Why Do I Continue to Read Peter King?

John Marzano Olympic Hero

has fancy plans, and pants to match
Dope
SoSH Member
Apr 12, 2001
25,475
The sad thing is that, like the college kid who pretends to love Jazz but only owns Kind of Blue and doesn't know Coltrane is on it, King actually thinks he's a coffeenerd.

You can drink whatever you want but pretending that Starbucks makes you sophisticated or cultured is just sad. Not realizing that your pumpkin lates and somebody else's megasoda are, like, exactly the same thing shows a level of empathy and respect for other's autonomy normally found in 13 year olds.
Peter King is the type of person who talks up that "new, little steak house in town": Morton's or the Capital Grille. And full disclosure, I like both restaurants a lot; but when you get down to it, they're both chain restaurants. Very good chain restaurants, but their menu and quality doesn't differ much from Pittsburgh to Cleveland to Boston.
 

Leather

given himself a skunk spot
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
28,451
Well, yea. He still raves about Legal Seafoods, doesn't he?

I mean, Legal's is the Capital Grille of seafood joints.

Rewind history back 30 years 1,000 times, and 999 times King ends up as a travelling salesman, working for Husqvarna or Spalding Sports Equipment or something. His tastes, personality, and outlook are exactly like the vast majority of 40-50 something on-the-road sales guys I've met and worked with over the years. Not bad people, but 2 hours with them is enough.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

has fancy plans, and pants to match
Dope
SoSH Member
Apr 12, 2001
25,475
Well, yea. He still raves about Legal Seafoods, doesn't he?

I mean, Legal's is the Capital Grille of seafood joints.

Rewind history back 30 years 1,000 times, and 999 times King ends up as a travelling salesman, working for Husqvarna or Spalding Sports Equipment or something. His tastes, personality, and outlook are exactly like the vast majority of 40-50 something on-the-road sales guys I've met and worked with over the years. Not bad people, but 2 hours with them is enough.
That's true. But I don't think that Peter King would consider himself a "foodie" or in his words, a "Food Nerd". At least, I don't recall him saying that. I was just piling on.
 

Leather

given himself a skunk spot
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
28,451
That's true. But I don't think that Peter King would consider himself a "foodie" or in his words, a "Food Nerd". At least, I don't recall him saying that. I was just piling on.
No. But he is the type of guy that, if someone asked him and some random people from Boston "what's the best lobster you've ever had" would almost certainly say something like "Oh, Legal Seafoods in Copley Square had this amazing lobster scampi that was out of this world." and would get all huffy if nobody else thought very highly of Legal's, but instead named some places in Maine or Ipswich.
 

Reverend

for king and country
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Jan 20, 2007
71,010
It's funny how sometimes I wonder if I'm reading King wrong, and then I pop in here and see that a lot of other people are seeing the same thing.

The whole "nerd" thing has long been his humble, self-deprecating way of pointing out that he has refined tastes and this last response demonstrate that he really doesn't realize that he's a grown man who has a big cup of candy for breakfast everyday.
 

Dotrat

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Jul 11, 2002
2,194
Morris County NJ
Well, yea. He still raves about Legal Seafoods, doesn't he?

I mean, Legal's is the Capital Grille of seafood joints.

Rewind history back 30 years 1,000 times, and 999 times King ends up as a travelling salesman, working for Husqvarna or Spalding Sports Equipment or something. His tastes, personality, and outlook are exactly like the vast majority of 40-50 something on-the-road sales guys I've met and worked with over the years. Not bad people, but 2 hours with them is enough.
Can we start calling PK Willy Loman?
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
SoSH Member
Dec 16, 2010
55,531
Did a little research for you, Dave. The drink I get at Starbucks, the triple grande hazelnut latte (meaning it has a third shot of espresso and less milk) is 16 ounces, with 36 grams of sugar and 230 calories. The Big Gulp at 7-Eleven has, on average, 28 ounces of soda and four ounces of ice. That has 91 grams of sugar and 364 calories. The 44-ounce Super Big Gulp has 128 grams of sugar and 512 calories. Now, around the holidays, I do get -- maybe six or eight times a season -- the pumpkin latte or the egg nog latte, and those numbers are much higher. But my daily coffee drink has 37 percent fewer calories and 60 percent less sugar than the Big Gulp. Just for the record."
How the fuck does he know how much ice the average Big Gulp purchaser uses? Did he source this shit or did Brett Favre tell him?
 

dirtynine

Member
SoSH Member
Dec 17, 2002
8,885
Philly
I get the feeling that if he's in a stadium and sees a tap that has letters on it other than BUD and colors other than red, white and/or blue, he thinks he's in a german biergarten. "ShockTop Raspberry?? The legends were true!"
 

MarcSullivaFan

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 21, 2005
3,412
Hoo-hoo-hoo hoosier land.
The issue isn't that he gets his coffee from Starbucks. It's that what he's drinking isn't "coffee" in any meaningful sense. Drinking a pumpkin latte is to drinking coffee as drinking a small batch bourbon with coke is to drinking bourbon. It's fucking seasonal hot cocoa for adults.

IMHO, Starbucks' espresso and drip coffee is better than many supposedly superior independent places. Fresh beans, good equipment, and well-trained baristas. Many of the independent places use old beans and their baristas don't know how to pull a shot of espresso.
 

pappymojo

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 28, 2010
6,840
Not realizing that your pumpkin lates and somebody else's megasoda are, like, exactly the same thing shows a level of empathy and respect for other's autonomy normally found in 13 year olds.
But they're not the same thing. The pumpkin coffee costs like $4 for 10 ounces. The Big Gulp is probably like $2 for 40 ounces. It's the high cost of the pumpkin coffee that proves it's a reflection of refined taste.
 

Leather

given himself a skunk spot
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
28,451
But they're not the same thing. The pumpkin coffee costs like $4 for 10 ounces. The Big Gulp is probably like $2 for 40 ounces. It's the high cost of the pumpkin coffee that proves it's a reflection of refined taste.
No. It's worse than that. It's purely because his drink has the word "latte" in it, and he had never heard that word prior to 15 years ago, so it must be refined and sophisticated.

I'm not being snarky, that's pretty much how Starbucks became popular in the upper-middle class sect.
 

PBDWake

Member
SoSH Member
May 1, 2008
3,686
Peabody, MA
No. It's worse than that. It's purely because his drink has the word "latte" in it, and he had never heard that word prior to 15 years ago, so it must be refined and sophisticated.

I'm not being snarky, that's pretty much how Starbucks became popular in the upper-middle class sect.
But... they have lounging chairs! And free wireless internet! They're so different than a Dunkin' Donuts! They want you to sit and enjoy their coffee, and READ while you're there. It's the way truly enlightened people enjoy their liquids. You don't see THOSE in a 7-11, just keno and stools!
 

Worst Trade Evah

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Aug 2, 2004
10,826
I'm not prepared to hate Starbucks just because the Monarch of Cocks likes it. It IS a lot better than Dunkin Donuts, which is terrible. Starbucks is good, though I agree those seasonal drinks are expensive, fattening fru-fru items.
 

Toe Nash

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 28, 2005
5,864
02130
I've spoken to more than a few people who patronize Dunkin's devotedly because "Starbucks is too expensive" (and by extension, not blue-collar), even though all they get is regular coffee which saves them around ten cents.

Pierre Bourdieu:
"Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier. Social subjects, classified by their classifications, distinguish themselves by the distinctions they make, between the beautiful and the ugly, the distinguished and the vulgar, in which their position in the objective classifications is expressed or betrayed."
 

Leather

given himself a skunk spot
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
28,451
Starbucks is fine. Most people go there because coffee is fine, it's air-conditioned, relatively quiet, and people will leave you alone.

King is not one of those people.

His incessant chattering about coffee reminds me of my freshman year in high school. My school had free coffee, which was nice, but there were about a dozen kids that had obviously never drank/been exposed to coffee before, and felt that simply by drinking coffee, they became more adult-like. So they would make a big production about bringing coffee to class, and would make comments like "Uh! I SO NEED some coffee" with annoying regularity. A few of them even would tell the teacher, apropos of nothing, that they "hadn't had [their] coffee yet, so don't call on me", as if they and the teacher now shared the Coffee-Drinker's bond. It was so pretentious. They even started carrying around their own Bruegger's mugs, tied to their backpacks, to let everyone know that they were COFFEE DRINKERS.

King is like that, except he's like 55 years old.
 

Average Reds

Member
SoSH Member
Sep 24, 2007
36,237
Southwestern CT
Starbucks is fine. Most people go there because coffee is fine, it's air-conditioned, relatively quiet, and people will leave you alone.

King is not one of those people.

His incessant chattering about coffee reminds me of my freshman year in high school. My school had free coffee, which was nice, but there were about a dozen kids that had obviously never drank/been exposed to coffee before, and felt that simply by drinking coffee, they became more adult-like. So they would make a big production about bringing coffee to class, and would make comments like "Uh! I SO NEED some coffee" with annoying regularity. A few of them even would tell the teacher, apropos of nothing, that they "hadn't had [their] coffee yet, so don't call on me", as if they and the teacher now shared the Coffee-Drinker's bond. It was so pretentious. They even started carrying around their own Bruegger's mugs, tied to their backpacks, to let everyone know that they were COFFEE DRINKERS.

King is like that, except he's like 55 years old.
This is one of my favorite posts of all time.
 

pappymojo

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 28, 2010
6,840
I assume that those college kids tied their refillable coffee mugs to their backpacks because it freed their hands and was less wasteful than using a disposable cup. Possibly even cheaper depending on where they bought their coffee.

As for starbucks, something about it upsets the shit out of my stomache, literally.

But I don't want to derail the Peter King hate. He's fat and he's pompous and he sucks.
 

Leather

given himself a skunk spot
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
28,451
I assume that those college kids tied their refillable coffee mugs to their backpacks because it freed their hands and was less wasteful than using a disposable cup. Possibly even cheaper depending on where they bought their coffee.

As for starbucks, something about it upsets the shit out of my stomache, literally.

But I don't want to derail the Peter King hate. He's fat and he's pompous and he sucks.
It was (again): high school, and the coffee was free. Also, the school had re-usable mugs available that they washed. It was a boarding school.

Hence, you're assumption has made an ass out of you (but not me).
 

pappymojo

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 28, 2010
6,840
It was (again): high school, and the coffee was free. Also, the school had re-usable mugs available that they washed. It was a boarding school.

Hence, you're assumption has made an ass out of you (but not me).
but still... free hands.
 

Leather

given himself a skunk spot
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
28,451
Ok, not to get too side-tracked, but how does it allow you to have "free hands"? I mean, it's an empty cup...hanging from a strap on your backpack...it could easily go INSIDE your backpack, but that wouldn't allow everyone to see your COFFEE MUG wherever you go. Remember, this was back in 1993, when coffee was at its most "hip".

I remember the mugs. They said "Javaahhhh" on them. Horrible.
 

Reverend

for king and country
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Jan 20, 2007
71,010
but still... free hands.
I'm not a biologist or anything, but wouldn't your hands would also be free if you just returned the school mug after it was empty and let them wash it for you?
 

Gambler7

Member
SoSH Member
Dec 11, 2003
3,803
Peter King ‏@SI_PeterKing
I'm 55 today. If you see me at Dodgers-Mariners, wish me a happy birthday. Have a good day everyone.
What? Telling people to wish him Happy Birthday?
 

Reverend

for king and country
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Jan 20, 2007
71,010
At what point do we start suspecting he's in on it? Like how John Ford made John Wayne's character a total asshole in The Searchers?
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
SoSH Member
Dec 16, 2010
55,531
Next week he'll mention how it was so nice that all these people came up to him to wish him a happy birthday.
 

Leather

given himself a skunk spot
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
28,451
Yea. And thanked him for reminding us to support our troops, and how right he is about everything else.

"To Jim, from Sunday's Dodgers game: Thanks again for that delicious pint of Harp Lager. And you're welcome, again, for all of the coffee advice. Jim, by the way, agreed with me that people should only clap politely at graduation ceremonies. As a graduate of high school, UCLA, and USC Law school, I think he knows what he's talking about."
 

MyDaughterLovesTomGordon

Member
SoSH Member
Jun 26, 2006
15,078
The coffee advice. That's the one that gets me, really above all else. That he sits there at the keyboard and thinks to himself, "I need to let people know how this new Walnut-Peppercorn-Mocha Latte goes down on the way to the NBC Studios!"

Beer, I guess I can imagine a world where people are curious what a beer they haven't had might taste like.

But special beverages at fucking Starbucks? A football fan gives a shit about those?
 

soxfaninyankeeland

Magic Johnson of Bird AIDS
SoSH Member
Nov 29, 2003
2,781
23.5 Miles From the Toilet
"Let me talk about Claire some more by not talking about Claire, but instead focusing on a football player's act. Never mind the fact that she's dead, look at what a swell guy that Michael Strahan is!"
The entire point of the Claire/Michael Strahan anecdote wasn't what a swell guy Strahan is, it was that Peter King got Michael Strahan to call a dying lady, and therefore Peter King is a swell guy.
 

Dollar

Member
SoSH Member
May 5, 2006
12,082
"I forded a creek on a horse Friday."​


Count me among the many who can't wait for drleather to relay his thoughts to this thread.
 

Mystic Merlin

Member
SoSH Member
Sep 21, 2007
49,577
Hartford, CT
Now there's a dateline I never thought I'd use: Emigrant, Mont. I came here Thursday at the invitation of Atlanta owner Arthur Blank to moderate a couple of football discussions for Falcons clients and suite-holders at Blank's Mountain Sky Guest Ranch. Now I know why the Spielberg family comes here for a week a year. No TV. No computers. I forded a creek on a horse Friday. ("Forded.'' Always loved that word. Never thought I'd actually do it.)
It's almost mind-boggling how complex the awfulness is.

Miano is hardly your typical plaintiff.

...

"This isn't about a money grab,'' Miano said
Peter King: hates plaintiffs.
 

Shelterdog

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Feb 19, 2002
15,375
New York City
So he took at least a free vacation--and probably also an appearance fee--for a high end Falcons'/NFL marketing event?

This is about as bad as it gets from a conflicts of interest standpoint for a journalist.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

has fancy plans, and pants to match
Dope
SoSH Member
Apr 12, 2001
25,475
I wonder when King was talking to Goodell if he was laying under the commissioner's chair like a good doggie?

G: "A player with a concussion can use a tablet to take a test to determine how bad he's injured."
K: "A tablet? Like an iPad? Gosh!"
G: "Yes, Peter. Like an iPad."
K: "I play Angry Birds on my iPad. Videogamenerdish!"
 

Leather

given himself a skunk spot
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
28,451
First of all, his Q+A with Goodell (on the front porch of a ranch that the Spielbergs go to for a week every year!) is yet another example of why I don't respect this guy. He has a one-on-one with the Commissioner in what has arguably been the most eventful off-season in NFL history, and he just lobs softballs.

Boiled down, he asks the following questions:

"Do you want to help players post-career?" To which, if King had been paying attention with his great legal mind, Goodell gives a non-answer. He says A) the NFL's focus is the "total health" of the players (whatever that means), and B) Troy Vinceny is creating programs to help players "transition out of the game." That is NOT the same thing as saying "Yes, we're going to set up programs for post-career monitoring. My belief is that Goodell won't say that, because they don't want to pay for, and admit that they should be responsible for, post-career counseling and treatment.

"London Fletcher says players should get post-career counseling." And AGAIN, Goodell deflects the question by saying "Well, you know, we'll maybe give them an initial evaluation. We're thinking about it." Goodell is effectively telling King: "Peter, fuck no the NFL isn't going admit liability for any mental issues players face." And King, predictably, just begs off.

"What do you think is most fucked up about Seau dying?" Goodell, again, ignores the head-trauma angle and gives some bullshit answer about how NFL players lose the "structure" of their life, and support of their teammates. "I see it in their eyes...They lose their team!" If that was a typical cause for suicide, every college graduate in America would be on suicide watch. King, of course, misses the nuance of Goodell's deflection and rolls along.

