Chasing Jeff Pearlman

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[00:10:08] Smith. But John Smith is going to remember the one time maybe his shoe was untied and Brett Farruf

[00:10:13] came along and tied his shoe as a joke or said something to him. So I just think like you can

[00:10:18] collect memories and gather recollections and it really becomes a powerful research tool. I mean,

[00:10:23] Chupac, there are a million people I've interviewed who were he alive he wouldn't remember.

[00:10:28] Different Grooties on tour, different rap artists, minor rap artists, etc. who he had

[00:10:33] a profound impact on even if he was unaware of it. As you recollect these stories, you talk to all

[00:10:39] these different people. For me, one of the hardest things I find in my job sometimes as a

[00:10:43] fellow journalist, not sports related but as a journalist, is just fact checking.

[00:10:48] Saying, okay, that's great, your recollection of that. That's great that you had that idea

[00:10:52] about a certain moment in history, but that may not be entirely how it's transpired.

[00:10:58] For you, as you write these books, obviously with the amount of people that you talk to,

[00:11:02] the 500 plus people you talked to for the Barry Bonds book, Brian being an obvious one there.

[00:11:07] How do you go about checking whether that person is well not just saying the truth but

[00:11:13] is being genuine? That's a great question. Part of it is just raw level research. Let's

[00:11:20] say I'm interviewing so-and-so quarterback and he tells me some story about a game. I'm always

[00:11:24] going to go back, read the game, make sure. I'll give you a great example. Great

[00:11:29] example. I write this book, my last book was about Bo Jackson. Bo Jackson has told a story

[00:11:34] multiple times about when his daughter was born. Brian, I don't know if you've heard this one.

[00:11:38] They were playing the- I don't think so. I'm locked in.

[00:11:41] It's crazy. He said, we're playing the Kansas City, I was on the Royals,

[00:11:44] we were playing the Brewers and I got myself thrown out on purpose

[00:11:48] so I could leave the ballpark and be there for my daughter Morgan's birth.

[00:11:52] He's told this story repeatedly in detail. We're playing the Brewers. It was this day.

[00:11:57] Okay. It's a great story. It's a great story. Bo Jackson thrown out of a game to be at the

[00:12:00] birth of his daughter. I do the base level research. They weren't playing the Brewers

[00:12:04] that day, they were playing the Red Sox. On the day his daughter was born, he was on the

[00:12:10] 21-day disabled list because he dove that ball that Deon Sanders hit in the gap for the

[00:12:15] Yankees so he wasn't even playing that day. All right. Then you go deeper. In his entire

[00:12:22] career, he was thrown out of one game ever. It's like, what are you talking about? That

[00:12:28] didn't happen. That actually didn't happen. You do as much as that as you can. Now,

[00:12:34] the unfortunate side of it or the reality of it is you can't fact check everything.

[00:12:37] If some quarterback, if they're running back from grambling tells me about the time Brett

[00:12:41] Farr have tied his shoe, I have to believe you. There's no documentation of that. Part of

[00:12:46] reporting is getting something for the first time. In fact, a lot of reporting is getting

[00:12:49] stuff for the first time. A lot of times you do have to just trust memories and you hope that

[00:12:54] the person, and you try to background check the person you're interviewing to make sure

[00:12:58] they don't have some history of lying, some history of being deceitful, some motivation for

[00:13:02] being deceitful. It's definitely an inexact science, but you fact check as much as you

[00:13:05] can. How does one go from a job from a food and fashion in Nashville to writing for SI?

[00:13:13] Hey, that's not the only thing he's written that's unique. Dog Fancy? Dog Fancy was a great one

[00:13:21] that I got to be interviewed for that is a trophy on my mantle that I was interviewed for.

[00:13:27] Dog Fancy. Well, haven't you been interviewed for, Brian?

[00:13:31] Well, when you pay him consistently, he delivers.

[00:13:34] There are at least, I have to say there are probably 10 different articles with Brian Johnson

[00:13:40] quotes with my byline on it. I mean, sports illustrated, the bonds book, I mean, on and

[00:13:46] on and on. You need someone Brian Johnson's your guy. New York Times bestseller Brian Johnson

[00:13:51] is a vital part of that formula. This is the Jeff Pearlman show. Okay. So let's let Jeff

[00:13:59] have a little time. So Jeff, once again, because you probably forgot the question by now.

[00:14:03] Jesus.

[00:14:05] Oh, I got it. I'm sorry. I got carried away. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

[00:14:11] So I started at the National Tennessee in 1994, graduated from Delaware, really was my only job

[00:14:16] offer. I had interned there the year before. I was a sports writer in college, but they had

[00:14:21] one opening and it was food and fashion. I didn't know anything about food. I don't know

[00:14:24] anything about fashion. I still can't cook. I'm still a bad dresser. The fact that this

[00:14:29] shirt and a hat match with the posters is just pure accident. I don't know anything.

[00:14:33] And I was really bad, like really bad. And I was a horrible, horrible journalist coming out of

[00:14:38] college. I was very cocky. I thought I was just this great writer. I didn't listen to advice.

[00:14:45] The thing is it's funny because like every now and then someone to make a reference now,

[00:14:48] like you're whatever a great writer or blah, blah, blah writer. And I don't,

[00:14:52] I honestly God don't see it that way at all. There's so many better writers.

