The Sports Dork and "These too cool for school comics"

[nec13]

Uh oh, apparently there's a feud brewing between The Sports Guy and Mike Franceser. Although, I must say, Franceser has a valid point about Simmons being an "ESPN stooge."

http://www.fantasy555.com/2009/09/16/article-simmons-francesa-trade-barbs/

[scratchbomb]

Franceser also seems to share's Tom's views on Pod-trash.

[yesno]

Even though I don't listen to it that often, at least the Sports Dork is trying to do something interesting with his podcast.  Fransescer is just keeping with his time-tested formula of talking to the shaved apes who call in and spouting disjointed gibberish.  He makes Simmons sound like Joe Frank.

[dave from knoxville]

shit, that means I actually have to listen to it now? damn my completist ways...

You know, I heard Patton was on this other obscure podcast you wouldn't expect him to do, maybe 6 months ago. Or was it a year ago? I can't remember the name, or the theme of the podcast, but I am sure it's out there. Maybe you can find it!

[Topher]

Sorry to bump this, but Bill Simmons had a bit on his podcast today where they pitched "Rambocky" right down to using the same title. Sort of weird, right on the heels of Patton's appearance.

[amiright??]

This most recent episode with Patton was the most aggravating interview I've ever heard. Patton was interesting, as usual, but he had no help from Simmons. NONE.

[Greggulator]

If you can't write a sports column without recycling the same jokes about The Wire, Good Will Hunting or The Shawshank Redemption every other paragraph, then you probably shouldn't have a sports column.

[buffcoat]

[Bill Simmons]... shouldn't have a sports column.

Well said.  I agree with this.

[TheeChrisDee]

at least he retired the 90210 references...oh wait, he didn't.

[Matthew_S]

[[ did not find this posted already , so let's put this here ]]


Bill Simmons (and friends) ' Grantland.com has launched.

Today, Chuck Klosterman posted a piece about his created rock "stat", the VORM.

Here is the link:

http://espn.go.com/espn/grantland/story/_/id/6674439/view/full/rock-vorp

Here is the relevant footnote:

The research for this portion of the abstract was modeled after the work of mid-'90s musicologist Ronald Thomas Clontle and surveys the same core demographics (Lawrence, Kans.; Gainesville, Fla.).

[Mr. Spacely]

Whoa!  That's great. I like Klosterman, but I never pegged him as a big comedy guy. Let alone a long-form indie radio comedy guy.

It's weird to think S&W now vaguely, distantly share a portion of the comedy Venn Diagram with Simmons.

[scratchbomb]

The Best Show reference was great, although everything else about that piece drove me bonkers.But then I should probably disclose that Klosterman and I have a longstanding feud that only I know about.

[amiright??]

He probably knows now, due to google alerts.

THIS IS GONNA BE GOOD!

[Greggulator]

I think this is so funny on a few levels.

I'm really torn on Grantland. Simmons and Klosterman suck. Period. They are so ridiculously impressed with themselves. Dave Eggers, Malcolm Gladwell, Jimmy Kimmel and Mike Schur's involvement also do not bode well.

(NOTE: I appreciate Schur's contributions to American comedy, but I'm not a fan of his sports writing. And his piece on cricket was really hard to sit through, especially since cricket kind of rules. I would have footnoted this, BTW, to keep with the Grantland tradition, if possible.)

However, I really like Rafe Bartholemue (who wrote Pacific Rims, hilarious basketball book) and Davy Rothbart (of Found Magazine fame). The Masked Man from Deadspin writes some decent stuff about wrestling. Everyone else falls flat to me.

Anyways, it's pretty awesome that a very visible writer on a very visible website made a reference to TBS. It's just how they did it that irks me -- it's a nice little reference that the .01% of people reading Grantland will understand. There's no link to anything from there. By doing so, Klosterman's essentially making someone else's work his own clever little joke.

But what's really hilarious -- the whole conceit of Rock, Rot and Rule is to make fun of lazy, hackish, too-cool-for-school professional music writers... LIKE CHUCK KLOSTERMAN. I'm not sure if he's picking that up...