Are We Witnessing Podcaster Chris Ryan’s Apex Mountain?

Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened. On the heels of CR month coming to a close on The Rewatchables https://www.theringer.com/podcasts/the-rewatchables, we’re joined this week by The Ringer’s beloved editorial director, Chris Ryan. He’s been hailed as the Shohei Ohtani of podcasting, the basketball bard of Bob & Barbara's bar, the face of The Ringer, the Joe Rogan of the left, and perhaps most aptly, by Bill Simmons himself, “the Prince of Philadelphia.” We begin with a roundup of today’s television, featuring The Pitt (6:38), DTF St. Louis (9:45), The Madison (11:25), and more (12:30). Then, we get into Chris’ Philly upbringing (14:22), the influence of his film critic father, the late Desmond Ryan (22:50), and what first inspired him to become a writer (34:53). On the back-half, Ryan reflects on the “Meet Me in the Bathroom” era of New York City (41:45), finding his voice through his blog Gabe Said “We’re Into Movements” (44:40), the halcyon days of Grantland (55:30), his legendary impressions (58:50), and what he wants for the next chapter, on and off the mic (1:21:20). As always, our email: [email protected]. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:15Sam Fragoso?

  This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Fragoso. Welcome to the show.

• 0:32Sam Fragoso?

  Today, beloved podcast host, Chris Ryan. He's been hailed as the Shohei Ohtani of podcasting, the basketball bard of Bob and Barbara's Bar, the face of The Ringer, the Joe Rogan of the Left, and my personal favorite, from Bill Simmons himself, the prince of Philadelphia. Officially, Ryan is the editorial director at The Ringer and the co-host of the TV and Culture podcast, The Watch, alongside his longtime collaborator and friend, writer Andy Greenwald. Each week, the two break down what's happening across TV, prestige dramas, streaming hits, French thrillers, while also tracking the comings and goings of the industry at large. Ryan is also a staple across The Ringer network. He's the unofficial third chair

• 1:17Sam Fragoso?

  of the big picture alongside Sean Venessy and Amanda Dobbins, a frequent guest on the Bill Simmons podcast, especially when the Eagles and 76ers are struggling, and of course, a frequent fixture of the Rewatchables, which recently closed out what has been lovingly referred to as CR Month, a five-episode celebration of both Ryan and some of his favorite films. But because I wasn't exactly ready for CR Month to end, and because I felt that after the last few weeks of programming here on Talk Easy, we could all use a bit of levity, I invited Chris on to talk about some things he doesn't often talk about on air, namely, himself. And so today, after a little TV roundup at the top, we dive into his origin

• 1:59Sam Fragoso?

  story. Coming of age in Philly, the influence of his film critic father, the late Desmond Ryan, some leaner years in the "Meet Me in the Bathroom" era of New York City, finding his writing voice through his blog, Gabe Sedgwick Into Movements, the Halcyon days of Grantland, and a whole lot more. This is Chris Ryan.

• 2:37Sam Fragoso?

  Chris Ryan, welcome to the show.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 2:40Sam Fragoso?

  How are we doing?

• 2:41Speaker 01

  I'm doing well. How about you?

• 2:42Sam Fragoso?

  I mean, I'm sitting with, with someone who I've listened to for a long time. This whole thing kind of started as a bit. I mean, you, you had CR month on the rewatchables.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  It's true. Yeah.

• 2:54Sam Fragoso?

  I wrote you an email last Monday, it was going on 10:00 PM, saying something like, CR month continues on Talk Easy? Question mark?

• 3:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:05Sam Fragoso?

  What did you think when you got that email?

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Uh, I was happy to see that it has just taken flight and become kind of, everybody's got their own interpretation of CR month, I guess. You know, it was originally just Bill letting me have a little bit more of a say in the movies that we choose on the rewatchables than usual, Bill Simmons. But it has really, it's blossomed into its own thing that's quite beautiful. But also like, yeah, I start to disassociate if I think about it too much.

• 3:30Sam Fragoso?

  Okay. Well, I don't want to think about it too much.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:32Sam Fragoso?

  Why don't we give people context?

• 3:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:34Sam Fragoso?

  For those who haven't followed along, you host this show or co-host this show, The Rewatchables, and you did Sicario, Fargo, To Live and Die in L.A., The Nice Guys, and L.A. Confidential. And I, I was watching some of the recent episodes and it reminded me, I don't know if you've seen this episode of Curb, but it reminded me of that episode when Albert Brooks stages like a living funeral for himself. And I kind of wanted to start here, like, A, are you okay?

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 4:03Sam Fragoso?

  B, are you leaving the ringer?

• 4:05Speaker 01

  No.

• 4:05Sam Fragoso?

  C, are you hanging up your RE20?

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Not at all. Uh, it's, it was supposed to just be this fun exercise that I think Bill specifically started playing into the idea that there was some sort of ceremonial, like Viking funeral aspect to it. And then at the end of the month, they actually put up like a social image that just made it look like gone but not forgotten.

• 4:29Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, but then I'm on this week's Rewatchables, so. You can never really tell, but yes, I don't know why it took on that kind of memorial aspect to it.

• 4:39Sam Fragoso?

  Is there an illness you want to share on the show?

• 4:41Speaker 01

  I wish, man. I wish I had something more romantic going on.

• 4:43Sam Fragoso?

  Really? You wish for an illness?

• 4:45Speaker 01

  No, I just mean, I wish I had like a better narrative to tell other than just like, I waited Bill out and he finally did Sicario. It had nothing to do with it.

• 4:53Sam Fragoso?

  And get not The Hunt for Red October.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  No, well, he wants to save that for October because I think he thinks that's what that movie's about.

• 4:59Sam Fragoso?

  Some people were speculating that it was kind of a bargaining chip for you to re-sign your contract with The Ringer.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  That could be, that's a good narrative. I like that. I don't think that if it was, he basically used it on his part, not on my part, so that he could get me to easily kind of re-up with it.

• 5:15Sam Fragoso?

  When you say you disassociate, like, is that you saying, I can't read the subreddit that's about me? Because there's a big subreddit called The CR Heads.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  And I do look at it sometimes.

• 5:26Sam Fragoso?

  Are you getting in there? Like, what's going on with that?

• 5:28Speaker 01

  I have multiple identities that I'm using on there. I mean, I'd say of the 25,000, 13,000 are definitely just me talking to each other. No, I mean, I look at it. I think it would be hard not to look at it, but I try not to...

• 5:41Sam Fragoso?

  So it's like a Sixers Colangelo kind of thing?

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Kind of, yeah. It's like, maybe my wife, I should check how many CR Head Reddit burners she has.

• 5:49Sam Fragoso?

  Well, she's a writer, too.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  She is, yeah. I just try to kind of keep that part of it as like, that's great that that's happening. I hope for as long as possible that they maintain their appreciation of what I'm doing. But like, if you start basically going into that, then you, I think you start podcasting with the consciousness that they're listening. And I don't mean they, like, in a pejorative term. I mean, like, anyone listening. And I try to, like, really keep it, like, what would entertain me and what will entertain the people in front of me.

• 6:19Sam Fragoso?

  So let's talk about that, because you and Andy Greenwald have been hosting The Watch for...

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Since 2012, in some iteration or another.

• 6:28Sam Fragoso?

  It was like Hollywood Prospectus or something like that?

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Yes, it was the audio extension of the Culture Blog that we had at Grantland.

• 6:34Sam Fragoso?

  TV-wise, I want to talk about a few shows.

• 6:38Sam Fragoso?

  Where are you on the pit? Are you, are you watching every week?

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:41Sam Fragoso?

  What is your tolerance for, for like the level of blood? And, uh, you know, bodily fluids, invasive surgeries?

• 6:48Speaker 01

  I'm so glad you're asking about this because what I'm finding out is that I'm scared of things I didn't know I was scared of. It's not necessarily the blood and guts. No, it's, it's like, um, without giving too much away about that episode that's coming up this week. There is a spinal thing that happens this week and I was like, man, I'm really, I don't want to, I don't, I don't want ever to have like a spinal problem.

• 7:11Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, no spinal problem.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that was like, every week I think I find out something else about like what I'm scared of in that regard.

• 7:19Sam Fragoso?

  Is, is there anything else you're concerned by?

• 7:21Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, honestly, like I, I've, I found that this show has just done the old fashioned thing of making you care about these fictional people very, very dear, deeply. So like, I really want Dana and Robbie to be okay ultimately.

• 7:34Sam Fragoso?

  It's amazing to watch a TV show that likes being a TV show.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:38Sam Fragoso?

  Like I haven't, it's like, I watch Law and Order every night. That's really my show.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Dude, I do that with SVU.

• 7:43Sam Fragoso?

  I see. I like SVU. I love Mariska Hargitay.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:46Sam Fragoso?

  But, but the, but the cases are too gruesome for me. Like before bed, like I can't do that.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Well, it depends on what era, like the, the attitude of the first like seven to eight seasons of SVU is a little bit more flippant than it becomes later. So you can kind of like, just be like, oh yeah, it's too bad this guy wound up with his pants around his ankles in Central Park, but we're going to figure it out in 40 minutes, you know?

• 8:08Sam Fragoso?

  I, I have a question. As someone who once opened for the death metal band Cattle to Capitation in their youth.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Good job.

• 8:15Sam Fragoso?

  What are your experiences with emergency rooms? Have you had any sudden surgeries?

• 8:19Speaker 01

  I only have been to an ER, uh, once in my life, which was, I was in, I think sixth grade, we had a talent show. Uh, and my friend and I were going to lip sync Barbara Ann, uh, the Beach Boys song. And it involved like a jumping up onto a, or I, my choreography that I, I had introduced was leaping onto a piano stool as a surfboard.

• 8:42Sam Fragoso?

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Slipped, hit both sides of my head, started bleeding. So I had to go get stitches, but that is. The only ER experience I've had personally.

• 8:50Sam Fragoso?

  You liked singing in sixth grade?

• 8:52Speaker 01

  I liked lip syncing. Yeah.

• 8:54Sam Fragoso?

  And was your mother part of that? Cause she taught at the school that you went to, right?

• 8:57Speaker 01

  She was like, she taught younger kids. So I was like, kind of, I was free to make my own truth at that time.

• 9:02Sam Fragoso?

  Okay. But she had, she had experiences directing stage plays there, I heard.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  She did. She did. She did. She worked in the drama department. Yeah. Yes. I mean, she was, she was a kindergarten teacher for a long time. She was administrator for a long time. And then she, she did work on like eighth grade play and stuff like that.

• 9:17Sam Fragoso?

  Um, and, and did you ever do anything like that? I mean, people are loving the voices.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  You know,

• 9:23Sam Fragoso?

  You have a talent.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  I think that a lot of this stuff that winds up happening on podcasts is more of an extension of the person that I am if we go get a beer together. But it was never like a big desire of mine to be an actor or to do stand up comedy or anything like that. I was in high school, especially, I was just more obsessed with sports.

