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This is The Dan Levator Show with.

The Stu Guts podcast.

I wanted to start here with Amin Charlote and Mike Ryan as part of our Los Angeles adventure with just some Los Angeles observations. But Charlote just said something to me that I found groundbreaking, illuminating, shocking, something I did not know. Something that Mike pointed out is the most surprised he's been since he learned that the word wheelbarrow is not wheelbarrow. It is not wheelbarrow. I've been pronouncing it most of my life.

Wheel.

Not just Mike. Also you dan.

Yes.

You thought it was wheelbarrow also.

That is correct.

Wait a second. Is this a take it for granted situation?

Not quite, because I know that one. But wheelbarrow makes sense given what a wheelbarrow is. I just always assumed, is it play.

It by ear or play it by year?

Play it by ear. You know this, right? No, she doesn't know. Well, no, the one she brought in here is shocking. It's genuinely shocking. How do you think and I don't know whether she went to a wedding or what. How do you think, Amin, when you put together a tuxedo and the part that goes in the middle over your torso, what do you think that is called?

Like a cumberband or something like that?

Well, that's even worse than what I thought.

That's a band of cucumbers that plays a lot of music.

It's a band with really heavy instruments. Cumbersome. No, I learned this weekend, Dan. I was at a wedding shout out to my brother in law and now sister in law. And yes, there were those things with the ruffles that go around the midsection, and I was like, oh, wow. Not often you see a cumberbund in the wild or something. And my husband was like he was like, you will not believe this. It's cumberbund.

I'm sorry.

There's no b.

There's no b in the first part of the word.

There's no b. I think there needs to be a B.

There needs to be a B, right? But my mind was absolutely blown. And he only knew that because the people at the Tuxedo store told him he was saying it wrong.

I think this is shocking to the audience.

Have we verified this or the people at Tuxedo? Watch this. Watch this. I looked at it cumberbun.

I Googled it because I was like, there's no way that's correct. I can look it up again.

Okay.

Are you now feeling terribly self conscious that you got it all wrong?

Because wouldn't that be funny if that would be the most charlote thing of all time?

Assholes at the Tuxedo store?

Look at that.

I am shocked. It is cumberbund with no b.

No bund for me.

I want to put it on the poll at Levitard show. Have you pronounced it cumberbund the entirety of your life? I have another thing that I learned that I don't know that you guys, if you know what I'm talking about, or if you can remember something like what happened to me when I was driving to the place where I'm staying here in Los Angeles. This is the first time that I have seen this. And I imagine if you have seen it somewhere the first time you saw it, you had the same reaction I did. Maybe you're familiar with this. I'm at a stoplight, and what I see go across the crosswalk is clearly an unmanned cart robot of some sort that is delivering food by itself, and there's no one near it. And I'm expecting someone, especially because there's a large unhoused population here, and I'm from Miami. I'm expecting someone to, once I realize what it is, take this delivery vehicle that is robotic and steal the food that's inside it, because you cannot have these in Miami and expect them to get to the place they're supposed to. We do.

It's happened to me six times walking from the Elsa to the Metro Rail stop that I'm being stalked by this little pink robot.

It was pink.

It was pink here, too.

Yeah, it's a little pink robot girl. And I always have to kind of stop because I always think it's just going to run into me, but I start slowing down. It starts slowing down. It's a very unsettling feeling.

I stayed at a hotel in Chicago where all of the stuff that like room service, I need towels. I forgot my toothbrush. It's all done by a robot, like one of these little droid robots that rolls in, and I don't like it. I'm just saying right now, it has nothing to do with saving people's jobs or anything. I just don't like it.

It has nothing to do with saving people's. No, that part of me is fine.

With I'm not going to paint myself as some sort of altruist. I'm just saying that it made me a worse human being when it rolled up. I wanted to say awful things to it because it's a robot. Like, shut up, you tin can. I just wanted to be mean to it.

I felt like there was more responsibility on it to look after it, because I'm like, how is this dumb machine not going to get hit by a car? Especially with the drivers that we have here in Miami? So I kind of felt like I was like lead blocker for this. What ended up happening?

