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- [00:00]
A
About to head over and pick my kids up from school. And after I do, I know what they're going to ask. They're going to go, hey, can we go to Whole Foods? And I am going to say yes one, because then keeps them off their screens. But two, groceries are my responsibility in our household. And so yeah, we usually swing by the Whole Foods headquarters and we get all our groceries for the week. My wife has like a bazillion dietary restrictions. Sometimes that can be tough. But not at Whole Foods. They got everything even for Valentine's Day. They got mild of these chocolate dipped strawberries that I think we're gonna get. They got gluten free stuff, they got dairy free stuff. They got basically everything. And I usually pick her up flowers while I am there too. If you're looking for something for someone for Valentine's Day this year, Whole Foods has got bouquets and arrangements. They've got succulents. Sometimes I'll just bring home a plant. She always appreciates it. The point is you can taste love all month at Whole Foods and maybe.
- [01:00]
B
You'Ll see me there here at Austin.
- [01:01]
A
You know what has also been crazy because it integrates your Amazon account. When I pull up Amazon, I can see all the stuff that I ordered, which is always good to remember. Pull up my little Amazon in store code, get all my prime benefits. It's lovely. Anyways, I'm off to Whole Foods and you should too. New year, new systems, right? This is the time when we should look at the messier parts of our business and think there's gotta be a better way. And there is. Streamlining your communications is one of the quickest and easiest system upgrades you can make. And that's why today's episode is brought to Quo is brought by Quo. That's Q U O the smarter way to run your business communications. Quo is the number one rated business phone system on G2 with over 3,000 reviews. And it's built for how modern teams work. And that's why over 9,000 businesses, from big companies to little ones, use Quo to stay connected, professional and reachable. Your entire team can handle calls and texts from one shared numbers so stuff doesn't get dropped, nothing gets missed, and the customer gets taken care of. Plus, it's easy. Calls, texts, voicemails, transcripts and contact details all live in one clean view and you've got it all at your fingerprints. Make this the year where no opportunity and no customer slips away. And you can try quo for free. Plus get 25% off your first six months when you go to quo.comDailystoic QU O.comDailystoic no missed calls, no missed customers. You know, I mostly run and swim. Sometimes I bike. One of my goals for the year has been doing some strength training. You know, Peter Attia talks about this, that the most important thing you can do is some form of strength training as you get older. But the problem is, you know, it's easy just to head out of my house and run. Doing an actual workout requires some stuff. Well, that's where today's sponsor, Tonal comes in. Tonal provides the convenience of a full gym and the guidance of a personal trainer anytime at home with their one sleek system designed to reduce your mental load. Because Tonal is the ultimate strength training system, helps you focus less on work, workout planning and more on results. Tonal gives you real time coaching cues to dial in your form and help you lift safely and effectively. And then they help you adjust in 1 pound increments as you go so you get stronger, you're always challenged. And right now, Tonal is offering our listeners 200 bucks off your Tonal purchase with promo code TDS. That's Tonal.com and use promo code TDS for $200 off your purchase. Tonal.com TDS 200 bucks off. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice and wisdom into the real world. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. One of the craziest experiences of my life happened in Phoenix. This would have been either 2019 or maybe February 2020. I don't remember exactly, but I got invited to do a talk at the NFL owners meeting. So that's 32 billionaires, 32 head coaches, 32 GMs, and then all their families. I did this 10 minute talk on Stoic philosophy. It was actually sponsored by ted. Like the NFL had TED put on miniature Ted talks at the NFL owners meeting. It was surreal and it was actually funny. I was talking to Roger Goodell, who is the commissioner of the NFL. He was like, I'm a huge Marcus Aurelius fan. Which was just a surreal little experience. And I was thinking about this because I'm heading out to Phoenix at the end of this month. I'm going to be doing a talk that you can come to and grab those tickets@dailystoaklive.com but no, I was thinking about this because my son is playing football now. He plays flag football down in Westlake and we've been seeing, like, parents who are, like, hardcore football parents, like, not hardcore, hardcore Texas football, but certainly the most animated sports parents that I've seen. And football is just a crazy game. It is nuts.
- [05:15]
B
I mean, I love it.
- [05:16]
A
I love watching it. I've been to a number of NFL games. I love writing about it. I love thinking about it. It's probably my favorite sport. Football isn't just a sport in America. It's like part of the cultures. The famous example is, like, of the 100 most watched television events in the last year, like 90 plus of them were football. I mean, the president is talking about who's performing at the super bowl halftime show. And in the last election cycle, it was a major death knell that the president didn't feel up to doing a Super bowl interview.
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B
Right.
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A
I think that kind of tells you everything. You know, they were like, oh, if he can't do an interview at the super bowl, he can't be president. So that intersection between football and culture, life, myth, story. Chuck Klasserman's like the best writer in the world at that. He's the author of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. But what if We're Wrong? Which is a book I love. The 90s, which is a book I love. And then his latest book, football. He's written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and GQ and Esquire and espn. He's also founder of Grantland, one of the greatest journalism websites of all time. So when I found out one of.
- [06:30]
B
My favorite writers was writing a book.
- [06:32]
A
About one of my favorite sports, I was pumped and I was very excited to see if Chuck Klosterman wanted to come back on the podcast. I'm very excited to bring you this interview here during the super bowl week. In this episode, Chuck and I are talking about football, talking about AI, talking about shared cultural experiences, what the future generations will misunderstand about this moment in time. Right now, you can follow Chuck on Twitter Klosterman and definitely check out his new book, football. And if you want to listen to his other interview on the podcast, I'll link to that in today's show notes. And I hope to see you in Phoenix at the end of the month. If you're the owner of an NFL team, you probably don't need to come, but everyone else very much welcome. I'll see you@dailystokelive.com to grab tickets.
- [07:23]
B
I think about this thing that you wrote all the time. I think we, we even talked about it last time. But it's One of my favorite insights of yours that pertains to football, but it, but it explains, I think life generally. You're taught. You were writing a piece about the Cleveland Browns. You were there in the off season and you're walking around the facility. And as it happens, I think you're, you were profiling Michael Lombardi, who actually introduced all my books to professional football.
- [07:48]
C
Well, I mean he, he was there, he was part of the Bronze organization at the time. At the time I was there because they had sort of said, we will allow you to see sort of watch the draft, our drafting experience, which did not happen. But that was what the, what the promise was of me showing up. Yeah, yeah.
- [08:04]
B
But what I took out of the piece, which was not the, the, the main subject of it. But, but it was just one of those little insights, which is what I think long form journalism is best at is these like little sort of asides in. Anyways, you catch the whole Browns organization basically watching ESPN to see what is happening. Like, you're like, these are the, the experts of what they do and they're just watching football, television journalism like the rest of us. And we like to think that there's something more going on behind the scenes, whether it's like in, in politics or sports or entertainment or whatever. And then you realize like, they're kind of just like the rest of us. And I mean, obviously today it would be them scrolling Twitter or their Instagram feed, but you're just like, you want to think the experts have some super exclusive intelligence that they're getting and then they're, they're kind of just doing the same as the rest of us.
- [08:57]
C
Well, I mean, you either sort of imagine that they have some sort of separate elite version of this kind of dialogue or discourse, but you certainly don't think that they are using what I think most people think of as like just kind of like the lowest form of discord, like the most consumer oriented, you know, almost like the creation of narratives and all these things, you know, that, that, that we sort of see. Like when I watch talking head stuff on espn, guys talking in a roundtable or on fox, I know that they're talking about, you know, real things and they have insight and they're former players and experts. But I see it more as an entertainment vehicle.
- [09:39]
B
Yes.
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C
That this exists to basically get us from game to game, how to fill up this time. It was a little strange to see these guys to make it, you know, about to make a draft pick. And they're watching these things intently now. Part of me wonders, are they watching it intently with some aesthetic distance? Like, are they actually watching it for the things about it that are untrue? But I gotta say, it didn't seem like it. Like they would sort of nod their heads at the part you're supposed to nod the head at. It was like. It was, you know, is that. It was a surprising thing to me, you know.
- [10:10]
B
Yeah, it's like you wouldn't want a hedge fund manager just watching CNBC all day because you would think that that's late already. Like, you would expect the newsmaker to be getting their information from somewhere other than the news.