• 9:41Sam Fragoso?

  I, I, I have a lot more questions about that period.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 9:44Sam Fragoso?

  DTF St. Louis, um, I don't know if you saw this, but the New Yorker's Hilton Als recently wrote, if John Sheever was with us still and writing for television, he would have given us something as extraordinary as DTF St. Louis. This perfect chamber piece can be best described as a show about grownups concerning the peculiarities of adulthood, casual surrealism, sadness about money, fascination with man love and the secrets of the unfaithful flesh. Now, Chris, like this sounds right up your alley.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:17Sam Fragoso?

  Fascination with man love, secrets of the unfaithful flesh. I mean, like you and Andy, isn't that what you two are about?

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Essentially our bond. Yeah.

• 10:25Sam Fragoso?

  I mean, I thought that's what it was.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Uh, every show has its own sensibility. I, I don't quite click with Steve Conrad's. And I don't mean that. And like, I, I know so many people whose opinions I treasure, who are like, Steve Conrad is the most underrated, the, the best TV writer out there and they love Patriot. And I, I have liked some of his shows more than others. DTF just like missed the mark to me. And this is sort of like the weird part of my job where. I think 99% of television audiences get to just decide for themselves and they'll just be like, oh, you know, I didn't really like that. I'm not gonna watch another one. And it's rare that we do that on the pod where we're like, we're out, you know, after one episode, but it's so much has changed in terms of how much new stuff is being presented on any given month.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  And I think like, if we're like being sincere, like, nobody really wants to listen to me and Andy be like, I didn't like that episode for six weeks. Um, and so we punched out early on it.

• 11:21Sam Fragoso?

  I know.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:22Sam Fragoso?

  Um, can I ask you, uh, what's the Madison?

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. Do you wanna, you wanna get into it?

• 11:28Sam Fragoso?

  Please just tell me, just I, I don't really understand. And also, what is Wonder Man?

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. So, keep, keep them coming.

• 11:37Sam Fragoso?

  What's Marshals?

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. All right. I'm gonna do Madison and Marshals first. Uh, Madison is Taylor Sheridan, who did Yellowstone and many other TV shows. It's his romance drama and it is.

• 11:50Sam Fragoso?

  I like Landman.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, this one's a little bit more heartfelt and sincere than Landman, I would say. Uh, it's about Michelle Pfeiffer grieving the loss, a loss in her family and, uh, is, uh, forced to basically spend a lot of time away from New York City, Madison Avenue, um, and go to, uh, Montana and to put her husband's affairs in order, essentially. And it's mostly about grief and mostly about like figuring out who you are after a loss. I, I thought it was okay.

• 12:21Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  I thought it was okay. And I think it would have made a really good movie and instead is a six hour first season of a two season TV show. Marshals is basically Law and Order Cowboys. Uh, it's Casey's, the character from, uh, Yellowstone, who's sort of a veteran, basically riding around with a bunch of like, uh, QRF Marshals guys around the landscape and solving crimes and they fix one every week. And then Wonder Man is the last glimmer of hope that I have in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

• 12:54Sam Fragoso?

  Oh, I thought you were just gonna say, period.

• 12:56Speaker 01

  No, it is, uh, A really, really, really interesting take on that stuff.

• 13:02Sam Fragoso?

  Well, how so?

• 13:03Speaker 01

  Because it's essentially a talky hangout nineties or seventies, depending on what your reference point you prefer. Dramedy about two guys who have arrived at like kind of endpoints in their lives. And it just so happens that one of them happens to be a superhero. Uh, which is something that doesn't really even emerge until midway through the season. It's about two struggling actors in Los Angeles who are trying to figure out whether or not they're ever going to make it.

• 13:28Sam Fragoso?

  How much TV do you have to watch every week?

• 13:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:31Sam Fragoso?

  Like, are you at your limit? Does your wife help you at all with these?

• 13:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, there's shows that we watch together. So we'll watch The Pit together. We watched, you know, Night of the Seven Kingdoms together. We watched, uh, I think she fell off on industry, but like we will watch like a show any given point. We also watched Survivor and Top Chef just for like fun. And then I have stuff that I'm like either watching on my own or I'm just scouting. So I'm like, six things came on this week. This one seemed interesting. I'll check it out for the purposes of the pod.

• 14:00Sam Fragoso?

  Did you tape the watch this morning?

• 14:02Speaker 01

  I did.

• 14:02Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, so you're TV'd out.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, but at any given week, I think I'm probably watching six to eight hours of television.

• 14:10Sam Fragoso?

  When you talk to students that are asking for career advice, I've heard you say, um, work some jobs outside of the media and have a life that you then bring life experiences into a writing job. And so I want to talk to you about life before Grantland and The Ringer and taping eight podcasts a week. You grew up in the Fairmont neighborhood of Philadelphia.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Fairmont, yeah.

• 14:34Sam Fragoso?

  Uh, you attended Quaker School called Friends Select.

• 14:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:36Sam Fragoso?

  That your mother also taught at. Um, your father, who was born in London, was a film critic at the Philadelphia Inquirer throughout most of your childhood.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:44Sam Fragoso?

  Um, but both of them seemed to love the arts. What was your house like? Like, and what kind of parents were they?

• 14:50Speaker 01

  They were wonderful. I mean, they, uh, I would not say that I was an academically overachieving child. I was probably like, you'd say, underachieving kid for the most part, even though I loved. And I think this is probably like the saving, the thing that saved my life was I loved reading. I loved writing when I could do it, once I started to be able to do it. And it just so happened that the stuff I liked to read wasn't necessarily always the stuff that was being assigned in school. And I completely just didn't understand math and science. But they were always really supportive of that. And I think they were pretty bold introducing things to me at an age where I could, even if I didn't like it, I could at least see that there were things outside of my immediate interest set

• 15:32Speaker 01

  or purview that I might find resonance with. So whether it was like, my dad showed me the Maltese Falcon really early, way before I could understand more than like 10% of it. But I was like, but it is cool. And they're talking in a way that is really interesting to me. And I want to figure out why it sounds like that when Humphrey Bogart talks to a woman like, and he did the same thing with this movie, Excalibur, which is this John Borman movie about King Arthur, which was way over my head. And it's about the search for the Holy Grail and all this stuff with England. But I was like, the imagery is really striking to me. And I think I was like 12 or 13 when I saw it. And those kinds of experiences were really formative for me. And I think that they were always pretty bold with that.

• 16:17Sam Fragoso?

  And when I think of this, I'm like imagining still in Skarsgård and sentimental value, bringing back VHS tapes of The Piano Teacher and Irreversible.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:26Sam Fragoso?

  Is that kind of what was going on?

• 16:27Speaker 01

  No, I mean, there was a lot of Transformers and wrestling and, you know, sports on too. And like, I have my G I Joe comics and everything. It was, I think they were just trying to lead me to the water a little bit more. It wasn't like, here's Ingmar Bergman, like Fanny and Alexander have fun.

• 16:45Sam Fragoso?

  And outside of their love of movies, what were they like as parents?

• 16:50Speaker 01

  Uh, very different.

• 16:53Sam Fragoso?

  You're an only child.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. My dad was.

• 16:55Sam Fragoso?

  You don't seem like an only child.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  I do hear that.

• 16:58Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  I think actually a friend of mine has described me, I don't know if he knows that I know this, but he's described me as like the most middle child, only child he knows.

• 17:09Sam Fragoso?

  You and Bill Simmons, both only children.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. Andy, only children.

• 17:14Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah. Maybe that's why you guys podcast well together.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  I think there's something to it. I think there's something to like the chatter and the back and forth. And also like we give each other like wide berths to kind of explore digressions. My mom was, uh, taught me a lot of emotional intelligence. I would say she was, um, very vulnerable and very open with me. And my dad was a little bit more British and very funny, very dry, and a little bit removed, but the two of them worked really well together in, as parents for me. It's interesting. They both passed on now and, you know, my dad passed away when it was in 2011. My mom passed away last year.

• 17:55Sam Fragoso?

  It was last August, right?

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, last August. And, uh, it was, uh, it was very difficult, but it's been almost peaceful now, like at this point to look back at them and for, and look back on their flaws and look back on also like what they gave me. I wish I had like something more profound to say about it. Maybe it's because I'm also still sorting through it, you know what I mean? And what they meant to me, but it's strange to go back and go through all the mementos and all the ephemera of their life together.

• 18:22Sam Fragoso?

  Did you think of their flaws when you were a kid?

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't think it was, uh, you know, it was a funny experience growing up because I went to school at the same place for 13 years.

• 18:35Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  And so there's a group of guys and women that I knew growing up. And you, you really were there for almost every single significant moment of their lives up into senior year of high school. So I saw divorces and, you know, in medical emergencies and all these things. It was a really intimate experience.

• 18:56Sam Fragoso?

  I had the same thing. I went to a Catholic school and, and my parents separated a couple of times.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:01Sam Fragoso?

  And I knew the kids from kindergarten to eighth grade.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:04Sam Fragoso?

  So not as long, but.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  But I'm sure you also knew like when their parents separated or divorced or whatever. And so it was just like a very.

• 19:11Sam Fragoso?

  But your parents stuck it out.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, they did. Uh, it was, but it, but it was, um,

• 19:16Speaker 01

  yeah, I think, I think it was something that I was aware of when I was young, you know, and honestly, seeing Woody Allen movies and, and like some of the stuff that they were showing me.

• 19:26Sam Fragoso?

  Was that?

• 19:29Speaker 01

  I'll make a list of his films for you.

• 19:31Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, that's not the only list he's on, but yeah.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, seeing his movies in a different era when I was growing up kind of gave me a little bit of an insight into the way adults talked when you weren't around.

• 19:43Sam Fragoso?

  Uh huh. Were you like the little Alvy in Annie Hall? Of course, I haven't seen this movie, but if you were,

• 19:52Sam Fragoso?

  if you were this-

• 19:52Speaker 01

  You've been told it's there, there's a character in the valley.

• 19:54Sam Fragoso?

  I heard something about the world expanding. I don't know.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  It was a different moment when, but I mean, it was, it was, you know, those are kind of movies, actually, that you can show a kid because there's not a lot of sex and violence in them, but there's a lot of talk about sex and violence in them and stuff.

• 20:06Sam Fragoso?

  Be careful.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. I know. We even got this part if you want.

• 20:11Sam Fragoso?

  We're not getting it.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  We did an entire New York movie draft and we sat there in front of the 92 Street Y.

• 20:16Sam Fragoso?

  I heard it.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Nobody said Woody Allen once.

• 20:18Sam Fragoso?

  Um, I, it's unbelievable.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  So I brought him to you.

• 20:21Sam Fragoso?

  Unbelievable work. This will be the social breakout clip.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 20:25Sam Fragoso?

  You just bank on this now. I hope you immediately accept collab.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  And I'll get a bunch of people be like, thank you, brother. Finally.

• 20:34Sam Fragoso?

  Finally. Finally, Stardust Memories is being properly appreciated.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  You are my Broadway Danny Rose.