Do you guys remember the first time that you saw it? Because my reaction was very specific.

Right?

This is discovery, awe. And then what came soon thereafter was fear. Fear for the future, fear that that's not going to get where it's supposed to get to. Like, something is going to go wrong in the technology of whatever this business is. They must be losing a lot in the gutter of whatever is happening as they learn to do it correctly. A lot of these carts, and the food must not be getting to the place they're supposed to get to, unless.

I think what Mike just said is actually something that these companies are probably banking on. They're eliciting human empathy from humans for these, because they're like, oh, these cute little robots, we got to take care of them. So they make them pink, which is also just the gender. You know what we should do with those? We should round them all up and just use them solely for gender reveals. You open the door, and it's either a pink or a blue robot, and.

The babies or the actual baby, guess what? We got all the guesswork taken out. No, it doesn't evoke empathy. For me, it's the opposite. It makes me cruel. It's like a stupid robot. Like, I want to kick it. I don't know why. It just fills me with a rage that I didn't do anything. But I also love the idea. In my mind's eye, Dan's driving down the street, la Sienega or some Pico, some very La. Street. And Randy Newman. I love la. Swaying. And then as he pulls up the light, it turns into an eerie, creepy version of I love La.

It was fear that swept over me.

Dystopian future.

I don't know where you guys you guys are relaxed around this as if you're veterans of the future arriving a little earlier than you thought it was.

It's always unsettling. The first time that it happened to me, I thought it was, like, on a hidden camera show.

How long has it been around?

It's been around for a good year. More than that, I'm dating back to when we first went into the Elsa. It happens, like, once.

What is the company, though? Is everyone using these to deliver food now?

That's the name of the company, I.

Believe, because I've seen this is a huge we have gotten to a place in general convenience where we don't have to go much of anywhere to shop for anything. But I thought one of the industries that was safe is people bringing me things to make it more convenient. Once you start replacing those jobs with robots and robots, that cannot be efficient. There's just no way this early in the technology there's no way this early in the technology that I'm not going to find all over the cities. Wherever these things are, a bunch of these in a dumpster somewhere or in a gutter somewhere, because they haven't gotten filled with, like, pecan pie or whatever or giant turkey legs, because it's not getting to where it's supposed to get.

To somewhere that little pink robot's like.

No, it terrifies me. I am profoundly anti robot, and it makes me nervous even going on the record saying that, because then when they take over, they're coming for me first. Also, though, I think I'm cool with that. If we're going to be ruled by robots, like, take me out first. That's fine. This is a message to all of the robots.

You guys keep acting like being taken over by robots is a bad thing. Can it be much worse than what humans are doing?

I stand correct.

Wait a minute. A real low bar.

Wait a minute. It can be much worse. I understand that it's pretty bad right now what humans are doing, but yes, it can be much worse if robots were simply in control and then suddenly we didn't have anything in the way of freedoms.

Let's give them like a month. Let's just see how they do.

Honestly, not the worst take I've ever heard from you.

You should carve out that lane for yourself. I welcome the robots.

Yeah. I, for one, welcome our new over. The thing about the whole do you guys have driverless cars in terms of I've never been pickup, so phoenix is big.

It's called wait, wait, seriously?

The car shows up, there's no driver in there?

Wait, what? Have you gotten into one of these?

What I have and it's not even like an Uber. It's not even an uber charlote. Some of them are Jaguar f paces. And then they've outfitted them with 8 billion cameras, including one on the top that just keeps swirling it up. So I got in one the other day and I was like, am. I like my fear is this is the only way I think I'm going to die is in a car accident. It's like, in a driverless car. Feels like I'm tempting fate a little bit.

Isn't this Demolition Man?

Canon you guys know how I'm going to die. It's a car accident.

I saw the vision. But yeah, it is like Demolition Man a little bit. And it's weird, Dan, because I've had this conversation with you. I went back and rewatched Demolition Man, like, a year ago. And some of the stuff is like, oh, this is so silly. And some of it like, damn. They are spot on with a lot of this stuff about what the future is going to be. Like, for instance, cancel culture. That's what Demolition Man was about. When you find one, you do it better than I do.