And then Goodell, talking about a counseling program that has nothing to do with head trauma, flat out says:

We're focusing on that assistance, so when they [recently retired players] feel that kind of hopelessness or desperation, they have a place to come ... If somebody wants it to be anonymous, we have that option as well. [Eventually] depending on where it goes, the counseling may go completely out of the system. They might be going to a professional that has nothing to do with the NFL, which is the way it should be. That's OK ...One of our biggest challenges is to get the players [to come forward to be able] to teach them....Very few players showed up. It's the same old thing. We have a lot of individuals that have tremendous pride and they're not always going to raise their hand and say, 'I may need help.' But we all need help. And we all need assistance.
.

Goodell is again denying the NFL has any responsibility to look after players post-career. He comes out and says, to Peter, point-blank, that the players should not look to the NFL for help. He then says that the NFL can't really be held responsible, anyway, because players haven't come forth and told the NFL they need help. That last bit will almost certainly be one of the the defenses used in the concussion law suit. "Well, how could we be responsible? We have counseling available for players during their career, but nobody comes and asks for help. How were we to know that they'd come forth after their career was over? And once they are out of the NFL, we no longer have the responsibility to look after them. I mean, look, they're grown men with lots of money. Frankly, we think it would be an ethical problem for us to pay to look after them, given our inherent conflict of interest, no?"

"What do you think of the lawsuit? Problem?" Goodell: "No, bullshit argument. Let me lay some PR on you, though."

"What have you learned about concussions?" Goodell: "We had this big panel. And, man, let me tell you...it's complicated. Like...lots of ins, outs. It's nuts, Peter. Lots of shit we don't know. Brains are just...nuts. But, you know, some really smart people are looking into it. And, uh...yea, if they tell us things, we'll consider it. In the future. If we want to. Like, we might be able to do more tests on the sideline with a computer."

"OMG? Like an iPOD? A Tablet? How cool is THAT?! Jetpacks? Soon?" "Theoretically, something that I suggested a second ago could happen."

"Tell me about possibly doing it this season" "Well, Peter, we have things called computers that allow us to transmit, kind of like in the movies, images from the camera to a screen on the field. Now, if a player gets hit in such a way that they obviously suffered a concussion, AND the medical professional feels like looking at a video of the hit...well...they can do that. If they want to. I think this video thing might be big in the medical profession. "

"What about Colt McCoy" "Oh, well, uh...game is really fast, and he was a big pussy and had like 3 injuries at once, so...you know, doctors aren't perfect."

"What are your first priorities?" "Well, safety and all that shit, but really, Peter, it's all about making the game more exciting for the fan, by telling the fan to pay less attention to the game. We're talking cell phones, computers...all that cool shit, right there inside the stadium."

"Yea, but...let me just lay it on your, Mr. Goodell: What if instead of doing that, you did the opposite, and removed all technology from the stadium, and in the process reduced your licensing deals by tens of millions of dollars every year, and forced people to consider how much dead-time there is in a football game, which would likely make them less distracted during every game's million commercial breaks, which bring you hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue? HOW ABOUT IT?" "What a beautiful thought, Peter."

The NFL's a cauldron of news. I could have asked him about 25 other things. Hope you got a few things out of his words.
I got this: you are a fucking idiot, and I have no idea how you got to where you are today. You should be ashamed. Concussions in football is an actual news story that transcends the NFL, and you did absolutely nothing to get to the bottom of it. No hard questions. Mike Wallace is turning in his grave.

Here's an angle of the players' head-trauma litigation you haven't thought of.
Peter, you know what would have been cool? If you had done this neat journalistic trick known as "research" and asked Goodell to comment on some of this stuff during your exclusive one on one interview with him in the wilds of Montana.


TBC
 

Leather

given himself a skunk spot
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
28,451
Book Reviews

As a new father, I am very excited to see what King is suggesting to me. Or for me. I don't even know.

1) A sappy book about some guy I don't give a shit about dealing with serious problems. Sounds weepy and a lot like the movie "Terms of Endearment", minus Jack Nicholson. No thanks.

