On this episode…

• Sherman and Jess talk about deadlines, and blowing right on past them.
• In the wake of Robin Williams’ death, they discuss the “overwrought,” “sentimental,” “overwritten” Dead Poets Society, which they both love anyway.
• Sherman reads the new opening to Pilot Season, an unfinished work he’s been laboring over for years.
• Jess reads from The Mermaid, which Sherman accurately pegs as a “white-trash fairy tale.”
• Joke-telling as a weakness.
• A chat with Steve Almond, author of Against Football, about his feelings on football.  (He’s against it.)  Jess predicts he will not be on The NFL Today this fall.
• The over-under on how many pieces of hate mail Almond gets before the Super Bowl.
• The epic, historical ass-kicking of Native American warrior culture and the romance of lost causes.

—Stu