(Now updated with video!) Legendary Mike Park from Skankin' Pickle and Asian Man Records is a huge old-school Warriors fan

Is it more fun to root for imperfect teams?

My music of choice isn’t super popular.

But honestly? That’s part of the charm. Everyone around the scene is just happy to find someone that cares about the same things, has heard of the same names, and wants to talk about it.

In a similar way, there’s a connection in sports fandom that happens when you root for an unpopular team. While the Golden State Warriors’ bandwagon has been open for a while, demand to climb aboard has waxed and waned significantly lately, and I find myself increasingly thinking of all those down seasons.

There’s a a parallel that I’m drawn to. The old school fans that rooted for Speedy Claxton or Jason Richardson, are now glued to their screens rooting hard for James Wiseman to develop, or for Gary Payton II to get a full contract.

So please, enjoy this conversation that I had with Mike Park. One of the deepest founts of Warriors lore you’ll ever meet, and one hell of a musician.

This was truly an honor for me, and I hope you’ll appreciate this discussion.

[Author Note: this was originally recorded as a vidcast a while ago, but due to a number of technical issues, the video was thought lost. Eric Apricot has helped me salvage it, so I hope you’ll enjoy this as much as I did. This conversation occurred just after the bubble, but most of the discussion is still extremely relevant. Video at the end.]

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Duby: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to an extremely special edition of our vidcast tonight. We have someone that I, as a product of the East Bay punk scene and Warriors fan, and I'm very excited to talk to. I've been a fan of his for years, and I just about fell over when I saw him talking about the NBA on Twitter. Storming out of the Bay Area music scene in the early 1990s with his high octane punk-ska band Skankin' Pickle. Mike Park is a Bay Area legend, musician and political activist after touring extensively with Skankin' Pickle for a decade or so, he founded Asian Man Records, one of the most respected and trusted labels in the business. It's introduced us to bands like Less Than Jake, Tsunami Bomb and Alkaline Trio.

Currently aside from managing his record label and watching basketball. Mike hosts a couple of vidcasts. I'm In Love With a Girl Named Spike, which focuses on the show DeGrassi High, as well as his newest endeavor called "Music, It's Powerful Stuff" where he brings musicians into the studio to play music and talk about it.

Finally, you should check out his current musical projects, Bruce Lee Band, Ogikubo Station, and the Kitty Cat Fan Club. Mike, thanks for coming on. 

Mike Park: Thanks for having me. I love basketball. So I'm ready. 

Duby:  I do have to apologize. My co-host Daniel Hardee will not be able to appear tonight because he hates Ska music. 

Mike Park: We gotta get rid of the dead weight. Time for you to go solo. 

Duby: Mike, you watched the bubble, any initial reactions that you'd like to share?

Mike Park: I thought it was great because I was really missing basketball so much. So the bubble was better than I anticipated. I didn't miss the crowd. I love the fake crowd noise. I was glued in, I thought it was great. 

Duby: How'd you come about being a Warriors fan? Like when did you get into it and who's your favorite player?

Mike Park: I grew up, I'm quite older than you. I'm guessing I was a fan from the mid seventies. So I remember the first championship, Rick Barry and Clifford Ray and then I saw the dead years where they were the worst team after that championship. Franklin Mieuli was their owner and he just wouldn't spend on the team.

So we had this lull and that was my favorite era. The early eighties, Robert Parish was their starting center and they traded him to Boston and their first round pick, for the rights to the number one overall pick, which is Joe Barry Carroll. And that was my favorite era. Joe Barry Carroll at center.

Larry Smith, who was my favorite player ever, was the starting power forward. He and Carroll were both rookies together. They both made first team, all NBA, all rookie NBA team. Purvis Short was their shooting forward or small forward? I think Lorenzo Romar was also was a fifth round pick that year, and was the point guard.