[00:14:55] The one thing I really learned that I didn't have in Nashville was how to report.

[00:14:58] Like I was a bad reporter, a terrible reporter. I made so many mistakes. I didn't know how to

[00:15:02] check names. I wouldn't just blunder after blunder. And what happened to me that saved my career

[00:15:08] is I was writing for the Tennessee and making one mistake after another,

[00:15:11] getting reprimanded nonstop. And one day my editor, a woman named Catherine Mayhew,

[00:15:15] said to me, we're putting you on the cops beat. We're putting you on the police beat,

[00:15:19] the late night police beat, which meant you sat at a desk with a scanner and you were

[00:15:24] listening to stuff. And if something came across the scanner that was worthwhile,

[00:15:27] you drive out to the scene. So if there was a murder or shooting or a fire and you drive out.

[00:15:32] And what they said to me was who, what, where, when, how, why period. You don't need to be snazzy.

[00:15:39] You don't need to entertain us. You don't need to dazzle us with your nonsense writing. Just

[00:15:43] who, what, where, how and why. And that really changed just the facts.

[00:15:49] And the truth of matter is, and this is really true, you can be a mediocre

[00:15:53] wordsmith and an amazing reporter. And that makes you an amazing wordsmith.

[00:15:59] You can be an amazing wordsmith and a horrible reporter and you stink. Like that's a reality

[00:16:03] of journalism. So that changed my life was being put into that position. And from there,

[00:16:09] at the Tennessee and I became a sports writer, covered high school wrestling,

[00:16:13] put everything I had into high school wrestling, and then got hired at Sports Illustrated.

[00:16:17] Wow. High school wrestling to Sports Illustrated. I did not see that connection.

[00:16:22] Well, my dream was to work for SI. And I'll tell you something that happened in my career. Like

[00:16:28] when I was in college at Delaware, I was a junior and someone came up with an idea,

[00:16:32] never did it graduated. So I decided I would do it. I applied early for the NBA draft

[00:16:36] as an underclassman. I didn't play college basketball. I played intramurals for Edna's

[00:16:40] Edibles, but that's it. But I sent a letter. It's true. Edna's Edibles, by the way,

[00:16:46] was the cafe owned on the facts of life by Edna Garrett. I applied early for the draft,

[00:16:51] sent a letter to the NBA. One day came back to my dorm room. My roommate, Paul Hanson,

[00:16:55] goes, Pearl, there's a letter from the NBA. I open it. Dear Mr. Pearlman, as of this date,

[00:17:01] you are surrendering your eligibility, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. A few months later,

[00:17:04] I'm home for like Christmas break. I get a call from the chief of security for the NBA.

[00:17:08] Is this Jeff Pearlman? Yes. Are you the basketball player at Delaware? Yes. Are you

[00:17:11] playing for the NBA draft? Yes. We have no idea who you are.

[00:17:15] Do you really play at Delaware? Of course I do. I'm a forward at Delaware. I was literally

[00:17:24] a forward at Delaware because I did play forward for Edna's Edibles, the intramural runner-ups

[00:17:28] in 1993. So I do this. I write a story for my college newspaper. It runs, no big deal.

[00:17:35] I applied to Sports Illustrated and they write me back and they say,

[00:17:39] we haven't seen enough of you as a sports writer because I was mainly had food and

[00:17:43] fashion and cops. She's like, can you pitch some story ideas? And I pitched a story about

[00:17:47] a swimmer, a local swimmer. No. I pitched a story about a basketball coach. No. I said,

[00:17:52] well, I once applied for the NBA draft. She says write that. And that became my first

[00:17:59] Sports Illustrated story. And then I was hired a few months later.

[00:18:01] That is awesome. That's awesome.

[00:18:05] For the young ones that may be listening to this, Sports Illustrated was an actual magazine

[00:18:11] that you buy on the newsstand that before the internet was like the biggest magazine,

[00:18:17] sports magazine there was. It came out every week. I got it every week and I had posters

[00:18:22] on my wall. And they were all pictures of Brian Johnson, by the way.

[00:18:29] That's right. Ricky Henderson, Brian Johnson, a mixture. But let me take you back to your

[00:18:33] wonderful time when you wrote your piece on John Rocker. Now I mentioned in the opening

[00:18:38] how you are an impactful one of the best sports writers of our era. I don't think

[00:18:42] there's any argument from anybody that that article that you wrote on John Rocker

[00:18:46] was what catapulted you into writing these exposés about people and just all of their

[00:18:52] size, regardless of how pretty or how ugly it may be. You're going to tell the truth

[00:18:56] and nothing but the truth. So help you your credentials as a writer.

[00:19:01] When you were interviewing John Rocker and for those people who don't know about it,

[00:19:06] John Rocker said some horribly chauvinistic racists. Any kind of ism you want to name,

[00:19:12] John Rocker said it in this interview with Jeff Perlman. Jeff Perlman had the courage

[00:19:17] to actually write it like he talked about with the Sweeteners book. But as you're

[00:19:22] interviewing John Rocker before this, it was a big story, a big thing that came out because

[00:19:28] the criticism was on Jeff Perlman that how could this guy why would this guy write this?

[00:19:32] All the players, myself included, which I've told Jeff before, I was angry at him because

[00:19:37] I felt like he broke the trust. A player reveals something about himself. A writer

[00:19:44] historically had kept that trust and not really made me look too bad.

