Matt Damon And Casey Affleck, Mt Rushmore Of Dumb Things We Used To Think + Football Is Back
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So visit Abercrombie.com or download the Abercrombie app today. See you there. On today's part of my take, we have an awesome interview with Matt Damon and Casey Affleck. Their new movie is coming out next week on Apple TV, The Instigators. It is awesome and great interview talking to both those guys. We also do, I would say, my favorite Mount Rushmore that we've done all season. It is the Mount Rushmore...

Of dumb things you used to think. So we have some really dumb things we used to think. And it was very open-ended and very fun. We're going to talk a little football, being back, Olympics. And, of course, we've got Firefest of the Week. And it's all brought to you by our friends at DraftKings. Pugilism, prize fighting, the sweet science, whatever you call it. You don't want to miss the huge night of fights coming up. Headlined by Crawford versus Modromov.

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Okay, let's go. Okay.

We're gonna rock to Electric Avenue. And then we'll take it higher. We're gonna rock to Electric Avenue. And then we'll take it higher.

Today is Friday, August 2nd, and football is all the way back. PFT Hall of Fame game. We're back, baby. It's so great. It's so great to see football on TV. So great to see the score bug. So great to hear the music. So great to bet the over, which I'm probably going to lose, but I'm going to take it anyways because it's unpatriotic to take the under on the Hall of Fame game.

I'm excited. I'm super excited. We made it, guys. Yeah. The minute the calendar turns to August, it's just like, okay, this is now a football month. We are now in football months. We've made it. I don't want to wish away the summer, but the summer, bye-bye. Hank, back to work. It's football season. The game is about to kick off, so I will... Oh, there's a face. So I will wait...

We've got a couple more weeks. We don't have a couple more weeks. We have grit week and then football. PFT, I will let you know the moment that I think the Bears are all the way back. While we're recording.

I know that they're back. In fact, I'm surprised that we haven't talked about this yet, but they're back because they have an athlete at the Olympics. True. They do. Watching Simone Biles. Yeah. I don't see any Packers players in attendance watching Simone Biles. No. Jonathan Owens just hanging out watching Simone Biles. Yeah. For life. You're right. Oh, Caleb Williams is actually wearing a full jersey. I like that. Just seeing that. But yeah, Tyson Bajan is going to play. Like 18? Well, he had to do 18. It's Keenan Allen.

Wait, but that wasn't his number in college, right? No, that was not his number because Keenan Allen, he did the right thing. There was a report today that Caleb Williams told people to clean up his lockers and Imani Toomer, who cares, was like, that's not his job. I thought it was being a leader.

This is, we're already in tear down the Caleb Williams territory. That's fine. I'm going to enjoy the Hall of Fame game. I'm going to enjoy Tyson Bajent. There's some, you know, all-time bears going into the Hall of Fame this weekend. It's going to be great. So it's, the Hall of Fame game means absolutely nothing. They've completely bastardized it where you don't even get the first stringers playing for a second, but I'm not going to let anyone yuck my yum today.

The Hall of Fame game, it is technically football. That should be the slogan of it. And we've made it – listen, we did a great job pretending to get excited about the Olympics this summer. We got into the Copa Euros, which was an incredible just waste of time for us to fast forward through the months of June and July. But the whole reason that those sports exist is so that we can get back to the Hall of Fame game, and we're there now. I'm so thankful. I'm curious to see – I'm not in front of a TV right now. I'm in Columbus, Ohio. Shout out Scully's.

Scully's Music Diner, Pup Punks, playing tonight, Friday. Should be a great time. But I don't have a TV in front of me. Are any of the players choosing to wear the Guardian caps, the giant things on their helmet that Roger Goodell said? We don't know yet. We don't know yet because they're about to take the field. But, yeah, they're allowed to wear the Guardian cap during the regular season too. I likened it to John Olerud. It's going to be a John Olerud situation where he wore the batting helmet playing first base. Looks like right now –

I feel like no one's going to wear the guardian cap, right? That's just not going to happen. I don't think so. I think Roger Goodell was like, tell you what, in the effort of player safety, I will allow you to wear a giant helmet that makes you look like a clown. Yeah. And no one's going to do it. And then Roger Goodell could be like, oh, I gave them the option of wearing the big red clown nose on their face, but they chose not to do it. I guess they don't care about player safety. Let's do 19 games. Yeah.

The only time I could see someone wearing a guardian cap is like getting concussed in the game, somehow passing the test and the doctors being like, you don't just put this thing on. You'll be fine. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Did you know that Hank guardian cap? They can wear it. They can wear it now. All right. Other NFL news before we talk about the Olympics.

We did a bad job on Monday. We had the take ease on Wednesday. Incredible take ease. Shout out to all the winners. It was a lot of fun to tape to do a little year in review. We forgot to mention that Jordan Love got paid and he made a lot of money and Tua got paid. He made a lot of money. And now it feels like we're good with quarterbacks for a little bit.

Yeah, that whole class, they got paid. That's the class you want to be in if you're a quarterback in the NFL. Next up is the Brock Purdy discourse, and we're still on Dak. We're still on Dak watch. So we don't know what's going to happen with that. But yeah, Tua got paid. McDaniels is – he apparently went to bat for him saying, hey, we need to pay our quarterback. Great job, Mike McDaniel. And yeah, I don't – it's very weird. I know that you have to pay Jordan Love, but he's got like –

eight games under his belt that he played well in. And now he's one of the highest paid players in the league. So I guess we'll see how it shakes out. No, he was to look for you. He deserves every dollar that he got. Uh, some may say, you know, paying a 32 year old that much money, uh, who's only played eight games, kind of crazy, but I'm not going to judge. I, they, they got their guy. Uh,

and he's got at least four or five more years left before he's in his late 30s. What were you just talking about, Hank? Mr. McMichael looked like a vibe. Yeah, Mr. McMichael. So, yeah, Steve McMichael, obviously he's got ALS, so he's not there in person, but he's in the Hall of Fame, deserves it, Mongo. But, yeah, they're bringing out the Hall of Famers right now, PFT. So that's what we're watching on our TV. Patrick Willis is getting introduced. Everyone's clapping it up.

Caleb Williams was in practice. He was in a jersey and pads for practice reps, I believe, because now he's in a t-shirt. Kind of like that. So, yeah, Mrs. McMichael, she's got the orange dress on. She looks good. In Hall of Fame news, I'm a little bit upset at the Hall of Fame and their sculptor, the guy that does the busts, because they didn't make Peyton Manning's forehead nearly big enough. Yeah. I feel like Peyton told them, hey, lower the hairline a little bit.

take it easy on my forehead. It's not realistic. So I've got a, I've got a little bit of a problem with that. Yes, I'd agree. Um, all right. Only other football news is there's, we're starting with injuries, which suck in training camp. Injuries have started to happen. Justin Herbert is out till at least week one. Uh,

And DeAndre Hopkins is out for four to six weeks. So I fucking hate sharing training camp injuries. They make me so mad. There's nothing worse than getting that Schefter alert when you're sitting, minding your own business in the middle of August. And you're like, God damn it. We didn't even get to the season.

And Deontay Foreman got airlifted on a helicopter to Roanoke for a head injury, but I think he's okay. That happened during kickoff drills. They were doing a kickoff drill at practice, and I guess he took a shot to the head. But I want to know if you gave Jim Harbaugh truth serum what he thinks about his quarterback being out for weeks with a foot injury. Oh, that's a good question. I think...

I feel like Jim Harbaugh's – well, no, he's a football guy through and through. I would say maybe the good news is that you'll see less highlights of Quentin Johnson dropping balls because that was all of Twitter for an entire day. Yeah. Yeah, he'll be okay. Justin Harbaugh will be fine. They're rebuilding something in – I was about to say San Diego, L.A. Jim Harbaugh, he's going to win. That's all he does. He wins everywhere he goes.

He's going to figure out a way to win, but I can imagine him seeing his quarterback with a foot injury and being like, your foot's a long way from your heart, son. Just cut it off. You'd probably have him do the J.J. McCarthy stuff, just like take your shoes off and ground yourself every morning. It sounds like you're depressed. Yeah, yeah. All right, so other things. Olympics.

We have the Olympics going on. Team USA, Steve Kerr in an all-time, whoops, I feel bad, and Jason Tatum's probably going to quit the team. Started Jason Tatum against South Sudan. Huge game for Jason. Yeah, do you think that was an overcompensation a little bit, Hank?

No, it's probably just the matchups. Oh, the matchups. Yeah. Yeah, the matchups. We also had Steve Kerr. Shout out Steve Kerr because I'm now convinced he's just doing it for us. Jason Tatum played zero minutes in the first game. Joel Embiid played zero minutes in the second game. Thank you, Steve Kerr. You're just giving us stuff to talk about in the middle of August. We do have Max who...

The reports were that he got arrested in Paris. He did not get arrested in Paris. There was a Photoshop going around that he got arrested for eating too many crepes. Crepes? Just detained? Yeah, he was detained for eating too many crepes. They said they'd never seen a man... The crepes of wrath? Yeah, they'd never seen a man eat so many crepes, so they had to lock him up. Did not get arrested, but he did give us a video. He will be back with us...

in flesh for the start of Grit Week, which starts on Sunday. Oh, Joe, big, big, big head picture. I'm going to get it right now. Hold on.

Well, the first big head Joe Buck picture of the season. I have not seen this video from Max yet, but I'm interested to see what he says because Hank's spin zone and Max's spin zone for the first game were entirely different on what they have to be right now. You guys just flip-flop places. So, Hank, you were saying that at least Jason Tatum got minutes, whereas Loser and Bede couldn't even get in at all. And then Max said, yeah, well, I'd rather he be rested than get in and look bad. So how are you guys going to flip-flop your excuses?

Let's see what Max has to say. Okay, yeah, let's see what Max has to say. All right, let's talk Team USA. Let's talk Joel Embiid. I'm sure all the people that are listening to this right now have just heard Big Cat and PFT and Hank just spew a bunch of bullshit, a bunch of propaganda, anti-Joel Embiid propaganda that wants the listener to think that Joel Embiid didn't play today.

or yesterday or whatever day this would be because he's not a good player. That's not the case. It's Team USA. They got the best players in the world. They have the ability to give guys rest as far as matchups go. South Sudan, not the best matchup for Joel Embiid. They're a small team. They would like to go run and gun. Joel Embiid is a bigger player. He's not as fast as some of the other guys.

So they're giving him an off day. He's going to be in the starting lineup against Puerto Rico. He's still the top three player on this team. Steve Curry said that himself. Sometimes there's matchup things and guys who don't know ball are going to try and criticize Joel Embiid for being a different matchup for this South Sudan team. But that's all part. That's all part of the game plan. Some people don't know game plan. And I know that.

