Tennis Courterly and DIY Sports

Scott Korb and Tyler Pell from Tennis Courterly talk about Tennis City USA, creating community through DIY sports, independent publications, and the upcoming Mt. Tabor Open.

I played in the Mt. Tabor Open last year and it was a ton of fun, that's why I reached out to see if these guys wanted to come on the podcast and try to find more interested potential players.

Follow @tenniscourterly on instagram for more details!

Transcript

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And it's also brought to you by Clubhouse Fantasy Sports, which is my fantasy football app that I'm working on, and it's gonna come out and it's fun, and it's meant to be for people that don't actually watch football or play football. So if you're interested in that, uh please sign up. I need to get people to sign up so we can test this thing out. Uh and it would make me really happy. And you guys want to make me happy, I think. I actually don't know. The internet is a strange place. Anyway, uh I have with me guests. Uh I have Scott Korb and Tyler Pell from Portland Tennis Quarterly, uh, who I I guess the way I describe it is like it is you guys are trying to DIY your way into a tennis culture in Portland that either already exists or that you're building on top of, or you guys are trying to build it out. All I know is that I played in your tournament last year, and it was one of the most fun things I did last summer. So I'm really excited to get to talk to y'all. Uh say what's up, introduce yourselves, uh, maybe explain Portland Tennis Quarterly and your mission a little bit better than I can. Yeah, Tyler, I'll I'll I'll let you explain the mission. Shh. Okay. Um I think the I think we're just on a sort of discovery mission all the time of what the tennis quarterly is. It's it's started a few years ago um as a sort of like uh kind of an open source sort of journal to like understand how to play tennis in Portland and where to play and like who to play with and just how to like navigate all the different like weird like esoteric kind of aspects of of like adult recreational tennis. Um and just as like yeah, I I tend to do it was it was fun to turn that into something like a publication, and so it started kind of as like a tabloid sheet um that I'd print and we'd distribute around town, and I was really good at like building a very like core level of like participant, reader, or person who wanted to get involved. That's how Scott got involved. He like he saw one of the issues um at a park in North Portland. Um, and then once we had about a year or two like under our belts of of getting that um kind of building out that like small group of people who wanted to be more involved, um then just like we had too much space, too much content for a newsletter. And so we just started doing things at a bigger scale, and that you know that led us to sort of magazine style format, um, which which started about this time last year, like the pickleball issue was our first like magazine, and then now we're about to put out um the theme of their next issue is called the big issue, so it's all things related to size. Um so like the quarterly is you know it started as yeah, essentially a DIY kind of like experiment in in in print kind of publications, um, and it still is that, but it's it's it is morphing into something um a little bit more, I guess, like uh established than like a a tabloid sheet printed at the library. Um so there's just a lot more people involved. Yeah. Um yeah, that's that's the quarterly. Yeah. Um there's all these weird kind of facets about it too that Scott could like maybe speak to, also, like the book club. Yeah, I think our time. I I think the thing that got me, and Tyler said it right, you know, I was just out kind of looking as someone who played tennis um as a younger person and then sort of abandoned it for a bunch of years and then was coming back, somewhat new to Portland at that point, um, you know, moving here in 2020. Like kind of looking for a way to connect, as Tyler's talking about, like with other adults who have a common interest. It's like easy when you're a kid to go do something with other kids that's that reflects a common interest and shared values. And it's harder when you're an adult. And it seemed like the quarterly sort of came up and it had this wonderful aesthetic, it had that DII DIY quality to it, and it seemed to be made by people who cared about um about a community, who cared about how things look when they're printed on paper, um, who cared about words when they're put in order, you know, to make sentences and tell stories. And that was for me the the sort of coming together of a whole bunch of different things that are central to my life. You know, I think sports have always been a really big part of my life, tennis in particular. Um, when I moved to Portland, I was a baseball coach for Little League, and so that gave me a kind of community to form around, but then like my son opted out of baseball, and I needed some some way to like find my way back into the sporting community and the quarterly because it focuses on writing and focuses on, like I say, community and coming together. And it's I think it's a serious publication that doesn't take itself seriously, which I think is really important. I mean, the the issues that it seems concerned about are like real issues for our city and real issues for adults and the adults in our in our culture. Um and at the same time, like it wants to have fun, fun with all of that and kind of make fun to a certain extent too. Um in fact, you know, make making fun of you know even of ourselves as we do it. Um so I'm also a writer, so it it it it gave me a way to think about how I could write about this thing that I love to do the tennis in the ways that I love to play it. And so I I've kind of you know played with that idea and have written a little bit for the magazine. And then two, because it's a publication, um it it's it sort of looked like a thing that we could build upon, you know. And so Tyler mentioned just in passing, you know, the the well, and you did too, Kyle, the tournament we ran last year, which built on the tournament we had done the year before, which was a really proto tournament at Chapman Elementary School. Um but when we break the. I think I played in that one as well, actually. Yeah, yeah. With a total random person, like the guy uh my buddy Benson just set me up with a random person. We had a ton of fun. I was terrible, absolute trash, serving underhand, but super fun. But that's I mean, that's sort of the nature of it. It's an all-comers uh group, you know. And I'll just say one other thing about you know, the the way that coming together around a publication and setting up a tournament, it seemed like we could do something too with the other writing and the other publications that are around and about tennis. And so when we built that first tournament, we sent every one of the players a list of a bunch of essays that they wanted to read or stories that they wanted to read that they could sort of see what else was being out there written about tennis, and um and then that led eventually to the book club, which yeah, maybe we can talk about a little later. Nice, yeah. As somebody that has been compared visually to David Foster Wallace a lot when he talks on the internet, uh including again my favorite internet comment anyone ever gave me was they called me David Foster no bitches, uh, which I kind of want to be like my internet personality. Uh, but he you know, my only my first introduction really to tennis was through David Foster Wallace's writing. Like I was never a tennis guy, always a sports guy, but more of a uh team sport, basketball, football, soccer type of thing. Uh but I have like started to get into tennis a little bit more for a lot of the stuff that you guys are talking about. Like, one, I just am super drawn to any sort of DIY community building thing. I'm always just fascinated by like these subcultures I don't really know. And tennis has its own language, it has its own uh type of person. The reasons people play it is kind of varied, but like it creates its own little subculture. And then to literally get uh the newsletter, I remember I still have one of the old newsletters. I I I haven't seen the new uh copy of the the printed magazine yet. I'm excited for that. But like it makes it feel a lot more official from an outsider's perspective. I looked at it, I'm like, oh, these guys have tournaments and they know each other, and you can see the uh the real the way people relate when they show up to the court and they're starting to say hi, almost like they're regulars at a bar, but like for a healthy activity. That is really, really hard to get, uh, like you guys are talking about in adult life in America in 2026. And I just find that these little DIY communities have this amazing ability to create friends out of passion. And I feel like you guys have done a really good job of that. I