[00:19:48] Jeff just told the honest truth. When you're having the conversations, many of them

[00:19:53] with John Rocker, when did it hit you that you got to decide, am I going to write this

[00:19:57] or am I not? Well, I felt like I was prepared for it because of the racist

[00:20:01] rants that Brian Johnson gave me early in my career.

[00:20:08] Too easy. You found those? You found those? I thought they were hidden away.

[00:20:12] I paid for a service to get rid of those off the internet and you found them. Okay.

[00:20:16] So basically what happened is it's 1999. I'm a baseball writer at SI, young, I was 27. And

[00:20:23] I covered the Braves and the Mets and LCS. And the magazine said, why don't you do a

[00:20:28] piece on this picture, John Rocker for the Braves? And you know how it is, Brian, like

[00:20:32] playoffs are really hard to get one-on-one time with athletes because there's a million

[00:20:36] media guys around. So I would get five minutes here, 10 minutes here, two minutes here.

[00:20:40] I called his parents and I actually wrote a piece for SI, the original piece. I wish

[00:20:44] I still had it. And it was like this very positive glowing piece about John Rocker,

[00:20:48] misunderstood guy. And it ended with a scene his mom told me, I think of his dog dying when

[00:20:54] he was a kid and John Rocker tears streaming down his face, carrying this dog up the steps

[00:20:58] of their house. Right? And I made a mistake. One thing I learned as a journalist with that story

[00:21:03] is you should never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever go into a story with a preconceived idea

[00:21:10] of what you're going to write. Because I had in my head, this is the story of a guy who's

[00:21:13] misunderstood. And that's what I wrote. I conformed it to what I thought. The Braves

[00:21:17] win the NLCS and then they get swept by the Yankees in the World Series. And the story

[00:21:21] never runs. My editor says, why don't you go down to Georgia and freshen it up? I called Joe

[00:21:27] Sambito who is John Rocker's agent. Hey, it's Jeff. Former left-handed reliever.

[00:21:32] Great picture. Yeah, yeah. With the Astros. And I call Sambito and he's like, oh yeah,

[00:21:38] you should totally come down. You're going to love him. He's awesome. I always think like

[00:21:42] as an agent, you need to know your client. I'm actually being sincere. Like you need to

[00:21:45] know your client. This was an agent who did not know his client. 100%. I fly down. He picks

[00:21:49] me up. We're driving down a road. There's a car in front of us that's driving very slowly.

[00:21:53] Rocker goes to me, fucking Asian women can't drive. They can't fucking drive. And we pass the car

[00:22:01] and it's a white guy driving the car, which was the greatest moment ever. It's literally a

[00:22:05] white man driving the car. We get to a toll booth. We get to a toll booth and it's one of

[00:22:10] those with a basket. We throw the change in. He throws some change in, doesn't open. Throw

[00:22:14] some more change in, doesn't open. Guy behind him starts honking. Rocker rolls down the

[00:22:19] window, sticks out his middle finger and goes, F you. And he hucks a loo down the toll booth.

[00:22:24] We're driving. It has been a reigns of John Rocker. I will be accompanying John Rocker

[00:22:29] as he speaks to a group of disadvantaged kids at a school. We go to the school.

[00:22:33] I'm driving with John Rocker. I'm like, do you enjoy doing these things?

[00:22:35] I mean, it's a softball question for John Rocker.

[00:22:38] Yeah. Yeah, very much so.

[00:22:40] Yeah. Nah man, I hate doing this shit, but my agent wants me to do it. Blah, blah,

[00:22:43] blah. I'm like, we get to the school. John Rocker's entrance song with the Braves was

[00:22:48] I Want to Rock by Twisted Sister. They play the song, it comes out. Everyone loves John Rocker.

[00:22:54] We're leaving the school. He steals the Twisted Sister CD, literally takes it as we're leaving

[00:22:59] and pockets it and walks out. We go to lunch. We're at a strip mall. This to me was the

[00:23:04] moment where I realized, I swear to God, this was really the moment. We're at a strip

[00:23:07] mall. He's walking in front of me. We're getting lunch. He drops a pen and I pick up

[00:23:12] this pen. I'm like, hey, you dropped this and he goes, nah man, I meant to do that.

[00:23:16] And I remember thinking like you're done with your pen so you just drop it. Like

[00:23:20] that's who you are. You literally just dropped your pen on the ground because

[00:23:23] you were done with the pen. I just remember being blown away. He called a black teammate

[00:23:27] a fat monkey. He talked about queers on the seven train in New York City with

[00:23:33] and like again, also know your audience. And I know this shouldn't matter, but like

[00:23:37] liberal Jewish New Yorker, maybe not the guy to be saying this shit to.

[00:23:42] I know you think we're two white guys in a car, but not all of us think alike, buddy.

[00:23:46] And like it was crazy. I'm sitting there and I had a notepad out at a tape recorder going.

[00:23:51] He knew as an interview. At one point he told me something off the record, which was

[00:23:55] the crazy thing is all these wild things he says and his off the record thing was a mild

[00:24:00] criticism of Bobby Valentine's managerial skills. Like it was like, wow, that's a

[00:24:04] big one there, Johnny. And you know, this story comes out and blows up and goes viral,

[00:24:09] pre viral and he gets suspended and demoted and fined. And he's a pariah and Will Ferrell's

[00:24:15] spoofing them on SNL. And it's never been the same for all John big ups.