John Spartan, you are fined one credit for the verbal profanity act of blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, man, like, that's some crazy stuff when you think about like, oh, that's kind of the society we live in now.

That was weak, the way that you made him do the impersonation when I.

Heard that's a good one. Yeah.

Do you think Taco Bell's going to win the fast food wars?

Look, they've got a hell of a lead right now with those nacho fries.

Well, they invented the fourth meal.

Charlote, I'm with you. I wouldn't get in one of those cars. Didn't Elon Musk have a bunch of them exploding that aren't in the experimental phase? I'll do this after the experimental phase. After we've gotten past the exploding automobile.

I mean, my instinct is to be like, yeah, I'm not getting in. But then, as Amin says, could it be worse than people driving cars? Also, I'm just realizing the first time I saw one of these robots was in Miami in a car, and Amin was also in that car, and it was doubly scary because I was like, as everybody knows, Amin had a premonition that he's going to die in a car accident. I'm in the car looking at this robot, being like, this is the end times. This is it for me.

Then the robot pulled out a gun, and I was like, oh, no.

You didn't have any trepidation about getting into that car. When all of us, I think, are surprised none of us have done this. You're the only one who's driving around.

Town but never had one pull up.

I mean, let me put it this way. It was the cheapest ride share that was available. I was like, all right, I'll give it a try. And I got in. And it's weird because you don't think about the car driving itself. You think about a ghost sitting there because the steering wheel swirls left and swirls right. And I'm like, Why would it do that? Why wouldn't it just change the wheel without changing the steering wheel, did you.

Have any impulse to just jump up and grab it? Steering wheel?

Not really any close calls or anything in the way of fear. You just were totally relaxed looking at your phone, grateful that there wasn't a driver or a strange person not talking.

But it was this one pink robot that almost got us.

One thing I'll say is that it was slow. I was like, Come on, get to the point. Because it's following all the traffic rules, and I kind of missed a human touch of just breaking rules left and right.

I had another situation while I was driving. I didn't know I don't know if you've seen this. I don't know if this is common in Los Angeles. I'm walking past a bunch of windows, and in the windows look like four or five dentist chairs facing forward, facing the street. And I'm like, Why would they be having dentist chairs out in the open? What do you think this is when I'm saying it or putting it out in front of you? What do you think this establishment is?

I have no idea.

I thought it was maybe a tattoo.

Parlor or something like a cosmetics injectable plastic surgery.

Plastic surgery?

Yeah.

Don Lebotard again.

Started on the Breakfast Blonde.

Oh, man. I've been singing a song to myself all morning long. Breakfast flaunt stugats, have you never heard the Breakfast Flawn song?

Hit me with it.

Okay. I wish I had some breakfast flaunt breakfast flun where can I find a breakfast like that? DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA.

This is The Don Levatar Show with the stu guts. Amin said he had a bit of an incident celebrity encounter on his flight on the way in. I, too, had a celebrity encounter, but not an incident. So you start amin on your flight to Los Angeles. What happened to you?

So we're boarding. It's one of those things where they say, all right, now, boarding group one. And then everybody gets in line. And I'm like, the worst hate that we got to police this.

I start judging books by cover. I'm like, there's no way. Your priority access. No way.

I do a little lean over.

Terrible.

No, there's no way. And you did not serve our country based on how you are not military. There's just no way. I see that backpack that you got on there. You're not group.

You're profiling in a way that's not quite racist, but is sort of like.

You'Re better than me. Like, you don't do it.

Your wealth profiling look. And I just said that's awful. So that you could be the one to say it, because who doesn't a little bit?

We all do.

I'll be the bad guy.

I do a little peek at the boarding pass. Really?

Yes.

Are you working with because here's the thing. Mine is black. Yours is blue. That's already kind of a red flag that you're not supposed to be in this.

