119: The NBA Dark Academia Web

A night call from a teacher about the back to school catch 22 facing all teachers and students right now. Tess blows the lid off the secret pandemic pod tutoring circuit. Then it’s the rebooted Unsolved Mysteries and the Howie Mandel Tik Tok teen conspiracy! Is Howie okay? Has Howie ever been okay? A night email about the club at the top of the Baltimore hotel featured in the new Unsolved Mysteries, and the Berkshires UFO sighting of 1969. For the second half we are joined by Jay Kang from the Time To Say Goodbye podcast to go deep on the NBA Bubble in our special sports segment Night Ball/Sports Call! Jay explains the NBA Bubble and we discuss why it’s such a bad idea from a labor angle and whether they’ll make it through the season. And we answer an Orlando-centric theme park question about the Aerosmith Rock N Roller Coaster at Disneyworld. We also take some questions for Jay related to his infamous Diva Rankings, and revisit them to see if he’s changed his mind about some of his more controversial positions on divas. (Emily will be back next week after completing leg one of her cross country road trip to see her mom.) All this and sports gambling on an all new Night Call!

1. Wealthy parents forming pods with private tutors 
2. More on how tutors and pods can contribute to education inequality
3. Howie Mandel's Tiktok 
4. Baldiyadi, the Tiktok user who brought attention to Mandel's weirder videos 
5. Message in a Bottle 
6. Berkshires UFO
7. Rock n Rollercoaster 
8. Nights in White Satin dark ride 
9. Time to Say Goodbye, Jay's podcast 
10. Jay on Twitter

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's eleven thirty nine pm in the Berkshires and you're
listening to Night Call. Hello, and welcome back to Night Call,
a call in show for our dystopian reality. I'm in
Los Angeles. I'm Tess Lynch and with me is Molly Lambert.

(00:22):
Today we will be talking about a bunch of things,
but you should definitely stick around for the second half
of the episode, where we are joined with special guest
Jay Kang. We're gonna be talking about the NBA bubble
and Diva rankings, two topics that of course our very
Nightcall sports Ball, night Ball, that's right. But before we
do that, let's take a Nightcall. Hi, n Call. I

(00:44):
am a high school English teacher and I am calling
about my quarantined experiences. UM have them listening to your
podcast last few months in quarantine and it's definitely um
kept me entertained, insane. So thank you very much. UM,
I love you all. Uh yeah, so I'm a first

(01:04):
year teacher, so my school ye was gonna be pretty
crazy regardless, but having to uh switched online learning was
basically no little boarding. Uh in March was doin really
a new wrench in the plan. UM, I don't I
don't even know if I have great stories, just more

(01:27):
like me and my student survived this time together. Um.
We my school basically we had no transition time. We
had one staff work day and then we were online
twice a week that we have a set schedule the
next week. Um. We still have grades at my school,

(01:48):
which I thought was from an equity standpoint, kind of
messed up. Um. Some students just kind of totally drop
off the vase there as some of them came back.
Some of them eventually you heard a little bit from them.
Had a student go missing, like his mom had to
built a police report for him. During this time, I
need high school students and I seed ten Kurds, and
I was mostly just really concerned about their mental health.

(02:11):
UM and kind of uh yeah, I'm I'm just like
happy that I think they were didimally learned something from
the English teacher and we read in Medeia during this time.
We also, uh, we're finishing up another unit uh and
most of them we're like able to complete. But final

(02:31):
that I gave, which was an essay. UM, and hopefully
next year, next school year, we're offering me online um
first semefter and I'm gonna like actually know we're online.
So I have some ideas in terms of I was
like actually utilizing that time. But um, yeah, the hardest
thing for me, and I think that was just the

(02:51):
unpredictability we kept getting told that we like might be
going back. No one ever thought we would be gone
the rest of the school year. Um. And so my
goal with them was really just I I was on
the news. I was on the news constantly because the
information I was getting from my administrators actually was inaccurate

(03:11):
and it wasn't what journalists were telling me. Um. And
so I just try to be really honest with my
students and uh just to like try to report information
about coronavirus uh and quarantine UM from new sources and
not from people in power, because people in power have
been letting me down. Uh yeah, all right, wow, thank

(03:34):
you so much for sharing that. I mean it. I
think we've all been curious how teachers are holding up
right now. I definitely would. I would really struggle with
being a teacher, especially a high school teacher. I think
is probably the most difficult position to be in. UM.
Elementary school students are are totally you know, they're suffering
as well. From this, but I think teenagers UM have

(03:57):
a really unique, uniquely tough position right now. Um I.
I've also heard from people that I know that UM
a lot of teens are running away, which is really
awful to consider that happening during quarantine. So thank you
so much for sharing that. That's yikes. Yeah, yeah, thank you.

(04:19):
And if you have any stories about working under the
pandemic that you'd like to share with Nightcall, we are
happy to make you anonymous. Always leave us a night
call to four oh for sixth night. UM. Yeah. I
feel like teachers are being put in a specially difficult
position because they are also kind of de facto child

(04:41):
care workers for a lot of people. So it feels
like it's like parents are putting an impossible position, teachers
are putting an impossible position, the kids are being put
in an impossible position, and nobody is uh, nobody has
a good plan, they're only bad plans. Well. Also, I
mean it's so hard because when I talked to other

(05:04):
parents and we try to think creatively about how to
make like an equitable UM student group kind of situation,
Like I really don't like the idea of people forming
pods and hiring private tutors for obvious reasons, but it
does seem as though there's a possibility for schools, Like
I was thinking, is that something people are doing? Oh yeah,

(05:26):
oh my god, wait what so yeah, so you're blowing
the lid off something here that It's like it doesn't
surprise me as soon as you said it. It's like
the people who were like, people are gonna if we
get rid of the police, there will be privatized police.
It's like rich people all have that already. Like, so,
the the issue that I phase even like talking about

(05:47):
this is that everyone's in an impossible situation and no
one's trying to be an asshole. However, I don't really
understand how um taking a group of I've heard people
are paying like thousands and thou sens of dollars for
private tutors per month, and I understand wanting that, but
I can't understand going for that under these circumstances. Um.

(06:10):
One thing that I keep coming back to you also
is not only how unfair that is and how it
leaves out the people who need it the most, but
also just from a potential problem standpoint. I mean, schools
are heavily ensured for instance, there are teachers who are trained,
although not many of them don't do a great job
at this, a lot of them do of dealing with
kids who have who are twice exceptional behavioral issues, all

(06:34):
sorts of things that would be impossible for a private
tutor with no like real experience to deal with in
a you know, I mean it, possibly kids could get hurt.
There's like no oversight, and so it just seems like
even for the people who are able to do that,
even leaving aside the issues of how unfair that is
and how you know, privileged you have to be to

(06:55):
do that, it also could create really horrible consequences. And
I think it's just again like a frustrating thing about
having no oversight right now, is that there are probably
ways for schools to work with for instance, rec centers
and transfer insurance and break kids up into pods that
were even optional, and have staff be paid to you know,

(07:18):
have a safe number of kids in an outdoor environment,
and it wouldn't be determined by the ability to pay.
When it wouldn't be able to be parents saying well,
this kid's well behaved and I like the parents, so
let's make a pot. It would it would be able
to be kind of like a public school system. Um,
I don't know, I'm sure it's like basically impossible to
make that work, but it's so much of a better

(07:40):
option than what people are doing right now. Yeah, And
like my friend who's a public school teacher was saying,
she was like, the l A public schools. You know,
most public schools in this country have been sucked up
for a super long time before this. This is like
a huge crisis, but like they've been in crisis, yes,

(08:03):
um so yeah, I mean the again, it just seems
like I hope some people are thinking. It seems like
you're thinking about it a lot obviously. Well, I mean,
it's the possibility, it's I guess the only thing that
you have to hold onto is the hope that this
could be reinvented so it's a better system and it's
more fair. And I mean, right now l A public

(08:23):
schools are are they've been Yeah, they've been suffering for
a long time. A lot of them are severely underfunded. Charters.
Very tricky situation with charters to like in in l
A in particular, especially the ones that are taking a
ton of money away from public schools. People are opting
out of public schools. There's also the discussion of if
you enroll your child from an l A public school.

