Summer is pretty much my favorite time to be a sports fan. The biggest soccer tournament of the summer just wrapped up. Baseball's on every night. Racing never takes a weekend off. And my calendar basically revolves around first pitches, green flags, and whatever game everybody's texting about. I realized I'm the MVP of my group. I'm always the friend that says, "Hey, I've got it. I've got a place. I've got some ice cold Miller Lite. I got the TV. I got a big comfy blue leather couch. Come on over." That's the behavior of a Miller Time MVP. I almost never watch the big ones alone. I'd much rather be with my friends. And if I am alone, we're texting, we're sipping on our Miller Lites, toasting the day, toasting the big games. For me, Miller Lite is just a part of a big game routine. It's brewed for taste with simple ingredients, clean, refreshing, and easy to drink, especially in the Miami heat. It's a true American pilsner and the original light beer since 1975. An all-American summer starts with an all-American beer, Miller Lite. 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.
Die, we're all gonna die.
No one gets out alive. We're all gonna die.
We're gonna die. There's a parasite in my salad. Diarrhea up to my eyes.
Let's turn on the news and find out how we're gonna die. The Red Sox beat the Orioles last night. They came back to beat the Orioles. The Yankees, I don't know if you have seen, uh, what's happening with Aaron Judge, but they say as part of his rehab He can't use any of his upper body just as part of how he's rehabbing. There's nothing that he can do with his upper body as the Yankees are trying to hold off the Red Sox that have now— I think they're 21-2 in the last 3 weeks. They won 13 or 14, 14 in a row and swamped the Rays in a 4-game series who have been ahead of them all season. I don't even know what an injury has to be for that. I thought he was going to be back already. And I don't know how it is he gets back when part of his rehab over the second half of the season is he can't use the upper half of his body. What's he going to do, become a soccer player?
He's older.
The whole thing is so weird because everyone anticipated that he would be back sooner, and now it just seems like they're drifting without him. And the American League is terrible. Like, the Rays are good, but even they've played okay over the last month or so. The American League is not good. This was a year that the Yankees theoretically could coast to the World Series, and without Aaron Judge, they're average at best as a team.
Yeah, I see that the Pirates are hitting home runs all over the place, but—
Damaschek's talking so much shit.
Yeah, they— but the Yankees though are wounded and hurting, and their best player who's super important is older than Jonas Valanciunas.
I mean, he's an older guy. This is how it happens at this age. Valanciunas has been in the league for 25 years. He's older than Jonas Valanciunas.
Some people are sending me, because obviously the media people in my life are noticing what is happening to the industry when Ryan Clark is being fired during a show yesterday. NFL Live won a couple of sports Emmys while Ryan Clark was there. He does the show with Orlovsky, Marcus Spears, and Mina and Laura Rutledge. And some people are going through the voyeuristic macabre joy of watching how Mina appeared to be rattled in the segment after what happened. They're going through, uh, the footage and noticing that Mina looked rattled because it's, it's, it's not unlike if we're out somewhere, our group, and all of a sudden I see Tony taken off by a shark. Like, we're just sitting there, we're all together, and like, and I'm expected to do the show where we're just hanging out, but a shark emerged from behind you like Samuel Jackson in Deep Blue Sea. You know, big surprise, a shark takes you out. It is— I haven't seen the footage of that, but it is a perilous time. It is a perilous time in media because the great supplier of jobs is under duress. The great supplier of jobs is laying people off, and the entire climate is changing around.
Not the kind of climate we're going to be talking about in 5 minutes with the foremost El Niño expert in the country.
A couple of NFL Network names have also been released: Charles Davis and Tom Pelissero.
As the merger happens between NFL Network and ESPN and it becomes all things football all the time, obviously there are going to be some redundancy of skill sets there when, when all of these things come into play. I guess we'll be talking a little more about this over the next couple of days. I wanted to ask you guys though, 76ers president Mike Gansy had to go to video and apologized to Jesús Lizardo, the pitcher for— the All-Star pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies, because he mentioned that he had a no-hitter and then the no-hitter ended soon thereafter.
