New eps drop first on Patreon! NYC Parks Dept pizza box disposal strategy (6:12), psyop backboards in Tompkins (16:23), Doechii fever (24:14), rap golden ages (37), Kuo vs the entire sport of tennis (48:03), candidates for the abdicated King of New York throne (57:06), somebody's sleeping in my med bed (1:08:45), the Caitlin Clark content cornucopia (1:17:27), TJ McConnell extension is a victory for short royalty everywhere (1:42:16), San Gennaro Feast loading! (1:49:02).
Cookies: A Basketball Podcast
The Rizzler: Cookies 471
(upbeat music) ♪ I love cookies ♪ ♪ I love cookies ♪ ♪ I love cookies ♪ ♪ I love cookies ♪ - Welcome to Cookies, the world's most influential basketball podcast. It's a beautiful day here in New York City. The sun is shining, the breeze is blowing. It is officially Bratfall, Andrew Quo. How are you celebrating this momentous time of year? - Bratfall, it's too much brat, man, it's over. We tried brat summer, it only existed on Twitter. I don't know, what do you think? How did you celebrate brat summer? - Well, your girl XCX, Charlie XCX. She declared that brat summer is over. And that was very shrewd of her, because she had two options there. She could have said, "Brat summer forever." Like this is not a seasonable thing, it just keeps rolling. - It's a state of mind. - It's a lifestyle, you can be putting out your Christmas decorations, you can be placing a star on top of a tree, and yet brat summer remains. But shrewdly, it's seasonal, it's over. It's over forever, there will never be another brat summer. It's sort of like Angel Reese Nation. You're like, "Oh, we should be co-rookie of the years now." There should be two rookie of, nope, Charlie XCX knows. September 1st rolls up, it's Halloween season, man. Skeletons, medium-sized skeletons, huge 15-foot skeletons, like the one in Clinton Hill. It's time to get spooky. - Is there a Halloween neighborhood in New York? - If you go out to Deep Brooklyn, the Italian sector, way out there, for Christmas, there are-- - Don't make this up Rocky video. - Exactly. - In that Christmas zone. - Right, right, yeah, it's basically green point, but even deeper, like the furthest stretches of green point. Like gum-o-meat screen point. But you go out there for Christmas, and it's block by block. And you know, there's like, everything is covered. Is there a Halloween district? Is that same area, like Bay Ridge or Bensonhurst? Wherever it is, deep, deep out there, South Brooklyn. Are they also doing Halloween? - I should know this 'cause it is the most important time of year, but I can't think of any. Like where I live in kind of like the eastern part of Brooklyn, it's a smattering of houses. It's, Halloween is huge here though, but not like it is like in Kensington. Have you seen the videos in Kensington? Like kind of around the park, South of the park? It's like a whole bunch of people. - So maybe that's the Halloween district? - There should be, there should be a Halloween district that is always spooky throughout the whole year. It's like, we took a wrong turn and things are getting kind of eerie up in here. We're in the Halloween district. - By September 3rd, we should know where the Halloween district is. We are now bearing down on Halloween full steam. Maybe this is the year that I plan my costume more than 45 minutes before I have to go out. - One's the last time you wore a costume. - Really depends on what we call a costume. I remember going to a party a couple of years ago and like it's a cat themed party. And I was like, - You went to a cat mom party? - I like the respect. Dogs are the enemy. - And I'm like, okay. My girl was like, here's some makeup and put some on your nose and I'll draw whiskers. I don't think that really counts as a costume. - I did that with my toddler last year, but I also put him in a black hoodie and put ears on him. So that kind of worked. I went to school to make Halloween costumes. Basically, the number one function of art school is to devise Halloween costumes. But it's been a decade since I put one on. - What was the best one you've ever made? - A rat with a giant cardboard piece of cheese. So I, again, gray hoodie, ears, rat whiskers, 'cause I love rats and all rodents. And then I spent all my time making this piece of cheese out of corrugated cardboard. So it was like three dimensional and I carried it everywhere. And I had to DJ like three parties that night, but I was like, the piece of cheese goes in first. And they're like, what is this thing? It's like, I'm sorry, it has to go behind the booth. And it was like really awkward. That was the best costume. - Well, look, now that we've gotten the important stuff out of the way, wanted to ask you a little bit about another rat subject. Being that we're talking rats. You know our mayor, the rat czar, has been engaged in a war against the little rodents that scamper around our city streets. - Well, I know. - And I'm not gonna give him credit for this. I'm saying it's part of this combat, this mighty struggle between Eric Adams and-- - Combat rat, press and piece. - Between the combat rats. So apparently this is the parks department that has put this together, I believe. That's my understanding. Because pizza boxes mess up garbage cans structurally, messes with the architecture of how other things are going to go in there. You put one box in there, the wrong direction, all of a sudden it's piling up, you got half an empty container. They're starting to put together the squarish containers, these structures that are supposed to be just four pizza boxes. And apparently people thought it was a hoax or a little gimmick, but they are apparently from my understanding real. They're actually these little sort of skeletal boxes that you're supposed to stack pizza containers. - Yeah, talk to me about them. What shape are they? Are they flat, like the earth? Or are they like sideways like a bookcase? Do you slide them in or do you lay them in? - You lay them in, I would say it's most equivalent to an old school newspaper box. Like that's the same layout. - Oh, like it's an oven, like you open it up, you slide the pizza box in. - There's no door, but it's like the way that newspapers would be put into a box, like in a horizontal stack. - Okay, all right, all right. - Or would that be a vertical stack? - You gotta tell me, man. If it's flat, they're horizontal, but they make a vertical structure. - Yeah, that's really the crux of my confusion. But yes, they stack horizontally vertically. - I applaud our rat czar, that's amazing. So you identify the rat or the rat community hanging out in a certain vicinity close to pizza. You find out where the Halloween sector is, and then the pizza zone. And then you install these, wow. He's in on the take though, so I bet he has like, it's like Halliburton, but for pizza trash cans. - And then you build them the rats a little condo, where like the rats can pay a bit more and be at the very top of the pizza heap. - And it would assume it would be recycling 'cause you could throw other stuff, flat stuff out as well, right? Like what if you had like a digital backboard that made no sense, can you just like throw it away in the pizza trash? - I don't see why you couldn't. What's your take on this digital backboard that has been installed in, I wanna say it's Tompkins, right? - It's Tompkins, I'm worried of getting into basketball, this early in the pod, I mean, we're gonna have to-- - All right, let's save it, let's save it. We can talk tech, we can talk basketball later. That's just a hint, just a sous-song of the kind of content that you're gonna get in an hour and a half. - Yeah, I do wanna make the perfect part, but let's go. - I don't think that. - Let's go, let's go. The conversation is about surveillance, right? It's not about, I feel a goal percentage, it's not about the Moses Malone rebounds, it's about a surveillance state peeping everybody in the TF because you know, Tompkins is still kind of rough. It's boogie. - So you're saying we're going into this topic? - Yeah. - It be damned, the fact that there's no basketball on TV really, other than the WNBA, there's no Olympics, you're ready to cut loose on one of our basketball topics, eight minutes into the show. - This is not about basketball, it's about the skateboard. - Okay, so we'll also talk about it during basketball, this is the surveillance-- - Oh, your take was about basketball with this thing? - No, not really. Well, sort of, anyway, let's talk about it, whatever. Okay, so surveillance backboards, the name of the brand is like H-U-U-P-E, or something along those lines, like Hoop, but it is most stasi-fied version, it's not yes-fied, it's stosified. - Give me the jacket fit for this. - Okay, it's like having the stasi, the East German secret police, watching your every brick and we'll call it Hoop. - And then I'm Mark Cuban or Mr. Wonderful, or my favorite Lori, and I'm gonna ask, who's this for? - Oh, well, it's for people who are shooting around and wanna know what their field goal percentage is, and for the police who wanna watch the park and bust weed dealers. - So do you have a contract with the police? How are we gonna make money on this? - Yes, we are working hand-in-hand with law enforcement. - I mean, the whole reaction of this thing on Twitter was like, we start watching us. I'm like, I don't know, they're already, like why would they need like a scarecrow in Tomkins, which is kind of out in the open? This, I have a friend who is so alarmed of surveillance, like they won't text, they'll only use WhatsApp, and then they move to a different app, to WhatsApp was bought. - Single boys? - And all we talk about is like where to have dinner, but it's the principle of it. It's just like, I just don't want thinking that someone is eavesdropping in on me, it makes me uncomfortable. And I'm just like, there's always been a level of surveillance. If you're on the grid, like my friend who's like, I'm off the grid, I'm like, what does that mean? It's like, I don't have a Facebook account. I'm like, you're definitely on the grid, you have four credit cards. But do we freak out about surveillance too much? Is this like a catch-all thing just being like, either they're racist, Hitler, or surveilling people? - Hmm, well, if we're talking about the backboard, I would suggest that there are so many cameras around that vicinity that having one more that's trained on the lane is probably not going to make the difference. Like thank God that criminal that we had not identified spent three seconds in the key. And we were able to totally nail them on that charge. - Cops are watching people sell heroin and do heroin, they're like, it's not worth going out there. - I remember like maybe that's a long time ago. There were these like surveillance tours in the Lower East Side. I don't know if you remember these things. You know, there's like a, like citizens rights group and they'd be like, okay, you know, meet us up and we're going to walk on this 10 minute tour and we're going to point out all the places that you're being watched. You know, I know like, there's 10 spots that there's going to be a camera on you as we're on this walk. Maybe it was more, whatever. But at this point, every single building, every single store, every single ATM, every single doorbell. - Yeah, I don't know. - At this point. - Single browser. - It's just like the visual surveillance is just omnipresent. And then, you know, you get to, as you said, your digital footprint, which is incredibly hard to avoid. Even if you were going out of your way and only using cash and using, I don't know, anonymous browsers and using, you know, where your stuff gets pinged all over the place so they don't even know where it's coming from, you could do all that stuff. It was like, end of the day, you're still around. Like, unless you went and moved up to the woods, like your comings and goings are, you're going on planes, it's really impossible. - So, did James Solon actually end up going through with the technology that can like facially register everyone who steps into the garden? - All right, so my understanding of this is that it's not exactly facial recognition. Although they have facial recognition cameras there, those are only to identify certain people that they have put in there who are not allowed in their on-premises. And that was-- - What'd you do? What'd you do? - That was me, Charles Oakley, for this incident that I got into a few years back. Like, that's Chris Dudley. - I mean, he was getting mad at people who were just saying like fire, sell the team, sell the team, he wanted them out. - Yeah, but this example, the one that went, that made headlines was because a woman who was involved with a law firm that was suing MSG as the company or cable vision, was recognized at Radio City. And they're like, you can't come in and we just can't have people who are involved in the lawsuit against us or in the law firm involved in the lawsuit against us on one of our properties, it's bad for us. And everyone's like, well, that's full of punitive. She just wanted to take her kids to watch the raw cats and there it was like, whatever. So the nicks are looking at seeing who's coming in, but I don't believe they're identifying every person. They also have the technology, which is the cameras, I believe, that can sense metal that are now replacing metal detectors. So when they just wave you through without checking, it's because that camera, I don't think it's facial recognition, even though it feels like it. It's actually like a metal detector type of thing. - Hmm, can they sense hatred? I mean, yes, they let you write through. Back to the backboard thing. This thing is kind of cool. I don't believe in the police state being interested in this at all. If you were an entrepreneur, and you're like, oh, this backboard that has a camera, you guys want in, they're like, no. Things don't really happen on basketball courts and if they do, we don't care. And the technology as a standalone thing is kind of cool. Maybe we are talking too much hoops but like, shouldn't the NBA buy this and have like stats as maybe the WNBA has Angel Reese stats going up in real time as she rebounds. - But she broke the record, ding, ding, ding, like a slot machine. - I mean, sure. The funny thing is this technology that they're using is not new at all. There's this app that was called Home Court. I used it like, I don't know, eight years ago or something like that, five, at least. This is not right, you know, within a couple of years. This goes back. And honestly, it's kind of better than this but it's the same exact thing. You can set up your phone with the app open. You could use a tripod or just put it against a wall or a bag or whatever. And you aim it at the court and then it tells you to go shoot a free throw. So you walk over there, you shoot a free throw and then that sort of calibrates it. And then ideally it's for one person shooting around and you just shoot around and take threes or whatever. And then you go back to it and it gives you your shot chart. It's like, oh, you made 27 of 60 shots from this area. You made X amount of shots from this area and it breaks it down by, you know, in the lane, on the wing, three-pointers, layups. So like this exact technology has been there for a long time and it doesn't even require, it doesn't even require the backward itself to really even register anything. It's just digital. Like it's an optical technology. It's not like those old school ones where you'd actually have to see the ball go through the net or whatever. - Obviously this is sports washing, right? Like people, as soon as they hear about stuff like this, they're like, what is the ulterior motive, right? 'Cause we don't really want these things. There's no demand for these things. And it got me thinking the other day 'cause like, maybe I'm stuck on this idea of justice and surveillance with this backboard. - You love justice and you love surveillance. - Well. - But you love, you love justice, not surveillance. - I don't care about it either, but-- - You love injustice and not surveillance. - Right, sure. We were hanging out all of us illegally in a parking lot, drinking beers, enjoying the second to last day of brat summer. And one of our buddies unbeknownst to me is down with the hells angels. No, not guardian angels, my bad. So a bunch of guardian angels rolled up. - All right, those are-- - Oh, you weren't here. - You weren't here. - I know, but those are very different things. - Well, I'm saying, one of our friends was just like, "Oh, what's up?" And the guardian angel's like, "What are you guys doing?" It's like, "Oh, you were chilling out just having..." You were two hours away that night, but I was thinking, I was just like, "What is the function of the guardian angels in 2024?" 'Cause obviously they're not gonna be like, "Hey, you guys should not be like drinking out here." It's like, "You're gonna get busted." Like, go in there, you know? Like, don't get a ticket tonight. - But their function is voiced in the same, right? It's like, courtesy of the gang riding around in their berets, hanging out on the subway, protecting the citizenry, but they don't seem to actually engage and like fight people. I think they're more just sort of like-- - I don't see them fight, no? I've seen them fight on the subway. - I mean, but they're more just like a community watch, right? That's like the function. They gave him a name, they gave him hats. When we're ice cube called them like F bombs and little red hats on one of his albums, which has really been an enduring memory. And it kind of, as offensive as it may be, pops into my head every time someone says guardian angels. I'm like, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm. - Well, original, the original conceit was how dangerous the subways were. And this is the 1980s. So in 2024, it's different. But in the 1980s, you know, there were many graffiti artists hanging out in the subways, but like, there was a sense of danger that they kind of stepped in and provided a little bit of security, allegedly, they're just another gang. But I was thinking about that in relationships at the top 10 square park, like the rent of surveillance. And I'm like, if the backboard was actually a cya, don't we want that? Like, if you were selling drugs or doing illegal stuff, don't do it in front of this backboard. If you were not doing illegal stuff and selling drugs, okay, then the basketball court is safe. Like, is that bad? - Well, I mean, I just don't think we want a surveillance state, like who gives a shit what people are doing anywhere. I just mean, generally speaking. - There's, it's already a surveillance state. Like, it is already a state. - Oh, okay, okay. We're saying that's a given. - Well, we just talked about how it was a given, right? Like, it is, there's no need for the guardian angels anymore 'cause like we got cameras everywhere, but to the guardian angels point, they're just like, yeah, but they're gonna watch you do bad stuff and be in danger and get mugged, whatever. And they won't do anything 'cause it's not worth it. They're looking for like other things. - Honestly, I don't really even know what the guardian angels do besides waltz around, but were they wearing outfits? - Full, obviously, like red, all red, everything. - So this guardian angels blood crew comes rolling up. You're out there with a Bruegog and were they like, hey, let's clear this out. Let's get you, get you out the street. - No, they were like, hey, nice to meet everyone. All right, have a good night, XX. - So, who were they guarding in this situation? - Nobody, they were, I mean, maybe they were fulfilling their duty, maybe in their point of view, justice was happening, and there was nothing for them to do, right? They might have, I don't know what their politics are, but they might be like, hey, public space is important. You guys can enjoy your public space, you're not doing anything wrong. Have a good night. - Wait, you're talking about the hells angels. - No, no, no, not guardian angels. - No, I know, I know. I like someone joining the guardian angels and keep and just being wrong and thinking they've joined the hells angels, or vice versa, it's funny too. - I mean, I used to have, I think I told this story before our band, used to have a practice space across from the Hells Angels headquarters in the East Village. They were extremely nice to us, but bad stuff happened there, for sure. - And then every time they come by, they're like, oh guys, the guardian angels are here. - I mean, there were-- - We're the Hells Angels, Hells Angels. Oh, right, right, right, right, right. - There's angels up, down and below, like New York City, is there a third angel crew that is maybe in the middle of the Hell, Heaven and Hell? - Yeah, that I couldn't tell you. - Is it the nicks, just like wandering aimlessly through the NBA? - I mean, the nicks are kind of that. I literally can't stop music from playing in my home. It's really annoying. - Well, look, what is it? Now you have to tell us, is it Dochie? - It might have been Dochie. I've been trying to stay up on Dochie. It was, well, I heard it, it was like an Alice Smith song on a mixtape, or like on a playlist from years ago. I don't know why it was playing, but let's talk Dochie. So Dochie, the rapper du jour, a rapper/singer has like the real theater kid thing locked down. From, let's say Florida, I believe, signed a capital records a couple of years back, down the top dog. And the immediate reaction when you hear her is, this is Kendricky. This is, you know, the voices shifting, the timbre of the voice shifting, the cadence going from super fast to super slow singing. And there is a level of craftsmanship on what she does. It is extremely high. And therefore also a little bit cringe, if that makes sense. It's just so well done. And there's so much effort that makes you wonder, why are you trying so hard? - Hmm, in the jedicous way. Well, I had to go to their Wikipedia. And it was like comparisons to the artists you mentioned, be you small, missy because of the artistry of it. I was waiting for a Lin-Manuel Miranda kind of section to come up like this feels like off Broadway, Broadway, high theater skill, technical performer, right? So immediately my alarm bells go off. And I'm just like my authenticity, Gen X alarm bells. 'Cause is she an industry plant? Is she so is she a Meghan trainer of this world? Meghan training, yeah. - Well, this concept of industry plants, we've talked about this a lot and it's always a fascinating idea. - I love it. - Like is someone who is very talented, came up through their own means, got signed, and then cultivated as an artist into being a superstar and waiting to be presented as the next big thing. Is that an industry plant or how the musical industry is supposed to work? - I mean, there have been industry plants, right? Like artists that are forced upon us mentioned many, many times people claim this about basketball, claim this about actors. I believe that woman in "This Is 40" was offered so many roles and we just didn't like them that much. I forgot her name. But there are cases where the industry is like, "We can make a lot of money off of this artist. "Let's do that." And then we kind of decide. - Right, I feel like someone using the game, for example, the rapper. A guy who had a legit backstory, was involved in gang stuff, got shot, he had the rich lore that you would want from a gangster rapper. - That is a butterfly tattoo covered up in an LA Dodgers logo? - Exactly. His brother, I think, was a big time gang dude, et cetera. He was very authentic in that way. - As a fan, I liked him. - Look, had a good voice, but he was sort of an industry plant in that they designed him to be the next big West Coast star. And it was like Dr. Dre was behind it and they associated him with 50 Cent and the hottest crew, like which was G unit out of the East Coast. And it doesn't mean that you're not, that you're like a fraud. It just meant that he was positioned in a certain way by an industry that thought that this calculus makes sense. Doji is clearly really talented. And someone looked at this and said, what if we found an azalea banks that was moldable? One that was able to-- - We can tame this one. - Right, one that is