Yes, this gentleman really does have a Flyers sticker and a Confederate flag sticker on his car. He no doubt has no idea the joke's on him, but that's the point. the life of kings rests its case, your honor.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
some jokes just tell themselves
Click on this photo for a closer look....
Yes, this gentleman really does have a Flyers sticker and a Confederate flag sticker on his car. He no doubt has no idea the joke's on him, but that's the point. the life of kings rests its case, your honor.
Yes, this gentleman really does have a Flyers sticker and a Confederate flag sticker on his car. He no doubt has no idea the joke's on him, but that's the point. the life of kings rests its case, your honor.
apologies for the lack of posts
the life of kings has been tending to some personal and professional matters in recent days, so please excuse the dearth of material on the site. We just know you've been waiting with baited breath.
Monday, May 19, 2008
and so the penguins eliminate the flyers...
I'm going to be careful in how I write this, if only because a number of my friends are good, knowledgeable and respectful Philly fans with a clue. But to be honest, this series exposed a few simple truths about Philadelphia and many of its sports fans:1. Much of the talk about how good and knowledgeable Philadelphia fans are is a bald-faced lie. Fact is, folks in this town are probably the most provincial in the country -- completely and utterly clueless about the reality beyond Broad and Pattison. Before the series began, a lot of commentary had focused on the falsehood that the Penguins had "tanked" their final regular season game against the Flyers so as to avoid playing them in the first round. The thinking was, the Pens were afraid of a physical team like the Flyers, as if this were 1975 and Bob Clarke was going to be punching someone in the face and frightening him into playing poorly from the moment the puck dropped. What it ignored was that the Pens wanted to rest Sidney Crosby for what was essentially a meaningless game because he was still feeling the effects of his high ankle sprain. Anyway, now, after a series in which the Pens won four games against just one for the Flyers, after the 6-0 whitewash that that took place in Sunday's series-clinching game at The Igloo, how does that analysis hold up?
2. Another misconception that made the rounds these last two weeks is that Pens fans are johnny-come-latelys to the sport of hockey. Even Rich Hofmann's column in today's Philadelphia Daily News has generated some comments from folks who continue to argue a) the Pens are in this place because they were so bad for so long, thereby allowing them to draft good players (which is true), and b) unlike in Philly, where everyone is supposedly loyal, no one cared about hockey in Pittsburgh until now. Now, while the life of kings pleads guilty to being on the bandwagon (and shamelessly so), many others in Pittsburgh have indeed been loyal since at least the mid-to-late 1980s, when the team began its first real run of success. But the Pens eventually got to be so bad again because their ownership group had literally run them into the ground. A perceived lack of fan support, as a simple read of Mario Lemieux's Wikipedia page makes clear, had nothing to do with why the team nearly folded or left town before Lemieux rescued it. Besides, as we've already demonstrated, Philly has also failed the loyalty test in recent years. But few in this town will tell you that, and fewer still will want to accept it.
3. If it wasn't already known, this series made it demonstrably clear: Philadelphia fans are the most boorish and obnoxious anywhere. It's funny to me that some will point to incidents in other cities as evidence that it's not just a Philly thing. But in Game 4, both times the Penguins scored goals and began to celebrate in the corner, several Flyers fans stood against the glass above the boards and raised their middle fingers -- some even reaching above the heads of children to do so. Real classy. After all, as we all know, a true tough guy does such a thing from the safety of his front-row seat. Losers.
4. Passion and knowledge are not to be confused with loutish behavior. But a lot of people in Philly will never understand this.