The hosts of this show are going to be slandering a man for no reason just because they don't know ball. Sometimes without game plan, he's going to drop 30 against Puerto Rico. Memes. So back us up, memes. For the last two episodes, we've had Max send you videos without us seeing it so we would see it for the first time at the same time as AWLs. Is that a fact? That's a fact. Okay, so...

Me thinks the lady doth protest too much because Max just went in an entire rant about us slandering Joel Embiid and we didn't say one bad thing. Nope. We didn't even address. We basically just said, oh yeah, he didn't play any minutes. And then he just went into this whole thing about they are going to say he's a bad player and that he's slow and he's fat and it's all matchups.

We didn't say anything, PFT. I didn't even think about Joel Embiid being fat, but Max makes a pretty good point that we should probably talk about that. Out of shape. I actually agree with him for once. The matchup thing is a valid point. My only takeaway from that was just Joel Embiid is slow. Yeah, Joel Embiid is slow, and speed is actually important when you're playing sports. Yeah, and listen. South Sudan players are faster than NBA players was the takeaway there.

I think Steve Kersh is being a good coach. He knows that Joel Embiid can't match up against South Sudan well. Yeah. So they're a dynamic group of playmakers over there. So, you know, maybe we'll get him back in against Puerto Rico. I don't know how those matchups look, though. Yeah, we'll have to dive into the matchups. Hopefully they have a big fat guy that Joel Embiid can play against.

I'm going to wait for AI Al Michaels to tell me what to think. I've been watching his recaps in the morning. It is very creepy. It's so weird. It's so weird. We also had the women's – our Olympic – sorry, our gymnastics team dominated again. Simone Biles is the GOAT. She's incredible. I think KD even said that she thinks –

He thinks that Simone Biles could take an alley-oop. Like, she could dunk on a 10-foot rim. But, yeah, like, we just dominate that. And I think we're back in a good spot in the medal count. Yeah, we're good. We're dominating the silvers. We are the absolute kings of silver right now. Yeah. So I don't know if we're dominating the golds. But, yeah, the gymnastics team, awesome. The men's gymnastics, they got a bronze. And they were really happy about that. So I'm happy for the guy that looks like Robbie Fox. Yeah.

Good for him. Got engaged and won a bronze. Yeah, no, China still is leading us in gold. We got to get... That also... We haven't gotten to the track and field yet. I feel like every day I wake up, China is dominating air pistols. And what else have they been dominating? I don't even know.

I think it's disgusting that the United States can't win at shooting. Yeah. That's our sport. It should be something we excel at. Did you also see... Whoa, first new kickoff. First new kickoff going right now, PFT. It's crazy. What have they done to our game?

Sam Schwartzstein has ruined football for all of us. I actually think this will be a good rule. Once we get used to it, there's probably going to be more kickoffs returned, and it's going to be more exciting. So I'm excited for it. Yeah. When the XFL did it, they used to have the flags that the refs would raise. Right. And I don't like introducing a new prop for the refs to be using, but they got rid of those. So I think the kickoff's going to be good just so that we can watch dumb coaches screwed up. And the Bears just covered the kickoff perfectly.

So 1-0 on kickoffs for the Bears. We looked awesome. Got them down at the 26, which I think if you kick it out of the landing zone, where does it go? It goes somewhere.

35? We should probably brush up on these. I think it's the 30. I think they changed it to 30. But yeah, when we do our whose team is this guy on now update, we should also do a rules update. Let's just remind everyone it's still preseason for us. So I use the preseason to get myself warmed up for the season. I'm not going to let myself be belittled by any new rules or any new people. The preseason is there for a reason. We all need our reps. We're getting some right now.

Feels good. It feels great. So Katie Ledecky won a bunch. Our gymnastics team won everything. And then did you guys see the craziest? I think it was the ping pong final. It was older brother versus younger brother, which was nuts. That's wild. Yeah. How? What do you mean? They were in the same country.

There's multiple participants. All right, I've got to fact check this. Talk amongst yourself why I fact check this. So you're saying that there's a bracket, basically, and you get multiple entries? Brothers Play Olympics. Or is this like a... Yes. What was it, 30 for 30? Okay. The two basketball players?

This is the two Escobars. No, no, no. Eastern European. Alexis and Felix Lebrun, France's Olympic brothers. So they played. It might not have been for the gold medal match, but they played. And I saw the younger brother lost. Brutal. He was crying as the older brother was celebrating.

That's one where you got to root for the younger brother, right? It's like the Harbaugh Super Bowl. Yeah. The older brother stood up on the table and cheered and was going nuts, and the younger brother was just crying into his shirt. But I thought that was pretty cool. The brothers were playing. They should have played in their mom's basement. That was my only critique.

If the younger brother wins, then that's devastating for the older brother. At least this way, it's the older brother keeps up because I'm sure that when they were kids, the older brother would win every single time they played. Right. Although, is ping pong one of those sports that age matters? Probably not, right? I don't think so. Table tennis. There's a lot of running. Table tennis? That's what we got to call it? Table tennis? I'm not calling it table tennis. Okay. Any other Olympic...

Scotty Scheffler had a weird quote where he was just like, no one's going to remember us anyway when they were asking about his Olympic legacy. He just said that. He said, no one's going to remember us anyway. It's kind of true when it comes to golf in the Olympics. Yeah. Yeah. Name one golf Olympic moment ever. Xander wearing white sneakers. There's a moment.

Yeah, electric. Who could forget? Yeah. Do we want to talk about boxers and what gender they were assigned at birth? I don't really care to, but we can if you want to. I just want to make you uncomfortable. This is why... It sounds like you want to talk about it. Go on. No, I just knew that you didn't. Well, do you? It's why the original... Well, do you? You should. It's why the original... I'm trying to. What's your take? I got takes. I'm trying to. This is one of those situations where I feel like I shouldn't say it publicly because I don't know...

enough anything yeah no i'm just saying this is why the original olympics had them everyone competing completely nude back in ancient greece that's that's when sports were sports but what's your take uh my take is that i don't know shit about what's going on right now so i'm just gonna sit back and not pretend to care about women's boxing at the olympics yeah i agree i don't i i asked for someone to explain to me like a five-year-old and i had like 400 replies in the first two minutes and every single reply was different facts

I was like, well, this isn't going to work. I'm out. I'm out on this discourse. For my limited reading, it comes down to a big beef between the IOC and then the IBF, which is a boxing governing body that has actual beef with the people on the IOC. It's like a personal dispute as to who ruled her to be, uh,

having like too many, either it was chromosomes or testosterone to compete. That was the IBF that said that, but they won't say what the test was. Now the IOC says they're full of shit. It's just where we stumbled onto a turf war between two sports governing bodies.

Yeah, I like to keep sports fun, and when I saw this pop up, I was like, well, this doesn't seem fun at all. And I'm out. I'm going to watch the Olympics to watch sports that I never watch and kind of care about the U.S. winning. And if they don't win, I will say the Olympics are dumb. That's how I consume the Olympics. Nothing? I want to hear Hank's take. Oh, go ahead, Hank. Do you actually want to hear my take? Sure. Sure.

No, I know. I agree with the sports fund. This is obviously a sensitive subject for a lot of people. From my limited reading, if she was born a female and identifies a female just because she has some extra testosterone doesn't mean she shouldn't be fighting other females. And she's like nine and six or whatever. Her professional record is not even that good. Yeah, there was actually... When the stories happen in sports, I think it's like swimming or track and field with people that were

were born male and transitioned which that's way different and that's when this story came across it read like that where it was like someone that was a man transitioned and now fighting in women's boxing but it's like that's not really the case yeah right which i think we can all agree that if there's a man that is competing punching women in the face that's bad that's very bad but it's but it's and also algeria doesn't seem like the most friendly country towards gender reassignment surgery so i

It's probably a case where she was born as a female, always identified as a female. And then there was a ruling by the IBF that she had something extra that we don't know what it was.

The best thing that came out of this, though, was this Twitter exchange. I'll read to you guys. This woman, Amy Broadhurst, wrote, have a lot of people texting me over Iman Keyleth. Personally, I don't think she has done anything to cheat. I think it's the way she was born and that's out of her control. The fact that she has been beaten by nine females before says it all.

Then someone named Ben Hyde replied, what would your reaction have been if you were supposed to fight Keeleff...

Amy, I have great respect for your boxing legacy, but you've missed the mark here. Agreed the way you're born is out of your control, but it's a clear advantage and shouldn't be allowed. And then someone replied, Amy Broadhurst did fight Iman Kilif in the 2022 World Championship Final. She won. So the people just spouting off left and right about shit they don't know about. This guy tried to correct someone who actually fought this woman and then was like,

What are we doing here? So, yeah, the whole thing is, yeah, it's been quite the day online watching the discourse fly back and forth. It's a disgrace to the ancient Greeks who embraced very strict traditional gender and sexuality rules. Correct. As we all know. Correct. Oh, I had one last Scotty Sheffer thing for you guys.

He was asked in an interview at the Olympics, do you ever go and just look at all your trophies? Would it give you a big head? And he responded, yeah, probably would. I don't think I've ever done that. I think one time this year I took a trophy. I took my green jacket and the plaid jacket, and I think I held the player's trophy in one hand, and I had another trophy in the other hand and walked in the living room and said sup, mayor, to his wife.

That's the extent of Scotty Scheffler getting a big head. Just wearing all the things he's won and just saying what's up to his wife.

Probably trying to fuck. Yeah, and probably trying to fuck, which, like, good for you, dude. You put on the green jacket and be like, what's up? You feeling it? Wear the green jacket and only the green jacket. Yeah, yeah. Okay, anything else? Mike Trout's out for the year. Good job, PFT. I'm aware. Dingers only. Well, that means I get a sub from Mike Trout. Yes, it does. Because the...

IR slash pedophilia list. So I will be making my choice, I believe, tomorrow about that. Okay. So you have the strategy of drafting half your team already injured. You're not in last. Which I did unintentionally because Mike Trout had just gotten hurt when I drafted him. Yeah. He's been hurt for a while. Yeah. Mike Trout I forgot about. I'll be honest. But there was another guy that was hurt that I drafted that had just gotten hurt. Yeah. I think John Carlo. Yeah. All right. The Bears just gave up an opening drive. That's not good. They suck.

season's over uh anything else for olympics huey did you have any olympic stories no uh basketball is pretty quiet our three-on-three team sucks yeah oh god they're the worst they're owing three should get chase budinger in there yeah who's really good volleyball player really good volleyball player we got jimmer playing jimmer was hurt today we lost to lithuania we're owing three

We would have beaten it with Jimmer. Yeah, but we also maybe not because we lost the first two games with Jimmer. So we just suck. Yeah, but Jimmer matches up well against Lithuania. Yeah, we just suck. Okay, let's get to our Mount Rushmore. Very fun Mount Rushmore. I actually dubbed it in the ad coming up, my favorite Mount Rushmore we've done.

because it was very open-ended. So let's kick to the Mount Rushmore. Before we get to our Mount Rushmore, part of my take is brought to you by our friends at GameTime, the exclusive ticketing partner of Barstool Sports. As you know, you can get tickets to Cubs Cardinals this weekend for $40. That's right, with GameTime, the official ticketing partner of Barstool Sports.

