Seth Rogen’s doing the rounds to promote An American Pickle, the HBO Max movie starring him as a 1920s Jewish immigrant who falls into a pickle vat and wakes up a century later to meet his grandson, also portrayed by Rogen. In doing so, Rogen stirred up controversy with Marc Maron while questioning why Israel exists as a state, but when the Pineapple Express star visited Jimmy Fallon, the tone stayed more lighthearted, although not without a whiff of “illegal” dealings (not “pot,” exactly).
Host and guest did that thing that we all do now, which is discuss how quarantine is going. In the process, Rogen revealed that his unlikely addiction — pottery — led him to break the law in order to buy proper art supplies, since non-essential businesses weren’t on the table during shelter-in-place orders:
“I literally had to buy illegal clay… I literally made an illegal clay deal from the backdoor of a pottery studio… This might be the most apocalyptic thing that has happened to me, illegally purchasing clay from the back of a pottery studio.”
You gotta do what you gotta do. And I gotta say, Rogen’s rather gifted in the pottery-making department, legal procurement of supplies or not.
NBA players, coaches, and referees took a knee during the national anthem before Thursday night’s bubble openers. It was an expected move by all involved — the news of the New Orleans Pelicans and Utah Jazz taking knees had been reported — but it still created a powerful visual and served as the latest reminder of the ongoing fight against systemic inequality in our society.
It also, in news that should surprise absolutely no one, happened to the chagrin of the President of the United States. Donald Trump famously blew a number of dog whistles and tried to reframe the discussion around Colin Kaepernick’s decision to take a knee when he was a member of the San Francisco 49ers to one about loving the flag and America’s military. While POTUS hasn’t tweeted about the knees taken by NBA players, he did indicate that “the game is over for me” when a player kneels in a tweet from earlier this month.
J.J. Redick of the New Orleans Pelicans was asked to respond to this by Chris Hayes of Yahoo Sports following the team’s loss to the Jazz on Thursday, and in response, he indicated that making sure a television at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is turned into a basketball game isn’t exactly top of mind.
“First of all, I don’t think anybody in the NBA cares if President Trump watches basketball. I couldn’t care less,” Redick said. “As far as his base, I think regardless of the specificity of tweeting about the NBA, every tweet of his is meant to divide, every tweet is meant to incite, every tweet is meant to embolden his base. So [last week] was no different.”
Redick, who has never been shy about criticizing Trump in the past, also discussed any sort of negative response that could come the league’s way in terms of individuals who agree with Trump’s sentiment turning off games. In his eyes, there’s a level of understanding that he believes is necessary for those who are tuning in.
“Look, we want people to enjoy the NBA and we love our fans, but I think there has to be some level of acceptance and acknowledgement in what our league is saying, what our league is doing and what is happening across this country,” Redick told Yahoo Sports. “And the people who are unwilling to acknowledge that, maybe they shouldn’t be fans.”
Redick came off the bench for the Pelicans on Thursday, scoring 21 points on 7-for-15 shooting with four rebounds and three assists. The Pelicans will next take the floor on Saturday evening in a tilt against the Clippers.
Earlier in the week, Chris Rock broke the seal on a series of private, socially-distanced shows that Dave Chappelle has been quietly hosting in his hometown of Yellow Springs, Ohio with a surprising amount of star power. At the end of Rock’s set, Chappelle took a FaceTime call from Jim Carrey, who reportedly closed the show, which was a wild treat for the small, intimate audience that was limited to 100 guests for safety.
But not long after Rock flew into Yellow Springs, another major celebrity was spotted walking the streets with Chappelle: veteran late night host David Letterman. The comedy legends were photographed chatting outside of a local comic book store on Wednesday.
And this happened as well.
As for the street-based photo, TMZ reported on the presence of a camera crew and suggested that they were filming an episode of Letterman’s Netflix show, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction. Whatever the case, Chappelle apparently has been cooking up something special, according to the Dayton Daily News:
Major stars from both the comedy and music worlds have made appearances at Chappelle’s events. The series, which has been referred to as “An Intimate Socially Distanced Affair,” has featured Jon Stewart, Chris Rock, Tiffany Haddish, Jon Hamm, Michael Che, Erykah Badu, Michelle Wolf, Common, Donnell Rawlings, Talib Kweli, Cipha Sounds and Mo Amer, among others.
One can gather that a special might be brewing, due to the presence of camera crews, but should that not materialize, the comedian could be working with COVID restrictions and having a blast turning his hometown into the next hit venue. Judging by the big names that have already rolled through, and how quickly tickets sell out, Chappelle is well on his way to putting Yellow Springs on the comedy map.
On Thursday, after a more than four-month hiatus, the NBA officially returned, and fans got treated to a taste of what’s in store for the rest of the season in Orlando. Despite some obvious rust, the play itself was generally top-notch, as the TNT double-header delivered a pair of hard-fought contests that were each decided by two points in the final seconds.
For the most part, the experience of watching the games in an arena without fans wasn’t nearly as strange or off-putting as some may have feared. The sound folks were able to pump in faux crowd noises in a way that didn’t feel completely artificial, and the new camera angles added a dimension that helped us see the game from a new perspective.
The league is still in the process of adding fans to the experience, via the large LED screens placed behind the benches, and those who want to appear during the games are free to sign up using the Microsoft Teams app. Actor Ben Schwartz decided to submit an entry to appear on these screens via Twitter on Friday.