• 20:44Sam Fragoso?

  So, but I don't understand. Your, your parents, you weren't living under a fucking train track. I mean, what kind of folks were they like?

• 20:51Speaker 01

  I have my version of it. I think that sometimes-

• 20:54Sam Fragoso?

  That's the one we got here.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, in the last years of real life, I would often sometimes have certain apocryphal ideas about myself punctured by my mother's recall for them.

• 21:03Sam Fragoso?

  Like what?

• 21:03Speaker 01

  I don't know. Just like being like, well, I was a great traveler, right? And she was like, you're a giant pain in the ass. You know what I mean? Like, I, the, these ideas about being an easier going, sort of fun-loving kid were sometimes put to the side for just being like, just so you knew, you're really moody. You ruined multiple vacations. Like, you know, and I, yeah, and I just like, I was like, oh no, I thought I always had like a great time, you know?

• 21:26Sam Fragoso?

  I thought you were a good hang.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  I think that I've become a good hang in my life, but you know, growing up as an only child and, and everything, I think there is a little bit of a shyness and an awkwardness, which maybe all of this is compensating for in, in, on the back end. And, uh, yeah, like, I think that, like-

• 21:47Speaker 01

  I I think I was aware, just like everybody is aware of like, my family is specific. Like, when you're growing up, you're like, I don't really have anything to judge this against. And I didn't have any brothers and sisters to be like, hey, by the way, this sucks, you know? I was like, this is just the way it is. And the way it was, was fine, like the same way you're saying, it's like, they're doing their best. When you hear about, like, your parents' upbringings, you're like, no shit, you turned into that. You know what I mean? Like, when you you find out about how people were raised in the late 40s, you know?

• 22:18Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  It's not like it was, they were, they were getting a lot of, like, emotional attention, you know? And so I think they did the best that they could, and they did a good job.

• 22:26Sam Fragoso?

  I mean, you turned out pretty good.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I'm relatively well.

• 22:30Sam Fragoso?

  I mean, I think people are loving it, according to CR heads on Reddit.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 22:35Sam Fragoso?

  I want to talk about something that we can hold that your father did and spent a lot of time doing, which was writing movie reviews.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:43Sam Fragoso?

  I have a list here of films that you have covered on the Rewatchables, that you have also guested on, and I have a game for us, it's gonna be called Roger or Your Father.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  Okay, I think I could probably get this, knowing my dad's tone of voice, hopefully.

• 22:57Sam Fragoso?

  So this is, this is either Roger Ebert or your father.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  And just so you know, for listeners, none of these Rogers are Bill asking ChatGPT what Roger Ebert would have said about this movie.

• 23:10Sam Fragoso?

  Do you stand behind that?

• 23:11Speaker 01

  No, I I I disavow it every single time he does it.

• 23:16Sam Fragoso?

  That kills me. I cannot believe you're letting that happen.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 23:22Sam Fragoso?

  I'm gonna go down to downtown Atlanta, where you guys take these, and I'm gonna intervene. I'm gonna object.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  You should.

• 23:28Sam Fragoso?

  I can't believe it. You and Sean should take the RE20 away.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, we should.

• 23:32Sam Fragoso?

  I mean, you're using ChatGPT, it's like you're clotifying Roger Ebert, you're responsible.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  I am not, it is on his iPad, he's got whatever clients he has, OpenClaws doing whatever it's doing.

• 23:43Sam Fragoso?

  What kind of clients do you think he has?

• 23:44Speaker 01

  I, God, I don't want to know.

• 23:46Sam Fragoso?

  Uh, go ahead.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  Okay, this is from Jaws, uh, quote, "One of the most terrifying films I have ever seen, and one that could do for this Jersey Shore what botulism did for the Bon Vivant Soup Company some time ago." A final note, I find most ratings meaningless and Jaws is PG parental guidance. I wouldn't take children anywhere near it. So one of these is my dad and one of these is Ebert.

• 24:09Sam Fragoso?

  No, no, what it's, it's just one person.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Okay, that's my dad.

• 24:13Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And he didn't take me to Jaws, but I did see it without his permission.

• 24:19Sam Fragoso?

  I wondered about that.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think I watched that when I was like seven. It was terrifying.

• 24:25Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Okay, Heat. It's not just an action picture. Above all, the dialogue is complex enough to allow the characters to say what they're thinking. They're eloquent, insightful, fanciful, poetic when necessary. They're not trapped with cliches. Of the many imprisonments possible in our world, one of the worst must be to be inarticulate, to be unable to tell another person what you really feel. These characters can do that, not that it saves them.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  Ebert?

• 24:51Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, but not, I, I had a big fight with my dad in 1995 about Heat. Because I think he liked whatever Merchant Ivory movie had also come out right around them. Like it made its like top five or top 10 and he didn't. And I was pretty pissed about that.

• 25:08Sam Fragoso?

  Did you ever imagine you'd be able to hold the work in a place like this?

• 25:11Speaker 01

  I know. The Godfather Part Two, The Godfather Part Two really has no reason for its lavish existence other than the greediness of its makers. And that is a kind of avarice that the Godfather, that a Godfather appreciates. This is Ebert, right?

• 25:25Sam Fragoso?

  No, it's your dad.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  My dad didn't like Godfather Part Two?

• 25:31Speaker 01

  Also, I didn't know that he, was this from his like video guy? Was he reviewing stuff in 74? All the way back then?

• 25:36Sam Fragoso?

  Chris, your father doesn't like Godfather Part Two.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  I never talked about that with him.

• 25:41Sam Fragoso?

  I don't know how you didn't, but he didn't like it.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Rudy, a tedious and simplistic celebration of the virtues of determination. Rudy is a film that prostrates itself before the carefully cultivated and shrewdly marketed myths surrounding Notre Dame football.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  So I think this is my dad. Is it?

• 26:02Sam Fragoso?

  It is.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  It is. Um, I started to wonder whether or not any of these are Everts. It's very funny because my, one of my clearest memories is just my father watching television all weekend long, watching sports. And just hating the Yankees, the Fighting Irish and the Cowboys.

• 26:20Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  And just pissing and moaning about them all the time.

• 26:24Sam Fragoso?

  It's amazing.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  So that's great.

• 26:25Sam Fragoso?

  We have, we have a couple more one liners for you.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Take off. Forty Eight Hours has the look of a movie that was thrown together in a couple of days and its only claim to attention is the contribution of a refugee from Saturday Night Live. It's my dad, uh, cause I think Evert liked Forty Eight Hours. Uh, Terminator, it continues nonstop in an orgy of mindless and utterly pointless violence whose garish slickness makes it all the more offensive. I imagine that's my dad.

• 26:48Sam Fragoso?

  That's your dad.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, Blues Brothers, the amount of-

• 26:50Sam Fragoso?

  Can we just pause here for one second?

• 26:52Speaker 01

  That my dad didn't like Forty Eight Hours or Terminator?

• 26:54Sam Fragoso?

  He doesn't like Godfather, part two.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:56Sam Fragoso?

  He doesn't like Forty Eight Hours. He's got problems with Terminator.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  I just want to set the scene a little bit for my dad.

• 27:02Sam Fragoso?

  I'm hoping you would.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Okay, so this guy's life is fine. Like, my dad's life is cool, but-

• 27:09Sam Fragoso?

  I'll put that on the poster.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  He's in a pool car from the Inquirer, so he's driving to like a weird Chevy Malibu, getting parking tickets. And he has to write two to three reviews a week. And, uh, is also doing whatever personal stuff my father was doing. So-

• 27:26Sam Fragoso?

  Well, what does that mean?

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Well, it just means that like, you know, if you're seeing that many movies per week, sometimes like they kind of bleed into each other. Sometimes you just have your, I mean, he obviously had a complete aesthetic divorce from my, my, what I value about people coming back through from the future to save the present, obviously. But, um, I do remember a lot of disagreements. I, you know, usually he would save his ire for horror movies. He was not a fan and I am a huge one. But yeah, uh, Blues Brothers. The amount of money cast in the direction of the Blues Brothers is a valid issue in a review for two reasons. First, anyone who cares about the state of movies can only be appalled by a multimillion dollar extravagance that consumes money that might otherwise- Pay for four or five more modest films.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Secondly, the enormously expensive freehand given Landis, John Landis, has gone to his head and damaged his film because there is no development in Jake and Elwood in the course of this overly long movie. Landis falls back on chases and crashes with the enthusiasm of a three-year-old kicking his blocks over. It's my dad. I didn't really think my dad was such a class warrior, or at least like, kind of like, an economic redistribution guy.

• 28:34Sam Fragoso?

  He was.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:35Sam Fragoso?

  Does, does, am I helping you see your father in a new light?

• 28:38Speaker 01

  I mean, he was, I, he always seemed like such an outsider to me because, you know, he only got his citizenship later in life. And so he just thought all politicians were bastards and that was the extent of the political commentary around the house. My mom is a little bit more of like a traditional, you know, beat to hippie, Dem and huge Kennedy person, but my dad being like, we need to fucking nationalize Blues Brothers and redistribute all the funds.

• 29:08Sam Fragoso?

  You thought you got into grunge and punk on your own?

• 29:10Speaker 01

  I guess it was always there.

• 29:11Sam Fragoso?

  I think it was here. Um, I want to talk about that kid, that teenager.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 29:15Sam Fragoso?

  Uh, after the break. That's coming up next with Chris Ryan.

• 29:36Sam Fragoso?

  As you might have heard, Talk Easy turns 10 years old this year. When the show began in 2016, I had a lot of what ifs on my mind. I thoroughly enjoyed the process of hosting these conversations, but it took a few years for the business side of the program to get off the ground. If you're in a similar position, I'd recommend having a partner like Shopify to help. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the US. From household names like ALO and Heinz to brands just getting started. It gives you a place to build along with hundreds of ready to use templates that are customizable to help make your vision a reality. They also.

• 30:17Sam Fragoso?

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• 31:04Sam Fragoso?

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• 31:48Sam Fragoso?

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• 32:28Sam Fragoso?

  Coming back, during the 1980s comedy movie draft on The Big Picture, you painted a pretty vivid picture of prepubescent Chris Ryan.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 32:42Sam Fragoso?

  You said, quote, "I thought I was on the precipice of an all-out fever dream of sexual delight. Then the 90s happened, and they were like, 'All that stuff is bad for you. Go listen to grunge. You gotta go into a room and listen to Soundgarden now.'"

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:58Sam Fragoso?

  So tell me about that precipice, and who broke this fever dream?

• 33:02Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, I think that it was like a lot of the 80s teen comedies and the more racy versions of those that were available at VHS stores, and the lack of oversight that I think generationally, like, kids my age had.

• 33:17Sam Fragoso?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  Where it was just sort of like, you would leave the house at 10 a.m. and come back at 8:30 p.m., and there were no cell phones, and parents were just somehow like, "Go with God."

• 33:27Sam Fragoso?

  Were your parents asking questions?

