The Ringer

ManicCompression

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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.
Do they mention this John Vanderslice story? This encapsulates everything I ever imagined about Stephan Jenkins:

So he comes in, and he takes a chair. I will never forget this. This was like one of the golden moments of Tiny Telephone recording: He takes a folding chair and then flips it around backward and then puts it uncomfortably close to me, considering we’re in a large room, and sits face-to-face with me, sitting backward in a chair. And he says, “Okay, what are we going to do about this rate? We’ve got to get this rate down.”

Now, Tiny Telephone is known to be one of the cheapest studios in the country. We are so under market that we shouldn’t have even allowed a major-label band in there. You know what I mean? It was like a subsidy to them. I think he imagined that I would have been flustered. He was doing like 101 intimidating negotiating tactics or whatever that he Googled the night before. I don’t know what he was doing. And so I said, “Honestly, we’re sold out every day, and I really think there’s a disincentive to me to book six weeks for you because I’m going to push out my normal clients,” etc. He didn’t respond to anything. I also said, “Hey, we’re way under market,” gave him all these reasons. He didn’t respond to anything I said. He stood up with his helmet, and he started pacing the live room. All the other crew, they know just to be quiet because this is his mode of whatever douchebaggery. I don’t know. He paces the studio, and then he just blurts out, “Okay, let’s do it.” Then he walks out of the door, fires up his motorcycle, and leaves.

Now the punchline is that I never saw him again, ever. They rented the studio, and they were there for a really long time, and I never saw him in there. Now, maybe he was there one day or one night on an off-hour, but I never saw him again, and I’m at the studio all the time.
 

johnmd20

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Do they mention this John Vanderslice story? This encapsulates everything I ever imagined about Stephan Jenkins:

So he comes in, and he takes a chair. I will never forget this. This was like one of the golden moments of Tiny Telephone recording: He takes a folding chair and then flips it around backward and then puts it uncomfortably close to me, considering we’re in a large room, and sits face-to-face with me, sitting backward in a chair. And he says, “Okay, what are we going to do about this rate? We’ve got to get this rate down.”

Now, Tiny Telephone is known to be one of the cheapest studios in the country. We are so under market that we shouldn’t have even allowed a major-label band in there. You know what I mean? It was like a subsidy to them. I think he imagined that I would have been flustered. He was doing like 101 intimidating negotiating tactics or whatever that he Googled the night before. I don’t know what he was doing. And so I said, “Honestly, we’re sold out every day, and I really think there’s a disincentive to me to book six weeks for you because I’m going to push out my normal clients,” etc. He didn’t respond to anything. I also said, “Hey, we’re way under market,” gave him all these reasons. He didn’t respond to anything I said. He stood up with his helmet, and he started pacing the live room. All the other crew, they know just to be quiet because this is his mode of whatever douchebaggery. I don’t know. He paces the studio, and then he just blurts out, “Okay, let’s do it.” Then he walks out of the door, fires up his motorcycle, and leaves.

Now the punchline is that I never saw him again, ever. They rented the studio, and they were there for a really long time, and I never saw him in there. Now, maybe he was there one day or one night on an off-hour, but I never saw him again, and I’m at the studio all the time.
I'll just say that Stephan Jenkins doesn't come out of this podcast looking good. This is just one story. Harvilla details like 10 times people have just called him the biggest douche in history. It's basically the point of the podcast. And it's funny.

It really is a great song, I can't recall the last time I heard it. Brought me back 24 years. The summer of 97 was a good one for me. Doo doo doo. Do do do do.
 

Pablo's TB Lover

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The fact the guest for the week was Max Collins from Eve 6 whom Jenkins said "I fucked your girlfriend" while they were on tour together is great. Collins says begrudgingly it is a great song due to a combination of the subject matter compared to Jenkins' style and off-kilter singing voice. But he's also like WTF we were on tour when Jenkins was age 34 and Collins was 20, yet he's talking all this shit to a "kid"?

Jenkins definitely sounds like a guy who has a Ron Burgundy level of self-awareness (lack thereof).
 

luckiestman

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The fact the guest for the week was Max Collins from Eve 6 whom Jenkins said "I fucked your girlfriend" while they were on tour together is great. Collins says begrudgingly it is a great song due to a combination of the subject matter compared to Jenkins' style and off-kilter singing voice. But he's also like WTF we were on tour when Jenkins was age 34 and Collins was 20, yet he's talking all this shit to a "kid"?

