People who work harder than me

I was too busy last week and did not get around to posting this, but here is a Q&A with Jeff Leen, for Gelf Magazine that I wrote about his new book, "The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the Making of an American Legend."

Women's wrestling is not quite my cup of tea, but the book was well written and I cannot even begin to wrap my mind around the amount of research Leen did in writing the book. The book is about Mildred Burke, who as Leen describes is the "Jackie Robinson and Babe Ruth of women's wrestling." She also aligned herself with her husband/manager Billy Wolfe, who beat the shit out of her, cheated on her with tens of women and in the end stole all her money. It's a pretty entertaining story if you're into that sort of thing.

Leen, a managing editor at The Washington Post, spent five years researching Burke, who reigned as the women's wrestling professional champion from the 1930s through the 1950s. Almost every hour that Leen was not working for the Post, he was dedicating to the book. He even spent his vacation driving with his wife through the route that Burke's wrestling circuit followed.

His notes on sources for the book stretch 57 pages. As a lazy blogger, this is all incredibly mind-blowing to me. I hope one day to have half the work ethic Leen has.

Here's my article with an excerpt as usual:

Jeff Leen describes the subject of his book The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the Making of an American Legend as the "Jackie Robinson and Babe Ruth of women's wrestling." Yet few self-described sports fanatics could tell you whoMildred Burke is. Through extensive research into the history of women's wrestling, Leen aims to rectify that oversight, shedding light on a woman who rose from a small, Depression-stricken Midwestern town to become one of the most important wrestlers of all time—only to sink into obscurity upon her death.

Over a five-year span, Leen, a managing editor at the Washington Post, spent almost every spare minute of his time examining any form of literature that related to Burke and retracing the path of her career. The resulting biography recounts not only Burke's tale, but life during the golden age of American wrestling. It also describes the incredible amounts of physical and psychological drama that Burke brought upon herself to get the top.

Gelf spoke with Leen by phone to learn what it's like researching an obscure sports figure who passed away decades ago, and how his own Midwestern roots and 30 years as an investigative reporter helped him write The Queen of the Ring.

Continue reading...

LeBron at the Garden

Since NBA schedules were released months ago, February 5th has been an important day on my calendar. It's the first time the Brandon Jennings Experience a.k.a. the Milwaukee Bucks will play in the Garden this season. Somehow the Knickerbockers' November 6th game was not on my radar, even though many would argue that a LeBron James only regular season Garden visit is more important than an unproven 20-year-old's.

Throughout all of last week I was excited for the Cavs to play the Knicks, mainly do the extremely silly hype surrounding Bron's impending free agency. Then at about 4 pm on last Thursday I had a revelation, I should really go to the game. Plus what's the point of a first paycheck if you have not already blown half of it before receiving it. I immediately texted the only one of my friends who would be able and willing to shell out the necessary funds to get decent tickets to the Knicks game. Within 12 hours I had a solid pair of tickets in my hands.

A worthless bet I made pregame: Over/under on seeing customized LeBron Knicks Jerseys at the game: 5. I bet the over. That bet really had nothing riding on it. I would end up being wrong. I only saw 3.

A loser-buys-Monday's-lunch pregame bet: If LeBron scores 55 or over, I owed my co-worker lunch. If Jordan Hill scored 10 or more points, I was owed a lunch.

This was really a stupid fucking bet on my part, seeing as how Jordan Hill was riding a 4-game DNP-CD streak after playing all of 1:45 in the Knicks' season opener. I should also note that Bron has scored over 50 in two out of three of his last trips to the Garden, against Knicks squads that were arguably better than this year's joke of a team.

Bron started the first quarter murdering everyone in site, hitting fade-away 18-footers like they were open lay-ups. He hit his first four shots, including a fading-out of bounds-as the shot clock expired-with Larry Hughes on top of him-holy fuck-three pointer. Even though the entire Cavs squad outside of Bron is terrible, the Knicks are just that much worse and were down 19 at the end of the first quarter.

