The Ringer

Mystic Merlin

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Sep 21, 2007
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Was going to reiterate how great Van Lathan is, but that news re: Tjarks stopped me in my tracks. I read his blog, and it sounds like the cancer - which is either Ewing’s Sarcoma or Osteosarcoma - has spread considerably. Doesn’t sound good, but who knows?
 

johnmd20

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Was going to reiterate how great Van Lathan is, but that news re: Tjarks stopped me in my tracks. I read his blog, and it sounds like the cancer - which is either Ewing’s Sarcoma or Osteosarcoma - has spread considerably. Doesn’t sound good, but who knows?
It really is terrible news. So young and he's facing this. . . .

Not cool.
 

Cellar-Door

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Aug 1, 2006
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RInger bringing in some new people on the basketball beat:
Wosny Lambre from the Athletic and Seerat Sohi from Yahoo
 

Bunt4aTriple

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We're now halfway through Rob Harvilla's 60 Songs that explain the 90s podcast and I am a huge fan. Every episode is entertaining, even when I don't know the song (today was Pulp, a personal blindspot for sure). I find Rob very funny and insightful, but I'm also in his 40 year old, white, middle class upbringing demographic although I think he does an excellent job bringing in guests to provide additional perspective. I tend to binge 6-8 episodes at a time after I've done my podcast "chores" for the week since it's a spotify exclusive and not on my default podcast app.
 

Foxy42

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We're now halfway through Rob Harvilla's 60 Songs that explain the 90s podcast and I am a huge fan. Every episode is entertaining, even when I don't know the song (today was Pulp, a personal blindspot for sure). I find Rob very funny and insightful, but I'm also in his 40 year old, white, middle class upbringing demographic although I think he does an excellent job bringing in guests to provide additional perspective. I tend to binge 6-8 episodes at a time after I've done my podcast "chores" for the week since it's a spotify exclusive and not on my default podcast app.
Fully agree, though I do need to catch up. I‘ve enjoyed every episode I’ve heard so far. I’m a Simmons fan, but his appearance / the Smashing Pumpkins, Mayonnaise episode was one of the weakest.

Wu-Tang, CREAM and Missy Elliot, Super Dupa Fly were both great.
 

Spelunker

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Jul 17, 2005
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We're now halfway through Rob Harvilla's 60 Songs that explain the 90s podcast and I am a huge fan. Every episode is entertaining, even when I don't know the song (today was Pulp, a personal blindspot for sure). I find Rob very funny and insightful, but I'm also in his 40 year old, white, middle class upbringing demographic although I think he does an excellent job bringing in guests to provide additional perspective. I tend to binge 6-8 episodes at a time after I've done my podcast "chores" for the week since it's a spotify exclusive and not on my default podcast app.
Oh man, I can't wait to get to that episode: Common People is a top-5 song of the decade for me.

I love this show...but after listening to the first couple when it started it fell off the rotation for me, mainly because as a podcast app Spotify is trash. If I had it on, say, Pocketcasts, it'd be a weekly listen as soon as it came through.
 

Bozo Texino

still hates Dave Kerpen
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We're now halfway through Rob Harvilla's 60 Songs that explain the 90s podcast and I am a huge fan. Every episode is entertaining, even when I don't know the song (today was Pulp, a personal blindspot for sure). I find Rob very funny and insightful, but I'm also in his 40 year old, white, middle class upbringing demographic although I think he does an excellent job bringing in guests to provide additional perspective. I tend to binge 6-8 episodes at a time after I've done my podcast "chores" for the week since it's a spotify exclusive and not on my default podcast app.
Ooh. I just checked out the feed - so varied! Selena AND Tool.

I'll be binging this on my way into work. Thanks for the heads up!
 

Bunt4aTriple

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Ooh. I just checked out the feed - so varied! Selena AND Tool.

I'll be binging this on my way into work. Thanks for the heads up!
Yeah, and I'm sure Rob could enlist any number of prototypical Tool fans, but instead pulls in a woman of color for the episode (I listened to 6-7 yesterday; I *think* she also referred to herself as queer, but could be conflating with another episode). I think the varying perspectives of his guests is such a plus to the show.
 

Bozo Texino

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Yeah, and I'm sure Rob could enlist any number of prototypical Tool fans, but instead pulls in a woman of color for the episode (I listened to 6-7 yesterday; I *think* she also referred to herself as queer, but could be conflating with another episode). I think the varying perspectives of his guests is such a plus to the show.
I've only read the write-up on "Stinkfist" so far, but Harvilla really nails what that band was (or is, I guess) all about - intentional contradictions. Simultaneously intelligent and profoundly stupid. Both earnest and counterfeit. Ugly and pretty.
 

8slim

has trust issues
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Nov 6, 2001
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We're now halfway through Rob Harvilla's 60 Songs that explain the 90s podcast and I am a huge fan. Every episode is entertaining, even when I don't know the song (today was Pulp, a personal blindspot for sure). I find Rob very funny and insightful, but I'm also in his 40 year old, white, middle class upbringing demographic although I think he does an excellent job bringing in guests to provide additional perspective. I tend to binge 6-8 episodes at a time after I've done my podcast "chores" for the week since it's a spotify exclusive and not on my default podcast app.
This is a great podcast. Agree that he's done an excellent job bringing in a diverse set of people to discuss the songs he features. I'm a sucker for the topic, so I likely would have been a listener even if the shows was mediocre, but it's really fantastic.
 

thebtskink

New Member
Jul 15, 2005
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I've been a fan of his writing going back to his Deadspin days, and he's really carried that cadence through to his intros in the episodes. I hope they find something similar for him once things over.

Realized I missed the Pulp episode and had to go back and listen based on this thread. Such a great one.
 

johnmd20

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On Harvilla, I thought the episode about Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You," was absolutely awesome. It was hilarious.

Yes, it's a great podcast and I have missed a few of the episodes (I have listened to about half of them) because, as many have stated, Spotify's podcast app seems to be made without any concern for the user experience. On the computer, it's good. On my phone, it's genuinely bad.
 

fairlee76

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Oct 9, 2005
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Fully agree, though I do need to catch up. I‘ve enjoyed every episode I’ve heard so far. I’m a Simmons fan, but his appearance / the Smashing Pumpkins, Mayonnaise episode was one of the weakest.

Wu-Tang, CREAM and Missy Elliot, Super Dupa Fly were both great.
Agreed that both of those eps were great. Would add the TLC, No Scrubs episode as well. I love Harvila's ability to recapture how hos teen self felt about each song while also going deep/insightful on the history and context of each track. Really well done.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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Yeah, I'm going to start with the Hey Jealousy episode. Why Hey Jealousy? I have no idea, but if you don't expect too much from me, you might not be let down.
It all starts with Scenario for me but Hey Jealousy is also good. That song may have played a role in the making of some SoSH offspring.
 

johnmd20

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Chris Ryan’s Liotta is almost on par with his Pacino. KAREN!
Sean was dying. Great podcast.

It is incredible that a two hour, 40 minute podcast, talking about a 2:20 movie, can be that enjoyable. Towards that end, I am rewatching The Sopranos right now and I have been listening to a few episodes of Talking Sopranos. And every podcast is like two hours or more, talking about a 50 minute TV episode. And the podcast is fantastic, Steve and Michael are hilarious together.
 

Bozo Texino

still hates Dave Kerpen
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It says so much about Goodfellas that the podcast is 2:40 and STILL doesn't touch upon some of my favorite stuff.

I'm not sure I can think of a more rewatchable movie.
 

ManicCompression

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May 14, 2015
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Tjarks details his cancer diagnosis in a moving piece about coming to terms with your own mortality: https://www.theringer.com/2021/5/20/22444532/long-night-of-the-soul

"The latest diagnosis is that I have a BCOR-CCNB3 sarcoma, a type so rare that my oncologist, a sarcoma expert, had never heard of it. It’s in the family of Ewing’s-like sarcomas, but it’s not Ewing’s. It was discovered only in the past decade. Both my doctors and I are flying blind."

