
Speaker 2: sort of Curtis Wilkie era Boys on the bus.

757
00:40:41,560 --> 00:40:44,759
Speaker 1: Oh it's not even close. Yeah, because you know, and

758
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:47,840
Speaker 1: that's and that's sad. And I've now literally gone the

759
00:40:47,880 --> 00:40:51,920
Speaker 1: other way, meaning like I I call myself now a

760
00:40:51,920 --> 00:40:55,200
Speaker 1: political anthropologist. I'm more interested in the political tribes of

761
00:40:55,239 --> 00:40:57,880
Speaker 1: America than the leaders. I don't care about the chiefs.

762
00:40:58,080 --> 00:41:00,520
Speaker 2: Well, I'm in Like, you know, one of the interesting

763
00:41:00,520 --> 00:41:02,440
Speaker 2: things is like, and we could do an entire podcast

764
00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:05,120
Speaker 2: about this, but like the idea of the American tribe

765
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:07,799
Speaker 2: has been under relentless assault by the left and the

766
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:11,200
Speaker 2: right for the last thirty years. And if you don't

767
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:14,239
Speaker 2: if you take away people's tribes, they're gonna find a

768
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:17,239
Speaker 2: new one and you're probably not gonna like it. And like,

769
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:19,840
Speaker 2: you know, and so like it is interesting the degree

770
00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:22,160
Speaker 2: to which we are still so in our sort of

771
00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:26,080
Speaker 2: Foxhole's pointing fingers that people don't realize that, like we're

772
00:41:26,160 --> 00:41:29,080
Speaker 2: all to a certain degree guilty. Boy, it's should be

773
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:31,360
Speaker 2: nice to have the founding fathers right now, you know

774
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:34,000
Speaker 2: what I mean. Yeah, Like, there's been sort of such

775
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:36,840
Speaker 2: a war on the idea of there being an American

776
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:40,200
Speaker 2: tribe that I'm not sure there is one anymore. And

777
00:41:40,239 --> 00:41:42,440
Speaker 2: I'm not entirely sure anybody has an idea of how

778
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:43,360
Speaker 2: to build one.

779
00:41:43,520 --> 00:41:46,080
Speaker 1: There never were. There's been multiple tribes. We've been a

780
00:41:46,120 --> 00:41:51,160
Speaker 1: coalition of it's what makes us. Look I sort of yeah, yeah, yeah.

781
00:41:51,200 --> 00:41:53,520
Speaker 1: There's no other country like us that's tried to do

782
00:41:53,640 --> 00:41:55,760
Speaker 1: this well. And I don't know if we're a success

783
00:41:55,840 --> 00:41:56,680
Speaker 1: or a failure yet.

784
00:41:57,040 --> 00:42:00,319
Speaker 2: Well, and like you know, you know, look, I grew

785
00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:03,320
Speaker 2: up the you know, my father was a lifelong liberal

786
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:05,879
Speaker 2: Democrat who cried every time they played the national anthem

787
00:42:05,920 --> 00:42:08,640
Speaker 2: at a sporting event, and you know, and so I

788
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:13,919
Speaker 2: very much sort of believe in there is something exceptional

789
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:17,120
Speaker 2: about even the attempt of the American experiment. And so

790
00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:19,759
Speaker 2: it feels like it was out of vogue to sort

791
00:42:19,800 --> 00:42:22,520
Speaker 2: of traffic and American exceptionalism. And I think that's clearly

792
00:42:22,560 --> 00:42:25,240
Speaker 2: a mistake, because like, we are trying to do something

793
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:28,719
Speaker 2: that is really really hard, and the reason that we

794
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:31,480
Speaker 2: keep taking one step forward and two steps back is

795
00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:34,000
Speaker 2: that it's really hard to take a group of people

796
00:42:34,040 --> 00:42:35,320
Speaker 2: and turn them into a new trial.

797
00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:40,480
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827
00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:20,120
Speaker 1: human beings are tribal, very much, right, and so and

828
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:25,120
Speaker 1: so we're trying to you know, it is no, it's

829
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:29,400
Speaker 1: it gets at I think that why we've are political journalism.

830
00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:33,160
Speaker 1: You know, you default to looking for the great, the

831
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:33,880
Speaker 1: great hope.

832
00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:34,160
Speaker 2: Right.

833
00:44:34,239 --> 00:44:35,719
Speaker 1: It used to be the great white hope, but now

834
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:37,840
Speaker 1: it's just simply the great hope and everybody.

835
00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:38,920
Speaker 2: And this is in a.

836
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:42,600
Speaker 1: Weird way what what Too many young reporters took away

837
00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:46,040
Speaker 1: from Richard's book, right, which was well, let's go find

838
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:49,560
Speaker 1: you know, and and frankly, it turns out Milton Friedman

839
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:52,560
Speaker 1: had was more accurate about things when he says you

840
00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:55,759
Speaker 1: can elect bad people or you know, it's not whether

841
00:44:55,760 --> 00:44:57,400
Speaker 1: you elect good people or bad people, it's whether you

842
00:44:57,440 --> 00:44:59,040
Speaker 1: have good incentives or bad incentives.

843
00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 2: And ultimate Lee, like, what makes us.

844
00:45:02,920 --> 00:45:05,879
Speaker 1: Different is if we create a structure that allows us

845
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:09,120
Speaker 1: to have a certain type of politician, and instead we

846
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:11,960
Speaker 1: spent too much time as political reporters for a generation

847
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:15,720
Speaker 1: coming at it from that somehow the great leaders created

848
00:45:15,719 --> 00:45:19,000
Speaker 1: the politics when actually no, it's a it's an entire

849
00:45:19,080 --> 00:45:20,640
Speaker 1: structure that did it well.

