Half-Baked Ideas With Kevin Wildes. Plus: The Masters, ‘The Pitt’, Coachella, and ‘Love Story’ With Nathan Hubbard and Joanna Robinson.

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Kevin Wildes to present another set of Half-Baked Ideas (7:57). Then, Nathan Hubbard comes on to discuss the biggest story lines ahead of the Masters and Coachella (01:01:55). Finally, Joanna Robinson joins to break down ‘The Pitt’ before previewing ‘Euphoria’ ahead of the new season, and much more (01:28:17). Host: Bill SimmonsGuests: Kevin Wildes, Nathan Hubbard, and Joanna RobinsonProducers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics. A perfect crime film, says the Daily Beast. John Torturo gives a career best performance. Don't miss the acclaimed new thriller, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Torturo stars as an aging master pickpocket, whose latest score puts him in the crosshairs of a ruthless crime family. It's also starring Giancarlo Esposito, Tatiana Maslany, Will Price, and our guy, Steve Buscemi. See the film that the LA Times calls instantly classic, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, now playing in theaters nationwide.

• 0:41Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by FanDuel. We are also presented by The Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. We did Eddie and the Cruisers. It was a one for us coming off CR month. It was me and Chris Ryan and Van Lathan. All of us are headed to San Francisco to do a live show. We're doing Basic Instinct on Wednesday night. We'll see if Mallory can make it through without doing like whatever happened with Jim Morrison in Miami, when he had offended the obscenity laws or whatever he did. Hopefully, we can get through it intact. Coming up on this podcast, we have, listen, it was a great order. They could have gone in any direction, starting with Kevin Wilds, doing Half Baked Ideas, talking a little basketball as well.

• 1:24Bill Simmons?

  Nathan Hubbard is going to come on and talk about The Masters and Coachella. And then I hadn't talked TV in a while, so Joanna Robinson is on. We're going to talk about The Pit, which I finally jumped into and binge watched. And I have a lot of thoughts. We're going to talk about Love Story, and we're going to talk about a bunch of Apple shows. So that is the podcast. So we have Half Baked, Basketball, Golf, Coachella, TV. It's pretty good, pretty eclectic. Couple of basketball things from last night, really quick.

• 1:57Bill Simmons?

  Championship, I thought it was a pretty lame March Madness. Other than that UConn, the buzzer beater coming back against Duke. The women's tournament, the most fun thing that happened in the whole women's final four, which I really enjoy, but the games, you know, we couldn't really get there with the games. But the most fun thing was Gino, Gino, for some reason, just losing his mind with Don Staley. And then it seemed like Don Staley was going to kick his ass. I love that. I think Don Staley punching Gino would have been the highlight of 2026. Sadly, it didn't happen. But that was probably the highlight of that. And then the men's, it was fine. You know, the Michigan UConn game, it was threatening to become good for a while. It never really 100% got there.

• 2:40Bill Simmons?

  Every time it felt like UConn was going to do the UConn thing, something they'd miss a layup or Michigan would hit a three. I was very happy for my brother, Jalen Rose. Congrats to him. And then, I don't know, in 2026, you're going to look back at that tournament and probably just remember the UConn Duke game and be like, who won? Oh yeah, Michigan. I know a lot of Michigan people, they're all very excited between this and what's happened with the football this decade. Maybe it's like a small glass of settle down juice for the Michigan fans. Don't, don't turn people against you. Big picture, NBA wise, we had a Wemby injury last night that I assume he's going to come

• 3:23Bill Simmons?

  back and play one more game, but it did kind of break my brain for a second because if he doesn't get the 65th game, it throws a whole bunch of stuff out of whack, including defensive player of the year, which I don't think anybody has spent one minute thinking about. The big game that happened last night though, was Denver versus Portland, where Denver's basically could lock down the three seed pretty much by winning because the Lakers are going backwards and Portland's up 18 on them in the fourth quarter. Portland is, I think at one point 24 for 46 from three or so. They were just flames are coming another, but they're just making everything. And Denver's hanging around, hanging around because they're so good offensively now that Aaron Gordon's back. You kind of can't give up on a Denver game. So what happens?

• 4:07Bill Simmons?

  They come back, they force overtime, they really could have won a regulation, Jokic missed like an eight footer and then they end up winning in overtime. And it was just an awesome, awesome home win. Aaron Gordon was huge. And once again, it's what we talked about on Sunday, like watch out for the Nuggets. I don't think Jokic's MVP case is dead. I don't. Michael Pena went on Zach Lowe's pod on Thursday and then wrote a piece for The Ringer on Monday saying, "I'm voting for Jokic." And I really gotta look at this over the next five days because you're supposed to treat each season individually. And the truth is, if you just look at Jokic's numbers and the fact that they're now up to a three seed,

• 4:48Bill Simmons?

  and I really think you have to be a top three seed or have one of the five best records in the league to really seriously be considered for MVP unless it's like 2006 when I picked Kobe that year. There really wasn't a candidate. We have awesome candidates this year. But this Jokic season, it's the most special offensive season he's ever had. It's one of the great offensive seasons anyone's ever had in the history of the league. They're gonna be a three seed and probably win 54, 55 games, wherever they land, with a lot of obstacles. Aaron Gordon missed over half the year. Christian Brown missed half the year. They were incorporating a bunch of new guys. They had really bad luck at the

• 5:31Bill Simmons?

  end of games. Like, a lot of games that they just blew and should have won. And the case for Shay is a little different because they have the best record in the league, which matters. Shay has been the best crunch time guy in the league, but even though Jalen Williams was out and they had some other guys bounce in and out, that team is just a bunch of dragons. Like, you know, every night, they have 11 guys they can throw out there. That would be the envy of almost every other team in the league. So, right now, on Tuesday, I still feel like I'm voting for Shay. But, you know, over the weekend, I started to look at Wemby a little more seriously. And the minutes thing, I can't get past. But from an impact standpoint, I was like, fuck. It's hard to imagine a

• 6:15Bill Simmons?

  more impactful guy these last two months. Then Jokic beats him on Saturday. Jokic, again yesterday, with another, like, ridiculous... He's had five of, like, the nine most ridiculous games of the year. So, I'm just... My point is, I haven't crossed him off.

• 6:33Bill Simmons?

  As an MVP pick yet, and one of the things I want to look at the last five days here is really diving into stuff like if you split the two guys, which team would be better? Who had an easier scenario? Who had the most memorable season? Because I think that matters too. When you think I have the narrative about the MVP, I had the four questions I always ask myself. And one of them is like, what are you going to remember first about this season?

• 6:59Bill Simmons?

  I think you'd have a case for remembering Wemby first this season because just watching him blossom into this generational alien and watching the Spurs rip off wins like they did, might be the first thing you remember. But Jokic would be probably one of the next two things, and so would SGA. So it's just, it's a complicated one. It's really hard. I want to make sure I get it right. But I just have not ruled out Jokic. So I wanted to make, uh, make that point. Um, all right, we're gonna take a break. We're gonna bring in ProChamp and then Kevin Wiles. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA postseason is here and FanDuel knows the only thing better than watching your favorite team win is winning

• 7:41Bill Simmons?

  along with them. FanDuel, the best place to bet the teams, players, and plays during their playoff run. Build a same game parlay or try live betting and jump in after tip off. Don't forget with FanDuel, you get paid instantly when you win. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app now and play your game. 21-plus select states or 18-plus DC, Kentucky, Wyoming. Game problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat. Connecticut.

• 8:33Bill Simmons?

  All right, my friend Kevin Wildes is here. He's been coming on since 2008, 2009 range of my podcast through Half Baked Ideas. You can watch him on First Things First with Nick Wright, Chris Broussard on FS1. Last time you were on, we came up with, uh, we had two different ideas. One involved the tower for food, but then the, the one about, the one about playing credit card roulette, and that would just be the gimmick of an actual restaurant. Dave Chang said he would fund that right now.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  Let's go.

• 9:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he said, credit card roulette, I'm in. Can we franchise this? And then I never heard from him again. But he was excited for for 10 minutes. So you come on, you do half baked ideas. These are not fully baked ideas. Normally, we talk sports ahead of time, but I have a lot of stuff. You have a lot of stuff. I have mailbag questions.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Oh, that I get to answer?

• 9:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  I that's my dream to have this become like a Shark Tank.

• 9:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Episode.

• 9:30Bill Simmons?

  I have.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  I can I can judge half baked ideas.

• 9:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  If it's too baked, it's too good. I'm like, that's just an idea.

• 9:37Bill Simmons?

  I have six of them that I can tell you as well. But why don't you go? Give us your give us your starter. Give us.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  I'll give it.

• 9:43Bill Simmons?

  Give us your leadoff hitter.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  It's a it's a little bit of sports just to prime the wheels.

• 9:49Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  First off, Luca's going to Spain to get his hamstring checked out. Austin Austin Reeves staying here. So automatically you got to look at Austin like, why aren't you going to Spain? Look, do you do not care? I'm headed to Spain. I don't know why it seems it's Spain is nice this time of year. I'd go to Spain. But maybe Austin, whatever, he's got commitments here.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  I I'm not 100% sure how consulates work.

• 10:21Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Where, you know, where like, all right, I know, like, the like, embassies work. Like, if you're in the, you know, embassy in France, you're actually in the USA, I think. In the United States Embassy.

• 10:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Could there be some embassy adjacent doctor's office? Maybe exclusively for athletes who need timely European medical procedures domestically.

• 10:50Bill Simmons?

  So in the German embassy.

• 10:54Bill Simmons?

  Wherever that is.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  We will spin platelets there. Yes. Get your platelets spun right here. You don't need to go to Germany. I would also, and I'm sure the FDA would, you know, say this is not how it works. I would try to say it was eco-friendly, save on fuel prices nowadays. It's an eco-friendly way to get global medicine. Maybe it's just an athlete carve-out thing. So you don't have to go all the way to Spain. Luca can stay here, go to the meetings, what's going on? That's the idea.

• 11:27Bill Simmons?

  I really love this and like we have, the Canadian Embassy is like kind of further away, but in my neighborhood. But it's this big, big, big place that I've always been fascinated by. It's just huge. And I always wonder what happens there and whether, like when hockey players are in town playing the Kings, do they just get to drop by the Canadian Embassy?

• 11:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, have a little bats just hang out.

• 11:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's what happens. Is it like the Masters where they have that cool lounge that all the Masters players can play at? Could just go into, have some drinks and food? Like, do they have that at the Canadian Embassy? I don't know. I've never been to an embassy. It doesn't sound like you have either.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  No, the other option, and again, this needs more research. This is why it's half big. There's a certain amount of distance you can get from the coastline where you're just in international waters. So you can have more of like a floating boat.

• 12:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  That you can go out to if you don't want to. But again, that's pretty far. And I think with the, with the waves, it might not be good for your hamstring unless it's a huge aircraft.

• 12:29Bill Simmons?

  So you're talking about like those, like they'll have those gambling boats in the South.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:33Bill Simmons?

  You go off the coast and all of a sudden you can gamble legally.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, no one knows what the jurisdiction is. Like, yeah, we're actually doing Spanish medicine here. There's tapas. It's a nice vibe for Luca. He doesn't go all the way to Spain. That's idea number one.

• 12:44Bill Simmons?

  I always, I always thought that would have been a great Steven Seagal movie in the nineties. I wish Kyle Brand could just pop in for two minutes. He's working on one of those gambling boats in Louisiana. It's like off the coast. But meanwhile, it's about to be one of the, he's like a disgraced, used to be, I don't know, Green Beret. Now he's like disgraced. He's like a blackjack dealer or one of those things.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:06Bill Simmons?

  But they're about to, Ocean's Eleven, the big gambling boat. And thank God he's there as a blackjack dealer because then you would also get Vegas hands and he'd be feeling out the guys as they do the hands in the first 30 minutes of the movie. So I don't like, I don't like how these guys are communicating. Something funky with these guys.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  Can I add something to it?

• 13:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Have you, did you watch Yellowstone?

• 13:28Bill Simmons?

  Of course.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Okay. You know where they dump the bodies at Yellowstone?

• 13:32Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Well, there's no jurisdiction. It's a little bit of that.

• 13:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Steven Seagal's trying to play by the rules. He calls the sheriff. He's like, that's not my jurisdiction. Calls the other sheriff. Hey, you're on your own, man. We don't touch that.

• 13:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  What? There's no authorities here? I have to do it all by myself? It's over a diehard situation. Cops can't control it.

• 13:50Bill Simmons?

  So do you think the embassy works that way?

• 13:52Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 13:54Bill Simmons?

  Cause it might for all we know.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  I think.

• 13:58Bill Simmons?

  Does anything go there?

• 13:59Speaker 01

  I mean, I, I think you're just under the rules of your own country. But I'm, again, this is why it's that big. I think if I do a certain amount of research, it just becomes really a bad idea. So I, I, I stop at one point and just keep it half big.

• 14:15Bill Simmons?

  It would be one of my favorite things that Trump could just come off the top rope and get involved with where he gets upset that our athletes are flying overseas to get medical treatment and he just decides.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Unilaterally.

• 14:28Bill Simmons?

  I'm just unilaterally, whatever is fair there is fair here. And then all of a sudden athletic performance just skyrockets in America.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  Not a bad idea. Uh, all right. Number two, this is a, I, I see that you're, you're, you're walking a lot. Are you still into walking?

• 14:44Bill Simmons?

  Oh, for whole since COVID. Yeah.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Okay. Do you go anywhere?

• 14:49Bill Simmons?

  Um, sometimes yes, but it's always has to be some sort of circuitous route back.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 14:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. I know you don't live, you don't just, you know, run away.

• 15:01Bill Simmons?

  Couple of times, a couple of times we've walked, it was like a special walk, but we walked all the way to the Santa Monica Pier, which I wouldn't recommend. Very long walk.

• 15:09Speaker 01

  That's, that's too far.

• 15:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Okay. So last night I went to a Easter brunch. I was, I was just going hard at the Easter brunch. Several desserts.

• 15:20Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  I had a blueberry cheesecake. I, I had a carrot cake. I had a lot of lamb with the mint jelly. It's going hard. Come home about six o'clock. Like I should go for a run. And it's Sunday, I'm supposed to be on this running program, so I have to run about six miles. Usually I like to run to somewhere, go get a coffee, it's like a nice little break point, or, you know, have some destination.

• 15:46Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Everything's closed on Sunday, it's late Sunday and it's Easter, I've got nowhere to run, so now I just run in a big circle and I get back and I was like, I wish I had some sort of goal. I'm calling this Uber Health.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  You call Uber, or it's just a plan, I just enter in my plan and the Uber algorithm takes care of it. Someone comes and gets either my remote control or my car keys and it's aligned with my performance plan on Strava and they drop it off four miles away. They're like, hey, here's the PIN, we dropped it off at the Santa Monica Pier. If you want your car keys, you've got to go get it. You sign up for it, so every day, oh, I don't feel like running, I'm just gonna, you know.

• 16:38Bill Simmons?

  But you have to run to get your car.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're stuck. You have to be motivated to get out because Uber Health has dropped something off four miles from you.

• 16:48Bill Simmons?

  And there's a discount because it's promoting good health, it's promoting people staying in shape and trying to better themselves.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I don't know who's paying for that. Again, maybe it's a government thing. If you want to, you could of course call a friend, which then combats epidemic male loneliness. So that's good too.

• 17:10Bill Simmons?

  It's a huge epidemic right now. You have Nick Wright, you don't have to worry about male loneliness because you have a best friend.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  I know, but people are being paid to talk to me. But outside of that, I'm just, you know, male loneliness is just an epidemic.

• 17:24Bill Simmons?

  Have you hashed out the Nick Wright thing properly with Jacoby?

• 17:29Speaker 01

  No, I don't even know what you're talking about.

• 17:31Bill Simmons?

  Well, I think he felt like he was your buddy and now Nick Wright's your buddy and I don't.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  No, Jacoby's grandfather didn't though.

• 17:37Bill Simmons?

  Okay, I just wanted to make sure you guys are good.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  No, of course. Of course, yes. Again, and again, I really need more friends that, again, aren't being paid to spend time with me since Jacoby and I were coworkers for

• 17:51Bill Simmons?

  You did, I mean.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  A dozen years.

• 17:53Bill Simmons?

  Do you think there's a fixed amount of total time you can spend with another male friend before you basically just run out? Cause I haven't run out with House.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 18:04Bill Simmons?

  I've spent so much time with House and I just feel like, like we're like LeBron now. Where LeBron's like, is he gonna play 24 seasons? Why not?

• 18:13Speaker 01

  No, I think you, I think, I think my relationships are so succinct that

• 18:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  there's plenty of runway.

• 18:25Bill Simmons?

  Well, plus you have the Irish goodbye. So people, you always leave them wanting more. You're the master of the Irish goodbye.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  And now it's weird. It's just we're like at a dinner. I'll just drop, I'll just drop my credit card and leave.

• 18:37Bill Simmons?

  My wife has an Irish goodbye friend, her friend Meigs, and it's like a known thing and she kinda like wears it like as a badge of honor.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Is it only in bar situations? Cause I

• 18:47Bill Simmons?

  It's, it's like, it's like gatherings. It's when they're all together. It's when like somebody's birthday party. And it's kinda like a known thing now that she's gonna do it.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  I think the whole world would be better off if we did it. I Irish goodbye like my son's basketball game if my wife and I are there.