Come on, what are we doing? Really? We're doing this bullshit with mentioning the no-hitter and then, and then the no-hitter gets broken up and all it's his fault?
Well, let's see, do we have the audio of him ruining the no-hitter allegedly?
Sixers new president of basketball operations Mike Ganzey and head coach Nick Nurse down here as we go to the top half of the 5th inning. Fellas, thanks for joining us. Mike, welcome to Philadelphia.
Thank you.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, how's everything going? Your first couple of days?
Good, good.
Yeah, glad we're out to an 8-0 start right here.
Yeah, we are.
First game, man.
No hitters still intact.
Oh boy. Yeah, Lozardo's been a—
uh-oh.
He almost said it.
All right, Nick, what's the equivalent of that when it comes to basketball?
Uh, I don't know. I think it's, uh, You know, you say, "Don't shoot!" and it goes in.
Oh, that's so great.
Top of the 5th, they weren't even halfway through the game. Wasn't even halfway through the game. And by the way, the worst look here for Gansey is saying it's 8-0. Come on. You can't say it's 8-0. What kind of talk is that in sports?
8-0?
8-nil?
8-0? Come on.
Top of the 5th, I think, is okay. I think most people listening to this would say it's okay to mention that someone has a no-hitter in the top of the 5th. I don't think that once you get into the 7th, 8th, and 9th— uh, baseball players are very superstitious about this. Baseball players would tell you that you do not do that. Uh, in fact, I'm gonna find very few who wouldn't say that. And obviously I think it's silly, the idea that the 76ers president would have any impact on whether or not a ball is hit there.
I—
are you a superstitious person?
No.
No, stupid.
Do you understand superstition in sports? Because Jeremy will tell you, around the Marlins and around baseball players, like, all of them think that you don't mention this stuff. I saw Paul Skeens was quoted as saying you absolutely do not mention.
So you think, you think when, when a pitcher has a no-hitter, okay, and a pitcher ends up completing that no-hitter, you're telling me no one in the ballpark once uttered the word he's got a no-hitter?
It's butterfly effect.
No one in the ballpark and no one watching the game either uttered for a moment, said pitcher currently has no hitter.
Maybe they did, but you don't want to be the one that throws it off.
Okay, but you can't mention it on a public platform.
That's a totally different thing. You're sitting with your boy and you're having a conversation. You're like, hey, I noticed something on the scoreboard. That's a different thing than the announcer or someone in the booth saying, hey, there is currently a no hitter going. And there are some announcers—
The announcer's job is to tell the listener or viewer what is happening in the game.
And maybe you tell them, check out the scoreboard, check out the box score.
Do you wear lucky shirts or sit on your uncomfortable couch in a certain place when your team is— you don't do any of that stuff? Because I would think that you would be somebody who wears lucky shirts and does that stuff.
No, when I was younger, I never— lucky shirts, but like sitting in certain places, I used to partake in that bullshit when I was younger, but then I stopped being stupid.
No, I'm still this way. I've told this story before, but when the Heat were coming back from down 16 against the Bucks in 2023, I was use— I was cutting clips for social media for the network at the time, and I had brought my computer because I had to use the bathroom. I had brought my computer in there with me because I couldn't miss any of the action, and the Heat started coming back. And so I just stayed in the bathroom for the entire fourth quarter until they came back and won because I was doing my part. It's the butterfly effect. This is no different. We were talking about the things that the Heat had to overcome after LeBron left. Maybe if LeBron stays, Chris Bosh never gets blood clots.
You came back from vacation early to help the Panthers win a championship.
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Dan Levitar! Ahoy, it's Captain Slappy!
Jonathan Sasslow!
Is this Chum Bucket?
This is the Dan Levitar Show!
Jeff Paradelli is with us, and he is from Tampa Bay. He's the chief meteorologist and climate specialist, and he is one of the few people I hear anywhere in the media talking about El Niño, Super El Niño, and really unprecedented times. So thank you for joining us, Jeff. Before we Let's get started here.
Glad to be here.
Before you explain— I'm glad you're still here. I don't know for how much longer because it seems like all of us are going to perish soon. Explain to me—
Not an alarmist.
Why—
No, we have 3 minutes left, so we gotta do this fast.