I think he was a head coach at University of Washington for a long time. And I don't know who their shooting guard was. I'm trying to think. That's my favorite era and then Mullin. Mullin came in after. The first year, they implemented a lottery where they would have had Patrick Ewing. They ended up getting the last pick which was Mullin, which wasn't too bad of course.

And my Warriors knowledge is crazy. I can go back a long time and name… 

Duby: We did an all time Warriors draft earlier this off season with some of the people on the website. And I think I had Purvis Short on my team and he didn't get nearly the respect that I thought he deserved in the fan voting.

Mike Park: Such a pretty rainbow jumper. 

Duby: Man. Yeah, I really was a big fan of Ewing too, man, all through the years. He was who I modeled my game after. 

Mike Park: Did you say that model was Patrick Ewing? Okay. How tall are you?. 

Duby: I'm about six two, you know, back in high school days, I probably weighed 150 pounds, 160 pounds.

I was tall, but I couldn't really bang down low. And Patrick Ewing sorta had that outside stretch game around the free-throw line before really big men did. 

Mike Park: I always wondered what would have happened if he had gone to the Warriors. What kind of turnaround they would've had. But it wasn't meant to be, which is fine.

Duby: They got Mullin that year though. Yeah. 

Mike Park: They could have had Karl Malone. Karl Malone went later. 

Duby: Oh really? Yeah. You can do that every year though, right? They've been doing that with some of these draft picks lately where Evans didn't exactly stick around or whatever. But the people who are still on the board, you can play that game every year.

I remember when they picked Klay Thompson, I was really mad because Kawhi was still on the board. 

Mike Park: Oh, wow. Yeah. I didn't know anything about Kawhi to be honest in that draft. I didn't know about them. I didn’t follow San Diego State. 

Duby: You watch college basketball at all? 

Mike Park: I do, but it's mostly tournament time.  PAC 12 stuff. I would watch just because I would go to some games just because it's local. A friend of mine is a BA is a UCLA alum. So we would go to UCLA, Cal, UCLA Stanford. 

Duby: That's right. And did you live in Berkeley for a while?

Mike Park: I'm not a Cal guy. I would probably say I'm more of a Stanford guy, but I did live illegally in the student co-op at UC Berkeley. A while and like 1995. Fake student body card too. And I played pickup basketball against Bozeman. Was Bozeman the coach, Jason Kidd era? 

Duby: I just watch the internet boards and try and figure out who the best people are. You got a guy in this draft? 

Mike Park: I guess they're saying this draft is not the best drafts, which is unfortunate. There's no like dominant, obvious dominant player, like Tim Duncan or Patrick Ewing.

I don't know. I kinda I would kinda like to get LaMelo Ball just because. He's such a polarizing figure that has such an upside, that he could be like a superstar. It's I don't know. I, they keep talking about the guy from Memphis as a big, but do they really need a big. They have Kevon Looney? They have Marquess Chris. 

Duby: Patrick Murray from Forbes was talking about drafting Obi Toppin a more dynamic scoring forward combo guy. You're not worried about the size? 

Mike Park: Yeah. I'm not worried about size. I think they just need to get whoever the best player is. And that should always be the the goal is just pick whoever's the best player, because I think every time when you draft for a position need, you're going to get screwed. Like the Trailblazers got screwed by not drafting Jordan and getting Sam Bowie.

Duby: Or Oden even. So he had a lot of red flags and people took him cause he was the bigger guy. 

Mike Park: I know, but he was like, that's just seemed like such a safe bet. Like he was Patrick Ewing, Tim Duncan, David Robinson. Like he was a no brainer, but no one knew he was going to be so injury prone.

Duby: I wonder if there's some of that to be worried about with this James Wiseman guy. He's not injury prone obviously, but he's only played less than 70 minutes against meaningful competition.  

Mike Park: I know. Think of football and Frank Gore, he had he tore his ACL at Miami and then he's always, he's 38 or something. He's still playing as the starting, running back. 