Jenkins definitely sounds like a guy who has a Ron Burgundy level of self-awareness (lack thereof).
What's wrong with talking shit to a 20-year-old? This guy sounds like an ageist.
 

Pablo's TB Lover

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A heads up that the newest episode on the Ringer NFL show is a Falcons-Pats Super Bowl LI "Rewatchables" with Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti. I'm guessing there will be quite a bit of Patriots porn in this show. About to listen myself now.
 

johnmd20

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A heads up that the newest episode on the Ringer NFL show is a Falcons-Pats Super Bowl LI "Rewatchables" with Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti. I'm guessing there will be quite a bit of Patriots porn in this show. About to listen myself now.
I posted about this in the Celebrating What Is thread.

It's porn. It is a lot of wonderful and glorious porn. It is not allowed on Youporn because it is extremely explicit Patriots love.
 

Kliq

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I've enjoyed Wosny Lambre aka Big Woz on podcasts. He's been good with Simmons during the week talking about the NBA Playoffs and brings a level of calm, relaxed thinking to the show and he has good chemistry with Bill.
 

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Van Lathan, superstar, talking about the last Loki episode.

"Christ, what a tragedy. Rest in peace all my homies in Pompeii, that was tough."

Just hilarious.
 

CaptainLaddie

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I've enjoyed Wosny Lambre aka Big Woz on podcasts. He's been good with Simmons during the week talking about the NBA Playoffs and brings a level of calm, relaxed thinking to the show and he has good chemistry with Bill.
Agreed. It's also heartening that Bill listened to his critics and has hired a ton of BIPOC -- Van, Rachel, and Woz are all great adds in the last year. Van especially has brought a style that The Ringer (and Grantland) lacked, his commentary of The Rewatchables makes me want to listen to pods about movies I haven't seen in 20 years.
 

johnmd20

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Agreed. It's also heartening that Bill listened to his critics and has hired a ton of BIPOC -- Van, Rachel, and Woz are all great adds in the last year. Van especially has brought a style that The Ringer (and Grantland) lacked, his commentary of The Rewatchables makes me want to listen to pods about movies I haven't seen in 20 years.
Van and Rachel had their first podcast on May 26th last year. The diversity article that had the "open mic" comment was published June 22nd.

So Van and Rachel were added before the critics decided Simmons was a racist.
 

CaptainLaddie

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Van and Rachel had their first podcast on May 26th last year. The diversity article that had the "open mic" comment was published June 22nd.

So Van and Rachel were added before the critics decided Simmons was a racist.
I aboslutely don't think Simmons is a racist -- I'm a big fan. However, it is pretty clear he didn't hire a lot of voices that weren't like his (or Chris Ryan's or Fennessey's -- all people I like and enjoy reading and listening to) at GL or The Ringer. It's not really debatable, right?

It's still good that they're hiring more BIPOC?
 

johnmd20

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I aboslutely don't think Simmons is a racist -- I'm a big fan. However, it is pretty clear he didn't hire a lot of voices that weren't like his (or Chris Ryan's or Fennessey's -- all people I like and enjoy reading and listening to) at GL or The Ringer. It's not really debatable, right?

It's still good that they're hiring more BIPOC?
This is a goalpost move.

You said that Simmons listened to his critics and it's great because now people like Van and Rachel are at The Ringer. But they were already at the Ringer, so the critics had nothing to do with it. Otherwise, that timeline is not really debatable.
 
Not sure this follows on even indirectly from the above discussion, but I'm listening this morning to the latest episode of the Ringer NBA Show with Raja and Logan, and they have David Aldridge on as their guest...and Aldridge sounds so different to how I've heard him sound in the past on ESPN. It's like, either he was trying to make himself sound more white on ESPN, or he's trying to make himself sound more black with these guys. Or maybe it's somewhere in between? (I mean, I'm a bit of a linguistic chameleon myself - my accent sounds noticeably different here in Scotland than it does when I'm talking to certain people in Atlanta, and my wife cannot stop talking in a Northern Irish accent after hearing someone from Northern Ireland - so I'm not unfamiliar with the phenomenon if that's what's going on here, but it's still weird to hear this from a recognized personality I've heard so many times on television.)
 