(08:45):
I think the funding has been frozen at last year's levels,
but a lot of people are taking their kids out
to homeschool. Um. And you know, again that's a very
privileged position to take, and it could in the long
run end up damaging public schools as a as a
you know, institution, which is they should not be damaged
more so, Yeah, I mean, it's it's I really feel

(09:07):
for teachers, and I especially think that the fact that
teachers are generally planners and that one of the things
that they have to do for their students is to
outline how things are going to play out. And the
fact that you know, initially we were told two weeks
the schools would be closed for two weeks, and I
think everyone had a sense that that was not true. Um.

(09:29):
And but it also took away the ability to say,
I'm going to guess that schools won't open for a
full year, basically, so how do I plan for that?
And for kids to think like, oh, I'm I have
two weeks off school now, I have like three months
off school now, I've got nine months off school. It's
really hard for a lot of kids to roll with
that without being kind of damaged by it. So it sucks.

(09:50):
It sucks, It sucks. Thank you for this great like call.
We are gonna take a break and we'll be right back.

(10:12):
Welcome back tonight Call. We're gonna talk just briefly about
some unsolved mysteries, the show Unsolved Mysteries that I made
test watch loved it, and an unsolved TikTok mystery that's
been brought to our attention. Uh here's a night email
from listener Sally Hey Night Call as the official Conspiracy

(10:36):
Theory podcast. I had to share this one on Howie
Mandel that just recently surfaced on TikTok. Howie Mandel has
been posting some weird videos online and while some of
it reads is awkward, out of touch boomer humor, another
TikTok user brought attention to some of the disturbing, circumstantial
details embedded in his recent videos. So basically, somebody formed

(11:01):
a conspiracy theory about these Howie Mandell videos on can
we read on a little bit about this? Because go on,
we are not on TikTok and maybe you're not either,
so this is uh, we will we will give you
a link if you are on TikTok but um or
if you want to check it out. But to us
this was this was a strange missive from another land.

(11:24):
The email goes on the thing that caught me was
that in one of his videos there are a few
tiny numbers written in the brim of his hat. In
the video, the users claims this says one three to
dash zero and means armed intruder, which I can't find
any evidence of. However, according to Wikipedia, one three two
means armed robbery in Quebec and how he is Canadian
though he's not Quebec quas But some have also noted

(11:46):
that since TikTok front facing cameras create a mirror image,
how he would have intentionally had to write these numbers
backwards in his hat in order for it to be
legible on camera. Also, the caption of this video is twenty,
the joke being that he wants to restart and declare
it New Year on that date. But someone figured out
that when converted to the alphabet, eight equals aged, fourteen
equals and twenty equals t, which gives us agent which

(12:08):
could mean hostage negotiation team. He also apparently posted a
video of him flushing a note and a bottle down
a toilet to the music of message in a bottle
by police, sending an S O S to the world.
So is Howie Mandel being held against his will? Well?
Probably not. I feel like we have to tell zoomers

(12:29):
that everybody has always responded the same way to Howie Mandel,
which is to be like, what what he blows up
a silicon glove on his head? This is his main bit.
I mean, if someone's going to like give us a
distracting thing, I'm sure let it be Howie Mandel. Well,

(12:50):
there's been a lot of conspiracies like this, And we
were talking about the TikTok conspiracy teens last time, but
there's a lot of stuff like this now. People are like,
if I can just zoom in far enough, I'll be
able to solve this mystery from home and reading things
into people's behavior and body language that maybe isn't there.

(13:16):
But but writing on the inside, writing on the hat
brim is strange. It's strange. But there's been a bunch
of these things recently where somebody is like, this person
is being held hostage, and then that person has to
come forward and be like, I'm not being held hostage,
like with the Wayfair Cabinets thing, and then they people
are still like, that's just what somebody who's being held
hostage would say. It seems like it would actually make

(13:39):
you insane if it did happen to you. But I
was also reminded that conspiracies like this are not native
to the Internet. That maybe the first one is the
Paul is Dead conspiracy first, for sure, that was one,
But I think they are a tale as old as time. Really. Yeah.

(13:59):
I think the thing is like when people all decide
to believe something, then it's like if you contradict them,
it makes them It just sort of more makes them
feel like true believers. It's like everyone's against us, but
we know that how a Mandela's being kept. What if
he is though, what if he is? I know, what
if he is? What if he needs help? He's posting
a lot on TikTok he has seven point eight million followers. Yeah,

(14:24):
I don't know if he's like, um, what's that band
everyone's where as they hate but they're constantly selling out.
There could be millions of those bands. Nickelback is the
one I'm specifically thinking of. Uh. And if you look
at the video that the emailer was talking about, his
hat says, do not disturb. It's a white hat and
he's wearing a white shirt. I don't think writing under

(14:46):
the bill of a cap is so unusual, but writing
it backwards for the camera would be. Listen, I'm zooming
in as much as I can. I tried pausing a
couple of times. I am not sure how you can
be positive those are even the right numbers. It's very
tiny stuff. Um, he's a prop comedian. Yeah. I mean,

(15:08):
if you wanted to get seven point eight million followers
or whatever, a good way to do it would be
to start a conspiracy that you were being held hostage
so that people like us became like, well, Howie Mandel
got to keep an eye on him. It's probably a
good publicity for the Howie Mandel brand. Now zoomers know
Howie Mandel is ultimately works for Howie Mandel unless somebody

(15:30):
tries to rescue him. But I feel like people do
this too about the Brittany Instagram videos, and in that case,
I feel like something is going on. Oh yeah, you know,
And there's a lot of people being like, wear something
yellow if you're being held hostage, and then she'll wear
something yellow. Well, speaking of Unsolved Mysteries, um, we watched

(15:51):
some of the Unsolved Mysteries reboot on Netflix. So good.
I see you, Joel, have you seen it? I did,
and I love it. It's great. Did something on Twitter
today that uh some Molly liked. It was just the
fact that like at the end of each one, you like,
he didn't solve it yet. This going in cases that

(16:12):
have not yet been solved, and yet every time I'm like,
how though it was. I also love the like format
of this show, which was like if you watched it
back in the day, Like occasionally there's like a very
serious episode where're like, oh my god, we need to
rally as a nation and figure this out. But then
there would be like these very weird one off ones
were like aliens, I don't think so, and they all

(16:35):
same spirit and energy throughout this series. And I really
liked that exept for episode five well, which was my favorite.
I think my brother told me to watch it. He
was like, you gotta watch this episode about this Berkshire's
alien exiting. Let me just tell you guys that this.

(16:58):
So in nineteen line there a UFO came and abducted
several residents of towns in the Berkshires, going from Sheffield, Lennox,
uh Great Barrington. All of those are in Massachusetts. I
believe it all went down to maybe New Canaan, Connecticut.
This is I lived there. I lived there, and I

(17:19):
never heard anybody talking about this though apparently it is
Massachusetts lore. Well, when we read Communion, which takes place
in upstate New York and is it about an alien abduction,
we talked a lot about how the environment of upstate
New York could really make you feel like you are
having ufolk experience. Great Barrington's cosmopolitan compared to a lot

(17:43):
of the surrounding towns. Great Barrington was the first place
that I ever had macrobiotic food. Bizarrely, there was a
man who opened a place that was like satan and sushi. Yeah.
I mean my parents met in the Berkshire, so I
immediately was like, Mom and Dad, where were you? Had

(18:04):
they met in nineteen They had not, which was also
fun to think about. But my mom did like spend
summers in the Berkshires around that time, but she had
not heard anything about this was not familiar. I was like,
watch the episode. It's a great cast of characters, UM,
including Tom Reid, who you may recall from ancient Aliens. Uh.

