The Bill Simmons Thread

nattysez

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I watched about 10 minutes of "After the Thrones." I never watched Talking Dead/Bad, so I'm not much of an expert on these kinds of shows, but:
(1) I think this kind of show works better as a podcast. Nerds analyzing GoT really does not require visuals;
(2) the set reminds me of Simmons's show on ESPN -- very busy with all kinds of tchotchkes in the background. I wonder if Simmons will have the same kind of set for his show; and
(3) it had not occurred to me (stupidly) that this show would be able to show clips from the show. That may come in handy if there are particularly notable scenes that merit close analysis.
 

HoyaSoxa

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I would rather it be a podcast just because I have more scope to listen to podcasts than I do to watch tv, especially during Sox season/NBA playoffs. It's not that it doesn't work as tv or even that it won't benefit from being on tv, just a time trade-off that makes me prefer it audio-only for my commute.
 

nattysez

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Bill Simmons HBO Series ‘Any Given Wednesday’ to Debut in June
The half-hour talk show will feature interview segments with guests, as well as field segments and Simmons’ commentary on current events.

“I’m excited about the show, I’m excited about the title and I’m really, really excited to drop my first F-bomb on TV,” the host said. “We are going to figure out nudity down the road, as long as it’s tasteful.”

Simmons will be joined by “Daily Show” alum Stuart Miller and Bill Simmons Media Group President Eric Weinberger as executive producers.
Debuting June 22.

http://www.thewrap.com/bill-simmons-hbo-series-any-given-wednesday-to-debut-in-june/
 

nattysez

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I would rather it be a podcast just because I have more scope to listen to podcasts than I do to watch tv, especially during Sox season/NBA playoffs. It's not that it doesn't work as tv or even that it won't benefit from being on tv, just a time trade-off that makes me prefer it audio-only for my commute.
Well-stated - this is my issue, I think. Staring at two dudes talking about GoT, even with a cool set and occasional clips, felt like time ill-spent. But it looks like the show is on HBOGO, so I suppose I could just start it on my phone and treat it like a podcast (albeit a very high-bandwidth one).
 

The Social Chair

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Not sure Simmons can pull off a talk show. He has a very dull TV presence. Doing a Real Sports meets 30 for 30 shorts might have been a better path.
 

rymflaherty

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looks like Channel 33 + BS Podcast will be less hodgepodge going forward:
I'm glad I saw your post. I didn't even realize they had put up a separate 'Ringer NBA PodCast", I don't think it was listed on either of the two channels I have on my IPod.
I had been thinking that it was weird that he hadn't done anything NBA in a while.
 

CarolinaBeerGuy

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I like the Rapaport pods. He's funny and fairly knowledgeable about hoops. Almost lets me forgive him for his atrocious southern accent on Justified. Almost.
 

Senator Donut

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And Bill said he'd be spinning off Keeping it 1600 too, which finally allows me to unsubscribe from Channel 33.
 

mauf

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Not sure Simmons can pull off a talk show. He has a very dull TV presence. Doing a Real Sports meets 30 for 30 shorts might have been a better path.
His podcast presence is nothing to write home about lately either -- much too full of himself, and unaware that his audience has (I think) only a passing interest in Hollywood's sub-culture, and has heard more than enough about his acrimonious departure from ESPN. Shit, he managed to turn an hour-long spot with the funniest man on the planet (Louis CK) into a snooze fest. His recent interview with Chris Sacca, however, was a gem; those are the ones that keep me coming back.

He's not going to last long at HBO if he's turning out four forgettable shows for every memorable one. Here's hoping the slippage in his podcasts lately is because he's focused on the new show. I'll be watching.
 
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CarolinaBeerGuy

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Bill's NWA poster is laughably embarrassing. Between the Tupac intro and the poster I think he's trying way too hard to seem less like the middle-aged privileged WASP that he is.
 

Grin&MartyBarret

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Even Bill's NBA podcast, which should be his bread and butter, is unlistenable. The first episode, with Howard Beck, was fine but oddly timed. In the midst of the playoffs he and Beck talked. . .Knicks/Nets.

And then the next two episodes are complete garbage. Tate Frazier shouldn't be talking about anything publicly. And the other one, with I think Chris Ryan and Juliet Littman, is just boring. They basically just gossip about the NBA.

He better hire Zach Lowe soon. Because The Lowe Post is lapping this garbage.
 

JBill

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The Chris Ryan and Juliet Litman pod is a holdover from Grantland, they had an NBA gossip pod with Andrew Sharp. Not my thing, but don't mind it as an occasional part of a regular NBA pod with rotating hosts.

And speaking of hosts, I also don't mind it because I'm convinced Simmons is keeping the seat warm for Lowe. I noticed Lowe started following Eric Weinberger on Twitter the other day, president of Simmons' media group. Maybe they're just buddies and it means nothing at all...but I'm guessing an announcement is forthcoming.
 

Blacken

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I like the Ryan/Litman podcast well enough (though I'm surprised I miss Andrew Sharp on that). It's dumb fun, but it's the right kind of dumb fun--taking the on-court stuff seriously is important but the league is so absolutely bonkers that you have to have a sense of humor about the off-court stuff. I thought the Simmons/Tate one wasn't terrible, but was kind of filler-y. I think they'll get better, but trying to ramp this stuff up in the middle of the playoffs is a difficult ask.
 

coremiller

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I'm only halfway or so through the David Chang podcast but it's embarrassingly bad. Simmons knows nothing about cooking or restaurants so it's just a contest of which of them can draw the most tortured restaurant/sports analogies. And maybe Bill you should look up how the Michelin star system works before you interview a Michelin-starred chef? Going into this not knowing how many stars Chang holds (two -- although they're not really Chang's anymore, because he's not running the kitchen at Ko, but that's a separate issue), and whether that's the highest rank (duh, it's not) is just an egregious lack of preparation.
 

Cellar-Door

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I'm only halfway or so through the David Chang podcast but it's embarrassingly bad. Simmons knows nothing about cooking or restaurants so it's just a contest of which of them can draw the most tortured restaurant/sports analogies. And maybe Bill you should look up how the Michelin star system works before you interview a Michelin-starred chef? Going into this not knowing how many stars Chang holds (two -- although they're not really Chang's anymore, because he's not running the kitchen at Ko, but that's a separate issue), and whether that's the highest rank (duh, it's not) is just an egregious lack of preparation.
Meh, the whole setup of his podcast is that he's just shooting the shit with cool people he knows, he's not doing deep dives or be a "journalist"
I'd assume 95% of his audience have no clue how the Michelin star system works so I think it's a good fit for Bill to just be like.... what the fuck is this? and have Chang explain it.
 

Number45forever

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I'm only halfway or so through the David Chang podcast but it's embarrassingly bad. Simmons knows nothing about cooking or restaurants so it's just a contest of which of them can draw the most tortured restaurant/sports analogies. And maybe Bill you should look up how the Michelin star system works before you interview a Michelin-starred chef? Going into this not knowing how many stars Chang holds (two -- although they're not really Chang's anymore, because he's not running the kitchen at Ko, but that's a separate issue), and whether that's the highest rank (duh, it's not) is just an egregious lack of preparation.
Chang and BS settled in for the last half of the podcast I think. But yeah, the 15 minutes of sports analogies to start the thing was ROUGH. I was really excited to see Chang was on the podcast, but it definitely didn't deliver even with things getting better towards the end.
 

coremiller

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Simmons rarely interviews anyone who's outside the sports/pop culture firmament that he's already (somewhat) knowledgeable about, so usually lack of knowledge isn't so much of an issue. This would be like interviewing an actor and not knowing how Oscars are awarded or whether the actor has won one.

What's interesting about Chang and Michelin is that Chang is (in)famous for rejecting a lot of what Michelin has traditionally stood for -- classic French cuisine served in lavishly luxurious settings -- while still being successful. Chang more or less invented at Ko the tasting-menu bar restaurant as a new, stripped-down minimalist way to serve haute cuisine without all the ostentatious trappings of traditional French restaurants (the original Ko had no table cloths, bare walls, bar stools, chopsticks instead of fancy place settings, and no servers, instead he had the cooks bring the food out, etc.). Partly the idea was to remove all the foppery in favor of an austere minimalist view that nothing should distract from the food itself, partly they were just trying to reduce overhead and run a haute cuisine restaurant on a much smaller cost basis. But the idea that you could serve fancy, serious food in a non-fancy, non-luxurious setting was wholly new and has been enormously influential in the restaurant world, for better or for worse. And Chang has also been notorious for experimenting with complicated online reservation systems that pissed off a lot of older diners who couldn't figure out how to use them.

So there's actually a really interesting conversation for Simmons to engage Chang in here about how you decide what parts of the old way of doing things are outdated limits on creativity that need to be rejected, and how you decide what conventions are still useful and should be kept. Obviously that's a subject that fits very interestingly with Simmons' career path. But to have that conversation Simmons would have to understand what Chang has done and why it has been important, and Simmons doesn't seem to have bothered to do that. So instead we get them discussing how a restaurant company is and isn't like a sports team.
 

Foxy42

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The Craig Kilborn pod is horrible. Kilborn is full of himself and seemingly unaware of it. Insufferable douche...
 

tbrep

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The Craig Kilborn pod is horrible. Kilborn is full of himself and seemingly unaware of it. Insufferable douche...
Yeah, that was one of the most painful things to listen to. Could not make it past the 10 minute mark
 

shlincoln

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Based on the parts of it I listened to, Kilborn desperately wants to be Keith Olbermann, only he's more disjointed, and less erudite.
 

Swedgin

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So he's the same guy he's always been. You'd think after blowing so many great opportunities there would be some kind of evolution.
Did he blow multiple opportunities? I thought he kept climbing up the ladder until he ended up with a late night show on a broadcast network, which lasted for a few years. Has he been heard from again since getting canned from the Late Late Show?
 

ifmanis5

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Did he blow multiple opportunities? I thought he kept climbing up the ladder until he ended up with a late night show on a broadcast network, which lasted for a few years. Has he been heard from again since getting canned from the Late Late Show?
He lost out on a job of a lifetime talk shot host gig at CBS because he couldn't keep his hands to himself. His acting career tanked. His recent show on FOX tanked. His appearance with Bill was a desperate act of trying to attract possible future employment. Good luck with all that.
 