don't know, uh Tyler, do you see similar? I I honestly might just be ranting on this, but this is how I look at it. So you see similarities? Oh, 100%. Well, um, yeah, to to like echo what both of you said. I mean, I grew up I grew up playing tennis a little bit, but I was more a team sport person. I liked playing basketball a lot more than I like playing tennis. I like just the the built-in kind of community with that. And and I still probably would prefer to play basketball, to be honest, but basketball just is so hard to play when you're older and you you um you need a group of people to play with and you need to coordinate like all of these, all of these like logistics, unless you wanted to show up at the park and play with a bunch of younger guys who are there playing pickup. That's to me, I was doing that, but I was like getting injured all the time. So the tennis, like it's funny because like it's this paradox where you kind of have to like be this an atom in the overall scene, like it's very like an atomized sport. You're not on a team, you're just there by yourself, and it's very isolating um and it's very like lonely sport to play sometimes, but embedded in that is like just how easy it is to play. I don't need to find nine people to play a basketball game, I just can find one person to play against or to show up at the park and play against these other people, and like that just allows tennis to work into your schedule so much easier. And it makes it like playing the game like logistically like a breeze compared to team sports that most people have sort of aged out of anyway. So it's it is this funny sort of like that paradox where like the sport that is so lonely and so isolating and so challenging for like especially kids to play, I went through that because it's you don't have anyone there to like lift you up or give you high five, really. It's it's such a brutal sport in that way. But as an adult, there is something kind of special about that individual um point of view you have to have as a tennis player. Um, where if you're like willing to be out there by yourself playing tennis, there's a lot of people out there who will do it with you. And that that's where that community kind of is like feels so baked into the sport, um, especially as an adult. And yeah, I think I think like a lot of people who are playing tennis are doing it for like, I don't know, to play in leagues or to win trophies. And I think that the quarterly and plenty of other people around the city and around the country are playing more for fun and and more for like more for that community and more just to you know um show up and be there part of their like neighborhood or or city. Um and yeah, I I I couldn't recommend tennis more for as for people who are like interested in sports but are feel daunted by the logistical challenges and the physical challenges of like other other team sports. Yeah, I love uh that idea that it's like you guys are trying to set something up to for the people that want to play to play. If you just play to win, one person wins, right? You know, like that's the only one that's ever gonna really have fun. Uh, I am you know post uh when I tore my Achilles, I'm trying to find a relationship to sports where I'm not the most competitive person that ever lived. I can just go out and like have fun. And that's what I liked about tennis is that I have no experience playing it. I'm bad at it. Uh, and so I get to be a beginner again. I get to like have these small little goals that I get to set. Scott, uh, are you a lifelong tennis player yourself? I know you said you coached baseball, uh are you just like getting into it now? No, I played a lot as a kid. Um, and you know, pretty seriously in that way, Kyle, you were just talking about. Like, I wanted to win, I played hard, I you know, had a temper on the court, I if I, you know, lost and um really competitive among among you know I played a little bit of USTA tennis growing up as a like 10, 11, 12, 13-year-old just before high school, and then played competitively in high school. But like I was never the best, you know, I was never the number one player on my team, um, though I always sort of strove for that. And I was a tennis camper growing up and I coached a tennis camp for a little bit. So I have it sort of deep in there. But then when I went off to college, I just kind of like I brought a racket along, but I just never played. And then I lived in New York for 20 years, and I played, you know, two or three times a year, you know, without any kind of focus or with any without any kind of desire, you know, to win or get better, or even play that much, really. And then, you know, I my son was born, and I had him out on on the you know the basketball courts in New York near where we lived, and just sort of hitting back and forth, you know, against a wall or you know, across a court without a net. And I sort of started to feel that like desire to get back to it. But again, in New York, it felt really difficult to find my way into any kind of tennis life. And then in Portland, I just, you know, it came back, and it came back in part because of the quarterly. But there was one day I remember early in my time here in Portland, I was up at up in Washington Square Park or Washington Park near where I live. I walked by the Rose Garden tennis courts, and there were just two people on the court playing, and they seemed about at my level. And I just I walked by them at first, and then I turned to my wife and I was like, Kate, like, should I should I talk to them? You know, the idea that I could somehow approach people and like introduce myself again, as you were saying, Kyla, before, like around this shared passion. And it wasn't even a passion yet. Then so I introduced myself and got them got a time to play with with the guy who was playing. And then we went over the next time we were gonna play, we went over to Irving Park, and that's where there was this group of players who I've now come to understand as the core of the tennis quarterly people, at least as I've come, you know, as I sort of entered into it. And I felt really intimidated because they seemed both like really, really good at tennis, like way better than me at tennis, and everyone was hitting really hard. And it there wasn't a in that first moment a very obvious way for me to introduce myself to that group, but that was you know four or five years ago. And then the quarterly came out and I saw that it was sort of attached in some way to this group of players which I really hadn't really gotten to know, and that gave me this way in to sort of really get to be part of this thing, which you know, Kyle, you were talking before about these subcultures that exist that that like enliven our, you know, and make our lives richer. I just didn't know that these that this tennis life could exist. I just didn't know that around the country there could be or were groups of people who got together in the way that this group of growing people do, without a necessarily a desire to win all the time, without a desire even to be on the court all the time. I mean, one of the things that's great about playing in a larger group is you might be out there for two or three hours and you might only have, you know, 45 minutes or an hour on the court because what you're doing is you're rotating in and out, and you're just like you're out there existing together as this like group of folks who just want to be together really and and play. I mean, there's something about the the desire to play and to become a better player that I find is really like exciting and interesting, but without that constant desire always to be the winner and always to win. Yeah, you know, I I'm I'm I'm in love with that notion. Um, and that may have something to do with my age and my ability, but um I I hope it has something to do with my humility and my um and my uh equanimity, you know. Yeah, I mean uh you know I I on that last point there, just like transitioning from somebody that was literally trying to win every game that I ever played into a guy that can just kind of have fun, but still like try to get in better at something like there and that whole idea of just like sitting at the court for two hours. You were gonna sit around and kill that time anyway. Now you're outside, you're making new friends, and then every once in a while you're testing yourself on a new skill or just getting a little exercise in. It's this huge, huge improvement on so many different aspects of your life, and it's so small. Uh I have talked a lot on this podcast about the Pacific Northwest having a relationship to this sort of DIY culture that I don't know if it exists in every part of America, right? I think a lot of Portland really loves thrift clos thrift store clothes, house shows, uh, and this idea that I'm like, well, we're just gonna get together and we'll do like LARPing in the park on Saturday. It's not hurting anybody, we'll organize it ourselves. If nobody's