Why are more people not talking about what seems to be possible extinction-level events that are approaching because climate scientists are telling us We've never seen what is headed this way.
I think a lot of it's ideological. I mean, it's a lot bigger than that, but people have chosen a team. I'm either on this team, no climate change, or this team, crazy climate change. Also, I think people have a hard time connecting with stuff that seems like it's somewhat in the distant future. It's happening right now. It's escalating. But in terms of being an extinction-level event, it's a long time out, and I'm not sure we'll ever get there. I hope. If we can get a hold of this. But we have to get a hold of it before it's too late because we're going to start passing tipping points in the next couple of decades. And essentially there are points of no return. And then after that, things really get worse fast.
Well, what is El Niño? Explain it to people, not in the, in the weeds in terms of the water warming, but what's coming this way? What's coming this way in the near future, not in the distant future?
Just so we know, El Niño is a natural phenomenon, but it very well could be supercharged by climate change. But El Niño happens every few years. This is going to be the strongest El Niño ever. What it What that means are a couple of things. First of all, for the summertime, we're going to see less hurricanes and less major hurricanes. It should be one of the quietest hurricane seasons we've seen in a while. But the problem is, is switch forward to the wintertime, late fall and winter, and all of a sudden we get an invigorated tropical subtropical jet stream because of all the heat in the Pacific gets into the atmosphere, supercharges the subtropical jet and causes a lot of severe weather and a lot of rain as we get to the late part of fall. And into the wintertime and the worst tornado outbreak in Florida history. I was on air during 1998 in central Florida during it, live on the air. It was the worst tornado outbreak we've ever had, and that was during a Super El Niño.
What's happening this winter?
It's going to be very stormy and there's going to be a lot of severe weather and it's going to be mostly in the Southeast and across Florida, maybe not necessarily Miami, more so as you head towards Tampa, Orlando and north of that into places like Atlanta. Charleston, South Carolina, and New Orleans. But along the Gulf Coast, very severe weather.
Are you worried about food prices and food shortages in the long term?
I am. When people ask me what concerns me most when it comes to climate change, it's not the storm, it's not the fire, it's not the heat wave. It's all those things compounding on top of each other at the same simultaneously all over the world, rising sea levels.. And that causes a lot of political destabilization, a lot of supply chain issues where we have, you know, less resources. We're all fighting over those resources. We're all fighting over land. We're fighting over immigration. And that's what I'm most concerned about is everyone is at each other's throats in the future. So again, people don't think about it that way, but that's the main issue I think when it comes to climate change.
How about Florida? What do you see being the practical difficulties headed toward Florida specifically in the next year? Because I do think people get real calm about the idea that this is 10 years away, 20 years away, 30 years away, and 50 years away. What are we talking about in 2027?
Yeah, I mean, that's the real problem with climate change, right? The heat waves will be worse. Uh, one of the problems we have is what's happening in the Florida Keys right now, where basically all the coral are gone. In the 1970s, we had 40% coral cover. Now the coral cover is literally 1% because of what happened in 2023. So we're losing our ecosystems Now, are we gonna see anything that's gonna shock us in 2027? Maybe, maybe not. I mean, I think during the winter, El Niño will cause severe weather, but this is a longer-term thing. And in terms of Florida, we cannot run from the water, right? Well, we can run from the water, but we can't stay still. So eventually over the course of many decades, our shoreline's gonna be eaten away to the point where we can't live where we live right now. So again, but people have a hard time connecting with longer-term things. And you know, to some degree, climate change is that.
When you say 90% of models say this will be a historic event, what does that mean?
Yeah, this is going to be the strongest El Niño ever. I have very little doubt in that. Almost all the models say it will. So basically it means that the water temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific tropical areas are going to be warmer than they've ever been. And not just by a little bit, by a whole lot. We see, we see El Niños every few years, right? It's going to be the strongest ever. So we're going to see unprecedented things happen around the world. We're already seeing that in Europe, and it probably has at least some linkage to climate change. We're going to see a very severe hurricane season in the Pacific. But for us, actually, during the Atlantic hurricane season, it means it'll be quieter. So there's lots of different impacts. I think the biggest impact for Florida and the Southeast US is going to be what happens late fall and winter. We're likely to see a lot of severe weather.
