← The Adam Friedland Show
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- [00:02]
Adam Friedland
How much do you attribute, like, it's like success on television to Cletus?
- [00:07]
Chuck Klosterman
What?
- [00:07]
Adam Friedland
Cletus.
- [00:08]
Chuck Klosterman
Cletus.
- [00:09]
Adam Friedland
He's the robot that plays electric guitar.
- [00:12]
Chuck Klosterman
Oh, yeah. How do you know his name?
- [00:15]
Adam Friedland
Because I like sports.
- [00:16]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, I know, but I like sports. But I.
- [00:17]
Adam Friedland
You see him getting defensive. He wrote a book on.
- [00:19]
Chuck Klosterman
I know, I know. This is gonna be insane.
- [00:23]
Adam Friedland
I am.
- [00:24]
Chuck Klosterman
That's right. You're tired. You're tired.
- [00:26]
Adam Friedland
You could have consulted with me. You should have had a hold.
- [00:28]
Chuck Klosterman
I thought you were talking about Simpsons character for a second.
- [00:31]
Adam Friedland
I believe his name is cletus. And if his name isn't cletus, I'm going to be really embarrassed. Can someone look that up? It's Cletus dominated once again. Yeah, flip that. Yes, flip that. Hello and welcome back to the Adam friedland show. I'm adam friedland. First off, I'm doing helium comedy club February 19th to the 21st. And also I will be in Los Angeles at the Regent Theater May 9. Here's a link in the description. There's a link. Different word. There is a link in the description. There is a. There is a link in the description for tickets. That's fine. I'd like to thank our members for supporting us here on YouTube.com. as always, you guys are the ones that make the show possible. You keep the lights on. And if you'd like to join at the second or third tiers, you can get your name in the credits of this fine program. Click join at the top of the page or click the link in the description below. And there's also a link for a patreon if you prefer. And guys, merch is available theadamfreeland show. Check it out. My guest this week is American author Chuck Klosterman. Chuck is known as one of the
- [02:06]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
country's premier cultural critics, tackling any and
- [02:09]
Adam Friedland
all facets of pop culture through his
- [02:11]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
writing for the last 30 years.
- [02:12]
Adam Friedland
His newest book, football, is about exactly that. Football the game's past, present, and future. It's a perceptive look into what entices us about the uniquely American sport and its own on the shelves now. So check it out. Football. Got the big game coming up.
- [02:27]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Might want to read it before then
- [02:28]
Adam Friedland
so you can understand the big game. Now, before we begin, I'd like to introduce a new segment called my 2 cents where I give my 2 cents on topics of the day. Today in honor of our guest, here's my two cents on football. Like Chuck klosserman, I'm a football fan or at least I was up until
- [02:45]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
they started doing that so called dancing
- [02:47]
Adam Friedland
in the end zone. If I wanted to see that garbage, I'd say up past 10pm and turn on VH. VH1. Or whatever happened to scoring a touchdown, politely handing the ball over to the official, saying, thank you for being you. Go, you. That's what I would say. You go, you. Getting back to doing your job. And if you want to celebrate with your win with a dance, we could just please keep it classy. Instead of the jerk or the soldier boy dance, how about the foxtrot, the Bolero, the Viennese waltz. But hey, that's just my two cents. Please welcome, please enjoy, Chuck Klosterman. I like that. Our next guest is the writer, Chuck Klosterman. His new book, football is out now. Everyone, check it out, everyone. Chuck Klosterman. What's up, dude?
- [03:47]
Chuck Klosterman
Hey.
- [03:48]
Adam Friedland
I'm really excited.
- [03:49]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, it's great to be here. I appreciate you having me on. I guess I was a bit nervous because, you know, I've seen clips from your show where the subject comes across as a moron. But that's not your fault.
- [04:03]
Adam Friedland
I try to be the moron.
- [04:05]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, he's a straight moron. Or the straight man.
- [04:07]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, certainly not. Certainly not straight. Don't tell the family, Ollie. My girlfriend's cousin is doing sound. This is not making the episode. I'm a big fan.
- [04:19]
Chuck Klosterman
I read.
- [04:19]
Adam Friedland
I used to read you from the time I was like, I think late high school.
- [04:23]
Chuck Klosterman
I know it's weird to hear that, but I understand it.
- [04:25]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, yeah, it was like what I think, the way I found out about cool things, because it was prior to like Spotify or whatever. I'd like go to like Barnes and Noble and like open up Spin magazine. I'd write names of bands and then I download them on kazaa. And through that process, I became familiar with you.
- [04:45]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, when I was at Spin, it was the early 2002 to 2006, and it was strange because the perception at the time then is like the cool part of Spin was over. Everyone believed that had happened in the 90s, but I guess then when we left, 10 years moved on and people said the same thing about our little period.
- [05:03]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, no, yeah, I remember. I read your books and I thought it made me feel cool, I think. But. But for the audience and the people that don't know you, it effectively what you kind of write about is kind of. It is the nonsense that me and my friends spend hours over. Like, you know, like, you know, what would have happened if Drew Bledsoe, you know, didn't get hurt? You know, like, speculative kind of, but. But then the intersection with that and culture, I suppose.
- [05:33]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Yeah.
- [05:33]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, it just seems completely un. Meaningful now. The idea of writing about culture seems very common. It was less common in, like, book form when I first started publishing. It was seen as sort of this strange, gimmicky novelty thing. And now it's like, it's not weird at all.
- [05:49]
Adam Friedland
Yeah. I think for me, it was like David Foster Wallace and you. I mean, those were the two guys
- [05:54]
Chuck Klosterman
that were writing about the cheaper version.
- [05:56]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, really?
- [05:58]
Chuck Klosterman
Oh, for sure.
- [05:59]
Adam Friedland
I thought pretty equal, actually. Were you guys, like, did you know him?
- [06:03]
Chuck Klosterman
Never met him.
- [06:03]
Adam Friedland
Never met him.
- [06:04]
Chuck Klosterman
Never met him.
- [06:04]
Adam Friedland
Do you think he would have been mean, you think?
- [06:06]
Chuck Klosterman
No, I don't think he would. What they always say about him is that he was very kind. That doesn't necessarily mean he was nice. But everyone had always said that, at least outwardly he was, you know, over the top kind, that it was rare that someone had an encounter with him that was negative. Although now, like, there's, like, a biography about him and completely changes the way
- [06:28]
Adam Friedland
that he stalked that lady.
- [06:29]
Chuck Klosterman
Right. Yes. And there's. And the one thing that's a little disenchanting is, like. I mean, he was. He was probably the last writer who really did sort of influence me, like, in that I would read this, and I was like, I wonder if I could do something like that. And I feel like you become a writer when you stop that. But the thing that was kind of a bummer is it sounds like the most interesting things from his nonfiction work were the parts that he made up. Yeah. And that was. It's. Cause those are the things that are so memorable. Like, he wrote this very famous essay about going on a cruise ship, of course. And there's one section in there, like, where he's playing chess against some random little kid, and it's just. It's an amazing passage, and he's memorizing these moves and all these things, and maybe it turns out, like, that didn't happen. So the thing I remember most is the thing he added. But, you know, that's creative nonfiction, I guess.
- [07:17]
Adam Friedland
Two things that. That reminds me of. One is, did you see the last script, Scorsese Dylan documentary, the Rolling Thunder?
- [07:25]
Chuck Klosterman
Oh, that. That one. Yeah, the fake documentary.
- [07:27]
Adam Friedland
So, yeah, it was, like, half fake, which, like, kind of made it, like. But there was something about it that was true. You know what I mean? Like, because it was half Fake. Like, narratively, it's like we buy. Basically, when I learned about Bob Dylan or the Beatles, it's like looking at a picture of your parents before you were born. Right. It's not real. Like, you weren't there.
- [07:49]
Chuck Klosterman
Right.
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Adam Friedland
You. You create a story. Right. And that's what I found to be the brilliant thing about that.
- [07:54]
Chuck Klosterman
What I wondered about that film was if someone liked Bob Dylan but knew nothing about the movie. So they just came into it cold. I wonder at what point in the movie they would have been like, oh, yeah, this couldn't have happened. Because if there's one, you know, he wore, like, white kind of pancake makeup for a while.
- [08:10]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
- [08:10]
Chuck Klosterman
Like, in the movie, he's saying, like, Dylan, this girl went and saw Kiss, and she came back and told me about it, you know? And then, you know, Bob Dylan has written with Gene Simmons. They have some relationships. It's like, could it be? You know, I knew going in, though, that this wasn't all real, so. But I was thinking about myself, like, when would I have figured this out?
- [08:27]
Adam Friedland
I don't think we. I think people probably would have bought it because it was presented as a documentary.
- [08:31]
Chuck Klosterman
It is.
- [08:31]
Adam Friedland
You know, and people know Bob Dylan's real. That. And. And also, it could. It could. You know, like, it doesn't matter at a certain point. Right?
- [08:38]
Chuck Klosterman
It doesn't. Well, I mean, I think Dylan would say. It absolutely doesn't. That he would probably argue that whatever myth you project on him is the most important thing about his identity outside of the music.
- [08:48]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
But.
- [08:49]
Adam Friedland
Yeah. Yeah. Have you. Have you seen that. That film. I'm Still Here. The Joaquin Phoenix. That's kind of like. That's one of my top five favorite movies ever, actually. Basically, it's this documentary that you later find out is. Was, like, kind of a project that Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck were doing for a year, which is. He presented that he was going crazy and wanted to be a rapper. And he was. He went on Letterman, famously.
- [09:15]
Chuck Klosterman
That was the big thing. It's almost like the promotion for that movie was as important as the film. Right.
- [09:22]
Adam Friedland
And what you find at the end, there's, like, he goes to Costa Rica or something. Or, like, I forget he goes to someplace where his father lives. He's in a. Like, a rainforest. And he goes in this, like, lake, and there's this baptismal kind of scene at the end. But you realize, like, the. This man is exhausted. Like, it doesn't matter if it's fake or if it's real because it happened. Right. Like, and kind of that blurring, I'm like, oh, that's what art is. You know? And like, that's. It kind of, like, made a huge impression on me. Shortly after, I was probably reading stuff written by you.
- [09:57]
Chuck Klosterman
What's interesting about that, though, is because of when it happened, you know, in the 21st century, as opposed to happening in the 70s, there's almost an assumption there had to have been from them that of course people are going to realize that this isn't real. Where there was a time when you could have done something like that and the artifact would just be what it is. And people would say, is this real? Is it not real? It's. I don't know if they were, like, steering into the fact that we can do this, because eventually people will know, or if there was actually. If that was the last attempt to legitimately fool people into thinking something false is actual. I mean, like, I would guess that there were some people the. When Spinal Tie up came out, they might have watched the first few minutes of it. Especially when they're talking to the people in the, you know, the crowd shots. They might be like, well, this. I just never heard of this band. The band Anvil had a documentary, and people wondered, is this real or false?
- [10:49]
Adam Friedland
Amazing documentary, Anvil and is real. And I will say, when I was a little kid, I thought Spinal Tap was real.
- [10:56]
Chuck Klosterman
Did you?
- [10:56]
Adam Friedland
I thought it was a real band. What age did you see it at? Maybe five.
- [11:00]
Chuck Klosterman
Wow. Yeah, because I saw it when I was, like, junior in high school.
- [11:03]
Adam Friedland
Exactly. Yeah. But it must have been, like, 93.
- [11:07]
Chuck Klosterman
Why were you watching this is Spinal Tap at 5?
- [11:10]
Adam Friedland
My parents let me watch anything. Yeah, they covered my eyes for the sex parts, though.
- [11:14]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, there's no sex in that in any movie.
- [11:16]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, yeah, they covered my eyes, sex and let me watch violence.
- [11:19]
Chuck Klosterman
So what was the most insane thing you saw at the earliest age? I would, like. Would they let you watch Nine and a half weeks or something when you were a kid? Or, like, Faces of Death? Were you watching then at 7?
- [11:33]
Adam Friedland
I wasn't watching. Like, yeah, yeah, I wasn't watching. I wasn't watching Red Asphalt, the driver's ed movie.
- [11:39]
Chuck Klosterman
You remember that?
- [11:40]
Adam Friedland
You remember the driver's movie?
- [11:41]
Chuck Klosterman
Like, Last House on the Left? You would be like, oh, he'll love this. He's watching him above Neighborhood.
- [11:45]
Adam Friedland
I was watching mainly just, like, this neck snap. I was watching a lot of Dolph Lundgren, John Claude Schwarzenegger, Stallone. Yeah, I was watching all. I watched all of those movies with my dad a Lot of the. Like, secure the perimeter. Yeah. Lock it down. Like, a lot of that. And then a guy's neck gets snapped.
