Dear Chuck,
Just like you did in your Eagles essay, I'd like to offer my own list of sports hates.
If I told you my favorites teams were the Yankees, football Giants, Knicks and Rangers, you'd guess that I've spent my life hating the Red Sox, Cowboys, Lakers, and Flyers. Well, sorry to say, you'd be slightly off. I can't ever say I've had a personal hatred of any pro team. I want to see the latter teams get their asses whupped, but I see them as nemeses, not as archenemies.
I booed Roger Clemens from 1984 to 1998, then cheered for him until 2003 (his last Yankee stop in 2007, I don't count.) First he was a head-hunting, philandering, steroid-gobbling jerk. Then he was all that in pinstripes, so I stopped caring as long as he struck out batters. As Jerry Seinfeld put it, I root for laundry. The Cowboys? Well, Tom Landry and Roger Staubach were too nice to hate, but by the 1990's the organization became insufferable (more on that later.) The Lakers? Too cool to hate. The Flyers? Once the Broad Street Bully era ended, they just became the team on the other end of the state.
The only teams I've ever had personal enmity for are college teams that cheat. Here are the incidents that ground my gears:
* The 1985 Tulane basketball point-shaving scandal. Reading that Hot Rod Williams, who couldn't even read the SAT he claimed to have taken, was given $10,000 in a shoebox to play for the Green Wave. As a middle schooler starting to hear about how tough it was to get into college (and seeing my older sister go through the process,) that burned me up.
* Pretty much any Big 8 or Southwest Conference team in the late 1980's. To me, they were a bunch of crooks and menaces to society. I'll admit, when Southern Methodist got the "death penalty", I felt schadenfreude. But my least favorite were 1) Oklahoma, coached by Barry Switzer, a man who would've recruited Jeffrey Dahmer if he could run a power sweep, and 2) Colorado, coached by Bill McCartney, who had practically half his roster on the police blotter at some point, and then saw his daughter get pregnant by not one, but two of his players within a five-year span, while he was founding the Promise Keepers.
* The 1990's Cowboys. Once Jimmy Jones bought the team, they went from "worthy NFC East rivals" to "overexposed a-holes." Sports Illustrated started covering the team the way Tiger Beat covered New Kids on the Block, and Switzer was in the center of it.
As for this millennium, I finally found my true sports villian: Allan "Bud" Selig.
Where was his caring for the game he claims to love when the 1994 World Series got cancelled? Why didn't he make heads roll over it? Where was his caring when, in 2003, names of several MLB players were found on steroid labels from BALCO? Why didn't he hand out "conduct detrimental to game" suspensions right then and there?
Now whenever a baseball player does well, he'll automatically be the target of suspicion. It's just too sad for me to write anymore about.
Best,
Dan
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Interlude
Dear Chuck,
Over the past few weeks I have been juggling a class for career advancement, plus cleaning out the apartment I am vacating on July 31. So a trip to Barnes & Noble hasn't been in the works for me, and may not be for a month or so. However, though I have not read your whole book, I would like to take a few guesses as to why mentioned in the reviews "villiany."
* Andrew Dice Clay. You talk about knowing the most and caring the least? Well, the Diceman went above and beyond that the night of September 6, 1989. He knew that he was not supposed to work blue on the Dick Clark-produced MTV Video Music Awards, but he did not care and used the word "t*ts." Pissing off Dick Clark? Biggest "asking for it" move that year not involving Tony Mandarich.
* Fred Durst. I wouldn't say it was Woodstock '99 that did him in, but rather later, making insinuations that Christina Aguilera (then a nice, wholesome teen pop star) went down on him. You don't do that without getting backlash.
* Chevy Chase. Now here's a guy who, even when he was secretly a coke-addicted, Laraine-Newman-harassing a-hole, had box office value. Look at his stretch from 1978 to 1989: Foul Play, Caddyshack, Vacation, Fletch, European Vacation, Spies Like Us, Three Amigos, and Christmas Vacation. Even the non-hits (Under the Rainbow, Modern Problems, Funny Farm) did little to hurt him.
Then, he did Nothing But Trouble. That film was a failure on every level. Visually repulsive, intellectually insulting, audience alienating. I'm not prepared to do an exposition on it now, but it's a possible future topic of mine. I truly believe that was what led him to try the talk show, which needs no exposition here.
So, those are my takes on three of your subjects. Soon I'll learn yours, we'll compare notes.