able to, you know, be created as a successful artist within the structure of the music industry versus a lifelong wild card. - It makes me think of Marky Mark, right? Like insane person. Industry created fully, right? From the jump, like the funky bunch, gap ads. - He never would have blinded that Vietnamese man if not for the music industry. - Well, I'm saying, we call azalea banks uncontrollable. She just has many opinions. She probably is on the spectrum in like a highly functional, intelligent way. Two and two was an insane song. If you listen to it now, it's like, it's still so deeply of a time, but it's still great. She just fires a lot of takes on social media. Marky Mark is like a felon, right? And ends up being the biggest actor of a decade. He's fading now, but he had a run of hits that maybe grossed him the most money of any living person in Hollywood. But there's always a temptation and there's always a need for someone as talented as azalea banks to be more, to follow instructions better. And that sounds bad, but like that just means like, can you return an email? Can you show up to an event? Like, Lauren Hill's been mentioned with Dolce and she is the ultimate talent versus unpredictable kind of contrast. - Yeah, and there are comparisons between Lauren Hill and Dolce for obvious reasons. Singing, rapping, I think it's one of her, you know, not her mentors, but her idols. I don't know what, if they have any relationship at all. But yeah, I think Dolce is, it's interesting to see someone who is obviously talented, like clearly, clearly, clearly talented and probably going to be a star. There's a very good chance this works. You know, she's down with Kendrick. I think so. I see people who are the right people for her to get excited, being excited. - Are you talking about social media people or other artists? - Social media. Social media. - 'Cause opening up is just not gonna do it. - No, I don't think her trajectory up until now looked like it was going to work necessarily. There's some with Kodak, Black is cool, but it's that thing where people who don't get excited about mainstream rap, even though they respected or listened to it, if it's a big hit, are excited about her. And I remember the same thing with Kendrick, where there's a certain like cross-section of people who are not old school, you know, purists, they still want to like new rap stuff. And they're hearing her and like, oh my God, this is it. This is what I want. And that's a valuable group to have behind you because they aren't pure haters. They want to be contemporary and they want to be excited about, you know, the newest talent coming out, but they want that talent to be someone they can ride for. And I think that's like a key demographic that it feels like she's already got. - My question is what are, what things matter to her? The evergreen question of what does she care about? Kendrick, his content, makes him a Grammy award-winning artist, right? The Grammy committee is just like, gonna give it to him. Do this dodgy rap about bad things or good things? - I've listened to her mixtape a couple times. It's really diverse in the way that she's talking about, there's like battle rap stuff. There's one song that kind of grinds my gears. It's like about like hip hop or something. I'm like, come on. But I get why people would be into that as like, yes, she's talking about like real hip hop. What's real hip hop? No, no, don't do it. But yeah, she can clearly wrap her ass off. She can sing, it's like a song called Beverly Hills and she's like, oh, this is like, she can do the neo-soul style Lauren stuff with singing and hooks. Again, I think she's really talented. I would sort of be shocked if it didn't work. - Is talent a good thing or a bad thing? They're like, if you can paint photo realistic paintings in undergrad, is that good or bad? - Oh, I'm with you. I mean, 100%. It's more like witnessing the phenomenon and the talent is so obvious. She's really talented. I don't necessarily think talent makes me like a rapper that much more. It's because it's so inherently about the lyrics. And like, but I do think she can make songs. Again, it's very, it's thoughtful. It's well constructed. But I mean, I don't know. I think RX Papi has like four songs on his new mixtape that I listen to more because it's just more of a vibe. - I guess he's a good example of my real question or a good answer to my real question. Are we looking for talent musically in our musicians? Are we looking for a more broad talent? Like I think of Asap Rocky, right? He's never been the best rapper. His songs have never been that good. When you think about him, you don't think it's like, what are your top 10 Asap songs? You're just like, oh, this guy's a businessman. He's cool. He's married to the most interesting artists of a generation. He, his visuals are cool. He's like into fashion. Famous person. It's like, if you like Asap Rocky so much, name five of his best songs. I can't do it 'cause he doesn't really have songs. And he's not that good of a rapper. Art's Poppy and Dochie are incredible rappers, but do they need to not be? - Well, let's think about, for me, PAP is a PAP aficionado, is that nothing he does feels like it takes any time at all because he's just punching in. So his talent feels more spontaneous in a way. It feels unproduced. There isn't really that much of a difference when I've seen him freestyling and just high as shit in front of a live mic than there is on his written material. - But maybe just, yeah. - Written because he doesn't write anything. He just sits there and punches in line after line after line, which is essentially freestyling. He's just doing it slower. You could also say it was writing, which would be valid. But then you hear Dochie and it's like, oh, this is like intricate. Like you've recorded this over and over until every syllables and it's right spot. And I'm thinking of these sort of like this Venn diagram where you have like, is it cool? Is it try hard? Is it talented? And like-- - I mean, this is like-- - And hers is hitting right in that middle where you're like, this is a little try hard, but she's really talented and it's good. - And there's a small window, right? 'Cause this is maybe year four of talking about the RX crew. And it could maybe benefit them to like do a cool video, do a cool thing that brings attention to their music. That just being like, I got more bars. I got even more bars. I have even more bars. - Yeah, yeah, they're not doing any of that. - They're lost, right? - Like here's more bars. - Yeah, it's just like, yo, we played "Baby's All Right" last time. And next year when we come back, we'll blow it up even more. I'm like, cool, you know, like that sounds good. That's a cool artistic life. Doji seems like in a slot where there's not only things at stake, but there's more possibilities. The ceiling is higher, right? Not in a year, but right now. And they're-- - Oh, yeah, 100%. - And they need to, Doji needs to maybe, in my humble opinion, bring less attention to her technical skills and maybe be a kind of Charlie XCX artist in 2024, where like, Charlie's album was fine, but the overall package was very easy, usable as a fan. - I mean, that Charlie XCX rollout is gonna be studied by every PR company, a marketing company, forever. That'll be like the mood board. Okay, so in the same way they use that like slime green, the brat green, we're doing it, but with orange. - Yeah, it's gonna be crazy because she won powerball, but there can only be one winner of powerball. So kind of resets. It's like, I have an idea. Next time let's do, let's win powerball. It's like, you gotta win a different way. So we're gonna have byline and goots to a poetry reading at time, again, cafe. And then after it's over, they're gonna shout, "Put on the new Doji album." And then they're gonna put it on and all the girls downtown are gonna dance for like 45 minutes to this album. Okay, so let's make sure we get that in the marketing deck. - Yeah, I mean, I remember when Beck came up, it was just like, let's like sculpt a story where you're homeless and then we kind of find you, you play on a four track, you're a loser, and then you do like underground albums that no one cares about except critics. And then we put you on a platform where you eventually win the Grammy, you know? Like, let's do that thing. It's like, well, that's the Beck thing. I'm not sure, you know? - Okay, ASAP, Rocky. We're gonna follow that model. You know, like, that makes sense to us. We're gonna have a really cool crew of kind of like uptown guys, but they all worked at sneaker boutiques and really new downtown culture and meme culture and we're rap nerds. And we're gonna make a kind of fusion of like down south Memphis meets, you know, screwed up culture with like drinking lean, but they're gonna come from Harlem. They're gonna shoot a video with an incredibly handsome guy who's gonna marry Rihanna. So let's do that rollout. That'll work. - Who's the Rihanna of this generation? I have a... - Charlie XCX, what? - Yeah, who's gonna marry that? - I mean, I have a whole wish that I thought think is true, but it probably isn't that every crew and every generation of artists and downtown people and social people online are all duplicates of each other. So like, you will have your ASAP. You will have your Charlie. You will have your Rihanna. And people just like slot into these compartments that are like a big Ouija board of a scene. And I don't know. When Doji comes out, I'm just like, it is hard for me to think and enjoy this music without acknowledging what it reminds me of, which is good and bad. It's impossible to create new things. New things, that's why I don't think AI is gonna really work. And there was a New Yorker article about it this week 'cause artistry involves a lot of bitchiness and grumpiness and things that are kind of not predictable in an algorithm. And when I hear something like Doji, on the same week, you hear a mace-free style and you're just like, the creative lines are not overlapping but they're all kind of straight, right? I didn't hear the murder mace-mace and Betha freestyle. It's beautiful, you should play it. It is deeply from 1997, but it's beautiful. I mean, I'm glad that it is. That's what it should be from. Also, this is way too rap nerdy. But if you look at camera mace, and as you said, they're cadence, it reminds you of their glory area. Is it just because of that, who they are? Like if a teenager came out and wrapped like camera on, we might say that he sounds like cam, but would we say that's 2003 rapping? If someone came out and wrapped like mace, would we say, wow, that's 1997, right there. Boom, 1998 tops. Is it just who they are? - My favorite is our buddy, Nix Sylvester, who was writing for the Village Voice, interviewed the game once, falsely, never interviewed the game. And he asked him what his game face looked like. And he was like, it's just my face. And it got published and it got him fired. He's actually a music maker, not a music reporter, so that was fine, but I don't know, you know, like is Cameron a product of his generation, or is he the generation? Is he the King of New York, or did we make him the King of New York? - Mm, yeah, good question. I just think there's something about rap that, I don't know how much it's evolved in the last 20 years that you could tell from how someone wraps just in front of you as a freestyle, right? Because if you put on Xavier or so based, and you're like, you gotta kick a little freestyle over beat, you may not be like, oh, no, this guy is totally like the future. I just feel like it was probably a cut-off point, like maybe late 90s, where everyone kind of like learned to shoot threes. Like a lot of them could shoot now. So yeah, like how people make their music and the cadences and the tempos and the flow on a song may differ, but if someone just has to rap in front of you, you may have no idea what tier they're on because everyone can shoot threes, everyone has a left hand. - I love it, it's like painting, right? It's like, I think everyone should be able to create abstract work and figurative work. It's like, well, what era are you from? It's like, ah, we can do kind of all eras. That is the thing with this version of modernity, right? Gosh, it's like, you know, this Caitlyn Clark into Reese's debate makes me think of that when Zoomers found out about like Grandmaster Flash and the original generation of rappers, and they're like, what the fuck is this? This is not how we envision the gods of this world to be. Like this is unlistenable, and their mockery of it was so unnerving because it was so on point. It's like, let me just rap like Grandmaster Flash and I'm like, this is like disrespectful in a way that is a tradition, but like it makes me uncomfortable, you know what I mean? - Sorry, I'm laughing because I almost texted you too. Like maybe a week or two ago, I was walking down Wythe Avenue, and that's where you have, you know, the Crocodile, you have the Wythe Hotel, there's a bunch of hotels over there. And that's like, I think Hell Square Five maybe. - Oh, number five, my favorite. - But it's sort of back up. It had a few years where it had crumbled, but now there's a lot of people over there. There's a big queue of folks that are trying to get into that water tower bar for some reason. I mean, like a hundred people-- - Oh, right, right. - That's very powerful, all right. - Yeah, so I walked by, I'm like, wow, Hell Square Five, back up, we did it. And I was walking by the bowling alley, and I hear some sounds coming out of it, and I'm like, what is that? - Oh, wow, that's gonna make me sad. - Jurassic Five. - Nah. (laughing) - Charlie Tuna was on the bike. - It was Charlie Tuna. It wasn't even Jurassic Five, it was just a Tony, Charlie Tuna solo sesh. - Oh, oh my God, they were kind of, I believe, I miss Wizard DJ, they were kind of primed to be the industry. Were they also on Capitol? They were on a big label, and maybe universal. And it was like, oh, they're gonna be the big stars of this generation, we're gonna make them, and I think the community who at first embraced them, realized what was happening, like no thing. - Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're trying to make barbershop quartet rap a thing? No. - Yeah, it was like boys to men, but rapping softly. It warms my heart to know that they're still playing rooms at all, especially nice rooms. I've seen some of the best shows in my life in that bowling alley, shout out to Captain Jazz Reunion's, but like, that is nice. What is the Jurassic, oh, it sucks that you name as a young person, you name your art project Jurassic, and then you get older. - Mm, yeah, the Toronto Raptor is dealing with that. It's like, ah, you guys are just so extinct. Do you even exist anymore as a franchise? - Can you guys evolve? Can you stop smoking cigarettes and not go extinct? - All right, can you mastodon, stop getting stuck in the tar pits of Ontario? But yeah, walking by those like Charlie Tuna, still at it, and, but yeah, that era of rap, like the golden era, I mean, I feel like that was their entire motif, like this is the golden era of rap, has completely shifted, where at once it was like the golden era, slick Rick, big daddy Kane, rock him, and then it shifted to big EJZ and Nas. Maybe DJ Premier, maybe Wu Tang. What I'm going is, excuse me, what I'm going with is, did it end there in that same way where I'm saying that post a certain date, everyone has a three, everyone can use both hands, did old school end? Old school, golden era. Did it end in like 2002, 2003? - I claim, especially now that we're seeing the decline of Drake finally. I think the golden era is Drake, Travis Scott, Gucci Mane, maybe he's kind of the beginning of it, like that is the golden era. I mean, sort of like the King of New York, every generation has their own version. It's kind of a shifting idea, but the golden era of rap to me in 2024 is when Drake and Travis Scott and Kanye were doing their thing. - I've seen recently, I believe this is because of, maybe a Japanese artist, I forget, but someone was talking about like, well, Project Pat, like the Project Pat flow. - Incredible. - Yeah, and I've been listening a lot to Project Pat over the last time. - His new album? - No, only his old stuff. - The new album is jazz, it's very nice. - I'll listen to it, but yeah, it's great, it's great. Listen to a ton of Project Pat just because of how influential he is in terms of his cadence. I mean, the three, six mafia stuff in general, but Project Pat, even if he wasn't necessarily as good of a rapper as some of those guys, he had that knack for rhythm, that is just, it does sound ageless in some ways. That would probably fall under golden era, I guess, by-- - The three, six crosses many golden eras. I mean, is Project Pat too old as Obie Toppen? Is he like 60 years old? - He has to be close to 50, or if not 50 plus, because they were-- - They came out one time ago. - Well, also three, six was making music the same time as Bone Thugs, which is insane. - Or beef. - Or stuff, yeah. - Like they were at odds in like 1992. - Oh my God, it's got that artwork. It's like, yeah, that to me, that is a certain golden age, but there can be more than one. There can be a multitude of golden ages. I mean, I always argue, maybe incorrectly, like just because of the way things work in music, this is the best time for music that there ever has been. I like this theory, before we get full fledged into basketball here, I have a question for you, Andrew, 'cause this is sports adjacent, but not hoops. What's going on with you and tennis? I'm a little worried. I saw a tweet that I retweeted only because I was trying to kind of get you in trouble. You're like, fuck tennis, this sport's awful. They should be playing hoops out there at the US Open. - No, what's happening? - And these kind of tweets delight you specifically, and shout out for the retweet. But I think that wording was, oh, it was a response to maybe the women's finals is going to be daughters of billionaires, which I know you love, you love class warfare. And I just responded to that and I said, tennis has trashed, the US Open should be a basketball tournament. - Okay, I'm gonna go to the tape. Andrew's telling me the truth, folks. The original tweet that he was responding to, or post on X, four matches away from the US Open Women's Final being two American billionaire daughters, really the perfect NYC matchup. Andrew says, tennis is a trash sport. Well, hold on, I'm gonna do it in Andrew Voice. - Tennis is a trash sport. - That's right. - The US Open should be a basketball tournament. - And then someone responded, who hurts you? - Did someone respond that? - Yeah. - That's good. - Yeah, who did hurt you on the tennis court, Andrew? - Well, sort of like theater kids, tennis has always been the enemy, right? Like growing up, it was just like, you don't mess with tennis. Like you either play basketball, you play soccer, or you skateboard. That's just what the Gen X vibe was when I grew up. Because tennis was hard to play. The equipment was hard to get, the tennis rackets were expensive, whatever. It's hard to get court time. A lot of people who play tennis have lessons. It was just like a country club thing. So we didn't mess with golf, tennis. Hockey was impossible. How do you get skates? So people just kind of don't mess with those sports. And then tennis is having a moment, right? And our buddy Noah Johnson from GQ wrote an article. It's like, what happens when your favorite thing becomes everyone's favorite thing? 'Cause tennis is having a moment. And I love Noah, and he sharpens a knife. But his thing is whack. Tennis is just whack. I'm sorry. It is what it is. It's less about the class warfare thing that you love. I know it's gruel for you. But I was just talking about growing up. You don't mess with A plus students, and you don't mess with tennis. The idea that tennis is having a moment is strange as well. And this is not some protector of basketball take here. I don't particularly care if people learn to basketball or not. It's that idea of, you should like my sport. I don't really give a shit, because we are very accustomed to people that we know and like not giving a shit about basketball at all. - I'm imagining a cop in full cop uniform, just with like a jersey tightly over, like the Walkman, whatever, the guns. Hello fellow kids. - But look, we spend a lot of time around people who do not give a shit about basketball. - Oh, it's my entire half world. I know it's the end of hyphenates, but. - Yeah, yeah. So I mean, there's no urgency to make people enjoy basketball. So I'm not just hating on tennis out of being a round ball head. The sport itself is fine and I'm on group chats and it makes me understand like, oh, okay, this is what it's like when we're talking hoops and someone has no clue, 'cause I don't know who any of these tennis players are. People are really into it. They're like, yes, I'm rooting for the Dutch guy. Like Rick Smits, great, me too. But it was never cool. And I don't know that it can be cool because it's a sport that's for like rich kids. - I'm saying it was what it was. Like dodgeball will never be cool, kickball will never be cool 'cause it's a sport for annoying people. Like tennis, if I wanted to get into tennis now, I'd be like, okay, I secured a racket. I'm an adult. I can afford to choose the Andre Agassi throwbacks that the cookies hoops, Jalen Brunson, tennis gear. I got the basketball US Open logo hat. And then, oh, are we gonna see it? - Oh, we're gonna see it. I mean, I'm wearing it, but I'm just just for some reference. I mean, we love tennis over here, we love it. - Boom, boom. And that's our stash, they're not many around yet, but any more. - That's the stash. - That's the stash. But I would have to find court time. The Parks Department, I would have to go online, pay a fee, and then like try to triangulate like where I could go at what time, try to find someone to play with me. And then I would try to find someone who had access to a private club that I heard there's a beautiful one in Grand Central you can sign up for, try to go to their country club, try to get some, some serves in, or I could just take this basketball and just like shoot a bunch of hoops down the street. - Well, right, I mean, even if you're an adult, playing tennis regularly is an aggressive endeavor, especially if you have a regular job because then you're competing with other people who have regular jobs for the finite amount of places to play the sport. Unlike basketball, as you said, where you can put eight people on the court at once or just shoot around. Tennis doesn't really encourage, you know, yeah, nine people show up and hit the ball around on the same net, like it doesn't work. So you're basically looking at two maybe four people for the square footage of like a $2 million apartment. - Like the math just doesn't work out for it to be played casually or economically in New York City. - And like, I want to say I don't make the rules. Like I'm into stuff that's very cringe. I'm in the sports card memorabilia again. I want to get back into comic books, extremely cringe. Like I know this, fantasy sports is something I love. I can't wait for basketball season. A, tennis is just one of those things. A bunch of my friends got really into tennis and I'm like, good luck, we're all into whack things. It is what it is. A basketball is also whack. - I think tennis seems fun as a, but look, watching it on TV, not my bag, it's okay. It's better than pickleball, I'll give you that. - Pickleball's not real. Pickleball's a side for tennis to make tennis seem cool. We know this. - That you exposed a couple of years ago and it's proven true that this tennis moment is purely driven by the comparisons to the Astro Turf fictional sport of pickleball. - Open your third tennis eye, that's right. God, like who has time to go to sit next to Anna Wintour in Queens watching two people? Hey, ping pong is one of my favorite things. I like the dimensions of the game. I like the drama of a tennis match for sure. And we were just in a tennis golden age with like the four big dogs and tennis fans hate that the goat is someone the least likable of the four, maybe