Read the stuff below. That’s what I’d do.
I bet you that no NFL player will touch a football today, Saturday, February 17, 2024. Not even by accident. Time to pass the baton, momentarily, to others on Substack who are not concerned about that imaginary fact.
When people would email me AJ Daulerio “Black Table” interviews 20-odd years ago, I felt like I was being trolled. A lot of times his inquiries seemed like taunts. In lieu of questions, he seemed to be begging to be punched in the face. Here’s a small sample. An interview with journalist Seth Mnookin.
Clearly his approach was more nuanced and researched. But goddamnit AJ couldn’t resist veering into Jackass territory, testing the patience of his subject(s). When a reader looks back on Black Table now, (archived) you realize that the talent there was unreal. Lots of incredible minds doing shit on an internet that hasn’t existed since Donald Rumsfeld stood behind podiums.
Then AJ went to Deadspin, and Gawker, and there’s no point in linking to what happened. He went thru some shit. And still is. And you can read about it, or maybe even share your own story. If you’re even thinking about sobriety, The Small Bow is a messy, welcoming, humbling, uh, resource? Even Jayson Blair makes a return, and not as a punchline.
AJ chronicles his recovery here and makes room for others attempting to do the same. The probing cruelty of his old interviews still lingers. Minus the cruelty. Now the probing is pointed inward. Relentlessly. He doesn’t let himself get away with too much bullshit, even if he gets temporarily carried away. It’s a bit disarming. And it’s hard not to root for everyone involved, even his deceased father, or a guy who shows up in costume to recovery meetings.
The Small Bow is empowering, not sad. And a lot of times, funny as shit. The dude has always known how to acquire readers. Tell me you’re not gonna read a whole interview with this gentleman who kept the Chateau Marmont functioning, ASAP.
I grew up working class, in the South Side suburbs of Chicago. My father dug ditches for the gas company for a living, and my mother raised six children when she wasn't cutting and dyeing ladies' hair for cash on the side in the basement of our modest split-level ranch home.
My mother had a cousin who was a great beauty with bleach blonde locks who moved to LA in the 70's, motivated by her success of being chosen to appear topless in Playboy. I used to eavesdrop in the kitchen with orange and yellow seventies flowered wall-paper, while my mother gossiped with her sisters, listening wide-eyed about the glamorous life this distant relative lived in Hollywood, where her boyfriend ran a disco roller rink where CHER went skating.
Imagine my little gay boy's mind, watching "Xanadu" and thinking I COULD FUCKING BE IN LA DISCO ROLLERSKATING WITH CHER. It seemed like the furthest possible reality to me: no one in my family ever left Chicago, they just got married and had kids and watched Phil Donahue and drank cardboard suitcases of Schlitz Malt Liquor and that was enough.
Then as a fifteen-year-old, grappling with my emerging queer identity, I read Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero where all the kids were bisexual and doing cocaine and being fabulous. That is when I knew for sure I was destined to live in LA. Many years later, as I would sit telling this same anecdote through tears to a therapist in Beverly Hills, she flatly responded: "But everyone in that book ends up unhappy." I missed that part.
(stolen image)
Kelly Dwyer is a pioneer in NBA blogging, firing up the engine in roughly the same era of fertile internet that Black Table existed in. He’s obvs a Steely Dan fan. With Chicago bonafides. His style is singular. Not concerned at all with being “sportsy” and yet his analysis (here on troubled, aging teams) is always astute.
Though he plays his guitar as he rambles on about a lot of stuff on his podcast, his writing gives off more of a drumming Jimmy Cobb or Elvin Jones vibe than Bernard Purdy. Jokes and quips are fired off like someone who works at the precinct alongside Dennis on The Rockford Files, someone who needs Rockford to hear the truth, phrased in a compelling way. Or vice versa, I guess. It could be coming from Rockford.
