In Defense of Trash Talk: Rafi Kohan on Muhammed Ali, Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, Elon Musk and why talking smack is as old as the Bible

Episode 1881: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Rafi Kohan, author of TRASH TALK, about Muhammed Ali, Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, Elon Musk and why talking smack is as old as the bible

Rafi Kohan is an Atlanta-based writer, editor, and creative leader. He is the author of Trash Talk: The Only Book About Destroying Your Rivals That Isn’t Total Garbage, which is available for pre-order now (pub date: December 5th) and examines the art and science of talking s**t not just as a quirk of modern gamesmanship, but also as a deeply ingrained human behavioral phenomenon that has erupted across time, culture, and geography. With reporting that ranges from playground basketball courts and cricket grounds to insult-comedy stages, UFC mega fights, wrestling rings, military survival schools, and more, Trash Talk is the first-ever book to explore the topic, a “joyful, adventurous read” (Jeff Pearlman), and “very, very funny” (Anthony Jeselnik). Kohan’s first book, The Arena: Inside the Tailgating, Ticket-Scalping, Mascot-Racing, Dubiously Funded, and Possibly Haunted Monuments of American Sport, weaves together on-the-ground reporting, hundreds of original interviews, and deep-dive research into a wide-ranging and interdisciplinary examination of the modern American sports stadium. The book was a finalist for the 2018 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing and was lauded in the New York Times Book Review as “smart, readable, deeply reported and researched, engagingly personal, funny and often surprisingly poignant.” The Wall Street Journal dubbed Kohan “the Studs Terkel of stadium life.” Previously, Kohan served as deputy editor at The New York Observer, where he wrote a variety of long-form feature and cover stories, including a bombshell profile of Carmelo Anthony in October 2013, which broke the news that the star forward was going to test the free agent market. As a journalist, his writing has also appeared in numerous outlets and publications, including GQ (where he worked for five years), Men's Journal, The Wall Street Journal, Town & Country, Slate, Rolling Stone, The Ringer, ESPN, Vice, Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post, among others, covering everything from identity theft to the World Series of Birding to the New Orleans Police Department on Mardi Gras. (That last piece, written for GQ, was named “Notable” in The Best American Travel Writing anthology.) Most recently, Kohan worked at The Atlantic, as the executive editorial director for Re:think, the magazine's award-winning creative studio. He and his team executed ambitious content programs on behalf of dozens of brands, including HBO, Allstate, Lyft, Nest, Netflix, HPE, The North Face, Google, REI, Walmart, and many, many more. 

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

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