three, but I don't know, in terms of a hobby, you could do better and that better as basketball. - Thank you for being brave enough to take on big tennis. At its peak, we're in a moment where we are being pressured as a society into pretending to like tennis and you no belief stood against it. - Yeah, I don't care about the billionaire part. I know that's what you, would you like to talk about that part? - I think the original tweet makes the point succinctly. Like that's the sport that it is. And we talk a lot about basketball being a sport for Nepo babies, that's true too. And that's gonna be even more true. When we see, okay, look, it's Carmelo Anthony's son, top rated player in New York State, which is actually-- - He looks better than it's gonna be crazy. - But it's sad that Carmelo's son is the top ranked player in New York State because he's ranked 40th. Now that does not take into account kids who went to Oak Hill or academies in like Florida that are from New York. Like they're not being credited with being from New York. But that said, we're not looking like a powerhouse we're supposed to be. - Who's the king of New York? - Mm. - I know I've teased this idea throughout the pod. I saw someone online declare Jalen Brunson as the king of New York. He not bounced by the Pacers, man. - He might be, he's close. - I mean-- - He feels more like, he feels more like the Prince, the Prince of the city. Like a kind of an archduke. - 'Cause he is, it's not accolades, I guess we're talking about, right? Like you don't have to do anything spectacular. He can just get to the second round of the NBA playoffs and be the king of New York. - I mean, it doesn't seem like enough criteria has been met to be the king of New York. Like if he won its title, that's king. But second round, like, okay, so he did the same stuff that Joellen B did that we say makes him whack. - Keep it in New York, Latrell Spreewell, went to the finals. - Yeah, but that's like king of the New York of yesterday. That's the golden era. We need a new king of New York. - She was never discussed as a king of New York in that era. - No, 'cause he wasn't. - Like is a rapper out there, the king of New York. - Mm, I mean, Jay-Z, no way, at this point. No, none of those guys. - It would have been popular. - 'Cause Jay-Z was king of New York for a little while there. Biggie invented the term, while at least post the movie King of New York, as far as it being a cultural signifier as the king of New York. - Yeah. - Is it still Christopher Walken? - I mean, I was saying it might be Chloe 70, right? Like she, to me, checks a lot of those boxes. But Natasha Leon is right on her heels. Who would it be? I know who you're gonna say. It's Vincent Gallo. - Oh, Vincent Gallo, the king of Buffalo 66. - Upstate energy, maga forever. - Does Vincent Gallo still live here? I guess he does. Maybe he lives in LA. I never see him. - I know, you used to see him quite a bit. When Kim's Underground was a thing, you used to see Vincent Gallo shopping for VHS rentals all the time. - Yeah, I don't know if he's around anymore. What about Timothy Chalamet? Could he be king of New York? - He doesn't do enough New York things, right? He's not in a movie about New York. He's in a movie about Saudi Arabia called Doom. - Right, I've seen him at Finelli with like a Yankees cap on or something. And those are like, those are like, I mean, it's like entry, that's a little entry level. - Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't, I'm a fan of his, but I just don't consider him. Like, do we have an Affleck, Wahlberg, Damon situation going on here? We don't have anything close, right? - Harvey Weinstein, Woody Allen, and Russell Simmons. - Ooh, it's a doozy. Where's, is there a famous ray? Where's Ray? - I guess in the pizza place? - Yeah. - Is Ray exists, I never Googled this. - Are these, he's not famous. - No one's doing like the, we're naming a place not Ray's anymore. Like that, that stick has been over for a long time. - There's one in Brooklyn, right? - Isn't there one in Fort Green? Is that still called like not famous Ray's or whatever? - Yeah, I take the bus right in front of it. I think it's, I don't know if it's called not Ray's, but it says not Ray's on, yeah, I think it's called not Ray's. - Oh, there's a new generation of people who are like, I don't get it. Why would you call your place not Ray's? - Never Ray's, that's my new tomato sauce, adventure. - It's not Ray's, no. - Nothing like Ray's, yeah. - Doesn't cost $7 for a pint. - Yeah, I don't know, I was just curious because you know, my grumpy ass is thinking about like, this Brunson glazed donuts and like, he has to do a little more. Taking a pay cut was so brilliant 'cause it makes him into a folk hero, but he's got to do something other than lose to Tyree's Halliburton, right? How about Halliburton danced on our grave? - I mean, to be king, to really wear that crown, he's got to do more. Right now, I feel like the throne has been abdicated. - What about murder mace? - I thought that came out of York. - I know, I'm just saying. What about Cameron? Cameron has had like an inexplicable fourth act. - He's definitely more of a baron. - Yeah. - You know, like he's got a small fiefdom for sure. - Yeah. - Where's Rihanna? - He got some surfs. - Where's Rihanna from? - She's from the island. - Wow, that's right. She was born there, right? - Yeah. - Again, I don't think we have a king of New York right now unless there's someone we're forgetting. - Sort of like the NBA title. It's vacant. - That's what I mean, like, okay, I guess we can give it to, I don't know, I spice because she's been a recent star, but no one really thinks that she's the king of New York in the same way that the NBA did not have a title winner in 2024. - There's people who give themselves that title, sort of like when Dwayne Wade was like, please call me three, or please call me Flash. We're like, yeah, here's D Wade. Like Fran Leibowitz has tried to be the king of New York for a generation of life. - Right, the Celtics are sort of like that. It's like, yes, they're a nominal champion. Nominal. - I mean, is Robert De Niro the king of New York? He created an entire district for rich people. Like, he invented Tribeca. - He should have some daughters who are good at tennis. That's what I was gonna say. - Or great, or granddaughters who are great at tennis. - He's still having boner babies. - His dick still works. His dick is working. - No, it's up and running. - Yeah. - Yeah. Yeah, he's having boner babies all over the place. Him and Pacino both. Dude, did you hear that Ozempic now makes boners and babies at the same time? Ozempic is like the perfect drug. - Wait, what's it doing now? - Well, it may news this week because doctors are like, it may reverse aging. And people had a field day about it. Yeah, what does that mean, right? You lose weight. So is that the reverse aging thing? Is this the perfect drug? Have we found the drug with no asterisks? - Well, my thing is, if that's the case, well, shouldn't it just be available on street corners? I walk by and instead of putting your pizza box into a container and grabbing a new copy of the village voice, you just get some Ozempic to pop for the walk. Like, let's have a perfect society. - But it takes a while, right? We want immediate gratification. Like, you don't wanna order a pizza for next week. You want a pizza there. - I just feel like make Ozempic available like the vaccine. You want some Ozempic, go get it. We're gonna make everybody skinny and young and you're gonna have boner babies, it'll be perfect. - We just talked about SZA, like we don't, do we wanna run away from body positivity, which I thought was amazing? - I'm saying for pure health reasons, that's all. - I mean, that was the question. Does it reverse aging because people lose weight that are healthier? Or does it like rejuvenate oxygen in red blood cells or recreate muscle, like what's happening? I don't know, I should have read more, but nobody seems to have a quick answer. - Yeah, no, no. I don't want you to be followed this program by doing more research. - But what do you think of medbeds? You know what those are? - No. - So it's apparently a thing in- - Is it a new center for the Timberwolves? - It sounds like one. - Alexi Medved. - Whatever happened to Russia. - Anyway, I'm sorry. - So medbeds are part of a sort of right wing conspiracy, I guess you could say, like maybe QAnon adjacent, but the idea is that the government has medbeds, which are similar to that movie with Matt Damon of the BMM when he has to take his sick daughter or whatever the fuck it is, or maybe himself. He's got to go up to this like satellite planet to heal himself. Whatever the hell. - Wait, what are you talking about? Not the Martian. He gets stranded in the Martian. - No, no, no. The one where he's got to go up, he's got to like fight his way up and he gets up there so he can put himself- - Oh, you mean that Chinese like Hong Kong movie where he like flies on clouds and stuff? - Defends a towel? - I don't think we're getting any closer. No, he's like doing math equations on the chalkboard. What is that one again? - Which Matt Damon movie are you referring to? - I don't know, it's like called like Olympus or some shit. Something like that. It's not even right. Anyway, the whole point is that there are medical beds that you get entom, they close, and then you get healed. And the right wing believes, or at least members of the right wing conspiratorial fringe, believe that the government has these items that you just lay down in a medbed and it cares you of whatever ails you. And they're like, the government is keeping medbeds away from us and if Trump wins, he'll finally give us the medbeds. - Wait, is this for real? Do they believe in the thing like the cryogenic chamber? - I think they're kind of mixing together a lot of science fiction ideas with some other ones that maybe LeBron's treatments would have allowed him to play into his 70s. But overall, yeah, Trump will finally give us the medbeds. - It's like, the medbed has a horizontal compartment for a pizza to slide in made out of the blood of children. - You put an empty box and it comes out a full pizza with a dreino chrome on top. - That's amazing. - And an ozemic. - I mean, these conspiracy theories are great and they're always rooted in reality. So there must be some like treatment that Joe Biden is getting, maybe that someone found out about. So it's halfway through. It's like, these people are crazy. Okay, Joe Biden sleeps in this weird thing that we call the medbed. - Joe Biden is sleeping in a coffin every night. - Yeah, he hasn't moved. He's sleeping like a baby. He hasn't moved in four months. He looks so healthy. - Yeah, yeah. Doesn't move it in. - He doesn't even have to talk or move. - It's waxy. - Yeah, I love it. I would like to try a medbed, medbed a little bit. But I feel like you cannot create sort of like the Batman movies. You cannot create these technological oddities without a very clear provenance or breadcrumb trail. Like you can't manufacture a Batmobile without somebody just on the internet being like, all right, someone's making these weird parts in Taiwan. They're saying that mobile, like who's making this medbed that is so secret? We cannot find out who's supplying the chips for it. - Well, that's kind of a problem with the Batman movies you're saying as a franchise. Where they're like, wow, here's the Batmobile. I'm like, are these just parts from Dodge? - Yeah. - Like how did you build, how did you make it fly? How does it have wings and rockets and stuff? Like what are you using here? Where did you get this from? Oh yeah, Chrysler actually has a winged car thing that you can buy. Okay, well, why are they all going to the Wayne residence? - Yeah, exactly. It's like, oh, you have surveillance in Gotham City of every single human being's phone and stuff. Like where's the nerd pulling all niners drinking? Joke Cola and Andy Cap Prize. - Have they ever answered that? - No, no, how to keep them safe? - They refuse. - Yeah. - No, you're the only one keeping the science fiction would be Marvel Universe Honest. - That's right. Which is crazy because how do we not know anything about Trump's shooter? Dude, you're watching The Watchers. - That's right. I'm calling bullshit on tennis, assassination attempts, and something earlier this pod, that was perfect. - By the way, where have we landed on the Trump assassination attempt? 'Cause I have not paid that much attention. Have we landed on that that was fraudulent and they just killed a guy? Have we landed on that? Like where, or that it was actually an assassination attempt and then all the conspiratorial stuff is bullshit? I just mean, where are we? Have we a lit? - I sadly watched, I follow some of these comments on social media that have like thousands of responses. And if someone's just like, all right, here's 15 things that don't make sense. Can they clear one of them up? And MAGA people aren't like, well, here's the answer for everyone. They're just like, well, Kamala Harris is racist. And I'm like, wait a second. There's no talking point on the right that explains simple things like how come we don't know more about the shooter? How come there was not more blood? Can we see or hear about Trump talk about it? 'Cause he talks about everything. It's like, well, your candidate is a racist who doesn't know her own race. - Well, Tim Walz lied about killing a man. Okay, I know, but can we just get back to the whole assassination thing? - I don't have any particular interest or dogging this fight. I just don't want to know where we've landed on this. - I think we've landed. - Like have we determined that it was fake or that it was real? Like I guess what's the consensus here? - I think the smart thing of any public person is to not mention it. And I think the streets are saying it was fake. But who cares? - No, that's real. I'm like, my mom doesn't think it's real. - When it happened, adults, reasonable adults I was talking to were like, that's probably not real. - That was one of the reasons I think it had such overall little impact that most people who were like, holy shit, were already in the Trump caravan. There was a bunch of people who thought it was real and like, I wish they got them. And then there was a whole bunch of other people who were like, well, it's just no big deal because it's all fraudulent even though they Swiss cheese this fucking guy on a roof. Oh yeah, that was all fake. It was just all theater. I'm like, but multiple people died. - Yeah. - Ah, fake, whatever. It was just some theater kids shit. - I mean, and then you had the self-loathing Democrats who were just like, oh, we're going to lose this over. I'm going to move to Canada. They're going to be on Twitter in four years regardless, whatever they may be. - Well, fortunately, we can talk about some basketball now. We've made it through. - Thank God, Jesus. I can't expose any more PSYOPS in this pod. I think I'm up to like more. There's fewer health squares than the PSYOPS I have exposed on this pod. - You exposed Charlie Tuna, like no one else has exposed Charlie Tuna. - I had to do it, but can you expose Cheryl Swoops right now? - So Cheryl Swoops, a goat, an absolute goat, a high-key goat. - Well, have you went back and looked at her stats? I hate to do it as a right off the jump. - No, are they bad? - It's, there's a lot of era kind of curvation going 'cause compared to what's happening now. - What are you saying? You saying she's not goed in? - She is one of the legends and founders of the W, but statistically there has to be a little gymnastics to compare her to like Caitlyn Clark. - Okay, well, regardless. I haven't done the research. You clearly have not done the research. You're just, you just know the facts. You just know the truth and you're exposing it. - People have posted the B ball reference side by side. - Okay, got it. Okay, no, fair enough, fair enough. Again, regional specific, no doubt. So Swoops apparently is so bothered by Caitlyn Clark that they've removed her from broadcasting games with Caitlyn Clark. - Yeah, they had to hammer him. - With Caitlyn Clark. - Lieberman comes to come on and repair that. - So is this true? - What do you mean, what's true that they replaced her? - That they're like, she's too biased to actually talk about her or are we using, are we inferring that we don't want someone on TV who's willing to criticize her? I'm just saying looking at it from both sides. Was it that Swoops is unwilling to do it or that they don't want her there because they fear that she'll be critical? - Swoops is reluctant to talk about her at all on air and then goes off air and talks about her. She wasn't helping anybody. Obviously it doesn't help the broadcast when there's like a single issue broadcaster who is triggered by one thing and that is the most popular or interesting and divisive subject in the game. At least you could maybe be an Angel Reese fan and constructively but subtly kind of criticize Caitlyn Clark in a game. But Swoops is overcome with that Michael Jordan rage and instead of her teammates, it's Caitlyn Clark. - Is Swoops objection to Caitlyn Clark based on the attention she's garnered as like a white woman? Is that the crux of it? - I think that is much of it. I also think it's a bit of gatekeeping because she's been known as a goat for a long time. Shout out to Maya Moore who I think is there or even better. But Swoops is one of the gods and she does not appreciate these young rappers mumbling hits. - Here's the thing, I get it. This is part of the deal when your sport changes and becomes more popular and there's more eyeballs and there's more money and there's more advertising revenue. This is how this is how it goes and we've seen this in every sport and basketball in particular because that's what we think and talk about most. Like that's the entire stick of, you know, inside the NBA of every coach, every announcer, every personality from a different era says that the new one is pacified. - Michael Jordan made a whole. - That was realer. - He did the last dance because he was threatened of LeBron James. - Yeah, I mean, this is just how it works. So Caitlin Clark is getting this attention and it's because of what she's brought to the table but it's also because of this is how sports work. If you asked other WNBA players in the past what they thought of new talent, they probably would have been critical also. They're just weren't microphones on them to have them ask what they think about Sabrina. - The cultural grievance is crucial to the survival of all of these leagues. I just was interested because Shell Swoops couldn't, like couldn't adapt to making it content. It was just pure rage in the Michael Jordan way, right? 'Cause Michael Jordan is not good at talking either and he, Sarah Swoops did exactly what Jordan does, like talk. Except it was a young player and not his teammate who kind of pipping gifted Michael Jordan a run and Jordan can't even talk about it. And there's this kind of megalomaniacism that is a byproduct of the way you're framed. I think in history that is unavoidable or hard to avoid and a lot of great players do avoid it but I can, to your point, relate to players who cannot. Because Swoops has been regarded as one of the goats for so long. She should think of herself as a goat. It would be amazing if she was just like, "Time goes by." And shout out to this wonderful new player. I hope we can bring these generations together and give you an experience of this league like never before. I don't think she should be tasked to do that because it's not in the nature of a competitive athlete. - Yeah, everyone can't be Ellen Iverson who has this love for modern players. - He hates LeBron, right? He came out against LeBron recently. - Well, he's an MJ guy. - He's a Kobe guy. - Which one, AI? - AI is a Kobe dude, right? - Well, he was an MJ guy, then he kind of was a Kobe guy, yeah. But overall, he's always shown a lot of love and always at least publicly been like, "Oh, Kyrie can do things that I can't do," or whatever. He's always been sort of at least acknowledging that. But again, these people all have egos. And to your point, to make it to that level and excel, it's not about being realistic. Like I became an all-time great by being realistic. No, no, you didn't, you weren't realistic at all. So when you sit there and say, actually the sport was harder in my day and I'm better than all these players who have come after me because honestly, they're a bunch of bitches and I'm not. You're like, yeah, it's unrealistic that the world would work like that, but you didn't make it where you were by being a realistic, rational person. You made it by thinking that you were the total exception to the rule and you proved it. - I mean, there's a lane for Rashid Wallace, for Gilbert Arena's to be like, it's all bullshit except me. And then there's a lane to be on air and have the attention around your words and to like formulate an argument. I'm just surprised Cheryl Swoops, who's a goat player, didn't find a way to stay on a broadcast. Like I wonder if her producers looked at her but was like, hey man, you just have to tone it down. Like you are a part of this thing. Like we're trying to celebrate. Criticize all you want, but like, it can't be mean-spirited and you have to say something. It cannot just be silence. She's like, nope, fuck you. Not doing it. - So here's a question I have for you about Caitlyn Clark. What would you say the perception is of her efficiency? - That she's inefficient because she is efficient, but people think she's a chucker. - Right, I think the Angel Reese delegation can't say anything about her efficiency because Angel Reese is cartoonishly inefficient. Even if, as we've discussed in the show, she gets enough of her own offensive rebounds that those numbers are a little bit misleading. She's more efficient than her poor field goal percentage and poor true shooting percentage would indicate because some of those possessions she's generating two attempts and scoring on one of them, which is like 50%, but it's really in a larger sense. It's like 100% because it was on that possession. Just for the sake of argument, there was a article that we both read that said that she's getting like a third of her offensive rebounds or a third of her rebounds might be off of misses. Like it was true. - Well, the article- - At the same time. - If I had to paraphrase the article, which was fascinating and deflating 'cause the article was like, I am going to look at every Angel Reese rebound and every Caitlin Clark turnover because those are the two things people point out as weaknesses of these two players and figure out how much of it is the fault of Caitlin Clark's teammates and how much of it is Angel Reese's point of view offensively, for example, like Moses Malone. And in the end, after a pretty entertaining article, it was like, not as much as you guys think, these are weaknesses of two great players. They need to both shore them up, but they're awesome. Each player helps their team tremendously, but Angel Reese could afford to shoot better and Caitlin Clark could afford to cut down some poor turnovers. - You sort of buried the lead a little bit, which was that he's like, yeah, it's true. She does turn the ball over too much and she is a poor shooter. That's what I mean. - Yeah, yeah. - He's like the numbers actually, the criticisms of those athletes based on those numbers are kind of valid. He's like, yeah, Caitlin Clark is responsible for like 96% of our turnovers. Maybe a handful were wrongly attributed to her, but like they're all her turnovers. And Angel Reese, yeah, she can't finish for shit. She has a weird like release on her layups. She's shooting from like her hip and she is a terrible finisher around the basket, but she does get a lot of her own offensive rebounds. I only meant your takeaway and what you said was correct, but he was like, yeah, that criticism is all valid. There isn't like, no, it's just not true at all. No, that's true. - Yeah, I mean, they are who, do we even watch the games, bro? We can just see it, right? Like I believe in the article, there were less than 10 turnovers on Caitlin Clark's and that were her teammates