850
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 2: And you know, there was the sort of real trauma

851
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:27,040
Speaker 2: of World War two meant that you know, and a

852
00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:29,920
Speaker 2: lot of people like on a lot of people on

853
00:45:29,960 --> 00:45:32,759
Speaker 2: both sides like attacked this, which I understand why, but

854
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:34,879
Speaker 2: we I think we took it for granted that one

855
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:38,000
Speaker 2: of the Trump trauma responses, it's politically, it seems of

856
00:45:38,040 --> 00:45:40,000
Speaker 2: World War two was of the idea of we could

857
00:45:40,040 --> 00:45:42,000
Speaker 2: never you know, eighty five million people died, Like we

858
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:44,359
Speaker 2: can't do that again, Yeah, let's not do it. Yeah,

859
00:45:44,480 --> 00:45:48,440
Speaker 2: it was let's prune every extreme, so we're going to

860
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:51,960
Speaker 2: govern from here to here, and like that's going to

861
00:45:52,080 --> 00:45:54,840
Speaker 2: leave a lot of people behind. But that seemed to

862
00:45:54,880 --> 00:45:59,080
Speaker 2: be a very intentional choice of we cannot let we

863
00:45:59,120 --> 00:46:00,000
Speaker 2: cannot do that again.

864
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:02,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's it worked until the Berlin Wall fell,

865
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:06,680
Speaker 1: That's right. I mean I look at this and I'm

866
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:09,200
Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with this that it turns out the era

867
00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:11,520
Speaker 1: you and I grew up in might be the outlier

868
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:12,600
Speaker 1: era of American history.

869
00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:15,600
Speaker 2: Well it you know, it certainly feels like a pause.

870
00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:20,279
Speaker 2: That the collective action required to survive the Great Depression,

871
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:24,920
Speaker 2: followed by the collective action required to win World War

872
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:31,480
Speaker 2: Two and the sort of countrywide pr campaign that had

873
00:46:31,520 --> 00:46:34,120
Speaker 2: to be waged about the moral reasons for the war

874
00:46:34,239 --> 00:46:36,560
Speaker 2: to convince people to send their boys to go die

875
00:46:36,840 --> 00:46:40,000
Speaker 2: in places they'd never been and couldn't pronounce like that

876
00:46:40,120 --> 00:46:43,640
Speaker 2: created a pause in the history of America. People forget,

877
00:46:43,680 --> 00:46:46,320
Speaker 2: Like like the Harriman family who found in Sun Valley.

878
00:46:46,520 --> 00:46:50,400
Speaker 2: They were also the primary funders of the was it

879
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:55,720
Speaker 2: the Coal Springs Harbor Eugenesis eugenics research facility in Long Island,

880
00:46:56,080 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 2: And like you know, Nazi Germany sent lawyers to the

881
00:47:01,239 --> 00:47:03,719
Speaker 2: University of Arkansas to study Jim Crow Laws to learn

882
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:06,120
Speaker 2: how to write the Nuremberg Laws. The head of the

883
00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:11,280
Speaker 2: Cole Springs Harbor facility got an honorary doctor from University

884
00:47:11,280 --> 00:47:15,719
Speaker 2: of Nuremberg in nineteen thirty six. Like before Roosevelt and

885
00:47:15,760 --> 00:47:18,680
Speaker 2: the government could attack fascism in Europe, they had to

886
00:47:18,680 --> 00:47:21,560
Speaker 2: defeat it in America and it wasn't a slam dunk

887
00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:23,440
Speaker 2: which way we were going to go. So like to

888
00:47:23,480 --> 00:47:25,719
Speaker 2: your point, like I do feel like we have a

889
00:47:25,800 --> 00:47:29,400
Speaker 2: huge pause in what was happening. So like, in some ways,

890
00:47:29,400 --> 00:47:31,719
Speaker 2: what's happening now is it new? We've just gone back

891
00:47:31,760 --> 00:47:33,840
Speaker 2: to action previously in progress.

892
00:47:34,200 --> 00:47:38,400
Speaker 1: We're in the nineteenth century again with modern tools. Yeah,

893
00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:41,920
Speaker 1: and like that's terrifying, because like absolutely terrifying. Yes, you know,

894
00:47:42,120 --> 00:47:43,359
Speaker 1: and you know, and.

895
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:45,839
Speaker 2: Like you know, like Obama made that funny joke when

896
00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:48,719
Speaker 2: the Jonas brothers were at the White House because you know,

897
00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:50,759
Speaker 2: his daughters had crushes on him, and he was like,

898
00:47:51,600 --> 00:47:54,920
Speaker 2: you know, I got two words boys, predator, drones, and

899
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:57,400
Speaker 2: like it was funny, but it's also you know, not funny.

900
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:01,239
Speaker 1: Oh you want to talk about I had Dexter Filkinson

901
00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:02,440
Speaker 1: recently and.

902
00:48:02,200 --> 00:48:05,920
Speaker 2: The two The Forever War is my favorite war book,

903
00:48:06,160 --> 00:48:07,680
Speaker 2: not named the things they carried.

904
00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:14,560
Speaker 1: He he went into Ukraine recently, and warfare is changing

905
00:48:14,600 --> 00:48:16,719
Speaker 1: before our eyes and I don't think people understand it.

906
00:48:16,960 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 2: The drones. So yeah, I was in Ukraine twice in

907
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:23,760
Speaker 2: the first year of the war, and it's like the drones.

908
00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:26,560
Speaker 2: Man it's it's not B fifty two's you can't see

909
00:48:26,880 --> 00:48:29,279
Speaker 2: and it's like, you know, if you're seeing a video

910
00:48:29,320 --> 00:48:33,640
Speaker 2: of the drone finding Drake on this outdoor patio and

911
00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:36,680
Speaker 2: playing the Kendrick Lamar song, and I'm like, I'm like, dude,

912
00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:39,200
Speaker 2: nobody's safe. Like you know, these things are.

913
00:48:39,080 --> 00:48:43,400
Speaker 1: Terrifying and this is coming, and this is this is

914
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:47,360
Speaker 1: an age that I don't think we're fully well.

915
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:50,160
Speaker 2: It'll be war without myth and war without heroism and

916
00:48:50,200 --> 00:48:53,120
Speaker 2: war without sacrifice and like in some way and.

917
00:48:53,280 --> 00:48:56,879
Speaker 1: Scare mean if you don't have the human element, what

918
00:48:57,280 --> 00:48:59,880
Speaker 1: you know does if war is easier to wage without

919
00:49:00,520 --> 00:49:03,520
Speaker 1: risking lives, are we going to pre perpetually at war?

