Pablo Torre Finds Out

Is TikTok the one social-media platform that makes you feel good, or is it an algorithmic wasteland of culturally insignificant content? Are we partying hard enough? And was the pre-Taylor Swift version of Travis Kelce actually hot? Plus: second-person IG love letters to your child, a boombox-holding panda/dog... and the tragic end of Party City. Further content: Americans Need to Party More (Ellen Cushing) https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2025/01/throw-more-parties-loneliness/681203/ Subscribe to "Casuals with Katie Nolan" https://www.youtube.com/katienolan Subscribe to "The Mina Kimes Show featuring Lenny" https://www.youtube.com/@minakimes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We are living in the era of Peak Cremation, and fans have turned to our true American cathedral as a final resting place: the sports arena. PTFO death correspondent David Fleming reports on a cottage industry for die-hards in the afterlife — from team-branded urns and exploding golf balls to franchises that want the on-field ceremonies gone (and forgotten). And then, of course, we help a woman named Edna spread her husband's ashes... while riding a convertible, on a racetrack, flooring it into eternity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Deyra Barrera was playing birthday parties and restaurants and funerals in Los Angeles when she got the call: Kendrick Lamar wanted her to sing on his new album, GNX. And now, if we’re lucky, she might be a guest at the Super Bowl 59 halftime show. But today, we find out why there is no better soundtrack for her rise — from a tiny town in Mexico to the World Series, with the Dodgers — than the musical genre she’s mastered: mariachi. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The future of our live TV viewing habits is ever-evolving: Every week, it seems, there's a new bundle. A new "skinny" bundle. A new merger. Is the media industry ready to help us find all the games we want to watch? Will there ever be one sports streaming service to rule them all? David Samson, John Skipper and Pablo pour one out for the streamer that would have included games from ESPN, Fox Sports and Turner Sports — and look ahead to what's next. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How did Jerry Jones become such a good actor on Landman? Why do people love video games with such bad graphics? And what does it take to be elite in a group chat — or to abandon one? Plus: Bob Kraft's bikini audition tape, Rust Belt Strip Club Enthusiasts, Goldeneye in a bathroom stall, the Bryce Young of texting, the face of the Vanderbilt party scene and active snore simulation. Further content: Jerry Jones Gives Monty Life Advice (Paramount+) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Crja9fuQyXM Video Games Can’t Afford to Look This Good (Zachary Small) https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/arts/video-games-graphics-budgets.html The Agony of Texting With Men (Matthew Schnipper) https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2025/01/men-texting-men-loneliness/681076/ The Domonique Foxworth Show https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLn3nHXu50t5wnTIdJOdFIA9wxAHHq2LEl Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Since long before their weed strains and tequila brands, famous people have been selling vanity fragrances. So, with a month before Valentine's Day, we're doing a pungent public service: Pablo, Katie Nolan and perfumier-adjacent lifestyle writer Lawrence Schlossman enter the PTFO laboratory with varying levels of sensory ignorance. The winner of our 11 mystery bottles, from Jordan and Brady's colognes to Taylor Swift and Britney's perfumes — plus, yes, Will Levis' sold-out parfum de mayonnaise — may surprise you. • Subscribe to Casuals with Katie Nolan • Subscribe to Throwing Fits with Lawrence Schlossman and James Harris Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The co-hosts of "First Things First" join their arch-frenemy to debate: Should incorrect predictions be embarrassing? What's the best word in the sports discourse? And who is famous best? Plus: the second-smartest person in sports media, ranking rankings, flying cars without stereos, Sully Sullenberger, The Sam Darnoldification of Sports, and an ice-cream sandwich compliment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The culture war around a tiny population of competitors may have led to the re-election of Donald Trump, who says nationwide bans on Day One aren't complicated. But biology is complicated. And David Epstein — greatest sports science reporter in America, author of The Sports Gene, writer of the Range Widely newsletter — did the research, so that the suspicious and/or sympathetic among us don't necessarily have to. Turns out, there are solutions upon which fact-based humans can agree, in case studies from childbirth to high-jump junk, college volleyball to Olympic boxing, nature to nurture... and nipple. ** Link on The Sports Gene: https://davidepstein.com/david-epstein-the-sports-gene/ Link on Range Widely: https://davidepstein.substack.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is an infamous basketball ad that keeps going viral as much for its cringe-worthiness as the mystery of its simple message: "sportsmanship." But correspondent Zach Schwartz embarked on a two-and-a-half-year quest to meet the anonymous actor who's gotten dunked on by Twitter for more than a decade. Now, he helps us untangle a web of links from March Madness to Madison Avenue; a Supreme Court justice to a secretive billionaire; and the Dalai Lama to Damian Lillard (who agreed to go on the record). And we learn the true meaning of "perseverance" in the process. For more Zach Schwartz, you can visit his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@zach_schwartz And special thanks to Goodnight, Texas for blessing this episode with their hit song, "The Railroad": https://youtu.be/1sp33WgVWMA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Johnny McEntee went viral before virality, as a trick-shot QB at UConn. He foresaw the rise of Donald Trump, while ordering him KFC on the campaign trail. He was straight out of central casting, but suddenly "Johnny Mac" the quarterback became enforcer-in-chief for the commander-in-chief, running a presidential "Gestapo" and hand-picking cabinet secretaries. Correspondent Devin Gordon meets a Trumpworld action figure and asks: How did this in-over-his-head loyalist get so powerful? And could it happen again? This episode originally aired November 7, 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The FTX founder was a "martian" to the sports world. Why did he spend so much on arena naming rights and superstar endorsements? And how the hell did SBF become friends with TB12? Authors Michael Lewis (Going Infinite) and Zeke Faux (Number Go Up) witnessed the rise and fall of a crypto king. Now we can do the postmortem: “Moneyball, on steroids, gone wrong.” This episode originally aired November 21, 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is sex a performance-enhancing drug? Pablo and Domonique insert themselves into the debate over "post-nut clarity" with exhaustive research, from a pre-game onesome in the locker room and abstinence as a coaching philosophy, to the stamp of approval from Drake, Megan Rapinoe and actual doctors — Pablo's dad included. This episode originally aired February 29, 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pablo investigates a story including, but not limited to, a Duke basketball champion, a World War II treasure hunt, an alleged con man, Bob Marley, Dan Snyder, and an attempt to make history by purchasing the Washington Commanders. This episode originally aired September 8, 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Action Bronson raps, cooks, paints, hosts, and acts (for Martin Scorsese, at least). He also has philosophical explanations for why A) he never wears pants, B) his go-to move is the headbutt, and C) nothing is better than a VHS tape. But Action Bronson had still never heard of the Accidental Bronson tribute account. Until now. Plus: AOL screennames, robot vacuum murder, and saggy balls. This episode originally aired November 10, 2023 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pablo only understands the true meaning of making this show, not the holiday season. So the ghosts of Christmas break pay him a visit, to pay it forward with recommendations for reality shows and Christmas songs, plus an important investigation into the truth about Santa Claus. May bonus content bless you, everyone. PTFO-approved xmas playlists: Charlotte Wilder's Christmas-Song Christmas Songs Cortes's Holiday Mix This episode originally aired December 22, 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After a holiday toast from the aged-out gasbag to his favorite creatures of the internet, we end the year with the important questions: Are phones too loud? Is listening on 1.5x speed insane? Should people post more ugly pictures of themselves? Can scammers really fake it ’til they make it? And are teenagers running the New York Jets? Plus: poetry-reading, grief-eating, the murder era of content, the quantum of dishonesty and the inevitable destruction that comes with inflated ego. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you aren't familiar with the Americans who love calling into The Paul Finebaum Show, you're in for a holiday treat. Because during this bowl season — Alabama's first without Nick Saban — no radio show has been more vital in its misery. Or more of a portal into the universe of college football in the South. (As Paul himself says: "We found this audience before Donald Trump did.") We're talking poisoned trees, verified heart attacks, and the hidden backstory of one legendary caller... who trusted us to unveil his haunting past. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This year has seen a boom in the worlds of women's sports and documentary films (and podcasting). So we invited the best point guard in the history of women's basketball (Sue Bird) and the best documentarian in the country (O.J.: Made in America's Ezra Edelman) for an in-person summit to discuss all of it. Plus: one-word answers from multi-hyphenates, wanting control, the good-faith mind games of talking to refs, the bad-faith ickiness of extracting controversy, the Billie Jean King of it all... and why the hard's not as hard, when you're doing the thing you were meant to be doing — even when it's hard. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Daily Show senior correspondent, Interior Chinatown star and NBA nerd is here to make your three-level nihilist host feel a rare sense of insecurity, while comparing: humility and arrogance; the bipartisan popularity and cognitive logic of jiu jitsu; the ageless wonder of Tom Brady and Daniel Dae Kim; the love lives of Jeremy Lin and Hideki Matsui; Pablo's career and his cameo in Ronny's spiked pilot about the Brooklyn Nets' front office; and the hierarchy of Most Fun Asians. Plus: uncensored Russell Westbrook slander, unabashed Free Darko nostalgia, last-minute Dennis Leary antagonism, scarring David Lynch surrealism... and a revisiting of Ronnie's awkward encounter with (and hollow apology from) Dan Le Batard — all in the chase for instant aggregation by Buttcrack Sports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How does star treatment really work, behind clubhouse doors? (And what do you do when a player demands tickets for both his wife and his mistress?) Can you just microdose Ozempic like it’s shrooms? And what’s the worst gift you’ve ever received? Plus: Barry Bonds, “posse,” body dysmorphia, and a picture of a bicycle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices