Chuck Klosterman
Appearances
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Ja. Ja. One of the greatest experiences of my college football watching life. Not that I have any relationship to the military. It's just that you're so used to watching that game and convincing yourself, well, it's raining and the guys are in the stands and it's the only game on. It would have been amazing if that game would have mattered. But it was probably a hopeless dream.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
But that would have been amazing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
That's probably true. And I think that with this new influx of new money coming in, I think this change should be made. I don't think anyone who goes to a college, who's attending a college, should have to pay money to watch that team play. It should be free for any student to go to these games while they're there.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And if you graduate from a university, as long as you keep proof of their student ID or whatever, you should be able to attend games of that team for the rest of your life for $10. Right. There's no reason if all this money is coming in. Like when I was in college, football games were free. It was a Division II school. They're not anymore, but they were then.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
That seemed like a completely reasonable thing. It seems very weird to have someone pay tuition to go to an institution, but you can't see the goddamn football team play unless... That makes no sense. And it seems like if you graduate from there and you've paid to go to college there, one of the benefits is for the rest of your life, you should be able to go to these games extremely cheaply.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And I think that not... Like now a university would hear this and they would be like, that's insane. Because like they would just think about the amount of revenue that they would lose. But think of the revenue over time. If you were essentially guaranteed that this will always be an essential thing in people's lives. Like, I think it would be good for society.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I think it'd be good for sports society. And I think it would be good for the schools over time.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I don't know if the academic seriousness will be part of it. I think it will be like, it will be 32 or say 40 teams and it will just be the 40 teams who can get into it and they're all going to want it. Like they're all like, you know, it's like it does. It's not going to. I think that that the value of this is going to be so incredible.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
The financial value of this, that that there isn't somebody I can't imagine the school. It'll be like if Cal can get in, they'll do it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Well, I don't know if they would consider it a sellout. I think that they would see it as a value added to the university system.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I know in real terms it wouldn't. But in the sense that it's like if somebody wants to go to Stanford or whatever, it's like they, I think, would like the opportunity to also have this other institution attached, this football institution attached. Genau. Genau.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
So I think that there, you know, it's when sort of kids and their parents are making up the idea of what this college experience should be. Part of it might involve, you know, seeing the football team on Saturdays or whatever. So I think that those universities will still want that. It's also gives them, you know, like such a higher profile. I mean, there are some colleges like, you know.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
football sort of raised the profile of like texas tech to a high like i no one really ever thought of that school at all before they got boise state boise state's another great example yes you know that maybe even a better one um
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I mean, the meaning of college, I feel like, has certainly changed, though. The meaning of going to college in general. That there is, like, just a super high degree of skepticism now among, about the kind of elite colleges. With still the understanding that it is this kind of ultimate networking opportunity.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
So, like, when you say, when kids are, like, they're asking kids, like, what kind of experience do you have? Like... It would seem obvious that the answer should be like, well, I want to go somewhere where I can sort of pursue the education I want to have a job later. But that's not even kind of, they would never use that language.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
They would use the language of like, it needs to be sort of like a satisfying experience. Because everybody has to be happy now all the time.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Yes, that should be the experience.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, I know, but I think the difference is that in the past, there was a much... greater motive to be by yourself and get away. I saw somebody was talking about, it was just some random person talking about how they had had a conversation with someone who'd been a high school teacher for like 34 years or 40 years or something. And they asked them, what's the biggest difference?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And the teacher apparently said, and this is of course anecdotal, but it seems to make a lot of sense to me, says that in the past, the default setting for a high school student was boredom. And now the default setting is anxiety. Und ich denke, dass die Idee, an irgendeinem College zu gehen, als 30 Jahre herrschend wäre, wenn ein Kind aus Kalifornien in New York zur Schule gehen würde.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Obwohl es überall auf dem Land wäre, würde alles anders sein. Ich denke, dass sie wahrscheinlich mehr daran interessiert waren, die statische Bedrohung ihres Lebens zu reduzieren. Und jetzt ist es das Gegenteil, wo es so ist, dass die schwierigste Sache in meinem Leben ist, I'm afraid of life or whatever. Not that all kids are afraid of life. I'm not saying that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
But I do think that the amount that kids feel anxiety and are told they need to recognize that feeling makes going to college super complicated. I just I I I would guess you were more ready to go to college than your daughter is, despite the fact that you have all this relationship with her ongoing, you know, through technology.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Well, I mean, therapeutic language too has just moved into everyday language now. Like people using terms like triggering and all these things or like all this language is just sort of like My kids understood that at an age way before they understood things that I thought they should be knowing, you know, that they had just a real sort of like a like sophisticated understanding of these things.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And it probably like it. There's no question that kids are in a better position to deal with emotional and mental problems now. It's just that they seem to have many more emotional and mental problems. So it's like good that they can deal with them because they're just there all the time, you know.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Aber wie viele Probleme in der Leben, ob du jung bist oder alt bist, sind tatsächlich temporär und nicht so bedeutend und werden nur auf ihrer eigenen Seite verschwinden. You say like you didn't know you had these problems. You still don't fucking know you had them, right? Because they just happened. They just moved on.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
It's like, you know, it's like it's really, I think, tricky to tell someone going through this complicated phase in their life that they need to be aware of all the complications. I mean, it's like you have to look for them almost. And it's good in some ways. It is like this is maybe kind of moving off topic or whatever. But, you know, I had a
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
This most recent election, the main thing that I have taken... Can you hold this so we can take a break and then talk about the election?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Well, yeah, I'm not going to talk too much about the election itself. As much as I want to talk about this, I really feel that I do not know what's going on in the world now. And I don't mean because of the outcome of this election. I mean of my understanding of what the world was like and then the manifestation of the reality.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
It's like I was so like in 2016, you know, it was like kind of a shocking outcome or whatever. This was less shocking. But yet it seemed as though I thought I had a pretty clear or decent understanding of what the situation in the country was. And I was just totally wrong. It's like, I think the country is, you know, spent so much time, myself included, talking about how polarized the country is.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I think in a lot of ways it's much less polarized than we realized, especially on a whole handful of issues. I suspected, I just... You were one of these people where after the election I texted people and I just said like, on a scale of 1 to 10, how surprised were you by this election? Not how you feel about it, just how surprised you were. And I found kind of a disturbing pattern.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
There are some exceptions to this. But for the most part, all the people I texted are, you know, they're intelligent people who follow the news. But some people really follow the news. Some people voraciously follow it. They follow all the narratives. They kind of know anything you reference. They're like, oh, I already saw that story or whatever. Those people all gave answers like 8, 9, 9.5.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
It didn't matter what their political leaning was. Like if they were really engaged with media, they were shocked by not just the outcome, but the fact that Trump won all the swing states, that he won the popular vote, all of these things. The people I know, a lot of them are doctors and engineers and stuff who follow the news, but don't give a shit at all about the narrative.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Like when they look at the New York Times website, they do not look at the right side of the page. They look at the left side of the page. They all were like one, two, three. Like they weren't surprised at all.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And I now sort of have the creeping suspicion that engagement with media distances us from reality, that the more information I get, the more information I take in, the less I understand the world. And I don't know what to do about that, because that's a real issue, if that is true. And that's how it feels for me now. It feels like that, that the that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Meine Vorstellung von dem, was die Welt ist, ist so geformt von diesen Dingen, dass ich nicht mal so nahe bin, was eigentlich passiert ist.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I mean, isn't that a little bit of reverse engineering, though? I think that's what every election is. Well, it probably is. And if that's true, then we have a bunch of things to rethink. Because in a sense, it kind of looked like, well, Oprah, Taylor Swift, all these people, they endorsed Harris. Nobody cared. Didn't seem to have any influence.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
But you just said that you think that Tim going on Rogan was one of the biggest things, like Rogans endorsement mattered. It only because it worked out that way. I don't think any of these endorsements mattered. I now think that basically any Republican candidate would have won this election. I think that if Nikki Haley would have ran, I think she would have won probably by a very similar margin.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I think that there is the sense now that there's all this news going around kind of shifting these stories. Like you say, these stories like, oh, there's, you know, people are canvassing and women are closing the door saying, I'm secretly voting for Harris, I'm not voting for my husband.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Now it kind of looks like maybe the opposite of this was the case, that people were saying they were going to vote for Harris because they didn't want to be maybe judged or have an issue with their friends who they thought were like it was actually they were saying the opposite of what this supposed sort of trend, you know, because hours before the election, you could go on social media and there were people saying things like, what if I told you this isn't going to be close at all?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
thinking that it was going to be a blowout in the other direction. So no one really had any sense of these things.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
You know, 1992 is a particularly strange case, though, because, okay, so Bush is popular prior to the runner of the election and actually becomes sort of more popular again after he loses it. It's just this window of time. He became extraordinarily unpopular. The third-party candidate of, you know, of Perot getting like 19% of the vote that way.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Cause you know, it's not like, it's not like Clinton got a majority that time. Cause there were three candidates. I mean, that, that was a kind of a strange one. I mean, this is a strange one too, you know, but like, even the way we're talking about this, you said like, you know, these young men who are sort of moving in a different direction.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
That was the immediately the day after the election and two days after it was sort of like, why have these young men become radicalized? And then I was like, well, or is it, Is it the opposite? Is it that all of culture has moved away from young men and they have remained static? That they have actually changed the least? Because, you know, they're like,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I mean, they're sort of, you know, they know 55% of the electorate is women. You know, 60% of people in college now are women. So if you're a college-age student and you're a guy in a class and like you see someone wearing a T-shirt that says the future is female, maybe you conclude, I guess it is. Seems that way to me too.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And they maybe just did not, they were like, we're just going to sort of check out in a sense. Not pay attention, but just we're not involved with the way culture is changing. And everything else in culture changed, sort of leaving them behind, maybe to some degree. And they were kind of like, well, I'll vote for Trump because he doesn't care either or whatever, however they thought.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I don't want to say, I don't, I don't, here again, I feel very reluctant to even give this opinion because I feel less confident about any of these things now. I really have a sense that what is really happening in people's lives is the chasm between that and the way American life is projected through mass media now is so vast that the projection is actually giving us confusion over the realities.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
You know what I'm saying? Kind of it's like it's like so like what what we think the average American is like or what we think life is like or what we think people are thinking or how we think they feel about relationships or how they all of these things are no longer sort of looking at the reality and saying, well, OK, this is what's going on. Yeah, but you know what it's like?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Well, it's hard to like who's in a position to tell the president to step down. That's that's one of the problems. It's like even if there's a bunch of people who think two years in, it's like it would be better to transition to something else. No one's in the he's the president. Right. So no one can really tell him.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Ist das realistisch, um jemanden zu vorstellen? Wahrscheinlich nicht. Ich meine, es wäre wie, was würdest du tun, wenn dein Sohn startete zu sagen, dass du retieren musstest? Würdest du sagen, ja, gute Frage. Er würde sagen, nein, ich weiß. Und er würde sagen, nein, ich weiß nicht, ich werde nicht retieren. Warum würde ich retieren? Ich bin tot. Ja, genau.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Ich habe zwei Tage ago einen tollen Gespräch gemacht. Ich hatte einen guten Podcast mit Chuck. Es scheint so zu sein, dass der kürzere Rundweg, wie ich dachte, Harris helfen würde, weil du all diese Enthusiasme hättest und es würde durchlaufen. Ich denke, dass eine der Dinge, die du erwähnt hast, ein echter Problem ist.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Und das ist der Art von Sache, die ich fühle, als wäre es mein eigener Fehler, dass ich ein bisschen überrascht war, was ist, dass der Tag nach der Wahl. Many democratic strategists are like, yeah, we shouldn't have done this thing. I don't know why we were saying that. They almost immediately admitted that they regretted this.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And what is probably true is that people sensed that lack of sincerity during the campaign. It's like, you don't really believe Ja.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Well, sort of, yes. I guess it kind of is. But, you know... This 12-team playoff in football, it's still keeping things interesting, but in a very different way than it used to be. I'm, I guess, pleased, but surprised that it has changed things as much as it has, and yet the games themselves are still really good, and I guess that really is the bottom line.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
But that was the attempt, though. I mean, getting down close to the election, it was sort of like the Republicans have this cynical view, this nihilistic view that America is getting worse. We don't think that. We think that, you know, we're, we have, you know, we're, and it didn't work. It didn't happen.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Well, is it ever real? Is it really? Maybe it's that. I mean, what is it? Like the, let's talk about the Chiefs, for example. The Chiefs go to the playoffs and lose immediately. If they lose immediately, then of course the response will be like, well, they played all these close games during the year against relatively bad teams and they barely skipped it out over and over again.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
They can't do it forever. If they win, of course, then those same wins validate why they won. It was like they were always ready to just, you know, flip the switch and turn it on. So anything in the past can prove anything, right? Like all these things that people have been saying about Harris, if she had won, would still be part of the discourse. It would just be, see, it was right, it was true.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
You know, so it's like, because all this discourse is just, it's... I hate to say it, but it is clearly just made up. And what drives me crazy is there's a bunch of people listening to this podcast right now who are hearing me say this. And they're saying like, of course, how did you not know this? We all know this. And they're justified in saying that. It's like, I...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I don't fucking know what's going on. I don't know what's happening. I don't know what's happening in the world. I have to accept it. I have to accept that I have no idea what's happening. Because I don't. I'm not saying this from this position of outrage. I'm saying this from a position of sort of like, I guess in some ways vulnerability.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Like just my recognition that I am now receiving my understanding about life through external sources that are not giving me a real depiction of what's happened.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
But it definitely, this is a weird feeling, college football season, because of the way things are now.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Like if Ohio State plays Michigan and it's 28-3 at halftime and half the crowd leaves and then the end, the final score ends up being like 31-24. It still feels like a blowout. That's kind of how it was. Like, I think some people felt like, I'm gonna have to stay up all night to see who wins this election. And it was over so quickly.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
It kind of creates the sense that it was a bigger blowout than it was. I just, I guess now I'm pretty skeptical of this idea. You're saying like, well, if they had done this messaging, Or if they had sort of been better at explaining this, it would have... I feel maybe people now are just voting for full administrations, one of which they felt was moving left, one of which was moving right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And the sense is, we've just gone too far left. We need to tack back the other way. I think that's probably what it was. That's why I say like I really doubt it would have made a difference if there had been an open primary, if Trump had been killed and Nikki Haley or whatever had taken over or J.D. Vance had been the candidate. I think that people were going to vote not about the person,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Okay. Okay. Okay. Es war, weil wir wissen, dass sie nicht in den Nationalmannschaften gewinnen können. Also, auch wenn ihr Resümee so sieht, wie es sein sollte, es macht keinen Sinn, ihn in den Nationalmannschaften zu stellen. Die ganze Idee dieses vier-Team-Playoffs ist, damit wir klar herausfinden können, wer der Champion ist. Aber mit einem 12-Team-Playoff ist es ein bisschen anders.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Because now it's so clear that these things are moving in diametrically different directions. There's just no overlap between the two policies at all, the two philosophies at all. To a degree that now it seems like there's probably more shared ideas among the citizenship than there are among the parties. That there's more things that Democrats and Republicans agree on
