Bill Simmons: Good Luck With Your Life.

ifmanis5

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jon abbey

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I didn't read this column, but I did read the last couple of pages here (fantastic) and I started reading the e-mail column, but I'm stuck at this hilarious mistake that I don't think anyone here mentioned:

"And now, everyone under 30 knows Steve McQueen only as the guy who directed 12 Years a Slave. Bizarre."
 
Especially bizarre because action hero Steve McQueen died in 1980 and an entirely different guy named Steve McQueen is the director, a black Brit born in 1969. Apologies if he was making a joke, but it really doesn't seem like he was, and it still hasn't been corrected. 
 

Marciano490

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Sorry if I'm missing your point, but I think he's saying that everyone under 30 hears the name Steve McQueen and thinks of the director, not the actor, which is of course an entirely untrue and ridiculous premise, but I read your post to be saying that he thinks the two McQueens are the same.

It's like his LT discussions a few years ago when he'd get pissy people called Tomlinson LT because that'd make people not think of Lawrence Taylor as LT. Apparently, the concept that people might have the same nickname, name or initials without confusing the general population eludes him.
 

jon abbey

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Oh, maybe you're right, but that is really poorly written on top of being a dumb point then. My bad, though. 
 

jon abbey

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I said my bad, but really it was so poorly delivered and he has such a (justified) rep for lazy inaccuracy at this point that I didn't think it was a joke after reading it a bunch of times. But again, I said my bad. 
 

johnmd20

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jon abbey said:
I said my bad, but really it was so poorly delivered and he has such a (justified) rep for lazy inaccuracy at this point that I didn't think it was a joke after reading it a bunch of times. But again, I said my bad. 
 
SAY IT AGAIN!
 
Remember those NBA Mailbags that Simmons was going to do on Grantland every Wednesday until the end of the regular season? And which he then modified at... 
 
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/nba-bag-figuring-out-the-ever-changing-pick-swapping-2014-draft/
 
...like, uh:
 
Editor’s note: We’re taking next Wednesday off from the NBA Bag, then writing three more for the Triangle on April 2, April 9 and April 16 (last day of the regular season). We might keep it going through the playoffs if the questions are good enough.
 
...anyway, I guess it's not a huge surprise to note that instead of the April 2 mailbag, Simmons instead collaborated on an "Above the Rim" retrospective/roundtable - because God knows we need more 1994 movie retrospectives on Grantland. His first few NBA mailbags were really good by Simmons mailbag standards (and I still really like the format when he puts some effort into them), and then they got worse, and now they've gone missing. Not really good on forward planning and following through, is he?
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Not really good on forward planning and following through, is he?
 
 
Simmons is a really good planner and has some legit great ideas, but his follow through sucks. Like trust-fund kid at college sucks. That's why when people talk about Simmons and 30/30 or Grantland, I laugh because I'm not sure how much Simmons had to do with any of these things other than the initial ideas (which are admittedly brilliant). From his aborted NBA Previews, to him following the EPL, to him writing "more intelligently" about baseball, I can't think of a single thing that Simmons has said he was going to do and followed through on.
 
I liked his NBA mailbags, I thought it was a really good idea, but I knew that they weren't going to last. He always has an excuse.
 

coremiller

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"We might keep it going through the playoffs if the questions are good enough"  
 
Ha.  This is brilliant.  "I am a professional writer and editor, but I won't be able to produce any content if my readers can't come up with topics for me to write about."
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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coremiller said:
"We might keep it going through the playoffs if the questions are good enough"  
 
Ha.  This is brilliant.  "I am a professional writer and editor, but I won't be able to produce any content if my readers can't come up with topics for me to write about."
 
I have to hand it to him, he really figured out a great angle for laziness. "Yeah, you know, I'd really like to more, I really would, but you guys, your questions are fucking terrible. How am I suppose to riff and write when you guys bring nothing to the table? God, I feel like I have to do this myself sometimes."
 
Don't forget his list of the Top 72 Sports Movies of All Time:
 
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/movies/longestyard
 
What did he get through, maybe 7 or 8? (And not in any order, either.)
 