- [10:25]
C
Because typically in life, if the media is covering something you really understand, you know, a situation happening in your hometown or maybe a story about you or whatever, you know, it's almost always wrong to some degree. And that's not even a criticism. It's just kind of the imperfection of the thing that if somebody is trying to explain a technical matter to a real technician, it's going to always seem flawed. And that's what I thought would have been the case with, like, the GM of an NFL football team, that if they were watching the NFL Network, you know, discuss some offensive lineman from Tennessee or whatever, they would not be going like, well, this is something I got to care about. This is. I would think they'd be like, these guys just don't get it. Like that thing they're saying about leverage, that's fake. Like, we know that. That's just fake or whatever. Maybe not. You know, maybe not. Maybe there is. Maybe there is less of a chasm between the bottom of society, the top society, than we think, at least intellectually and ideologically. Maybe that is actually, you know, since we lived in just a totally mediated culture, maybe that is what sort of connects the top and the bottom. I don't. I don't know.
- [11:34]
B
There's a phrase for that. It's honestly something more people should understand. I think it's called the Gale amnesia effect. I think Michael Lewis coined it. But you have a decent definition of it in the book. You said, anytime I read an article about a subject I legitimately understand, the article has been at least partially wrong. A reaction that's become increasingly pervasive. Every national story about a localized conflict will seem erroneous to the local population. It depicts. Any entry level exposition about a technical problem will seem imprecise to genuine tacticians. And then the. The amnesia effect is the part where then when we read or watch something about something we don't understand, we defer to what we've just been told as if, as if the area we have expertise is the exception and not the rule to the insufficient coverage or the tendency towards inaccuracy.
- [12:27]
C
Well, and I think everyone who thinks that they have something to offer, whatever that skill is, they kind of see it, that the value is the uniqueness of it, that it's coming from them, that's specific to them. But as soon as, then they're kind of confronted with this kind of consensus, collective view. There's a little anxiety that maybe that in order to have my unique idea get across, I first got to show that I understand, you know, what the parameters of the discourse is. Like, I, I, I have to show that, like I understand what everybody else thinks in order to somehow enter my new thing. You know, it's probably not a bad sort of impulse because I mean, if you jump right in with the sort of the, the counterintuitive idea, I think it leaves some audience, you know, to think like, well, this person doesn't even understand what the playing field is. It's like they're making up a new game or whatever.
- [13:15]
B
I definitely see this with AI Anytime I ask AI a question about something I do a bit about and I'm, I'm like asking it to find something that I just don't want to spend the time getting the specifics on or whatever. Anytime I kind of know the answer it's supposed to give me, I'm always very disappointed with the quality of the answer. I get bit by a jellyfish and I'm like, what should I do? I'm like, well, it says I should do this. So that's obviously what I'm going to do. You know, I'm, I'm incredibly deferential when it's well outside my area of expertise and I'm just desperate for any kind of confident answer. But if I were to ask it like, what the best restaurant in Austin is, I'd be like, this thing doesn't know what the fuck it's talking about.
- [13:59]
C
What do you make of the sycophantic nature of AI that this sort of built in tendency, it has to always begin with some kind of compliment to sort of insert this idea that your question is especially, you know, trenchant. Well, like now do you think that this is, that this is part of the, that the creators of AI were like, well, this is, this is actually what people want. They want to feel as though they're being helped by someone, someone who is subservient that will give Them less fear that it's not like a hell situation where it's like, you know, that this is a situation where, oh, look at this, this, this AI system is behaving as though it's lucky to be talking to me. Or am I actually personifying it too much? Like, why do you think that is? Its normal nature.
- [14:45]
B
No, I, I, I do find that annoying and weird and I think revealing about what your sort of average human wants. I also find it strange where when it's wrong and you're like, hey, that's obviously wrong. What about this or that? And then the quickness with which it goes, oh, you're absolutely right here. And so like there's something not just annoying about its overconfidence in giving you incorrect or insufficient or bullshit answers, but the obsequiousness and the immediacy and the spinelessness with which it will change its mind over and over and over again until you go, okay, that's good, that's what I wanted. There's something revealing about that too, where it knows that what you want to do is feel right more than you want it to give you what is right.
- [15:35]
C
And the speed complicates it too though, because like, let's say you had a personal assistant and you had them, you wanted, you need them to look up a bunch of information about state capitals or whatever.
- [15:46]
B
Yeah.
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C
And you're going through the information they gave you by hand and you notice that they got something wrong about, you know, they, Carson City, they, they didn't say was the capital of Nevada. And you told them this, they would be like, oh, you're absolutely right. I, I know this was my job to do this and I made this mistake. It's almost like the AI is doing that instantaneously. Right. Like they're finding out that they're wrong. Thinking about it, feeling, I don't know, ashamed about it and coming. It, it, it is, it is bizarre. Although I wonder, like, are we the only generation of people who are going to have this dissidence in the same way that like really, people our age are the only people who are obsessed with the difference between the pre Internet world and the post Internet world that we're constantly saying, like, oh, you used to have to go to a travel agent or whatever if you want, you know, now you don't have to, like, people older than us don't really see that, you know, like elderly people, they maybe never really use the Internet in a, in a, in a practical, functional, everyday way. People younger than us, it's like, oh, we're the only age. Kind of like basically if you're 40 now, up to maybe 60, like that's the only window of time where you've fully experienced both paradigms.
- [16:55]
B
When I was watching the Wild card games this weekend, there's this Microsoft AI commercial where the guy's like the running back or whatever runs by really fast and then he goes, ooh. And he starts like typing in queries to ChatGPT or whatever to narrow down, rank them by this and then do this and then do this. And what strikes me about it is just no one would do that because no one would trust a thing that, like, imagine if, if Excel, Excel does all sorts of calculations for you, right? And if, if Microsoft Excel was just wrong like 10 to 15% of the time and you're like, wait, no, you just added all these cells up incorrectly and you were like, that's wrong. And then Excel was just like, oops, yeah, you're right. Let me do it correct this time. Right? Like, the error rate that we're willing to accept with ChatGPT is like, or any of the AIs is so enormous to me. It strikes me as, as like this crazy thing that no one's talking about. Like, we're like, hey, it's amazing it can do this stuff. But also it's like preposterously laughably wrong a significant percentage of the time. And you don't know what that time is. But, but by the way, you should lay off your staff and replace it with this thing.
- [18:12]
C
Well, but it is, you know, interesting. I do think about like the early days of Wikipedia.
- [18:17]
A
Yeah.
- [18:17]
C
How like when I was in a newspaper, the idea in those days if you would use Wikipedia at all as any kind of source, it would have been like, you're fired for that. You know, this. Now it actually seems probably more secure than most sources.
- [18:30]
B
But is that just because everything else has gotten worse?
- [18:33]
C
Well, that's part of it, certainly. But also I think over time, sort of these things that are all kind of user generated or whatever, they are going to improve. I mean, it's very interesting. Like, okay, so I'm sure you're familiar with this, this look, this anthropic lawsuit about books.
- [18:47]
B
I was just filling out the thing the other day because my agent was like, no, no, I can't do it for you, for you. You have to do it. And now I'm like, I have to fill it out like 20 times.
- [18:57]
C
Yeah, well, I mean, just. Well, actually, you don't. Okay, this is how I know. Okay. So I hear about this secondhand. I didn't know anything about this. For people who don't have any idea what this is, Anthropic, which I believe is the search engine, I think that people call Claude. I don't use this one, but so it turns out there's like this class action suit and, and you can, you can opt into it or you can opt out of it. And what initially I thought was if you opted into it, it meant you were giving them access to your books. As it turns out, they've taken them all already. That's all in the machine. So if you have any works that were used by Anthropic, if you fill out this form, I believe you get like, it's like $3,100 per work and then you get half and your publisher gets half. Yes. So, you know, I like you. I had, I had a lot of books on there. Right. So the actual amount of money was not.
- [19:48]
B
Right.
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C
Insignificant. Okay. So I'm like, I'm going to do this, I'm going to opt into it. But it was very difficult to do with all these things until I asked Chat GPT how to do it. And it made it incredibly easy. It did a lot of the things for me. I mean, it was the first time that I ever used one of these things in a way that was actually practical, you know, in every other situation I've ever been in professionally. What, like, to me, chatgpt is good for, like you put a sentence in and go like, is it grammatically correct? It's good for stuff like that, you know, but, but this was the first time it actually gave me how to like take all of the works and make it into one file and present it all at once.
- [20:32]
B
Yeah.
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C
And then it checked it all for me and then so they can look up to see if, to make sure it was received. It was like, so this thing that I'm technically suing, right. I'm suing the idea of this, this system which has already taken all of my work. The cow is out of the barn or everybody, you want to see it, it's out. So it's like, well, you get this little money now in a way. I was almost like, well, what happens if I, I guess if you don't opt in, the only upside is you. There could be a lawsuit that you could opt into later. They say the settlement will never be this big. I don't know, it's. It was, it's a strange deal. It really, like, it was a real collision that like, of modernity. Like this thing that everybody sort of said was going to happen, all of a sudden it was like it already happened. That already happened. You know, it's like as soon as.
- [21:18]
B
I have to start filling out like complex forms, I start to immediately go, wait, now how much am I getting paid for this? Because I might just not do it.
- [21:27]
C
Well, yeah, because then suddenly you're weighing it against time, right?
- [21:31]
B
Yes.
- [21:32]
C
Like is, is the amount of time this is going to take worth what I'm going to get back? Will I even notice what I get back? You know?
- [21:38]
B
Yes. And then what are the chances that I'll actually get it back at all? And then I start to start making excuses. And I was like, you know what, this seems like a task I should give to someone else. And so now that I know I can give it to ChatGPT, that's, that's nice to know.
- [22:01]
A
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- [23:36]
B
Look, we all have plans for being.
- [23:39]
A
Better in a new year.
- [23:42]
B
And then what happens is that we fall off, right? Most New Year's resolutions fade by February. We slip into old patterns. We go back to doing things the way we've always done them, or I think, you know, life intervenes.
- [23:56]
A
Stuff happens.
- [23:57]
B
But if you want to break out of some patterns this year, if you.
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A
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B
Of that stuff that's holding you back.
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A
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- [24:37]
B
First month of therapy. You know, it's funny, obviously you talk about this at the beginning of the book. Like, you know, the thing that people want to compare football to is, you know, the Roman Coliseum gladiator games. But, but I remember I was in Istanbul maybe seven or eight years ago and the Hippodrome there, the. There's a racetrack in the middle of the, of Istanbul which was at one point known as Constantinople. And I'm reading this sort of exhibit about it and I didn't know how big chariot racing was in the ancient world that like chariot racing was like after the sort of rise and fall of the gladiatorial games, chariot racing becomes sort of the main sport of the British, of the Roman Empire. And I'm reading about this event, this is like in 500 AD or something, there's a chariot racing. And basically the chariot racers get. It's like red and green and blue and the different colors are basically associated with different political factions. And apparently there's like a chariot race during the reign of Justinian that goes sideways and maybe there's allegations of cheating. I forget what it is exactly. But like this riot breaks out and like 30 or 40,000 people are killed in a riot during a chariot race in the center of what was then the Roman Empire. And I remember just thinking like, okay, yeah, this would be like if, if the different divisions in, in the NFL became associated with Republican or Democrat or Libertarian or whatever. And then during the Super Bowl, a riot breaks out, and the end of the story is the emperor is almost forced to abdicate because, like, his. His chariot faction loses, and then he tries to intervene.
- [26:25]
C
And.
- [26:26]
B
And so there is something about, like, whatever the dominant sport is in a period of time that. That just becomes absorbed into culture and into the entire sort of political and social system of a country. And it is weird that football has become that. You sort of marvel at that, at the book, that, like, you wouldn't think it would be football, and somehow it is football.
- [26:52]
C
Well, I mean, football has done this in a way that is also so clear. I mean, it is. It's not really a debatable thing. There's no argument in the United States over what sport is most reflective of society or most popular of all these things. Like, we understand it, football is an interesting thing because, you know, it starts in the 19th century. It sort of evolves on its own for about 70 or 80 years and then intersects with sort of the rise of television. And that is really what makes this happen in terms of the sort of the metaphorical and symbolic significance it takes on the things about society. It absorbs the things about society. It reflects, you know, and that, you know, is chance. Right. You obviously can't. You don't start a sport before the invention of a medium and think, like, one day it might work for it. I don't think the inventors of television saw, thought this is a perfect vessel for football. I think they thought that about boxing and horse racing and things like that, you know, baseball. But to me now, and big reason I wanted to do this book is, I think if you're thinking about the United States from, you know, the last half of the 20th century, and you're trying to understand it through another thing, through an outside idea, like, football is probably the best source for that. I don't know if that will be true going into the 21st century, but I think that for the last half of the 20th century, like, football was. And is this like, sort of like kind of reflective, profound thing. Profound in kind of an underrated way. Like, it is just a sport. It is a form of entertainment. It is kind of just a distraction. And yet there is, I think, a deepness to why it became, you know, so central to not just like, you know, American popularity, but like, American identity, specifically certain regions of the country where football is, I mean, almost inarguably the most important extension of culture in those places.
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B
Yeah, it's like the only monoculture left. You make a point in there that I didn't think about. Which is like, it makes sense that soccer is the most popular sport in the world because anyone can play soccer anywhere. And you can play it in. In a bunch of different conditions that are all close to, you know, what you would see or experience, like watching it professionally or watching it on television or whatever. And then you're like the. The very small number of people that play football, American football versus how popular it is, that feels like it says something. Like, it is weird that the supposedly democratic country has as its game and its sort of iconic sport a fundamentally elitist game in the sense that not that many people play it.
- [29:46]
C
I mean, maybe not elitist, but exclusionary, for sure.
- [29:49]
B
Yes, yes.
- [29:50]
C
And I mean, there are many things about this that seem to contradict what we. What you would expect if, say, you were some alien, you know, thinking about what America wants to think about itself. Okay? The fact that no team sport is so dictated and is so controlled by things outside of the field itself. You know, the play coming from the press box down to the sideline, sent in by a messenger. Gotta look at the Byzantine code on your wristband. You know, it's like, it's the most controlled thing. One of the, you know, the popular ideas. I mentioned this often, I mentioned the book like this, this essay that the art critic David Hickey once wrote about basketball was that that the larger idea was that any rules or sort of bylaws of a sport should try to liberate the players. That's what we care about, right? We care about the people on the field. So we want to give them the maximum amount of freedom and kind of creative expression. Football does the opposite. Football is not made for the individual. It is made for the collective. It is made in this hierarchical, stratified thing where what you're seeing is never accidental. It is the most corporate sport, not just in terms of the extension of how it works in actual business. The construction of the game has many sort of similarities to any kind of highly controlled system. Is. Is. Is built. And I think that it kind of shows that this is what people want. Like, we want freedom for ourselves. We want control for the rest of the world. Like, we want to feel like we have agency, but we're more comfortable, I think, seeing others act without it.
- [31:34]
B
Yeah, yeah, no, and your point about, like, what are we going to think about what football says about us 50 years from now, 100 years from now? Just, like, what do we think about what the various sort of cultural obsessions about the Romans and the Greeks says about Like, I think I was in Greece this summer. And one of the things that I, I find so interesting is like the Greeks had a bunch of different running sports, but all of their running events, none of them involved them going around in a circle. Like, they had straight sprints and then their distance ones involved, like running to a line and then running back. It was this, like, sort of you would do these multiple stadium length wind sprints, basically. And I don't know what it says, but it says something interesting that they weren't just like, the track is circular because they would do chariot events but people wouldn't run in a circle. What does that say? It's just weird. You know, there's just endlessly fascinating, revealing little quirks that you learn about a society when you study what it watches.
- [32:37]
C
But here's the deal. When we talk about something like that as a retrospective thing, like we're looking back on this, we do exactly what you just did. It's like, like, what does it mean? It must mean something, right? And the only meaning that we can apply are typically meanings that would exist in the present tense. Like, it had just never occurred to them this, that they had a very linear way of thinking, that they somehow they believe the curves, you know, the curves of the track created some kind of, you know, mystical advantage. Like, we always have to think, what was the reason for this? And the fact of the matter is there probably was a reason for it. There probably, maybe even a real kind of practical explanation. But that's not how we want to think about it because we think of it as history and history want to have meaning. That's a big part of like, sort of, I guess, kind of the conceit of this book, which is that I know that there is going to be a time in the future when football is not the last remnant of the monoculture. It's not the center of, like, how American entertainment and, you know, and recreation operate. It's going to be something that is either. I don't think it'll probably be. I don't think it'll be gone in totality, but it will be this niche thing, this minor thing. And then people are going to try to explain why. And I am, I'm not sure exactly what that description will be, but I think it will be wrong. And I suspect it will be pejorative because that's usually how we work. We look at something in the past that failed and we're like, well, it failed because it had a problem. And that problem was endemic to the world. It comes from. From. So I wanted to do a book that was like, okay, so you read. You know, obviously it's kind of a. Kind of a gimmick, because I'm trying to sell this book to people who are alive. I'm doing this podcast. Right. I'm not doing this podcast for people who have not yet been born. I do not expect people to listen to this podcast in a hundred years and then find this book.
- [34:26]
B
Sure.
- [34:27]
C
But I do like to think about time in this way where, like, how can I reflect what the present actually is, like, for people who will have no way to access it? Like, whatever we think about Roman gladiators, you know, it's a ton of knowledge about the mechanics of how it worked and all that, but I don't think it's possible for people in this day and age to truly understand what it really felt like or what the motive was or what people wanted or how it was viewed. Like, we assume it was viewed in some way. Like the way we view football. I guess I can understand that relationship, but I bet it wasn't that way. You know, I always kind of almost cons. I don't. Concerned is the wrong word, I guess. Obsessed with this idea of, like, I want things to be remembered the way they actually were, not the way we can project the present onto them.