- [12:05]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah.
- [12:05]
Adam Friedland
But I think this is kind of like a tangent, but I think because they covered my eyes for the sex and let me watch all the killing, I think killing. I didn't want to do it because. Because it was. It wasn't a taboo, but sex. I was like. I wanted to do sex because it was against.
- [12:21]
Chuck Klosterman
You know, it is a common thing. You'll hear people say, it's like, they'll. You'll be like, oh, it's crazy. You know, we'll let kids watch violence, but we won't let them watch sex. But actually, that it actually makes sense because the fact of the matter is, people are going to encounter sex in their life, and if they watch a film version or pornography or whatever, these things are an early age, it's going to warp their perception of this thing that's actually going to happen to them. They're probably not going to encounter, like, a mass shooting. And if they do, I would almost want my kid desensitized to it. I would rather have him be able to be like, I understand that this can exist in the world. You know, it's like, it does seem weird to demonize sex more than violence, but the fact of the matter is, sex is something that's part of the average person's life.
- [13:06]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
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Chuck Klosterman
Violence is not.
- [13:07]
Adam Friedland
One time a guy did a splits and then punched me, and I was
- [13:10]
Chuck Klosterman
like, yeah, I was comfortable with that. You knew it could happen.
- [13:13]
Adam Friedland
You knew it. Damn. I'd seen him do the splits and punch against. So I was like, this is finally. It's.
- [13:20]
Chuck Klosterman
I mean, if there ever was.
- [13:22]
Adam Friedland
It's happening.
- [13:24]
Chuck Klosterman
If there ever was a zombie apocalypse, there are plenty of people ready for that. Like, they have learned what to do, like, where to shoot it. You know, all these things.
- [13:32]
Adam Friedland
Those are some of the worst people in society. The ones with the sticker that, like, zombie defense unit or, like, on their car. Those are the worst guys. Well, them and Patriots fans, I guess. Okay, let's get to you, because going back to the David Foster Wallace thing, you guys were both kind of doing this social criticism, I guess, or. What would you. How would you describe, like, kind of what you've made your bread and butter doing?
- [13:59]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, you know, he would have said that he was a novelist, and then he also did nonfiction, and it was kind of journalism and it was kind of cultural criticism. His journalism was really essayistic or whatever. I suppose for me, like, I Worked at newspapers for about eight years. And it was. It was very like. I loved the job, you know, but it was limiting, and I wanted to be able to do things outside of that. And I was like, the only way to do that is books, because I wanted to sort of write about things in a way that, I don't know, was more kind of entertaining, interesting in a different way, you know, So I suppose it's cultural criticism, I guess.
- [14:37]
Adam Friedland
Do you think a girl has ever read one of your things ever? Yeah. Yeah, probably. It's got maybe like.
- [14:42]
Chuck Klosterman
Like, I mean, it's a little.
- [14:44]
Adam Friedland
Maybe triple digits.
- [14:45]
Chuck Klosterman
It's a little bit like being in rush, I think. It's for us. Yeah. Where it's like. Like it was. But I will. You know, I. This was a big. You know, I wrote this first book, Fargo, Rock City. And it was just about listening, like the hair metal in the Midwest. I would do book readings and like 14 people would show up. And they were all exactly like me.
- [15:01]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
- [15:01]
Chuck Klosterman
I mean, exactly like, they looked like me. And then I wrote Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs. And the biggest change about that is that book readings, there were suddenly not only more people, but like a third of them were women. That was very surprising, you know.
- [15:14]
Adam Friedland
Nice. You think it's sex? You put sex in the subject?
- [15:18]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, no, I think I talk about John Cusack in that book. I don't know. It's just. It's like. I'm not sure what it is. I'm not sure how, why, you know? And then. And now it's like kind of your career goes up. And now I'm kind of on the other side again, sort of moving. I assume by the end it'll, like, the last time I write a book, it'll be like the first one where like 14 people exactly like me.
- [15:37]
Adam Friedland
Yeah. That's kind of beautiful.
- [15:38]
Chuck Klosterman
It is. That's how it is. That's how it goes for everyone.
- [15:41]
Adam Friedland
It's a rise and fall.
- [15:42]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, yeah, you got it.
- [15:43]
Adam Friedland
It's kind of. That's kind of what life is, right?
- [15:45]
Chuck Klosterman
Yes.
- [15:45]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The book is football. I think it's for. It's for women.
- [15:51]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, it's great for your book club.
- [15:54]
Adam Friedland
It's been compared to the. To the. To the gay hockey Netflix show a lot.
- [15:59]
Chuck Klosterman
Right? Yes, I've been hearing that everywhere.
- [16:00]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, yeah. You have the. The QB one and of course, the center. Yes. Yeah.
- [16:07]
Chuck Klosterman
The relationship right there. Exactly.
- [16:10]
Adam Friedland
It was right there the whole time. You know, guys, how were you the first guy to realize that there could be Something between a center and a quarter. I'm sorry. I have the brain of a one year old.
- [16:23]
Chuck Klosterman
I literally would be good material for a one year old.
- [16:27]
Adam Friedland
Okay. Going back to the DFW thing, though, you guys. I mean, he's from Champaign, Urbana. Right. You're from North Dakota, right?
- [16:34]
Chuck Klosterman
Correct.
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Adam Friedland
Do you think coming from a place like you're from North Dakota? I never think of North Dakota.
- [16:40]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, yeah.
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Adam Friedland
Does it make it easier for you to be an observer of culture? Right.
- [16:44]
Chuck Klosterman
I'd say the main thing is it makes me in a better position to do criticism about mass culture, because that was the only culture that gets to, like, a place where I was from.
- [16:53]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
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Chuck Klosterman
You know, I mean, even. Yeah, I've mentioned this before, but, like, you know, like that John Cougar Mellencamp song, like, Sweet Small Town. I assumed he was talking about, like, my town with like 500 people. Turns out he's talking about, like, Bloomington, Indiana, which to me would have seemed like a big place. Like, I. Like, I. I didn't recognize how bizarre where I came from was to most of the country until particularly till I moved to New York. And I would be talking about my hometown, and people would ask me questions like, did you grow up in Russia? Did you grow up in the Depression?
- [17:26]
Adam Friedland
Like, I know that's in America, actually. Those people are idiots. What? North Dakota? The people that think that's Russia.
- [17:33]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, it would be more the description of what, like, I would describe, like, how a wedding would work in our town and people would be like that. It would seem like something that you would read in a Russian novel.
- [17:41]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
- [17:42]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah. Like the entire town get to go to the reception, and they would drive the fire trucks out of the fire hall. That's where the dance was. The families supplied all the booze and the sandwiches, and anyone could come. It was just a totally different thing.
- [17:53]
Adam Friedland
Did you say the first and the last name like a Russian novel? Were you like Bob. Like Bob Lundrigan? Like, you know how they say. Yeah.
- [18:02]
Chuck Klosterman
I mean, some people just go by both names. I feel like you're somebody. I feel like people refer to you by both your names. And sometimes people just refer to me by my first name, which is, I always think, surprising. People who don't know.
- [18:14]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
- [18:14]
Chuck Klosterman
They just.
- [18:14]
Adam Friedland
People say Adam Friedland to me. Yeah.
- [18:16]
Chuck Klosterman
That's how I mean. I would. If I said just your last name to someone that was going on your podcast, I'm not sure they would know who it was. And if I said both names, they usually do. Yeah.
- [18:24]
Adam Friedland
Is that good?
- [18:26]
Chuck Klosterman
I Don't know.
- [18:27]
Adam Friedland
Yeah. You're one of my heroes now. You're making me self conscious.
- [18:30]
Chuck Klosterman
Why would you be self conscious about that?
- [18:32]
Adam Friedland
Well, I know what it's like.
- [18:35]
Chuck Klosterman
Why would that make you feel.
- [18:36]
Adam Friedland
I know what it's like where you grew up, dude.
- [18:38]
Chuck Klosterman
You do?
- [18:38]
Adam Friedland
Yeah. There's a guy, obviously, that's in Minneapolis, and he works at a car dealership. Right. That his father in law owns. Right. And he's been, you know. Am I on to something here?
- [18:53]
Chuck Klosterman
You know, a guy in Minneapolis?
- [18:55]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
- [18:56]
Chuck Klosterman
And are you describing the plot of Fargo or something?
- [18:59]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
- [19:00]
Chuck Klosterman
Okay.
- [19:00]
Adam Friedland
Yeah. So you grew up playing football though, right? Mm. Was it because they were just there? You were just one of the. There was not enough.
- [19:08]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, I mean, in truth, were you
- [19:10]
Adam Friedland
wearing glasses under the helmet?
- [19:12]
Chuck Klosterman
Contacts then Contacts. I wore contacts in high school.
- [19:14]
Adam Friedland
Because you were a popular kid.
- [19:16]
Chuck Klosterman
There's 23 kids in my class, so it was like the difference between the most popular kid and the least popular kid was not that big of a casual.
- [19:23]
Adam Friedland
So the girls had to play football too?
- [19:25]
Chuck Klosterman
Not. No, no girls. Because in North Dakota, girls basketball happened during the fall. They happened at the same time those seasons really. But it also was the 80s.
- [19:35]
Adam Friedland
So no one played nine, correct?
- [19:36]
Chuck Klosterman
We played nine, man. Yeah.
- [19:38]
Adam Friedland
Right. Because.
- [19:38]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Why?
- [19:38]
Adam Friedland
Because it wasn't enough. Guys.
- [19:40]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, I mean, that's like in small. In some states, you know, like in Texas, they have stuff six man. In Wyoming, they play eight, man. These are if you're in. But we played nine, man. So it's like on offense, you remove the offensive tackles. On defense, you remove the cornerbacks. And then you try to play football as close to the conventional way with those, you know. And all the teams use two tight ends, basically. So it's still a five man line. If you were watching a nine man game, you probably. It would take you a while, I think, before you realize there's something wrong here.
- [20:09]
Adam Friedland
Like, you know, did, like, kids try to go Brett Favre, Lambeau, no sleeve sometimes?
- [20:15]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah.
- [20:15]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
- [20:16]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah.
- [20:16]
Adam Friedland
I mean, it had to suck.
- [20:18]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, it was cold, sure. Yeah.
- [20:19]
Adam Friedland
Did you have those, like, heat blaster things?
- [20:22]
Chuck Klosterman
Are you kidding me?
- [20:22]
Adam Friedland
You didn't. What. What the hell are you doing out there? Your parents let you.
- [20:26]
Chuck Klosterman
What do you mean?
- [20:27]
Adam Friedland
I don't want you out there with the. In the cold like that.
- [20:30]
Chuck Klosterman
That's not how it was where I grew up. That was not there. There was. I can't remember. I mean, we. I remember that, like, they would. They canceled school for two days one time because the wind chill was gonna be 85 below. So they canceled school on Thursday and Friday. And almost everybody was upset. Every parent was upset. All the teachers were upset. Some of the kids were like, this is crazy. And then we still played our basketball game that weekend. Like, we still came into town for that, you know?
- [20:56]
Adam Friedland
Wait, so wait, because everyone loves school so much?
- [20:59]
Chuck Klosterman
No, it was just the idea. It was. It wasn't that we loved school, but it just. It seemed absurd.
- [21:05]
Adam Friedland
Why didn't you even move to Arizona? This is ridiculous. You people up there.
- [21:09]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, that's a. You know, it's ridiculous.
- [21:11]
Adam Friedland
And they have two senators. It's like, don't get me started on North Dakota.
- [21:14]
Chuck Klosterman
Are you one of the. You want to abolish the Senate guy?
- [21:17]
Adam Friedland
I mean, it doesn't make sense. I didn't mean to bring that up, but, yeah. Does it make sense?
- [21:20]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, it doesn't depend how you look at it. I mean, in a way, yeah.
- [21:24]
Adam Friedland
I mean, like, God forbid we, like, let, like, I don't know, like. Like minorities vote or something. That's what the Senate is there for. Well, it just.
- [21:34]
Chuck Klosterman
Look. Well, okay, well, let's talk about sports, brother.
- [21:37]
Adam Friedland
Let's talk about sports. Okay. Yeah, but you were on a farm. You had youngest of seven siblings.
- [21:44]
Chuck Klosterman
Correct?
- [21:44]
Adam Friedland
Really? What kind of farm was it? A snow farm?
