Episode 250: Burning It All Down for Five Years: a Celebration, Reflection and Cry-Fest
In this episode, the whole team is together. Jessica Luther, Shireen Ahmed, Amira Rose Davis, Brenda Elsey and Lindsay Gibbs are back to celebrate Burn It All Down turning five years old and their 250th episodes! They share favorite memories, listen to letters from Flamethrowers, reflect on how sports, media coverage and critique have changed for the better and the changes that still need to happen. Have your tissues ready.
Following this discussion, you'll hear a preview of Jessica's interview with Faith E. Briggs, runner and documentarian and co-host of the Trail Ahead podcast, who wants to make the outdoors a more diverse place.
Next, they burn the worst of sports this week on the Burn Pile. Then, they celebrate those making sports better including Torchbearer of the Week, Lhakpa Sherpa, a Nepali single mom who summited Everest for the TENTH time last week, making her the undisputed most decorated woman climber to climb Everest of all-time.
They wrap up the show with What's Good in their in their lives 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.
Links
Visit the National Network of Abortion Funds website to find a local abortion fund to donate to.
Transcript
Shireen: As we celebrate five incredible years of Burn It All Down, we dedicate this episode to Shireen Abu Akleh. On May 11th, 2022, Al Jazeera's legendary journalist was killed by Israeli sniper fire while reporting on a raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin. She was wearing a flak jacket, clearly marked “PRESS.” Her work was powerful and important, particularly on a subject that the media has consistently under reported. Her death is a devastating blow to journalism, and also to press freedom. The impunity with which Palestinians are murdered and oppressed is not a secret, but the brutality and arrogance with which she was killed is horrific. Shireen Abu Akleh was a Christian Palestinian woman and also an American citizen, but we care about her life and legacy because of what she gave us. We celebrate her life and her contributions. Here are the words of MSNBC's Ayman Mohyeldin, her mentee and her friend.
Ayman Mohyeldin: She was kind. She was gracious. She was hilarious. She was compassionate. Her humanity was unmatched, and reflected in the people she covered and the stories that she told for nearly 25 years, reporting on the front lines of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And while she became a household name across the Arab speaking world, she also became a role model for millions of young children who aspired to be journalists in one of the most fraught regions of the world to be a journalist.
Shireen: May she rest in peace. Allah yerhama.
Amira: We also wanted to uplift and read the names of those who lost their lives during a racist hate crime in Buffalo, New York. Roberta Drury, Aaron Salter, Celestine Chaney, Andre Mackneil, Katherine Massey, Margus Morrison, Heyward Patterson, Geraldine Talley, Ruth Whitfield, Pearl Young. Injured were Zaire Goodman, Jennifer Warrington, and Christopher Braden. Sending so much love to the Black community in Buffalo. This was the one supermarket in a historically Black area of that city. And to all who continued to be subjected to not just a torrent of racism, but constant reminders that our lives are not valued and that they are taken with impunity, especially in mass killings on unsuspecting days where you're just trying to buy groceries. May they all rest in peace.
Jessica: Welcome to Burn It All Down, the feminist sports podcast you need. I'm Jessica Luther, and today I'm joined by the whole crew: Lindsay Gibbs, Drs. Amira Rose Davis and Brenda Elsey, and Lady Shireen Ahmed. We are all here because this is episode 250. Last week, we passed the five year anniversary of our first ever episode. It's a big moment for this podcast that could. So we have gathered to talk about the state of Burn It All Down, podcasting and sports media five years into this project. As always, we'll burn things, highlight torchbearers, let you know what's good in our world, and tell you what we are watching this week. Also this week, we've got lovely voicemails from flamethrowers that we will be playing throughout the show. First, I want to hear y'all's favorite memory or moment from Burn It All Down. Bren, you’re up first.
Brenda: This is so hard! [Jessica laughs] This is so hard. But, if I've learned anything over five years from Shireen Ahmed, it's that, you know, fuck the rules. [laughter]
Amira: Tressa is freaking out already! [laughter]
Brenda: If there's like, you know, one thing that's asked of me, I can give you 20. No, really. Let me see. We have matching pajamas. That was really exciting. And I think my favorite memory where I laughed the hardest and I still can't keep it together is Mike Huckabee's tweet advising us to use corn cobs to solve the toilet paper shortage during early COVID. [laughter] My co-hosts really helped me through that. They sent it on to me as soon as possible. I just can't even stay seated. I don't know if I'll stay seated. When I was typing this in to prep, I fell off my chair again, crying. And I listened to that episode, and I just…I don't know. And then finally, I'll never stop gloating that I knew Amira Rose Davis first, [laughter] and did the heavy recruitment to get her on this podcast. And no, I'm not going to give it up. I'm not. It’s a source of great pride for me.
Jessica: Oh, I love it. Lindsay, you’re up
Lindsay: I’m gonna cry already. [laughs] I’m gonna cry already! It's because, like, for me, we did the Nashville live show was our second live show, and ThinkProgress shut down literally the Friday before we left, and we flew out on a Saturday. We knew ThinkProgress was closing. We didn't know exactly when. So to come from a really, really uncertain moment in my career and my life, and to have this weekend with this crew doing a live show…They allowed me to be pretty MIA all weekend because we were fighting some pretty significant union battles! [laughs] So I was, you know, I missed some meetups and missed everything. Like, there was just so much happening. But to me, I'll just never forget the hope that that weekend gave me, and that y’all gave me the strength to start Power Plays that weekend. And I mean, to literally lose your job and lose everything underneath you, but then have this backup, like, whew. It made it better.
Jessica: Okay. Well, I'm crying now, so, well done. [Lindsay laughs] Man. I'm going to say that mine…It is hard. This is very hard. Five years. Mine – Amira’s going to love this though – is the escape room that Amira made us do on Long Island. Y'all can't even see how Amira’s reacting right now. [laughter] We met up for our first live show. I was convinced in my head that this was the worst idea, that we weren't going to murder each other, [laughter] that it was going to implode on us and someone would probably cry in the wrong way. And it turned out that we were so good as a team! We worked so well together. We had a blast, and we escaped, and I was like, look at us! Oh my goodness. I get so happy whenever I think about that experience with this group. I get proud, too. I was like, we really did that. So, that's what I'm going with. Amira?
Amira: Well, that is the best present in the world, because I love escape rooms and I love convincing people to do them. And you all did it and showed up, and it was the best thing. My favorite thing is from that weekend as well, our first live show in New York. And we were in this room that they had set out for us to record in, and it was quite large. And like maybe eight minutes before it was supposed to start, there was like six people in the room. [laughter] And we were like, this is going to be really awkward. Like, we're going to be talking–
Jessica: We’ll just do it, we'll get through it.
