EITM interviews Rafi Kohan

EITM interviews Rafi Kohan

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Probing. Did you here is nota test. I'm hey, how's it
going. I am doing well,man, how are you? I'm doing
fine, you know, enjoying thenew year, fresh start, all that
stuff. So you really thought somebodywould want to read three hundred and ten
pages of blah blah blah all abouttrash talk. Oh man, now you're

(00:22):
now you're we're just starting and you'realready talking trash about my book. Just
trying out methods, just trying outsome of the methods. Dude. The
book. The book is fantastic.I loved it. Thank you so much.
I really appreciate that. And alsoI respect the trash talk because you
have to respect it, you knowwhat. You know. What's crazy to
me is there there's a part inthe book where you talk about the history

(00:46):
of trash talk, and like there'sthere's a part where you mentioned, I
may be a little out of sequence, but where you mentioned, like it
wasn't that long ago that the termshowed up, like in the Washington Post.
But then you go back and talkabout it's been around, like going
back to like Norse literature in likethe fifteenth and sixteenth century, where like
these old ancient Norsemen are having essentiallymodern day rat battles with each other.

(01:12):
That's exactly right, That's exactly right. And even though those flighting contexts as
they were known, are still whenyou think about the long arc of human
history and then along with it,the long arc of trash talk is relatively
new, even even though those Norsemenare kind of newcomers to the to the

(01:34):
practice, just as our you know, our heroes on the courts or on
the rap battle stages are Because thisstuff really goes back as far as human
like, for as long as ashumans have been talking, we have been
talking trash. You know, thisgoes back to the Bible. It goes
back to the Homeric poems. Youcan find you know, invective in the

(01:56):
you know, from ancient Greek poetsand in throughout Roman society. Like you
can trace human history with trash talk, and you can find it everywhere everywhere
across the globe, in every culture, every geography. I mean, this
is something that cuts through it isit's just it is part of who we
are as human beings, and it'spart of how we communicate when we're in

(02:19):
competition with one another. And that'skind of the thing that I really hope,
you know, comes across is thatlike, this isn't some kind of
like deviant behavior, but this isreally like how we talk to each other
when we're in competition. Rossie,who exactly in the Bible was telling somebody
that his wife just slid into myDMS. Yeah, you know, you

(02:40):
know what it's David and Goliath.It was, uh, we don't have
we don't have the you know,it's I will cut you, you know,
strike you down and cut off yourhead, big man. That's kind
of the that's the biblical version ofof sliding into your wife's TM these days
and then letting you know of it, you know, when we're lining up

(03:00):
on opposite sides of the line ofscrimmage. But that's what he did.
Hey, what dated him to cutto come in range of his shepherd sling?
Hey? Was it? Was itjust I don't want to say too
easy as as a as a asa cop out, but was it was
it? Did it just make toomuch sense to start with McGregor and kind

(03:21):
of kind of use him as likethe starting point and then go backwards and
forwards and then slide into different sportsand not just sports, politics, entertainment.
Was he was he just an easystarting point to make your point.
Yeah, it's and I don't knowif it's if it's easy or just simply

(03:43):
like inevitable. It was unavoidable insome ways, you know, you know,
I went through obviously, like everybook you know, goes through a
revision at some point, and McGregorcould have just showed up like Muhammad Ali,
right, could show up in almostevery single chapter and as like a
perfect you know example of all thevarious applications of trash talk of you know,

(04:04):
whether you're you know, talking asa self promoter to you know,
to build hype, whether you're talkingto intimidate, whether you're trying to be
a pest, whether you're self motivating, whether you're putting out a kind of
you know, a mental mental challengeof some kind and testing someone's you know,
psychology, going into a fight,you know, or even talking about

(04:26):
the morality of like how far istoo far? It was just it just
became so obvious that those guys incombat sports especially just represent trash talk in
its totality in a way that likenot every single you know, practitioner.
If we want to use that word, you know of trash talk. Does

(04:47):
I mean you could talk about DonaldTrump, you know, you could talk
about Gary Payton, but even there, it's like you might not get the
full spectrum that you would with someonelike McGregor. And so that's why,
yeah, I thought going into thatfite and this is UFC two sixty four,
you know, the trilogy about againstDustin Poorier, you know, with

(05:08):
the score tied one one, itwas like trash talk was center stage in
a way that it like it isn'talways and so it just it made too
much sense to not start there andthen kind of like tee it all up
thematically. Yeah, so it's easy, inevitable, unavoidable. It was all
those things. And by the way, two things and I want to come
back to Muhammad Ali, but therewas something else that you mentioned while you

(05:30):
were talking there where, like whenyou talk about trash talk, and it's
easy to think of like McGregor goingafter Poorier or somebody going after him.
But what what what I think isis it really comes through is all the
different facets of Some of it isto intimidate, some of it is to
is to cause the person doing thetrash talking of like I've said it,

(05:53):
now I have to back it up. There's something and I get really mad
at you in the book, andwe'll get to it in a second,
so we'll take off on it.You talk about for athletes, sports are
boring, so it just kind ofgives them some to spice it up.
Oh, I'm so pissed when Iread that. But like, it's not
just it's not just to go aftersomeone. In some cases it is and
to to to kind of mess withtheir attention, but in some cases it's

(06:15):
to motivate themselves. And the downsidemay be it over it overstimulates somebody else,
But some people do it strictly justto get themselves going. Absolutely.
I mean, that's you know,one of the things that you know,
my one of my big takeaways fromhaving done this reporting and spending three years,
you know, diving into the depthsof trash talk is that if you

(06:39):
want to be a good, strategic, effective trash talker, you really have
to understand how this stuff actually works. And because there's never really been an
exploration of trash talk before this that, you know, I think we all
kind of take it for granted thatwe just think it's this very superficial top

(07:00):
line thing. But there's a wholeyou know, psychology at play that you
know, undergirds this. And onceyou understand all the different ways in which
trash talk can work, whether itis to sort of intimidate or introduce anxiety
to someone in a way that's goingto overwhelm them, or whether it is
to try to throw their attention offtask or to be you know, so

(07:24):
attention grabbing that you simply they haveno choice but to pay attention to you
instead of what they're doing. Butmotivation, self motivation is a huge part
of it too. And yeah,I won't get too deep into that specific
point, but I mean, youcan, you know, my one of
my favorite stories that I learned fromthis book was about Warren Sack and he

(07:45):
had what he referred to as theBook of Hate, which is just like,
you know, I don't like thereneeds to be an actual book of
hate one day, and it can. Maybe it's just the collection of these
clippings, because that's what this was. Is. He had his press people
every week scouring the national news orlocal news in you know, in visiting

(08:07):
you know, opposing team markets,looking for those little things that somebody said
about him. You know that thattypical what we would call bulletin board material,
but individualized to him, and theywould cut it out and they would
highlight it. They would highlight thehate, as he said, right,
and just so that he could readit and give himself that fuel, you

(08:30):
know, to get up for eachgame. But but self motivation is a
huge part of it. Hey.By the way, and obviously Warren Sap
out of the world of football.The other football player that you talk about
in the book, Dude, howMessed Up? Was Brian Cox? Oh
man, I mean so Brian Coxto so, without getting too nerdy,

(08:52):
dude, there is there's a psychologicalmodel called the individual zones of optimal functioning
known as eyes off and real quicklywhen it speaks to is this idea that
every single player, every single performerin sports are beyond has like an optimal
level of anxiety and arousal that theyneed to be at their best. And
Brian Cox was one of those guyswho obviously needed to be at like the

(09:16):
very very high end of this modeland the but the way that you would
do it was creating these elaborate,nightmarish fantasies where he would you know,
pretend that like the opposing team hadkidnapped his kids, or was you know,
sexually abusing his wife, or thathe was being sold into slavery.

(09:37):
And he was literally scream across theline of scrimmage, like you rate my
wife, you kidnap my kids,Like I'm coming for you. Go ahead
and just hit the quarterback. Ijust go ahead and hit the quarterback in
He just was a mad man,and who wants to get in that guy's
way? By the way, beinga crazy man is one one of those

(10:00):
things that can work. Muhammad Alidid it against Sonny Liston, by the
way, Brown, that was sofascinating to learn. Where you talk about
like we think of of Muhammad Alithe greatest of all time and like he
was he was. He was almostlike like made I don't want to say
making fun of, but having funwith people. But all that started with
the only way that he thought thathe would beat Sonny Liston was he had

(10:20):
to be badass crazy, and sohe went in there and was bad ass
crazy, and even Sonny Listener waslike, what's wrong with this guy?
Like there's something wrong with him.But that starts his whole career on that
huge upslope. That's it. That'sexactly it. There was that whole the
year leading up to that fight.He talked himself into the ring by just

(10:43):
being endlessly antagonistic to Sonny Listen.But going into that fight, nobody thought
Alis stood a chance. Not asingle member of the media and probably Listen
thought it too. He thought,all right, I'm just gonna knock out
this loud mouth, you know,the Louisville list and just go back on
my you know, go back onmy way and fight the next guy.
But Ali shows up the morning oftheir fight spouting like a maniac, talking

(11:07):
about how people are gonna die fromshock that ring side, screaming like I
want you, I want you,I want you, chump, and he's
frothing at the mouth. And ifyou think about it, like all you
got to do is plant that onelittle seed of doubt, like this guy's
a little nuts, Like I mean, we hadn't had the Tyson holy Field

(11:28):
yet, but you know, fightyet. But like, is this guy
gonna bite my ear? Like it'sgonna happen when we're in the ring.
And if you're just even like slightlyhesitant, right, you don't take that
shot when you have that momentary opening, you're just a little bit more defensive,
less aggressive than you should be.Like in elite competition, we're talking
about, you know, marginal differences, marginal games, making the difference between

(11:52):
winning and losing, and that couldbe everything. So Ali was playing,
he was playing the hype game,he was playing the psychology game, he
was playing all of it. Right, Well, that's that whole fight flight
or freeze. And you point outin the book, if you if you
look at like track Stars, wherewhere world records and and and medals are
won and lost by hundreds of seconds, if you can get your opponent to

(12:15):
freeze for even half of a heartbeator half the time it takes to snap
you, you just want to goldmedal. That's exactly right, that's it.
I mean, we're talking about thetiniest fractions of a second. You
know, we say football is agame of inches, you know what.
The world records are sent, asyou said, by hundreds of a second.
So literally, anything you can doto just screw up someone's mental game.

(12:41):
You know, in track, intrack in particular, you know,
there used to be this kind ofgamesmanship where the folks at the line would
they would kind of false start onpurpose, right, they would like because
they're just messing with the people nextto them. I believe that that that's
illegal now, and you can bedisqualified. But if you can say anything

(13:01):
to get into that person's head,if you can make them look at you
when they should be looking straight ahead, all of this stuff has serious consequences,
competitive consequences on the court, onthe you know, on the racetrack
anywhere. By the way, youknow who else. I love that you
point out that was just badass crazy, and it did it for a reason,
like like like to get into theother guys. I had never heard

(13:24):
of this guy. I had neverheard of the story. But she,
I know you're gonna say go ahead, she I know, yeah, sorry,
sorry to go. I just like, I'm just literally cracking up at
you're at the lead up there,because your reaction is my reaction. I
had never heard of chet Messing.I didn't know the first thing about the

(13:46):
nineteen seventy two, you know,US men's Olympic soccer team. I didn't
know anything about this stigma that existsaround goalkeepers in soccer in particular, right,
this idea that they have to bea little bit not's a little bit
touched, a little bit crazy toplay the position. But Chet Messing leveraged

(14:07):
that to like the one hundredth degreeand exactly what we're talking about in terms
of like trying to get folks tothink he's a little nuts, a little
crazy, and maybe they're gonna bea little bit more hesitant, you know
when they when they when they're charginginto the box on a corner kick.
And so he would do stuff likehe would wander around aimlessly in the box

(14:28):
and then just kind of mumble tohimself like where am I What's going on
here? And you know, oroccasionally he would he would do that he
would like, you know, sayyou know, violent things to himself.
Oh god, you know, I'mI'm gonna kill somebody. And then then
he would turn to an opponent andgrab them by the shoulders and look them

(14:48):
in the eyes earnestly and say I'msorry for anything that I do. I've
been off my medication, and thenjust being nuts and like and but like
if you're if you're gonna look backat me, you're gonna do a double
take. You're gonna think think twicefor even half a second about going for

(15:13):
that header. You know, that'sthat's the difference between scoring a goal and
not right. I mean, thesethese these things are huge consequence. I
mean, of course, Chef's greatestaccomplishment was talking trash to get the US
Olympic team into the into the Olympics. That was, you know, we
literally owe trash talk for the reasonwhy our our US men's team made the

(15:35):
Olympics for the first time in thequalifying era. And that's because he during
penalty kicks in a shootout with Ecuador, he went charging out at the at
the kicker, a guy named MarioCastro with his shirt off, to swing
in this thing over his head.And by the way, this is not
like you know you think about youknow David Beckham or you know Xenidine Zadan

(15:56):
talk about trash talk. You knowthis this guy did look like an elite
athlete. He looked like a memberof like a hair rock, you know,
like a metal band or ac DCor Black Sabbath. And he goes
charging at this guy screaming, getsa yellow card, you know, because
the rest is like what are youdoing? Then just past the guy in

(16:18):
the back and says now don't missand sure enough Castro kicks the ball so
far over the crossbar. If hedoesn't, you know, chet Messing doesn't
even have to move. And that'syou know, we talk about We talked
about scaring the guy's stiff, youknow, which is literally the language that
Chef used when he was telling methis story. Like he planted you know,

(16:41):
he planted you know, fear threatdistraction in this guy. And and
another thing you did is a littlesomething called ironic effect by telling him not
to miss in a lot. Insome ways, if you can plant that
idea in someone's head, you're almostguaranteeing that they're going to do the thing
that they don't want to do.It's like when you're driving on a street

(17:02):
and you see a pothole and you'relike, don't hit the pothole, don't
hit the don't hit the pothole.Oh crap, I hit the pothole,
right. But you know what,Raffie, the other thing is, and
you touch on it a little bit, is it? It has to be
authentic And listen, I don't thinkanybody thought that chet Messing was going to

(17:22):
kill anybody, but there has tobe something authentic to it. And I
feel like you went and visited.In addition to do an interviews and researching
and everything, you went to visitsome places. And one of the places
that you went to was was ita monster factory in New Jersey for people
who wanted to get into the worldof wrestling. And I can't remember the

(17:44):
person's name, but they would haveto stand on whoever the person who wanted
to be a wrestler was would haveto stand on something that you would do
like jump like a box jump ontoand they would have to kind of promote
themselves. But the whole thing wasis that you couldn't give off douche chills
because nobody, nobody would buy it. It would just go okay, moron
enough, that's right. I mean, that's the thing. You know,

(18:08):
we talk about trying to get people, you know, into a state of
over you know, having to beingoverwhelmed by anxiety, right, being pushed
into fight, flight or freeze.That's a threat response. But for someone
to feel threatened, it have tofeel you have to feel authentic in some
ways, right, you have tobelieve that the person is a threat to

(18:29):
you in some way or another.And in terms of you know, just
like you know, selling a wrestlingstoryline, you know, promoting yourself cutting
a promo. Look, of course, we note you know that this stuff
is uh, you know, isa work, right we nobody is under
any you know, delusions that likewrestling is quote unquote real. But that
doesn't mean that you can just goup there and say anything. You gotta

(18:52):
be. You got to sell methat story. It's got to feel real.
And one of the things that theya lot of the folk, a
lot of the folks in the restlingworld who I spoke to, would say
to me, is you got tofind that like seed within yourself, Like
what is that thing within you thatyou want to bring out? And then
how do you dial that up toeleven? Like whether you're gonna be a

(19:15):
babyface and a hero or whether you'regonna be the heel and the you know
and the villain. Like what isthat aspect of yourself that you can dial
up and take to and take toeleven? Because you know, there was
one guy at the Monster Factory Iwalked in. You know, he's like
six foot three obviously spend six hoursa day in the gym, just you
know, like you know, world'sstrongest man, tat it up everywhere,

(19:40):
you know, and get an intimidatingguy. And he got up there and
I think he wanted to be ababyface first, right like he was because
he's a nice guy. Everyone's like, oh, that's you know, that's
he's the nicest guy here. He'llyou know, he'll, he'll give you
the shirt off his back. Andto what the instructor we're trying to work

(20:00):
with them on is like, look, man, like you are just even
though you might be a nice guy, that's not what That's not the part
of you we need to take here. Nobody's buying that, But like,
what are the parts of you thatwe can dial up to sort of authentically
you know, match this, youknow, this impression that you're giving off,
I mean, and that's I mean, that's just reality too. It's

(20:21):
not that like you can take anypart of you. People have to buy
it. If they don't buy it, then you're not. Nobody cares about
scene you fight, Nobody, nobodycares about your character. You haven't sold
us on it. And by theway, like you know who I bet
was really interesting to talk to andlisten? Is it as is it as
fun as here? In Muhammad Aligoing crazy or Gary Payton just trash talking
the air to practice trash talking?Is that guy, the guy who works

(20:47):
at Georgetown, Rodney Yepp, whotalks about how to use it, who
talks about how to use trash talkin your own office to your own benefit.
I bet that guys. I meanagain, is it is sexy?
No? But I bet it's awesometo sit and talk to him. Yeah,
Jeremy is Jeremy's Yeah, he's outof you know, Georgetown. I

(21:10):
think he also has an association withthe University of Pennsylvania. But I I
loved it when I found this studythat looked at the trash talk in the
workplace, I just thought it wasgenius. And I was so excited to
talk, you know, to talkto Jeremy because it's in some ways it's
like this is like the perfect distillationof what trash talk can do the effects

(21:33):
of trash talk because you're looking atit in the most unexpected of locations,
right, and it's and it's thefinding of his studies I found just to
be almost foundational in terms of myown research, right, because what he
found was this idea that like whenyou talk trash it inherently raises the psychological

(21:56):
stakes of competition, right, Itputs more on the line. You have
more to gain and you have moreto lose. Like this is literally this
is existential, right. We're endowinga competition with meaning that it might not
otherwise have. This is the wholepoint that this is why wrestlers cut promos,
right, because who cares about seeinga couple of guys in spandex just
like knocking each other around a ring. We need to know the story,

(22:18):
we need to know why it matters. But also in raising the psychological stakes,
you're also putting pressure on that performance, right, And that's the idea
the end of like, well,who can handle the pressure? Who's going
to buckle under the pressure? Right? And and and who's got something to
lose? Who's going to feel likethey have more to lose than they can
handle? And suddenly they're going toyou know, they're going to be a

(22:40):
little bit more hesitant, they're goingto go into a threat state. And
who's going to respond in the rightway? You know? The thing,
the thing, one of the oneof the great things that came out of
this study is what they call afailed mental model, right, And this
is the idea that the people whotalk trash. Within the study, they

(23:00):
assumed that the people that they weretalking trash to, we're going to lower
their levels of effort, right,they were going to have lower motivation,
But the exact opposite was true.What we can see is when you talk
trash to someone, they're going towant to see you lose. They're going
to be more motivated to see youlose, and they're going to work harder

(23:21):
to make sure that that happens.And so yeah, from a literal workplace
perspective, we can apply trash talkin terms of things like marketing, right,
and developing rivalry and rivalry relationships.That's how we can sell things,
tell stories. You know, it'sWendy's on Twitter, it's the Philadelphia Flyers
mascot, Gritty these more were awesomeat it. It's celebrity feuds and rap

(23:42):
beats. That's all this stuff.But also as like as a literal business
leader, you can understand ways toapply this in certain you know that you
can increase motivation levels, you cancreate sense of belonging in group identity like
this. This stuff is more thanjust you know, I hesitate to even
say just because all of it Ithink is valuable. But this stuff is