- [21:47]
Chuck Klosterman
Yes, we raised snow by the bushel, you know, for snow cones. Yeah, well, when I was. When I was a real little guy, it was like wheat. And we had dairy cattle. Then we got rid of the dairy cattle right before that became lucrative, and went into beef cattle and did that until that got. And just before that got lucrative, we sold all those. My dad wasn't always the greatest businessman, and by the end, it was just what was considered row crops. Corn, beans, things that are grown in a row. And we didn't have animals anymore. And then my brother took over the farm, and then now he's retired, and now it's. We don't. Out of. Out of the hands, out of the family.
- [22:23]
Adam Friedland
We sold you guys sold the farm?
- [22:24]
Chuck Klosterman
Yep. Sold the farm.
- [22:25]
Adam Friedland
How did it feel to sell the farm?
- [22:27]
Chuck Klosterman
It's time.
- [22:28]
Adam Friedland
It was time to sell the farm. I remember my family, too, when they.
- [22:32]
Chuck Klosterman
When you sold the farm?
- [22:33]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, we sold the farm.
- [22:34]
Chuck Klosterman
Where were you? You said you're from the southwest? Yeah, Mexico. You're from Las. Actually from Las Vegas. I grew up.
- [22:40]
Adam Friedland
I grew up in. Yeah, we moved there when I was, like, first grade.
- [22:43]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, but, like, your postal address was Las Vegas.
- [22:46]
Adam Friedland
Las Vegas, Nevada.
- [22:47]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah. What was that like? You and Jimmy were the only bit. Boring. Boring, yeah.
- [22:51]
Adam Friedland
Yeah. It was, well, a. It was like the fastest growing city in America at the time. Like, white flight America. So everyone was from somewhere else. Tract housing kind of like, looked like that show Weeds. Have you seen the show Weeds? All the houses look the same.
- [23:08]
Chuck Klosterman
So were you there, like, during, like, the UNLV basketball period or was that.
- [23:11]
Adam Friedland
I was there. The Tark years were, like.
- [23:14]
Chuck Klosterman
Right.
- [23:15]
Adam Friedland
But I like. I guess as we were moving there, like, maybe right before. Yeah, Yeah.
- [23:20]
Chuck Klosterman
I mean, like, our age difference.
- [23:22]
Adam Friedland
I was there for Sean Marion. Sean Marion. So, yeah, I used to. I used to go watch UNLV because,
- [23:27]
Chuck Klosterman
like, if we're just talking, it feels like we're the same age, but if you talk about the past, it won't be that way.
- [23:33]
Adam Friedland
Well, I mean, we're. I mean, we're both old souls, you know, we love Rootin Tootin football. We love, you know. No, I guess it's. Yeah, that was like. I guess to segue, I think, to put in context, like, if we're, like, talking about things happening right now. The national championship is happening tonight.
- [23:49]
Chuck Klosterman
Tonight, yes.
- [23:50]
Adam Friedland
Are you excited? You're excited? You're like. And John Cougar Mellencamp, he'll be more excited than me.
- [23:57]
Chuck Klosterman
He has a little place to watch the games at Indiana Stadium. His own little cabin on top of the stadium.
- [24:02]
Adam Friedland
So historically, we have this team, Indiana, which was historically just. They're supposed to lose.
- [24:10]
Chuck Klosterman
Historically the worst program in college football history.
- [24:14]
Adam Friedland
It's kind of a tradition as. As it is that, like, you know, LSU is good or something, or like, you know, Ohio State, but even more
- [24:22]
Chuck Klosterman
so because, like, you know, Alabama and these schools, Texas, they have down years. There was no up years for Indiana at any point. Yeah, you know, I mean, they had years where they weren't terrible. That was the highest they ever ascended to.
- [24:34]
Adam Friedland
And so I'll let you run with it, but how would you characterize their rise in the last two years and related to the nil, of course, and
- [24:44]
Chuck Klosterman
the transfer portal, when that all came into being, when the NIL stuff happened and the portal stuff happened, I think everybody who followed college football was like, well, it's some team that we've never really expected to be dominant is going to take advantage of this and rise up. And I think people thought like, oh, maybe it'll be a school like Liberty, or maybe it'll be, you know, it'll be a school like Oregon or I guess it's been good or whatever. No one thought it would be Indiana. I mean, their coach just understands this stuff more. Deftly than anybody else. He's a good coach anyways. He would be a good coach in the old style, but he's really great at this. I mean, he just, you know, he came from James Madison and he took the best guys from there. He built that pro, you know, that was a, like a sub division program and they moved up and then he brought them all over. He just really knows what he's doing. And he somehow is able to be both things. Like he's both like this very modern, sophisticated evaluator of talent who understands that everything has changed. But he seems to coach the guys
- [25:45]
Adam Friedland
in the traditional, like Bob Knight, like tough boot Bear. Brian.
- [25:49]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah. I mean, maybe not to that level, but close. Yes. I mean, Nick Saban, I mean, he came from that coaching trees. Yeah.
- [25:55]
Adam Friedland
And correct me if I'm wrong, like, this is. Tonight we're gonna see some like 23, 24 year olds.
- [26:01]
Chuck Klosterman
I think the average age for the, for Indiana is like 23 and a half.
- [26:05]
Adam Friedland
Yeah. Let's get into your book and we're gonna go back to like the nil, the college stuff. And like your book posits that probably in 50 years, you don't think football
- [26:16]
Chuck Klosterman
will be a relic.
- [26:17]
Adam Friedland
It won't be extinct. It'll kind of be like, I don't know, marching band music. It'll be like John Philip Sousa.
- [26:26]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, yeah. Yes.
- [26:27]
Adam Friedland
It'll be like something from the olden days. Right. Like.
- [26:29]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, I, I have a suspicion that it will be like a niche interest. Yes. It won't be the same, like right now, like, everyone's like, there's no more monoculture except for football and Taylor Swift. And I think in 50 or 60 years, I don't think even football will have that role. I don't think it's possible.
- [26:43]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
- [26:44]
Chuck Klosterman
I mean, and I know it seems crazy, like everybody, I, when I get interviewed for this book, everybody wants to talk about that last chapter. And I understand why, because it seems extremely counterintuitive. It seems more likely that football would actually swallow up every other sport in America and it would be the only sport anyone cares about. But I don't think that's. I don't think it'll happen. I mean, I'll be dead. I'll never be able to be proven wrong if I am.
- [27:05]
Adam Friedland
But, you know, so right now, 2026, it's incredibly popular.
- [27:09]
Chuck Klosterman
It's the most popular thing.
- [27:11]
Adam Friedland
You cite this statistic that 93, three of the top 100 highest rated programs was it last year.
- [27:19]
Chuck Klosterman
2023.
- [27:19]
Adam Friedland
It was 23.
- [27:20]
Chuck Klosterman
It went down a little bit in 2024 because the election. But still, it was still in the, I believe in the high 80s or 90s.
- [27:27]
Adam Friedland
Yeah. And then there were, like, four more that were college.
- [27:31]
Chuck Klosterman
College games.
- [27:32]
Adam Friedland
So one thing that kind of made me realize is, like, probably it's a product of how we consume content these days. Like, the Survivor finale probably would have been on that list, like, 25 years ago. Right. There's no live events.
- [27:47]
Chuck Klosterman
Oh, you're saying like the first season of Survivor.
- [27:49]
Adam Friedland
Yeah. Or like the, you know, like the American Idol finale. Like, you know, no events anymore other than kind of football. Right. Like, these are the things that we consume live still. We'll, like, go on streaming and we'll binge like a show or something. But, like, these are the things that collectively, Americans will sit down and watch together.
- [28:12]
Chuck Klosterman
Yes. But even, like, when you look at other countries, you would think that there would be kind of a similar phenomenon, and it's not this dramatic. It is like the dominance of football in the United States now is. It's actually like an underrated phenomenon. It defies logic in so many ways.
- [28:33]
Adam Friedland
You know, it's interesting because I remember 10 years ago, in the last 10 years, there were a couple moments where I'm like, this just isn't gonna, like, continue. And first was the concussion like, thing about. I mean, we've seen shocking things happen. Like, you see Sandy Hook happen, and then they don't ban guns. Like, we saw Junior sayouts. For me, like, when I was a kid, I used to get SI for kids. And I remember, like, the two. The two, like, guys that would always be in SI for kids were Grant Hill and Junior Seau.
- [29:06]
Chuck Klosterman
SI for kids really cared about the NFL man of the year.
- [29:08]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
- [29:09]
Chuck Klosterman
That was bigger than the MVP man, you know, because it was like, oh, look, it's a good person as well, you know? You know, that's. I mean, there was a guy for the Bears who committed suicide, and he shot himself in the chest. And he specifically left a note, like, so you can study my brain.
- [29:23]
Adam Friedland
Well, yeah, I thought Junior Seau did that as well.
- [29:25]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, he killed himself. He killed himself.
- [29:26]
Adam Friedland
But I think it's. I think you did the same thing.
- [29:29]
Chuck Klosterman
I mean, it's. They. They were able to look at it. I think they were. I don't know. Actually. I'm not going to know. I don't know. I didn't see the autopsy.
- [29:35]
Adam Friedland
And then we got Joe Von Belcher.
- [29:37]
Chuck Klosterman
Like, we've.
- [29:37]
Adam Friedland
We've had these shocking events happen. And I'm like, this Cannot continue.
- [29:41]
Chuck Klosterman
But that conversation was much more prevalent 10 years ago than it is now.
- [29:44]
Adam Friedland
Exactly.
- [29:45]
Chuck Klosterman
And part of the reason, I mean, the NFL did something very brilliant, I guess, arguably diabolicals. Anytime there was somebody who came out and it was like, I'm a scientist. I have troubling, you know, information about this. They were like, we're gonna hire you to help. You know, so they. So that was like, that's the smartest thing.
- [30:00]
Adam Friedland
Like an oil company.
- [30:01]
Chuck Klosterman
Yes. Yeah.
- [30:02]
Adam Friedland
And then also the other thing I want to bring up was Kaepernick. I remember I was like, this is terrible PR for the NFL. Like, they're, you know, this doesn't look good that we saw this guy in the. In the fucking Super Bowl.
- [30:15]
Chuck Klosterman
And I know, I totally agree with you when you say it's like bad pr, but this is also what sort of sets football apart from all these other things is that people actually care about the thing about, you know, like bad PR for baseball and hockey and NBA. That's like, that is meaningful. It doesn't really matter what happens in the world outside of football coverage, because people actually care about the product. You know, whenever people talk about sports in general and you know, they're saying like, well, you know, the NBA, they're really great at sort of marketing these guys. And you can see them and like, you know, like, the 20 most famous NBA guys are certainly more famous than the 20 most famous non quarterbacks. And in baseball, they're like, can we get Ohtani to be a personality? But that's a mistake. It's a mistake to build your thing around the individual because feelings about them change and the individuals change football by having this almost faceless automaton world where we're just like watching this simulation of warfare or whatever with just clash of colors. That's what people like. And that's why it doesn't really. All these other things don't damage it the way they would damage other like, like, you know, boxing was damaged by its. By the perception of violence to it. Football was not damaged by the perception of violence in it.
- [31:27]
Adam Friedland
It's kind of bullshit like that. They have analysts that are offensive linemen. Right. I said this to Nick Wright, like, I don't want to see you unless you really did awesome things like sacked.
- [31:37]
Chuck Klosterman
Now why would you. Why would you say that?
- [31:39]
Adam Friedland
I don't care what Jeff Saturday has to say about a game, but why would he. Some guy that just like, you know, used to slang. It used to dunk.
- [31:46]
Chuck Klosterman
So Gary Danielson was a great analyst for a Bunch of years.
- [31:49]
Adam Friedland
Don't care.
- [31:50]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah. So you'd rather see Tom Brady? You rarely listen to Tom Brady because he was better on. That makes no sense.
- [31:55]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, Tom. Terrific. Of course. Yeah.
- [31:56]
Chuck Klosterman
But so, like,
- [31:59]
Adam Friedland
I don't want to see the big old guys. Maybe it's just not. They're not my taste. It's a taste thing.
- [32:05]
Chuck Klosterman
But they're talking now. You're not looking at it.
- [32:07]
Adam Friedland
Blah, blah, blah.
- [32:08]
Chuck Klosterman
Okay, how about Greg Olson? You like Greg Olson? He was tired. Tight end.
- [32:11]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, he was. Because. Only because of that rap song he made at the University of Miami.
- [32:17]
Chuck Klosterman
It's a good song. Well, it is. Added a new idea.
- [32:22]
Adam Friedland
Oh, have you heard that song? The 7th Floor Crew? Oh, my God. After the show, I'm gonna tell you. What did he call himself?
- [32:31]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, let's look it up right now. Discusses his third leg. I believe in this.
