Episode 267: Burn On, Not Out
In this episode, the whole team -- Lindsay Gibbs, Amira Rose Davis, Shireen Ahmed, Brenda Elsey and Jessica Luther talk -- is together. First they discuss upcoming Halloween costumes. Then, they share a very important announcement.
Following this discussion, they preview a special Patreon segment about bold predictions for sports outcomes in 2022. Then, you'll here a preview of Amira's interview with Sam Coffey of the Portland Thorns and Ellie Jean of Gotham FC, on their first NWSL season.
Next, they burn some of the worst in sports on the Burn Pile. Then, they celebrate those shining light, including Torchbearer of the Week, Crystal Dunn, who's banger goal three minutes into stoppage time pushed the Portland Thorns past the San Diego Wave and into the NWSL finals, where they’ll face the Kansas City Current on October 29 in DC. They wrap up the show with What's Good and What We're Watching In Sports this week.
This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.
Transcript
Lindsay: Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Burn It All Down, the feminist sports podcast that you both want and need. I am Lindsay Gibbs, and today on this show I am joined by all of my co-hosts. We have Dr. Amira Rose Davis and Jessica Luther from Austin, Texas. Hello!
Amira: Hey!
Jessica: Hello.
Lindsay: Hello! We have Dr. Brenda Elsey in New York. Hi, Bren.
Brenda: Hi, hi.
Lindsay: And we have Shireen Ahmed in Tex…Not in Texas. Good lord.
Shireen: Surprise! [laughter]
Lindsay: My brain is fried. In the opposite of Texas, in Canada. [laughter] Toronto is the word I was looking for. It does start with a T. We've got a big show today. We've got a big, big burn pile. We have some really great torchbearers. Really excited for our show. We've got an important announcement, so stay tuned with us. And also just wanna give a shout out to our Patreon. We've got a lot of great content over there that you should check out. First of all, let's just kind of start, let's ease into this episode a little bit, because Halloween is coming up, and I know that some of my co-hosts…I am not a Halloween person myself, but I know that some of my co-hosts are, and out of all of my co-hosts, I’m the only one without children. So wanted to see what our Halloween plans are, what our costume plans are. And I have to start with Brenda, because when you talk about Halloween, you start with Brenda. [laughs]
Brenda: Oh, I love that. Thank you. I have some bunny ears and a bunny onesie. I have some temporary face tattoos that I may or may not get used to. I have a cigar that is like LED, and an empty bottle of Jack, and so I'm a bad bunny. [laughter]
Jessica: Of course, of course.
Amira: I love that.
Brenda: So I'm really excited about that. Really pumped.
Lindsay: Amazing.
Jessica: Are you doing family photos in the cemetery this year?
Brenda: Probably. Right. [Lindsay laughs] So, this is a source of debate right now. And I've like emotionally let go and told them they did not need to match. But I have this hope that they'll acquiesce to doing a photo in a cemetery with us all in different like sports equipment, kind of like Royal Tenenbaums, with like Maya the oldest with like some tennis headband from the 70s and like a tennis racket. So, I don't know. We'll see. They're kind of too old to bribe anymore. They don't even really like candy. So, I'm not sure what I can offer. But yeah, I’m pumped.
Lindsay: Incredible. Jess?
Jessica: I feel like I am the opposite of Brenda. I don't have anywhere to go.
Lindsay: You used to be really good with costumes! You used to go all out. [laughs]
Jessica: I know. Well, my kid has given up on them. So, it's too much effort. I mean, I could make Aaron and I get in a costume, but we would just be like standing in our front lawn, having our picture taken in our costumes, and then going back inside. [laughs] So I didn't do it this year. My kid is going to some Halloween event and I'm trying to convince him to wear an old costume of Aaron’s and dress up as Luigi because he's going to a video game Halloween costume thing. So, we'll see if that even works. I feel like he's going to say no to that too. So, yeah. Opposite of the Elsey household over here.
Lindsay: Amira, what's going on in your neck of the woods? You have many little ones.
Amira: Yeah, they're around. [Lindsay laughs] It’s chaos. So, Zachary's going as…I don't know how to explain his costume. It's an inflatable dinosaur that it looks like he's riding.
Jessica: Oh, nice!
Amira: You know what I mean?
Jessica: Yes.
Lindsay: I can't wait for those photos.
Shireen: Yeah. I want one of those.
Amira: I guess he's like a dino rider/explorer? Unclear.
Brenda: Aww.
Lindsay: Dino cowboy. Dino cowboy. [laughs]
Amira: Yeah. I have no idea how long the costume will last, but you know. And then Jackson's going as Naruto, an anime character. But you will be happy to know that the costume didn't come with the weapons, so Jackson made origami knives, which I didn't know he knew how to do.
Lindsay: He is very creative.
Amira: He said I needed four pieces of paper to fold into one knife, and they're kind of sharp, and he made four of them. And then Samari [laughs] got pulled into doing a group costume, whatever, with her friends, and they're going as Scooby and the gang. So, Scooby Doo is being Scooby Doo, and Samari is being Velma, but she's in a standoff with everybody about wearing the Velma wig, because she wants to be Sexy Velma. I just want you to know that the orange sweatshirt is a crop top, and I got a perfectly reasonable red skirt that was apparently “too long.” And reader, it was not too long. And so, you know, teenagers. [laughs]
Lindsay: Amazing.
Jessica: She has to wear the wig. She has to wear the wig.
Amira: I know. She said, I'll wear the glasses, but the bob is not it. So, that's where we are. [laughs]
Lindsay: Are you dressing up at all?
Amira: Just like full chaos. I have like a throwback MTV shirt with spiderwebs on it because it's like a Halloween MTV throwback shirt, and I have like spidery leggings, and I'll probably just put some makeup on and be cute and exist.
Lindsay: Cool. Last year I got Mo a hot dog costume, and I got a hat that was french fries, and we went to the dog bar Halloween party. So we might do that again this year. Shireen, I know you also have something planned.
Shireen: I love Halloween. My kids are too old. They're very invested in candy, in fact, I bought some and it's already finished. So I'm going to get more. I don't get a lot of kids. Last year it rained. And I love Halloween. Like, I want the music. I put stuff on the door, but I just don't get, like, I'm literally out there encouraging the kids to come to my house, but that's creepy and weird, so I'm gonna not do that ever again. [laughs]
Amira: You’re like luring them there. [laughter]
Jessica: [laughs] Oh, goodness.
Shireen: I just love them and I want them to come. I also live in a townhouse with stairs, and I think they just find it easier. There's another…I know that's from my children. There's another group of town homes in my area and they don't have stairs, and it's easier for the kids to hit the homes and get the maximized amount of candy in their plan. I'm not one of those homes. So, that's sad for me. As far as my costume, I was gonna go as a trophy wife just as myself, but then I decided I'm going to–
Lindsay: I love how matter of factly you said that. [laughter]
Jessica: Yeah. Like the obviousness of it.
Shireen: The obviousness.
Lindsay: It’s everybody knows, yeah.
