Transcript of Hour 2: I Happen to Have Heard (feat. Jessica Smetana)

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This is the Dan Levatore Show with the Stugats podcast.

Jessica thinks Zaz is a liar. Zaz thinks LeBron is a liar. We'll get to the lies in a second. But I just want to tell you guys a quick story I heard Sean Penn tell the other day, a funny story. As he was training for the movie Cops, Sean Penn was going out on... He was going out on drives with officers. He was training. He actually ends up in a drug bus where he's doing some of the things that he's learned, where he's got a gun out, he's got it on his hand.

What is that? What is that that you're doing?

I think it's like this.

You're talking about having the flash light and the gun so people can see stuff, right?

Yes, that's what I'm doing. I'm doing the flash light and the gun, and he's been trained to also do the quick peek around the corner It's a quick peek. If you see a gun, you shout, Gun, but the way that you can do the quick peek, nobody's reflexes are fast enough to shoot somebody who's doing a quick peek.

We're talking about childhood friend of Charlie Sheen, Sean Penn?

Sean Penn, yes.

Okay, got it.

Sean Penn is training for the movie Cops, and they've got five drug dealers who are on the sidewalk on their knees, and the other cop hears Sean Penn shout, Gun, after the quick peak. And so they bring in There's a helicopter, everything else. Sean Penn is terrified. And then he realizes on his second quick peak, it was his reflection. He was seeing his own gun in the reflection, and all of the other cops were making fun of him because they were brought in by helicopter and everything else, just because he shouted gun at his own gun.

Amateur.

We all would have done much better in that spot, I'm sure. Jess, thank you for joining us. Why is Zaslow a liar? What are the specifics of his story that do not ring true, that he had a two-stop flight or a one-stop flight?

No, it was one-stop.

First-class flight to South Bend that stopped in Chicago that he thought was a plane on the second leg and was a bus on the second leg.

I listened to this story yesterday, and I was like, There's just no way. I have never heard of this happening. I have never heard of this in my life. There is no way that he did this. I just don't believe it. I was about I wanted to text him and tell him what a liar he was. Then I decided, You know what? Let me just Google this first. Sure enough, American Airlines started this service three weeks ago. You're one of the first ever customers to take this motor coach. Congratulations. Thank you.

I was listening to this.

My first thought was, there's no way he left from an actual gate at O'Hare. There's no way he left from inside the terminal.

Jess, Anne pulled up to a terminal in South Bend.

It's unbelievable that this happened. I don't believe for a second.

That's a hilarious detail.

Vindicated.

They dropped you off at the South Bend airport?

Yes, at the terminal. I arrived at the gate in South Bend.

I asked so many people who go to Notre Dame games for work on a regular basis. Former students, I said, Have you ever heard of this before? They all said, No, there's just no way. I said, How did he book this without knowing that it was a bus on the second leg? They said, Well, to be honest, that part is believable from everything you've said about this guy. So credit to you, Zaz. Whoa, okay. Making the story more believable. First of all- I said he's like a Miami sports radio guy. They're like, Oh, I guess. Yeah, makes sense.

First of all, whoa. Second of all, if you pull, I pull up. I could actually do it. I still have the boarding pass, and on the boarding pass, that was exactly the bus. And on the boarding pass, there is a symbol of a plane, not of a bus, of an airplane. Isn't that false advertising, Dan?

I have an exact. Did you see what it was written on the door? It literally says operated by landline.

I know. I know. I know. That's the new service. It's called... And it says American Airlines. Jess, here's the thing. Why was I seemingly the only one confused when I was walking onto the shuttle bus. Everyone is going to their assigned seats, and I'm literally saying, who the hell cares about an assigned seat? We're taking a shuttle. It's going to be 30 seconds to our plane. I was the only one who apparently had no idea.

I'm sorry. This is genuinely one of the funniest travel stories that I've ever heard. I kept waiting for it to be like, Oh, and then we went to the plane, and it was a small plane. But no, you went all the way to South Bend Airport. I think it's so funny. It's probably one of the least efficient ways to get to South Bend.

But it certainly is if they don't take you to a bus station, and for some reason, they then take you again to another airline gate in the bus.