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Not really. They were like, "You need to get out of the house." They were like insistent that I have something to do every day.

• 33:35Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  And that-

• 33:37Sam Fragoso?

  So what were you doing in high school? You were playing baseball a little bit?

• 33:39Speaker 01

  We would just play sports until our bodies gave out.

• 33:41Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  And then all we would do is just watch Weird Science and be like, "She's pretty beautiful." But I don't know how to say that. You know, like, uh, but then by the time I hit-

• 33:51Sam Fragoso?

  That's what you meant by sexual fantasies.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  Yes. It's like, you know, the cornucopia of, of, you know, the Porky's Revenge of the Nerds world that was out there, and you're like, "Jesus, it's gonna be crazy when I get to high school."

• 34:05Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  And then-

• 34:07Sam Fragoso?

  And then what happened in high school?

• 34:08Speaker 01

  You know, I think that culture changed, and certainly sex took on a different meaning in the wake of AIDS, and I think we were being hammered with-

• 34:19Speaker 01

  Safe sex and birth control and like lots of things that were like a lot of like yellow lights and red lights before you got to I really want to have sex. And so it became a much more, I don't know, conscientious time or whatever. But like, I also went to a private Quaker school where we were talking a lot about that stuff. And we were talking a lot about, you know, like maybe some of the mistakes that were made in the eighties.

• 34:43Sam Fragoso?

  This was an evolved school.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  It was pretty, yeah. I mean, it was like whatever the 1991 version of woke was, that was probably it.

• 34:50Sam Fragoso?

  You were an editor at The Falcon, which is a school paper.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:53Sam Fragoso?

  Who were your writing influences at the time?

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Probably whoever, whoever I was managing to read in Sports Illustrated and Inside Sports. I was, um, I remember very, very, very much like being, having my head knocked off by A Catcher in the Rye, when I read that. And then, um, you know, honestly, it was like those national columnists like, like Rick Riley and Rick Tellander and Mike Lupica and people that you would just be like, wow, this guy just captured the entire gestalt of the league. And you'd just be like, I guess that's like a completely antiquated like job now where they're all podcasters. But those were the big guys for me.

• 35:34Sam Fragoso?

  Did you ever cut class to like hang out with a girl or smoke weed or something like that?

• 35:39Speaker 01

  Not smoke weed, but yes, to hang out. Just in general, I used to, I used to cut class pretty liberally.

• 35:43Sam Fragoso?

  Oh, did you? How did you get out of it?

• 35:45Speaker 01

  Well, as high school developed, it became a lot more personal responsibility classes. So it would be like, you could pick your classes or when they started. And some people would be like, I don't want to do early or I want to be done by one. And also there were things like photography, which much to my great shame, because I probably would have really enjoyed it if I'd given it, that I found too difficult to understand how to develop film. So I would kind of be like, I'm off to take pictures. And it would just be talking to friends in the hallway. And then when my teacher would be like, what did you do today? I'd like have like 18 pictures of someone standing in front of a locker.

• 36:18Sam Fragoso?

  You know, I'm interested in your senior year because you're featured pretty prominently throughout the 1995 yearbook. I have one page here.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  How did this yearbook compare to your yearbook?

• 36:31Sam Fragoso?

  Well, you'll see once you read this. Uh, here's one page where you list your hopes and dreams that I thought maybe you could read for us.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  Aspire to make a movie, doomed to work in a porn theater. And honestly, you know, like that, I guess I wound up right in the middle.

• 36:49Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, you know, also, it should be noted, this is in 95, so it's two years before Boogie Nights.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, but porn theaters were pretty prevalent in Philadelphia.

• 36:57Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Like, they were like, right next to the regular theaters, you know?

• 37:00Sam Fragoso?

  Did you want to make a movie in high school?

• 37:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I thought, as I started to like, get more and more into storytelling and the ideas of that stuff, and as I, you know, I worked briefly in a video store, and this was around the time that Tarantino and Soderbergh and all the, Linklater and all these people who are closer to my age in high school than they were, like, than the guy who made Lawrence of Arabia was, or the guy, you know, even Spielberg, or whatever. It felt like something that you could do, because that was, the great thing about that moment in time, was independent music and independent movies making you feel like the thing that you love is not actually on the other side of a degree, or that far away, or impossible to achieve. So, we would go out, and I think Robert Rodriguez was a big influence, or where it was like,

• 37:46Speaker 01

  you can just take a video camera and try and go make a movie with your friends on a weekend. So, I did stuff like that, like, nothing that ever amounted to anything, but it was an awesome time to kind of just be like, I took a Sony Hi-8 and tried to make a teenage heist movie with it, you know?

• 38:02Sam Fragoso?

  Did you do that?

• 38:03Speaker 01

  We did try, I mean, we only shot, like, the scenes that we thought were cool. We didn't shoot any of the, like, establishing, character-building action. It was just like guys running around at train tracks in Philadelphia.

• 38:15Sam Fragoso?

  I mean, it explains your affinity for heat.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  And honestly, like, it's not that much different than what Spike Jonze does with the Sabotage video. It's just, his is much better, you know? And we, we were using Led Zeppelin music without asking for permission. You know, every summer, or every year, I would try to go into a, a new year of school with the best of intentions, and it would just be like, I think a lot of the organizational and time management stuff got on top of me, and like, I would just stop, kind of like, trying at a certain point. Yeah.

• 38:44Sam Fragoso?

  It's like the beginning of every 76ers season.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  That's right. I start with the, like, just a heartful of hope.

• 38:49Sam Fragoso?

  Tensions.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Actually, I've not done that in a while.

• 38:51Sam Fragoso?

  I wasn't a good student.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  I allow them to, like, pleasantly surprise me now, instead of get disappointed, yeah.

• 38:57Sam Fragoso?

  I think a lot of people first discovered your work with Andy Greenwald, uh, first on The Hollywood Perspective, and then The Watch.

• 39:06Sam Fragoso?

  Tell me about the night of July 30th, 1996.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  It was the night I did mushrooms for the first time, I believe. So I had met Andy once before that. A girl I went to high school with, I believe, was interested in him in college and had asked me to meet this dude, Andy. And I was like, you know, because he was working at a Borders Books not far from where I lived. I had the day off from whatever record store or whatever I was doing. And I was like, yeah, sure, I'll go. And like, he and I hit it off, for sure. But the second time I met him, I was starting to peek on mushrooms, first time I'd ever taken them. And my friend and I were thinking about, if I remember this correctly, going to see Trainspotting, which probably is great that we couldn't manage to figure out the door to the movie theater.

• 39:54Sam Fragoso?

  Terrifying.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I met Andy.

• 39:57Sam Fragoso?

  That's like a nightmare trip.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  I can't imagine anything worse. I mean, I was already thinking that the Death Star was in the sky like that night. So it's probably good that I didn't go through Trainspotting. And Andy was very chill, but I was like, just so you know, my friends on mushrooms. And I was insisting that I was totally cool. But, you know, my friend John had run away. And it was just a really, really great meet cute for our second date.

• 40:23Sam Fragoso?

  It seems like this is part of the origin story of the two of you.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think, I mean, it's against all odds, we've wound up friends for 30 years. But we've also always, I think we've always looked out for each other. You know, and I think that we have included each other in like our professional lives in a way that feels pretty organic.

• 40:43Sam Fragoso?

  In Andy's emo and punk rock book, Nothing Feels Good.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:46Sam Fragoso?

  He writes of you at the time, "Back then, Chris was just another indie rocker clutching his pavement bootlegs to his chest and looking for whatever was next. Emo not only gave Ryan a common language with his new friends, it spoke to him with the musical and thematic urgency that the emotional cold indie rock often lacked."

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. That was about right when I was living in Boston and I was buddies with a bunch of guys who first, like some guys who were going to Emerson with me, but then they introduced me to dudes who weren't in college at all and just were living in Austin and doing bands or guys who lived in, you know, different neighborhoods in Boston and were doing bands and labels and zines and stuff. And I started working at a record store and a nightclub, and that was all I was interested in. Like, there were classes that I was taking at college that I was... Happy about and there were ones that I had to do. But like the, the sort of arc of my college engagement really dipped. Once I started becoming more like ingrained in Boston music scene.

• 41:46Sam Fragoso?

  So New York, early 2000s.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  2000, yeah.

• 41:49Sam Fragoso?

  You're working at spin.com. There's apparently a video of you doing karaoke with Cat Power.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that was one of like.

• 41:55Sam Fragoso?

  I couldn't find this one.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  I don't, it's like on a quick time video somewhere on some guy's hard drive. She sang Purple Rain.

• 42:03Sam Fragoso?

  Oh.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  It was unbelievable.

• 42:05Sam Fragoso?

  She's amazing.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  We were kind of day drunk. It was like, I was like, this is pretty much as good as it's ever gonna get.

• 42:10Sam Fragoso?

  And was it?

• 42:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, kind of. Just seeing her do karaoke at like 4pm in the Village. It's pretty awesome.

• 42:18Sam Fragoso?

  You think that was your apex mountain?

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Honestly, it might have been. It might have been because that was also before the dot com crash. So I was like, is this what we're gonna do every week? Do I actually not have to work? And, uh, and then, and then I wound up working retail for four years.

• 42:36Sam Fragoso?

  Tell me about like the early writing days because I, I heard one, in one interview you said that in order for you to write, you needed to have an epiphany.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was tough.

• 42:47Sam Fragoso?

  Is that, is that kind of what, what was your, that's mid to late twenties. You're in New York.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  It's like, yeah, it's like right after I moved to New York and I had been writing for zines. I'd written for this zine called Hit It or Quit It, which Jessica Hopper had that was out of Chicago.

• 43:02Sam Fragoso?

  Amazing.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  And I think that early on I realized like, one of the only ways I knew how to write about music was to write like these kind of fever dream expressions of enthusiasm about outcast or whatever. But I didn't really know how to be like, this is a C. This is a six out of 10. I didn't have that gear. So I often felt like I was walking around with music in my headphones, waiting for like.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Either the music to do something or my life to do something that made me feel like, and now I've got it. Now I've touched like the liquid mercury of this thing.

• 43:42Sam Fragoso?

  Do you remember a moment where that happened and it worked?

• 43:44Speaker 01

  I mean, the OutKast thing was pretty good. If I, I don't know, I haven't read it in like 15, 20 years, but I was like, holy shit. Like, I think I got something here. Like, I think I've unpacked foreign policy. I think that I've like tapped into something about being young and have completely figured out Andre 2000 and Big Boy, you know, and obviously none of those things were true.

• 44:06Sam Fragoso?

  When Jay-Z's Black Album came out, you said, "I was finally coming to terms with my own limitations due to my own behavior and the limitations of my ability in music writing, in music writing, I felt like I had ceilinged out."

