Why Do I Continue to Read Peter King?
- Thread starter John Marzano Olympic Hero
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This shit makes me so mad. According to "Where Men Win Glory", by Jon Krakauer, the Tillman family, including Pat Tillman himself according to candid conversations he had with his family before he died, deeply regret Pat's decision to join up with the Army. Tillman felt that he was part of a much bigger lie, and that the Army used his decision to join as propaganda that he never authorized or wanted. This sort of stuff from King just perpetuates the legacy that he and his family have said repeatedly that they do not want, that Pat Tillman was a model of the Great American Man who Serves His Country. It's a continuation of the Rumsfeld-ian co-opting of the man's memory, and it's fucked.
Obviously Cris Collinsworth has not read the book.
For once, I fully agree with King.
Can we stop with this? Last night's game ended at about 10:30. These guys were probably in bed by midnight and got 7 or 8 hours of sleep, I'd imagine. Your typical working stiff gets less sleep and has to work a longer shift than 3-4 hours.
There's an excellent documentary on Tillman (called The Tillman Story) that everyone should watch. I agree that King's treatment is infuriating. At the least, it's much more complicated than he makes it out to be and if he really wanted to honor Tillman's memory he would make some effort to learn the whole story, or as much as possible.
"Be sure to stretch. People have been known to lose their legs just short of the finish."Corsi said:
I'm not sure why Clay did. I mean he wasn't going to pitch Sunday night. No one told him to go the hell home and get some sleep?
...Followed immediately by:
Isn't it ironic?
Don't ya think?
"I went somewhere nice this week. Ain't that something?"
He was pretty quick (he was an OF, after all) and overly cautious about stealing?
Ya. THIS is what makes you a dunce. Not the other 500 stupid things you've said over the years you decided to start talking about baseball.
"I have nothing at all to tell you, so here's some completely pointless trivia about three completely unrelated people."
"Nothing at all. Really. I'm at a loss for words."
"Oh, I know. I had a beer the other day. I liked it. Tasted a lot like beer. Guys make a living making beer. Imagine that."
"Like I said, I have nothing to tell you. If I could tell you something about this show that I watch, I would. But sorry, I can't. I told you I had nothing to say!"
Isn't it ironic?
Don't ya think?
"I went somewhere nice this week. Ain't that something?"
He was pretty quick (he was an OF, after all) and overly cautious about stealing?
Ya. THIS is what makes you a dunce. Not the other 500 stupid things you've said over the years you decided to start talking about baseball.
"I have nothing at all to tell you, so here's some completely pointless trivia about three completely unrelated people."
"Nothing at all. Really. I'm at a loss for words."
"Oh, I know. I had a beer the other day. I liked it. Tasted a lot like beer. Guys make a living making beer. Imagine that."
"Like I said, I have nothing to tell you. If I could tell you something about this show that I watch, I would. But sorry, I can't. I told you I had nothing to say!"
Because we all yearn for offseason karaoke. Dork.
He's got this insatiable need to include some kind of potty humor in all of his columns. Tell us about your (repressed) childhood, Peter.
PK is too-cool-for-school now that he has hung out at the NO Jazz fest with Bruce, Nils, B-Dub, and RobRy. What is with the faux regional dialect?
Geaux Pierre!
:barf: :barf:
Huh? Brady has started every single game since Mallett has been drafted. What the hell was Mallett supposed to do, beat out the best QB of all time for the starting job?
Loved it so much he got the title wrong!
That's now two weeks in a row where he pimps something while spelling its name wrong (John Fogerty last week).
I love that he felt the need to say that it's quirky, accidentally proving that he has no idea who Wes Anderson is or what his movies are like. We all already knew that it was quirky before ever seeing a trailer or reading a review, Pete, but glad you could confirm that for us.
It really doesn't matter what he witnessed that prompted this:
What's important isn't that "it's the nicest thing [he's] ever seen a flight attendant do." What's important is that *he* told her that it was. That it happened and that it was nice is not enough. Its that Peter King, and maybe Peter King alone, acknowledged the niceness. Only then is it truly nice.