- [35:20]
B
It is interesting, though, like, we. We assume when there is a monoculture, that it is, in fact, an actual monoculture and that there wasn't a divergence of opinions at the time.
- [35:31]
A
Right.
- [35:31]
B
Like, so. So we go, okay, the Romans really liked gladiatorial games. They obviously thought it was okay to, you know, send criminals and whomever in there to fight and die and how grotesque and violence this is. Violent this is. And then I think it's really interesting, you know, there's this essay that Seneca writes where he's not talking about this at all. And then suddenly he kind of goes into this tangent and he's like, like, why are we doing this? It's so violent and horrible. Like, who likes this? You know? And you go like, oh, yeah, some people thought it was dumb then, too.
- [36:03]
C
Right.
- [36:03]
B
And so there we always assume that everyone was on the same page, and certainly they weren't.
- [36:09]
C
Oh, absolutely. Certainly. Yes. And, you know, but what I'm saying is the people who are critics of football now, in a future world, those people, I think, are going to be seen as the guidepost because the thing failed. Right, Right. And it will seem like, oh, well, you know, they're saying it's. It's barbaric. And it was just. It was like a blood sport or whatever. That must have been what it was. But, you know, you just bring up, just kind of casually, like, lots of interesting things. Like we mentioned the monoculture, right?
- [36:35]
A
Yeah.
- [36:35]
C
Okay, so what's something that's a thing? A lot of people who study or follow TV know. They know that the last episode of MASH was the most watched show in history, and that will never happen again. That it is now absolutely impossible that a show could have that many people watching one episode all at the same time. And yet what were people saying at the time? They were saying the monoculture was over because cable television had come into play. And suddenly it was possible to get, you know, the New York Times in Seattle. The world was becoming this sort of. Already these things, before the Internet exists were kind of using these terms. You see, you'll go back and find things where, like, people use terms like memes and, like. And like, you know, the global vill village and all that stuff. So this thing that we now understand to be the apex of the monoculture. I have a 53 million people or whatever it was, watching this episode of, you know, Korean War sitcom or whatever. At the time, they already believed. The thing that we say about it now was over. That the monoculture to them had been, you know, the 50s. That was a monoculture, you know.
- [37:43]
B
Right.
- [37:44]
C
Or the 20s.
- [37:44]
A
Yeah, it's.
- [37:45]
B
It's so weird realizing that there was a present moment at every moment in.
- [37:52]
A
In history.
- [37:52]
B
Like, I just went down this. This weird rabbit hole. Like, did you know there was another Winston Churchill? Like, in the late 1800s, early 1900s, there was an American writer, a novelist named Winston Churchill, who was so famous, like, in 1901, he had, like, the bestselling book in America. He was so famous that Winston Churchill went by Winston Spencer Churchill. For most. Like, people don't even know Winston Churchill. The statesman, supported himself as a writer. And there's all these, like. There's this great book called no More Champagne, where it's like, basically a biography of Churchill as a writer and as a guy who spent more money than he had. And there's all these, like, things about him complaining about his agent and his publisher. And it's fascinating, but. But like. Like, Churchill went by Winston Spencer Churchill so people wouldn't confuse him with Winston Churchill, the author who was selling millions and millions of books. And not only. And he's just totally forgotten. Like, just nobody knows that he exists, even though he sold millions and millions of books. And if you had asked people in 1906, you know, are people going to remember who Winston Churchill was? They'd be like, yeah, he's a great novelist. The idea that we would remember him as the guy that saved the world, Western civilization, as a statesman from a different country, would have been, like, utterly incomprehensible.
- [39:19]
C
Are you a big Churchill guy? Do you know a lot about him? Yeah, because there's one thing I've always wondered about him. I'll tell this anecdote.
- [39:25]
B
Maybe.
- [39:25]
C
Maybe you're familiar with it. I had heard that. So, you know, in those. In his era, we're talking about political era. You know, everybody smokes, right. Everyone was smoking, smoking. So he would remove all the ashtrays from the room, and he had figured out a way to sort of not need to ash his cigarette as much. And eventually someone else would ask him for an ashtray. And he felt this gave him a tactical advantage. What was the advantage? Like, what would be that? What would that advantage be like for an ashtray? Yes. And that was. And he saw this as sort of like that. It was almost like, who blinked first or something. I was. But I've always wondered. I've heard that story more than once, but I've never had an explanation as to what the advantage would be. But I don't really doubt it. Right. Obviously he knew what he was doing. You know, I mean, this is a guy who is drunk all the time and yet saved the world or whatever. You know, it's like, he's an amazing person.
- [40:17]
B
It's weird. I've. I've read a lot about Churchill, and I've never heard that story. Or if I have, I skipped over it, not. Not thinking much about it. You know, the other weird one you hear all the time is like, they go, like, do you know how much there was on the streets of New York City and like, the horse era, you know, like, I heard that one again the other day.
- [40:34]
C
Chicago especially, they. Chicago, because they called Chicago the city of horses.
- [40:39]
B
Yeah, yeah. There's just, like, manure everywhere because there's so many horses. And then one day it's just gone. But that's one that happened in my lifetime. Obviously, not as much, but. But just like the idea. There was smoke and ashes everywhere all the time, and then just like that, it disappears. And then every once in a while, you're in a casino where they let you smoke, and you just go, I can't imagine what the world was like when it was like this all the time. I remember on it, we Went on a trip as a kid. We were in Arkansas and we stopped at, like a Sizzler or something, and it was still. There was a smoking section and a non smoking section. And that's the last one that I remember being like, ugh, this is horrible.
- [41:21]
C
It is amazing how something can change. And it's almost like that period just disappeared. Like there were ashtrays in hospital waiting rooms.
- [41:29]
B
Yes.
- [41:30]
C
Like, you could smoke in the hospital. You could smoke in the hospital.
- [41:33]
B
And this is. Do you know who. Sam Gwynn. S.C. guin. He wrote Empire of the Summer Moon. He wrote that book, the Perfect Pass, about the invention of the forward pass in football.
- [41:42]
C
Okay.
- [41:43]
B
He's an amazing writer. He wrote this book called Empire of the Air about, like, the Hindenburg. It's about like, blimps, you know, but they're not called blimps. I'm forgetting what. How to pronounce the actual word. But anyways, he's talking about this one famous one that. That goes down like the Hindenburg. And there's this whole section in the book about. There were smoking rooms on those blimps. Those blimps filled with highly flam. Yes. Highly flammable gas. There. There was a. A sealed smoking room on those blimps. And like, it's not just like, oh, this. This used to be a thing and we forgot about it, but it's like, no, no. There used to be, like, legalized insanity. Just like everyone was collectively insane about something, and then we've just pretended that it didn't. Didn't happen.
- [42:31]
C
Well, I mean, although, like, I. This has come up in a few other podcasts. Have you heard this story about, you know, The San Francisco 49ers have seemingly many more injuries than every other team over the last five years. And now people are wondering, is it because of their practice site is located next to this, like, electromagnetic site or whatever? It's like, it's right next. If you look it up, there's many. Is it possible in some future world? Or, like, do you realize that, like, people didn't even realize that having, like, an electrical plant near people was it. But yet at the same time, here in the present, like, it would be weird. You'd really be a marginalized person if you were like, I refuse to come within one mile of a, you know, of a power plant or a transformer or something. But if it suddenly became obvious that that was like, the main factor for a whole laundry list of problems, then we'd be like, people were so crazy. It's like, Smoking a cigarette on a zeppelin or whatever, you know, but it's not. It's not because we don't have that understanding now. We're always trying to do this. We're always trying to put the understanding of the world we have now onto the past. I mean, I'm not. That's blaming people for doing it. I do it all the time. It's just. It's. But it. It's crazy. It's a. You know.
- [43:47]
B
Well, they bring the smoking thing back to. To sports. It is crazy. When you watch those. You look at those videos, or you. You see photos of, like, athletes smoking during halftime or smoking in the locker room, because that one isn't. It's not like, oh, you shouldn't smoke because, you know, you might get cancer many years from now. Like, they were coughing. Like. Like, smoking is something where, like. Like the smoker tangibly, daily feels the consequences to doing the thing. No one would feel that more directly than an athlete doing a sport with lots of cardio in it. And yet there they are.
