This is The Dan Levator Show with Stugatz Podcast! Start of the day, start of the day, it is yes, start of the day. Start of the day, start of the day, it is yes, start of the day. Start of the day, start of the day— "It is the start of the day. Start of the day. Start of the day. It is the start of the day." I've got something here.
Um, this is from Isaiah Thomas. Sorry, just one second. No, I had it. Sorry, sorry, one second. Tell me to keep my chill and just keep relaxed. This is from Isaiah Thomas, the one on the Celtics. Sorry, just one moment, one moment, one moment. No, I had— no, this is from my—
well, this is—
I don't have the one from Isaiah Thomas, but LeBron guarded Jerry Stackhouse at one point.
On First Take right now, on First Take right now, I'm not making this up, it says Michael Jordan versus LeBron James, who's the great— who's the great What's Doggy got to say right now? Doggy, Wilbon, and Stephen A are discussing who is—
what a crew.
They got Wilbon in New York. He's wearing 3 layers of clothing for some reason. I don't know why he's doing that, but Wilbon is here to lend authority to who's the best, Michael Jordan or LeBron James.
Great argument.
Jessica, what is in your junk drawer?
I don't have one.
Oh, come on.
What?
I don't have a junk drawer.
Where do you keep your batteries?
You're not better than me. I assume Lehman had a junk drawer. Oh, Lehman's got a junk drawer.
You know where everything is, huh?
Uh, we have dedicated areas for all of those categories.
Oh, nice.
We don't have a singular junk drawer. In fact, that was one of the things when I moved into this place, I said, we're getting rid of this drawer full of shit. I'm sick of this thing.
What was in there? Where do you put your scissors?
There. Well, we have kitchen shears, which go with our knives and our knife block. And then we have scissors that are in our second kitchen drawer with—
That's the junk drawer!
—our kitchen tools. That second—
That sounds like a junk drawer. Are there screws in there?
Paperclips, matches, one-way word rubber band? Got those pens? Chapstick?
There's a whisk.
Pens without a cap? There's some pot holders. It's all kitchen stuff. There's a dedicated kitchen drawer. Kitchen tools only. No deck of cards. In fact, I don't think I have a deck of cards in my apartment. I probably should get one.
That's good for a junk drawer. The deck of cards is good. Uh, did you clean up? Lehman wants a junk drawer and you told him no more junk drawer.
The 35-year-old man yearns for a junk drawer, Dan. It's like in his DNA. He just wants to put stuff where it doesn't belong so badly. He wants to just compile lint rollers and empty plastic bags and rubber bands and and just pile them all into a drawer. And I said, nope, we're done with that. Everything has a spot now.
Where do you put the 2012 Carolina Mudcats schedule magnet?
That's on the fridge.
Oh, okay. It's always a themed deck of cards though in the junk drawer. Never just a normal deck of cards. Yeah, from a wedding. Yep, some sort of theme.
It's from a wedding, yeah. I have a deck of Monopoly deal cards, but they're behind me with my Lord of the Rings books. That's my most special.
Vanderbilt pocket schedule. Most special part of my—
Birthday cake candles.
Don't have either of those.
That's a good one. I have a menorah. I have, uh, menorah candles, but they are together in a cabinet with other seasonal items, not in a drawer.
Good, because a menorah is not junk. No, not at all.
It's important. Do any of you have change in your junk drawer? Yeah, put it on the pole. What is change? Is that what—
I haven't seen change in 6 years, Dan. Uh, where are you getting change from these days?
Put it on the poll at Le Batard Show. Have you seen change in the last 6 years?
I'm telling you, there's a penny in my dad's junk drawer that's been there since '08.
I have a separate bowl for all my coins.
Check your pennies. Some could be very, very valuable. That's true.
I used to collect pennies as a youth. Do you use scissors every day?
No. Insane. Only monsters do that.
Certainly not.
Scissors every single day, Edward?
I did use tiny scissors today. Do you guys trim your eyebrows? Yeah. Yeah. Do your wives trim your eyebrows for you?
I have people do that.
Got in a little discussion about that this morning with my fiancé.
How did that go? Is he already in the nose hair, ear hair, I don't trim my face portion of old man-dom?
Just the eyebrows, Dan. He doesn't like when I touch the eyebrows. I said, you know who has long eyebrows? Guys without wives who trim them for them. So let me get in there with these little mini scissors. We can't have 3-inch long eyebrows. We're too young for that. Agreed.