5. The back page of today's Philadelphia Daily News. Just 'cause:
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
10 years on: frank sinatra and the american male
Hard as it might be to believe, but Frank Sinatra died 10 years ago today. To many of us youngins, Sinatra is remembered as nothing more than a caricature, a wrinkled old Vegas lounge act who took the cheesy Rat Pack schtick too far but still sang some pretty songs that always made for nice background music or for a swell moment or two at your college buddy's wedding. But if you're the life of kings, you were in college and you were dying to know more after you saw Bono introduce him by saying this at the 1994 Grammy Awards:
All these years later, in trying to recall why, I found myself drawn to the obituary the incomparable Mark Steyn wrote for the London Sunday Telegraph, which Steyn has re-posted on his Web site this week:
But the music, as Steyn has written elsewhere, is "the only reason we’re remotely interested in what broads he’s nailing." His days as a spaghetti-thin crooner who wowed the bobbysoxers while their GI boyfriends and husbands were overseas saving the world from Hitler and Hirohito soon gave way to a voice that gave out on him just as Ava Gardner broke his heart. But he came back, first with his Academy-Award-winning role as Pvt. Angelo Maggio in From Here to Eternity, and then, throughout the 1950s, with a series of recordings that are among the greatest in the popular American songbook. "Like the smoke rings, the loosened collars and pushed-back hat brims of the album covers," Steyn wrote in another context, "it's mere confirmation of what the records tell us already -- that, whether the heady intoxication of Songs for Swingin' Lovers or the bleak resignation of In The Wee Small Hours, these things have happened to him." From then on, he was bigger than big, all the way to the end. In Steyn's obit, he points to Sinatra's ability to phrase a lyric, and while it's true he wrote none of his own songs, he certainly knew how to sing them. I'm especially partial to the sad ones, if only in appreciation of the raw emotion laid bare, as in "It Never Entered My Mind," when he sings the line about having to "order orange juice for one" by placing just the right emphasis on the words "for one" so as to wring every ounce of feeling from them. And just the other day, I again happened upon the rare gem "Everything Happens to Me," which was written by a couple of guys named Tom Adair and Matt Dennis. It concludes with a heartbreaking verse that again would take on a whole different vibe when uttered by some lesser mortal:
Who's this guy that every city in America wants to claim as their own? This painter who lives in the desert, this first-rate, first-take actor. This singer who makes other men poets, boxing clever with every word, talking like America -- tough, straight-up, in headlines. Comin' through with the big stick, the aside, the quiet compliment, good cop, bad cop, all in the same breath. You know his story 'cause it's your story. Frank walks like America -- cock-sure. ... Frank Sinatra. His voice as tight as a fist opening at the end of a bar. Not on the beat, over it, playing with it, splitting it, like a jazz man, like Miles Davis. Turning on the right phrase and the right song -- which is where he lives, where he lets go, where he reveals himself. His songs are his home and he lets you in. But you know that to sing like that you've gotta have lost a couple of fights. To know tenderness and romance you've gotta have had your heart broken...You soon learned about a man who really was bigger than life because, unlike so many other entertainers, including any number of rock 'n roll poseurs, The Sinatra Way really was a way of authenticity, a non-conformity rooted not in any juvenile desire to be "different" for its own sake, but rather to be exactly what he was, no matter the time or place. When he died, the world seemed to stop: Television and newspaper coverage was incessant, with The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News, like many papers throughout the country, publishing enormous keepsake special sections in the days that followed. Philly's WWDB-FM, which used to be a talk station but which also was the flagship for Sid Mark's long-running programs "Fridays with Frank" and "Sundays with Sinatra," cancelled its programming for the entire weekend, instead giving Sid carte blanche to tell old stories and play the old records, with a few updates straight from the family estate in Palm Springs.