The Social Chair

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Not sure this follows on even indirectly from the above discussion, but I'm listening this morning to the latest episode of the Ringer NBA Show with Raja and Logan, and they have David Aldridge on as their guest...and Aldridge sounds so different to how I've heard him sound in the past on ESPN. It's like, either he was trying to make himself sound more white on ESPN, or he's trying to make himself sound more black with these guys. Or maybe it's somewhere in between? (I mean, I'm a bit of a linguistic chameleon myself - my accent sounds noticeably different here in Scotland than it does when I'm talking to certain people in Atlanta, and my wife cannot stop talking in a Northern Irish accent after hearing someone from Northern Ireland - so I'm not unfamiliar with the phenomenon if that's what's going on here, but it's still weird to hear this from a recognized personality I've heard so many times on television.)
Code switching

https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2019/12/17/culture-code-switching
 

shlincoln

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This is a goalpost move.

You said that Simmons listened to his critics and it's great because now people like Van and Rachel are at The Ringer. But they were already at the Ringer, so the critics had nothing to do with it. Otherwise, that timeline is not really debatable.
Higher Learning isn't the great example you think it is because it was emblematic of the problem that the Ringer staffers were complaining about at the time. Namely, Simmons happily let his inner circle host podcasts, but by and large the minority representation were people brought in from outside the company who had already established name recognition. People like Larry Wilmore or Bakari Sellers. Lathan and Lindsay fit perfectly into this pattern, Lathan was a personality on TMZ's television show until they fired him, while Lindsay was a Bachelorette. They've gotten better at elevating people on staff over the past year, but at the time Simmons certainly had a lack of faith in his BIPOC staffers' ability to carry a podcast..
 

johnmd20

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The Rewatchables did Stripes. I was definitely one of those people who watched this movie 100 times on VHS. And it was an ok episode but after hearing Koppelman on a few Rewatchables podcasts, I finally can say he's awful in the format. Man, he's so boring and he's got no charisma. He wasn't good on Wall Street and he wasn't good here. I understand why he keeps getting brought back, he is a Hollywood insider after all. But he's a writer, not a podcaster. And they are really wasting some classic movies with him. Contrast him to Mina Kimes, who elevates whatever material she's discussing.

Put Rusillo and Ryan on this with Simmons and you have an A+ effort. Also, why does Bill rush through this podcast so quickly? Let the fucking thing breathe, Bill, where is the fire? You do 4 hours every Sunday covering two NBA games, you can't give a little room to Stripes?
 

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On a recent episode of The Big Picture sadly can’t remember which, but it was during a Fennessey interview), he not only used the pronunciation “SCAR-city”, but later followed it up with the even more unbelievable pronunciation of the adjective “SCARSSE”.

Possible conclusions:
1. There are two people in the world who genuinely pronounce the word that way, and they are Simmons and Fennessey.
2. There is a new Ringer style book, and the entire staff will be adapting that pronounciation so Bill doesn’t look dumb.
3. Fennessey was trolling Simmons.
 

johnmd20

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On a recent episode of The Big Picture sadly can’t remember which, but it was during a Fennessey interview), he not only used the pronunciation “SCAR-city”, but later followed it up with the even more unbelievable pronunciation of the adjective “SCARSSE”.

Possible conclusions:
1. There are two people in the world who genuinely pronounce the word that way, and they are Simmons and Fennessey.
2. There is a new Ringer style book, and the entire staff will be adapting that pronounciation so Bill doesn’t look dumb.
3. Fennessey was trolling Simmons.
My bet is that it was a troll. Although I don't listen to the Big Picture anymore, so I didn't hear it.

I hope it was a troll.
 

johnmd20

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A person is not allowed to change their opinion after repeated exposure to something?

Pretty weak, lucky. Pretty, pretty weak.
 

HoyaSoxa

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Admittedly it has fallen out of the rotation for me, but I like Koppelman's The Moment podcast quite a bit. He is a thoughtful and well-researched interviewer and gets far more out of his guests than Simmons does. Even so, it does not make him a great guest for The Rewatchables.
 

johnmd20

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Especially because that was a four man team doing GFII.