Here is my submission to the @NBA to be one of the virtual fans on the screen in the audience. Thank you for your consideration. #NBApic.twitter.com/bMEAXe5hvT
The actor, who lives in Los Angeles and can be sometimes spotted at Clippers games, is originally from the Bronx and is a diehard Knicks fan. For my money, I say we skip adding Schwarz to the virtual fan screen and get him to the bubble in Orlando immediately, where after the mandatory quarantine, we can put him to work as a sideline reporter for all of the games, but have him remain in character as Jean-Ralphio Saperstein from Parks and Recreation while doing so.
Either that, or have him and Thomas Middleditch “Yes, And” their way through different improv scenarios on screen during the timeouts. Unfortunately, we will probably have to settle for something less exciting, but anyway we can have Schwartz involved, we’ll take it.
In trying to write about Caddyshack this past week I fell deep down a rabbit hole I’m only now clawing my way out of. Stories about the making of movies usually aren’t that interesting, but this one sends you in all different directions. Chevy? Bill? Douglas Kenney? The National Lampoon? When you try to pin it down you start to understand why the initial rough cut was four hours long.
But let’s focus. In the midst of all those rising stars and eventual comedy icons there was Michael O’Keefe, playing Caddyshack‘s presumptive protagonist, Danny Noonan. He’d lied his way into the starring role (telling producers he was a scratch golfer) beating out his rival, Mickey Rourke. It fit, because, like the Murray brothers (Brian Doyle and Bill) on whose childhood Caddyshack‘s story was based, O’Keefe had grown up in a huge Irish-Catholic family working as a caddy.
Everything got pretty weird after that. O’Keefe, who was nominated for an Oscar in The Great Santini, which he’d done just before he got the Caddyshack gig, arrived to a cocaine-besotted set in Florida (Florida in 1979: enough said) where the first-time director (Harold Ramis) had thrown out the script and let his cast go wild. The coming-of-age tale he’d signed on for had become… well, whatever the hell Caddyshack is. A slobs-vs-snobs story, sort of.
A wild time was had, the likes of which would never be seen again. O’Keefe would get sober (an alternative preferable to Caddyshack writer Doug Kenney, who died three months after release, in a slightly mysterious hiking accident in Hawaii), and go on to have a fine career. He’s 65 now and, minus a few lines, looks pretty much the same as he did 40 years ago, with an admirable head of hair. Somewhere along the line, he married and divorced Bonnie Raitt and was ordained as a Buddhist priest. I told you, it’s a rabbit hole.
O’Keefe was gracious enough to reminisce about Caddyshack and reflect on its legacy this week, though as he puts it, if you can remember the set of Caddyshack, you weren’t really there.
—
So take me back to the time when you got the part, what was going on in your life at the time?
I did a meeting in New York with Harold Ramis and then they called me back in LA and I saw Harold and Doug [Kenney] and Brian Doyle-Murray. And I had already done The Great Santini and that was with Orion, which was the same distribution company as Caddyshack. You’ve probably heard this story, but according to Wallis Nicita, who was the casting director, it came down to me and Mickey Rourke for the part. I could spend days musing on the possibilities of Mickey Rourke as Danny Noonan, putting down his bag to go perform a hit at lunch and then coming back.
I heard it had something to do with your golf game.
Well, I frankly lied at the audition and told them that I was a competent golfer and I was hardly that. I was terrible. I played a little bit as an adolescent and probably hadn’t played since I was 12 or 13, which was like a 12-year window. So, I mean, I had to really start from the ground up. I had about a six-week window where I could prepare and I got hooked back into the Winged Foot Golf Club, which is in Mamaroneck [Long Island] and is a golf club that I caddied at when I was a teenager. And then when I was in Florida, I worked with the Toski brothers and they’re kind of a legendary golf-teaching family in Florida. So, whenever I wasn’t working on camera, I was hitting golf balls. It got me to a point where, as Ben Hogan used to say about a lot of his shots, my swing was serviceable.
To me, you look like clearly the most competent golfer of the people that were playing in the movie.
That would have been an easy thing to look like! No disrespect meant, but nobody in the movie had a good… the real golfer in the movie is Bill Murray. But, of course, he didn’t play golf in the movie. He’s a far better golfer than I’ll ever be.
Do you still play at all?
No, not really. I’m married and I have a seven-year-old son and a lot of my free time is devoted to that. And also I’m really into Tai Chi and qi gong, and so the time that I would have to practice golf, I’m usually doing that. There was a window there though for about 10 years before I got married where I played a lot, and I got down to about a 12 handicap when I was playing.
Now that you’re into Tai Chi and I think I read you were a Buddhist… uh, something or other…
Yeah, I’m a Buddhist something or other, Vince. That’s the official title.
I didn’t want to mess it up. I think the book I was reading said you’re a Buddhist priest, but then I was thinking, “Wait, that doesn’t sound right.”
I started in 1985 when I was 30 years old and the teacher I was studying with at the time is a guy named Bernie Glassman. He started an order of priests called the Zen Peacemakers. We do something called “engaged Buddhism,” which means we practice a certain kind of social action. We get up off the cushion. So he started this order called the Zen Peacemakers and I did ordain in that order in 1994, I believe.