• 19:04Bill Simmons?

  It does. The hellos are great, goodbyes are terrible.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Hellos are great, goodbyes are terrible.

• 19:10Bill Simmons?

  It's great, hey you, hey, but you don't need to say goodbye. Can I give you a mailbag one?

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Can I give you a quick thing on hellos?

• 19:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  This is maybe a little Larry David-ish.

• 19:20Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Hellos have gone.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Hugs and, and big pounds and like, oh my God. It's like, hey, what's up? I, I was just, just one fist bump. I'm good. A, a solid old school handshake.

• 19:35Bill Simmons?

  We're way more connected than we were in like the eighties and nineties. Because now we have texts and FaceTime. There's all these different ways you can stay in contact with somebody.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  First time you see, oh, what's up? Like, you know?

• 19:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, a little more performative.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  A little bit.

• 19:50Bill Simmons?

  Can I give you a, I'm gonna intersperse some mill bag questions between to break up your half bakes. This is from Megan in Somerville.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  Megan.

• 19:59Bill Simmons?

  She sent this on March 4th and wanted to wish a happy International Women's Day to all our fellow female listeners. But now it's April 6th. She lives near Harvard, had this half baked idea that when LeBron retired, he should get to do some sort of back to school thing because he never went to college. He went right to the pros. Could you do your career in reverse? She said, it's not fully fleshed out. I don't know if it's reality TV documentary or a horrible scripted movie. What school would he go to? Harvard probably wouldn't allow it, but Ohio State would. And then I started thinking like, is that, is that like the Rodney Dangerfield movie? Is that the updated remake of Rodney? It's like the, one of the best NBA players of all time retires, but then goes to college for one more year. Rodney Dangerfield style and he's rich.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  There's something here. Like Billy Madison style.

• 20:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's something here.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  Is he playing basketball?

• 20:48Bill Simmons?

  I don't, I think initially he's not playing. But then there's some injuries on the team and he really likes to coach. And he realizes he could still rekindle his eligibility and maybe come back. And now it's a sports movie. So a sports movie crossed with back to school.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  He's gotta be so old though. That's the problem.

• 21:06Bill Simmons?

  Like he's like 44.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  But he's not old enough to, he would die. Like it works, I think a little bit better with Carmelo and Syracuse. Jerry McNamara is the coach.

• 21:17Bill Simmons?

  Oh, and he still has the three years of eligibility left.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 21:21Bill Simmons?

  His buddy, his buddy is can't get any recruits.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  It's like, and, and like, and then all of a sudden it's like, Jerry, we need you. Final game like Jerry's got his, he's had his uniform on earth.

• 21:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  But I think LeBron is, is still.

• 21:34Bill Simmons?

  He's too famous. Okay.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  No, not that he's too famous. He's too good at basketball at this point. Like LeBron would still be, I mean, this is super obvious, but it's insane. The number one draft pick.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  Next year?

• 21:46Bill Simmons?

  So maybe it's, maybe it's Chris Paul.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Chris Paul's great.

• 21:49Bill Simmons?

  Chris Paul never had an ending.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  Paul of Wake Forest.

• 21:52Bill Simmons?

  He's going back to Wake Forest, unfinished business.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  I love that idea.

• 21:57Bill Simmons?

  I feel like everybody would come to his party too, unlike at the Quippers. Like all the kids would want to go. They'd be like, you going to Chris Paul's house today? Everybody would be excited for it.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  I like that a lot.

• 22:07Bill Simmons?

  All right. What's your next half big?

• 22:10Speaker 01

  This one's great. This one is great. And this is almost so good. It's probably a real idea, which means it's a bad half baked idea.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  Here's the scene. I'll just say I'm the main character at this point.

• 22:25Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  I gather up all of the parents in town, all the sports parents, me and my team of coaches. And I say, look, you want to be involved in my program? So let's say it's basketball.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  I'll tell you right now, there's zero chance your kid is going pro.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  And then my buddy comes up and he comes in from right from my left. He says, there's zero chance your kid's going D1. And then the other guy, or D2, like they'd be lucky to go D3. And then it comes back. It comes back to me. We're here to do one thing and one thing only. To turn your child into an intramural champion.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  The full train, all, it's all, the whole program is designed to train intramural champions. At my Easter brunch.

• 23:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  The, uh, family friend, son is playing, uh, like beer league hockey. He played hockey throughout his whole career. It's like, yeah, this is like almost the end game is to have a bunch of, again, male loneliness, guy friends playing beer league hockey. So it's in the, in the avenue towards beer league hockey is probably different than the avenue towards the NHL, the avenue towards intramural champion is different than trying to go to the NHL. You don't need to learn a bunch of stuff. You just need to learn stuff that's going to work in, at, to win intramurals. And guess what? If you're the intramural champion.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  You don't feel as good as an NBA champion. Obviously, there's no financial rewards. You're not rich and famous. But when you're holding, you are the champion of that day on that basketball court. There's only happiness only goes up so high and you are there.

• 24:20Bill Simmons?

  So as part of the program, you teach the kids how to play flag football while they're also having a couple beers?

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:27Bill Simmons?

  We, we How to compete when you're really hung over from the night before and you have an eight o'clock basketball game?

• 24:33Speaker 01

  I can't. So I try. I need probably a real trainer to tell me what moves you don't need. But like I'm playing chess and there's chess openings that you can learn that if you master this chess opening, you can get to a certain level. You can get to whatever 1200. But after 1200, your opening is no longer, that is just easily thwarted.

• 24:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  So I'm just going to teach the kids, like right here, this move works in intramural. You, it will never work again. It won't work in D3 college basketball. But intramurals, this thing is great. This spin move is great. This little like slow Euro step is great. I don't know what the moves are.

• 25:12Bill Simmons?

  So baseball, instead of teaching kids, all these kids who think they're, we're going to play Cooperstown for Little League when I'm 12 and then I'm going to go play, then I'm going to play college baseball. And it's like, no, no, no. Let me teach you how to be a softball, slow pitch pitcher right now.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Yes. Let's start working on this right now.

• 25:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Let's start working. You can do like a thousand of these a day.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:34Bill Simmons?

  Right? Kind of spin up in the air. You're going to be like a machine. You're going to be the best at this.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  And you will have a, you will have a 30 year career. Never make a dollar, but you'll be great in your town. People will talk about you. You'll

• 25:48Bill Simmons?

  30 years. Sometimes it can be 40. And then if you're in Chicago, you learn how to play without the gloves.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  What?

• 25:54Bill Simmons?

  Right? Like in Rob Lowe and About Last Night, they would play the softball, no gloves. That's the Chicago thing.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Is that a real thing? Or was that just in Rob Lowe's About Last Night?

• 26:03Bill Simmons?

  That's a real Chicago thing. I think.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  They don't play with softball gloves in Chicago?

• 26:07Bill Simmons?

  No gloves.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  There's no, I have no clue. I had no idea that was the thing. I've met plenty of people from Chicago. It's never come up.

• 26:15Bill Simmons?

  Maybe it was a thing in the 80s and they got rid of it after too many, too many people broke their heads. Yeah. Watch About Last Night, they're playing softball, no gloves.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Hey, where's Brian? Broke his thumb. Oh, yeah.

• 26:25Bill Simmons?

  Again.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  What do you think about these gloves?

• 26:29Bill Simmons?

  It's a reason we have them.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Nope, nope. We're in Chicago.

• 26:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Chicago, men are men. They're eating sausages, drinking heavy beer and playing softball without gloves.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Not even a mitt, one of those flat.

• 26:41Bill Simmons?

  No gloves. Go watch the movie. First scene and the end scene are both softball with no gloves.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  Not even a handball mitt.

• 26:47Bill Simmons?

  Nothing, nothing at all.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  Oh, right. Uh, all right.

• 26:51Bill Simmons?

  I really like that one. I like setting the expectations early and just having lived through it with both of my kids and watching all the parents and how much time and money is spent on these travel teams and all this stuff.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  And happiness is, being the champion and being happy is not just for the pros. Someone's got to be the intermural champion. It'll work. All right.

• 27:16Bill Simmons?

  Can I give you another half-baked?

• 27:17Speaker 01

  I've got a very fast one, literally. But go, give me the half-baked one and I'll go fast.

• 27:22Bill Simmons?

  This is a, this is almost fully baked, but it's from Marcus Reed and it's about how much time he listened to the made up NBA awards pod Zach and I did last night. And everybody loves awards is the premise. We love MVP, we like Rookie of the Year. We get all this podcast content out of it. He thinks that how we have in the Oscars, lead actor and supporting actor, that there should be a supporting actor MVP, basically the Scottie Pippen Award for the best number two of the season. And I was thinking about this and I was like, well, that's a dumb idea. And then I was thinking, I definitely would have argued about this on seven podcasts that, no, no, it's actually Stephon Castle.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  I love this.

• 28:07Bill Simmons?

  I think it's pretty good because the whole point of these awards is you're trying to measure blueprint. So I almost think that's too good of an idea for a half-baked. That's like a fully baked just should be an idea.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Is it, is it named the Scottie Pippen Award?

• 28:20Bill Simmons?

  He named it the Scottie Pippen Award, which would be great. Um, because you know, Scotty, his confidence seems to kind of come and go depending on whether somebody told them that they loved the last dance that week.

• 28:33Bill Simmons?

  If he had his own Scottie Pippen Award, maybe he could let the last dance go. But we have like, you know, the Kev McHale, where the Scottie Pippen, people like that. But then you think like this year, um, there would be an also a funny outcome of if the Celtics won the title again. And it was the finals MVP conversation, but then there's also the Scottie Pippen Award. And maybe the same guy could win most of the votes for both. I don't know. It just feels like there's a lot going on there.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Who would win yours? The only weird thing about the Scottie Pippen award is like I would.

• 29:08Bill Simmons?

  So I think this year Jamal Murray would have won.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Okay, but then with Aaron Gort, okay, then you might as well just go all the way. Just make like a Toni Kukoc third man award, like the Chris Bosch award.

• 29:20Bill Simmons?

  Honestly, not against it.

• 29:24Bill Simmons?

  It sounds like more card for us. Yeah. Best third guy.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  I mean, if you have six.

• 29:30Bill Simmons?

  Six, who's the best fourth guy? Let's keep going.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  I'm the best fifth guy. Like, look, I always thought six was absurd. Because like, all right, like I'm great at, I'm the best, I'm the best fifth guy. So if I was a little bit worse, I mean, I know it's different what a six man does.

• 29:50Bill Simmons?

  I don't love the six because we did, one of the awards we had last night was the 20 minutes a game or less award, which is the true bench guy.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  I like that.

• 29:59Bill Simmons?

  You're basically coming in, you're playing 10 minutes or less each half. And you have to have an impact. So who that, so we said it was Jenkins on Detroit. Cause he plays, not a lot of minutes, but then if you have to start him for 12 games, he can actually come in.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  The Vinnie Johnson Microwave Award?

• 30:16Bill Simmons?

  We have to take a quick break and then we're going to come back more after.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  I like that.

• 30:20Bill Simmons?

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• 31:01Bill Simmons?

  FanDuel.com/BS to claim your special Mulligan Bet Back Token for Augusta. 21 plus select states or 18 plus DC, Kentucky, Wyoming. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut.

• 31:22Bill Simmons?

  All right, coming back, half baked. What else you got?

• 31:25Speaker 01

  This one's very fast. Had to go get tires for my car. They're like, the car is heavy. You need new tires. I'm like, how much is that? And how long? Like, we gotta order the tires. I'm like, I don't know. I see tires all over the place. They're not here. Like, no, you gotta get different tires. We gotta bring them in. It was like a two, day and a half process to get these tires. Not the biggest problem in the world. That being said.

• 31:48Bill Simmons?

  Especially with phones, you can just sit in those uncomfortable chairs, do some texts.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  Drop it off. Look, don't get me wrong. That being said, then we also went to Daytona for the show and a lot of it is the pit stop. And in 10 seconds,

• 32:06Speaker 01

  a NASCAR will get four new tires and a tank of gas in 10 seconds. And I'm not saying you would do this all the time, but it would be a fun option to have a NASCAR mechanic shop, just even for the experience. Oh, you need new, oh, yeah, I need new tires and a tank of gas. And you pull up and you're done in 10 seconds.

• 32:26Bill Simmons?

  But you're paying five times as much money.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Whatever. But it's a great experience. It's a great experience. And you've got the person with the flag and they wave it and there's enough of a runway that you can just speed out with four new tires. It's like, it's not, you're like, well, it's gonna be too popular. With 10 seconds, it's six car, I mean, I have to get it. It's six cars a minute. So we're doing 360 cars in an hour. You, how long can you possibly wait? You get, you put it, you're on the app for the NASCAR pit stop. Oh, honey, where's my time for the car? Oh, I've got to bring it in at nine, 10 and 40 seconds is when my time is. You're there and then speed out.

• 33:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So you'd have to pay way more for the mechanics. But the flip side would be you're destroying every other tire changer place. You just have all the business.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  And look, I'm not, I don't think this idea would land on deaf ears at the NASCAR executive offices as just a marketing.

• 33:29Bill Simmons?

  Sponsored content.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Oh, where you going? NASCAR? Yeah. Oh, my gosh. How important are the tire, new tires?

• 33:37Bill Simmons?

  That's really good.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  Maybe, and we don't, look, we're not getting the best of the best because obviously those guys will be at NASCAR. So it might take 14 seconds, but if it's over 18 seconds, you get your money back.

• 33:47Bill Simmons?

  You know what the name of the place is? Pit Stop.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, that works.

• 33:53Bill Simmons?

  So you going to Pit Stop later? Yeah, I'm going at nine 13 and 32 seconds.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Oh, that's great. I'll see. Oh, just missed you.

• 34:00Bill Simmons?

  I'm going at 58 seconds.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  I'm there nine 12.

• 34:04Bill Simmons?

  Almost exactly the same time. All right, let's see.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Uh, let's do this one.

• 34:12Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  Well, you're gonna want to, you want a food one or do you want a sports one?

• 34:15Bill Simmons?

  I want both.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Let's, let's do, let's do the food one.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  Did the Easter egg hunt?

• 34:23Bill Simmons?

  I have a food one that I can follow up your food one with.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 34:26Bill Simmons?

  The Easter egg hunt.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  We did the Easter egg hunt yesterday.

• 34:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  The kids are a little bit older, but it's just still fun. So they ran around, they found the eggs in the house and they're like, all right. They were a little bit mad that the kids don't like change anymore.

• 34:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  I, I was a huge fan. I found a quarter and an egg. I was thrilled. Found a starburst in the egg. Great. We didn't, they don't want change. So I threw a silver dollar on one of the eggs. That wasn't even a big hit. We didn't have any one dollar bills. We had a few starbursts. There was a handful of empty eggs and they were mad about it. So they were like, you're one, you wouldn't like finding empty eggs. I'm like, I would. So then they hid, they hid the eggs for me and Libby and then we went around and hunted the eggs. And we had a blast.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  And it was one part like we, they wanted to go get the eggs to find the food. And I think it hits on some very primal hunter gatherer part of our brain.

• 35:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  Oh, I actually want to go find the food, even a big shopping, a, a big grocery store. Oh, I gotta go all the way over there. I like it. I don't need everything delivered to me. So it's a restaurant in a large park.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  And you get a plate, like a buffet plate, but it looks like you're just in a park. And of course, there's natural things you can forage.

• 35:52Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Where there's lettuce planted and stuff like that. But there'll also be some just real dishes out there if you want, but there's only one or two of them. Like, oh, you want the, you want the filet? Like, okay, there's, there's one out there. Oh, do you want the Caesar salad? And it's either, there's two ways it goes.

• 36:11Bill Simmons?

  Survivor.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's, so you, but, and it's either, I can't tell if it's better if it's just like golfing. And we're just, it's a buffet in, you know, Central Park. Oh, look at that. You want to grab that? And we're just walking around with our plates. Or it's more hunger, holy shit, it's called Hunger Games.

• 36:29Bill Simmons?

  Hunger Games. You did it. You, you walked right into it.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Or we're just like, we're in three point stances and we're screaming out of the gates to try to find the shrimp cocktail.

• 36:40Bill Simmons?

  Then you, you take it to another level. It's televised and you also have celebrity, celebrity chefs.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:48Bill Simmons?

  So it's like, oh my God.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  You found.

• 36:51Bill Simmons?

  Chang made his slow roasted whatever? And where's that? I gotta find that.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  You're just running around.

• 36:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  And he's, and but he's all, Dave Chang's in camouflage. He's in like one of those hunting blinds. Like, oh, it's weird. It's like a little bit of like paintball. And I think it would be fun.

• 37:07Bill Simmons?

  That's really good. I feel like, I feel like people between ages 15 and 18 would go to that as like the same way they go to escape rooms. You know, it was, oh, we're going to the Hunger Games today?

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Oh, it's great. Oh, there's.

• 37:21Bill Simmons?

  It's pizza night. All kinds of pizzas.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  Oh, he found a pizza. It's so good.

• 37:28Bill Simmons?

  This, uh, this food one is from a listener named Brian Angel. Who wants, uh, basically Uber Eats for your emotional sports state.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  Great.

• 37:40Bill Simmons?