920
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:06,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's terrifying and you know, and like but

921
00:49:07,120 --> 00:49:10,640
Speaker 2: like you see, I love the political anthropologist is a

922
00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:13,560
Speaker 2: really interesting way to describe it, because I don't. I

923
00:49:13,600 --> 00:49:16,239
Speaker 2: don't think anybody has any idea what we're going to

924
00:49:16,320 --> 00:49:18,520
Speaker 2: look like in ten years, during fifteen years or in

925
00:49:18,560 --> 00:49:20,359
Speaker 2: twenty And I feel like anybody who says they do,

926
00:49:21,040 --> 00:49:23,360
Speaker 2: if you really knew you would be running a campaign

927
00:49:24,440 --> 00:49:26,520
Speaker 2: like you, if you really knew you'd be Josh Lyman.

928
00:49:26,719 --> 00:49:28,800
Speaker 1: You know, I know what I want to see happened.

929
00:49:28,840 --> 00:49:30,880
Speaker 1: I'd love to see a lot of things happen. I

930
00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:33,319
Speaker 1: just don't know whether we're capable of it.

931
00:49:34,320 --> 00:49:38,320
Speaker 2: I hope so, because I genuinely, like, I genuinely believe

932
00:49:38,680 --> 00:49:42,880
Speaker 2: that that what most people want is to raise their

933
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:46,480
Speaker 2: kids and to save some money for retirement, and to

934
00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:49,040
Speaker 2: be to be around their parents and to be around

935
00:49:49,080 --> 00:49:53,440
Speaker 2: their friends, and to like, you know, have a normal Thanksgiving,

936
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:56,319
Speaker 2: And like, I like, there has to be at some

937
00:49:56,480 --> 00:50:00,279
Speaker 2: point everybody's got to put their guns down, r like,

938
00:50:00,320 --> 00:50:02,239
Speaker 2: And so I don't know what the moment will be,

939
00:50:02,719 --> 00:50:05,840
Speaker 2: but I do. You talked about your hope earlier that

940
00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:08,240
Speaker 2: like if all these people who remember this are gone,

941
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:10,279
Speaker 2: I mean, like, my thing that I really hope for

942
00:50:10,360 --> 00:50:14,279
Speaker 2: that might be totally naive is that America longs for

943
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:17,560
Speaker 2: a kind of radical cynerism. And I like, a, like,

944
00:50:17,680 --> 00:50:20,440
Speaker 2: we got to stop screaming at each other and realize

945
00:50:20,480 --> 00:50:23,759
Speaker 2: that the problem isn't somebody who disagrees with you. The

946
00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:27,160
Speaker 2: problem is it's the algorithm. The problem is the entire

947
00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:30,320
Speaker 2: nature of the structure of the debate. And if like

948
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:32,759
Speaker 2: the story I like to tell is my wife's grandfather

949
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:35,680
Speaker 2: was a German prisoner of War and stalligloof III, which

950
00:50:35,719 --> 00:50:38,320
Speaker 2: is the prisoner of war camp from the Great Escape.

951
00:50:38,800 --> 00:50:42,200
Speaker 2: And so you know, they have these reunions and I

952
00:50:42,239 --> 00:50:43,600
Speaker 2: went to them, and then you know, it'd be all

953
00:50:43,640 --> 00:50:45,880
Speaker 2: these old men who show up at a Marriott and

954
00:50:45,960 --> 00:50:48,880
Speaker 2: Cincinnati or somewhere and they'd sit around and tell stories.

955
00:50:48,880 --> 00:50:51,520
Speaker 2: But the craziest thing happened the very end of their lives.

956
00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:55,040
Speaker 2: They started inviting their German guards who would show up

957
00:50:55,040 --> 00:50:58,560
Speaker 2: with their families and their children and their grandchildren. And

958
00:50:58,600 --> 00:51:01,280
Speaker 2: they would be all these old men who didn't see

959
00:51:01,320 --> 00:51:04,440
Speaker 2: each other as enemies. They saw themselves as allies, and

960
00:51:04,520 --> 00:51:07,640
Speaker 2: the enemy was war itself. And like you do get

961
00:51:07,640 --> 00:51:11,719
Speaker 2: the sense that when you when people with wisdom are

962
00:51:11,840 --> 00:51:17,320
Speaker 2: thinking about these conflicts, that like people are desperate for

963
00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:19,040
Speaker 2: your for your enemy to not be your fellow citizen,

964
00:51:19,120 --> 00:51:19,520
Speaker 2: but for your.

965
00:51:19,400 --> 00:51:21,360
Speaker 1: Well, well we're sort of seeing that now at the

966
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:24,440
Speaker 1: Vietnam generation, right, you're seeing more soldiers wanting to meet,

967
00:51:25,120 --> 00:51:28,400
Speaker 1: wanted to You see those types of reunions with Vietnam

968
00:51:28,440 --> 00:51:29,799
Speaker 1: as well, where you'll have.

969
00:51:29,840 --> 00:51:32,360
Speaker 2: And onercent and like there are a lot of soldiers

970
00:51:32,400 --> 00:51:37,400
Speaker 2: who go back. You know, I this terrifying thing a

971
00:51:37,400 --> 00:51:42,120
Speaker 2: friend of mine, Ken Moorefield, who was literally on the

972
00:51:42,160 --> 00:51:44,319
Speaker 2: last helicopter out of sawg Got in nineteen seventy five.