Shireen: In my Palestine cap, in my sports bra, t-shirt. Yes. No, I will probably end up going as the biggest fan of Burn It All Down, and Amira has given me new stuff and accessories at Notre Dame. So I've got key chains and pins and decals, and I'll probably go as the world's greatest flamethrower, which I think is appropriate. I mean, if I'm not a trophy wife, I'm definitely that. So I think I'll probably do that and stand on my door and be like, “Burn it all down!” and then nobody will come. [laughter]
Lindsay: So, this is no different than most days. [laughter] I'm missing the costume element of this, but okay. [laughs]
Lindsay: Before we get going into our main segment and our announcement, I wanna send our love again to Brittney Griner over in Russia. Her appeal was denied today, which was not unexpected. The hope is that this will make Russia more eager to enter into negotiations now that the full legal process is done, and also that they will be slow to move her to an actual penal colony. She has been, you know, in jail, more short term jail, which has better conditions than the penal colony so far. So, the hope is that she will get home before she gets officially moved to the penal colony. I'm just gonna read the WNBA Player's Association's statement that they released after the decision on the appeal:
“The courage and integrity Brittney Griner has displayed throughout her wrongful detainment should motivate every American to join our campaign to bring her home to her family without any further delay. Brittney has repeatedly taken responsibility and made clear that she never intended to break Russian laws. While their legal system is very different from ours, there is no doubt that the original sentence she received was extreme, even for the Russian legal system. This appeal is further verification that BG is not just wrongfully detained, she is very clearly a hostage.
Let us not be divided in this moment. Rallying around BG and all wrongfully detained Americans is the common thread of humanity that unites us without regard to ideology or political party. We must unite and support the stated public commitment of the Biden administration and congressional leaders to do everything possible to get her home. Likewise, we strongly encourage leadership at FIBA, USA Basketball, and across the entire global sport community to voice their support for BG and join our campaign with a daily public call to action. No athletes should be used as a political pawn.”
All right. Moving on to our main segment today. It's actually announcement time. This is gonna be kind of difficult to talk about. I'm just gonna dive right into it, friends. We are announcing a hiatus for Burn It All Down. This is a decision that has been difficult to come to, but I think one that we are all really excited about. I wanna stress at the top, this is not a goodbye forever. This is not an ending. This is a break and a regrouping. We've been doing Burn It All Down for five and a half years, weekly shows and interviews with very few breaks. 267 weekly episodes, and 469 total episodes when we include our hot takes and interviews. We love this show so much, but we wanna kind of figure out a way to make this more sustainable financially. You know, maybe take some creative risks. And it's very hard to figure out new directions when you're constantly putting out weekly episodes. And we wanna be really honest with you all about this. So, we're gonna take a little break, and then we're gonna reconvene as a team in the new year and start working towards a new future for the show.
We're very excited about this, and also sad. Mixed emotions. A few other just things to stress. We are ending our relationship with Blue Wire at the end of this month, and we'll close our Patreon at the end of November. We are still available for live shows and open for live shows, and we have a few on the calendar already for next year that we will announce at a later date. But if you're interested in having us come to do a live show, get in touch. And yeah, we're so grateful for all of your support, and hope that, you know, even through this hiatus, we'll continue to get your support. Feelings, thoughts, team? How are we doing? Jess? Did I miss anything?
Jessica: No, I think you got it all. I feel like all sorts of things right now. Like, I won't lie. There's a relief to it. We can't overstate the rigor of putting out a weekly show twice a week. As soon as we finish one, we go right into the next, and it's just a constant churn. And that part is hard. Five and a half years of that has been hard. At the same time, anytime we're here recording together, I love it. So, I feel sad right now, looking at you all and knowing that we aren't gonna do this for a while. Shit. [laughs] It's my natural state, crying. So, I feel all the things right now. I feel grateful for the community around us. Like, I wanted to say thank you for, like…I’ve tried to respond to every email that we get from people. I'm not always great about it. But we get these lovely emails, we get Patreon comments, we get tweets. We get people who come up to us in person to tell us how much this podcast means to them. And I'm feeling all that right now. I'm feeling very grateful for all of that. And I'm crying, so it sounds like…We really are trying to combat the idea that this is the end, but just knowing that it's changing in any way is…I have feelings about it.
Lindsay: Yeah. This is a lot. Bren, how are you feeling?
Brenda: You know, similarly, vacillating between gratitude and relief, because things are just really a lot right now. Like, I just have a lot of work. And also pissed, because I think there's a lot of stupid sports analysis out there that make a lot more money and that would allow us to keep going. And so I'm angry that like, that bullshit like is just out there. Because I can just be really honest, like, if I could quit a bunch of activities and didn't have to give six talks for the rest of the year, you know, or whatever. Like, I feel like I could throw more into being a more productive contributor to this podcast. And I feel like that would be the best thing I could do. You know, besides teaching, which is, you know, trench warfare. But I mean, you know, so I guess I get kind of like upset that I see more traditional…And not that they're bad, but more…Well, I mean, and yeah, like, some are really bad. Like, you know, why is Stephen A. Smith making millions of dollars and we're not? And we know the answer to that, and it's not because he knows more about sports. So, that's a bummer a little bit, to me.
Lindsay: Yeah.
Jessica: Brenda, I recently saw a commercial, I don't know what I was watching. Soccer, probably.
Brenda: Yay!
Jessica: For the Skip Bayless/Shannon Sharpe show. And they just like sell it by these…They’re like, these men yell at each other.
Brenda: [laughs] Exactly.
Jessica: I was like exhausted from just watching the commercial. I was like, I can't even imagine consuming this on a daily basis. So, I feel that anger about like what actually gets support and what does not in this universe.
Brenda: Yeah. Like, I hoped, you know, to see Barfstool and their downfall much quicker, and I would, you know…And I guess I'm like also afraid that my head's gonna explode because I'm so mad all the time about sports stuff. And then everyone here helps me and makes me think smartly about it and not just emotionally. So, I'm also afraid that maybe the top of my head will just look like…I will be like our logo, like my head will be on fire. [laughs]
Lindsay: Shireen?
Shireen: I think I'm the one…Part of what this group has taught me is to embrace the change. I'm the one that doesn't like the change. I remember when we were talking about our logo change a couple years ago, I was like, oh my gosh! Because I can’t. Because this, this collaborative, has been the most stable thing in my life, professionally and probably emotionally speaking. I've been through some massive…We allude to this all the time. Like, look, y'all, my family, my marriage fell apart like in the middle of one of our shows, actually, I think I was logged on to be on that day, and they were like texting me going, “You don't have to be on today if you don't want to.” [laughs] And like, I've navigated through, you know, depression and anxiety all through this group. And change makes me very nervous because I never had the confidence.
And having this support, like Jess said, has meant that I've been able to do things and fly when my own wings couldn't hold me. Yours did. So, that has been like transformative. And as I teach sports media, the more I know in sports journalism how important Burn It All Down is. And I cannot emphasize that enough. I'm in classrooms, and these students have been inundated with the media that Brenda refers to that makes her head wanna explode, because I see how subpar those analyses are. And you know, I'm not out here trying to say we're smarter than everyone else, but we do something so unique. We do something with a mix of, you know, the experience and the actual positionality that we have. And from a lens that doesn't harm people.
It has been transformative for me in my work. And I can hold my head up high and say this is something that we've done. And Jessica, you said we were vanguards when we were at Notre Dame to somebody. I'm so glad you said that, because it's okay to embrace it. And at the same time as we hate capitalist models, and you know, I've learned from Brenda, you know, I'm not gonna quite call myself…You know, I've got Amazon Prime. Let's not fucking lie about that. But like, the reality is we've encouraged other people to be in this space, and that is part of the legacy. And this isn't a goodbye, but it's also a reality that this is really hard. And this was never about the money. This was never about…Like, if we are gonna compare ourselves to what would've fairly been remuneration from day one, we would have that jet plane that we talked about and a vision at our five year. We would have that stuff.