Keep Patrick “Camo” Williams. So he blends with the scenery. So he mopes, you would too if nobody passed the ball. …
Don’t deal Alex Caruso. First-round picks signify nothing, non-lottery selections are mostly invitations to house a Darius Bazley or Chandler Hutchison for a few years…
…This pitch is not because I wouldn’t trust Artūras Karnišovas to feed my three cats when I’m away, I wouldn’t trust Jerry Krause, either, I might return home to two kittens, a salamander from Iowa State and a unicorn to be named later.
Name your favorite GM, I wouldn’t trust him selecting the player delivering equal value to Alex Caruso’s next two seasons. In fact, tell your favorite GM that Alex Caruso’s left toe injury could linger all season …
Don’t trade a first-round pick for a guy wearing two different-sized shoes.
It is important that the Bulls keep people like DeRozan and Caruso, doing the work the skinflint organization won’t. Jerry Reinsdorf would hire Daryl Boston for a fourth job before he hires an NBA-sized staff for the team in the NBA’s third-largest market.
NBA All-Star Weekend is now happening in Kelly’s home state of Indiana. Although you might want to spend time with his conference previews from this year, filled with truth and creative diagnoses.
Chuma Okeke is a stretch forward that loves to hoist, the hoists don’t always love him back but he’s a bundle of letmehelpyouwiththat nevertheless … Jonathan Isaac is a tall basketball player with the political opinions of a much shorter man … Second-year 6-8 forward Caleb Houstan did a little of everything for Orlando in 2022-23 except make shots…
Orlando spent $22 million over two years to let Joe Ingles teach the kids how to open a beer bottle with a cigarette lighter.
Cole Anthony will still need at least three years before I don’t transfer prevailing enmity over his father onto him. Not a Brunson-ceiling but could grow into the lead guard on a championship-level club … Daeqwon Plowden is not the name of a vlogger banished to Rumble who featured Jonathan Isaac six times on his show ‘The Plowden Perorate” during the offseason, Daeqwon Plowden is a shooting guard who spent five seasons at Bowling Green.
Here’s some perspective on Wemby not playing Sunday
We could submit the same in 1998, when Tim Duncan made the All-Star team his rookie year, his sword slaying through one of the headier frontcourt forests (Shaq and David Robinson and Hakeem and Vin Baker and Karl Malone and Barkley and KG and 1997 All-Star Chris Gatling) to cull All-Star votes from. Duncan prevailed because his Spurs looked the part, he and Robinson were presented as championship contenders from Duncan’s first game, Tim wore lots of robes, armor.
The 2023-24 Spurs started Zach Collins at center in Victor’s first game, which I’m sure will hold up. Spurs coach Gregg Popovich listed Keldon Johnson at the small forward role last fall, despite it being 2023, and Jeremy Sochan with the starting point guard position, despite this being planet Earth.
Things are better now, Wembanyama works at center, Justin Champagnie is the answer to 2038’s trivia question (“who’s the guy you kinda liked whose name you won’t fucking remember in a million years who started 52 games for the Spurs in Victor’s rookie year?”), the Spurs are 11-44, losing by eight and a half points per game.
Which is why Wembanyama (20.5 points, 10 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 3.2 blocks, 1.1 steals, 3.2 turnovers, 28.4 minutes per game) won’t play on Sunday, despite leading the NBA in blocks per outing and looking every bit the brightest bet to eclipse our view of the light.
Meaghan Garvey and I both had the pleasure of churning out copy in the Jessica Hopper-edited universe. It’s Garvey (not me), who’s continued to astound, reporting and opining in a truly magical way. By way of introduction, here’s another thing you’ll devour instantly, about a cross-country Amtrak trip.
Then came my neighbor, who flashed me his seat assignment ticket ruefully as if to apologize for the next 26 hours of predestined companionship; I’d get off in Glenwood Springs, and he at the next stop, Grand Junction. Beyond that, he didn’t say much. He was older: hard face, white beard, trucker hat, strange pants. We left Union Station towards the void of western Illinois, then Iowa, somehow even duller, and he minded his business, as I did mine. Still, you couldn’t not notice the half-pint of Fireball slipping from his backpack every 15 minutes; you could set your watch to it. I said to myself, “Now we’re talking.” As for the slowly impending reality of this man being my bedfellow — I kicked that can down the road.