- [32:35]
Adam Friedland
It's very funny. He was. He used to rap with his teammates. He was at Miami. They got in big trouble. And then he said he got G Reg. Did he call himself?
- [32:45]
Chuck Klosterman
Can't recall the exact.
- [32:46]
Adam Friedland
I got a third leg. My name G Reg, and I got a third leg. That's very interesting. Do you think the third leg helped him at the Carolina Panthers?
- [32:57]
Chuck Klosterman
He made him a more charismatic, confident guy, I suppose, you know, and that probably transferred over into the field.
- [33:02]
Adam Friedland
So let's zoom out again. But tell us the story of football. Just tell us, like. No, no, seriously.
- [33:07]
Chuck Klosterman
I know. Oh, yeah, because it's this ridiculous thing. Okay, but here. Okay, here's.
- [33:12]
Adam Friedland
Here's how I see it. It's this ridiculous thing where you see these. First of all, they're mushing, right? And you could tell these guys are just mushing their heads, right? And then you got the big guys mushing their heads. Then you have this whole, like, arcane set of, like, tort. Tort law, right?
- [33:27]
Chuck Klosterman
Where, like, they have to go with, like, hyper complicated. Yes.
- [33:30]
Adam Friedland
Read the. The Federalist Papers to, like, understand, like, you know.
- [33:34]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, that's good for them, though. Good to have a good. I mean, that's valuable. Did he break the plane?
- [33:37]
Adam Friedland
And did he. You know.
- [33:39]
Chuck Klosterman
Okay, how do you. How do you feel about this?
- [33:41]
Adam Friedland
Then they have a chain. Measure it. They literally have two flags and a chain that they have to bring out. And they have the. The guy come out on the chain,
- [33:49]
Chuck Klosterman
which is football of the physical world.
- [33:52]
Adam Friedland
Right? And then they have, you know.
- [33:54]
Chuck Klosterman
Okay, so the origin. Like. Okay, you know what the believed origin of football, American football is?
- [33:59]
Adam Friedland
And it's a pig.
- [34:00]
Chuck Klosterman
They're throwing a pig at Each other. His skin.
- [34:03]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, yeah.
- [34:04]
Chuck Klosterman
The belief that. It's hard to verify this, but the kind of. The kind of. The consensus about the origin of football was after the Civil War, there was this belief that young men were no longer going to face conflict. They were not going to be involved. Yes. And it was going to soften society and that we were. So they were like, we need to find some surrogate for going to war and watching all your friends die or whatever. So they invent the sport of football, the foot. You know, they kind of create this game and then it evolves sort of in a way, it evolves for, you know, 70 or 80 years, then kind of intersects with television and ends up becoming the thing that we think of now. Yeah, but that. I mean, that. That is kind of believed to be the origin of the game. That it was. It was. It literally was supposed to simulate the experience of going to war for young men.
- [34:49]
Adam Friedland
And who is the first modern football player? You say? Jim Thorpe, right?
- [34:53]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, no, no, the first modern football player. That's a really hard question because I like. I suppose in some ways it was Jim Brown.
- [35:02]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
- [35:03]
Chuck Klosterman
In terms of. He's the. He's probably the person. You can go back the furthest and make a real argument that if we literally transported him.
- [35:10]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
- [35:11]
Chuck Klosterman
Like just in a time machine or whatever, he might be able to still play. I mean, some ways, like Johnny Unitis and Sammy Baugh were the first sort of modern quarterbacks. But it's a hard question because the modern version of football, I mean, like, no sport adopts technology and modernity as much, so it's much different than, say, baseball, where the way baseball was played by Babe Ruth actually is not totally unlike the way it's played now.
- [35:37]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, yeah. And so in terms of, like, its popularity, like, how did that evolve over time, especially in the last 30 years?
- [35:47]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, it was already the most popular sport in the country in the 70s, but it wasn't perceived that way because it was still like, baseball's the national pastime. But already by then, people cared about football more because of the television experience, you know, And I mean, it's just. It's like almost the perfect marriage of these two things. Football is the ideal product to show on television. Nobody would. No one could have obviously anticipated that from football side or television side. Yeah. And how much do you attribute, like,
- [36:15]
Adam Friedland
it's like such a successful. In television to Cletus?
- [36:18]
Chuck Klosterman
What?
- [36:19]
Adam Friedland
Cletus.
- [36:20]
Chuck Klosterman
Cletus.
- [36:21]
Adam Friedland
He's the robot that plays electric guitar.
- [36:24]
Chuck Klosterman
Oh, yeah. Well, I think that. I think that widened sort of its popularity among mechanical prog rock fans.
- [36:30]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, yeah.
- [36:30]
Chuck Klosterman
And there was a segment of the audience that was maybe underserved.
- [36:32]
Adam Friedland
Who at fox came up with that?
- [36:34]
Chuck Klosterman
I don't know.
- [36:35]
Adam Friedland
The cgi electric. Because it's awesome when you see.
- [36:38]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, it obviously works. I mean, you know his name. It's like. How do you know his name?
- [36:44]
Adam Friedland
Because I like sports.
- [36:45]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, I know, but how do you. Where did it. Where is that? I mean, I like sports, but I.
- [36:49]
Adam Friedland
You see him getting defensive. He wrote a book on.
- [36:51]
Chuck Klosterman
I know, I know. This is gonna be Cletus.
- [36:55]
Adam Friedland
I am.
- [36:55]
Chuck Klosterman
That's right. You're tired. You're tired.
- [36:57]
Adam Friedland
You could have consulted with me. You should have had a hold.
- [37:00]
Chuck Klosterman
I thought you were talking about the simpsons character for a second.
- [37:02]
Adam Friedland
I believe his name is Cletus. And if his name isn't Cletus, I'm gonna be really embarrassed. Can someone look that up? It's Cletus. Yeah.
- [37:10]
Chuck Klosterman
You got a fast team here.
- [37:11]
Adam Friedland
Dude dominated once again. Yeah, clip that.
- [37:13]
Chuck Klosterman
Yes.
- [37:14]
Adam Friedland
Flip that.
- [37:15]
Chuck Klosterman
Put that on.
- [37:15]
Adam Friedland
Put that on. Going down to zero, Penguin. By the way, it was this proliferation on television, right? Like, TV rights deals kind of like proliferated football in a way that, like.
- [37:28]
Chuck Klosterman
Yes. I mean, but also, you know, football is different in the sense that they have this real strict salary cap and no guaranteed contract. So as the money is inflated in all these sports, football has been able to almost benefit more because they don't have to pay as much to the talent.
- [37:43]
Adam Friedland
It seems kind of satanic a little bit. No.
- [37:45]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, I mean, yeah.
- [37:46]
Adam Friedland
I mean, pushing your brain for two seasons and then you shoot yourself in the chest.
- [37:49]
Chuck Klosterman
But at the same time, the NFL is probably the greatest example of successful socialism in the United States. So you should be into that.
- [37:55]
Adam Friedland
Is it so?
- [37:56]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, I mean, they do all revenue sharing there. You know, they sort of invented that. Pete roselle said, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this. And none of the big markets wanted to do it. He's, like, going to happen. And that's why every six years or eight years or whatever it is, the likelihood that some random franchise will be good again keeps happening. You know, if.
- [38:16]
Adam Friedland
But, like, it's not fair. If you sign a contract and then, like, they're like, oh, it's over. You mushed your brain too much.
- [38:23]
Chuck Klosterman
So what would be fair? I'm not saying I disagree with you.
- [38:26]
Adam Friedland
The company that's making the most money, kind of like there's remuneration for mushing your brain.
- [38:32]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah. Well, if you're saying that the NFL should definitely pay for the guys with cti. Sure, sure.
- [38:38]
Adam Friedland
Stand by a contract that you've signed.
- [38:40]
Chuck Klosterman
Yes, yes.
- [38:40]
Adam Friedland
I mean, I think it's cool that Bobby Bunia gets a million dollars every year. I just, like.
- [38:44]
Chuck Klosterman
It is a cool fact. Everyone loves to mention that. That comes up every year.
- [38:47]
Adam Friedland
I think it's cool. Yeah. I just think, like, fuck the mess. Whatever. Give him a million dollars.
- [38:53]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah.
- [38:54]
Adam Friedland
I guess it's like there is an aspect about how it's better on tv. Like, baseball is a sport that's better live.
- [39:02]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, it can be both. Yeah. If you're at a nice ballpark on a nice day, it absolutely is better live.
- [39:07]
Adam Friedland
There's no question.
- [39:08]
Chuck Klosterman
But sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's, you know, especially the way they've changed the way baseball is broadcast now. It has become, again, a good thing to watch on tv. I mean, like, basketball games. If you're courtside, it's awesome. If you're in the rafters, it's bad. But the best shot, actually the best place to sit is really where the camera is for the show.
- [39:27]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
- [39:28]
Chuck Klosterman
Hockey's better live. That's the only sport is obviously better live.
- [39:32]
Adam Friedland
You can't follow the fucking puck when you're watching on tv.
- [39:34]
Chuck Klosterman
Also, you can't. Most sports try to transfer the live experience to television, and you can't transfer the feeling of guys hitting the plexiglass, but football doesn't try to do that. The live experience of watching football and the televised experience have no relationship.
- [39:49]
Adam Friedland
Yeah. American culture is awesome. If you go to the middle of nowhere, people know who Mickey Mouse is. Right. American monoculture has proliferated. If you listen to the Rolling Stones, Mick's singing in an American accent, right?
- [40:09]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, for sure.
- [40:10]
Adam Friedland
We're so powerful, especially in the 20th century onwards, as a cultural exporter. Why is this the one thing that it's such an outlier? Because it's the one thing that hasn't proliferated yet. Somehow it's the most fucking popular thing that we have going on here.
- [40:26]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, I mean, that's actually a really good question. You know, I think it probably is that football is almost, as you stated, unnecessarily complex. Right. It's a hard thing. Like, you can't just get 22 guys together and play a football game. Like, you can, but it's not going to be anything like what football actually is. It took basketball a long time, and if it hadn't been for, you know, the, you know, the original Dream Team, I think That a lot of these countries would still be probably 40 years behind us in basketball. It takes a long time for people to watch a sport, implement it, and also implement it for kids because, you know, football really isn't a great game to suddenly start playing when you're 19 and you need that kind of infrastructure. And I also think that, I think probably, you know, it's popular in Germany. I.
- [41:15]
Adam Friedland
It's not really though.
- [41:16]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, I mean, not popular.
- [41:17]
Adam Friedland
The Rhine Fire.
- [41:18]
Chuck Klosterman
But what I'm saying is I.
- [41:20]
Adam Friedland
Do they still have NFL Europe?
- [41:22]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, I don't think. No.
- [41:23]
Adam Friedland
The London Dragons.
- [41:24]
Chuck Klosterman
Yes. Or the Barcelona Dragons.
- [41:27]
Adam Friedland
The Barcelona Dragons, yeah.
- [41:28]
Chuck Klosterman
The Wine Fire. I taught a semester of school in Leipzig, Germany in like 2008, and I was surprised how much awareness of American football was there. But you know, at the same time I think that, you know, when people, you say how American culture is just wonderful thing and you know, as Americans we can feel that way. But I think for a lot of other countries, they see it as sort of oppressive and football represents like the one thing they were able to stave off. Like I remember when I was teaching this class and all the kids were always like, America has no culture. That was their big thing. And I'd be like, well, all you guys love hip hop. And they're like, well, that's an immigrant culture. And I was like, well, not really.
- [42:08]
Adam Friedland
Like, you know, it's not immigrant.
- [42:12]
Chuck Klosterman
I just thought it was a very funny perception of what they thought of hip hop.
- [42:15]
Adam Friedland
Well, they were immigrants 400 years ago during the slave trade. But yeah, no, I, I guess it's. Yeah, but it is, it is weird,
- [42:23]
Chuck Klosterman
isn't it like surprising?
- [42:24]
Adam Friedland
It's surprising. It's like, why are the Beatles like.
- [42:27]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, they're from.
- [42:28]
Adam Friedland
No, no, but like, why do the Beatles like hearing old rock and roll records, right?
- [42:33]
Chuck Klosterman
Like Chuck Berry records.
- [42:34]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, yeah. Or like Muddy Waters records.
- [42:36]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah.
- [42:36]
Adam Friedland
And then giving us back our culture in like a new exciting way. Like that's. That cultural exchange has always been like, fascinating. Why are you going to Tokyo? And there you see American culture everywhere, but it's like they've advanced it and like, you know, just fashion wise or whatever, like they've taken our culture and they're obsessed with our culture and then they've enhanced it.