2) "Canada"

I'm sure I'm not the first to say that, among Ford's novels, I liked The Sportswriter and Independence Day better than Canada. But that's akin to saying I like Drew Brees and Tom Brady better than Matthew Stafford. Canada, Ford's newest book, is a slog in two or three spots. The story's narrator, a 15-year-old twin boy whose life is turned incredibly upside down in the span of a few months in 1960, first in Montana, then in Saskatchewan, is an appealing, sympathetic and literate character defined perfectly by Ford. My only beef is I found myself saying, when the sameness of the kid's life dragged in two or three spots, "Get on with it!''
That's one hell of a recommendation, Peter. Jesus.

"Anyone might think a woman whose husband was possibly losing his mind (or at least part of it), and who was preparing to rob a bank, who'd led his family almost to ruin, who considered it a novel idea to involve his only son in the robbery, who was threatening jail and disaster and the dissolution of everything the two of them understood about life (and a woman who was already thinking of leaving the same man, anyway), you'd think this woman would be desperate for an opportunity to get away, or to involve the authorities to save herself and her children, or would find an iron resolve, would hold her ground, and would let nothing go forward and thereby preserve her family by the force of her will (my mother, as small and disaffected as she was, seemed to have a strong will, even if that turned out not to be true).
That is one hell of a run-on sentence. Guy seems like a shitty writer. No thanks. (And, what the fuck does this have to do with Father's Day? A book about what a great, strong, woman the wife is in the face of an asshole who robs banks, putting his family at risk? What the fuck? Did Peter forget that Fathers are typically the parents that have dicks?)

But the sordid familial sex, the murders, the suicide, the cancer, the stark and incredibly unfortunate life turn in Canada, the remarkable resilience of young Dell and what he makes of his life ... those you'll have to read for yourself.
Oh there's incest, too? Great.

A Ford book, to me, is like a U2 CD. I'm a huge fan of the writer and the group, and too much time passes between the releases of their gems. Do not take from my note about the slog above that Canada will not be worth your while. I read its 420 pages in 48 hours, and if life hadn't interceded, I'd have finished it quicker.
I am a U2 fan. Or, was. I still like their older stuff, but I don't really care about them anymore. So I'm going to skip making any jokes at U2's expense, except to say that a rock and roll band bears almost nothing in common, in terms of scheduling, marketing, touring, and output with a novelist. So that's a really wierd comparison for him to make simply to say that he wishes they would both release more stuff.

However, if Peter King can read a 420 page book in 48 hours (less, actually, because "life interceded), I am positive that at least one of, and possibly both, the following things are true:

1) The book is written for young adults;
2) Peter King is lying.

Think about it: Assuming Peter King sleeps at least 8 hours a night (is there any doubt) and spent every waking moment reading this book, that'd equate to 13.1 pages per hour. Now, that's hardly unbelievable. But, again, that means King never showered, ate, drank coffee, had to work, was on the phone, etc. Maybe that's what he means when he says "life interceded". Maybe it's a euphamism for taking a righteous and gnarly coffee shit after eating a whopper and drinking a latte. So, let's say "life interceded" for another 6 hours per day. That means he read 21 pages per hour. That's less than 3 minutes per page. For 10 hours, each day, on consecutive days.

Peter King? No fucking way.

3) Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter, by Frank Deford (Atlantic Monthly Press). Non-fiction.

"Read a book about what my life is like! You'll love thinking about me!"

Coaches are movies. Players are snapshots
Oh, I can play! "Coaches are bananas. Players are orangutans."

4) The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach (Little, Brown & Company). Fiction.

Thanks, Peter, for recommending a book fucking everybody already knows about. How original.

"I'm not a voracious reader of books, but I like them, and I like fiction that sucks you in and doesn't let you out
Heh. Do you think he thinks about Brett Favre when he types that?

5) The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

Another uplifting choice. Jesus.

Cancer, obviously, is one of the great mysteries of life.
Well, not really. I was never very good with biology, but even I know that Cancer is a caused by a mutation in the DNA in cells that causes it to reproduce out-of-synch with it's original purpose. If you live long enough, the old adage goes, you'll get cancer, because cells aren't perfect and at some point they'll just...break. Does Peter think that nobody knows how cancer works? It's a tragedy, it sucks...but a "mystery"?

Mukherjee devotes a significant section to how the tobacco companies kept America smoking, even as evidence began to surface that smoking was bad for you
"Did you know that tobacco companies once relied on people's ignorance? Did you know that? Amazing."