Duby: Yeah. Yeah. When the Niners dropped him I thought it was over for him. Keeps going. 

Mike Park: That's what I thought too. And that was like, he was like, that was like 10 years ago.

Duby: I know it hasn't been 10 years.

Mike Park: I think it's at least six years. If I'm trying to think where he went after the nine years, you go to the Bills. No, I can't even remember. Anyway, I think he went to the Colts. He went to the Colts after the Niners. 

Duby: Yeah, and still was good. Yeah. I thought he was all done. 

Mike Park: Yeah. I think he had even last year, I think he's still runs for 700 yards.

Duby: For people who don't know are watching this, who don't know who Mike Park is or who the band was. So you left this band Skankin' Pickle which when I was in high school was like the Bay Area band, Green Day took off and got big, but Skankin’ Pickle was really the show that we were going to go to for five bucks. So when you left the band Skankin' Pickle, in 1996, the band was still really viable and touring heavily and Tsunami Bomb did a similar where they walked away before it was all the way over.

Jerry Rice retirement strategy. Do you have any thoughts about the idea of leaving a band when it feels over, to Kevin Durant's departure? 

Mike Park: No, I think it's very different for me. It was just like, I just didn't want to tour anymore. Kevin Durant's….Kevin… what am I trying to say about Kevin Durant? I'm just going off topic. I don't like Kevin Durant. I never liked him. I didn't like when he came to the Warriors, I thought it was unfair. And I, it was hard for me to root for the Warriors when Durant came, because I love when they won their first championship, it was all homegrown talent.

So it was, Klay, Steph, Harrison Barnes, Bogut even. But with Bogut. I felt like we traded Monta for him which was homegrown talent. It was still part of our product and Draymond. So we had for the starting five were all drafted by the team. And then when Durant came in, I was just like, I wasn't feeling it.

I felt it was unfair. And I know people say so much other team is going to snatch him up, but. I liked being the underdog. I'm excited for this next year. Cause I don't wanna be this powerhouse. I don't want them to get Giannis Antetokounmpo. I like when they pick up like a David West or Zaza Pachulia. I want them to find some hardened vet will play for the minimum and play out of their mind.

And sorry, I went way off topic with your original question.

Duby: Oh, that's exactly what we want to talk about, man. It's cause like Steph Curry is going to be back, Klay Thompson looks real healthy, run around, up there and dunking. And now they've got something to prove. I think Draymond especially has heard a whole lot of chatter and takes it real personal.

I'm excited and I actually do like Kevin Durant. I was happy when he came here because I don't mind turning the cheat sliders all the way up for a couple of games, let's rack up a few trophies. Start a dynasty, but man there when he first came to the team, just like you said was, so we used to be on this older sort of chat message board called Golden State of Mind.

It was a Vox Media, SB Nation sort of thing. And like a lot of the OGs, a lot of the old timers took off when we got Durant. And especially after we won that first championship, because it's just, it's lost the fun of being an underdog for them. So it's valid. 

And even their first championship. I even felt bad for Cleveland because they lost Kyrie and Love. And he was just like, Matthew Dellavadova is starting a point guard playing his heart out. He was playing so hard. He was throwing up after the game. I felt bad. That was a bad team and somehow they were up 2-1. I was like, this is insane.

And that also solidified to me that LeBron James is really good. He really is. He's a monster, especially, he has that gear in the playoffs. He has that playoff gear where he sort of lulls everybody during the regular season oh, he's lost this step. He doesn't really play defense anymore.

And then the playoff comes around and just, nobody can stop that guy. And he does so much.

Mike Park: And at the second year, when they lost, after going up 3-1 that hurt and I blame Draymond for that, for getting ejected, for letting us down. If he didn't get suspended, they would've won.

I think that turned, everything was like, man, you don't let, how could you let your emotions get that out of control, where you're going to get suspended and that lost the championship round. 