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. So this is right when blogging starts to become something people are doing recreationally. I don't really know if it's, I'm sure there are early examples of people on Blogspot who are somehow monetizing it, but this was like the place you would go because you couldn't really find anywhere else to put that writing. And then out of that, I started doing a blog called Gabe Said We're Into Movements, which was essentially about, I don't know what it was about, but it was ultimately about like, not really knowing what to do with my life, using Jay-Z's final album as like this, it's his creative tombstone, but it's also like, what am I gonna do next with myself? And using it as a place where it's like, no one would ever publish any of this,

• 45:07Speaker 01

  and no one would ever center me when writing about the Black Album, but I can. Because nobody, I don't care. I'm just writing in all caps about this, this record.

• 45:16Sam Fragoso?

  Uh huh.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:17Sam Fragoso?

  There, there's a piece that I read this morning called "Let Us Do What You Fear Most, Part One."

• 45:22Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah.

• 45:23Sam Fragoso?

  That's really amazing.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 45:25Sam Fragoso?

  And also kind of devastating, and I have to tell you, you know, because I do so much research for this show, I, I've really been invested in mid twenties, early thirties Chris Ryan, writing at Chauncey Billups and then this Gabe Said We're Into Movements blog. Were you all right?

• 45:46Speaker 01

  Eh, no, no, I wasn't. Yeah, I mean, I think-

• 45:49Sam Fragoso?

  What was going on?

• 45:50Speaker 01

  I think I was, um, living hand to mouth in New York City. I was working at a record store.

• 45:55Sam Fragoso?

  I mean, I know I've done a lot of jokes. I mean this like sincerely.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  I think I was going through like a little bit of a crisis of, of personal, like, identity of, of, honestly, there was like a lot of drugs flying around at the time. And I think that I just felt like I had something to say and no one to say it to or nowhere to put it. And I, it's funny, you know, a couple of weeks ago, I was, we did High Fidelity on the Rewatchables. And I made a passing comment of like, there's another world in which I would have just been totally fine working at a record store or bookstore for the rest of my life.

• 46:28Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, which you did.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  It was the best job. Like, in some ways, it was my favorite job. You would just stand around and kind of alphabetize things and be up on stuff and get to be around this thing that you loved. But there was a kind of understanding, like you put in your hours and then you could leave. And it wasn't like you were thinking about advancement or like all these other things. And I, I think I found a lot of that really difficult to navigate when I was in my twenties for sure. Um, and you know, you're confronted with like all these examples around you of people who seem to have it really figured out. You know, like people who are like, I know exactly what I need to do. This is how I get into The New Yorker. This is how I get to whatever. And I, I didn't, I didn't know how to do that. And I didn't think it was any plausible chance that I would.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  And so a lot of that stuff is me like feeling around in the dark, you know, and trying to figure out who I wanted to be. And like, the weird thing was, is at that time, like, none of the stuff that I wound up doing six years later, seven years later even existed. You know, like, there was no podcasting, there was no Grantlands, you know, like, nobody would ask a rap music critic to write about soccer, you know, in 2006. They just, but Bill did in 2011.

• 47:38Sam Fragoso?

  Did you have a moment in New York, like late twenties, early thirties, where you thought?

• 47:45Sam Fragoso?

  I got, I'm, I gotta go back home. Like, this is not working out. I don't know what to do.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, there were definitely times where I was like, I'm gonna have to leave New York. You know, I, I didn't think that I was gonna be professionally viable or that, um, that the, that, that I could afford to live there and that like honestly, that I wouldn't be kind of like sad about living there and just being like, oh, I'm, it never really worked out or it worked out 25% for me. But like, as my friends kind of explode into this world, I'm kind of like banging around different like copywriting or blogging jobs and not really ever doing anything with whatever talent you might think I have. And I got, I, I think I did get really lucky. I think I did really get really lucky in terms of like the way the tectonic shifts, like the plates of media shifted.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  Like, there's 100 different outcomes that don't look like this.

• 48:36Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, that could look like high fidelity.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I like the height of my life would be like starting a DIY label or something.

• 48:44Sam Fragoso?

  So how did you get through?

• 48:45Speaker 01

  I mean, I think that part of it is just, uh, I started to feel better and just trust myself that like when I would come across something that I felt passionate about, I would try to explore it. So around 05, 06, I started getting really into European soccer. It was just something like I would come home at night from whatever job I was working and I would put on Fox Soccer Channel, which was a channel at the time, and they would just show highlights for hours, you know, and I became obsessed and started writing about it a little bit here and there and then got a job, not a job, but like a gig, live blogging a World Cup. And I think it was, I think it was 08. And I loved it.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  Like, it was like kind of getting to be a new person. Um, and I was doing it for like the Wall Street Journal or something really weird where I was like, how did I get this? But I was, I was just blogging about Messi and World Cup matches from a couch somewhere and that kind of wound up being my job for 10 years. When you, when you factor in Graylin and the way that we worked there.

• 49:53Sam Fragoso?

  Uh, you know, in 2011, in December, I think your father passes away.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:58Sam Fragoso?

  And you moved to LA, I think the next year.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, the following spring.

• 50:01Sam Fragoso?

  What was that, that period like coming out here and, and leaving the East Coast?

• 50:06Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  I would say it's very difficult, but if I'm being honest, when he passed away, he had not been able to speak for about a year.

• 50:14Sam Fragoso?

  Oh.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  So he had throat cancer and they tried a kind of surgery that wound up rendering him. He was unable to speak. So we weren't able to communicate a ton. I do know that he was insistent that I take this opportunity to go to California, and that's basically why I did it.

• 50:35Sam Fragoso?

  Did he write that to you?

• 50:36Speaker 01

  No, he just, I think that like I offered a couple of times and he would always shake his head, no, I would say like, I can stay or I, if you're not better, I'll stay or if anything happens, I'll stay. And like, both of my parents were insistent that I take advantage of going to Los Angeles. And that spring of 11 is kind of a blur, to be completely honest, like, in a lot of ways, like Sean Fantasy moving out shortly after that to be another, my coworker at Grantland, but I was friends with Sean, obviously, was a real lifesaver because it was like a, you know, finally a sign of life, you know? And Grantland was really hard, you know? Grantland was a hard job and it was, it was really, really, really worth it. But

• 51:19Speaker 01

  it was definitely like very strenuous and I had never worked that way in my life, but I knew, I knew this was it. Like, there had never been something where I was like, somebody built something that I'm perfect for and I'm gonna do whatever I have to do, whatever hours, whatever jobs, whatever gigs in the, in the, it's gonna, I just wanna be a part of this. I, I hope everybody gets to feel that in their life, you know, like at one point where they feel like they've found some kind of community or some kind of opportunity that they recognize as like, oh God, this is, if not this, then nothing. You know what I mean? Like, I have to make this work.

• 52:01Sam Fragoso?

  Is that how you felt?

• 52:02Speaker 01

  When I moved here. I think even when I was still living in New York in like 11, I was like, I don't understand, like, I'm in a room and I'll blog about soccer and then like what happens over the, but when you're there and you're like, we wake up early in the morning, we try to publish on an East Coast schedule, you know, we are in constant contact with each other, we're really interrogating these ideas and every day there's all this visibility on this site, they're showing our posts in the carousel of ESPN.com, but the posts themselves could be absurd or thoughtful or hilarious or... Provocative and it really did feel like we were like putting the work like way

• 52:43Speaker 01

  front center. It was really like a battlefield like every day. Like can you, can I make Sean laugh? Can I make, can I impress Rafe? Can I impress Bill like something? You know, like we always wanted to try and like, and do good work.

• 52:58Sam Fragoso?

  Well, let's take one more break and when we come back, we can talk about what you did with that opportunity. That's coming up next with Chris Ryan.

• 53:22Sam Fragoso?

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• 54:07Sam Fragoso?

  is essential for building and activating immune cells, and HSCRP, because chronic inflammation suppresses immune efficiency over time. That's why I use Function. It tracks over 160 lab tests. So instead of guessing, you can see exactly where your immune system is supported and where it's vulnerable. Personally, I've been really glad to have Function and address my health clearly without ruminating about what's ailing me and what my potential issues are, or God forbid, putting those things off. Check your health the way I do. 160 plus lab tests a year for $365, plus the ability to dive

• 54:45Sam Fragoso?

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• 55:03Sam Fragoso?

  I think a lot of us are gonna spend the next few weeks looking for gifts online. And while I like finding something thoughtful for the people in my life, the process can get a little ridiculous. You've got a dozen tabs open, you're comparing prices, and you're trying to remember which store had that one thing you saw that has a deal, and you flagged it, and you saved it, and now you can't find it. Anyway, that's what I like about Shop. Shop brings all kinds of stores together in one place, so you can search for what you're looking for across different brands, while discovering new ones along the way, plus tracking all your orders without jumping in between websites. And just in time for the holidays, they're celebrating the all new shop.com with a pretty extraordinary giveaway.

• 55:44Sam Fragoso?

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• 56:20Sam Fragoso?

  I think the best clothes you own are probably the ones you spend the least amount of time thinking about. They're just there when you need them. The sweater that goes with everything. The perfect pair of pants or the tee you always reach for first. That's what I've always liked about Quince. They focus on everyday staples, made with premium materials like organic cotton, merino wool, and 100% Mongolian cashmere. Their cashmere sweaters start at just $60, and everything is designed to be versatile enough to work with what you already own. And now that the temperatures are starting to drop, they also have premium down jackets and classic wool outerwear. Easy layers that can carry you through the fall and into winter. I've had a few of their merino wool all season tees for just over a year now,

• 57:04Sam Fragoso?

  and they've really become my go-to in my wardrobe. The quality was the thing that surprised me when I first tried them out. They're comfortable, easy to lay. And after a year of wearing them regularly, they've held up remarkably well. I use them all the time and would absolutely recommend them. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen, which allows them to price everything 50 to 80% less than similar brands. So you're paying for the quality of the materials rather than a big brand markup. It's not just clothing. Quince brings that same approach to hotel-quality bedding and bath, kitchen essentials and thoughtfully-designed furniture, well-made pieces for everyday living. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com.

• 57:49Sam Fragoso?

  You can get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Talk Easy. It's really the best way to support the show. Enjoy.

• 58:11Sam Fragoso?

  You know, I heard Jon Stewart say this thing, and I think Letterman has said the same thing, about the nature and the life cycle of the thing that they do. Like, The Daily Show, like, people aren't going back to re-watch The Daily Show, like, August of 2007.

• 58:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:30Sam Fragoso?

  But I wonder, you know, when you do get to Grantland and then,

• 58:35Sam Fragoso?

  you know, make The Ringer,

• 58:38Sam Fragoso?

  how do you think about the life cycle of the work you're doing every day? Because it's hard. You're making this body of work, but it is often about

• 58:48Sam Fragoso?

  things that are happening in the present.

• 58:49Speaker 01

  I was confronted with this when Grantland went offline, for the most part. You know, it's, I think there's still a placeholder site there, but it's not easily searchable anymore. You have to go, I think you can Google specific articles if you know what you're looking for. But when that happened, or right before that happened, I went through and I was like, I guess I have to make, like, screenshot PDFs of everything I wrote. And 80% of it is like, Steph Curry scored 32 last night and the Warriors went on a, you know, a tear.