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Okay, last Mount Rushmore before we head out for Grit Week. Max, you were up first. Yep. And we're doing a very open-ended one. Should be a fun one. Dumb things we used to think. So let's not put it on, it doesn't have to be as a kid. It can just be because Hank probably has one from last week. He didn't know humans were animals. Dumb things you used to think.

Meatballs Meatballs Meatballs are the only food Okay I was thinking of this more as a kid I have mostly as a kid But I'm just saying If you have something that's like Oh I thought this when I was 20 I don't think we should take it away I have almost all kid stuff

Yeah, no. Hank's face. Something just popped into his head. Seriously, two weeks ago. I want to hear the stuff that Hank just recently said that wasn't true. Hank. You can do your own. All right, Hank, put a star next to that one, and when you say it, let us know that it was the one that literally just popped in your head. Okay. Okay. Love that.

So I was thinking as a kid, so the first thing is the easiest one that everyone thought of is that Santa Claus was real. Okay. Spoiler, if you're writing in the color of your childhood. Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler. I'm sorry that they're crying. Do you guys remember what grade you were in when you found out? Yes, I remember specifically the moment because I was the youngest. Were you eating meatballs? I had two older brothers. I had a big plate of meatballs.

I had two older brothers and like I had an like a like an uncle that had white hair and kind of looked like Santa Claus. So we we would like look out our window some years and and like see him go around the like in the backyard to like sneak in and put the presents under the under the tree. So we would always like try and catch Santa Claus.

And then one year I turned to my brother who I shared a room with who was like five years older than me. And I was like, I was like, hey, do you think we're going to see Santa tonight? And he's like, dude, Santa is Uncle Charlie. And it was like the worst moment of my entire life. Meatballs. You're like, who was that throwing snowballs at all those years? We were actually throwing meatballs. Yeah, those were ice meatballs. Max's biography is just, yeah, his life is meatballs. All right, good pick.

I'm so excited for whatever Hank's got in his brain right now. Me too. All right, so I'm up? Yep. Okay. I will go with that if you dug deep enough, you could reach China. Yep. Had it on the list. I honestly thought that I could. Every kid. And I was probably- Is that wrong? Yeah, it's very wrong. Because you can't reach, like you would melt before you reach the center of the earth. Also, we have not even come close to digging to the center of the earth. Yeah, so I looked this up a couple months ago. It's actually embarrassing. Yeah.

How shallow the deepest hole ever dug is. It's like seven and a half miles. It's ridiculous. We need to... It's Jurassic Park. Let's do that. Let's rebuild Titanic. Do Titanic 2. And then let's figure out a fucking way to dig more than just seven miles across the earth. Yeah. What if it's a fruity center? We don't know. What if we're a big gusher? What if we're filled with cheese?

Would be cool. Would be cool. Okay. Good one. These are all very good. I had that as well. And this one I feel like is very relatable that everyone probably had. I don't know if it's specific to a sport, but I thought I was going to the NBA. Yeah. That was. I thought that if I just was in my driveway shooting hoops, someone would come by and be like, damn.

That kid. Yeah. Sign him up. I was like that with baseball too. Yeah. That was my career. I was going to be a baseball player. Or, yeah, I was like, I'll be a baseball player. If not, I'll just do basketball. I had a really depressing conversation with Titus the other day because it dawned on me that, like,

Yeah.

I asked Titus that, and he's like, yeah, actually, I really struggled with that because I thought I was going to the NBA until I was a senior in high school. Yeah. And I was like, damn, that actually probably really, really sucks. And there's probably a piece of him that going into college was like, well, maybe. Yeah. Maybe if I work hard enough. Yeah, but like- Me, Mike Conley, Greg Oden, we're all going to be in the NBA together. He said he was 6'4 when he was in eighth grade, and he never grew again. So it's like it kind of fucked him. But I-

Yeah, like normal kids, I think they all have the same thing where, you know, they're 8, 9, 10. They're like, damn, I'm doing it. I'm going to go to the league. And then you have that moment where you're like, no, no, I'm not. Yeah, that hurts. Hurts a lot. But I thought that for a while as always. We all did.

I will go. This is the recent one. This is the recent one? All right. Kissing equals sex. Oh. Okay, so you just found that out. That's not the recent one, but that I thought for a long time. That's how you thought babies were made? That's a great one. That's a great one. Whether you say sex or not, they're kissing. I was like, oh, they're naked kissing. That means sex. Yeah. Because you would watch a movie and they would whatever. Yes. They French kissed. That's a good one.

And then I will go with if you fell through a cloud, you'd come out soaking wet. That's not true. No. Are you sure? Yeah. I don't. I don't know. I feel like that picture didn't count. Like, what if it's raining? I feel like. Is that not true? I always thought that if you fell through a cloud. Same. Then all the water would just fall. Same.

Oh, you thought that you would pierce the cloud and then the cloud would break? Oh, like a water balloon. Okay, yeah. Like you're basically falling through a water balloon and it would pop. Yeah. But I think that... I still think that's true. No, because if you fly through clouds, the plane doesn't come out wet. Are you sure? Yeah. Sometimes, right? Yeah, sometimes. Only if you're underneath. Well, if you run through fog, like really dense fog, you get moist, right? Yeah.

I was thinking I was like, my thing was the water. I just thought of another one that you went skydiving and fell and fell through a cloud that it would just pop the entire cloud would expand and then water would just fall everywhere. Yeah. I just literally just triggered that. Okay. Yeah. So I'll go with this next pick because I your your thought. Can I specify that if you fell through a cloud that it would pop? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Make it make more sense. Yeah. Um,

Because I had to double check because I guess maybe I still thought, a small part of me thought this was real until right this second. But if you're in an elevator and it falls and you jump at the end, you survive. You're going to be safe, yeah. That's not, that's true. No, it's not. I just looked it up. It's not true. It's not true. That's what I'm saying. I thought that as a kid. I haven't thought about it for a long time, but I was like, I got to double check because, wait, is it true? Yeah.

It's not true. It's not true. You would die. Yeah, RIP Great Grandpa. So that's my pick. Well, he was underneath that one. Yeah, it fell on his head. He shouldn't have been there. You got to ask. What was the provocation? What was he doing? What was he doing at the bottom of that elevator? What the fuck was he doing under that elevator? It's the one place you don't want to be. I definitely thought that. Maybe a little bit of thought that till now. Just kind of like I still think you're wrong about the cloud thing. But this is good. We're learning. We're learning today. So that's my next pick. Okay. Okay.

This is tough. There's a lot of good ones on the board right now. I used to be very, very, very dumb. These are very personal. Yeah, they're very personal. Okay. Uh,

I used to think that when you'd watch a rerun of a show on TV, that it was an all new taping of the exact same script. Oh, that's good. So I thought that I thought that like I'd be watching Saved by the Bell and then my live music. Yeah, yeah, exactly. They're doing the same song, but they're just taping it again for us. Yeah. Casting live. Very dumb. Yeah, very dumb.

Very dumb. September 1997 Fresh Prince is the best one. Very good. What's your favorite version of the September 1997 Fresh Prince? Max? If you eat a watermelon seed, it'll grow in your stomach. Yeah. That one again. That's definitely in the list of I don't know. I'm not 100% sure on that one. Yep. And I remember this as a kid one time.

for this that there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Yeah. Yeah. So you're looking for it. You ask your parents to drive towards the end of the rainbow. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. That's good. Okay. PFT back to you. I'm going to say I used to think that they sold marijuana and cocaine at drugstores. So we'd be driving past a drugstore. You were never a drug guy. No. We'd be driving past a store and I'd be like,

Dad, why do they sell drugs at that store? Shouldn't they be arrested? And be like, no, it's a different kind of drugstore. It's legal drugs. Create them. It's the drugs that will be illegal soon. That's what they sell there. Okay, good pick. I have one that's a little bit older than just kid. It's more teenage. But again, I think it's relatable. I think everyone had this moment in their life.

I used to think that my parents had no idea when I was high or drunk and they always knew always fucking knew

Like, you remember just coming home and being like, I played that off perfectly? Yeah. No chances you played off perfectly. Because, like, being older and being sober around drunk people, you always know when someone's drunk. Yeah, I thought that my mom had no idea that I threw up three times in my room one night. And she came in the next day and she was talking about how it smelled like cologne. Yeah. And I was like, yep, she bought it. She thinks it's the cologne. Reeking like weed and being like, shh.

Damn, I'm suave. They had no idea. Let's get some Old Spice on this thing. Good. Hank, I'm sure you had it. Or did you still think your parents didn't know? Oh, no, they knew. Because, I mean, credit, like, I don't know how it was. Like, my parents were at least, as long as I was home safe, they weren't going to, like, be like, you're drunk. Yeah. In my head, I was like, I'm good. You know?

I just got in trouble so many times that it got to a point where as long as I wasn't super fucked up, I'd be like, I gotta wait. Yeah, I'm not talking about obviously, there's been super fucked up times. I'm talking about that middle zone where it's like you're fucked up and you think that you're pulling it off. You're never. What you learn is that your parents just don't want to deal with it. Yeah, they just want you to get home safe. Yeah, that's it. Okay, you're home. I don't want to make a thing. It was as long as I never got caught in the act. I got caught throwing up a couple times. That was always a big problem.

I would always try and make an excuse and say it was somebody else. There was one time... Always spat me to the MIA. I threw up in my room, and I took a shower at 4 o'clock in the morning, and my dad came up and was like, why is there puke in your room? And I was like, it wasn't me. Someone else's weed. I was literally the only person there. Someone else's beer. One time my parents found an empty case of natural light in my room, and...

I just stared at it and I tried to think of a lie. And after about like five seconds, I just looked at him. I was like, I got, I got nothing. Yeah. Yeah. You just, I just blame it on a friend and they'd be like, why are you carrying these beers? Oh, it's someone else's.

What? And then he's digging your head like, wow. What's the guy's name in Catch Me If You Can? Frank Abingale. I'm Frank Abingale. That's what Michael Irvin did with the cops. He was like, this is not my pipe. I'm holding it for a friend who recently asked me to help him quit smoking. So I took it from him. Then I put it under my seat.