  Example. You're a Boston fan. You sign up for the service. The Pats win the AFC Championship game. Doorbell rings right after the clock hits zero. You open the door, sitting on your porch, a bottle of champagne and some cigars. Or they lose like in the Super Bowl. I don't know if you remember when we lost the Super Bowl and the game was over in like five minutes. Doorbell rings, on your porch is a bottle of tequila, ice cream, and the 2018 Patriots championship DVD. And then during the summer, like with the shitty Red Sox season like we have now, it's a monthly delivery. Almost like when you join a wine club. It's just more beer, it's booze and sadness. So anyway, half baked is his thing.

• 38:25Bill Simmons?

  Uber is for your emotional state.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  I think it's a

• 38:29Bill Simmons?

  There's something there. It's not bad.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  I think it's a, I think it's a solid idea. You could probably get the algorithms to start following people's Facebook feeds too, and just let it open up beyond sports as well.

• 38:41Bill Simmons?

  The problem is, well, if you're in Buffalo and Cleveland, places like that, that you know there's going to be sadness, it would be way easier to stock up on the sad items when we get to like a Josh Allen playoff game.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  The caveat, the only thing I would add, and as long as this is an option, I would like to select, sometimes in these Patriots losses, do you want to feel better or worse? I would click worse a few times. I want to just wallow in it a little bit.

• 39:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  So, oh my, if we lose to the Bills, like I'd like to, I feel worse, uh oh. Here comes a, a plate of Buffalo wings, fresh from the famous Buffalo wings place.

• 39:23Bill Simmons?

  So you can have a good experience with Buffalo.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  But you, it opens it up and it's like, ah, you stink. And like your table breaks somehow, they, like I, I, I'd like to wallow in it a little bit more.

• 39:36Bill Simmons?

  All right. What's your next one?

• 39:40Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 39:43Speaker 01

  Oh, this one's not bad. Did you, OBJ had a great catch in the flag football. Yeah. Fanatics Fest where the pros lost to our USA flag team. And the same as the elderly have to retake their driver's test, or at least they should have to. Some of the older veterans have to go to the combine to just show what actual pros look like in the combine. So I'll see, not just a, not just a pro day, like not just a private workout with OBJ, but like, hey, oh, wow, this wide receiver looks good. Like, well, how does OBJ, who is supposedly washed, air quotes, how does he look? Wow, look at

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Fernando Mendoza. He completed 35 of 37 passes. Like, all right, but how does, you know, Spencer Rattler throw the ball? How does, how does, who's I'm trying to think of, Kenny Pickett? Does he look like Kenny Pickett? I need some sort of baseline for veterans in the combine, but I don't have a real twist on that. That's just a normal idea. No, it's not that fun. Just veteran combine.

• 40:55Bill Simmons?

  I'm trying to figure out how to twist that and I can't.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  I don't think there's a twist to it. I think it's just a, a practical idea snuck in there and I don't think it should really be there. So I'll switch it. I'll just move forward to this next one. We went out to a restaurant and Russell says, the waiter comes over, a great guy. He's just very evocative and he was, the kids loved him. And Russell's like, man, the waiter smells great. I was like, oh, I didn't notice. He was, what about you guys? He's like, yeah, I think it's his mouthwash. I'm like, it's definitely wasn't his, his mouthwash. I think it was just his cologne that you're responding to. But that

• 41:36Speaker 01

  being said, mouthwash flavored cologne. No, the other way around. Cologne flavored, they're sensing stuff via, my kids think everything is mouthwash.

• 41:51Bill Simmons?

  So mouthwash that actually serves the purpose of cologne.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:59Bill Simmons?

  When people are like, oh, nice cologne. You've, you smell freshly groomed, but it's actually coming out of my mouth.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  I had a piece of cinnamon gum. Me, my kids might have very sensitive nasal passages. I was eating cinnamon.

• 42:15Bill Simmons?

  That bad eyesight?

• 42:15Speaker 01

  No, is that a thing?

• 42:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the worse your eyesight is, the other senses heighten. That's why I have good, I have good smell and good hearing because I can't see.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  I don't know that.

• 42:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  The, um, I was having cinnamon gum and they're like, are you wearing cologne? Like, no, they don't make, they don't make cinnamon cologne. This is cinnamon. I'm having this cinnamon gum. Like, oh, it stinks. Like, if they're experiencing mouthwash, again, I don't think you want to swish around some sort of a leather tasting cologne.

• 42:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't know how that would. It's a really good half-baked because I don't know if you'd want a cologne taste in your mouth. But leaving your mouth, you'd want it.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  That's all I'm saying. I don't want it to always smell like mint. No one's like, wow, that guy smells great. It smells like mint. No one likes that. Oh, wow. He smells like leathery tobacco.

• 43:03Bill Simmons?

  I have two, I have two small half-bakes, family related, not, not from listeners, from me. Since you're talking family. One, do you do the thing where you take a picture of like you and your wife or your wife? You mail it to somebody and then they get mad that you didn't clear sending the picture out with them in it first? Does your wife do that?

• 43:26Speaker 01

  It may have happened to me once a decade ago, so I don't have any recent experience with that. I know to always clear it.

• 43:35Bill Simmons?

  But that's kind of annoying, right? That every time you just be like, is this okay? Can I send this to dad?

• 43:41Speaker 01

  I do an automatic delete on stuff that's, I'll send a picture where I look bad and my wife looks great as.

• 43:49Bill Simmons?

  Well, how about this? Can we take it out of both of your hands? Could there be a third party photo clearance? Where you just send it to somebody and somebody gives you immediate 10 seconds later, like, that one's good. You both look great. And now it's like, well, we're paying the service. They told me the photo looked good. And they're just constantly green stamping everything. And now it's out of your hands. Because sometimes you'll be like, I don't like that photo. And it's like, well, I look really good in that photo and you look okay.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:20Bill Simmons?

  So can't that, can't that? You know, but you're always gonna like down the photo that you don't look perfect then. So now we have a third party.

• 44:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like an arbitrator, basically.

• 44:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, photo arbitrator. That's one. Then the other one, my, uh, my daughter went out for Easter lunch yesterday with my dad who drove. And on the way home, my dad started driving down a one-way street because he's seventy-eight for a split second. And then realized and had to back up. And I was thinking, we all have these stories about our parents as they get older. And soon we'll be those parents.

• 44:53Bill Simmons?

  Is there some sort of, some sort of race that could happen? Like, what's that, what's that race in the streets, Le Mans? When they're going through like Paris? Could, would you watch old people racing with each other? They were like heavily protected.

• 45:10Speaker 01

  Are they in vehicles?

• 45:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they're in vehicles.

• 45:14Bill Simmons?

  It's, everybody's seventy-eight years old and up.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Just like a, a senior tour of.

• 45:21Bill Simmons?

  Senior, it's really a senior tour. It's a senior tour with people like, and if you can't win, you don't get to keep your license.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  She wins.

• 45:29Bill Simmons?

  There's some, there's some real stakes. This is the race you have to win to keep your driver's license for two more years. But the cars are heavily protected. They're like, even if there's an accident, nobody's gonna get hurt.

• 45:42Speaker 01

  Flip it, of course. It's got a roll cage on it and everything.

• 45:45Bill Simmons?

  They're really in there. That's why it's a half-baked. I didn't figure out the part if there's a bad accident. What would happen, anyway?

• 45:52Speaker 01

  There's plenty of, there's a few one-way streets near me. Where, it's not one-way, but it's like when you get on a highway and there's two, it's like a curving highway. And the sign screams, wrong way. But it's facing the, it's for the other lane.

• 46:07Bill Simmons?

  Get confused.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  And I have a moment of like, ah! And I'm like looking around.

• 46:11Bill Simmons?

  Connecticut's, Connecticut's really bad with that, especially at night. And then Boston will just have these one-way streets out of nowhere.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  No.

• 46:19Bill Simmons?

  Like where you're going down a street and all of a sudden it's, that's it. You can't.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  No, you gotta put the, you gotta put those spikes up.

• 46:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  Those rental car spikes so you can only go one way. All right, mouthwash clones, we did casual Friday. That's a stupid idea. I don't even like, all right, this one is.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  That's on stupid too.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  I need a, I need a title for this one. I'm calling it lifetime learner.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  So my kids are

• 46:50Speaker 01

  in going into high school, going into high school and middle school, they feel a certain amount of pressure to do well on their tests. Yeah. And occasionally they'll have the classic youthful breakdown of why do I even need to know this stuff? Yeah. Like, and you know, every, I remember saying that and you, you come up with some convoluted answer like, well, if you know, if you ever want to be a businessman or then sometimes I go the other way and it was abstractly like, well, actually learning is part of, is the destination, not the journey. Yes. It's just, so then they'll talk, start telling me about stuff that they're learning

• 47:32Speaker 01

  out of the blue. And like, this is actually fascinating what you're learning, like either, either parts of American history or parts of global history that I currently am not learning. I'm sort of locked in the sports world and then I'm also just following my own interests. Yeah. But maybe I want new interests and they're like, well, you can sign up for any class, but I don't know what classes I want. I'm, I'm kind of a fully formed person. I want the pressure. Right. So I want someone to come in with real stakes. Like if, if Russell doesn't do well on a test, it's, it's not probably the healthiest thing in the world. So we try to balance it.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  But he starts thinking about like, you know, my grades and college and we try to balance it. But I need those stakes on me. So if we're out to eat and like, hey, you want to, you know, go to the bar. I'm like, Phil, I gotta go dude. I gotta study about the pyramids or my tax rate goes up. My taxes going into, you know, I'm gonna lose a bunch of money. I need real stakes to force me to learn something I'm not currently interested in.

• 48:41Bill Simmons?

  But you already have, oh yeah, cuz you have those stakes doing a daily show. But you don't wanna seem like an asshole cuz you didn't know what's going on with football.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  No, but I like sports. I wanna learn about, I would like someone to come in and be like, you know what, we gotta learn about grasshoppers. I'm like, oh, why do we gotta learn about this? And tests on grass, you better know what these things are. You better know about their mating habits and.

• 49:07Bill Simmons?

  So like art, art history.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  I need, I'll never learn it. I will, I will never learn it. I need someone, you're like, we'll sign up for a class. I won't go to the class. I need.

• 49:18Bill Simmons?

  What are the stakes of the class? So what would the state, the reason this is a half baked idea? What would the stakes actually be to get you to care?

• 49:25Speaker 01

  I, financial punishment. I mean, I think physical punishment is too weird, but it's gotta be, you know, the care in this.

• 49:30Bill Simmons?

  Physical punishment, what the hell?

• 49:33Speaker 01

  Well, that's what I'm saying. It has to be a financial, has to be a financial punishment.

• 49:37Bill Simmons?

  You have to, you have to lose something that you care about that you currently own. It's like, oh, my Tom Brady 2000 rookie football card. If I don't get a B plus in this class, I have to give that card to somebody else.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  It has to force me to study.

• 49:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  And at the end of three months, I'd be like, oh yeah, I know all about art history. I know all about

• 50:00Speaker 01

  erosion. I don't even know what I wanna learn about.

• 50:02Bill Simmons?

  That's pretty good.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  I don't wanna learn what I think I need to learn. I wanna learn something random.

• 50:06Bill Simmons?

  You have to sacrifice something, but then if you get like a B plus, A minus or above, you actually get something. Like you, you're like, I love, I love cards. No, I think you get a prize too. Yeah, we're a prize, prize driven country right now. Hear about prizes all the time.

• 50:23Speaker 01

  A prize.

• 50:27Bill Simmons?

  You want to do a couple of listener ones really fast?

• 50:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, go.

• 50:31Bill Simmons?

  Nick from Chicago is really encouraged by Nathan for you. How Nathan, when he does something, he's all in rehearsing every single aspect of it. And he wants to know what would happen if Steve Ballmer, before the playoffs, he took all the people that were going to go to the Clippers game, and they secretly rehearsed all of these different chants and things they were going to do during the game. Nobody knew it was happening. And then the Spurs come in for game three, and the game's about to start, and the Clipper fans are all aligned, doing some sort of crazy fan thing. They're trying to mess with this. They've studied the Spurs, they have chants for individual guys, all things that would fuck with the Spurs in a gentlemanly way, not in a harassing way.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 51:18Bill Simmons?

  Half-baked idea, I just like the idea of an owner trying to orchestrate that somehow in silence. Because Nathan Fielder learned how to be, how to fly a commercial jet in silence.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  It doesn't seem to be that.

• 51:35Bill Simmons?

  He could do it with that wall thing he has, but I don't feel like that could affect the game that much. Anyway, that was one.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  It's really more, are we willing to have flares? For some reason, and this goes back to the first half-baked idea about what's going on in Europe and different rules. They're big on flares.

• 51:54Bill Simmons?

  I don't understand that. I'm anti-flares.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  I am too, in general. Like, well, look at the stadium, it's like, it's like a huge sparkler, I guess, as long as no one gets hurt.

• 52:05Bill Simmons?

  Jordan, Jordan G. wants to know why speech karaoke can't be a thing. Instead of giving, instead of giving a song, have you had this one?

• 52:18Speaker 01

  I've done, I think I did like stand-up comedy cover songs, but this is close.

• 52:23Bill Simmons?

  That you just like, everybody goes up and they give, he's like, I'm gonna give the Gettysburg dress it out in front of their friends.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  You give the Miracle on Ice karaoke.

• 52:35Bill Simmons?

  I'm not, I didn't like that one.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  I like, I like that one.

• 52:38Bill Simmons?

  Eh, he had a better one.

• 52:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 52:40Bill Simmons?

  It's an eating, it's an eating competition, like we have at the 4th of July hot dog contest. But everyone's on a Zempic and they've been taking a Zempic for two months. And then, and then they have to eat hot dogs, but they're not hungry because they're taking a Zempic.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  No.

• 52:58Bill Simmons?

  What happens? How many, how many could they get to?

• 53:02Speaker 01

  I thought speech, I thought speech karaoke was much better.

• 53:05Bill Simmons?

  Alright, speech karaoke. And then I did this one with House. I don't know if you heard, but we, we, we had a listener talking about anesthesiology and anesthesiology bars and whether, I didn't know if you had a take on that.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  Well, outside of horribly dangerous.

• 53:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  But you go totally under?

• 53:30Bill Simmons?

  And you can do it for as long as you want. So the idea was, alright, I'm gonna get to the airport five hours early for my flight to get through TSA and then I'll have three hours to kill. I'll just go to the anesthesiology bar and get knocked out.

• 53:47Bill Simmons?

  Cause, cause, cause the theory.

• 53:51Speaker 01

  It's just like, it just, I mean.

• 53:55Bill Simmons?

  And then you could just do this and House was all in it because House said that there's nothing has made him happier than getting knocked out for his colonoscopy. That he went into this dreamlike state and he loved it and he would do it again.

• 54:06Speaker 01

  Yes, that's, that was the other half baked idea, but I don't think doing it for three hours. Did you watch, did you see Hail Mary?

• 54:15Bill Simmons?

  I didn't see it.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  Oh, it's good.

• 54:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  It's good, but you know, the premise, like Ryan Gosling wakes up after, you know, he's, he's been out for a while.

• 54:23Bill Simmons?

  And it happens in these movies, it's always comes out great for the person who wakes up.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, they always have like a long beard. That's always one of the first things, like, I gotta get rid of this beard. Ryan got too handsome.

• 54:34Bill Simmons?

  Any last half bakes?

• 54:38Bill Simmons?

  Are we done?

• 54:40Speaker 01

  I'll just fly, I'll just, I'll go, these are the three quick ones, ready? Rapid fire.

• 54:45Bill Simmons?

  Rapid fire or half baked?

• 54:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Rapid fire. One, casual Friday in the NBA. Look, everybody's got uniforms on. Casual Friday, just wear a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. It's like casual Friday, watch the games. Hey, you guys wear just kind of lightly colored T-shirts. Where we're darker colored T-shirts, but just your own shorts, whatever you want. It feels more pick up.

• 55:05Bill Simmons?

  I think they should do that for the tanking games when, when the season's over for both teams. Like just make it a casual Friday.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  Hey, just wear any T-shirts that you find. Number two, another karaoke thing. I was in a, trying to listen to Bob Seger. I didn't know the words and I, I wanted to really sing, just like how there's warnings on your car. The words are right there on your screen. So you can sing along to a song that you don't know while you're in the car by yourself. Finally.

• 55:33Bill Simmons?

  That sounds more dangerous than my senior citizen.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  No, it's just, you can, but it's, but it's.

• 55:38Bill Simmons?

  It's in the windshield?

• 55:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's transparent.

• 55:41Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 55:42Speaker 01

  Wild bird mix, can I attract other animals other than just specific types of birds? Hawks, coyotes, fox. I wouldn't mind a mountain lion. What do I need to put out there? Finally, this is a little bit of your sports czar classic. The, you know, the, the godfather of, of half baked ideas where you just wanted to be a government official in charge of all sports.

• 56:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 56:05Speaker 01

  This is a little bit of, and this is a little bit, you used to talk about your wife, how she would pick up on,

• 56:12Speaker 01

  you know, emotional, social cues from teams while you guys were watching the game. About the Luca's injury and Austin Reeves injury where JJ is now saying, oh, you know what? They were, I, we had talked to the medical experts. They were cleared, you know, Austin, he was cleared too. Just a regular guy who's barely paying attention is on the staff. You're like, nah, I don't know, man. We're down 30.

• 56:39Bill Simmons?

  The VP of Common Sense.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 56:41Bill Simmons?

  Get him out. OK, he's gonna kill us.

• 56:44Speaker 01

  We're down 30, bro. Like, I saw him grab his hamstring. He heard it earlier. So like, he shouldn't play. And Austin, he said it was his back, but like, nah, dude, we're down 30. Let Ronnie get some run. That's it. The whole season, it's a billion dollar franchise. Like, well, the doctors cleared him. Too much. There's a guy, when I walk, when I walk my dog, walk around, and they have a big screen TV. Whatever that person is watching is the number one show in America. You'll watch football, basketball. I'm like, that, the State of the Union, like, that is the number one hit. Like, this, I don't know what the person does. They should be hired by, they should be a media executive. Just like, yeah, I like that. That'll work. I'm the common sense.

• 57:31Speaker 01

  That's all that.

• 57:31Bill Simmons?

  This is great. How are we feeling about the Pats?

• 57:35Speaker 01

  The Patriots, I feel great.

• 57:36Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  The Red Sox, I feel terrible. UConn, even though we're taping this on Monday, I feel great. And Celtics, I feel great. So I don't follow hockey.

• 57:45Bill Simmons?

  The Celtics thing has been amazing.

• 57:48Speaker 01

  Tatum.

• 57:48Bill Simmons?

  It's been amazing. It's been like a gift from the gods.

• 57:51Speaker 01

  I was so nervous about Tatum because I think I'm a bit of a Achilles baby, but he's just great. I'm happy for him. And Jalen's playing great. So I'm just thrilled.

• 58:02Bill Simmons?

  I'm happy for everybody. I really like watching the team. I like the coach. I like all the guys on it. It's been a home run. I give this season an A plus.

• 58:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 58:12Bill Simmons?

  It's been an A plus season. They're gonna win like 56, 57 games. Tatum looks like Tatum again. It's like, whatever happened at MSG almost a year ago, it's, it's like just this ugly, blurry memory that almost feels like it didn't happen now. It's great.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  Are you in bonus territory? Like, I felt like I was in bonus territory with the Patriots.

• 58:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, cuz they weren't a Super Bowl team. It was amazing. They made the Super Bowl. Right? I think all of us were like, wow, this is amazing.

• 58:40Speaker 01

  But you're not there with the Celtics. You're like.

• 58:42Bill Simmons?

  I think Celtics can win the title.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm so I'm in I'm in a little bit of bonus territory with the Celtics. Like Jalen tweeted like 50 wins in a gap year or an off year or whatever he tweeted. I think I'm I'm in bonus territory. Like this would be a championship you steal.

• 58:57Bill Simmons?

  The thing is, I I wouldn't have totally believed if it wasn't for those games in San Antonio and OKC that week. Where in one of the games, they didn't have Tatum. And then the other one, Jalen got thrown out, but I just felt I felt like they handled the speed and athleticism of both of those teams in a way that I don't think a lot of teams can. I think really only Denver can, maybe Minnesota. Um, but um, I just felt they they seemed comfortable in those games. That would also be the reason if you're a Knicks fan. You beat the Spurs and you hung with OKC twice when you played them. It's like, at least at least we seem like we belong in games like this. I think that's how you have to think. The Celtics belong in games like that.

• 59:40Speaker 01

  That's right. I believe in the Knicks. I believe in playoff Jalen Brunson. I feel like they're sleeping.

• 59:46Bill Simmons?

  I'm not as much of a believer, but.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  No one believes in them. No one believes.

• 59:50Bill Simmons?

  They haven't really given anyone a reason, though.

• 59:52Speaker 01

  I just believe I think it's I think it's a little bit of a flip the switch team.

• 59:56Bill Simmons?

  What's Nick writes chief state of mind right now?

• 59:59Speaker 01

  Very good. Yeah, two draft, two first round picks. Shore up the defense, Patrick Mahomes posting videos of him running around. He's ahead of schedule. Kelsey back.

• 1:00:10Bill Simmons?

  Has anyone been behind schedule after a major surgery in the last six years?

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  Only Brandon Iuk. He's the only one.

• 1:00:18Bill Simmons?

  That's it.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  He's the everyone is ahead of schedule.

• 1:00:22Bill Simmons?

  Everyone's like feeling great and way ahead and wow, we can't believe the progress except for him.

• 1:00:27Speaker 01

  I think I think the medical community did with athletes did something like the airlines are like, you know what? We're tired of being late. Just say every flight that takes five hours, six, five and a half hours. Like, hey, good news, an early arrival. Yeah, gonna get you there. Like, we're actually 25 minutes late.

• 1:00:44Bill Simmons?

  We never did a Masters halfback, by the way, but I guess we just forgot.

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  Do we usually do that?

• 1:00:50Bill Simmons?

  No, it's just the Masters are this week.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:00:53Bill Simmons?

  I mean, the only hat pick with that is just the best part of the Masters is you have to give away your phone and have human interactions with people. And maybe that's just an event that people should just do. It's like a festival. Like instead of Fanatics Fest, it's just like, give up your phone and talk to human beings, make some new friends fest. Kevin Wilds, I think my favorite was the, was you tapping into the embassies. I think you really cracked something with that. I want to find out more. I'm going to Google it tonight. Great to see you. You can watch Kevin on First Things First. Say hi to the gang for me. Great to see you, my buddy.

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  Seeing you.

• 1:01:27Bill Simmons?

  All right. As you know, I love betting golf majors on FanDuel. FanDuel, a brand I trust, easy to build. Buy bet, you know you're going to get your winnings instantly. And in the NBA last week,

• 1:01:40Bill Simmons?

  for my Wednesday bet, we rode Victor Wembanyama to a massive, almost nine to one same game parlay. Thirty-five plus points, fourteen plus rebounds, Spurs to win. It hit. So this is gravy. Like I, maybe I'm on a hot streak, but we came through last week, made it to keep going. I think in Augusta, I'm looking at Justin Rose, twenty-seven to one, following the advice of esteemed Hollywood agent, James Baby Doll Dixon. We both like Justin Rose. Something about it. If he's ever going to win at Augusta ever again, it's gotta be right around now because he's getting older. So there you go. Be sure to check out all the Ringer specials from House and Nathan and everybody else on the FanDuel Sportsbook app. Prior to the tournament, don't forget to use

• 1:02:24Bill Simmons?

  your Mollga Boost token. So you have a chance to take another swing if your bet's not looking good. FanDuel, play your game.

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• 1:03:31Bill Simmons?

  Nathan Hubbard is here. He hosts Fairway Roll with Joe House. He also hosts every single album, a fantastic pop culture music podcast. We went to the Masters. Three of the last four years, we didn't go this year. I didn't care that I didn't go, but now it's Tuesday and I feel sad.

• 1:03:47Speaker 04

  I do too.

• 1:03:48Bill Simmons?

  I wish we.

• 1:03:49Speaker 04

  I do too.

• 1:03:49Bill Simmons?

  I miss the eating. I miss the not sleeping. I miss not having my phone for three days. I miss the walking. And I miss some of the storylines. And there are some good ones this year, even though we don't have Tiger. Scottie Scheffler, people, there's no conversations left to be had. Rory already won the Masters, so we have the biggest one. What's the biggest story left for you? What's the biggest Masters story we have right now?

• 1:04:15Speaker 04

  I think it's what you just said, which is that for, since 2022, coming into the Masters, we've had a dominant player who kicked ass in the first three months of the year and walked into the Masters and won it. In 22, it was Scottie. Then Rom walked in in 23 and took finally, you know, the Masters as a Spaniard. Scottie again in 24. And last year, Rory won the Players. He won at Pebble and came in and broke through. This year, we just don't have a dominant player. There have been classy winners. We've had Morikawa, Scottie's got one, Justin Rose has won, Cam Young has won. Statistically, we have more elite players entering this tournament than at any time since 2004.

• 1:04:57Speaker 04

  And so when you couple that with the fact that a bunch of the best guys are coming in on more rest than ever, all 11 of the last 11 Masters winners have not had more than one week of rest. And there's guys coming in with two, three, even four weeks of rest. Scottie, we haven't seen since the Players. He's got a new baby. So all of that together.

• 1:05:17Bill Simmons?

  Good timing.

• 1:05:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, great job.

• 1:05:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:19Speaker 04

  The kid's nine days old. Yeah, I think he did look at the calendar because he managed to sneak it in with 10 days to spare. But I think the story is that with no Tiger and no Phil for the first time since 1994, there's a possibility that we get one of those randoms this year. We get a Charles Schwartzel or a Danny Willett because we just don't have a dominant, he's the man going to come grab the crown this year.

• 1:05:45Bill Simmons?

  That's a really professional answer. There's a lot of podcast reps for you. I felt like I was hosting SportsCenter.

• 1:05:52Speaker 04

  I mean, we got to deliver something on fairway rolls.

• 1:05:55Bill Simmons?

  But what's the sexy story that's left? Because I have an idea for one, but I don't, I want to see if you had the same idea.

• 1:06:03Speaker 04

  I, you, you tell me. I mean, there's, there's one.

• 1:06:06Bill Simmons?

  No, just give me one. Just give me the, what you think is like the one that would get the gallery the most intrigued.

• 1:06:13Speaker 04

  There, I, it's Bryson DeChambeau winning. I, he's the most popular golfer on the planet. He's finished two, you know, top 10s here. He's got second places at the last two PGA's, but he's secretly really struggled in final rounds. Even that 2024 US Open that he won, that's part of the Rory McIlroy narrative arc. Like Rory gave him that. And he's won the last two live events. Walking off that green on the last live event where he beat Jon Rahm, who statistically has been the best player over the last three months. He was in tears. Something's going on in Bryson's personal life that he doesn't want to talk about publicly. But for all of his sort of head games and most of golf is like 90% between the ears.

• 1:06:59Speaker 04

  If Bryson has something going on outside that sort of focuses him as the most popular golfer on the course and really candidly on the planet, Bryson coming in and actually getting this win, he kind of belongs in that player's dinner room, doesn't he?

• 1:07:14Bill Simmons?

  He's more popular than Rory, like for these next four days. I think, I just think Rory's still, even though he won, Rory's still the most popular. Rory going back to back, I think people would root for that over Bryson.

• 1:07:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's only happened three times. And in fact, like in the last 20 years, like only like three guys have finished in the top 10 while defending. It's just so hard. Rory's already on site. I think, you know, you listen to him, he's still processing. Last year, it was definitely, it goes down as one of the all time classics, right? That Tiger in 2019, Tiger in 97, Jack in 86, I think are the four biggest Masters moments, certainly of our generation. And so I, it's just a lot of work to defend and host and it's hard to go back to back.

• 1:07:58Bill Simmons?

  Norman blowing it. I put Norman in there too, even though he lost.

• 1:08:01Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 1:08:03Bill Simmons?

  I don't have Rory on my list. So the two, I think Rory going back to back and Bryson winning are the two biggest possible outcomes for Sunday.

• 1:08:15Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:08:16Bill Simmons?

  Sneaky one is Fleetwood, who if you're just talking about, um, somebody who has been in the WWE for 15 years, but never actually got to hold the belt. He's never really held the belt. What does he have? He has eight top 10s and majors. Even last year, when he was trying to get off the hump of PGA titles, I forget what, what city that was, but he finally.

• 1:08:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, he won in Atlanta.

• 1:08:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he seemed like he was gonna choke and then in the, you know, last couple of holes rallied back and that was fun. But, um, to me, he's like the most talented, and again, this is casual golf fan Bill, but the most talented guy who doesn't seem like he has one of these. So that was one. Um, but we know he's gonna choke, so it's not, not even gonna talk about. I know he's not gonna come through.

• 1:09:01Speaker 04

  Only five guys have ever won the Masters with one or fewer PGA Tour wins. He's coming in with top 10s in four of his last five starts. He's still playing well after he won the Tour Championship. He's, it seemed like it took him to the next level. Problem for Tommy is that his putting numbers right now are not awesome. He's 120th on tour in putting and they're talking this week because I mean, the last couple of years, you and I've been down that you remember the weather that we've had. We've had a lot of rain and I think that's secretly made the course a little bit easier for some guys. This year, the weather's perfect. They've had a dry winter and spring. Sounds like the, the green jackets are tired of nine straight years of double digit below par victories and that they might flex the muscle of the course and make it a little bit faster this year. So for putters who aren't putting well, could be a little bit of a struggle

• 1:09:46Speaker 04

  this year.

• 1:09:49Bill Simmons?

  So, uh, Ludwig.

• 1:09:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:53Bill Simmons?

  Second in 2024, seventh last year.

• 1:09:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:57Bill Simmons?

  Him winning and putting himself on the map, I think, would be interesting, but he seems like too sexy of a pick.

• 1:10:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:04Bill Simmons?

  That's the one a lot of people are pointing to. He doesn't have the best odds, but he's like in the top eight for odds and it's just fun to be like, it's his time. So I am also automatically disqualifying him.

• 1:10:16Speaker 04

  I, there, there's no doubt that he's gonna win one of these, but he's shown us some colors over the last month and even last year. So he's coming in with a T3, a T5 and a T5. He had the Players Championship in his hands and he choked it on the back nine. There's just no denying it. On Sunday, this past week in San Antonio, he had a real opportunity to go win and he had another mediocre Sunday. And when you rewind to last year, you sort of forget it. He was briefly tied with Rose and Rory on the back last year. He finished bogey, triple bogey.

• 1:10:51Bill Simmons?

  Who?

• 1:10:51Speaker 04

  And ended up falling down. So there is, when we talk about a little bit of that scar tissue, he's got quietly a little bit of that scar tissue, but you're exactly right. You know, he's 26 years old of the generation that's just a shade below 32-year-old Bryson, 31-year-old, uh, you know, Rahm, 29-year-old Scottie. That, that's the guy and it's just a question of when, not if.

• 1:11:16Bill Simmons?

  Morikawa, little bit 31 to one on Fanduel, but a little bit somewhere like, kinda needs a moment.

• 1:11:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:11:24Bill Simmons?

  We've been waiting, we've been waiting. I don't trust him either. I wouldn't bet that.

• 1:11:27Speaker 04

  Well, you shouldn't right now because he was the consensus guy at the Players and he was, he had the best iron play on tour in the first start of the year. And, you know, Augusta is the, you know, the second shot golf course on tour, right? You, you've got to be able to hit your irons well. He takes a practice swing on his second hole. He's got all of the handle on him at, at the Players. Takes a practice swing on his second hole and throws out his back.

• 1:11:52Bill Simmons?

  Hmm.

• 1:11:52Speaker 04

  He hasn't played since and we've gotten some intel on the ground that he did a, he did a practice round yesterday with Scheffler and a couple of other guys, but he was mostly just chipping and putting. He's withdrawn from the last couple of events. He's not healthy. You should not trust Morikawa this week.

• 1:12:08Bill Simmons?

  And Patrick Reed, 43 to one. Hometown kid, already has one. It's always fun when he's involved because it's like you get like a little mini villain coming in.

• 1:12:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:12:20Bill Simmons?

  And, uh, and coming back from live, I don't know. Forty-three to one seemed like decent odds. I would embed it because it's not fun to root for him.

• 1:12:27Speaker 04

  No, but I like him as like a first round leader. I mean, there is a real redemption arc with Patrick Reed coming back now. He, he left live, ripped off a couple of wins and a second place on the Euro Tour. And suddenly like you forget last year, he statistically was second in ball striking at the Masters behind Rory McIlroy. So he, he's actually sneaky playing very, very well. And, and that dovetails into, I mean, you tell me, I,

• 1:12:54Bill Simmons?

  Thirty to one for first round leader.

• 1:12:57Speaker 04

  I, I, I don't hate it in the same way that Brooks Koepka, I bet you get better odds there. Koepka, his fellow sort of live defector was second on the PGA Tour in approach play.

• 1:13:10Bill Simmons?

  Thirty to one.

• 1:13:10Speaker 04

  Until Houston. Yeah. I mean, Brooks's problem has been the putter, but he came back specifically to prep for these events. I think when Rory won last year, it, it really triggered a lot of those live guys to consider what was happening. At that point, you had sort of the undisputed best players in the world were Scottie and Rory, right? Scottie won two majors last year. And I think for these guys who really all that's left in their thirties is to win majors. They decided that the PGA Tour was the place to be. And both of those guys quietly have been playing really, really great golf.

• 1:13:43Bill Simmons?

  Here's who I'm picking and betting on.

• 1:13:46Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:13:48Bill Simmons?

  He's 45 years old.

• 1:13:50Speaker 04

  Oh my goodness.

• 1:13:51Bill Simmons?

  It's his 21st Masters.

• 1:13:53Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 1:13:54Bill Simmons?

  He's a three time runner up.

• 1:13:56Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:13:58Bill Simmons?

  He won the 2025 US Open. He won in Torrey Pines in February.

• 1:14:03Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:14:03Bill Simmons?

  He finished 13th at the Players.

• 1:14:06Speaker 04

  He won the 2013 US Open.

• 1:14:09Bill Simmons?

  He is the most fun. He didn't win the 25, I'm, I'm blanking. He won the 2013 US Open. I don't know why I wrote down 2025.

• 1:14:20Speaker 04

  Most fun.

• 1:14:22Bill Simmons?