I turn to Cynthia sometimes, I'm like, look at this goddamn blue. Skip us.

I don't think Amin would like it, though, to if we were just profiling in general, getting on an airplane, and he is doing this to others. I don't think Amin would like it being done to him.

Oh, he's a savvy traveler. I look at amin, I'm like that. That's like a group two. Group three.

That Tech Fleece has seen some airplanes.

Before it's happened to me. And they'll say, oh, sorry, sir, we're only going to group one.

So what happened on your flight?

So we're boarding now. I had switched seats on the app, and sometimes the boarding pass doesn't refresh an update, so you just have to kind of, like, reopen it. So I scanned the boarding pass, and there's a baby wrong seat. Oh, that's right.

It's seat remove pass.

And the lady was like, go talk to my associate. Like, no, I can do this. It's going to take me, like, 2 seconds. Every second matters. I'm like what? Every second matters? Yes, sir. Every second matters. So I said, Well, I don't want to create an incident because every second does matter. And the next guys behind me were the Property Brothers. And so I literally and, you know.

He'S group both of the Property both.

Of the Property Brothers were on my flight. Right?

Two for twosies.

One of them wore a mask, one of them didn't.

And that divisions in families all over America.

The one that wore a mask was probably married to Zoe Deschanel.

Maybe I don't know. They're identical. I don't know if you well, that's.

A very Hollywood thing.

So anyway, so by the time she scans them, I'm done. I found my past. Are you ready now, sir? I am, but I just want to point out that every second does matter, so let's cut the is so obnoxious. And I scanned it, and it worked. And she's like, thank you. So I'm like, well, thank you, but don't thank me too much, because every second matters. And then we walk down, and of course, this always happens when you start boarding. There's a line in the jetway. And so I yelled back, Every second matters, but I'm still waiting here, dog with a bone.

Embarrassing.

Well, because the principle of the thing, number one. Number two, I really enjoy walking up to the line, but not actually doing anything because in my mind, she calls security. What happened here? He kept saying, Every second matter. I was just repeating back to her what he said.

You know where is a great place to do that? An airport where their tempers are in short and where they're not fully empowered to just call security on.

He has become really Americanized, because that is not I remember him telling me the stories about being terrified, about speaking freely in airports. He has told me that that is not something he should be.

It's a power of group one access.

Look, I was riding high. I was riding high because the Property Brother, the one with the mask, turned around and pulled the mask down with a huge grit on his face. He said, hey, buddy, at least you now know every second matters.

You got the Property Brother, one of the Property Brothers to join in your bit.

Absolutely. The other one couldn't care less. But the one with the mask on, that's my guy. That's the guy with Zoe Deschanel. I'm declaring it now.

Hold down his mask in order to show you his smile of solidarity on every second matter.

It's a Property Brother as you're doing.

This to the poor gate lady who's.

Just trying to she's trying to flex her power. Let's be real. Of course, it's two forces colliding. But here's the thing. I didn't know whether to let him know I knew who he was. And I kept thinking, like, should I say something like, Woody about like, oh, I saw you in that celebrity game. Like, you could hoop a little, but.

What if you got the wrong brother?

You know what? That's a good point. I just sat there, and I was just like, you know what? He probably craves human interactions that don't center around him being a Property Brother. So you know what? I just laughed with him. Like, yeah, man, and I'll never forget that now. Ha. And then I just boarded my you.

Think he's told people about your story?

Yeah, there's this one dude who's crazy, just yelling at the lady, every second matters.

How was your flight? Well, there was this one guy actually.

This is what I thought after I sat down because oh, by the way, when he was getting into the aisle and he said, oh, are you sitting here to the seat next? I'm like, no, I'm a couple rows back. But in my mind I'm like, is he telling people after yo, the dude that used to be on ESPN on the jump was out here yelling at this lady. Every second matters.

No one's seen him in years.

Whatever happened, I thought that guy was dead.

I wonder if ESPN let him go because he's an obnoxious asshole. He yells at people in airport.