I got caught with a fan in the kitchen one time because I was smoking weed and I like coughed. And I was like, I think if I fan out the air where I just coughed out the window, it'll be fine. And then my parents were like, why is there a fan in the kitchen? And then I just was so high. I just looked at them. I was like, ugh. The worst one I got was I got caught with the – I don't know if you guys used to do this back in the day, the paper towel roll thing.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not even talking about. Are you talking about like the dryer? Yeah, I'm talking about making a bowl out of the paper towel. I would do the top little tin foil, punch the holes into the tin foil, and then you put your hand over it, you smoke it, and then you let your hand off.

They just found a huge paper towel roll with a hole on top with tinfoil. And they're like, what? Do they have any idea? It's like, no, it's a science project or some shit. I was an Apple guy. You're an Apple guy? I was an Apple guy. We used to go to the store. I was a can. You're a can? Soda can. Crunch it up? Yeah. We used to go to the store. We would buy a 20-ounce plastic bottle.

Some Bic ballpoint pens And then Nestle Crunch Bar Because it had tinfoil on it And so we were like MacGyver You put me in a store and I'll figure out how to make a bong I think it was Pop-Tarts Someone told me that Bible paper you could smoke That's crazy That's crazy We should make a gravity bong

No, that's the worst feeling in the world. No, old school. Oh, yeah, after a gravity bomb hit? There's no worse feeling than being so high after a gravity bomb. And there's nothing you can do about it? No, it's panic. It's panic. We could turn the bed of my El Camino into a giant gravity bomb. I'm down.

It'd be sick. A bathtub gravity bond? That's what it was when I got caught with the fan. Here's what we do. We fill up the El Camino with water, like one of those Philly dumpsters that they hang out in, and then we get, like, a giant recycling bin, and we put a hole in the top of it. I love it. Press it down. Biggest hits ever. I love it. We used to, like, hide, obviously, like, vodka and water bottles, and that's how we could kind of, like, you know, bring it in and out of the house. And one time my mom replaced the booze with, like,

laundry detergent or like bubble something like dish soap like clear dish soap and I drank the whole thing and I legit burped a bubble was like I think she got you yeah she got me bad yeah and then the other worst one this was this was this is by far the worst of like I thought I got away with it I would have this you know the the sploof with the dryer sheets in it in my bathroom that didn't have windows and I did this one time because I thought it would work

Turn the shower all the way on hot. Towel underneath. And then there was a ventilator. So I was like, all the smoke's going up there. I'll smoke like a little bowl before blowing the thing. And then I'll be in the shower for like 20 minutes. So by the time I'm out, the condensation has washed it out. That vent went straight to my basement. So I walked out into my dining room. My parents were just like, what were you doing? I was like, oh, what's up, guys? They're like...

You know that vent goes to the basement. I was like, oh. That's so good. That was a great little tangent we just went on right there. That was nice. That's why I thought this would be a fun open-ended one. I think an AWL sent me this one, so shout out that guy. The Mount Rushmore topic. I can't remember. I'm pretty sure, so I apologize. That person, shout out you. You know who you are. All right, so you have two picks. All right, I will go with girls pee from their butt. Yep, okay. And this was the recent one that...

Blind drive signs meant that a blind person lived there. I learned that in my 20s.

Wait, where it says like blind... Blind drive. What about blind... Oh, yeah, that's not. I'm thinking blind pedestrian crossing means that there is a blind person. But blind drive means that you just can't see the driveway. Yeah, I always thought that meant that a blind person lives there. And they drive there. All right, I have one more. This one's very dumb, and it comes from something you're told as a kid that I just assumed. I thought my...

My testicles were Play-Doh. So when my parents told me don't eat Play-Doh, I thought they were trying to be like, hey, don't eat Play-Doh because your balls will just get bigger because it will just go right to your balls. I thought my balls were Play-Doh. That would ride. You just don't know what they are when you're a little kid. And you start like that first time way before puberty and you're like,

Start touching them, you're like, this is weird. I'm like, oh, it must be Play-Doh. That's why they tell me not to eat Play-Doh. That's a good one. Yeah. That's a good one. Is this my last pick? Yeah. Okay, last pick. I will go...

I honestly used to think that every adult was smart. Yeah. I thought if you were grown up, you knew what was going on. Yeah, they kind of lied to you. You understood it. Yeah. And then you grow up and you're like... We're all dumb. No, we're all really fucking dumb. Yeah. Yeah, you don't know what you don't know. I was probably smarter when I was a kid than I am now. I was definitely more intellectually curious. Yeah. I was definitely asked better questions. Yep. And had a mind that was like...

Trying to figure things out instead of just being like, oh, that's what it is. Yeah, but if an adult said something, it's like, yeah, no, they're right. They're an adult. Yeah, because most adults either are bullshit. Like they'll answer something just because they don't want to be wrong with a little kid or they just say it is what it is. Or yeah, or they're very confident and not smart at all. Yeah. Those are ones you got to watch out for.

I need a new, I need a new fact because like my kids always say when I, when I tell them plans, I try to tell them the plan so they know what's coming and they'll be like, we know that already. So then I was like, well, how about this? Did you know the peregrine falcon is the fastest animal? And that blew their mind, but I don't have a second one.

Another fun, like an animal fact or anything in general? That's the extent of my knowledge. You can always go. I don't have anything that I'm confident. Did you know that Detroit's further east than Atlanta? Yeah. Okay. That one's good. Yeah. Human head weights eight pounds. Yeah. McGuire going to. Okay. All right, Max, your last one.

Teachers lived at school. Yeah, good pick. Great one. Also, big guy. Did you know that Clay Thompson's last game with the Warriors, he went 0 for 10? Yeah. True. Yeah, but that's a good pick, Max. I had that on my list, too. I thought about that one. Yeah. Also, nothing worse than the once a year you called your teacher mom. Yeah, I thought about that. Fucking sucked. When I thought of teacher lived at school, I thought about that as well, and I was like, I don't know how to do that. Sucked. All right, what other ones? I had...

I thought, because this is like when technology was, you know, before the internet and everything, I thought my Game Boy controlled the airplane. Yeah. That's why they told you to turn it off. So I thought, like, they're like, turn it off because if you hit left here...

When you're playing, you know, Tetris, it's going to go, the plane's going to go left. Yeah. I also thought a million dollars was the most amount of money you could have. You max out. Like when you get a million dollars, you're set for life. When? Yeah. Nothing else. Like no one will ever. You're just, you retire. If you have a million dollars, boom, you're done. You retire at the age of seven. I thought that I thought I was an elf when I was a kid. Ooh.

I thought because I had pointy ears. I saw myself in the mirror one time. I was like, fuck, small. I might be an elf. That's tough. I used to think you actually won the money when you get a pop up on your computer. Yeah. Yeah. Scams. Yep. I also, I also in that same vein thought there was no correlation between what I was downloading on LimeWire and my computers crashing. Yep. Yep.

Yup. Oh, I mean, yeah, you could have a long conversation about songs that you thought were other bands' songs. Yeah. I thought Dispatch wrote Crazy Game of Poker. Oh. I mean, every 50 Cent song was just Soulja Boy. Every song was Soulja Boy. Any others, Max, that you had? Duct Tape was Duck, D-U-C-K. Like, it was ducks. Made out of ducks? Oh, that's interesting. It was killing a lot of ducks. That's why it's called Duct Tape. Yeah.

The only reason that kids had glasses was because they didn't eat enough carrots. Yes. Carrots are big times. Night vision. Yeah. I thought I could get night vision if I ate enough carrots. Also off of vision, if you sit too close to the TV, you'll go blind. Oh, the other one, if someone slaps you in the back when you're making a face, you're stuck with that face for the rest of your life. That was a big one. If you take a shower during a lightning storm, you'll get electrocuted. Yeah.

I thought chocolate milk came from brown cows. Okay. Until I was like 17. Until you were 17? Yeah. I was up north driving past a brown cow, and I pointed to my cousin. I said, you know, chocolate milk comes from those things. And he said, what the fuck are you talking about? I said, okay, I'm sorry. I should have known that. I should have known that. Where did you think strawberry milk came from?

I knew that was artificial. Okay. I just, I thought the brown was in the cow, you know, and it got mixed. I don't know. Okay. I used to think I was going to be six feet tall because sometimes you go to a doctor and they're like, okay, you're projected to grow this tall. Yeah. So I would be six feet tall. I used to think OJ was innocent. I swore OJ was innocent up and down. Yeah. I was so happy when they found him not guilty. Yeah.

I when when video games like first started getting good like so this is when a PlayStation come out PlayStation was like late 90s right I thought that I would because like my my parents like can't play video games during the week and

I thought that I was pulling it off when my mom would walk in the room and I was playing 2K or Madden. And I was like, it's not a video game. I'm watching the game. I'm watching sports. Yeah. I thought the graphics were so good. And they were so bad looking back at it. I was just like, yeah, I got this. She has no idea that these aren't real games.

Oh, man. So stupid. Just so stupid. I used to think that if you found the Tootsie Pop that had the Native American shooting a star, you could take it to the gas station. They give you a new one. They give you a free Tootsie Pop. Yes. Yes. Hank, any more?

Any more recent? I mean, there's definitely some recent. Hank, I would like you to keep a running list, though, of just things that you find out. Yeah. Just like things that upend small parts of your world. There's a couple that we have on this Mount Rushmore that I'm still a little 50-50 on. Elevator, clouds.

I think if you jumped high enough, you might still get six feet. Yeah, maybe. Did I say the chewing gum one? I could get the surgery. Oh, what? If you swallow it, it stays there forever. That's one that I'm... I always thought it was seven years. That was what I was told. Seven years. Regardless, I still might think that's true. Yeah, and Hank just swallows all his gum, which is one of the most underrated, not talked about enough stories on Pardon My Take, that every time Hank chews a piece of gum, he swallows it. I would get the CVS bags of gumballs.

That's crazy. Eat them like they were just... That's crazy. Even to this day, you swallow all your gum. Yeah. That's fucking... It is nuts. Crazy. When I was in like... I don't know how old I was, but whenever you get your first boners as a kid, I thought that meant that I had AIDS. Yeah. I thought it was like, oh, I'm sick. Yeah. I don't know. I'm going to die. Yeah. Yeah. It was a crazy time. Okay.

Good Mount Rushmore. That was a fun one. Some good tangents. Before we get to our interview with Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, we're going to talk about their new movie, The Instigators. It's a hilarious Apple original film starring Matt Damon and Casey Affleck about two amateur criminals who are in way over their heads. From the director of Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The Bourne Identity, The Instigators centers on Rory, an ex-Marine in the need of cash who reluctantly teams up with an unpredictable ex-con named Cobby.

to pull a simple 15-minute job robbing the mayor of Boston. Sounds easy, right? Well, when every step of the plan goes haywire, Rory and Cobby find themselves in the midst of a statewide manhunt running from the police and the criminal underworld alike. With nowhere left to go, the pair turn to the only person they know qualified to handle a crisis, Rory's therapist played by Hong Chow, and you don't want to miss...

the action-packed comedic thrill ride that is The Instigators. Rated R. Stream the new film August 9th only on Apple TV+. We're going to talk about it, the movie with them. I watched it. We got a preview. It's a great movie. Apple TV's been crushing it. So go watch The Instigators on August 9th only on Apple TV+.