  He's the most fun old guy story left. You need the old guy, mid forties, 45. I can identify with this. I'm old and you're old. It's like, look at this old guy battling these young pups. Um, 35 to one odds for Justin Rose.

• 1:14:39Speaker 04

  I mean,

• 1:14:40Bill Simmons?

  it jumped out at me. Baby Doll, esteemed esteemed agent slash manager, James Baby Doll Dixon.

• 1:14:46Speaker 04

  Also old guy.

• 1:14:47Bill Simmons?

  This is the one he targeted as well.

• 1:14:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:49Bill Simmons?

  I like the 45, 46 range. I was like, this is my last stand.

• 1:14:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:54Bill Simmons?

  If it doesn't happen now, once I hit 47, 48, 49, the the math is just against me. But 45, 46, still doable. So I think I, the Tiger, I have to do it this year. It's wide open. There's no awesome. There's no awesome golfer right now.

• 1:15:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:11Bill Simmons?

  This is a wide open field. I have some confidence. I'm in the mix with some of these things. Why not?

• 1:15:17Speaker 04

  I think it's a great call out. I mean, he is now averaging the most strokes gained approach. Uh, more strokes gained approach than at any other time in his career, more than when he won the US Open in 2013. And we've just watched him make putts so many times in so many clutch situations at the Ryder Cup. He was dominant at Torrey Pines this year. Now, he's missed a fair number of cuts, but I think to your point, he doesn't give a shit about the week in, week out tournament. All he's trying to do is go win a major. And he handled the the loss in the playoff last year with so much class that it does feel like he's due. It's a little bit like that when Sergio won uh in 2017, right? It it it just felt like it was his time and maybe he was due.

• 1:16:01Bill Simmons?

  So the thinking is it's a now or never tournament for him.

• 1:16:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:16:07Bill Simmons?

  We know he's clutch because we see it in the rider.

• 1:16:10Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 1:16:11Bill Simmons?

  Like he, he has it in him. It's I don't have to worry about like a Tommy Fleetwood situation where I'm up three on the 12th hole and then all of a sudden something's going in the water.

• 1:16:20Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:16:20Bill Simmons?

  And I also don't, who is he fearing? If there's anyone out there? I like 45. That's right where like when Nicholas won in the Masters in 86, I think he was 46.

• 1:16:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, correct.

• 1:16:31Bill Simmons?

  And that seemed ancient. But now 45 is like 39 in 1986. I feel like that's like late 30s, 40 years ago.

• 1:16:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, and the only comparable potential old guy would be an Adam Scott, but Justin Rose is playing better golf.

• 1:16:46Bill Simmons?

  I have him down too. Adam Scott, 70 to 1, 45 years old, and apparently second best guy with the irons in 2026 so far. Need the irons at Augusta.

• 1:16:57Speaker 04

  That's what you need. He finished fourth at Riviera and there's a lot of similarities between guys who win at Riviera and guys who won at the Masters. Now Tiger obviously never won at Riviera, but Scott showing his stuff at Riviera made our eyebrows go up. I like him actually as a potential first round leader just because he's had those moments on this course. And it's him or Angel Cabrera, fresh out of the slammer.

• 1:17:25Bill Simmons?

  75-year-old Angel?

• 1:17:29Speaker 04

  Or Vijay. Vijay actually showed out in Hawaii at the beginning of the year and played decently well. So I could see Vijay as a make the cut bet this year.

• 1:17:39Bill Simmons?

  I like the Adam Scott, Justin Rose battling in the finals. Two old guys as the announcers just go nuts. One other one that jumped out to me just because of the odds, Harris English is 100 to 1.

• 1:17:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's been really struggling with both his approach play and his putting this year.

• 1:17:57Bill Simmons?

  But where's he from?

• 1:17:59Speaker 04

  He's from, yeah, okay, fair.

• 1:18:02Bill Simmons?

  From Georgia? Yeah. Had success last year, but because he's been struggling, the odds are crazy, 100 to 1. But I don't know, I like, when the people are from Georgia, I always do feel like that's like a little bit of a something. Like if you're ever going to get your shit together, it would be in your home state course, you know?

• 1:18:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, with that in mind, you might, you might look at Jacob Ridgman, who won a golf tournament earlier this year and has actually been at the top of the FedEx Cup standings in the beginning part of the year. He's kind of an unknown, but who has just surged to a ton of success, basically because he's the best putter on the PGA Tour. Went to Clemson, so he's not far. Far from Georgia and certainly from a regional perspective understands that golf. Now, first time winners, you know, the last 16, we haven't had a first time winner since Fuzzy Zeller. So these guys don't tend to win, but you know, from a top 10, top 20 standpoint, Jacob Bridgeman is just that guy right now and worth taking a look at.

• 1:19:02Bill Simmons?

  Eighty to one.

• 1:19:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:19:05Bill Simmons?

  Pretty good.

• 1:19:05Speaker 04

  I mean, there's a couple of other guys that you got to pay attention to and, and you talked about Harris English. My concern for Harris is that he had like a Jordan Spieth 2016 at the Masters moment, except his was at Bethpage at the Ryder Cup where he just really, really struggled. He and Morikawa were a pairing that fans got down on and they didn't play well. And it sort of started the unraveling of, of the US team. Not clear to me that, that he's recovered from that, but the guy who was sort of the dog at Bethpage for the US was Cam Young, right? He got that breakthrough win in the last regular season event. He really is, and, and he's tied for fifth in most top 10s at majors. He's got six top 10s since 2022.

• 1:19:48Speaker 04

  That's only behind Scottie, Rory, Xander, Bryson and Rahm, all of whom have won. So, you know, he's finished T9, he's finished T7 here. He's shown that he can do it and the game, you know, the last time we saw him was at the Players Championship. In the last two years, Rory and Scottie both won the Players and then went on to win the Masters. Cam Young just won the Players, so he's a, he's a very interesting pick this week.

• 1:20:13Bill Simmons?

  I'm like a six on the Masters this year.

• 1:20:16Speaker 04

  Really?

• 1:20:16Bill Simmons?

  I mean, I love the Masters every year. I'm just saying there, like no, I got, really had my hopes up for Tiger. House and I talked about it last week.

• 1:20:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:20:25Bill Simmons?

  All the, all the little smoke signals that were coming out that he was going to play. I really like to the point where we were like, should we go? Should we try to rally last minute?

• 1:20:35Bill Simmons?

  That combined with the Rory thing being a year after the Rory thing. I think there's something with golf majors where when there's like a spectacular generational tournament, it always feels like the next year sucks.

• 1:20:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:20:49Bill Simmons?

  I don't know why that is.

• 1:20:50Speaker 04

  There's a definite letdown possibility here for sure.

• 1:20:53Bill Simmons?

  The weather I think is going to be weird.

• 1:20:56Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 1:20:57Bill Simmons?

  That's the one thing we don't have to worry about.

• 1:21:00Speaker 04

  Okay, we've talked ourselves out of it just in the course of 15 minutes.

• 1:21:04Bill Simmons?

  Coachella, really quick.

• 1:21:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:21:08Bill Simmons?

  Still happening, apparently.

• 1:21:10Speaker 04

  It is.

• 1:21:11Bill Simmons?

  My, my son is apparently going this year.

• 1:21:14Speaker 04

  Oh, boy. Would you ever go to Coachella? You just can't. The crowds are too much for you.

• 1:21:20Bill Simmons?

  I told you, it's, it checks all the boxes I have for things I wouldn't want to do.

• 1:21:26Bill Simmons?

  It's a long car ride.

• 1:21:27Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:21:28Bill Simmons?

  You have to like plan way ahead on where you're staying. It's large groups of people and all kinds of possibilities for getting COVID again, all these different things.

• 1:21:38Speaker 04

  Dirty ass kids.

• 1:21:38Bill Simmons?

  A lot of walking. I never feel like I'm in the right spot. It just sounds horrible. I don't think I've been to a, I'm so old. I haven't been to a music festival since like the K-Rock Hot Dog, whatever, whatever the one, what was that? The Weenie Roast?

• 1:21:51Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:21:52Bill Simmons?

  That was really fun. I saw one of those like in the height of like the comeback of alternative music. I don't know if I could top that.

• 1:21:58Speaker 04

  Come on, man. You got the Strokes out there this year. You got, I mean, all eyes are on.

• 1:22:03Bill Simmons?

  It's pretty exciting.

• 1:22:04Speaker 04

  Yeah. All eyes, I think, are on Justin Bieber because

• 1:22:08Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 1:22:09Speaker 04

  what's not clear is, you know, listen, he's had a lot of struggles, right? He's, he's maybe the tiger of

• 1:22:14Bill Simmons?

  Right. He has had some struggles. Right.

• 1:22:17Speaker 04

  And the question is, you know, is can he pull off an entire show? Because he has not been able to tour for a long time because of a bunch of issues. And so he came, he walked out on stage at the Grammys in only his boxers and played what people thought was a pretty compelling set until he walked off and left his loop machine going and then walked back on to turn it off.

• 1:22:39Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:22:40Speaker 04

  So he had sort of a double leave, which made people a little bit unsure, but like Bieber, Bieber secretly put out a really great album. And the only question is, I think, whether he can deliver a full show. If he does that for two weekends in a row, his career's back.

• 1:22:55Bill Simmons?

  And then Sabrina Carpenter, you're compromised on the Sabrina Carpenter question because of business interests, but it seems like she is the biggest star at Coachella.

• 1:23:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a big one. Yeah, I think she is, um, nobody works harder than her and she's just, she's sort of been able to stay above all of the messiness that a bunch of these pop stars get into and just deliver. And it's because she just, she just, she's got a bunch of hits and she gets up there, she's got, she's cornered, you know, smart, uh, cute, dirty lane. And she just, she's kind of more clever than anybody else.

• 1:23:31Bill Simmons?

  How's this cornered that for us at The Ringer?

• 1:23:34Speaker 04

  I guess he has.

• 1:23:35Bill Simmons?

  Just the dirty part, not the other part.

• 1:23:37Speaker 04

  I was gonna say.

• 1:23:38Bill Simmons?

  Not really cute, dirty, though, dirty he has. So, and Taylor Swift is just, we're gonna get the, she's having a kid announcement anytime and taking two years off. Is that, we're just headed that way?

• 1:23:50Speaker 04

  I, we're definitely headed for a wedding. The thing that I don't know is, she just never stops working, man. And, and I think even though by the sort of streaming numbers and, and the statistics, this last album was technically her biggest. In terms of the way that it pierced culture or didn't pierce culture, I think it probably feels like a little bit of a disappointment. And her history is not to then go away. Her history is to keep going and lean into it. So, uh, you know, it's now been a couple of years since she wrote all these songs. There could be more coming.

• 1:24:25Bill Simmons?

  Well, the, the issue for her is, once you start skewing a little older, and then younger people want their own version of you. And it's really hard to, to win that group when they just like, I like this person, they're closer to my age, and that you belong to this other generation and I want one for myself. And now you're battling against that, which is-

• 1:24:46Speaker 04

  She's 36. You got a whole gener- it's just like, you know, in golf, there's this whole new generation of Ludwig's coming up who, who are staking their own claim and who young people seem to identify with. Again, statistically, she's still crushing, her fan base is massive. But it does make me wonder, you know, the love story, like wedding between John Jr. and Carolyn Bissette, like, we haven't had one this big for a long time. I wonder if they may just run into a cabin in Georgia, speaking of Georgia, just like they did, to get this done, to get it away from, from where everybody's gonna, the prying eyes on this thing are gonna be ridiculous.

• 1:25:22Bill Simmons?

  I think it's the opposite. I could almost see them like pay-per-viewing it. I think it's gonna be a big, I think they would want to go Diana Charles, early 80s level.

• 1:25:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, it's coming. We have no details. I think it's gonna happen over the summer. So I'm waiting to hear, but if I'm them, man, I think they do it small and get this thing over with.

• 1:25:43Bill Simmons?

  The bigger question to me is can somebody make influential, awesome music when they're happy with their personal life?

• 1:25:50Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 1:25:51Bill Simmons?

  It's a great question. We've been trying to answer it for 70 years. And you go back to all of the best albums by all of the best artists, for the most part, are people who were in pain, upset at somebody, felt betrayed, felt hurt.

• 1:26:09Speaker 04

  Generational angst.

• 1:26:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, felt unwanted, felt misunderstood, and that's what most art comes from. And if you're just like, yeah, this Travis Kelce guy's great. I'm having a great time. Then what are you singing about?

• 1:26:23Speaker 04

  I think that's, I think that's the concern. We just got two EPs from U2 that we didn't need. We just didn't.

• 1:26:31Speaker 04

  You know, give me the young Bono.

• 1:26:33Bill Simmons?

  U2 was done and then they came back in the 2001. It was basically they had already won. They did everything they could possibly do. And it was like, it's a beautiful day. Like that was, that was their album. They're just happy. It's like, hey, everybody.

• 1:26:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, they started forcing their albums onto our iPhones. It was a mess. But I do think you're on to something, which is, by the way, Stevie Nicks, there was like a fake album announcement. Yeah, there was a fake album announcement yesterday that got quickly corrected with People Magazine. But supposedly, I don't know, we still may get a little Lindsey Stevie drama before it's all said and done.

• 1:27:08Bill Simmons?

  Come on.

• 1:27:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think there's a little buzz that perhaps there's gonna be some more music together. I don't know, man.

• 1:27:16Bill Simmons?

  Supposedly there's a big documentary coming out about Fleetwood Mac that obviously was devastating to me because that was my all time dream music documentary. Somebody pulled it off and got everybody to talk and I'm really interested to see how it plays out. As we've discussed many times.

• 1:27:37Speaker 04

  I know.

• 1:27:37Bill Simmons?

  The most interesting band of all the bands.

• 1:27:40Speaker 04

  We gotta get you on every single album talking about rumors.

• 1:27:42Bill Simmons?

  It's the 50th anniversary.

• 1:27:44Speaker 04

  I know, it's my white whale.

• 1:27:46Bill Simmons?

  This is it. All right, Nathan Hubbard, anything else before we go?

• 1:27:50Speaker 04

  No, I just wish you'd, I mean, come to Coachella weekend, too. We'll go to the Sahara Tent. You can see.

• 1:27:56Bill Simmons?

  There's no way. There's no scenario where I ever go to Coachella.

• 1:28:01Speaker 04

  It's over for you.

• 1:28:02Bill Simmons?

  Plus, it's during the, during the playoffs and stuff. And basketball, like last weekend of basketball? I don't, I don't see it happening. We're too old.

• 1:28:11Speaker 04

  All right.

• 1:28:11Bill Simmons?

  Let's leave Coachella to our, to our children.

• 1:28:15Speaker 04

  We'll watch the live stream Coachella and, and we can watch the Masters on the couch this weekend and see if we get a little more drama than it looks like we're gonna have going in.

• 1:28:22Bill Simmons?

  All right. Well, thanks for coming on and blubbing about the Masters. It was great to see you. Nathan Hubbard, we could see on Fairway Rolling at every single album. Say hi to House.

• 1:28:34Speaker 04

  Will do.

• 1:28:35Bill Simmons?

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• 1:29:20Bill Simmons?

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• 1:30:53Bill Simmons?

  All right, our friend Joanna Robinson is here. It's been a while. It's time to talk TV. You can hear her on the Prestige TV podcast with Rob Mahoney and others, and you can also hear her on the House of Our podcast. But I caught up on the pit. This is a big thing. You've been, you and Rob, a bunch of people in my life have been pushing me and I was like, I don't know. And then last week, my wife was just like, all right, I'm just gonna start watching. I was working on a podcast and kind of like half watching on the couch. And then now I'm like three fourths watching and then by, then I'm in. And then we ended up watching 28 episodes in four days.

• 1:31:28Speaker 05

  How, so how long do you think it took you to hook you all the way in?

• 1:31:34Bill Simmons?

  Probably around episode three, four range.

• 1:31:37Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:31:37Bill Simmons?

  Once you have a feel for it, and I don't know what took me so long. I knew I'd like it because I really liked ER the first five, six seasons.

• 1:31:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:31:45Bill Simmons?

  But the premise of it is just so smart where they're, they're basically looking at ER from a million years ago. Like that was the biggest show we had. Medical shows always work. And then it's like, you know what else was a big show? 24. That show crushed in the 2000s. Well, what if those two shows just merged together and we had No Wiley on it? I wonder if this will work. And we'll put it on HBO and we'll be able to push the envelope with some of the stuff you see in the ER. And I mean, of course this worked. This must've been the easiest pitch of all time.

• 1:32:19Speaker 05

  What do you, what do you make of the idea that initially rumor has it that initially they want to make it an actual like Dr. John Carter spinoff show? Like Noah Wiley still playing John Carter just this many years later?

• 1:32:31Bill Simmons?

  So I don't feel like, I just feel like he's Noah Wiley with both characters. I don't even really remember John Carter enough to know what the differences are, but it's basically the same guy. They tried to give this guy a little bit of a backstory, but it's, I still feel like it's John Carter. They're just calling him Dr. Robbie.

• 1:32:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's basically the same guy. The, the, the story purportedly is that the Michael Crichton estate was like, give me that money if you're gonna make it off of ER. And they were like, uh, never mind. It's Dr. Robbie. He has nothing to do with John Carter. It's completely different.

• 1:33:02Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:33:02Speaker 05

  City is a completely different hospital.

