Media Meltdowns
It'll be interesting to see how Chuck Klosterman's new novel
about owls or something does comparatively to all of his other work to date. Will those legions of fans devoted to his pop cultural mash-up musings and heavy metal tolerate a "serious" novel from a not-so-serious writer?(My guess: probably not. Just how it goes.) But one media outlet completely devoted to helping Klosterman sell a few books is Page 2, where Klosterman writes occasionally in addition to ESPN the magazine. So he's like family. Maybe that's why ESPN.com left the curses in
for the first portion of the day originally? The photo below is how it looked, oh, an hour ago.
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nba
The best piece of writing we've ever read about Wizards space cadet Gilbert Arenas was the famous
Wizznutzz psychological profile of Agent Zero, which includes this brilliant factoid: "Gil was at the birth of his daughter! It wasnt a tom cruise scientology "Silent birth" but Gil did put his Halo game on mute!" (And there's so much more!)
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espn
The big event on ESPN this weekend is
"Ali Rap," a documentary hosted by Chuck D that posits the theory that Muhammad Ali was the originator of what we think of today as "hip-hop." (That's the other half of the music they did on the "Judgment Night" soundtrack, if you're confused, rockers.) It's a flimsy argument at best — as Chuck Klosterman points out in an excellent essay on ESPN, simultaneously promoting and undermining the whole program — but we didn't think it veered toward the offensive. We're dopey that way; we always just want everyone to hug.
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baseball
After reading both Chuck Klosterman's excellent
ESPN: The Magazine cover story on Barry Bonds and steroids and John Heilemann's less-excellent but still compelling
essay in New York Magazine, we are officially over-intellectualized when it comes to steroids. There are all kinds of points to be made on every side of the issue, and, frankly, we can't take it anymore. We will have no more high-minded debate of this topic. It is time for torches and storming the castle and burning in effigy ... it's time for good old fashioned mob rule.
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espn
Suggested questions for today's ESPN SportsNation chatters ...
•
Noon. Page 2's Bill Simmons: Admit it: Instead of going to the Super Bowl, you're actually just hanging around Jacksonville all week. We knew it.
•
1 p.m. Page 2's Chuck Klosterman: Honestly, we can't believe how relatively few KISS references you've made this week. Have you been somehow sedated?
•
4 p.m. ESPN's Joe Theismann: George Bodenheimer here, Joe. Hope you don't mind doing the Monday Night Football broadcasts by yourself until we can find someone
desperate enough as the perfect fit to be your partner.
nfl
OK, this is pretty much the last day of calm before the entire Super Bowl shitstorm blows up, so here's your last chance to catch your breath.
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espn
It's always funny when writers fight — imagine fourth grade girls, except with more slapping — and it's even funnier when both writers take paychecks from ESPN. Unfortunately, as much as we might like to make this little tidbit into a fight, it's mostly just an old guy with a microphone tossing pebbles at a young guy not paying any attention.
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espn
Last night, at the Riviera Cafe in New York City, Our Boy Bill Simmons launched
his worldwide tour to promote the release of his first book,
Now I Can Die In Peace. And we — Deadspin editor Will Leitch and "photographer" Lockhart Steele — were there, because the bar serves alcohol and had some Arizona Cardinals highlights playing on a corner television. (Gawker special correspondent Noelle Hancock came to pick up some dudes only to find that, in her words, "Sox games are the biggest twat-blockers of all time.")
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espn
Our boy Bill Simmons and
Spin and
Esquire columnist Chuck Klosterman are such ideological Bosom Buddies that the surprise is not that they've
collaborated on Page 2 again — they
tried this once before — but that they don't do it every day, every week, every month, every year. We've always kind of suspected Bill has a little bit of a man-crush on Klosterman, and it sneaks out every time they have one of these little dialogues. (The same thing happens with us and the picture of Andy Rooney we have on our wall. Not unusual.)
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