• 59:19Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah. I mean, look, not every article can be The Sea is Dope.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  Right. But what I, I think I was really at peace with, and what I remain at peace with, is the idea that I am Good at making, I think the cumulative like body of my work is whatever it is, but like, I always was trying to like entertain someone like me who is stuck on their computer.

• 59:41Sam Fragoso?

  There was a moment in New York where you where you realized it kind of felt like the ceiling

• 59:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:46Sam Fragoso?

  of your of your talents. Um, did you have an opposite moment with The Ringer when you realized like, oh God, there's a market for this. Like this is really working.

• 59:58Speaker 01

  I I would anecdotally hear from people that they were listening to the hollow of prospectus at Grantland. I think that the way I found out that anyone was really listening to anything that we were doing was when Game of Thrones was happening. And we were doing after shows for Game of Thrones. And there was a short-lived HBO experiment. But more than that, it was like doing it with Andy and Jason and Mallory. And obviously catching the coattails of Thrones being one of the last monocultural blockbuster. Everybody on Sunday night is watching this and then needs it explained and celebrated in the coming days was like, a feeling of like, oh, I can tell this really is is is something.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  I don't know what, but it's something. Yeah.

• 1:00:46Sam Fragoso?

  Is this back to your like disassociating thing where you you don't want to think too much about things going well?

• 1:00:53Speaker 01

  Well, it's there's two ways of doing it, right? Like you can either be like, I get up on stage and I'm the great improviser and like, we're just gonna let it rip. Or you can try to engineer it. And since I don't think I'm a good engineer, it's almost easier to think about it like throwing stuff at the wall. Now, there is some engineering going on. I just try to mask it a little bit. Like, I know how to change subjects. I know how to segue. I know how to like, do different things. But for the most part, like, yeah, I mean, I are you what's the implication that I should be more aware of like the the feedback loop or or the success story?

• 1:01:30Sam Fragoso?

  I'm not implying.

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:01:32Sam Fragoso?

  These are kind of open-ended, fair questions.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:35Sam Fragoso?

  You know, I again, I don't lead the witness.

• 1:01:37Speaker 01

  It's true. You're you're a very you're very fair prosecutor. Yeah.

• 1:01:42Sam Fragoso?

  Again, but you still call me a prosecutor, so. It's weirdly getting litigious.

• 1:01:49Sam Fragoso?

  I mean, how much prep are you doing for, for the Wayne Jenkins impressions? I mean, and the Zane Lowe impressions, I think people would like to hear kind of like what, how you make those and what those sound like, especially for our listeners who maybe don't listen every week.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  Wayne, for a while, so for people who don't know what we're talking about, because We Own the City was a relatively obscure HBO limited series a couple of years ago.

• 1:02:13Sam Fragoso?

  It's a perfect show.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  It's a perfect show and.

• 1:02:15Sam Fragoso?

  I loved it.

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. And Jon Bernthal plays the sort of the main character, this character named Wayne Jenkins is a corrupt Baltimore city police detective. And there is one specific scene where me and Bill were just delighted by the way Wayne Jenkins said, goddamn. And it's now not even close to how Bernthal said it. It is its own character, but he just became a, a, a character on the rewatchables who now has a whole family of people like Fergie from the town.

• 1:02:46Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  Zane Lowe, Robert Loggia from An Officer and a Gentleman.

• 1:02:49Sam Fragoso?

  Zane Lowe's another interviewer.

• 1:02:51Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah.

• 1:02:52Sam Fragoso?

  Uh, and when I was. Is he in New Zealand?

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah. And when I was at Grantland, Julia Littman and I were carpool buddies.

• 1:03:01Sam Fragoso?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  And we would drive in and listen to the nascent Apple Beats One radio show that Zane Lowe had.

• 1:03:08Sam Fragoso?

  As one does.

• 1:03:09Speaker 01

  And he would say extraordinary things about pretty ordinary music. And he would like, so Julia.

• 1:03:15Sam Fragoso?

  Like what?

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  He, she still has the MP3 of him introducing the first time they premiered Hello by Adele. And he goes, and now there were 10 of the artist. And you'd think like Da Vinci was walked out and it, Hello is a good song, but it was like, it's so hyperbolic and it actually works really well in rewatchables. But I've weirdly made Zane now only interviewing cops, fictional cops. Like Sean pointed this out, I hadn't even noticed I did that.

• 1:03:46Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:47Speaker 01

  But Zane is always talking to like police officers.

• 1:03:49Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah. Like To Live and Die in L.A.

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. Or, or Dudley Smith in L.A. Confidential. Yeah.

• 1:03:53Sam Fragoso?

  I didn't know I needed that impression.

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. Every time you think there's nobody else out there, I'm like, god damn Zane Lowe, you're pretty funny, man.

• 1:04:01Sam Fragoso?

  Have you seen the new Louis Theroux documentary about the manosphere?

• 1:04:06Speaker 01

  I have not.

• 1:04:07Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  No, I feel like I got that pretty covered.

• 1:04:11Sam Fragoso?

  Hold on here, because the left has been looking

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:04:15Sam Fragoso?

  for their Joe Rogan.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think Jon Stewart was nominated once.

• 1:04:18Sam Fragoso?

  Young men everywhere.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:20Sam Fragoso?

  In search of positive male role models. They turn to Jordan Peterson, Andrew Tate, Tucker Carlson, but some are saying.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  Who's some?

• 1:04:28Sam Fragoso?

  That Chris Ryan is maybe the answer.

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  Who are some? Who's, who's saying that?

• 1:04:33Sam Fragoso?

  Some people.

• 1:04:34Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:04:35Sam Fragoso?

  I mean, you know, you have a very high approval rating.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's very nice of you to say.

• 1:04:40Sam Fragoso?

  No, it's, it's not even nice, it's just true.

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  So you think I should get people to vote in a certain way? Or you think I should start investigating different vitamins on the pods or?

• 1:04:51Sam Fragoso?

  I don't know, someone did write on Reddit, I thought it was a good comment, that you have a kind of center-right appeal with Taylor Sheridan and Zins.

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

  Well, that's because I like, I like lioness and I miss smoking.

• 1:05:03Sam Fragoso?

  Exactly.

• 1:05:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:05:04Sam Fragoso?

  And why don't you smoke anymore?

• 1:05:05Speaker 01

  It's just bad for you and it's socially kind of like unacceptable, I think. But although, he is coming back. I've noticed a lot of-

• 1:05:13Sam Fragoso?

  I feel like you gotta get back in there.

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  A lot of people walk in their dogs having a, having a dark-

• 1:05:16Sam Fragoso?

  Look at that, you're doing a good thing for the dog.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:18Sam Fragoso?

  A good thing for you.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:05:20Sam Fragoso?

  Look out for yourself.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  I, I-

• 1:05:25Sam Fragoso?

  You know, young men everywhere, they need positive male role models.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  I don't actually know whether or not the demographic of people who listen to me are particularly young. I gotta be completely honest with you, like, I think podcasting, generally speaking, is a little bit of an older person's game.

• 1:05:39Sam Fragoso?

  Uh huh.

• 1:05:40Speaker 01

  I don't know of a lot of young people who are like, I mean, I know a lot of young people in general, but people in their early twenties are like, I love the watch. I haven't really met them.

• 1:05:49Sam Fragoso?

  You don't want to be a good influence for young men?

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  I try, I try every day in action indeed, but I just don't get a lot of them being like, sir, who should I vote for?

• 1:06:00Sam Fragoso?

  Is there another straight white guy that has a higher approval rating than you?

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  In this city? Austin Reeves, probably.

• 1:06:11Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  I think people really love AR.

• 1:06:13Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:06:15Sam Fragoso?

  You used to be able to shoot?

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I never really had really good rotation on my jump shot.

• 1:06:19Sam Fragoso?

  I thought you, I thought, I read somewhere that at the St. John's basketball camp.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  St. Joe's basketball camp, yeah.

• 1:06:24Sam Fragoso?

  You could, you could shoot threes.

• 1:06:26Speaker 01

  I could, but like, I, I think as a undersized white guy, you kind of need to put your reputation on one card. And for all of us, it was like, oh, he's white, so he must be Chris Mullin. Uh, even if you didn't really shoot at a very high percentage.

• 1:06:40Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, I have some big picture questions.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  Like the pod or just like some big picture, like macro question?

• 1:06:45Sam Fragoso?

  Whatever you want.

• 1:06:46Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:06:46Sam Fragoso?

  People are saying that, that we're kind of in a reapex moment for, for Bill Simmons here. Did Ryan Rusillo leaving the Ringer for Barstool light a fire under Bill?

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  No, I don't think so. I, I don't, I don't. I'm sorry.

• 1:07:03Sam Fragoso?

  Well, you're like, you know, drugs were being passed around early in New York and I had, you know, I did some of that, but.

• 1:07:07Speaker 01

  I cannot talk about Rusillo.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:07:12Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, okay, can you answer this?

• 1:07:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:07:14Sam Fragoso?

  What was more upsetting for you, Chris Ryan? Rusillo going to Barstool?

• 1:07:19Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:07:20Sam Fragoso?

  Or Michael Mann naming Avatar Fire and Ash as one of his favorite films of 2025?

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  Oh, God, they're about, they're about, it's, it's impossible to choose between those two. I, I was, I'm very sad to lose Rusillo as a coworker. I, some of my most treasured work experiences are podcasting with, with Rusillo.

• 1:07:36Sam Fragoso?

  He's still alive.

• 1:07:36Speaker 01

  I know, but like, I just haven't seen him in a while, so I'm just saying.

• 1:07:39Sam Fragoso?

  I'm sorry to hear that. Um, the, uh, for people who haven't heard it, I'm going to recommend the episode of The Town that you guys did.

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:07:46Sam Fragoso?

  In all time, brought so much joy to my life.

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  But if you want to hear him, like, live on stage at the Blue Note, it, it is the Vision Quest podcast. He's unbelievable on the Vision Quest rewatchables.

• 1:08:00Sam Fragoso?

  How do you deal when, when, you know, cause you've had a lot of people that were at Grantland that didn't come to the Ringer, people at the Ringer who left, um, people have come back like Jason Concepcion.

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:10Sam Fragoso?

  But I, how do you feel when folks leave and?

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  Almost always sad. I mean, it's always like, I think I'd like to.

• 1:08:19Sam Fragoso?

  Keep the band together.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I would always, I have a kind of utopia and like, I would love for everybody to just be completely satisfied with what they're doing and, and not have any outside attraction to something else, or feel like taken care of or whatever. And yeah, I ultimately like, I'm a big, like, the community of work is like the closest thing I have to a community in Los Angeles. So.

• 1:08:41Sam Fragoso?

  It's, this is like, um, when I asked Governor Shapiro about John Fetterman.

• 1:08:49Sam Fragoso?

  This is how you're responding.