But this is not about that. This is creating spaces and hopefully blazing trails for people. But at the same time, we have bills to pay. This is not our main job. For a lot of us, this is our third and fourth job. It's a lot of work, and we love it so desperately. But that sustainability piece is really key here. Like, we have a gift to give the world, you know, and it's sparkly and fiery and magnificent, but we're tired. We're tired. And we need to re-strategize and come together. And it's like a…It’s not a goodbye. It's an auf wiedersehen, literally. We'll see you again. Like, you know that those...And I'm gonna be really tacky, like, au revoir doesn't mean goodbye. It means when I see you again. And like, you know, like, I could sing a song from The Sound of Music right now. But like… [laughter]
Jessica: [laughs] Don’t.
Shireen: So long, farewell! [laughs]
Jessica: Of course.
Shireen: But it's not a goodbye. It's literally I will see you again. These people aren't rid of me, they know that. [laughs]
Lindsay: Amira?
Amira: Yeah. I'm just really proud of us. It's really hard to take time for yourself. And like, none of us are very good at doing that.
Jessica: [laughs] No, we are terrible at it actually.
Amira: Like, we're like really terrible at doing that. And it's like, even when we've tried to take breaks before, I mean, it took us like three and a half years to even take like two weeks. [laughter] And even when we try to do that, we still work through it. And there's a way that, you know, part of what we push and have pushed each other and have pushed this show to try to do is present new models of doing things, new ways of thinking about sports and how we interact with each other, and really possibilities in reinvigorating our imagination. And we have had space to do that for ourselves or for our show because we took that so seriously, and we embraced the grind because we knew what we were doing was important. And it's really…I won't repeat what everybody said, but I just wanna say I'm really proud of the fact that we were able to get to a space where we all collectively said, yeah, we need to exhale.
And in doing so, we have such a belief in like what it looks like to look at this project and this team anew, and what it looks like to renew and rejuvenate, and pour energy and creativity into a space to elevate it even more and to come back to it not with like burnout but with a fresh lens, you know? And there's a way that why Brenda's saying “Burn on, not out” became the tagline of the show, because we recognized that that work was hard and everybody was dealing with things, the pandemic was hard, it's still hard for our listeners, for our team, for us behind the scenes. And we really believe that. And this is such an effort to not burn out. And the flame will keep going, and we know y'all will keep it lit and going and blazing as well. And I can't wait to reconfigure and figure out how we continue to feed that fire. And so I'm just really proud. You know, because it was a really, really big deal for us to do this.
Lindsay: Yeah. I wanna say that we did a lot of reflecting back to the past of Burn It All Down around our fifth anniversary, which was earlier this year. We'll link those episodes in the show notes. I just wanna echo everything that my co-hosts said, and this is…Change is uncomfortable, [laughs] and moving forward is scary. So, you know, I think that's a big thing. Like, one of my big things in therapy that I've been working on is how comfortable I am with the status quo, right? With being broke and burned out and and solo and, you know, living paycheck to paycheck, and like, how that's my comfort space, right? And how no matter what I do, I keep defaulting back to that, right? Like, you know, I take steps forward, and I keep defaulting back to that because, you know, you have to kind of imagine a new future for yourself, and it's really hard to live in that.
And I think that what we are doing with this break is giving us the chance to fight for something even bigger and better for us. And that takes strength and courage, and it makes me really uncomfortable. [laughter] But I want to talk a little bit about what we do have coming up all in our lives. None of us are going, unfortunately, on like a two month long vacation. I think I must admit, what's hypocritical about what all we're saying is like we're clearing off this to make space for more work and other projects [laughter] that will hopefully get us a little bit more money. But, you know, those other projects are necessary, and this is still part of self care.
But I just kind of wanted to go around, just kind of talk about the future a little bit. And you know, I can start, which is that I'm gonna use this time, like the next two months, to just be fully focused on growing Power Plays. This goes back to what I was saying about realizing how scared I am to be successful, which sounds super fucking self-indulgent. I know. [laughs] But like, it's true. And especially doing so, I'm really gonna focus on growth. And you know, I think like even the past two days, you know, I had big writing plans for Power Plays and getting things called up, and I've ended up working mainly just on this podcast so far this week, right? And that's how it happens. And so I'm looking forward to a little bit more structured time and place.
I really wanna get back to the point where I have profits in Power Plays which will allow me to travel, to go watch women's sports live. And you know, I really want 2023 to be a year of travel for Power Plays. But that can't happen until I grow my subscriber base. And I'm really gonna focus on that. But, you know, if you follow my Twitter, you know, a lot of women's college basketball coming up, and, you know, I hope that this all gets me to the point where you can see me on the road and in person, you know, paving my own way and continuing to do that. So, you know, I also have a three plus year overdue book and a big podcast project that needs to find a new home. So, there's other things as well. I don't know, there's just…I can't believe there's only two months left in the year and I'm on like April my to-do list, I feel like. [laughs] Anyways, I'm excited.
Shireen: You have a to-do list? We were supposed to have a to-do list?
Lindsay: Ugh, I don't know. [Shireen laughs] Brenda?
Brenda: Yeah, I feel kind of bad because I also have sort of a list of working things that immediately came to mind when we said that we were doing this. I have a very overdue book at University of North Carolina Press called Losing to Win, just about the politics of sport in Latin America. Surprise, total U-turn. [laughs] I'm gonna go to Cuba and the Dominican Republic because of the chapters on the Afro Cuban and Afro Dominican baseball in the early 20th century. And so, I'm psyched about all that, but that's like a lot of work. And yes, I'm going to the World Cup, and I’m gonna oversee that anti-discrimination schema, as they call it. I keep trying to tell FIFA that “scheme” is not an awesome way in US English to refer to a project.
Jessica: [laughs] Especially coming from FIFA.
Brenda: Precisely, right? Because you know, maybe scheme is not what we're aiming for here. And I'm not working for FIFA, but we’re an NGO. Fare is contracted by them. But really also I've, you know, like everyone, struggling with like the fact that like, you know, the world is really sort of like difficult, and whether that's like political–
Amira: “Sort of like difficult…” [laughs]
Brenda: Yeah. Or like, economic…Or like, it's burning up because we've ruined it.
Amira: It's literally on fire. We're at the end of days.
Brenda: Right. Or like, any number of things that depress me. You know, I've been walking a lot. I can't run because of health stuff. So I've been walking like six to eight miles, and sometimes I call my co-hosts, and sometimes I call my my mom, and I'm gonna hopefully do a lot of that. Just sort of like calm, regular things. Not like call them while I'm typing something out, and like, not call them while...You know what I mean? Like, that's the stuff I do though, you know? And like, eating cereal, correcting a paper, watching the game on record and, I don't know, petting the cat with my toes. Like, I would like to do one thing at a time some of the times. So that's my goal. Sorry, that was long.
Lindsay: I love it. I love it. [Brenda laughs] Amira?
Amira: Yeah. I mean, the name of the game is the book. It's due January, so I need to–
Lindsay: Remind people what it's about. Sorry.
Amira: I'm so tired of the book. It's called Can't Eat a Medal: The Lives and Labors of Black Women Athletes. And it's a look at the historical rise of the sporting opportunities for Black girls and women in the United States in the mid 20th century. It gives you a kind of pre-history of what sporting opportunities looked like before Title IX, which was quite robust in the Black community. And then I also look a lot at their athletic labor and their symbolic burden. I've been working on it for like a decade, and I'm tired. And so this is the final push, for real this time. And that's the biggest thing by far. But I also have another book project that I'm kind of simultaneously getting started.