I mean, I guess so you can to rent a car. I read about this, and they're doing this at a few smaller regional airports now, including there's an O'Hare connection that goes from O'Hare to Rockford, which is a really big city outside of Chicago and Illinois. If you're flying to Philadelphia, they'll take you to smaller cities inside Pennsylvania. I understand the gist of it. It makes sense if you don't want to rent your own car at O'Hare and drive yourself there, or if you don't want to, I guess, just get on another plane because flight from O'Hare to South Bend is around 25 minutes.

No, I do. I want to get on another plane. I really do.

It's surprising, folks.

It's amazing.

Dan, here's my boarding pass. I still have it. Chicago, South Bend. Is that a symbol of an airplane or a bus? Put it on the pole?

I don't know if Dan's the That's what I'm trying to say.

At Levitard Show, because I don't know the difference between an airplane and a bus. At Levitard Show, put it on the poll. Have you ever bought a flight and ended up on a bus?

Dan's like, This is not a first-class ticket. I cannot read this. I That's not where you were going, Chris.

The only way your story could have been funny is if the guy next to you was selling shower curtain rings.

The problem, or one of the problems with Zazlo's story is that is a first-class flight. He is a flight. You just can't end up on a bus when you've got a first-class flight. That doesn't make any sense.

There was no in-flight service either. There was no... No pretzels, nothing. They used to call them stewardess. What is it now?

Attendant. Flight attendant.

Yeah, flight attendant. Did your tray have to be in the air?

They still love money, though.

Was Ralph Cramdon driving the bus?

Reference? I got it.

I mean, that bus driver- It's not online.

They have WiFi and outlets.

That's a Honeymooners reference.

That bus driver.

No, that's not a... No. Just because you don't get the reference doesn't mean it's a bad... I got it.

But it's 1950s Bus driver on television, Jackie Gleason joke.

It was rebooted with Cedric the Entertainment in 2005.

Ralph Cramdon, not Jackie Gleason.

He's right.

He's not right. I lost. Yeah, Jackie Gleason- Ralph Cramdon was the bus driver. We played Ralph Cramdon in The Honeymooners, a television show that ran from when to when, so that we can just have live back in my days with him talking about the origins of television.

Dan, I'm not sure you're familiar with how acting works. See, the actor isn't actually a bus driver. He's portraying a character who is the bus driver. Ralph Cramdon is the answer there. Jackie Gleason was just a guy who worked there.

Originally, it era from '55 to '56.

Well, originally, but it went into the '60s.

Syndication.

Jessica, college football, and All things college football are something that it's an area of expertise for you. But I wanted to talk about what happened with Russell Wilson and Sean Payton before we get into the meat of the college football talk. It hasn't been often that Russell Wilson called someone classless in public. I think a lot of people sided with Russell Wilson on this one. Rare win for Russell Wilson publicly.

Oh, absolutely. Ever since that stupid Netflix movie with Kevin James as Sean Payton, Dan, I've been like, How are we just brushing past this whole... What? I mean, it was a ridiculous movie.

Of course it was ridiculous. I said, What are we doing?

Okay, I'm glad we're in agreement. I mean, it's just absurd for Sean Payton to take shots at Russell Wilson, who's like, No one's favorite quarterback at this point, but absolutely justified in going after him on Twitter. And the Let's ride at the end was a perfect comedic chef's kiss of a retort from Russ. So yeah, I'm team Russell Wilson. That was just mean. What's the point of that?

I happened to have heard from a singular person and not verified with someone else that Russell Wilson bought a premium luxury box for that game, thinking that it was going to be his triumphant return to beat Sean Payton. And then he got bench and couldn't flip the luxury box.

John Elway told you that?

What is that? I happened to have heard.

I happened to have heard a little piece of gossip that I wasn't able to verify with multiple sources from a singular person. But I do trust this source that told me Russell Wilson an entire box, and then after being benched, tried to sell the box and found no takers.

I don't trust this source.

Wow. Wow. Happened to know is two sources, happened to have heard from a single source is a It's a diluted form of reporting.

That's why it doesn't have imaging.

Untrustworthy source, I would say.

The Notre Dame, USA game that you were at, Jessica, you felt... You were not at it? Oh, I'm sorry.

No, I was in New York watching it, just biting my nails the whole time. It was terrifying, but it was so fun. Exhilarating, I would say.

And your thoughts now on Notre Dame's remaining schedule?

I think that they're going to be favored by a lot of points in all the remaining games. And so If they lose a game, it would be a tremendous disappointment. And if they win out, they will probably be in the college football playoff, even though Miami not holding up their end of the bargain last weekend, Dan. But we'll see That's how Miami's end of their season shakes out, too, because they don't have that many more difficult games on their schedule either.

Yeah, you can't take those for granted in today's college football era to say, Well, they're going to be a big favorite for all of them. In fact, Marcus Freeman has lost plenty of big games as a big time favorite, but that was the toughest schedule.

He's lost more of those games than he has the ranked games, I would say. But to be fair, a couple of them, the Marshall game and the NIU game were both season home openers early in the season. These teams under him have tended to get throughout the year. I think the only issue now is once you get into November, now you have way more players getting hurt. But that's across all of college football.

It doesn't matter, though, what Miami does. Yeah, Miami lost, so maybe the win or the loss to Miami doesn't mean as much for Notre Dame. But Notre Dame just wins the rest of their games they're in. If they lose a game, then they're out. It doesn't really matter.

As Jess highlighted, they lost to NIU. If Miami loses the rest of their games, it won't necessarily stack up to even that loss. It didn't end up mattering because Notre Dame went all the way to the college football playoff final.

Where are you, Jessica, on Mike's contention that Notre Dame fans don't like hearing very much that the Notre Dame job might be a stepping stone job for Marcus Freeman?

Well, that's how they're processing it. I'm not applying that.

I don't think that's true.

I'm not applying that, even though it happened with Brian Kelly, where he left them for an SEC. I understand why fan bases get bothered, especially a program so tradition-rich like Notre Dame and a team that literally just competed for a national title. I find flattering that the NFL is interested in Marcus Freeman, that the Florida Gators and Penn State, two big programs. Our dream number one candidate is Marcus Freeman. What Diana said is right, by the way, when we had Diana earlier, Jess, and we asked her specifically about the Chicago Bear's interest, is Marcus Freeman's a bit different than all these other coaches that are a little dirtier when it comes to these things. He is about his team when he is with his team. If they are in it, and the problem last year with the bears was, Marcus Freeman kept winning in the College of playoff, and he was like, Keep that away. It does, although, work in line with what I'm hearing that if Notre Dame does lose another game this season, if that happens to happen, then it's a green light for his agents to take some of these conversations a little bit more seriously.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I'm not plugged into that world. A lot of it is also posturing to get raises. I mean, I hope he doesn't leave Notre Dame, but we'll see. I don't know what you want me to say.

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Don Lebatard. Jess, you can't talk about double-digit national titles when every single of you winning the national title. Sounds like this. Oh, there's Chubby Jacka running down the sideline. If the audio- That's not true. Yeah. And there's a World War II veteran pitching into another white guy, and he avoids another white guy. Oh, my God. Notre Dame, the Fighting Irish, have done it again for the eighth time ever paying white people.

Chubby Checker.

I'm sorry. He's black. He's black, and I was really going, What's a white name? Chubby Checker. I think I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm improv in here. It's a pretty cool rib. I don't know why you correctly.

I'm a white Chubby Chaka running down the sideline.

He spells it differently. All right. His name is Chubby. Maybe you didn't hear me correctly. His name is Chubby Chaka. It's an S at the end.

I feel like that should be the largest of five.

Chubby Chaka. It sounds like a college football name.

This is the Dan Levatard show with the Stukats.

I have a question for you. I asked this earlier, no one on the show could to answer me, if Notre Dame needs to pony up extra money to keep Marcus Freeman, can they call the Pope and the Vatican and say, Open up the coffers?

Well, I think he went to Vilanova, so I'm not sure. There's different Catholic orders running both schools, so I would say it's a maybe. But if that's something that they have to do, maybe Pope Leo is open to it.

He's a Chicago guy, isn't he?

It does lead to a legitimate question, which is Brian Kelly presumably left for a couple of different reasons, but also he did get a raise in leaving to LSU, and money could have been one of the answers as to why on Earth would he leave Notre Dame when he had so much success there.

I think that is the main reason why he left. I think Notre Dame did not want to pay Brian Kelly. This is just me guessing. I'm not reporting this. I think that Notre Dame had a long and very successful relationship with Brian Kelly that came with a lot of things that... Some tough losing seasons, embarrassing things, him screaming on the sidelines, him not ever getting the team to the place where they could beat in Alabama or Georgia. Obviously, it's a different era of college football now. And I think Marcus Freeman coming in when he did is much better positioned to beat those teams. I think there's way more parody in college football now. I think a lot of the advanced analytics bear that out. And I would say, most importantly, the school is more aligned with athletics now than they were when Brian Kelly was the coach. I think they're more committed to actually helping the football team do things to win games without obviously sacrificing their identity, et cetera, et cetera. That's what Notre Dame would tell you. But I think that it's hard to compare apples to apples because I have seen a much bigger commitment from the school with Marcus Freeman and trying to make him successful than they ever were with Brian Kelly.

I guess the really efficient question for me is, if it gets to the point where schools are offering and think they have a legitimate shot at getting Marcus Freeman for $15 million, will will Notre Dame climb up to that salary, make him the highest paid coach in the sport to keep him?

And if they call the Pope, will he open the coffers?

I don't know. Who knows? I don't know. Maybe, yes. They signed him to a huge extension last year. Clearly, you don't want to see him go. Oh, my God. Who knows? If you were asking me to speculate on Notre Dame's financial acumen in this situation, I think they have the money to do that. Obviously, it doesn't mean they have the appetite to pay someone that much money. I think a lot of these college coaching contracts are a little bit absurd if you're talking about coaches getting $100 million buyouts to stick around in 10 years, and we have absolutely no idea what college football is going to look like in 10 years. But also, Marcus Freeman's current contract is not public. Speculated that he's paid amongst the three highest paid coaches in college football. I don't know. We'll have to wait and see.

Speaking of money, what did you make of the holiday Bowl, exploring the idea of a college football Bowl Bowl game in Saudi Arabia. Come on.

Oh, man. This was one of those things that came out of some of the public records requests, I believe, from North Carolina. And from my reading on the topic, the holiday Bowl has a bit of a financial strain because of the two games being canceled in 2020 and 2021 because of COVID. So they are looking to recoup some of that and be a bowl that can offer a higher payout to teams and would to get more money if they did play in Saudi Arabia. It sounds like the ACC pretty quickly shut it down, but they were exploring that. The other part of it that's funny is that the holiday bowl gets money from the city of San Diego because it has an obvious big economic impact on the city when they host the bowl game. And so if that were to be the case, if they were to move the game, they would have to give that money back, of course. It's not really that much money in the grand scheme of things, but it is to demonstrate the financial situation of a lot of these bowl games that have become a lot less prestigious now that there's 12 teams in the payoff.

And the holiday bowl used to be a game that was two of the better bowl eligible teams would play and had a lot of good ratings in that bowl game. It was one of the higher tier, premium tier bowls. Really? Yeah. Yes, Greg. Really.

I don't remember that.

I mean, it's not like... Yeah, the one in San Diego.

It's the Arbor Day of Holidays.

It's not a New York 6 Bowl, obviously, but it's also not like the Bahamas Bowl or one of these other smaller team bowls. It'd usually be, I think, Pac-12 and ACC are the two teams in the holiday Bowl. Anyways, I digress. I think the point is that this demonstrates the financial strain on a lot of these bowls in the 12-team playoff era. And I never, ever want to see these bowl games go away. I would be devastated if we didn't have a full bowl slate in the postseason. But I understand that things are different now. Things are changing pretty rapidly.

Texas Texas Tech has a ridiculous controversy going on. They have the tortilla throw, which is adorable. We celebrated earlier this year with the Hamptons Farm nuttiest fan. But apparently the Big 12 wants them to stop. They're going to threaten penalties. Texas Tech having one of their best seasons in a long time. Their head Coach, we're about to play this sound, gave a way too serious press conference about tortillas.

This is Kirby Holcutt, their AD.

The stakes are too high, and we need to help not risk penalizing our team again for throwing tortillas.

Simply, let's not do it.

The situation is on me.

I leaned into this of throwing tortillas at the beginning of the football season. Now, I must ask everyone to stop, and I must ask our staff to enforce it on game days.

I don't know why I think that's funny.

Why is his hair so dark?

How did he lean into it? What did he do?

Well, he's reading also.

I think earlier in the air, he was pushing back on the Big 12. How could he have the interaction with the coach where he's like, What do you want me to do?

That was the coach. He was the only I think he was the only Big 12 athletic director to vote no on penalizing the tortilla tossing in the offseason, which he did as a stand. I want to protect this tradition. But yeah, now that the Big 12 decided there's going to be 15-yard penalty to use if you throw stuff on the field, the situation has continuously escalated since the Kansas game a couple of weeks ago, which we talked about last week. There was an alleged pocket knife being thrown, which now very clearly was not thrown by fans. They believe that it was dropped by a a Kansas coach on the sideline. But still, the fines have continued to escalate, and so now the athletic director is like, No one can do this anymore. I imagine there will be more tortillas than ever thrown this upcoming weekend. But I also thought it was funny because Chris, to your point about the seriousness of it, I read in the athletic that they're offering to let people discard their tortillas at the game by giving them to officials You can dispose of them. So it's like, I guess you smuggle the tortilla in your pants.

That's what people do. And then you get there and you have second thoughts and you're like, Yeah, I shouldn't do this. I don't want to get ejected or banned from athletic department events. I'm going to take the tortilla out of my pants and hand it to an usher. Nice and warm. The visual of that is very absurd to me.

I do love a microwave tortilla.

I do love a microphone cough.

Cody has gotten away from the cough button. The cough He got him so much that he let it-Let me back up.

We didn't hear it. Is that a tortilla in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? What a waste of food, by the way.

What a waste of food. Is that a tortilla in your pocket or are you not happy to see me?

That's a good point by Jeff.

A soggy, damp tortilla in your fondant. That's wide and flat.

If you go for that to the food bank. Food bank goes, No, thanks. We're not that hungry.

Is there a food that you'd prefer to see thrown at stadiums?

I don't like the idea of wasting food like that. People are starving all over my neighborhood. I would give the food to the- All of your neighborhood. The stray cats in my neighborhood.

What?

Yeah, we have stray cats problem in our neighborhood.

Some lady in my dad's neighborhood collected all the stray cats and had them fixed.

Yeah, against their will. Against their will. You do it for the species.

Do you think the Are they or the neuter is sometimes with the will of the animal?

Oh, yeah. Well, you ask the animal, and if they don't answer you, you go ahead. And they say, Mew.

If they say, No. Remember the no comment that the lion gave us earlier when we were talking about it.

Thank you very much. By the way, a quick comment. I respect Amin trying to get a serious answer about the Vatican contributing to NIL and buyouts and stuff like that. If Notre Dame has an opening, why doesn't the Pope coach Notre Dame? Because I picture him on the sideline in full regalia with the big pointed hat, the whole bit. It would be a great draw, great television draw. Fans would love it. What's he doing in the Vatican?

Now you're asking the right questions.

I don't think the Pope works real hard. I think he's got time to coach a football team.

What's in the coffers?

Greg, imagine the endowment growth. If the Pope was the head coach, the boosters would come out of the woodwork.

Every Catholic in the world.

I don't think you guys really are that plugged into the ongoing, I don't want to use the word schism here, but the ongoing disagreements that a lot of Catholics have over the last two popes. It may be very alienating. The Pope should, I don't want to get into too much here about- Go on.

You've already said too much. I would say, as For the Catholics, you're supposed to be like, Yes, what the Pope says, that is what we believe to be true.

A lot of Catholics lately have been like, Well, the Pope's being a libs, so we don't like him, actually. The whole thing about feeding the poor, we believe to be optional. I don't know. Maybe you guys should just not be Catholic anymore because when I grew up, the reason that I have Catholic guilt is because of the things that I was taught about, Catholic social teaching and helping people in need, treating your neighbor as thyself. But those things don't seem to be important to a lot of right now. That would be quite controversial.

Jessica, I care about you. You're talking right now like a character in a Dan Brown book who's going to get killed very soon.

Wait, I mean, oh, my God. This Louver heist of the jewels, did you not think immediately of the Da Vinci Code? Of course. It was so good.

The first thing I thought about was Rudy Gobert not being able to guard the high pick and roll. But then I thought about Dan Brown, and I realized that it wasn't a Dan Brown story because there wasn't enough It has misogyny in it.

Oh, that's such a good point. You're right.

Surely you and Meen have connected over Adam McKay's project, The Chair Company, right?

We have, Dan, and don't call me Shirley.

Meen, did you watch episode 2?

I am all the way caught off.

That was good.

So Leslie Nielson doesn't... It's okay? Is that what it is? It was good.

I love the old references that I actually understand. The thing about Tim Robinson I think you should leave in Detroiters, is I feel like I can't recommend them to everybody. I feel like I have to know you well enough to know if you're going to really think it's funny or not. I feel that way about the chair company. I've been very reserved in recommending it to people because I know that there's a lot of people that will watch that show and say, This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. But I'm sitting there watching it, and I am laughing so hard at it. I think it is so funny. It is a Tim Robinson scripted series on HBO. Hbo Max, or I think we call it... Do we call it HBO? I don't know. It's HBO Max. Hbo Max. Okay, cool. It's a mystery, but it's also a comedy. There's perfect amounts of goof and also intrigue in it. Tim Robinson playing the same character he always plays, but just, I think, with more depth than in some of his skits.

Oh, Jessica, the interesting thing about this, as opposed to his prior shows, is it's shot like a thriller suspense show. I'm not just talking about- It's not like a sitcom. It's not a sitcom. It's down to the music, down to the camera angles and the shots. It's all shot like a who done it, basically. If you're not paying attention or if you didn't know anything about him, you go in, you're like, Why is this such a silly... Why are they acting silly? Am I supposed to laugh here or not? But if you know, Tim Robinson is hilarious, and it's very funny. The other funny thing is, I thought the name The Chair Company, was going to be like an analogy to something or a metaphor. It turns It's hard to be very literally about a chair company. Not the one that he works at. He makes malls, which, by the way, Jessica, when's the last time you were at a mall?

It's been a really long time since I've been in a mall.

I think you've been in a mall. You just probably didn't realize it.

Mallcore.

I I don't think I've been in a mall.

No, you've been in a mall. You just didn't realize it, probably. That's because they don't look like malls anymore.

Am I in a mall right now?

You're in a mall right now.

The restaurant is a mall. Zaz was creeped out by Friendship, the Tim Robinson movie. He's made anxious by the awkward comedy. Really, it's just Robinson and Nathan Fielder who are doing this incredibly awkward comedy.

I watched Friendship on my plane ride to Europe, what, a week and a half ago. Five minutes in, I'd never seen any of Tim Robinson's stuff, but I know the shtick, and it is my humor. But five minutes into the movie, I didn't know if I was going to be able to get through it because I get very bad second-hand embarrassment. There were times in that movie, Friendship, where I thought I was going to have to hit the pause button and just go walk up and down the aisle and cool off.

Man, I got to see that with my good friend Michael Ryan right here who got me advanced screening passes to it. Mike, It was such a great environment to watch with people. I don't know. It's a good movie. If you had watched it with people as opposed to buy yourself on the flight.

Maybe that's why... Because I watched it alone in my living room, and I was just like, Okay, I know what they're trying to do here.

No, I enjoyed the movie. It's just I was very uncomfortable.

Sharing in the awkwardness with others, though, is an experience, which is why we need to bring our rated comedies back check.

Speaking of awkwardness, I do have an awkward confession I need to make to Jessica. Jessica, we've been texting for a couple of months now. We talked about Lethal Weapon. We talked about, Oh, you're excited about this show? I'm like, Oh, I love it. Up until this morning, I had no idea that that was you and you had changed your number.

I texted you over the summer and I was like, This is my new number.

I kept looking for context clues, and I couldn't find I was like, Okay, I'm just going to keep having this conversation as if I know who I'm talking to.

What gave it away this morning?

Amine was asking me, Look, I keep getting a message from this number, and I have no idea. I'm like, Read me the number. Maybe I have them in my... Go in my contact list. Go ahead, read it. What is it, Mike? Then he started rattling it off. I'm like, This has been Jess the whole time, and he had no idea. He thought you were pissed off at him.

That's the other thing. I've been texting you on your old number and all. Oh, my God. They're green bubbles. I think she's blocked me.