Duby: I think maybe he might've learned something from that about counting his technicals because the actual play that finally was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Did they even call a regular foul during the game? They came in after the game was over, Jordan's talking in the post game and then the commissioner comes in and says, it's not even a technical foul. We're going to call that a flagrant foul. Like a very special category that they assigned to it after the fact. Maybe I'm just bitter, Mike, I don't know. 

Mike Park: I was bitter too. And that was happening during the Asian Man 20 Year Anniversary. So I was watching, we were having these shows at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco and the game was on at the bar and I was watching it and trying to watch the band at the same time. I can't believe that.

Duby: It was tough and it was all the way down to the end. That crazy Kyrie shot. The block on Iguodala, like it was so— 

Mike Park: He should have dunked it! It was such a soft layup. Come on, throw that down. 

Duby: You know LeBron's, right, chasing him. 

Mike Park: He's got such good hops. Why did he not just throw it down? You would've got fouled at the very least.

Maybe he would have torn his ACL, but at least he would've gotten two free throws. 

Duby: Something. Yeah. Or jump back into the guy, get wiped out. Shoot some free throws. 

Mike Park: Reverse dunk. Come on. Throw a 360 on him, Iguodala, big man. I do love Iguodala though. I love, I miss him. 

Duby: He did great in Miami this year. 

Mike Park: He did. He was, what was that? That one game against Milwaukee while he was just draining threes. He had six threes. It was like, oh, come on.

Duby: What about his departure? You cool with him chasing the money and getting the extra deal and not setting yourself up. 

Mike Park: I thought that was the Warriors' decision. Not his. 

Duby: The Warriors started it for sure. They traded him on an expiring deal to the Memphis team that ended up actually, I think making the playoffs or being really close to make as well, but he never played for them for one reason or another. He got traded to Miami and it was Miami who actually signed him in at the same time. Extended him a fat additional year on top of his already end of career years. Okay. 

Mike Park: Yeah. I didn't know why they traded him to Memphis. Do you know why? I can't. I can't recall. 

Duby: This is something that we've been talking about in the writers Slack is that they have in the NBA this thing called a repeater tax. Where if you go over, they have a soft cap where if you push through it, they start charging you tax for how much higher above the salaries you are, until you hit the hard ceiling. So they have this thing called the repeater tax, where if you're up in a certain tier of it for three out of four years, I believe then it just gets super punitive where every single dollar costs you like $5 or something like that.

So next year, the Warriors have this traded player exception where they can bring in like $17 million worth of salary without sending salary back. So they escaped the repeater tax last year. Because once Kevin Durant left, they dumped everything (including Iguodala) and then because they brought in the D'Angelo Russell guy, it crashed them into that hard ceiling.

But then they wanted more that max contract player slot because of how the rules are for trading people, once you're over the salary cap, because they then moved that guy for Andrew Wiggins. Who's a more useful wing player for the Warriors. And also got a couple of really nice draft picks out of the deal.

Mike Park: I liked the D'Angelo Russell trades for Andrew Wiggins. I'm excited about this trade. The Wiggins trade is great. I love his size and lengthy. He seems like the perfect fit of that Warriors rotation of the constant switching. A little bit better Harrison Barnes type player. Maybe a little more athletic. 

Yeah. Yeah. Now I'm thinking about Barnes missing so many threes in game seven of that second championship run.

Duby: Yeah, this is a better shooter. He's certainly a better scorer. The question is if he could play defense against the fours. 

Mike Park: Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I know Draymond had said Barnes was a great defender.  

On the music scene

Duby: I just wanted to chat with you as a fan of basketball and music, because for me though, like everything I did got shut off because COVID lockdown. Basketball stops. Live music stops. How are you holding up? How are you keeping busy? How's the lack of nightlife treating you? 