With all this in your background, it seems like you could actually live out, as Danny Noonan, all of Ty’s [Chevy Chase’s character’s] advice in the movie, to get spiritually connected with your golf game.
Well, one of the people who really influenced me early on about Zen was Doug Kenney. Doug was one of the people that turned me on to Zen in the Art of Archery, the Eugen Herrigel book, he was German author that wrote the book in 1927, I think. And for all of Doug’s kind of insane fake Zen poetry, you know “a flute without a hole is not a flute, but a donut without a hole is a Danish,” and stuff like that, he actually knew a lot about it. He was one of the people that planted the seed. But I suppose if I’m like anybody in the film, it’s Ty Webb, without the golf game.
What did you think when you saw the movie for the first time, did it turn out a lot differently than what you thought you’d shot and what they’d pitched it as?
Well, the script was changed, I’m sure you heard the story, about nine or 10 days in. Harold and Doug and Brian realized that they had this potential modern day Marx Brothers combination of Bill and Chevy and Ted and Rodney. And so they began to cut a lot of the Danny Noonan stuff to focus on them. I’ve said this before in interviews and it was true for me then and it’s true for me now, I was kind of relieved because they are in a different league than I am. I have a lot of skills as an actor and I had a certain amount of skills when I was younger, but Bill, especially Chevy, Ted, Rodney, were all just in a different playing field than I was. And so to turn things over to them was something of a relief because then you have all those speeches that Bill wrote about the Dalai Lama or winning the Masters. And Rodney’s incredibly off the cuff, crazy Catskills humor and then Chevy’s work as well and Ted too. Ted was the ultimate professional. He was really the one who kind of held the ship together, because he had the ethos and the ethic of trying to be a responsible adult, whereas everybody else was doing their best to be an irresponsible and immature adult.
It sounds like the set was a pretty crazy time. How do you remember it?
Well, as David Grosby often said about the ’60s, if you say you remember the making of Caddyshack, you weren’t there. These are all things everybody knows now, but I’m still somewhat mortified to talk about them. There was cocaine everywhere. We were all getting high. There was a kind of mythology at the time that somehow this led to more creative experiences. That’s a rabbit hole that a lot of people never came back out of and directly connected to Caddyshack in that regard. That’s how Doug Kenney died. So while there’s a lot of goofy stories, which are really fun and we had a great time while we were doing it, there’s a whole serious downside, which I make sure to talk about when I talk about the film, because I don’t want anybody to get the idea that you can get away with that kind of stuff, because you can’t.
Is that still the wildest set that you’ve been on?
Well, yeah, because it was the ’70s and I also got sober after that. It certainly was the last time I did cocaine. And also all of that stuff just became a liability. You can’t get insured with all those issues now. And most associate it with drug addiction and people going to rehab and people blowing up their career by doing some stupid thing under the influence of drugs or alcohol, it’s such a big deal now, that set could never happen. And it was very clear after we did that that it shouldn’t happen. I mean, it was really just insane. But at the time, look, if you go back and read the stories about the making of Lenny Bruce or the making of The Gambler with James Caan, that’s what everybody was doing. Go back and look at the making of New York, New York with Scorsese and DeNiro and Liza Minnelli. But now you’re a pariah if you do anything like that.
Did Doug Kenney dying have anything to do with you getting sober?
Absolutely. Scared the shit out of me. And frankly, I loved him. Have you had a chance to see A Futile and Stupid Gesture yet, on Netflix? First of all, it’s a good movie. Will Forte is great. Martin Mull is great. And these two young writers, I was the first person they approached only because they were staff writers on Leverage, the Timothy Hutton show that I was on for a while. And I did an episode of it and I went to a screening and they came up to me and they were like kids in a candy shop. They were Caddyshack fans. They were like, “We really want to write this movie about Doug Kenney.”
And in the back of my mind, of course, being the cynic that I am, I was like, “That’ll never happen.” Ten years later, they got it done. And my hat’s off to them because I know how hard it is to get a movie made. They were really diligent. They talked to everybody, but they also wrote a really effective look at Doug’s mindset and how he got into the zeitgeist at the time and how he really led. I loved Doug. Everybody did. He just inspired this kind of affection and loyalty and friendship in people, and people were just crushed when he died,. And so one of the things that happened to me, I was like, “I am never going back to that kind of scene again.” And I never have.
So you were basically doing the Murray Brothers’ life story in a way. Did they coach you at all on playing this character that was so close to their childhood?
They didn’t need to because I’m the oldest of seven from an Irish Catholic family too. So we could probably tell stories to each other and forget whose family we were talking about. The real job was to connect with Chevy, especially, and Ted, and then kind of let them lead the way so that this kind of slobs-versus-snobs thing that Harold and Doug had refined on Animal House.
So you have seven siblings, how did you first get into acting? Because you started pretty young, right?
I was dropped as a child, Vince, that started it all. No, we grew up in this really big house in Larchmont, New York, near the city. We moved into it when I was about 12 and the prior owners had rented it out for commercial locations. The location manager came to the house one day and knocked on the door, cold-calling and asked my mother if she would rent us the house. And she was like, “…are you going to pay us?” And he said, “Yeah.” And she said, “Done.” And then it was seven of us, kind of blonde, good looking kids hanging out. A number of us were there that day when he came by, I remember the day, and he said to her, “Your kids are actually kind of good looking and they could probably model and I represent actors. Would you be interested in doing that?” And my mom said “…would you pay them?” And he said, “Yeah.” And she said, “Done.”