[00:24:18] It's fascinating to me though. I'm a documentary maker myself, so I've spent numerous

[00:24:24] days just following people around that I didn't quite know. And I fully agree with you. I had

[00:24:28] a sort of preconceived idea as to who they were is based on doing research, finding as

[00:24:33] much talk to, but it's at the end of the day, one of my, I wanted to do is how I wanted

[00:24:39] to do a documentary and my favorite footballer growing up, Michael Owen is his name. Used to

[00:24:43] be a striker for England and he's an analyst now and to be honest, he's quite boring.

[00:24:48] But a friend, he is no honestly great guy and I see seems nice enough guy, but,

[00:24:54] but a friend came up to me and said like, but are you aware of what you're going to

[00:24:56] do to yourself? And I was like, well, what am I going to do to myself? He's like,

[00:25:01] you're probably going to crush any idea that you had of him because he's going to end up

[00:25:06] not being your hero anymore. Never meet your heroes. Yeah. Never meet your heroes.

[00:25:11] And that's been something I've been thinking about constantly as I'm depicting people or

[00:25:15] portraying people in either an article or a series or whatever. But how do you look at

[00:25:21] that? And have there any, have there been any heroes? Well, John Rocker clearly wasn't

[00:25:25] your hero, but at least not afterwards. Have there been any times where you went,

[00:25:31] you know, this isn't what I'm going to sign up for because as a writer, you, you hold so much

[00:25:37] power in the way that people are going to view people afterwards. Are there any people,

[00:25:42] firstly, are there any people that you viewed as your hero or your childhood hero, so to speak

[00:25:46] that really disappointed you? If so, why? No, my, my favorite baseball player as a kid,

[00:25:53] by far hand sound was Ken Griffey senior. I remember I was in the Reds clubhouse. I never

[00:25:57] got nervous about anybody. And I remember I was in the Reds clubhouse during spring training and

[00:26:01] they had a writer named Hal McCoy. And I was just talking to how McCoy. And I said, I said,

[00:26:05] yeah, when I was a kid, my favorite player was Griffey. I was all about Griffey senior.

[00:26:09] And he was like, Hey Ken, come over here. And senior is in the room. I didn't know

[00:26:13] he's in the room. And he's like, how, how goes, Hey Ken, this guy is like, he was

[00:26:17] your biggest fan. This is Jeff Roman. And Griffey was nice. And I was like, er, you

[00:26:21] know, like whatever I think what you learned doing this job. Well, number one, I always

[00:26:25] tell people like you'll meet sports fans who want to be sports journalists. And I'm always like,

[00:26:29] do you want to stay a sports fan that don't do this job? Like you can't, you don't root for

[00:26:33] teams. You set it aside. In fact, I actually get annoyed at journalists who say, look,

[00:26:38] there's nothing wrong with rooting for a team or look, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like

[00:26:41] to me, it's not hard. I grew up rooting for teams. I grew up rooting for players.

[00:26:45] Once I became a journalist, once I was covering baseball, it stopped. I just turned it off,

[00:26:49] literally off, no more. That's just how it is. And people will disappoint you. You know,

[00:26:56] people just disappoint you. It's just a reality of it all. And you just deal with it. Like

[00:27:00] we're all human. You go into a clubhouse, you see guys farting and burping and cursing

[00:27:03] and saying racist things and say treating women certain ways. And you just do. It's just a

[00:27:07] reality of it. You know, like the number of this is not including Brian, but the number of

[00:27:11] professional athletes who probably cheated on their wives was insanely high. You know, like

[00:27:17] it is what it is. You know, like I, it just is what it is. And if you grow up, I just,

[00:27:22] at this point, I don't really have any heroes because it doesn't mean I don't admire people,

[00:27:26] but like you just know everyone's flawed and everyone's human. And like,

[00:27:29] you know, it's just, it just is what it is. You just kind of learn and accept it.

[00:27:32] So I'm interested to know if there's another side to that where you talked about people

[00:27:36] perhaps disappointing you and, you know, when you become a sports journalist, you stop

[00:27:40] putting people on a pedestal, you stop idolizing anyone, which I think is unhealthy

[00:27:44] behavior anyway. But is there another side to that where you actually spoke to or someone

[00:27:51] surprised you in a good way where you had, maybe you had the preconceived idea about a person and

[00:27:55] that person turned out to be complete opposite in a good way? I think what happens is you see

[00:28:01] the humanity in people and there's something really cool about that. And that doesn't mean

[00:28:06] it doesn't mean surprise. I'll give you a great example. Like Dwight Gooden, when I was

[00:28:09] a kid growing up in New York, Dwight Gooden was the man. Like the man. And as a kid,

[00:28:14] if you were growing up in New York, even if you were a Yankee fan, like you idolized Dwight

[00:28:18] Gooden, he was larger. He literally, you drove through New York City, there was this enormous

[00:28:22] side to the building billboard of Dwight Gooden's lineup. He was as big as you could be

[00:28:25] in the eighties. And I was a big Dwight Gooden fan. And then Dwight Gooden had all

[00:28:29] these problems with substance abuse. And maybe a decade ago, there's a strip club in New York

[00:28:33] City called Scores. And Dwight Gooden was being paid like 500 bucks to be a Santa, dress up as

[00:28:41] Santa one day at Scores for 500 bucks. I remember thinking how sad that is, how profoundly sad

[00:28:45] that is. But you know, this is going to sound weird. It makes me love Dwight Gooden more,

[00:28:50] because I see all the problems he's had, the struggles he's had, the humanity,

[00:28:55] the just the being famous at a young age, then becoming a drug addict at a young age

[00:29:00] and spending the rest of your life fighting this, fighting this, fighting this to the point

[00:29:03] where you're at your lowest, you're a strip club, I mean, it sounds funny, but like you're strip

[00:29:08] club Santa Claus, then you're Dwight Gooden. And like in a lot of ways that just something

[00:29:13] about that just hits me in the heart in a way it never would have with Dwight Gooden.

[00:29:17] I mean, Tupac. To me, Tupac is a great example for me actually, you know? Like,

[00:29:22] I started the research on Tupac. Okay, he's a rapper. He's an actor. He's a really

[00:29:28] interesting figure. And as I sit here now writing the book, almost done with all my research,

[00:29:32] what I see is he's a guy who went through so much trauma, whose family went through so much trauma,

[00:29:37] this unique trauma that blacks in America go through, especially his mom being a black

[00:29:42] panther incarcerated when she was pregnant on and on and on. And all of a sudden you don't

[00:29:46] just see Tupac as like, oh, this rapper who did hit him up in California love. You see him

[00:29:51] as this really vulnerable, deep, detailed, trauma impacted human being. And it changes the

[00:29:57] way you view times a thousand. I wish, you know, and that's a perspective that is just,

[00:30:01] I think once you get it, I've had it with a few people that I've either portrayed documentaries

[00:30:05] or it's, and it's, I agree completely like the humanity aspect of it all. It impresses

[00:30:10] me far more to see, you know, a person, the oldest saying is right. It's very much about

[00:30:16] how a person treats his or her waitress in a restaurant compared to how they act on camera

[00:30:23] in all these nice interviews. And to see that firsthand, it's certain people you go, right.

[00:30:28] And actually that person is a genuine good person. Like he's treated the way to nice.

[00:30:33] It's he's a nice person. That is the humanity aspect just becomes more important.

[00:30:37] Again, in a way going back to John rocker dropping his pen, his pen on the sidewalk,

[00:30:42] you think so little of the person who has to pick up your shit that you're just dropping

[00:30:45] it. I always thought the greatest indictment of Barry Bond wasn't steroids. Like he,

[00:30:50] I think he's under the impression that he's not getting in the hall strictly because of

[00:30:54] steroids and all that stuff. And it's certainly a big part of it. If you treat everyone like

[00:30:58] garbage, it comes back. He was, he wasn't nice to the guy, the clubhouse guys. He

[00:31:03] wasn't nice to the fans. He wasn't nice to teammates. He wasn't, he was nice if you needed

[00:31:08] him. I used to work with a photographer at sports illustrate this great, great photographer

[00:31:11] named Ron Madra. And that's how I did a story on bonds. I think in 93, when he first

[00:31:16] came to giants and Ron Madra in the magazine rented out from the city of San Francisco,

[00:31:20] the number 25 cable car so they could pose him with it. They set it aside. It cost the

[00:31:25] magazine tens of thousands of dollars every day. I don't know how many days it was three

[00:31:29] or four days in a row. Bonds hadn't arranged time to show up. Didn't show up. Had an

[00:31:33] arranged time to show up. Didn't show up. Finally, Ron Madra walks up to bonds and bond

[00:31:37] says, dude, deal with it. Like, I get it. You think you're something like this guy has

[00:31:42] a job to do. He actually has a job to do. I'm like, not for nothing. He has a family back home

[00:31:47] that you're not thinking one iota because you think you're this guy. I'm like, he actually

[00:31:51] is not just a photographer. He's a human being with kids who has to be somewhere. And you

[00:31:55] think so little of other people. And that to me is the greatest indictment of Barry bonds

[00:31:59] actually as a person is like, he was just mean for sports to people. He did it almost

[00:32:04] good. And like, that to me is the worst John John rocker dropping his pen. Whenever

[00:32:08] I bring that up, people are like, wait, that's the thing that told you. And I was like,

[00:32:11] it's like when you go to a supermarket and people leave their carts, what is wrong with

[00:32:15] you? Like, why would you make someone's life harder? So yeah.

[00:32:18] And why leave it in the parking spot that I'm trying to get into asshole. Right. Right. So

[00:32:24] what's, what's the recipe for you? I mean, because you're obviously incredibly successful

[00:32:30] with with telling these stories, but there's a lot and you talk about how exhausting it is

[00:32:36] and knowing that you've got to throw your whole being into this. What's, what's the recipe and

[00:32:42] how do you choose your subject? Crack and hookers. Let me write that down.

[00:32:49] And Brian Johnson. That's how we got you on the show.

[00:32:55] Thank you. Thank you, Jeff, for your beautiful appearance on this podcast.

[00:32:59] We look forward to episode two of this is how I view it. This is going to sound weird.