- [42:55]
Chuck Klosterman
You feel that way about filming? Do you feel that the best films are now made outside of the United States?
- [43:00]
Adam Friedland
No, I'm not that kind of guy. No, there are great films made outside of the United States, but I don't,
- [43:06]
Chuck Klosterman
I think because rock music is the clearest example where. And there are other examples, you know, of it.
- [43:13]
Adam Friedland
Can you describe kind of like, briefly, like, how you see the decline working the next 50 years?
- [43:20]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, I mean, it's hard to do it briefly because, like, obviously it's a long section of that book and. But if I describe it briefly, it's gonna seem like too simple. But I think that there's gonna be this kind of this cultural shift where people have less of an interpersonal relationship to football outside of it as an entertainment. Like a distracting kind of entertainment. Like, they won't have played. Their father won't have played, maybe even their grandfather. Maybe they didn't know anyone in high school who was on the football team or whatever. They just see it as this thing that's on Saturdays and Sundays and Monday night and Thursday, and they watch it sort of to kill time. So they'll still like it. It will still be very popular because it's kind of a tautological thing now. Football is what you watch on Sunday, so that's what you do on Sunday, but it won't mean as much. And I think that the economics of advertising are going to change in 50 or 60 years. And suddenly these huge deals that. It's not. They're going to disappear entirely, but these huge deals that Fox gives or Amazon prime gives or whatever, the number won't go up. The number will either stay the same or go down at some new contract, but the players are being like, we're not going to take a reduction in salary. The league will be like, what are we going to do? Go to 22 games. There'll be a big work stoppage. And what will be different about this future work stoppage is that people won't miss it the way they would now. I mean, there were strikes, NFL strikes in the 1980s. And people were very. You know, they cared a lot. They, like, we gotta get these games back. If that happened now, it would be like a catastrophe. People would be like, what am I gonna bet on? What's my life like now? But I don't think, like, the. Like, two generations removed. I don't think that relationship will still exist. It'll still be this popular thing. But a distraction can be replaced. And I. And football, it's like, it's not one of these things, like, where it's like, it's too big to fail. Like, it's too big to stop. Covid was a great example of this. When they had to play those games, like, that's when you really recognized, like, Major League Baseball and the NBA had to go to the bubble and all these things. These leagues could not. Like, they kind of tried to position it almost as if, well, you know, people are stuck at home. The fans need this, we need this. But that wasn't. I mean, like, the Big Ten was not having classes, but they were still having their football games. They had to do it, you know, and that showed the fragility. As the culture changes. It's the big things that can't adjust. The small things are flexible.
- [45:48]
Adam Friedland
What games were you getting in the 80s? I wasn't alive. Were you getting 1pm, 4pm and then Saturday Night Football?
- [45:55]
Chuck Klosterman
Okay, first of all, it was college football. There was one game a week, which was bizarre. Sometimes two, but usually just there would be one game on Saturday.
- [46:04]
Adam Friedland
On the last time there was a work stoppage. I mean, like.
- [46:06]
Chuck Klosterman
Oh, during the work stoppage.
- [46:07]
Adam Friedland
Yeah. Was there.
- [46:09]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, after. I would.
- [46:10]
Adam Friedland
Was there that 10 hours?
- [46:12]
Chuck Klosterman
No, no, no, no. There was, there was. Most of the teams played at. I guess It'd be like 1 o' clock Eastern, 12 Central or whatever.
- [46:20]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
- [46:20]
Chuck Klosterman
There'd be a few sort of national games at, for me, three o', clock, usually the Cowboys. It was an AFC game. It would be like the Broncos or a West coast team. There'd be the Monday night game. There would be occasion. There'd be games on Thanksgiving and the occasional Thursday. But like, for me as a kid in the 80s, I would watch, you know, the Vikings were the local team. I'd then watch the national game and then I'd get to see half of the Monday night game and then have to go to bed.
- [46:45]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
- [46:46]
Chuck Klosterman
You know, so everything was like. It was a. And you know, it's a strange thing. It was like. Now there's almost this assumption that if you say you're a football fan, you're supposed to have watched every game. You're supposed to have, like, seen everything and know everything that's going on. That pressure wasn't. Didn't even exist for journalists. Like, it used to always be a big controversy that, like, somebody would win the Heisman Trophy and they'd be like, well, it should have been a guy from the Pac 10 or the Pac 12. But none of these media guys watch the Pac 12 game. It's too late or whatever like that. That'd be unthinkable now. It would be unthinkable for someone to say, well, I voted for the Heisman and I voted for a guy, you know, from Florida because, like, I can't stay up for those West Coast Games. But that was, that was a totally normal thing. That conversation came up in anytime. Like, you know, like Herschel Walker won the Heisman over John Elway. Many people said it was because, well, nobody sees Stanford play. They play. So, you know, the same thing has
- [47:41]
Adam Friedland
happened actually in soccer. Like TV rights deals have expanded you. Like there's something called Match of the Day in England where the only way you could watch like every team highlights was there was this one program on the BBC. You would usually just get one game. You couldn't get games in Italy, you couldn't watch games on the continent. In fact, like the old Arsenal, I'm an Arsenal fan, like their old manager, George Graham, in order to like scout players would have. He would get every newspaper from around the country and he would read and say, oh, this guy that's up in at Leeds is like, he's young and he's good. And then they'd sign them based on like just, just reading the local beat writers, right? Like there wasn't like video scouting even back in the day.
- [48:31]
Chuck Klosterman
But I mean, there was, there was also a higher trust society. They trusted those guys way more than they would now. You would never do that. You would never make a decision now based on media reports of a guy's talent, right?
- [48:40]
Adam Friedland
So in the Premier League, like I watched, I watched soccer and we get it before basically football starts on a Sunday or on Saturday morning also before college starts. And that's basically how it is. There are three blocks of time primarily blocked out in the same way as it is. And if anything is better for television because it's a kind of a dedicated amount of time, like it doesn't actually, like you don't have overtime games.
- [49:08]
Chuck Klosterman
To me, the biggest upside soccer has, if you start watching a game, no one spend hours, you can say, like, I'll meet you at the bar at this time. You're going to be able to make it.
- [49:16]
Adam Friedland
The wife will be killing you.
- [49:18]
Chuck Klosterman
I was a little kid, like in the late 70s and early 80s, the only way to watch sea soccer was on PBS. PBS on like Friday and Saturday night would sometimes show like a Premier League. I mean, it was. I remember me and my sister thought it was hilarious. It was the first time we ever heard nil, meaning zero. So we would say that, but it was like, you know, but that was. That's how sort of arcane it seemed at the time. It'd be something you'd see like Masterpiece Theater upstairs, downstairs and Premier League Soccer.
- [49:48]
Adam Friedland
But functionally, like there's this aspect of the Weekend, right? Like in their society, the British underclass. And they actually, when the queen died, they canceled the games that weekend. And it was like, there was a big uproar because it's like, we go to the football, right? That's what they say, the football. Like, you work your ass off during the week, you're fucking miserable, and then you go to the football, right? Now, you know, they could watch games, like, all day in the way that we can on Saturday watch the college games. And on Sunday, you know, you could like, have a crappy week and you could be like, this is what I do on Saturday and Sunday. I sit on my couch, I drink beer, I watch football. There's a. There's a demand for that content to fill that aspect of people's time.
- [50:35]
Chuck Klosterman
Oh, it is, right?
- [50:36]
Adam Friedland
So like, so when I'm thinking about the decline of football, I'm like, what are they going to do?
- [50:41]
Chuck Klosterman
Like, if that happened now? Absolutely. I think two generations removed, I don't think that person will exist in the same way. Just the thing you say about drinking beer, it's shocking to me, the statistics of, like, how like a senior in high school, unlikely. Just never drank in their life. I think that part of life is going. It's just going away now. It may come back, certainly enough time, you know, things wax and wane or whatever. But it is hard to think about the future of a sport without kind of projecting the present on it in the same way, it's hard to think of the past without projecting, like, the present on it. It's human nature to do that.
- [51:20]
Adam Friedland
I don't think our populace possesses the capacity to throw a brick sometimes. And I think it's because there's too much Mandalorian, you know what I mean? Or there's this all day on Sunday, right? And it's just. Just like. Just like things can be falling apart outside, but, like, we're gonna want to sit down and just like, watch this.
- [51:40]
Chuck Klosterman
I think I totally agree with you, although I think for a slightly different reason, I think that, like, you know, maybe we're saying the same thing, but like a. A bad sort of dead end. Life in America is still not necessarily a terrible life to experience because there are so many ways to find meaning within that. Like, even if, I mean, the Mandalorian's an interesting item, but yeah, possibly like that. Like something like that. The idea, you know, I mean, like what you're saying about football in that way, like, that's different. That's like a Noam Chomsky argument. That basically, that these things are. That this is a way to basically to sedate the populace and to have them feel as though that there's something meaningful in their life and they won't think about things that are actually meaningful. Of course I've thought about that. I mean, I write about it a little in the book, but I also
- [52:34]
Adam Friedland
think it's meaningful to us. I mean, sports are meaningful to us.
- [52:38]
Chuck Klosterman
You can't. It's one thing that you see, especially in sort of like, the social media world, is sort of this idea that, like, well, you shouldn't care about anything. If I can point out something that's a more important thing thing, that somehow you are morally failing if you have an investment in this thing, that when these other things are happening that matter so much more. But of course, if you shift those things, there's still a person who's gonna find the next thing. It's like, well, yeah, but. Yeah, but the climate, you know, it's like. I just think that that is a kind of an idiotic.
- [53:12]
Adam Friedland
I'm not saying that we should.
- [53:13]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, I know. I know you are. I'm not in any way saying you said. I'm saying this is something that I kind of think about. Like, you know, sort of. At what point do you have to weigh your actual individual experience against what is happening in the world and how much you're supposed to devote your thinking toward that?
- [53:33]
Adam Friedland
Beyond, like, saying, like, this is an opiate of the masses. It's a way that we can kind of cope with reality, you know, in a large way. Like, I think about Arsenal all week long. I think about our fucking starting 11 against Nottingham Forest all week long, and it's.
- [53:49]
Chuck Klosterman
I'm.
- [53:49]
Adam Friedland
I'm a loser. I feel like a loser that I care, but I fucking do care, you know?
- [53:54]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, I mean, you say it's a way to cope with reality. I mean, sports are part of reality. Yeah, yeah, granted. What's happening on the field, on the court, reality.
- [54:03]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
- [54:03]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, no, the hard reality, like, it's happening. It's part of the world, too. Like, what's happening on the field is a simulation of things. There is an unreality to what's really going on. The stakes are completely fabricated. Like, you know, one thing that's really interesting is. And I'm like anybody else, right? It's hard for me to sit through a preseason NFL football game. Doesn't seem like it means anything. None of them mean anything. No one's gonna die. But yet. But I win the super bowl, they
- [54:30]
Adam Friedland
play the next year.
- [54:31]
Chuck Klosterman
Right, exactly. And it's still like every game, every sporting event's an exhibition. They're all exhibitions. They're exhibition. Now we impose these meaning onto them. And I like, it's not like I'm beyond this. I feel the same way. You know, it's like I traveling for this book tour, I was missing some of these football games. I was like, ah, I hate missing them or whatever. But, you know, I wouldn't feel that way if I was traveling at the end of August and I was missing the hall of Fame game. I would have never occurred to me. It's like, oh, my God, I'm missing. But yet there are actually more. There's more similarities between those two things in a macro way than there is a difference.
- [55:11]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying. You don't talk about like, what could potentially replace it very much.
- [55:17]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, I don't think anything would replace. I think that. That, you know, I mean, I hate always just saying monoculture. Monoculture. But, you know, it's. I was. Interesting deal. Like, so I'm sure you know this. Like, so what's the highest rated television program of all time?
- [55:31]
Adam Friedland
A super.
- [55:32]
Chuck Klosterman
I mean, saying like a. Like a broadcast show.
- [55:34]
Adam Friedland
Oh, mash.
- [55:36]
Chuck Klosterman
The last episode of mash. So. And that will never ever be. Like everyone has said statistically, because of the proliferation of cable, the way things work, there will never be an audience for a television show like that again. And yet what were they talking about when that show was on? They were like, the monoculture's over. We have cable television now. USA Today is making like all these. The exact. A very similar argument was being made at what we now consider to be the apex of the Monaco. So I think that it's just a continual erosion of that. Of this shared. I mean, you know, there's so many things, and I sound like a thousand years old, but like things like Johnny Carson. There was meaning to that in the sense that. That even people who did not care about the Tonight show or watch it knew that that's what was on and that's what he was like. And all these things and those things are just not going to be part of life. I mean, that's just. That's done.