What does that mean? The intensity of it? When you say severe weather, what does that mean?
Tornadoes.
A lot more tornadoes than we would typically see.
And what is going to be—
I think, yeah.
And what does that mean? Like, where— like, I understand that you can't pick exactly where that this is difficult. But for people who haven't experienced tornadoes in my lifetime, Florida tornadoes, that's not a thing. I'm not sitting around fearing tornadoes in Florida.
Kansas?
No, not Kansas. So this would be anywhere from Texas through the Gulf Coast, New Orleans, Pensacola, down to Orlando and Tampa, and maybe even Miami too, and the Southeast around North Carolina and South Carolina. So those areas that don't get usually as many tornadoes as they do in, let's say, Oklahoma or the Mississippi Valley. Everything shifts south and east. And so all of a sudden we end up with much stronger tornadoes and more frequent tornadoes than we otherwise would see. It's not a definite, but it's most likely going to happen just simply because this is an unprecedented El Niño that we're going into this winter.
When I present to you The New York Times headline, Is Climate Change Supercharging El Niño? A Debate Rages. Do you believe that a debate is what should be raging, or do you believe you have facts here?
No, this, this is a debatable topic only because El Niño is a a natural thing. Climate change is an unnatural thing caused by man. But this is going to be the strongest El Niño by far. And so it is likely that all that heat that's been stored up for years and years in the western Pacific, some of that is due to the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases by humans. So I do think likely we will find pretty soon that El Niño is going to be supercharged by climate change. But we need to do more research to be sure. So, yes, I think it's something we should talk about and research for sure.
But are you sure? Where do you stand on the connection between climate change and El Niño's intensity as you continue to say this is going to be off the charts?
I cannot be sure, but I know due to our seasonal models that it's going to be an off-the-charts El Niño. Two separate things, right? I can't be sure that climate change is making it worse, although it probably is. We need to do research on that. But one thing I can say is our seasonal models, which have become really good at forecasting, almost all of them indicate a historical worst El Niño we've ever had. And yes, there's a possibility that some of that is due to excess heat trapped by climate change in the Pacific Ocean.
You say all of this matter-of-factly. You say this rather stoically. Are you scared?
No. And that's the thing about me. I don't really get scared. I'm a scientist. Of course I could be scared. Lightning scares me, I will tell you that. But generally speaking, no, I'm talking about this through the lens of a scientist, someone who I find this very interesting.. But I also find a lot of moral and ethical flaws in the way that we're treating the Earth right now, because it's going to come back to haunt us.
How do you feel about how it's being covered? How do you feel like the nutrients that the public is getting is getting dispensed? Because I believe that this is all being underreported.
There's a lot of disinformation out there, and I think there's a lot of entities that are scared to talk about climate change for political reasons. So I think the amount that we're talking about climate change has never reached the level that it needed to be. And it's actually come down from that over the past couple of years. So we need to be talking about climate change a lot more because this is going to be— it already is becoming a major issue. It's costing us a lot of money. It's causing problems around the world. And it's only going to get worse from here. It's almost like we have to stop it now or it's going to be really bad in the future. So even though we're not in the future yet, if we don't stop it now, it's going to be too late.
And among the things that you've seen over the last 3 or 4 years, everything from Venezuela to earthquakes to New York out of nowhere, everywhere gets flash floods over the weekend. Like, what are— what are the things that you are finding most interesting when you say you're just observing this as an interested scientist?
Things that are most interesting? Yes. I mean, New York keeps flooding. A lot of that's because it's so urban and there's nowhere for the water to go. But they're seeing rain rates— they're their highest rain rates they've ever seen every year. Right. We're seeing a lot of these 100-year, 1,000-year floods or 100 or 1,000-year heat waves. So we're seeing it, you know, in plain sight. And also we're seeing a greater proportion of hurricanes become major hurricanes. In fact, in the Atlantic, a run-of-the-mill hurricane is now twice as likely to become a major Cat 3, Cat 4, Cat 5 than it was just about 40 or 50 years ago. Storms are getting faster, much— excuse me, getting stronger much faster than they used to just a few decades ago.
