I listen to a lot of podcasts and no one preps questions as well as Curtis (which made the Walton interview even more amusing). It’s not that Shoemaker has bad takes, it’s that his role is to respond to the Curtis’s prompt in this format. Shoemaker is great when he can build off an idea (“I think that’s right” doesn’t bother me), but the lead response role is not the best for him when he is pulled in 1000 different directions on the daily. I’ll always continue to listen for the relationship, but I would love to hear other Ringer reporters join for a segment every week to allow both Curtis and Shoemaker to be in a role that works best for them: Curtis to ask the question, reporter to respond, Shoemaker to situate the response in larger media landscape.