Best,
Dan
Over the past few weeks I have been juggling a class for career advancement, plus cleaning out the apartment I am vacating on July 31. So a trip to Barnes & Noble hasn't been in the works for me, and may not be for a month or so. However, though I have not read your whole book, I would like to take a few guesses as to why mentioned in the reviews "villiany."
* Andrew Dice Clay. You talk about knowing the most and caring the least? Well, the Diceman went above and beyond that the night of September 6, 1989. He knew that he was not supposed to work blue on the Dick Clark-produced MTV Video Music Awards, but he did not care and used the word "t*ts." Pissing off Dick Clark? Biggest "asking for it" move that year not involving Tony Mandarich.
* Fred Durst. I wouldn't say it was Woodstock '99 that did him in, but rather later, making insinuations that Christina Aguilera (then a nice, wholesome teen pop star) went down on him. You don't do that without getting backlash.
* Chevy Chase. Now here's a guy who, even when he was secretly a coke-addicted, Laraine-Newman-harassing a-hole, had box office value. Look at his stretch from 1978 to 1989: Foul Play, Caddyshack, Vacation, Fletch, European Vacation, Spies Like Us, Three Amigos, and Christmas Vacation. Even the non-hits (Under the Rainbow, Modern Problems, Funny Farm) did little to hurt him.
Then, he did Nothing But Trouble. That film was a failure on every level. Visually repulsive, intellectually insulting, audience alienating. I'm not prepared to do an exposition on it now, but it's a possible future topic of mine. I truly believe that was what led him to try the talk show, which needs no exposition here.
So, those are my takes on three of your subjects. Soon I'll learn yours, we'll compare notes.
Best,
Dan
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Letter #2
Dear Chuck,
I read your essay of Kareem and O.J. on Grantland, and with all due respect, I believe many of the Facebook commenters who say that this essay has Bill Simmons' fingerprints all over it. I understand he's your boss, but still.
There are certain subjects where even you, Mr. Find-A-Parallel, cannot find a parallel, and this is one of the few. As far as I'm concerned, everything that occured between June 1994 and October 1995 was simply a backdrop to the O.J. affair (1). The cancelled World Series, the rise of Newt Gingrich to the House Speakership, Hootie and the Blowfish's chart success, the Oklahoma City bombing (2), even (especially) the Million Man March are all things that happened while our country's primary interest was whether a well-known athlete murdered his ex-wife and her male friend in cold blood. Next to that, the Kobe affair was barely a sidebar.
And if you're going to talk about Kareem being unlikeable, how can you leave out punching Kent Benson? Or his 1983 book Giant Steps, which included the line "...when a whole lot of white people died in a tragedy—say a fire or a plane crash—I'd be happy." (3)
I only hope your comparison of Andrew Dice Clay and Lena Dunham is more valid.
Best,
Dan
P.S. Per Imdb, the ZAZ team originally wanted Pete Rose to play Roger Murdock in Airplane!, but filming was during baseball season, so Kareem got the role. It wasn't a matter of "tall guy can't disappear into somebody else" at first. I can easily imagine Rose as Murdock and telling the kid something like, "You tell your old man to face a Tom Seaver fastball." Would that have made the gambling scandal (assuming it still happens) sadder?
P.P.S. We all know that O.J. was one the first choices to play the original Terminator. Let's say he took the role and it bombed because no one could buy (at the time) likeable O.J. as evil robot. The movie was released October 26, 1984, and (in our timeline) O.J. and Nicole Brown were married on February 2, 1985. Would a box-office dud O.J. have been dumped by Nicole? Could a casting change have saved two lives?
(1) I'm only referring to the disgraced former football player as "O.J.," not "Simpson" or "O.J. Simpson."
(2) Damn right I went there.
(3) Sports Illustrated, Dec. 26, 1983
* Note dated August 24, 2013: I mentioned your O.J./Kareem essay to my friend Brad, a big ZAZ fan, and mentioned how Pete Rose was the first choice to play Roger Murdock. He agreed with you, saying that while Rose could theoretically disappear into a character, Kareem could never. I guess you had a point after all.
I read your essay of Kareem and O.J. on Grantland, and with all due respect, I believe many of the Facebook commenters who say that this essay has Bill Simmons' fingerprints all over it. I understand he's your boss, but still.
There are certain subjects where even you, Mr. Find-A-Parallel, cannot find a parallel, and this is one of the few. As far as I'm concerned, everything that occured between June 1994 and October 1995 was simply a backdrop to the O.J. affair (1). The cancelled World Series, the rise of Newt Gingrich to the House Speakership, Hootie and the Blowfish's chart success, the Oklahoma City bombing (2), even (especially) the Million Man March are all things that happened while our country's primary interest was whether a well-known athlete murdered his ex-wife and her male friend in cold blood. Next to that, the Kobe affair was barely a sidebar.
And if you're going to talk about Kareem being unlikeable, how can you leave out punching Kent Benson? Or his 1983 book Giant Steps, which included the line "...when a whole lot of white people died in a tragedy—say a fire or a plane crash—I'd be happy." (3)
I only hope your comparison of Andrew Dice Clay and Lena Dunham is more valid.
Best,
Dan
P.S. Per Imdb, the ZAZ team originally wanted Pete Rose to play Roger Murdock in Airplane!, but filming was during baseball season, so Kareem got the role. It wasn't a matter of "tall guy can't disappear into somebody else" at first. I can easily imagine Rose as Murdock and telling the kid something like, "You tell your old man to face a Tom Seaver fastball." Would that have made the gambling scandal (assuming it still happens) sadder?
P.P.S. We all know that O.J. was one the first choices to play the original Terminator. Let's say he took the role and it bombed because no one could buy (at the time) likeable O.J. as evil robot. The movie was released October 26, 1984, and (in our timeline) O.J. and Nicole Brown were married on February 2, 1985. Would a box-office dud O.J. have been dumped by Nicole? Could a casting change have saved two lives?
(1) I'm only referring to the disgraced former football player as "O.J.," not "Simpson" or "O.J. Simpson."
(2) Damn right I went there.
(3) Sports Illustrated, Dec. 26, 1983
* Note dated August 24, 2013: I mentioned your O.J./Kareem essay to my friend Brad, a big ZAZ fan, and mentioned how Pete Rose was the first choice to play Roger Murdock. He agreed with you, saying that while Rose could theoretically disappear into a character, Kareem could never. I guess you had a point after all.
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Letter #1
http://onefirststeps.blogspot.com/2013/06/an-open-letter-to-chuck-klosterman.html
Dear Chuck,
Tuesday I'll be making a special trip to the library to check out I Wear The Black Hat. So far I've read the Eagles essay as excerpted in Entertainment Weekly. Here's my take on it:
It reminds me a lot of your 2002 piece on why the deaths of Dee Dee Ramone and Ratt's Robbin Crosby got such different responses from the media. The Eagles are the band that people actually like, but can't stand the fact that they like something that doesn't jibe with their pre-engineered notion of what an important band is supposed to be like. My sister learned a good saying in one of her human development groups:
"You spot it, you got it."
That's my take on villians in general. Whatever you hate, it's something you see in yourself. Who calls Don Henley a self-righteous, hypocritical caricature of everything wrong with the Boomer generation? Mostly other Boomers. Gen-Xers just know him as the Eagles guy who also had a few solo hits.
As for me, well, I must admit, most of the hair bands you loved, I disdained. Poison, Warrant, Skid Row, it was mainly a case of clone fatigue. And they represented the cool kids who went to the parties I didn't go to. I never got grunge clone fatigue; not even Candlebox got me sick of it. Feeling like an outsider? That's a place where there was always room for more.
Best,
Dan
Dear Chuck,
Tuesday I'll be making a special trip to the library to check out I Wear The Black Hat. So far I've read the Eagles essay as excerpted in Entertainment Weekly. Here's my take on it:
It reminds me a lot of your 2002 piece on why the deaths of Dee Dee Ramone and Ratt's Robbin Crosby got such different responses from the media. The Eagles are the band that people actually like, but can't stand the fact that they like something that doesn't jibe with their pre-engineered notion of what an important band is supposed to be like. My sister learned a good saying in one of her human development groups:
"You spot it, you got it."
That's my take on villians in general. Whatever you hate, it's something you see in yourself. Who calls Don Henley a self-righteous, hypocritical caricature of everything wrong with the Boomer generation? Mostly other Boomers. Gen-Xers just know him as the Eagles guy who also had a few solo hits.
As for me, well, I must admit, most of the hair bands you loved, I disdained. Poison, Warrant, Skid Row, it was mainly a case of clone fatigue. And they represented the cool kids who went to the parties I didn't go to. I never got grunge clone fatigue; not even Candlebox got me sick of it. Feeling like an outsider? That's a place where there was always room for more.
Best,
Dan
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