How much has deregulation from the Trump administration affected climate change?
Well, it wouldn't be affecting it yet, right? But it's definitely affecting our future trajectory. So climate change is the buildup of greenhouse gases. And once they're there, once carbon dioxide is out there, it never does not come out. It's there for thousands of years. So as we start to deregulate and allow more pollution to get into the atmosphere, all we do is we need to be bringing— we need to be bringing our emissions down. But instead, they go in the opposite opposite direction. And unfortunately, it's going to take a lot longer to reel everything back in. We were on a course for correction, and now we're no longer on that course for correction.
Zaz, what are you looking at?
Yo, I'm trying to see when my favorite show 60 Minutes is coming back on air. It's looking like September.
Uh, Jeff, thank you for being on with us. We appreciate your time and appreciate the information, sir. Thank you.
Glad to be here. Thank you.
Dan Levitar.
What is the worst part of the life?
Jonathan Sasslo.
The worst part of the life of what?
This is the Dan Levitar Show.
I've lost everybody here.
I can tell that everyone is here thinking about SummerSlam like this that all of you are here thinking about wrestling and the only thing you care about is whether or not, uh, weather is going to affect your plans.
SummerSlam's indoors.
Seemed like you wanted someone to tell you there was going to be a tornado that hits you here right now. Yeah, you're like, is it closer? No, Tampa, Orlando.
But what about Miami?
You really press them.
I've lived my whole life, I've never seen a tornado.
But where? But where specifically? I'll give you a 3-mile radius, you tell me.
Right, you think I'm rooting for tornadoes?
Yeah, that's how I entered into it. Let me see. Right, Yeah, it was, it was confirmation bias, no doubt. But I was listening to it like, Dan is rooting for the weather.
I don't understand the position that you guys are putting me in.
I didn't, I did not put you— trust me, if I were putting you in a position, that would not be the position I put you in.
Where I live, it is difficult if that floods for me to even leave Miami Beach. Yes, more than all of you.
So you're not too concerned?
More than the rest of you? No, I'm plenty concerned. I— you guys have me rooting for an apocalypse to be on my balcony. That's what you guys have me rooting for.
I don't know what you wanted. Yeah, I don't have you doing that.
There was an earthquake in Cuba.
Yeah, like, there's no fault lines here though.
But what— since when are there earthquakes in Cuba?
The Dayland Station one, downtown Dayland. We got a little earthquake. We can get our— you can get— I know we're not on a fault line, which means we're not going to get the bad ones, but you can— there isn't There isn't such a thing as a place that's not capable of getting an earthquake. A little tremor.
Zazz, how much did you pay for SummerSlam tickets?
I've only bought for night 1 so far. I still need to buy for night 2, but for night 1, I paid, uh, I paid a little less than 5 a pop.
$5?
No, add a couple zeros.
Well, I think they're going for $5 now.
They're not going for $5 right now, but they have, they have marked certain tickets to $25. With the fees, of course, because it's a total racket, ends up being $43. So $43 a ticket. But listen, when your boy goes to see wrestling, he's got to sit ringside. So those $43 seats are not for me.
But, alright, so you got really good tickets for $500.
Yeah.
Ticket— what were those prices for WrestleMania?
It's a great question, actually. The seats that I got for SummerSlam, which is in 2 weeks in Minnesota, those seats for WrestleMania— like, they really have reduced prices. There's been an incredible amount of negative feedback, deservedly so, for how much these tickets cost for WWE events. And the tickets that I'm sitting in, at least for the first night for SummerSlam, which cost me $500 each, for WrestleMania just a few months ago would have been probably about $2,500. Like, it's absurd.
That's not just them bowing to pressure. That, that's the market dictating the new prices.
Yeah, and as of just a few days ago, the, the sales for SummerSlam Very poor. Very— like embarrassingly poor. It's in a stadium, Dan, which, you know, like if they wanted to use the whole— or actually, just for context, last year SummerSlam was in MetLife and they sold 50,000 tickets per night. Great crowd. As of a few days ago, they'd only sold— and this is a comparable stadium— they'd only sold 22,000. Less than half.