Vinho Tinto

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He lost out on a job of a lifetime talk shot host gig at CBS because he couldn't keep his hands to himself. His acting career tanked. His recent show on FOX tanked. His appearance with Bill was a desperate act of trying to attract possible future employment. Good luck with all that.
I liked his version of the Daily Show; but when you later read about the poor work environment that he helped create there, and how much bigger Stewart made the show, I say that he blew what he had. Media was changing and he should have seen that a 12:30 AM slot with CBS gave him less exposure than 11:00 PM on CC.
 

ifmanis5

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I liked his version of the Daily Show; but when you later read about the poor work environment that he helped create there, and how much bigger Stewart made the show, I say that he blew what he had. Media was changing and he should have seen that a 12:30 AM slot with CBS gave him less exposure than 11:00 PM on CC.
Agreed.

I liked his CBS show also. Mike Gibbons, Alec Sulkin, lots of talented people wrote for that show. He wasted his talent and now it's too late for him. Boo hoo.
 

tbrep

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anyone been listening to the Ringer NBA Show? is it worth to subscribe (as opposed to only subscribing to BS pod)?
I think it's still a bit early to judge - so far there's been 4 episodes with 2 of them being mini episodes (15 minutes or so). But so far it's been a hit underwhelming - a lot of focus on teams who are out of the playoffs (eg Knicks, Magic, Pacers) rather than any in depth analysis or previews of the playoffs.
 

allstonite

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I really enjoyed Travon Free with Bill on the NBA today. They had a good rapport, he was was funny and comfortable, and he actually has some credentials (played in high school with Tyson Chandler and went to the tournament with Long Beach State). I hope he's on a lot more often.

Also thanks everyone for the heads up. I wasn't that interested in what Kilborn might have to say anyway and it was confirmed here so I skipped it.
 

ElUno20

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I really enjoyed Travon Free with Bill on the NBA today. They had a good rapport, he was was funny and comfortable, and he actually has some credentials (played in high school with Tyson Chandler and went to the tournament with Long Beach State). I hope he's on a lot more often.

Also thanks everyone for the heads up. I wasn't that interested in what Kilborn might have to say anyway and it was confirmed here so I skipped it.
I was tempted so I'll give it a listen. I just hate that all Simmons nba analysis/commentary turns into some psychology breakdown that only he is smart enough to figure out then turns into a ridiculous one sided trade scenario. And all the while he's trying to steer his guest to try and agree with him.
 

nattysez

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FYI, there was a promo for Simmons' new show before GoT tonight.

I think this is not good, for three reasons:
(1) This is the kind of ad I'd expect of Cowherd or Bayless, except that the takes aren't very hot. You think billionaires should pay for their own "fucking" stadiums? Wow! What a hot take with a swear word!
(2) Extending from (1), I'd assumed that Simmons was going to try to offer a "smarter" sports talk show, like his NBA show on ESPN. If he's just trying to create his own version of Cowherd's show...eeesh.
(3) I'm sorry to get personal, but Simmons has lost too much weight out of fear of looking fat on TV. He wasn't good-looking before, and now looks worse.
 

jon abbey

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His voice is really made for print also, a little whiny and hard for me to listen to.
 

tbrep

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His voice is whiny but it works ok on podcasts - his screen presence is pretty poor though and it just exacerbates the voice issue on TV
 

Marciano490

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Yeah I thought that was weird too. Nothing funny or novel or interesting. Just some rote Everyman comments with awful charisma and a sense that it was done over 60 takes.
 

Leskanic's Thread

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Anyone have any idea what happened to Jim Rome? His voice went up a few octaves and got really nasally.

(The promo was bad. I have very, very low expectations for this show.)
 

Mooch

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Yeah, that promo was awful. If that's the tone he's going for, this show is going to be a complete disaster.
 

MyDaughterLovesTomGordon

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He's pimping the show hard right now. Was on Stern today with Jimmy Kimmel, then went on Kelly Ripa's show or something (I can't quite follow) and he's hosting Francessa's show later today.

I think HBO wants a return on investment here and is pushing him hard. Gotta be a lot of pressure on him. I really hope he does smart and ironic instead of "in your face" and controversial. No one needs any more of that.
 

nattysez

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He's pimping the show hard right now. Was on Stern today with Jimmy Kimmel, then went on Kelly Ripa's show or something (I can't quite follow) and he's hosting Francessa's show later today.
Far be it from me to question the promotional genius of HBO, but this style of promotion doesn't make sense to me for a weekly talk show. The show debuts in five weeks. Are casual listeners who hear him promote it today going to remember to tune in five weeks from now? Why wouldn't you do this push during (at the earliest) the first week of June? I'm sure there's a method to the madness, but it strikes me as strange.