Mike Park: Oh, it's not bad, actually. I don't mind. It's been busy. Work is busy.  I think that a lot of people are spending money on buying music because they can't get to shows. So we're busy there. Going to shows I don't miss it a whole bunch because it's tiring. I'm probably averaging two shows every week the last 25 years and a lot of that was out of obligation because it is my job.

Go see friends, play bands that are coming on. Coming from out of town that are on tour, it would be rude if I didn't go, especially if they're on my label. So it's been a nice little break and all the shows are in San Francisco. So I'd have to drive two hours round trip. 

Duby: Yeah. I went to one show in San Jose, which I think is down by you. But yeah, everything's up here. Yep, it’s far though. 

Mike Park: So yeah I don't, it's not too bad. I'll be honest. 

Duby: The next question I have for you is. It's about, your record label has been around for 30 years. 

Mike Park: 25. Next May. 

Duby: Happy birthday. 

Mike Park: Thank you. 

Duby: With the sort of download music era, and I know that you say everyone's buying more music.

I know I am. I just wanted to talk about the new funding model and how you transitioned to it. With the download era of music this website model is based like modern music, where if you want it, you can just go online and get it for free. If you want a song and listen to it on YouTube or whatever. But there's this sort of voluntary subscription model.

I just want to hear your thoughts about the record label and general media consumption moving along from the day where you started, where you'd buy the CD you'd buy the newspaper and that's what you consume. Whereas now you can get it for free if you want it, but there's this more interactive individual feed system.

Mike Park: Yeah, it's obviously it's different from, it was even 10 years ago. Everything evolves in progress. So musically with streaming platforms, Spotify being the number one way people stream music. I know there's a lot of negativity towards streaming in terms of what the artist is getting returned, but I kinda like it.

A lot of times people are buying the vinyl as a collector item, or they really enjoyed listening to the analog sound, which is great. So we get that sale, but they're also on a streaming platforms listening. So I feel like it's, we're getting this free revenue from people streaming. Yeah. I'm probably the minority when I'm saying that, but I really like it. And as a consumer. I think streaming is amazing. The fact that you have any song you want at your disposal at any time, what an amazing thing. And it's also, it's good for the environment to cut down on all the waste of plastic and especially the OG CDs, where they would just make this two foot long box.

It just made no sense. So I'm all for it. And I don't see it as a negative. 

Duby: Yeah, I welcomed the FBI into my home. We have Alexa speakers that I really love just like think of a song or be singing a song and shout it out. Hey robot, play me this music that I want to listen to. And I just immediately is there and I don’t have to open anything up to find it.

Mike Park: Love it. 

Duby: That's good. I'm glad, it's a very similar sort of vibe where I like how easy it is to consume. And if you want to support people, you certainly can. 

Mike Park: Yeah. So now, yeah, that, it's just live music comes back, that's where artists have always made most of their money anyways. So the musicians should be fine. 

Duby: I think we'll get there. Okay, so now I want to talk to you about a different entirely. So for everybody who's watching, doesn't know Mike Park. You've done something called Ska Against Racism, which was a, this really big deal, big tour all designed to organized the ska music community, especially to bring awareness and raise money for causes that helped support racism. Recently released another compilation album also called Ska Against Racism. I want to read you something that someone wrote that I read about the sort of expectation about punk being progressive with the idea that there's a tie in between.

The overall organizational broad brush push of places like the NBA or the punk scene, and then just the individual artists and athletes that are indirectly directly affecting things by their own personal choices to push beyond just the scene if you will.

So this is from a Substack thing called nothing old. And she's talking specifically about how the punk scene shouldn't be assumed to be progressive. 

We see over and over again, the political art does not have inherent value when it comes to change. Artists can have influence pushing people to register, to vote, for example, or influencing fans to donate money, to causes important to them. But that's not a function of the art itself. It's a function of the way the artist chooses to conduct themselves as influential individuals, politically charged art and entertainment can be massive and still have little real effect. Satire and political community commentary. I've had massive media presences since the Bush administration. And what do we have to show for it? Alex Baldwin's Trump impersonation. 