That's how mean the numbers are.
Now, thousands of tickets have moved over the last few days because they have significantly dropped prices.
And they've been pushing hard promotionally.
Right.
Which is why I've waited get to purchase tickets for the second night because I know they're going to keep dropping, keep dropping, and I'll get even better seats. But the, the ticket prices are outrageous for WWE, and that's really been a trend since TKO took over a few years ago.
Well, let me talk about TKO and you guys and how you care about wrestling here, because it's been a pretty seismic change. For those of you who long for a different time with ESPN, as you see ESPN laying people off that people care about today, uh, I I personally find it fairly amazing whenever I'm on ESPN.com or scrolling past ESPN, there's always a wrestler on there on one of their shows. They are, they are really spending a lot of invested time and money on a partnership with the new business model of wrestling. I've told you that Nick Khan, who is a power broker at the very height of all of sports, that for a while he was basically running ESPN. Nick Khan, when he was at CAA, was essentially doing ESPN's programming because all of his clients were at ESPN. And then he got out at the time that he milked everything that he could from ESPN because he saw that this day was coming. And now he profits a different way off of ESPN. How do you two, you and Mike, who care so much about wrestling, feel about how wrestling is managed right now and the way they to be gouging people who are now turning around and saying, no, we're not going to do this.
You have to have an appreciation for your customer base if you're going to sell to me. You can't be some sort of outsider who's going to come in here and try and take my money when you don't care about this as much as I do. You care only about the business of this.
It feels like a very short-term view that the company has with the way that they price tickets, like as if let's make as much money as possible right now because we're not gonna own this thing forever. Because if we were gonna own this thing forever, you have to make sure you get families in the door. Even if the families are sitting all the way up top, you gotta get the families and little kids in the door so they can be fans their entire life, like me, where I'm now spending my income on wrestling and going with, with my boys. It feels like that's not what's happening here, that it's just about let's, let's "Let's milk this thing dry for everything it's worth. We're gonna treat it like a business and then we're gonna get rid of it when we feel like it's not profitable anymore." Mike, are you getting mad?
Oh, I've been mad, but I'm a lifelong wrestling fan, so they know that they have certain fans by the balls. I pay for Netflix. It's the only thing that got me to pay for Netflix. I don't watch it on Netflix. The programming is bad. And I bet you if we saw the internal numbers, I bet you fewer people are watching WWE Monday Night Raw live on Netflix Fewer people are watching that than AEW Dynamite weekly. I feel pretty strongly about that. I don't like that I have to have Netflix and I have to buy the additional ESPN package. And when I do so, I have additional commercials. I'm paying behind a paywall a pretty big premium, a sizable one. And these shows that famously used to go without commercials don't just have a little bit of commercials in them. They're— dude, it's mostly commercials. And I'm watching this, I'm like, I know they have me, but I'm glad that I have an alternative. I know they had me, but the casuals that came around when WrestleMania 40 was happening and they were telling all these great stories, they have more than left.
The ticket prices bother me, and not, not just— not for me in particular, because thank God I can afford it, all right? And it's where I like to spend my disposable income.
Them.
But I, I feel bad for other people who can't go. Like, I like for people to go and enjoy this really great show, and you know, TKO doesn't allow it.
And you know why there are so many commercials, Dan, for WWE PLEs now? It's because ESPN has to recoup their investment because they regret paying that much for it. And it— look, Nick Khan was really good at getting ESPN.
For context, Nick Khan's the president of WWE.
Nick Khan, over the, the course of his very illustrious career was really good at getting ESPN to overpay for stuff. And I think it's pretty obvious ESPN— and there have been reports on this— ESPN fairly immediately regretted the investment that they made in WWE. But like Zazz highlighted, I don't think these are moves with a future in mind.
Yeah, Vince McMahon— no, there's no long-term view.
Vince McMahon ran house shows in towns because he, he saw the long-term investment.
It was always affordable.