What's important isn't that "it's the nicest thing [he's] ever seen a flight attendant do." What's important is that *he* told her that it was. That it happened and that it was nice is not enough. Its that Peter King, and maybe Peter King alone, acknowledged the niceness. Only then is it truly nice.
joe dokes said:
So what you're saying is this is why we can't have nice things? Because Peter isn't here to tell us that they're nice?
What makes the flight attendant line stand out in King whereas it might go unnoticed in another columnist is that we can be quite confident that had she treated him in any way that he found even mildly off-putting, there might be a several hundred word write-up of her transgressions. Instead, we get an emphasis on his thanking her.
It's the utter mundanity of the callousness towards the human experience of others that is so grating over time. I mean, he managed to be a prick about Mallett based on what, Brady's durability? Instead of disparaging him with a "disappeared" reference and throwing on a pointless rating stat based on a sample size of frickin' four, a writer with an actual soul might have given a nod to how frustrating it must be for a guy who experienced a lot of success in college to have not as yet gotten a shot.
It's the utter mundanity of the callousness towards the human experience of others that is so grating over time. I mean, he managed to be a prick about Mallett based on what, Brady's durability? Instead of disparaging him with a "disappeared" reference and throwing on a pointless rating stat based on a sample size of frickin' four, a writer with an actual soul might have given a nod to how frustrating it must be for a guy who experienced a lot of success in college to have not as yet gotten a shot.
joe dokes said:
Love how he threw the guy that was sitting next to her under the bus because he "never even glanced over at the woman."
Like we couldn't have a story of a perfect stranger learning of the death of someone close and breaking out in hysterics on an airplane without Peter King finding a way to bash some other poor schmuck. Pete, himself, was sitting right behind the woman and he didn't do anything to console her either. What a pompous windbag.
This couldn't be more inconsequential but... what the fuck is he talking about? Why would Selena Meyer's lines be printable coming from Elaine Benes? Am I supposed to assume he means that she'd phrase them differently because she's Elaine, or that they'd be materially different as a result of being on a network?
But anyway. Yeah, they say potty-words on HBO you guys.
OK, I haven't a whole read Peter King column in years because I can't deal. There was enough that went down this weekend, though, that I was intrigued what his take was--not that it would be good or anything. But my God, what a piece of crap the column has begun. Just the opening blew me away:
That's just the first 1,000 words.
*Seriously, that's part of the subtitle of another piece on their website right now.
- This is how high schoolers start shitty papers and articles.
- Two lines in, two shitty clichés.
- Wait, what?
- This turned out to be: “Lots of people tweeted about Manziel.” I can’t believe I let King pique my curiosity. I feel great shame.
- I think he forgot about this lede when he got around to the part of his “process” where he wrote about the Browns, as this really isn’t the same tone he uses at all. He did manage to chastise any fans who would criticize management. #protecttheshield
- Making fun of the use of clichés with no apparent sense of irony. Nice.
- Bitching about work when he gets paid a metric fuck ton to write badly about football.
- Another shitty cliché.
- I have no idea what the hell he is talking about.
- So much for the Manziel story blowing every other one out of the water. But he wrote that almost 200 words ago, so I can see how he would have forgotten by now—especially given his well known writing “process.”
- Whaaaa? His partner was male??? Seriously, why did this need mentioning? Anyone fucking reading this knows what’s up here. Real progress will be when the gender is not written into the stories, OK? Also, this is a bit of a deep read, but there was something off-putting about King saying he was there "to comfort." This is one of the happiest moments of Sam's life. "To comfort" is not an apt term here--even something like "to soothe" or "to calm" would be more appropriate, although really I think he was trying to connect and share as much as anything. "Comforting is, however, a very commonly used in feminizing connotions in a kind of instinctive, knee-jerk fashion. I'm in no way saying that I think King is anti-gay or even thinks gay men are more effeminate, but it's a very common cultural encoding that once you see, you start noticing and see it happens very, very frequently. So although I don't think it's intentional, that's sorta the point, and something to be savvy too when you are writing about "the most memorable moment in NFL draft history"!!!*
- Just in case you forgot that Sam's partner was a man!! Who kisses other men!! On the lips!! And by forgot, I mean in the last two sentences!!