All these years later, in trying to recall why, I found myself drawn to the obituary the incomparable Mark Steyn wrote for the London Sunday Telegraph, which Steyn has re-posted on his Web site this week:
If only 20 per cent of the gossip is true, it was an amazing life: Frank delivering two million bucks in an attaché case for mob boss Lucky Luciano; the horse’s head left in an uncooperative producer’s bed; Nancy and Ava and Lana and Marilyn and Lauren and Mia in his bed, being very cooperative, sometimes (Ava and Lana) simultaneously; even towards the end, when ex-wife Mia Farrow told him of her troubles with Woody Allen, Frank sportingly offered to break Woody’s legs. But what’s even more amazing than the life is that the records live up to it, and then some. The swagger and attitude, the chicks and mobsters are the incidental accompaniment; the real drama is in the songs.Pete Hamill, the legendary New York writer, said at the time that Sinatra's death marked the true end of the 20th century, if only because he figured in it so prominently. Not long after that, Hamill was moved enough to write a book entitled Why Sinatra Matters, which includes the following in its introduction:
He was funny. He was vulnerable. I never saw the snarling bully of the legend. That Frank Sinatra certainly existed; on the day that his death made all those front pages, there were too many people who remembered only his cruelties. But he never showed that side of himself when I was around. On those nights, I was in the company of an intelligent man, a reader of books, a lover of painting and classical music and sports, gallant with women, graceful with men. Perhaps he was just donning a mask in my company, presenting images to a writer so that they would be remembered by the writer in a certain way: a kind of performance. Or perhaps the snarling bully was the true masked character, a clumsy personal invention, and behind the mask there was simply a young man afraid of the world. Or perhaps, by the time I knew him, he had just grown out of his angers, exhausted them, and settled for what he was and the way he was regarded. I don't know. Like all great artists, Frank Sinatra contained secret places, abiding personal mysteries, endless contradictions. On occasion, a curtain would part, there would be a moment of epiphany, and I could see the uncertain older man who wanted to understand what it all meant, the man who said that dying was a pain in the ass. I liked that man very much.He was a terrific actor, as any number of his films makes plain. But for my money, I like the early scene in Young at Heart, when we first see him standing in Doris Day's doorway, skinny-shouldered and sad-eyed, his hat brim back just so, the camera locked on him for several seconds. It's our introduction to Barney Sloan, a self-described "stumblebum" nightclub singer who was good for a snarky comment or two, but little else. Seeing it all those years after its 1954 release, I couldn't help but feel there was a lot of the real Frank Sinatra in that character, a wiseass dago kid from Hoboken who just happened to make the big time because he had as much balls as he did talent.
But the music, as Steyn has written elsewhere, is "the only reason we’re remotely interested in what broads he’s nailing." His days as a spaghetti-thin crooner who wowed the bobbysoxers while their GI boyfriends and husbands were overseas saving the world from Hitler and Hirohito soon gave way to a voice that gave out on him just as Ava Gardner broke his heart. But he came back, first with his Academy-Award-winning role as Pvt. Angelo Maggio in From Here to Eternity, and then, throughout the 1950s, with a series of recordings that are among the greatest in the popular American songbook. "Like the smoke rings, the loosened collars and pushed-back hat brims of the album covers," Steyn wrote in another context, "it's mere confirmation of what the records tell us already -- that, whether the heady intoxication of Songs for Swingin' Lovers or the bleak resignation of In The Wee Small Hours, these things have happened to him." From then on, he was bigger than big, all the way to the end. In Steyn's obit, he points to Sinatra's ability to phrase a lyric, and while it's true he wrote none of his own songs, he certainly knew how to sing them. I'm especially partial to the sad ones, if only in appreciation of the raw emotion laid bare, as in "It Never Entered My Mind," when he sings the line about having to "order orange juice for one" by placing just the right emphasis on the words "for one" so as to wring every ounce of feeling from them. And just the other day, I again happened upon the rare gem "Everything Happens to Me," which was written by a couple of guys named Tom Adair and Matt Dennis. It concludes with a heartbreaking verse that again would take on a whole different vibe when uttered by some lesser mortal:
Telegraphed and phonedThe best of the books -- aside from Hamill's -- is Bill Zehme's The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and The Lost Art of Livin', published just before Sinatra's death. In it, Zehme expands on a 1996 essay he had written for Esquire: "Men had gone soft and needed help, needed a Leader, needed Frank Sinatra. I wanted to ask him the essential questions, the kind that could save a guy's life. I wanted what might approximate Frank's rules of order." What resulted was an all-encompassing "exploration of the Sinatra mystique" that covers "[m]atters of heart and heartbreak, coolness and swank, friendship and leadership, drinking and cavorting, brawling and wooing, tuxedos and snap-brims..." Of all the wonderful anecdotes, by far the best is the letter-to-the-editor Sinatra wrote to The Los Angeles Times in 1990 after he heard pop star George Michael had been complaining about being a "reluctant" star:
I sent an air-mail special, too
Your answer was goodbye
And there was even postage due
And no more talk about the "tragedy of fame." The tragedy of fame is when no one shows up and you're singing to the cleaning lady in some empty joint that hasn't seen a paying customer since St. Swithin's Day. And you're nowhere near that; you're the top dog on the top rung of a tall ladder called Stardom, which in Latin means thanks-to-the-fans who were there when it was lonely. Talent must not be wasted. Those who have talent -- and you obviously do or Calendar's cover article would have been about Rudy Vallee -- those who have talent must hug it, embrace it, nurture it, and share it, lest it be taken away from you as fast as it was loaned to you. Trust me. I've been there.
Monday, May 12, 2008
memo to anthony gargano: shut up. just shut up.
Heard from a friend back in Philly that 610 WIP-AM radio host Anthony Gargano had ambushed a newspaper columnist from Pittsburgh on the air today, accusing the city of being a johnny-come-lately in terms of its passion for hockey. He also mocked the guy for daring to pick the Penguins to sweep the Flyers -- despite the inconvenient fact that, last we checked, the Pens were already halfway there. And for his coup de grace, Gargano proceeded to taunt the guy for wearing "Penguins panties" or something or other. OK, tough guy, OK. Your station has also often pointed out that the Pirates failed to sell out a few playoff games back in the early 1990s -- an inexcusable act for the fans in Pittsburgh, even if the unsold seats were way up in the outfield upper deck at Three Rivers Stadium, about 10 miles from the field. Very well. But lookie here, cuz: the life of kings has discovered that, as recently as 2000, the Eagles -- the so-called pulse and passionate lifeblood of Philadelphia sports -- needed the Fox Network to buy up approximately 1,500 available seats to avoid having a playoff game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers blacked out. Don't believe me? Read it for yourself right here in The New York Times. That's right, ladies and gentlemen: Less than a decade ago, the Philadelphia Eagles needed help to sellout a playoff game. So shut up, Gargano, and enjoy your head start on the next 25 years of rooting for one loser after another while you continue to parade around with your knuckles scraping against the pavement.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
even the hipsters in pittsburgh are all pucked up
Here's how crazy it's getting: the life of kings is in Pittsburgh for Mother's Day, and because we suddenly had some writing to do this evening, we needed a wireless connection like quick (don't ask). So we went to our favorite hipster coffee jawns in Squirrel Hill, the kind of place where the girls are super cute and the music is always something you never heard of, because if you did they wouldn't want YOU to hear it. Anyway, to our surprise when we entered, we found the usual arrangement of Cool Bands You Never Heard Of had actually been replaced by the Penguins Radio Network broadcast of Game 2 of Flyers-Pens, complete with Mike Lange loudly uttering his trademark inanities like "How much chicken can you eat?" and "She wants to sell my monkey!" And when the Pens scored to take a 3-2 lead in the third period, the darling little blonde behind the counter whooped like she had just been told they were giving away bandanas across the street at Eat 'n Park. Or something. The handful of people on laptops or pretending to read Proust all reacted, too, except for this one guy on his laptop who was listening to an i-pod. He suddenly heard the fuss and looked around scornfully before intently returning to whatever the hell it was he was working on. [C'mon, dude. Smile a little and enjoy this. All the cool kids are doing it.] And if that weren't enough, Bob Smizik has written a column in the Post-Gazette that suggests this town's love for the Pens is beginning to rival that of the Steelers. Can it be? I mean, whoa.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
phil sheridan makes nice
With all the smack-talk being flung around our great commonwealth this week (ahem) in anticipation of the big Pens-Flyers series, which begins Friday at The Igloo (in case any of yinz were wondrin' 'n at), Phil Sheridan of the Philadelphia Inquirer has decided to take a kinder, gentler approach. In his column today, Sheridan seeks to find some common ground between the life of kings' hometown and the life of kings' adopted home. Money quote:
Sweet.
We're talking about Pittsburgh, that bridge-happy city on the other side of the state. We're talking about our neighbors. Taking cheap shots at Pittsburgh would be like picking a fight with your favorite cousin. Think Pittsburgh and you think blue-collar, beer-drinking, salt-of-the-earth folk who are working hard to reinvent themselves in the post-industrial era. That makes you want to hang out with them and compare notes, not insult them. ... Pittsburgh fans [are] a lot like us, only more polite.Cheers to that. And cheers to what promises to be a fun series. They're calling for all the fans at The Igloo to wear white for Game 1, which means the joint will look a lot like this:
Sweet.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
it's on.
Penguins. Flyers. For the NHL's Eastern Conference championship. Winner advances to the Stanley Cup Finals. Loser gets to hear about it from here to eternity. I expect to have few friends in Philly over the course of the next couple of weeks. And I don't care. The Igloo and the Wacho Center are both gonna shake. Oh, boy, is this gonna be fun.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
matt leinart likes to party. why is this an issue?
"Leinart speaks about party photos"
Saw the headline and had to read the story, which was published today in the Arizona Republic.
OK ... Lemme see ... Matt Leinart, a 24-year-old, good-looking quarterback for a professional football team, was ... OK ... lemme see now ... hang on ... photographed partying with young girls and ... hold up ... just a minute here ... wait, what? ... really? ... he also was pictured holding a ... wait for it ... this is shocking, horrifying stuff .... a beer bong?!?! Oh, the horror! The horror!
Don't believe me? Go here.
It's enough to make one shudder for the future of the republic (no pun intended).
Not because of what Leinart did, of course. Nope. No way. Bear with me, 'cause it's just a hunch, but I'm willing to bet my ability to read that Leinart is not the first multi-million-dollar athlete who likes to party with chicks and get wasted. That he has to answer for this and have his judgment questioned by "older," "wiser" types who no doubt have never had any fun in their lives is mind-numbingly stupid. You'd think, based on the breathless coverage, and on this browbeating delivered by Arizona Republic columnist Dan Bickley, that Leinart had killed someone -- or worse. All because he was doing something every red-blooded American male would otherwise want to do if he were in Leinart's board shorts. Look, I realize we're a long way from Joe Willie Namath, whose Mark-Kriegel-authored biography fantastically contains an entire chapter called "Booze and Broads," and whose exploits in and around New York City in the 1960s will always represent the gold standard of true bachelor cool. "He walked off with Jagger's girls," Kriegel writes. "He spilled drinks on Sinatra." I also realize athletes' actions are under greater scrutiny than ever before, that they constantly run the risk of getting in greater trouble than the rest of us because of their fame and fortune. But still: Why does the flip-side have to be that they're not entitled to any fun at all? Why does the revelation that they are having fun somehow imply that they're shirking their duties, as if they should all be studying their playbooks on Saturday nights and making sure to be at the gym by sunrise the following morning? Why does Matt Leinart have to answer for anything in this instance -- other than a handful of in-depth questions about why I wasn't invited?
Saw the headline and had to read the story, which was published today in the Arizona Republic.
OK ... Lemme see ... Matt Leinart, a 24-year-old, good-looking quarterback for a professional football team, was ... OK ... lemme see now ... hang on ... photographed partying with young girls and ... hold up ... just a minute here ... wait, what? ... really? ... he also was pictured holding a ... wait for it ... this is shocking, horrifying stuff .... a beer bong?!?! Oh, the horror! The horror!
Don't believe me? Go here.
It's enough to make one shudder for the future of the republic (no pun intended).
Not because of what Leinart did, of course. Nope. No way. Bear with me, 'cause it's just a hunch, but I'm willing to bet my ability to read that Leinart is not the first multi-million-dollar athlete who likes to party with chicks and get wasted. That he has to answer for this and have his judgment questioned by "older," "wiser" types who no doubt have never had any fun in their lives is mind-numbingly stupid. You'd think, based on the breathless coverage, and on this browbeating delivered by Arizona Republic columnist Dan Bickley, that Leinart had killed someone -- or worse. All because he was doing something every red-blooded American male would otherwise want to do if he were in Leinart's board shorts. Look, I realize we're a long way from Joe Willie Namath, whose Mark-Kriegel-authored biography fantastically contains an entire chapter called "Booze and Broads," and whose exploits in and around New York City in the 1960s will always represent the gold standard of true bachelor cool. "He walked off with Jagger's girls," Kriegel writes. "He spilled drinks on Sinatra." I also realize athletes' actions are under greater scrutiny than ever before, that they constantly run the risk of getting in greater trouble than the rest of us because of their fame and fortune. But still: Why does the flip-side have to be that they're not entitled to any fun at all? Why does the revelation that they are having fun somehow imply that they're shirking their duties, as if they should all be studying their playbooks on Saturday nights and making sure to be at the gym by sunrise the following morning? Why does Matt Leinart have to answer for anything in this instance -- other than a handful of in-depth questions about why I wasn't invited?