That has to be so scary. I feel so awful for him and his family.
 

tmracht

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Aug 19, 2009
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Yeah I can't imagine how he's doing. Cancer sucks on a good day, when it's a unknown version of cancer or minimally known I get to assume that's even 10 times harder.
 

Auger34

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Apr 23, 2010
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Tjarks was also on the "Ringer NBA University" podcast with Kyle and KOC yesterday.
I don’t have a ton to add here but J Kyle Mann is great. He was on the Simmons pod recently and I was stunned at how good he was. They need to have him on more pods
 

JCizzle

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Dec 11, 2006
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I don’t have a ton to add here but J Kyle Mann is great. He was on the Simmons pod recently and I was stunned at how good he was. They need to have him on more pods
If you haven't heard it, in one of the older episodes of NBA University he breaks out his Kentucky accent and it's incredible. I really like the collection of NBA people under the Ringer.

It was great to hear Tjarks on the most recent episode, I can't imagine what he's going through.
 
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8slim

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The latest “60 Songs That Explain The 90s” featuring ‘Under the Bridge’ might be the best one yet. Guest John Moe is hysterical.
 

Pablo's TB Lover

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The latest “60 Songs That Explain The 90s” featuring ‘Under the Bridge’ might be the best one yet. Guest John Moe is hysterical.
Totally agree, one of a few guests who don't take the subject song/band TOO seriously. Easy to do with how whimsical RHCP can be, to be fair. And John was really shooting to get an explicit rating on the podcast lol.
 

luckiestman

Son of the Harpy
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Jul 15, 2005
32,620
The 60s song thing is pretty good so thanks for the rec.

Now onto important business; the greatest podcast in all the land, The Rewatchables, has recently covered Lethal Weapon 1 & 2 and both podcast episodes were great except for what I will call the big lie. All the hosts seemed to agree that LW2 is superior to LW1. Well, no fucking way! I heard the big lie and hadn’t seen the movies in a while. I disagreed on first hearing the big lie but figured “hey, I have an open mind, let me watch this shit again”. I did. I was and still am right and they are very very wrong. Lethal Weapon 1 is way better; WAY better. 2 is good but get the fuck outta here with it being better than 1.

edit: I just finished LW1 again, they have to be trolling, have to be. 1 is a masterpiece, 2 is a fun action movie.
 
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johnmd20

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The 60s song thing is pretty good so thanks for the rec.

Now onto important business; the greatest podcast in all the land, The Rewatchables, has recently covered Lethal Weapon 1 & 2 and both podcast episodes were great except for what I will call the big lie. All the hosts seemed to agree that LW2 is superior to LW1. Well, no fucking way! I heard the big lie and hadn’t seen the movies in a while. I disagreed on first hearing the big lie but figured “hey, I have an open mind, let me watch this shit again”. I did. I was and still am right and they are very very wrong. Lethal Weapon 1 is way better; WAY better. 2 is good but get the fuck outta here with it being better than 1.

edit: I just finished LW1 again, they have to be trolling, have to be. 1 is a masterpiece, 2 is a fun action movie.
I like LW2 more than LW1.
 

johnmd20

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Ditto. Some of that might be that I saw LW2 first, but I agree with the Rewatchables assessment that it's a tighter and better structured movie. They're both great, but if I have to pick one to watch, it's more likely to be LW2.
Joe Pesci really adds a ton to the movie, too!

Ok, ok, ok, ok, ok. . . .ok.

30 years later, still cracks me up.
 

Ralphwiggum

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Jun 27, 2012
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I don't listen to a lot of podcasts so I was kind of late in the game to get to the Rewatchables, which I only found maybe a year ago. But holy shit am I obsessed with this now. I know there is not a lot of love for Simmons here, but him, Ryan and Fennessey together talking about the Godfather or Goodfellas (or many others) is gold. The other lineups vary and Bill's father on Shawshank was a tragic waste of maybe the all-time re-watchable movie, but mostly I love listening to these guys sit around and bullshit about movies.