- [44:25]
C
Things get sort of built into your brain, and they don't really change. Like, I. You know, I'm looking at you. You're wearing this New Orleans Saints jacket, you know, so when I think of the New Orleans Saint Saints, part of me still reverts back to my first exposure to them, which was the year I really got into football cards, and the saints went 1 in 15. So my natural impulse, my natural inclination when I think of the Saints is to think of, like. Part of me says, like, well, that's like the worst. That's like the worst franchise. They've won Super Bowls since then. Everything has changed. There are. If someone were to say. If I were asked to be. To rank that, you know, all. Every franchise in the NFL, historically, the greatest of the worst, they would not be at the bottom, for sure. But there's a part of my brain that sees that, like, I guess where they always say, like, the lizard part or whatever, and I'm like, oh, yeah, they had Archie Manning and nothing else. They had Chuck Muncie, but he wasn't good yet because he didn't go to the Chargers. I still think of the first understanding I had of the Saints, you know.
- [45:30]
B
Well, I. My first one is. I remember I got a book out of my school library, and there was a picture on the front of that kicker whose name, I'm forgetting, who. Who didn't have the front of.
- [45:42]
C
Dempsey.
- [45:43]
A
Yeah.
- [45:43]
C
Tom Dempsey. Yes. He broke the NFL record with half a foot. Yes. Yeah.
- [45:47]
B
And. And I just was like, what is this? This is insanity. Like, how do I not know about this? And that. That's what took me down the, the, the rabbit hole.
- [45:56]
C
Yeah. It's strange in a way. You know, he had half a foot, but it was a huge advantage. I know, because they, they allowed him to wear a shoe that had a steel plate at where the toes would be. So he was actually like hammering the ball with almost a literal hammer with his foot, you know, so, so it's always, that's always a weird things that for many years was, I believe it was a 63 yard field goal that was no longer the record. But it was for a long time. It was. I certainly in. Into the 90s. I think maybe a guy from Denver tied it at that point. But there was always that, you know, it was always sort of a, like a profile, encourage. You're like, you know, like this guy with half a foot. Is the kick the longest field goal? That's like. Well, yes, also he did have the advantage of kicking with steel, but, you know, it's a.
- [46:42]
B
Well, I almost told that story. In my book, the obstacle is the way and it's not like the, the record now is like 10 yards further. It's not that much further.
- [46:50]
C
Yeah, I think, yeah, it's, I think it's that it's not that much. I mean, there is probably a limit to what a kick can be, you know. Yes, and, but, and regardless, it still is an obstacle. I mean, yes, he had this advantage of this shoe that was specially designed for a guy with half a foot, but that also meant at some point in his life he had half a foot and he was like, I'm going to pursue field goal kicking. I mean, that is an amazing thing. Right. I recall the last time we talked, we talked a lot about Iron Maiden. Like you're.
- [47:19]
B
Yeah, of course, yes.
- [47:22]
C
So do you like Black Sabbath as well?
- [47:23]
A
Yeah, sure.
- [47:24]
C
You know, I love Black Sabbath and the classic story about Black Sabbath or one of the many ones, is that on the last day of, of working in the factory before he became a full time member of a, of a band, Tony Iommi's working in the factory and the tips of his fingers are all cut off, you know, and on his left hand, well, he's, he is plays left handed. So it's his right hand that has no fingertips, you know, and he can't. It would seem to be the end of this. Right? Like, like his mother made him go to work even though he was quitting. She's like you gotta finish her last day. And he's like, I'm gonna be a musician. Like, go, your last day thing comes down, you know, cuts off his fingertips. He's kind of, you know, obviously depressed and. And believes it is over. And someone brings him a record and plays the record for him. And I won't remember the name of the artist. Somebody else listening to this will know. The guy plays the record. And Tony Iommi's like, okay, this is a. Guy's a pretty good guitar player. Thanks. You know, it's like, not the greatest time for me to hear this. And the guy goes, okay, the guy on this record has one arm. He only has one arm. And then Tony army was like, if this guy can play this with one arm, like, I can figure out a way to, you know. You know, he starts. So he starts, you know, burning wax to cover his fingertips so he can press down on the strings. And eventually they just. Heat just builds up the calluses. And the reason Black Sabbath sounds different than every other band who's tried to copy them is probably this. The fact that the guy playing the guitar does not have fingertips. But there's another part of this which is like, there's a guy who pursued playing guitar and became a virtuoso with one arm. What motivates the person to do that? It's like, you would think that if you, like, if I lost my arm, I wouldn't give up, right? I wouldn't give up my life. Like, I wouldn't be like, I want to do something, but I don't think I would pick a job or a vocation that seems so specifically geared toward the two armed guy. I mean, Norm MacDonald always had a joke about that, about this, about the Petraeus, the Bridger from Australia who had those, like, ski things, you know, and. And Norm MacDonald was against this guy. And people are like, why? Because you believe he murdered his wife, which was always in the news. And he was like, no, no, it's that he shouldn't be a sprinter if he. If he doesn't have. I mean, that, you know, it should be like, you should have to be a biped or whatever to be a sprinter, you know, I know he's joking, of course, but there is something funny about that. The idea that, like, I'm going to try to do something that seems so geared against the natural proclivities of my body, you know?
- [49:53]
B
Well, it's also weird that, like, we as a society, like, your point about, like, okay, he has a steel plate in his shoe. And that might give him this small, you know, statistical advantage in one sense. And then our, our sense of fairness is so binary. And obviously you could, you could connect this to a bunch of other debates that we have as a society. But we get obsessed over whether there is objectively one bit of advantage here and totally tune out or refuse to consider all the other disadvantages that person has. And then we're like, see, it's, it's not fair they should be excluded. Right. Like, we're like profoundly obsessed with, you know, whether Pistorius's legs give him this slight advantage. And not considering, like, okay, but, but 99% of the population when they were born without legs or whether they lost their legs or whatever would have just not pursued this sport at all. This guy's obviously coming from an enormous disadvantage in the fact that he's even, he's even being considered as an enormous, you know, triumph. Like, certainly the game is not rigged in this guy's favor, even if these blades are giving him a slight advantage on the, on the field.
- [51:09]
C
Yeah. Like, do you remember like Jim Abbott, the pitcher?
- [51:12]
B
Yeah.
- [51:13]
C
You know, so this is a guy who only had one arm, you know, so he, he would tuck his glove underneath his kind of his stump or whatever, pitch with one hand, then jam his hand into the glove and then he would field with it. If you, he, the ball came to him, he would then kind of pop the ball up and throw to first base. Now this is. So he was an amazing story when I was a kid that would be like a, like you get a weekly reader or whatever and it's like, look at this guy. He's a one arm pitcher, you know. You know, he had a few seasons at the end of his career that were really a biz that in all likelihood, if, if he had been a normal pitcher, maybe he would have been, you know, relegated to triple A or Double A or something. And he wasn't. But it's odd because, you know, I say that and yet those were still some of the most amazing stories and successes anyone could have. Like, he's pitching with one arm. It would be like, like somebody asked me who like my favorite drummers are, and I would be like, oh, you know, John Bonham. And you know, it's like, but like.
- [52:09]
B
I should probably say the guy from.
- [52:10]
C
Def Leppard, he has one arm, right? Like, he literally can't do drum fills. It can't if it's impossible. But yet, you know, so, but I don't think, I don't think of him in that I don't think of him as an elite drummer, even though the thing he's done is the most amazing thing a drummer probably has ever done. To be a one armed drummer in a band of that magnitude, a hard rock band where drumming is really important. Granted there was all this technology to help him in all this, but still.
- [52:41]
A
We've got an employee here at Daily Stoke. I won't say who because it's kind of private, but they've been using Monarch, today's sponsor, to track their progress as they try to pay off their student loan debts. I'm a college dropout so I don't have any debt, thankfully, but I can only imagine how overwhelming it would be to have this thing hanging over you. And she's been using the app to budget and save and it's bringing her a little bit closer every day to being debt free, which I can only imagine would be a huge relief. Monarch shows you exactly where your money is going. It helps you redirect it towards what matters. With automated tracking and clear projections, you can actually see yourself getting closer to being debt free or hitting your savings milestone instead of just hoping it happens. Unlike most other personal finance apps, Monarch is built to help make you proactive and not just reactive. And Monarch helped users save over $200 per month on average after joining. You can set yourself up for financial success in 2026 with Monarch, the all in one tool that makes proactive money management simple all year long. And you can use code stoickonarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50% off your first your first year@monarch.com code stoic we're all going to experience pain and injuries and physical obstacles, right? That's part of life. But we choose how we respond to those setbacks. And Built for Broken is an award winning book from corrective exercise specialist Scott Hogan that helps you heal painful joints and rebuild your body stronger. Obviously, mindset's a big part of that, but this book arms you with knowledge and gives you practical recommendations for rebuilding painful joints. Whether you're a runner like me or a lifter, whether you're an active dad, whether you're getting up there in age, your loved ones need you to be strong and pain free. And right now it's time to invest in the one vehicle that gets to carry you through in life, which is your joints. To celebrate the launch of Built From Broken in stores nationwide, listeners get access to a bunch of exclusive offers. Just visit saltrap.comdaily stoic to get your copy and download the full exercise video library for free. And you also get free access the Built From Broken Guide to Regenerative Therapies, which Scott wrote in partnership with the Clinical Advisory Board of Physical Therapists and Regenerative medicine practitioners. And second, if you use code daily stoic@saltrap.com to save 20 bucks on your first order of therapeutic nutrition formulas. This book and tools are references you can turn to for the rest of your life to turn setbacks into comebacks.