doing it, I'll just make it happen myself. That mixed with Portland's relationship to having a park and every block of the city. There's like a gigantic, very nice park with a lot of tennis courts. Do you guys find uh you know that had it it has been easy to kind of rally people around the DIY cultural thing? Like trying to turn it from just a group of people uh into oh yeah, I'll put it this way. You're trying to turn a group of people playing together at a park into Tennis City USA, as you guys have uh coined the term. Uh have you found that to be easier in Portland? Or do you think there's anything unique about Portland's people and parks or anything like that? Or you think it's just like this could happen anywhere? Uh we just got lucky. Yeah, I think a good question. I think that um I think that like I before I was like in my 20s, I worked at this like uh nonprofit bike shop. And so I was like super into like the DIY scene in Portland. Like I couldn't have been, I feel like I couldn't have been more in it. Like it was a it was like too much DIY. Like there was like all these like splintering offs of like smaller groups and like more like more um things that are just like in more opposition to like whatever small little dominant group there was. It was just like it was like a pall of mirrors of DIY culture. And um, and I would and I was honestly not burned out by it, but I wasn't completely like charmed by it. Um after a while, it was like, let's just let's maybe let's um do some, we'll outsource some work. We don't need to do everything ourselves. But I think when I found tennis, the tennis culture here, um there was there isn't necessarily a lot of DIY culture around tennis in Portland. Um I think there was like a lot of like latent potential. Like there's people who like live in Portland who understand that there's a DIY scene and they probably are interacting with DIY scenes in other parts of their lives. But I thought the tennis scene here was like, at least from a more organizational administrative point of view, um, there wasn't that much happening. It was like a lot of people sort of like wanting to be organized in a in a way that reflected where they lived and um who they were living with. But a lot of like the tennis organizing still comes from like pretty large national organizations and we're like looking up to them to like organize us and we're paying them money so we can pay in play in tournaments that really like aren't very fun or are no reflection whatsoever of like our our local lives and our local community, and so yeah, I think I think that tennis is just such a challenging sport to play as an adult. Um, and people just don't have the time or energy to do things that aren't playing tennis. Like all their tennis was like, if we have time for tennis, we're gonna be playing it because that's what it is, that's what tennis is to them. But I think because of the weather and because of like the off season, it just gave like me and Scott and all these other people involved at the quarterly a chance to like step back and and say, like, we could organize this stuff, we have the time and the energy, and people will probably enjoy it or or pick up what we're you know, kind of putting down. Um but yeah, I think a lot of that was not that we built it, but we definitely tapped into like um a want or like a desire for people to have a way to engage with tennis in a in a more like local, authentic kind of way. No, you guys found a way to give form to something that already existed. There's this sort of like desire to make tennis, you know, what you wanted it to be. You guys just found a little bit of time and energy to give it that push. I also love you talking about like part of DIY culture is burnout from it. Because it is like it's just part of the nature of it. It burns out, and then that leaves space for more people to come into like you left whatever DIY scene you were in, somebody took over for you. It has this like churn factor, which has its goods and bads. The good I think is is part of it, is it's like it encourages you to just start doing stuff because it's like there's always gonna be space because people just keep burning out of stuff and like somebody's gotta move into it. Uh but Scott, do you find uh you know similar ideas there? Like, do you guys feel like you're doing a good job of giving form to something that's already there, or you you feel like you're more steering things in a direction you wanted to go? Yeah, I don't think I had any vision on this at all. I mean, I you know, I mean so much, so much of what we do has emerged because I mean Tyler had had some ideas around the quarterly, and that sort of shaped the a lot of the aesthetic. Pointed at something that was amorphous, you know, that there was this community of readers at the start who are also players. And then, you know, this idea that we could also build these tournaments too, um, and and host them. I mean, I had no idea that with that with that first one we were gonna get 70 people to come out and play tennis or for, you know. I mean I really terrible courts at behind Chapman Elementary School, which you know are my local courts and I love them. But they're all cracked up and you know who knew. But I do want to make a formal complaint on the cracked courts real quick. Uh I did lose a point because somebody hit it on the crack and it took a weird bounce. And that wasn't my fault. It was the court. It had nothing to do with me being bad. Uh but no, I I I kind of love that though. I love the charm. I love jank. So like the the jank of that was was that actually drew me in. So no, and it was so important too for us to lay the ground rules and just say, look, these are the courts we're playing again. They're like hard court, they're grass court, you got a deal. And those points are gonna count against you, you know, you know, it's gonna even itself out. Um but that but you know, just to say, like, is this possible in other places? Probably I you know, it it wasn't a thing that I had in other places I've lived before, at least in terms of sports. But I think one of the things that we try to do is to take advantage of the fact that we are here in the city and try to highlight the ways in which the city uh is beautiful and the ways in which the city is hospitable to people, you know, and inhospitable too. I mean, we might talk a little bit about the H2 Open, which was like an inhospitable tennis tournament we threw last October, which got rained out, except it didn't get rained out, right? We played the whole tournament, people found places and opportunities to play. Um but like the Chapman Cup, the H2 Open, which we did at Irving Park and the Mount Tabor Open, each of those tournaments definitely could not have taken place in another city because they were so deeply committed to where they were and the view from that place and you know what we were hoping to do around those, um, around those parks. So and I'll just say a thing about DIY. Like I had more of a DIY house show life when I was in college and and in Madison, Wisconsin. Um, and it felt very real to me and and a real like a real, it gave me a kind of purpose. I wasn't in bands, but I went and saw every band, and um, it felt just like really, really enlivening. And then my early years in New York, when I was there, we I published a small magazine for a little while with some friends, and there was this really great like literary community that I that sort of grew up and felt really DIY. We were all making magazines that were like echoes of what David Eggers was doing with with McSweeney's. And then there was a part of my life in New York where I didn't feel like I and I didn't even probably think of it this way, where I was going to shows, but they weren't house shows, and I was really reading a lot, but they weren't like self-published magazines anymore. So there's a a degree to which like my life in tennis here and participating in in the quarterly as a writer, as an editor, as a tournament director, as a friend and player, and it feels like I'm tapping into something that that was a really important part of my life long ago. Um, in ways that, yeah, you know, there's a kind of embarrassment around it to say too. But like, you know, I'll be I'll be 50 this year, and I'm like, I'm I sometimes I get to behave like I'm 25, you know, which I I love. You know, there's something really it's really awesome to be heard in that way. My favorite thing with the whole DIY thing is like uh you I don't know, you have abilities, right? Everybody has stuff that they can do, they have stuff that they want to do. And if you wait, I kind of similar to you guys are talking about the established tennis organizations out there. If you just wait for them to throw a tournament for you, you might not be able to use all your abilities that you actually want to do. Uh, you don't get to write for the tennis tournament unless you go through, you know, system X, Y, or Z or whatever. But it's