- The world is changing, but this is a symptom of that change and it’s important to remember that; the NFL is not an engine of social progress here. I’m all for this as most of you know and they’re doing a good job, but this perspective is important. No need to pump up the NFL’s importance in their role here just to wallow in some self-glorification, right?
- Nobody thinks that, Peter. Like, literally, nobody. In your face imaginary guy!!
- Um.
- :barf:
That's just the first 1,000 words.
*Seriously, that's part of the subtitle of another piece on their website right now.
I'll just echo what Rev detailed above and say that King's bit on Sam smacks of someone who knows he should say something supportive, or approving, of Sam, but doesn't want to be too obvious or effusive about it. So he couches it in terms of "How America is Changing". Not "...for the better", mind you, just "changing." Likewise, he doesn't hope that Sam gets accepted/rejected on the basis of talent alone, but he thinks that will be the case. It's "good news" not that a football player has finally come out as gay, but that "the media will be friendly" to him.
This literally made me cringe. Only Peter King could slurp up with bullshit without raising an eyebrow.
drleather2001 said:
Yeah, there's something disingenuous about acting like your sitting back while printing quotations that revel in the glory of the might NFL.
The Demoff line reminds me of the end of the director's/actor's commentary on Stealth where Foxx is saying how he feels like they really accomplished something important with this film.
I mean, look at this:
"A great thing happened to a great guy at the draft the other night. My homeboy Mike Kensil got to be a part of something historic! Good on ya, Mike! Next beer's on me! Hope that gay fella works out for you boys so you can get some screen time on a future NFL special."
"A great thing happened to a great guy at the draft the other night. My homeboy Mike Kensil got to be a part of something historic! Good on ya, Mike! Next beer's on me! Hope that gay fella works out for you boys so you can get some screen time on a future NFL special."
Oh, and:
Eat yer heart out, Michael Sam! Terrence West rushed a whole lot last year!
We need to be more supportive of gay men in pro sports. We're a civilized society, and we need to act. And by "we", I mean, Peter King.
"So, for those of you that support Sam, well, so does Collins. For those of you that think what he did was 'gross', well, here's some food for thought. There's the line, and I'm straddlin' it!"
"Yup. Not gonna get ol' Peter King to endorse (or decry!) any of that "buzz" nonsense. PK: 100% about football, 50% of the time."
Eat yer heart out, Michael Sam! Terrence West rushed a whole lot last year!
We need to be more supportive of gay men in pro sports. We're a civilized society, and we need to act. And by "we", I mean, Peter King.
"So, for those of you that support Sam, well, so does Collins. For those of you that think what he did was 'gross', well, here's some food for thought. There's the line, and I'm straddlin' it!"
"Yup. Not gonna get ol' Peter King to endorse (or decry!) any of that "buzz" nonsense. PK: 100% about football, 50% of the time."
drleather2001 said:
I saw that one too. But this is the one I'm still processing:
Who wants to guess how many fucking problems I have with this brief blurb? And what's the most eggregious moment of bullshit here? How does one weigh the self-congratulatory total lack of self-awareness against the fucked up laundered racial analogy at the heart of the move? This is like an Inception-esque four-layers-down version of Peter King writing to the point that you can get lost in it trying to work it out.
He's getting very good at this, whatever it is.
It took me awhile to realize it, but I don't think I learned a single meaningful thing from King's article. I mean, I learned some specifics of what people said and some anecdotes, but nothing about football or the league. I really feel like that didn't used to be the case.
Reverend said:
You can thank Twitter for that. I mean, King devotes an entire section of his column to rehashing shit you already saw on Twitter multiple times. He's basically just an aggregator, at this point.
Reverend said:
I love that King, of all people, is worried about someone else becoming a house organ for the NFL.
The depth of deliberate obtuseness regarding Sam getting drafted is dumbfounding; it pervades the entire column.
Jesus what a colossal fucking asshole.
Again: he's not saying that ESPN shouldn't get criticized because why should a gay couple kissing warrant criticism? full stop. He's saying: "Well, it happened and it was interesting (*not in a good or a bad way, though, ok?) , wasn't it?"
Jesus what a colossal fucking asshole.
Two men kissing: Gripping TV!
PK and Gerry Callahan should hang out more often. They'd have a great time together.
PK and Gerry Callahan should hang out more often. They'd have a great time together.