- [55:25]
B
So you meant. You mentioned baseball and that. It made me think of something when I was reading the intro of the book because you were talking about, like, sort of who the book was for and you're sort of setting it up that, that maybe you weren't doing yourself any favors by. By writing it for this group versus that group. I wonder if there's something revealing about football in that. There's a lot of great baseball books. There aren't that many football books. Is there something about football that like, like it's such a televised sport that we don't, we don't read about it? But what. Or, or maybe that's just baseball's sort of was the dominant game in the era when books were more popular. But, but I, I guess there's the blind side or whatever.
- [56:06]
C
Yeah. I mean, there's a cliche about this. There's a cliche about sports books which is that the best books are like a disproportionate to the size of the book. So it's like, like golf. A lot of, A lot of writing about golf. Okay. Baseball, lot of writing about baseball. Tennis is now, you know, football. Less actually now. Basketball has sort of changed this. That there's that, that the sort of, the, the. The meaning of basketball in part because it has like, such an ability to discuss things like, you know, race and these things. Basketball has become some almost like easy symbolism or easy allegory. But I'll say, like, my publisher did not want me to do a football book. Like, he straight up said, like, football books don't sell. I think the thinking being that, you know, people who love football don't necessarily want to read about it, and people who sort of have like a, I don't know, ideological or intellectual issue with football aren't interested in the sport itself. So it's like, hard to find this middle ground, you know, but this is the book I wanted to do. So it's like I'm always surprised when I talk to other writers and they tell me, and this happens a Lot. I bet you've had this experience with people that they tell you that their agent or their publishing house kind of convinced them not to do a book they wanted to do that. They'd say, like, well, it's not commercial. Or it's like, like that has been tried before and it's failed. And it's like, you cannot think that that way. I mean, it's like, like because you have to work, you know, for a book, you work on it for a year, and then it takes another year before it comes out. So in a way, you're like kind of living with this thing for two years. Like, it has to be something you want to do, even if nobody else wants it. I mean, that is the most important thing. It's got to be something you want to do, you know? Yeah.
- [57:55]
B
No, no, no. I, I, I mean, I think there's two separate issues there. I just think it's, it's like there's something about how television centric football is that it's not lost on me that it's, it's not a literary sport either. But baseball, which is kind of boring to watch on TV and great to watch in person, is somehow the more literary of the sports.
- [58:18]
C
But so is boxing.
- [58:20]
A
That's true. Yes.
- [58:21]
B
Right.
- [58:21]
C
So it's like the thing about football, the thing you're mentioning is something I hadn't really thought about. I mean, I've thought a lot about, obviously, is this book and it about football's relationship to television. I didn't think about this, though. The idea that by being so married to television and that, you know, one of the things, like kind of the aphorisms, I guess, use in this book is that like, you know, football is a completely mediated event, even when there's no media involved. That now the experience of watching a football game live with no cameras is still understood by the consumer as it would be seen on television. It is possible that because, you know, this, this kind of interlocking idea of this entertainment medium and this game just sort of became the same thing and so dominant that, you know, the hundred most popular broadcasts in the year 2023, like 93 were NFL games and then three or four more were college football games. I mean, that's just a crazy statistic. It would makes no sense in any other society. There's just nothing like this. Right. Maybe that does overwrite the possibility to write about it. Yeah, like, in a sense, it's like in the same way it's, you know, it's like a, if you're doing, you know, film criticism, you're usually talking about the ideas and you're sort of also talking about the plot of the film. But you don't want to talk about the plot of the film too much for two reasons. One, you don't want to give it away, but also it doesn't really work. A description of a story will either of a film, particularly because it's only like two hours, is either going to seem like weirdly rudimentary or too complicated to really get. Like the visual part of film is a hard thing to write about. Only the best film writers are really good at it. Football, I guess in the same way, because of the visual experience of television is so pervasive and dominant in the mind of every consumer, it is difficult to describe. Like describing a football play. And I do it a few times in this book, always seems awkward.
- [60:24]
B
Well, there's too many characters. There's too like boxing, baseball obviously has a decent amount of guys on the field, but the action is so distributed in football, it's very hard to describe. And it almost goes against our natural instincts. Like, I thought it was revealing. There was an interview, it might have been on their podcast where, where, where Taylor Swift was talking about how she thought that the Kelsey brothers had faced off against each other. Like, she didn't. It didn't occur to her that they weren't. Would have never been on the field at the same time. And. And you're like, oh, yeah, because that's not how you would design it. If you were thinking about designing it for being like. Like the idea that the best players are not. Like, that the two leaders of the team are not on the field at the same time is not how you would guess the biggest game in America is designed.
- [61:24]
C
There are so many things about football that if you describe to someone who had no idea about it, it would seem not just confusing but like almost straight up bad. Like if you like this thing you said, like, you could say, like, okay, so the best player in the league might not touch the ball the entire season. It would be very easy for that to happen. Okay. The fact, and this is talked about in the book, but you know, it's like, so like the Wall street journal in 2011 did this kind of study where they found that in a three hour broadcast of an NFL game there are 11 minutes of action. And this is often described as like, it's used by people who are trying to convince you that football is not interesting or whatever.
- [62:05]
B
Yeah.
- [62:05]
C
Now, as it turns out, I think 11 minutes within a three hour window is actually perfect. Perfect. But in a pitch meeting, it would make no sense.
- [62:12]
B
Yes.
- [62:13]
C
Like, if I was saying, like, hey, I came up with this new board game, takes about three hours to play. However, you only make 11 moves during the game most of the time. Like, nobody would be like. It would be like, you know, like. Like Risk without moves or whatever, you know.
- [62:28]
B
Yeah. And they actually do some riffing on it. On that. On that Nate Burgazzi SNL skit. The George Washington one where it's like. Like, okay, it's. It's football, but you don't use your feet, so. Oh, so there's no kicking. Well, there's some kicking and then it's like. And it. It's kind of worth this many points, and then sometimes it's worth this many. The only thing more confusing than American football is Australian football. And I. I had the experience. I went to one of their games and they were explaining it to me, and I was like, what are you talking about? This is like, you took the most complicated and nonsensical games game, and you made it much more complicated and nonsensical is kind of perfect. But it was weird to be a. Like a foreigner watching a football game and going, oh, this is. This is what people who are not Americans think when you talk to them about the Dallas Cowboys or whatever.
- [63:21]
C
Yeah. I think another spoiler is cricket.
- [63:23]
B
Yes.
- [63:23]
C
Like, when the first time, like, someone tells you, like, well, a cricket game, it might take two days. It might take two days. It's like, why. Why would it take two days? Days? Like, what's going. What's happening? And it's like, well, it's not much is actually happening, but it's, you know, it seems very confusing. But in some ways, that is the charm of these things. I mean, what. I think that, like, sometimes, you know, it's like in the book Bright lights, big city, you know, which is nobody thinks about anymore, but all the time, because there's no.
- [63:50]
B
There's almost no other good novels in the second person.
- [63:53]
C
Okay. In that sense, Jay McInerney kind of ruined it for us. Right. No one can do a second person novel now. Even all these years later. If I wrote a novel in the second person, Jay mcine would be mentioned every single. You know, so, like, he was like, he. That. That alone is the brilliance of that move. He's like, I'm doing this. But there's a scene in the book where the guy walks into a bar and, like, he asks, you know, there's a sports I can't remember what the sport is even. But it might be like hockey. Because he says, like, what quarter is it? And the guy's like. Like, it's the second period. And this. Because this character knows nothing about sports. And he says, like, my whole life I've been cut out of the world's largest fraternity. And I do sometimes think about. But, I mean, this is kind of a gendered thing, like, of guys who don't follow sports at all. I can't imagine what it must be like to go to a lot of the functions like I go to as a father. Like, if we go to some event, some school event, and it's something, you know, the kids are doing whatever they're doing. The wives are usually talking and the guys are talking. And the likelihood that we are talking about our kids or sports is about 98%.