- [56:32]
Adam Friedland
I want to. We were talking before the show about socks. I'm a big soccer fan. For me, football, kind of like the tuck game. I remember when I was a kid, I'm a Raider fan and probably part of me, my waning interest in football. I have a friend who's a Bills Fan. So I'll watch with him. I love Joshi and it breaks my heart what they go through. Especially like kind of from supporting this team Arsenal. I've never seen them win the league in 22 years.
- [56:58]
Chuck Klosterman
Do you like the book Fever Pitch?
- [57:00]
Adam Friedland
I. No, I. I like the movie with Jimmy Fallon about the Red Sox. Really? Okay. No, no. But yeah, I know Nick Hornsby was an Arsenal fan, but they are this fucking team that like, it's. They say it's the hope that kills you and it's kind of. There's a lot of. It's very billsy. But like for me, the Tuck game, I was like, it just wasn't fair. And it was like, you know, Charles Woodson had that strip and like, it was just like. It's just like. It broke my heart. And I was like, well, this. I loved those Raiders teams. I love like the, The. The West. The rich can. Rich Gannon west coast offense. Like Jerry.
- [57:35]
Chuck Klosterman
Jerry Green era. That's Jerry.
- [57:37]
Adam Friedland
Jerry Rice's last ride. Like, like that team. Like Gannon would go like, he'd go like 51 for 60 for 63. Do you remember, like all those, you
- [57:48]
Chuck Klosterman
know, he had been. He had been with the Vikings and he was always like, oh, well, this guy. But when it was the end of his career, he sort of became this different person.
- [57:56]
Adam Friedland
There was something really lovable by that team. But beyond that, like, I watch soccer now and part of it is as a product. You know, much is made about that statistic. About 11 minutes of actual action within the four hours of an NFL game. But like there is 2:45 minutes of just flow. There's no commercials, right? Like, I. I fucking hate commercials. You could just sit there and watch the one thing it's not interrupted. And like in terms of gameplay, it's just. I feel like it's the best even in the NBA. The last two minutes of a NBA game, like with the fouls and like free throws, it's just like there is. The game kind of slows down. If anything, football has the best. The best last two minutes.
- [58:41]
Chuck Klosterman
I think what I mean, my argument is basically that, you know, there are kind of three kinds of sports. There's one that are kind of almost these non stop mesmerizing hypnotic sports. Soccer, basketball, boxing to some degree, auto racing. Then there's these very cerebral sports like baseball and golf, where almost all of the importance is based on what will happen, what just happened, what could happen later. Like, the action is just a very small part of it. And it's all kind of prologue to the end. Yeah. And then the third one is football, which is a cerebral game in the sense that there are all these stops and all this sort of, you know, it's like. But the moments of action are so hyperkinetic and violent that it creates almost the illusion, or maybe just I guess the sensation of real intensity and a real kind of dynamic thing. So I mean like the idea that there's only 11 minutes of action in a three hour football game, that's always used like as a criticism of football. But 11 minutes is the right amount. It's like the perfect for the way I think people. And this is like a weird thing to say that I can. I can't get in other people's brains. But I think what people say they want from entertainment and what they actually do are very different. I think that the way our mind works actually it kind of contradicts what we would say consciously is our desire.
- [59:58]
Adam Friedland
Going back to the soccer point, one thing that I found is really special is that there is a different talent development system.
- [60:06]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, you were saying that was interesting.
- [60:08]
Adam Friedland
Youth academies. So like when a player plays in a youth academy and then breaks through into a first team, it's almost as if it's like they are. It's a, it's a fan's dream. Right. Because they've been playing with like Arsenal have guys that were there when they were nine years old. Right. And the cool thing is when they're playing like the under 50s, they're playing the under 13s or whatever, they're wearing the same uniforms as the guys in the big stadium. And you could tell that there's, there's something that means so much like no one's in the Jacksonville Jaguars youth academy. Right. No one's like dreaming for the time that they're 10 years old of like playing on the Jags.
- [60:48]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, I mean like I guess a kid go. Who goes to junior high in Jacksonville.
- [60:52]
Adam Friedland
Sure.
- [60:52]
Chuck Klosterman
You know, and.
- [60:53]
Adam Friedland
But then they get drafted in Buffalo.
- [60:55]
Chuck Klosterman
They have no. Yes. They can't enter the.
- [60:58]
Adam Friedland
Right.
- [60:58]
Chuck Klosterman
The pipeline.
- [60:59]
Adam Friedland
And then there are other stories of like kids that have been cut from academies. Like there's this guy on Arsenal right now who's cut when he was, I think 14 years old and he worked his entire career to get back to Arsenal. Now we just signed him again. He's 25 years old I think now. And there is like, there's a romance in that where you could like members that we're all members of the club. Right. Then we have a board of directors we have a manager and then we have our first team. Right. And there's a sensation of, like, when someone comes through an academy and has been there for a long time and their family has made sacrifices to drive them two hours to training every day when they're like a little kid because of a dream of the family, there's, like, an assumption of that they're one of our own. Right. Kobe Bryant was my favorite basketball player because he was with the Lakers for 20 years. He felt like one of our own. And in American professional sports, we kind of don't have that, like, romance, I think.
- [61:57]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, it's really interesting because the way you describe it does sound very romantic. Now, you could describe it in the exact same terms, and some would say, like, so you like the corporate nature of these soccer factors. I mean, what is interesting that what you say, though, is that particularly, you know, like, in the Northeast, here in the Pacific Northwest, there's a lot of places where increasingly, I think there's a lot of pressure on parents to not let their kids play football. Right. And now in some places, that's not going to change. It's not going to change in parts of Texas. It's not going to change in Georgia
- [62:26]
Adam Friedland
and in Florida and amongst the underclass, too. Right?
- [62:28]
Chuck Klosterman
But yes. Well, I mean, what do you mean the end, like, poor.
- [62:32]
Adam Friedland
Like. Like poor kids are still, like, there. There's diversion against football amongst, like, it corresponds with.
- [62:39]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, yes. It's like the people watching football and people playing football are increasingly getting separate,
- [62:44]
Adam Friedland
which, ironically, in the NBA, socioeconomically, it's changing.
- [62:49]
Chuck Klosterman
I know. Yeah, I know. It's like the idea this kid is like, basketball is your way out. Like, no, it's not.
- [62:54]
Adam Friedland
It doesn't exist anymore.
- [62:56]
Chuck Klosterman
What is interesting, though, is that let's say that this continues to happen, that it becomes almost, you know, most high schools, for insurance reasons or just because of lack of interest, they stop playing high school football eventually. That's going to impact these college programs. I wonder if in some future world, this is how the NFL could find a way to keep talent. They're like, they could start this system that starts, like, you know, if you. If you're growing up in Jacksonville, if you want. If you're one of the parents who wants their kid to play football. We will make this happen. We will create a youth Jacksonville Jaguar football league. The best of those kids will move up to an advanced league. They'll, you know, by that time, college. College will be a completely different thing.
- [63:36]
Adam Friedland
Or Bama could be in the NFL. Right. Theoretically, not. Not University of Alabama, but like, kind of the Crimson Tide or something. Some. Some sort of replacement of that. Because effectively, college athletics is. Well, at Alabama longer than other places, is a professional sport now.
- [63:53]
Chuck Klosterman
Totally.
- [63:54]
Adam Friedland
Now everyone.
- [63:54]
Chuck Klosterman
They completely.
- [63:55]
Adam Friedland
Now everyone is Nick Saban.
- [63:57]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, it is. It is interesting how that is a thing that people say now it's like the sec finally. Like, now everybody can.
- [64:05]
Adam Friedland
Now everyone is the sec.
- [64:07]
Chuck Klosterman
What is interesting is that, like, it's hard. It's really hard for them to deny that, because prior to that, there was, like, the. It doesn't exist anymore. But, like, the Southwest Conference, this was like. Those were all the Texas schools in Arkansas before this got changed. And there's a. Like, there's a documentary called Pony Excess about smu. Yeah. And there's. Yeah, well, Excess. That's. In the documentary. They were called the Pony Express.
- [64:30]
Adam Friedland
There was a.30 for 30.
- [64:31]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah. Yeah.
- [64:31]
Adam Friedland
Okay.
- [64:32]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah. But there's, like, one guy in that documentary who's like, there were schools giving $1 million to players who didn't win a game, which was basically saying, like, Baylor was giving $1 million to God. Because everybody. You know that. So the idea that this has been going on forever. Of course, everyone knows it. What was. But there still is, like, it is very different now. It has been sort of like they've leveled the playing field, obviously, in this way. And I think in the short term, that's actually going to kind of create a spike of interest in college football because places like Indiana are going to have this experience.
- [65:06]
Adam Friedland
I think I'm watching tonight, and I haven't watched college football in years, really, Because I want to see. I want to see, like. Well, a. It's the clips of that quarterback after the game. I'm like, that guy.
- [65:17]
Chuck Klosterman
That guy is.
- [65:18]
Adam Friedland
That guy's hilarious, I guess.
- [65:20]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, that guy's that guy.
- [65:23]
Adam Friedland
You know. Wait, actually, you know, he's getting paid $3 million a year, I believe, to get into that.
- [65:27]
Chuck Klosterman
Sounds about right. Yeah.
- [65:28]
Adam Friedland
His high school, like, senior thesis was on why Nil shouldn't exist. You know that.
- [65:35]
Chuck Klosterman
I did not know. I did not know that.
- [65:37]
Adam Friedland
But it is.
- [65:38]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah. He is a. He has an interesting Fernando Mendoza of talking. It is. It is somewhere. It's like somewhere between, like, AI and like, a Christian musician promoting his record. It's like a weird kind of strange. Like, he's like a guy from Striper and a Machine, but it's like, he's great. Well, but yeah, like, that's a great example of it. Like, you're kind of Interested in this. I do think that in the short term that this is going to increase interest in college football in a lot of different places. I think long term it's probably going to be catastrophic for the idea of what college football is, because college football offered all these things that the NFL didn't like. A regional quality, a real emphasis on history. The idea that when you're watching two teams, you are in some sense rooting for the kind of kid you imagine going there. Right.
- [66:24]
Adam Friedland
Wisconsin is good. It's going to be 12, 14, final sport.
- [66:28]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, they play that style. There was a regional. The conference is all these. And that's going to disappear. They're all going to play. The talent's going to be equally distributed, just like in the NFL. In the NFL, all these teams fundamentally play the same. It's very rare that you see a team in the NFL who play. You know, sometimes there'll be an outlier on one end or the other, but for like the 15 or 20 teams in the middle, they're basically carbon copies of each other. Because when everybody has talent, you can't make a guy disappear. You can't use a system to outsmart a guy. In college, you still could. You could still do these things. Someone like Mike Leach, you know, he would like set up this passing game for Texas Tech or when he was at Washington.
- [67:05]
Adam Friedland
None of those guys like a spread office.
- [67:07]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, yeah, or just like system base, like you used to hear, like the system quarterback. And that basically meant that, like if you were assistant quarterback, it meant your coach was a genius who knew how to just run guys open. And as long as you could be accurate. Somebody like Kellen Moore, when he played at Boise State, I was like, there's no way this guy is not going to succeed at the NFL. He seems like he hits this guy every time. But then when he got to the NFL, there was no shot. He was, you know, but.
- [67:32]
Adam Friedland
But because it was green.
- [67:34]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah. Blue.
- [67:35]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, yeah. Well, no, no.
- [67:37]
Chuck Klosterman
When he entered the green.
- [67:38]
Adam Friedland
They play on a green field. Yeah, yeah.
- [67:41]
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Adam Friedland
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Adam Friedland
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- [74:05]
Adam Friedland
Do you think Bill's gonna be back in the NFL ever?
- [74:08]
Chuck Klosterman
No.
- [74:08]
Adam Friedland
No. It's crazy to see what's happening.
- [74:11]
Chuck Klosterman
It is. It's. It's.
- [74:12]
Adam Friedland
Pablo's ruining his life. It's all Pablo's fault.
- [74:16]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, that's. That's an interesting thing.
- [74:18]
Adam Friedland
No, it's Jordan.
- [74:19]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, but it's like, it's. In a sense, it really does show that he is not interested in his perception.
- [74:35]
Adam Friedland
Well, no, because, like.
- [74:38]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, why do you say no?
- [74:39]
Adam Friedland
Because his. His entire dominance, I guess, was about completely shutting out the outside world.
- [74:49]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, right.
