Why Do I Continue to Read Peter King?
- Thread starter John Marzano Olympic Hero
- Start date
And can't you just imagine how that story would sound had been tagged with the ticket? He'd certainly chew the guy out.
Again, I'm not defending the guy, it's pretty obvious that I believe that he's history's greatest monster. BUT, enough people have a high opinion of him which is interesting.
Also, real runners would never have the mindset to make up a spot and put on the hazards . They'd find a parking space and walk to the stupid Starbucks. Doesn't this guy claim to have run a half marathon?
Isn't that pretty much the basis of all observational humor writing though? I don't really think, say, David Sedaris or Bill Bryson are quite so funny in their internal monologues until the second revision either.
Sure, you have actually be funny and/or do it without coming across as a gigantic douche, and King sucks at that. Don't hate the game, hate the player.
Now that I'm rambling, I actually think Bryson is a good comparison to this subset of King's writing you're pinpointing. BBR is a huge asshole, but he usually succeeds in making the other guy either interesting or a huger asshole one way or another. PK tries the same genius-among-peons shtick but pulls it with any old Johnny Burger King and you end up just feeling bad for the poor schlub to had the tough luck to happen across PK's path when the old fellow is feeling cheeky.
I disagree. I Bill Bryson can come across in his worst bits as a nerdy curmudgeon, but here's the thing: he freely admits that he's a nerdy curmudgeon, and that there are times when it is HE that is the fish out of water.
I mean, A Walk On The Woods, probably his most famous book and the one closest to to the King aesthetic, spends a fair amount of time lauding the people who are more adventurous and/ or fit than the author is. Bryson is frequently self deprecating, a trait that King almost NEVER displays.
King clearly wants his travel shit to SOUND like Bryson, but he fails.
I mean, A Walk On The Woods, probably his most famous book and the one closest to to the King aesthetic, spends a fair amount of time lauding the people who are more adventurous and/ or fit than the author is. Bryson is frequently self deprecating, a trait that King almost NEVER displays.
King clearly wants his travel shit to SOUND like Bryson, but he fails.
Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/peter_king/11/20/colin-kaepernick-alex-smith/index.html#ixzz2CojSSrVs
Yes, old Kap really screwed those beat writers, who now get guaranteed views on every tweet, article and blog post about the 49ers QB situation for at least a couple of weeks, if not all year. What a tough problem. Of course, what King is worrying over is that the beat writers now have to do actual work by watching for signs in practice and elsewhere that would indicate Harbaugh's QB choice. King's preferred approach to his job is to sit around, make a few phone calls, and spout off opinion that is loosely based on the facts.
What has to happen for public perception about this guy to change sufficiently that he at least won't be on TV anymore?
A) Bryson is 10 times as smart as PK
B) Bryson is very funny
C) Bryson makes fun of himself as much as anyone else
B) Bryson is very funny
C) Bryson makes fun of himself as much as anyone else
Serious question: Does Bryson write a series of articles that are available online. I would read those if he did. I really enjoyed the universe book he wrote (but the version with photos and drawings is a million times better than the version without photos and drawings).
Seeing a Bryson/King comparison, even a marginal one, hurt my soul. I will now crawl away and die.
Read Bryson's "In a Sunburned Country" and you'll see the full effect of his self-deprecation and sublime appreciation for Australia. He might be an asshole at times, but he at least realizes it and lacks the moralizing that King has turned into a high art form.
At the risk of being accused of thought policing, anyone who compares Bryson to King in the future will get banned and then acid poured on their face.
It's like comparing Joyce to Simmons because they are both wordy.
It's like comparing Joyce to Simmons because they are both wordy.
Well they also both hate women.
And if you don't read Stephen Daedeleus's stirring oath in Chapter 5 of Portrait of the Artist ("Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.") and don't think "man, Real World/Road Rules Challenge Marathon! I know what I'm doing this weekend" the something is wrong with you.
Everyone here hates that book. We hate it only second to how much we hate the Simpsons Australia episode.