- [64:59]
A
Yes.
- [65:00]
C
Like, I think there was a time when people would have talked about politics, but that's very touchy now. People are very nervous about that now. I live in the Pacific Northwest, which is one of the weird things about this is people don't like to talk about their jobs. Like, I. When I was in New York, if someone started talking to you, I. Like, you met them, first thing they'd ask is, what do you do here? They might be like, what kind of mountain bike do you own? Or some bizarre thing you.
- [65:24]
B
Because there's a chance you might not have a job, right? It's. There's something.
- [65:28]
A
Yes.
- [65:29]
C
Well, also, this out here, there's this. I say, this is crazy now. This is something that. Before I moved here, I wouldn't have said that sounds positive. But now it seems crazy, this real emphasis on, do not let your job define you in any way. Never give the sense that what you do is some. You know, it's like, well, actually, what I do is my identity. But regardless, what I'm saying is, for these dads, right, we're sitting around talking about sports and now gambling, that also always comes up. And there's always some people just hanging out there. And. And in my mind, I think, oh, they're kind of quiet. Maybe they're shy. But then another part of me is like, they just don't care about. About Auburn and Alabama. Like, they must think we're insane. Sitting here talking about whether or not the line on an Alabama, Auburn game is too high. That's like, oh, it's eight and a half. You got to take them. You know, It's a bizarre thing, you know, And I don't even gamble. I Don't gamble. But I'm constantly talking to guys about betting lines in football because it is just part of being a middle aged dude. Now. That's what you discuss, you know, and, and luckily my entire life prepared me to do that because I've been thinking about football constantly for 40 years, 45 years.
- [66:40]
B
It was so funny. I've been trying to get my kids to like football since basically they were born and it's not worked. I have two boys and they just came home from school one day this year and they're, they like football because some kid at school likes the Eagles and now, now they like football. And it was before bed, you know, a couple weeks ago, and my son was like, can I watch my iPad before bed? And we're like, no, you know, you don't do that. It's time to go to bed. He's like, can I watch something on your phone? No. And he's like, hey, wait, isn't it Monday? Can I watch the Monday Night Football? And I go, yeah. And so I go and I get the laptop and watching it a little bit and then he goes, I just figured it out. And I go, what? And he's like, football is an excuse to watch tv. And I'm like, you got it, dude. You figured it out. You cracked the code. Like that's what it is. It's just a thing to watch on tv.
- [67:31]
C
I mean, saying this makes me sound like a nightmare. But this thing you described, I think was also a key to kind of the all encompassing nature of football during the last half of the 20th century, which was that, you know, when I grew up and a lot of people like me, most people like me, there was one television in the house, was in the living room and you know, it was usually was controlled by your parents, often your dad. And if there was ever a football game on, that's what was. We were watching like there. It didn't matter. It had no with the teams or the investment. There was nothing that we were going to watch instead of football if it was on. So like I'm the seventh kid in my family, even my sisters who don't care about football really at all, they understand the culture and the kind of mechanics of football much better than like most people I meet now. Just because it was this shared sort of experience. If your son had, if you'd been raising your son in the 80s, those first three steps of can I watch the iPad or can I look at that? Wouldn't have been there. It'd be like, can I Stay up. Yeah. Well, okay. Howard Cosell is on. You know, so any. Would you just sit there and watch it? You know, I do think that part of. You know, you always hear these stories now that are just completely. And they're probably exaggerated, but they're mystifying to me in some ways where people are like, I can't go home at Thanksgiving. I politically disagree with my parents and my uncles or whatever. Like, I can't do that. Like, I'm cutting my family off or whatever, and. Or people will be like, I feel very isolated. It's like, I don't really have a social. You see these statistics where it's like, men averaging less than one friend per. You know, it's like all these academic of male loneliness. I, too, wonder how much of that is a manifestation of the end of the completely shared monoculture of the living room, where there used to be stuff that we all watch the same shows. It's just that if you're. If you're watching anything, this is what you're watching. And now that would never be the case. There are many situations where me, my wife, and our two kids are all watching separate things simultaneously, you know, saying, it's hard to get your kids to watch football. You know, I think every guy kind of. Every person maybe who likes football kind of wishes that their kid did, too. It's a very difficult sport to get your kids into because it doesn't have a natural kind of engagement. There's so many rules. You know, sometimes I'm watching the red zone and my son comes down, and it's like. I don't know if he understands. It's like it's going from game to him because he's never thought of these things. And I'm totally comfortable with my kid not caring about football, not playing football. I, in no way would ever want to enforce the things that I like onto my kids. I just think that's the worst thing you can do. But I always think to myself, you know, there was a period in my life. Life in my 20s. I didn't really have anything to talk to my dad about, you know, but we did still talk about, like, who was Notre Dame recruiting, You know, did the North Dakota State Bison win the previous weekend? It really did allow us to sort of have this surrogate relationship until I got old enough to recognize it's like, oh, man, my dad's gonna die. And these are important. You know, it's like things changed. I hate the idea that, like. Like that there could be a period where that's harder to find with my kids. Like maybe it'll be film or maybe it'll be music. It'll be something else. I'm not going to let this happen. And football's not the only way. But man, that was an easy way to have it happen. You could, you know. I had an expert level knowledge of football when I was like 9 or 10 because I would read and memorize every statistic in the Sporting News. I would watch the NFL today. I would watch the anytime time. There were everything in Sports Illustrated. If it was about a sport I liked, I read. I consumed every aspect of this. So even as a nine year old kid, I remember, you know, like older people at our house, relatives or whatever, and I could talk to them about these games in a way that, you know, that they, I think, I think they thought was cute, but it was also completely normal. It was like two adults talking. It was the only adult conversation I was having in a way. And that's just, it's, it's hard to do that. Like Magic the Gathering, you know, it's like, it's hard to do that, you know.
- [71:41]
B
Yeah, yeah, you. And you'll talk to a kid about football in a way that you wouldn't talk to them about politics or something. There's an equal equality under the game kind of thing. Like you'll allow, you're allowed to have opinions about it as a nine year old in the way that you're not about other monoculture things.
- [71:57]
C
And it's like, I mean it really is like a simulation or a simulacrum. It's like the stakes are lower and yet in the same way you're talking about the same things you would be talking about political. Like if you're talking about oh, you know, oh, oh, you know, should Mike Tomlin be forced out or whatever. Or like, you know, it's. Is, is there some kind of, you know, stylistic problem with Lamar Jackson or whatever? These are in many ways like kind of complex, nuanced things. Yes, but in sports you don't. The nuance can sort of be not ignored, but it can be the underlying part of it. The top part is just the conversation, you know, in politics that is, that's harder to do. I mean it's, it happens in politics. If you're talking about what's going on politically, in some ways you're talking about these fundamental ideas like about, you know, what is democracy really does, you know, what is fascism really? All these. But it's, you're right, it's, it's harder, you know, and it's less interesting to them.
- [72:54]
B
Yeah, no, no, it was mad. I'm so glad happened. And now it's like now we have.
- [73:00]
A
Something to watch and sort of that's.
- [73:02]
B
Not, you know, brain rot on YouTube. So I'll take it.
- [73:07]
C
Yeah. Now it's weird because some people heard that and they think that they just. That you meant. Oh, YouTube rots your brain. There actually is this thing called Italian brain rot. Maybe every parent knows that but like, you know, it's like anybody who doesn't, they hear that term and they're like, oh, it's just like that must be the term they use now to describe like kind of useless, frivolous information. No, it's actually these, these creatures with Italian names that do nothing. I mean that and you know, the whole. I just find this stuff really interesting. Like the whole six, seven and all these things. They all so much of like kid culture now is based in a kind of absurdism.
- [73:45]
A
Yeah.
- [73:45]
C
That I do think is reflective of something more than just kids are weird, you know, because there's always been aspects of that. Kids have always been into kind of absurd things. I mean people will be like, oh yeah, they used to have pet rocks or whatever. But this is different where it seems as though the absurdism is the complete meaning of it.
- [74:04]
B
Don't you think that's because the kids are contributing to the culture for the first time. Like in the sense, like I feel like what kids used to be into even relatively recently, you know, it's like, hey, kids like Paw Patrol because presented between these choices of shows, they seem to like Paw Patrol more than these other shows now. They're like the kids are actually talking to each other or have much more control over the remote and the kids are. It's not just a one way relationship. Like the kids are driving the memes in a way that they weren't before.
