Saturday, March 22, 2014

Other People's Writing

My fingers are sore from typing, so I'll let this crew handle it...

* Shea Serrano and Bill Barnwell reveal their pick as the best fictional quarterback of all time.  I am disappointed that Stan "The Boy" Taylor isn't on this list.  Stan, Stan/He's our boy!/If he can't do it/No one….will.

* Claire L. Evans reviews the Robocop remake by focusing on the most interesting (probably the 'only' interesting) scene in the movie.  I'm on board with Evans here, the film was pretty blah.  It fell victim to the problem of thinking it was a smarter movie than it actually was…also, Jackie Earle Haley as a mercenary badass?  Seriously?

* I guess I should note that all of this month's articles are (again) from Grantland, which is just an awesome website.  Perhaps what I like most about the site is that it often examines a game or skill known the world over, yet nobody knows who the "world's greatest" is at said game.  To wit, here's Jason Fagone profiling Anthony Gatto, the world's best juggler, though he's since retired that title for a much less-profile job.

* Another example: do you know who the world's best pool players are?  Several are profiled in David Hill's story about the modern professional billiards circuit and (perhaps as important) the still-thriving hustling market.  These players are all pretty good, I guess, though they're no Mr. Spectacular.

* Another example: do you know the world's best-singing seven-foot-tall silent clown is?  It's Puddles, profiled by Justin Heckert even though Heckert gets precious little face-time with the mysterious clown himself (sure talks a lot to Puddles' seven-foot-tall friend Mike Geier, though).  You might know Puddles from his famous cover of "Royals" with the Postmodern Jukebox, who I discussed in a post last month and…oh great, I hope you're happy, I just spent the last 45 minutes watching Postmodern Jukebox videos AGAIN.

* Amos Barshad profiles what the nine living members of the Wu-Tang Clan (Cappadonna is included) are up to today.  This story is probably catnip to Wu fans and I found it enjoyable just from a sprawling perspective, even though I couldn't give a damn about the Wu-Tang Clan's music.  Barshad gives them all more or less equal time in his story, though perhaps those more into the Wu can let me know what the ratio is of actual talent in this group to hangers-on.  I've always been led to believe that RZA, GZA and Method Man were the most notable members and the rest were interchangeable but that's only my layman's perspective.

* Jordan Conn profiles the ass-kickingest basketball team north of the border, the umpteen-time national champion Carleton Ravens.  They're why office pools based around the CIS tournament are always boring as hell.  "Well, yet again, we have a 31-way tie for first since everyone picked Carleton.  Coming in last place was Doug, who picked Brock against a team of aliens because Doug is an idiot."

* Eric Benson and Joe Delessio have an oral history on (of all things) Alan Thicke's association with a plethora of sports stars from his years of living in Los Angeles, owning Kings season tickets and being involved a ton of athlete-related charity events.  "Hey Mark, are you going to post that clip of Jay Onrait's Thicke impression?  This seems like a good place to insert that video."  You're damn right it does!  Thanks for the suggestion, invisible straw man!

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