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  What it was Josh Shapiro's quote about John Fetterman? Did he have like, like a direct response about it?

• 1:08:56Sam Fragoso?

  He said, "I have no problems. I have no beef," is what he said.

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  With John Fetterman?

• 1:09:01Sam Fragoso?

  Uh huh.

• 1:09:01Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:09:01Sam Fragoso?

  And he said, "A lot of people in Pennsylvania have questions about what John Fetterman has become."

• 1:09:10Speaker 01

  That's an awesome answer.

• 1:09:12Sam Fragoso?

  It's an awesome answer.

• 1:09:12Speaker 01

  That is essentially.

• 1:09:13Sam Fragoso?

  He is being more revealing about a sitting senator.

• 1:09:17Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:09:18Sam Fragoso?

  Than you are about podcaster Ryan Rusillo.

• 1:09:20Speaker 01

  No, that's not true.

• 1:09:21Sam Fragoso?

  Yes, it is definitely true.

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  It's not true.

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  It's not true. Ah, man. That, I, I just think it's impossible to really speak in the many people are saying way, the way Josh Shapiro apparently likes to, with, many people may have a problem with John Fetterman.

• 1:09:41Sam Fragoso?

  You're governor.

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  I don't, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:43Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, I'm gonna let, I'm gonna let it go. There's a line in the film Metropolitan, "I like reading literary criticism because the way I get a summary of the plot and an opinion."

• 1:09:52Speaker 02

  I don't read novels. I prefer good literary criticism. That way you get both the novelist's idea as well as the critic's thinking. With fiction, I can never forget that none of it ever really happened, but it's all just made up by the author.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  This haunts me. This haunts me.

• 1:10:05Sam Fragoso?

  Why, why does this haunt you?

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  Because I think deep down, like.

• 1:10:10Speaker 01

  I would say probably more people than would be honest with themselves but agree that sometimes they feel like they could just read the take about the thing and feel relatively confident. Like, for instance, I saw the drama over the weekend and Andy was asking me if it was something that he felt, if I felt like he would like, you know, because he's always nervous about whether it's horror movie or not. And I was like, it's definitely not horror. But, you know, with the sheer volume of discourse about the drama, in some ways, you could just read that and be all good if you wanted to save yourself the two hours. I personally thought it was quite, quite an awesome movie. But I think that there is, especially because, you know, when this guy says this in Metropoly, when the character says this, I think he's talking about reading like the New York Review of

• 1:10:54Speaker 01

  Books or something like that. But now we have like 8,000 Reddit posts about an episode of The Pit that go up instantaneously.

• 1:11:01Sam Fragoso?

  I think like James Walken.

• 1:11:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that's always followed me around is whether or not you want to engage with the thing or the things around the thing.

• 1:11:09Sam Fragoso?

  You know, I'm curious, where does Chris Ryan, the podcaster, begin and Chris Ryan, the person, end?

• 1:11:17Speaker 01

  Do you know?

• 1:11:19Sam Fragoso?

  I'm asking. Do you often go, am I hanging out or am I working?

• 1:11:25Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:11:26Sam Fragoso?

  Or does that not matter to you?

• 1:11:27Speaker 01

  I would imagine that I come off slightly more passive in social situations than you would maybe imagine I would. And some of that is like a necessary probably downtime of like my personality, like which needs to be plus 15% for it to like translate on a microphone. And

• 1:11:51Sam Fragoso?

  Is that what you feel? That's, that's the equation?

• 1:11:53Speaker 01

  I think it's like about that. I think you have to like kind of, you can't just be whoever you feel like being at that moment. You have to like give it something. You have to give it some juice and you have to meet whoever you're podcasting with where they are. But like, for the most part, I feel like it's like me, but plus like 10%.

• 1:12:08Sam Fragoso?

  One person that I spoke to, who's known you for a long time,

• 1:12:15Sam Fragoso?

  I think it's true is like you have a very young at heart.

• 1:12:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:19Sam Fragoso?

  Quality.

• 1:12:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:12:21Sam Fragoso?

  Does it help that you don't have kids?

• 1:12:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does, I think.

• 1:12:25Sam Fragoso?

  Is that, is that why you?

• 1:12:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think that I am in a really lovely situation right now where a lot of my close friends have kids and I have developed really awesome relationships with their kids and it is.

• 1:12:36Sam Fragoso?

  Surrogate uncle?

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's kind of, it's kind of been a really amazing development over the last couple of years is to just be a part of their lives.

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  I, I have mixed feelings about wanting to be a parent. Like, I don't think I ever felt the siren call that I have heard some of my friends articulate as like, I needed to follow this this sound until I, I like, and I had this love and I wanted to give it to somebody. It's like, I feel some of that, but not necessarily in those terms. And I do think now, probably one of the reasons why like, I'm a 48 year old man who talks about the band Angel Dust or something is because I don't also have a kid taking up 12 hours of my day for better or for worse.

• 1:13:24Sam Fragoso?

  Well, that's the question. Is it for better or for worse?

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  I think it just is. You know, I think that, I, and I, I don't think it was a trade that I made.

• 1:13:33Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:33Speaker 01

  It wasn't like, I was like, well, I could either watch this French show about an inmate who works at a hotel or have a lifelong relationship with a child. Like, that was not part of my grand, my renegotiation.

• 1:13:47Sam Fragoso?

  What was part of the renegotiation?

• 1:13:49Speaker 01

  Are you like, we're happy with each other or not? And we are.

• 1:13:52Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  But like, it's interesting. I've been thinking about this a lot because as, like, as these kids have developed, like, as my friends' kids have become people, and I feel like, that's pretty cool.

• 1:14:02Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:02Speaker 01

  But I'm like, it's, and sometimes I can see in my friends' reactions to me where they're just like,

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  dude, no, I didn't listen to the new Angel Dust record yet. It's been out for like a day. I was little league, you know, like I gotta drive this kid 15 hours a week.

• 1:14:20Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 1:14:21Speaker 01

  I'm not listening angel dust while they're in the car.

• 1:14:23Sam Fragoso?

  And are you okay with that looking there?

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's like, I think, I think that there is like benefits to both, and I think there's downsides to both.

• 1:14:31Sam Fragoso?

  It sounds like you've accepted a kind of Michael Mann equanimity.

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  You know what, dude, it's, it's not that far from the truth.

• 1:14:38Sam Fragoso?

  Wow.

• 1:14:39Speaker 01

  Because I do think that.

• 1:14:40Sam Fragoso?

  You call me dude, so we're getting somewhere.

• 1:14:42Speaker 01

  When I call you brother, it's on. Uh, I do think that I have tried to get away from looking at the thing that didn't happen or the thing that did happen and thinking one was better than one's worse. It just is what happened.

• 1:14:57Sam Fragoso?

  And when did you start doing that?

• 1:14:59Speaker 01

  I think when my parents, like, over the course of the time of my parents passing away, you know, and I think because both of those experiences, they were relatively different. They weren't, they were experiences that broke me out of the idea that like something is gonna feel the way you think it's gonna feel. And, you know, my mom's passing did not feel, and sorry to make it dark at the end here or whatever, but like, my mom's passing did not

• 1:15:25Speaker 01

  like track the way that like you, you think it is when you're thinking about like losing the last parent, a prolonged illness, resolution at the end of the life, like there was some of that, there was an absence of some of that. And I think that there's like a kind of randomness and circumstantial context stuff that happens in every situation now. And I'm like, if I'm okay, then I'm okay, you know? And it doesn't need to be, I'm okay, but it doesn't, these 10 things didn't work out. It's like, no, I, I'm just okay.

• 1:15:57Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:57Speaker 01

  So I'm almost, I guess I am becoming a little bit more of a Michael Mann character.

• 1:16:01Sam Fragoso?

  Your mother passed away August 18th, I think it was.

• 1:16:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:07Sam Fragoso?

  I heard you talk about it in a very moving way. I think discussing the film 28 years later.

• 1:16:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:16Sam Fragoso?

  What, tell me, walk me through the, I haven't seen the movie.

• 1:16:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:21Sam Fragoso?

  I guess when you say like it was tracking or it didn't track the way you expected. What, what is, what did it look like?

• 1:16:28Speaker 01

  I was a primary caretaker for my mother in the end of her life. So it was me and a bunch of indispensable aides in hospice nurses. But I would work like an eight hour shift in the middle of the day where it was just me and her. She needed 24 hour care, but it would be like somebody in the morning up until like the afternoon. Then I would do like three to, you know, eight or one to eight. And then somebody else would come in at like 8:30 and do the overnight. But like, it was a lot of hands on, very like, you know, visceral work. And I think because of the amount of labor, like actual labor that it was, it took away from some of the emotional awareness that I was having. Cause like, you're just like, fuck, man, this is really hard.

• 1:17:07Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, and there's a job to do.

• 1:17:09Speaker 01

  And so it wasn't really, and this is kind of consistent throughout my life, that sometimes I need a piece of art to show me how I feel about something.

• 1:17:17Speaker 01

  And I think it was just a random experience of seeing

• 1:17:22Speaker 01

  28, 28 years later, which has like a, a plot that is not dissimilar from the situation I'm describing.

• 1:17:29Sam Fragoso?

  I don't know the plot.

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  I, I mean, I, there's a young boy and his mother is dying and he is trying to save her and he can't. And they're also zombies.

• 1:17:40Speaker 01

  The, but the, the way that it's depicted and Ray Fiennes plays a character who's sort of teaching the boy about death and the significance of death and the beauty of death while it's happening. I think it just kind of came like a lightning bolt for me. Like, I just did not expect that from a prison zombie movie. And then I think I was just ready to think about it and ready to feel about it. Cause like, I, I think I, I was so ingrained in like the minutia of like, is this piece of paperwork filled out? Does this have like, is the I's are dotted and the T's are crossed and everything is kind of like working? And does this person coming at 8:30 or 8:45? That you didn't get to sit in it, you know? I didn't, I didn't really like experience it in the way that I thought it would.

• 1:18:24Sam Fragoso?

  How did you experience it?

• 1:18:28Speaker 01

  Uh, excruciatingly long and then all over all at once. You know, like it was like, I remember, you know, uh, her last moments just being like, I can't believe that I'm watching this, but also like the second it was over, another wave of decision making kicks in of like really practical, like this nurse now has to come back. Like now we have to have this thing happen. Now we have to have that thing happen. And because I'm an only and because my father passed away and you know, my mother's sisters were quite old, like it was just all me. So you know, it wasn't like, it just wasn't that moment that you think you're going to have this like cathartic. I guess maybe it wasn't like the epiphany that I thought it was going to be,

• 1:19:13Speaker 01

  you know, and I didn't, I didn't maybe have that for a while. Yeah. But I think I was pretty depressed after it for a long time and I didn't understand it. Yeah.

• 1:19:21Sam Fragoso?

  What epiphany did you, did you want?