I'm also editing a special issue of American Quarterly on sports and embodiment, which is due to come out next year. It's a lot of lifting right now because we're reading a bunch of articles, and I think it'll be really cool. I'm really excited. I'm co-editing with Joe Darda. So, looking forward to that. I have a children's book coming out in time for the 2024 Games, so that's kind of cool. And a few other projects that are in various stages that I'm always kind of juggling. And I'm just trying to, like…I kind of transitioned my life across the country to a new institution and a new city and all of that, like, quickly. [laughs] And so I'm mostly settled, but I'm still trying to build routines and breathe a little bit, and just not always be running one sprint after another and then burning out, and then the sprint and sprint and sprint, and then burning out.
And so, that's kind of what I have on my plate. But I will say, me and Jessica went to Formula 1 this weekend, and I just loved…Like, we didn't watch the race there, because I don't wanna watch that. But like, I loved the atmosphere. Like, I really enjoyed the experience. And now I feel like I have this terrible mission that has been given to me because I am invested in seeing the difference between circuits and spaces and atmospheres. And so this is like my new thing. And it lets me travel, so I'm like, what projects can I do that lets me go to every single circuit? [laughter]
Lindsay: Is it bad that I thought, oh, there's your new ADHD hyper focus. Like, there it is. [laughs]
Amira: Oh my gosh.
Jessica: Lindsay, you don’t even know.
Amira: I mean, this has been my pandemic thing.
Jessica: You don’t even know. You don't get all the F1 texts. [laughs]
Amira: Jessica and Paulina, we have like a pit crew group chat, and I feel bad for them because they both put their phone on silent and go to bed and then wake up with 27 messages from whatever deep dive I'm doing that day that is like a combination of articles, Reddit threads, tweets. And I'm like, here is your report every morning. It's like, you can think of me as like your daily report of like everything you need to know this morning.
Shireen: I love that. I think that's so cool. I have a student who's like obsessed with F1, and Amira, I might refer them to you and your commentary, because they are like, every assignment is on F1, and they talk to me like I know what they're talking about. I'm like, do I look like Dr. Amira Rose Davis right now? [Amira laughs] But I love that. I think that's so cool, and because it's also you're encouraging, and this love that you have is encouraging me to pick up something else and learn something new. So thank you for that.
Amira: Well, it's nice to learn something new. I think that's one of the big things, right? Is like, we know sports, we know a lot of sports. I don't wanna learn about pickleball.
Shireen: I was just about to say, I'm gonna do pickleball. I was just about to say that.
Amira: Like, good luck with that. I'm like, I did some for last week’s episode. I'm done. [laughs] But I think part of it has been like what we've done on this show is learn new things and find new interests. And I'm just really excited to get into a new sport.
Lindsay: Shireen?
Shireen: I'm doing lots of things too. It doesn't sound as orderly. I have sticky notes all over my desk of things I'm doing. I am busy with the CBC, and one of the things that…And I love it, I love CBC Sports. We had a departmental sale and I got all this clothing. We don't get free clothing because we're a public broadcaster and we can't be using taxpayer money to buy like outfits for ourselves. But we were gifted a sweatshirt. So that was nice. And then I went and got like a water bottle and like, you know, a reusable cutlery set. But to answer your question, which is something I probably should do, I'm taking broadcast coaching. They have asked me to do broadcast coaching, which I think is so funny, because I was like, does that involve me like on air?
Which I think is funny, because like, I've gotten so comfortable behind my keyboard, and even…And with the thanks to Tressa, and I can't overstate how important it is, Tressa, because I'm gonna cry right now, that you've made me feel really good at what I do. So thank you for that. You made me feel like I'm actually really good at this, and I'm probably not, but your edits make me sound that way, so I love you. And not discouraging me from like getting random instruments or stuff, you know, like sound clips.
Jessica: Don't take random instruments on the CBC, Shireen. [Shireen laughs] That’s my media training test.
Lindsay: What random instruments are you talking about? [laughs]
Shireen: Like if I want a xylophone or glockenspiel or maracas–
Lindsay: Oh god! [laughter]
Shireen: Do you know what I mean? Like, Tressa doesn’t–
Lindsay: No, I don’t know what you mean! [laughs]
Shireen: Tressa's not rigid. She's not like, no. She's like, okay, I'll think about it. Like, you know, she's very measured, so I appreciate that. But you know, me trying new things. Like, if you told me five years ago I would be on air, I would be terrified. But I feel like I'm gonna try this. It could be funny for everybody, but I'm going to try it, and you know, I have some other stuff coming up. I'm doing traveling. I'm teaching a lot this semester, but I'm not teaching next. I'm doing a talk at the American Kinesiology Association in San Diego at the end of January. I'm going to the University of Southern Illinois in February to do a keynote there. So I'm doing some traveling, and I'm learning most importantly how to say no to things. I'm really bad at it, but I'm learning. Like, Jihad just said to me on the weekend, because I worked seven days last week, she's like, can you just sit at home? So my 20 year old is curled up with a book, like, teaching me and learning and constantly unlearning things. So, I mean, it's funny that everyone's talking about a book, because I've had one in me for a long time, and I never knew how it would manifest. Speaking of which, I may hit y'all up for an interview at some point, so FYI.
But yeah, nothing cemented, just things that are in the works. And so I'm really happy where I am, to be stable at a place in my career where I feel like I'm growing in the way that I want to be and open enough to creative stuff. So I'm excited about that. I'm also going to the World Cup, will not be reporting while I'm there, but I'm gonna try to follow Brenda around as much as possible. And something that I'm really excited about in Qatar is that is when you go to Starbucks in an Arab country, they write your name properly and they write it in Arabic. And that's really exciting because I don't get my name mangled. The first time that happened to me, I was like, I can't tell you how much that meant to have my name properly written in a different script on a coffee cup. It was like empowering. Brenda, they may struggle with your name, but we'll figure it out, okay? And don't forget there's no P in Arabic, you know, just so you know.
Brenda: I don't have a P in my name, so that'd be kinda weird.
Shireen: They'll say [rolls R] Brenda. They'll say that. That's cool.
Brenda: They don't have a B?
Shireen: No, they don't have a P, so it's Bebsi, right?
Brenda: P. I’m good with that.
Shireen: You’re good. Yeah.
Brenda: But we should just make up a name for me.
Shireen: Okay.
Brenda: Like, something you think is like heroic and dashing. Let's think of it.
Shireen: Okay. Will do.
Brenda: I can have a new...We’ll do a Qatari avatar of myself. Qatavatar.
Shireen: For sure. I think that…I mean, I intend to disrupt whatever I'm doing, but I also have come to embrace the idea that disruption in these spaces is actually a really beautiful form of creativity and creation. So, I'm excited about that.
Lindsay: I'm now a little bit nervous that our creative break is gonna result in more xylophones. [laughter]
Brenda: Or our arrests. [laughs]
Shireen: Glockenspiel, glockenspiel.
Lindsay: Shireen is gonna keep my anxiety on high throughout all of this, [Shireen laughs] but in a loving way. I love hearing what everyone's up to. Jess?
Jessica: Yeah, the shortest answer is one word for me. I’m working on my dissertation.