- [74:50]
Adam Friedland
And this is completely. Goes against everything we know about him. The Patriot way was that the locker? I mean, they. They could have murderers in there. We'd have to. No idea. Eventually we would.
- [75:00]
Chuck Klosterman
But.
- [75:00]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, but like, the Patriot way was about kind of just completely insulating everything from the media. His personal life being a matter of media spectacles.
- [75:11]
Chuck Klosterman
But he. But he, like, he doesn't care what we think is what I'm saying. Oh, it's like he doesn't care. People like us.
- [75:16]
Adam Friedland
Sure.
- [75:17]
Chuck Klosterman
Like, you know, it's like, it doesn't mean.
- [75:19]
Adam Friedland
How were they this year at unc?
- [75:20]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, you know, they. They. It was the first game of the year, the opening drive. They look awesome. And everybody was like, aha, this is. And then it was just kind of, you know, downhill from there. And then at the end of the year, they did play better, but the damage was done.
- [75:35]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
- [75:36]
Chuck Klosterman
And sort of the plan he has to make like, he was like, this is gonna be like a. Like a way to get ready for the NFL. Like, that's all our whole thing. We're A factory for the NFL. And the byproduct of this will be, well, like, we'll win the acc. But that's not what had happened. I mean, it's.
- [75:53]
Adam Friedland
He's probably just going to copy Indiana, right? He's probably going to have like 45 year old or not 45. He'll have like 28 year olds. You'll find some way. He's the dark lord, he's Palpatine.
- [76:04]
Chuck Klosterman
It would be incredible if that happened. I, you know, I, I find him just intriguing and hilarious and I just, I love listening to him talk. I mean, if you've. Maybe you've seen this YouTube clip where like a reporter says, like, well, this really isn't for my story, but I'm curious. It's like, why do you have to hold a roster spot for your long snapper? Like, isn't that a waste of a roster spot?
- [76:27]
Adam Friedland
I love specialty.
- [76:28]
Chuck Klosterman
And he explained the history of kicking extemporaneously for like 11 minutes. And it was like, it was almost like this is the first time anyone ever asked him a question in a press conference. And he was like, I'm gonna reward you for this.
- [76:41]
Adam Friedland
I mean, well, that's the surprising thing about Jordan Hudson is like, I had no idea he was into anything else.
- [76:47]
Chuck Klosterman
Oh, you said you. Well, I mean, I don't know, like
- [76:52]
Adam Friedland
sex, like this bizarre.
- [76:54]
Chuck Klosterman
But there was that famous footage that went up of him, like, leaving some girl's house.
- [76:58]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, the rating camera.
- [76:59]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah.
- [76:59]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
I don't think.
- [77:00]
Chuck Klosterman
That wasn't her house. That was somebody else. Right.
- [77:02]
Adam Friedland
Oh, he was a lot.
- [77:03]
Chuck Klosterman
I thought so. I don't know. I'm pretty sure.
- [77:06]
Adam Friedland
Almost certainly it's an Airbnb that Pablo, like, rented and then got a video.
- [77:10]
Chuck Klosterman
I know.
- [77:11]
Adam Friedland
Wait, I asked Nick Wright this. Do you think that if David Stern were alive, Pablo would be dead? You think that he would just be. I think he would be in a dumpster trash can.
- [77:25]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, I think that like, a lot of things that Silver has kind of allowed would not have been allowed. So maybe they'd never be in the position for. I know what you're kind of implying, but it's like a lot of these situations. I think that when Silver became the, you know, I interviewed him for gq, I think it was. And I was like, this is a really smart.
- [77:47]
Adam Friedland
Sexiest man in the world. Yes, exactly.
- [77:49]
Chuck Klosterman
He was like, this is a smart guy and he's really kind of personable.
- [77:52]
Adam Friedland
He's a company man. He's like a lawyer.
- [77:53]
Chuck Klosterman
Right? He is. Stern may have been the Last pro sports commissioner who will ever be that way. Like, I don't, I don't. I don't think that. I don't know if ownership groups will ever again allow someone. I mean, like, he exploded the popular. He did. Correct me if I'm wrong.
- [78:15]
Adam Friedland
I was born in the late 80s, but like, in the 80s, the NBA was kind of not a thing.
- [78:20]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, the first time I was a huge Celtics fan. And when they beat the Rockets in 1981, half those games were on tape delay. You'd watch them at 10:30 or whatever. And then that did totally change. By the end of the. The 1980s, it kind of felt as though basketball and football might almost sort of be in, like this, like in a kind of collision course. And then, but then it was too. It was too individually based because the two years that Jordan went away, that was. Really showed the risk of that because there was. Suddenly there was. The interest in the NBA went down. And then when he came back, the interest went back up and it was like, that means they're not really into basketball. They're into this person. You can't build things around personality if you want to have long term success.
- [79:03]
Adam Friedland
Wait, that's. I have no idea. Can you just break that down like. So Michael Jordan stopped playing basketball.
- [79:11]
Chuck Klosterman
Are you being sarcastic?
- [79:12]
Adam Friedland
So why. Why would he stop. Why would he stop playing basketball?
- [79:15]
Chuck Klosterman
Well. Oh, well, obviously his father died. You know, his dad died.
- [79:21]
Adam Friedland
I thought his dad was.
- [79:22]
Chuck Klosterman
His dad was murdered.
- [79:23]
Adam Friedland
Oh, I was gonna say his dad would never let him stop. So I play basketball.
- [79:27]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, his father's love was baseball, though. You know, maybe you've heard that.
- [79:32]
Adam Friedland
So was he good at baseball?
- [79:34]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, you know, he. He did not have a high rate of success. He. He, you know, he's been more successful than I think I would have been if I would have tried to play baseball. But no, he did not ever have a great.
- [79:44]
Adam Friedland
So his dad got whacked. He went to go play.
- [79:47]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, it was a random act of violence. Is that really a whacking? It's not like, you know, Joe Pesci walking into a room. Okay, he was in a car.
- [79:55]
Adam Friedland
This sounds. It sounds like you're making this all up. I thought that he just hung out with Tweety Bird, Bugs Bunny. I had no idea that Michael Jordan was playing baseball.
- [80:04]
Chuck Klosterman
I mean, are you sort of saying that you actually believe. You believe that he was forced out?
- [80:09]
Adam Friedland
It seems plausible that the gambling thing maybe needed to cool off for two years.
- [80:17]
Chuck Klosterman
I don't know if I find that to be a very Credible conspiracy, to be obvious. To be honest. I mean. Yeah.
- [80:25]
Adam Friedland
And none of this is gonna air because he's a friend of the show. Michael Jordan, give it up for him. His airness. I don't know, it seems bizarre that, like, I don't understand how a commissioner that was so powerful.
- [80:41]
Chuck Klosterman
Right.
- [80:41]
Adam Friedland
Could have had the biggest player in the world kind of leave in the middle of his career like that. I feel like David Stern, as someone that was so kind of just viciously pragmatic and effective, I feel like there had to have been more to that.
- [81:00]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, when Jordan retired that first time, they had won three championships in a row. And actually the conversation then was sort of like, well, this is kind of like Jim Brown. Like he's leaving at the height.
- [81:11]
Adam Friedland
Maybe he left for civil rights to be a civil rights leader. Yeah, he left. Well, we know he was a great actor. We've all seen Space Jam. It was phenomenal.
- [81:20]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah. You know, it's. And so it didn't. When he played baseball, it did seem really weird. But then the contract thing, because the Bulls and the White Sox were owned by the same organization. It made sense. And then his. If you're David Stern, I mean, if you, if you, if, if you, if you were David Stern and you did this. If it is true. It isn't. It is beyond brilliant. Because his return was one of the most thrilling things of, like my memory of sports in the 90s.
- [81:49]
Adam Friedland
Yeah. The 45 to 23.
- [81:51]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah. Well, just the game he played against the Knicks and it was like he hadn't been back that long. And it was like he is. He is instantly the best player in the league again. He has lost almost nothing. Oh, yeah.
- [82:02]
Adam Friedland
Okay. I want to do a couple hypotheticals with you.
- [82:06]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Sure.
- [82:06]
Adam Friedland
Okay. Let's stay on the NBA. If Tim Donaghy. If it wasn't. If the New York Post, I believe, didn't catch wind of the fact that he was.
- [82:18]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah. And that was leaked to them. Yes.
- [82:22]
Adam Friedland
He was going to turn states witness. Right.
- [82:26]
Chuck Klosterman
I think that could have happened. I think it definitely could have happened. Yeah.
- [82:28]
Adam Friedland
My understanding is he was going to wear a wire and then it became public knowledge that he had been caught in this scandal. Like, how much would that have diminished the credibility of the refereeing and the NBA at large?
- [82:41]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, it would have been a big deal. I mean, it would have been a huge deal, obviously. But I will say this because it would be an officiating issue. It wouldn't have been as devastating as if a player point shaving situation happened. This just happened in college basketball, all these guys now who got in trouble for point shaving in a real obvious way. But what is interesting is, and this seems obvious now, but it never occurred to me. It's like it's always. These point shaving situations are always going to involve teams that aren't good. Those are the teams you go to. And because of that, it won't bother fans in the same way. Like there's not going to be a point. I mean, I'll say this and it'll happen tomorrow.
- [83:19]
Adam Friedland
You know, Juventus, one of the best teams in Italy, historic team, was caught in a match. Am I right, Tim? Yeah, in a match fixing scandal. And then they were sent down to the second division, actually. So it was a huge scandal.
- [83:32]
Chuck Klosterman
I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but I'm saying that let's say you're a prospective guy and you want to, you want to corrupt. You want to pay off players and have them fix games. It would be a huge mistake to try to get the kids from Duke or Kansas or any of these schools to do it for no other reason. Those games are really visible and these guys. But if you find some guy from a college that is never on television,
- [83:53]
Adam Friedland
he had a football for. Well, what do you think of. Well, it's not a hypothetical. What do you think about the hypothetical? Did you write that, Caleb? What do you think about the hypothetical Beatles? What do you think about the hypothetical Beatles movie yesterday?
- [84:13]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, I never actually saw it. Yeah, well, because I know I, I know something about it that to me would. Is too big of a flaw.
- [84:23]
Adam Friedland
Which is what? The Beatles existed?
- [84:25]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, no, that like nothing else changed. Like if the Beatles.
- [84:28]
Adam Friedland
Ed Sheeran didn't exist. Or he did exist.
- [84:31]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, he's in the movie.
- [84:32]
Adam Friedland
Oh, he starts writing for Ed Sheeran. Yeah, some, some bands don't exist. Oh, you know what they say, people don't smoke cigarettes.
- [84:39]
Chuck Klosterman
Really?
- [84:39]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, cigarettes are popular. That, that we all know that the Beatles were famous for cigarettes. Yeah. Do you think that Drake will ever win best actor for the Audacity of Hope Barack Obama biopic.
- [84:54]
Chuck Klosterman
Is he playing Barack Obama?
- [84:55]
Adam Friedland
No, but I've always said this for the last like 15 years that Drake will one day.
- [85:00]
Chuck Klosterman
Will he do. I think he'll win an academy. I think he'll be.
- [85:03]
Adam Friedland
For the Obama.
- [85:04]
Chuck Klosterman
I think he'll be wrongly snubbed. Okay.
- [85:06]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, exactly. I think so. Yeah. They'll give it to Kendrick Lamar for the, for the Hillary Clinton bio.
- [85:12]
Chuck Klosterman
But he's a Canadian. Can a Canadian play an American president?
- [85:17]
Adam Friedland
If he's acting.
- [85:23]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah. I guess he is eligible to play. To be an actor. I guess you had to.
- [85:27]
Adam Friedland
Okay, let's just stop calling these hypotheticals, because half of these aren't. What's the best. What is the best rock supergroup? Like, why are the Wilburies as good as Tom Petty? Why is it, like, a super. A super team? Like, the is. Is really good at basketball. Like, if you have the best players. Like, why aren't. Why does that.
- [85:46]
Chuck Klosterman
Why isn't Asia as good as its various components of.
- [85:48]
Adam Friedland
Like, why are the Traveling Wilbury's the best band of all time?
- [85:52]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, because. I mean, I don't know how. Seriously, you want the answer.
- [85:57]
Adam Friedland
I would like it serious. Yeah.
- [85:58]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, because when they're. No jokes, when they're all coming together at that point in their career, the ideas that we're doing this kind of like, we're. Almost everyone is conceding to every other person. Nobody has a real vision. Like, Jeff Lynn is producing the record, but it's. For the most part, it's like, well, won't this be fun? We actually produced some pretty good songs. It's interesting that, like, you know, it's strange when, you know, I think Bob Dylan was 47 when that band happened. Like, he already seemed so old to me, but, like, you know, and, like, Tom Petty was nothing. Tom Petty was, like, in his 30s or whatever. But you're not gonna be committed in the same way, you know, like. Or like a band like Velvet Revolver, I guess. That's a kind of super group.