In the mid-50s, when 45 percent of the adult population smoked, one ad for Camel cigarettes noted, "More doctors smoke Camels,'' certainly in part to help customers understand that if doctors smoked an unfiltered cigarette, how dangerous could it be?
Hey Peter, if you think that's bad, Google "Nazi Germany" and "Holocaust." Shit'll blow you mind.

In the '50s, Mukhurjee writes, doctors line up for free cigarettes at the annual America Medical Association convention. And you wonder why it took so long for America to wise up about the dangers of smoking? Why would they get smart -- when the professionals paid to keep them healthy were smoking?
I wonder if Peter knows that some doctors still smoke.

Also, there's a wonderful connection here to be drawn between this ironic observation (made 40 years after everyone else made it) and the fact that King interviewed Goodell about stopping concussions in football, when it is Goodell and the league that have the least incentive to stop concussions, and Goodell fed him a bunch of bullshit. King is the playing the part of the magazine running that Camel ad. "Hey, look everyone, the NFL is fixing concussions! No problem here!"

6) The Essential Smart Football, by Chris B. Brown (CreateSpace). Non-fiction.

Ok. I'll give him this one, if someone gave this to me, I'd probably read it. On the shitty, maybe, but I'd read it.

I can't go on, except to say I have no interest in reading about Jim Abbott, or a book with totally realistic and/or applicable advice like "Hold meetings like you're a character in the West Wing".
 

MyDaughterLovesTomGordon

Member
SoSH Member
Jun 26, 2006
15,078
So he took at least a free vacation--and probably also an appearance fee--for a high end Falcons'/NFL marketing event?

This is about as bad as it gets from a conflicts of interest standpoint for a journalist.
Exactly - if there was any lingering question as to why PK was reluctant to ask the hard questions or actually stand for anything, this answers them. If he's willing to go on a full-on team junket "to moderate a couple of football discussions for Falcons clients and suite-holders at Blank's Mountain Sky Guest Ranch" he has exactly zero shame and is completely comfortable being an NFL shill.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

has fancy plans, and pants to match
Dope
SoSH Member
Apr 12, 2001
25,475
or a book with totally realistic and/or applicable advice like "Hold meetings like you're a character in the West Wing".
This is typical King stupidity.

Actually, this is the only book I would consider reading because AJ Jacobs' first two books are pretty good--"Know it All" where he reads the entire Encylcopedia Brittanica and another book (the name escapes me right now) where he tries to literally follow the Bible for an entire year. Jacobs normally writes for Esquire and is a decent, breezy read. The books are more memoirs than anything else and like I said, they're interesting reads. And while there are stupid, jokey things like King pulled out, they're mostly about much larger things in Jacobs' life. For example in "Know it All" Jacobs' dad read the EB and the father-son relationship is a theme that runs through out the book: is he as smart as his dad, how did his dad do this, etc. That's a better recommendation, I think.

I did not read his third book about taking part in medical experiments for a year.
 

Leather

given himself a skunk spot
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
28,451
"Fire ants got in my pants. I was freaking out. Oh, ants! When those ants get close to those testicles, there ain't no laughing about that.''
Peter loves to type "testicles."

Factoid of the Week That May Interest Only Me
Ate dinner Friday evening in a group that included a veteran Yellowstone National Park ranger, Jim Evanoff, who told us one of the most amazing things I'd heard in a while.
When Old Faithful erupts at Yellowstone, the water gushing out of the ground is more than 600 years old, scientists have told Evanoff. That's how long it takes the mountain snow to melt, run down through rivers and streams into the ground, and then percolate below the earth and explode into the sky every 93 minutes (give or take 10 minutes) at very high temperatures.
"That means,'' Evanoff told our group, some of whom would be visiting Yellowstone the next day and witnessing Old Faithful, "that the geysers you'll see tomorrow are formed from water that entered the earth before Christopher Columbus discovered America.''
Now there's something to think about.
It just never fails to blow me away how fucking un-curious King must have been his whole life. I mean, look, I didn't know that about Old Faithful (even though I was there 3 years ago). But, here's the thing: anyone who has done any cursory research into nature (geology, evolution, chemistry) will not even be fazed by something being 600 years old. That's small potatoes. If he had followed the rocky mountains just a couple hundred miles northwest from his dinner table that night, Peter would come across fossils that are 505 million years old. Does King know how old rocks are? I mean, the 600 years thing is kind of cool, but it's the utter bafflement that King expresses that just stupefies me, like a 600 year old geological feature is something to not only (figuratively) write home about, but to (literally) tell millions of NFL fans about.