All: Yay!
Jessica: Which is on the UT women's basketball team in the 1970s – intersection of race, gender, coming of Title IX. I'm excited about it. It's hard. I'm at that part of the process where everything feels like it's in front of me. I mean, I wrote a proposal, so I've written, you know, 20, 30 pages already, but just with the research and all that sort of stuff, it feels like there's a whole whale to eat. And every time I eat a few bites, the whale still looks like a full whale. So, mentally, I'm kind of there. But it's exciting any time I really do dive into the…I love archives. I'm excited to do the interviews that I need to get for this. So, yeah, that will keep me very much in the vein of Burn It All Down, the intersection of sport and culture. I wanna say, like, I am the luckiest of the co-hosts here that one of my co-hosts moved to where I live. And Amira and I are opposites in ways that work really well for the two of us. And for me, one of those things is I am an introverted person. It takes literally nothing to get me to cancel. Like, if there's a whiff of something, I'm like, I'm out, I'll stay home. And Amira is not like that. [laughter]
And so, I am fortunate. We went to F1 because Amira said we're gonna go on Friday and then bought tickets, and then she's like, I will drive you. I'm coming to your house to pick you up. [laughs] So we ended up going to the first practice of the Austin Grand Prix. Tomorrow night, on Wednesday night, she again bought us tickets and I'm going with her to watch a volleyball game at the University of Texas. So, one of the things I'm looking forward to, I understand that this will also be happening during the basketball season that is upcoming. And so, I feel very fortunate all the time that Amira lives here. Not that I should tell anyone to move to Texas at this point, but everyone should consider it, that I'm looking at right now. But yeah, so, I foresee myself doing more sports this year than I have done in a long time, in large part because of Amira and how she gets me outta the house and actually gets me to go to things. So, I'm looking forward to that.
Lindsay: Whew. All right, friends. [laughs]
Shireen: Can I just note how, when you were talking about archiving, that Amira was glowing. I just noted that.
Amira: I'm really excited for the dis. [laughs]
Shireen: Yeah, I know.
Amira: I'm excited. I'm excited. It's all great things. Everybody's doing such great work.
Lindsay: Hey, flamethrowers. So today our Patreon episode is about bold predictions for 2022. Since we won't be recording weekly episodes, we took some big swings. If you're a patron, go on over and listen to that. It gets a little spicy! [laughs] For our interview this week, Amira talked with Ellie Jean of Gotham FC and Sam Coffey of the Portland Thorns about their first season in the NWSL.
Ellie Jean: I'm trying to rethink what success is for me, and like, it doesn't have to be playing 90 minutes, it doesn't have to be playing every game. Like, what does success look like? What does a successful career look like? For me, it doesn't necessarily have to be being on the national team, or like…Because those things, at the end of the day, don't fill you, like, can't fill you, can't possibly fill you. Like, of course it's something that you'd wanna achieve, but like, I just think there's so much more to that. And then also, like half the time, people don't end up achieving those things. So like, how can I base success just off enjoyment of the game, enjoying what I'm doing every day, enjoying the process, enjoying waking up, and you know, just knowing that I'm gonna go out and play the game that I love. And that's been super fun actually, and it's given me a lot more joy and a lot less pressure.
Lindsay: Check it out in the feed now.
Lindsay: It is time for a big ol’ burn pile. Brenda, get us started.
Brenda: This past week, Austrian billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz died. And I'm not celebrating that by any means. However, I am going to burn the rewriting of his history by sports organizations that he's been involved with, specifically in the general press. And this tendency...And I think it's really important in perpetuating generational wealth and white patriarchy that this happens, that people like George W. Bush die, and the fact that he should have been on trial for crimes against humanity is not part of his biography. That seems really essential to me. That's not like a little, like, oh, you're so nitpicky, Brenda, you know, why don't you just let these people get away with killing kids in Laos? You know, just let them lie. Let them be at peace. And they didn't let anybody be at peace when they were alive. So I'm not really like one of those kinds of historians.
So anyway, this man made his money selling – stealing, actually – a hangover cure from a Thai duck farmer. That's right. He ended up having to pay out. He had stolen the formula and later had to pay these people. And he became one of the wealthiest 60 men in the world. He then bought out Leipzig, Red Bull Leipzig, in an effort to undermine the public holdings of the Bundesliga to pump money in it. That was needless, that was about controlling the brand and building the brand. And he also controlled a television station called Service TV, whose editor reported to him and gave a platform to right wing extremists and Nazi supporters, which is really sad. So much so that the Red Bull fans pinned a tweet on the day that Mateschitz died, saying, “Today and forever, don't give Nazis an inch.”
And I think we should take that cue from them and not participate in this rewriting of Mateschitz’s history. He was known as a vocal supporter of Donald Trump. He tried as much as he could to lobby against refugees in Europe. You're against refugees. Like, I don’t…“I'm anti-refugee.” What? Like, what even is that as a position? “I'm anti-human rights, anti-migrant.” So, as someone who was a promoter, really, in the end, of right wing extremism, antisemitism, I wanna burn the fact that we're celebrating this person. I bet you tons and tons of people died that day that deserved much better biographies than they got. And so I don't wanna waste a second on this person. So, burn.
All: Burn.
Lindsay: Shireen.
Shireen: I think that my burn is a little different in the sense of what happened in the situation is really terrible. But I am pleased with how the parties affected are being supported. And I do wanna say that. So it's not a happy burn, but it's important to point that out. And I will. So, the University of Wisconsin's women's volleyball team won a game, and they were actually celebrating, and in that moment, in their dressing room, they took some photos on the phone of a player. Now, they had lifted up their shirts and their sports bras, but that was never meant to be shared publicly. Those photos were leaked, and it's been escalated to an investigation, a criminal investigation. So, it's been called cyber sexual assault, when you share images of somebody without their consent, that's actually what it's called. And the circulation of this photo with their breasts exposed without their consent is a crime.
There's this organization called Promoting Awareness Victim Empowerment, and Dani Rosen is the chair of that. And they said that it's clearly alive and well, the culture of cyber sexual assault. And irrespective of who the victims are, they could be student athletes, they could be professional athletes, it could just be students. It's still unacceptable. Now, what I think is really important here to remember is consent. Consent in every single form. This was not okay. And now there's investigations also criminally happening, but also within the team, that who would do this to these people? Because they are, you know, Wisconsin's like a top 10, Big Ten team. They're exposed in so many ways, and now they are vulnerable in certain ways, and having to continue and having to continue their academic careers. Don't forget, they're on campus. They're students, right? So, having to do all this is highly traumatic and embarrassing and humiliating.
And once those images get online, they're never really off. They might have been taken down from the sites where they've been shared. So, according to the Wisconsin Journal, there is no clear idea of who shared them. But what I did wanna draw attention to is that the University of Wisconsin issued a statement, and in that statement there was absolutely no pointing to the fact or wrongdoing on the part of the athletes, which I think is actually really key to understand here. They weren't blaming them for taking the photos. They weren’t…Which is normally what happens. “Why take the photo?” That's actually not the fucking point. The point is that this shouldn't have been done. And so I like that this team is getting institutional support. I think that's really important. And this could be a blueprint for how to handle situations like this.
I mean, because, you know, they will be provided appropriate resources to support their wellbeing as well. And I think that's on the court and off the court, which is really essential. But at the same time, I wanna remind people out here, I'm fucking burning the fact that these images were shared. This is essentially an extension of revenge porn. That’s what this is. And likening it to anything less than that is unacceptable. So, you know, we stand in solidarity of those who've been affected and victimized by this kind of thing, because it's atrocious, it's misogynistic, and it is violent, and it's absolutely traumatizing. So, while we offer our solidarity to those players, I do wanna burn down this type of non-consensual cyber sexual assault. Burn.
All: Burn.
Lindsay: Amira.
Amira: Yeah, I wanna burn what's on TV and what's not. I'll start with what’s on TV. If you're watching any playoffs these past few weeks, because it's election season, we're getting a lot – and I mean a lot – of political ads. One in particular has really been going around because it is so racist, it's so ridiculous. A group called Citizens for Sanity, which doesn't tell you much, in the disclosure and disclaimer, but is a “non-profit,” supposedly nonpartisan, but LOL at that, organization that's really just funded by a lot of dark money and a lot of ex-Trump aides and supporters, ran ads on Fox platforms. And so that includes Hulu, that includes Fox Sports 1, and then on the actual game feed, multiple times had people who were identifiably Latinx coming across borders with words like “they're drug dealers, their sex traffickers, they're violent predators.”
They said there's “a giant flood of illegal immigration draining your paychecks, wrecking your schools, ruining your hospitals, threatening your family.” One of the ads blamed a recent attack in Vegas…They can't get too specific because they're not for a specific candidate, so instead they lean into all the racist tropes possible. And it aired over and over and over. I watched Texas football on Saturday. Every single commercial was an awful commercial from Abbott in California. We've seen all of these ads flood the airways. They're not fact-checked. A lot of them are really racist. A lot of them are horrible, and they're only getting worse as the election nears. And I just want all of it to be off my TV.
And then when I want something to be on TV, like say, I don't know, women's sports, it's impossible to find. That very same Longhorn Network that, after the Texas football game was over, continued to run these ridiculous ads and talk about football when Texas volleyball, the number one women's volleyball college team in the nation, was in the middle of a game that was supposed to be on Longhorn Network. Longhorn Network has been deleting the tweets, as far as I can tell, of people who were like, where is volleyball? Where is volleyball? Where is volleyball? But there was still clinging to a post show for Texas football. Like, who lost? Like, I can't deal with that.
And then of course I tried to watch Sam and the Thorns play in theses NWSL semis. And despite telling everybody to purchase Paramount+ because that's where you'll get NWSL games all season, we're running into yet another issue – I wish it was the first time – where they move the NWSL games, the two semifinal games, to CBS Sport Network, which requires another subscription. It's not on CBS and it's not on Paramount+. They're not even simulcasting it on Paramount+. So I, if you wanna know, watched the Thorns game on Twitch, on a Twitch screen name of somebody named Spanky who had a fan page. [laughter]
Lindsay: Spanky?!
Brenda: Wow.
Amira: His name is Spanky. He's a very nice gentleman. He was eating a Hello Fresh meal and he loves women's soccer. [Brenda laughs] And that's how I watched the Thorns, and I just had to get used to Spanky every now and again chiming in with his commentary, but that is how I watched the game, because I don't have CBS Sport Network because I pay for Paramount+ to see the NWSL, which is not there! It is so frustrating that this continues to be an issue. Like, fuck all of this. We've been saying it since we started this show and we're saying it now. Put women's sports on TV, and burn the rest down.
All: Burn.
Brenda: Thank you, Spanky.
Amira: Shoutout to Spanky.
Lindsay: Jess?
Jessica: Friend of the show, JayCee Cooper, who I interviewed on Burn It All Down back in January of 2021, contacted me last week. Her email started, “Not sure if you knew this, but in addition to powerlifting, I've been involved in curling for 20+ years. I currently serve on the USA Curling DEI – diversity, equity, and inclusion – task force.” JayCee informed me that the long tentacles from the Sally Yates report looking into abuse in the NWSL had made its way into the curling world. Turns out, Jeff Plush, who is now CEO of USA Curling, shows up in the Yates report, because he was commissioner of the NWSL from 2015 to 2017. Plush did not respond to requests from Yates to be interviewed for the report, which is an interesting enough choice. But then the report found that Plush knew about the reports of sexual harassment and coercion against former Portland Thorns Coach Paul Riley, but looked away as Riley continued coaching in the league that Plush oversaw.
Mana Shim specifically told Plush in 2015 about Riley's behavior and the retaliation she faced from Riley. We know he knows because he forwarded Shim’s email to US Soccer – and then did nothing else. He also knew about the results of player surveys in 2015 that players had described Chicago Red Stars coach Rory Dames as abusive. Again, he told US Soccer and nothing else. USA Curling has of course backed Plush. Last week, USA Curling's DEI task force called for his removal: “As current USA Curling SafeSport claims are sent to the CEO Jeff Plush, we are concerned about the immediate safety of US curlers.” No shit. They also wrote that if the board of directors of US Curling don't remove Plush, the board itself should resign.
So far, neither thing has happened. Administrators in the sports world often feel like actors in British movies and TV shows, like there are only 15 people and they just move from position to position, showing up over and over and over again. It seems inevitable that the NWSL mess would bleed over into other organizations for this exact reason. That we see other orgs like USA Curling defending someone at fault in the Yates report is disappointing. That they also don't seem to care about calls from inside the house is fucking disappointing, and I wanna burn it all. Burn.
All: Burn.
Lindsay: I just wanna burn in general the ongoing attack against trans athletes and also the resulting and very expected continuance of those conversations into wanting to ban queer people from public space, period. We've talked a lot on this show about the fight to get trans people out of sports, particularly the fight from the right to get trans women and girls out of girls’ and women's sports. The GOP has weaponized this issue as a campaign promise, running on “protecting women's sports.” You see ads about this thrown in everywhere, into all of these ads that Amira has been talking about. It has always been clear, and we have said it, that this is not about protecting women's sports. There are a lot of ways to protect women's sports. Zero of them involve banning trans people from sports.
Let's talk a little bit about where that rhetoric has led. I'm gonna focus in on Florida right now, where the Department of Education is now seeking the right to fire and revoke the licenses of teachers who discuss LGBTQ topics with students. The medical board in Florida is meeting to write rules that will ban gender affirming care for trans youth and limit access for trans adults. Groups, Nazi groups across the country, and right wing attack ads are now going after drag queens, trying to ban all drag shows, saying that they are targeted towards girls and little children. And of course, all this bigotry…Why does social justice have to be intersectional? Because bigotry is as intersectional as they come. According to Zinnia Jones on Twitter, by page eight of the Florida Board of Medicine's agenda for their anti-trans rule-making, the state is already blaming George Soros for the transgender movement. So, antisemitism is being blamed for the trans movement, and they're using this fear mongering to try and ban any LGBTQ teachers, basically, from schools.
But this is not just Florida. Just last week, House Republicans introduced a bill that would ban discussion and material about LGBTQ people in any federally funded programs that are attended by children under 10 years old. Here's how Republican lawmakers are framing this bill. They are saying Republicans are introducing the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act, the first bill to ensure that none of your tax dollars go to federal programs, state or local government agencies, or private orgs that expose children under 10 to sexually explicit material.” But this bill…I mean, that sounds reasonable. But the bill itself defines “sexually oriented material” as, yes, lewd and pornographic material, but also any topic involving gender identity, gender dysphoria, transgenderism, sexual orientation, or related subjects.