And then very quickly, most of my brothers and sisters lost interest, but I was always on a mission, even at the age of 12. And by the time I was 15, I was taking acting classes in the city. I was at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. And I did a showcase play there that both Peter Weller and Melanie Mayron were in at the time when they were young actors. And so I got an agent after that and then I just started working. I dropped out of college my first semester. I was a terrible, terrible student, but I had this passion about acting and I got an offer to do a play at the public theater with Barbara Barrie, who is one of the most wonderful actors you’ll ever meet. And Ralph Waite, who was playing the father on The Waltons at the time. So anyway then I just kept going and never looked back and I’m kind of pleased to turn around now at the age of 65 and say, “Oh yeah, well, that all worked out.”
You were in The Great Santini and it hadn’t come out yet, and you got nominated for an Oscar before Caddyshack had come out. And then you’re in Caddyshack, which is this sort of whatsit at the time. What do you think Caddyshack did for your career at that time?
Well, at the time the film was not very successful, so nothing. Now what’s happened is there’s this kind of a crude benevolence, I want to say adoration, but it sounds a bit much. But there’s something about Caddyshack that sparks the affection of the American filmgoing public. I got tagged in it and I went to a Comic-Con last year and Chevy and I, and Cindy Morgan were there and we signed autographs and people cannot stop talking about that movie, and it’s 40 years later. Who knew at the time? I mean, part of the dilemma Doug was facing, besides the fact that he was strung out on cocaine and clinically depressed, was that he did not like the final cut of the movie at all. He had really intended what they’d call in lit classes, a “bildungsroman,” and it was anything but that. It was this weird kind of pastiche of standup and improv and Bill and Chevy kind of in one style and Ted in another and Rodney over here. I think it all kind of melded, but for Doug he was really not happy.
I probably came out somewhere in between. I did things as an actor where I was clearly uncomfortable and not happy with myself, and I didn’t have the ease and aplomb that you get over time. But I was very happy with my golf swing, I was really happy with the stuff with Chevy and with Ted. And now, it’s like I could say whatever I wanted to in a critical way about Caddyshack, it would fall on deaf ears.
Are there any other good memories from shooting the movie that stick out in your mind?
Mainly watching Bill come up with all those monologues. I happened to be there when he came up with the, “Young greenskeeper, Cinderella story. He’s got about 320 yards to the hole, he’s going to punch an 8 iron.” I was sort of walking by and Harold grabbed me and said, “Oh, you got to watch this. It’s great.”
Harold, he would say to Bill, “You know that thing where you’re a kid and you’re playing basketball and you’re in the NBA final and you have two seconds left, and–” and Bill would say, “Don’t say anything else.” Then he would go out in front of the camera and just start. He did that on the whole Dalai Lama speech on the fly too. It was amazing.
And getting to know Rodney, who was the most genuinely kind of nerdy, sweet, kind guy. If you talked to any standup comedian from that era that went through Rodney’s club in New York, they’ll tell you how much he worked for other comedians and how much he helped them. I remember we ran into him just before he died, and he had had open-heart surgery. There was this place, it’s not there anymore, but in LA, Kate Mantilini, on Wilshire Boulevard and Highland. It was an industry place. I went in there to have lunch one day and this was probably already in the 2000s just before Rodney died. There was Rodney with his wife at a table and he was wearing one of those matching summer outfits that you see Miami elderly people wear, with a really horrifying pattern where the shirt matched the shorts. And the shirt was completely unbuttoned, and he had a scar from his throat to his belly button and it’s wide open. And I was like, “Rodney, it’s Michael O’Keefe.” He goes, “Oh, hey kid, how you doing?” I’m like, “Rodney, you look good.” And he turns to his wife, he goes, “You hear that, baby? I look good.” He was so endearing.
What do you miss most about comedies from that era? Are there things they were doing at that time that maybe forgotten about or that we’re not doing as much anymore?
Well, I mean, I don’t know that I miss anything from that era because there’s stuff out there now that’s got parody. I think anything Will Ferrell or Adam McKay did has elements of genius in it that are off the chart. I’m sure Judd Apatow learned a lot from all of that and went to school on that film. Also, my wife and I just watched The Great, which is this series with Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult, which is hilarious. So there’s no dearth of good comedy out there. But those guys shifted the table. Because if you go back and look at the straighter ’60s comedies, like It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World or any of the Rock Hudson, Doris Day things, they were just a little stiffer. It’s not to say they weren’t funny, but you know who was really cutting edge way before Caddyshack, when you go back and look at his career? Alan Arkin. If you go back and look at The Russians Are Coming or Catch 22. So certainly Alan Arkin was way ahead of the curve on all that stuff. But there wasn’t that kind of rebellious tone really except in Robert Altman’s work. If you go back and look at Robert Altman’s MASH, because I bet you dollars to donuts, that was a big, important film for Doug Kenney.
So what are you working on now?
I’m doing this thing with Kevin Bacon, City on a Hill, which I’m hoping will boot back up again. I got shut down right in the middle of the second episode of the season. It’s the second year on Showtime. It’s really a great show. I did a feature for Netflix that Bob Pulcini and Shari Berman directed. They’re the ones that did American Splendor, the thing about Harvey Pekar. This is with Amanda Seyfried and James Norton. And I got teamed back up with Karen Allen as husband and wife. And they had cast us without knowing that we had done a picture in 1980, right after Caddyshack in which we at later became boyfriend and girlfriend after. So that was fun. And then I did this thing with Adam McKay and John C. Reilly about the purchase of the Lakers. Reilly plays Jerry Buss and I played Jack Kent Cooke, the guy who sold them the Lakers. And then it’s really about the acquisition of Magic coming to the Lakers. And so that’s a Showtime pilot that I had been into. That was amazing.
‘Caddyshack’ turned 40 on July 25th, 2020. Vince Mancini is onTwitter. You can read his ‘Caddyshack’ 40th anniversary retrospective any day now.
Flying Lotus’ latest album, Flamagra, came out over a year ago, but the experimental artist has done a good job at keeping interest in it alive by releasing an instrumental version of it, almost exactly a year after the original came out. Now he can promote both releases simultaneously, and has done so today with a new video for “Remind U.”
Citing director Winston Hacking, press materials describe the psychedelic, Beatles-inspired video as “following a deconstructed, yellow submarine through a ‘stream of consciousness video collage’ garden of heightened surrealism.” Hacking says the video “recreates the perspective of a curious child,” building a world that is “ugly and chaotic but, simultaneously, beautiful, and hopeful.”
FlyLo previously said of Flamagra as a whole, “This album has been a refuge for pain and trying to make the most out of that pain. Music can heal and in the wake of that tragedy it reminded me what I’m here to do. As we get older, we start to figure out what our purpose is and embrace it and I want to do good things with my work. I want it to be able to help people through tough times and inspire them to be creative.”
Keeping track of all the new albums coming out in a given month is a big job, but we’re up for it: Below is a comprehensive list of the major releases you can look forward to in August. If you’re not trying to potentially miss out on anything, it might be a good idea to keep reading.
Friday, August 7
ABIR — Heat EP (Atlantic Records)
Adam Miller — Unify (self-released)
Alison Mosshart — Sound Wheel (Third Man Records)
Allegra Krieger — The Joys Of Forgetting (Northern Spy Records)
Aminé — Limbo (Republic Records)
Becky Bowe — Cosmic Hearts EP (Two Bridge Recordings)
Broken Hands — Split In Two (SO Recordings)
Cary Morin — Dockside Saints (Continental Song City)
Cassadee Pope — Rise And Shine (Awake Music)
The Collect Pond — In The Garden EP (787955 Records DK)
Cory Marks — Who I Am (Better Noise Music)
Cory Wong — Trail Songs: Dawn (Roundwound Media)
Daniel Donato — A Young Man’s Country (Cosmic Country Music)
David Ian Roberts — From The Harbor (Cambrian Records)
Dead Swells — Dead Swells (self-released)
Deep Purple — Whoosh! (earMUSIC)
Duval Timothy — Help (Carrying Colour)
Eyedress — Let’s Skip To The Wedding (Lex Records)
Fair Mothers — In Monochrome (Toad Records)
Fast Romantics — Pick It Up (Postwar Records / Fontana North)
Gardner/James — Synergy (Pavement Music)
Gashi — 1984 (RCA Records)
Glass Animals — Dreamland (Polydor Records)
Golden Shoals — Golden Shoals (self-released)
Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids — Shaman! (Strut Records)
There’s a debate that pops up every now and then among American soccer fans. Someone will, invariably, suggest that if more of the nation’s best young athletes decided to spend their time focusing on soccer and less of their time honing their skills in other sports, then the United States has the potential to go from a country that’s merely OK at men’s soccer to one that is able to compete on the world’s stage. With an estimated 3,000,000 children who play youth soccer at one level or another, there are theoretically so many bites at the apple in a country that has the resources to produce the best talent in numerous other sports that there have to be 11 boys who could, some day, become world class.
This leads to debates about things like the kinds of elite athletes America produces (ex: there aren’t too many people Zion Williamson’s size who play soccer), how athleticism does not necessarily lead to aptitude on the pitch, and how there is a gigantic gap that needs to be bridged so those elite kids choose soccer over sports with better infrastructures for giving talented youngsters a path to being successful athletes in the United States. Thanks to a series of tweets he sent out earlier this month, Larry Nance of the Cleveland Cavaliers learned that this is grounds that is ripe for debate.
I’m so excited for the day that some of our best athletes choose to play soccer from a young age.. we’d catch up to some of these other countries so ridiculously fast
Yes, obviously I know that in soccer especially, skill > athleticism but it’s way easier to make someone more skillful than to make them faster/stronger/quicker.. in just about every sport speed kills https://t.co/UzGYm1sVrP
As someone who is inclined to agree with Nance, I found this interesting, in large part because he, unlike myself, knows what is required of youngsters who want to become professional athletes someday. It helps that Nance views soccer as “a drug,” and made it a point to watch the sport in any form he could find it as leagues in Asia and Europe began to come back from COVID-19 hiatuses earlier this year.
We caught up with him last week to talk soccer, his love of the game, his “get them playing soccer young” take, being a Chelsea fan, and his thoughts on Blues star Christian Pulisic, who Nance believes can do for men’s soccer in America what Mia Hamm did for women’s soccer in the States or Vince Carter did for basketball in Canada.
Where does your love of soccer come from? Because I see on Twitter, you’re not just talking about it, you seem to really, truly love this sport.
I adore the sport, yeah. So, I actually grew up playing soccer. That was the first sport I played, first sport I loved. Unfortunately, I got too big and they tried to stick me in goal, and that’s kind of where I decided, “No, thanks. I’m good.”
So if you didn’t grow up to be an NBA power forward, do you think you would have stuck with that or do you think you would have got steered to basketball eventually?
I think I would have eventually been steered to basketball just because of who my dad is and what my family does. But yeah, I do often think like, “Man, I think I could have been pretty good at that.”
There’s playing the game then there’s actually falling in love with it and really getting into it and watching it, doing all that. When did you start getting into it as a fan? Was there a single moment when you were like, “Oh, you know what? I’m all in on following this sport?”
For me, it was the 2010 World Cup in South Africa — I think it was in South Africa.
Yeah.
For me, that was the end all, be all, “Okay, this is officially my new favorite sport.” Because obviously I played it, but I had never really gotten into watching it that much. Then, it was really that Samuel Eto’o Cameroon team that just, man, I could have watched them all day, every day.
Yeah, it’s funny. You and I are about the same age, I think that World Cup is the big thing that got a whole bunch of younger people into it. I think one thing that I have noticed in following the NBA, it seems like it’s a sport that’s really growing in popularity among basketball players. Is there anything that you would attribute to that or am I reading that wrong?
Oh no, I think you’re right. To be honest with you, I think it has a little bit to do with the mutual respect between sports. I mean, just from me stating my love for soccer and all that stuff, it’s the amount of love I’ve gotten back from various soccer players that, for me, is very cool because that’s a sport that I can’t play. I don’t say I looked up to them, but I think it’s cool seeing that they look at us the same way we look at them, something that is so forward and so unique that they can’t get enough of the NBA.
So, seeing them over here, and now there’s more foreign guys in the NBA, and of course soccer being the world’s sport, the more foreign guys in the locker room — the more foreign guys in the league, the more exposure there is to different games. Therefore, I think more guys are starting to see and learn that like, “Man, this is actually a pretty cool game, too.”
I’ve always thought, and you can tell me if I’m wrong on this, in terms of just comparing to sports, the way that you’re so quickly going back and forth from one end to the other, and you have to compete on both ends, it seems like there’s that mutual bond in that and some similarities in that, no?
Yeah, there is a little bit. Basketball is obviously way more high scoring and all that stuff. But in terms of the tactics of it, what I’m starting to realize, it’s actually very similar in terms of the play-making, the space creation. Tactically, it’s very similar, and that’s what I’m starting to see and learn more and more.
What was kind of cool was what I see while watching it, I put it all over my Twitter, like, “Hey, here’s what I’m seeing. What do you guys think?” Most everybody kind of agrees with it, but now I’m speaking from a strictly … I’m not that knowledgeable about the tactics of soccer. I’m no [Manchester City manager] Pep [Guardiola] or [Liverpool manager Jurgen] Klopp or anything like that, but just from a basketball player’s perspective, I can understand and relate to what’s going on because we do some of the similar things.
So the “choose to play soccer from a young age” tweets, I’m sure people were in your replies, and surely you have seen the discourse around that talking point in the U.S. in recent years.
Yeah, there was a lot of love from it and there was a lot of hate.
Why, as someone who knows what it takes to be a professional athlete in the United States, are you in the camp of, “We need to get our best kids playing soccer and that will eventually pay off?”
Because to me — and I could be very biased, I could be very naïve to this by saying this — but I think the United States has, arguably, the best pure athletes. We’ve got some ridiculous athletes coming out of our country, right? So while I understand that athleticism and size and strength isn’t the only thing needed to be a great soccer player — soccer’s very different in that regard — it’s mainly skill.
But my point is, you mean to tell me that if you take two kids from the time they’re born. One of them is more athletic, their parents were more athletic, whatever, and you give them both the same upbringing in soccer, teach them the same tactics, same skills, same everything. That kid with the higher aptitude for athleticism is more than likely going to end up better, just because he has the natural gift for it. That’s all I was saying, is that if we could teach, could you imagine teaching a young Odell Beckham to kick a soccer ball around instead of playing football? [ed. note: Larry might be onto something considering this is what Odell can do after giving up soccer as a teenager, when he had an invitation to join the USMNT pipeline.]
Yeah.
I mean, it would be scary.
Right, and you’re spending those earlier years developing this stuff in between the ears that, I don’t want to say American players don’t have, but the stuff that you have to learn to go along with the jumping, the strength, the speed, all that stuff.
Getty Image
Of course, yeah. Of course America’s behind in our teaching of soccer because it’s fairly new to us. But if you send a few of our better athletes as kids, send them over at Portugal or send them to England, send them to France, and let them learn the game over there, they’re going to be shocked as to what kind of athletes come out of this country.
The pushback is always our best athlete are guys like LeBron James, but no matter how funny it would look, you don’t want the 6’8, 250-pound guy winding up as a winger or anything, correct?
Correct. Right. No, Bron is in the sport he should be. We don’t want those guys. Let’s get some of our blistering speed wide receivers and blistering speed cornerbacks. The footwork they have, teach them different footwork and I think you’d see a similar outcome. One of the best athletes for the longest time in soccer has been Cristiano Ronaldo. He’s a tremendous athlete, he’s fast, he’s strong, he could jump off the pitch. He’s ridiculous. But if you brought him to America, he’s not that great of an athlete.
Are there any guys in the NBA who you think, based on what they can do athletically, would have made for really, really good footballers if that’s the direction they went in?
Two come to mind right away. Could you imagine Russell Westbrook as a number nine? As a striker, I mean, he would be the most explosive striker ever. We think [Inter Milan striker] Romelu Lukaku is strong, and he is, but could you imagine Russell Westbrook?
Then, I think John Wall as well. Just the foot speed, coordination, the way he sees the court. Both of those guys, their court vision and stuff like that would seem like it would translate seamlessly.
You also mentioned Mia Hamm and what she did for women’s soccer, and Vince for what he did for basketball in Canada, when you mentioned what a guy like Pulisic could possibly do in America. Beyond being a Chelsea fan, what is it about a guy like Christian where you think he can kind of usher in this huge era of popularity in the States?
The biggest thing is that he’s in attack. It would be really difficult to have kids watch this awesome central defender that we have and say how great it is to watch him play. As a soccer fan, I love it, but to the naked eye, like, “All right, that’s a pretty boring position.” Nobody wants to sit around and watch that. But Christian, flying in and out of the tackle, dodging and nutmegging guys on the attack, checks in, gets an assist in record time yesterday.
He’s the type of player that people get excited about, and the type of player that our country should be excited about. Someone that isn’t just talented in our eyes, that is talented in the world’s eyes. Hopefully, just like I said, the young girls that were watching Mia Hamm and Brandi Chastain just dominating the world, you can see now they grew up and are dominating the world.
Vince Carter in Canada — granted, yes, he’s not Canadian, but how it kind of woke the country up to the sport of basketball, and now you see, what, 17, 18 years later, these kids that grew up watching Vince Carter play, you’ve got a huge number of Canadians in the NBA. Nik Stauskas, Tristan Thompson, Jamal Murray, Andrew Wiggins, the list goes on and on and on of guys that have credited Vince Carter for kind of getting that country into basketball and kind of showing them, “Hey, this is actually a pretty cool sport, guys. You should take a look at this.”
It’s completely possible that Christian Pulisic and our other stars abroad could have an effect on American soccer the way Vince Carter did with Canadian Basketball while he was with the Raptors
Like how the girls that grew up watching and being inspired by Mia Hamm and that crew, grew up and are currently on top of the soccer world.. Not to say the change would be that drastic with men but it’s something to think about.. https://t.co/MWzJ8poGcV
So now, I will ask as a Chelsea fan, what are your thoughts on Christian? Is he what you expected or are you like me and you’re like, “No, there’s no way that we could have seen this coming as soon as it did?”
It makes a little bit of sense to me, not that as a Chelsea fan I expect this from him right away but as an athlete, I understood. Obviously you’ve got, what, a $72 million price tag? That comes with some ridiculous expectations.
So he came to Chelsea and kind of got lost in the shuffle for a little bit, didn’t know where he fit in what position, where are we going to play him at. But, we had all these different guys that played ahead of him until he got acclimated. I think Frank Lampard actually did a really good job of letting him get acclimated on the training ground as compared to shoving him in the limelight and everybody watching him go through that learning curve and learning process, which would have just cast a ridiculous doubt and shadow over his head.
Since the restart, you could argue that he’s been a top three, top four player in the entire Premier League. Just for him to be able to have that development and not be forced into a role he wasn’t ready for right away is invaluable.
Yeah. Then just outside of him, I’m a City fan, I don’t normally like watching Chelsea just because in the years past, Chelsea’s been this steely defensive side, but I can’t stop watching this Chelsea team. What have been your thoughts on the side, aside from him?
I love it. This year, you come into it and you don’t know what to expect. [Real Madrid forward Eden] Hazard left, so that’s great. LeBron left Cleveland, great. So, you don’t know what to expect. I’m thinking like, “All right, if we can finish top eight, top seven, I would be thrilled,” starting what seemed like 11 guys from the academy. But, Frank has done an unbelievable job of getting these guys’ chemistry together and bringing Mason [Mount] along, Tammy [Abraham] along, using [Mateo] Kovacic and making him a world-class midfielder. I mean, I’ve been really loving watching this young team develop, and I’ve actually been really enjoying watching him go through the growing pains a little bit.
Yeah. It’s gotten to the point where there legitimately seems to be a belief that they can, if not win the league, be right there with City and Liverpool next year. Are you expecting them to win it next year or are you just like, “Let’s get through this huge weekend, let’s win the FA Cup, and then when Hakim Ziyech, Timo Werner, maybe Kai Havertz come in, that’s when we’ll start focusing on that stuff?”
Getty Image
Yeah. I mean, you can’t expect them to win it right now. Your starting 11, you’re going to have five or six guys that are under 22, 23 years old. That’s going to be pretty hard to do, but hopefully we do the right thing on Sunday and either beat Wolves or get our point we need [ed. note: they did]. I expect us to be back in the Champions League next year, but I think with this team right now, you’re not just worried about this year or next year, what they’re putting together is not just a one or two-year plan. It’s a three, four, five, six-year, really good stretch.