maybe fault that like bounced off of hands. And we see them all over and over, but those are the only ones. She is a little bit too careless. - And whatever, go on with it. I just wanted to like, the article is interesting for that. - No, no, you thank you for explaining it more thoroughly. I mean, you exposed the article that we read. - So many hell squares, so many exposures. - So the point I wanted to get to with Caitlin Clark and talking about efficiency is that I agree with you. I think the perceptions that because she doesn't shoot a high percentage, that she's kind of inefficient. She's a gun. - Now, this treads a little bit on territory we have discussed before, but it's that the WNBA and the NBA have very different efficiency numbers as their averages, right? - You're the year lead to league, for sure. - They're just, they're different leagues. It's a slightly different sport. - The rules play into account, right? - So Caitlin Clark's true shooting percentage, that that's the easiest way to measure scoring efficiency. You know, includes, well, it includes your field goal percentage, your effective field goal percentage and your free throw percentage. So it's just a measurement of how you score and the efficiency overall, what you do, how you put buckets up, points in the basket. So hers is at about 59%, which-- - That's good, that's good. - It's good, but it would be a bit above average in the NBA, right? That's like what Jason Tatum is, Taris Maxi. Guys who are not known for being inefficient, but they aren't bad, they're a little above average. In the NBA, true shooting percentage, because of the way that the game has been optimized is gets you in the 57 to 58%. WNBA, 53%, 53 and a half, whatever, just to be specific. She is so far, so far ahead of average. And if you look at the other players in the WNBA, the most efficient usage players, like top of the top of the top of the top. It's Asia Wilson, Brittany Griner and Caitlin Clark. They are one, two, three, they're in a category all by themselves, all by themselves. It's Caitlin Clark is not just efficient. She is like top, top, top, top, top. And if you look at the last 15 games or so, she's over 60% and she's top five in league and scoring. She's basically, you could come, if you look at her facilitation and her scoring and you compare to Asia Wilson, you're kind of looking at Yokech and Ambeat, like way above everybody, in terms of how they score the basketball, one of them is scoring a lot more points and one of them is facilitating a lot more. I just think that needs to be clarified about Caitlin Clark. She's not just efficient. She is top, top, top, top of the WNBA to go along with what she's doing as a facilitator. - I mean, I said on, I think I tweeted this, like there's a certain truth that is always maybe exposed in sports just by watching games and statistics and a lot of it, you know, is like we've been asked to compare Reese and Caitlin Clark because of their history, because of their age, the way they arrived in the league. But there's now, there's a bit of a separation. You don't hear that many people talking about which team has a better record anymore 'cause the fever are now, I think, I believe in the ESPN rankings, they surpass the ACEs, which is kind of crazy because you have maybe the best WNBA player of all time in Wilson on the ACEs who's having like a Hulk, esque year, it's like her statistics are bonkers. They jump off the page, right? And, but I believe Caitlin Clark is elevated to that. And there's some, I feel like there's some chatter asking in races about race, sports is about race, asking why we're not talking about Asia, Wilson more. And the small truth that is exposed is like, Las Vegas is a weird city. Biggs are really hard to talk about in the, in basketball because they don't remind us of us. They seem like anomalies 'cause they're so tall and skilled, but we gravitate towards Kobe Bryant, whereas Shaquille O'Neal has always been the better player all time. - There's that, but there's also the fact that we aren't talking about Brianna Stewart either. You know, we aren't talking about Sabrina. We aren't talking about anybody, but Caitlin Clark and her foil, which is, you know, Angel Reese. And that's just because there aren't enough fans in the game yet that she is still the contours of League. They still form around Caitlin Clark and her relationship with the players and her relationship with rivals and her relationship with coaches or the media or former players, it's still Caitlin Clark. And, you know, that'll change. And that's not a commentary necessarily on her versus Asia Wilson. It's more about Caitlin Clark just being totally anomalous and that it does have racial components to it for sure. You know, that why is she this, is this phenomenon that we care so much about? But that goes back to college and it goes back to what she represents. You know, if Caitlin Clark wasn't in the league, it's not as if Asia Wilson would be the superstar that people would be talking about otherwise. It's just that Caitlin Clark is this bizarre freak, not even how she plays ball just in the amount of eyeballs that she garners. - I want to believe I'm getting this story, right? But Wilson, the ball manufacturer, has signed Asia Wilson and Caitlin Clark to deals, but no one's buying the Asia Wilson ball, which is weird because it's like the perfect match for obvious reasons. And I believe the Caitlin Clark ball is very popular. And it's like, what the hell is this? Is this about racism? And I'm like, yeah, a little, 'cause it always is. Like, there's no denying that. But also, oh, Caitlin Clark is really popular, extremely popular. - Yeah, I mean, again, there is a racial element for sure, but it's not just this clear cut as like Asia versus her, one's popular because they're white, one's unpopular because they're black. It's just part of this larger swirling dynamic. It's part of it, like indisputably part of it. But I do think what impressed me about Caitlin Clark on her recent run was like, all right, we'll give you these three criteria, Andrew. Three criteria amongst the league leaders in scoring. Outlier, efficient, outlier. Not just efficient, outlier, efficient. And amongst the league leaders in assists. Who are some NBA players who fit that criteria? 'Cause I know, and I can tell you from the last 30 years who they are. - Wait, efficiency? - Like, top of league in scoring per game. Like, but amongst the leaders, not like the leader, but amongst the leaders. Outlier, efficient, freakishly efficient, and among the league leaders in assists, or even leading depending on how you wanna do it. 'Cause I'm giving you the Caitlin Clark formula for those three categories. - I mean, it's really, I think of SGA recently, Ben Simmons in his best years as all NBA years. LeBron James, I don't know, those players come to mind. - So, you weren't quite thinking, well, LeBron, I guess, but you weren't thinking even big enough, because SGA doesn't facilitate enough, and Ben Simmons didn't score enough. We're really talking about like maybe five guys. We're talking about Yokech, LeBron, Houston Hardin, pre-knee injury CP3, and Magic Johnson. - Yeah, yeah. - That's kind of it. If you were gonna find players who are outlier, outlier efficient's crucial in this, right? Because otherwise you get guys like a Gilbert Arena, so you get like a Westbrook. And even a Luca who is efficient, it's a strong suit. He isn't weirdo efficient. So Caitlin Clark is doing some stuff as a rookie, especially over the last 15 games, but overall, 'cause she's scoring more, that is really only the territory in those three categories of the absolute greatest offensive players in history when it comes to basketball. I'm not talking about rebounding or defense or other stats, or even turnovers, she's got work to do. I'm just talking about those three vectors, 'cause that's a detrick word that I like using. She is as good as it gets in comparison to NBA guys. - And I know, and we've been doing this part of while, I know how you feel about these players, but someone just listens to that. Now I might be like, no one cares about CP3, right? We do. I mean, he's probably, you can make an argument that he is a top five, six, seven, eight all-time player. But if a Caitlin Clark head came and saw that take, they'd be like, she's better than CP3. Like the assumption is that within the context of the WNBA, she's already passed hard, right? Like, and we love harden. Harden's a top all-time player for us too. - We are now talking about Swoop's territory, which is only LeBron and Michael Jordan. - Well, I don't know, because for me, is someone who knows the NBA much more. And I think about less what she's, how good she is, but more like what she's doing, right? And I think, yes, you could look at it in WNBA context and say, well, Swoop's was scoring, but wasn't facilitated. She wasn't efficient. Again, you get into era-specific, the nuances of that are a little different. - She was playing with plumbers. I don't know. You know, like you can justify. - But I'm saying, this is fair, like Swoop's, you're great. You're playing with a bunch of seamstresses. - I mean, when the league came together from nothing. - They were all stewardesses playing against you. - The league, I believe, was bringing players that were past their prime just to fill rosters. Like it wasn't just college graduates. - Dude, teams were starting milkmaids. - But like, oh, we don't got to get into that New Yorker cover, we've got that. But like, it was like expansion, creating a league out of nothing, there's an adjustment period. And the players that excel in that period will remember as originals, but it's very noisy. - Yeah, the average team was like a shooting guard, two nannies, maybe a power forward. Someone they pulled out of the stands. - I mean, nannies are teachers and we love teachers, so that New Yorker cover controversy is whack. But anyway, yeah, I'm really, I said this last week, the content that Clark is generating this is insane. It's insane. I have not seen this in the NBA in years. - Wendy is on planet earth and he's not generating this heat. Like, Wendy's kind of just like, oh, he's good, whatever. - Yeah, just to wrap up the Caitlin Clark part about the efficiency, it was more that I was sort of shocked because I knew that she was shooting better. Also, she shoots 33, 34% from three. League average is 33%. I'm like, oh, I got to keep going back and looking at the numbers. I'm pretty well versed in NBA numbers and the averages. You got to go back and look at how these compare to the WNBA and what they're doing as a league because her shooting 33% on a high volume is Lukas shit. Taking a ton of really hard contested threes where no one's letting you open, they're self-generated. That's what Luke is doing. He's shooting high thirties on the hardest shot diet in the league and that's what she's doing. League average, but on impossible fucking threes with a high volume, it's a different thing. She's not just a chucker, she's creating great opportunities. And like her sort of regiment that gets her up to this efficiency is kind of interesting because to some degree, I feel like it kind of validates some of the early stuff that her coach was saying where we sort of roasted her coach because she sounded outdated and the reality is that she's getting back to her sort of college way of scoring that the breakdowns which are shooting about 85, 90% of the line, making a bunch of threes and taking a zillion threes but her two point percentage is how she kind of rigs it because her two point percentage is like, you know, getting up towards like 55 to 60%. It's a high degree of two pointers. So Caitlin Clark, I try to think of a NBA comparison for someone who creates their efficiency the same way and it kind of comes down to ironically another Indiana product which is Tyrese Halliburton. Kind of similar that he's efficient, he has a ton of assists, he takes a zillion threes then he has a very similar breakdown. Obviously he doesn't turn them all over but he isn't as good and comparison to she is but they're actually kind of similar