like people people like to do things they're good at. They like to do if you wrote in high school or college and you haven't written in a long time, go try it just for yourself. If you start doing the things, eventually you'll find a place to do them with other people and something a little bit more legitimate. But it's just like it feels good to be good at something, it feels good to be invested in something that's not just like sitting on your screen. Of course, I say as an internet content creator, so please don't stop looking at the screen. I need you people now. But but I Tyler, have you found like yeah, go ahead. Well, I'll just say, I'll just say on that point, like there's not a there's not another publication out there that's gonna allow Tyler to write about like the value of a tennis court in the wake of a giant earthquake, you know, which is like Tyler's piece in the next in the next quarterly, the big issue. And Tyler, I I was talking with you about that the other day, and you what was the phrase you used around like around that piece? It's it do you remember exactly what you said? It's uh it's sort of like it was the pinnacle of of quarterly publication. Oh, it's quintessential, it was just quintessential quarterly. It was like an incredibly stupid idea taken really seriously. Yeah, yeah. And that's what to me, that's what the quarterly is. I think I I want to say speak to that point you guys have both just made, and that's like, and the earlier point Kyle, you made in that how how useful a publication is and in forming community. And I think that like I would really recommend it doesn't matter what people are doing, they could be taking pictures or or or into hopscotch or like whatever the niche kind of interest is, like a really good way to find community and build it is to just start a publication around it and like find people who who want to be involved, who want to read it, and then who want to participate in it and who want to distribute it and advertise in it. Like, and it doesn't have to be like successful, like you could print 20 of them and just distribute them at a coffee shop, but that's like a publication is maybe like a um just as cool like cheat code of like starting and forming um community and and and building relationships. It's a really like safe space to be creative and silly and and and serious, whatever you want it to be. But I'm a big uh encourager of starting a publication. I uh I tell this story all the time. Uh it's like one of my motivated. This is like one of those things that helps me get stuff done. Is just uh Chris Rock, the comedian, was talking about when he was uh broke trying to be a stand-up comedian, he had a really bad car and would break down on the side of the road. And he said when he would stand outside of the car and wave his arms at people, nobody would stop. When he put the car in neutral and tried to push it down the highway, like down on the divider on the side of the highway, within 30 seconds somebody would stop and be like, What are you doing? Do you need help with that thing? There's something to seeing you try to do something that really motivates people. People want to help with stuff, they don't want to feel uh not to say that there's sort of like an obligation, but if you say like, oh, I want to be a writer, they want to see you writing, and then they'll be like, Well, how can I help you? Maybe they take pictures, we can put the photos with the the writing, whatever, we'll make something work. Versus like saying, Well, I want to be a writer, it's like, well, what are you doing? It's like, well, I'm waiting for somebody to ask. And it's like, oh, okay, good luck, man. Uh, I I kind of find that with this podcast too. I want to just be on other people's podcasts, but I just started doing this thing, and it's so much easier to get people that I want to talk to that are doing really interesting things. Like, I I have you when you talk about the Mount Tabor open, I like kind of got lost in my own thoughts for a little bit because that was the only time I was on Mount Tabor last summer, and all I could remember was not even playing in the tournament. It was sitting on the hill watching my buddy Benson play in the tournament, and then just staring out into the beauty of Portland, Oregon. You just the nature vista from Mount Tabor is just gorgeous, and it says those moments where you like you kind of take a deep breath and go, Okay, I live here. I'm a I'm here right now. This is nice. It's nice to be here, it's nice to be outside. Um, if you guys want to explain, like you mentioned three different tournaments, just give like a little rundown on on all the different uh tournaments, like things that you guys organized, just in case somebody's interested right now and they want to know, like, oh, I want to do like the H2 Open. What is that? Um the H2Open is a bad example, it's a bad example. It wasn't it wasn't we, I mean the H2 Open was kind of picking up where we started with the Chapman Cup. The Chapman Cup was like our first sort of, as Scott said, our proto tournament. Um, and having a fall tournament, like an end of summer tournament, like there's something very appealing about that to us. Um, and after after Chapman, I thought we thought Chapman was like pretty successful and we could build on it. And and um we flew like a little too close to the sun with the weather, and we just got some battle. Um so the tournament didn't go off like exactly how we wanted that one to, but um it was successful in a lot of ways. We we were able to crown a winner in all our categories. Um I just want to say one other thing about your last point before. Yeah, yeah, but no. Um yeah, like to that you made a great point about the Chris Rock story, and I I think of the quarterly as like a stone soup kind of allegory, where like the children's book, where it's like the first few issues of the quarterly didn't have like any any names in it, any bylines, because there was an attempt to make it look like much bigger than it was, and there to be like one or two names in it. And so when Scott found it, he was he was one of the first people to like contribute some ingredients, you know, into that stone soup. And then you know, from there it was like easier and easier, and more and more people wanted to participate. But like people think that making magazines is writing, and um, it's so much more than that, and like people who will say their knee-jerk thing when asked them to contribute something to the quarterly, it's like, oh, I don't write, and it's like you could try writing and you might like it or you might get better at it, but also like there's it's it's like photography, illustrating, uh, distribution. Like, there's there's almost there isn't anybody who couldn't help out the quarterly. There's not anyone who could help out a publication with whatever skill set they're bringing to the table. Um I mean things like uh things like formatting, formatting and fonts, like those are things that I don't think about, but I've talked to people that are really into fonts. I'm sure they'd be able to help you out with stuff like that. Like anything you can do to help helps with these things. Yeah, yeah. The writing is like kind of secondary. I mean, it's important to people who are writing, it's important to me and Scott, but the quarterly could be have written in in Cyrillic or whatever language, and it would still probably be like pretty pretty popular or like relatively popular. Like people like that it exists and people like flipping through it, but it's it's not necessarily the writing that like is the secret to its modest success. It really is just like all the eclectic kind of collective voices together um producing something, is is what it is. And I think people really would be silly to like discount their potential contributions because they don't know how to write. It's like writing is like five percent of what a magazine or publication is. Um anyway, I just wanted I want to plug that. I want people who are afraid to contribute um to say. And I mean, also part of a magazine is is reading it. We need people to read it. Yeah, everyone can make these things. Like, just if you have any interest in this whatsoever, uh come find a way to pick up a where can people actually like get a copy of uh an old uh you know, magazine, whatever it's called, publication, an old version of the publication. Usually like player uh Racket Lab, this tennis shop on 27th and Sandy. They have a new location in in Beaverton. So like the tennis community is sort of covered there, and then um we try to get some at chess club, the the magazine shop in Old Town, they're moving to different different location in downtown. Um, so like those two stores, there's a few other stores in in Portland that will stock it. Then there's a few stores like in LA and New York that'll stock it, and then we sell a ton online too. So online is an easy place to buy it from from the our website. But you can definitely find them at like tennis or publication kind of like retail places in Portland and some other cities. Um but yeah, it's online isn't safe bet if you really want to get one get one in your hands. And also, uh, you guys were telling me, uh Scott, they have uh you guys have a like a release thing on the 6th of June, right? What is that called? Yeah, so the the next issue, the big issue, which has Tyler's piece about earthquakes, um, and then this whole other and then your friend Benson, our friend Benson has a piece in that issue. There's some amazing photography in that issue. There's uh a look at Prince Rackets, the history of Prince Rackets and investigation in that issue. Um there's a really, really wonderful personal essays which I was editing throughout. Um, and it's it's a beautiful publication too. The illustration on the front is just a beautiful, gorgeous piece of work, beautiful painting. And then the back cover of the issue is an ad for the Mount Tabor Open, which maybe we'll talk about in a minute. But that release party is coming up uh June 6th at Mother Foucault's in um in Portland on Grand Street, um, which is another place where I found um I copies of the order uh we did one called The Hopper, which was an issue that was focused on tennis and tennis adjacent books, um, which had these little short write-ups, which it looked a little bit like one of those, a lot like one of those amazing from our childhood scholastic uh book order forms that you used to get. We had the little write-ups of the books. That was the model. Um and then and then the hopper launched our book club, and we've been meeting once a month um as a community of readers reading books that are somewhat about tennis and sometimes not at all about tennis, which was the most recent one. But um, you know, what it it's just giving us is so the magazine then that issue in particular launched this other way for us to get together, right? Which was just to sit around and talk about books, which is another way, another opportunity for adults to get together in a in a way that sort of is somebody has to organize it, somebody has to put it together, you have to have a reason, but then you know you get together and get to know each other through those books. Um Kyle, you you asked about the the Mount Tabor open, and I'll just say just a couple words about it. Um so if you go to the website, you can sort of find out all the all the more information and you can even register if you're a player and want to play. Um but it is a it's a from the 2nd to the 5th of July at Mount Tabor and the two, the East and the West courts were getting together. There's three um brackets there's an A bracket, the B bracket, the C bracket. So we're as I said before, it's an all-comers tournament. You know, if you've played 10 minutes in your life and you have a partner you want to play with, register and play in the C bracket. If you're a 4.5 player and you have another 4.5 player you want to play with, play in the A bracket. If you're like me, somewhere in the three range, you know, you want to play in the B bracket. Um, but it's uh it's this tournament where it's yeah, it's community-based, all comers, um, genderless. So, you know, we play across, you know, however you want to make up a team. Um and it really, I mean, I I Kyle, I'm remembering the tournament from last year much the way you are. Like I played some matches, but mostly I admired and watched and you know, and saw some just some really, really beautiful, amazing tennis, too. I mean, it was really I mean that's the other thing that has like really surprised me about like coming into this tennis scene in this moment is there's like just such great play um on display, you know, and sometimes that's in our singles imitational, um, but sometimes it's these like magical C bracket points where like wow, the underhand serve just was an ace, that's pretty easy. I that I mean that's one of the things that I love about amateur sports is that like uh the narrative of a good game isn't actually just like how good people are, obviously getting the best in the world to play each other in a game where it's like down to the wire, you know, a seven-game series in basketball or something like that. That's super fun, everyone can kind of understand that. But watching watching two people struggle mightily to play the game of tennis, but at be at exactly the same level. Uh, I like to tell people, uh, last year I played with my partner uh Kyle Gordon, so it's Kyle and Kyle in the C bracket, and we we did set a record in the tournament, uh, most losses in a single elimination tournament, because one of the teams that beat us could not play the next day. So we ended up going one and two. But in all three of those games, it like came down to the wire. Uh there were some of the most intense. I got really nervous playing these games, even though like if you'd watched, we were the worst, we're in the C bracket, we're the worst people you would have seen. But like we actually had fans watching us play these C level games because it's like, oh, what's the score? Oh my god, they're in like they're in Deuce again. Jesus, what's happening over here? Uh and I loved that. I mean, I like that you guys mix the C bracket guys in with the B bracket, in with the A bracket. It's all just tennis. I got to play people at my level because one of the things that is difficult about a sport like tennis is that uh the better guy is gonna win, right? Like it's uh it's one of those sports where if you're better, you tend to win. So finding people at your level to play with is a relief. It's like, oh cool, I like I get to do all of tennis. I don't just have to like when I've played against Benson, it's like I'm just trying to return his serve. And if I do that, I feel like I've won a point, and he's getting nothing out of it because it's pretty easy to beat me. But like I'd rather play a game where both sides feel like I gotta do everything in my capabilities, my limited capabilities, to try to figure out a way to score on this guy. Uh but yeah, I I love that you guys do a good job of like making this open to anybody that wants to play. It really is an open. Uh, do you feel that, Tyler? You feel like that's an important part of Tennessee USA uh for growth. Yeah, you I mean you touched on two like really, really like close to my heart kind of points just then. Well, like one to your point about your losing record in a single elimination tournament. Hey man, I got a record. I'm taking it. I'm taking it, dude. One and two in a single elimination racket, it's hard to do. I just remember, Scott, maybe you remember like the people, the guys who beat Kyle and Kyle, it was this these two partners that we we um they didn't know each other, but we paired them together. It was one guy, I think his name was Lehman, right? It was like this older guy, maybe in his 70s, his name was Lehman, and he had this younger partner who looked like you know, he looked younger, looked like he's uh played in a band or something. Um and they but we partnered them together and they were great. They you know they beat you guys, but then Okay, all right, it's that kind of podcast. Lehman Lehman had a conflict on Sunday, so we had to default them and we advanced, we had you guys advanced instead. But Lehman and and that guy just they signed up, Scott. I don't know if you saw that, but I think they're playing again together this year, which is like yeah, it's like so cool to me that they that those guys who were just randomly assigned partners, um, and they were like one of my favorite, like the age gap partners, the May-December tennis partners is like so so fun to see. Like, um yeah, like for a viewing perspective. Um it's incredibly humbling, by the way, to just absolutely get taken to the cleaners. It was very fun playing against uh the the older guy. He clearly like very well knew tennis. He knew how to play tennis, he knew how to work things, and it felt like the first game or two, he like figured out where my weaknesses were and then just kept exploiting them over and over again, which for the most part was to hit really high lofted balls and just like get me to see if I could hit it as hard as I can, which worked tremendously well. I took the bait every single time and just sailed those balls, but uh yeah. Lehman Lehman was a real player. You could tell, like he I mean, he was playing with like a racket from the early 80s. Oh, yeah, it was sweet. But but he could really play. Uh I will say it was very humbling. I do uh I do think that uh one of the things I'm most proud of with me and uh Kyle Gordon, the Kyle and Kyle team, is that I think we talked the most out of any team while the game was going on. We basically just kind of chatted. We were desire to make friends and have a good time with people, and like every game ended as though we had just spent an evening at a party with these people. We grew if I see them again, it'll be like, oh hey, remember? It was very like social. I I liked that part of it a lot. But uh yeah. The other thing you said to Kyle, too, that I I've I like I like sort of um I just love that that point about like what sports are and what makes them so interesting. And I think that what people think they like about sports is watching the best of the best. They want to watch the best basketball team and the best tennis player play against the other best to see who's really the best. And like that's true to some small extent, in my opinion, but really what people like is actually just the storytelling and the production value. And like you could have NVC or some big network um put in all this money and all this production to like a lot of events, and people would really enjoy watching it and find the drama in it. And I think that's more than almost anything else, what Scott and I are doing with tournaments is like really challenging people to like understand what it is they like about sports and watching sports. And some of it is watching high-level play, but actually a lot of it is just it's just like the table that you set and the drama that you apply to it. And like you could have some pretty mediocre athleticism like on display, but if people know what the score is and they know the backstory of these players, and they know that like there's all this drama like under the you know, like kind of like under the surface or whatever, that's really fun. That's like what people I think are drawn to more than more than like high-level sports. Yeah, I I mean I've always been a proponent of uh like I think sports kind of get a bad rap. You have two camps really where it's kind of this sort of meathead jock, uh you know, sports are just fur the sports are stupid and animalistic type camp. And then there's this other camp where it's like, well, actually, what what is smart about sports is that you can analytically break it down and you can empirically define all the good that is in sports, and it's like I don't think either of those sides are true. I think uh it's Narrative device. I think sports are much closer to like literature. It's like you know, the reason that Kevin Durant going to the Warriors sucked was because we didn't get to see Kevin Durant overcome adversity. We got to see him win a title on a team that was like guaranteed to win a title, and everyone's like, oh, it's beautiful basketball. It's like I don't care how pretty something looks. I don't watch Team USA playing Nigeria because I know the outcome of that game. Even though they're the best basketball players in the world, I want to see that Team USA play against France in the last Olympics, where the game is coming down to the wire. What's gonna happen when you absolutely need to score? When you absolutely need to and like whether that is the best players in the world doing that or the most limited players at your tennis tournament, uh either way, it's like watching that tension build and release, that is what gets people to play sports. There's a reason in human societies they've played sports. Like it's not it's not for nothing. There's a reason people do this. But uh I don't know, Scott, do you find yourself Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I'll just say to that, I mean, uh you've done it here at this in this in this time together. You're you've said you've told a story about what you did last year. So there's the story you get to view as a spectator watching this stuff, but then there's a whole year of storytelling that every individual who gets to play gets to tell. You know, so when we get our book club together and we meet, we meet all these different individuals who maybe have played the tournament, the way that they introduce themselves is, well, I played in this tournament and you know, I was partnered with this person and we had this experience, and I played up against this guy who seemed like he was gonna beat me, or he's hitting these high balls. I mean, all that stuff, you know, we carry those stories in us. So then we when we get into you know conversations like this or conversations at the tennis court, you know, the stories around the tournament are both of the tournament that you might watch, but they're also within all the players too. Um storytelling this thing, you know. And it they like I say, they live, these stories live in people in every one of those matches. And it's just something, uh it's something to give context to your life. You know, you you remember these little markers here and there. It's like, oh, this is this is the tournament that I played in. This was this game. For me personally, I literally only remember games that I lose. I I don't remember anything that I've ever won, but like I'll lie awake at night thinking about in high school playing basketball against Middlesex and how we just should have taken Sam Kelly off their center, he couldn't box him out. Ah, man, we made a we made a uh we made the winning move too late in that game, and I think about it constantly. I'm bringing it up right now. Uh but speaking of stories, speaking of bringing things up right now, uh this is kind of the the gimmick now I'm trying out with my podcast here. Obviously, I've had some uh success on the internet making these one-minute take reels. Uh and what I like to do is kind of show people how the sausage is made. Uh how you like turn something. Everybody's got ideas. I I had a writing teacher in college who told me something that I always think about, and she said, uh, good stories happen to people that can tell them, right? So it's like it doesn't really everyone's got stuff that happened. Like you were just saying, in tennis, you play in this tournament, everyone's got a story of the tournament, but uh whether or not you can kind of articulate it, that that is sort of the rub. Uh but let's uh let's walk through this with you guys. I want you guys to make uh real. Does any uh do either of you have uh a real strong desire to make a 60 second reel that I'm going to push on my Instagram page to promote this this podcast? I mean, are are don't we kind of have to say yes? Oh yeah, just I want to see if one of you wants to do it. Uh oh, I see. Okay. Um Scott, what do you think? Scott, do you I I mean I could, but I must I don't have do you have us do you have something burning burning inside you to talk about? Not not burning inside me to talk about. What about it? I've got something. Who's got an alright? What's the idea? What's your thoughts? I think like just thematically with with this uh episode, I mean, I think we could talk about um tennis being hard, a hard sport, and people like maybe embracing that, embracing the challenge of it. There's so much with tennis now where like a lot of these groups are meeting up like around the country and playing sort of like a spin class version of tennis, where it's like where like what spin class is to cycling, um like like lot like feed-in-style drills are to tennis, where it's like people aren't you don't serve, you know, there's just a coach feeding you balls and the points are live. So like things go faster and you hit more balls, and you feel probably better about yourself and how good you are at at tennis um without starting with the two hardest shots, which are the serve and the return. Yeah. So like it speeds the thing up, it makes it like it just you leave feeling like good about yourself and as how you how you are as a tennis player. In the same way where like a spin class, where you walk into a spin class and it's like this weird and curated environment, everyone looks good in their spin class outfits, and they get on these bikes that don't move and ride inside. It serves a purpose, just like feed-in-style tennis serves a purpose, but there is something about like the challenging nature of tennis that is like irresistible to me, and the drama that comes from that. And um, I think the take would be that like it's okay to be challenged, and it's okay to like walk away from a game, maybe not feeling your best, or like not guarantee that you'll feel better than when you walked in. Like, that's part of the bet, that's part of the gamble of sports. Um and so I think that like our tournaments we put on are like our sort of like our entry into that conversation where it's like it's okay to be bad, it's okay to like walk away being disappointed in yourself. It's all part of like the overall process and journey. So uh when I hear that, right? Uh the the interesting bit is that contradiction between enjoyment and suffering. Really. It's like you what makes tennis enjoyable is that it's like this fun game that is gonna kill you a little bit, right? And then you what I would do if I'm you is I would take it into the realm of the personal, right? And it's like there is you gotta think of a hook. You have five seconds to hook them in, then you got 15 seconds to get them after that. So I would think of something like it's like there is something about the way my brain is wired that requires uh uh we can do effort, pain, uh