This week I was supposed to write about ESPN The Magazine's recent release of its Body Issue. I had a great joke all lined up, too. I was going to change the name of the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network to the Entertainment, Sports and Penis Network.
I hadn't been on the ground for an hour on my first day before I saw Tom Arnold in a restaurant. It wasn't the most glamorous celebrity sighting, but I suppose it was a fitting introduction to the vernacular of L.A. Now I have an anecdote: You guys, I saw Tom Arnold in a restaurant. I already have more of these kinds of stories than the average bear (did you know I saw Bill O'Reilly in a unisex bathroom backstage at Radio City Music Hall?), but on the east coast, they don't come up in conversation very often. Here, celebrity stories are a necessary part of speech, and people everywhere are dying to share theirs with you. My roommate McKenzie, ever since she arrived, has picked up the habit of scanning every face she sees, trying to decide if she's seen it before. And, as I'm finding out at every turn, her chances are surprisingly good. As an enthusiast of pop culture of all stripes, I suppose that my mental font of celebrities is larger than many, but it still seems like there is an excess supply of people in this town who, to a given person, can be considered "celebrities." Last week, I was in an all-night restaurant in Hollywood and saw two out of the three Hanson brothers, but I was the only person in my group who recognized them (yeah, I still listen to Hanson, what of it?). I was excited to see musicians I admire (stop judging me!), but McKenzie was just happy to see anybody. The producer of "Attack of the Show!" who interviewed me for a potential internship asked, "How are you at dealing with talent?" It seems ridiculous that "talent" lives in a kind of rarefied air in L.A. — the air quality here is terrible anyway. But I can't stop these ridiculous anecdotes from coming out of my mouth, even though I learned years ago that celebrities are just human beings too. All this obsession just seems like a waste of time. Last night, I went to dinner in the Valley with Janet, the family friend who got me my "HIMYM" gig, and her husband Michael, who's worked for years as a character actor in order to support his comedy writing. I catch him on TV all the time — an episode of "Seinfeld" here, a recurring role on "Hannah Montana" there. I suppose for many, he has one of those faces that is familiar but hard to place. He told me, "Since I did ‘Hannah Montana,' I can't walk into a Chuck E. Cheese without the place going apes--t." I wasn't sure if he was kidding. He also relishes his celebrity stories more than anyone else I've talked to. He eagerly shared his experiences with Miley, Courteney Cox, the Brady Bunch and Michael Jackson. He refers to them by their first names. Watching E! with Janet and Michael was exhausting. "So-and-so actress is such a nice girl." "What's-his-name is really a messed-up guy." Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't particularly want to hear it. I guess I read my fair share of celebrity Twitters, but there are far more people whom I don't care about than those I do. In a time when so many famous people have done nothing to earn their fame, there is an oversaturation of people in L.A. whom we're all supposed to slobber after. And maybe this means that I'll never fit in entirely in this town, but I don't really have the energy to play along.
I sincerely hope every one of you watched Monday Night Football this week. If not, you missed the pinnacle of the greatest event in sports, ESPN and probably sports journalism in its entirety: Brett Favre's first game against his former team, the Green Bay Packers — admittedly a particularly surreal sight that could've only been made weirder had it been played at Lambeau. Still, the Worldwide Leader rose to near-insane levels of hyperbole, unabashedly calling the game the "biggest regular season game in years." Inevitably, the most gushing praise was reserved for the Ole Gunslinger himself. No fewer than three ESPN talking heads referred to him as "magical" on various editions of SportsCenter throughout the day. The game played out exactly as the network hoped, with Number 4 (apparently) looking like the "vintage Favre of 1997." Granted, Favre did look pretty impressive, making a handful of throws that only three or four other current quarterbacks would've been capable of. However, anyone who wasn't blinded by the Metrodome glare off of Favre's halo could've seen that Green Bay's secondary played as weak a game as any unit in the NFL has this season. And their front seven didn't look much better. On one play, Favre had a full 8-Mississippi to find a receiver. Even JaMarcus Russell could've located an open wideout with that kind of time. With any other quarterback, this shoddy coverage would've been made clear by midway through the first quarter, but with Favre it was barely noted at all. Apparently some of Brett's magic wore off on the announcers, with Mike Tirico declaring with a full quarter left to play that, "Number 4 has done it one more time," and Ron Jaworski going so far as to exclaim, "no 40-year old [quarterback] has ever won a playoff game; I think he'll get that one too." It's the first week in October! Never before has a network lavished this level of love on a single player. What makes its warm and tingly feelings even weirder is the disconnect that exists between ESPN and its viewing public, the overwhelming majority of whom abjectly hate Favre. I don't know anyone besides my idiot brother who doesn't think that Brett Favre is an ass. Hell, I want to punch myself in the face just for writing a column about the self-centered turd. On the other hand, ESPN's blatant over-promotion serves a distinct purpose. Love him or hate him, ESPN has pretty much forced the diehard sports fan to have a completely polarized opinion of the man. And polarized opinions mean a public that's compelled to watch a game that it otherwise would have little to no interest in. To this end, every word every SportsCenter anchor and analyst uttered about him in the past week paid off. The game drew 21.84 million viewers, which was not only the largest audience in ESPN and Monday Night Football history, but also in the history of cable television. The Worldwide Leader got that way by knowing what it's doing, and the Favre saga is simply the latest example. So expect more of Stuart Scott asking questions like (to Bernard Berrian), "What was the funniest thing Brett said on the sidelines?" At least one man, Jon Gruden, understood how comical the situation was and responded by delving into over-the-top satire. Gruden openly declared that leading a second-quarter scoring drive, "cements [Favre] as a living legend." He then opined, over practice footage from 1994 — when Gruden was Favre's QB coach — of Favre hitting wide open receivers, that "I love being associated with this guy," and in a heartrending show of emotion said, "I miss him." Wait. He was serious? Jesus.
More and more people are starting to believe that football has replaced baseball as America's national pastime. I see their point, although I'm not sure I buy it just yet.
If you go to Tufts, then you probably have a mental list of words that you sometimes hear in your hometown or even, on occasion, at a family gathering, but would never, ever dream of uttering within 10 miles of campus. You wouldn't go near the K-word or the D-word, let alone the C-word or the N-word. In fact, there are so many __-words to remember that you probably shudder with fear after articulating completely innocuous ones like "black" or "homosexual" or "Canada," waiting for someone to jump down your throat.(If you don't go to Tufts, then you're most likely confused. This is the Daily. Sudoku is on page 11.)For the most part, I get it. I was never a believer in the elementary school rhyme about sticks and stones and cried when people so much as mentioned my frizzy hair. Words aren't just words. Well, they are just words. But they pick up all kinds of meanings and connotations over the course of their various histories and often rehash bad memories that are more pleasant to just stow away.Hence, political correctness.But I don't want to talk about those words. I want to talk about why — for the very reasons that certain words are deemed un-PC in the first place — political correctness is basically futile.Un-PC terms make it onto the blacklist because we know them to be painfully racist, sexist or discriminatory in some way. But what about the rest of the words that we use on a daily basis? Can we ensure that we're not being accidentally offensive or constantly using racial slurs?Absolutely not. Commonplace words have histories of their own, most of them so forgotten that we overlook the prejudices they unsuspectingly harbor. Let me explain what I mean.There was a girl in my high school history class who refused to refer to the study as "history" and instead chose "herstory." My teacher, infuriated, assured the girl that "history" is not sexist and does not relate to the gender-specific pronoun "his" but rather to the Greek word "historia," meaning narrative. She wouldn't let up, so he scornfully told her to shut up.He probably shouldn't have done so, foremost because it was mean, but also because, in a way, she was right. No, the "his" in "history" does not imply that the narrative of history is the narrative of men. But the word "history" in "historia" does mean "wise man," implying that the writers of history's narrative are in fact men.Not sold? Here's another one: Killers, murderers, assassins — they're all words used to judge criminals solely on the basis of their actions, right? Colloquially, yes. But the word "assassin," according to a popular etymological theory, actually comes from the Arabic "hashishiyyin," meaning hashish-user and referring to a sect of Muslims during the Crusades rumored to have gotten high off of hashish and then gone on murderous raids of their opponents under the influence. So when you accuse someone of being an assassin, you can't do it without bringing up Muslims and drugs.Similarly, the phrase "running amok" (which is kind of like going berserk) comes from the Malay word "amuk" and was used by Westerners in reference to native South Asians, who, allegedly, were inclined to work up a frenzy, run into the streets and kill everyone in sight. No one calls that phrase the RA-word.But perhaps the greatest irony lies in the term "political correctness" itself, which is said to have been coined by Mao's "Little Red Book" to indicate that only opinions aligning with Maoism and Marxism were "politically correct." That sucks, I know, but PC is a delicate game to play. And oftentimes, without even realizing it, you get gypped.
For nearly 150 days — almost five months — the Detroit Tigers held first place in the American League Central.
Collectively, as a sports culture, we love to hate. From the deeply-held Red Sox-Yankees rivalry to the obscenities shouted at the television set when a wide receiver drops a big pass, disdain comes naturally and it comes far more easily than love does. Especially in a society as technologically advanced as ours, anger is instantaneous.
Ah, the first date — so exciting, yet often so nerve-wracking. Maybe you've been asked out, gotten up the courage to do the asking yourself, or perhaps it's just the follow up to the cup of coffee you grabbed after class last week.
I've got something to say to some close personal friends, and this is obviously the appropriate forum. Sorry, Kanye West and Serena Williams. I just had to say it before the three of us meet up for our weekly "Mad Men" viewing party. Phew. What a load off my chest.
We're not big fans of witty, ironic t-shirts. You have to be pretty insecure if you feel the need to supplement your personality with a shirt made from cotton and the tears of emaciated Cambodian children. However, there's one shirt sold on Threadless that we enjoy. This manila T's simple yet witty slogan — "I listen to bands that don't even exist yet" — means a lot to us. The phrase makes us think of the people who roll their eyes when you list your favorite recent movies. You know these people as bullies or jerks or Angelica Pickles, but we have a technical term for them — Indie Elitists.
Everyone likes to gossip. If you say you don't, you're lying. Come on: Nothing is more exciting than news about other people. It's like intellectual people-watching. We let loose and judge people, laughing and sneering at our friends and, sometimes, family.
In the search for immortality, some of the most successful people have been those who have managed to live on through their names. Iconic talents and heroes lend their names to film genres, battlefields and schools of thought. Less talented people with lots of cash to spare lend their names to plaques and auditoriums. And then there are those who really aren't looking for fame or immortality at all but somehow make their way into the English dictionary.
When I saw last week that Brandt Andersen, owner of the Utah Flash of the NBA Developmental League, wanted to see Jordan battle Russell one-on-one, three successive thoughts popped into my head.
From chili dog runs at Ben's Chili Bowl to the menu at the Inaugural Ball, I've waxed poetic about the food choices of our First Family too many times to count. A friend of mine who is well-versed in my First Foods fascination introduced me this summer to Obama Foodorama, an Obama-centered food blog that tracks everything from new policies in the Food and Drug Administration to what restaurants Michelle frequents. (My latest obsession is the Michelle Melt at Good Stuff Eatery in Washington, D.C. — a turkey burger with an herbed mayo inspired by the herbs grown in the White House Kitchen Garden.)
I haven't eaten in nine hours, and it's got me thinking.
In the wave of dating conversations I've had since last week's column, about 90 percent have ended with me exclaiming, "So why don't you just ask him/her to grab coffee on Friday and get it out there?" only to stir up a myriad of excuses.
Hockey. A sport usually reserved for toothless, bearded men whacking each other with sticks and clumsily ripping off their shirts for the amusement of the 100-or-so fans in the stands. But now, it seems that followers of hockey in my hometown of Washington D.C. have multiplied like bunnies. My theory for such a spike in Capitals followers and attendance?
There are very few college-age Boston sports fans that can feel my pain. They can try to empathize, but any comforting words they might have to offer are eventually unveiled as hollow and meaningless. "Hang in there," they say. "It'll get better."
Like many of you, we saw Quentin Tarantino's bloodstained epic "Inglourious Basterds" (2009) this summer. We've followed this movie since it was a wee little script back in 2004. Ever since its premiere at Cannes this past May, we've been subject to a promotional "blitzkrieg." Everywhere we looked we saw Brad Pitt's cheeky grin. As excited as we were, we left the theater slightly underwhelmed. Why? We felt misled. We went into the theater conditioned by all the trailers to see the Basterds kill some "Nat-sees." Instead, we only got about thirty minutes of the Basterds. All that build-up, but hardly any payoff.
I can no longer be surprised by what the New England Patriots do. If I woke up tomorrow morning and learned that the Patriots had traded Tom Brady for first- and third-round choices in 2015, I'd probably be convinced to spin that into a positive.