[A note on Amtrak’s sleeping arrangements: in coach, as I am, you sleep in your seat, which can be generously reclined. Minus a seatmate, you’re golden. With one, you’re in for a long, weird night of essentially spooning a stranger.]
After an hour, the man was ready to talk. He’d been living in Downers Grove for some time, but his ticket to Grand Junction was one way. Years ago, he said, he’d owned a house in San Diego. “They took it,” he told me, “when they got my brother. Feds got him on charges of terrorism and tyranny. Well, then they found two bodies in the house. Brother died in federal prison. Funny thing — he went to Harvard.”
“Well, so did Ted Kaczynski,” I offered. The man excused himself to the snack car, returning with two Stella cans plus a small bottle of white wine, which he handed to me. “I don’t know if this is what you like,” he said shyly. “I guessed.”
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” said a voice across the aisle — a long-limbed man of maybe 40 in a gray sweatsuit and cheap black shoes. By his feet, a flimsy mesh bag revealed a small stack of books and papers and what looked like a set of dentures. “I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop,” he went on. “But I just got out of federal prison, actually.”
(stolen image)
Or a sprawling biographical post about Helen Morgan, a singer and socialite who was somehow involved with her grandfather and great-grandfather and died young.
“Who is she?” I asked my father, who did seem a bit unnerved. “And what’s her picture doing in the closet?” “That must’ve ended up here from my dad’s old office,” he said. “But who is she? Is she famous?” I asked again. “A friend of my grandfather’s,” he demurred, “named Helen Morgan.”
Helen Morgan — the type of name you don’t hear anymore, though if you swirl the sounds around, “hello Meaghan” almost appears; is that insane to say? I typed it into YouTube late that night, and there she was: this time smoldering over her shoulder, draped enchantingly in pearls, with the short and tousled haircut of my friends’ moms in the ‘90s, rendered fresh and fun by Helen circa 1929 — the year of the recording of the first song that appeared with the melodramatic title “Why Was I Born?”
Or catching up with a jailed ex:
Well, what’s your favorite part?
Ecclesiastes, I can’t even believe they put that in the Bible. I don’t like the King James version because they took shit out, but it’s also more poetic. It starts with, like, everything means nothing, and I guess there was a big debate about actually putting that in the Bible. Supposedly it was written by Solomon. But anyways, that’s my favorite because it’s just real as fuck. It’s like, everything’s been done. I was just like, whoa. The Old Testament is God just being fucking pissed for like a thousand pages. It’s like, dude, what were these fuckers’ problems? Like, God was there. Like, dude, God’s right there, you need to chill the fuck out, bro! Just kick back! And they’re like, bitching and complaining. Moses frees them from slavery and they’re like, why do we have to be in the desert so long and eat this shitty bread God gave us? Like, fuck bro, are you serious? … So the Old Testament is just doom and fucking gloom. And the prophets are really hard to read, cause it’s hundreds of pages of them being like, you are fucked, you fucked everything up…
I have to pee but we have to keep it going so you’re just going to have to hear me pee, I’m sorry. You can put that in there: “sound of urine.” But I think first I’ll do some cocaine.
[Tony does several key bumps]
Anyways, Old Testament, fucking crazy….
Is God mad when you do drugs?
I mean, I don’t know. The Bible says don’t get really drunk. Well, that’s not true. It says don’t get completely belligerent all the time. At that time they meant wine and beer, but it applies to anything. But I’m a fucking sinner, like anyone else. I try to be a good person, now more than ever. The problem is when you’re not functioning, or when you run out of money and can’t buy any more drugs. So, God killed everybody. He was like, I can’t fuck with you guys, this was a huge mistake. So he tells Noah and his sons and their wives, like yo, build this shit, get the fuck out, and just murks everyone. They were in that boat for fucking years or some shit…
…you’ll read the whole thing, all of it, and then subscribe.
Probably to all three.
You can always re-read your fave NFL Weakly posts too: