Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're going to find out what this sound is.

Here's my pitch on Irvine's tweet, post meeting the aliens. Met with the aliens, period. They are not what I expected exclamation mark.

Right after this ad.

You're listening.

To.

Draftkings Network.

Cortez, every so often on this show, we turn into a detective agency. In what way? We have a number, 513-85, Pablo. People call that number with their mysteries they want us to solve. And we solve the out of those mysteries.

I know. Shout out to these people for the mail bag. I appreciate all.

The calls. It's not a mail bag. It's a detective agency. Again, we're not doing the stupid mail bag thing that every show does. I believe that what we're going to do here with this voicemail will prove that we're not just any show if we can play that first, non-mail bag voicemail.

Hey, Pablo, I saw your name in the headline of a New York Post article.

It says, Lars Pippen and.

Marcus Jordan.

Trash, miserable.

End quote.

Pablo Torre, over.

Podcast interview. So now.

That you.

Officially have a feud with the Pippens and the Jordans, I need to hear your response. Please and thanks.

Bye. I'm going to have to wear this because we taped an episode of our podcast in which we interviewed Marcus, Jordan and Lars Pippen about their love.

Yeah, watch that one so you don't have to listen to their god-awful podcast.

Well, now we got to listen to their god-awful podcast as an excerpt because they, of course, actually said the things that that caller was alleging. We did a podcast.

A week ago. We did Pablo Torres's podcast.

They talked a lot of shit.

About us before our- They talked a lot of shit. I wasn't too familiar with the format of his show. Maybe that's on us not doing our research or whatever. But yeah, I feel like the first half segment of the show was talking crazy. It's just funny because then when we did our interview, they didn't really keep that same energy. I felt like obviously they had listened to the podcast, they were familiar with it, but our interview was very fluffy.

It was very one style.

It was very fluffy. I feel like their commentary that aired before our interview was pretty biased. It was a hit piece, by the way. It was a little bit of a hit piece. Now actually, having watched it back, I wish that that producer, there was some off, I can't remember the dude's name. I just wish he was there because I feel like our interview would have taken a different tone and we would have been able to clap back a little bit. You know what I'm saying?

It's funny because I feel like the people that have so much to say are so miserable in their real lives. If we took five seconds to research them, which I would never even do because they're not worth our time, you'd really realize these people are a bunch of losers. Yeah.

It was a hip piece.

Oh, man.

A hip piece. What a great line.

They didn't remember that you, Ryan Cortez- They know my name. Get out of here. Come on.

I am just bummed that I thought we had bonded with them.

That's how you left the interview that.

You thought you guys were friends? I might be at this wedding. I was hoping for a follow-up episode where we're at the wedding listening to Michael Jordan give the best man's toast.

Clap back, Pablo.

Speaking of miserable assholes, what's next?

Hey, Pablo.

I ate.

Some really yummy Thai food last night.

But it was.

So spicy. This morning I had the spicy shit of my life, and I just don't feel good. It's like walking home from work. It just felt gross all day. It had me thinking about David Sanssen. I'm just wondering if you could find out if you have any strategies for.

Mitigating the.

Impact.

Of a spicy.

Shit and also find out if his.

Butthole is okay.

Thanks.

Bye. I just want to say that I love that we are a safe space for listeners of all genders. What a great call. To confess how miserable their actually is.

Yeah. I also have had the same question about how that's gone for him.

So we had David Samson on for an episode about how he lost smell and taste due to COVID and.

How.

Hetruly, because we did the Hot Oins Hot sauce challenge, and he tasted hot sauces that were draped his wings in hot sauces that were a zillion scoville units or whatever it is, and was totally.

Unaffected.

Allegedly. Well, I texted him now, and in the present tense, he reports this, quote, When it comes to hoop burn, he's your imagination, my days are spent not with prevention but treatment. I thought I was in the clear after the Hot sauce challenge with Sean Evans, host of Hot Oins, 72 hours later, things went horribly wrong. So I have two letters for you, A and D. I believe that's like an ointment that you put on baby butts. And he says, Unfortunately, my loss of taste and smell did not come with a concomitant loss of anal nerves, but the juice is worth the squeeze. So to translate it, quote, My whole is on fire.

Well, so here's the thing. I am not surprised because I believe David Samson to be somewhat of a liar. And I will tell you why. Juan Galendo, one of our great video editors, was telling me that he noticed out of the corner of his eye that after all of this took place in our studio that David Samson retreated to the back where you could get milk and water and so forth. And David was alone. And Juan just saw him and was like, noticing how David looked like he was in so much pain, and he was trying to hide it, and he was sweating.