As gotchas go, that was a Z level effort. Humiliation should be felt.
 

luckiestman

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Admittedly it has fallen out of the rotation for me, but I like Koppelman's The Moment podcast quite a bit. He is a thoughtful and well-researched interviewer and gets far more out of his guests than Simmons does. Even so, it does not make him a great guest for The Rewatchables.
Tried it, thought it sucked. I’m just not simpatico with this guy.
 

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The thing that stuck out to me about the Stripes Rewatchables was that it was just Simmons and Koppleman. There needed to be a third voice more willing/able to assert him/herself and slow Bill down if there was an interesting discussion to be had. Koppleman doesn't have the chops to do it.
 

johnmd20

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The thing that stuck out to me about the Stripes Rewatchables was that it was just Simmons and Koppleman. There needed to be a third voice more willing/able to assert him/herself and slow Bill down if there was an interesting discussion to be had. Koppleman doesn't have the chops to do it.
Like I said, Simmons spent four hours analyzing Devin Booker and Paul George then just blows through one of the classic comedies of the 80s.

Simmons needs to take a few plays off of The Rewatchables.
 

HoyaSoxa

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I have not listened to the Stripes pod yet, but it would be very appropriate if the first half of the episode is great, then it completely falls apart after they get to, say, casting what-ifs.
 

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I'm trying to decide if the first half of full metal jacket b2b followed by the first half of stripes, or stripes then fmj, or just go Godfather 2-style, jumping back and forth would be the be the perfect movie.
 

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I'm trying to decide if the first half of full metal jacket b2b followed by the first half of stripes, or stripes then fmj, or just go Godfather 2-style, jumping back and forth would be the be the perfect movie.
I get why people prefer the first half of Full Metal Jacket, but I don't get the dismissal of the second part of the movie, which contains a number of great moments. Stripes, on the other hand, plummets after the parade ground sequence ends.

Also, I like Warren Oates' work as Sgt. Hulka (as well as Lou Gossett Jr.'s portrayal of Sgt. Foley in An Officer and A Gentleman), but it would not be fair to place anyone's performance as a drill sergeant next to R. Lee Ermey's Gny Sgt. Hartman. They're spent matchsticks next to his raging firestorm.
 

ManicCompression

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OT - I really don't typically police language, but does anyone else cringe whenever "Re-casting couch" is mentioned considering the connotations of "the casting couch"? It seems like a very specific thing related to a very unfortunate aspect of Hollywood history/culture and I'm shocked that no one has flagged it to say "we could use a better term here" - it's not like "re-casting couch" is especially funny or has any reference point on the show (like the Vincent Hanna Gimme All You Got award or Joey Pants or Apex Mountain etc)
 

Bozo Texino

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OT - I really don't typically police language, but does anyone else cringe whenever "Re-casting couch" is mentioned considering the connotations of "the casting couch"? It seems like a very specific thing related to a very unfortunate aspect of Hollywood history/culture and I'm shocked that no one has flagged it to say "we could use a better term here" - it's not like "re-casting couch" is especially funny or has any reference point on the show (like the Vincent Hanna Gimme All You Got award or Joey Pants or Apex Mountain etc)
It had honestly never occurred to me until you brought it up, but you're right - the term definitely has a pretty nasty history.

They could easily rename the category.
 

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This is much ado about nothing, but I just listened to the latest Ringer NFL show podcast about top coaches in the NFL. And let me just say, I rate Warren Sharp 280th out of the top 50 NFL commentators. He's such a bum. He has two data points for coaches, 4th down decision making and first down run rate.

There is nothing else. He has one move. Plus, his voice sucks. And he's completely full of himself. At least I know this now, so I can avoid this bum in the 20201 season.

edit - and I hadn't reached the point in the podcast where he had John Harbaugh ranked ahead of Belichick. He had Reid ahead of Belichick too. Both are bad but Harbaugh ahead of Billy B is literally comical. I just redid my rankings. Sharp is 364th out of the Top 50 NFL commentators.
 
Last edited:

Silverdude2167

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This is much ado about nothing, but I just listened to the latest Ringer NFL show podcast about top coaches in the NFL. And let me just say, I rate Warren Sharp 280th out of the top 50 NFL commentators. He's such a bum. He has two data points for coaches, 4th down decision making and first down run rate.

