David Dondero has been making music for 40 years, starting out as a drummer in the indie rock act Sunbrain, where he first started writing songs and singing. He played in This Bike is a Pipe Bomb while working in a little punk rock club and inspired by Simon Joyner began making music as a solo artist. His keening tenor was an inspiration to Conor Oberst, and he developed a friendship with the entire Saddle Creek crew. He's released 15 albums, traveled the country and worked in a pot farm for a while which inspired his new book, Chaos the Cat. He speaks to us from Jersey City, NJ.

We discuss the Midwestern vibe, moving, Dave's wandering nature, his early DIY punk underpinnings, sobriety and stepping back from music for a moment to better appreciate life, which now includes painting and short story writing. We discuss his book Chaos the Cat inspired by his job doing carpentry on a pot farm, and we discuss his last album, 2023's Immersion Therapy, about the culture and the "orange goblin." The opening comment refers to this song ("When the Pendulum Swings").

Dr. David Berri is a professor of economics at Southern Utah University and a past president of the North American Association of Sports Economists, He's written a half-dozen books (and authored or co-authored over 90 scholarly pieces) including most famously, The Wages of Wins: Taking Measure of the Many Myths in Modern Sport, which looked at how player contribute to wins in the different sports. He drew controversy at the time for denigrating the contribution of NBA scorers, which further analysis (or eye-tests) have essentially borne out. He's contributed his writing to numerous entities including New York Times, the Atlantic.com, Time.com, Vice Sports, Huffington Post, and Forbes.

We discuss the WNBA's historic new collective bargaining agreement, put that in context, and discuss minor league baseball, volleyball, how deeply participatory most sports are in relation to basketball and end talking about the economics of public stadium financing.