After the first quarter, half the Yankees World Champion roster walked out to half-court to receive more praise. A-Rod was there, as were many other big names I don't really care about. Jeter was not. Which, as my friend asked, makes you wonder what the hell Jeter had going on that he was too cool to sit courtside at a LeBron James/Knicks game.

Bron could have easily sat the rest of the game, but somebody gave him the memo that I paid $75 to watch him and not Jamario fucking Moon, so he came back in and toyed with the Knicks for a while.

In the second quarter Mike D'Antoni lost his mind and accidentally played his #8 draft pick, Jordan Hill.

Going back to my sophomore year of college I remember sitting on my couch, in a hazy mind state where I was deciding between Frosted Flakes or a milkshake, or Frosted Flakes and a milkshake. I was also freaking out about Hassan Adams playing for the Nets after I had watched him play in the McKale Center a dozen times. It just seemed so weird to see Hassan in a uniform that did not read "Arizona" on the chest. Note: Somewhere Hassan is on his couch, stoned out of his mind probably reminiscing about the same thing.

Seeing Jordan Hill's goofy ass play for a "real NBA team" was even more bizarre than watching Hassan. It just did not look right. It barely made sense that Hill played college ball, the fact that he somehow made his way into the NBA is just too much for me. Another note: both the Nets and the Knicks do terribly poor jobs of trying to imitate a "real NBA team."

By some miracle of God, Jordan Hill was taking 15-footers and knocking them down. He hit one. Then another. Then another. Six fucking points! It was like he knew how bad I wanted that free Cosi's pesto chicken melt on Monday.

Then there was a time-out. Jordan Hill was hot, but I figured somehow Mikey D would come to his senses and realize Jordan Hill is not a real human being. But another miracle happened and Jordan Hill was able to sneak back on the floor. He missed his fourth attempt, was soon after pulled from the action and never returned to the hardwood, which sucks for him, but more importantly means I'll be eating a dry turkey sandwich from home on Monday. Fuck the Knicks.

Bron never returned to his first-quarter like-Jesus-Christ-only-better state, not that there was a need, he could have played with both hands tied behind his back and still scored on which ever Knick tried to guard him. He finished with a modest 33 in a 100-91 Cavs win.

Since this is WPM, I have to mention that Brandon Jennings and the Bucks also beat the Knicks the following night by 15. The Knicks at one point were down 36 to the Bucks, who despite everything I claim, are a terrible, terrible team. The Knicks are now 1-6 including losses to the Pacers, Bobcats, Hornets and Bucks.

Sad Gil & More

Harping back to this blog's old days when I would just post anything Gilbert Arenas, mainly because it was easier to blog rather than CC-ing the same article to all of my friends. Here is this silly video of Gil.

Other things that I perhaps should've blogged about:

1. I went to a Maury Show live taping. It was incredible. One of the most incredible experiences of my life actually. I got to see two paternity test, three lie detector test and one lie detector/paternity test-double whammy.

The best part was watching Maury play to his audience. He came out and asked the crowd, "Where my boos at?" Then later on he made small talk with the crowd, "It's Friday, I can't wait to go home and drink a 40 (waits the perfect amount of time for crowd applause). I just switched from Olde English." Then he seamlessly transitioned to talking to a pregnant woman who was crying and believed her husband was banging other women on their kids' bed.

Good times all around.

2. I got a cool job.

3. I went on some fun bike rides.

4. I learned some valuable origami skills.

5. I made the pretty Fall-themed J.R. Smith banner you see above.

6. This picture:

Which is a remix of this picture:

Lines I enjoy

B. Jennings G 34:16 7-16 2-5 1-2 -9 1 9 9 5 0 0 1 5 17

from MIL @ PHI 10.30.09

J. Hill 1:45 0-1 0-0 0-0 +2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

from NYK @ MIA 10.28.09

J. Hill DNP - COACH'S DECISION

from NYK @ CHA 10.30.09

"For a year or so"

from Andre Agassi

So Jennings is the proud new owner of a . . .  Ford Edge. Starting MSRP: $26,900.

from JS Online... Does this mean that one day I will probably buy a Ford Edge to go along with my Under Armor sneakers and Bucks jerseys? Yes it does.

Boston and Cool Jobs

Note: I wrote this post two weeks ago and just got around to publishing it. Some of the information is now dated, some is not.

Most mornings Sep and I wake up early, eat breakfast and talk about how cool it would be if we had cool jobs (for full effect drag out the o's in 'cool' and say it with a cool face). Then Sep will normally lock himself in his room and study for the LSATs, while I polish off my Frosted Flakes and spend an inordinate amount of time thumbing through a Cabela's hunting magazine that inexplicably arrives in our mailbox monthly.

Sep seems certain that a high LSAT score and subsequent fancy law degree will land him a cool job. I'm much less pro-active about my pursuit of a cool job. After breakfast I will return to my bedroom, skim through a couple of cool blogs and talk out loud to myself, "Whoa. That person has a cool job."

Recently I decided to journey to Maine to see some of my favorite people in the world not named Brandon Jennings. I decided to break up the trip to Maine with a stop in Boston, even though I had no idea where I would spend the night in Boston.

Long story short by where-am-I-going-to-rest-my-head troubles were saved by some friends I met at Vibes and because I met them at Vibes we were automatically best friends because everyone at Vibes was my best friend except the scary nitrous people, they were not my best friends.

My friend Mal met me, showed me some pretty things, took me to a cool bar where I had a hamburger with peanut butter. Then she took me to her office.

Mal has a cool job. She works at a visual effects studio in the coolest office. Even with the lights on, the office was very dimly lit and every corner was full of chotchkies; either odd chotchkies or a massive plasma TV. Most importantly her office has a milkshake making device in addition to a bar full of snacks and beer.


As I sat there destroying a Rice Krispie Treat, she put on her work's demo reel. Her company made the NBA "Where will amazing happen?" commercials. At that point I lost my mind.

After the tour and video reel, she offered me a shot of Jack Daniels from her boss's office. Normally I never drink hard liquor, but I am not retarded so I took that shot of Jack and tried to act like it was no big deal. At the end of the day Mal is just a receptionist, who has to do silly receptionist work, but it's possibly the dopest work atmosphere I have ever seen.

I asked her how she got her job. "Well I was working across the street at the Starbucks. I became friends with everyone on the block." Mal said. "The girl who was the receptionist before me asked me what I do and what I want to do in life. I told her I ballroom dance. Then she offered me an interview and I got the job."

Mal's "desk:"


This is a picture of the light's reflection in a picture of the light hanging. I liked it.


This is Jesus Christ and the United Nations building. It hangs in the bathroom.

I continued to bounce around Boston with Mal and my other Vibes friend Amber. Eventually we got back to their place and tried to watch Pineapple Express without smoking, which is like playing golf with no clubs. Either way I passed out on their couch at 10:30 at night, because that is how I roll.

Buzz Bissinger Interview

This is an interview I did with Buzz Bissinger for Gelf Magazine regarding his (and Bron's) new book "Shooting Stars."

In the real world Buzz is famous for his book "Friday Night Lights," which sold over 2 million copies and spawned a movie and TV show. In the sports blogosphere Buzz is famous for screaming at Will Leitch.

Personally I did not love "Shooting Stars" and I agreed with many of the points Henry Abbott raised on TrueHoop. When I was speaking to Buzz I slightly alluded to Abbott's article and then Buzz kinda went off.

"If Henry Abbott wants to go do it, let him go do it. Instead of suggesting all sorts of rhetorical questions for which he has no answer, he can go investigate it. All he does is raise rhetorical questions, which to me is not reporting or writing, but the very antithesis of both," Buzz said. Then he proceeded to talk to compare LeBron's biography to Ted Kennedy's. He falsely assumed I had some worldly knowledge outside of basketball and began talking about Chappaquiddick. I pretended like I knew what he was talking about, then after the interview I wiki-ed the shit out of Teddy Kennedy.

In all I was very happy with the interview and the way the article came out.

Enjoy...

Like many basketball fans, I've followed LeBron James since he was a sophomore in high school. I remember the Sports Illustrated cover. I remember the SLAM cover. I remember watching his St. Vincent-St. Mary squad take on Oak Hill on ESPN. I remember listening to Dick Vitale broadcast the game and bash everyone who was profiting off LeBron and knowing damn well that Vitale was not offering his services pro bono.