I once went to not by choice so much. It just was one of those things that sort of happens to you. You find yourself at a Zoe Deschanel Christmas concert, which was already funny to me because a it was a Zoe Deschanel Christmas concert. I'm like, is she going to be.

Oh, is that what he doesn't have.

White I don't have white women.

He wants to have he's got a tiny little sound box that has about one 8th of the sounds we usually have. White women did not make the choice.

It's a gender wealth discrepancy.

I feel like I am a white guy too. That works.

Now. Charlote, let me ask you a question. Zoe Deschanel Christmas concert which she's singing Santa and that really annoying voice.

Yeah. And it was like one of those nights where you're out with people and someone's like, I'm going to a Zoe Deschanel. And I was like, you know what, this is funny. Sure.

I thought you made friends.

No, that sounded like Sammy Davis Jr. More than it did anybody else.

I was like, is she going to be wearing her costume from elf? And she basically was. And I had know a few spiked eggnogs or whatever. And in between sets I would yell, where's the property? And like nobody thought it was funny. It was not the right crowd for heckling Zoe Deschanel with the property brother joke.

I'd like to apologize to the property brother who I made a connection with. I did not mean to do that. Her voice is magical and I'm happy for you guys.

I can't believe that charlote gets drunk on spiked eggnogs.

I used it as a joke drink, insert joke drink there. But it probably also was true.

Have you had rum chatta?

Yes.

You have?

Yes.

Did it like blow your mind? Yes.

One difference between rum chatta is it rum and horchata. Yeah, it's rum, it's whores.

But it is an or d'oeuvre.

I end up flying and see on my flight and I was surprised that he was flying commercially and wasn't flying on a private jet. Jimmy Johnson, who is going across the country to do his fox show, now, keep in mind he's kind of the OG of pregame shows because when they hired him a million years ago. I don't know if it was 30 years ago or what. It was a long ass time ago. However long ago, it was 20 years ago.

It's the 90s.

Yeah, he started what became a very popular pregame show, and he flies. He's 80 years old now and doesn't have a lot of interest in doing much of anything that takes him out of Key West, makes a ton of money in the stock market, and also with just private speaking engagement secret.

That must be nice.

Yes, but I assumed would you not be surprised, Mike, to find Jimmy Johnson flying commercially?

That's a long private flight. So no, I wouldn't be too surprised.

You have it in his Fox deal that they would fly in private.

Well, I asked him about this because I was legitimately surprised to see him in this line because he did have a private jet for a while. Like, he's done much better in the stock market than he did in football, and so he had his own private jet. But one of the things that I.

Learned I have him as being a GameStop guy. He just made booku bucks on meme stocks.

One of the things that I did not consider and maybe you guys have considered it because he was saying, I actually prefer to fly commercially because WiFi on Saturdays I get to fly and watch college football when it is that I'm flying. And it's something that I had not considered at all, because I'm looking at him and I'm still saying to him, why wouldn't you just get WiFi on your plane? And he's like, Because it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now. It made me realize why the airlines are charging me on top of what they already charge me for their WiFi. And it makes sense, of course. I've gotten so spoiled that I just expect to have Internet access when I'm 30,000ft in the sky. And he's like, I didn't want to keep doing that if I'm only going to use it six or seven or eight times a year, I don't want to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for WiFi.

I thought you were going to say he's like, because I'm a huge environmentalist, Dan.

I thought so, too, actually. You know, the funny thing, louis CK. Had this joke about Wi Fi where he said he's like, I'm on the flight, and the flight attendant gets on the mic and says, congratulations, ladies and gentlemen. This is the first commercial flight to feature WiFi access. When we get in the air, everyone pull out your phone. You'll be able to connect to WiFi. So we take off, and then when we reach 30,000ft, the flight attendant comes back on and says, apologies, there's something wrong with the WiFi, so it's not going to be working. And he says the guy next to me says, this is bull. I'm sorry. The thing that you just discovered 15 minutes ago, we're all spoiled that we're entitled.