Incidentally, I did actually persevere through to the end of his Action Hero Belt podcast with Wesley Morris...it was surprisingly entertaining given how much of a train-wreck the column clearly was.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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I wish that for once, Simmons could write a piece without shoehorning himself into it. The Letterman story was going along pretty good until he had to the part about how he felt watching Letterman go to LA.
 
I know it's Simmons' nervous tick, but if you're going to put yourself in the story at least make it interesting.
 
And this is something that is happening industry wide. From Peter King to Bill Simmons and everyone in between, sportswriters seem to think that their readers give a shit about every single thing that happened to them. If something interesting can be added, put it in the story (Charlie Pierce does a good job of this, for the most part Joe Posnanski does a good job too, Rick Reilly was once decent at it) but most are just the most banal things you've ever read. Oh noes! You thought that David Letterman was going to choke when he met Johnny Carson! Who cares.
 

coremiller

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Especially since the piece is littered with pretentious, self-important bullshit like this:
 
 
 
That NBC show lifted an imaginary rope and allowed me into a little club, the Funny Club, created for the people who understood comedy better than everyone else.
Yes, 15-year-old Billl Simmons was a member of the Funny Club and one of the select few who understood comedy better than anyone else.
 

Leather

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Which is why he's still writing for late night comedy shows.
 
Oh wait.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Especially since the piece is littered with pretentious, self-important bullshit like this:
 
Quote

 
 
That NBC show lifted an imaginary rope and allowed me into a little club, the Funny Club, created for the people who understood comedy better than everyone else.
Yes, 15-year-old Billl Simmons was a member of the Funny Club and one of the select few who understood comedy better than anyone else.
 

 
Holy shit, I skimmed over that. Good gravy.
 

ifmanis5

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Ha. I just raced back here to make a Funny Club joke (and who/when kicked him out of it) but you beat me to it.
Good article that was pretty much derailed by constant humblebrags. I'd also argue that Letterman lost his fastball prior to CBS but that's an argument for another thread.
 

JayMags71

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This makes less and less sens the more I think about it. On Fallon:
When you include the Lorne Michaels/SNL/A-list celebrity infrastructure already in place, Fallon had an overwhelmingly good chance to succeed from day one. (If theres been a lost story line here, its that Conan OBrien squandered those same advantages four years ago. Instead of staying in New York with Lorne, he moved to California and stupidly left the Lorne Machine behind.)
So, his theory is that Conan "failed" on the tonight show when Conan kept it in L.A.? The company town for the movie and TV industry? And what the hell is the "Lorne Michaels/SNL/A-list celebrity infrastructure"? The courteous thing to do would have been to use his fondness for footnotes (something else he's given up on) and give a more in-depth explanation. Instead, He just projects desperation to come off as some sort of show biz insider.
 

ifmanis5

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JayMags71 said:
This makes less and less sens the more I think about it. On Fallon:
So, his theory is that Conan "failed" on the tonight show when Conan kept it in L.A.? The company town for the movie and TV industry? And what the hell is the "Lorne Michaels/SNL/A-list celebrity infrastructure"? The courteous thing to do would have been to use his fondness for footnotes (something else he's given up on) and give a more in-depth explanation. Instead, He just projects desperation to come off as some sort of show biz insider.
It's not his theory. Some important person in Showbiz (I forget exactly who) told him to never bet against a Lorne Michaels backed platform so he pretty much just repeats it all the time without questioning it all that much.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Not a shot at you, but what about those of us who no longer obsessively devour or recall every morsel of content that Bill provides? We're just left to fill in the blanks?
 
No. You're left to believe that Simmons came up with this gem all by himself.
 

OCST

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This is the nugget that jumped out at me in the Letterman piece:
 
 
A good example: Last Wednesday, Kimmel ran a candidly entertaining chat with President Clinton, the kind of interview that Letterman would have done in his prime. Guess what. Fallon still beat him. Do viewers even want to watch quality interviews at midnight anymore? Should every segment skew shorter? Should late-night shows flood us with bits/jokes/games/songs/sound bites/videos/pranks/songs hoping any catch on? Are there too many channels, too many voices, too many angles and too many niches these days? Where in God’s name are we going?
 