• 1:19:24Speaker 01

  I think I wanted her to be like, I'm ready now and it's okay, you know, and that's difficult. It's difficult to ask of somebody to do that for you and do it for themselves, you know, and everybody's different and everybody's going to have like a different experience with that. But that specifically was very unique for me and I think for her, you know, but I, I, I do, I mean, she was sick for a long time. So I think it was, it was like ultimately like I know that she's out of pain, you know, and that's, that's the most important thing.

• 1:19:56Sam Fragoso?

  Closure. It's like a thing we give people on podcasts.

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that, I think I got it, just not the way I thought it was.

• 1:20:08Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah. I guess, you know, before we go, I wondered how your mother shaped, we talked about your father and his, his film criticism, but I wonder how she kind of shaped or formed your thinking about movies and culture, because I know she watched a lot of movies, you know, you guys watch movies together. Um, I heard you recently talk about seeing JFK together.

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  She had, uh, favorites and we would watch those favorites a lot, especially in the last years of her life. Like when I would come back, it would actually often be.

• 1:20:42Speaker 01

  You know, we've had these conversations, I'm sure you've had them with your parents where they're asking you to explain to them streaming services that they're already paying for two or three times.

• 1:20:49Sam Fragoso?

  Yep.

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:20:50Sam Fragoso?

  I've set up Apple TV for my father a few times.

• 1:20:52Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, I think when Dune was released on HBO Max, like the day it came out, like that was a conversation topic for about three months is when my mother could watch Dune.

• 1:21:03Sam Fragoso?

  I have set up NBA League Pass on my father's Apple TV. It's been there for seven years. He just watched his first game this season.

• 1:21:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:21:15Sam Fragoso?

  He's paid for it all seven years. I've tried.

• 1:21:19Speaker 01

  What, what, do you know what game it was? Was it like Hornets Wizards?

• 1:21:23Sam Fragoso?

  It wasn't the Wimby Yocas game that just happened.

• 1:21:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:26Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:27Speaker 01

  It would become a big topic of conversation is that we're gonna watch this next Matrix movie, we're gonna watch this Dune movie, but then ultimately like she would fall asleep like five minutes into it and I'd be like, okay. But what we would do is we would watch On the lambs or the Great Escape or A Few Good Men.

• 1:21:41Sam Fragoso?

  Those are movies?

• 1:21:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, like she is the number one rewatchables person in a lot of ways. Like she would just watch All the President's Men three times a year, every year. She, and that did, I think ingrained in me an idea of noting things that only came out like in the sixth or seventh viewing of something. And if you really love something, then it's worth like repeat, repeat interaction with.

• 1:22:07Sam Fragoso?

  Did she ever listen to Big Picture or Rewatchables?

• 1:22:11Speaker 01

  Uh, I think so, but like, it's always funny, like, you know, she, she would have it, but I think it was like, almost like she didn't quite totally understand like how it was working, you know? And I would often be like, yeah, so Andy and I are doing this. And she would just be like, that sounds great. And I was like, do you know what that means? Like, like I sit down and record. She was, you know, she was, she was still with it up until the very end. She was still watching shows and still hanging out and talking. Yeah.

• 1:22:40Sam Fragoso?

  This is a really dumb question, but it felt, I feel like we've done so many serious things now.

• 1:22:44Speaker 01

  I know, I didn't expect, you know?

• 1:22:48Sam Fragoso?

  I have two things and we gotta go.

• 1:22:51Sam Fragoso?

  Thank you for sharing that.

• 1:22:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:22:53Sam Fragoso?

  That's my, my mom, and we'll keep this in the tape.

• 1:22:59Sam Fragoso?

  I often say my mom showed me Boogie Nights. And my dad showed me Goodfellas, and that's pretty much all you need to know.

• 1:23:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:06Sam Fragoso?

  About my childhood and.

• 1:23:07Speaker 01

  Your dad did not show you League Pass, though.

• 1:23:10Sam Fragoso?

  So I'm just trying to imagine like you as a teenager, being an editor at The Falcon. You go to Emerson. You think about writing, you're kind of doing a punk emo band for a second. You go to New York, you somehow by the skin of your teeth get out. The kid that moved to New York, that moved to work with Andy at Spin.com, like had pretty big writing aspirations, I'd say.

• 1:23:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:36Sam Fragoso?

  You know, he wanted to like Lester Bangs or something like.

• 1:23:38Speaker 01

  I wanted to write like crime novels, like I've always, yeah, like.

• 1:23:41Sam Fragoso?

  Your father wrote two novels?

• 1:23:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:44Sam Fragoso?

  There was one that was like a political thriller.

• 1:23:45Speaker 01

  There was one that was like a newspaper thriller.

• 1:23:47Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:47Speaker 01

  And then there was another that was like a viral outbreak, kind of Michael Crichton-y thing. And then his unpublished novel he wrote, which was really lovely, I've often thought about doing something with it, is this book that he spent a lot of time researching towards the last like 10 years of his life about, it's a murder mystery set during the Civil War, about a Gettysburg veteran who has PTSD and is trying to also solve a crime. It's really cool.

• 1:24:11Sam Fragoso?

  I mean, these things, I mean, in high school, the aspiration was to make a movie, doomed to work in a porn theater.

• 1:24:21Sam Fragoso?

  Like what, I don't know, what do you want? What would you like to do?

• 1:24:25Speaker 01

  Um, you know, I.

• 1:24:27Sam Fragoso?

  Like, do you want to do 12 hours of podcasting in 10 years? Every week?

• 1:24:33Speaker 01

  Okay, I, I guess probably, do we live in a world where like I can do that? Like I can, I can always do it just for like my own like entertainment, but like if, if I'm lucky enough to be doing what I'm doing now in 10 years, like I'll take it. I'll take it every day. And I, I think that Bill has been very formative for me in a lot of different ways. A thing that he does that I recognize in myself. Is like, this is it. Like, I really like talking about the NBA, or I really like talking with Andy about TV, or with Sean about movies, and with Bill about movies. Like, I get to do it. So I try not to sweat, like, God, but should I write a book?

• 1:25:12Sam Fragoso?

  Right.

• 1:25:13Speaker 01

  Too much. Like, I think I am trying to enjoy the fact that, like, I can't believe I get to do this.

• 1:25:20Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:20Speaker 01

  And I'm gonna have as much fun and appreciate every moment of it while I can. Because like, in five years, maybe people are like, shut the fuck up. You know, like, when the sea of our heads fucking fully turn, you know, and they're just like, this guy is washed now, you know? I'll, I'll, I'll look back on this time fondly. But I, I wanna do this while I'm still interested in the work.

• 1:25:45Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, I guess, I guess my real final question is, is what's the thing that you're gonna get canceled for?

• 1:25:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, I mean, I almost got there in this pod. No, it'll be, it'll just be my opinion sucking, you know, after a while, it'd just be like me being like, I don't know, I think task two is better than task one.

• 1:26:06Speaker 01

  I think it'll eventually be just like, anything, people will just get tired of the sound of your voice. Although there, you know, there are examples of people who persevered over decades.

• 1:26:14Sam Fragoso?

  I, I just wanna say, um, as someone who spent a lot of time this week, reading your writing.

• 1:26:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:23Sam Fragoso?

  I think you're an excellent writer.

• 1:26:24Speaker 01

  Thank you, that's very nice of you to say that.

• 1:26:26Sam Fragoso?

  And I hope some part of you goes back to that at some point, if that's something you wanna do. And if not, um, I think I speak for a lot of people listening or watching this, that you have helped, uh, bring light and levity in a time where, I mean, I don't even have to say it.

• 1:26:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:45Sam Fragoso?

  It's not a whole lot.

• 1:26:46Speaker 01

  Not a lot, not a lot of good vibes.

• 1:26:48Sam Fragoso?

  And I, I just, I could not imagine following up Governor Josh Shapiro with anyone other than, what did they call you, the prince of Philadelphia?

• 1:26:57Speaker 01

  The prince of Philadelphia. Well, the gov and the prince, you know?

• 1:26:59Sam Fragoso?

  And Terry Gross, really, you're following, it's really, it's a real Philly time.

• 1:27:03Speaker 01

  That's unbelievable. What a, what a roster. Thank you so much for having me, man.

• 1:27:06Sam Fragoso?

  It's a real triumvirate, those three. Did we cover everything?

• 1:27:09Speaker 01

  Yes, the Delaware Valley thanks you for your service.

• 1:27:12Sam Fragoso?

  We have a huge base there.

• 1:27:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:14Sam Fragoso?

  Huge. Um, thank you, Chris Ryan.

• 1:27:16Speaker 01

  Thanks, man.

• 1:27:47Sam Fragoso?

  And that's our show. If you enjoyed today's episode with Chris Ryan, be sure to share it on social media, tag us at Talk Easy Pod. You can also leave us five stars on Spotify or a review on Apple Podcasts. I want to give a special thanks this week to David Villar, Miles Tomlinson, and of course, our guest, Chris Ryan. You can hear him every week on The Watch. He's also frequently on The Rewatchables, The Big Picture, and a few other Ringer shows over at Spotify. For more episodes like this one, I'd recommend our talks with Wesley Morris, Sean Fantasy, Andy Greenwald, Gia Tolentino, and Jay Caspian Kang. You can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok at Talk Easy Pod. If you want to purchase one

• 1:28:32Sam Fragoso?

  of our mugs, they come in cream or navy, or a vinyl record with writer Fran Lebowitz, you can do so at TalkEasyPod.com/shop. Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is Janix Abra. Today's talk was edited by Corey Attad. It was mixed by Andrew Vastola. It was recorded out of Higher Ground in Los Angeles, California. Our music comes from Dylan Peck, illustrations Crutch Shanoi, photographs today come from Julius Chu, production design by Brittany Ash and Susanna Honey, with production assistance from Neil Mulaney. Social media by Sofeen Kevorkian. Research assistance today comes from Kiki Giorgio, Callie Conley, and

• 1:29:14Sam Fragoso?

  David Villar. This episode was made in partnership with Higher Ground Media. I'm Sam Fregoso. Thank you for listening to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next Sunday with another episode. Until then, stay safe and so long.

• 1:29:35Speaker 03

  I'm Dan Heath. On What It's Like to Be, I interview people about their jobs. Here's a married couple that drives a long haul truck together.

• 1:29:43Speaker 04

  We backed up and they loaded fresh dead rats.

• 1:29:47Speaker 03

  I mean, how many rats would you guess were back there?

• 1:29:49Speaker 04

  There were 32,000 pounds of them.

• 1:29:52Speaker 03

  32,000 pounds of frozen dead rats.

• 1:29:55Speaker 04

  That's it.

• 1:29:58Speaker 03

  Find out what it's like to be a long haul trucker, a couples therapist, or an FBI agent, all on the podcast What It's Like to Be.

• 1:30:06Sam Fragoso?

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• 1:30:50Sam Fragoso?

  It's a world-expanding, genre-bending movie from one of the most distinctive filmmakers working today. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now streaming exclusively on MUBI. You can try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.com/talkeasy. That's MUBI, M-U-B-I dot com slash talkeasy for a whole month of great cinema for free.