We hate SJH too but for different reasons.
Does anyone there like the Simpsons episode? And if they do, is it a bootable offense? If you don't know, are you going to scream out to your MP, who is no doubt lounging in his mudhole?
It was very funny to hear Collinsworth with the media equivalent of a drive-by shooting on last night's telecast.
Post-game, while NBC was setting up their horribly-contrived Madden Turkey Day awards (complete with mutant bird), Collinsworth made sure to voice his concern that Peter King might swoop in and destroy the place-setting before they had a chance to distribute the awards. Totally uncool, but hysterical nonetheless.
Post-game, while NBC was setting up their horribly-contrived Madden Turkey Day awards (complete with mutant bird), Collinsworth made sure to voice his concern that Peter King might swoop in and destroy the place-setting before they had a chance to distribute the awards. Totally uncool, but hysterical nonetheless.
Who is the more moronic: the moron, or the moron who quotes him?
Peter King's MMQB: home to Sports Illustrated's hardest-hitting NFL analysis, so long as the author feels like getting into it. If not, well, you know, do it yourself!
Oh bull fucking shit.
Jim fucking Schwartz single-handedly lost the game vs. Houston by A) throwing a challenge flag at an illegal time; and B) running running plays (and, IIRC, losing yards) for what would have been a game winning field goal in OT. If he's not the goat of the week, I don't know who is.
SEE! Even he admits it! In your column! Right there! He concedes that he knew the rule, so you can't let him off the hook by saying "Well, that's such a stupid rule that nobody would think of it." (a position which would still force the question: "how can a HC of an NFL football team not be expected to know the challenge rules by now? That's a crucial part of his in-game job responsibilities")
It doesn't fucking matter if it's a dumb rule! He admitted that he knew the rule, and ignored it so he could act like an ass, thereby fucking his team out of a win. The Head Coach! The validity of the rule has nothing to do with it! Completely irrelevant, as is the fact that the league will likely remove/revise it in the offseason.
Oh goody. Now we get other wealthy quasi-celebrity boring travel stories in addition to King's. Yawn.
Ok. So, after having Saturday (and, presumably, at least Friday as well, and maybe Thursday...I mean, what, are we supposed to gasp because this is on a Sunday? As if working on a weekend is unthinkable, even when you don't work a normal work week?) off, ol' Ian has to work for 4 hours on Sunday and then fly home, gets home late. No biggie. Also, I'm sure the guy is flying first class, courtesy of the network.
Hm. So he had, basically, all of Monday off to hang out at his house. Doesn't sound too rough. Again: flying first class. King doesn't say when he landed, but I'm guessing it was around 10 PM or so.
Again, Ian had almost the entire day to do...whatever he it is does...around L.A. until about 5:00 or so to get ready for the game. Then he flies the (relatively) short flight to S.F. This schedule does not sound very rough. I mean, it's not nothing, but he's working, at most, 8 hour days, with large chunks of that just sitting on an airplane. I should be so lucky.
Once again, had all day to hang out in San Francisco (what an awful place to have to kill a day!), and then worked for 4 hours, then flew on a plane, presumably in something akin to first class again so he could sleep. Then got to go home. Yea, that sounds mildly shitty, but nothing to write home about.
So around 6:30 (after having, again, all day to do whatever) he had to drive 30 minutes to Giants Stadium, did his usual work routine, and then drove home. Not exactly a rough day. Maybe "worked" for 5 hours.
Maybe "worked" 4 hours.
Oh come on! So he got up at a typical time (probably 6:00) to catch a mid-morning flight, then went from the airport to an office to have a meeting? Big fucking deal! There are, literally, people who do this shit every day. Regardless, he was probably done for the day around 2:30. Cry me a fucking river.
Sunday: Got to sleep in until 10:00, had a breakfast of sweet cream and croissants with almond butter with french-press coffee. Paid for by network. strolled around by the ocean for some air. Had company driver take him to the stadium. Makeup and prep for 45 minutes. Did game. Back to hotel around 5:00. Paid for hooker. Fucked hooker until 6:30. Washed up. Hired fishing charter for 90 minutes. Caught bluefin. Had driver take me to the airport. Sat at airport bar, had 2 martinis. Got into first class seating, fell right asleep.
"At some point in my life, I forgot what it was like to have a real job."
I am honestly struggling to figure out why this is profound or notable in any way, and I can't figure it out. This defines "bland."
Well, given that Brady threw for 36 TDs and 4 INT's 2 years ago....and 50 TDs and 8 INT's 5 years ago.... I'd say that stats don't bear that out. Still great? Yes. Getting better? No.
You should KNOW this.
Wait. On what fucking planet is Bradley Cooper an Oscar favorite? Because he stars in a rom com? Seriously?
I know, King, you must be so fucking busy, what with your Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays basically wide open aside from a TV interview here and there.
How on earth will you ever carve out those three hours...and soon, mind you?
I didn't even know who he was, so I googled. It appears that "favorite" is certainly an overstatement, but columns like this one have him likely to get nominated. I think the classic King thing here is his inclination to blow everything out of proportion so it sounds better. He could have just said something like "buzzed-about actor" or "possible Oscar nominee," but he elevated Cooper to "Oscar favorite" because isn't that just delicious?
Silver Linings Playbook is getting a lot of positive attention--I saw it; the movie and Cooper are both great. Considering Mo'nique won an Oscar a couple years ago I think we're firmly in ridiculous-land calling him out for that. So he said "favorite."
I mean all that "YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS"; it ain't a rom-com or that crazy a thing to say. Its the fucking Oscars they're stupid too by definition.
I mean all that "YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS"; it ain't a rom-com or that crazy a thing to say. Its the fucking Oscars they're stupid too by definition.
"any port in a storm... is a good thing"??? Yeah, man, that's what 'any port in a storm' means. This is like saying "well all's well that ends well if the final outcome is good!!!" Peter King don't get language.
Shouldn't this be in the "Why Do I Continue to Read drleather2001" thread?
This is like saying Jay Cutler is the "MVP favorite." Is it possible he'll win? Sure. Is it at all reasonable to call him the favorite? No. There are 100 ways to appropriately convey the situation other than to say that Cooper is an "Oscar favorite."
On the Ian Eagle stuff, I am sort of fascinated by how much some of these multi-sport announcers have to travel/work. And keep in mind that Eagle can't just kick it during his downtime - he's probably meeting with coaches, familiarizing himself with the teams (i.e., associating players' numbers with the players), reading local reports on the teams, writing up some notes to share during the game, etc. Of course, reviewing all of this, which might actually be interesting to a reader, would require work... so King doesn't do it.
He's so fucking lazy. To him, stats are these weird number things that exist to complement the miniature narratives of his quaint world. It's all so interesting! One thing I think I think is he realizes on some level that his observations and insights are utterly banal, so this is his effort to dress them up and look cute. 'Tom Brady is still pretty damn good' becomes 'It's the Curious Case of Benjamin Brady!' Is anyone really surprised that Brady is still playing at an MVP level? "MMQB" might as well be "NFL Week [12] For Dummies" where any thought that pops into his head is noteworthy.
Another example:
... against the Browns, Titans, Dolphins, Jaguars, and Bills. That's some impressive shit right there. These are all teams that are in the bottom half, most in the bottom third, of offensive production by a variety of metrics. Yet again, he should know this. Additionally, his cherry-picked sample starts the week after an ass-to-face Jets offense scored 35 on them. He also bluntly excludes Indy's game against the Patriots a week ago, who of course scored 59 fucking points on them (38 of those given up by the defense). So the one time during this stretch that Indy's defense faced a good offense (granted, the NFL's best offense), they were dominated. But sure, it's easier to avoid any real analysis and instead convert a rather pointless 'The Colt defense has played well lately against these bad offenses' into 'Look at this defensive domination - the numbers speak for themselves! Chuck on three!'
Can't figure that one out? You mention a reason in the very next sentence, dumb-ass-opotamus. Not only is there this strange "Cyber Monday" thing, on some obscure online shopping sites like Amazon it lasts for an entire fucking week. Couple that with Black Friday, which is really Black Friday Weekend for numerous vendors, and there are about ten straight days of deals that can be found on this peculiar thing called the Internet where people can purchase shit without ever leaving the comfort of their homes. Perchance that's a reason why Black Friday isn't as busy as it once was? You obtuse sack of lard.
Now see if anyone cares.
Oh, what the hell. Thanks, Peter, for your indignation over the injustice that the public was unable to see Bradley Cooper talk about the Eagles and pimp his movie. I, for one, am devastated.
The obvious reason traffic is light on Black Friday is that many (if not most) offices, businesses, schools, courts, etc. are closed, so far fewer people have to commute to work.
Plus, the day is totally spread out, to the point where the stores open on Thursday now. Offices are closed, the day lasts 24 hours, people are sleeping off Thanksgiving and he's surprised the traffic is light? And how has he never heard of Cyber Monday? Seriously.
I'd also like to toss in the fact that prior tales of tramplings, stabbings, other outrageous customer behavior, disgruntled employees, long lines, etc. have soured the masses' interest in partcipating in the (perceived) frenzy.
Good points. I misread what he wrote, because he structured that poorly. I thought he was comparing this Black Friday to past ones. It's even dumber that he can't fathom why traffic is light then.
Look, the point here is, conceivably, to rag on Peter King for the many, many dumb things he says, right? Drleather does an awesome job of this. I check this thread often for that reason. In my humble opinion, what makes it less awesome is calling him on a thing like this.
You're wrong. "Favorite" could mean so many things to him here, and at worst you're ribbing him for not knowing the forecasting between "he could get nominated" and "he'll likely win" for the Oscars that don't happen for what, 3 months? Its all about ad campaigns and some capricious set of moving-goalpost narratives given the set of stars in question. My roommate gets Entertainment Weekly in the mail, and they forecast the Oscars all year long. They had a thingy on their review of the movie that stated he was good odds for Best Actor. What's really the big deal with "favorite" there? I mean he's definitely stretching to beef up his anecdote, and I guess that's quintessentially King, but his inability to have his ear finely tuned to anything pop culture isn't so bad. As DrL pointed out, he clearly knows nothing about movies, but he wasn't really talking about movies.
This isn't that funny an enterprise if that is the sort of thing he gets lambasted for, just saying. It just gets silly.
That said, it just drew a semantic reaction to what I thought was an otherwise awesome DrL effort, so agree to disagree, etc.
Meh, constructive criticism of my playing curmudgeonly critic of King's clueless critiques is critical to my continued...um...complaining.
I appreciate that you care, man.
Edit: but seriously, I take 25 minutes every Monday morning to bluntly bitch about a fat old sportswriter. I don't take it very seriously, and sometimes I say dumb shit or overdo it. I'm not aiming for greatness.
I appreciate that you care, man.
Edit: but seriously, I take 25 minutes every Monday morning to bluntly bitch about a fat old sportswriter. I don't take it very seriously, and sometimes I say dumb shit or overdo it. I'm not aiming for greatness.
I'm actually of the opposite school of thought--if you don't know what the fuck you are talking about, why would you ever refer to someone as a favorite?
I mean, that's sort of the point, and it's fairly central to what King is about. It's not important to me or anything, but it does matter to some people even if I think it's silly, but even that doesn't matter--the point is he is making demonstrably bs claims about shit he doesn't understand.
That's stupid and unnecessarily so.
I mean, that's sort of the point, and it's fairly central to what King is about. It's not important to me or anything, but it does matter to some people even if I think it's silly, but even that doesn't matter--the point is he is making demonstrably bs claims about shit he doesn't understand.
That's stupid and unnecessarily so.
I can only assume your going from "you're wrong" to "agree to disagree" was an homage to King's frequent refusal to take a position on things. Well done.