To quote Alejandra Caraballo on Twitter, this is the American version of Russia's gay propaganda law passed in 2013. This is their end game, to censor and ban LGBTQ people from public life and to force them back into the closet. We are two weeks from a very important midterm election. It's very easy to be disillusioned with politics right now and to be disillusioned with both sides of the coin. And I'm very much not thrilled with everything that Democrats are doing. But I do wanna urge you all to go vote, because this is the Republican agenda right now, and it has nothing to do with protecting women's sports. And if you're listening to this podcast, women's sports is something that you love. The fact that they are using that and using the framing of protecting women's sports as a wedge issue to get in these laws that basically ban gay people and trans people from existence should infuriate you.
Vote Save America is a resource if you need to find out information on where to vote, who to vote for in your local elections. Google's very prevalent. I just wanna, you know, get political for a second and urge everyone to exercise their rights, because harm reduction is as good a reason as any is to vote and to put your vote in this election. I know it's not just the United States listening to us here, but if you are in the United States and can vote, I urge you to do so. But burn the attack on transgender people. Burn.
All: Burn.
Lindsay: After that burning, we have got a good torchbearers of the week. We gotta lift some people up. I'm gonna start with figure skating. We had Kaori Sakamoto take home the gold at Skate America 2022. Americans Isabeau Levito and Amber Glenn took silver and bronze. It was such a good competition for Americans overall, with Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier winning golden pairs, Madison Chock and Evan Bates winning gold in ice dance, and the Quad God himself, 17 year old Ilia Malinin winning gold in the men's event and becoming the first skater to land a quad axel at an ISU Grand Prix event. Quad axel! So cool. Bren?
Brenda: Hampton defensive back Byron Perkins made history last Wednesday by becoming the first football player at an HBCU to come out as gay.
Lindsay: Shireen?
Shireen: Lydia Ko, a professional golfer from New Zealand, won her 18th career title at the BMW Ladies Championships on Sunday with a seven under 65 in the final round. This was the 18th title of Ko’s career, and the first in South Korea, which is where she was born.
Lindsay: Amira?
Amira: Shilese Jones, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey, Leanne Wong, and Skye Blakely have been named to the US Gymnastics world team that will compete at the Gymnastics World Championships, which begin October 29th in Great Britain. Chiles tweeted after, “Welp!! After trying 4 times to make a worlds team my time is finally now!!! Words can’t explain how happy I am right now!! Thank you to everyone for all the love and support and see y’all in LIVERPOOL.” Congrats to y’all.
Lindsay: Brenda?
Brenda: Kasey Badger became the first woman to referee a men's rugby league world cup game when she officiated a match between Wales and Tonga on Monday. She told BBC Sport that she hopes she served as an inspiration for others, saying, “There's a young girl who might start refereeing or getting involved in rugby league in some capacity, whether that be as a fan, player, or a coach, whatever it might be. They might be get involved because they see what I'm about to do.” Congratulations, Kasey.
Lindsay: Love it. Jess?
Jessica: Jessica Pegula won the biggest title of her career this weekend at the WTA 1000 event in Guadalajara. The American is now at a career high ranking of #3 in the world. She beat Maria Sakkari in the final, but it was a great week for Sakkari, who clinched the final spot in the WTA finals. She joins Iga Swiatek, Ons Jabeur, Pegula, Coco Gauff, Caroline Garcia, Aryna Sabalenka, and Daria Kasatkina at the prestigious WTA year end championships, which will tip off on October 31st in Fort Worth, Texas.
Lindsay: And can I get a big ol’ drumroll, please?
[drumroll]
Woo! Crystal Dunn is our torchbearer of the week! She hit a banger three minutes into stoppage time to push the Portland Thorns past the San Diego Wave and into the NWSL finals, where they'll face the Kansas City Current on October 29th in DC. The goal came just five months after Dunn gave birth to her son, Marcel. Absolutely incredible. If you go back to a November 2020 episode we had, Brenda interviewed Crystal. So, Crystal's officially a flamethrower. [laughs] That’s what that means.
I also just wanna, as a co-torchbearer, Portland coach and former Canadian women's national team player – I wonder who added that in! [laughs] Rhian Wilkinson, who added this very important caveat after the game. She said, “I also don't want other mothers in this league to now think they've got to do what Crystal Dunn did. It's incredible what she did, but it was done very carefully with a lot of very skilled people supporting her return to play.” She continued that, “Some women might be like Crystal Dunn, but some women might be a year and a half to return after childbirth, and both are fine and should be celebrated.” And just while we're at it, the four largest crowds in NWSL playoff history all came in the past two weeks. So, some good things to celebrate for sure.
Lindsay: What's good, Jess?
Jessica: Austin FC beat FC Dallas in the second round of the playoffs 2-1.
Amira: Beautiful!
Jessica: Sebastián Driussi, who I can't talk enough about, is just so good at soccer. He’s so good at soccer! That's so good. Moussa Djitté showed up as a starter. Even at the end, I was proud of Maxi for running down that ball at the end, just waste time, because I was dying absolutely at the end of it.
Amira: Absolutely.
Jessica: I needed it to be over. The second half was not as smooth as the first half. But they held them off. And I just want to say, they're facing LAFC in the western conference finals this upcoming weekend. I'll be a mess about it. But it's just been really fun. Like, I keep reminding myself that it's really fun to have this team here and to have this professional team to root for. I know so much about all of these players. I know so much about the team. I can identify them by their runs at this point, like, the way they run. I wanna give a special shoutout to my buddies over at Moon Tower Soccer podcast, Landon and Jeremiah. They have an episode every Tuesday, and it's the thing that makes me smarter about the team. I don’t…Sorry to this podcast. I don't love chatty podcasts in general. [Amira laughs] So, [laughs] I really appreciate their dynamic, and what I learned from them all the time.
And I also just wanna give a shoutout to the Striker, which is a Texas soccer site. Well, not even…It’s not just Texas anymore. They've now expanded outside of Texas. But just having this whole, like, just being part of this, being in the Los Verdes Slack, getting to be a part of the supporters group, even if it's in my Jessica way, which is as a lurker, in that online space. I don't know, it's just been so much fun, and I just feel like really lucky that we got this season and that we've had…I think he should be the MVP. I don't think he will win it, but that we've had this MVP caliber player on the pitch has just been a delight. So, that's what's good. I went to F1 with Amira. We've talked about this already. Yeah, that's what's good.
Lindsay: Love it. I guess I’ve really been enjoying the NBA. The NBA's return has been a lot of fun. I've watched a lot of good games. One of the funniest things I've ever seen, also, one of the most depressing, but I'm just gonna stick with funny, is Draymond Green's “apology video,” that he like self-produced. It was aired on TNT and it was about him, like…It was supposed to be about him, I guess, punching his teammate, but he did not say those words. It was basically like the video of equivalent of reaching an essay word count. It was hysterical. I laughed so hard. I don't know why I found it so funny. I just did. And also, two my favorite reality shows are back: Love is Blind, and Bachelor in Paradise. So, if you wanna talk to me about those, please, please, please reach out. You know, SOS. I don't respond to many texts and emails. I'm very bad at it. But if it's about Love is Blind or Bachelor in Paradise, I probably will. [laughs] Bren?