So that's the quote. And now I want you to just talk about your feeling about, because you're very vocal and have been for years on this, even naming your band and coming up with racially charged songs. Talk about how the individual pushes the scene?

Mike Park: I don't know. I don't know if the individual pushes the scene, whereas in my case, I was just talking from my own experiences as an Asian American and dealing with bouts of racism. And so it was just my story being told through music. If we like. If we are sharing the parallel of the NBA which is a predominantly black league in terms of players, they are  sending their message through their story.

Growing up as young black men, a lot of them from a poor area and how that has affected them and how it's important for them to push that the Black Lives Matter movement through their sport. Me personally, I love it. And then a lot of people don't love it because they don't want politics to be pushed in their face and they don't want to, they want to be on their merry way and have an escape.

They watch sports. I understand that, but it's not real, it's not reality. Human beings have ideas and thoughts, and if they want it, especially if you're a person that has some kind of influence and you want some, and you have something to say, you're going to say it. Unless you're like with Jordan. The reason I don't like Jordan is because he pushed politics with his brand.

He wanted to, the famous quote is, "Republicans buy shoes also." And that's why I didn't like Jordan. And that's why I like LeBron, even though I don't like LeBron, I've rooted against LeBron so much, but I  like him because of his progressive ideas. Same with Abdul-Jabbar. I love Abdul-Jabbar because of his political ideas.

His articulation of growing up as a black man in the 50, 60 seventies, eighties to present day 2020. I still I'm excited to hear what he says. It's each person's prerogative of what they want to get out of art. Or what they want to get out of themselves, what they want to portray towards other people. I try to push politics, but in a respectful way.  I understand I'm preaching to the choir in many ways, but I try to do it in a way that's respectful to people have a differing idea of the way things should be run. But sometimes I'll go off, and just lose my mind. But for the most part, I feel like  I have a graceful way of pushing my ideas.

Duby: Yeah. It seems like you use humor a lot of times to fray the sharp edge. 

Mike Park: I try.

Duby: You did name your band “The Chinkees” so there's definitely a sharp edge there. 

Mike Park: Yeah. But that was overtly political. Like we did that to emulate what NWA was doing.

Duby: Right. 

Mike Park: And yeah. But yeah I know we made shirts in the early years and I think about that and like a white kid wearing a Chinkees shirt in the south. Poor guy or girl. 

Duby: I'm a big fan, but I don't know. 

Mike Park: Yeah. I stopped making them over 20 years ago because I realized it's not the smartest for kids to be wearing, especially if they're not Asian.

Duby: Yeah. I catch myself seeing the "Don't Sit Next To Me Because I'm Asian" song sometimes. Which, you know…

Some quick questions

Okay. Mike, I really want to respect your time. So we're going to transition to some key questions series that we do the end of every episode. Your first thought is the right thought.

Don't overthink it. Yeah. Will Jeremy Lin come back to the Warriors? 

Mike Park: Not a chance. 

Duby: He's still playing in China. 

Mike Park: Yeah, but in China he's going to be, and he'll remain there. He's done in the NBA.

Duby: I don't want to tell him you said that. Circle pit or free form?

Mike Park: Free form. And is that what you said, or circle pit? Free form skankin'  boy, 

Duby: Damn it! I'm a big circle guy. I know you're one of those musicians. You probably just stand at the back and drink beer, right? 

Mike Park: When I was young, I was into moshing and circle pitting, but yeah, I'm just I'm in the back now where it's safe.

Duby: All right, take a random guess, Mike, When's the next time to go to a show in person? 

Mike Park:  I don't think there's going to be anything next year. I think next year is going to be a wash. I think it's going to get worse. It's going to get worse. I think in the next three months, November, December, January.