Okay, we now welcome on two very special guests. It is Matt Damon and Casey Affleck. They have a new movie out called The Instigators. You can watch it on Apple TV. It is an awesome movie. We got a screener. We felt special for it. I guess my first question, though, is...

You guys have been doing a bunch of interviews today. Is this background like a knuckleball that's thrown at you where you're like, these two idiots are now interviewing us? I don't know how we got this interview, but we're happy to do it. Everybody's got DraftKings behind them so far today. Good. Every outlet. We had your PR, one of your PR people were like, you guys have the most time with them. We don't know how that happened. And we're just like, oh, shit. We're going to change that, actually. Yeah. I was like, I guess we suck. Did he tell you? Yeah. You got two minutes. Yeah.

Yeah. So, so you've been doing a lot of interviews today. That's it's always interesting doing these cause you were obviously promoting the movie. What's the dumbest question that you've been asked so far? And we'll make sure not to ask that question. Uh,

Mostly it's been the answers that are done. The questions have been pretty good. But I don't want to put you guys on, you know, make you feel weird or anything. But the last guy that interviewed us was an Olympic fencer competing in his third Olympics this summer. And just the sweetest guy. Great questions. Really smart. Killer athlete. So now we got you. But...

Come on. You guys got 40 minutes to really win this over here. That's not a real sport. Let's be honest. Fencing? We're doing fencing? I don't...

I don't think you'd tell him that. Oh, I would as long as he didn't have his little fencing. It's not even a real sword. Yeah, right. He's got like a little electronic thing at the end. You're 100% wrong. It's one of the oldest sports. It's a great sport. Didn't you see Princess Bride? You didn't like that? No, Princess Bride was great. That was real swords. Real swords, yeah. When they start using real swords and fencing, I'll start watching. Yeah.

They used to, apparently he was just telling us that like we were, he was talking about the equipment and he said too many people used to die. So that's why they, they put the thing at the end of the sword. Now that also that's saying boxing's not a real sport. Cause they don't use real fists. Like they got something, a cushy thing. Although the F that fencing story, you just said, Matt, that feels like every fencing guy says that to be like, actually, we used to be really tough. Like you don't realize like it was so tough. People died.

So I feel like you got duped there. All right. So the movie, though, is awesome. And my first question about the movie is you guys obviously have done so many things in your career. Is there something specific when you work together and with Ben where you're like, this is just so much more fun because we're hanging with our friends and the familiarity of it just brings you back to early days? Do you have that feeling when you do a movie together? For sure. Yeah. Yeah. But also, it's not only the familiarity. It's the

the work process. Like when you go way back with someone, you don't waste any time on like diplomacy, you know, which, you know, takes up a lot of your day when you're in an artistic endeavor with a whole group of people. A lot of times you're protecting everybody's feelings and you're, you know, well, what's the best way I can say this? And when you're with your old friend, you're just like, dude, that sucks, man. We got to do something else. Like,

you know, figure it out, like, and you kind of get to the root of the problem faster. And so much of filmmaking is just problem solving. And so the quicker you can get to, all right, what's the problem? How can we fix it? The more fun it is because you move faster, you're more efficient. Like there's a better kind of creative momentum. But because you have that foundation, it's like,

The problem with doing that with people you don't know is people's feelings get hurt or they feel like there isn't that underlying respect. When that stuff's just a given, if you've known someone your whole life, it's just like, well, obviously I love and respect you, but like, you know...

We're lighting money on fire in production right now. Like we gotta figure this out right now. - No feelings get hurt. I like that. - It's a fair point. You got the underlying relationship and you don't have to worry about pretending to be nice or at least just being nice and wasting time doing that. I have a dumb question about just being on a movie set in general. Does it ever get boring?

Yeah. Like when you're filming a movie, how much of your day is actually spent doing the work? Very little. Yeah. And it depends what you think of the work. The time there's a there's an old saying that says it's what they call is it between action and cut is a take. Right. So there's this old tongue twister saying it's not the take that takes the time to take the take is the time between the take that takes the time to take the take.

It's all that time. I just got hypnotized. When you're like setting things up or thinking about what you want to do next, that's real good time spent sometimes, but it takes up most of the day. And if you added up all the seconds that were spent while the camera was actually rolling, I don't

What would it be? An hour? You know what I mean? Maybe a couple more on a 10-hour day or something. So most of the time is downtime, and a lot of that time is when other people are doing what they need to do. Like you do your bit, and then they've got to move all the equipment and do stuff, and so you've got to wait. In the same way, it's probably boring for the crew sometimes when you're on take 10 of some scene that you're doing, and they've heard it a million times, and they don't want to.

But so you learn to be patient. You learn to occupy yourself with other things or to like use that time to think about what you're going to do next. Yeah. Yeah. And I imagine having your friends around people that you've known a long time makes makes all that time a little bit better. It makes it easier. It goes on Wordle. You try to like spend the time like catching up with your buddy. That's over there doing like Tetris six hours a day. Wait, what is the game you're playing, Matt? Is it Wordle? Does it take you six hours to do Wordle?

It does not. It does not take me six hours to do Wordle. No, I usually, like...

If it's a slow day, if I know it's like a boring day, like entrances and exits, like sometimes I'll bring my phone and catch up on emails and do stuff. And like Ben and I are also, you know, we have this studio artist equity and we're, and so that's, that's a, it takes a lot of time. Even when I'm not there in the office, there's a lot of stuff that needs to get done. And it's angry birds. So this movie is great, but when you guys were creating this and coming up with the idea of

Were you like, hey, we know we can play the hits here because people are going to love us back in Boston. You got the heist. It's a comedy as well. There's got to be a part of you where you're like, not playing the hits, but if someone said a Mad Lib like Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, Ben Affleck are doing a heist movie in Boston and it's funny, it's like, yeah, I'm in.

I'm 100% in. I'll watch that all day. Did that go through your thought process? Like, we know this is going to be a hit. No, I wish we'd talked to you back when we were, we would have more confidence. No, we, Case wrote the script with Chuck McClain, who's a Boston guy. And, um,

And, and like, there was a lot of work. Once we started figuring out who was going to be in it, there was a lot more work to do. So case and Chuck came back to New York and we worked with the director. We were like locked in a room for like three months trying to figure it out. But what we really knew we wanted to do was a movie that was fun and

and moved fast, like had a momentum to it. And that was just really entertaining. That was kind of our, like Midnight Run is the kind of North Star for us for movies like this. It's kind of a perfect movie because it actually has some,

some kind of emotional heft at the end too. It's like, it really sneaks up on you, but it's really fun throughout the whole movie. And you're like with the characters, even when they're bickering and arguing. And, um, and so that's what we were trying to kind of like model the, the, the, the movie on. And that's kind of really all we were thinking. Uh, it never felt like a layup, right. It never felt like with a clear lane, you know, it was, we,

we really want it to be good and and i actually don't think that everyone's gonna like if you made a stinker people let us know it's not like ah you know they're gonna just go anyway not these days like you gotta make a good movie people find out about it really quick everyone's on social media they go this movie sucks and nobody goes so we knew that we had to to do something good and doesn't matter who's in it uh just got lucky that we had like

Our director, Doug Lyman, but someone great in every single part, like, you know, really experienced comedians and great actors. And so kind of supported us. Do you guys, when you guys are doing movies, I'll start with you, Casey. Like if you are embarking on a project, um,

How quickly can you tell this is a hit or this might not turn out exactly how I want it to be? I don't do that that well. Even when the movie's done, it's hard for me to see exactly. I just get too close to things. So sometimes...

movie's over i'm like when i see the first cut of a movie i'm like oh man we didn't do it it missed and then people really like it and then years later you watch it again you're like that was really good it's pretty good it takes me a minute and some distance to be able to see a thing that i've been in clearly um and when you're on set and when you're reading it before you get to set it's just a shot the dark i mean your your your only guide is like

um who are the other people involved do i want to work with them do i respect them do i like you know is this going to be something i can learn on is there something i think i can contribute whether it turns out is to be good it's just there's too many factors it's out of your control you can put together assemble the best people in the planet and still make something that just doesn't work so you got to go in

focused on the process and letting go of the results in some way. Yeah. You talked about some of the great actors that are in this film. And one of my favorites is in here, Paul Walter Hauser, great actor. Oh, man. Fantastic, right? He is so good.

So he's amazing. So as you're writing this movie, do you envision him in this role or when he was cast in this role? Were you like, OK, this is perfect. Had you worked with him before? Just I'm enthralled with everything that he does. He was first thing I'd seen was Blackbird. And it was right when before they were casting it.

And I was like, that guy's amazing. That's a, that is a great performance. Um, didn't know him, didn't know anything else about him. I didn't, I didn't know him. I mean, I'd seen him in jewel and, and, and, uh, that's right. Yeah. And Blackbird. And, but no, I mean, he just, he's also one of those guys, you know, we've been doing it for a long time and like, we kind of know how the magic tricks done. And when you see somebody up close, uh,

who's just a baller, it's just undeniable. Like from the second he walked on set and started working, you're like, God, that guy is so freaking good. He really is one of the best actors out there.

So, yeah, I'm you know, we're trying to do something else with him at Artist Equity now, a project that he wrote, actually. I want to do as much as I can with him just because I think I just think he's incredible. Can I pitch a two projects for him that I think you would knock out of the park?

Yeah, I'll tell him. You're going to have to sign something first. Okay, no, you can steal this. Steal my IP. One would be him playing Andy Reid in the Andy Reid story. Oh, that's a great idea. I think it would crush that. Wow, that's not bad. Yeah. That's not bad. And then Confederacy Dunces. If that movie ever gets made, he needs to play Ignatius. Philip Seymour Hoffman was looking at that for a really long time.

got close I think a few times I remember talking to him about it 20 years ago I read a few scripts of that yeah and never never quite as good as the book but um that's a good that's a good call two really good calls and in fact I will call Paul after when I get home tonight and I'll tell him let him know let him I wish I could buy stock in somebody winning best actor at some point like if there was a

market out there i put a lot of money on that guy that's a good call yeah that's a very good call we should do that we should create a stock create the stock market for for there was something called the hollywood exchange for a while i i don't know if you could bet on them being i think movies you bet on or something or was it just x no you buy stock in actors and movies and then it goes up and down based on not sure what but yeah

I think that's the hard part. I like that. We'll figure out the market for that. Matt, I had a question for you. Did you not get invited to do a roast at Tom Brady's thing? No, I did. That's why I did the voiceover at the beginning because I couldn't go to L.A. because I was in New York, and I had to go to the Met Ball the next day. Oh, what happens there? That's sort of a Met Ball kind of guy. Yeah. Oh, no. Is that true? Are you a Met Gala guy over –

Tom Brady guy? Don't judge him. He likes fashion. Here's the key to a happy marriage. I would rather be happy than right. Okay. Yeah. But it is Tom Brady. It is Tom Brady. And Tom understood. I texted with him. He invited me to go out. And then it was good that I was able to. There was a nice little video package they did at the beginning. And so I went to a studio here in New York and did a voiceover for that.