If there was any doubt (which there wasn't), Simmons is no longer the voice of youth, riffing, poking fun, spouting heresies, gleefully taking out sacred cows everywhere.  Simmons has become Cranky Old Man/ Get Off My Lawn/ Back In The Day We Used To.
 
Like Letterman himself.
 
And, if we're being honest, much of SoSH, myself included.
 

ifmanis5

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Since when did American audiences EVER clamber for quality late night viewing? It's mostly just old people being put to sleep by their comfy idiot box. Same as it ever was.
 

Leather

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Seriously.  The Late Night/Tonight Show stuff just seems like a vestigial remnant from another time in broadcasting history.  People who get all up in arms about these shows seem to be trying more to say something about themselves ("I AM A SERIOUS STUDENT OF COMEDY!") than anything else.
 

ifmanis5

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drleather2001 said:
Seriously.  The Late Night/Tonight Show stuff just seems like a vestigial remnant from another time in broadcasting history.  People who get all up in arms about these shows seem to be trying more to say something about themselves ("I AM A SERIOUS STUDENT OF COMEDY!") than anything else.
So true.
 
And if quality over popularity had any bearing on things then Dick Cavett would still be a host and The Eagles could hand all their Triple Diamond Albums over to Pavement.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Do viewers even want to watch quality interviews at midnight anymore? Should every segment skew shorter? Should late-night shows flood us with bits/jokes/games/songs/sound bites/videos/pranks/songs hoping any catch on? Are there too many channels, too many voices, too many angles and too many niches these days? Where in God’s name are we going?
 
 
You know what makes this even more dumb, Simmons worked for a late-night talk show he knows how the sausage is made. He knows that a serious, late night talk show with quality interviews don't work. And as much as I love David Letterman, was his NBC show really a place where quality interviews occurred? Because when I watched it (and granted, I was young at the time) I didn't give a shit about Letterman's interviews, all I waited for were his taped comedy bits, his Top 10 list and his monologue. Granted, I wasn't a connoisseur of comedy back then like Bill Simmons, but I knew what Letterman was really good at.
 
Furthermore, aside from Dick Cavett and maybe Tom Snyder, which talk show host ran quality interviews? Carson? Leno? O'Brien? Hall? Sajak? Rivers? Chase? Magic? Give me a break, interviews on talk shows are there to give the host a break and for the guest to promote. You know why Tom Cruise hasn't dropped by the Tonight Show to say hello in a few months? He doesn't have a movie coming out.
 

dirtynine

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Letterman, the inventor of an entire genre of stupid, pointless bits that were celebrated for being stupid and pointless, is held up as the opposite of pranks/bits/dumb little segments? Ok, Simmons. The Funny Club sounds cool though!

edit: JMOH said it better
 

Blacken

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John Marzano Olympic Hero said:
You know what makes this even more dumb, Simmons worked for a late-night talk show he knows how the sausage is made. He knows that a serious, late night talk show with quality interviews don't work. And as much as I love David Letterman, was his NBC show really a place where quality interviews occurred?
Are you dividing late and late-late? Craig Ferguson has some pretty great, serious interviews on a regular-ish basis. (He's totally not right for the Late Show though.)
 

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Blacken said:
Are you dividing late and late-late? Craig Ferguson has some pretty great, serious interviews on a regular-ish basis. (He's totally not right for the Late Show though.)
 
But this is a function, in large part, of him being a second (or third) string host.   People that appear on his show are typically either lower-level stars, or moderate-level stars that are either not promoting anything or are in the shoulder season of their promotional efforts.   Those people can afford to be off-message and talk about semi-interesting things because there's no need to all-out PUSH THE MOVIE/SHOW/ALBUM.
 