973
00:51:44,640 --> 00:51:47,640
Speaker 2: He physically put the ambassador on the next to last helicopter,

974
00:51:47,880 --> 00:51:49,799
Speaker 2: and he was on the last one. And he was

975
00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:52,160
Speaker 2: a tet offensive as like a like I think a

976
00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:53,839
Speaker 2: company I think he was a captain, will make him

977
00:51:53,880 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 2: a company commander. And he went back to that battlefield

978
00:51:57,120 --> 00:52:00,200
Speaker 2: with the opposing commander in the nineties when he when

979
00:52:00,239 --> 00:52:01,960
Speaker 2: he worked for the Clinton administration and went back to

980
00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:04,880
Speaker 2: Vietnam and the State Department, and that guy walked him

981
00:52:04,880 --> 00:52:08,320
Speaker 2: around the battlefield and he described he realized how little

982
00:52:08,320 --> 00:52:10,520
Speaker 2: they knew about where the enemy was and what they

983
00:52:10,520 --> 00:52:12,319
Speaker 2: were trying to do, and he was just like, man,

984
00:52:12,360 --> 00:52:14,880
Speaker 2: it's a miracle any of us lift. Because he was like,

985
00:52:14,960 --> 00:52:17,560
Speaker 2: he was showing me where they were and that is

986
00:52:17,680 --> 00:52:20,000
Speaker 2: not where we had been told they were. And he

987
00:52:20,120 --> 00:52:22,880
Speaker 2: was just like and it was terrifying to sort of

988
00:52:23,040 --> 00:52:25,759
Speaker 2: to go back as an old man and see it

989
00:52:26,040 --> 00:52:28,840
Speaker 2: and be right, I mean it. You know. The hope

990
00:52:28,880 --> 00:52:31,320
Speaker 2: is that people realize that the algorithm is the enemy,

991
00:52:31,360 --> 00:52:34,600
Speaker 2: and it's not somebody who discounts me. It is it

992
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:35,920
Speaker 2: is what I ran about the most.

993
00:52:36,040 --> 00:52:39,400
Speaker 1: I mean, the fact is the founders created a constitution

994
00:52:39,480 --> 00:52:42,040
Speaker 1: that was all about a compromise that the whole point

995
00:52:42,239 --> 00:52:45,759
Speaker 1: was to constantly realize, if you're going to put a

996
00:52:45,840 --> 00:52:49,520
Speaker 1: bunch of tribes that don't normally govern together to govern together,

997
00:52:49,920 --> 00:52:54,759
Speaker 1: you're gonna nobody gets to nobody gets their way. Yeah, no,

998
00:52:54,840 --> 00:52:57,840
Speaker 1: and and and like so, like you know, that's the

999
00:52:57,920 --> 00:53:00,720
Speaker 1: radical quote unquote centrism. Like I got called a radical

1000
00:53:00,760 --> 00:53:03,640
Speaker 1: centrist once and I thought, well, that's a huge trament.

1001
00:53:03,920 --> 00:53:06,719
Speaker 1: I'm just an incrementalist. It said, I don't believe you

1002
00:53:06,719 --> 00:53:09,280
Speaker 1: can move three hundred and fifty million people by leaping

1003
00:53:09,280 --> 00:53:11,520
Speaker 1: a foot ahead. You've got to go a centimeter at

1004
00:53:11,560 --> 00:53:11,879
Speaker 1: the time.

1005
00:53:12,280 --> 00:53:15,319
Speaker 2: And you know, it's like I do obviously acknowledge the

1006
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:19,600
Speaker 2: fact that that you know, it is cruel to ask

1007
00:53:19,640 --> 00:53:22,640
Speaker 2: people who've waited for so long to keep waiting. You know.

1008
00:53:22,719 --> 00:53:24,959
Speaker 2: It's the idea of the dream deferred is.

1009
00:53:24,960 --> 00:53:27,520
Speaker 1: Like, well, like civil unions versus same sex marriage, but

1010
00:53:27,560 --> 00:53:29,600
Speaker 1: guess what, you weren't going to get same sex marriage

1011
00:53:29,640 --> 00:53:31,360
Speaker 1: without first getting civil unions.

1012
00:53:31,680 --> 00:53:35,080
Speaker 2: And you know it also like you know, I remember

1013
00:53:35,120 --> 00:53:37,400
Speaker 2: Obama couldn't admit he was in favor of getting like,

1014
00:53:37,480 --> 00:53:40,319
Speaker 2: that's not that long ago, and so like you just.

1015
00:53:40,280 --> 00:53:43,440
Speaker 1: This century, you know, this was this was the twenty

1016
00:53:43,440 --> 00:53:44,239
Speaker 1: first century.

1017
00:53:44,440 --> 00:53:46,920
Speaker 2: I know the uh so, if Trump runs again, can

1018
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:48,479
Speaker 2: Obama run again? Well?

1019
00:53:48,520 --> 00:53:50,320
Speaker 1: See that to me is the great way to stop

1020
00:53:50,400 --> 00:53:53,640
Speaker 1: him from running. I've always I've always thought that the

1021
00:53:53,680 --> 00:53:56,200
Speaker 1: liberals out of wink and just say, okay, you do

1022
00:53:56,360 --> 00:53:58,160
Speaker 1: know that if you get a third, if you get

1023
00:53:58,160 --> 00:54:01,239
Speaker 1: to run again, they Obama gets the run again.

1024
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:01,800
Speaker 2: How's that?

1025
00:54:02,280 --> 00:54:05,600
Speaker 1: And one could argue it's sort of like Obama I

1026
00:54:05,640 --> 00:54:09,239
Speaker 1: love a sports argument. Right, Let's see, you know, let's

1027
00:54:09,280 --> 00:54:13,200
Speaker 1: see the Lebron Miami Heat. Play the Michael Jordan, you know,

1028
00:54:13,320 --> 00:54:17,280
Speaker 1: ninety two team. Let's see the Lakers. If Magic doesn't

1029
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:20,520
Speaker 1: get HIV, play Jordan and see who gets you know

1030
00:54:20,760 --> 00:54:23,920
Speaker 1: my favorite. You know, the point is maybe Obama v.

1031
00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:26,880
Speaker 1: Trump is the cultural showdown this country needs.

1032
00:54:27,840 --> 00:54:29,640
Speaker 2: I mean, do you think that all of this started

1033
00:54:29,640 --> 00:54:33,560
Speaker 2: when Obama said at the White House Correspondence Center said

1034
00:54:33,760 --> 00:54:38,000
Speaker 2: uh humiliated him. Yeah, yeah, I said, you know, Donald

1035
00:54:38,000 --> 00:54:40,320
Speaker 2: Trump says, I'll go down as the works president history.

1036
00:54:40,360 --> 00:54:44,440
Speaker 2: At least I'll go down as president huh did in

1037
00:54:44,520 --> 00:54:47,640
Speaker 2: his anger translator didn't he like name drop you I think,

1038
00:54:48,160 --> 00:54:51,440
Speaker 2: oh I've yeah, I've got I got all. That's just

1039
00:54:51,480 --> 00:54:51,719
Speaker 2: a no.