We'll see, I could see the numbers are going to be skyrocketing. And there's just going to be mass hysteria with people getting the flu and just confused. They have COVID-19 and the hospitals are going to be just at full capacity and it's going to be ugly Armageddon, but we got the Warriors.

Yeah.

Are they still talking Martin Luther King Day? They're hoping the start of the season. 

Duby: That's the stretch goal. We'll see. We'll see. Late, late January, early February is the target. 

Mike Park: They make a couple bubbles, . It could be four bubbles. And just have the teams play with each conference. Is that what they're talking about? 

Duby: I don't know. Everything, they really need fans to make their finances work. The gate revenue is like 40% of their money and it's a big number, which just doesn't. They need that, but maybe some regional bubbles to start the season and then see what you can do after the halftime mark or something like that.

Mike Park: Yeah, or let a thousand fans do it and just have them pay crazy money.  I just want basketball. 

Duby: That's how they're starting to do shows in England, right? Yeah. 20% capacity and the tickets are hundreds of dollars. 

Just a couple more. Yeah. Okay. Are you ready? Have you ever ollie'd a skateboard? 

Mike Park: Oh, of course. Ollie over skateboard. Yes. 

Duby: Yeah. Yes. Nice. Okay. What's the best thing you could draw? Like for me, I draw robots.

Mike Park: I'm good at drawing noses. I was drawing a nose earlier when we were talking. I'm constantly drawing noses.

I think I can do we're pretty good eye too. Eye, a singular eye, eyelashes, pupil, Iris, everything, 

Duby: Did you draw the Chinkee’s album cover? That’s a cool looking eye.

Mike Park:  I did not. 

Duby: All right. Still cool, but would have been cooler if you did. Are you ready? Two more. And then you can go. Could you beat Jeff Rosenstock in a foot race? 

Mike Park: Not anymore. My knee is shot, but I could have five years ago. No problem. I, my knees are gone, so many years. 

Duby: Same. Yeah. I just retired a couple of years ago. Okay. My wife is Korean. I love food. I can eat as many Mandu as you put on me, but those New Year's Day, the white soup, I can't stand it. Mike, give me your best to worst Korean food dishes. 

Mike Park: You don't like the New Year's Day Duk Guk ? 

Duby: No, and I know it's so special and I try it every single year to see if something has changed inside of me. And it's just the texture of it just kills me. 

Mike Park: It's just cakes though.

Duby:  I can't do it, man. It’s all viscous and weird to me.

Mike Park: It's so good. Korean everything is good. I don't know if there's anything I dislike. I am. It's my favorite cuisine. I eat it almost every day office is at my mom's house. So I don't know if, obviously my favorites are beefs. The kalbi and bulgogi, but I don't the least favorite, I guess some random banchan side dish, maybe an acorn, a gelatin type thing that has no flavor. The potato salad. I don't understand why Koreans make potato salad. They make this American potato salad. I never understood why. 

Duby: Yeah, that's weird. Maybe it's the filler at the buffets. I got chastised for getting the rice at the buffet and the cousins were like, no.

Mike Park:  You're filling your stomach with non-productive items. 

Duby: (laughs) Exactly. Yeah. I got chastised. 

Mike Park: Well deserved. Deserved. 

Duby: Thank you very much for coming on. I hope you had a good time. Sharing your basketball views. And hopefully you won't get eviscerated on the internet too bad for your Kevin Durant hate. 

Mike Park: No, they know. Real Warriors fans know. They'll know the sad years, Byron Houston. Victor Alexander. Winston Garland. I liked the outline. I liked Byron. I liked them all. That's the problem. I liked all the bad teams, every bad player. 

Duby: Speedy Claxton. 

I unironically loved this squad so much

Mike Park: Oh, I love Speedy Claxton. And I liked when they had Speedy Claxton, who. Even when they had Mookie Blaylock, I loved Mookie Blaylock. Vonteego Cummings. The list goes on and on.