So sometimes what I do is when I'm getting a haircut, I tell my barber Luke, who's been here on the show many times, I'm like, hey, can you just trim me? Can you trim me up a little bit? I don't even know what you need to know about the haircut guy for.
What do you need to know? Greg's hair one time.
He also cut Mike's hair when he was doing the fine bomb thing. That's twice as many times. Twice many.
God, everything's kind of with you people. You should have said twice.
I was trying to think if there was one more time because I thought there was one other time. So whatever the long story of it is, I ask him, can you trim my eyebrows? Then he takes what— smart— what he's buzzing on my head and then trims my eyebrows with that, but he's got it on a different setting. My worry is that one day he's gonna be on the phone looking at his watch, all of a sudden, brrr, and then I have one eyebrow and I'm palabernin' on ya.
Can we get the photo please of Mike Jarvis with no eyebrows? It is—
It's Mike Woodson. Oh, whoa! Mike Jarvis!
What the hell is Mike Jarvis?
You have to excuse Dan. He did casual racism.
Oh man, you know what? I edited myself. I almost went Mike Brown. Mike Brown! It would've been the trifecta. It would've been the trifecta.
Baldish black basketball coaches in the, uh, in the New York area.
Minor penalty, 2 minutes, accidental racism.
It's a tough look. Pretty on the nose penalty call.
I don't know if you guys saw this over the last couple days, but Mike Brown, head coach of the New York Knicks, he's in the rare win the championship or you're fired hot seat apparently. Not even just get to the NBA Finals. I saw this, I It's not really just because of Game 2. As it came out after it came out, like when they were down 2-1, I think. And of course, the Knicks took a 3-2 series lead last night. I still think the Knicks are going to win the Eastern Conference. And a report— not, not really report, more like opinion based on what he's hearing around Madison Square Garden. Sam Amick. Sam Amick's a very credible NBA guy. And based on the tenor surrounding the New York Knicks and Mike Brown, getting to the NBA Finals may not be enough for him to keep his job, which I don't know if you could use deductive reasoning there, Greg, but if getting to the Finals may not be enough, the only thing above that is winning the Finals. I mean, have you— Jess, have you ever heard that before? That a coach could lose his job in any— I'm not talking about soccer overseas, they're pretty cutthroat over there, but in our major North American sports Have you ever heard of a coach who win the championship or you're fired?
In his first year?
No, I can't. I mean, last year that was kind of the deal with Tibbs. They were like, they did very well last year. They're like, this is not working out. But yeah, this is his first year as a head coach. So no, I can't think of another example of that. I've never heard of that before.
I think that would be ridiculous, particularly with that franchise. They haven't won anything since Willis Reed.
And that's why it was ridiculous that they got rid of Thibodeaux.
Yeah, and now the idea that— and they're not supposed to get to the East Final, to the championship round, so if they do, that's like a victory. Fans are celebrating in the streets in New York.
Win the whole thing or you're fired.
Don't believe it.
That's crazy, right? Yes. Anyway. Mike Jarvis had the cul-de-sac blend into the beard. Yeah. You don't see that often. It's a good look for him.
Cul-de-sac is like the beard of the head.
It is Tony, you know what I mean?
If you look down, it's got like the beard look.
What is the cul-de-sac?
The horseshoe.
Would you notice right away if you like— you see that picture without the context that we gave it? Like, I feel like I'd be like, something's, something's off there.
I don't think I would notice, right? Eyebrows are a good indicator of, hey, something's on, something's off.
All I see is that mustache when I look at that face.
Like, I, I feel like something's wrong here. Oh. You got no eyebrows. Like, I feel like I don't realize it right away, you know?
I think the legend is he pretended like he meant to do that. He didn't— a classic man didn't want to cop to a mistake. He's like, no, I meant to do this.
Didn't want to pull a Greg Cody and admit when he's wrong.
I was going for a clean, fresh look.
Exactly. But brows— eyebrow trends are quite a thing.
They go back quick, right? They go back quick.
Sometimes they never come back.
Is that true?
Yeah, I mean, people that over-tweezed in the '90s when the thin pencil brow was in, Greg. Now that the thick brow is back in, those people can't grow the fullness back.
I didn't know the thick brow was back.
Heard that, Dan? Thick brow is back, baby.