1040
00:54:51,800 --> 00:54:53,800
Speaker 1: I've gotten a few of those. But you know, with Trump,

1041
00:54:54,600 --> 00:55:00,640
Speaker 1: I'm convinced that in the reason I'm convinced, I'm convinced

1042
00:55:00,640 --> 00:55:02,040
Speaker 1: he never thought he was going to be president and

1043
00:55:02,080 --> 00:55:04,799
Speaker 1: he never really wanted the job. What he wanted was

1044
00:55:04,840 --> 00:55:07,960
Speaker 1: the recognition, and he wanted to get to where he got,

1045
00:55:08,120 --> 00:55:10,920
Speaker 1: which was that nomination proved that he could do it.

1046
00:55:11,520 --> 00:55:13,920
Speaker 1: Because the fact that he didn't have a victory speech written,

1047
00:55:14,440 --> 00:55:17,239
Speaker 1: the fact that they were shocked they actually won, is

1048
00:55:17,640 --> 00:55:20,760
Speaker 1: to me the tell of oh God, I've got And favorite,

1049
00:55:21,040 --> 00:55:23,480
Speaker 1: my favorite anecdote that never has gotten a lot of

1050
00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:27,040
Speaker 1: attention is when Trump met with Obama after he's president

1051
00:55:27,080 --> 00:55:32,840
Speaker 1: elect and Obama's hosting him, and Trump says he learns

1052
00:55:32,840 --> 00:55:35,399
Speaker 1: in that moment that the White House staff doesn't come

1053
00:55:35,440 --> 00:55:38,320
Speaker 1: with the White House, Like he knew that there was

1054
00:55:38,360 --> 00:55:40,960
Speaker 1: a residential staff, but he thought that the people that

1055
00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:42,640
Speaker 1: worked in the West wing, you know, that this was

1056
00:55:42,640 --> 00:55:46,719
Speaker 1: like a corporate takeover, and the employees of Barack Obama

1057
00:55:47,120 --> 00:55:49,719
Speaker 1: would then become on January twenty at the employees of him,

1058
00:55:50,040 --> 00:55:53,680
Speaker 1: and then somebody told him, no, you've got to hire

1059
00:55:53,680 --> 00:55:56,759
Speaker 1: all that anyway. Oh my god, Like that's when it

1060
00:55:56,800 --> 00:55:59,800
Speaker 1: would hit him that suddenly he didn't have a network

1061
00:55:59,840 --> 00:56:01,799
Speaker 1: of people. He's never had a network of people. He

1062
00:56:01,840 --> 00:56:04,879
Speaker 1: only surrounds himself with four to six people that will

1063
00:56:04,880 --> 00:56:07,680
Speaker 1: suck up to him until that relationship deteriorates and he

1064
00:56:07,960 --> 00:56:10,560
Speaker 1: then moves on. He never has the same eight people

1065
00:56:10,600 --> 00:56:12,560
Speaker 1: for an eight year span, but he is the same.

1066
00:56:12,920 --> 00:56:17,000
Speaker 1: But he always has a circle around him. And that's

1067
00:56:17,000 --> 00:56:19,920
Speaker 1: why I'm convinced he never actually wanted He wanted the

1068
00:56:19,960 --> 00:56:22,359
Speaker 1: idea of the presidency, he wanted a profit off of it,

1069
00:56:22,440 --> 00:56:24,920
Speaker 1: all of those things. He didn't want to actually have

1070
00:56:24,960 --> 00:56:25,560
Speaker 1: to do the job.

1071
00:56:26,200 --> 00:56:28,680
Speaker 2: Well you know, I mean the job is it's the

1072
00:56:28,760 --> 00:56:33,120
Speaker 2: impossible job. Like you know, it was either Obama or Clinton.

1073
00:56:33,200 --> 00:56:35,319
Speaker 2: Book somebody said, like, by the time the problem gets

1074
00:56:35,360 --> 00:56:38,040
Speaker 2: to the president, there are no good options. They're all bad.

1075
00:56:38,600 --> 00:56:41,319
Speaker 2: Like everything. If it's that complex that it gets to

1076
00:56:41,360 --> 00:56:45,560
Speaker 2: your desk, everything is a bad option. Uh. I would

1077
00:56:45,640 --> 00:56:48,680
Speaker 2: like it would be terrifying to wake up and be president.

1078
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:51,720
Speaker 1: No, and you would and the idea that one person,

1079
00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:55,440
Speaker 1: you know, frankly, it probably should be a committee of

1080
00:56:55,480 --> 00:56:57,880
Speaker 1: people are doing these things.

1081
00:56:57,880 --> 00:57:01,000
Speaker 2: But or just if we could just put the people

1082
00:57:01,040 --> 00:57:03,520
Speaker 2: in charge of Chick fil A in charge of everything,

1083
00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:06,319
Speaker 2: or waffle House, get Joe Rogers to just run the

1084
00:57:06,320 --> 00:57:11,279
Speaker 2: country like like like you know, like the like every

1085
00:57:11,280 --> 00:57:12,759
Speaker 2: time I go into waffle House, I'm like, this is

1086
00:57:12,800 --> 00:57:15,320
Speaker 2: the greatest, Like, can they just be in charge of everything?

1087
00:57:16,080 --> 00:57:19,280
Speaker 1: Their logistics are fantastic, It's unbelievable. I mean, it's all

1088
00:57:19,760 --> 00:57:23,520
Speaker 1: very good. Hey, natural disasters come. Waffle House is a

1089
00:57:23,560 --> 00:57:24,800
Speaker 1: comm shop is pretty good.

1090
00:57:25,080 --> 00:57:27,640
Speaker 2: Well that and the thing about Chick fil A that

1091
00:57:27,720 --> 00:57:30,720
Speaker 2: I would love to know is that they don't the

1092
00:57:30,960 --> 00:57:35,000
Speaker 2: the pickles are never slimy, and.

1093
00:57:34,960 --> 00:57:36,600
Speaker 1: So I was curious, how do they do that?