[00:33:03] There's a like people all the times would be like, you should do a book about

[00:33:06] literally. I took a walk this morning. There's a guy who lives here and he's like,

[00:33:10] he's a neighbor. I didn't know he knows who I am. He's like, you know, Thomas Hollywood Henderson,

[00:33:16] who is a linebacker with the Dallas Cowboys in the seventies, right? Drug addict and an

[00:33:21] interesting guy. Right. I'm like, I don't know. And there's nothing that's no indictment of

[00:33:26] Thomas Hollywood Henderson. It's like, there's a difference between someone being great and even

[00:33:31] someone being great, interesting and someone iconic. And it's like, you know it when you see

[00:33:36] it. Like Russell Wilson has had a great NFL career. Brett Farr had an iconic NFL career.

[00:33:41] Was Brett Farr that much better than Russell Wilson? No, not really. But there's something

[00:33:45] about Farr of the way he touched people, the way he moved people that made him iconic. I wrote

[00:33:50] a book about Roger Clemens. It's my worst selling book by far. Why was it really so?

[00:33:55] I think number one, people didn't want to pay 30 bucks about someone they just strongly

[00:33:58] dislike. But number two, he's not really iconic. Like Roger Clemens didn't move people.

[00:34:03] You know, he didn't move. He was a great pitcher. People enjoyed watching him,

[00:34:07] but he didn't move people. Tupac is an iconic figure in history. It doesn't mean it'll sell,

[00:34:11] but he's an iconic figure in history. So there's just this difference. The Showtime

[00:34:15] Lakers are iconic, right? Like Kobe is iconic. I don't think Shaq is iconic. I think Shaq is

[00:34:20] beloved. So there's just like, you know it when you see it. And for me, once I pick a

[00:34:25] subject like Bo Jackson, actually, Bo Jackson is an icon. He's actually not an awesome great

[00:34:31] major league player or NFL player, but there's something iconic about him because of the mystique

[00:34:35] of it all. So once I decide on a subject, I just dive in. The first thing I do is I go

[00:34:40] to eBay and I buy every book out there I can find about the subject, every magazine,

[00:34:45] every everything. I mean my bookshelf, which I'm staring at, is loaded, overflowing with

[00:34:50] Tupac books, dozens and dozens and dozens of Tupac books. Then I build a library. I go to

[00:34:55] different newspaper databases. I literally build a library where I have the biggest library I can

[00:35:00] find. Then you read through everything and you start circling names. I'll go through like with

[00:35:03] Tupac, all the liner notes of all his albums. Producer, producer, executive producer, studio

[00:35:08] guy, blah, blah, blah, sound guy, blah, blah, blah. Then you start calling them one by one

[00:35:12] by one. And then those people say, you know who you need to call? John Smith. He was blank

[00:35:17] and you need to John Smith or say, oh, you need to call Becky. She was great. And before

[00:35:22] you just have this enormous database of people. And then where I'm at right now is then

[00:35:27] it's the hardest part. You have to sit down and write it. So you take all this stuff

[00:35:30] and you consolidate it. And that's when the crack and hookers come in because it's really

[00:35:34] hard. So, so you've been doing sports this entire time. What made the transition to Tupac?

[00:35:44] Was it just he was just that iconic of a figure. You're like, look, I'm going to take

[00:35:48] the leap and I'm going to do something other than sports. Yeah, I mean, I've always wanted

[00:35:54] it to. I'm really into politics. I'm really into hip hop and the world doesn't need another

[00:35:58] political book. You know, like just God knows another Trump God doesn't need it.

[00:36:03] And also I think I would blow my brains out. Like I think I would lose my mind

[00:36:05] writing a political book. To me, Tupac is the icon who while there have been

[00:36:10] a gazillion books written related to him, there hasn't been that sort of Malcolm X,

[00:36:15] Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Joe DiMaggio interview, 600 people deep dive birth to death

[00:36:21] treatment. So I was really intrigued by it. There was a writer named Kevin Powell who wrote

[00:36:26] a lot about Tupac. I told him this. He was not happy, but I'll just say it here.

[00:36:30] He had on his website for years working on a Tupac book, right? Working on a Tupac

[00:36:34] book, which is a big no-no, by the way, should never never have on your website for

[00:36:38] years. So like,

[00:36:39] no idea then.

[00:36:40] We had it on there and years after year after year, and the book just never,

[00:36:45] it never happened. And finally I was like, I don't think he's doing it. I'm doing it.

[00:36:49] I made a big mistake. I texted him recently and I was like, Hey,

[00:36:52] I would love to talk to you for this book. I wasn't going to do it,

[00:36:55] but I saw you're not doing it. So I just decided he was not happy. I mean,

[00:36:59] there was like, it was pretty, but that's kind of why I did it. Cause I was like,

[00:37:03] well, this guy's not doing it. I'm just gonna do it. So here I am.

[00:37:05] So what are the ingredients? I mean, there's gotta be a recipe, right?

[00:37:10] What are the ingredients to you? You went from Favre. He's iconic. Tupac. He's iconic.

[00:37:16] Is it deeper than that? Do you think that, I mean, again,

[00:37:19] cause you're putting your time and your life in 600 interviews. That is amazing.

[00:37:25] Yeah. I mean, I think the number one goal truly is to find stuff other people didn't

[00:37:31] find. Like that's a number one goal. Find stuff other people didn't find.