Friday, May 2, 2008
the pirates and the andy van slyke question
Jonah Keri takes a look at baseball's numerous "failure dynasties" today on ESPN.com, and it goes without saying that my beloved Pittsburgh Pirates make the list. Like most national writers, however, Keri is knowledgable about some things and ignorant on others. He's solid on the train-wrecked tenures of former general managers Cam Bonifay and Dave Littlefield, for example. But why does he begin by noting that the Bucs should have held on to Barry Bonds instead of Andy Van Slyke back in 1993? Doesn't he realize that Balco Barry had signed a one-year extension to remain with the team in '92, after which he made it clear he wanted out of town? The team didn't have a choice in the matter, which is what made (and still makes) the night of Oct. 14, 1992 such a gut punch (click the link and scroll down to No. 8 on the list for the gory details). Keri also derides Kevin McClatchy's stewardship as owner, and largely with good reason. But McClatchy deserves some credit for purchasing the franchise in the mid-'90s and working assiduously to keep it in Pittsburgh -- a point worth mentioning, in my mind, even if the time that bought him obviously ran out several years ago.
As for Van Slyke, he's just so damn cool, as this interview with Yahoo.com clearly demonstrates. He tells it like it is about Bonds, especially with regard to that fateful, awful play on Oct. 14, 1992. The bit about his turnstile-jumping episode on the New York City subway -- especially what he told the female cop upon being apprehended -- is just fantastic, and Phillies fans will love what he had to say about all the chew spit Lenny Dykstra used to leave behind on the centerfield turf at Veterans Stadium. It's also cool that one of my favorite blogs, Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke?, even gets a little love in the interview. And as one might expect, WHYGAVS takes it all happily in stride.
As for Van Slyke, he's just so damn cool, as this interview with Yahoo.com clearly demonstrates. He tells it like it is about Bonds, especially with regard to that fateful, awful play on Oct. 14, 1992. The bit about his turnstile-jumping episode on the New York City subway -- especially what he told the female cop upon being apprehended -- is just fantastic, and Phillies fans will love what he had to say about all the chew spit Lenny Dykstra used to leave behind on the centerfield turf at Veterans Stadium. It's also cool that one of my favorite blogs, Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke?, even gets a little love in the interview. And as one might expect, WHYGAVS takes it all happily in stride.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
the great bissinger-leitch debate
In case you missed it, Tuesday night's episode of Costas Now on HBO featured a fascinating exchange between noted author Buzz Bissinger and blog maverick Will Leitch. The topic? Something near and dear to the life of kings and all it stands for: The future of journalism, specifically sports journalism, in this here Internet age.
Costas, the host and moderator, is truly an admirable sort: an intelligent, enthusiastic commentator who speaks clearly and with an informed voice. He takes his subject matter seriously and is interested in genuine, open discussion -- though he's not above having a little fun even when having to ask a tough question. Such qualities seemed to make him the perfect guy to officiate this hair-pull, even if it's obvious where his bias lies. Alas, at least this time, he came up small. Bissinger, meanwhile, has written Friday Night Lights, a bestselling book about high school football culture in Texas, and A Prayer For the City, a remarkable account of then-mayor Ed Rendell's efforts at rescuing the city of Philadelphia in the post-Wilson Goode era. And Leitch? He's the founder of Deadspin.com, a blog site devoted to covering sports in a way you won't necessarily find in your local newspaper. He basically represents the young, attitude-driven future of this business. Also appearing was Braylon Edwards, a wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns who was there to offer the perspective of the professional athlete.
Some thoughts:
1. Bissinger, quite frankly, comes across as a crotchety old coot. You'd think a guy with his intelligence and ability would know better than to open a discussion with a guy he thinks is dragging sports journalism into the toilet by saying something other than, "I really think you're full of shit." Unfortunately, Bissinger rarely gets any better from there on out.
2. What gives Leitch, and those like him, the advantage on this topic is that they know their audience. I know a lot of newspaper people who have the attitude that their way is the only way, to hell with however the world might be changing. But as Leitch makes clear, the pony express, the abacus and the horse-drawn buggy once had their place, too.