Anytime the WiFi doesn't work on a flight, I'm so pissed. And then I look down, I'm like, I am 30,000ft in the air, in a metal tube, in the sky. It's amazing I'm even here. And then it makes me feel a little bit better about the WiFi.

WiFi and then power. I get so irate. If there's no power plug or if my power plug doesn't work, I cause a fuss.

Every second counts.

Every second counts. No, absolutely. That's the one to me. I can live with no WiFi. If you tell me ahead of time we don't have WiFi on the flight, I don't like getting on there and saying, oh, yeah, this one doesn't have WiFi. Just tell me. Tell me in the app. But the power, because my devices, they suck so much power, especially when they're 30,000ft in air. I don't know why. If you don't give me a power plug, I get incensed because it's 2023. I don't think that's asking too much.

But when did you become the guy who's this comfortable in airplanes and airports to make scenes? You have told me the stories of.

75,000 miles that could have platinum.

Daniel, you've overheard people in airports speaking freely, criticizing the government, and you've thought to yourself, because of where you're from, you've thought, who's crazy enough to speak ill of the government's?

Been trying to take it there since the beginning of this segment.

I'll take it there. I'll give Charlote some background. Charlote when I first came back to this country from Sudan, after living in Sudan for six years, we're walking, we're waiting in line for Customs, and the one Customs guy is talking to the other Customs guy about, hey, you get your taxes back? Like, no, I don't get a refund this year. Uncle Billy got it. And I was like, he means Bill Clinton. And I legit thought secret police were going to come in and take him away for speaking ill of the president. Don.

LeBatard don rivers.

You know, Joel, he's going to tweet what he wants to tweet. And quite frankly, I'm fine with it. If anything. I want to go to Miami, too. Is that all right? I mean, isn't supposed to be in the front office by now. Hey, I can hit the back nine right after practice.

Oh, he'd love that.

Oh, my God. Stugats me and Joel let's go. That's a great question. It's a great question. If they win game six, that hurts my chances of coming down. It's a real handsome question. Stugats.

This is the dan levatar show with the stugats. I wanted to begin here by talking to Mike Golick Jr. Who's just been kind enough. I didn't even know he lived in Los Angeles until he sat down next to us, and I wanted to start with him before getting to Charlote and Amin. But Amin has been trying to. Shoehorn since we got here into everything that we're talking about his Antonio Banderas imitation Impersonation. Why did this start? How did this start? It's a good impersonation. It's strong, but why did it start? We were talking about puss and boots, and all of a sudden, you were doing your Antonio Banderas.

Well, we were talking about how these mics are very lovely pieces of equipment, and they allow you to do voices better. Right? So, Charlote, you can do the NPR voice, right?

Amin. Welcome to the Dan Levitard Show with Stu Gotts. It's all about Los Angeles.

It's all about hitting those t's. That mic allows you to do that. And the other thing it does is it picks up bass very well. So all those deep bass voices like no, like Liam Neeson. Like, I can do that a lot better on the mic than I can just walking around. And so I do the Liam Neeson one a lot, but then I was like, Let me try this. Antonio Bandera.

This is a debut here. You have not tried this in public before. It's a little scary for is it.

Is, because I know I got it well done so well earlier today. And now that the mics are on and now we're recording, can I reach the height? Gojo I was killing it, man.

Well, I heard a little bit right before we got on here, so it was better.

He's nervous.

It was a little better. You want to think about it for a second? I'll talk to Mike Golick, and you just sort of get yourself in the mode, Daniel Day Lewis style. Let's see if you I'll give you a couple of seconds to gather yourself and perfect it in your head as we talk to Mike Golick. Thank you for joining us. Right before the microphones came on, I was professing my admiration for the choices you've made to work with your father at the end of his career. You did something brave in leaving ESPN before it's the end of your dad's career.

I mean, he's way closer to the end than he is the beginning.

At this point, I think he would.

