The Stake Won't Leave

I'm about one day behind the rest of the world right now, which is only partially the fault of shifting time zones. Hope to recover fully by this afternoon.

Not that anyone else needs to weigh in on the Will/Buzz matter, especially seeing as it's already a century old in blog-years. But as much as I disdain 90% of the blogs being written today–sorry, I only feel real solidarity with the good ones—and as immune as I think FD is to a lot of the anti-blog criticism, I'm still mad as hell and need to say something.

I still don't get why Buzz got to comport himself like an unhinged, drunken bully, and have it tacitly excused off by Costas as [loosely] "those old school fiery writers, they tell it like it is." If Will had gone on there cursing and chain smoking, it would've been used against him in an instant to confirm all sorts of stereotypes. But as much as everyone's saying "oh, he played himself with bluster," the fact remains that Bissinger was allowed to do that. It was his right as a "real writer."



And then when Costas got all high-and-mighty about the informed experienced that comes from sitting in the press box, or getting access after games. Please. That's one big machine, and most people play along with it as effortlessly as possible. This romanticism they're projecting comes down not to newspaper reporting, but just to paying attention to sports—sometimes easier from a press seat—and then maybe, just maybe, happening to coax one or two candid quotes out of an athlete that 50 other people don't overhear. Time that, in my experience, could often be better spent trying to, you know, write.

Today, I'm pretty much angry at everyone. Angry at old dudes who think their dying medium makes them better than me. Angry at shit bloggers who give the medium (which is all it is, a way to deliver information) a bad name. And just generally pissed off that, in some remote way, FreeDarko could be lazily included in this discussion. Like if you want to talk about writing chops, and ability to capture the moment, and all that shit that Costas has taped onto his eyelids, I will go toe to toe with anyone. I do not give a fuck.



I like humor, and pithiness, and humanizing gossip (how is that any more pernicious than THE STORYLINE) that some people have a problem with, and yet really, part of me just wants to print out some of my best stuff and use it to beat the living shit out of these blog haters. Because the sweeping, dismissive nature of their arguments doesn't just prove their ignorance, or show they're threatened by a new way of delivering information. It's an insult to people who do this as a means to write, plain and simple.

So yeah, consider this a fatwa. For basketball, stay eyes opened for a Quotemonger and some Deadspin previews.

BONUS: Shanoff's take, published at exactly the same time as mine. It's the analytical ying to my apocalyptic, self-absorbed yang. And I agree with every word of it, when I'm not busy eating glass and trashing all my hosts' furniture. Because that's how real writers do. I am wearing a white tee, and plan to drive off a cliff with my girl in the passenger side very, very soon. EARLY.

UPDATE: Heere is that Quotemonger.

UPDATE 2: Hornets/Spurs preview