So you are accusing David Samson of fabricating the entire premise of this episode, which is that actually, he feels everything. He's just doing this for attention.

You put me in a tough spot because that.

Is quite the lead. You're alleging that David Samson is Lars Pippen?

They both could use some help.

Next, the voicemail. What's up, Pablo? This is.

Jack, calling.

From Venice, California. I have a college mascot.

Question for you.

I know there's a long sorted history of indigenous mascot. Some are like the flagrant examples like the Chief, Chief, Oahu and.

The Washington.

Football team, I won't name. But we'd love your.

Explanation.

On what the hell an Oklahoma sooner is. It's given a real.

Killer of the flower, moon energy to me, but.

We'd love your take.

Let me know if I'm on the right track with it.

Being.

Particularly bad or maybe.

It's.

Harmless.

So he's asking us to tell him whether or not this is a problematic mascot and where this mascot even comes from.

Something we need to know about all mascotes.

It's honestly helpful for me to know this. I did not know this. We reached out to David Graham, author of Killers of the flower and moon. I read that. One of the great non-fiction writers on the planet. Yeah, from the New York. Who wrote the book, Yes, of The New Yorker, who wrote the book that got turned into the Scorsesee movie. And he gave us this.

It turns out that the term dates back to the landruns of the late 19th century in what was then Indian territory and is now part of the state of Oklahoma. The US government had a long policy of trying to drive Native Americans off their lands and open up these prairies and territories to white settlers. And so it had arranged to have these races. They were these mad dashes for lands where at the sound of a gun, settlers would gather and at that sound they would race down. And if they got to a parcel land first and put in their stake, they would lay to it. During the land run of 1893, thousands, tens of thousands of settlers gathered, waiting for the start of the gun. And the term sooner came from those who tried to sneak across the line early.

So I didn't know any of that. The idea that, okay, it's not that the nickname itself is problematic, but the people it describes apparently are these people who were these settlers that were treating Native American land like it was a Walmart on Black Friday.

Also, it's pretty amazing that this amazing author from The New York and all these books is wasting his time answering our questions. I do love that. It's amazing.

I love that David Graham answered our mascot question. How did we convince him to do that? But speaking of people desperately trying to be first, what's next? Yo, Pablo, Billy from Brooklyn. I saw on Twitter, X, that Woes blocked you? What the hell could you have done to deserve that? Why is it about what I must have done?

You probably did something. Let's be real.

I want to be clear about this whole entire thing. I'm not here to be as messy as the top of the show indicates, actually. I'm not realizing how much I am apparently this controversial character. How did you discover you were blocked? So the morning of The Heart and trade, I get all these texts, and I'm like, What the fuck happened? And I go, of course, to the NBA's biggest news breaker, and I find out that the man who broke The Heart and trade had blocked me.

Schams.

Blocked Oh, God. You just set me up for that. Wow. So Woj blocked you. Woj blocked me, which is strange because I am, of course, his former full-time colleague, now part-time colleague at ESPN. And so I don't know what I did. I was surprised to learn. And my only theory is that because I work for Metallark and I work with you, that the Miami Heat propagandists have put a stain on my good name.

You might be right in terms of me being to blame for this because I have my own story with Woj in the past on Twitter, as I do with a lot of people. What did you do? I do with a lot of people. So I had been following Woj for many years, as most people do. And I noticed one day I got a notification that said Adrian Wojarnowski followed you back. And I said, Oh, I.

Made it.

Yeah, he used to follow me as well. I was proud and showing people, Oh, Woj follows me now. And two days later, I noticed Woj unfollowed me, and that shit pissed me off. So you unfollowed? You had the nerve to go to my pro... You were that busy. You're the busiest man in news breaking, and you hate my profile so much that you had to unfollow me? So he blocked you. Yeah, he unfollowed me. At least I'm not blocked. So he really.

Doesn't like our show. I have breaking news for you. You undoubtedly just got blocked. I love our callers, man. They're the best. They're the best. They leave voicemails that sometimes just sync perfectly with the shit that I'm already wanting to investigate.

We can't say it enough.

513-85, Pablo. That's right. Call us and we may play your voicemail like we are right now.

Hey, Pablo, this is Butterfly Jones.

Gone from beautiful Keywest to Florida, a long time listener, first time caller. And I was hoping you could find out who writes the beautiful, the incredible tweet by Magic Johnson. They are so amazingly earnest, but they read like, GPT negative 3.5 combined with the enthusiasm of my great impact. They are spectacular. And I want to know who's behind them. Thank you, Bobo.