[00:37:34] And the one thing I have going for me, and I really sincerely mean this,

[00:37:37] like there are better writers who will come along and write about Tupac.

[00:37:41] There's always someone better, no matter what you do in your life.

[00:37:43] There's always better. There's always a better writer.

[00:37:45] There's always a better baseball player. There's always a better pocket.

[00:37:47] Like they're just art. But I always think like what you can control is you can outwork

[00:37:51] anyone. Like that's the one thing you can control. I can outwork anyone.

[00:37:54] So I'll just call everybody. I will travel anywhere. I will dig and I will knock on doors

[00:38:00] and I will like a couple of weeks ago, I flew to Lumberton, North Carolina.

[00:38:05] It's Tupac's mom, a Fanny Shakur was born and raised in Lumberton.

[00:38:09] And I wanted to go to the Lumberton library and dig through the archives.

[00:38:13] And the funny thing is I get to the Lumberton library and the freaking microfilm

[00:38:16] machine was broken. And I was like, wait, I just, I just flew 2,500 miles to be here

[00:38:22] and your microfilm, but it turns out a couple of her cousins still live in Lumberton

[00:38:28] and her old house is in Lumberton and it's this abandoned house.

[00:38:31] So I went to her old house and I interviewed her cousins and like,

[00:38:34] I don't think other people are going to Lumberton to do a Tupac book, right?

[00:38:37] Doesn't look like it will be great. I can still screw it up, but I know I'm

[00:38:40] going to put in the effort and try to do things other people aren't.

[00:38:43] And that to me, whenever I talk to young writers and they're like,

[00:38:45] what do I need? Blah, blah, blah. What do I always like?

[00:38:47] You just need to outwork everyone. It's all about hustle.

[00:38:50] That's the number one thing. It's just all about hustle.

[00:38:52] Well, from now on, when you make those trips,

[00:38:53] make sure that you have a microfiche bulb with you at all times.

[00:38:57] Exactly. I appreciate that.

[00:39:00] Boys will be boys. Your book on the Dallas Cowboys.

[00:39:03] We're bouncing around to all the books, so I know that you're ready.

[00:39:07] Troy Aikman, Emmett Smith, Michael Irvin, Jerry Jones and the rest of them.

[00:39:15] You've been in basketball locker rooms, baseball locker rooms, football locker rooms.

[00:39:20] What is the pin drop on the floor for your Dallas Cowboys book?

[00:39:24] What is the simple thing that really stood out from that whole experience?

[00:39:29] There was a defensive back on that team named Clayton Holmes.

[00:39:34] He played like three years and I reached out to him and he lived in Florence, South Carolina.

[00:39:39] And I went to visit him in Florence, South Carolina.

[00:39:41] And Clayton Holmes lived in a shack outside his mother's house, literally a shack,

[00:39:48] with a wire providing power. He had a cord connecting

[00:39:52] his mom's house to his house, so he would have power in his house.

[00:39:55] And I think he would go in and use his mom's bathroom, but he literally lived in this shack.

[00:39:58] He lost all his money. His bike had recently been stolen.

[00:40:01] He was working as a personal trainer.

[00:40:03] And I remember, number one, just sitting there with this guy who,

[00:40:06] it's such a common athlete mistake. You think you have everything.

[00:40:10] You sign a three-year, $1 million contract and you think I'm a millionaire because he

[00:40:15] came from nothing and he didn't know and he didn't have the financial wherewithal training.

[00:40:18] And you think you're a millionaire. Well, you last X number seasons in the NFL,

[00:40:22] you're not a millionaire. You lose all your money. You're paying your agent X percent.

[00:40:26] That car you bought is repossessed and all of a sudden you're living in a shack.

[00:40:28] And he told me something that has stuck with me and I led the book with it, I think.

[00:40:31] He said when he was with the Cowboys, he was in a bar one day

[00:40:36] and Tony Dorsett happened to be in the bar.

[00:40:38] And someone came up to Clayton Holmes and said,

[00:40:41] hey, I'm a big fan. Can I buy you a drink?

[00:40:43] And Clayton Holmes said, he said, nah, that's okay. I'm good.

[00:40:46] And Tony Dorsett tapped him on the shoulder and said, hey, young buck,

[00:40:51] they're not going to remember you forever.

[00:40:52] So when someone offers you something, take it because it doesn't last.

[00:40:57] I remember sitting there in the shack with Clayton Holmes thinking he wasn't aware

[00:41:01] of really how profound that moment was. Wow.

[00:41:05] That's heartbreaking. Yeah, because you got to live for another 40 or 50 years, hopefully

[00:41:09] after that. So you got to stretch that puppy out no matter what money you get.

[00:41:13] Yeah. You're an East Coast guy, grew up East Coast guy.

[00:41:16] You some years ago moved to the West Coast to soak out.

[00:41:19] Correct. Did that change you as a writer?

[00:41:21] Are you a better writer as a California than you were an Eastern Coast guy?

[00:41:26] I'm a happier writer because I'm a coffee shop writer.

[00:41:29] I love writing in coffee shops.

[00:41:30] What I really hated about New York and coffee shop writing was I had my local Starbucks

[00:41:35] and I'd write there like November, December, January and the door would open.

[00:41:39] And every time the door would open on that fridge day, it'd be

[00:41:42] and I'd be like, oh, this sucks.