(18:25):
I certainly thought I did recall him from ancient Aliens,
so I checked and he was on it. Um. It's
a very it's a very beautiful episode. A lot of
drone shots of forests and lakes and like people like
beautiful silver haired people kind of walking around with a
cane talking about that day that night in the woods.

(18:45):
Also because nobody dies, so nobody dies or gets hurt,
or if they did get hurt, they don't really remember it,
but they do all have a transformative experience. And the
idea of a covered bridge being the portal to the
other world was very sticky to my brain. Oh yeah, Well,
if Beetlejuice didn't already make you think twice about covered bridges,

(19:06):
this will um. But we also watched the more serious
first episode, which was that is one of those where,
like Joel said, I was like, they haven't solved this um,
and that is the case. It's called Mystery on the
Rooftop and it's about Ray rivera UM who disappeared in
two thousands or he he died in two thousand and six.
The body was found, but the mysterious circumstances surrounding his

(19:30):
death have made people very curious, including he left a
note taped to the back of his computer I think
with a code on it potentially could call it that.
It's it's like such a mix of like what has
cinematically been portrayed as like schizophrenic behavior of like what
do these messages mean? And it's like very like here's

(19:50):
some biblical verses, here's some stuff from movies. Like it's
all over the place, and it also seems like something
that a younger version of myself, which is be like
here's a bunch of random thoughts. I was put this
year for later like it could be nothing, but because
like science has failed, I just don't want to die
in a way that science can't figure it out. Like

(20:10):
that really creeps me out. I'm like, Okay, so all
of our best minds looked at this and they're like,
we don't know how he Did he fall from a roof?
Did he jump from a roof? Was he pushed from
a higher How would you have possibly gone? Like it's
just the number of the levels of that mystery. I
had to lay down afterwards. I was like, this is
very overwhelming. It fully gave us the creeps which other
people had said it would do, and I was like,

(20:31):
what do they mean? And then I watched it. I
was like, we got a very good night email about
it that I would like to briefly read UM from
night listener Claire, who said that episode flipped me out.
First of all, I vaguely remember this case. It was
on the news and the couple lived in Roland Park.
The investigative reporter Jane Miller, who's like the kind of

(20:52):
the protagonist of the episode, the one breaking the story,
seems awesome. UM is the Creme de the creme of
Baltimore celebrity culture. The Belvedere was a hotel, but it
had been made into condos. It had a restaurant in
the bottom with a huge ornate find cec bar and
enormous carved wooden owls. I didn't go there much because

(21:13):
it was expensive and fratty, but the rumor was always
that Zelda Fitzgerald had drunkenly danced on the bar there.
The real place was the Ridiculous nightclub on the top floor.
Called the Floor. You can see how the Ledge is
on the eleventh floor in the show, but the top
floor had this sort of dingy, fancy club, which when
I was in Baltimore and being an idiot, had fallen

(21:35):
on sort of hard times. I remembered. I ended up
djaying there with my friend on a Sunday night, and
the sheer misery of taking crates up in the tiny
elevator made it we never contemplated again. Also, the guy
who ran the night was sort of a Ledge. So
I looked up up photos of the club and it's
very creepy because it's kind of like Austin powers E.

(21:55):
It's not really expect The bottom floor one is the
like creepy turn of the Sound Tree one with the
carved owls and the Zelda Fitzgerald story. But the thirteenth
floor is like a weird, scary mod kind of themed thing,
which is creepy in a different way. But I just
thought that building because they kept showing the building the

(22:18):
belvedere which the victim was pushed off of probably and yeah,
it just was so creepy. It reminded me of just
those panting shots at the beginning of Rosemary's Baby of
the Dakota, you know, just the creepiness of a building
to where it has this long history and it was
once the fanciest place in town and now it's sort

(22:41):
of run down and then it gets turned into condos. Yah,
I mean it definitely. It looks a lot like some
of the downtown l a like fancy hotels that have
been they attempted to be rehabbed and kind of like
turned into creepier versions of themselves. Yeah, and this story
had some similarities to the Cecil Hotel store, which is
another horrible story. Unsolved crime, unsolved mystery. Um yeah, this guy, uh,

(23:08):
it seems allegedly like his friend probably did it, who
wouldn't talk to him. And that's but just the whole
way they set it up of like you know, something
somebody called him and you didn't know who it was
and he ran out of the house. Um, and then
they find this weird note that has a bunch of
movies with twists listed on it, which feels kind of

(23:31):
like a weird clue. But then you're also like, he
was a screenwriter and it could just be a list
of like movies he wanted to write a movie that
was like it's a kind of weird list. If that's
what he was going for, I mean that it could
explain it. I really latched onto the code thing though,
because I was like, I'll get to this one night
when I'm like I just don't want to think about
the world, I'll just crack this code. Well, it's also like,

(23:53):
why was it taped to the back of the computer.
That's the part where you're like, huh, it's not where
I put my list, right, Like, that's is creepy. No
matter what. I love unsolved mysteries though, because while I
feel kind of conflicted about watching true crime stories in general,
the idea that if you if you were an unsolved mystery,

(24:16):
that everybody would just forget about you, but that like
this could kind of shine a light on it makes
me feel less bad watching these things because I'm like,
at least it's a public service. This iteration of unsolved mystery.
Like a lot of the recent true crime shows, it
is like not pro cop. It kind of shows you
the ways in which the cops just completely dismissed and
bungled the case, you know, and how often the cops

(24:38):
are just like it's a suicide, go away. Silly wife
of a guy who clearly was not committing suicide, and
that it was really the reporter and the wife who
made this story continue. Yeah, I was gonna say it. Also,
it's nice when reporters who won't give up on those
kinds of stories get the credit that they deserve, because
I think, like a lot a lot of reporters who

(25:00):
become obsessed with stories like that get kind of ostracized, um,
and because it's like it does kind of run counter
to like you have to keep up with the other work,
and so it becomes kind of like tiresome for your
colleagues maybe or something like that. And when you are
able to kind of give them the time to explain
why this case deserves more attention, it's nice because you're like, yeah,

(25:21):
that that's that's who you want, a reporter who doesn't
give up on that. I thought his wife was just
a very interesting character too, because she was sort of like,
there wasn't you know, our marriage was great, like everything
was great, something weird happened and nobody would give us
the straight answer, and yeah, she just started investigating it

(25:42):
as well. Um, And yeah, if I were her, I
would want to know, Yeah, did you guys check the
Clemp story. Lennyam May Clemp. That was the daughter who
her like she had a son and her mom was like,
this is my son now and like maybe he disappeared
her husband. Which episode was that, Oh my gosh, this

(26:05):
was okay? Hold on, I want to say episode like
five or six deeply disturbed me because basically this woman
was like jumping from guy to guy. She has six daughters,
like she was with this guy who was like all
of her daughters are like great guy, like awesome, dad
loved him. She cheated with his brother, so they all

(26:25):
moved into the house with their former uncle now new stepdad,
and when she got tired of him, like one night,
he just disappeared. The daughter that was also wound up
disappearing had confessed to UM the first stepdad like, hey,
my mom made me burn your brother his body and

(26:47):
then we took chunks of what was left and just
threw it out the car window as we drove down
a highway. When and then like a couple like maybe
six or eight months after that, she the daughter disappears.
Um the mom at one point forces her to recant
her statement, and then when she disappeared, she like went

(27:08):
to court with her daughter's son and was like, yeah,
she abandoned her child, so I'm gonna take custy now.
And of course she was gone so she couldn't show
up to the trial. Then she told the whole family
like she moved to Florida to be with boyfriend and
his sisters are like, we talked to her all the time.
There's no guy in Florida, what are you talking about.
So now all of the sisters have banned together to
try to find their missing sister who they believe is dead,

(27:31):
and try to get their mother convicted, which is just
the craziest sisters. She's like on the reward path for
their mother. So you're saying she's like an epic girl
boss Colisi, I mean she's devian. The mom definitely gives
me that's so fucked up. But I feel like there's

(27:52):
that thing where people are like, oh, a female murderer,
how progressive that look. Any One can be a sociopath, yes, um,
that's scary. The one about the French family where the
dad is a sociopath also super freaked me out, all
me in two episodes. I'm I'm excited, I mean excited

(28:15):
it's I'm excited to be horrified by these things instead
of just life. That's why it's a good show for now. Right,
You're like, it happened in the past, and maybe I
can help now exactly, Um, as opposed to it's happening now,
and what what do I do? I think there's also
something really comforting about UM looking like true evil in

(28:36):
the face and being like, no, I'm going to like
collect all these facts and we're especially I mean, I
don't know if you I's been watching the I'll Be
Gone in the Dark series not yet girls, what you
guys like? I so I've done all of all the
things involved with that story, Like I read the original
article and then I followed all stuff on my favorite murder,

(28:59):
and I read the now well, and like, this is
such an interesting experience because as much as Um the
writer like invests herself in her story, like this is
her family telling her story, and so now it's like
she interviewed these families, and now her family sung the
story of her interviewing these families, And it's this very
circular chain of like if we take the time to

(29:19):
listen and observe, there's a chance that the most evil
people out there can be caught and it's like never
too late. And I think there's something so comforting, especially
in modern times of being quarantined and seeing a lot
of malicious evil evil that is and dumb evil, like
like circumventing the CDC in the middle of a pandemic,

(29:41):
which is just like dumbfounding lee stupid. It's comforting to
be like, that's a bad guy. I recognize him, and
we are going to find that guy. And I've just
been watching all of the darkest, creepiest stuff lately and
I find it weird the comforting at it. Yeah, I
think you're not alone in that. I started watching a
bunch of haunted House movies. I think it's like because

(30:03):
it's the type of scared you can control exactly well.
It also it's it can be you can feel kind
of like not not numb to what's going on, but
it's like you want an emotional release that doesn't come
necessarily like as scheduled as you need it. Um and
and like the fear, that kind of existential dread and

(30:24):
fear you want to just be able to like pour
out some of the feelings um my goth daughter that
I talked about on Twitter. Who is a Goth? Found
my old copy of More Scary Stories to Tell in
the Dark. Yeah, she's so little for these stories. I
was terrified. I was like, I'll stop at any time.
And she loves How old is your daughter? Again? She's

(30:45):
four four years old. My son is eight, and he's
like absolutely not, he's super not into it. But she's
she's baby goth. As Molly said, she's a pastel goth,
but she has nonetheless brilliant Oh, all the girls were
reading the like that. That was the same crowd. Like
I got very into like Instruments of Torture when I

(31:08):
was like very young. My parents were like what are
you reading? And I was like you there's this thing
called Iron Blue Way Cook People Alive. And they're like,
your seven and that's really dark, just like leaves us
with death. And there's just something like about a child
being able to be like no, I understand more like
mortality and I want to be terrified. I'm like that
kid is like kick ass. Well, this is why we

(31:29):
found each other, Joel. It's like with the night called
Night called Girl Vibe, Yeah exactly. I feel like all
kind of like, yeah, everybody does need that release because
everybody has been adapting so quickly to so many different things. Uh.
It's sort of amazing how resilient human beings are and adaptable, uh,

(31:50):
to all kinds of things. But yeah, don't beat yourself
up if you feel like watching something really dark or
a true crime show. Uh, whatever works. Yep, don't feat
yourself up for anything right now. Maybe is good advice.
Be gentle to yourself. We will be right back with
our special guest, Jay Kang, to talk about the NBA bubble.

(32:26):
Welcome back Tonight Call. We are joined today by our
friend Jay Kang, writer at large New York Times magazine
and one of the hosts of the time to say
goodbye podcast. Welcome Jay. Okay, how's it going good. I'm
so glad we're finally having you on Nightcall. I know,
I feel like I've wanted to be on for a

(32:48):
long time, and we've discussed it for a long time,
and then the fact that it didn't happen made me
feel like I was part of some sort of B list.
But it's okay now that it's remote. You didn't have
any excuse to avoid us world. If you're on the
basketball the b list stands for basketball, because today we're
going to talk with you about the NBA bubble in

(33:12):
a segment we like to call as of now. Uh,
night Ball, Jay, Welcome to night Ball. I'm happy to
be in nightfall. Um. You have long been tweeting about
something called the NBA Dark Web. Oh yeah, you're in it.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, we're part of it. There are

(33:34):
many people who it's like the it's like the Mormon
Church when people die. If you if you don't declare
that you're not in it, well, it was it was
mostly a joke because there's a thing called NBA Twitter,
which maybe some of your listeners know about, and it's
it's a really dumb term because it's just generally it's
just people talking about the NBA on Twitter. That's NBA Twitter,

(33:56):
which I don't think is a particularly helpful term, but
NBA t there tends to be very analytic and uh,
it's just kind of a lot of nerds, and I
will say a very multicultural group of nerds, so that's good,
you know, but it is a lot of nerds trying
to be the smartest about basketball. And my thing was
always that sports enjoyment should be as dumb as possible.

(34:19):
So I tried to start a counterculture of really dumb
NBA takes um and nothing analytic and nothing where you
try a lot of it's aspirational too, and so I
didn't want it to be like people pretending to be
billionaires having control over teams. I just wanted to be like, Oh,
that guy is good, but that guy sucks. I'm gonna

(34:43):
say that's my whole approach to watching basketball. Yeah, yeah,
that's my approach of watching TV. I have no analytic
analysis or like appreciation of it at all. I just
think that show sucked or I hate that guy or
that guy is great. Um, but I guess that's just
my fresh everything. Well, I do feel like it's like
when you bring stats into something like that. Like that's

(35:04):
also why like something like lost Fandom became so annoying,
because it's like, if you can't enjoy the thing without
all the additional information that only like super fans and
super nerds are seeking out, it's probably not that good.
What are other shows like that? Um, Easter Eggs? Yeah,

(35:25):
and that like the show is like a meta show
True Detective. I was going to say True Detective season
one and that was that was an enjoyable Easter eggs
slash Reddit hunt kind of thing. I love True Detective
season two personally because it's all about the corruption in Vernon, California,
which is like a city that has no residents. It's

(35:45):
all just companies. Oh, I never I didn't watch too.
It's a it was much maligned, but I had a
very NBA the Dark Web NBA take that it was
in fact the best season. Is there like a True
Detective thing that's like The Wire where people say that
season two is the best season. It's just like, it's

(36:08):
just like The Wire. Season two it's like totally has
nothing to do with the first except it's about, you know,
some weird stuff and some true detective. I think Molly
may have been part of a very small cohort that
held the belief that season two was better than season one,
but you did make some good arguments for it. I
also think if you watch it now, it's like the

(36:29):
acting is silly, but some of the stuff about rich
people having secret orgies turned out to be true. So
Detective season two, I watched the first season, I didn't watch.
The true touch of season two is very confusing, but
also uh, kind of makes sense if you're really into