There's nobody in the Twitter sphere who I'd want to know more who is behind that account than Magic Johnson.

Number one for me. Yes. It's an active mystery. And so, of course, we had to get to Magic Johnson, which is, it turns out, difficult.

But you remember you've met him before, right? I was.

There for that. I've interviewed him at Sports illustrated a couple of times, actually.

I know you're a journalist. Thank you for reminding that. I know youI know back in the day.

You did journalism. I've reported stories quoting him.

Back when you and I did High Noon on ESPN at the Seaport office at ESPN, there was a day, if you remember, I believe it was 2019.

I don't think it's that helpful to relive this.

No, it is. It is, dude. Magic Johnson came to the office and it was embarrassing what you did.

You all shoot here, too? Yeah. Okay. So you had to move both of you because you were in - I was in Fort Carolina. I was in Fort Carolina. Yeah.

So congrats. Well, try to be like you, man. You're the best TV star in this building today.

I'm a businessman now.

This is just a businessman. You have a suit of a businessman.

Well, I got to run my business. Matter of fact, I'm running to a meeting after this. Absolutely, man. All right, God bless you. Take care.

I am cringing so hard that I'm becoming smaller.

So some background. I'm filming that, obviously. And the reason that it's clipped off in that manner abruptly is I was furiously trying to get my phone out because you're sprinting to hop over a couch to go say hello to Magic Johnson. The video picks up with the first words of you saying to him after having climbed the couch to dapp him. We can see eye to eye as if you're marveling at this. Yes, dude, you are sat on a couch.

Of course, you're- I stood on a couch like Tom Cruise being interviewed by Oprah.

Are you embarrassed? Of course.

I mean, the visuals on this are great, admittedly. The dapp I delivered. Was it worth it?

You got the clout of like, hey, I dapped them up.

Yeah, but it's not worth it. There's like a leg kick. I wound up because I cared about the dap so much that I kicked my leg out like a pitcher. So what's sad now, even sadder now to me, is that despite that clear connection that me and Magic made from the top of that couch. When I reached out to Magic Johnson's people, because, of course, he's a businessman with many people, to go to the front door on this topic, we were told the following, okay? Quote, Thank you for reaching out. Unfortunately, Mr. Johnson respectfully declines to participate. He is elected not to discuss the behind the scenes of his social strategy. End quote. That was from the Vice President of Magic Johnson enterprises, Alexia Greivis-Henderson. But I was energized. And so what I did was I reached out to a different Hollywood power broker, an actor in this case, that I know has also been obsessed with this now official mystery, by the way. What do they have to hide? And so, yeah, I called up Rob Loe. Rob Loe, what was the first memory you have of meeting Magic Johnson?

We met because we were both basically the same age. From the Midwest, he's from the Midwest. He's from Michigan. I'm from Ohio. We're in Los Angeles, we're young, we're having success, and we're on each other's radar. And so that was obviously the initial commonality. But then over the years, I got to know him as a man. And it was really through amount of time spent in and around the Lakers and the Laker organization, traveling on the road, on the team plane. Riley, at one point, banned me from staying in the same hotel because- Wait, why?

Why were you banned by Pat Riley?

Well, because it was the '80s and I was single.

You were a bad influence, Roblo. That's why you were banned.

I was a very bad influence on the Lakers. I mean, well, Lakers love me. Riley, not so much. And it was during the format where it was like 2-3-2. Yeah. So you'd be in Detroit forever. Three games in Detroit. There's not a lot to do but a Pontiac Silverdome. So you can do the math. And Riley was not a fan of that.

No, understandably. Maddie Johnson, by the way, was just named one of the four current or former athletes to ever become a billionaire. So it's him, LeBron, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods. That was this week. But inside of that larger context is this ongoing fascination that many people have around his Twitter account. Yes. And I think you know this. You've been on part of my take talking to them about it, but you're like the foremost source. You have advanced the ball more than any other human being on the question of what is up with Magic Johnson's Twitter account? And you take pride in this, I imagine, at this point. You're laughing at me asking this.

Yeah. Listen, I have it on very good authority.

That.

He dictates it. He has somebody who hes whatever occurs to him and with the emphasis on whatever occurs to him, it's the best. Twitter was made for him.

Exactly.

But I'll ask Magic next time I see him. I'm going to say the world wants to know. Are you seated in a big smoking chair? Are you doing it in a walk and talk? Is there a fleet? Because you're a billionaire now. So I'm assuming it's a fleet of people, not just one person, whose who's instantly putting it on their phone. And if it's on their phone, how does that get onto your Twitter? The world needs to know.

Yes. I imagine like a nuclear football level of chain of custody here.

My favorite is always like, We've got to do better when the Lakers are getting blown out. You know what I mean? You're like, I love it.

His catchphrases are stuff like, quote, Tonight we learned the world champion Denver Nuggets are going to be very tough to beat in the NBA playoff. Offs period. We're all disappointed that our Dodgers didn't hit or pitch well. That's why we lost the series to the Diamondbacks. Exclamation point. And the exclamation points, Rob, are notable because for him on the Magic Johnson emotional curve, that thing is Martin Luther nailing the 95th theses to the door.

When I was on the West Wing, Aaron Sorkin will not use an exclamation point, ever. Oh, wow.

Literally, in the script, it could say, President Berlin is shot. No exclamation point. No, he does not believe in them. His theory with exclamation points is that it's the hackiest, sweatiest thing that you can do to make something sound exciting that probably isn't. I happen to disagree with that. I think an exclamation point, there's absolutely a place to... They're overused, for sure. But I don't go the other way where it's like, You don't use them. I mean, to me, that's a bridge too far.

On the scale of writing sensibility, on one end is Magic Johnson. On the other end is Aaron Sorkind.

And you're not going to confuse their Twitter accounts. You're just not going to.

Yes.

By the way, are they pre-loaded?

Right.

Listen, there's a world where what was pre-loaded wasn't... Give me the quote about why the Dodgers lost to give it to me again.

We're all disappointed that our Dodgers didn't hit or pitch well. That's why we lost the series to the Diamondbacks.

Exclamation point. Okay, so that's pre-loaded. Also pre-loaded is, how about that Dodger pitching and hitting? And that is why we swept the diamond backs.

So you have the potential world in which Magic Johnson is a man for all seasons and outcomes. He is ready with a Magic Johnsonism, no matter the event and it's resolved.

Of course, he is. It's why he's a billionaire. Of course, he's ready for every eventuality. It's like abstract art. It really is. It's where you go, I'm pretty sure my kindergartener could have painted that. And yet your kindergartner didn't paint it.

No.

Jackson Pollock.

Painted this. Jackson Pollock painted it. He's no kindergartner. And you know what else is a little bit in there? Again, we have a mutual friend, Alan Yang, who wrote on the show that I did Parks and Recreation. And one of my favorite characters in Parks and Recreation has a little bit of Irvine's Twitter in him, and that is Purd Happley.

Yes. Oh, my God, dude. I had never connected this, but- 100 million %.

100 %. Magic's Twitter account has a little bit of Purd Haffley in it.

For a female.

Perspective on this scandal, we turn to a.

Woman, Leslie Noe.

I'm about to ask you a question right.

Now, and that.

Question is this.

The leude photo.

Just how big a deal is it?

Well, frankly, Purd, it's not.

That big a deal, if you know what I mean.

I don't know.

What you mean, but it had the cadence of a joke.

I'm Irvin Johnson, and I love to play basketball. It's hard work, but it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of things. But when the ball goes through that net.

The team.

Gets two points.

Is there a person who is better at being rich than Magic Johnson?

Oh.

And I see Elon Musk as, of course, fantastically accomplished, wildly wealthy, real-life Tony Stark, all of that stuff on top of the culture war But the point being, I watch him on Twitter, and I'm like, oh, that's a man whose brain has been eaten by the internet. It seems like he is doing Twitter the product he bought for $44 billion incorrectly. And then in contrast, again, on this scale of extremes, I see Magic Johnson. And I'm like, That guy seems happy.

He is happy, for sure. One of the things I love so much about Irvine slash Magic is their outlook on life. And it's not a pose. It's not an image. It really is who he is. And that's like, guile-less, enthusiastic, drawer, straightforward, no bullshit. And I don't want to say childlike because that has a connection that it's somehow unsophisticated or not smart. And I'm not saying that.

But there is a.

Purity, though. A purityYeah. It's a purity about it. And you read LeBron James's thing, and he's always trying to be Nelson Mandela.

Right.

And Magic slash Irving is just being himself.

This is maybe the thing about his Twitter account is that it's so authentically his voice that you wonder, is it just a performance because it's so consistent? And then you're like, well, why am I being cynical about this?

It's a gift. Just accept the gift. Just accept the gift. It's one of the huge, by the way, it might be the only joy left on Twitter.

Absolutely, Rob. Absolutely. The only joy I have left is Magic Johnson on July 17th of this summer, posting on Twitter, quote, Positano, Italy is so beautiful and they grow the biggest lemon I've ever seen in my life exclamation point.

It just puts a smile on your face.

We're both grinning in a very sincere way because without even showing you the tweet, you know that Magic Johnson in both hands is double fisting giant Italian Lemons. Giant. And they're so big.

Giant Lemons.

There's the question of when the aliens come, who do we want to nominate as our gladiator on behalf of Earth? People are always like, it's clearly LeBron James. And I'm like, if we want.

To- Who's nominating him? Wait, what?

The greatest physical specimen that Earth has to offer. Oh, I see. Okay. In competition... Because we assume this is the thing, Robb. But people assume that we're going to want to go to war with the aliens. And meanwhile, what you and I are on the same wavelength about, I think, is that if we want to diplomatically figure some stuff out, I want Irvine, Magic Johnson with two giant Lemons approaching.

Here's my pitch on Irvine's tweet post.

Meeting the aliens.

Okay. Met with the aliens, period. They are not what I expected exclamation mark.

That's it. You've nailed it. Isn't that it? I can't improve on that. And there would be a photo of Magic Johnson grinding ear to ear, hand over shoulder with a.

Fucking alien. With a gray. The gray can barely be in the photo because the are two and a half feet tall. You should do it. I'm sure you must do a parlor trip game where you have three quotes and two of them are fake Magic Johnson and one of them is real. You have to do that.

I'm sure. Absolutely. We're going to find some Pert Happley, Best Doves, and we're going to... I mean, that could be the game, honestly. Which was Pert Happley or Magic Johnson?

I mean, that's a fun game. That's really good. Okay, let's do this. Let's get Sher-Yang, you and me on the pod like this and play it.

Yes. Done.

I'm in.

Roblo on that note. All I have to say to you is in the words of Magic Johnson, thank you.

Exclamation point. Thanks, man. That was fun.

I knew the name Roblo going into the video. But I didn't know who he was. I'm young. What do you.

Want me to do? Please tell me you appreciated what just.

Happened there. I got lost watching it because there was a moment where I said, oh, I know who that is. I recognized him.

The West Way, Parks and Rec, The Outsiders, great movie.

No, Austin Powers, bro. The eye patch, I remember him.

Young numbers. I just want our new friend of the show, Rob Loe, to know that I understand his oeuvre, even though Ryan Cortez... By the way, you also discovered rock and roll as a concept. Shout out to Nervana. -over the pandemic. Nervana, bro. So this is allWell, this is a love language, Cortez. But I did also want to be fair to any skeptics out there who wanted the actual answer to the question our great listener left. Because we know now that it's Magic Johnson dictating the tweets. We know it's his voice, incontrovertibly. But in terms of the person who is physically writing them, who is writing this account, there was even more digging that I.

Had to do. Okay, what did.

You find out? So they wanted to keep all this a secret, obviously, the social media strategy. But I did all of these... I truly investigated this. I did all of these interviews on background. I got to somebody who was in the room, actually, while it was happening. Magic Johnson with this mystery person posting to the account. And what I was told, okay, the person who physically posts for Magic Johnson was none other than Alexia Grivis-Henderson herself.

That's the name from the email, right? That is.

The person who emailed us saying that they elected not to discuss the social media strategy is the person behind the social media strategy.

I'm proud of you, man. That's actual journalism. You did it again. Good reporting by you.

We got to the bottom of just the greatest rich person's Twitter account. Should she.

Get the rates, you think?

If she wants to maybe help put me in touch with Magic so I can dapp him up on sea level, maybe we can work out a recommendation, a public endorsement from how Votore finds out. Cortez, it's obvious to everybody that we are the smart show at Metalark Media. Dude. I mean, there was a time we had- Look who's in the chair. Okay, guy. I didn't want to say it, but now I'll say it.

There was a time we had Action Bronson on it. He was talking about shitting into a warm toilet and how it emptied out his whole.

Bowel system. As well as Jesus telling us that the poop in a crack house reminded him of crème brule.

Okay, the smartest show.

At Metalark. A little crust on the top. But I do want to get to an objectively smart voicemail about an objectively smart topic, if we could. Pablo, I got a good idea for you. We need to find out who of the Wutang clan is the best chess player. I've read a number of articles over the years that they played chess together when they were recording The 36 Chambers. Risa and Giza seem to be the most open about their chess-playing experiences. And Gisa said he played 78 hours straight against Masterkiller. So who's the best? We need to find out who of the Wutang is the best chess player.

Now, I've heard of a lot of those people, obviously. Shout out to Nirvana. I discovered rock music and musical. That's the way all... Knowledge is.

Not the best. I like how the through line of this episode is Ryan Cortez finds out what music is. It's amazing, by the way. Proceed, yes.

So I just wanted to know who all is in the Wutang clan?

Okay, so this is a hard question for even the most Wutang-ologist to answer, because, okay, I just want to re-act this for everybody, right? There are lots of people in the Wutang clan. They're, according to several actual music critics, one of the greatest just groups ever, let alone rap groups based in Staten Island, and they fucking love chess. And if I have any credibility with the Wutang clan, it's because they get the vibe of people who maybe like to do some nerdy things sometimes. And so they have songs about chess, they played chess, and there are lots of possible answers here to answer your question as to who the best chess player might be because there is Method Man, there's Old dirty bastard, there is Raquan, there is Ghostface, there is Mastakilla, there's Capadana, YouGod, Inspector Deck, Rizza, Gizza. There are lots of candidates.

Inspector Dec, that's a.

Good name. It's a great name. Interesting. And so what we did was we reached out to our reporting intern to get to the bottom of this story, Dan Levitard-.

I've heard of him.

-to get a comment from Method Man himself. Hey, Dan, what's up? What's here?

It never ends, right? You see my hat? Yeah. Kings of New York right now, you know? I'm just thinking, what if Anne Rogers never got hurt?

And this was mostly just Method Man giving us jets ticks. Is that Stugats or Method? I know. He's wearing a Jets hat. He's lying down on a floor somewhere. But he did follow up, thankfully, with a text message where he put three names. Three names on the metal stand of best chess player in the Wutang clan. He mentioned Masterkillah, he mentioned Ghostface, and he mentioned Giza. And that also obviously was not enough for my journalistic tastes. And so we called up the first name that he mentioned. So this is an honor for me. Thank you. I need to tell you that. Thank you. I'm a fan and also a journalist with a question. Do I call you Killa? What should I, Pablo Torre, say to you as a way of addressing you? What do you prefer?

Call me Jamal, man.

That's easier.

That's the kill it. That's the kill is what I do.

Jamal, I got some intel. And I should say that our source is your colleague, Method Man, who power ranked the three greatest chess players in the Wutangplan. And the metals stand in no particular order is you, Ghostface, and GISA. Does that sound right? What's your scouting report?

Well, if he said I was number one, that's correct.

He didn't provide an order, but I'm open to your order. This is why I'm calling you up.

I'll be honest and say the number one slot could go between me, GISA, and Risa.

At any of you can tell. What's crazy about this to me is that there's actually plausible cases for so many of you guys. I don't know if you know this, but I just saw an article out of Arizona recently where was working some chess tournament for kids. He showed up there. And I was like- Capadana? Am I breaking news to you about this?

That's definitely news to me. I think we all played chess in our own ways because it's definitely, I would say, affiliated with life. It teaches you so many lessons. That's what drew me to the game in itself. Just the patience. The patience is that you learn.

And how often did you guys play against each other? I'm asking you to rank- Every day. Every day.

Every day. Me and Giza.

Played.

72 games one day straight.

I'm sorry. 72 consecutive in one day.

72. We started that morning and we ended late at night. I mean, we took breaks and we ate it and we listen to music or whatever. But the whole day we just played chess all day. I mean, we had so many days like that. But that particular day, we played like 72 straight. We counted it, 72. Yeah, we love it, man.

What was the win-loss record for you, Master Killa, playing Gizmo, 72 games consecutively in one day?

Oh, man, I can't remember the win-loss, but more than likely I was on top. Yeah, you were on top.

What's your scouting report? So I want a self-scouting report of Master Killa by Master Killa on how he plays chess versus the other members of the Wutang clan. What distinguishes your game?

I'm just a little natural with it. Some of my brothers, they study books, which you should. I mean, knowledge is infinite. So you can never stop learning. There's always room for improvement. There's always room to learn. Some of my brothers, they study different chess masters. I'm just a natural. I absorb and adapt to my opponent. And I like to just stay free like that. I don't like to box myself into any certain openings or I just like to be free with it.

I'm hearing you say between the lines that you're unpredictable. Some of your nerd friends in the Wutang clan are more predictable. That's what I got from what your scouting report was that.

I think we're all nerds.

I get the sense, reading between the lines here again, that you like the psychological warfare of an in-person chess game.

Yeah, I love it, man. Like I said, youknow? Nothing like moving the pieces, nothing like hitting the clock right here. Nothing like a little smack talk right there in your face. It's not like that. It's not like the twill of that. Muhammad Ali won a lot of his fights before he even entered the ring. Mike Tyson had you intimidated before you even entered the ring. So I took a little bit of their strategies. And if I can shake you before you get those 64 squares and have to battle this won.