I wasn't invited, if you're curious. Yeah. Did you help Ben write his roast? I wasn't invited to go. I wasn't invited to roast. Okay, yeah. How did you think your brother did? I actually didn't see it. Okay, that's good. So you could just say he did well. You could just be like, great job. I'm sure he did really good. Yeah. I'm pretty good at a roast, though. I kind of roasted Matt at his wedding. That was great. Trust me. You did? Yeah.

What did you say? He killed me. He did like 30 straight minutes of stand-up like he was Dave Chappelle or something. It was my one shot and I took it. He just destroyed me in front of like my family and friends. It was incredible. Yeah, you're allowed to do that at a wedding. You're allowed to just like, you know, just be like, here's everything. It was also a wedding like we – this was 15 years ago or something, but my wife and I had already been together for 10 years.

And we had been married for like eight of those years. And so it was like we never we had run to the courthouse when we got married. And so we never got to have a wedding. So like 10 years after we met, we decided to do a big wedding. And so it was so it was kind of a more fun affair because it wasn't like, oh, is it going to work out? Like we were already married for a long time and we just had a big, fun weekend with our friends. And

until Casey fucking ruined it. That was smart of you, Casey. You can't. What's the worst that's going to happen? They're just going to go back to being married, which they've done for eight years before? I was very nice about Lucy. Yeah. All right, so we're taping this a couple months before it comes out.

Do you guys want to give us a prediction on the Celtics season so that way you can either look really smart or really bad? Yes, yes. I'll give you my prediction. Well, my hope is obviously probably what all our hope is, but my prediction is, I mean, Porzingis is probably coming back after game four. Did a horn just go outside like, shut up, man? I was inside. I thought you were going to put it down.

Look, I think we're the best team left. I think we're the deepest team. And if we can stay injury free and if he can come back, I feel like we really should win this thing. And I'm hoping that we do. I will be gutted if we don't. Especially after that, you know, we're taping this just before game two in the Eastern Conference Finals.

I didn't love how close the game was at home the other night, but we definitely stole one back from them. And so it feels like one of those faded years at the moment. But I'll be gutted if we don't win it. Okay. And Casey, you got the Wolves or something? It would be funny if you were just like, yeah, Wolves in five, no problem. Yeah.

I want to ask you guys a question. Did you guys see dynasty? Yes. Yeah, you did. Did you feel like it was fair? Uh, no, not at all. We ripped it apart. It was, it was a, it was basically Robert craft being like, uh, I need more credit for everything that's happened. Uh, which is a crazy thing to think about because if you're an owner of a sports team, you are a billionaire. You own the team. You're never going to get as much credit as the quarterback and the coach.

But all these guys, they want this credit of being like, I did more than everyone realizes. And in doing that, he ends up kind of looking bad. And he makes like, I think they slanted it so hard against Belichick that everyone who has watched the Patriots the last 20 years are like, this is not how it happened. Like, this is the best coach of all time. What are they talking about? So I think it actually hurt him.

And you think that that agenda came from Robert Kraft? I think Robert Kraft wants to get into the Hall of Fame, and I think he kind of overplayed his hand here because they don't let a lot of owners in. Like Jerry Jones just got in, I don't know, like five, six years ago. How would Robert Kraft not get into the Hall of Fame if any other owner is in the Hall of Fame? Well, Matt, I don't know if you know, but the Patriots have been involved in some controversies with the NFL. Oh, please. So that might be why. Look.

Those are fake controversies. He'll get in, but I think he was trying to basically put out a documentary saying, this is all I did. And in watching it, we're just like, what is going on here? It's hard to do that with a documentary too, to have an audience watch it

and understand exactly what the agenda is as you're watching it. Sometimes you go back and you're like, oh, well, it turns out his production company was involved, yada, yada, yada. As you're watching this, when you see the interviews with Coach Belichick, and he looks like he'd rather be anywhere else than in that chair answering these questions. But he always looks like that in an interview. That's a fair point, but I felt like it was especially in this one, and you understand that they shot it during the season differently

while he was an employee of Robert Kraft, who was like telling him, Hey, go sit for this interview. Cause I actually think Belichick would not have sat for any interview with anyone, uh,

if it was just his own choice. Right. But he was kind of made to do it. So, yeah, it kind of ended up, I think, being like a little bit more sympathetic towards Belichick and that point of view than they wanted it to be. Yeah. You know what was interesting to me about that? Like one of the details was that him and Ernie figured – like saw that Drew –

Bledsoe was getting nervous, getting skittish feet in the pocket. I never, ever knew that. And that never came out. Remember that year when it was going down? Everyone was like, who's he going to play this week? Like, oh my God, he's putting the kid back in. Because Bledsoe was like the guy in New England, $100 million contract and all that stuff. I never realized that they actually saw something. They were like... Because Bledsoe played in that era where, I mean, he took punishment. Like...

And how does that not get to you, the accumulation of all those hits? Like, you start thinking about that. You're coming off of an injury. And that it was actually a calculated decision. They were like, well, the 22-year-old kid's cool with it. Like, let's leave him. Yeah.

That, I thought, was really cool. I'd never known that. What I'll say is that it was so well done. It's like 100% of Rotten Tomatoes. Watching it, you just sit down and you watch from beginning to end. It's like one of the best sports talks. I think it leaves people with the impression that that is how it was. You know what I mean? I haven't talked to a lot of people that are like...

I don't know. Like, I think we got manipulated a little bit. I think, you know, the kind of take that you have is not the take that I hear most of the time. Most people just go like, wow, it was interesting to learn that Belichick was like X, Y, and Z. Right. Instead of saying, I think this might have been...

Here's another question, though, just real quick, because I know you guys know so much about this. What's going to happen to Aaron Rodgers? What do you mean? He's probably going to get injured again. He's going to get injured, and then he's going to run for vice president, and he's going to become vice president of the United States. You think he'll get hurt again, huh? I'm a Bears fan, so Aaron Rodgers has tortured my entire life, so I hate him. I've been trying to get him put in jail for a very long time. How are you feeling about this draft choice as a Bears fan? Yeah.

Yeah, he's going to be incredible. He's eccentric. He's cool. Paints his fingernails. That's not a problem, right? I don't see why that would be a problem. No, I'm just wondering if you think it's that number one. It's really tough. Do you get Peyton Manning or do you get Mitch Trubisky? You didn't have to say Mitch. Mitch was the second pick.

He was the second pick, but Mahomes was in that draft. Yes, he was. That's got to hurt. Yeah, I mean, you guys got Drake May. So Hank, our producer, is a big Patriots fan. He was actually in the documentary because he went to jail for Tom Brady. He didn't like the documentary. He thought it was too slanted, so I don't know. Slanted all around. Yeah, he thought it was just too much hate on Bill Belichick.

I did. I like Belichick's thing at the roast where he said, you know, it's brave of you to do a roast for a couple hours rather than in a 10-part Apple series. Yeah, right. That was really funny. So going off of that, Hank, our producer, he admitted a

a couple of weeks ago that he is like for the first time in his life, he's like, has to come to grips with the fact that he might just be a loser this year. And in football, have you guys had that thought where you're like, Oh, this is different. Now we're losers. Again, if Hank is, if Hank is an old school Patriots fan and he's anywhere near our age, then he's not, he's 30. He's,

- All he's known is Joy. - Oh, so he's got no fucking idea. Being a Patriots fan was a certain kind of hell for, and it's true, and maybe this is why we have a different perspective on the Robert Kraft thing, until Robert Kraft bought the team. - Yeah. - Like they were, it was,

brutal going out to Foxborough to watch them play. It was brutal watching them play on TV. Like it just was, it was heartbreaking constantly. In fact, his dad used to always say, bet against the Patriots, no matter what, just bet against the Patriots. If you want to make money gambling, the only sure thing to do is bet against the Patriots when we were kids. So,

i i'm comfortable with knowing that they're gonna you know they're gonna go through that kind of predictable next state you gotta rebuild you gotta rebuild properly yeah yeah yeah hank is young enough where he's only known joy in his life as a boston sports fan so across that's amazing to me like because because our formative years were so different like between this i mean we had we had the celtics in the 80s which was huge

That was all we had. That's what we had. But every other team was just – would break your heart every year. The Patriots less so because they just were never good. It was like excruciating watching them play. Yeah. Yeah, so if you were to rank your favorite, like top three Boston sports memories, what would they be? Memories?

Ooh. Yeah. Soul memories being there or just moments? I guess your three favorite championships. 2004. I have to start with 2004, yeah. I mean, I went to the parade. And 07. I drove up from New York

I and got to Boston and we were all going to the parade. We have my nephews. We had everybody my youngest daughter and I literally ran up to Boylston Street before we were gonna go meet them at the the river to watch the duck boats go out by myself and stood on Boylston Street and just cried I was in my 30s as the duck boats went by like that's how profound that was for I didn't think we would it's that thing that you couldn't believe it's like I

the dog catching the car and then eating it in front of you. Like, I just couldn't believe it. Matt and I, in 2004, we went to Yankee Stadium. It was game three. Game three. It was the moment the curse got broken. They didn't lose. That was the end of losing because then they won that game. They won the next three games and then they swept Cincinnati and we finally won. See how bad it was. We wore Red Sox hats into Yankee Stadium and we thought, all right,

We'll see what happens. And as we walked in, everyone was like, oh, it's so cute that you wore your hat. They just so didn't care. It was so not a rivalry to them. They were so sure they were going to win.

It was just awful. Casey, they're going to cook you in the comments to this video. You meant to say Cardinals. They swept the Cardinals. You meant to say Cardinals. We got you back. We'll edit it out. Sorry. Sorry. I've been cooked before. Good. We'll edit it out.

So wait, who's in those championships, but who's your Mount Rushmore? I should have known that because it was John Hamm's team, huh? Yeah. Who's your Mount Rushmore of Boston athletes? Oh, that's a great question. That's a great question. Thank you. I mean, obviously, Tom, for football, there's zero doubt about that. Wait, wait.

No, no. Big Papi? So here's the thing. Big Papi. I would go Big Papi. I think a lot of people would say Ted Williams. I'm going to say. In our life? No, no. You're saying Boston all time. Okay. Right? Because when you get to basketball, what do you do? Bill Russell, right? 11 championships, player, coach. Like, how do you not put Bill Russell on that Mount Rushmore? You'll never see that again, right? But then you've also got Larry. You've got Paul Pierce. You've got the big three. Yeah.

I like Paul. I don't think he's on Mount Rushmore. No, no, but I'm just saying. Red Arbok. When all is said and done. And then Bobby Orr. So I would probably go Tom, Poppy, Bobby Orr, Bill Russell. Okay. That's a good four. Yeah, that's a strong four. So if you're casting like the 28 to 3 Patriots, if you're making a movie,

I assume that you guys would be involved in the production of that. That feels like it would be right in your wheelhouse. I would hope so. Who plays what role? Well, I cast him as Matt Ryan. Yeah, good answer. Yeah. Who gets Tommy? What's that? Who gets to play Tommy? Who plays Tom Brady? I don't know. Who plays Tom Brady? Who today? What young actor could play Tommy? Jacob Elordi?

This guy's like, you know, he's tall. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a good actor. Yeah. He's awesome. I don't know. I'm not going to cast it. Gronk plays himself. That's the important part. I don't think anybody would believe it if you made it into a movie. Yeah, it's true. What's the one role that you passed up that you kick yourself constantly? You're like, damn, I really should have taken that role. You know, it's funny. I don't know.

I really have a more kind of Zen philosophy about this because there's a lot of roles I've passed up that were really great that turned into great movies. But for one reason or another, I had to pass it up. And I really feel like the right actor gets the part. You know, it just kind of works out. But the biggest one that I ever passed without a question, I had a chance to be an avatar and I

But it conflicted with the Bourne ultimatum with the post-production of the Bourne ultimatum. So I just couldn't do it. And the bummer for me was that I couldn't work with Jim Cameron because he doesn't work that often. And I realized in passing, I was like 35 years old. I was like, I'm probably not going to get another chance to work with Jim Cameron. And that sucks because I really would have loved to work with him. I love his movies.

I would have learned a lot, and I probably would have made more money than any actor in history had I taken the part. But, you know, I don't – it doesn't keep me up at night. I mean, I know why I had to pass, so I'm at peace with it. Sounds like every now and then you think about how much money that would have been. I think because it's funny. Because it's not real money. Right, yeah.

So it's not like that money got taken from me, which would have bankrupted me, by the way. It's just money that I never – it's like I also could have invested in Apple stock 20 years ago. You know what I mean? But I didn't. Was it 10%? It was 10% of the total earnings from the film? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Do you ever go back and look at what the total earnings are? What are the total earnings, PFT? All I know is it made over $2 billion. Let's do it right now. Let's do it right now. Let's look at what the earnings are. Total earnings. And this is just Avatar 1. Oh, no. This is Avatar 1, right? Yeah. $3 billion? $3 billion is the total earnings? Is it $3 billion? $3 billion. I'm not good at math. What's temporary? $300 million. $300 million. You're good at math, Casey. Yeah.

Wait, Avatar 2. $300 million. Oh, no. Oh, no. And Avatar 2 is $2.3 billion. Oh, and think about that, Matt. I never even thought about that. $130 million. I doubt he would have given me the same deal on the second one. He would have been like, dude, come on. You would have had that money, and you also definitely wouldn't have been doing this interview with us, us two shitheads right now. I would have been like, I don't have to use press. You see? Yeah.

You would have owned a draft. Yeah, exactly. I would have owned Barstool Sports. Yeah. So wait, what was the answer for you, Casey? Is there one that you look back and you're like, I kind of wish, not like a huge regret, but like, man, I had that in front of me and it would have been cool if I did that. No. No? I mean...

uh no i don't really there haven't been a ton that have been like people not begging me to do some movie that could be great and it isn't great i mean you know and i don't think it is it's i mostly like see things i want and i just really try hard to get them yeah then i usually don't get them and then some of them i do and then i do those there are very few that i pass on that have ended up being you know trying to think huge hugely successful or super cool movies um

Yeah. No way you would have passed on Avatar, right? No, he's not that dumb. I told Matt not to do it, in fact, because I was hoping they'd come to me next. They just have a sheet. They're like, all right, Ben said no, Matt said no. Okay, see, there you are.

All right. So this movie though is, is, is very good. I, people need to go see it. It's, it's very funny. I was it cool having a moment where you're like, we're back in Boston filming this, the, you know, the three of us together, you know, 20, whatever, five years since Goodwill hunting. Have you had that pinch yourself moment where it's like, you never thought in a million years when we did Goodwill hunting, this is where we'd be right now.

Yeah, I like my dream was to my dream. Childhood dream kind of ended with Good Will Hunting coming out, you know, and I remember that experience and afterwards going, well, what do I do now? Like that was that was it. That was all I ever wanted was to was to make a great movie and be in it. And and and so like the fact that we're still.

able to do this, like, we'd love this job. We'd love it. It's so fun making movies and, and, and having people like them. And, and, and if people like them, if enough people like them, then you get to do another one. And it's really hard to string together a career because there's no tenure or anything, you know, it's just, what's your next thing. And so most careers kind of

die on the vine or fizzle out or for whatever reason, it's very hard to sustain a career. And so the fact that we're still both working 25 years after that movie, um, is great. And, and that is like a, that is the pipe dream really. Um, so we're just trying not to screw it up. Yeah. Yeah. He's gotta be very cool. Done a good job. Not screwing it up. Yeah. You guys are very humble. Yeah. You guys both realize you're really fucking good actors.

Thanks, man. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like maybe this is why it's good that we don't have like a ton of success. Cause I'd be just walking around being like, yeah, I'm just going to make another hit. It's not going to be a big deal. Like whatever. That's by the way that you'd like, you can't think that way in the movie because it's like, that's like, that's like poison. Like if you think this is going to be a hit, it's not like the one time I was like, this is going to be a hit. Was that movie? The great wall that I did. Oh,

man, was that not a hit. And it was like, and I feel, I figured it out like a month into shooting and we had like four months to go. And I was just like, I came to realize that as the definition of a professional actor. It's true. Still get up every day and be like, and you're on a ship that, you know, isn't seaworthy. And you're like, I'm going to do everything that's asked him. I'm going to do, I'm going to work my ass off today.

For 14 hours? Like, that, you know, that's a feeling that I don't want to... I had that experience of being in the one that was like, just didn't land the gray wall on the same movie that also was my, like, this is the thing I've always waited for, which was...

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford that Brad Pitt was in. It was like a studio movie with Brad Pitt. I was the lead. It was one of the most beautiful scripts I'd ever read with a great director. And then it came out and nobody liked it. And it was like, just felt like the biggest...

for a minute. And I thought, I love this movie. What do I care? Right. You have to divorce yourself from those responses. And then 10 years later, it was like, you know, people really loved that movie just for whatever reason. Like it's not in the, it wasn't in the moment. It was bad timing. And then people found it. And so those kinds of ups and downs, like you have to just roll, roll with all of them. If you want to keep working. That's the weird thing too, about like what became way more popular

common knowledge in the last 30 years is the box office and i think because of the explosion of like marvel and all the ip movies like everybody started paying attention to the business side of things like that wasn't a thing when we were growing up like i i if i'd go see robert de niro in a movie i didn't know how it did at the box office i wouldn't even know what that meant

And it's not really an accurate barometer of how good a movie is. It just means that a bunch of people went to see it. And so to try, it's like people make that thing of, they try to quantify a movie by how much money it makes or what. And it is one yardstick by which to take a measurement, but it's really not the only thing. And it's never a measure of if something's going to last and sustain. And, you know, like the,

Ben's movie, The Town, just got re-licensed on by Warner Brothers a few years ago for like 35 million bucks. Like 15 years later, it's worth that much to one of these streamers because people are still watching the movie. Like that's a...

of a movie that really works you know what i mean it lasts and i always thought like when they do the academy awards the real best way to do it if you take all the the money and the marketing all that stuff out is to do the awards like 20 years after the movies come out yeah so this you'd be voting on the movies that were out in 2004 and every and then you it would be so easy to go like well

What made it? There's no spin. It's like, I still watch that movie. I still love that movie. That was the best movie of 2004. It would be, I think, probably a more accurate gauge of whether a movie really works. You could revote. Yeah. Maybe we start that, guys. Maybe instead of that's the new. We'll do a revote. Instead of the Hollywood Stock Exchange, we do a revote. I like that.

Are there any sports stories that you guys think you wish would be made into movies? Oh,

The 1995 South African rugby team that nobody thought could win the World Cup. And it was like a story of races coming together, too, and like post-apartheid South Africa. I think that's such a great story. I don't think that's going to work. What about us? If somebody did it right, it would be my favorite movie ever. But we need somebody to step up and do that. I'd like to see a movie on the time Joe shit his pants during a game.

Just throw that out there. People would be like, oh, we're doing a Joe Paterno movie? Everybody would be like, ooh, that's heavy. It's like, no, no, no. It's just the time he shit his pants against Ohio State. That's the whole movie. Yeah, exactly. Or do a movie about how frequently Joe Mazzulla watches the town. That's where the $35 million came from, by the way. It's just Joe Mazzulla watches it every single day. Yeah, he does. We had him on. He said that. All right, so I had one last question. Rowback question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com. Promo code TAKE. 20% off.

Your first purchase, Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, roback.com. Thank you guys so much. The movie is awesome. My last question, Matt, I've heard you say it and talk about it, but Casey, I don't know if I've ever seen you talk about it. What do you think about your brother's back tattoo? Looks like it hurts. Classy, right? It's classy. By the way, we both had a tattoo on our back that we got when we were really, really young. Yeah.

That was way better. It was simple, elegant, meaningful. Yeah. The other thing, but I like the guy, the tattoo artist who does that is very, very talented. A really nice, sweet guy. I think he just got talked into doing something that, you know. Yeah. What if we just made the entire back a tattoo? And he's like, yeah, I guess. Was he sedated for that? Like Dak Prescott? Yeah. Did they knock him out for the tattoo? Dak! Yeah. They probably did. He's never going to live that down. Yeah.

Yeah, well, thank you guys. We really appreciate it. I didn't even bring up the time my wife saw you, Matt, in Dumbo. That's my whole Matt Damon story. She just saw you at dinner, so that's it. Oh, really? Yeah, that's the whole thing I got. We used to live in Dumbo, so she was like, oh, I saw Matt Damon. That's the whole story, though. There's nothing special. That's the story? We didn't talk? No, no, she just texted me. She's like, I just walked past Matt Damon.