And I loved it. The Kevin Durant Warriors was and I wasn't down with it, but I still rooted for them. Cause they're my team, but  I wanted to ride and die with Harrison Barnes. Like the Lakers team look at their starting five. It was like Dwight Howard, LeBron James, Anthony Davis  was  Kuzma starting five? So Kuzma is the only guy drafted by the Lakers. And I was just like this is a bought team. They bought their team. Bought their championship. So it comes down to who has the most money. 

Duby: Right. You're going to get a challenge next year, man. The Warriors are going to be back. 

Mike Park: They're going to be great. They're going to be great, Eric Paschall. Get ready. 

Duby: Nice. Good. Look out. All right. All right. Yeah, Mark Jackson to the Houston Rockets?

Mike Park: Yeah. Are they is that a realistic something thing that could happen or they…

Duby: no, I just, I'm a big detractor of Mark Jackson as a coach. He burned a lot of bridges and the team is so much better, his first year gone. I don't know that I would want him to be my coach again. But I kind of want him to get another shot just to see how he does with another young team. But it was time for him to go, for sure.

Mike Park: He did some good though. Got them to play really well. Gosh, when was Curry's... was it 2009? Okay. 2009 is Curry's first year. God, even Coby Karl was on the Warriors. 

Duby: Oh, that guy.

Mike Park: George Karl's son Coby Karl. 

Duby: Rob Kurz was out there maybe next year. 

Mike Park: God, I don't remember this. These G-Leaguers, was Azubuike a G-Leaguer that they pulled up?

Duby: I’ll always remember Kurz, because it was pronounced exactly the same as when my ex brother in law from Texas would offer me a Coors beer. 

Azubuike was a main guy for us for a long time. 

Mike Park: Yeah. Was he drafted or did they, was he a G-Leaguer though? 

Duby: I feel like we drafted him?

[Editor’s note: Mike is correct here. He knows more about this than Duby.]

Mike Park: Oh really? I remember he had huge guns, arms. 

Duby: Yeah. He's online now. He does like the TV broadcast and he's pretty… Yeah. 

Mike Park: Yeah. Oh God. Mikki Moore too. was a big. 

Duby: He was okay.

Mike Park: Chris Hunter is the guy I'm thinking of, he was a G-Leaguer. . 

Duby: Yeah, he was okay. He flamed out pretty quick.

Mike Park: Chris Hunter. I loved it. All the D-Leaguers. My favorite.  Okay. I better run here. I haven't even had dinner yet. The only thing I would have traded for music world was to be involved in basketball. Like I would take a job in basketball, over music. That's how much I like basketball. 

Duby: We need you, you can't do that.

Mike Park: But especially back in the day, like in my thirties, if someone said you can be an assistant coach for San Jose State, I would have loved to. Or a 12th man. If I could have been a 12th man and never had to play like if I could have been Brian Scalabrini and just come in garbage time. Oh, what a job.

Duby: I'll give you some options because we do some pretty detailed stuff and some not-so-detailed, but really fun stuff. We'll get you. We'll get you some options though. 

Mike Park: Heck yeah. I'd love to, but yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. 

Duby: It was so, such a pleasure, man! I'm a big fan. Thanks again.

Mike Park: Have a good one. We'll talk soon. 

• 0:00. Introduction

• 1:41. 1970s Golden State Warriors. Rick Barry, Larry Smith, Joe Barry Carroll.

• 4:15. Draft regrets

• 8:22. Retirement from Skankin' Pickle

• 9:15. Immediate detour to complaint about Kevin Durant GSW and the 2016 Finals

• 14:07. Iguodala trade to MEM / Wiggins trade to GSW (Mike was right!)

• 17:13. Musicians during COVID

• 18:38. His take on downloading and streaming music

• 21:20. Music and politics

• 26:42. Quick questions. Jeremy Lin, Circle Pits, Return from COVID, Skateboarding...

• 30:01. Best and worst Korean food

• 31:36. The Warriors Sad Years