As a basketball junkie, I can tell you exactly where I was when LeBron was chosen with the first pick in the 2003 NBA Draft. Having never looked at LeBron's Wikipedia entry, I could probably recite 95 percent of its content off the top of my head. So I was curious what new information I would learn from reading LeBron and Buzz Bissinger's new book, Shooting Stars. Because the book tells LeBron's life story up to the point he graduated from high school, I expected to read about him being offered shady deals worth millions and cavorting around college campuses like Jesus Shuttlesworth. But there wasn't much in the way of new or revelatory information. As Bissinger—who knows how to write a story about high school sports—explains, Shooting Stars is not meant to be an all-inclusive LeBron James autobiography. At its core, it is a simple book about five kids, with the odds stacked against them, overcoming their fair share of adversity to win a state championship or three.

I spoke with Bissinger over the phone to talk about writing a book with King James, why it's not a work of investigative journalism, and how the sports culture in Akron compares to the one in Odessa, Texas. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Continue reading...

There was one bit of idiotic Justin Adler writing that my editor wisely cut from the article to make me look more mature and respectable than I am. But since this is my blog, I'll run the goofy paragraph:

I cannot say I disliked the book; it was entertaining. It was a literary version of methadone for my heroine-like addiction to the game. And what the fuck else am I going to do in the offseason. But I am a sucker for dirty, corrupt basketball scandals and one good World-Wide Wes story would have made the book exponentially better for me.

*Stupid photo of Bron at the top of the page is courtesy of BOP VI.

Movie Ideas

This morning I found myself alone standing outside the Boston sports pro shop in the TD Garden. It was 7:45 in the morning so the shop was closed and dark inside, but I stood there staring intensely through the glass at a green Eddie House jersey while Third Eye Blind's "How's it going to be" played over the radio.

I don't have any idea what that particular 3EB song is about. I could not tell you any of the lyrics aside from the chorus. But if my life is ever turned into a movie, I don't have any idea why the fuck it ever would be, me thinking about Eddie House while listening to 3EB needs to be climatic scene of the film. I think it would earn me an Oscar or at least an NAACP Image Award.

On the subject of silly films... A lot of people in New York claim they are writing screenplays or creating something along the lines of dreams that will never be fulfilled. The following is my rendition of that.

A while ago my friend Tom and I wondered if there is any medical condition which would only allow you to hear sounds in the tone of rapper/convicted sex offender Mystikal's voice. This is the inspiration for a screenplay I have been writing entirely in my head while riding the subway over the past week. It's about a slightly less retarded version of Helen Keller who grows up in a wealthy, white suburb but is unable to communicate in any form with anyone. All of the world's top researchers of "people who are slightly less retarded than Helen Keller" have zero success in helping the knock-off Helen Keller.

Then one day she hears a Keak da Sneak song, and the girl realizes Keak's voice is the only audible level she is able to understand. Everything clicks for the girl. Note: I made the executive decision to replace Mystikal with Keak da Sneak for many reasons. First Keak is not a rapist, therefore it will be more family friendly. Secondly Keak's Wikipedia entry states. "He is also notable for popularizing the style of wearing clothing from 2nd hand clothing stores with a mix of expensive 59Fifty hats and Bling." That is pretty fucking cool.

Eventually Keak and the girl who is slightly less retarded than Helen Keller formulate a strategy to solve the global energy crisis and ease all tensions in the Mideast. Additionally the duo create a time warping device that allows Justin Adler to sit courtside at the 2001 NBA Finals when Allen Iverson crosses Tyronn Lue, buries the 3, then steps over Lue.

The movie ends with Jewelz becoming the greatest rapper ever.

* If anyone wants to steal any of these ideas for anything please feel free. Just please put WPM somewhere in the credits and perhaps weave the restaurant where Tom works into the plot somehow. I'm sure there is a hole somewhere in the story it can be squeezed into.

** Half this post is what happens when I get on the subway sans music or a book to read.