- [86:41]
Adam Friedland
So they're the best one, you're saying?
- [86:43]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, no, but I'm saying it's like they would. It's actually hard. It's actually hard to come up with what the best. I mean, maybe the Traveling Wilburys actually might.
- [86:52]
Adam Friedland
They still might be the best answer.
- [86:54]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, because that first record was pretty good, and there's Songs are memorable, and it also sort of changed the way people perceived those guys. It made them seem much less serious and detached.
- [87:05]
Adam Friedland
They were fun. Okay. What would David Foster Wallace, were he alive, have made of Trump? Because his obsession was television, right? Like, this is the television president. It's kind of like.
- [87:20]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, I mean, it's weird because he was like. He. You know, he wrote a long thing about, I believe, his obsession with John McCain. I think it was like seeing him in this. So, I mean, I would think that he would think Trump is sort of like, almost like the greatest extension of everything that's gone wrong with civilization, unless it completely horseshoed around and somehow he Was like, this is actually what America is not. It's not good for America. But this is like the declaration, like it would to be, like, to say interesting things about Trump is hard. It is hard because so many people are trying to do it. Everyone's like. He informs every conversation. And everybody.
- [88:03]
Adam Friedland
Comedy. It's. He's. He's like defeated. Comedy.
- [88:05]
Chuck Klosterman
He did.
- [88:05]
Adam Friedland
Yeah. Because he's funnier.
- [88:07]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [88:08]
Adam Friedland
But it's just like. It kind of. There's so much Runway in DFW to Trump that it's just like. It's so embarrassing that I live in Brooklyn and I'm saying, I wish David Foster Wallace. I wish I could read David Foster walls on Trump.
- [88:24]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, it's weird because, like, you know, in British Nellis book, American Psycho.
- [88:28]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
- [88:28]
Chuck Klosterman
He talks about Trump constantly in that book. You know, at that point, Trump was just some guy going around New York being rich, you know? Yeah.
- [88:36]
Adam Friedland
We were talking about. Caleb hits everyone. Caleb hits everyone. Well, give it up for him, guys. Jesus Christ. A little bit of energy.
- [88:47]
Chuck Klosterman
Have you ever considered using a studio audience? That would really change the vibe here, you know?
- [88:52]
Adam Friedland
We have. We have. And they slid out their damn chairs. They got so horny.
- [88:57]
Chuck Klosterman
It was all really. Yeah.
- [88:58]
Adam Friedland
Amazonian women. I'm trying to think. There is in that. In the. What is it called? Like, the Rock and Roll Circus documentary? The Dirty Mac.
- [89:10]
Chuck Klosterman
The rolling. Yes. Oh, that. You know. Yes. Okay. So that's like John Lennon playing with the Stones.
- [89:14]
Adam Friedland
Mitch Mitchell.
- [89:15]
Chuck Klosterman
John Lennon also in that. Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath plays with Jethro Tull in that performance. That's the only time Tony Homie plays with Jeff Bertol, I'm sure. So this is why women love going to my book reading.
- [89:26]
Adam Friedland
We're the same guy.
- [89:27]
Chuck Klosterman
I have this information.
- [89:28]
Adam Friedland
What would have happened if. If Mr. Mitchell. Mr. Mitch Mitchell, perhaps to me the
- [89:34]
Chuck Klosterman
drummer of Gene, Drummer of the Experience,
- [89:35]
Adam Friedland
I think one of the most underrated drummers in rock. Great drummer. What would have happened had he joined after the death of Keith Moon? Had he. Had he joined. What do you call it? Who? The Who. Wait, what? I don't know the name.
- [89:52]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
The.
- [89:53]
Adam Friedland
The band with the. Tommy and. What was it called?
- [89:57]
Chuck Klosterman
Yes. Oh, they were a British band.
- [90:00]
Adam Friedland
Who's on the. Who's on first? The what's on. Okay, let's move on, guys. Can you please support me in my dreams of being.
- [90:07]
Chuck Klosterman
Did you have. Did you bring the MC Mitchell just to set up that joke so you could actually. I can't believe I didn't play that.
- [90:14]
Adam Friedland
I Didn't play that ahead.
- [90:16]
Chuck Klosterman
Okay.
- [90:16]
Adam Friedland
My brain is atrophy.
- [90:18]
Chuck Klosterman
Okay. I just, you know, because it wasn't terrible. I'm not saying it's terrible. I just did not think it was a horrible jump.
- [90:24]
Adam Friedland
I mean, it was the dog. Absolute steaming pile of dog.
- [90:28]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, it was just in front of
- [90:30]
Adam Friedland
my fiance's cousin, no less.
- [90:32]
Chuck Klosterman
It's just. It wasn't. It was an arcane or object.
- [90:35]
Adam Friedland
What if he joined the who, though?
- [90:36]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, that would have been cool. Well, I think that he probably would have hung with him for a while. Yeah. You know, but they did, you know, they. They kept going anyways, you know, it's like.
- [90:45]
Adam Friedland
What. It was the best post Beatles career. How would.
- [90:50]
Chuck Klosterman
Who host Beatles? Yeah. Okay, so Zeppelin started in 69 of the four. Oh. Of the four bears. Oh. Ooh.
- [91:01]
Adam Friedland
That's a good question.
- [91:02]
Chuck Klosterman
Wonderful question.
- [91:03]
Adam Friedland
The first three, John, are kind of top to bottom, unfuck withable.
- [91:07]
Chuck Klosterman
I mean, the best. Plastic Ono Band is the best of those records.
- [91:11]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
- [91:11]
Chuck Klosterman
Paul's career was the best. I think that All Things Much Past in some ways is like the record.
- [91:19]
Adam Friedland
The number one record of all.
- [91:21]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, I mean, it does. It does have. This is it. I think it's kind of samey at times, but if. I think if I had to actually rank them, I would say Plastic Ono Band is probably a better record. But it was. It was one of these things where it was like, it's insane that they didn't let him write more at the Beatles when that record came out. Like a lot of, you know, so really it's. I mean, and then. But, you know, Ringo was in caveman, so it's like, you know, so that's. Or no. Or is it. No, not caveman. Richard Starkley, number one, 3000 BC or whatever. Yeah.
- [91:52]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, that's the best one.
- [91:53]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, I don't know. Yeah, I appreciate you asking that question, though. Thanks.
- [91:57]
Adam Friedland
Why are they better?
- [91:58]
Chuck Klosterman
What?
- [91:59]
Adam Friedland
Why is England better at bands?
- [92:02]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, England, like.
- [92:03]
Adam Friedland
What's the best American band?
- [92:04]
Chuck Klosterman
The best American band, I guess Bob Dylan. Well, I would say it would be probably the Beach Boys, the Velvet Underground, the Grateful Dead, Van Halen, possibly Metallica, Credence Clearwater Revival. Those are the six, I would say. But like, really with England, it's really.
- [92:24]
Adam Friedland
It's.
- [92:24]
Chuck Klosterman
It's five bands. It's the Beatles, the Stones, Zeppelin, Sabbath, the who and the Kinks. Six bands.
- [92:30]
Adam Friedland
So it's like Floyd, my brother, the Floyd.
- [92:33]
Chuck Klosterman
Put them in there. That's actually. That's a good. I. I agree. That's. That's seven. So it's. And. And. And maybe. And it is probably 7 of 10. Best of all time. That is weird.
- [92:42]
Adam Friedland
Why are we letting them bastards over there take our crap and then get. Be better at it?
- [92:47]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, I just.
- [92:48]
Adam Friedland
I think it makes me one of the red coats.
- [92:53]
Chuck Klosterman
Yes, that's true. How do we allow this evidence? But that's. I would. I don't. I.
- [93:01]
Adam Friedland
It's kind of baffling when you think about it.
- [93:05]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, it might have something to do with the singularity of the Beatles. I mean, the way, you know, like, the Stones were just like a blues cover band the first time they had a. Like a successful single. Like, the Beatles wrote it for him in, like 10 minutes. So it's like.
- [93:20]
Adam Friedland
It's hard to round the pub and just wrote it.
- [93:22]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, even like getting in a taxi cab or something. But so that. That had probably a lot to do with it. That, that. That created this idea that it's like, well, this is what. We can do this. Like, I didn't know we could do this. I guess we can. Well, because it was the 50s rock.
- [93:40]
Adam Friedland
Radiohead.
- [93:41]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, well, it's a. It's a. Yeah, that's a good rock.
- [93:44]
Adam Friedland
Why are they beating us, guys? What are we doing? It's like seeing these goddamn Europeans come to the NBA.
- [93:51]
Chuck Klosterman
Will you be troubled if Major League Baseball becomes dominated by the Japanese?
- [93:56]
Adam Friedland
No, I like that.
- [93:57]
Chuck Klosterman
You like that?
- [93:57]
Adam Friedland
I like that. It's really fucked up what we did to them.
- [94:01]
Chuck Klosterman
You think that's finally equating things like
- [94:03]
Adam Friedland
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it's the only time it ever happened.
- [94:07]
Chuck Klosterman
Yep, the only time.
- [94:08]
Adam Friedland
And to them, really horrible.
- [94:11]
Chuck Klosterman
They handled it well.
- [94:12]
Adam Friedland
Did we say sorry like that? Good. How sorry did we say?
- [94:16]
Chuck Klosterman
I don't know. I mean, we're like, my bad.
- [94:18]
Adam Friedland
Truman was like, my. My bust.
- [94:20]
Chuck Klosterman
Yeah.
- [94:21]
Adam Friedland
Did you say my bust?
- [94:21]
Chuck Klosterman
There seems to be like, sort of like. Well, we did stop firebombing all these cities, you know, but it's like. What's really interesting is when you hear how they picked these cities. I watched like a. Like some kind of little documentary or might have just been on YouTube, like how it was selected. And like, you know, like, they didn't want to destroy, like, I believe it was like they couldn't destroy Tokyo or something because they were like, that's where all the leadership is. And maybe they won't have anyone who can even surrender. And like, one city was bypassed just because one guy on the decision committee was like, I went there. It's a beautiful place. It's like, so they all go Nagasaki. Then it's, it's very incredible how the decision was made like this world, time changing decision was made much more capriciously, at least in my opinion, than I would have ever guessed.
- [95:06]
Adam Friedland
Yeah. Do you think that there is a potential for soccer ever to take, to take the place of football in the United States?
- [95:14]
Chuck Klosterman
Because they've been since, they've been saying that since the New York Cosmos and Pele. Absolutely. It's the sport of the future.
- [95:20]
Adam Friedland
Yes.
- [95:22]
Chuck Klosterman
Well, there was a time in my life when I would have said absolutely not. Absolutely. There's no chance at this point in my life. I would say, like, I don't think so, but who knows? I mean, every big thing I've ever predicted, I've been wrong about. I think every big thing, the only thing I really got right. Same is on.
- [95:41]
Adam Friedland
Do you gamble?
- [95:42]
Chuck Klosterman
Nope.
- [95:43]
Adam Friedland
Yeah, I lose. I lose.
- [95:44]
Chuck Klosterman
Everyone I know.
- [95:45]
Adam Friedland
Yeah.
- [95:46]
Chuck Klosterman
Every time I met, we had a New Year's Eve party at my house one year and we all had to make predictions for the year and we wrote them down in a book. And for some reason I said, Michael Jackson's gonna die next year and there's gonna be issues over his will. And I bring this up every New Year's for the rest of my life.
- [96:01]
Adam Friedland
It's the only thing you got right.
- [96:03]
Chuck Klosterman
It was the only thing I got right. Only thing I've ever totally got right. Ever. That totally. Like, I, I remember in 2016, you know, I had this friend who was just totally freaked out about the idea of Trump, you know, and it was like, we're watching the election results come in. It was like 8:15 Eastern and she's texting with me and I'm like, no, don't worry. Like, he's not going to, he's not going to win. It's like, like I was like, literally like minutes before every, every white person
- [96:29]
Adam Friedland
in America didn't think, well, I know,
- [96:30]
Chuck Klosterman
but I'm saying it was like it was 8:15 or whatever. Like it was, it was probably two minutes before. And I was like, no, I just, I am not good at knowing what's going to happen before it does.
- [96:42]
Adam Friedland
And read his book about what's going to happen before it does.
- [96:46]
Chuck Klosterman
Exactly. Sam.