You know about that thick brow? What are the odds?
Thick brow, but groomed.
What are the odds? Mike Brown, Mike Woodson, Mike Jarvis. Like, what are the odds? Mike Tomlin. No relation to anything I'm talking about in any way whatsoever.
Well, some relation, especially through your prism. It's a black Mike.
They're all named Mike.
Yeah, that's the only thing that they have in common. Mike Tomlin returned and did an interview with his new employer and explained, yeah, it was just time for me to go. It was just, uh, everybody had gotten tired of me, I'd gotten tired of everybody, it was just time for me to go. And it sounded, uh, It was a weird thing to hear from somebody who's only had winning seasons.
Yeah, well, we have the sound, so I think we should listen to it, and then I have a question for you afterwards, Dan.
Just where I am in life, and I thought it was a good time for the organization to be quite honest with you. Um, we didn't have a lot of success in the playoffs in recent years, and there's just some veteran players there, man. Guys like Cam Hayward and TJ Watt and Boswell, man, that I thought just that were worthy of the excitement and the optimism associated with new leadership. Are you satisfied with that?
I am. Oh, okay. It meets—
it meets with my approval. I'm glad that we got an explanation. I would have thought that somebody who did that much winning that long for an organization that has had very few coaches deserved a grander farewell than that. But he wasn't in the mood, evidently, for a grander farewell than that. And he gets to decide, doesn't he? It's just— it's not something that's happened before quite like that.
They did it for Chris Boswell.
That was very thoughtful of him.
You know, Chris, you may laugh. Chris Boswell, he made a lot of those winning seasons, winning season over 1.5 every game.
Chris Boswell, just for venue, you could make a solid argument one of the greatest kickers of all time, if not the greatest.
Should be in Canton in 5 years after the day he retires, in my opinion.
Put it on the poll. When you adjust for— I want to get the whole thing right. When you adjust for the venue, when you adjust for venue, is Chris Boswell as well someone who should be in Canton and probably the best kicker of all time. Uh, just put that on the poll that way.
Hey, it's Mike Ryan, and I want to talk to you about the random midweek hang that you have with your friends. Maybe it's an NBA game, you get a text, hey, come over, you want to watch the game. And maybe you're like, ah, I don't know, I kind of just wanted to stay home. And then you think about it after your buddy hits you up, and you know just the thing that'll make that regular hang, that regular midweek hang around the basketball game, into a special time, into A Miller time. That's right, this happened to me just last week. I grabbed a 6-pack of Miller Lite, said I was on my way, and next thing you know, we're arguing about rotations like we're on the coaching staff, yelling about a missed call, and the game's coming down to the final possession. It was one of those nights that you look around, you take a sip, and you think, yeah, this was the right call, and my friendship's stronger for it. Cheers to legendary moments with Miller Lite. Great taste, 96 calories. Go to MillerLite.com/Dan to find delivery options near you. Or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer.
It's Miller time! Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.
Going for 2 when you're up by 5. Switching the zone when man isn't working. Oh, and building your new stadium in the state your team actually plays in. In sports, some things just make sense. You know what else makes sense? Drinking Jägermeister shots ice cold. Drinking it any other way would be like punting on first down! Or letting your worst hitter bat first! Or like going for two when you're down three with a second to go! It wouldn't make any sense! So don't let the team down. When it comes to Jägermeister, drink it cold or don't drink it at all! Jägermeister, damn, that's cold! Drink responsibly. Jägermeister Likör, 35% alcohol by volume, imported by Mast Jägermeister US, White Plains, New York.
Dan Levitard. I don't like smelly either.
Stugatz. Women stay home in the kitchen where they belong.
This is the Dan Levitard Show with the Stugatz.
Did you know that you had a kindred spirit, Jessica, in Euphoria? I did not know that Zaslav was a giant Euphoria fan on HBO.
Jess, have you seen this week's episode yet?
Zazz, I don't watch Euphoria.
Uh, Jess, I don't watch Euphoria either.
It scares me. It's very scary. I don't know what those teens are up to. They, they freak me out.
I'm with you. I've never seen a single episode, but let me tell you, this past week's episode was crazy. All right, I'm all caught up on everything now. Again, I've never seen a single episode of this show, but I am all caught up on Cassie and Nate's wedding this past weekend. Shit was crazy. Nate owes this guy so much money, but instead he had this lavish wedding, and of course the guy showed up even though he told him, "If you don't have my money by the end of this week, we're gonna have a problem." Had this huge lavish wedding, Cassie's doing crazy chaos Cassie stuff, and by the end of the wedding, Nate had his toe cut off by the guy. Shit was lit. He's broke now. It's broke. I hate to have a severed toe.