1094
00:57:36,840 --> 00:57:38,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would just like to know, like what is

1095
00:57:38,760 --> 00:57:42,480
Speaker 2: that like and why? Like what's the difference between McDonald's

1096
00:57:42,480 --> 00:57:45,520
Speaker 2: pickles and Chick fil a pickles? Because there's a there's

1097
00:57:45,560 --> 00:57:48,520
Speaker 2: some sort of something in the process where someone has

1098
00:57:48,560 --> 00:57:51,000
Speaker 2: decided that we care about pickles, And I just would

1099
00:57:51,120 --> 00:57:53,400
Speaker 2: like to know how you go from being a guy

1100
00:57:53,440 --> 00:57:57,160
Speaker 2: in a room who cares about pickles to actually manifesting

1101
00:57:57,200 --> 00:57:58,040
Speaker 2: that at scale.

1102
00:57:59,760 --> 00:58:03,800
Speaker 1: Well, well, you gotta get Todd, that's a fair point,

1103
00:58:03,800 --> 00:58:05,160
Speaker 1: all right, let me get you out of here on this.

1104
00:58:05,240 --> 00:58:08,560
Speaker 1: I got to ask you one sport, who's somebody you

1105
00:58:08,560 --> 00:58:11,320
Speaker 1: haven't profiled right now in sports that you'd like to

1106
00:58:11,480 --> 00:58:15,040
Speaker 1: but you can't break through. And if they won't give you,

1107
00:58:15,280 --> 00:58:17,640
Speaker 1: I assume you don't get a certain amount of access,

1108
00:58:17,680 --> 00:58:19,160
Speaker 1: you won't write about well.

1109
00:58:19,240 --> 00:58:22,000
Speaker 2: I mean, sometimes you can, but sometimes it's just the

1110
00:58:22,040 --> 00:58:24,440
Speaker 2: doughnut hole. Like if you don't have access to the

1111
00:58:24,520 --> 00:58:28,320
Speaker 2: sort of someone's interior monologue, it feels still born. I mean,

1112
00:58:28,760 --> 00:58:36,800
Speaker 2: you know, like Sandy Kofax, who promised.

1113
00:58:36,400 --> 00:58:39,160
Speaker 1: Please, what's Jane, what's your last Jame?

1114
00:58:39,480 --> 00:58:41,280
Speaker 2: Jane Levy? Jane Leavy's talking.

1115
00:58:41,360 --> 00:58:44,200
Speaker 1: That book is amazing because of how hard it was

1116
00:58:44,240 --> 00:58:47,439
Speaker 1: to break. I mean, you're right, Sandy Kofax is still

1117
00:58:47,480 --> 00:58:50,200
Speaker 1: the most anonymous famous person alive in baseball right now.

1118
00:58:50,440 --> 00:58:53,480
Speaker 2: So I text with him a little and because I

1119
00:58:53,520 --> 00:58:55,000
Speaker 2: tried to get him to for a story when he

1120
00:58:55,040 --> 00:58:58,040
Speaker 2: was turning ninety, and he has promised me, Sandy, if

1121
00:58:58,040 --> 00:58:59,800
Speaker 2: you're listening, I'm going to hold you to your word.

1122
00:59:00,120 --> 00:59:02,240
Speaker 2: He has promised me that if he lives to one hundred,

1123
00:59:02,600 --> 00:59:04,600
Speaker 2: he will let me come spend a bunch of time

1124
00:59:04,600 --> 00:59:04,880
Speaker 2: with him.

1125
00:59:05,000 --> 00:59:07,200
Speaker 1: So I mean he's he's one of those. I had

1126
00:59:07,240 --> 00:59:10,200
Speaker 1: an uncle who we all knew there was some hidden story.

1127
00:59:10,240 --> 00:59:12,440
Speaker 1: We just didn't know what the story was, and we

1128
00:59:12,440 --> 00:59:14,400
Speaker 1: didn't get it until he died and it turned out

1129
00:59:14,440 --> 00:59:17,680
Speaker 1: he was secretly married to a black woman and he

1130
00:59:17,720 --> 00:59:20,000
Speaker 1: didn't think his family could handle it. And it was

1131
00:59:20,560 --> 00:59:24,280
Speaker 1: this is nineteen eighty five. It's it's sort of and

1132
00:59:24,320 --> 00:59:26,720
Speaker 1: there were always speculation in my family. Oh, maybe he's

1133
00:59:26,840 --> 00:59:29,120
Speaker 1: closet a gay, maybe he's this, maybe he's that. There

1134
00:59:29,200 --> 00:59:31,720
Speaker 1: was just like he's just hiding something he thinks the

1135
00:59:31,760 --> 00:59:36,000
Speaker 1: family doesn't want to know or whatever. And it's there's

1136
00:59:36,720 --> 00:59:39,480
Speaker 1: it's always been interesting to me. You know, we're going

1137
00:59:39,520 --> 00:59:42,960
Speaker 1: to learn something about why he always kept to himself

1138
00:59:43,000 --> 00:59:46,600
Speaker 1: the most right. But he is probably I mean, he's

1139
00:59:46,600 --> 00:59:48,240
Speaker 1: so important to Jewish Americans.

1140
00:59:48,600 --> 00:59:49,480
Speaker 2: Oh, it's incredible.

1141
00:59:50,040 --> 00:59:53,880
Speaker 1: And you know, I it looked, you know, we joke

1142
00:59:53,920 --> 00:59:56,760
Speaker 1: at as Jew's joke. Right, He's he's on the cover

1143
00:59:56,800 --> 00:59:58,840
Speaker 1: of the pamphlet of Greatest Jewish.

1144
00:59:59,320 --> 01:00:02,680
Speaker 2: It's the thing from Lebowski. It's like two thousand years

1145
01:00:02,680 --> 01:00:05,160
Speaker 2: from Moses to Sandy Kofax. You've got damn right, I'm

1146
01:00:05,200 --> 01:00:08,000
Speaker 2: living in the past, Like do you know what I mean?

1147
01:00:08,200 --> 01:00:11,160
Speaker 2: Like you know, and then you know, I'm I'm really

1148
01:00:11,200 --> 01:00:15,240
Speaker 2: interested in Lebron because like Lebron's school an Acrid is

1149
01:00:15,240 --> 01:00:19,320
Speaker 2: the real thing, and Lebron uh has over and over

1150
01:00:19,360 --> 01:00:22,920
Speaker 2: and over had great cost to his own sort of

1151
01:00:22,960 --> 01:00:26,560
Speaker 2: piggy bank of adulation. Yeah, like spoken up for the

1152
01:00:26,600 --> 01:00:29,440
Speaker 2: things that matter to him and like just you know,

1153
01:00:29,680 --> 01:00:31,000
Speaker 2: a lot of respect for Lebron.

1154
01:00:31,080 --> 01:00:34,400
Speaker 1: Oh, I I find I think Lebron is so under

1155
01:00:35,200 --> 01:00:39,280
Speaker 1: appreciated because look what we've done to him. Oh and

1156
01:00:39,320 --> 01:00:42,000
Speaker 1: he I mean what Sports Illustrated putting him on the

1157
01:00:42,000 --> 01:00:45,080
Speaker 1: cover at fourteen or fifteen, and he actually lived up

1158
01:00:45,120 --> 01:00:48,920
Speaker 1: to the expectations. Who does that? And dinner Lebron James

1159
01:00:48,920 --> 01:00:49,480
Speaker 1: And that's it.

1160
01:00:49,880 --> 01:00:55,200
Speaker 2: And also it's the list somebody with no Like he's

1161
01:00:55,200 --> 01:01:00,120
Speaker 2: an incredible dad and like he's a really like I

1162
01:01:00,120 --> 01:01:02,000
Speaker 2: don't know, like in some ways, like that's all you

1163
01:01:02,040 --> 01:01:05,320
Speaker 2: could really want, Like you're if you had a son,

1164
01:01:05,360 --> 01:01:06,640
Speaker 2: you would be like, I hope he turns out.

1165
01:01:06,680 --> 01:01:08,600
Speaker 1: We always want our sports figures. We always say, are

1166
01:01:08,640 --> 01:01:11,560
Speaker 1: they good family people? Lebron's And you know, you never

1167
01:01:11,600 --> 01:01:14,440
Speaker 1: have with Lebron some story about him gallivanting out late

1168
01:01:14,480 --> 01:01:14,840
Speaker 1: at night.

1169
01:01:15,600 --> 01:01:18,080
Speaker 2: You know, I've never heard any but's you know, it's

1170
01:01:18,080 --> 01:01:20,400
Speaker 2: a funny than Michael. Michael Jordan one time held up

1171
01:01:20,400 --> 01:01:23,160
Speaker 2: his cell phone and said, I'm glad we didn't have

1172
01:01:23,200 --> 01:01:26,960
Speaker 2: these in nineteen ninety three. He's like, I might have

1173
01:01:26,960 --> 01:01:31,240
Speaker 2: had any one of them Tiger Wood situations. The uh.

1174
01:01:31,320 --> 01:01:34,960
Speaker 2: But like, you know, like I would love to profile Lebron,

1175
01:01:35,960 --> 01:01:38,160
Speaker 2: you know, because I'm a baseball like I'm a little

1176
01:01:38,320 --> 01:01:42,960
Speaker 2: I'm into sort of Mike Trout, but I can't. I

1177
01:01:42,960 --> 01:01:45,360
Speaker 2: can't tell if that's just because he doesn't talk like

1178
01:01:45,560 --> 01:01:48,400
Speaker 2: you know, just because just because they're private doesn't mean

1179
01:01:48,400 --> 01:01:50,640
Speaker 2: they're interesting. That's fair.

1180
01:01:51,120 --> 01:01:52,760
Speaker 1: Well, you finally got each yi road to talk. What

1181
01:01:52,800 --> 01:01:54,040
Speaker 1: took him so long to share?

1182
01:01:55,160 --> 01:01:57,200
Speaker 2: Well, he wouldn't talk to me. I just followed him

1183
01:01:57,200 --> 01:01:57,880
Speaker 2: around Japan.

1184
01:01:59,480 --> 01:02:00,480
Speaker 1: He didn't.

1185
01:02:01,040 --> 01:02:03,600
Speaker 3: I thought he did eventually talk. No, I just knew

1186
01:02:03,600 --> 01:02:05,680
Speaker 3: where he would be at all times, because you know,

1187
01:02:05,840 --> 01:02:09,400
Speaker 3: interesting the uh. But it was such a fascinating look.

1188
01:02:09,440 --> 01:02:12,600
Speaker 3: I certainly felt like you always something about him that

1189
01:02:12,640 --> 01:02:13,240
Speaker 3: I didn't know.

1190
01:02:13,920 --> 01:02:16,080
Speaker 2: I talked to you know, it'd be easier just to

1191
01:02:16,120 --> 01:02:18,040
Speaker 2: talk to him, but said, you have to go talk

1192
01:02:18,080 --> 01:02:19,640
Speaker 2: to like eight hundred other people.

1193
01:02:22,040 --> 01:02:24,280
Speaker 1: Well, show Hayes another one none of it. Nobody knows

1194
01:02:24,280 --> 01:02:25,080
Speaker 1: anything about him.

1195
01:02:25,360 --> 01:02:29,440
Speaker 2: No, and like Mookie Betts was just on All the

1196
01:02:29,520 --> 01:02:33,160
Speaker 2: Smoke talking about him and it was just basically saying

1197
01:02:33,160 --> 01:02:35,920
Speaker 2: the same thing, like game ends and he leaves. I'm

1198
01:02:35,920 --> 01:02:38,800
Speaker 2: also like, I think the greatest piece of American media

1199
01:02:39,000 --> 01:02:41,520
Speaker 2: is All the Smoke. I love that podcast. I don't

1200
01:02:41,520 --> 01:02:43,720
Speaker 2: know if you listened to that, but it's really well

1201
01:02:43,760 --> 01:02:47,720
Speaker 2: not enough, dude. They get people to say unbelievable stuff

1202
01:02:48,360 --> 01:02:52,320
Speaker 2: like they are like really really good interviewers because people

1203
01:02:52,360 --> 01:02:53,760
Speaker 2: say crazy shit to them.

1204
01:02:54,920 --> 01:02:57,360
Speaker 1: Well, it's my reason why I love the podcast format.