(36:50):
l a real estate and associated topic. Any feels further
Afield and the y our season two, which I think
like people think that the second season the Wire is
the best season. But all those are being totally contrarian,
and maybe some of them might also be like white supremacists,

(37:12):
where they you know, because the season and the seasons
the Russians or whatever. Yeah, I'm also a fan of Trema,
so yeah, I like that show. Yeah, it's great. Um,
it was about a city coming back after a disaster,
people taking advantage of it. So speaking of disasters and

(37:33):
disaster capitalism, can you explain the NBA bubble to our
sports call? It's also nightball? It's night ball, and it's
sports call, it's it's the Night Ball Association. So the
NBA needed to finish its season, and the reason why
it needed to do that is because a lot of
their economy is based off revenue, which I guess every

(37:53):
sort of businesses, but um, it's more crucial to the
NBA because the players get paid as part of the revenue,
so they get part of the revenue split, and so
if the NBA stops, then they can't cash in the
rest of their TV deals, which means that there's a
very low amount of revenue, which means the players get
less money, right, And so that means that management and

(38:15):
the players both have incentive to finish out the season.
And so that's basically what happened, is that there was
this huge financial incentive to do it UM and the
future of the league. The ownership says it would be
on the line if they didn't do it, and that
they would have to go back and start a new
collective bargaining agreement that UM wouldn't make the players get

(38:38):
all big pay cuts. I think a lot of that
is specious, but um, you know, that's sort of the
narrative that is out there. And so to solve that,
they said, well, how do we make the safest environment possible?
And so they created a bubble or a so called
bubble quote unquote bubble. They're all in Disney World right
now in Florida and Orlando, and they have all these

(38:59):
They have a hundred and twenty six pages of rules
about like what you can do. They have a snitch
line where players can snitch on other players are breaking
the rules, which apparently is totally full at this point,
like you know, like they don't have any messages left
in their space, which I think is hilarious. But uh yeah,
and you know, it's it's been a drama to just

(39:20):
watch all the players get there. Some of them are
testing positive even within the bubble, and uh, you know,
they're basically playing basketball and banquet rooms. Like you know,
there's banquet halls and hotels where you open the wrong door,
you thinks the bathroom and then you look and there's
like this gigantic hall. They converted some of those into
basketball courts and that's where they're practicing. It's it's very weird.

(39:43):
This is like the world's worst reality show or maybe
best reality show. If you are awful, Um that's are
are you able? I know nothing? Are you able to
watch this? Like is it just unfolding via media reports
or well there are reporters in the bubble. But it's

(40:03):
weird because the reporters in the bubble are almost they're
just to like say that they're in the bubble because
they're not allowed to interact with any of the players
or coaches, and so they kind of like sit in
their hotel room as far as I can tell, and
they have this little like, but they can't actually go
into the locker rooms or watch the practices or anything
like that. Um, so the way that people have been
watching it is through Instagram stories basically. And so on

(40:28):
the first night the players got there, one of them
took a photo of his food, you know, which looked
it really did look like an airplane meal, you know,
and he was like, this is not gonna work. And
then some of the players are very mad that the
rooms aren't nice enough, and so like Region Rondo and
the Lakers is like, oh, this is like a motel six,
you know. So there's a lot of that where it's

(40:49):
like players acting, you know, like the millionaires that they are.
And then uh, and then there's a lot of uncertainty,
I think, because nobody really knows if this is going
to happen, and it just seems like they're kind of
all adrift sitting there like I don't know when is
the re launched, Like when are they supposed to start

(41:10):
actually playing at the end of this month? What do
you think it will happen? Well, I don't I don't
think it should happen, but I think it will happen,
just because I don't know someone used like the analogy
that I think is probably right, although you know, it's
not a particularly funny one, but it's like it's like
a barge moving forward, you know, and there's so much

(41:33):
momentum and there's so much money at stake for these people,
and they basically converted to Disney World into like a
basketball bubble, and like, how do you not just go forward,
you know, and just try and finish it if you can.
But it just seemed like there were so many red
flags all along the way, you know, as with anything

(41:53):
that tried to reopen or restart in the past month. Uhlis, Yeah,
l al Fresco are idiot. Mayor reopened l A briefly
and then cases like went through the roof, and then
he was like, why didn't people stay home? And it's like,
because you reopened everything that was that was a deal
with him, because like he's so weird, because like at

(42:16):
the beginning of it, I was getting mad at I
am in Northern California, and I was getting mad at
him because like he was talking like a dictator, you know,
and I was just like, you're not the dictius, Like, well,
we're all gonna have to stay home and it's just
like you you can't talk like that, you're the fucking mayor.
You're not like, you know, like you're not like the
sovereign of California. And then suddenly you just switched and

(42:38):
he's like, no, everyone can go back. And then I
just remember this day, my cousin who lives in Koreatown
and grew up there, called me and she's like, we
can go into restaurants now and eat inside. And I
was like what, and she was like, yeah, I think
he just woke up and decided that it was okay now.
And she's like, I'm definitely not going back in a restaurant,
but now everyone can. His big money donors who owned

(43:01):
the restaurants and stuff, we're pressuring him really hard to
reopen and being like you have you know, all his
Beverly Hills donors were like, you have to let us reopen,
like plastic surgery clinics was one of the big ones
and restaurants and businesses, um, and he totally just did
it and everyone got super mad. But also, yeah, just

(43:26):
like the rates went through the roof again. It was insane,
and you know, we don't have to go play in
the NBA. Also, yeah, but it seems like anyone who
is trying to control it, it just doesn't seem like
it's worked at all anywhere. Well, the biggest problem to

(43:46):
and l al Fresco is after he closed indoor dining,
he's now encouraged. They tried to make a marketing campaign
to encourage people to keep going to restaurants and eat
outside where of course they can't wear masks and they
are all of these sea glass things, and it's but
people are just sitting there. Sucks because they allowed restaurants
to suddenly expand to have outdoor dining, but they were

(44:09):
like punishing street vendors and talking trucks the whole time.
So it's just like super classist bullshit. And it's also
it damages small businesses because places like you know, childcare
centers and like independently owned businesses. I think that the
term was like toggling on and off, Like he toggled
them on, then he toggled them off. So they have

(44:30):
no idea now when they'll be able to reopen. It
just seems like they could have canceled everything for a
super long time at the beginning, and nobody's willing to
do that. And we're seeing that, especially with sports. There's
this big push for sports to come back. But it's
like clearly as a society, like we have not had
our vegetables and we do not get to have dessert yet,

(44:51):
you know, but people are like talking about sports like
it's an essential industry, which is obviously not. Uh and
if you're and if you're and it's just like it
seems like they're putting the players lives at such risk,
Like isn't anyone concerned about what a pr disaster it
could be if like an NBA player dies from COVID. Well, yeah,

(45:12):
that's one of the unseid things about all of this,
which is that, uh, yes, I agree that generally young
people it's very hard for them to die from coronavirus,
but it also seems to be leading to some permanent
effects for them, which as athletes who need to use
their lungs and hearts, you know, could be bad down
the line. But it's also like, you know, NBA players

(45:36):
are gigantic human beings that are very different, you know,
I think in terms than than you know, like h
five ft ten person or something like that. If you're
like seven ft two, you know, like you have like
that's why a lot of them die of heart failure.
That's why a lot of them have health problems. It
is very abnormal to be seven ft two. And I

(45:57):
actually do think that they're probably at a higher rate
because you know, like they are healthy in the sense
that they are amazing athletes, but they also are you know,
like have very strange bodies, very strange health systems, and
a lot of them do die at an earlier age.
And so I don't know, like I find that the
whole thing to be so like I just find it
to be so weird. It's like why they say, oh,