It's one of those shows that I started watching, but I would cover my eyes so much that I decided I shouldn't keep watching this. It's just scary. Kind of like The Pit.
Oh, The Pit's a great show.
No, Pit's a great show. Amazing show. Amazing show.
But let me tell you something. Do I actually watch it?
No. Oh no, that's a great show.
But let me tell you something, Jess. Maddie was at the wedding and, you know, her and Cassie, they got a thing where like they were best friends, but Cassie obviously stole Nate. But Maddie was at the wedding. That was a big deal. But what's Rue up to? Rue was at the wedding too, but she's like neck deep in drug running. So she's got her own thing going on there because she owes Danielle a lot of money. So she's now like a drug runner. So she's trying to take care of all that.
What toe did they cut off? Pinky.
That's the one to lose if you're going to lose.
It would hurt though.
I thought it'd be a middle one. Yeah, it hurts. It really affects the balance.
Restif. Yeah. So again, you know, for people who watch Euphoria or have never seen it before like me, this week's episode.
Don't all the toes affect balance? Don't all of them?
That's right. But the pinky is more important. Is it? It's not the most—
wee-wee-wee home is the least.
Like, I'd give him my ring toe.
Hold on a second. You're telling me if you saw someone walking and like they're off balance, they'd be like, yeah, I lost my pinky. I think the great toe—
they don't call it the great toe for nothing. It's the most important.
I'm keeping the outside toes.
Those are the two I'm keeping most. I thought it was called the great toe just because it's the big toe. It's the biggest of all the toes.
Well, he calls it the great toe.
Yeah, it's great.
I thought the great toe was the second toe because it's often longer than the first toe.
That's true, mine is. Oh, that is my foot. Welcome back.
Who else's foot would that be? I don't know. Craig, that talon from a bird of prey, a demon of some sort, a witch. Yes, a 700-year-old witch.
Yes, that is.
Who lives in a Bavarian forest and eats children.
Now that looks like an animal.
I'll give you that. Look at the color on that thing. Like a puddle on a gas station. That is a 700-year-old witch who has lived outdoors all her life and never worn shoes or boots. That will forever be the Beast's foot to me. It's unbelievable.
It is hard to believe that I was a foot model at one point.
It doesn't go flat on the ground.
No, that's the thing. That's the thing about it. It's weighted down so much by the rotten toenails that the heel can't stay on the ground.
They say that your feet flatten as you age, like the arch flattens out the more— the longer you live because of using your foot and standing on your foot. But yours actually seems to be curling.
Yes, but if I told you that is how Satan stands, he levitates just a little bit, but with the bottom foot so heavy that it sticks to the ground. But that's how that is. That is Satan standing perfectly on the ground.
No, I've been told that's a sexy foot. No, no, look at that. Look at the veins on that foot. No, no one has said no.
You don't want veins on your feet.
Again with veins and you today. Again, Another reference to a body part of yours being veiny. Greg, you're so veiny.
No, I don't want that.
Yeah. No, we don't. No, we don't. Thank you, Greg, for that help there on who sang You So Veiny. Yes, he is right.
You probably think the song is about you.
Well put. Greg, can you please tell me your thoughts on the NCAA tournament now expanding to 76 teams? Hurts.
Yeah, it's unnecessary. You know what's happening is Cinderella is all but dead and the NCAA is trying to bring Cinderella back to life by putting an extra dozen or so teams that have no chance to win but do have a chance to be Cinderella. And nowadays Cinderella is defined by the team that pulls a big upset in the first round, and then we think that team actually has a chance and they don't. So it's just, you know, it's totally unnecessary. What the NCAA tournament needs to do is pare it back to about 48 teams, but make them all quality teams that all have a chance to win. Forget about the, the minor conferences where you're obliged to automatically, uh, you know, admit this team when they have zero chance to win.
More games means more betting, more action, and more money.
I understand why they're doing it, and TV loves it, and better gamblers love it, and all that stuff.
I can't—
fans love it. Yeah, do they?