Amira: Like, have you ever been to a wedding where there's like more in the bridal party than in the audience? That's kinda what it felt like. It was really awkward. And then I don't know what happened, but like with five minutes to go, people started pouring in. Every seat was filled, there were people standing in the back. I just remember that moment when we started and we all were kind of nervous and you could kind of feel the tension, and Brenda just started by saying, “We are live from New York,” and the way they cheered…And I just remember clutching Shireen's hand and like trying to not cry, ugly cry, in front of everybody, because it was like real and happening. And then we just fell into the cadence of our show. But when we got to the burn pile, to have everybody scream “burn” with us, I was like, we've reached some pinnacle here, because you know, we record this on various days of the week in closets and rooms and whatever. And then we just kind of move on and do everything else we have to do in our very busy lives. I mean, you're not there when somebody's listening to it and you don't see people necessarily interacting with it. We get tweets, of course, we get those interactions. But it was like a room full of people who listen to us, and I will, to this day, never get over that people listen to us. [laughter]
Jessica: Same. All right, everyone, buckle up. Here comes Lady Ahmed.
Shireen: I love that for me. One of the people standing in the back room was actually Dr. Lila Abu Lughod, who for me is a rockstar, and she stayed, and she says, “You know, I don't do sports.” And I remember her standing there, leaning against the wall, because she couldn't leave. She couldn't leave because we were gripping, we were smart, and she was beheld by us. And it means the world because, like Jess about the escape room, which is truly a metaphor for who we are, I was terrified that I would…I’m anxious. I don't do escape rooms. I have no logical process thinking. So I was like, I am going to bring this team down, and it will be me, and this will be a disaster. But that's not what happened. And truly what happens is we all have strengths, and one of us, if we're struggling, the others lift us up.
And I'm going to get personal. Like, I've logged into show recordings with my life literally falling around behind me, underneath me, everything. And in a way that you all rally immediately, like a trampoline, and I bounce back. I've seen it happen with all of us. We struggle. There's been moments where we pause because we're crying during a recording and need moments. And then we cover each other's bases. That's not a specific moment, but it happens routinely with this group. And I've never had that before. The pajamas, yes. I can't tell you how much I love you agreeing to my ridiculous photo shoot poses. Of course, Michael Davis is the best and really saw my vision on the rooftop. But when you did the Ice Capades pose and the Law & Order cover that I desperately wanted, I was like, these people are my people, because you knew how much that meant to me, and there was no objection that I would be Jack McCoy. And I appreciate that you let me live that in my head.
But then when we all went to Orangetheory Fitness, like, I worked out for Amira, and I would do it again. I mean, you know, I've been on a treadmill for Brenda, my absolute least favorite thing in the entire world, but I would do those things for you, because you do those things for me constantly. And that's kind of who we are. We had a family dinner in Nashville, and I'm going to insert fried chicken into everything because it's so important. But also that if we have food, you know, intersections, you let me go with that. And because two of my favorite things are truly fried chicken and Burn It All Down. So when that happened and that family dinner happened, that's what it was. And we hadn't seen each other in a while. Like, I can't wait to see you again. And I started to cry thinking about what I'm going to see you all. It's been almost three years. Like, I miss you all so much in person, and this is fun, but like, you know, I'm just, with bated breath, I'm waiting to see everybody again, and I will have more matching pajamas. [sniffles]
Jessica: So… [laughter]
Lindsay: How is this Monday morning! How are we gonna do this! [laughter]
Jessica: We got it.
Lindsay: From here on out, fun only! No more, okay? [laughs] Worst party ever! [laughter]
Amira: Tressa, insert It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to.
Voicemail: Hi, I'm Kory. I'm from Wisconsin–
Lindsay: Oh, we’re going to listen to those live! Damn!
Amira: Because you want us to cry more. Yes.
Voicemail: I’ve been a listener since your first podcast. And I just have to say, I'm so glad I found my people. I just remember looking at Jezebel once, and there was an article that said, “UConn women's basketball team has completed the longest winning streak ever – do we have to care?” And it really felt like the answer was no. And I'm so glad to find people who care about women's sports and who care about women's issues, and think that the two can be compatible. Congratulations on a great five years. Bye.
Amira: [sniffles] Oh, now we’re just…
Jessica: Okay. So we're just going to do this. Okay. [laughter] Shit. Alright. Okay. I don't know. Maybe Brenda should be in charge of this episode. Okay. [laughter]
Lindsay: We need a little of the Brenda coldness here. Yeah. [laughter]
Brenda: You know me, ice in the veins.
Lindsay: I didn't realize Jess was such a softie, really. A little disappointed. [laughs]
Amira: Crying is her natural state. That’s a direct quote.
Jessica: All right. So, it's clear, Burn It All Down is five years old. It's truly wild to me, when I think about where I was personally in 2017 when this started, where I am now, where we all were then, where we are now. It’s such a gift to get to share this space with you all, and for this long. So, today, let's do an assessment of where we are five years into Burn It All Down. I want to start by thinking about what has changed since we started this podcast. I think for me, the overall conversations we are having about the intersection of sports and politics have shifted a lot since we started. I think the kind of critical sports media that Burn It All Down is on the leading edge of is more suffused throughout general sports media. There's almost an expectation of it at this point in sports conversations, which is very exciting. And so, for me, the change over the last five years, it feels like sports media has become more like us than we have become like sports media, and that is thrilling. And I'm so proud of the work that we do here. And I like thinking about how that has changed over the last five years. Bren, what is it for you?
Brenda: Yeah, it's similar. And to my mind, all of that activism and representation in sports media that we've seen since we started has really shifted the public opinion about some key issues, you know – greater sympathy for student athletes, more public goodwill towards activism, whether it's Liverpool kneeling or Colin Kaepernick, and clearly issues about, you know, women's voices and representation and calling games. So, I think it also has resulted in like feeling different. There's still the Barstools out there to fight every day, but I feel like there's more and more people that are closer to us not only in thinking about politics in sports, but also agreeing with us about those conversations.
Jessica: Linz, how about you?
Lindsay: Yeah, to me, it's everything Brenda said, of course, just pretty much…This has been 250 episodes of me listening to my co-hosts and saying “ditto.” [laughter] But I also like to say, like, when we started, one of our things as we looked through sports podcasting, and it was–
Jessica: Bleak.
Lindsay: All men. I know we say all men a lot, but like, you would look at the top 100 charts and it would just be…I remember once counting there may be like two women, and they were like the moderator of the podcast, in the whole top 100 on iTunes. And I'm not saying things are great now, but you see a lot more women athletes, women journalists in sports holding their own podcasts now, and a lot more podcasts on women's sports. I cannot remember who made this graphic – I think it was GOALS Sports – a graphic of like 12 podcasts about women in sports to listen to the other day, and of course we were on it. That would not have been possible five years ago! [laughs] Like, maybe there were 12 total in the whole world, you know what I mean? Like, there couldn't have been a best of list. That's a really big area of growth. I see more podcasts about women's sports and more people who are not cis men talking about sports. And I think the whole landscape for that has grown a lot.
Jessica: Yeah. Agreed. Amira?
Amira: Yeah. And it's so interesting, because it can be thankless sometimes when you're laying a blueprint or setting a foundation for things that people come along and build off of. You see that kind of influence. And there's not always credit, and that can be frustrating, but it can also be really exciting to see what is built on a foundation you help to lay about what is possible in the ecosystem of sports. And so it has been our growth, but also because of that, all of us have experienced a lot of growth and change as well. And it has been amazing to think about five years ago, and over the years, whether it's Lindsay launching Power Plays or the investigative reporting that Jessica has continued to be on the front lines of, or Shireen not just on radio waves, but you know, holding it down on TV, in the fucking institutions, like, you’re doing it. You know what I mean? And Brenda’s wrote another fucking book! Like, there's just all of these ways that we have continued to grow and be influenced by this project that we've committed to do together. And I feel like all of us have ended up so far from what we even imagined was possible five years ago, and found ways to keep returning to each other as our new chapters of ourselves, and just pour into BIAD and continue to make it even stronger. And it's been wild, honestly.