(46:20):
well we can't stop this, and you're like, well, why
can't you stop it? You know, like, uh, I don't
know how enjoyable it's gonna be. Like I mean that
what we were talking about, like eating outside. I they
up here in Berkeley, they have this thing called four Street,
which is just like a bunch of chain places like
where designed within reaches for example, you know, or like Sephora,

(46:41):
And they have an outdoor dining place there and I
walked by it with my wife and kid, and it's
just like it was so unpleasant because it felt so anxious,
because you feel the anxiety of it, and we didn't.
We ended up not eating outside because of that. And
I feel like all these sports are going to be
like that. You know, that there's gonna be this layer
of anxiety and how of it, and that for many
people they won't feel it, but I think a lot

(47:04):
of people will feel it, especially if thousands of people
in Florida are dying a week, you know, like uh,
which I think will start happening by the time that
they launched, you know, so in some ways they have
this horrible timing because when they made this idea of
Florida wasn't it was okay, you know, and now Florida
is definitely not okay. And I think that's going to

(47:25):
lead to like this huge It's gonna be like these
guys are playing basketball and all around them people are dying.
It's just gonna be weird. Yeah, just the image seems
so fucked up again. It seems like why, I mean,
I know why they're held bent on doing it is money.
But like even the Olympics, which you know, we're hell
bent on the Tokyo Olympics happening and said they were

(47:47):
happening up until the very last moment when it became
clear that like it could not happen, teams started dropping out. Uh.
It just kind of goes to show the extent to
which like the players are not really in charge. Uh,
Because did you feel like like more players might decide

(48:07):
not to go, Like, is anyone like a couple of
people up that they weren't going to go? Right? Yeah? Yeah,
I would say about like eight or so players I
think have said they're not going to play, and some
of them are not playing because they are they have
decided to opt out for political reasons more or less,
you know, which is an interesting conversation, but a lot
of them have kids that are sick, or have our

(48:28):
immunocompromise and things like that, and they just don't want
to deal with it. And you know, I have a
lot of respect for the players who have opted out
because I think it's difficult because what happens is that
you know, this happens all industries, but I think particularly
in sports where it's so competitive, if you're not like
a superstar player, or even if you are a star player,
you know, the top guys like Lebron or something, that

(48:48):
they'll be fine, but they're all playing too um, you know,
like you get black ball because of stuff like this.
You know, they say, oh, his heart's like he's he
doesn't care anymore, he's his heart's not in it. Um,
you know, like he has he abandoned his teammates, and
then the teammates get mad about it too, because they're
just like, oh, well, we had a chance to win

(49:10):
the championship that you set out because of your kid.
And that type of social pressure in sports is so prevalent,
and you know, these these people have set out. There's
something really militaristic about it, just in terms of the
way that it's like you're the most veilorized person in society,
but also like they don't really care if you die

(49:31):
doing the thing that they're paying you to do. You know,
like yeah, yeah, it's even worse for like college sports,
you know, where they don't even totally for sure. The Olympics.
That's like the whole grift of the Olympics is nobody
gets paid to do to participate and people are just
banking on getting like sponsorships if they win a gold medal.
But most people go broke trying to get into the Olympics,

(49:54):
and then Henry Kissinger gets paid like more than any
of us will ever see it fall asleep in the
stands every Olympics. Yeah, I mean the fact that it's
in Disney World also adds a layer of dystopia that
you wouldn't expect. Yeah right, yeah, yeah, it's a little weird.

(50:18):
They have done a good job in covering up almost
all the branding, like they switch it out with NBA stuff,
you know. Yeah, so I haven't really seen players like
getting tested in front of the castle or something, or like,
you know, those would be good images if they allowed,
you know, journalists to interact with people. But everything you've got,

(50:40):
we got one call or actually an email. We got
a night email on this subject. Ah, it says, hey, y'all.
I read recently that one of the perks allowed to
the NBA players is after hours access to Disney World rides.
One of the rides they are allowed on is the
Rock and Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith. Given that the ride

(51:01):
opened over twenty years ago and in that time, Aerosmith
has mostly disappeared from the culturals like geist, which band
or artist would you like to see take over for
the Rock and Roller Coaster? Thank you, Joshua, I, I
don't know. I think that Aerosmith is fine. Mean, I

(51:27):
want to hear like cry In and you know whatever
that song is the the sing women sing for the years.
What do you do? Like? Do Drake on a roller coaster?
That sounds terrible. They also have Love in an Elevator,
which is now a horrifying song Elevators? No, Yeah, and

(51:48):
it seems it's I'm like, why kick Aerosmith? Now? You know?
What about a what about a Jim Crowchy coaster? I
don't think that works. Jim Crowchy would be like a
floating ride logs type of thing, I think. But yeah,
I'm fine with Aarrowsmith. I didn't realize that that. I
didn't realize that that ride existed. I guess I haven't

(52:10):
been in Disney World in twenty years. But do they
have that one in l A Okay, I've never been
to Disney World. Yeah, I feel like okay one Aerospace.
Time is past and as great as their albums have been,
as much as I love the songs, as much as
it made Armaged in a movie worth remembering, I really

(52:32):
feel like we we could have updated. This is a
good chance to like update it and I think about it,
there's two bands that like Leap Forward. I'm not an
MCR fan, but their fan base is rampant and they
have like these really cool visuals. So I feel like
that could be, just from a marketing perspective, a good fit. Um.
Other than that, I would say Daft Punk has enough songs.

(52:53):
Different types of artists already were with Tron, and so
if you wanted to, there's a Tron roller coaster at
Disney Hong Kong. I think, um, which is pretty sick
Ye Daft PUNKI ish and it would be awesome. That's
a good idea, But I would throw up more if

(53:14):
Daft Punk were on my rock and roller coaster, for sure,
there'd be no question. I always yeah my Chemical Romance
I'm not Okay from the kids, Tess and I loved
that song. I still love that song not Okay. We
talked about that. We we love that song. Actually perfect
Karioke song, a good roller coaster length song. There was

(53:35):
in my top played. There was a there was no
longer existent theme park that I think was the hard
Rock Theme Park in Myrtle Beach, and it had a
ride that was the Knights in White Satin dark Ride
that I have just watched the ride through video of
like a million times because it's just like an abstract,

(53:55):
psychedelic dark ride, and it always makes me think there
should just be more rides that are just based around songs. Yeah,
I I can't. I I don't know. I don't. I
don't know any new bands I've like, I've I've just
realized the last ten years has been total media shut
down for me. I haven't watched a single TV show.

(54:15):
I think I watched one season Killing Eve, and then
I watched the first See That True Detective. As he said,
but that's about it. Well, you're dropping out of society,
I know, I know. I just listened to I listened
to like a Country Joe McDonald and walk around Berkeley
talked to talk to old hippies and get in traffic
altercations with them. That's what happens when you moved to Berkeley. Yeah. Yeah,

(54:36):
it's been six months and I can already kind of
feel it. Um. I got enough fight with a traffic
circle here with an old hippie guy, and he got
out of his car and it was like I was like, Oh,
this is gonna be the rest of my life. You know,
and then one day I'm going to be him and
there's gonna be like a fourty year old dad and
I'm gonna yell at him and be like, you don't
know how to drive around this circle? Go back to

(55:02):
Walnut Creek whatever. They We have another question, although Molly,
I don't know where this came from. What's the problem
from Miles Brown, another member of the Dark Night. All right,
so this Twitter this question is if Maria Janet and
Beyonce had to perform under bubble circumstances, who would win Beyonce.