• 1:33:05Bill Simmons?

  By the way, a smart decision. They didn't need John Wells or any of those people for this. Why, what did they have to pay them for?

• 1:33:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:33:11Bill Simmons?

  I mean, not John Wells, uh, Michael Crichton.

• 1:33:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, my, the Crichton estate. Yeah, I mean, I think that, um, I think this, this show is an absolute smash. And obviously it's winning awards. It's hugely popular, but yeah, it's so addictive. And, and there's something about, there's something so old school, of course, about just spending all this time with characters that you're interested in. And that's what season two has really become. Like you and I were talking a little bit earlier today about the differences between season one and season two. And season two is just so much more, hey, do you like these people? Or are you at very least interested in these people? Then you're just gonna spend time with them, not do that big like mass shooting premise that they did in season one. Yeah.

• 1:33:53Bill Simmons?

  I gave you my theory that season one felt like the kitchen sink. We have no idea if we're even gonna get a second season. Let's go all in. We have 15 episodes. We'll throw everything into this and we'll make this like the craziest day an ER could ever have on 15 hours. And then season two is like, hey, we want this show to go on for six, seven, eight, nine years. We can't do the kitchen sink thing again. Let's, let's take our time. Cause I, I thought season one was better, but I understand why they played season two the way they did.

• 1:34:25Speaker 05

  I also think season one is better just because it was so unexpected. Like, we just didn't see the show coming at all.

• 1:34:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:30Speaker 05

  And it absolutely swept everyone up. But I mostly agree with you, but I also think it's a, you know, they were insecure in their first season because they're like, we're not sure that people are going to emotionally latch on to these characters, that they'll even be able to tell what's going on. There's so many characters they're introducing. In season two, they had the luxury of, we're already invested in Frank Langdon. How's he gonna come back to the ED? Or like, you know, all these other characters were already in the middle of their story. So I feel like they don't, it's a little bit more self-confident in that they don't feel like they need a big event in the second season to get us in. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:35:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's a good point. And also, you're discovering a show, a season one is always gonna be a more fun show.

• 1:35:10Speaker 05

  Shinier, yeah.

• 1:35:11Bill Simmons?

  This whole new world. I think one of the things I really like about it is sometimes we don't get resolution with some of the stuff that hap- like, in the first season, you have that lady comes in who's clearly probably being sex trafficked with the pregnant lady.

• 1:35:28Speaker 05

  Right, yeah.

• 1:35:29Bill Simmons?

  And we're there with them for maybe three episodes, and then they just kinda leave.

• 1:35:33Speaker 05

  And they leave.

• 1:35:34Bill Simmons?

  And you're like, I wonder what happened. And you just don't know, because that's probably what it's like to work with in the ER. You're constantly probably asking like little questions to yourself, like, what's going on with that family? What's going on with these people?

• 1:35:45Speaker 05

  Right, and they're not, you know, they're not trying to make a documentary. They're not trying to be like extremely realistic with the show. But they are trying to show you people who are in the span of the same episode, right and wrong, you know? Like, there's no character on the show, maybe, no, not even Mel King this season. There's no character on the show who's always right and always gets it right and is always correct in their opinions. And there's no, most of the cases aren't clean like that either. You know, the mistakes are made, things are missed, you lose patients, you win with the patients, but it's, you never know how it's gonna turn out inside of the pit. I think the one thing you can always rely on is that they're gonna try to really challenge your expectations about something.

• 1:36:27Speaker 05

  They like to show you a character and ask you to assume some things, assume you know who they are, and then turn the tables on you at some point. And so, that might get tired around season three or season four, I don't know, but for right now, that formula is really working.

• 1:36:42Bill Simmons?

  Well, they also have, if you're gonna extend the tale of the show, you can always just get rid of doctors.

• 1:36:48Speaker 05

  Which is what they're doing. They had a big announcement this week that they're getting rid of a, of a main character and they got rid of one in, uh, season one as well. Uh, Dr. Collins, right? Dr. Collins left after season one and they've got another casting house for the season. So yeah, you can rotate the cast in and out. How are you feeling about, about, there's so much excitement around the night shift crew? How do you feel about the night shift crew as they're sort of clocking into the ED at the end of season two here?

• 1:37:14Bill Simmons?

  It's a new wrinkle. I mean, I'm a, as you know, I own a lot of Sean Haddish stock.

• 1:37:19Speaker 05

  Dr. Abbott, you love him.

• 1:37:21Bill Simmons?

  I do. Good tennis player. I've played tennis with him a bunch of times, but it was funny knowing him before he got this show. Cause you know, everybody out here, it's like, ah, trying to grab this job, you grab that job and then you end up on this show, which is like, like one of the phenomenon shows of this decade. So I want more of him and, and just in general, like, uh, I'm, I'm starting to get a little tired of some of the people that have been on a lot and I want new people.

• 1:37:50Speaker 05

  Ciara and I were talking about this on the watch last week, this idea of maybe in the second season, they could, instead of showing us a whole day shift, they could show us sort of half a day shift, half a night shift, you know, like move the night shift in even a little earlier, uh, onto the roster. That could be interesting. But yeah, I, I, I'm curious to see who they bring in, who's new next season. I really, what did you make of the new med students we got? We got Joy and Ogilvy this season. Like, did that, did those additions work for you?

• 1:38:15Bill Simmons?

  Okay. I don't think there's been, like, who's your favorite of all the side? I mean, everybody, it's so funny. I went through all the faces of this show and clearly my favorite character was gonna be Dana. Like, there's just no question.

• 1:38:28Speaker 05

  Of course.

• 1:38:29Bill Simmons?

  And so, right, and it's like, well, that's Ciara's favorite character. It's like, of course, should've guessed. Um, of course she gets punched having a cigarette, which I thought was a tough one. Tough one for cigarettes, break lovers.

• 1:38:42Bill Simmons?

  Cause I was like so excited. She was having a cigarette break. I was like, I couldn't love Dana more. And now she's having a cigarette break and then boom, some guy assaults her. But uh, yeah, I love Dana. Um, but then I probably my, my other favorite one is the one who didn't have an apartment in the first season.

• 1:38:59Speaker 05

  Oh, Whitaker.

• 1:38:59Bill Simmons?

  Whitaker.

• 1:39:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:39:01Bill Simmons?

  And I, I don't know. I felt like I was like strangely invested in him. Um, and there's a couple I really don't like, but I know I'm also not supposed to like them.

• 1:39:11Speaker 05

  Who don't you like that you feel like you're not supposed to like?

• 1:39:13Bill Simmons?

  Well, the one that turned in, uh, our guy, all he's doing is trying to dip into some pills. Leave, leave the man alone. He's still doing his job.

• 1:39:22Speaker 05

  What's wrong with giving some drugs for people who need it?

• 1:39:25Bill Simmons?

  He's not hurting anybody.

• 1:39:26Speaker 05

  Uh, he's literally hurting people, but it's fun.

• 1:39:29Bill Simmons?

  No, I didn't really like her character and I understand why she did, but I thought in season two, they have really ramped it up with her and made her like more know it all-y and like they're clearly trying to make her a little more villainy and it's working for me because I don't like her.

• 1:39:44Speaker 05

  Dr. Santos, you're out on Santos. Well, how do you feel about bringing Langdon back the way that they did this season? I'm a huge Frank Langdon fan, so I'm like glad he's back, but Rob and I have been talking a lot on the prestige, uh, show about the fact that, you know, they brought him back without really seemingly to involve HR and he's, you know, the, the drawback of we're going to do an entire shift, uh, one day in a season is he's just like speed running his 12 steps to just be like amends, amends, amends, amends in one day.

• 1:40:14Bill Simmons?

  Well, what'd they say? It's like eight months?

• 1:40:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, between, between the two, I think eight or 10 months. Yeah.

• 1:40:20Bill Simmons?

  So yeah, I had some notes. It felt like they glossed over, um, it felt like a multi-part crime that he was committing of, you know, uh, putting patients in danger, stealing drugs. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing where you get your license back. Um, and I also understand why, uh, Dr. Robbie was upset about it, but that was fair. I think he should probably not be too trusting. But yeah, it's a, this is one of the things about the show. I'm like rooting for him to get his shit back together. I like the character. I actually thought he was, other than Dana, probably the strongest. Most realistic character. I was, I'm interested in him.

• 1:41:00Speaker 05

  I'm, I'm, I, I'm really invested in Dr. Langdon's redemption arc. It's just funny to watch it try to, him try to make it all happen in one day, one shift of a, on the ED. You know what I mean?

• 1:41:11Bill Simmons?

  It's a tough one.

• 1:41:11Speaker 05

  Fourth of July. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:41:12Bill Simmons?

  We, we've seen this before. Like, I, I thought the first few years at ER, I think, I still think they hold up. They're really good. But like when Anthony Edwards, his character got assaulted and then was dealing with all, like, basically had PTSD from it, wasn't telling anybody and was trying to keep working and like, holy shit, like, and he's in charge of these, uh, you know, trying to do the right thing with patients and all this stuff. And this, we're watching this guy unravel. Like, that whole concept is really fun for these hospital dramas.

• 1:41:44Speaker 05

  Yeah. And, uh, I don't know if you were still watching the show when it happened, but Carter, Noah Wiley's character had a, had a drug addiction issue on ER. So like,

• 1:41:52Bill Simmons?

  I think I was out at that point.

• 1:41:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's, there's no, uh, when Clooney was out, you were out. You're like, I'm done. Clooney's gone, I'm gone.

• 1:41:59Bill Simmons?

  I, I, I did a good, like, six, seven years. I thought, when was the one when, uh, he got, him and Kelly Martin both got attacked?

• 1:42:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:42:07Bill Simmons?

  What song was that? It was like a Nine Inch Nails song. I thought that was one of the best, like, five minutes I've ever seen on television.

• 1:42:14Speaker 05

  Some of the most traumatizing things I've ever seen.

• 1:42:15Bill Simmons?

  It was really disturbing. Yeah.

• 1:42:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:42:18Bill Simmons?

  Really deep, deeply disturbing.

• 1:42:20Speaker 05

  Yeah. Um, that was like, I want to say that was season five, something like that, I think. Yeah.

• 1:42:24Bill Simmons?

  I, I lasted through Clooney.

• 1:42:26Speaker 05

  Yeah. Through, through Kelly, Kelly, uh, Martin. And then once they, once they bump her off, you're done.

• 1:42:33Bill Simmons?

  I started watching, cause Sherri, Sherri, I told you this, Sherri Stringfield, who I loved on NYPD Blue, was on, also on ER. And then that was like, I'm gonna follow her there. And that was it.

• 1:42:46Speaker 05

  I don't have the answer to this, but I wonder how much, you, you know, maybe they've talked about it, but I wonder how much pitching this to Casey Boyz at HBO. I wonder how much they're looking for shows that will also help bank some, uh, boost some of their library shows because if you watch this on, on,

• 1:43:01Bill Simmons?

  Goes right to ER.

• 1:43:02Speaker 05

  Goes right to ER. And I've, we've heard from so many people who are watching ER for the first time, just because they love The Pit so much and they want to spend more time with Noah Wiley in the hospital and it's suggested to them on the app. And so they're like, okay, let's go ahead.

• 1:43:14Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's funny, if you notice, he's on the screen grab for the show, at least on my TV.

• 1:43:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:43:19Bill Simmons?

  It's like ER and it's like a young Noah Wiley who doesn't have 30 years of ER disasters wearing on his face.

• 1:43:26Speaker 05

  Exactly, exactly.

• 1:43:27Bill Simmons?

  No, the first five years of that show are unassailable. It was some of the best TV. They had the best directors. They did a Tarantino episode. It was really great.

• 1:43:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, McGregor was on, yeah, um.

• 1:43:37Bill Simmons?

  And also like a really overqualified cast, which I think if you're going to ding this show, ER had people, especially the first couple of years where it was just, it was immediately clear Clooney was a major star. Edward, like, it was like, this guy's making movies. Like, you could just see it. You knew Juliette Margulies. She was headed to other things. Sherry Stringfield maybe was like, this is where it's going to end. But Noah Wiley was like, what's going to happen with this guy? I don't know. You could tell me anything.

• 1:44:09Speaker 05

  All right. And he, you know, he was on there for so long. Eric LaSalle, of course, was also like,

• 1:44:14Bill Simmons?

  Eric LaSalle was another one. He was great. And then Gloria Rubin was on that show. She was great. Like, I just feel like they,

• 1:44:19Speaker 05

  And then they like brought Linda Cartellini. Yeah. Linda Cartellini, Maureen Tierney, you know, like, yeah, some of the late, late people were amazing too. But yeah, you're right that like, um, that The Pit, other than Noah Wiley and, and our guy Sean Haddassee, you know, this is a lot of people that we have not seen at all. They're either brand new to the industry or were working in theater. But I think that's, that was a budgetary gamble they made, right? To get, have this massive cast that they could pay very little money to. And the whole, and, and budgetarily to set it all inside this one set saves them so much money. They barely ever leave this one set that they've built. So it's a, it's an inexpensive show. Uh, it's a huge phenomenon. It's probably going to win

• 1:45:02Speaker 05

  the Emmy again this year. So it's just like one of the biggest return on investments. You know, you compare that to like a Thrones show, which is costing them millions and millions and upon millions of dollars with, uh, and is less of a cultural phenomenon than The Pit is, uh, at least right now.

• 1:45:17Bill Simmons?

  But you know what's funny about ER? Like, most of those people were nobodies. I didn't know who any of those people were except for Anthony Edwards and Sherri Stringfield. Those were the only two people I knew. I knew Eric LaSalle from Coming to America.

• 1:45:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:45:30Bill Simmons?

  Right?

• 1:45:31Speaker 05

  Let your soul glow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:45:32Bill Simmons?

  He was at least a little famous.

• 1:45:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:45:36Bill Simmons?

  The bigger picture to me is like, first of all, are just hospitals, police and fire. These are just the undefeated things that we have for the rest of eternity.

• 1:45:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:45:46Bill Simmons?

  Every 10 years, like just, all right, fuck it. Let's do it again. I was watching General Hospital when I was a kid and Luca Miller were on there. And even like hospitals, that wasn't even, there was a hospital show before General Hospital. That was huge. I remember when ER and Chicago Hope were going at each other at the same time.

• 1:46:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:46:06Bill Simmons?

  It was like this big, big thing. Then Grey's Anatomy 10 years later. It feels like every 10 years, there's another one of these.

• 1:46:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think, I think what's interesting about this show is that they're, they're really trying to beat the Grey's Anatomy allegations. So they've, you know, they've insisted like, we're not going to do relationships inside the show. We're not going to have people hooking up in exam rooms. That's not the show we're going to do. Like, so that, you know, Shonda, Shonda Rhimes took the, the medical template and then made a, you know, just a soap opera about it.

• 1:46:33Bill Simmons?

  She shonda'd it.

• 1:46:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, she shonda'd it. And so they're like, we're not going to do that. Well, I like the 24 comp. We're going to, this is our premise on that framework of a medical show that never, you know, never disappoints. Like always comes through.

• 1:46:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it'll be interesting if they spin it off and they do better group of podcasters.

• 1:46:54Bill Simmons?

  Right before the White Lotus season finale. The 10 hours leading up to it with crazy shit happening in the office.

• 1:47:00Speaker 05

  They keep trying to make podcasting work on TV, but you can't make it work because they, they just keep pretending it's radio. And it's just not the same thing at all.

• 1:47:08Bill Simmons?

  I'll go further. Not only has it not worked, it's been really, truly terrible every time.

• 1:47:11Speaker 05

  Embarrassing.

• 1:47:13Bill Simmons?

  There's, there's nothing one outcome where it's been awesome. So Noah Wiley.

• 1:47:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:47:20Bill Simmons?

  Who was, I'm going to say his career was over, but it kind of had hit the end of the line, right? And I think even he talked about that in some of the interviews, like. Yeah, I was probably gonna have to start selling my house and like my moment had kinda come and gone. I just felt like Noah Wiley was so good in the show. I kinda didn't really totally see it coming in the way he's in. I think the stuff, especially in season one, the stuff he's doing week to week. I was just really impressed. I know he won all the awards. I'm not breaking new ground saying this, but it's weird somebody in their 50s to be like, I didn't know you were this good of an actor.

• 1:47:57Speaker 05

  I think, I think he's incredible on the show. Like I, I have been talking for last, you know, couple of weeks or whatever about should he take a slight backseat in season three just because he's doing so much? He's writing, he's directing, he's EP, he's the face of the show on every single interview. That's mainly because I'm concerned about Noah Wiley's like mental health.

• 1:48:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:15Speaker 05

  In terms of Robbie being the center of the show, like he is incredible. Like he's so watchable. He's, you, you find yourself watching his face to see how he's reacting to something. You might not always agree with how he's reacting, but you're always interested in what does Robbie think about this? And there is no show without Noah Wiley here. That might not always be true, but right now there is no show without Noah Wiley. I'm sure they want it to run forever and perhaps eventually he'll Clooney out of there. But like it's, uh, it's his show and it's so, like you love to see it. He, I think he stayed employed since the end of ER. You know, he was making like the librarians movies for TNT and stuff like that.