JMOH is right; interviews on any of the major late night shows, by design, dull.  They are usually in the following format: 
 
1) [Person X] everyone!  How are you?  Welcome back.
2) So I heard you [were in the news for/like to do] [something funny/odd/endearingly embarrassing; all designed to paint the guest in a human light]?  
3) So you have a new [album/movie/show] coming out.  Let's talk about it.
4) [What is it like to work with actor/director/producer] / [So this was hard for you because you recently lost a relative/went to rehab/something serious to paint the guest in a human light]?
5) Let's hear it for [Person X]!
 
And the dynamic in place demands that the interview be that boring, because if Denzel's publicist thinks that Host A is going to divert from the script and not let Denzel talk about the new movie for at least 2 minutes, and instead focus on Denzel's crappy movie from 2 years ago to get some laughs, forget it; publicist is taking Denzel to Host B.  
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Blacken said:
Are you dividing late and late-late? Craig Ferguson has some pretty great, serious interviews on a regular-ish basis. (He's totally not right for the Late Show though.)
 
I've never watched Ferguson (I'm old and my bed time is early) so I can't comment on that. I have read that he does do really great interviews and I know that he has a legion of fans, but isn't he more of an anomaly? How popular was Tom Synder to the under 50-set? Same with Dick Cavett. (Again, it seems that Ferguson runs counter to these guys, so let's exclude him for the time being). Did either of these shows really change the talk show form? I'd say no.
 
Simmons is arguing out of both sides of his mouth in that he wants a real, serious interview (I guess like WTF but on TV) but at the same time he's mourning the end of the Dave Letterman era (specifically the NBC Dave) -- the same guy who turned the modern talk show on it's ass. I don't think that you can have a show that does both things, can you?
 

ifmanis5

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I'm enjoying his newest NBA playoff mailbag. Good line:
 
Basically, the Pacers will be to inexplicable swoons what the ’72 Lakers are to winning streaks, the ’80 Hawks are to cocaine and the ’02 Blazers are to jail.
 
 

coremiller

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Ongoing Simmons gimmick that annoys me: his habit of describing any period of time as "solid", as in "X solid months/hours/years/etc."  He does this three different times in today's column.  
 

ifmanis5

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coremiller said:
Ongoing Simmons gimmick that annoys me: his habit of describing any period of time as "solid", as in "X solid months/hours/years/etc."  He does this three different times in today's column.  
Solid point.
 

Youkilis vs Wild

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Rolling Stone profiles Simmons here. Decent read. Article seems to suggest he's playing a wink-wink role, at least on NBA Countdown, more than I'd gathered.
 
 
On NBA Countdown, Simmons plays a slightly exaggerated version of himself: a comedic troublemaker, "the wild card who doesn't give a shit," he tells me. "I'm part historian, part know-it-all, and part shit-stirrer. I don't hold back – that's the key."
During a recent Countdown, he denounced Brooklyn Nets shooting guard Joe Johnson, whom Simmons has tagged as the most overpaid player in the NBA. "Joe Johnson did not deserve to be on the all-star team," he says, so outraged and high-pitched he's nearly yelping. "Even he had to be shocked he made it." After the show goes off the air, Countdown host Sage Steele turns to him, shaking her head. "You," she tells him, "are a psycho."
 
Also, theories that he's more or less done with Twitter beyond promoting appear confirmed.
 
 
 
"There's a mean-spiritedness on the Internet that we've stayed away from," Simmons told me in his office. "It seems to be getting angrier — especially Twitter, which is full of coyotes, waiting to attack the next victim." One false move, he added, and you find yourself in "a 24-hour shitstorm."
 
That quote, thankfully (for the sake of the article's own self-awareness), segues into the Dr. V. story.
 

ifmanis5

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Twitter is the same as it ever was, he just got a few negative tweets so he went full Panic Room which is his default position about criticism. He can't take the heat so he flees. It's who he is.
 

CreightonGubanich

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I thought Simmons came off horribly in that article. Thin-skinned, arrogant, all the criticisms that have been levied against him in the past. Except now, he's a "media mogul" or something, and seems to think he's infallible. Even the acknowledgment that he's playing a character on TV is telling, as he used to skewer "talking heads" like that in the past. 
 

allstonite

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CreightonGubanich said:
I thought Simmons came off horribly in that article. Thin-skinned, arrogant, all the criticisms that have been levied against him in the past. Except now, he's a "media mogul" or something, and seems to think he's infallible. Even the acknowledgment that he's playing a character on TV is telling, as he used to skewer "talking heads" like that in the past. 
 