Jesus. I mean, First of all, I wanted to know what gave it away. Was it when I was like, Hey, Hard Rock's not even that awesome? They were just like...

That narrowed it down. I was like, Okay, hold on now. Farts?

Hold on. On Hard Rock Stadium, like, Oh, it's a sports mecca. It's in the middle of nowhere.

It is a dump.

Easy South Bend.

They had plastic in the nachos that we got at the Orange Bowl.

There's plastic everywhere.

There's plastic in people's bowls. Exactly right.

No, those are microplastic. This was a macroplastic. This is the plastic you have to get removed by a because it's lodged into your core.

Probably better, right, than the micro because you can see it.

That's why I lost six dollars on the valuation.

No extra charge.

I don't think scientists are sure what the microplastics are doing yet. I would still probably prefer the micro.

I can guarantee they're not good because they're not supposed to be there.

I can guarantee that.

Says who? Says me.

I don't know about that. I can guarantee microplastics in my balls, bad.

I think they're great.

Ivermectin.

Can we do Tony's top five health-related?

We could. It'd be a great list.

Check out her weekly Notre Dame podcast.

Democratic shutdown stops. Finally, the guy.

The ECHO with Mike Golick Jr. Again, Weekly Notre Dame podcast. Jessica, thank you. Bye.

Dan Levatard.

I heard that as a woman faking pain I didn't think that sounded real. I really didn't.

It was not fake. It was in no way fake.

You can spot a woman faking it. Stugatz.

Yes, I can, Jess. Expert. I've been married 40 years.

This is the Dan Levatard show with the Stugatz.

I wanted to get to the LeBron story that took us a half hour to get to the LeBron story where Zaz thinks LeBron's a liar after being called a liar by Jessica. I guess Jessica has now walked that back. You have proven to her because you're credible and a journalist and a lawyer and a judge. And a race war expert. You have once again proven to be someone who is credible. Your story was true. Are you reporting something on LeBron, or do you have an opinion about LeBron lying?

I have an opinion. I have an opinion which I think is correct. All right, Dan, he's in world-class shape, this guy. All right? He spends millions of dollars on his body every year on fitness. He spends millions of dollars. He doesn't have an injury keeping him out of game until mid-November, apparently, which then they're going to reevaluate. He has an injury that your grandmother has. I don't care that he's 41 years old, 42 years. World class shape.

Sciatica stinks. I'm sure it does.

When you're a grandma. There is no way. This is straight out of the LeBron playbook is what this is. Last night, the Lakers losing, even though Luka looked awesome.

By the way, MVP season.

Right now, Luka has got to be at the front of the MVP conversation. Okay, right now. It's his to lose. Yeah, that's right. Right now, Luca, he's at the top of the MVP conversation. Lebron, this is straight out his playbook. He loves that loss last night. Lebron would love more losses because then, oh, look who you need to return and save the day.

What are you alleging here? Are you alleging he's withholding services?

Yeah, I'm alleging super passive, aggressive behavior. Hold on. That's right.

Time to throw away all journalistic credibility and get reckless. Here is something we like to call reckless speculation.

You're good.

Oh, you don't want me. You're not centering the team around me anymore. I'm not the number one guy. You don't want to give me a multi-year deal? Okay, let's see what we look like when I have to be reevaluated a month and a half into the season with an injury that your grandmother has. Get out of here. It's straight out the LeBron James playbook.

I'm not going to go as far as to say he's faking the injury. As someone who's dealt with back issues for years, it happens. It doesn't matter how much you do. Not like I do a lot, but still. But I will agree with you on this. Inside, he's not going to admit it, but inside, he's like, yes.

Definitely. Crumble without me. Definitely.

Didn't you have gout?

Yeah. I'm not in world-class shape.

That's an old person.

That's an old person.

I'm not LeBron.

We know this.

You have the same hairline. I don't spend millions of dollars on my body every year. He has sciatica, and he's going to be reevaluated in a month?

Yeah, that's weird. You'd think that, number one, if you were younger, he probably wouldn't have it, but you'd probably be more incentivized to play. This could also be a low-key thing that he gets on the same page with the front office. Hey, let's wait and see. This is player maintenance a little bit, potentially, no?

Hold on, I just remembered something. So Steve Nash had sciatica. That was why Steve Nash, when he'd be on the bench, he'd be lying on his back. It seems like LeBron sitting on the bench, probably not a good thing for a sciatica. Two and a half hours just sitting there?

There's nothing wrong with him.

Wait a minute. The reason, actually, that I would say that that is imprudent, it's not even the unethical idea that he would be faking injury in order to just lie and collect money and load manage. The reason that it's not wise is Luke take that team and go 17 for 27 without him out there for the rest of the season. Not having to share usage rate with LeBron James is the best Luca that there is. If he doesn't have to share the ball with anybody, he will go 17 for 27 in every game he plays the rest of the season.

But they need to win. If they're losing, who cares?

By the way, how long before they go full metal jacket on DeAndre Ayton? Yeah. They're putting bars of soap and socks.

He stinks.

I was like, Oh. Is it day one?

Dan, that team minus LeBron, that team's not that good.

Playing team. You want to call LeBron a liar. The New York Post had an article that was interesting that might lend credence to this. There was a Laker group chat that had all the Lakers players in it. Anthony Davis was on that team. Anthony Davis was traded from that team and announced it to the group chat. Now, what we know about this trade, what we assume is that LeBron knew this was coming.

Do you have Anthony Davis's actual words from the group chat?

Yeah, in the group chat. Well, I'm not going to say all the words. Did these guys just trade me? You said these guys? You didn't say guys. And LeBron, WTF.

Okay.

After Anthony Davis left the group chat.

Caught him off guard.

Wait, he said that after he left the chat?

The way that I understood the article was, did these guys just trade me? Anthony Davis leaves group chat. Lebron James, WTF in front of all his teammates.

It's got to be hard to be a phony all the time. It does. It has to be hard.

Greg?

What would be LeBron's incentive for faking an injury? So late in his career- Getting paid for not working. Where you have to figure every game he plays is a gift, why would he fake an injury?

Give me more money. Give me a multi-year contract.

He doesn't view it the same way Joe Flacko does.

You think my time's up right now? All right, let's see how you do without me.

That's the incentive. Getting paid the same amount of money to not play and prove a point.

Well, I don't even think it's to not I think it's to prove the point. It's about, you need me. Oh, you don't think you need me? Watch this.

I'm not the number one option anymore. I'm not the guy you should come to with all the decision-making questions. Okay, let's see how you do without me.

But take into account what we just said about how we assumed LeBron James was behind the scenes understanding that Rich Paul's client, Anthony Davis, was going to get moved. That establishes some buy-in that we're getting away from Anthony Davis and we're bringing in Luca. Now, I'm not putting it past LeBron to be all about that move. Then once it to use it as a point of resentment for the Lakers. Is that what we're alleging? Because they don't mesh together, him behind the scenes, forcing Anthony Davis out and bringing Luca in to help him win a championship, and then being upset when Luca arrives to the team, being a younger superstar, being the very clear and obvious face of the franchise going forward. How does this mesh?

Seems very familiar to the story from your own Whitesman of him being very pro-Russell Westbrook out loud and behind the scenes, getting like, Get him out of here. Get me Curry Irving.

You saw what I was doing. I was asking the question for the audience, but I know what he's doing. He's playing.

The thing that we're not talking about from last night, in talking about everything from basketball last night, is that it is in game one interesting to watch Golden State when Jimmy Butler wants to go get 16 free throws, makes all 16 free throws, says after the game that he's bet Steph Curry, that he's going to shoot better from the line this year than Steph Curry. Why are you waving him off?

Please, game one. Talk about sciatic. That guy backs out in two weeks.

Right now, though, Jimmy Butler's in the MVP conversation.

Not as high as Luca, though. Don't even dare. You agree or you don't agree?

I don't agree. He's got to be in the conversation right now. He's in the conversation.

He's not number one, though. Shangoon.

Shangoon.

Shangoon ahead of Jimmy Butler. The Gooner. The Gooner. I'm back in basketball this season. He is an all-star in the making. That guy is good.

That guy's great. Mvp race right now, tight.

You know about that Shauna? Not that tight.

The Rockets are getting rewarded for The team needs a point guard. The Rockets, they have so many young players from just dumping the game. Everybody's 611.

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