The overarching question with Chelsea is why them? Why didn’t you get into United or Liverpool or Arsenal or City or someone like that?
So, it all kind of goes back to that Cameroon team, really. Samuel Eto’o was my favorite player from that Cameroon team, and then I didn’t even really know a whole lot about the club game, to be honest with you. I didn’t pay much attention to it when I went to school — there was a whole lot other things that I was doing in college.
Then towards, I want to say 2013, ’14, it was when I really took note of the club game. The first name I looked and wanted to go watch was Samuel Eto’o. He happened to be with the Blues at that time. So, I went there for Samuel Eto’o and stayed for a number of different reasons. But then, then coming into the NBA really kind of sealed it when, I had tweeted that, “I’m a Chelsea fan,” [current Real Madrid and former Chelsea goalkeeper] Thibaut Courtois was right back at me, like, “Hey, I’m a Lakers fan.”
So right away, I found that I had a friend in Chelsea’s starting 11, not to mention a really good soccer player. Eden Hazard as well, basketball fan. So, I got to meet him and kind of shoot the sh*t with him a little bit. It’s just been on and on, and now it’s with the whole new group. Mason Mount, big basketball fan, so I’ve grown acquainted with him. Even some of the guys coming in, it’s a very cool to see the level of respect between two different sports and willingness to make friends and be social outside of your sport. So, I’ve made friends with Chelsea, and there’s no other choice now.
That’s awesome. A few final questions — one is that amid everything going on, football has been the one sport back right now. Have you used this as a chance to spread your wings and follow closely Spain and Germany and all that or are you pretty strictly to your Premier League guy?
No, I’ve been tuned in to just about everything. I mean, I remember the first league back was the Korean Soccer League. So, you know what? I opened my laptop and streamed some Korean soccer. I needed a fix, it’s like a drug. Then I started watching some of the Bundesliga when that came back early — I claimed Schalke, “All right, that’s the team I was going to go with.”
Got to go with [American midfielder] Weston [McKennie].
Yeah, got to go with Weston. I’ve become acquainted with Weston through that. So, it’s been good. I’ve gotten to learn more about it. Obviously Spanish soccer, I know quite a bit about already, Bundesliga I learned more about, but my major love is the Premier League. What I need to do more of is our soccer here. I need to follow MLS a little bit better.
This is the last one: Best and worst FIFA players in the league?
Gosh, the best is, I’m claiming the best, for sure.
There you go.
For sure. Now that the Luol Deng has retired, I’m definitely the best. Then the worst I’ve played, Ivica Zubac for the Clippers.
Okay.
He’s really, really bad. I mean, not just a little bit bad, really, really bad.
As she tends to do when releasing just about anything, Beyonce effectively broke the internet yesterday when her musical Black Is King premiered on Disney+. Fans celebrated the release in a variety of ways, but none was as extravagant as Lizzo’s watch party. The “Good As Hell” singer shared a behind-the-scenes tour of her event, and it’s clear she went all-out.
In a series of videos posted to her Instagram Story, Lizzo showed fans all she had in store for the Black Is King watch party. Not only did Lizzo roll out a sparkly black carpet as her take on the infamous red carpet, but the singer filled her house with all the best movie-watching snacks: Lay’s chips, cinnamon rolls, catered mash potatoes, mac and cheese, and even pre-made vegan chicken bacon sandwiches. Of course, Lizzo’s final touches are what made the party a true spectacle. The singer adorned an entryway table with a giant statue of Beyonce’s rear end complete a plaque reading, “What would Beyonce do?”
Ahead of the Black Is King premiere, Beyonce made a rare TV appearance on Good Morning America. The singer spoke about her intent behind the musical: “The narrative unfolds through music videos, fashion, dance, beautiful natural settings, and raw, new talent. But it all started in my backyard. So, from my house, to Johannesburg to Ghana to London to Belgium to the Grand Canyon, it was truly a journey to bring this film to life. And my hope for this film is that it shifts the global perception of the word ‘Black,’ which has always meant inspiration and love and strength and beauty to me. ‘Black Is King’ means Black is regal and rich in history, in purpose, and in lineage.”
See clips from Lizzo’s watch party above.
Lizzo is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
As first reported by Jon Heyman of MLB Network, the St. Louis Cardinals became the latest baseball team to postpone a game because of positive COVID-19 tests.
Sources: Cardinals had positive tests, forcing postponement
Later clarification indicated the Cardinals may have as few as two positive tests and will be tested again today, meaning the rest of their series against the Milwaukee Brewers could be saved. So long as nobody else on the team tests positive, the Cardinals could in theory isolate the two infected players and move forward with their schedule.
#STLCards players are being tested again today. So results could determine rest of series. Hope of course is that it’s not an outbreak and just confined to the 2 players.
The news broke the same morning that the Miami Marlins added yet another infection to their total, which put them at 18 positive tests, or 60 percent of the roster. As the NBA and NHL saw when teams who happened to ride on the same plane or play in the same arena back in the spring may have spread the disease that way, one team playing with the virus can create a ripple effect across the league.
Though no one within MLB is waiving the white flag yet, Ben Nicholson-Smith of SportsNet noted that with the Cardinals added to the list, one-fifth of the league will not play tonight as a result of postponed games due to positive tests.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