I agree. He's really still bitching about the shit he got for that Dr. V article? I understand that some of the tweets that he probably got were over the top but he's still whining about that? Also, "there's a mean spiritedness on the internet we stay away from"? His career was built on mean-spiritedness toward local writers and rival teams. Sure some of them may have deserved it but he isn't above everyone. He's incredibly thin skinned and wants to be able to lob shots at people while taking his ball and going home when he gets criticized. 
 

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I need some of the older people to help me out.  I know Simmons's whole thing on Digital City Boston was circumventing traditional media in Boston.  The RS piece mentions his time at the Herald, where "mediocre writers were blocking [his] way."
 
Who is he talking about?  If I read any sports stuff back then, it was via the Globe.  And was his stuff really that much better than theirs?  I know he was once a breath of fresh air, but I can't stand his stuff now.
 

PC Drunken Friar

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I think he was doing HS scores occasionally? Basically interning.  I think was that he had no way of moving on from that because of his status and the good 'ol boy network that was the Lodge.
 

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allstonite said:
 
I agree. He's really still bitching about the shit he got for that Dr. V article? I understand that some of the tweets that he probably got were over the top but he's still whining about that? Also, "there's a mean spiritedness on the internet we stay away from"? His career was built on mean-spiritedness toward local writers and rival teams. Sure some of them may have deserved it but he isn't above everyone. He's incredibly thin skinned and wants to be able to lob shots at people while taking his ball and going home when he gets criticized. 
 
It seems like the interview took place the weekend the Dr. V thing went down. All in all this article was a bad look for him but a lot of that is the writer framing him in a bad way.
 

joe dokes

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IHateDaveKerpen said:
I need some of the older people to help me out.  I know Simmons's whole thing on Digital City Boston was circumventing traditional media in Boston.  The RS piece mentions his time at the Herald, where "mediocre writers were blocking [his] way."
 
Who is he talking about?  If I read any sports stuff back then, it was via the Globe.  And was his stuff really that much better than theirs?  I know he was once a breath of fresh air, but I can't stand his stuff now.
 
 
Simmons's earliest complaint  (at least the earliest I'm aware of) was that he (in fact, like EVERY EVERY EVERY other successful or unsuccessful sportswriter) had to suffer the indignity of starting out in the ass-end of the Herald sports dept. -- covering high school sports, taking scores over the phone, etc.,  -- as opposed to being allowed to write a column immediately. It was breathtaking in its arrogance.
 
I think Felger and Massarotti were both at the Herald, and both were above him in the hierarchy. 
 
 
I dont think they were columnists yet at the time.  George Kimball might have still been there. And Buckley (although he might still have been the Sox beat writer.)
 

allstonite

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The Social Chair said:
 
It seems like the interview took place the weekend the Dr. V thing went down. All in all this article was a bad look for him but a lot of that is the writer framing him in a bad way.
 
That's a good point. The writing is confusing. In some places the writer is there during that weekend and others (""That's when everything turned," he says, "and I started to think we'd made a serious mistake. It snowballed over the weekend, and I started going into deep self-hatred."") Simmons is looking back on it. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on that that the quotes about Twitter were in the midst of that before he realized how big it hit. I still don't think he came off well in that and I normally lead toward the Simmons defender side.

 
 

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The RS piece mentions his time at the Herald, where "mediocre writers were blocking [his] way."
 
 
He used to complain about Felger all the time during his DC days. He said that Felger was a complete suck-up to the Herald sports editor at the time (getting him coffee, laughing at his jokes) and that's how Felger went from covering high school sports to the Bruins beat. He was really, really bitter about that. Not sure about Mazz, but man, did Simmons have a thing for Felger back in the late 90s.
 
Since Simmons has been on Felger's show a few times, I believe that they've buried the hatchet.