(24:04):
more than just what we see onTV with like the you know, the
House of Highlights, clips of GaryPayton or you know, the rock coming
back to WWE. This stuff hasapplication in almost every aspect of life.
But you know, like I alsolove and listen you run through whether it's
Warren Sap, Gary Payton, ReggieMiller, Larry Bird, who is probably

(24:25):
one of the most notorious of orconsidered the greatest trash talkers of all time.
You get Sean Avery, who youtalk about in the in the NHL,
Like, there's no shortage of peoplethat you go through. But the
two other things that come out ofthere that I love is that and you
understand why teams have therapists now andpsychologists. Is I love where where somebody

(24:47):
called Chris Bosh on the basketball courta mama's boy. That's it. It's
stuck with him for four games.He played like crap, oh my god,
yes, now it's Kevin Garnett.You literally all he had to say
that Chris Boss is you're a mama'sboy. And Chris Bosh responds to that
by saying to himself, what doeshe mean by that? And it's literally

(25:08):
this idea that we've you know thatone of the one of the ways that
trash talk can affect our performance isthat it can literally steal our attention by
forcing us to try to make senseof the thing that is said. You
know, this is how incivility canget us to act, you know,
in regular life, act more impulsively, you know, and and do things

(25:29):
that we wouldn't normally do. Isbecause our attention is being directed toward this
comment and trying to and trying toreconcile it within the model of the world
that we otherwise usually you know,recognize around us. One of the best
ways you know, to you know, to be an effective trash talker is
to be attention grabbing, and thereare so many ways to do that.

(25:52):
And Kevin Garnett, right, whetherhe was telling Chris Boss you're a mama's
boy, or whether he was allegedlybecause he denies it, telling you know,
Carmelo Anthony that his wife tastes likehoney nut cheerios, which is an
implications with his wife. You know, there's there's so many you want to
be unexpected, right, you wantto violate the model of the world that

(26:15):
someone is used to seeing around them. You want to be weird. You
want to say something weird that makessomeone go huh. You know there's a
This story is not in the book, but there's a I came across this
great story of an amateur high schoolwrestler right before a match was about to
begin. You know, He's ontop of the other guy, and he
would whisper in his ear. Hewould say, do you moisturize? You

(26:37):
have really soft skin? Like,you're just making the guy think about what
you're saying. You're not being insulting, You're not being intimidating, You're just
being weird. You're just you're makingsomeone think. And thinking is like the
the enemy of performance an action,right, even complimenting someone. If I

(27:03):
if I go up to you andsay, hey, you're played really well
today, Like I love the wayyour shot you know, looks, you
know, and suddenly you're gonna sayto yourself, yeah, I am playing
well, what is up with myshot? And we start thinking about something
that you're not supposed to think about, and I do. I do.
Like from that Rocky you talk aboutone thing that athletes do to each other,
and then I'll tell you a realquick story behind it. Is that

(27:26):
like whether it's bj Armstrong telling aguy during like garbage time at the end
like oh go get your average,or where it's just like whether or not
you still belong or you're still goodenough to be in the sport. I'm
reading your book over the break.I go to a Capitol's game. Tom
Wilson gets in a fight with thisguy who plays for Nashville with the last
name of mcgratten. I'm close enoughto the penalty box that I can hear

(27:49):
them yelling back and forth to eachother. Tom Wilson yells at mcgratten,
hey, weren't you a first rounder? Are you even doing anything anymore?
And I was like, oh mygod, Oh my god, that is
that is brilliant trash talk. Imean again, it's like, yes,
there's a little bit of insult involved, but he's not he's not going after

(28:11):
something. He's not going after hiswife or family. He's not going after
his dead dog, you know,or his drug problem. I'm not saying
he has problems, but like,he's not going after these very sensitive issues.
What he's doing, because it's sucha smart thing to do, is
going after someone's genuine insecurities, right, the thing you're the things your internal
dialogue is already saying to yourself orwhispering to yourself, can you get it

(28:37):
to scream at that person? Rightby making someone second guess whether they have,
you know, a role on theteam or whether they're going to be
cut, whether they belong or not. And something like having a reputation like
being a first rounder, this expectation, right of living up to this expectation
and not doing so, that's anincredibly threatening thing if you think you have