(55:24):
I feel like it's not even a question. Listen, Maria
can no longer give vocals. We love her down, Okay,
we'll not shame the queen, but she's older, and she's
what was her brand was hitting those high whistle notes.
Don't have the range for that anymore, and her dancing
is limited. So while the fandom would be like, really
hype it, it's just not gonna be like Beyonce literally

(55:47):
crushed uh Coachella, which I feel like every artist has
had a stab at has done, and nobody have the
set performance or the ability to make an entire docuseries
movie out of their performance in there, who was the
artist they wanted us to check? Janet Janet, Oh God
love Janet Janet still got moves though, if we were
feeling at a nostalgia period just doing the Comdition album,

(56:11):
I have questions, don't we have to don't we have
to assume that this is them at their peak? Though?
Here's what I'm gonna say about all of that, though,
is that I feel like we're all making the false
assumption that just because somebody is like super the healthiest,
strongest person, doesn't mean, you know. I think, like Jay said,
sometimes like people that seem superhuman have like specific health challenges,

(56:36):
bleased on the fact that they're like performing so much,
you know, Like Beyonce is like our age, And when
I saw her perform live for a very long time,
I was super impressed. But I was also like, that
is like an incredibly difficult type of stamina to maintain
all the time. Uh. And I think even someone who
seems as superhuman as Beyonce could still be struck down

(56:59):
by its weird factoring. Who would do the best show
with coronavirus? I know, are we assuming they're infected with coronavirus?
And the bubble it's like, is it the best performance
in the bubble or is it the best performance with
COVID your best performance in the bub I'm gonna go

(57:20):
with Mariah at her peak because first of all, I
hate to say but you know, because I didn't want
to bring this back up, but I am. I'm a
long time Beyonce hater. And really I think that's why
Myles asked the question. But I because t Ago I was.
I was like, that's one day's most dark web takes
his most It's based on it. I started ten years

(57:44):
ago and since then, I've actually grown to appreciate much.
You wrote a contrarian think piece about this before the
rise and fall of contrarian think pieces, and yeah, at
the beginning of it was like two thousand nine or something,
He's apologize to Beyonce. I'm not gonna apologize if he
had to. But the reason why it's just because Beyonce
shows requires so many other people. You know, there's so

(58:07):
much that goes into them, and if she was just
sort of sitting around with three dancers, yeah, it would
be a really good show because you know, like she
did that with the single Ladies video that's two dancers right,
two backup dancers, and she clearly can make that work.
But I think that Mariah just singing by herself is
better than Beyonce just singing by herself, right, and if

(58:28):
that's the true bubble atmosphere. I also think Mariah's songs
are better, like just as songs without the without the
without all the performance laid on top of them. I'd
rather hear um, you know, I don't know. I just
think the songs are better. I'm gonna go with Mariah.

(58:48):
I think Janet is not in the same category. I'm sorry.
I guess I was thinking they'd also have to like
compete against each other. So Molly ideas that this is
like the masked singer, but under bubble circumstances like that,
it's like like and then they have to play a
game of horse because it's still the NBA bubble. Like

(59:11):
I know, Beyonce, I don't think. I don't think I
can plays. She can roll or blade. We know that
from the videos. But even though it's very limited videos,
I wouldn't count out Janet in terms of basketball and terms,
but that Jane, because Janet can also give a like
quiet kind of like a like an emotional quality that

(59:35):
comes with age. Also, I mean not like Mariah doesn't
have that, but I feel like Janet. I think Janet
could hold her own. I don't know she's in the
same category. She don't have vocals and dance moves and
launched an entire movement in the eighties like we we
stand a gay icon Listen. Yeah, she paid the way
for many young black to feel confident in the if

(01:00:01):
it okay, if it's a cafe setting vocal down, Mariah
and her prime is probably who you want to see,
just because she gives diva flair and you don't get
to see a diva in that atmosphere. We saw Beyonce.
Someone finally linked the non primal wedding that Beyonce performed
at She did the pre wedding, uh, and it was

(01:00:23):
gorgeous and amazing and stripped down for Beyonce. I think
there were only four dancers and like half a band. Um,
if we can get this many people, half the bubble
can be Beyonce's people. I think Beyonce's got it. Uh.
And if we just want the nostalgia and like everyone
have like a dance party, it's gotta be Janet. Different
shows for different folks. You know. I think what we've

(01:00:44):
shown is that we want to see them all performed together,
but they can't. Molly, that's the point. But I guess
they could. But which one would have the best tiny desk? Right? Um?
And I do agree that Maria's live vocal perform this
is over the last three years have been concerning. But
if you adjusted back to let's say, like Mariah would

(01:01:08):
be the tiny desk that you would watch out of
those three, right, this is such a we have to
keep coming back to this conversation and again that's how
we have to update your deeper rankings from continuously. Yeah,
I don't know if anything has shifted. I still think
Whitney is the best one of all time, like the
best singer of all time, and then Aretha and then

(01:01:30):
everybody else is like several tiers below them. I guess all.
I guess Adele now is would be much higher. Can't
really sing. And Adela is pro Beyonce. She was like,
who gave me this Grammy? That should be Beyonce. Her
last album was very bad. I thought it was so boring,
like it felt like it was for like six it

(01:01:50):
was she felt like she was fifty five years old
or something. I feel like Adell's vocals are a little
bit overhyped, and when I come to her, four doesn't
have to be vocals as much as just like a motion.
So I was excited when for one second it seemed
like she might make a grime album. Next I was like,
do that? Do that bring back nineties? Uh? Vocal electronica? Adele? Okay, guys,

(01:02:15):
we have another Before we let J go, we have
to ask another question from a listener. So this comes
from Ethan. This question is for the King segment. Kang
is forced to move into a bubble slash biodome situation
and has to bring four analytics journals to live with him.
Who does he choose and why this is so? This
is so specific. I don't know if people will know

(01:02:36):
these any of these people. Yeah, uh, one of them
my friends with his name is Constant Team. But I
don't think he's a lawyer. He's not really a journalist.
I think I would bring him um, but I don't
think that's a question. I don't know I would. I
would probably bring uh by friend Pablo Tori. I think

(01:02:59):
he qualifies, right, Oh, yeah, he qualifies. He's he's a
very nice guy. He's a new dad as well, so
shout out new dads. He's part of the dad Instagram
culture of uh, you know, looking at people's stories and
asking where you got like a bottle or something like that,

(01:03:20):
or where'd you get that? Where'd you get that chair?
Type of things is also part of the dad Instagram culture.
I am I'm number one dad of Instagram. We mostly
talk about plants. Yeah, oh yeah, I've gotten someone into
that too, the plant thing, like what did you how
do you fertilize that thing? I find that Instagram is
much better when it's just functional, right, when it's just

(01:03:41):
advice on the things that people are doing, and then
you don't feel you don't feel that jealousy thing that
I guess people feel when they're on instagrams. The idea
from my new and also everyone's at home now except
for celebrities on vacation. This is my idea from my
new social platform. Only plants it, But Molly, I think
over water, actually are your plants going to be able

(01:04:02):
to sustain? For only plants? My basil is still alive.
My mint. Let's let's all just pray for my mint.
I would say, we'll pour one out for your mint,
but has been over port. I overweted it. Um jay
are we freeing watch? Um No, I don't. I mean

(01:04:23):
his So that's I felt like his story, like his
email to Josh Holly was kind of like in defense
of the league. You know, it wasn't it wasn't really
indefensive anything except him saying like, hey, you can't criticize
these people for being big hypocrites about Hong Kong, you know.
And that's where I was like, well, yeah, Josh Holly
is not the person that you want to be defending ever.