Even admit that you got him going for 70 more years. I mean, I'm assuming that Mike Golick SR. Doesn't have to do much of anything. And I'm also assuming that he's working with his son because what a joy to work with his son. The greatest professional blessing of my life is getting old with my father on television at what I was considering toward the end of my career. So anyways, I was just telling him that before things got obviously shaky at ESPN, before it became something that more people were doing. Mike Golick with a future at ESPN, with a name at ESPN that ESPN would value for a long time, chose something different because he wanted his life to be a little bit bigger and he wanted his family life to be a little more connected. And so I've been awed by the choice that you made. I don't think it's something a lot of people would have done. No.

And I appreciate that. Obviously as someone who's watched and been a fan of you and your show and the things around it and seen the way that you guys have operated, I do appreciate the credit for a lot of that foresight. When I'm my father's fun, I'm a little bit more of like a Seaball hitball player where it was, oh, this seemed like an exciting opportunity and part of it was, hey, there's a chance for some life balance out here. I'd grown up and spent my entire life around Bristol, Connecticut, where ESPN is, and as everyone in this room knows, there's not a lot much out there. There's a reason, one of many reasons that you guys were able to avoid having to come up and be under the umbrella of the mothership is there's a lot of good that comes with being there. But having been there since I was eleven years old, coming back there as an adult, then to start working, I did look around for the hours it demands and what I wanted to put in while I was working there, it didn't afford me. A lot of times as a single adult going into my 30s who looked around at some of the things that my brother, my sister, their significant others were starting to do from a family perspective, I was like, all right, if I've got an opportunity that creatively is something exciting, it's going to be a great challenge.

Allows me the chance to continue to work with my dad as that became an opportunity more apparent to us as I got over here and maybe I can start to explore some other things that you don't get in central Connecticut. It's ESPN, the elevator factory across the street and then Lake compounds where they have the picnic and that's about it. You don't have a lot of other stuff within ready range and so being out here and being in a place where people are already and people want to be, it was a cool chance for an attempt at balance, which I'm still trying to work on now.

Shout out to Otis.

I'm going to ask you about how scary it was in a second, but you're feeling better about your impersonation. Are you feeling more confident or less confident?

Yes.

You shouldn't feel any more confident about it given what you just did.

No.

Antiquado is what you are. You may know me from my other role as Boosts in Boots.

I mean, it pains me to say this, it is pretty good.

I'm pretty impressed.

It is less confident than it was. Second, I'd like to talk to Antonio Banderas as he leaks confidence. What's happening inside you right now, Antonio, as you leak confidence because you don't think that this impersonation is something that you should be doing.

Where's my fat friend, I find.

Be careful. I know we got right up to the line. Right up to the line and then pull it back. Okay. I regret putting you in this position. Anyway, the variables got introduced and that's where the confidence started to leave. It's a limited impersonation. It should stay limited.

We all made the same time.

I have an idea, but yes, it's.

Too dangerous, but too many words. How scary was it for you, though, Mike? Or was it something when you say hit ball because it's in front of you? Is it something I have found, generally speaking, in anyone that I talk to? Dan Patrick on, there is a scariness in leaving for change, something that has, for our entire life, felt very safe.

Yeah, there's definitely some of that that's still popped up now. And I always make it very clear that wasn't a place that I left with bad feeling towards either. I have nothing but gratitude towards the opportunities that were afforded to me by that place and a lot of people that I got to know there. But there is a lot of safety and security that also comes with that, that every once in a while wake.

Up in the middle of the night.

And go, oh, man, am I going to be okay? There is a lot of long term security there. You do worry about that stuff. But I guess I always went back to and I didn't have the long athletic career that my dad did, which means I think at times I think about things a little differently. Like, my dad's an athlete that's doing this job right when he goes I always say, like, people that speak multiple languages at once. And the question is, like, what language do you dream in? What do you think most coherently in my dad dreams? An athlete, that's how he sees himself and that's the prism that he sees and makes decisions through. And so I have a little bit less of that than limited fake Antonio Banderas. But I do think part of it is always I look at every situation as a challenge for what I can control. And the success in my mind, right or wrong, will always be determined by what I'm willing to put into something, how hard I'm willing to work that, and how I approach whatever the given task is. And so that was the way I always kind of calm myself down as I look at a space now that is growing and that has a lot of opportunity.