(29:00):
something like a reputation to lose,and so making someone focus on those things
that they have to lose is agreat way to then push them into a
threat state, which is going toaffect their performance. And so that's brilliant
trash talk. It's so basic,but it's it's brilliant. And it also
shows you that trash talk doesn't haveto be toxic, right, you don't

(29:22):
have to know, you don't haveto you know, say something that's like
gonna get us talking for a weekon you know, and on the radio
or on you know, on TVdebate shows about whether someone crossed the line,
like this is at line crossing,This is basic stuff. But it's
still because you understand, you know, how these things work, even on

(29:42):
an intuitive level, like you canbe an effective trash talker. Is there
anybody that wouldn't talk to you?I yeah, you know, actually the
person who wouldn't talk to me.I mean, there's some people you don't
get to and you can just chalkit up to like it's hard to get
Michael Jordan on the phone. Yeah, but yes, there was a couple

(30:04):
of people who would not talk tome. One of whom was Rick Fox,
former you know, basketball player onyou know, championship winning teams.
And I heard stories about him asa as a trash talker. I heard
stories about him sort of, youknow, being one of those guys along
the lines of like a Brian Coxwho kind of needed to put on this

(30:26):
mask, you know that, youknow, to get into this kind of
frenzy, you know, to stepinto a kind of character, you know,
to play at his best. Butwhen I reached out to him,
the response I got from his repis we don't want to have anything to
do with trash talking. And andI actually put that in the book because
I thought it was so interesting,you know, not that Rick Fox didn't

(30:47):
want to talk to me, butbecause I think it speaks to this idea
or misconception that's existed for decades inthis country of what trash talk is and
how we too often kind of dismissas this you know, transgressive, unsportsmanlike
behavior and that's deserving a punishment andpenalization. It needs to be controlled somehow,

(31:11):
whereas what it is is actually it'sthe language of competition. It's existed
throughout time and across cultures, andthe way we understand it in terms of
modern American trash talk is it's grownout of you know, you know,
black tradition, Black oral traditions likethe dozens and toasts, and it's and
it's frankly like the kind of racialized, stigmatized, you know, response from

(31:36):
media and from leagues at large thathas made us think that it is anything
other than what it is, whichis just like how people talk through each
other when they're in competition, whichDavid did Cook to Goliath, and you
know, and they've been doing itever since. Right now, I'm telling
you, like I said, getthe book is fascinating. I love the
book, and like I said,it's great here in the stories of like

(31:56):
famous people, you know, butjust the history, like you mentioned dozens,
just the history lessons through the wholething is unbelievable. Yeah, and
I really appreciate you saying that,because you know, one of the things
I feel like when I would tellpeople like I'm writing a book about trash
talk, or I tell them now, I wrote a book about trash talk,

(32:16):
They're like, really, why youknow? How much is there to
say? That's another guy who didn'ttalk to me with Quinn Buckner, the
Larry Birds mentor on the Celtics.He was like, he asked me how
long I wanted to talk. Iwas like, I don't know, half
an hour and he said, well, we couldn't even talk for fifteen minutes.

(32:37):
But then he said, man,because I decided he didn't even want
to try to talk, which isfine. I respect it. You wish
me well. I wished him well. But the point is that there is
so much more to this, andI think it's deserving of our attention because
one I think we one was byunderstanding it, I think will be less
likely to react kind of, youknow, in a knee ure way,

(33:00):
in a way that sort of reflectsfrankly, like, you know, racist
structures that have existed in our country, like throughout since it's founding. But
also because we need to understand what'sreally happening beneath the surface, because trash
talk is defined not just by whatsaid, but how you respond, by
what comes next and if we're goingto respond in the right way, whether

(33:22):
that's trash talk from an opponent orwhether it's trash talk from a politician like
Donald Trump, Like, we needto know what's really happening so we can
respond in the right way. Trashtalk. The only book about destroying your
rivals that isn't total garbage is outand available now. Hey, ROTHI,
I appreciate the time, my friend. Thanks so much for having me back.

(33:42):
I really appreciate it. Hey,you got it, Thanks ROFFI