Say what you want about Simmons (and as an original Digital Cities BSG Fan I've mostly bailed on him in the last 10 or so years) but the guy is getting paid huge dollars to sit around with his friends and talk about the movies they love. It's a pretty amazing gig he's created for himself.
 

johnmd20

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I don't listen to a lot of podcasts so I was kind of late in the game to get to the Rewatchables, which I only found maybe a year ago. But holy shit am I obsessed with this now. I know there is not a lot of love for Simmons here, but him, Ryan and Fennessey together talking about the Godfather or Goodfellas (or many others) is gold. The other lineups vary and Bill's father on Shawshank was a tragic waste of maybe the all-time re-watchable movie, but mostly I love listening to these guys sit around and bullshit about movies.

Say what you want about Simmons (and as an original Digital Cities BSG Fan I've mostly bailed on him in the last 10 or so years) but the guy is getting paid huge dollars to sit around with his friends and talk about the movies they love. It's a pretty amazing gig he's created for himself.
Simmons generates a ton of engagement, that's for sure.

If you go to Reddit for a BS Podcast, it's filled with tons of posts. Many of them are pounding on Simmons, but it's a ton of interest and a massive amount of conversation. If you got to the PMT reddit thread,(it is the number one sports podcast, so it's not unknown) it's got a handful of posts. It's kind of odd.
 

TheGazelle

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This week's Rewatchables is a good one - Raiders of the Lost Ark with the original crew of BS, CR, and Fennessey.
 

kenneycb

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Simmons generates a ton of engagement, that's for sure.

If you go to Reddit for a BS Podcast, it's filled with tons of posts. Many of them are pounding on Simmons, but it's a ton of interest and a massive amount of conversation. If you got to the PMT reddit thread,(it is the number one sports podcast, so it's not unknown) it's got a handful of posts. It's kind of odd.
I imagine that's a function of history. Simmons has been around forever so he's been able to ride the media narrative wave of "shiny new toy" to "tired old toy" while being promoted on the largest sports platform in the country. PMT has only been around for a handful of years and are promoted by a much more niche and, to put it mildly, divisive platform.
 

johnmd20

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I imagine that's a function of history. Simmons has been around forever so he's been able to ride the media narrative wave of "shiny new toy" to "tired old toy" while being promoted on the largest sports platform in the country. PMT has only been around for a handful of years and are promoted by a much more niche and, to put it mildly, divisive platform.
You're right, maybe it's just Barstool. But Barstool, as an entity, is not niche. They have a handful of podcasts in the top 50. The Ringer is just as niche as Barstool is.

I just looked it up. Bill's Monday pod got 473 comments. PMT's got 50. The disparity is always like that, which is a surprise, even if PMT is new. It's not that new anymore (6 years?) and it is the number one sports pod. It always struck me as a weird difference in engagement.
 

luckiestman

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You're right, maybe it's just Barstool. But Barstool, as an entity, is not niche. They have a handful of podcasts in the top 50. The Ringer is just as niche as Barstool is.

I just looked it up. Bill's Monday pod got 473 comments. PMT's got 50. The disparity is always like that, which is a surprise, even if PMT is new. It's not that new anymore (6 years?) and it is the number one sports pod. It always struck me as a weird difference in engagement.
Maybe people don’t hate listen to PMT. A lot of people that don’t like Simmons listen to his shows, you see it right here on our fair forum.
 

kenneycb

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Simmons also gives sports takes that are easily debatable. PMT sometimes does but there's only so much discussion you can have around Hank's inability to pronounce words or Paul Bissonnette thinking Colorado is in the southern US.
 

JCizzle

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Simmons also gives sports takes that are easily debatable. PMT sometimes does but there's only so much discussion you can have around Hank's inability to pronounce words or Paul Bissonnette thinking Colorado is in the southern US.
This seems accurate to me. It's easy to get riled up at Simmons because he doesn't overtly present himself as a dumbass like PMT does. I do think people take him a bit more seriously than he takes himself though. As you said - Big Cat and PFT often have bad sports takes, but what's the point in calling those out?
 

johnmd20

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Rob Harvilla's last two episodes were unbelievable.

Semi Charmed Life was just hilarious. I mean, out and out gut bustingly hilarious. If you spent an entire day just listening to that episode on a loop, life could be worse.

And then Nothing Compares 2 U was perfectly handled and resonant.