In that, even though they would not make money for him running house shows in that town. Keeping fans in these remote places at that price point was an important thing. And that was Vince McMahon, not a great guy. I don't know if you've read the, the papers lately, but every move that they made, um, is driven by the dollar. And that's all right, they got a business, they made a big investment in purchasing this, but it was bound to catch up to them. I don't think they anticipated it catching up to them this fast.
Zazz, you mentioned, uh, pricing people out, and you like the idea of introducing a new generation of people to something. What are your favorite things to introduce people to, where you get the most pleasure from, uh, the discovery of, I know about this thing and I want to share it with you, I want to be the one who shares this thing with you so that I can get the credit when you are filled with wonder discovery about something that I showed you.
I don't really feel that way with wrestling because I like for people who like wrestling to be able to go. I don't try to convince people that wrestling is great because I know it's very niche, okay? So I don't care about that. But I do like bringing someone to see Pearl Jam with me. Like, I like when someone who has never seen them, who likes them on the periphery but has never seen them live I do really enjoy introducing them live.
Mike will never— Mike will never forgive Pearl Jam or Eddie Vedder for what they did to him at Hard Rock, where they played none of their hits on the first night, the night he went, and then they played all of their hits in the second show. Was amazing. The first one was vastly less amazing. You'll never forgive them.
The second show was more for Pearl Jam fans like myself. The first one was for Pearl Jam fans.
First one was for me.
Zazz. But I, I do consider myself a Pearl Jam fan, and I wasn't I wasn't a fan of theirs really until Zazz took me to a show.
I brought him for his first time, that's right. I brought him, we were in the second row on the floor. Those were good seats.
Was that the tuna sandwich day?
Yes, that was me being a conscientious friend, if that's what you're referencing.
What does that mean, a tuna sandwich day? I don't know what that is.
He packed me a sandwich famously for the road trip to Tampa.
Yes, that was me being a good friend, yes.
You don't know that story?
I don't remember that story.
Oh, come on, Dan, sorry.
You packed me a tuna sandwich?
I didn't pack tuna sandwiches for the road, okay? What happened was I was making myself a tuna sandwich because it was lunchtime, and Mike had just arrived at my house early, mind you, for us to wind up getting in the car and going to Tampa for the show. Mike got there early. I'm in the middle of making myself a sandwich. I'm gonna be a dick if I get into the car and I only have a sandwich for myself. So I took out another bun and I made Mike a sandwich as well. Here, I made you one also.
Why are you so defensive about your generosity?
You could have eaten the sandwich there, but it was packing them for the road because they make it sound like I got in a car as, as an adult and I make tuna sandwiches for everybody.
I mean, I'm just doing—
what'd you do?
That's what you did.
I remember just being surprised at being handed a sandwich. He's like, hey, I made you a sandwich.
Yeah.
And it's, you know, wrapped up in plastic.
It was.
And we're just two guys on a roadie and he, and he packed me a lunch headed to wrestling. No, it was to Pearl Jam.
All right, I just put together a top 5. That's I put together a top 5 of the—
whoa, wait, it's a famous story that we told several times and now we're headed to wrestling. He wasn't listening. All right, he wasn't listening. I sat through a 60 Minutes interview and climate change. You couldn't deal with 30 seconds of a Pearl Jam story in a sandwich? Well, one of the great Jonathan Zaslow stories, that's part of his lore, man.
We won the lottery with tickets that night because it's lottery-based where I get my seats, and I got my tickets. I went up to the booth. Holy shit, we're in the second row on the floor. That was a nice treat.
Yeah, not listening, fine. You know who opened that show? Kings of Leon.
Mm-hmm.
That was it. That was when they just started, hey, let's stop dressing like hippies and start dressing sexy.
There he goes.
We're probably 2 minutes for not listening to his music.
Wow. Wow.
I put together a top 5 of things I like to introduce people to because I love what you're talking about here with like bringing someone to a concert for the first time.
I like making people happy.
Yeah, it's the best feeling. So when you can introduce someone to something, I sent some stuff to the video team. So my first OLI, the Randy Johnson Bird video. When you get to show someone this video of Randy Johnson killing a bird for the first time.
Okay, but how do you introduce someone?
I say, have you ever seen this video before in your life?
It's a great feeling to introduce people to something. This is a great list.
Yeah, this is, this is one of the, the best that exists. Another OLI, a new piece of, of pop culture content, whether that's like a TV show or, or music, like you just said, like when you get to share an artist or a TV show with somebody, the long-term reward of like a few weeks later having someone be like, hey, I haven't stopped listening to this artist, or hey, I'm on season 3 of this TV show and I want to talk about it with you. That's one of the best long-term feelings. Number 5, Barry Bonds baseball reference page. Have you ever shown someone these numbers for the first time? Because every time I've ever sent someone who knows anything about baseball to the Barry Bonds baseball reference page, it's pretty— they are mind-blown by what they There's multiple 4-year stretches where he led in every offensive category pre and post steroids.
I mean, the most impressive part is you look at his final season and it's like, they didn't want that guy to keep playing?
Right.
Yeah, they all decided they didn't want him. Uh, number 4, a fun new idiom. Like when you get to show an old person like, hey, ball off me, coach. And they're like, what are you talking about? Hey, that's when I want to take personal responsibility for something. That's something new you can work into your repertoire. When Dave Dameschau Czech, for example, taught us all, "We park our cars in the same garage." That was a great feeling, and I'm sure he loved being able to share that with us for the first time. Number 3: A quicker or easier route to get somewhere. If I know of a shortcut, or I know of a way to get someone to a place with a little less stress, and I can share that with them, it is a very rewarding feeling. Number 2: An item off a menu at a restaurant someone's been to many times before. If I can share with you that the crispy Brussels sprouts at a place are really delicious and you've never I've tried them before and now I've unlocked something new in your order. Because a lot of people, I don't know about you guys, I go to restaurants and I have like my standard order.
And so most of the time I'm getting the same thing. If I can try something new when it's on recommendation, I'm very happy about that. And number 1, the Grape Lady YouTube video.
These buckets are filled with grapes.
What kind of grapes?
These are filled with Chambourcin grapes.
And the winner this Saturday who's— eating international foods, having wine tours and tastings, tours, seminars, arts and crafts— it's a lot of fun!
A whole day!
Stop!
Ow ow ow!
I'll stop, I'll stop!
Oh no!
Oh dear!
What?
I think she's actually hurt now.
No, I think she is.
Yeah, she got me good that time.
She took a hard fall off there.
Okay.
Gosh, I hope she's okay. Ow, ow, ow, ow!
Our show had so much fun with that sound.
Did we ever actually learn what her injury was?
Yeah, she broke a few ribs, I think.
I was inspired because I like introducing people to stuff too. Thank you. So I quickly put together a top 5 things of mine that I like to introduce people to. Number 5: Elvis's incredible rants. You remember that? My doctor, my doctor, it's embarrassing to me. My doctor, rip your tongue out by the roots. Thank you very much.
My doctor.
Number 4, High Life. Love treating people to a great time at the fronton, showing them that the world's fastest game is alive and thriving and explaining exactly why Manu is the best backquarter in the the world. Number 3, anal. Number 2, Billy Joel's freakout while he was performing. You guys, uh, you don't remember that?
No.
Oh dude, he's playing the piano and he's like pissed off with— because they're shining— quit lighting the audience! He's like, quit lighting the audience! And then just cocaine fueled, just like throws the— you have to—
I love Billy Joel. I've never seen this.
Really?
I've never seen this. You're like, he just tosses he had a substance problem.
Billy Joel?
No. Yeah, and number 1, introducing people to the fact that the original cast for Bad Boys was Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey.
What?
Which one do you want me to introduce you to? Says—
what was, uh, what was number 4 again?
Hala!
No, I'm good with them all.
I think I like the Elvis one.
Oh man.
All right.
Dan took an extended one, huh? I should have made it number 2.
You're trying to Leslie Stahl until the end of this show.
Because it's me.
"This is a great point!"
We brought in a weather scientist to answer all of Dan's questions about what will likely be the 'worst El Niño we've ever had.' How do we prepare? How has Climate Change impacted it? Should we all be as scared as Dan? Plus, Zas is fired up about wrestling fans being price gouged, and Jeremy and Mike have dueling lists of Top 5 Things They Like To Introduce People To.
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