Brenda: Hmm. I like watching Jessica Luther become a soccer fanatic. I feel like Amira was already well into it, though you know, Austin gives her one more, kind of thing. But watching Jessica Luther…And she's not here, because she just had to leave, or else she'd be like, “Aww, Bren!” or something like that. [laughter] So I'll just do that for her. Aww, Bren! It means that I get to text her all the time about all these players because they're coming from Argentina and Uruguay, and then I get to be like, oh, did you know this about the place where he came out of? And it's just really fun. I really have loved it. I'm so excited to see Shireen in Qatar, so excited. It's gonna be wild. Yeah. And so, this is the last thing. I mean, all of you are always what's good, and you're gonna keep on being what's good, but in addition to you is Lionel Messi. And I would like to say I've never seen him live.
Lindsay: Wow.
Brenda: In my whole life. I know. If you can believe it, as someone who looks at clips when I'm nervous, and named my cat after him, and all of that other stuff. I will, next month, get to see him at least three times. So that is really, really, probably super good.
Lindsay: Shireen?
Shireen: Yeah, I'm going to echo Brenda a little. Like, watching Jess love men's soccer is not something that I thought would happen. I mean, she was the least interested in men's soccer, so it's really fun to watch this. But also the joy with which she talks about it, because, I mean, we on this show actually, you know, struggle with loving something. So it's wonderful. And Amira's jubilation about F1 is really inspiring.
Brenda: Yeah.
Shireen: I haven't committed to the Netflix show, but I feel inspired to do it. I know she's already mad at me for not watching Ted Lasso. But as far as good, the Raptors are back, y’all, and the NBA's back. And I'm there with a fervor. I was being fully obnoxious. Went to the home opener, which was so great to go support Mark and have a Mrs. Strizzy jersey, because of course I did. Loved it. I love the atmosphere. I love this team. You know, you come after Koloko, you come after me. I want my boys to stay safe and healthy all season. I just wanted to say that I love my classes that I'm teaching. They're engaging, and last week was a really tough week for them. I do wanna just shout them out. And I got to class. I'm like, so…Because we had a lot of readings, and they actually did the fucking readings. And I was like, what? Y'all are superstars. Like, I mean I just really love them. Also, my son Sallu has started this TikTok feature that he takes screenshots of our conversations and he shares them to music, which are really funny.
Lindsay: [laughs] I love that.
Shireen: It's just really hilarious that he does it. I've been traveling a lot. I actually did an interview…I had to fly into New York City and do an interview with Kim Davis, which was amazing. Just flew in. I was in New York City for like 16 hours and I made friends with the two Arab men who were playing Fairuz at the bodega around the corner from me, 9th and something else, some other street. Maybe 28. I don't know. Some number, I don't know. Manhattan confuses me. So, that was fun. Also, I finally got Tricia Hersey's book Rest Is Resistance from the Nap Ministry, and I'm trying to absorb it fully as I read it, because I don't wanna just read a book talking about how rest is important and not apply it to myself. So, I'm trying to be good. And of course, seeing Brennie Bren Bren in Qatar, and we will be up to no good. But actually we will be very obedient.
Lindsay: Please be very good. Please be very good. [laughs]
Shireen: We will be very obedient and follow all the rules and not say any of the things. We’ll just be really good. I can't, like, I just can't even tell you. I would just go to watch Brenda watch Messi. That will be very wonderful. And like I said, if I run into Zizou, I run into Zizou, and y'all will find out about it! [French accent] Burn on and not out.
Lindsay: Hopefully not in the papers. [laughter]
Brenda: We have to combine your dreams and get Zizou to get Brittney Griner out.
Shireen: Yeah. I want that to happen. Yes.
Brenda: If we meet him. Right? And then, because I feel like he's got that power.
Shireen: Does he though?
Brenda: It's a dream? [laughter]
Lindsay: Amira, bring us home.
Amira: Yeah. Sadly this weekend, Leslie Jordan passed away, who gave us all so many laughs and joys over the pandemic, and beyond that, with his incredible career. But it made me think of one of the last videos he made was talking about Putin, and he said, look, you want all the gay people out of Russia, but then you have that wonderful basketball player there, make up your mind! [laughter] And it was just like the first time I was able to laugh around that. Yeah, it was a really exhilarating sporting weekend, one of those where I felt like my nerves were just like too much almost, because it was going right…Like, starting with F1 on Friday and being there live and like the smell and the sound and all of that. I really loved it.
By the way, it's a lot of walking, okay? Like, you forget when you watch it on TV, you can feel like some of the tracks are flat, or like, you know that they're kind of going uphill, but you don't think about it until you're there and you have to walk very much up. [laughs] Like, to get to the first corner and then like drop down again. It was chaos. But it led into a weekend where you saw Manchester United like figuring out some sort of rhythm. It’s, you know, not all terrible. And so that makes me really happy. They're in a really hard stretch right now. And it went right into college football–
Shireen: Ronaldo got benched! [laughs]
Amira: Yeah, he got benched, and it was glorious. And he also had to train alone for three days, which was hilarious, and really kind of put in his place in a way that I found wonderful. And so, that's been great. And then on Sunday, it went right from the race, literally right when it ended, the Thorns game started, and then right when the Thorns game ended, I had like 30 minutes to try to calm down before Austin FC started playing. And my nerves, like, I was just screaming about everything. I texted Lindsay at one point because I forgot–
Lindsay: [laughs] This is the funniest thing ever.
Amira: I forgot Dearica Hamby was pregnant, and she posted a picture and said peekaboo with her stomach. And I screamed so loudly. Michael was like, what happened? And I was like, oh, nevermind. I already knew that. [laughter] And I had to explain to him that I saw a picture of somebody being pregnant who I already knew was pregnant. But it shocked me my nerves were just high. And that's why I was screaming about everything.
Lindsay: This is why Michael roots for Amira's team, right? [laughter]
Amira: So, my nerves were fried, and then I went right into the House of the Dragon finale. And if you haven't seen the two people who play the leads on the show, Emma D’Arcy, who, they are fabulous. They are fabulous in this show. And Olivia Cooke. And I know like Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, not everybody's cup of tea, which is like totally valid. But do yourself a favor and Google Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke, because their chemistry is phenomenal. And you might have seen on Twitter everybody talking about the way Emma said negroni and their drink order.
It was incredibly sexy and sensual, and it's just great to see them act in anything. So, it was a really solid weekend, I have to say. And next weekend I'm off to a writing retreat in a yurt in Texas Hill Country. So send me good vibes for all of those reasons.
Lindsay: What we're watching: everything over the next couple of days. [laughs] I wanna, you know, specific shout out: NWSL final is on CBS in primetime on Saturday night. Tune in so that they'll get more primetime shots. MLS playoffs, everything. MLB World Series. Women's college basketball starting soon. WTA finals. It's gonna be in the central time zone. It's happening in Fort Worth. So, excited about that. Just keep watching sports. Keep supporting women's sports. Keep it going, friends. We’re so, so grateful for you.
That's it for this episode of Burn It All Down. This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg, and Shelby Weldon is our web and social media wizard. And just wanna give an extra, extra special thank you to Tressa and Shelby. Nothing we do is possible without the two of them and all the work that they've taken on over the past few years, and we are endlessly grateful that they've been a part of our team and our family. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can listen and subscribe and rate – still do that, that still helps us – on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play and TuneIn.
Our socials will not stay active during our hiatus, the Burn It All Down official socials, but our personal socials definitely will. And yeah, we're gonna keep our website up and going where you'll find show links and transcripts: burnitalldownpod.com. Now, more than ever, we're trying to take our own advice. Burn on, friends, but please don't burn out. We love you.