3. Bissinger scores points with his suggestion that blogging is hurting the quality of writing and contributing to the "dumbing-down" of our collective culture. What he overlooks, however, is how much bad writing and dead wood currently exists at newspapers. And our strange obsession with celebrities and our fascination with the prurient and the trivial certainly didn't begin with the Internet.
4. There is far too much attack-type stuff on the Internet, far too many cheap shots being taken by those with little or no accountability, but there's a clear distinction between reader-generated comments and writer-generated content.
5. Leitch was wrong to suggest (with a straight face) that he was bringing out "the human side" of pro athletes when he publishes photos of them boozing and cavorting with women. (The opening segment includes shots of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger from Super Bowl week a few years back; Big Ben can be seen pouring drinks into women's mouths while wearing a shirt that says, in a play on Notre Dame's famous motto, "Drink Like a Champion Today." I found it funny then and still think it's funny now. But still.) Athletes are entitled to their privacy, and I do think journalists should respect that. I don't know how many times I've been out drinking in Doylestown only to have a person I'm introduced to freeze upon meeting me, as if I'm going to chronicle their entire evening for the next morning's paper. I didn't, I don't, and I won't.
6. Leitch is also wrong to openly "be a fan." One can be a fan -- Go Pens! -- and no one can be 100 percent objective, but readers deserve an effort at objectivity and honesty. A lot of journalism is credibility, and while personal relationships with players and teams can result, the only way to honestly convey information to the average reader is to honestly try to be as completely objective and detached as possible. Frankly, it's part of the reason I don't work in Pittsburgh.
7. Costas takes a swipe at a musing about Rick Reilly authored by A.J. Daulerio, a Deadspin writer. (Disclosure: Daulerio and I went to college together and once covered the same suburban news beat for competing newspapers. Just a few weeks back, we even indulged our shared taste for beer and tequila by having One of Those Nights in Center City.) Daulerio criticizes Reilly for essentially taking advantage of the access he is granted as a sports writer, suggesting that it's wrong because the average fan doesn't have such access. But A.J., bro, that's the point: The access allows the writer to see up close how an athlete talks, what his mannerisms are, what he thinks and how he's feeling just after the heat of battle. I, for one, have often found these sort of exchanges to be the best way to bring out the drama of a sports story, as with this. That access, however, should not be taken too far, and it's troubling to hear stories of journalists playing golf with subjects they cover, to cite just one ethically-challenged example.
8. The bottom line: The answer lies somewhere between Bissinger's Luddite desire to see newspapers survive "just because" and Leitch's more bare-knuckles approach. The Internet is the future of information, and if Bissinger and others like him don't wish to cede any ground to Leitch and his gang, they at least better start figuring out a way to do it better. And soon.
Check out the entire exchange on Deadspin's site here.
CLARIFICATION: Not long after this post went up this afternoon, I got a phone call from A.J. Daulerio, who wanted to point out that Costas had incorrectly attributed the Reilly-bashing piece to him, when in fact "Big Daddy Balls" is someone else. That Costas would come into this so unprepared is at once striking and revealing. Anyway, A.J.'s own reaction to the whole shebang can be read here. His references to the days when he covered zoning board hearings and the like harken back to a time when we worked together, and it was fun to relive those days when we threw a few back at Locust Bar and the P&P a couple of weeks ago. A.J.'s a good guy and a good reporter and writer with good intentions. Our own talk about this stuff was enlightening and cordial, and it's a shame the Bissinger-Leitch debate wasted so much time and energy bickering like a bad afternoon of programming on WIP.
Costas, the host and moderator, is truly an admirable sort: an intelligent, enthusiastic commentator who speaks clearly and with an informed voice. He takes his subject matter seriously and is interested in genuine, open discussion -- though he's not above having a little fun even when having to ask a tough question. Such qualities seemed to make him the perfect guy to officiate this hair-pull, even if it's obvious where his bias lies. Alas, at least this time, he came up small. Bissinger, meanwhile, has written Friday Night Lights, a bestselling book about high school football culture in Texas, and A Prayer For the City, a remarkable account of then-mayor Ed Rendell's efforts at rescuing the city of Philadelphia in the post-Wilson Goode era. And Leitch? He's the founder of Deadspin.com, a blog site devoted to covering sports in a way you won't necessarily find in your local newspaper. He basically represents the young, attitude-driven future of this business. Also appearing was Braylon Edwards, a wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns who was there to offer the perspective of the professional athlete.