There is nothing else. He has one move. Plus, his voice sucks. And he's completely full of himself. At least I know this now, so I can avoid this bum in the 20201 season.

edit - and I hadn't reached the point in the podcast where he had John Harbaugh ranked ahead of Belichick. He had Reid ahead of Belichick too. Both are bad but Harbaugh ahead of Billy B is literally comical. I just redid my rankings. Sharp is 364th out of the Top 50 NFL commentators.
I posed a CBS article somewhere in the BBL forum that hard Reid first. It is fun how people now think Reid is great because he has Mahomes and did alright with other QB's as well (forgetting he never won anything with them).

I would actually probably take Harbaugh over Reid, when JH has good teams they perform at or above their talent level most of the time.
 

JCizzle

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This is much ado about nothing, but I just listened to the latest Ringer NFL show podcast about top coaches in the NFL. And let me just say, I rate Warren Sharp 280th out of the top 50 NFL commentators. He's such a bum. He has two data points for coaches, 4th down decision making and first down run rate.

There is nothing else. He has one move. Plus, his voice sucks. And he's completely full of himself. At least I know this now, so I can avoid this bum in the 20201 season.

edit - and I hadn't reached the point in the podcast where he had John Harbaugh ranked ahead of Belichick. He had Reid ahead of Belichick too. Both are bad but Harbaugh ahead of Billy B is literally comical. I just redid my rankings. Sharp is 364th out of the Top 50 NFL commentators.
I like him better than most ex player analysts on the networks, but I agree with your overall point. I don’t particularly care about gambling, but it got really stale last year with House and Vernon when he’d talk around everything rather than provide actual picks due to his company. I had high hopes when they made the hire, but it seems like a miss. I ended up listening to those two pods for House’s and Vernon’s takes rather than his.
 

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I haven't listened to any NFL pod on The Ringer since Robert Mays left.

Harbaugh is a great coach, but he's also a whiny bitch who skirts the rules but squeals whenever any opponent does the same. For whatever anyone else thinks of him, Belichick doesn't chirp when someone else exploits a grey area in the rules.

I would put Reid over Harbaugh, because he's taken two different franchises to the Super Bowl, has won a Super Bowl, and has won ten or more games in a season 15 times with significant contributions from six different QBs (Donovan McNabb, AJ Feeley (4-1 in a 2002 12-4 season), Jeff Garcia (5-1 in a 2006 10-6 season), Michael Vick, Alex Smith, and Patrick Mahomes).

So it's not like he just became a great coach after he hooked up with Mahomes.
 

8slim

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In the podcast thread in the Omar section, @johnmd20 recommended The Ringer's MLB pods to me (Baseball BBQ and MLB Show live on the same Ringer Baseball feed). They're both solid, so I appreciate the guidance. It does illustrate how difficult it is to host a really entertaining pod though, since neither are in the same stratosphere of Simmons and Russillo talking NBA on the BS pod. I think we take for granted the people who excel at podcast hosting, and the Ringer has a bunch of them.

*apparently not Warren Sapp, though*
 

JCizzle

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In the podcast thread in the Omar section, @johnmd20 recommended The Ringer's MLB pods to me (Baseball BBQ and MLB Show live on the same Ringer Baseball feed). They're both solid, so I appreciate the guidance. It does illustrate how difficult it is to host a really entertaining pod though, since neither are in the same stratosphere of Simmons and Russillo talking NBA on the BS pod. I think we take for granted the people who excel at podcast hosting, and the Ringer has a bunch of them.

*apparently not Warren Sapp, though*
Their NBA coverage is really, really good and deep.

As a Niners fan, I'll also plug the recent "Flying Coach" podcast with McVay and Schrager. I was surprised how open they were throughout the pod, and it makes me want to catch up on the others at some point down the line.
 

johnmd20

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If anything Mays leaving would lead me to listen to more of their pods. He was brutal IMO.
Absolutely. Nora Princiotti is streets ahead of Mays, who was a whiny loser. Nora is incredible and she's sharp, pun intended, and funny. She is perfect with Clark, who I think is excellent.

The Ringer NFL is must listen to content and the Ringer fantasy show is one of the top podcasts out there, because it's interesting and also absolutely hilarious. Danny, Danny, and Craig are a really well put together trio.
 

luckiestman

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I like the NFL network pod better than Ringer. I think most of the Ringer football people have bad personalities for podcasting. This is not counting the great House from DC.