Jessica: Yeah, agreed. Shireen?
Shireen: I mean, more eyes on women's sports and discussions, but when you talk about…Like, Lindsay talked about there was so few women's sports podcasts or women doing podcasts about sport. The intersections that we talked about from the get-go. I’m still trying to convince people five, six years into my career that let's just say Muslim women in sports mattered, uniform accommodation mattered, racism and systemic racism mattered. I didn't have to do that here. I never did. I didn't have to convince Burn It All Down that the issues we all wanted to talk about, that it was important. Because it was understood that it was, and that has something that has given me tremendous courage as I go forward. Our careers have grown individually, but the collaboration, as Amira said, remained centered and really powerful. We've influenced women all over the world. I know we have. Europe, in Australia, in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, we have affected people. I have a friend, Janine Anthony in Lagos, who says that she looks to us. We're a fucking foundation. We’re like a center crater. Is that a thing? I don't know anything about plectonic tates.
Amira: Tectonic plates?
Shireen: What was…What did I say?
Amira: Not that.
Shireen: Tectonic plates.
Jessica: Tectonic, tectonic!
Lindsay: I thought you said platonic, like they’re not having any sex. [laughs]
Shireen: I was like, platonic texts! That's not a thing. But you know, how we continue to get more brilliant, and hotter, which is not a change per se, but like, we are talented and gorgeous and smart, and that doesn't change, but it just gets better.
Voicemail: Hi, Burn It All Down. This is Courtney. I'm calling from Toronto. I've been listening since the very beginning. I started a job about five years ago that requires doing a lot of driving, and Burn It All Down was the perfect companion for a lot of my long work drives. Thank you so much for everything you do, and for shining the spotlight on where it needs to be.
Voicemail: Hi, Burn It All Down team. My name is Bethlehem, and I'm calling from California. One of my memories that I'm most grateful for from the podcast was during Shireen’s conversation with Dr. Sophia Azeb about talking about Palestinian liberation in sports, and just really grateful for how the podcast uplifts solidarity with Palestinian liberation and trans liberation throughout, across various episodes. I came to Burn It All Down when I was following Aari McDonald's amazing March Madness run, and coming into sports as an adult for the first time, I'm just so grateful that Burn It All Down exists and I have been able to connect with conversations and a sports community where I know that things I care about are being held really dearly throughout your conversations and episodes. Thanks so much for everything that you do. I'm so excited to keep listening to this amazing podcast, for Lindsay's Houston Comets podcast, for all of the work that you all do through the podcast and outside the podcast. Thanks so much for everything. Burn on, and not out.
Jessica: We wouldn't be Burn It All Down without being critical of the moment too. So, flipping that last question on its head, what do you feel has stayed relatively the same over the last five years in podcasting, sports podcasting, sports media, or just the sports world in general? Lindsay.
Lindsay: I mean, the marginalization and the bigotry, it all still exists. [laughter] I mean, like, it hasn’t…Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert.
Jessica: [laughs] We didn’t fix it?
Shireen: We’re post-racial. [laughter]
Lindsay: I’m now colorblind, so that's good. But every day we see more and more…I mean, the burn pile keeps burning, right? So I just think that for me, one thing that really frustrates me is the constant framing of things like, “You said nobody cares about women's sports, but see, here's this crowd…” You know what I mean? Like, it's like we're still talking to the haters, right? And I think one thing this show has done, where we…It’s not like we don't respond to bullshit things, of course, but the conversation is never directed to them. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's never directed to them. And I so often feel like the framing of women's sports and women in sports media is still directed towards a really simplistic narrative. And that just like really, really bothers me.
I also…I’m sorry, I literally just saw this. And since I know our burn pile is full, I will just say, like, if there's any example of like how much fucking work there still needs to be done, it’s Paul Riley, the coach of the Courage, who was of course fired after it was brought out that he had been sleeping with the players and sexually abusing them. And Haley Carter, who's been on the show, tweeted yesterday, “Reminder that Emma Hayes and Denise Reddy used to coach professionally in the US and were let go for not ‘producing results’ while plenty of mediocre male coaches have hung around women's pro soccer with chance after chance for years.” PAUL RILEY REPLIED TO THAT TWEET! Jess, just wait for it. He said, “Reddy won two games lol and Emma cried at half time and begged her Chicago team to win and keep her job. Sorry different level. Don’t know what you r talking about.”
Jessica: Oh my god. Oh my god.
Lindsay: THE FUCKING AUDACITY THAT THESE MEN STILL HAVE! That remains! So, that’s the same. [laughs]
Shireen: He needs to get off Twitter. Like, he's awful. He’s fucking awful.
Jessica: Man. One thing that's the same on Burn It All Down is don't give us a chance to…Any kind of burn pile framing of anything, because we will find stuff. [laughs] Well, I mean, it fits, Linz, because like when I think about what's the same over the last five years, I think about the thing that's always top of mind for me, I guess, which is that while I feel like the volume of reporting on abuse in sport is increasing, and the reporting itself is getting so much better, I'm still struggling to see like what fundamental changes have been made around institutional prevention and response to that abuse. And I've been thinking about this a lot right now since interviewing Paula Lavigne and Tom Junod for this podcast a month ago or so about their work on sexual violence in the 1970s. And like, I asked them what's different now, and that's hard to point to. It’s much easier, when it comes to institutional responses to gendered violence in sport, to see the continuity rather than the change. And you know, that's such a bummer when I'm looking back across five years. Okay. Bren?
Brenda: Speaking to change, part of what I think is responsible for, I don't know, putting the brakes on change, is how few radical propositions are left off the table, even by putative progressives, right? Like, the New York Times is as left as we get. You're either a Democrat or a Republican, and your sports politics should fall into that as well. You know, one thing that I've loved about being here is that you've all given me space to constantly kind of rabble rouse in the way that I want. And you all do too, you know, so I'm not alone. But I find it consistent that there's this spectrum, and this is how we're supposed to like think and fall. And it's just because we haven't really…You know, that's the way that we're taught all the time. You know, these are the propositions that are acceptable, and if they're not possible, you shouldn't think them. And I think part of the change that happens is when people can come from a more radical space and say, you know, you have to rethink it altogether. You have to burn it all down!
Jessica: You have to burn it all down, yeah.
Brenda: You have to burn it all down, or else you're just going to keep bouncing between Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi, you know? But in the sports world. And we don't need to do that. We don't need to be subject to like this really limited way to think, you know? You don't like FIFA? We don't need to reform FIFA. Fuck FIFA. Go on strike. Don't pay your youth dues. I know it sounds “unrealistic,” you know, but unrealistic is the tenability of some of these stupid patriarchal, racist systems. So, I mean, I love that we five years out are the same. I don't love that the general media stays in that space. [laughs]
Jessica: Yeah. Amira?
Amira: Yeah. Yes. [Jessica laughs] In many ways, sports podcasting remains very formulaic. And we see that as a show that exists in the intersections that sometimes finding collaborations or landing spots, or even simple, basic understandings of who we are and what we are remains a battle. I can't tell you how many things we have said no to, because there's an effort to squeeze us into that box or into that formula. Whether it's about, you know, comments that are like, “I liked you guys, but you never debate each other. You never argue.” And it's like, well, actually, first of all, we do debate. We just don’t have to fight. I mean, we are some of the most competitive people, some of us, but that doesn't mean that the model of sports is actually the best way to talk and work through things and think about things. And some things, like, there's not another side that's worth platforming at all. And like, we're not going to do that.
But also just like, I know we've covered a lot of women's sports, but we just cover sports in general, right? And there was a way that like some people will approach us and say, “We want you to just talk about women's sports,” or like, “We see you as a women's sports podcast.” And it's like, yes, but also we're giving you a critical analysis that you're not getting about football, right? Those battles, like Brenda was saying and Jess was saying, like, the frameworks, right? The limits that kind of, when people are like, oh, we're changing so radically. And it's like, you've taken half a step forward. That kind of frustration remains.
Jessica: Yeah, Shireen?
Shireen: Just to say that, like, we have permanent spots on the burn pile for FIFA, and there's permanent spots whether it's college football…And we know they're permanent spots, right? Because they keep doing the same shit. I mean, we don't stop burning them and drawing attention to that, but that does get tiring and infuriating. I mean, there's a huge amount of emotional labor too, particularly when, you know, I think about Amira’s…It still stays with me, the episode, the special one that Amira did with Black women athletes after the murder of George Floyd, and what that took. The emotional labor that goes into this, in addition to the intellectual labor, is a lot. And that can get…But we keep going, right? And the way that we don't waver on the issues we stand behind, whereas other places flop and they come back and they're not necessarily consistent. And there's no question that we'll continue to advocate and support and amplify what actually needs to be amplified, but at the same time, it feels like, you know, that we are doing the same thing over and over. And that's okay because the work needs to be consistent. Advocacy and community collaborations and engagement is that grunt work, and we do it also. It's not just glamorous all the time. We're not just glamorous – I know we come off as incredibly glamorous. But like, we have to keep doing it.
One of the things that I do appreciate and I think about is that because I work consistently in media and as like opinion columnists with a national broadcaster, ego is a big part of everything I see in media, and it's stifling and it prevents people from doing work that actually needs to get done. And as Amira said, we're very competitive, but in certain things it's not ego for us. There's no question what we will fight for and what we will stand up for. In a way it feels sad that it has to be that way. And it's so poignant that we do this, because it is seldom in sports media. So I'm hoping there is a change, but I am reflecting on the ways in which we operate. And also from a technical, logistical standpoint, the idea of working with a team of people for something like this, it would be unfathomable, and in my opinion impossible, if it wasn't the people involved in this project. I will just say that. It would have imploded in certain ways. It's the characters of the people here that I am with. This is about reflection. I reflect upon how amazing everybody is. I reflect on the work, and I reflect on the sincerity, because there's so little of that in the industry.
Jessica: I do want to point out that, on the glamorous front, I have not brushed my hair today and I'm braless in a tank top that I slept in right now. So just, you know, for the record.
Lindsay: Can we talk about Shireen's hat that she had lying around her ears?
Jessica: Her silver, sequined ears.
Lindsay: Her silver, sequined Mickey Mouse ears.
Shireen: Do you guys not have sequined headgear available?
Jessica: No.
Lindsay: No.
Amira: I actually do. I just don't have it up at eight in the morning [Shireen laughs] when I barely have a bra on. I think I have pants on. That's progress.
Shireen: I do want to say, Tressa, I see that you see me, and your teal-tinted sunglasses that are heart shaped lenses.
Jessica: You know that's all for you, Shireen.
Shireen: I love it.
Amira: They’re very great. I thought it was a filter.
Lindsay: I did too! I did too.
Jessica: I know, I did too when she first came on. [laughter]
Amira: And then she moved, and it moved with her face, and I was like, oh, an interactive filter!
Jessica: We're going to end this on a hopeful note, or at least we'll do our best Burn It All Down version of a hopeful note. So let's imagine that we've made it to 10 years, and I guess 500 episodes. What do you hope we'll be talking about during our retrospective when Burn It All Down is a decade old? Bren.
Brenda: We're going to be talking about, wow, look at the kind of huge turn towards global football/soccer we made. Like, we just have covered it, just… [laughter]
Jessica: We're all experts now. [laughter]
Brenda: Yeah, we couldn't stop talking about it. Even Shireen came around about MLS. [Jessica laughs] She goes to games all the time now. Copa Libertadores we did on site. We did a live show in Brazil. Oh my gosh, that was amazing. You know, we did it in Portuguese. Who knew? [laughter]
Jessica: Okay, Bren.
Amira: Okay. Now your dreams are requiring a lot of work on our ends.
Brenda: It’s just going to be magical.
Amira: I was with you until you wanted me to learn Portuguese. [laughs]
Jessica: We’ve got five years, we got five years, Amira.
Amira: Okay. Duolingo.
Brenda: It’s gonna be magical!
Lindsay: Clear professor – Brenda's dreams becoming homework. So, yeah. [laughter]
Brenda: Totally, totally. But I do really want a beach show, you know, where we can be in like some tropical location – nothing against you, New York, Portland, you know, those were amazing, Nashville.
Amira: I mean, I'm still manifesting New Zealand for the World Cup.
Brenda: Yes! Yes.
Shireen: Oh yeah.
Brenda: Yes. And that goes right with my football dream.
Lindsay: Sponsors!
Amira: Anybody? Anybody?
Jessica: If you're listening…Linz, what are you hopeful for?
Lindsay: Yeah. I mean, I want there to be money. I want us to be getting paid more, because let's be honest, we're five years into this and our supporters are incredible and make it possible, literally, but we're not making much money at all off of this, right?
Amira: And even that is a new thing.
Lindsay: Yeah. And making any money at all is new. You know, we've poured everything back into the show. Live shows are a big source of income for us. Some people can pay us, but the pandemic took all of that away, you know? And so we're just getting back to that. And I mean, yeah, I'm saying it for selfish reasons because I'm broke and I have a lot of bills, but I'm also saying it because it's a show of how the market values our labor, right? And it's a show of growth. You know, sustaining this is one thing, but like I want us to thrive, and I also want women's sports as a whole to thrive, right? Like, I want us to start having conversations about, “That contract – is that too much money for her?” [laughter] Do you know what I mean? “Has money spoiled the game?” Do you know what I mean? Like, I want those to be the hot takes that we're having.
Jessica: Yeah, absolutely. Mine is super basic. I hope we're no longer talking about how hard it is to watch women's sports. Like, that's it. I just hope in five years that it's just so much easier than it is right now. And also, I just hope there's more bars like The Sports Bra.
Lindsay: Yes!
Jessica: We don't need necessarily to franchise it, we just need more of that idea everywhere – in Austin, Texas, please! Thank you. Shireen?