that requires suffering. There's something about the things that I like that requires some amount of suffering to be on the table for me to get that true enjoyment. And then you say, I play tennis, I'm part of this uh tennis quarterly thing, but I've devoted a large amount of my life to tennis, and ultimately tennis has punished me. Tennis has made me run more than I've ever wanted to do, it's made me sweat harder than I've ever done, it's made me doubt myself. And you talk about all the things that tennis brings suffering to you, like brings you pain, and then somehow out of that, you've gotten the greatest joys, you've gotten the sense of community. So it's like you're trying to highlight this contradiction through the realm of your own personal story. And so I would start off with like there's something about me that requires suffering to really enjoy things that I love. There's your five-second hook, and then you set up the rest of it with uh my life, you know, I've devoted so much of my life to tennis, and tennis punishes me every time I play it. Now you have people for you've earned like 30 seconds of their and then after that, just kind of explain why tennis, how tennis makes you the things you hate the most about tennis, and then contrast that with the things that you love the most about tennis, and that'll probably get you through a minute. So does that sound good? So I'm gonna try it right now? Yes, you are if you want to. What about there's a tennis quarterly uh logo, slogan on some of our merch that says tennis is ruining my life. Oh that's part of what we're talking about here is that that that you know and it's so more about it's it's it's in addition to the suffering part, it's also it's just so time consuming. It's so like it's so everything, you know. I don't know what do you think about that time? Yeah, I think totally that's a great point, Scott. Yeah, I think if tennis isn't destroying your life, you're not really playing tennis. And I think there's your hook. There's your hook. If tennis isn't destroying your life, you're really not playing tennis. You got it, and then just work from there. Talk about how it destroys your life, and then talk about how that destruction has led you to the best parts of your life. And it's like having that contradiction. What'll happen is the more specific you can get with this, right? The more people will relate to it that don't listen to tennis. You get you get to the universal through the specific. So, like you think of like Benson's reels where he talks about like this is a tennis racket. If you play with this tennis racket, you're this person. And he's literally just describing his friends who use that tennis racket, and everyone that game comes into his comments goes like, Oh my god, that's exactly right. You're you you nailed me exactly. And Benson would be like, dude, I was literally just making a joke about my friend. But yeah, sweet, thumbs up that you got that. So um yeah, I would stick with start with that uh that that phrase at the beginning, and then just try to highlight, like, really dig into like what is it that caused that you know has ruined your life. Talk about the ruining part, and then at the end, just talk about like what you love about it, and maybe you can at the very end, if you got time, uh you're gonna have to watch the clock too. You only got a minute. Uh plug t Portland Tennis Quarterly, or we'll just put that in the description. So uh whenever you're ready at this point, uh just give it a run. Alright, I'll give it a shot. Okay. So I think if tennis isn't destroying your life, you're not really playing tennis. Tennis is not really a sport where you can necessarily it's not a microwave sport. You're not gonna set the timer to one, you know, 30 seconds and then feel better about yourself afterwards. It's more of a gamble. I think that playing tennis, um, it's probability whether or not you're gonna have a good time or feel better about yourself when you're leaving the court. And I think that um, I don't I don't know. I think I'm I don't think I'm doing very well. Don't worry about it, don't worry about it. It's this is all part of the the amount of takes that I do to get like a good take is part of it. So what if I'm you I go, um, what's the the phrase? If tennis isn't ruined your life, you're not doing it the right way. Just say that phrase to begin with, and then like what is uh what's the most physically exhausting thing of tennis? Playing, I mean playing singles in the heat is like the hardest part. Yeah. So it's like I find myself standing out in 100 degree heat, playing 30 minutes extra of singles that I didn't want to just because I have to beat this guy, you know? I find myself icing parts of my body that I didn't know had specific muscles, you know? Yeah. I just like talk about uh I'm I'm relating to being older in a way that I don't really want to know. Like I don't want to know that I'm not as fast as I was, but tennis makes me know these things, you know. Yeah, what about this sport really makes you know about yourself, things that you didn't necessarily want to know? And then at the end of, but at the end of the day, when I look at the individuals, right? It's like when I look at these individual things, this looks awful. I would never want anyone else to do this, but for me, it's like I have friends, I have a community, and I have this sense of purpose when I'm on the court that I just love. It makes me feel and it just keeps me coming back, and that's it, you know? Yeah, it's like so I would literally just focus on like what physically hurts you or what like mentally frustrates you and give very specific examples. You can literally just talk about like it makes me and then talk about a single point one guy got off of you that you can't stop thinking about. Uh people like the specifics of these things, so yeah. You start with your tagline, uh, just you know, nice and easy, and don't you don't have to put on like I talk like this in the reels, you know. I have like our cadence and a rhythm to it, but it's you they're gonna relate to the less you're thinking about what you're saying, and the more you're saying. So, like honestly, think about it as like I just asked you a question of like you say tennis is ruining your life, like what's the worst parts about tennis? And then just answer that question. Yeah, so yeah, I mean I think it I think if tennis isn't destroying your life, you you probably don't really love tennis. And I could think of that at like a sort of granular level level, as with me as a tennis player. Um, a match, you know, I was playing in a um a match about two months ago, and me and my partner we had three match points in in the in the last set, and we lost all of them. We lost the match, we lost to these two guys who really we had no business losing to. That when I walked on the court that day, I thought there's zero chance we're gonna lose to these guys. They were just like kind of very mid, is all I can say. They didn't really hit the ball that well. Um, they didn't really like pass any sort of eye test, but they just sort of knew how to play. And our nerves, me and my partner's nerves, got to us, and we lost a match that we had no business losing, and I didn't sleep well that night or for the next three or four nights after that. And I thought to myself, I'm I'm not playing tennis anymore. Like, I don't want to play tennis anymore. Like, maybe I'll try pickleball is truly what I think. Anytime I'm like leaving the tennis court upset. But I think that and even on the macro level, like all of the sacrifices that you make when you kind of like turn your life over to tennis, all of like the neglected text messages I have from friends who want to get together with me, it's like, well, sorry, I don't, I'd rather be playing tennis. So I'm I'm I'm going to like neglect these like relationships that I've had for a long time or friendships that I've had for a long time. Tennis is just so completely all-consuming. Um, and there's this like third rail kind of magnetism where it's like, yeah, you know, when you sign up to play a tournament or a match, you're probably gonna feel really bad about yourself at the end of it. It's not like a you know, the shamrock run or like a 5K run where like everyone who who signs up is gonna cross the finish line and hold up a medal and post that on Instagram. It's when you sign up for a tennis tournament, you're not gonna cross the finish line, most likely. 