archetypes. - I love basketball because I think an Angel Reese fan like Lisa Leslie might hear you say, oh Caitlin Clark is so good, she reminds you healthy Tyrese Halliburton, Chris Paul and James Harden and they'd be like, see, she's a fraud. She's a fraud, those are all losers. - Bunch of bombs. - I mean. - Bunch of milkmaids. - I kind of see their point too, right? Because it's like, oh you guys held her in a higher regard. We were talking about goat, she's no goat. I mean, Harden's not a goat. - I mean, Caitlin Clark's archetype, it's been fun trying to figure it out because when she got drafted, we watched her a little bit in Summer League and we talked about it like, is she Trey Young? Is she James Harden? Is she Steve Nash? And the more I'm looking at it, I'm getting closer to she's James Harden slash LeBron. - So, so, so fraudulent players. - Just a bunch of bombs, really. But yeah, I mean, James Harden in the words of Daryl Maury and the Houston version was the greatest offensive player of all time. - Don't bring Daryl Maury into this either. I mean, to me, I get it. But like, I think to people hearing this might be like, he's losing this argument as the more he talks. - Right. I mean, I don't even have an argument. I'm just saying Caitlin Clark, her combination of scoring, wild efficiency and leading a league in assists as a rookie. If this is a baseline for the stuff that she's going to be doing, she's a, she's an all-timer. She's, she might be the offensive goat. Like it's great as Age of Wilson is. - Yeah. - It's just the facilitation element is a different component. And I'm not even here just to glaze Caitlin Clark. I was just shocked by the numbers. I looked at him and was honestly under, I was aghast. - Can you glaze another guard? Can you glaze TJ McConnell, switch it up a little bit? - Oh, you mean the Caitlin Clark of the NBA? So your boy TJ McConnell, your man, fellow tall king, signs for millions. - It's like exactly your height, right? - Is he like six, five, six, four? - No, I think he's like, I think he's like six, one. - He's tiny. - I think, I think he's legitimately a little shorter than myself, unlike you who is six foot six. - That's right. - I believe he resigned before your deal from about 45 million. Is he everybody's kind of like favorite player at this point? - I mean, he's a process sixer. I don't love him. I like him. He beats the Knicks, but like, he's charming. I didn't hate him when he kind of took it to New York. Dominative players are popular. I don't know. I think like he is an interesting prototype that always exists. The Knicks drafted his prototype again. Like short white guards are around that are quote-unquote smart and pass well. He's kind of a good player. He's good. - I think he's a good player. I mean, the fact that he's been able to figure out a way to score efficiently without taking threes. I don't know. He can make them, but he takes very few to score in the paint at a high clip, to get steals, get assists, valuable player. I also mean that maybe there's part of it that people will come up and be like, you know who I actually like, TJ McConnell. Yeah, I know, dude. Everyone likes TJ McConnell. He's short. He's got a good personality. He plays hard. The whole cliche of you hate him when he's playing against you, but you want them on your team. People don't even hate him when he plays against him. - No. - He is just an extremely likable player. Oh, the short white guy who doesn't try to hurt people, but also seems like funny. - I mean, he was Jalen Brunton in Dallas, right? Like that short guard who would come in after the star goes down and kind of make the engine keep going and reveal the other strengths of the team. I mean, it's a hot dog legs ass take. And be like, you know who I really like? A good player. It's like, yeah. - Let me divulge something. Even though, you know, he was really annoying in the next plate. I kind of liked that TJ McConnell guy. Yeah, no shit, dude. - No shit, he's lovable. It's like, you know who I kind of hate? Tyree's Halliburton is like, yeah. - Yeah, yeah, I know. 'Cause he's super nerdy. Yeah, he's a theater kid. - Like, can TJ McConnell reveal? - Now that he has his final kind of contract, probably his long term, 445. Can you reveal himself to be a certain kind of villain? That'd be amazing. He functions better as a bad guy than a good guy, right? Like, can he be mega? Can he say something bad about Kaitlyn Clark? Can he, his silence about Kaitlyn Clark is definite? - He also plays in Indiana. So that could be a real schism there. - Wow. Wow. - Yeah, now he's quite good. He just isn't, he doesn't shoot enough threes to be a starter anywhere. That's this real issue. If he could shoot threes, he'd be a starting player. His defense is good. You know, he's, he takes care of the ball. - What about this take? It's sort of like the OGN and Obie take. It's awesome until you have to pay him. And that TJ McConnell's scale 445 kind of makes him annoyed. Like he was better as a cheaper player. As soon as he gets kind of more than $10 million a year, he's not as valuable or interesting. That's just a take, I think. - I felt like his old, I have not looked up what his old contract was. It's probably between like five and seven or something like that. - Yeah, it's not, but those guys are valuable though. When you can get a bunch of guys, as you said, it can go either way. If you're getting Dante for 10, you're like, whoa, how do we, how come we don't have him locked up for nine years? We want him for the rest of his career at $10 million. This is, this is the dream. - Yeah, I don't know. - And then you're like, I know, I was gonna say it then, it's like, we have Kelly Ubre, two for 18, like, why? - Yeah. - Yeah. - What's the point of that? - But Ubre on a veteran's minimum for a year. It's like, yes, we got him. I don't wanna bleed over into other future perfect pods, but what, do I smell rice balls? Wait, do I smell focaccia? It's San Gennaro in the air. Is it this time of year where I started getting a hunger for some sausage and peppers? - Well, we've got art week, armory week, fashion week. San Gennaro is close by. - Is Slam Gennaro the king of San Gennaro? - It's interesting that you asked this because I was thinking, you know, in much the way that people get the government that they deserve, according to one saying, not my take, that's a saying. It's a saying. - Mm-hmm. - Same. - Same. I feel like that every generation gets the Italian that it deserves. - Oh. - You know, like you go back, we had Fierrello LaGuardia, leader of a city, right? - Francis IV. - Then, Francis IV Coppola, Super Mario, Chef Boyardee, Mario Cuomo, like Luigi, generation by generation, by generation. You get the Italian that you deserve. And today's Italian, I mean, Tony Soprano, James Gandolfini, today's generation gets the Italians that they deserve. Juan is Dante D'Vincenzo, and the other is the Risler. - All right, is the Risler the adult or the kid? - The kid? Is it the kid? - He must be the kid. It's gotta be the kid. The dad can't be the Risler. - The kid can't be the Risler. You cannot sexualize a kid, even though it's Costco. - Oh, the kid's gotta be the Risler. The dad can't be the Risler. - I'm googling this. - What, the dad's out there rizzing people up? - I mean, it has to be the dad. Shout out to Miss Risler, who's probably very jealous. Who is the Risler? (laughing) - The kid. - I'm gonna go, it's the Risler Instagram profile 'cause I'm not getting a definitive answer from Google. Cool. - Let's go to the kid. - It's the middle kid. So it's not the short, like the eight year old, it's like the 11 year old. You cannot, I don't like this Risler action with this kid. He's a young, young lad. It just, it just means he's got Ris. - Glazing is just when kids kind of zone out on their phones and like, their eyes just kind of glaze over as they scroll over. - He's just got, he's just got swagger. He can just rizz up the ladies. - I guess Risler. I mean, maybe he's rizzing all of us collectively. - Is he the Italian that his generation deserves? - Well, do we deserve him more than his little brother and his father? - Or Dante de Vincenzo. - Or Dante de Vincenzo. Or the King of New York, Robert De Niro. - Is the Risler the King of New York? - Where are they, are they in New Jersey? Don't all Italians come from New Jersey? They immigrate from the West. Yeah, they traditionally came off the boot of New Jersey and they'd make it to Brooklyn and the working class enclaves where now they have Halloween themed neighborhoods and Christmas celebrations. And then eventually they make it to Long Island where they become Rislers. - Is Little Italy the only region that trinket? 'Cause you know, like little Paris is blowing off. You have little Tokyo everywhere. There's multiple little Tokyo's. You have little Halloween just like popping up in South Brooklyn. Little Italy has been trinking for a long time, hasn't it? - I mean, this was the plot of like 90% of movies about downtown New York gangs in the past. It was always the friction between your Paisano's, the Chinese and the Paisano's Italians. - Oh, you're on mute, Andrew. I know you want to say this. - Sorry, we got crying toddlers in the background. Little Italy is making a comeback, right? Because there's like money getting put into it. Now there's like better slice spots. There's, instead of like the tourist traps with T-shirts that say like New York fucking city and mama's little meatball, there's like food halls and things like people actually want. It's on a come up a little bit, not unlike even Chenzo and his New York Knicks. - Can you say the big pun line? - Not accurately. - Dead in the middle of little Italy. Little did we know we riddled the middle man who didn't do Italy. - You rizzled the middle man? Did he predict the future? Big pun, shout out the big pun. Fortunately. - Out in the middle of little Italy, little did me know we rizzled the, we rizzled the rizzler. - He kind of had a high voice. He was a big guy, but he had a higher pitch. Yeah, I don't know. Watch out, watch this New York city space for San Genera coming up. - Who should be the king of San Genera this year? Can they get Dante over there? 'Cause he would actually, that would work. We needed to make some calls, I think. - Would Jalen Brunson's iron fist let that happen? Jalen Brunson's not letting anyone get screen time on his watch, right? It's a rap. - What if Josh Hart is the king of New York? - He's been spotted dining alone at Italian restaurants. So he, that's king behavior. - I do like that Mikhail Bridges is just not part of the conversation. - We got it again. - We gave up a King's ransom for him. Six first round picks. We frick, we've mortgaged the franchise. - A bunch of convulses, some nougat, watch those fillings. Definitely, definitely a bunch of sausage and peppers. - They've given it all up for him. And yet, no one even thinks he's like a archbishop. An older mint of New York. - We gotta get our buddy, Jason Isido, on the pod tune. 'Cause he just shot the Villanova 4 for GQ. Oh, he's got stories. - Are you, are you leaking information that people don't know about yet? - No, it's on Instagram. - No, all right, just, I was hoping you were 'cause you expose everything all the time. - Let's see. - Another, another Quo Exposay, Quo Exposay. - Quo Exposay. - All right, let me rank the hell squares. Number one, three. Number two, five, number three, one, number four, six. I did it. - Oh, I disagree. - Oh, what's your ranking? - I think seven is two. - Seven is two? But seven is two, close to a little, little. - Three is definitely, and three is three. - Three is three, but three is technically still considered little brat. City. - Yeah, but only in summer. - Only for two months out of the year. You know what? - You know what? (laughing) - I don't know why that's a two month out of the year. - You know what pod consistently ranks one out of one. (laughing) - You know what, number one is four, seventy-one. (upbeat music) ♪ I love cookies ♪ ♪ I love cookies ♪ ♪ I love cookies ♪ ♪ I love cookies ♪ (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]