Shireen: I enjoy reveries, and I think about us, and I'm like, is Annie Leibovitz going to photograph us on our private plane, or we do something a little more down to earth, like coming off the plane when we are landing somewhere internationally. I'm manifesting that. Just kidding. I'm not really. Of course we would have our own team photographer at all times. So, thanks Annie, but you know, we have our own person, I think about the growth of our team too. Like, what does that look like? Like, is there somebody out there who's as valuable and cherished like Tressa that we don't know about. Someone who's full-time, like a documentary producer who at Netflix will be covering the biopic of us. I know who I would like to play me in the Burn It All Down biopic.
Brenda: Who, who, who?
Shireen: Well, her name is Kareena Kapoor. She’s a Bollywood actress. You know, no Priyanka Chopra up in this. I think about that. And I think about the successes to come, because us even just getting money for ad reads was considered a huge win, to talk about the money, because people don't know the thousands and thousands and thousands of hours that we put into this show without remuneration. And we did it because we love it. It was a labor of love. It is a labor of love. But again, like Lindsay said, how our labor is not valued in the same way. You know, we're women, we're racialized women, and how we're not put up to the highest standard. People should just be throwing money at us when we walk around, constantly.
Lindsay: I know, if you're listening to this, you know that Shireen is sincere when she says she thinks about like the cast for the movies, but we will get texts about this, like in the middle of the night, [laughs] like about the BIAD biopic. Everyone get you a hype woman like Shireen.
Shireen: I love us. And we know this. I love us so much.
Jessica: All right, Amira. Bring us home.
Amira: I hope over the next five years we move from burning to building. We've all talked about what it feels like to burn and burn and burn and try not to burn out, but burn the same things because they're prevalent. But also, you know, the point of burning is to build from the ashes and there's ways in which we think about that tangibly. And I hope we spend some time over the next five years thinking sincerely and doing sincerely about what comes after the burn, and how we can help build from the ashes of the things we've burned. I want more partnerships. I want foundations. I want tangible goals and radical realities. And, in short, I want it all. I want us to build a better fucking world together.
Voicemail: Happy birthday, my favorite fiery feminist athletes and sports commentators! This is Cara Snyder here, calling in from Louisville, Kentucky, and the memory I want to share…It’s hard to pick a favorite episode, but the one I keep coming back to is episode 138 when Dr. Rose Davis, Shireen and Lindsay are all talking about body issues in sport. And I think it's just a really beautiful, vulnerable and intimate episode. My favorite part starts at minute 52, and I've taught this episode in my classes, ‘Feminist, Queer, and Trans Approaches to Sport.’ And it always just kind of breaks the ice and allows people to connect intimately to this subject. So, thank you for that episode, and for existing. And may you last another 250 years. [laughs]
Jessica: On this week's interview, I talk to Faith Briggs, a documentary journalist, filmmaker, and co-host of the Trail Ahead podcast, who wants to make the outdoors a more diverse place. We discuss how she went from competing in track to outdoor endurance racing, her film series Who Is A Runner that focuses on running communities of color, and her work around the intersection of environment, conservation, race and culture. Check that out on Thursday.
Faith Briggs: If you don't know about the history of the land, and you're just saying like, oh, come on, come be a conservationist…Like, yeah, we really want you to be here, but you don't acknowledge what the trauma related to that land is? It just…We can't move the movements forward.
Jessica: Now it's time for everyone's favorite segment that we like to call the burn pile, where we pile up all the things we've hated in sports this week and we set them aflame. Lindsay Gibbs, get us going. What are you burning?
Lindsay: Let’s talk about the WNBA. The WNBA season's off to a great start. What is not off to a great start is fucking League Pass, the WNBA’s app.
Jessica: Frustrating!
Lindsay: Here's the problem, is that the WNBA app and League Pass are like combined. So if you download the WNBA app, it essentially is League Pass, but League Pass doesn't actually have rights to show all the games. Some games on Amazon Prime, some games are on ESPN. But when you pull up the WNBA app, first thing it shows you everywhere is just the games that are showing on League Pass. And it's as if the games not on League Pass don't exist! You have to look for them. Now, you can go to scores, you can go to other things, but on the home page, it'll say “Games today…” and if it's not happening on League Pass, it's not prominent. That's absolutely bonkers. The WNBA raised $75 million and said one of the big things was improving League Pass and improving the app. How? [Jessica laughs] How do you even do that? How, how?
And I also just want to…You know, we're combining two things of different degrees here, but WNBA star Brittney Griner's pretrial detention was extended by a full month. Last week, the Biden administration has said Griner is being wrongfully detained. Her team's given everyone permission to shout this from the rooftop to fight for her freedom now, to use all options available to immediately and safely bring Griner home. That comes from Lindsay Kagawa Colas, the agent of Griner. Just gonna to read you a thing from Brianna Turner, Griner's teammate on the Phoenix Mercury. She said, “On road trips, BG would always save her leftover food and give it to a homeless person. So of course, with her on my mind, I thought to do the same today. Sometimes a free meal can make a person's day. If possible, do something nice for a stranger today.” Let's all do nice things for strangers today. Let's all keep spreading the word to free Brittney Griner. And, while we're at it, let's fix League Pass.
All: Burn.
Jessica: All right. I'm doing a basic burn this week. Sort of like what Shireen was talking about. Sexism in sports media, we still have it! So, last week, the Scottish football writers association held a dinner in Glasgow and hired some dude, Bill Copeland to, I don't know, do standup or some shit for 20 minutes. His jokes were so sexist, racist, and homophobic that two full tables of guests got up and walked out of the dinner while he was talking.
Amira: [laughs] Oh shit.
Jessica: According to one journalist, Gabriella Bennett, “I walked out after about five minutes of maybe a 20 minute speech. And within those five minutes, it was rammed with sexist jokes.” The point when she left was after Copeland said an offensive racial slur. Her table was joined by the table of TV presenter Eilidh Barbour. Barbour tweeted that she had “never felt so unwelcome in the industry.” The Scottish football writers association made a regular old Bad Apology: “The Scottish football writers association apologizes to anyone offended or upset by material from one of our after dinner speakers at last night's annual awards dinner. We have agreed unanimously that this will act as a catalyst to review and improve the format of our future events to make it an enjoyable and inspirational event for all.” [Lindsay laughs] Maybe they should review and improve the format of their apologies first, and then go from there.
The people in charge of the writers association probably don't actually care that this was offensive to marginalized groups in sports media. One can easily guess that the people in charge probably identify more closely with Bill Copeland than any of the people who got up and walked out. Most likely they don't like that some people were public about this and told the rest of the media world about what went on. As Bennett said about everyone else at the dinner, “It's worth pointing out that there were lots of people laughing at these jokes. We were two tables in an enormous room, and lots of people found it really funny.” It's really a wonder, huh, why marginalized groups don't make it in sports media, even if you're able to somehow get around the out and out discrimination in hiring and retention, you have to literally deal with your colleagues laughing at your expense and thinking that's a damn good time. So I just want to burn all of this. Burn.
All: Burn.
Jessica: Brenda, what's on your burn pile?
Brenda: This week, I'm burning everyone involved with housing for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Right now, the first reports have come in. This isn't surprising. This is not unexpected. Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar. And the first hotels that are on the recommended list that, of 69, the first instances of homophobic rejections of reservations have occurred. And we were waiting for this, of course. And the first report lists 3 of the 69. I expect we'll find many, many more that have committed to denying hotel reservations to the LGBTQ community. Like, they are saying that's what we're doing. This is incredibly frustrating. It flies in the face of everything that FIFA and the organizing committee has promised to global football. But we knew this was going to happen, right? So it's just, I don't know. Nothing about knowing it in advance makes it any less infuriating. And so I want to burn the fact that the World Cup organizing committee are liars. They can't deliver on what they said they would, which is an LGBTQ friendly World Cup. They can't deliver, they won't deliver, the Qataris are not committed to that, nor are they committed to labor rights. So, I want to burn everyone involved with that World Cup 2022 right now. I'm just pissed. Burn.
All: Burn.
Jessica: Shireen, what are you burning?
Shireen: Well, on the topic of sportswashing in that particular region, this was reported very seldom, in my opinion. So, the NBA announced last week that they would actually be having games – and the department of culture and tourism of Abu Dhabi, and this is the United Arab Emirates – was going to announce that the Atlanta Hawks and the Milwaukee Bucks will play two preseason games at Etihad Arena in October. You know, everyone's like, oh, that's so cool, they're bringing sports there, you know, they're developing culture and we want to see the game grow. Do we want to see it in a place that absolutely is horrific with their labor rights and their practices? And, as Brenda just said, very similar to Qatar, being gay is illegal in that place. Like, what exactly…I mean, I'm not looking to the NBA to be bastions of human rights of anything. I'm sorry. But this makes me incredibly uncomfortable, particularly when, still, in a place women don't necessarily play sports publicly. And those who have access to, in upper echelons, and women in particular have to have a lot of money.
So it's not as if sports is accessible in a way that we want it to be globally and throughout all the socioeconomic stratus. It doesn't work like that. I know. I've been there. I absolutely understand how it operates. This just absolutely comes down to money. So on the one hand, we love the NBA. We want to see these games happen. I would really like to see global fans have an opportunity to watch, just very much like when, you know, Premier or Serie A teams come and have a tour of North America. I love that, because it gives fans an opportunity. But not like this, not without any critical analysis. The only thing that I saw was a piece at Deadspin – and I know, I'm like, ugh, because even getting news from Deadspin right now makes me uncomfortable.
But then in that way, the GOP is criticizing UAE for doing that, because they don't uphold rights of queer communities. But I'm like, the GOP? Like, this gets even nastier and dirtier when you have the people critiquing the loudest that are themselves horrific. They’re anti-trans, they’re racist. It’s awful. So it's like this whole thing is people using an issue that's fairly simple to deflect from their own criticism. It's terrible. So, I don't love that at all. And you know, there’s an article about sportswatching and how Saudi Arabia…And I heard this rumor a couple of months ago, but the rumor I've heard is that the games would also be played in Saudi Arabia. That was not announced, and I didn't see it. I do expect it to come. And then you will hear from me again on this burn pile when that happens. I want to take all of this, I want to take the disingenuous criticisms of it, I want to take the way that sport is being used to sportswash in places that don't deserve it, and I want to take it and I want to burn it all down. Burn.
Jessica: All right, Amira, what would you like to torch?
Amira: So, the Delaware State women's lacrosse team…Del State is an HBCU. They were on a bus returning from a tournament in Georgia when they were pulled over. Now, it's always harrowing to be pulled over if you're a Black person in America. And the bus driver, in his 20 year career, this was the first time he was pulled over. They were told that the bus was pulled over because it was passing in the left lane – which by the way, is not even illegal in Georgia to do. What seemed routine and kind of regularly scary escalated when, after boarding the bus, surveying the Black girls in their lacrosse uniforms heading back from a tournament, the deputy on board theorized that this group of schoolgirls might be trafficking drugs. Very soon, multiple units, including canine units, showed up, searched the property of the Del State lacrosse team, including opening and rummaging through their bags, overturning their belongings and even opening a present that one girl had wrapped in her bag. They proceeded to say that they were looking for “drug trafficking” and something about “lost children” and, for the next hour, speculated that the Del State women's lacrosse team was trafficking drugs across state boundaries and subjected them to this search on the side of the road.
The bus driver and the entire team were very impacted by this happening. I should mention, Del State is also one of the many HBCUs who've been getting bomb threats all year. The president has indicated that the school will file a civil rights complaint, has already wrote a scathing letter in defense of this team. And my heart is really with these girls who have fought for so much in terms of having a lacrosse team at an HBCU at all. We know one of the only other HBCU lacrosse teams, Howard, has been dealing very publicly with racist attacks, and here they are, coming back from the last tournament of the year for a sport they're fighting to play, and they still are subject to traveling while Black. It’s stupid. It's racist. It's appalling. It's dehumanizing. I'm really mad. The present part just really fucks me up, because wrapping presents is really hard, and that feels really basic, but it's just like the fact that all of that can be torn apart because they can be suspected of trafficking drugs is just…It defies comprehension. And racism isn't logical, but it’s certainly burnable, and I would like to burn it all down.
All: Burn.
Jessica: Before moving on, we received an email from one of our flamethrowers, Livia, after hearing last week's top of the show discussion about the end of Roe v Wade in the US, and we wanted to share it with everyone. Here's Livia.
Hi, Burn It All Down. I'm a long time listener, and on the board of the Tampa Bay Abortion Fund. I want to share some thoughts about the end of Roe. I am worried about non-binary, trans and women athletes. I am worried that if a player playing for the Dallas Wings needs an abortion after six weeks, that they will have to travel out of state and miss time playing for their team in a highly public profession. I'm worried that a player for the Orlando Pride won't find out they're pregnant until 15 weeks past their last period, when it will be too late for them to get an abortion in Florida. I'm worried about the thousands of NCAA athletes who play in states where abortion will be severely restricted. I'm worried that healthcare plans for athletes won't cover abortion. I'm worried about non-binary and trans athletes, because abortion bans disproportionately harm trans and non-binary people. I urge everyone who is listening to donate to their local abortion fund, which can be found at the National Network of Abortion Funds website.
Thank you,
Livia
Jessica: Now to highlight people carrying the torch and changing sports culture. First up, our honorable mentions. Linz?
Lindsay: Yeah. Cheers to all the athletes who competed in the World Para Athletics Grand Prix in Italy. Shouts to Luca Ekler of Hungary, who beat her own world record in the long jump T38, jumping 5.74 meters; and Italy's own Ambra Sabatini, who set the world record and the 200 meters in the T63 category with a blistering 29.87 second run.
Jessica: Shireen?
Shireen: Congratulations to Chelsea! Chelsea are the back-to-back champions of the FA Cup. Paris Saint-Germain won the Coupe de France, and Wolfsburg are the champions in the Bundesliga Frauen.
Jessica: Amira?
Amira: The 24th Deaflympics just wrapped up in Brazil. For the first time, a South American country hosted the games. Over 2300 athletes from more than 100 countries competed in 209 events across 17 sports.
Jessica: 95 year old Colleen Millman is her new age group mile world record holder after she ran a 13 minute, 46 second mile at the Oregon Track Club Masters Hayward Classic.
Brenda: Latinas are breaking ceilings in sports this week. Veronica Hernandez is the new general manager for the Seattle Mariners’ minor league team, the Modesto Nuts. She is the first Latina GM in minor league baseball. And Christina Murillo will be the head coach for the USL Chicago Dutch Lions in the FC, making her the first Latina to coach in the second division in the US.
Jessica: Amira?
Amira: We are excited for new sporting competitions! The Maritime Women's Basketball Association, an amateur women's basketball league, is starting up in Canada with six teams from across New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. And the first ever International Federation of Cerebral Palsy Football Women's World Cup started last week, and it will conclude the day this episode drops – Tuesday, May 17th. Five teams: Spain, Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, and the United States, are competing.
Jessica: Shireen?
Shireen: Mikyla Grant-Mentis, the reigning MVP of the Premier Hockey Federation, became the first $80,000 player after she signed a deal with the Buffalo Beauts. This is incredible. Not only is she the first women's hockey player to make this kind of money in professional hockey, she's a Black woman, came up from the Toronto Six. Love this.
Jessica: Can I get a drumroll, please?
[drumroll]
Bren, who is our torchbearer this week?
Brenda: Our torchbearer for this week is the most incredible – I can't even believe it, this is just mind-boggling to me – Lhakpa Sherpa, who summited Everest for the 10th time last week, making her the undisputed most decorated woman climber to climb Everest. She is a Nepali single mom, and I am just stunned and baffled by one time. 10 times! Oh my goodness. What better of a torchbearer for our fifth year anniversary? That means she's done twice as many times on Everest as we've done years. So, congratulations.
Voicemail: Hey everyone. This is Martin calling in to say congratulations on reaching 250 episodes. I think it's just a testament to you all's hard work, and just the fact that there are so many people out there that want to hear you all talk about sports. So congratulations. I feel really lucky to have been there for a few of those episodes, you know, doing some production for you guys. And I think one of my fav silly memories is just any time that food was discussed, whether that be air fryers or spoon cake, or the need from Shireen to clarify, when asked what her favorite sandwich was, to just make sure she specified that she had a favorite “sandwich experience” and also a favorite sandwich. And I just think that speaks to the care and the level of analysis that you all provide to issues, whether big or small. And so, yeah, congratulations on 250. [laughter]
Jessica: That was a sneak attack, because that was not…
Amira: That was sneaky.
Jessica: Because I did not know about that one.
Shireen: Oh, it was so good!
Lindsay: And he definitely used his mic setup, proper mic setup for that, which was just peak Martin. [laughter]
Shireen: Yeah, he did.
Amira: Gosh.
Jessica: That was fun. Okay. What's good, y’all? Linz, what's good with you?
Lindsay: I mean, I really feel like we should do like what we do at our live shows, which is like, 1, 2, 3, this, you know? [Jessica laughs] Like, right now…
Jessica: A hundred percent.
Amira: Just crying and…
Lindsay: This is good. We're a little snotty. But you know, I have to say that hearing from our listeners, like, I have a hard time feeling love and appreciation, and I think we do this in silos and we work so alone, and it's just like, you know, some days our numbers of listeners aren't going up the way we would like it, or that episode didn't turn out…I don't know. It's just like, literally hearing from people is just incredible. So that's what's good, is just soaking in the love of you guys. And also, if you have not watched the video… [laughs]
Jessica: I have, I’ve watched it like seven times.
Lindsay: The video of Jokić getting his MVP award in a Serbian horse stable hold up. He pulls up the horse, because that's what he wants to do. Like, he doesn't want to ride horses, like he wants to steer them in races. And so he has his whole stable, and he comes up and they're playing Serbian music, and some people from the Denver Nuggets are there, and they're all clapping and his family's there.
Jessica: He’s got his helmet on, because he's been racing a horse!
Lindsay: And he’s crying, and it's just…Like, sports are really cool. [laughter]
Amira: What kind of fever dream? [laughs]
Lindsay: I don't care what you think about, like, who should have gotten the award or not, like, that is a cool moment. And at one point, he was doing an interview with the Inside the NBA guys, and they were talking about long shots, and he was like, obviously I'm the biggest long shot! I grew up in a horse stable in Serbia! [laughter]
Jessica: Oh, I love that so much.
Lindsay: Oh, god. I love sports.
Jessica: I'm so glad you brought that up. I know. Yeah. Just to echo Lindsay's point, I think there's something about Burn It All Down, because we do it all the time. Like, as soon as this episode ends, we will start planning the next one and we just go and go and go and go – and we love it, obviously, I think you can hear it in our voices how much we love this. But I'm with her on like hearing from people and what this means to them. It's like, I can't articulate what that means to me. Whenever someone comes up to me and tells me how much they love the podcast, I always say, always, that there's not a better compliment. And I mean it every single time.
The thing I'll mention for my what's good is yesterday, both of the boys performed in their School of Rock performances and they were both amazing. It's really wild. My son has been playing piano now for like seven years. He's only 13, so more than half his life. And he can just fucking play the piano? [laughter] And I'm sometimes just taken aback by that. And then yesterday he did a Woodstock show for the School of Rock, and the first song was M'Lady by Sly and the Family Stone. He played the bass and he just like fucking played that thing. It was just amazing. Aaron did, I think it's a Rod Stewart song, Stay With Me, and he had like this glass thing that he put on his pinky so you could slide down the guitar. Whew. Like, I think Aaron is pretty on a normal day. [Amira laughs] So that was very good for Jessica! [laughs] I hope he never hears that. Okay. He'll be so embarrassed. Bren, what’s good with you?
Brenda: It's May, so it's youth soccer season, and that's always good for me no matter what. Since Luna, my middle daughter, will never listen to this, I can just say whatever I want. Ha ha. She'll never…She loves the show, but she'll never make it to the end. And if it's me, she'll totally skip it. [Jessica laughs] If it's you guys, she might listen. And so it was funny, like yesterday, they won, her team, and she's playing kind of on a big girl team, u-16, and–
Amira: That is big!
Brenda: It’s big. And she just turned 13, so she's nervous, you know, but she's got a couple of friends on it. And she didn't play her best game, so she was pretty upset. She was kinda like crying, but it wasn't bad at all. And she gets in the car, and I was like, I kinda like that ref, you know, I kinda thought he did a fairly good job. And she was like, no way. And then she just rattled off all of these really good persuasive arguments. And I felt, like, cool that we can have this conversation, and that sports is this place where she can go into, like, she's sad or it's social, but she can also go into this intellectual space about it. And she's like, do you know all the rules that he broke, and he should have called this, and stuff. And it was just like so fun, and I don't know, like, intellectualizing sports sometimes helps me with my emotional fandom. So, speaking of which, that's my second what's good. You know, Martin, who you just heard from, is a huge Boston Celtics fan, and they just beat the Bucks in their series– [Lindsay groans]
Amira: WOO!
Shireen: There it is.
Amira: Martin didn't text me back last night.
Brenda: Because we had to record it, Amira, so he turned off all his texts, because he could not.
Amira: [laughs] I couldn’t watch.
Brenda: So that was the only reason. And so I just want to say, making it something larger, it’s about personal growth. I'm from Detroit. I hate Boston. I hate Larry Bird. And see, like, you can teach old dogs new tricks. I rooted for the Celtics and I'm really glad that they won, for Martin, and Marcus Smart too. He's really fun.
Amira: And me. [laughter]
Brenda: And Amira, of course, for Amira. Sorry.
Jessica: Listen to this growth over the last five years!
Brenda: It’s growth!
Jessica: My word.
Shireen: That’s a lot of growth.
Lindsay: I don’t like this growth! [laughter] I don’t like that. Pettiness forever!
Brenda: But I’m rooting for the Courage for you, Linz. So you see, I do have–
Lindsay: That’s not the same! [laughter] That’s not the same.
Brenda: Okay, fair. Fair.
Jessica: Shireen, you're up.
Shireen: For me, self care is the big thing. I'm actually starting the paint by numbers project that Jessica Luther gave me for Christmas in the exchange. I finished the last one and I'm starting a new one. I'm excited. I'm going to Edmonton Sallahuddin’s nationals for volleyball, so please keep us in your prayers. It's a pretty big trip. I'm excited about that. I got him a suit for prom, which was a lot of fun because he's 6’6” and I didn't think we'd be able to get it off the rack, and we did. I mean, so that's very exciting. I love prom so much. I'm very invested in my child's prom. I may go overboard.
Jessica: Shocked.
Shireen: Shocked. My Saif-Ullah turned 22, and he celebrated his 22nd. I have a 22 year old child. Isn’t that crazy? He's a man. And he went to Ecuador with his sister. So, one of the greatest joys that I have is my children, Jihad in particular, keeps sending me food photos. And I'm so proud of them. I'm like, I have peaked as a mother when my children…And in our family chat group, their father's like, did you guys go to Ecuador to eat? And I'm like, why else would you travel? [Lindsay laughs] And like, the audacity of this person to talk, frankly! Anyways, it's fine. I'm so proud of my kids. And I'm excited for the next chapters. Like, I keep writing new chapters. But this is wonderful. So, all of this ties in. Like, Burn It All Down is an extension of my family. So, it is my family. So I'm just really excited, and seeing all the Burn It All Down babies grow. I remember when Amira came, Zachary was tiny, and Zachary, I would ask Amira on every Zoom call to get Zachary to spell his name because I was obsessed with it. You know, like, these things matter. We’ve grown together. Our families have grown together.
Amira: Literally Zachary is the same age as this production. Like, he's just a little over, but he was literally an infant when we started, and now he's finishing kindergarten and that is wild.
Jessica: Wow. All right, Amira, what's good?
Amira: I had a lovely Mother's Day in which mean Jessica ditched our children and went to an Austin FC game, and that was a lovely way to spend Mother's Day. We had hot dogs and liquor.
Jessica: I will say that in the second half, the winger on our side of the field was…Amira had to go to a very zen place, because he was not making Amira feel very good. [laughs]
Amira: Not his best game. The warm and fuzzy feeling started to dissipate by then. But yes, it was still a lovely time. And one of the most exciting things is how much I've been getting into F1 with Jessica for the last week, which will be a subject upcoming as of next week’s episode of Burn It All Down. But it has brought great joy. So I'm telling you now, be prepared. Drive to Survive on Netflix. I also just got back from a trip to Charlottesville, Virginia. Unexpectedly ran into my advisor who I haven't seen in years, and good friend from graduate school, but I was mostly doing a donor trip. But I did get to see Kelly Hardcastle Jones, who is a part of the production team on American Prodigies. And it was lovely. She took me to Roots, which if you know anything about me, my love for Roots bowls is just here, and I haven't had one in a year. And I went to Roots and cried because I was so happy to have this Roots bowl. And Kelly let me play her like all of the musical Six. And we hung out with her amazing daughter June. And she literally drove me to the Richmond airport at 3:00am because that is just how nice of a person Kelly Hardcastle fucking Jones is. And she sent me off with a bundle of Ted Lasso biscuits, which are amazing. We've had them once before. She said, you don't have to tell Luther if you don't want to share, but I did put enough in for her.
Jessica: [laughs] And she did tell me, so I will get some.
Amira: That is maturity, please. No.
Shireen: Growth, growth.
Amira: Because those biscuits tastes amazing, and what's more, they taste like love. [laughs] I’m so corny. I love it.
Jessica: Oh wow. Wow.
Lindsay: Is that now your favorite “biscuit experience”? [laughter]
Jessica: [laughs] That’s a really good one.
Lindsay: I just meant to shout out a thank you to all the people who've helped us at Burn It All Down throughout the years. Like, they’re also what's good and what I'm grateful for. So, Tressa, our producer; Shelby, social media. I know we shout them out at the end of the show, but I just…And also, we've had various people do some producing work for us and help us throughout the years. And like, we do not make it to five years without them. So, thank you all so much, because like, we still don't know how to edit, none of us. [laughs]
Jessica: No, no. That is not a skill that we have picked up.
Shireen: A lot of gratitude, like, unbelievable amounts of gratitude for this group, for Tressa, because I don't have to WhatsApp call Lindsay anymore and say, how do I insert the music into this thing?
Jessica: Oh my god. The freakout texts from Shireen…
Lindsay: One of my favorite stories might be me trying to get Shireen, and I'm talking her through it, and I'm at ThinkProgress, I'm in the middle of the office, and I get off and everyone goes, “Was that your mom?” Because I was like talking through the tech– [laughter]
Shireen: So bad! Or even the time Tressa I gave me and Brenda a lesson on tech, do you remember that? And we were congratulating ourselves and then forgot about it and never had to do it again. Anyway, all this to say, Tressa, thank you for my shenanigans too, when I message you. And I'm like, do you have musical instruments in your home in a very measured way? Tressa replies, “Yes.” Whether it’s, you know, glockenspiel or maracas, you know, I know that Tressa is…You’re just very, very loved and appreciated. Same with Shelby, Shelby's genius and social media wizardry is something. And she'll just message me – and she also transcribes for us – and we'll say, whatever the language, “Can you just clarify what this is? I think it's this, but I…” Like, just the attention to detail, because we want our listeners to have the best, which is why we have the team we have.
Jessica: So this week, we are watching the Champs League final, Barcelona vs Lyon, on Saturday at 1:00pm eastern. If you want to know more about these teams and who I am rooting for in the final, make sure you listen to episode 249 from last week. NWSL and WNBA are in their regular seasons, and the NBA and NHL playoffs are in full swing.
That's it for episode 250 of Burn It All Down. This episode was produced by the amazing and hardworking Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon does our beautiful website, episode transcripts and social media. Speaking of social media, you can find Burn It All Down on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Listen, subscribe and rate the show at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play and TuneIn, wherever you are listening to this right now. For show links and transcripts, check out our website, burnitalldownpod.com. You'll also find a link there for our merch at our Bonfire store. And as always, thank you to our patrons. Your support is the reason we have been able to do this for the last five years. If you want to become a sustaining donor to our show and get us to the ten year anniversary, visit patreon.com/burnitalldown. To all of our flamethrowers, burn on and not out.