I don't know if— do fans love it? Because I want to see what my bracket's going to look like next year. How am I going to be able to fill this thing out when there's going to be so many more play-in games? And the other thing is like the bracketologist, the experts, including my guy Charlie Cream, the women's bracketology expert for ESPN, they went through and looked at who the extra teams would have been. And it's for the most part, it's all power conference teams that would have had like losing to barely above losing records in their conference. So it would have been like Indiana, Stanford, like it's not going to be Cinderella mid-major teams. It's going to mostly be Auburn would have made it this year in men's basketball, which obviously was a whole controversy. So I don't know if this helps any sort of Cinderella arguments. You're just going to have more playing games, which, you know, more games, I'll watch them. Like, I'm not going to— I'm not going to boycott it. But I'm curious if it turns people off from filling out a bracket if it's just overly complicated next year.
Yeah, but I don't just define a Cinderella as the small conference team out of nowhere. I think a Cinderella can be The major conference team that lost 14 games in the regular season. You know, the one that, that barely gets into the tournament, but somehow then goes on a mini run.
Does everyone define Cinderella that way? No one does.
You don't really know. You can't be Cinderella if you came from a major conference, even if you're right.
Even if your regular season record was 16-14, you just had a bad year.
I think Greg is on to something. That seems to be the new Cinderella. NC State gets to be a Cinderella. Texas this year sufficed as our Cinderella.
I'm— Texas can't ever be a Cinderella.
For me, it's 12-seed or lower.
Well, by that logic, then oftentimes you're having some pretty big programs find themselves in this situation, right?
11-seed, no Cinderella. 12-seed, Cinderella.
Okay, gotta draw a hard line somewhere. Now, you know, for—
I don't know if people have read into exactly how this is being implemented. This won't change your Thursday once the tournament starts. This is only your Tuesday, Wednesday play-in. You're going from 4 games.
You don't know who's going to be playing Thursday, Chris. Like more— there are going to be more unknowns come Thursday, like filling out your bracket Monday, right? I guess that's like the bracket confusion.
All the 16 seeds will be a play-in now. Before it was 2, now it'll be all the 16. We hate to play in— I mean, it's just more action on that Tuesday, Wednesday when you're getting ready for Thursday Thunder. I don't see the problem with this. There is—
I mean, a problem with— there was no problem with 68 teams. That's the problem with this. Like, why we're changing something that was like universal.
There was no problem with 64 either. It's just more. Like, we're all about more. It's just more sports, more television, more action, more Make it 100 teams.
Make it a 100-team playoff.
Be a weird number. Why? Because it's a bracket.
Make it 102. I think that's still—
however many regular season games are played, make it that many long. And then the play-in is the regular season to get into the tournament.
That's my idea. One thing I don't stand for is like everyone be like, this makes the regular season less. It's like you're not watching the regular season anyway. Like most people are just tuning in I'm not saying you, Jess. Most people are casual. Dozens of us are just tuning in for the tournament. So they're giving you the— they actually— these regular season games weren't important to you anyway. So don't make the argument they're making them less important. Valid.
One of the things that happened last year in football, I think that's perfect right there. That disagreement with valid. And I think that's good for sports debate. We're revolutionizing it. We should move on to other subjects.
We do have some breaking news on Brendan Sorsby. Yeah. Pete Nakos has gone through some of the betting data. What is it back from 2022? And Brendan Sorsby placed more than 10,000 wagers at one point, averaged 20 bets per day. Now, Jess, there's a lot of skepticism as to whether or not he will ever actually play for Texas Tech. Right now, the chatter is this guy should just enter the supplemental draft. We'll see how that plays out. But what's your takeaway? Because another thing that broke you were talking about prior to us going on the air was Cincinnati reportedly was informed of some of these wagers that he made prior to this past season.
So, I mean, I have a lot of thoughts, as you can probably imagine. There's a lot to unpack with this. I guess I'm curious how and why Texas Tech found out about it reportedly a couple of weeks ago. Like, why? Why now? Was something going to go public? Did the NCAA tell— like, who told them? How did this go down? Like, why is this happening in April after, you know, the transfer portal is closed? And now it's a lot harder for them to get a quarterback out of the portal. They're probably going to have to play with one of the quarterbacks already on their roster. Luckily, they have one who's recovering from an ACL injury, so maybe they'll be okay, but maybe not. Um, the second thing is like, yeah, this guy was— I mean, he was betting on— apparently he was betting on, uh, balls and strikes at Reds games, like $1 wagers. I'm like, that's like betting on a coin flip. Like, that is such a flippant bet. This isn't like, uh, he, you know, bet a few times, did a few parlays with his friends while they were watching March Madness or something like that.
Like, he was betting on, like, doing so many bets, placing so many bets, and also reportedly bet on his own team while he was on Indiana, which is probably— if you're gonna make an argument against him ever being eligible in the NCAA again, I mean, that's it. And also, I don't think NFL teams are just like cool with someone doing, placing a bunch of bets either. I don't think that's something that like he's just gonna get by scot-free with. I was listening to some reporting yesterday about the supplemental draft, and, um, it seems like this is something that NFL teams would actually be pretty concerned with from a behavioral standpoint. And like, he actually, you know, he's entered a treatment, uh, facility for gambling addiction. It seems like this is something that is actually legit, that like he's been placing so many bets. Like what you just said, that is an astronomical number, and clearly he needs some help because that, you know, to, to do this and like Everyone knows you can't bet on your own team. That's— that goes back. That's not like a new thing in the advent of sports betting and apps and stuff like that.
That goes back a long time. But to do that and then like compulsively, it seems like do it for years afterwards on very small things is pretty concerning behavior. So I personally, like, I feel really bad for him. I think this is a really terrible way to blow up your college football career. And I hope that he does actually get help.
I'd actually like more information though on the amount that he was betting because there is a new paradigm here. He's set to earn $5 million a year. Betting a dollar because you're an action junkie on balls and strikes, if it's literally a dollar, I'd like to know the dollar amounts we're talking about here because while it sounds like he has a problem and he may be going to rehab for authentic reasons or because he thought this was coming, Charles Barkley says all the time, I don't have a gambling problem, I have money. And, and this is a wealthy person.
And, uh, but he wasn't, he wasn't when he was a freshman in college by all— I mean, I don't know what his family's net worth is, Dan, but he wasn't making $5 million as a, you know, a freshman at Indiana. The money that he came into is much more recent from his own playing perspective.
Perhaps not a coincidence, but another news item about Sorsby that came out yesterday were that, uh, was that his attorneys tried to, uh, file some sort of injunction on the buyout that was associated with his NIL deal over at Cincinnati. Obviously, I don't know how much he can count on the money from Texas Tech while we're all wondering aloud if he's ever going to play for Texas Tech again. I know the point that Jess made. There are players in the NFL who, while in the NFL, had similar scandals. Calvin Ridley, Jameson Williams. They served their punishments. Ridley's was super punitive. And they did end up getting other opportunities. Jameson Williams, still like a really big, important player for Detroit. So I— Brendan Sorsby is a talent that had draft prospects. He was certainly weighing that. I think for like a 7th round supplemental pick, he might be worth the risk.
Speaking of football, Younghoe Koo was a bit of a mystery the last couple of years. I thought this was one of the more consistent kickers in the sport. And then next thing I know, Atlanta can't trust him. The Giants can't trust him. But one person will be forever thankful, uh, for Young Way Koo. Um, it was missing a kick, right, for the Giants? Jess, what is this? What are some of the details in this story that people would need on a saved life by a botched kick?
This does sound like a story from HBO's, um, drama, successful drama, The Pit, Dan. Award-winning drama, I should say. Takes place in Pittsburgh. Fantastic show. So apparently this guy— do you remember when Younghoe Koo missed the kick last year that he like, he kind of like Charlie Browned it, like he kicked the turf?
Yes. Stubbed his toe before the ball. It's not something that we had seen before. His toe kind of got lodged in the ground and the football was never kicked.
It was quite egregious. And this man is claiming that he laughed so hard at that kick while watching the kick that he had a seizure. Like it caused him to have a seizure from laughing so hard. And so then he went to the hospital and they found out he actually had a brain tumor. So he's crediting his life being saved by this missed kick, causing him to go into a fit of laughter so hard that his— he actually seized and was able to get his brain tumor diagnosed and treated. Do you guys—
there you go. Do you guys think it would be a good interview to get them together to talk about this, or does Young-Wei Ku not want to think about laughing so much that I don't want to see somebody into a brain tumor?
I'm not sure I would want to think about that. I think I I'd be like, this is a news story that I would like to ignore and move on with my life.
You know what's interesting about tumors is that doctors always describe them in layman's terms by comparing them to inanimate objects. Like, this was described as a tennis ball-sized tumor. When I had my tumor, the doctor described it as the size of a large lemon. Why can't the doctors just say it's 2 inches wide? Like, why do we have to describe serious—
it's a ball. I'm visualizing now.
Yeah, no one knows what 2 inches is.
Really? Nobody knows what 2 inches is? Especially men.
Men are like, ah, 2 inches? That's 8 inches actually.
Oh, that's a good point by you.
I don't know what you're saying there.
Put it on the poll, Juju, at Le Batard Show. You know what's interesting about tumors? Uh, Jessica. Same with babies, Greg.
Greg, they do this with fetuses. They're like, it's the size of a watermelon. Is that true?
See, I didn't know that.
Yeah, like the first month it's like, oh, it's a blueberry.
It's a walnut. Wow. My dog eats blueberries.
It's an avocado. Thank you, Jessica.
Good talking to you. Organic blueberries. The only kind. Farm to table. Check out her weekly Notre Dame podcast, The Echoes with Mike Golick Jr. Don Lebatard.
I don't think I ever got that many roses in my whole life. Stugatz. Certainly not from your lovely grandfather.
God may his soul rest in peace. This is the Don Lebatard Show with the Stugatz. Chris, can you please get me Stephen A. Smith saying blueberries, please? It used to be on my soundboard, but it is no longer here. And blueberries, you don't get a lot of chances to be able to say or use that sound. We took it from ESPN and we ran off with it.
You say blueberries every Tuesday.
Blueberry Tuesday, we call it. Blueberries. Thank you. A show I also wanted to talk about— I shouldn't call it a show, I guess. It's a documentary that Hulk Hogan Kogan. Oh, on Netflix, uh, it's 4 parts. It's very easy to watch. He lived a giant, giant life. And my quibble or my criticism with the doc, which actually made me feel an assortment of things dating back to childhood, uh, made profoundly sad by everything that happened in his life, at least in part because he was just limping around in pain because is in bringing this sport to the masses and making it larger than it ever was or it ever could have been without him. He was the perfect pop culture emblem for things happening in America at that time. Loud, cartoonish, giant. And, uh, the, the charisma of him, even though he was a bad wrestler— I think I can say that, especially where wrestling has gotten in the modern age.
I think it's a little harsh to say he was a bad wrestler, but that was not his strength.
Well, but I mean, a bit of a dinosaur in that his strength was all magnetism, all interview. As a technician, as a wrestler, given what you're watching today of guys just jumping off of the top rope, it's nothing. Not what— he might as well be a caveman compared to today's athletes, given where wrestling has gone. And that his, you know, his game was just to drop a leg on you. And in doing that, at that size, for as long as he did it, he wrecked his spine needed 10 back surgeries. What I was telling you guys about Tiger Woods and the pain that he's in— once you get into the 10 back surgeries, you can't fix what's going on in your back. And so he's just walking around. The cost of what he did to have the giant life is he was in amazing amount of pains and just doing giant amounts of fentanyl, for example. Uh, now what I prefer from my documentaries is to take subject matter that I'm interested in and tell me a lot of things that I didn't know even though I was already interested. Uh, this is a well-chronicled life.
You can make the argument legitimately that recognizable to people, Hulk Hogan at his time was the most recognizable human being on Earth. Absolutely. It's a crazy thing to say. Absolutely. It's so much larger than wrestling, what this personality was. And it was all personality. But also the name of the documentary is Real American, because that is the song that he would come out to. Those were the videos that he made. And at the end, he decided, decided, decided to take off his mask, the costume, and show you all of his politics. And they covered that in the last part of the documentary. There wasn't a lot to be learned here if you know anything about this story, but it was an interesting story. Like, his story is an interesting story because he gave it all up for the being of this character, and it was worth it to him. But by the end, it was horrible.
I'm only one episode in. I know a lot of what I'm watching, obviously, already, but I still really enjoy it because, I mean, he was such a huge deal to me as a kid. And I like being able to watch it with my son because he's interested in it because it's things that he doesn't know and I'm explaining to him. And like, to the wrestling part that you're talking about, I'm pointing out to my son, I go, "You see the way he's reacting to the crowd? There's no one in the history of wrestling better than him when it came to that understanding what was going on and reacting and playing toward that crowd. It's what made him so great." But at the same time, I do feel— like, I almost don't even know how to feel. I feel very conflicted because I'm really enjoying watching it And at the same time, I also know I'm like, man, he like said really shitty things about Black people. And should I still be enjoying reminiscing with this nostalgia that I'm watching? And it makes me feel weird.
