I have not listened to the last episode of the Deadcast since we recorded it and don't really intend to, but I remember that Lauren and Drew and I talked about Andy Dalton, briefly as a football player and then grimly and at greater length as a sort of bleak ginger metaphor for every excruciating other thing then bearing down on us. I remember Lauren resigning just a couple hours later, but the rest of it is a dim gray blur. But it seems safe to say that Lauren and Drew and I laughed a lot more recording this episode of The Distraction, and also that we talked about Andy Dalton notably less. I think it was the moment when Lauren proposed replacing the Stanley Cup with the bronze casting of Wayne Gretzky's feet on display at the Hockey Hall of Fame that it truly became clear to me just how far we were from the last time we all got together on one of these. If there's anything like a "metaphor for every excruciating other thing" mentioned in this episode, it's the Cleveland Browns, and I'm honestly not really sure that even qualifies as a metaphor.
But there is more to this episode than everyone excitedly talking about feet and kind of predictably if not inaccurately discussing the Browns. Lauren rapidly leads us through the Stanley Cup/Gretzky Golden Toe Award playoffs, Drew less-rapidly subjects us to his NFL predictions, some time is given both to tragically thwarted Trump boat parades and overqualified former Giants special teams gunner Keith Elias, and the best sentence that Leonard Maltin ever wrote is given something like its due. Also I had to google the words "Wayne Gretzky Feet" in searching for art on this one, and that is certainly going on my permanent record. As it turned out, Lauren had a picture of the bronzed tootsies in question on her phone, which is assuredly going on hers. You've seen it above, so don't act like you're better than us.
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