Some thoughts:
1. Bissinger, quite frankly, comes across as a crotchety old coot. You'd think a guy with his intelligence and ability would know better than to open a discussion with a guy he thinks is dragging sports journalism into the toilet by saying something other than, "I really think you're full of shit." Unfortunately, Bissinger rarely gets any better from there on out.
2. What gives Leitch, and those like him, the advantage on this topic is that they know their audience. I know a lot of newspaper people who have the attitude that their way is the only way, to hell with however the world might be changing. But as Leitch makes clear, the pony express, the abacus and the horse-drawn buggy once had their place, too.
3. Bissinger scores points with his suggestion that blogging is hurting the quality of writing and contributing to the "dumbing-down" of our collective culture. What he overlooks, however, is how much bad writing and dead wood currently exists at newspapers. And our strange obsession with celebrities and our fascination with the prurient and the trivial certainly didn't begin with the Internet.
4. There is far too much attack-type stuff on the Internet, far too many cheap shots being taken by those with little or no accountability, but there's a clear distinction between reader-generated comments and writer-generated content.
5. Leitch was wrong to suggest (with a straight face) that he was bringing out "the human side" of pro athletes when he publishes photos of them boozing and cavorting with women. (The opening segment includes shots of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger from Super Bowl week a few years back; Big Ben can be seen pouring drinks into women's mouths while wearing a shirt that says, in a play on Notre Dame's famous motto, "Drink Like a Champion Today." I found it funny then and still think it's funny now. But still.) Athletes are entitled to their privacy, and I do think journalists should respect that. I don't know how many times I've been out drinking in Doylestown only to have a person I'm introduced to freeze upon meeting me, as if I'm going to chronicle their entire evening for the next morning's paper. I didn't, I don't, and I won't.
6. Leitch is also wrong to openly "be a fan." One can be a fan -- Go Pens! -- and no one can be 100 percent objective, but readers deserve an effort at objectivity and honesty. A lot of journalism is credibility, and while personal relationships with players and teams can result, the only way to honestly convey information to the average reader is to honestly try to be as completely objective and detached as possible. Frankly, it's part of the reason I don't work in Pittsburgh.
7. Costas takes a swipe at a musing about Rick Reilly authored by A.J. Daulerio, a Deadspin writer. (Disclosure: Daulerio and I went to college together and once covered the same suburban news beat for competing newspapers. Just a few weeks back, we even indulged our shared taste for beer and tequila by having One of Those Nights in Center City.) Daulerio criticizes Reilly for essentially taking advantage of the access he is granted as a sports writer, suggesting that it's wrong because the average fan doesn't have such access. But A.J., bro, that's the point: The access allows the writer to see up close how an athlete talks, what his mannerisms are, what he thinks and how he's feeling just after the heat of battle. I, for one, have often found these sort of exchanges to be the best way to bring out the drama of a sports story, as with this. That access, however, should not be taken too far, and it's troubling to hear stories of journalists playing golf with subjects they cover, to cite just one ethically-challenged example.
8. The bottom line: The answer lies somewhere between Bissinger's Luddite desire to see newspapers survive "just because" and Leitch's more bare-knuckles approach. The Internet is the future of information, and if Bissinger and others like him don't wish to cede any ground to Leitch and his gang, they at least better start figuring out a way to do it better. And soon.
Check out the entire exchange on Deadspin's site here.
CLARIFICATION: Not long after this post went up this afternoon, I got a phone call from A.J. Daulerio, who wanted to point out that Costas had incorrectly attributed the Reilly-bashing piece to him, when in fact "Big Daddy Balls" is someone else. That Costas would come into this so unprepared is at once striking and revealing. Anyway, A.J.'s own reaction to the whole shebang can be read here. His references to the days when he covered zoning board hearings and the like harken back to a time when we worked together, and it was fun to relive those days when we threw a few back at Locust Bar and the P&P a couple of weeks ago. A.J.'s a good guy and a good reporter and writer with good intentions. Our own talk about this stuff was enlightening and cordial, and it's a shame the Bissinger-Leitch debate wasted so much time and energy bickering like a bad afternoon of programming on WIP.
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