• 1:48:53Speaker 05

  Like he was working, but it wasn't anything like this. And to see him sort of all the way back front and center in the limelight, in the biggest thing going on TV right now. He's getting his like Walk of Fame star, uh, you know, in a couple of weeks, I think. And it's just like, I don't know. You love a comeback story.

• 1:49:10Bill Simmons?

  No, I mean, his, his career was at the point where he would have been like Jon Hamm's buddy in Your Friends and Neighbors, who was actually stealing money from his boss, but he would have been like the third or fourth lead.

• 1:49:23Speaker 05

  Right. If even that, because he wasn't even getting that kinda stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:49:26Bill Simmons?

  He's carrying the show and I'm sure like there's so few awesome parts. I'm sure there's other actors in his age range who are like, fuck. Like what a great part, you know, and like what you said about how you really, he really, he's the moral compass of the show, but he uses silence really well. You know, it's like in the first season when that, that couple, they don't wanna take their son off the ventilator and he's trying to get them that way. And they're like, here's what we wanna do and.

• 1:49:56Bill Simmons?

  He does that like Noel Wiley pause.

• 1:49:59Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:50:01Bill Simmons?

  And just like makes a couple faces. It's like, okay, I get it. All right. I'll, I'll come back. But it's just like, you can read his face with what he's thinking. It's, which is a really hard thing for an actor, I think. I've been really impressed.

• 1:50:13Speaker 05

  How do you feel about the season two Robbie's on the edge Robbie, you know, might be contemplating suicide. Robbie might not be coming back from his trip. How do you feel about that storyline?

• 1:50:24Bill Simmons?

  Well, I thought it was interesting. He rode a motorcycle without a helmet.

• 1:50:28Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:50:28Bill Simmons?

  That you work in an ER and about you're Mr. Safety and you're just flying around Pittsburgh. Now, I know they're trying to drum up this stuff. One of the things that's so cool about his character in the show is that, I mean, I don't really know anything about his background with who, who he was with. What's his, what's his type? You know, like what, is he gonna meet somebody? Is it like, there's no date scene. We don't have to see Dr. Robbie at a bar, like having a drink with somebody he met online like that. This show just punts on all of that and they're all about like the hospital and the work and the relationships and the work and all that other stuff.

• 1:51:06Bill Simmons?

  You know, the closest they'll come is when he's on the roof or, you know, the very last scene of the last episode of the first season, but it's just not interested in that stuff and I kind of like it.

• 1:51:16Speaker 05

  Yeah. I think they're trying to get that a little bit with like bringing in this guy Duke who he worked with on the motorcycle and you know, they bring in people's family like Mel's sister Becca comes that, you know, like the family members come in. Uh, Dr. McKay's dad played by the great, her own dad, Brad Durff comes in and season one, you know, her ex-husband's there like, yeah. They have family kind of coming and going a little bit on the edges, but yeah, it's like mainly about the work, which is sort of the whole point of the show, which is about, these people have terrible work-life balances and like their lives are their jobs. So they don't have time to have other relationships at all.

• 1:51:51Bill Simmons?

  Right. And then you use that as the crutch for why you don't have her like, cause my job, but your job was also like all encompassing.

• 1:51:58Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:51:59Bill Simmons?

  You know what other thing I love about this show?

• 1:52:01Speaker 05

  Tell me.

• 1:52:02Bill Simmons?

  Just the random guest actors that pop up where you're like, hey, that guy. It's like the guy from Last Days at Disco.

• 1:52:10Bill Simmons?

  There is. What's he doing?

• 1:52:11Speaker 05

  What a call, what a call.

• 1:52:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's a million of those on this show.

• 1:52:15Speaker 05

  Do you want them to keep it like small, like, hey, it's that guy? Because eventually ER was like, Sally Field's gonna, you know, like, we're gonna have.

• 1:52:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that was one of the reasons I stopped watching. And I thought it hurt friends too with the cameos. I never understood that. It's like on SNL when they just, they try to write sketches so some celebrity can walk out and the crowd can go nuts. I like when, like, they had, this is like the all time deep cut, but in season one, they had the guy who was in one of my favorite sports movies as a kid, Fast Break, who was in Vision Quest, who was in Officer and a Gentleman as the guy who was roomed with Richard Gere, tall, black guy named Harold Sylvester.

• 1:52:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:52:56Bill Simmons?

  And he was the old guy in season one. I was like, Harold Sylvester is back. But they had a bunch of those. I would much rather see that than, than celebrity cameos.

• 1:53:06Speaker 05

  That's really fun, like, because every week we hear from listener, we hear from listeners on the prestige feed who are really excited about it, certainly, you know, they had an actor who was on Law and Order, like, all the different Law and Order franchises. So the Law and Order people are chiming in. Or Lou Ferrigno's son, Lou Ferrigno Jr. was on, playing the sort of orthopedic guy who comes in and like holds up the severed, the severed leg. And our listeners sort of lost their mind. They're like, that's Lou Ferrigno Jr. He's on 911, we love him. And I was like, oh, the Hulk's son is here? That's cool, you know? But yeah, Mary McCormack showing up, I feel like they're bringing in some.

• 1:53:38Bill Simmons?

  McCormack was a good one.

• 1:53:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, they're bringing these people for like one or two episodes. Elvin from The Cosby Show was on this last week, you know, like, I think that's really fun. I agree with you.

• 1:53:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we need to go a little more nineties, early 2000s, maybe get some sort of random party of five person. It just really keep me on my toes. I'm mad that I wasn't watching all the time because I would have loved listening to you and Rob try to break this stuff down over just watching 28 hours of this over four days.

• 1:54:06Speaker 05

  Well, did you watch, you and your wife watched it together? Or did you break off and, and sort of?

• 1:54:10Bill Simmons?

  No, we did no couple, we did no streamer cheating.

• 1:54:14Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:54:15Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 1:54:15Speaker 05

  Faithful, wow.

• 1:54:17Bill Simmons?

  Cause I was able, cause, cause of the setup I have for my job. I was able to keep the basketball on as we had, you know? So I was able to, to bang it out.

• 1:54:27Speaker 05

  Here's the thing I don't know about you. One thing that people really love about the pit is that they get really emotional about it. I don't feel like you're a big TV crier. Do you get emotional about pit storylines? Like the story about that kid with the, who had, who was like brain dead in season one? And he, and like they did that honor walk for him.

• 1:54:44Bill Simmons?

  I'm not a TV crier, but my wife is.

• 1:54:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:54:47Bill Simmons?

  And one of my favorite things is when it starts to get emotional. And I won't look, but I'll sneak over and then I'll look and she's like, Yep, yep, I got me. So, and that happened at least three times in the two seasons. Like they, they really kind of go for it a couple of times. But then, you know, you watch these shows and you can't help but think about yourself in these situations or family members who have. I don't think it was probably healthy to watch, to binge watch the show.

• 1:55:18Bill Simmons?

  The other thing is, like, it showed like the start of a childbirth. Like it, there's a couple of times like, oh, what, what about heads up? Or the guy with the maggots in the cast, like they do a good job of jolting you.

• 1:55:31Speaker 05

  I have such maggot trauma. I couldn't, I couldn't handle it. Yeah, it's the degloving for me. Anytime there's like a degloving where the skin has come off someone, I just can't, I can't handle it. I can't.

• 1:55:41Bill Simmons?

  So how far, how far are they gonna go with this show? We have, we have two episodes left, season two. There's a lot of cards left to play with some of the doctors and the junior doctors and the nurses, stuff like that. But there's some things they haven't done yet.

• 1:55:57Speaker 05

  Well, I mean,

• 1:55:58Bill Simmons?

  We don't have like creepy, possibly sexually harassed a patient guy. That's coming, right?

• 1:56:06Speaker 05

  There's, there's things they haven't done yet, but all other medical shows have done, but they haven't done it the way that The Pit does it. So like, you know, every time you see a storyline, we've been hearing from people who are like, oh, they did it on this medical show. They did it on that medical show, but that's okay if you recycle things that we've, obviously. There's only so many medical things that can happen.

• 1:56:23Bill Simmons?

  So is this a whole genre where people just watch every one of these shows and know every single thing that's happened?

• 1:56:28Speaker 05

  Well, yeah, because it's their company. People love procedurals. It's a comfort watch for them, right? They love their fire shows, their, their police shows and their medical shows. And, um, and so you know what to expect every week and you come in for the comfort. The Pit alters that a little bit because they don't wrap up every case at the end of the hour. So you're left hanging, you know, like these cases extend, uh, the drama between the people extend a week to week. So it's a slightly different version of that comfort procedural watch. But I think this show could run for 10 years. Honestly, I think it could.

• 1:57:01Bill Simmons?

  Well, I'm sure HBO Max would love that. I mean, this is.

• 1:57:03Speaker 05

  They would.

• 1:57:04Bill Simmons?

  So the question, one of the questions for me is if it had just been on Sunday nights on HBO at nine o'clock, like they have with some of their signature shows, would it have worked in the same way? Or was it actually like, this was the perfect hybrid?

• 1:57:18Speaker 05

  Max.

• 1:57:18Bill Simmons?

  Feels HBO, but it's really a, and it's just kind of perfect for where we are in 2026?

• 1:57:24Speaker 05

  Well, my understanding is it was part of their, uh, previous effort, which I think they've slightly abandoned to try to distinguish between what's on Max and what's on HBO. And this was like, this is a, this is a throwback network kind of show that we're going to do on Max. But I, I don't think they're really that invested in that anymore. And I, um, I think it could have worked just as well on Sunday night HBO, for sure.

• 1:57:48Bill Simmons?

  It's, HBO is an interesting spot because they're, they're running the Euphoria trailers. And they have this show that now has three of the single biggest stars that we have are all in the show. I don't ever in a million, the only time I can really remember anything like this happening before was Friends. When Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox and Perry were all like headlining movies all at the same time. But I don't even know if they are as famous as the three people on this show. This is, I feel like we've broken new ground with this.

• 1:58:19Speaker 05

  Cause well, that was a different era of of television, of course, right? Like TV, yeah, they, you know, uh, Aniston certainly like, yeah, but like, um, also the difference with Euphoria is, you know, they've been making this show since 2019. So like, so infrequently.

• 1:58:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:35Speaker 05

  It's, I've been rewatching Euphoria season one to prepare for season three. And, you know, they're just like such babies, you know, Sydney Sweeney and Jacob Elordi are just like absolutely tiny babies on that first season. So their entire career exploding. It is insane to me that they got this cast back together for this season.

• 1:58:53Bill Simmons?

  I don't understand it. I don't know. I don't know how they pulled it off.

• 1:58:56Speaker 05

  I don't think we want to know how much money was involved, but like I, what, what I do know is that I've heard from a ton of people, including our guy, Andy Greenwald, who have been out on previous seasons of Euphoria, who are like, I'm in for season three because it's undeniable. You're not going to watch the show with Sydney Sweeney and Zendaya and Jacob Elordi. Zendaya, who's in the biggest movies that are coming out this year, like, of course you're going to watch it.

• 1:59:18Bill Simmons?

  I mean, you could argue she's the single biggest under 40 female movie star.

• 1:59:24Speaker 05

  I think she is like.

• 1:59:25Bill Simmons?

  And you could argue Sydney Sweeney's at the top four.

• 1:59:27Speaker 05

  I mean, she's up there, man. And Jacob Elordi, Oscar nominated, you know, it's just sort of like, it's, it's wild that all of them are together in a show like that. Yeah, Zendaya, this year, this year for Zendaya is absolutely insane, right? Dune three, a Spider-Man movie, uh, this Robert Pattinson movie that's, you know, doing more numbers than I think people thought it was going to. And, you know, and she's just like, the, I think she has, she's the biggest star that we have.

• 1:59:51Bill Simmons?

  She probably has the highest approval rating of any male or female star. And I think people really like Elordi. I don't think there's a lot of people like fuck that guy. Whereas Sydney Sweeney is the most polarizing male or female actor or actress we probably have.

• 2:00:04Speaker 05

  I will say I had a tough time with Alordi just because his character on Euphoria is so tough. But it's been long enough since season two that I was just like, that he's done enough other stuff. But I was, yeah, when I'm rewatching, I'm like, oh, yeah, Nate, Nate on Euphoria is a tough watch. So I'll be curious how the Alordi fans who haven't watched Euphoria, how they feel about him on the show.

• 2:00:23Bill Simmons?

  How many Tell Me Lies seasons have we had since Euphoria?

• 2:00:26Speaker 05

  Right, five? I don't know.

• 2:00:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Tell Me Lies, I took a lot of the Euphoria playbook and, you know, although it's hard to outdo Euphoria.

• 2:00:35Speaker 05

  I don't think you can outdo.

• 2:00:36Bill Simmons?

  I don't have a great feeling about the season. I've heard, I've heard from a couple of people that it's really good.

• 2:00:42Speaker 05

  I watched, they sent over like three episodes.

• 2:00:46Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you watched?

• 2:00:47Speaker 05

  I did watch them, yeah.

• 2:00:49Bill Simmons?

  So were you happy or not happy?

• 2:00:51Speaker 05

  I thought they were really good. But again, there's just this like, you're watching these incredible actors, you know? It like, but with, but with, as is always the case with Euphoria, you kind of feel grimy watching it. Like you don't feel great after watching an episode of Euphoria. You feel grimy. I feel, Sam Levinson is like one of the most divisive people making television right now. But Zendaya is incredible in it and that's just the best thing to watch. The whole cast is really good, so.

• 2:01:20Bill Simmons?

  Are you watching Imperfect Women on Apple? You stayed with that one, right? No?

• 2:01:25Speaker 05

  No. Should I be? What do you think?

• 2:01:28Bill Simmons?

  Listen, if you put, if you put actors that I've seen on a, on an Apple box with some sort of somebody died, I'm probably gonna watch. I just am.

• 2:01:37Speaker 05

  How often are you looking at your iPad? What's the iPad percentage ratio for that show?

• 2:01:41Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my God. I would say 70%.

• 2:01:47Bill Simmons?

  On the iPad, doing stuff and then 30% looking up. But I think I know what's happening for the most part. My wife likes it. It's catching three actresses at strange points of their career. Where all of them were probably bigger stars seven years ago. And they all kind of just combined together for this pretty generic crime. I mean, all these shows seem the same. Like, everybody's worried about what AI is gonna do for TV shows. It's like, I feel like we're just seeing it. Yeah. It's like, hey, there's a murder. Whoa, let's go backwards. Ah, I wonder if this person did it.

• 2:02:21Speaker 05

  That's the thing you can say about Euphoria is like.

• 2:02:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you've never seen a show like this.

• 2:02:26Speaker 05

  AI did not write this.

• 2:02:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:28Speaker 05

  No, absolutely.

• 2:02:29Bill Simmons?

  You know what I enjoyed, though? Was the comeback episode of Your Friends and Neighbors. I was actually excited to have that one back.

• 2:02:36Speaker 05

  Was it Marsters? Was that what did it for you?

• 2:02:40Bill Simmons?

  You know, Jimmy Mars came back.

• 2:02:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:02:42Bill Simmons?

  Out of nowhere, he's playing a billionaire. He's playing a brash, confident billionaire.

• 2:02:48Speaker 05

  And it did it for you. And so, no looking at the iPad for the Your Friends and Neighbors season two premiere?

• 2:02:53Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm like 70% watching that one.

• 2:02:56Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right.

• 2:02:57Bill Simmons?

  I don't like that show. That one's solid. Trying to think if there... What were the other ones you've been covering on Prestige? Because some of those, some of them I'm not watching.

• 2:03:06Speaker 05

  Right, Love Story, you were kind of out on at the end, right?

• 2:03:09Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I loved Love Story.

• 2:03:11Speaker 05

  I thought the ending didn't work for you.

• 2:03:13Bill Simmons?

  I just thought the last three episodes could have...

• 2:03:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:03:16Bill Simmons?

  I thought, I thought the show peaked with the first four or five. I absolutely, I don't think I've talked about it on the podcast. I, I loved how they recreated a lot of the early 90s stuff. And you and Rob talked a lot about like, they really did take you back with the clothes, the look, the music. They did, they did everything really well. It was like as high end of a version of a crappy show as you're gonna get. Because it was pretty crappy.

• 2:03:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:03:43Bill Simmons?

  Like, the second to last episode is them just arguing in a kitchen for 50 minutes? An argument nobody overheard?

• 2:03:49Speaker 05

  Yeah. An argument that someone made up and decided it was them. I mean, I thought Sarah Pigeon, who's the lead actress on that show, was like absolutely phenomenal. I thought she was so good.

• 2:03:58Bill Simmons?

  The other guy was fine.

• 2:04:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, he was also there. So, very handsome.

• 2:04:02Bill Simmons?

  He was okay. He looked like him, which was really all that you mattered. I don't think the show ever really fully decided on how they felt about JFK Jr. Was kind of the flaw of the show. It's like, so... Is this guy just a moron? Like, what, what are, walk us through what you want us to think about this guy? Cause you're kind of making it seem like he's an irritable moron, but you don't really want to say it.

• 2:04:26Speaker 05

  Well, I feel like in the final episode, they tried to make this like, they tried to really pat themselves on the back by saying, you know, having Constance Zimmer, who played, uh, her mom, basically say, all the coverage is about, you know, your brother's talking to her, his sister, your brother. But nobody knew who my daughter was. And so the show's like, well, we cared more about Carol than we cared about JFK. Aren't we great? But I just feel like they didn't really, it would have been a much better show if they had a take on him, which they didn't feel like they had. But I think they really created in her an interesting character.