And that was part of the exciting part about it is also, all right, well, there are parts of this that I can still control the same way I could control the effort I brought to practice. And all that cliche stuff that we say about sports that's true, but still applies to this.

I wanted to ask you all something about deadspin wrote something recently about this move, and Undisputed was the starting point on it because they were using Lil Wayne and Michael Irvin and Richard Sherman and Keisha Johnson. This move away from journalists on television to former athletes. And the Deadspin article was pointing out that Rodney Harrison had gone after Zach Wilson, calling him garbage. Then Dante Whitner had said that Dak Prescott sucks. That LaShawn McCoy had called Dak Prescott ass. And this general movement away from whatever the responsibility of journalists is in commenting on games to more and more former athletes. And we've got in this room, we've got a little bit of everything here. Charlote comes from journalism. I come from journalism. Mike Moore from athletics, amin from front office.

Come on, Dan. I was very good at softball in high school, so put a little respect on my name.

I was putting a little respect on your journalistic credentials. What do you want with your you? Do you want a balance? Do you want the former athlete's opinion? Do you understand as ESPN gets into a partnership with Pat McAfee where he changes the rules on what journalism is going to be? Because he's like, I'm just going to give Aaron Rodgers a bunch of money, and I can do that because I don't have to adhere to the journalism rules that ESPN has adhered to.

Yeah, I mean, I think what we want is a balanced diet. I think there is a place for that because that's a perspective that we.

Want to know about.

Right. The example I always use is this was years ago when Magic Johnson was on Inside the NBA and Dwight Howard had a bad first half, and Magic said, Dwight Howard needs to play better. And I'm like, all right, that's cool because it's Magic Johnson.

I get it.

But it's also like, you haven't taken me anywhere that I couldn't go on my own. In that same segment, Kenny Smith tells a story about one time Hakeem elijah only had four shots at halftime, and he came in the locker room, and everyone thinks about Hakeem as this really nice guy, sweet, soft spoken guy. He mother f'd every single person in the locker room. And in the second half, we got him the ball, and he scored 30 in the second half. And I said, these are two athlete perspectives. One of us took us to the lobby where we were already sitting. One of us took us up to the penthouse. And Kenny is nowhere near the caliber of player that Magic Johnson was. Right? But that's the job. The job is, when I do this, I'm going to take you somewhere that you couldn't have gone on your own, which is what front office people do. And then what the journalists do through sourcing, through reporting, through journalism, they take you places that you couldn't have gone on your own. When it turns into Dak Prescott sucks, like, all right, like, cool, but I need you to take me there as a player.

Why does this is new, though. You saw this happen with Jerry Judy and Steve Smith the other day. It's new for the athletes to rip other athletes. There's usually a professional respect there that doesn't go as far as LaShawn McCoy calling Dak Prescott ass.

But it is interesting because I pointed out to someone the other day that's what gets said and worse inside locker rooms. And, I mean, you've seen that over and over again. But usually there's been that code amongst former athletes of if we start saying it publicly, we invite everyone listening, every member of the fan bases, all these outside audiences, to criticize in a way that's usually reserved for the people inside that brotherhood who inside locker rooms.

Yes.

Say that stuff all the time.

I also think it's a lack of imagination. It's not knowing what else to say. It's not knowing how to say it. It's reverting to shock value instead of like, well, let's break this. Why does he suck? Tell us why he sucks. Don't say he sucks. Anybody watching a game where an athlete sucks is like, yeah, that guy sucked. Bring something to it and have the imagination to be able to give us something we haven't had.

That's why the guys who do it really well stand out. Draymond. Green, for all of his stuff, when he starts talking about it, it's like he has a gift of explaining to you what he's seeing. JJ. Reddick another guy who does a great job. They're not just telling you, they're telling you hows and whys. And so I think that's the big thing is, can you articulate that feeling of you suck or your ass?

And beyond that, the journalist needed there to ask for the elaboration. Tell me, LaShawn, what is he asked?