- [74:41]
C
Oh well, I think you're right about that for sure. They're also like these ideas are allowed to sort of flourish in these silos of youth where if, say in the past or whatever. It's like if, if I'm watching Facts of Life or whatever. And for some reason Tudy and Natalie are always going six, seven, six, seven. Like I could see like someone older in the house being like, this is stupid. Like we're going to change to Magnum or whatever. Like you know, we're not going to watch this. Whereas now they're able to like, like the whole thing with the Minecraft movie is a great example of this, where it's like, people were seemingly surprised that these kids were going to this Minecraft movie. And like. Like, there were all these innocuous things that made them just go ballistic. But it's like they were able to build that world in private, and then suddenly it spills into the world at large, and it's just confusing. And, you know, young people have always been confusing to old people. But, you know, but what also is interesting is that we're also now expecting to understand this more than our parents or our grandparents were.
- [75:46]
B
Yes.
- [75:46]
C
Like, you know, the very first book I wrote, Farter Rock City, I talk about this sort of. I always. Like, one time how is. Like, my dad was at the kitchen table with my whole family, and he was talking about our neighbor's cattle. Okay. Our neighbor had many different breeds of cattle. He had some Herefords. He had some dairy cattle. He had, like. It was weird. He had like. No one did this, right? And my dad was. Was talking about seeing this. This small herd of. Of, like, disparate cattle. And he was like, what a motley crew that is. Or whatever. And everybody in my. At the table starts chuckling, laughing, like, ha, ha ha. And they're all looking at me, and my dad's like, you know what? What? You know. Now, some people would hear that story, I think, and be like, oh, see, that's sad. It was like this thing that I loved as a sixth grader or whatever, you know, my dad had, like, you. I didn't feel that way. I was like, this proves my dad has never been in my bedroom.
- [76:39]
A
Yeah.
- [76:39]
C
Because I had. I had a Motley Crue bumper sticker over my bed. I had Motley Crew posed. I had. You know, it's like, he obviously had never snooped in my room. He never looked around. Like, I felt really. It was almost a secure thing to me. It was like it showed that he had absolutely no. Now, granted, I'm the seventh kid, so my dad was a lot older than the typical father. Now it's almost impossible to imagine that happening. Like I mentioned Magic the Gathering. Like, I never played that game in my life until my kid got into it. Now I play it most days. So now I have this. And I have this understanding of the game and all these things. Like, what's good about it? The problems with that, it's just real interesting because, you know, they always say, as a parent, you can't be a friend. You need to be a parent. But the way modern parenting works, it's very difficult not to be friends. With them because you're sharing all these things. My kids like to listen to the top 40 station, so I know all those songs. Like, that wasn't how it was for me or anyone I knew growing up. I didn't know one person who was like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna go see Dawkin with my mom. Like, that would never happen. That would have never happened, you know? Yeah, yeah.
- [77:51]
B
It's weird. It's also weird. Like, I wouldn't. Like, when I was a kid, Pokemon was not cool, Right? And it's weird that it's not just. It wasn't cool. It was for losers, and now it's for everyone. It's weird. Like, it's. It's weird that it's still around, let alone it doesn't have any uncool or cool fact. It's just a thing. Like, you're not a loser for liking Pokemon. Lots of people like Pokemon. But it's weird for me, when my kids are taught. I have to. I have to remember, like, oh, I don't need to remember what I used to think about Pokemon. We can just talk about Pokemon.
- [78:28]
C
I mean, Dungeons and Dragons is a great example of this. The fact that, like, so when my kid got into Dungeons and Dragons, I was like, well, this is kind of interesting. He must be sort of in that. That part of the.
- [78:38]
B
Yes.
- [78:39]
C
Part of the social group. That's not what it is. It's like, it doesn't seem to have even a relationship to gender anymore. Or the idea that if you play sports, you wouldn't play Dungeons and Dragons. That is God in a weird, small. Like, this happens in a big way in, like, the world we live in, but also in a small world, I guess, with children, which is that inevitably the counterculture always becomes the culture. In a weird way for you growing up, Pokemon was. Was your kid version of the counterculture. It was for people who did not like the other things kids liked, who felt alienated by the normal things. Right. So they got into that. That happens in music. This happens in film. This happens in literature. It's always this way that. The thing that is marginalized, if it touches people in a deep way, those are the people seemingly who enforce the ideas about culture later because it means something different to them. They're getting involved in something like, this is why, like, the vast majority in the 90s and early 2000s of music critics and rock critics had all come from a punk background. I was completely out, like, seen as very odd that I did not that that that all the people I worked with at Spin and knew what the other magazines that, the Village Voice, they were all fundamentally people who had been into punk rock and then they. So they were the. They were the underground culture and now they dominate sort of the over culture. That's just how it seems to work. And it does in some ways sort of detract from the meaning of anything that's commercially successful. Because in all likelihood, like the idea of like what Taylor Swift right now sort of creates musically, it is so popular. Nothing has really been that popular since Michael Jackson. It may not, though have sort of the influence that logic would dictate. Tape, like, logically, that should be by far the most influential music of the future. And it probably will not be in the same way that Michael Jackson's Thriller, while having influence, is not as influential as some of the things around it that seemed significantly less significant at the time.
- [80:45]
B
I actually thought of you the other day. Have you seen this documentary? It's on YouTube. It's like a 20 minute thing. It's by that, that comedian Rob Shear, I think that's who did it. I'm embarrassed if I'm saying his name wrong. Anyways, it's called Taylor Swift Dads. And he just interviews different dads that are waiting in the parking lot at Sofi Stadium while their daughters are inside watching Taylor Swift. And it's a. It's a very lovely sweet little like 20 minute YouTube video. And it talks about a lot of the things that we're talking about. Like some of the dads are like, I have no idea what's happening, I don't even know why I'm here. And then other ones, they know all of it and they're really supportive. And then there's some dads, it's like they couldn't afford tickets so they're just sitting outside listening with their daughters in the parking lot. To what mostly struck me about it, having watched a bunch of sort of documentaries about music from, you know, the 60s and 70s and 80s is like, there used to be a lot of that. There were lots of bands doing stadium tours. There were lots of bands. Obviously Taylor Swift is singular, but there would have been lots of things that people used to line up for when they would come out at the record store at midnight or whatever. And that's gone.
- [81:55]
C
But here's what. This might not, that might not be totally true. And I know, I know it feels that way for sure, but I am consistently surprised to find to hear about some artist. And I'm like, they played two nights at Madison Square Garden, sure. They played the Hollywood and Bull. It's like, you know, but the thing is, because we have stripped away that record store part. Yeah. There's no longer mtv and radio doesn't exist in the same way. And everything is, you don't see sort of the, the, the outsize part of it that leads you to believe. Well, of course, when they tour, it's going to be a big deal. What has happened now in music is that the only way to make money is touring.
- [82:33]
B
Right.
- [82:33]
C
So like, you know a band like, you know, Geese or something. I, I remember a couple months ago, I, I, I can't remember what the name of the band is now, but they had sold out a like four nights at the Bowery Ballroom in New York and they have no record.
- [82:46]
B
Yeah.
- [82:46]
C
Like, there's already this following of it that's sort of, I think, built online or whatever, you know. So it is, it feel, it definitely feels like we have lost that. The idea of like, oh, you know, Blue Oyster Cult is playing, you know, in Anaheim or whatever. And it's a sold, you know, their, their tour is sold out. Even though Blue Oyster Cult at the time is maybe be the 14th most popular hard rock band or whatever, they're still that big.
- [83:09]
A
Right.
- [83:09]
C
That, that, it doesn't feel like that happens now. Now everything is like a mystery to anybody who's outside of the world.
- [83:16]
A
Yeah.
- [83:17]
C
Like, you know, the thing you say about Taylor Swift, it is what I have found with my kids is that they love it if I have knowledge about what they're into, but they dislike it if I have opinions like they, like that I know, like who Chapel Ron is, is. And I know her backstory and I know her songs. But if I was like, in a way, you know, if anytime I start actually giving an opinion about what I think about this, it's like that's when they start using the cringe now is the word they use. It's like they appreciate my ability to keep up and be informed about this. They do not appreciate any actual idea I have about it.
- [83:55]
B
Well, I think that's because knowledge signifies interest in something that they're interested in.
- [84:01]
C
Yes.
- [84:02]
B
And opinions implies judgment. And so they want the first part and not the last part, even if the opinion is positive. They're like, no, no, no, no, no. I, I just want, I just want you to recognize this is important to me. I don't actually care what it means to you.
- [84:20]
C
Yes.
- [84:21]
B
Yeah, totally. No, this is, this has been awesome. Well, I thought the book was fascinating and I always love reading everything you do, so I'm I'm glad we got to chat. I again.
- [84:31]
C
Well, I appreciate you having me on.
- [84:35]
A
Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on itunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it. And I'll see you next episode.