Have there been great rap songs, lyrics about chess? I don't know if you've written them. I don't know if you've performed them. What's the best example of that?

I'm sure that a lot of artists have made some references to chess because I know more than just the Wukes and the Clans plays chess. I know that. I think Jay-Z plays.

Wait a minute now, though. I'm realizing... Okay, so I know Jay-Z plays chess too. So if I'm telling you, Masticilla in person versus Jay Z at the chess court.

Oh, Jay is going down. Jay is going down. Jay is going down. It's either you give a lesson or you learn one. There's no losses in chess, but that day I'll be given a lesson. The patience of choice is the jewels of life. If think before you speak or move. And I think with that, you will be so much better off in life, in general, in so many situations, probably all situations.

Masterkillah, the best chess player officially in the Wutang clan. And I would say the king of all rappers when it comes to chess, thank you for joining Pablo Torey, Fines Out.

I appreciate you. Thank you for having me, brother.

Bro, the vibe of that guy, pretty incredible when you juxtaposed what his name is, Masticilla. It is. It doesn't really seem like the type of guy that's going to.

Murder you. He's a great... Well, he's a great hang. And it is to your point. A bit ironic that Masticilla preaches patience and prudence more than a guy named Parakeet Cortez. That feels a bit of.

A switch. What do you think I do on Twitter that's different.

I know that you preach the opposite. I do want to get out of this topic, though, as we anoint Master Killa as, of course, the gold medalist in the Pauvlotory, finds out chess tournament among all rappers. By reminding you, Cortez, what Master Killa does actually rap about on the way out of.

This segment? I'd like to know.

All.

Right, so Master Killa's vibe did inspire me some. He wanted me to own my nerddom. And so let's get even nerdier at the end here, which is a dangerous thing, of course. But what's next?

Hey, Pablo.

What I'd like you to find out is where does.

Human.

Evolution stop?

Are we just.

Going to get a new Victor Womenyama every 15 years where they break all the anatomical molds? Or is there some leveling out that will eventually have to happen before, what's your phrase? Bag of meat and bones? We all just fall apart and nothing works anymore. Love the show. Hope you use it. So thank you for loving the show. But the word is meat sack. So we called up for this story. My smartest science friend, Cortez, you know him, David Epstein, the best sports science writer in America, the man who wrote a best seller, a best-selling book, Range, and also The Sports Gene. Those are his two best sellers. What's funny about this one is that he pointed out that the answer to this listener's question is actually less about the genes of the next great athletic specimen than also access to sports itself. Okay.

I think we probably overestimate the portion of the global population that has real access to any reasonable opportunity to do sports. Probably, I think I mentioned to you that at the recent World Championship in track and field, a guy from Botswana won a medal in 100 meters. That was the first African man to win a medal in the 100 meters in the World Championship.

The first. I would have taken.

The over. Right. Whereas many people of recent African ancestry have won many, many medals in the 100 meters in world championships. Yes, of course. And I think that just goes to show that most people in the world don't have real access to this stuff, to training.

We overestimate the idea that the people who could compete are already competing.

Yeah. So I think there's tons of hidden or undeveloped talent out there. As sports get more competitive, more people are selected out either because of their genes or because of their opportunities in training environment and stuff like that. So I think there's a lot of the world still a lot of talent to explore. A lot of the increase in height over generations has been nutrition and decreased childhood infection, things that's stunt height. But some of it has also been.

A.

Tour of mating, the taller people having kids with taller people. And if you look at this research, even people who have higher VO2 max, which is their ability to move oxygen through their body to get it to their muscles, it's a predictor of endurance, tend to have kids with other people who have higher VO2 max. So there may be a lot of this so-called assort of mating, which is people procreating based on characteristics that are similar, whether they think about them or not, that I certainly think could have an impact. I still think, though, that there's a lot of ground left to be had and more again, so-called freaks and just giving access and opportunity to a lot of the world that doesn't have it.

Right. So in other words, Victor Wembanyamas, which is to say, guys who are increasingly extreme, tall, long, thin in ways that would be truly as if, I don't know, Bob Kuzi were to encounter an alien. More guys like that you can see arriving, but simply because they're already out there, and now they might have a more comfortable fit on an NBA team.

And maybe pro NBA and WNBA players having kids. Two people are seven feet tall. Yeah. To have a kid, it's still unlikely that that kid is going to be seven feet tall because that's so extreme. But it's way more likely than just a random chance that they're going to be seven feet tall. So I do think that athletes having kids could have some impact.

I got a very clear message from you, which is that Victor embedmanyama better have a lot of sex.

I mean, look, if there were a thing, if you're treating it like a horse, certain people's breeding rights would go for.

A lot of money. Oh, man, dude, his semen would be so expensive.

What you just said, ridiculous though it is humbling to me as someone under six feet compared to Victor Wembanyama. Because I'm like.

My semen- I didn't want to say it. Is it.

Not going to be worth as much as Victor Winminyama? Because that seems unfair. I have a great Twitter account.

Cortez, what you found out today is that your semen is mid.

No, that's just one man's opinion.

I mean, science is opinion. I'm not saying that mine is like, premium grade exaculate- You and I are in the same boat heightwise. Well, hold on. My boat is definitely taller than your boat.

I mean, it's.

Marginally taller. I mean, relative to Victor Rubinyama, fair. But speaking of climax, David also did point out something interesting, which is that we've probably climax as a species in terms of height. Like Victor Renmanyama, seven foot four and rising architecturally, athleticall y. We're probably not going to do taller than him. Not much taller, even though there have been exceptions. It feels like as much as we can.

Push it. Unless he's standing on the couch, you mean? I'm just saying.

Unless he's standing on a couch or trying to fuck a WNBA All-Star, which I'm also in favor of, by the way. There's, in that case, only one way to find out. For the gene pool. Exactly. What's next?

Pablo.

You need to find out where Cotton Ball Man is now. What happened with him? You have to find out where he is now. Find out, Pablo. So this is an appropriately desperate plea because we did this episode one of my favorite episodes. I love all our episodes. They're my kids. But this one, our interview with Maury Povich, was special. And it was special because we watched Maury with Maury. And Cortez, my favorite clip from that whole thing was the clip of one of the phobia episodes that Maury Povich would do. And these were iconic. And this one in specific, and this is a genre where people who are terrified of shit confront that shit in studio in person. And this woman, Emily, had a very clear phobia, which was cotton balls.

You know what I'm going to ask you? You know why we're here. Did you do your job? Did you find this guy?

I am pleased to tell America that we have located Cotton Ball Man. We got him.

I have done things with cotton that nobody's done. And that's Dawn an entire suit made of cotton.

Now you've got to confront your phobia now. This is the famous Maury Show.

Cotton Ball Man.

My name is Jimmy Shearman, and I've worked for the Maury show for.

Over.

20 years. I was a driver. I was a travel assistant. I was an audience coordinator. Then eventually I became a field producer. The thought process when approaching a role like Cotton Man, you have to keep in mind that Cotton Man is evil. He's a demonic beast. He's there to terrorize. So in approaching that role, back in the day, I used to do a lot of side acting for the show where I would be a jealous spouse murdering his wife or whatever. I think I took some of that intensity from those roles and applied it to the beast that is Cotton Man. And I remember getting the outfit, and it was basically like oven mits with cotton balls glued all over them. And I think it was like a box cut with holes, cut for the eyes and just cotton balls glued all over it. You're backstage, Okay, get out there. And you're just Frankenstein coming to wreak havoc on this poor person, this poor, unsuspecting person, and basically reveal their biggest fear.

Cottonball man.

I followed her partially, and I think someone stopped me possibly because there came a time where it was like, Okay, the joke is too... We don't want to get too mean.

Bring her back here. Emily, come here.

There's nobody up here.

And if the person's really freaking out, let's just cut it. So I think security might have stopped me or something like that. I don't think wearing the suit made me afraid of cotton. I still wear cotton. I wear cotton shirts and cotton underwear and just like everybody else. I don't think that it increased my fear of cotton or anything. I don't have a fear of cotton. I don't like the way it feels sometimes. Being the cotton man, I think I know cotton.

Wait, can we just replay him saying what his name is for the record again, just real quick?

My name is Jimmy Shearman.

Jimmy Shearman, Cortez. I mean, it's more than ironic. There's a better word for it, actually. Go ahead. It's Aptronymic, an aptronym. It's a name that's amazingly appropriate for the occupation of the person that has said name.

How did you know that? That's amazing.

James Jimmy Shearman. Shearman is cottonball man. I'm just glad that he gave a middle finger to God when he took this position. 513-85, Pablo, please call San Ryan Cortez more musical suggestions. We can find out. I don't know who the f*cking Beethoven is.

Shout out to rage Against the Machine.

God, none of this is a joke.

Bro, rock music is amazing. I'm just.

Saying, it's so good. You don't say. This has been Pablo Torrey Finds Out, a Metallark Media production.