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
as people than they do as sort of political ideas. You know what I'm saying? Like there might be more things that people who seemingly have different political views actually go like, well, that's too much or that's like, I want this, you know. That they maybe have more shared values because the parties are incapable of sharing these values.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
A great example of this is like all this like RFK food stuff, right? Like this idea, it's like we need to take all of these things out of Fruit Loops or whatever. We gotta, you know, why does Unsere Futter hat 19 Zutaten und in England die gleiche Produktion hat es vier.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
If someone had said this was going to become an issue in 2024, 10 years ago, we would have assumed it was coming from the left, right? That seems like something the left wants to do. Like when Bloomberg was like, we can't have big pops at the movies or whatever. It's like that tends to be something that you kind of typically seem from a progressive side of things.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And somebody wants to make food healthy. But because it is, it's just arbitrarily now, he's into it. So, and he's a Republican now, so now it's a Republican issue. It is, it's just, it's just goofy. Like it doesn't, it has no meaning about, there you can no longer, I shouldn't say it has no meaning, but you can't connect it to any kind of larger ideology.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Like these things are now sort of, like we've almost separated ideology from what these policies are supposed to be.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Well, yeah, it is. I mean, abortion is one issue, but and there was a sense that this was going to be a real critical thing, that that that there were people who would maybe I think the assumption was it was actually a better way to describe it. It was almost sort of like we conceded that it was going to be a huge issue.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
We didn't actually think like, well, I was like, certainly there's going to be a ton of women who are going to vote against Trump because of Roe v. Wade no longer exists or whatever. And it was his decision to put those people in the Supreme Court. I think that that was just an idea that was never really interrogated. I think that the idea of that, that the the way we perceive
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
who is in favor or against abortion is probably not accurate, not as accurate as we think. But we sort of think that there's that, that if you show a picture of someone, show somebody a picture of somebody, that they can look at that picture and say like, I think this person is going to be in favor of abortion or this looks like a person who might be against it. And it's just not, it's not right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I mean, how, the fact that like, Trump did well, did much better with Latino men. There was nothing prior to the election that was giving us any indication that this would be the case. I'd seen this before, but after the election, many people brought this up. There was this idea that actually a lot of people, a lot of minorities did not like the term Latinx. Okay.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And then there was, you know, that, that, that, you know, so then Harvard, like I think it was Harvard, did a study where it was like, not only do they not like Latinx, they're, they're, they're, you know, less likely to vote for a candidate who uses that term. So it's like somebody of like Mexican heritage hears that term and is repelled by it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And the response seemed to be like, well, that can't be true. And maybe they're racist too somehow. They made no sense. So the information was there. This study happened before the election. We saw it. But then it's only after the election. They're like, how did they not listen? How did they not respond to this? Well, you could have said that at the time.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Jetzt scheint es sich an, dass das Playoff das Reward ist. Es scheint weniger darum zu sein, nur herauszufinden, wer am Ende gewinnt. And that has changed things quite a bit. It feels different now. Like, you know, I like Indiana, for example. Okay, so Indiana is like there's 12 or 14 guys who played for James Madison last year.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
But at the time, when it was actually happening, when it was still like a dynamic issue, it was just like, well, I don't know. It's probably wrong. It's probably not accurate. But after the election, it's like, oh, see, it absolutely is. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I just didn't hear this conversation though in August. I did not hear people saying that. So how can something be so obviously true now that we weren't saying 21 days ago?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
So it's like they moved over like, you know, like a third of the best players on the team went to that team. The coaches from there as well. And Nobody is really bothered by that in a way. Like, I'm not even that bothered by it, I guess. It's just, it's strange now how it is. And it doesn't seem as though the, like, the Portal and all that stuff is true.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Well, okay, you kind of went through all these guys, and with every case, you were sort of like, this sort of unique scenario happened, okay? Unique to them, you know? Um... I mean, that will happen again, right? There will be unique situations that we can't foresee, that somebody will achieve sort of a level of fame that will be unlike any other superstar from the past.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I don't think so. No, I think that's unlikely. I also don't think he's going to be as good as Kobe relative to his peers. So that's part of it as well. He's right.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
So you think that there is a high likelihood that he will retire among the 15 best players of all time?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
No way.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I don't think so. Okay, so that's a little tougher one. I mean, so like, so, so, okay, by this logic, so like if Luca was from Nebraska.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Okay, okay. Would he?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Well, you know, we did a podcast before, I think, Wemby's rookie year. Or maybe during Wemby's rookie year. And I said that I thought he was going to have a good rookie year and a good second year. And he was going to have sort of a statistical explosion his third year. You're on pace. Yes, because I feel like this year is probably going to be very comparable to his rookie year. A little better.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
He's getting a little more time. But I think he could have like a... I don't know, I wouldn't say a wilt-like year, but he could have some real... I think he's gonna have a couple seasons where he has... If he's healthy, he'll have some sort of insane numbers. He'll be an interesting test case, I think. Like if... But like with, you know...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Luca wäre, glaube ich, bei den Amerikanern mehr populär gewesen, wenn er ein amerikanischer Spieler wäre. Aber ich denke auch, dass es einen bestimmten Kaffee für ihn gibt, weil er ein fremder Spieler ist. Ich meine, es ist wirklich schwer zu entdecken, was der Prejudiz ist, der Level der Prejudiz gegen europäische Spieler ist. Because it's a different kind of prejudice, right?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
So it's almost like the habits of a college football season. And if you cared about a team or a conference...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
It's a different kind of prejudice than sort of a solely sort of race-based or faith-based sort of prejudice. Like when someone, if someone doesn't like a foreign player or doesn't like them as much as they would if they were American. Or they're apathetic. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I do think sometimes it's just the ease in saying the name and the understanding of what this person is like. Certainly, the Joker should be as famous as any athlete in the country. Shouldn't he be? In terms of what he has accomplished and the way he plays and all of these things. And he is a popular player. You know, like you mentioned Cooper Flag or whatever.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
So how good does Cooper Flag have to be to sort of become the biggest player in the league? Does he have to be the best player in the league to be the most famous player? Are you sort of suggesting that Cooper Flag could be maybe a tier below Anthony Edwards and be more famous? I don't know.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Wer verteidigst du gegen ihn? Wer kritisiert ihn?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I don't feel like that's happening. I don't feel like Karl Malone's status is being elevated over time.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
It's like you say like you mentioned like TikTok or whatever, like in the TikTok world, Tim Duncan is, you know, not beloved because a collection of Tim Duncan highlights is not, you know, an amazing thing to watch. It doesn't work the way you say like, you know, there's a ton of players who you've mentioned before.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
But is that really a real reflection of how these things are going to be remembered?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Aber schau, was du gerade gesagt hast. Es macht ihn denken, dass er die Geschichte des Basketballs versteht. In der gleichen Weise, glaube ich, als du sein Alter warst, als du sein Alter warst, glaubst du, dass du eine volle Verständnis von Basketball und der Geschichte des Basketballs hattest, die jetzt zurückkommt.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Well, it is, yes. Like, is it possible that if I, if TikTok had existed when I was younger, would I have, like, would I think Connie Hawkins is one of the five best players of all time? You know, would I think World B3 is better than he is? I guess maybe. I mean, this is like... World B3 is a good example. It would have been a whole World B3 is a problem. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
It's almost more than professional sports. Because professional sports at least has like free agency guidelines and stuff. And salary gaps and all these things. I mean, it's in a way more professional than pro sports is. Like, I see people say like, oh, well, Deion Sanders... You know, go to the NFL now.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I read this book a bunch of years ago. The book is called Black Swan. The guy who wrote the book, he gets kind of a punching bag now for some reason, but this book had some interesting ideas in it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
One of the things he mentions is this kind of as a side sort of, is something that I've always kind of kept in my mind, which was this test that one time was done on people, where they would say like, take a picture of a fire hydrant next to like a Volvo, okay? and then they would make the photo extremely blurry.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And then they would have two groups of people look at that image, slowly become sharper. They would take away the fuzziness. Some people were given 25 steps. There would be 25 steps along the way from the most fuzzy to the least fuzzy. And some people would be given 10. I'm just kind of making these figures up. But one is like, it's 25 incremental steps against 10 incremental steps.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And they did find that the people who had 25 incremental steps more information, figured out it was a fire hydrant in a Volvo later. Because every sort of wrong image allowed them to sort of make up what it could be. Maybe it's a Dalmatian. Oh, maybe it's a Rubik's Cube or whatever.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Whereas the people getting only the 10 incremental changes were better because they didn't have the ability to sort of project other ideas onto what it was. What you're saying is kind of the same thing. That you're saying that because of TikTok in a way, people are getting all these sort of random images of things. It allows them to have sort of obscure, arcane, inaccurate thoughts.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
That they're seeing more stuff. That could be. That's not such a crazy thing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Exactly, exactly. That's the mistake. Yep. The idea that sort of like we can have an understanding of these things by casting the widest possible net. So any random person's ideas have to be sort of taken seriously. But that's not actually how it works. Like if we, you know, say with music, for example, when we think about like, you know, which acts from the past are significant.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And it's like, this is actually where he should be at college, because he really speaks the language of a kid who's like, I want to win, but also what's in it for me. And that seems to be sort of what the nature of this is now. That People were just more accepting, I guess, of this idea that you should be able to just put these teams together instantly.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Es kann nicht sein, dass man jede einzelne Person fragt, wer einen größeren Einfluss auf Musik hatte. Wenn man die Fleetwood Mac und die Velvet Underground fragt. It's like more people have obviously heard of Fleetwood Mac. They're going to give that answer, right?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
But if you keep moving over time, say we get like 50 years down the line, where the commercial significance of something will matter less, and sort of what the sort of very small sliver of people who really care about these things say... Dann kommt die Antwort vielleicht. Ich meine, wenn du sagst, du fragst einen randomen 27-Jährigen, wer ist besser zwischen Kobe Bryant und Tim Duncan?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Sie sagen wahrscheinlich Kobe Bryant. Aber du kannst die gleiche Person viele binäre Fragen stellen und sie geben eine Antwort, die von einem Experten verweigert wird. But you will still be talking about this in 20 years, unless, like, your son convinces you to retire. But, like, you'll still be talking about this, right?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
You'll still be talking about, you know, basketball from the early 2000s, okay? Most people will not. And those end up becoming what the true answers are.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Well, sure, sure. But what I'm saying with any of these, I was using, we were using Kobe and Tim Dunn.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
What I'm saying is, like, it is... You see this all the time. Remember, okay, there was a time when Kanye West made a song with Paul McCartney. And it was really popular during this. We don't see this much anymore, which is good. But there used to always be a situation like that would happen.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And you'd see a story where somebody would just link to a bunch of tweets about, look at all these people who don't know who Paul McCartney is. All these people going like, who is this person Kanye West is making a record with? And we look at that and we're like, oh man, young people are idiots. Well, actually, no, those people are idiots. There's always some idiots, right?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
There's always some people who don't know about the past and are going to be very vocal and almost happy about it. But those opinions don't stick. I mean, like, those opinions fall by the wayside. So, like, you know, it's like if, you know, you sometimes will, like, I've mentioned, I think, Jason Williams sometimes is an example of a guy.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
knew who his best player was? Randy Moss. But regardless, what I'm saying is that sort of, that interest in Jason Williams, that sort of like, there's no criticism of him either, but it's like, that's not going to sustain a reputation over time. Like, that's going to appeal to the most casual person.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Because what really has happened, I think, is that the teams who are always the elite power teams, they've lost their depth, basically. That is what has happened. These coaches have said, well, there's three strong safeties at LSU or there's four offensive tackles at Texas A&M. They can't all play. They all think they're going to play, but some of them aren't.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Well, you know, it would have been interesting if Montana had not went to the Chiefs. Not that he played poorly with the Chiefs, but, you know, he went over there and if he had just ended his career after, say, the fourth Super Bowl or whatever, I think it would be different. Because not only then did the Niners win with Young and that Jerry Rice basically had similar statistics with both guys.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
It was almost like they did seem a little bit, you know, like irreplaceable in that regard. And then there was a whole glut of guys that who came after Montana in the 90s, who, you know, who had kind of huge years and didn't seem... That far below him? Like the Favre-Types, yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Favre, you know, sort of the end of sort of looking at Marino's career and the statistical achievement, the fact that Elway still played pretty late into the 90s effectively. Steve Young did have a good period there. Jim Kelly had some great... Jim Kelly had a good run. Fun to bet against. Yeah, and it wasn't as though, like, you know, like when Jordan left the league,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Und es fühlte sich so an, dass es einen riesigen Schuss und einen riesigen Gap gibt. Und der beste Typ ist jetzt nicht mehr. Wenn Jordan kommt, während er Fußball spielt, ist die Überzeugung, dass er der beste Spieler ist. Warum sparen wir so viel Zeit? Fußball ist viel populärer als die NBA.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Es ist nicht mal so nah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Well, okay, I have a theory on this, I guess. Again, last podcast I did this, so I'm working on this book, and this is something that's going to be a part of this book, and I don't want to talk too much about it, but football has... Wait, did we do this last podcast? Nein, ich sprach darüber, warum Fußball so gut auf der TV funktioniert. Sie sind alle Teil des selben Buches.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Es geht um die sozio-kulturelle Bedeutung von Fußball in einem sehr breiten Sinn.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Eine der Dinge, die ich in diesem Buch schreibe, ist, dass dieser paradoxische Vorteil, den ich denke, dass Fußball hat, weil ich etwas sagen werde, das wirklich schlecht klingt und wirklich negativ klingt, aber es tatsächlich für den Vorteil von Fußball funktioniert, nämlich, dass Fußball eine dehumanisierende Enterprise ist. Football dehumanizes the people on the field.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
We can't really see their faces. The colors of a football uniform matter more than any other sport. It's very easy to watch a college football game if Tulane is playing LSU or something. Just the matchup of those colors is enough to sustain it aesthetically. We don't even have to think of the guys. Es ist ein komplett kontrollierter Sport mit einer solchen Hierarchie.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
So now we're going to strip those things away. And it really has balanced things out now. Like, I don't think the SEC is as dominant as it was in the past. I don't know if the difference between these teams, not just them in the Big Ten, but sort of them and everyone, is much less than it was in the past.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Die Spiele kommen von einem Mann in der Box hin zu dem Trainer auf der Seite, der es dann in den Quarterback setzt, der es dann verlässt. Nichts passiert mit einem Unfall. Es gibt den berühmten Dave Hickey-Essay, die Heresie der Zone-Defense. Bist du mit dem kennengelernt? Ja. Im Grunde hat dieser Kunstkritiker ein tolles Essay über Basketball geschrieben.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Und seine ganze Sache war, dass alle Regeln und die Natur von Basketball zur Freiheit gedrückt werden sollten. Denn das ist das, was wir von Sport wollen. Wir wollen die Spieler sehen, frei sein, eine unbegrenzte Agentur haben. Und in einer Konversation, das ist, wie es funktioniert. Also wenn wir über Superstar sprechen, ist es toll, über die NBA zu sprechen, weil wir diese Leute sehen.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Wir wissen wirklich diese Leute, wir fühlen uns, als würden sie es tun. Aber Fußball-Success kommt vom Fakt, dass es nicht auf die Menschen abhängig ist. It is dependent on the actual game. What people love about football is not the things around it, but what is literally happening between the sidelines and the end zones. What's going on there? That is what matters.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
So basketball is the exact opposite, right? What people seem to care about now is everything else around it. Everything around basketball seems more meaningful than the actual sport. We talk about basketball as much in August as we do in the season. It's almost like the games have taken on this strange, almost perfunctory role, where they're only there for all this other stuff.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And because of it, it becomes completely based on the quality of the celebrities involved. So when LeBron was at his apex, when Curry was doing great, Colby, you mentioned, it was like, you know, it was like, ah, we're seeing these guys, these people, we're seeing these people, these humans doing this and they're awesome at it. But now those guys are still playing, right?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Like Durant's still in the league. Giannis is still in the league. They're not quite what they used to be. We're familiar with them as celebrities. We're not as interested in them and their success because it's like the game is like they've sort of worn out the juice they had as a new person. They're not new people to us now. They're just familiar people who aren't as good as they once were.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
So, I mean, I really think that that Interessant.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And that's why I think when they kind of figure out what teams to put in the playoff, this year at least, I think this idea of really trying to find The 12 best teams sort of in a vacuum. I don't think they should do that this time. I think they should kind of like go, well, okay, we're going to have this many teams in the playoff.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
The quarterback now, that position has become so outsized compared to the rest. It's almost like a different entity. It's almost like every team has two teams. The team and the quarterback. Did you throw Drake May in there on purpose?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
He's my guy. What's interesting about football is because it's so restricted. Aber auch mit Restriktionen bekommst du immer noch eine Art von Originalität. Wie die Uniformen in der NFL. Du musst einen bestimmten Art von Socken tragen und so weiter. Und manchmal, wie war der Running Back vor ein paar Jahren? Er hat legalen Socken geschnitten. Ich glaube, er spielte für Washington damals.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Es kann sein, dass es ein Running Back von Denver war, der nach Washington ging. Ich kann mich nicht erinnern. But there was discussion about this guy's socks, right? That was enough. Because there's so many obstructions. There's so many rules. It's kind of like if you send your kid to a private school and they all got to wear uniforms.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And then one kid is like, you know what I'm going to wear though? I'm going to wear this, I don't know, this sublime pin on my uniform. And it's like, oh wow, he finds a way to break the rules. In The NBA, in a sense, it's like the guys have more freedom.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
It's actually, in a sense, harder for them to be individuals because everyone is sort of starts in the default setting of being their own person. You know, it's like in football, you got to kind of break out of it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
We can't really tell who is superior because this thing has been so shuffled. They almost have to just kind of go like look at it like professionally, like it's just who deserves it based on what they did during the year.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Yes. I think she is too. I don't even think that's a debate. Her stardom in a way is... It has changed many conversations about sports, I feel like, especially women's sports. I'm interested to how long it will last. And I'm also interested to see if she is just like one of one, or if now, moving forward, 40% of the time, the most popular basketball player in the country is a woman.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Like if the girl from Yukon comes out and she sort of plays a similar role. I don't know. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I don't know. I mean, I think part of it has to do with it's real difficult now for a guy to become famous in basketball at the collegiate level. But it still seems very plausible for a woman to do that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Okay, ich habe ein paar Antworten. Ich dachte, du würdest. Der erste, den du erwähnt hast, war DiCaprio. Er ist ein spezielles Fall, weil er der einzige Superstar war, der die letzte Festung des alten Hollywood-Systems war. And the beginning sort of of the fan driven kind of techno centric fandom.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
He was the first guy to he'll be probably the only person who will experience both of those things where he was in some ways after Titanic. He was famous in the way John Wayne had been famous.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I mean, it is, it seems to me like there would be a situation where if it was the old system and they went to say they were going to like, you know, oh, I don't know, whatever, whatever bowl they would be going to, if they were going to some lesser bowl, like Travis Hunter wouldn't play and all that stuff. I don't think, I mean, that's almost seems like a guarantee that would have happened.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
But then he was the beginning of people who are famous in this new way where like it's like, I guess, you know, that. However you want to look at it. Okay. As for these other things you're talking about, everything you're saying is kind of true. And I think, you know, you mentioned that like the first, that Raven's Hard Knocks and all these things and how that really did seem crazy.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Like really, like I remember really watching that. Well, these are, regardless of the subject, whether it's, you know, F1 racing, football, sports, whatever. What are these? These things are ultimately art, right? Now, what kills art? What's the thing that most often kills art?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
A lack of authenticity?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Self-awareness. When art becomes too ingrained with its own sort of existence, when it becomes to understand what it is, it starts to fall apart. This is what happened with Hard Knocks now. Hard Knocks ist nie mehr interessant, weil wir genau wissen, wie es sein wird, so wie jede involvierte Person. Sie wissen, dass, wenn sie eine bestimmte Art und Weise verfolgen, die Antwort wird so sein.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Ein Trainer weiß, dass, wenn er etwas klinisch ist, er als hyperklinisch ausgesprochen wird. Wenn er, wie der Lions-Coach, wie ein alter, grittiger Kerl ist, dann wird Dan Campbell ein anderer Charakter. Die F1-Racing-Show hat funktioniert, weil es eine neue Sache war. Die Leute in den USA haben das nie gemacht.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Die Leute auf dem Show, ich habe es noch nicht gesehen, aber ich weiß genug darüber, dass es etwas war, wie die erste Saison der echten Welt oder so. Oder die Leute machen das für die erste Zeit. Sie haben keine Ahnung, was diese Interviews eigentlich aussehen werden, wenn sie auf der TV sind. Now everyone knows this.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
So celebrities have completely taken control of their messaging through social media. They don't need now to go through the traditional sources and as a consequence, what do we have? A lot of banal information about these people. If you let people control how they are perceived, you let them control what their public facing entity is.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Of course, it's not going to be interesting or it's going to be seem so fake that no one's going to have any interest in it whatsoever. I mean, the thing about that, like the idea that like, OK, it's like Taylor Swift now or something that never has to give interviews. Right. She can just control all that herself. Well, now. So that means that there's absolutely no possibility that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
that she's ever going to have to address something she doesn't want to address. And that is where a lot of this tension comes from. It comes from the small sort of moments where somebody has to answer a question that they would prefer not to be in public. And that's just not going to happen anymore. So as we've sort of, all of these things you've mentioned, I don't think you're sick of them.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
You're just comfortable with Ja, genau. huge fire pit, like the biggest fire pit I've ever seen. Neither of those things mean anything about football. It was just like, oh, this is something I didn't expect to see. In most of the things you're describing, we now see what we expect.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
But now it's like, I think there is a sense maybe it's going to be 4 SCC Teams, 4 Big Ten Teams, Notre Dame, probably Boise State, and then one each from the ACC and the Big 12. Maybe the ACC will have two teams. Maybe it'll be like SMU and Clemson and Miami. Then it would have to be probably three SCC teams then. Which is, I don't know, maybe that was the goal all along.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Well, I saw that there's this Ted Turner documentary that's coming out. It's a documentary series about Ted Turner, which I was kind of interested in until I found out he has complete control over it. It's like, I have... Why would I... Like a Wikipedia entry would be better in some ways.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Because at least it would be somebody who is just sort of giving the information without sort of... I mean, it's not that these things are immediately terrible because the person is involved. I don't want to say that. But, I mean, you know, it's... Das ist jetzt ein bemerkenswerter Weg für Leute, die zu spät in ihrer Karriere sind.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Wie fühlst du dich letztendlich daran? Ich dachte, es wäre wirklich gut, um ehrlich zu sein, aber ich wusste nichts davon, was seit 1999 passiert ist. Ich wusste nichts, was in dieser Welt seit damals passiert ist. Aber wie fühlst du dich daran, dass du all diese Jahre gearbeitet hast?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Well, because sometimes they look the same. I mean, that is the problem. It's like the modality of it makes it look the same. I mean, this is the same way with like when, say, broadcast news became very partisan, right? It still looks the way news used to look. It's still somebody sitting in front of a desk giving you information.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