90% of the people that sign up are are gonna like fall off somewhere on the race. And it's just so brutal to have to like confront all of those, all of those like terrible realities of tennis, which reflect in life. I mean, life is just one loss after the other, and you have to kind of figure out what what matches you want to play or what is worth worth using as defeat, uh, because you're going to get defeated, and how you handle that defeat is is really how you handle challenges and how you handle life. Yeah. And who you want to be with when you're when you're losing, when you're losing to people you shouldn't lose to. I think that's a that's a much better that that's the rough draft there. Uh so we gotta get it down to a minute. Sorry, this is just this is more for my audience that likes making these things. Uh but all right, so you you said a phrase at the uh in the middle there, I'd rather be playing tennis, right? So your story is if you're not playing tennis, if you're not ruining your life, uh for tennis, I forget the the exact phrase. You're not really playing it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, try to get as quickly as you can to I couldn't sleep at night because these people beat me, and I couldn't stop thinking about how like pathetic I felt losing to people that I absolutely should have won. Uh and then try to get that to, and then you know, I find myself a couple days later, friends are asking me to do something else, and all I'm thinking is I'd rather be playing tennis. Because that is right there, that's the psychosis, right? You you're literally losing sleep over this thing that you voluntarily did, and you still want to do it later on. And so it's like this time take a look up at the the little timer at the top there. Uh try to keep it relatively around a minute, and those are your three points. The the hook line at the beginning, uh then you're trying to get to I couldn't sleep because of uh because of losing this match, and then at the very end, you gotta get to uh I'd rather be playing tennis. Something along those lines. Doesn't have to be the exact same words. Yeah, okay. So tennis is destroying my life to losing sleep over a lost match, to I'd rather be playing to I'm neglecting friendships because I'd rather be playing tennis. Perfect. That's it. That it's just one minute, it's very simple, like you're having a conversation whenever you're ready. Okay. So I I think if tennis isn't destroying your life, you're not really playing tennis. Um wait, sorry, I'm gonna restart. No, I'll get all good. That's just part. The amount of times that I've had to restart things is embarrassing. And I'm doing this walking in a park. There's children watching me do this, and I'm just like, ah, fuck. Not swearing, not I don't swear in front of children, but yeah, go. Here we go. So I think if tennis isn't destroying your life, you don't really like tennis. So maybe a month ago, I played in a doubles match with a friend. It was like a competitive match. Um, there were some modest stakes involved. And me and my friend were so much better than these guys. We had no business losing to them. We had three match points in the last set, and we lost all three of them. We lost the match. It was absolutely brutal, devastating. I didn't really sleep well for like the next three nights over a completely insignificant league tennis match that I'm sort of embarrassed to say was so important to me. Um, but you know, after a few days, I got over it. I started getting into my old habits. I started getting text messages from old friends who wanted to hang out, and I, as typical, just neglected them because I would rather be playing tennis. I'd rather be with my friends who can who I can enjoy tennis with, get better at tennis, and ultimately hopefully not lose three match points the next time I play and actually win the match that I should win. That was great. I'm gonna cut it right after you said I'd rather be playing tennis. That's like right around a minute, and then you know, you let them draw the conclusions at the end. I can see the writer brain in your head here. It's like, oh, I gotta finish this. But like the joy of short form video is if you can get them to draw the conclusion that you were gonna draw, now you're in their head for longer than the video that they watch. But I thought that was awesome. The last step that we have to do here is you gotta pick a song. So, like, what's a song that has some relation to this? Like uh, you know, it could just literally be something you want to listen to. I don't know. Scott, do you have anything? Scott's more a little more musical than I am, a little more music. Oh, you're muted. Yeah, I was thinking about the song that we might uh that we might play, and there's the we might think about, and I was thinking, I thought that if I was gonna be honest about myself, I would have to pick an REM song because that's the there's a band that's meant anything to me. It's that. So End of the World obviously would would go along with uh with Tyler's story. Um but but then there's also this other great song that's just come out recently. I'm forgetting the name of the band, um, but it's called uh it's just called Sports. Um and it's a sort of punk song. Uh yeah, that just talks about uh yeah, just talks about sports. But anyway, um if it's true to me, it would be REM for sure. So uh I'll I'll just because we're doing content here and I I've got content brain on. Uh REM End of the World, very big song. When people see End of the World by REM on the video, they're much more likely to listen to it. And then it becomes a joke too, with like, oh, this is this guy that thinks the end of the world is losing a tennis match. I think that's a perfect fit. Helps me algorithmically. Uh, and what we'll do is we'll put in the description, like, hey, check out uh the Portland Tennis Quarterly. You guys can link it on whatever your social media things are. But like, I just I have been thinking almostly non-stop for like six months about how to make these dumb little videos and how to get my point across in like one minute. Uh, and I've learned that people find it somewhat interesting. It's kind of like a writer's workshop, really. It's just we workshopped an idea into a 60-second sound bite. That's just the kind of writing I do, though. And I thought you did a great job. Uh uh I'm excited for you to see what the reel looks like. Because my friends who have watched me make the videos, they're always the comment is always like, You look so weird when you're shooting the video, and then when I watch it, it looks so normal, it looks so like professional. It's like I think you're gonna look phenomenal on this thing. And I know you're feeling a little like, oh man, did I do it all right? It's like, no, it's gonna look great, man. I think it's gonna do well. And great song choice, too. Great song choice. So yeah, it was awesome. Yeah, here at the end is time for plugs. I think you guys obviously uh plug as much of the Portland tennis quarterly stuff as you can, any events that are coming up, any personal projects that you're working on. Uh, you guys have been great. This was a lot of fun, and I'm I'm really, really excited to get back on the tournament. I do have to sign up for it, so hopefully I haven't missed that. But uh getting on it hopefully today. Uh but yeah, whoever wants to plug first, Tyler, you want to go? Yeah, sure. I'll say just the the big issue, the Portland Tennis Quarterly, um, our summer issue, the the big issue. It's coming out June 6th at Mother Foucault's bookshop. You can you can pick it up there that night. You can pick it up at a handful of of uh retail shops in Portland and available on our website. Nice. Yeah, I'll just add sign up for the Mount Taber Open. You know, it's like I say, all comers, highest altitude uh Portland tennis tournament. Um come on out, register now. Yeah, I think I think we'll probably have registration open at the latest until like June 20th. It'll probably fill up before that. So I think people should sign up like ASAP. Um and I will plug, I am playing in the C bracket. If you want to beat me in tennis, first off, it will ruin my day. If you do that, I I might block you from content because I am a petty person. But also, if you want to come play or whatever and have a game of tennis in which I literally never stop talking, uh, as well as my friend who is also named Kyle, which we love. We love being Kyle and Kyle. It kind of messes with people's heads. Anyway, uh go check out all the Portland tennis stuff. Uh if you have any interest in tennis and you're playing in Portland, go talk to these people. They're very friendly. They they will set you up with people that you can play with at your level so that you can have fun. If you are not in Portland, right? You can talk to these guys too. They'll help you set this up wherever you are. They have information that can help you go. At one point, they were just guys that wanted to play more tennis, and now they have a whole organization, they have these friends, they have a DIY community. That could be you, wherever the fuck you are right now. Uh, just reach out, we'll put you in touch. Uh, anyway, Scott, Tyler, really, really thank you for coming on. I'm excited to see y'all uh early and often this summer. And uh when I'm holding up that C Division trophy uh amongst my legions of fans, uh, I want you guys to be there and uh know that I told you so. Um but yeah, I think that's all. Anything else?