[00:41:44] So now kicking out in the sunshine and wearing my flip flops, I'm writing in the sun.

[00:41:47] I'm just a happier person so that can't hurt.

[00:41:50] Sunshine will do that.

[00:41:50] Correct.

[00:41:51] The sunshine will do it. Yeah, there's not a lot of sunshine here guys.

[00:41:56] One of the last questions I had for you, Jeff, I've spent far too long on writing

[00:42:01] my first ever book. I know it's going to be a couple of more years before I end up maybe

[00:42:06] finishing it but I think documentaries for me is easier because I can just sort of film it

[00:42:10] and put nice music underneath it and just put it out there to really blunt terms.

[00:42:15] What I'm interested in knowing is though, because you've portrayed all these different people and

[00:42:20] all of them have this similar sense of being iconic.

[00:42:25] I for one love underdogs in sports.

[00:42:27] Like give me a mediocre left-handed reliever who lives in a van.

[00:42:33] Daniel Lawrence, the guy who talked about earlier, Brian.

[00:42:36] And I'll become an instant fan.

[00:42:39] I love the struggle of sports.

[00:42:41] All my teams have the same sort of idea of being very bad when I first started supporting them

[00:42:45] and luckily enough for me they still are very bad.

[00:42:49] So, I love underdogs but I'd be curious to know, would you ever do,

[00:42:53] is there any underdogs that you have in mind where you go,

[00:42:55] I would love to write this story but I'm afraid no one will buy the book.

[00:42:59] I mean, I always have ideas of books that I know nobody's going to buy.

[00:43:02] I mean, I wrote, okay, I wrote a book a few books ago about the United States Football

[00:43:07] League, which is a football league.

[00:43:09] I came along and it was the ultimate underdog.

[00:43:11] It battled the NFL.

[00:43:12] My agent act, that was my underdog book.

[00:43:14] My agent literally said to me and I love my agent because I kept pestering him,

[00:43:18] USFL, USFL.

[00:43:19] He literally said to me, Jeff, nobody wants a fucking USFL book.

[00:43:23] He literally said that to me.

[00:43:25] The only way I got that deal is I pitched the Favre book and I said,

[00:43:30] I would take less money from the publisher.

[00:43:31] I said, I'll take less money from the Favre book if you let me write this USFL book.

[00:43:35] All right, fine.

[00:43:36] They gave me a horrible money for it.

[00:43:37] I had one year to do it.

[00:43:38] I threw everything I had into that book.

[00:43:40] It is truly one underdog story after another.

[00:43:43] Guys rejected by the NFL.

[00:43:44] Guys working blue collar jobs, etc., etc.

[00:43:47] Yeah.

[00:43:47] That is the most gratifying book I've ever written by far.

[00:43:50] The most gratifying book I've ever written.

[00:43:52] It made the New York Times list which made me insanely happy because it

[00:43:55] made me feel like an underdog who actually accomplished something.

[00:43:58] And so that, you know, I'm just like you.

[00:44:02] I love underdogs.

[00:44:03] I love underdogs.

[00:44:04] And also one of the cool things is a lot of people who we think who are iconic

[00:44:07] actually started as underdogs.

[00:44:08] Absolutely.

[00:44:09] Yeah.

[00:44:09] Mark was a poor kid from Marin City.

[00:44:11] He was an underdog.

[00:44:12] Brett Favre was a kid from the Kiln, Mississippi.

[00:44:14] He was an underdog.

[00:44:15] Barry Bonds wasn't the title rich kid.

[00:44:17] He was not an underdog.

[00:44:18] But a lot of people are.

[00:44:22] Well, again, like I said in the opening, Jeff, you know, though we are friends,

[00:44:26] I do consider you a very impactful and iconic writer for our sports genre,

[00:44:32] for sports books, sports biographies.

[00:44:34] So keep up the good work.

[00:44:36] Thanks for being with us today.

[00:44:38] You helped get our podcast kicked off in the early stages and we really

[00:44:43] should we wish you the best on the Tupac book.

[00:44:44] Yeah, and Brian, I just want to know, I will be calling you for the next

[00:44:47] dog from my cat fancy article that's coming out in a couple weeks.

[00:44:51] I sit by the phone waiting for your next.

[00:44:55] Guinea Pig Digest needs to hear about.

[00:44:57] Oh, Guinea Pig Digest.

[00:44:59] That's awesome.

[00:45:00] I'm just I'm just happy we finally got to the truth of Brian's day job that

[00:45:04] we finally we finally nailed it.

[00:45:06] Yeah, and you can't question him, right?

[00:45:07] He writes in biographies about people.

[00:45:09] So everything he says is the God on his truth.

[00:45:12] Everything.

[00:45:14] Thank you.

[00:45:14] I think a great question.

[00:45:15] I really appreciate it.

[00:45:16] Excellent, man.

[00:45:17] We appreciate it.

[00:45:18] And listener, we'll be back next week for more talent chasing later.

[00:45:22] Thanks, man.

[00:45:23] Thank you for tuning into this week's episode of talent

[00:45:26] chasing with Brian Johnson, Chad Sos and Jasper Spangile.

[00:45:30] Don't forget to subscribe to talent chasing on your favorite podcast platform.

[00:45:35] We'll see you next time.