There's a screen behind them showing kind of illustrate, you know, images that illustrate their point. It looks formally the way news looked when Walter Cronkite worked. But it's not, right? These documentaries look the way, you know, I'm trying to think of like an older documentary that looks the same as the ones now, but we know it was different because this is the times.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I guess the assumption of what it would be. Well, you said like, you know, spinning an autobiography. Ich meine, ich glaube, jede Autobiografie ist eine Art Spin-Job, richtig? Es ist selten, dass jemand ein Memo oder eine Autobiografie schreibt.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Und überlegen Sie, wie das funktioniert. Ja, ja. Ich meine, das ist das, das könnte die letzte Zeit sein, dass jemand das tut. Weißt du? Und es war nicht so, dass es einfach unglaublich unfair war, es war einfach unfair. Aber der Kerl hatte eine Perspektive. Der Schreiber, wie Joe Hagen, hat das Buch geschrieben und er ist so, dass ich Ideen darüber habe, dass ich sie da einstellen muss.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Basically to have it mostly be the Big Ten and the SCC. Yeah, those are the two best conferences. But it, I... I'm really interested in this, but it does feel like a different experience watching these games. The games are still good. The games themselves, when it's happening, feels exactly the way it always did. But I know in my mind, it's not how it always was.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Es ist seltsam. Ich denke, die Promotion schmerzt sie wahrscheinlich. Du sagst, wie die Idee von einem Schauspieler ist, dass du komplett jemand bist, der nicht du bist. Also ist es zu deinem Vorteil, wenn wir nicht wissen, wer du bist. But that's like, I don't know if that's really a possible thing anymore.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
But even like you and I are talking right now and it seems like we're just, you know, I think both of us feel like we're just having like, you know, a free-flowing conversation. Yeah. And that we're both just sort of talking off the top of the dome or whatever. But we do, I guess, have creative control, right?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
If I accidentally said something extremely provocative and dangerous, we would take it out or could take it out if we wanted to. So is this unreal? That's why I like doing the Sunday nights with Sal. Because it's like, we're just live on YouTube.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, we do them on YouTube.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And then it stays on YouTube? So if something was troubling, it would still be there? I didn't know you were doing that. Es ist eine seltsame Sache. Okay, du hattest, glaube ich, Dutzende, vielleicht Hunderten von Profilen, die über dich in deinem Leben geschrieben wurden. Wie viele, welches Prozent von ihnen würdest du sagen, hat etwas falsch in der Geschichte? Etwas.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Etwas, das war entweder nicht wirklich, was du erwartest.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Like, you know, now it looks like kind of in perpetuity now. Notre Dame is always just going to have I can't even imagine what kind of commitment this is.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Sure, that's true. But what I'm saying more like is, okay, so I asked you this question, I could have asked myself this, because I've had profiles written about me too. And I would say, if somebody asked me, what percentage of those stories had something wrong in them, I would say probably, it feels like 100%, right? Feels like 100% to me.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
But there's always been something in there that was either, that was like, if nothing else, like a misinterpretation of what I meant. Like they used a quote of mine and they quoted me accurately, but that wasn't really what I meant. So I think to myself then, so let's say I had control over that profile. Let's say that the writer had to send me the piece and I got to fix these.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Yes. I will say like, you know, because sometimes, you know, younger writers will do that sometimes. But I think to myself, it's like, so would that, that would better reflect what I actually meant. If someone is reading this story, you would think that what they would want from it is to know
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
If they're reading about me or they want to know about me, if they're reading about you, they want to know about you. So they would actually, you would think, want the most accurate depiction of how that person feels. But yet we would not, we don't take that as seriously, right?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Like if it turned out, if you had a profile of someone and at the bottom of the story it said that the subject was given this story beforehand and allowed to fact check and make changes to quotes and stuff like that, we'd be like, oh, it's all, it means nothing. Even though that actually would be how the person wants to be understood. And that should be the goal. So it is a complicated deal.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
It's like we trust documentaries more if the person doesn't have control and the documentary filmmaker is kind of adversarial with them. Because we don't trust the subject. But somehow we're supposed to trust the filmmaker. Why do we trust the filmmakers' perception on this? Why are they the person who can kind of be the arbiter of reality?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And it's the person who we're watching should have absolutely no say in this or should be sort of forced to be themselves and then live with the result. I don't know. I mean, these are like, you know, I... Well, you know what's interesting about this?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Oh, oh, absolutely. I mean, this is kind of far afield, but like, you know, talking about media type, media type stuff or whatever, it's like, who would have thought that it would have been terrible for like newspapers, like The Times and The Washington Post to be less dependent on advertising and more based on subscribers.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Everybody would have thought in the 1990s, we would have said, what if we didn't have to worry about whether or not Ford advertises with our newspaper? What if we could just give people what they want? We thought that would be better. And now that's kind of what it is. And it's so much worse. Because now the reader is kind of seen as a customer. So we're going to give them what they want.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
You see this with headlines all the time. It's like I will see the headline to a story and I will think to myself, it's like that can't be what the story is about. And 95% of the time, I'm right. that the headline was so much more provocative and bombastic than what the actual information is. But what do they need? They need me to sort of engage with it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
The thing about the last answer, I was going to say, it's like also it's, I have a theory of what really bothered Pippin about that more than anything else. Because all the other stuff, Die Dinge über ihn, wie er sich aus dem Spiel entfernt hat, er hat das wahrscheinlich erwartet, dass er da sein wird. Er hat das schon gemacht.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Aber ich meine, und das könnte eine Vorstellung sein, aber wenn ich Pippen bin, weißt du, was für eine Teil der Dokumentation mich verrückt hätte? The time when Jordan says, you know, you gotta say it. Pippen was the best player I played with. He was my best teammate. If I'm Scottie Pippen, I'm like, yes, obviously, yes. Why are you... Right, why does that need a qualifier?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Yes, like, why would you have to mention that as if there's anyone out there who doesn't think that? That's the kind of thing when you're in a personal relationship with someone that really bothers you, right? Like, you know, it was like, Jordan is giving him a compliment. Jordan würde wahrscheinlich sagen, ich konnte nicht einen größeren Kompliment geben.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Aber in diesem Fall ist es nicht so, weil jeder in der Welt denkt, dass das schon der Fall ist. Und für Jordan, es zu erwähnen, bedeutet es fast, als wäre es auf der Debatte. Wenn Bird sagen würde, sein bester Teammate, sein Lieblingsteam war Dennis Johnson, dann wäre es immer so, oh, mehr als Mikael, was? Das ist interessant.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Ich kann es sehen, aber es ist ein echter Kompliment, weil er etwas sagt, das der Welt nicht unbedingt wahrgenommen wird. Wenn Jordan sagt, dass Pippen sein bester Teammate war und der beste Spieler, mit dem er gespielt hat, und es ist etwas, das prior zu Jordan sogar sagen, dass es nicht sogar eine Frage wäre. Nobody was ever debating who Jordan's best teammate was.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Or did Jordan play with any good players? That question is never brought up, right? Like Pippen's one of the 50 best players of all time or 75 now or whatever the fucking list is. But I remember thinking if I was him and I heard that, I would have lost my mind. Right. You know? Yeah, you know.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Do you feel like the NBA has to make some real changes for the product? I feel that way.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Well, no, it would have to be a situation. What you're saying is like one of the things on the clock is like the number 40. And every time someone shoots a three, it counts down because then sometimes you need to save some for the end or whatever. But I I don't I don't I don't like that's it. That's kind of a it's just too it's too weird.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I mean, he's a smart guy, but there's a flaw in that thinking, though.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Aber die NFL hat zwei Dinge. Ja.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I play fantasy basketball and it's driving me crazy because everyone's hurt all the time.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Fantasy basketball is done. You can't do it. I don't know. It almost seemed better with load management. My suspicion is because NBA teams just don't practice anymore. Und wenn sie, you know, it's all sort of like individual training sessions for these guys, you know, to get ready for the year that that that when they start playing games, they all get hurt.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I mean, I got a fantasy team where it's like 14 guys are on the team. I can't put like I have like seven guys hurt or eight guys hurt. I can't figure out what to do.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
It can't be harder than football. It's not physically more demanding than football.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Well, yeah, that ended up looking, I mean... It's terrible. In a sense, I feel like, if we're talking about, like, you know, LeBron's career has been remarkably absent of major missteps. Really, for a long time, it was just the decision. But in some ways, this one was almost worse to me. Why? Because there was nothing, like...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
So the goal was to have this sort of meaningful moment where a father and son played on the court at the same time. And it ended up having no meaning at all. Like none. The entire thing seemed like a construct. There seemed to be nothing natural about it. The fact that he's already in the G League and may never be in the NBA again or whatever. It's like, so what good would this do?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Like it was bad for Bronny, for sure. I mean, it's gonna damage the way he is perceived. It's made him be perceived worse than he is. It's not as though we look at LeBron now and be like, well, that's like one more thing that he accomplished. I think the opposite is true. Maybe even he feels this way now. I don't know.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, I mean, here's one thing I don't know. Like, is there anybody who's on, say, Texas' roster or Ohio State's roster, anyone on the roster who's not getting paid? Like, are walk-ons even making money in some way? I don't know.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Sure, but when you say like, I didn't understand it, it's like, you did understand it. The thing is, you feel like you shouldn't understand it, right? I'll try to be not too far on this, but I feel like this is something that I see a lot when people are talking about the news in any sense. They're saying they don't understand something and they do understand it, but we feel like we shouldn't.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Like for some reason, the idea of a kid playing with his father, even though he isn't warranted, dass wir sagen sollten, dass das keinen Sinn macht. Und es macht total Sinn. Wir alle wissen, warum es passiert ist.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Ich meine, es war wie, ich dachte an das, wenn, du weißt, dass dieses, dieses Tyson-Paul-Fight, du weißt, ich, du weißt, wie, vor dem Kampf, habe ich angefangen, viele Texte von Leuten zu bekommen, die fragten, ob ich es sehen werde, oder was wir gedacht haben, oder was auch immer, bis zu dem Punkt, wo ich plötzlich bemerkt habe, dass fast jeder, den ich kenne, das sehen wird.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Ich weiß nicht, was die letzten Zahlen auf dieser Sache waren. Sie mussten massiv sein, richtig? Nun, So there was all these ideas like maybe, you know, maybe Tyson will just come out and just knock him out with one punch. Maybe Tyson's too old. Maybe he'll get hurt real bad. Like there was all these different ideas of what it might be, you know.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And then as it turns out, it was exactly what the most predictable outcome would be. Like a pretty uninteresting, not very physical fight that feels like it might have been rigged, even though it probably wasn't dramatic at all. Now, it was probably good for boxing, right? Because the undercards were pretty good fights. People watched these fights and were surprised.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Yes. So it probably was... für den Sport, aber in einem anderen Sinn war es einfach wie ein Domino-Effekt von einfachen, gemachten Events, Ja. Ja. Ja. und diese schrecklichen Taten. Aber dann kommt er zurück und er kämpft gegen diesen Mann.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Er kämpft gegen diesen Mann, der fast wie eine Karikatur von jungen Leuten jetzt oder der jungen adulten Person jetzt repräsentiert, dass sein ganzes Leben basiert auf seiner Fähigkeit, Celebrität auf seinem eigenen Weg zu generieren, durch Social Media und all diese Dinge. Und dann ist jeder gegen den Mann, richtig? Es scheint, als wäre jeder für Tyson, trotz Teissons Leben.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Well, I'm kind of under the impression that some of these deals are sort of umbrellas for the entire squad, that everyone's getting something. Because that would also, you know, that would, if they didn't, that could cause like real inner squad dissension. Like it would be a real problem. You know, it's like, it'd be one thing if one guy's getting paid more than another.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
People were like, we're on his side, sort of. So it's like this person who represents the way the world is now, the way sports works now, the way media works now. Nobody wanted that guy to win. And it seemed like almost it was people saying like, we want Tyson to win this fight because it will mean that the world's not really going in this direction.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
That if Tyson wins this fight, it sort of says the way things have changed is not good in any way. Like not only do we not like this Jake Paul character, but we don't like what he really represents about how sports works now. We don't like how the way entertainment works. And if he gets knocked out, Es wird zeigen, dass es all diese Art von fragilen, falschen Dingen war.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Und wenn er eine echte Person kämpft, ein Typ, der tatsächlich ein echter Kämpfer ist, wenn er tatsächlich für das erste Mal gepunct wird, wird er schlagen und dieses Haus der Gnade wird schlagen. Aber das ist nicht passiert. Es war das prädiktivste Ergebnis.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Es war nur ein langsamer, laboriöser Kampf, wo ein Typ, der zu alt ist, mit einem Typ zu sein, dessen Hauptziel es war, sicherzustellen, dass das Event fertig ist. Es fühlte sich also an, als ob die Leute nicht sagen konnten, dass sie finanziell zerbrochen wurden. Es ist einfach so, wie Paul zu Tyson an einem Punkt in den Kämpfen. Er war so, wir erheben dich in diesem. Das ist kein Kampf.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Das ist kein Boxen oder so etwas. Aber wir sind nicht überrascht. Es ist genau das, was wir dachten, es wäre.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, well, I think that there was also this sense that when the first bell rang, like maybe Tyson's going to come out and charge him and he's going to hit him one time, it's suddenly going to become obvious. But what became obvious was that, oh, you're actually going to go through with all this. This is not really, it's not what it's going to be. It's weird.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
It'd be another thing if one guy's getting paid a lot and someone else isn't getting paid anything. You know, I mean, I gotta believe.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
It was like, I don't know if I can even say it was a disappointment, because how can I be disappointed if I'm admitting that's what I knew was going to happen?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I'll talk about The Sopranos, sure.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Okay, so I'll just quickly get into how this happened. So for a variety of reasons, I ended up watching the last episode of Mad Men, the series finale of Mad Men. And that was very surprising to me because of course I remembered what happened to Don. Do you remember what happened to any of the other characters, to most of the other characters?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Sure, sure.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Did you remember that Peggy ended up with Stan? I totally remember. Do you remember that Roger apparently moves to France? It's like Pete Campbell moves to Wichita. All these things I had forgotten. It blew my mind. All these things I didn't remember about this show, which I watch really closely or whatever.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
So then I was like, I wonder if the same thing would happen if I watched the last episode of The Sopranos. So I watched the last episode of The Sopranos again. Because I also, I'd watched that documentary that was really good.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
That's what got me back into it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I really liked it. You know, and it was, I watched the last episode and it was not what I remembered because again, I only remembered the very end of it, you know. But it was good. So I ended up watching a few more episodes from that last season. And then I decided like, this is so enriching to me. I'm going to go back and like re-watch the third season. And
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
One thing it does is it really shows me how much television was just better during this period. Like that was just really and it's not to blame anybody making television now. It's that this was like a collection of things that were happening in the culture that it was like the depth of every character is incredible.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Wie alles mit dem Rennrad. Ja. kind of interesting. Carmelo and Furio being together, that's kind of... Well, that's Season 4, though.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Maybe I'm already into it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I guess I'm in Season 4 now. I must have started with 3 and I'm moving forward because I'm just hitting forward. So I guess I'm in the middle. But I'm just saying that the storylines for these characters, it's really funny. All the stuff with Christopher is real great. Christopher is such a likable character despite how his life plays out.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Well, it's not just that. He's like, he seems like he's trying. Like he's really trying, you know? Like he wants to make these things work. He wants to make everyone happy in a way. He is in some degree selfish, but it's like, it is, what did you want to say about it? Because it's like, I just, I have really enjoyed this experience. If you watch it again and, okay, go ahead. Here you go. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Na ja, es ist auch interessant, dass ich ihn in einer Runde gesehen habe, weil ich jetzt erkenne, wie das Zuschauen eine Woche aparte meine Erfahrung damit verändert hat. In dem Sinne, dass es okay war, wenn die Serie am Ende war, vor allem gerade, als es vorbei kam, gab es all diese Leute, die über die Sopranos geschrieben haben, und sie sagten, weißt du, Why did people relate to Tony Soprano?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Well, but it's one thing if the money is coming from NIL stuff, like you're in a commercial for like the local sandwich shop or whatever. I think it's another thing when these guys are just sort of like, you know, you see this now that boosters get letters and they're like, we need linebackers. They're like, we need, you know, what are you going to fucking do for us? We need to do this, you know?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
He's like an obviously terrible person. He's like a completely transgressive, awful person. And when you watch them all in a row, like when I'm kind of, I guess, binging them or whatever, you really do see that, right? But when you're watching them a week apart, it didn't feel that way. Because in every episode maybe he would do something bad, but he would also do one thing that was charming.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And then somehow he would say something to Milfy or he'd say something to his kids or he'd just do something that was likable. And it sort of balanced it out. But when you watch them all in a row... You really see what kind of a diabolical person he is and like how how like how just completely like bottom line person he is.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
But what also is weird is that even though that I'm watching this again and I'm maybe more clearly seeing that this character is just really, you know, just like a bad dude. In some ways I relate to this, even though I mean, I don't know how I can relate to a gang. I mean, you know, but sort of his sense of like the things he questions about his own life, like you mentioned.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Maybe it's just because I'm older now, but I there are certain things, moments in that show when I'm like, I know how that is. I know how he feels right now. Like, I know what that is like. And that's something I do not remember from the first time I watched, you know.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
I think I've said this probably on your podcast before. I've said it many times. I mean, to me, I have a sense of, of where this is going. I'll probably be wrong, but I have a sense of it. It seems to me like we're probably five years away from Die SEC und die Big Ten und vielleicht eine andere Konferenz, die sich von der NCAA entfernt hat.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
There's just many things about that are just sort of, it is incredible. Like, okay, so, like, Tony, in order for this to work and for him to have this position and be in the position he's in, he's always kind of got to be the smartest person in the room. Okay? And he usually is. Particularly if it's any situation where he's dealing with the business of being an organized crime leader.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
But He's often wrong about other aspects of life. But he can't, it's hard for him, like, it's like he's the smartest person in the world, in the room, and then sometimes he's not, but like he can't, he can't accept that in a sense. He's got to believe he still is. I mean, it's just, yeah, well, not, but for him it would be rational confidence, right?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Because in situations where he's got to deal with the life or death, money or nothing situations, he's really good. He's a good negotiator and all that stuff. It's the things that are, um, So the last season. There's two episodes.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
When he fights Bobby out by the lake and all that stuff, you know, his crew is not around. It's really just his wife and his sister. Like he's talking to like Carmel. He's like, you know that if I was younger.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
You know, it's like it's like she doesn't care at all. She's like, I wish this wouldn't have happened.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Why are you trying to convince me you won this fight? You shouldn't be fighting your friend. You know, that's like we would fight this out here. But it's it's it's like his his not his own self-knowledge that like the other fight is because he's trying to prove it to his crew. And this one, he's trying to prove to himself.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Sie spielen Monopoly.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Nur mit dem Ende dieser Beziehung, die sich alles selbst umsetzen. Und dann, wenn du für Old Miss spielst, kannst du da in der Schule gehen, wenn du willst, aber v.a. du repräsentierst Old Miss. Du spielst für das Team, du bist auf diesem Roster, du trägst diese Farben. Ja, genau. It's really just the uniform. That's all you're really cared about. That's who you're rooting for.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Was du gesagt hast, ist ein sehr wichtiger Punkt, weil er oft erwähnt, wie er es nicht mag, Menschen über den Vergangenheit zu erinnern. Er hasst Nostalgie, richtig? Und der Grund, warum er Nostalgie hasst, ist, weil er fühlt, dass das Gespräch über den Vergangenheit bedeutet, dass der Vergangenheit vorbei ist. Und er denkt, dass der Vergangenheit immer noch die Präsenz sein sollte.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
die Art und Weise, wie es war, als er erwachsen war, andere Leute zu sehen. Das ist so, wie es immer sein sollte. Er will also nicht, dass Leute sich erinnern, weil das es von der Möglichkeit entfernt, dass die Welt immer noch so ist. Das ist der Art von Idee, die man in einem Novel bekommt. It is very difficult to reflect that through dialogue on a television show.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And they do a lot of things like that. Like they have a lot of like the, I guess the word they always use now is the interiority. They're able to sort of get inside these people's very complex feelings about life without showing a lot of it. Polly and like his relationship with his mom, for example.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Like that shows us something, you know, his, his, his, like his desire to make his mom happy because he sort of thinks that like, like that he doesn't have a family. So he's got to do this. He's got to do this for his mom, you know, um, or, or just like how to like, like navigating Meadows relationships and stuff for Tony. It's sort of, it's like these, these are things that like, don't,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
They're not just plot points. Like they're not, because a lot of times a lot of things don't happen. It was like Carmela Furio thing. Like nothing really happens between them. But there is a lot of pathos in that relationship from both sides. And like just, she is so good as an actress of illustrating the feeling of desperate hopelessness.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Ja. Ja.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Und es ist der perfekte Roll für ihn. Ich meine, es ist nicht zu sagen, dass er nicht ein toller Charakter ist, aber es ist einfach so, dass das eine Situation ist, wo du, wenn du das Dokumentarfilm siehst und sie zeigen, dass einige der anderen Leute, die für diese Teile gearbeitet haben, es scheint, als hätte es nur einen Weg funktioniert. Es musste so sein. Richtig.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Er war der einzige Typ, der das hätte gemacht. Und er hätte das effektiv gemacht. Und es ist ein, ich, es, I remember writing for Grantland or whatever, talking about this, Mad Men, Breaking Bad and The Wire. At the time, I kind of concluded that Breaking Bad was the best of these. It actually kind of ties back to the thing we were talking about, like the NBA and TikTok and stuff like that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
In the moment of these things happening, you can kind of have a feeling, but then as time passes... Es ändert sich. Und diejenigen, die sich wirklich kümmern, sind diejenigen, die entscheiden. Und ich denke, vielleicht wird die Entscheidung sein, dass eigentlich von diesen vier Shows es wirklich die Sopranos war, das war der beste.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Alle anderen sind in irgendeiner Art eine Version von dem, was das Show gemacht hat.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
But the thing is, you can make cases for all four of the shows. It doesn't detract from any of them to say this. And you know, this kind of story does seem to hold up. I mean, it's like, Goodfellas holds up pretty well. Godfather holds up very well. It's like, for some reason, this particular thing, like the Italian organized crime world,
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Es hat eine... Es ist... Es ist... Es ist... Es ist... Es ist... Es ist...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And it doesn't matter if there's absolutely no relationship to college at all. I don't know if over time this will be a pretty significant detriment. Because right now nobody cares because we're just kind of psychologically shifting everything. It's just like, okay, well, we're not going to really think about the relationship these guys have to college. But if Ja, genau.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Wenn Christopher aus der Reha rauskommt und Tony fragt, ob er alle zwölf Schritte durchgemacht hat. Und er sagt, nicht der letzte, wo ich mir entschuldige. Und Tony sagt, ich weiß nicht, ob du das tun solltest. Und er sagt, ich stimme zu. In manchen Fällen sende ich Blumen, in manchen Fällen Geld.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Und es ist nicht sogar lustig, aber es ist einfach lustig, dass jemand sagt, oh, ich habe meine Heroin-Enttäuschung, ich habe diese Menschen's Leben verdammt, aber lasst uns nicht zu viel in sie entdecken. Ich würde ihnen ein Envelope von 20.000 oder so geben. Ich weiß es nicht. Er ist einfach einfach. Und die Ermittlung dieser Linien ist so perfekt.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Das ist wahrscheinlich wahr. Aber ich wundere mich auch, ob ich ein anderes Show wiedergucken würde, wenn ich mich anders fühle. Das ist, wie es mir jetzt auch fühlt. Es ist wie in den letzten Jahren. Es fühlt sich so an.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Yeah, it was good seeing you. Have a good Thanksgiving.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Are you a big Thanksgiving guy?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
It's my favorite holiday too. I feel like for the best holiday you have to say Christmas in the same way you have to say The Beatles or Citizen Kane. Christmas needs to be the biggest holiday.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
But I think everyone likes Thanksgiving the most.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
Bye-bye.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
then it will basically mean a lot of the things I thought about college football were fucking wrong. My whole perception, even what I have told myself, what I like about it, might be wrong. Because all these things I've been talking about They certainly don't inform my experience of watching the games. I do not think this when I'm watching it. I only think this when I'm talking about it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
And it might be possible that we can just make this split in our mind. Because obviously there's lots of things about pro sports. Like we don't... No one...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Holiday Check-in on Anything and Everything With Chuck Klosterman
spends time watching the game thinking it's kind of weird that I'm watching this 33 year old guy play baseball like this is weird that an adult is doing this for a living and he's making more than everybody in my town or whatever we don't think about those things so maybe we just won't think about it I mean because the games themselves are still excellent I mean I every week there's a bunch of games that are interesting although I gotta say I was a little disappointed I really did for a while think