Oh, but this is the age we're in. This Michael movie right now, uh, if Michael Jackson was alive, there's simply no way people would be viewing him the way they're viewing him dead. Uh, the— this is oldies music now, and everyone says the movie stinks. Like, the movie's bad. The And because in order to get the music you have to trade, we won't say any of the things you don't want us to talk about, so it becomes essentially a bad movie that's crushing it at the movie theater because there are some people, there are not many, there are some people, especially martyrs or people in death, whose seismic impact was so large that everything compared to them that's in their past, which you can include racism and pedophilia, some people might not forgive it, it, but their enduring iconic art status makes it so that their legacy is the work. Because I can't believe that Michael movie is doing as well as it is. I don't know if I can make it about anyone else and have it be that successful a movie, given that there is credible evidence that he was a pedophile. Like, the accusations in multiple documentaries suggest very strongly that a whole bunch of kids wouldn't come forward in adulthood just to get money.
The, the problem with the Michael Michael, uh, biopic is that it ends in the late '80s before all of the pedophilia allegations really set in, and it's incomplete. Like, I, I respect, uh, the, the, uh, Hulk Hogan thing you're talking about more because it's complete, it's accurate, it's warts and all. Uh, any sort of a Michael documentary or biography that doesn't include the controversy, it's like a Richard Nixon without Watergate. You know, you just can't omit hit that part of somebody's life who, you're right, if he were alive today, he would be shunned. I, I don't know how much—
it's certainly more, um, especially with what happened in society after he passed away. But if there's ever been one artist where the masses have shown they're willing to overlook that, someone's heart is— I mean, Hulk Hogan's up there, um, but it's Michael Jackson. I mean, we've all like— what do you protest when Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough comes on at a wedding? Like, the guy had bangers, but how— and people wanted to see basically a movie tribute to his catalog, which is undeniably iconic.
That's why the Rotten Tomatoes score is so high. Like, the critic score is 37%, which means they're telling you it's a terrible, terrible movie, and the audience score is 97%. I would imagine it because it's people going to the theater and they just get to watch Michael Jackson perform again.
The reason though that it is something that is stunning to me is because the art is so enduring that it ends up engulfing all. I don't know that we can make an artist like this today where the art makes you go shrug your shoulders on the moral dilemma of pedophilia. Like, that's not— that's not— you'd be surprised. Well, but it's just not normal. Pick up a paper. No, but it's not— it is not normal. This is the most heinous of crimes to be accused of. It's the— it's the damaging of children sexually is something that people can't survive. Not only is this happening in the modern age with an icon whose music transcends all of this, this music is certified oldies now. Now. Like, this isn't modern music. This, this might as well be Sinatra for the way it is you guys talk to me about what the '80s and '90s in music are.
The Hulkster was a big dude, 6'6", 300 pounds. Wow.
Hey, it's Mike Ryan, and I want to talk to you about the random midweek hang that you have with your friends. Maybe it's an NBA game, you get a text, hey, come over, you want to watch the game? And maybe you're like, ah, I don't know, I kind of just wanted to stay home. And then you think about it after your buddy hits you up and you know just the thing that'll make that regular hang, that regular midweek hang around the basketball game into a special time, into a Miller Time. That's right, this happened to me just last week. I grabbed a 6-pack of Miller Lite, said I was on my way, and next thing you know, we're arguing about rotations like we're on the coaching staff, yelling about a missed call, and the game's coming down to the final possession. It was one of those nights that you look around, you take a sip, and you think, yeah, Yeah, this was the right call and my friendship's stronger for it. Cheers to legendary moments with Miller Lite. Great taste, 96 calories. Go to millerlite.com/dan to find delivery options near you, or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer.
It's Miller time. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.
"I've never seen the show!"
Jessica is here to discuss Younghoe Koo's heroics, the NCAA Tournament expansion, and Mike Tomlin's explanation for leaving the Steelers before Zaslow asks about Euphoria, his new favorite show that he's never actually seen. Also, how should we handle the new Michael Jackson movie and the Hulk Hogan documentary? Dan's dog has some suggestions.
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