Also, Columbus didn't discover America.

I was holding a 151-year-old book.
See?!

I was in Montana for only a couple of days, but I'll remember it a long time. And I'll be back.
Fuck. Well there goes the state.

c. I was about to write about how the Los Angeles Kings' playoff run brought back memories of the Edmonton Oilers.
Wait...why?

e. I sat in a downtown Seattle sports bar with my wife and daughter Saturday night, ping-ponging back and forth between Game 7 in the NBA and Game 5 in the NHL. Didn't know what to watch for about 20 minutes at crunch time of each.
Heavy is the head...that Peter King has. Because it's fat.

n. Coffeenerdness: You'd think the coffee in Montana would be strong and dark. I had it in three places and, well, no. It's mostly nondescript and unnecessary, like the coffee on the Acela.
Why would coffee in Montana be strong and dark? Because the landscape is so rugged? Because it kind of, almost, looks like the Cascades outside of Seattle? I mean, Jesus, Peter, THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE WRITING. Of course Montana coffee is still weak and watery: it hasn't been inundated with Starbucks yet, because there aren't enough people. Christ. Any logic is a bridge too far for this asshole.


p. Bailey and Anne Hathaway's dog are friends. They chat in the neighborhood. Via sniffing
Peter, I am so impressed.






Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/peter_king/06/10/mmqb/index.html#ixzz1xV5AJHpC
 

Reverend

for king and country
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Jan 20, 2007
71,010
So he took at least a free vacation--and probably also an appearance fee--for a high end Falcons'/NFL marketing event?

This is about as bad as it gets from a conflicts of interest standpoint for a journalist.
I imagine he reconciles the issue by thinking of himself as a neutral, objective observer of the event. Like Jimmy Carter.


Goodell is again denying the NFL has any responsibility to look after players post-career. He comes out and says, to Peter, point-blank, that the players should not look to the NFL for help. He then says that the NFL can't really be held responsible, anyway, because players haven't come forth and told the NFL they need help. That last bit will almost certainly be one of the the defenses used in the concussion law suit. "Well, how could we be responsible? We have counseling available for players during their career, but nobody comes and asks for help. How were we to know that they'd come forth after their career was over? And once they are out of the NFL, we no longer have the responsibility to look after them. I mean, look, they're grown men with lots of money. Frankly, we think it would be an ethical problem for us to pay to look after them, given our inherent conflict of interest, no?"
The comparison you make to the tobacco industry is very astute, imo. In fact, the concussion issue maybe even more problematic in that the players have to consider whether or not coming forward will cost them hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.

The structural incentives involved are way out of whack with Goodell's bs. And this is a big deal. King likes to think he talks about important things and "gets it" with respect to what is and is not a big deal. Fail.


That killed me--laughed out loud.


Wait...why?
Because when Peter Kings thinks of the Kings, he thinks of Wayne Gretzky.

Think about it for a second and you will see that this is true.


Why would coffee in Montana be strong and dark? Because the landscape is so rugged?
Yes.


Peter, I am so impressed.
They should have sent a poet.
 

Shelterdog

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Feb 19, 2002
15,375
New York City
Exactly - if there was any lingering question as to why PK was reluctant to ask the hard questions or actually stand for anything, this answers them. If he's willing to go on a full-on team junket "to moderate a couple of football discussions for Falcons clients and suite-holders at Blank's Mountain Sky Guest Ranch" he has exactly zero shame and is completely comfortable being an NFL shill.
In some ways it's worse than being an NFL shill--he's a shill for a particular team, and it's made worse by Dimitroff being one of his big sources.

As an aside, both King and Ian Rappoport have recently written about how they knew Ocho was toast, had no legs or burst, etc. early on in training camp. It would have been nice if either had, you know, reported it at the time.