• 2:04:59Bill Simmons?

  That's what was so weird about it though. It's like they spent, I thought they really built out an excellent character there.

• 2:05:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:05:07Bill Simmons?

  He was also interesting in his own way because he wasn't really good at anything. And it was just clear, we were like, I think he was a little older than me.

• 2:05:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:05:18Bill Simmons?

  It was clear he was just going to go into politics and it was like, all right, do that. You try to pass the bar, we get it. You're trying to forge your own way, oh, here's your stupid George magazine, which was a terrible magazine, by the way. And it was just clear, it's like, he's just going to run for senator and it's going to be fine. Like, he just doesn't want to admit to himself yet that this is how it's going to play out. And then you, you peel under the other part of this was like, this is the kind of person who ends up becoming like a major person in politics? Like somebody who's clearly like, they just want to like ride their bike and hook up with people?

• 2:05:51Speaker 05

  Play flag football.

• 2:05:52Bill Simmons?

  But everybody loved him. He, he, he was beloved. It was like, to me, when Diana died and, and he died, it was about the same reaction, at least with everybody I knew.

• 2:06:03Speaker 05

  What did you make of them taking us inside of the, of the crash? Like how they handled the whole crash sequence in the finale?

• 2:06:10Bill Simmons?

  I actually thought it was pretty fair.

• 2:06:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:06:12Bill Simmons?

  I thought it could have been more critical on how stupid it was that he flew. Like really one of the dumbest. I just can't believe he did it.

• 2:06:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:06:21Bill Simmons?

  And to do that at night. And yeah, it didn't really seem like he had the experience. And I just never really understood that one. But I, I think that missed opportunity, I would have, instead of that last, second to last episode where they're just fighting. I was so interested in the Kennedy compound. I don't think we could have spent enough time there.

• 2:06:40Speaker 05

  Ethel Kennedy was great.

• 2:06:42Bill Simmons?

  That was the single best episode. I loved being around the dinner table when it was, when she created the podcast, basically going around. Tell, asking different people what they thought. Uh, just what the compound was like, what they did. I was like, I could have done another hour of it.

• 2:06:58Speaker 05

  Why didn't Ethel Kennedy have a podcast? That's a question we'll all ask ourselves.

• 2:07:01Bill Simmons?

  She was really gonna set people up.

• 2:07:04Speaker 05

  What did you think? They, they, they cast Donald Logue as Ted Kennedy and then just like never used him to do anything. It was really strange.

• 2:07:12Bill Simmons?

  So my wife, um, who Love Story was.

• 2:07:16Speaker 05

  For her.

• 2:07:17Bill Simmons?

  Her favorite piece of content that's come out, I think in the 2020s, ends up watching, there's a show on Tubi. That's the lost wedding tapes of JFK Junior and Carolyn. I don't know if you know about this.

• 2:07:30Speaker 05

  No.

• 2:07:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And it's somebody, one of his buddies videotaped the wedding and it's this whole documentary. So of course, my wife immediately goes from that to this and is watching it. And, uh, Ted Kennedy was like a big part of the wedding and just gives this really emotional speech at one point. And it's, it's actually, it's worth, if you like Love Story, it's worth watching this documentary. But I didn't feel that impact at all. I always felt like he was like the man of the family and you didn't feel that from the show. I don't know why.

• 2:08:01Speaker 05

  Well, that's what I'm saying. They cast an actor I like and know in that role. And so I'm just wondering if they cut him because it wasn't.

• 2:08:06Bill Simmons?

  But he wasn't good? Maybe his accent was bad?

• 2:08:08Speaker 05

  I mean, he was doing a, a hard Kennedy accent swing. So maybe.

• 2:08:13Bill Simmons?

  Let's be honest, just fucking Jason Clark. He's right there. He already did this with Chappaquiddick. He's available for all of these shows. He's probably wrapping up Murdoch. Like, like Murdoch, just go.

• 2:08:25Speaker 05

  What if that's just what Jason, Jason Clark does with the rest of his career is just Teddy Kennedy?

• 2:08:29Bill Simmons?

  He was an unbelievable Ted Kennedy.

• 2:08:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:08:32Bill Simmons?

  I really liked that movie. Um, but yeah, I thought, I, I don't know why they punted on Ted. Maybe JFK wasn't that close to him.

• 2:08:39Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 2:08:40Bill Simmons?

  Also, do we feel like Carolyn?

• 2:08:44Bill Simmons?

  The show makes it seem like she's like, I don't want to like this guy, but there's something about him. And then there's other takes and there were definitely takes in the 90s that she.

• 2:08:54Speaker 05

  That she like.

• 2:08:54Bill Simmons?

  She knew what she was doing the whole time.

• 2:08:56Speaker 05

  To get him. She was out to get him. Yeah.

• 2:08:58Bill Simmons?

  She, she, she landed him.

• 2:09:00Speaker 05

  I don't know. I mean, yeah, that's definitely, that's definitely the narrative that was prevalent at the time. And then I think the show is sort of like, what if it was, what if the story was a little different than that?

• 2:09:08Bill Simmons?

  So. The show tried to zag against that. And it was based on a book that was written, I think for, for her side of the story. And it felt like that's what we were getting, but I, I thought it didn't explore JFK like, was this guy just kind of a dope? And then it didn't explore her. Like, how, how conniving was she with landing this guy?

• 2:09:29Speaker 05

  I think the problem is like, if she, if she went out, went like, hooked up with him sort of against her will. Like she's like, oh, I don't want to be part of this world, but there's something about him. Then there needed to be something about him that was more than just this guy is extremely handsome. Cause she was dating an extremely handsome underwear model. So it's not like she couldn't get extremely handsome somewhere. And so what is it about him that was so undeniably alluring that Daryl Hannah and everyone else are throwing themselves at him? Is it just the Kennedy, uh, he reminds us of his dad sort of aura? And if, if that's true, then, then Carolyn is, yeah, more, more schemey than they decided to make her out inside of that show. So they can't have it both ways, I think.

• 2:10:13Bill Simmons?

  I think I have an answer.

• 2:10:14Speaker 05

  What's that?

• 2:10:14Bill Simmons?

  I think he was just tremendously handsome.

• 2:10:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, he sure was. I mean, he definitely was.

• 2:10:19Bill Simmons?

  I knew somebody that was at Brown with him.

• 2:10:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:10:21Bill Simmons?

  I know somebody who was at Brown with him and it was, and so obviously love story. Everybody who intersected with them that I knew, they're dining on this for nine, because everybody's got so many questions. And he was just like, look. The dude was incredibly handsome.

• 2:10:38Speaker 05

  Undeniable.

• 2:10:39Bill Simmons?

  Every woman loved him immediately and that's just how it went. And that was what his life was like. They loved him. Women love this guy. And that was it. So, you know, for.

• 2:10:50Speaker 05

  So you don't have to have much else going for you if that's how you go through life, I guess.

• 2:10:54Bill Simmons?

  I don't even know if that's the answer. It was just that was the appeal was everybody was like. They just said he just was one of those guys. He'd like stop the room when he walked in. And that was it.

• 2:11:06Speaker 05

  Where are you on Beef? Season two is coming out soon. How do you feel about that?

• 2:11:10Bill Simmons?

  New cast though, right?

• 2:11:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. Carey Mulligan.

• 2:11:13Bill Simmons?

  I'm in.

• 2:11:13Speaker 05

  Oscar Isaac.

• 2:11:15Bill Simmons?

  I'm in.

• 2:11:15Speaker 05

  Kaylee Spanney, Charles Melton. Yeah.

• 2:11:17Bill Simmons?

  So I feel good about this TV year so far. It sounds like, cause we're barely in April. We've already, I mean, Love Story was a gift. That, that was two months of content for us.

• 2:11:27Speaker 05

  Love Story, The Pit, A Night of the Seven Kingdoms. I thought was a really successful Thrones endeavor early this year. So HBO, you know, HBO is really kicking ass this year. Are you a DTF watcher? Are you watching that?

• 2:11:40Bill Simmons?

  I watched it. It's done, right?

• 2:11:41Speaker 05

  Yeah. How do you feel about it?

• 2:11:42Bill Simmons?

  I made the mistake. I watched it early and I binged it.

• 2:11:45Speaker 05

  Oh, okay. So you're not keeping up with that.

• 2:11:47Bill Simmons?

  And I don't think that was the way to watch it. Cause it was a little.

• 2:11:51Speaker 05

  You weren't.

• 2:11:52Bill Simmons?

  Little much to bang out in like two nights. I thought, I liked it though. I didn't love it, but I liked it. Did you like it?

• 2:12:00Speaker 05

  It's not for me. What was your, what was your favorite show this year? Was it Love Story or what is it?

• 2:12:06Bill Simmons?

  What are my other options?

• 2:12:07Speaker 05

  I mean, The Pit, I guess. Or whatever you're watching on Apple.

• 2:12:13Bill Simmons?

  I thought.

• 2:12:16Bill Simmons?

  I thought Love Story tapped into something that I wish happened more.

• 2:12:22Speaker 05

  Which is that?

• 2:12:22Bill Simmons?

  I don't, I think it was very well done, not that ambitious and was built to kind of cultivate conversation week to week. And I don't think it's a show that would have succeeded on Netflix if it was

• 2:12:36Speaker 05

  A binge.

• 2:12:36Bill Simmons?

  You just dump every episode at once. I don't, I thought part of the appeal of it, and I don't, like, to me, like, the bigger question, which we've talked about a bunch of times, is why don't people follow this model more of how to do stuff? Like, is it better to just, because I know, and I've talked to people at the different streamers, they're like, well, if it's a binge, people stay with it. If it's week to week, some of the audience will fall off. Maybe they don't stick with it past four or five weeks. I get it. I just think resonating culturally for that long should, is the ultimate goal of any show. Like, Love Story was huge for FX because it felt like people were talking about it for seven straight weeks.

• 2:13:14Speaker 05

  Well, it also has a longer term payoff. So something like The Pit, I think if The Pit were a binge, people would watch it, but I don't think it would have grown the way that it did.

• 2:13:23Bill Simmons?

  No way.

• 2:13:24Speaker 05

  You know, and

• 2:13:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I agree.

• 2:13:24Speaker 05

  And so like, the long term investment, when you come into season two, the audience is so much bigger, and it can only, you know, sort of grow from there. So I think it's a riskier move, because if the show's really shitty, yeah, people are gonna drop off. But in terms of like, really getting people to emotionally buy in, to get your wife crying on the couch, like, you want to be there. I mean, I know you guys binge The Pit, but like, you want to be there week in, week out. I really feel like you know these people and you're spending time with them, and every week, you're checking back in with Langdon and Santos and all the rest, and how are they doing? So.

• 2:13:55Bill Simmons?

  Well, things like The Ashton Kutcher Show that came out that bombed, that was it. Like, that's, that's the case for sticking to the binge model, because you have a show like that, and it bombs, and you're releasing it every week.

• 2:14:05Speaker 05

  It's like every week.

• 2:14:06Bill Simmons?

  And it's like, DOA, week two, you know?

• 2:14:09Speaker 05

  Yeah. And then also, you know, for podcasting, it's better if it's week to week. So think of the podcasters and release your show week to week. That's what I'm saying.

• 2:14:17Bill Simmons?

  You joke, but that's a real thing. Because in the old days, it was Think Pieces, but now it's the podcast cross with the Think Pieces. Like, there's still, I saw on my Apple News the other day, somebody wrote a Carolyn Baked piece, that, that show's been gone for 12 days. Somebody in, like, The Atlantic or something, who's like, here's my Carolyn Baked Think Piece. And it's like, this thing's still going. Like, that, that has to matter. See, the bigger thing to me is,

• 2:14:43Bill Simmons?

  how many of these are left? We've done.

• 2:14:46Speaker 05

  Ominous.

• 2:14:47Bill Simmons?

  No, just like.

• 2:14:48Speaker 05

  How many real life stories are left?

• 2:14:49Bill Simmons?

  Going backwards with the celebrity story that could do. I feel like we're kind of out at this point. OJ was another great one and we did it.

• 2:14:56Speaker 05

  Fantastic.

• 2:14:56Bill Simmons?

  Um, but in general, I just don't feel like there's any good ones left.

• 2:15:01Speaker 05

  I don't know. I feel like.

• 2:15:02Bill Simmons?

  They've done five Diana movies. I mean, how many times have we gone backwards with Princess Diana? We're good.

• 2:15:06Speaker 05

  We need to be done with Diana.

• 2:15:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we need to be done.

• 2:15:08Speaker 05

  We need a break from Diana.

• 2:15:09Bill Simmons?

  I would honestly, a Meghan and Harry movie I would be in on.

• 2:15:13Speaker 05

  It's too, well, they did that on Lifetime and I think it's too early to do a Meghan and Harry. Like, we need some distance from this stuff, you know?

• 2:15:19Bill Simmons?

  Or is it too early? Like, if you, if you just can take liberties and go nuts, like, like, we don't know, we don't know what happened in the jail. Like, to have an entire episode of them arguing in the kitchen and having no idea if it didn't happen. That tells me, like, you can.

• 2:15:33Speaker 05

  You can do whatever you want?

• 2:15:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you can do whatever you want.

• 2:15:35Speaker 05

  And not get sued by Meghan and Harry?

• 2:15:37Bill Simmons?

  Oh, true, they are alive. Yeah, who would sue the love story people? I guess the families.

• 2:15:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. Hmm.

• 2:15:46Bill Simmons?

  All right, Joanna.

• 2:15:48Speaker 05

  Um, here's what I'm looking for from you in the future. I want you to nail a TV show about podcasting. I think only you can do it, Bill Simmons, so give us that.

• 2:15:58Bill Simmons?

  Honestly, it's like, it's like hacking. It's like, God, there's never been a good show about computer hackers or move, like, any, even like sneakers, which we did on the rewatchables. There's very little hacking in the hacking show.

• 2:16:09Speaker 05

  What about hackers?

• 2:16:11Bill Simmons?

  Hackers, well, it's just tough though, because you can't keep the podcast topical.

• 2:16:17Speaker 05

  True. Okay, uh, and alternatively.

• 2:16:20Bill Simmons?

  I'll work on that, though.

• 2:16:21Speaker 05

  Alternatively, a Harry and Meghan movie and or TV show.

• 2:16:25Bill Simmons?

  No, I don't want, I want, no part of that. I just think, I think somebody should.

• 2:16:28Speaker 05

  You just want to watch it.

• 2:16:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think, I think that's one of the few ones left. I mean, the Bill, the Bill Clinton one was, was a big miss.

• 2:16:35Speaker 05

  That was terrible.

• 2:16:36Bill Simmons?

  I just, that just didn't work. They didn't get it and, um, but there's more.

• 2:16:40Speaker 05

  I liked the Versace one, though. I thought that was actually pretty cool.

• 2:16:43Bill Simmons?

  That was a great one. That was like, what, how many years ago? Like, five, six years ago? That was excellent.

• 2:16:47Speaker 05

  I think longer than that, I wouldn't, you know, it was between OJ and the Clinton one. And I think. I think Versace is a really good example of one that like not it wouldn't occur to any of us to do the Versace case, I think. So when you're sitting here thinking about like you're thinking about the big ones. But I think the best model to go for is like, go for some of the smaller stories that we know less about, you know, like I think when you give us, OJ was incredible and we all knew so much about OJ and it still taught us things we didn't know. But Versace, I think was even like, I think about Versace more because I knew nothing about that story. So like, find us a smaller story that you can sort of teach us everything about. And that's something I would tune in for.

• 2:17:26Bill Simmons?

  It's really good advice. What's the big nerd culture movie coming this year?

• 2:17:30Speaker 05

  Dune, part three. Are you, are you excited for Dune part three?

• 2:17:35Bill Simmons?

  Tepidly.

• 2:17:36Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 2:17:38Bill Simmons?

  Very well done, those two movies.

• 2:17:41Speaker 05

  They sold out the 70 millimeter IMAX screening sold out within a couple hours. They put them online today. So people are, people are excited. The Spiceheads are ready.

• 2:17:51Bill Simmons?

  Movies are back. They, we've figured out this movie theater thing. Yeah.

• 2:17:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:17:55Bill Simmons?

  They tried to do it 12, 13 years ago with 3D.

• 2:17:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:17:58Bill Simmons?

  Make 3D events and people just don't like wearing 3D glasses. And now they have figured out these IMAX things are now events.

• 2:18:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:18:05Bill Simmons?

  And they've nailed it. Congratulations to everybody. All right, Joanna Robinson, great to see you as always. Thanks for coming on.

• 2:18:10Speaker 05

  Thanks, Bill.

• 2:18:12Bill Simmons?

  All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kevin Wilds and Nathan and Joanna and Gahal and Eduardo. As always, don't forget new rewatchables was up Monday night, Eddie and the Cruisers. I think we're running Basic Instinct next week. So that if you want to prepare for next week's rewatchables, that's going to be the one. I am going to be back on this feed late Thursday afternoon and hopefully I have more clarity on, on the MVP. I'm going to really spend a lot of time thinking about this. Enjoy the middle of the week.

• 2:19:04Bill Simmons?

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• 2:19:43Bill Simmons?

  or call 8778HOPENY, or text HOPENY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867.

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