1205
01:02:57,440 --> 01:02:59,760
Speaker 1: I do think the longer you go in an interview

1206
01:03:00,840 --> 01:03:03,680
Speaker 1: that you know you can only stay on message for

1207
01:03:03,760 --> 01:03:06,040
Speaker 1: ten or fifty Look, I've learned this. This is this

1208
01:03:06,200 --> 01:03:09,360
Speaker 1: was the flaw of the Sunday Show. The Sunday Shows

1209
01:03:09,400 --> 01:03:11,720
Speaker 1: worked when they were thirty to forty five minute interviews.

1210
01:03:11,920 --> 01:03:15,240
Speaker 1: When they started to get truncated, and unfortunately I was

1211
01:03:15,360 --> 01:03:18,800
Speaker 1: I was in the era where I was getting this pressure, no, no, no, no,

1212
01:03:18,800 --> 01:03:20,960
Speaker 1: you need more people on and all this, and you know,

1213
01:03:22,200 --> 01:03:26,920
Speaker 1: you realize everybody figured everybody. It's like analytics and baseball

1214
01:03:27,200 --> 01:03:30,480
Speaker 1: at the peak. Horrible part of baseball everybody's figured out

1215
01:03:30,480 --> 01:03:32,400
Speaker 1: how to hack the Sunday Show interview as long as

1216
01:03:32,440 --> 01:03:33,560
Speaker 1: it's less than ten minutes.

1217
01:03:34,040 --> 01:03:36,160
Speaker 2: Now after ten minutes.

1218
01:03:35,840 --> 01:03:38,640
Speaker 1: It's like there's there's a character of Will Ferrell, you know,

1219
01:03:38,640 --> 01:03:40,560
Speaker 1: if you ask them that question in some movie. I

1220
01:03:40,560 --> 01:03:42,720
Speaker 1: think it's Austin Powers, where if you ask them a

1221
01:03:42,840 --> 01:03:44,840
Speaker 1: question three times, the third time you ask me, he

1222
01:03:44,880 --> 01:03:47,080
Speaker 1: actually has to answer the truth. I think is like

1223
01:03:47,120 --> 01:03:50,080
Speaker 1: the character, it's like it's like a shtick thing, but

1224
01:03:50,120 --> 01:03:53,400
Speaker 1: I actually believe that that once you there's a like

1225
01:03:54,320 --> 01:03:57,400
Speaker 1: the human brain can sort of stick to a script

1226
01:03:57,720 --> 01:04:01,920
Speaker 1: only for so long. And why the podcast format has

1227
01:04:01,960 --> 01:04:05,560
Speaker 1: turned into a better way to talk to people because

1228
01:04:05,600 --> 01:04:08,880
Speaker 1: it's essentially it's taken the magazine piece and turned it

1229
01:04:08,920 --> 01:04:10,120
Speaker 1: into an oral history.

1230
01:04:10,520 --> 01:04:13,800
Speaker 2: Well you know, And and like I'm sitting at a

1231
01:04:13,840 --> 01:04:18,560
Speaker 2: picnic table in Los Angeles on my laptop and this

1232
01:04:18,600 --> 01:04:21,320
Speaker 2: is the exact window that all my work zooms look like.

1233
01:04:21,880 --> 01:04:26,200
Speaker 2: And like, frankly, you just forget that anyone's ever going

1234
01:04:26,240 --> 01:04:28,920
Speaker 2: to hear any of this, and like that's like a

1235
01:04:29,000 --> 01:04:31,200
Speaker 2: really danger Like I joked that the most dangerous thing

1236
01:04:31,200 --> 01:04:33,520
Speaker 2: in the world is to think out loud in public,

1237
01:04:33,920 --> 01:04:36,960
Speaker 2: and like this, like this format gets you doing that

1238
01:04:37,080 --> 01:04:39,960
Speaker 2: in a way, and it's like like sometimes like you

1239
01:04:40,000 --> 01:04:42,760
Speaker 2: finish and you're like, I really hope nobody listens to that,

1240
01:04:42,880 --> 01:04:45,520
Speaker 2: because like I'm really not sure what I've done this.

1241
01:04:45,600 --> 01:04:49,200
Speaker 1: I've said the road. I'll say things about my childhood

1242
01:04:49,360 --> 01:04:51,360
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, no, I hope my my mother's

1243
01:04:51,360 --> 01:04:54,120
Speaker 1: still alive. And I'm like, oh she listens. Oh she's

1244
01:04:54,160 --> 01:04:56,200
Speaker 1: gonna she's going to probe me on that one.

1245
01:04:57,200 --> 01:04:59,200
Speaker 2: What did I just do? My mom was in still

1246
01:04:59,240 --> 01:05:01,760
Speaker 2: I think every pot guess I do? Hi mom? Yeah?

1247
01:05:02,120 --> 01:05:05,520
Speaker 2: And so like I always, I always catch myself being like,

1248
01:05:05,880 --> 01:05:10,120
Speaker 2: you know, don't don't embarrass the family, embarrass leave the

1249
01:05:10,120 --> 01:05:13,520
Speaker 2: locker room, talk in the locker room, like like you know,

1250
01:05:13,720 --> 01:05:15,800
Speaker 2: like just keep it together, be classic.

1251
01:05:16,920 --> 01:05:19,720
Speaker 1: Well, right, this was great. I've kept you for an hour.

1252
01:05:19,880 --> 01:05:21,800
Speaker 1: I don't want to do it any longer because I

1253
01:05:21,840 --> 01:05:23,560
Speaker 1: feel like I've overstayed my welcome.

1254
01:05:24,040 --> 01:05:26,440
Speaker 2: Uh, this was really fun, man, I really appreciate it.

1255
01:05:26,640 --> 01:05:29,040
Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate it, and like I said, love the book,

1256
01:05:29,120 --> 01:05:32,360
Speaker 1: and I have I know where my audience thinks, and

1257
01:05:32,440 --> 01:05:34,320
Speaker 1: I know that if they haven't gotten this book, they

1258
01:05:34,800 --> 01:05:35,240
Speaker 1: will now.

1259
01:05:35,840 --> 01:05:36,640
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Chuck,