Wow. Pretty good story. Yeah. It'll be a better story. Yeah. It'll be a better story if we actually say something to each other. She just saw you just text me. I saw Matt Damon's like, Oh, okay, cool. I said a little bit real quick. What is a rat at the end of the departed symbolize? We've, we've talked about this for years. Uh, I mean, it's probably if Marty hasn't come out and said it, I mean, the whole movie is about rats and, but you know, it's a rat. It's probably like, yeah, I mean, I mean, uh,

the writer had in the script in the, in the, in the original script, I w I lived in an old Brownstone and like back Bay. And that was the idea of me, of me, uh, kind of climbing the, the, you know, the, the social ladder. And now I find myself in this old Brownstone, but there's still a rat that you, the rat comes across and it's, it's his past. It's the thing, you know, it's, it's, it's meant to symbolize all that stuff. Got it. But when Marty wanted to, wanted to see the state house, uh,

you know, to kind of, you know, and he's looking out at the gold, which meant that I was in kind of a more modern building. And so people kind of, some people bristled at the rat. They're like, what's a rat doing in that building? It looks a little congruous. Symbolic. And so, yeah, it's a rat. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you guys so much. We really appreciate it. It was great to have you guys on and everyone go watch the instigators. It's an awesome movie. Thanks guys. Love your show. Love your show. Thanks guys.

Before we get to Firefest of the Week, we're brought to you by our friends at Chevy. As everyone knows, this is a Chevy truck podcast, the greatest trucks ever built. And our good friends at Chevrolet have been a big part of the Pardon My Take story, from the Silverado helping us dig the biggest hole ever dug in Ohio during Grit Week, to Silverado partnering with us to give college fullbacks all the rightful recognition they deserve with the Lowman Ward logo.

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It all starts with a Chevy truck. Okay, let's get to Fyre Fest. Okay, let's wrap up the show. We got Fyre Fest of the week. Hank, you're back from vacation. I am. You're Fyre Fest? That's the problem with vacations. There's not really... There's not any bad things to talk about. Yeah. You need a vacation from your vacation. So you got back to...

Today at 2, you landed at 2. Landed at 2. So... I sat in traffic when I landed. I had to sit in traffic for two hours. Thursday's out. And then tomorrow you'll be in the office? Yeah, in the afternoon. Oh, really? Why? What are you doing in the morning? Well, we have the week off and Big Cat's been saying all summer, let's find a day to go to Beverly. Find a day to go play golf. And since technically this is a week off, we are here right now. We're going to be here all night. I've been here all day. Okay.

I've not been here all day. We're going on a work trip Saturday. No big deal. Great week. But we're golfing. You and I are golfing. Yeah. Hank's holding me hostage. I'm golfing tomorrow in the morning. You excited? Have fun. Those greens are fast. I'm not. I'm going to play about nine holes. What? Is that a slap in the member's face? I think so. Really? I don't know. A little bit. I told you I was going to. You've been saying, oh, let's set it up. Let's set it up. This is a week off. You're like, I got to go do the yak. It's like, okay.

All right, maybe I'll be late to the act. Maybe I'll play 12 holes. Whatever you want. You know I'm not an 18-hole guy. No, I know. I'm not an 18-hole guy. I'm just excited to play some golf with my friends. Yeah. So what's your fire fest? I sat in traffic, two hours of traffic. Oh, my God. Are you okay? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's it. I had a great week. Are you going to cry? I love vacation.

Yeah, it was a good vacation. Feel refreshed. Feel refreshed. Sorry that happened to you. Yeah. Traffic is... I wouldn't wish that on my... I mean, I lost... I also lost a Mount Rushmore to a fucking... Someone picking celery for a snack. Yeah. So that was tough. Celery and peanut butter. Yeah. And you know that. Yeah, you're in trouble. Well, I'm with Hank because we've got a meatball merchant named Max.

And he's just stacking wins because he keeps picking the fattiest foods. Well, and we're done with food drafts for the rest of the summer. So we'll see how Max can hold up without having to just go meatballs on every draft. It has been a stunning, like Max said, on fire in the Mount Rushmore season. Yeah, I mean, I did spend a lot of time reflecting and trying to revisit some game plan and strategy things because like the snack draft, I think,

That one great for me. I left that draft being like great draft. And then celery. Dead last. Celery. Celery. Yeah. That. Yeah. Whooped you. That really has put my brain in a pretzel. Yeah. Okay. PFT, your fire fest? I've had a pretty good week. It's been a nice little vacation here. But I think the joint fire fest is that the takees have stirred up a lot of controversy. Hmm.

And there are some people who are very upset. Tom Fornelli, very upset for not being nominated for Italian of the Year. He's got a lot to work on with his Italian-ness this year, and I hope he puts forth a better showing. But then the big controversy is from the Lib of the Year award. And Jerry is really going through it right now because Jerry, he keeps alternating back and forth between like,

okay, I appreciate the award and saying like, oh no, please take it away from me. Everyone, please stop calling me the lib of the year. He texted me in big cat this morning asking us if we would rescind the award and take it away from him. We reminded him that there is a cash prize that goes along with the award. So he says that he's okay with keeping it for now. He did a quick 180 on that one, but he's really struggling with everyone calling him the lib of the year online. So please everyone, if we could stop calling

calling Jerry Lib of the Year online and don't remind him that he won the Lib of the Year award no matter what. Here's a good... So yeah, he was quickly backtracked when we told him the cash prize. He'd have to give that back. And we said that the cash prize is up to... It could be up to $20,000 depending on how many times people call him Lib of the Year.

But I agree with PFT. Please stop calling live of the year online. Instead, buy a Jerry live of the year shirt that's now in the store so you can do it in real life, which would be better.

Yep, yep. And yeah, just no matter what, stop calling him that all the time. Like, stop saying that to him every single minute that you're online. He said that he's going to delete Twitter, but that's also because there was a picture of him eating a corn dog, getting a corn dog shoved down his throat. So he's having a tough time. He's having a tough go of it. He also has a picture going floating around with a Hillary Clinton trading card on his forehead. So it's been a tough week, but he did win the Liberty Year. So congrats to him. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, he should be, I guess, be proud of whatever award that you get. He's more of a participation trophy kind of guy, though, I guess. So he wants everyone to have a little bit of the year. Yeah, there's actually in the new Twitter, there's the Explorer. And one of the top ones I have right now is Lib of the Year Award Controversy.

And it's got the, uh, the AI summary says Jersey, Jerry, a prominent figure was awarded lib of the year title by the popular podcast. Pardon my take the announcement made by Nick Adams led to a flurry of reactions on social media. While many congratulated Jerry, he expressed discomfort with the overwhelming attention and requested a reduction in the frequency of mentions. The situation sparked a mix of support, humor, and criticism from various users, highlighting the complexities of public recognition in the digital era. Yeah.

I love it. It's perfect. Also, how come nobody told me I look like I'm in hell right now? Well, you just changed your lighting, so how could we tell you that? It looks like you were on a play stage before. Yeah, you changed your lighting. Oh, I didn't change anything. Something changed. You look different. I'm at the developing room.

I'm at Scully's right now, and I think they're getting ready for sound check right now. Here we go. That's better. Now I'm in heaven. Yeah. Heaven? Hell. It did change. You were looking not like that, and then something changed with the lighting. All right. My fire fest, I got an easy one. My son pissed on me. That was all. So that was fun. He pissed on me. We were playing swords, and he pissed across the toilet all over my leg.

So, but that's the game. Listen, when you get in between the lines and you're playing swords with your son, you got to expect that to happen from time to time. Sword fight. Sword fights are dangerous. We started the sword fight and then all of a sudden I was like, why is my whole entire leg feel wet? And I looked down and

He was just peeing all over me. I think that means he won the sword fight. Easily. Easily. Total alpha move. Total alpha move. But yeah, you got to play swords with your kid. Come on. It's fun. It's just like, you know, because usually I do win, but this one, he's changed the game. And credit to me, I didn't pee on him. I was going to say, I feel like you were thinking about revenge. Thought crossed my mind.

Thought crossed my mind, but I figured, you know what? Let's just, let's, let's play it. Let's play this the right way. Chalk it up to a loss. Move on. Play another game. Um, all right, Huey, you want to finish this off? Yeah. My fire fest is doing laundry. Oh, uh, specifically mine. Um, and,

So I have, so the apartment I'm in right now, the type of, I don't have a washer dryer in my place. It's four stories down in a different place. So I have to share that laundry room with three other units. How many machines? It's just one washer, one dryer. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it's in a different hall. It's in a, so it's like a four stories down in different stairs. Is there an elevator? No. No.

But it's a different set of staircases. It's like in the back. So it's like darker. And like there's no windows out there. It's just one light at the bottom, one light at the top. Sounds like a basement. Yeah. Yeah. It's essentially what I'm going into. And there's spiders all the way up and down the wall. Okay. It's just...

I'm afraid to go down there. So you have no clean laundry. So I'm running low on clean laundry now because it's been two weeks. It's running low out of everything. So I bought new clothes, bought just essential stuff, found some DraftKings shirts in the other room in the gambling cave. So that's going to help. Yeah, Hugh, you can go to my office, pick whatever you want.

All right. I mean, you shouldn't say that out loud. Nope. I just did. All right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's yeah, we got new stuff. I got I had new stuff coming anyway. So it wasn't the end of the world. But I think I have I have a new play set on the back end of Grit Week.

Oh, you're moving. Yeah. Got a washer and dryer there and it's my own. Good. So I got a whole plan of doing big laundry for one weekend. It's going to be awesome. Excited. I was like, your strategy for no clean laundry seems to just be like only buy new clothes. Yeah. That's a total dude's rock moment. Like I, there were spiders in the hallway, so I just got new clothes. And when he says he bought new clothes, I'm like,

I feel like it was old. I bought socks. Okay, but a lot of the clothes came from the gambling cave. Yeah, this came from this office. Raising canes. A lot of stuff was getting delivered here. Yeah, yeah. I did have some Amazon stuff. I got some shampoo. I mean, we're rocking and rolling now. Yeah. I mean. He's just going to be a walking billboard for us. I love it. I love it. Okay. Good show, boys. Grit Week starts Sunday night.

We're traveling. We'll be visiting a bunch of different camps. We're very excited. We also will have a meet and greet that we'll let everyone know about when we get it set. So good show. Grit week. Excited to get back all of us together. Let's do numbers. 20. 8. 42. 12. You want to do 56? I want to do 56. Yeah. 56. Well, no. Now what if it's 8? 3. It's not going to be 8.

It's going to be 56. I promise. 49. 21. 43. 43. Love you guys. I'm talking away. I'm about to say I'd say it anyway. Days on my day. The body shining. I'm coming for your lover. Needless to say. No, I'm a little way. I'm a little better to be safe than sorry. I'm coming for you anyway.