(01:04:47):
But you know, the NBA is kind of bullshit on this,
and it's very easy for somebody like Josh Holly to
say like, hey, well what about this? You know, you
can't to do it. And it does feel like the
NBA's politics. Like the NBA obviously people have said it,
people think it has better politics than other sports leagues,

(01:05:08):
but some of that seems like it's just optics and
really they don't actually care that much about the people
who work for them. Yeah, they they It's it's weird
because it's like they get such a pass from the league,
from the press, right and that's because of Greg Popovich
Steve Kerr giving these long press conferences where they talk

(01:05:28):
about black lives matter and police retality. I think all
that is important, but I also think that it gives
so much cover to the league and that the league
basically does what is good for the league, and the
League does what's good for China, and the League does
what it's good for Nike, you know. And if you
feel like those other two entities are always going to
act in a progressive way, then I think you're like,

(01:05:51):
I think you're crazy, you know, and and um, and
it does allow people to wallpaper over a lot of stuff.
I don't know, I like the stuff so like, remember,
like when we're in high school and college, like Nike
was always being protested, right, and it was synonymous with
child labor and an exploitation. And I don't think any

(01:06:13):
of that has changed, but people just don't care anymore
because they can wall paper it over with like Colin
Kaepernick at or something like that. And it's weird how
much people will just accept that now and be like, Okay,
it's cool. I mean, I think we're seeing a lot
of that right now, especially as people are trying to
coop the optics of the uprisings without making any you know,

(01:06:34):
material change and practice or anything. Uh. I was think
about it yesterday because I was driving somewhere and there
was like an Apple billboard that's like Black Lives Matter,
and I was like, wow, it's really only been a
month and there's like an Apple billboard for this, but
like nothing is really you know, some police to funding

(01:06:54):
has happened in some places, but like not as much
as we want, you know, yeah, it's all like provisional stuff.
You know. So here in Berkeley, which you would think
would be you know, we're basically have three two on
the city council. They're to abolitionists, full on abolitions on
the city council, and the city always wants to be

(01:07:16):
the most progressive city. And all they did is pass like, hey,
well we'll think about this stuff, you know, with no
actual defunding. And I imagine that none of that stuff
is going to pass, and that maybe it will because
maybe things will pick up again. These things tend to
go in waves. But um, and I think we're closer
now than we were before, but definitely feels like things

(01:07:38):
are dissipating a little bit more and going out into
the more you know, corporate spaces like do do you do?
You guys? Blame any of that on on how the
media sort of immediately turned the movement into like an
examination of itself. No, I plame I mean tests is
nodding her head yet partial. Yeah, I think neoliberalism is

(01:08:04):
certainly to blame. But I think a lot of people
also just sort of like heard what they want to hear,
and we're like, okay, like the cops will wear you know,
Black Lives Matter uniforms and that will fix it, and
it's like that wouldn't fix it. Also, uh, I don't know.

(01:08:26):
I mean the fact that I think that the narrative
of like pressuring brands to put out like sort of
these meaningless messages UM and not really having the pressure
to do anything to enact change was for sure contributed. Though.
You know, on the other hand, I feel like we
saw some positive stuff um from some individual employees who

(01:08:51):
were just whistleblowing or you know, just didn't give a
funk anymore, because especially in media, it's like so cutthroat
that a lot of people just like didn't give a
funk anymore. And so Tammy, who broke the Conde Nast
story was just like tweeting. I thought, yeah, that was great,
you know that that story broke through somebody just tweeting

(01:09:13):
about like this is a fucked up place and here's
what goes on. I was like, oh, can twitter be
good sometimes? Maybe I I thought about it too, and
I was like, well, there's part of it where it
does feel like it's rerouted into this. But then I
it's so impossible to draw a line between something that
I think is obviously good, like the kind of you know,
like like this reckoning mpone at the tea, which seems

(01:09:35):
like it was long overdue, and then some of the
more cynical versions of it that is probably better just
to say it's all fine. But I don't know. I
think it happened so quickly that um that it was
a little bit surprising to me, you know, And I
felt like that to me, seemed like just an active
attempt to kind of like stop the momentum of the

(01:09:58):
you know, to kind of like mem it into into meaninglessness. Yeah. Yeah,
I think it'll. I think things will pick up again.
Me too. People are piste off and maybe it's military
law martial law now and everyone's broke, and you know,
it's like it's the right I don't know, I don't
and nobody there's nowhere to go. Yeah, there's no leadership

(01:10:22):
from anyone. That was the thing in California is that
they were like the media was also covering Newsome and
Garsetti as being like these great leaders in a in
a troubled time, and then they both just like bifted
so badly because they like listen to their business interests
and reopen stuff clearly against health interests for profit. And
I think a lot of people realize that that system

(01:10:44):
isn't working for most people. It's so weird how there's
no accountability for that guy, you know, he said he
wants to be president. We should uh hold them super
accountable for everything. I mean, California is sucked up too,
that's the thing. Like we were sucked up even when
we're handling it, like we have a huge homelessness crisis,
Like California has been sucked up for a long time
before this. I think the new thing is the feeling

(01:11:07):
that people are actually actively thinking about like what could
a city look like, you know, if if it were good. Yeah, yeah,
that's a lot of that's happening in Oakland, which actually
I think is is very cool to see, but um,
they just have the city is just so broke that

(01:11:29):
it's almost impossible for them to do anything. But that
doesn't seem particularly true with l A, Like it seems
like l A could actually enact money, but they give
it all to the cops. Jay, thanks so much for
coming on Nightball. Uh what month do you think the
NBA will stop playing? I think they will stop in August.

(01:11:49):
I think that there will be like five players who
test positive because they have workers of course, going in
and out of the bubble. That's the really fucked up
thing too. Putting all of those people who are not millionaires.
You're putting their health on the line, and they, you know,
like they they have to go home, and a lot
of them live in places with five or six roommates,
and those five or six roommates are all essential workers too.

(01:12:12):
And I don't know, I think that it's the great
hypocrisy this is that it can only run with people,
not just the players taking massive risks, but also this
workforce that doesn't even get the benefits of the bubble
taking massive risks, and that when they say, oh well,
we're going to be the most progressively and we're gonna

(01:12:32):
put Black Lives Matter on the court. You know it.
It's like the people who are doing the work are
going to all be black and Latino, some Filipino people,
and those people are that will be the ones that
are getting sick. And you know it's it's that type
of contradiction. I don't think it's resolvable through any amount
of slogans or whatever. So we'll see. I think August though,

(01:12:56):
like the end of August, it will be over all right,
We're gonna call our bookie right now. You can't take
bets on this, by the way, if really yeah, of
course you can uncut if Uncut jumps taught us anything,
Yeah you can. You can bet on anything. All right.
We'll be taking best on whether JA is right Jay?
Before you go, where can people find you? Uh? Just

(01:13:19):
on Twitter? It's just my full name, Jake casp and
Kang and um yeah, there's no reason to reach out
to me. Friends, there's no reason to follow me on Twitter.
It's horrible. So I like the Heart takes on Salinger.
I was with you on those. Can you tell us
what your podcast is? Oh? Yeah, it's a I do
with two of my friends, and it's the most niche

(01:13:41):
podcast possibly ever. It's for mostly for you know, like
Asian leftists who uh you know, might be vacillating between
Tanky is M and you know, just the d s
A socialism for about eight people. But you know, we do.
We talk about a lot of wide ranged things through

(01:14:03):
that very specific lens. So it's we enjoy it. We
love a niche podcast. We enjoy to make the most
niche possible. Yeah, I think the more niche the better, honestly. Well,
thank you so much. Jay. We'll be back for the
next edition of the All Jim Crochy Ranking podcast. All right,

(01:14:25):
right bye, Thank you so much for listening Tonight Call
this week. We will be back next week. If you're
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(01:14:48):
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