Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. And buy Drew’s book, The Night The Lights Went Out, while you’re at it. Today, we're talking about wearing pajamas in public, hating REM, and more.
John:
NBC is going to run circles around ESPN’s NBA coverage, right?
Honestly, the peacock couldn’t be reclaiming the NBA at a better time for yours truly. Like a lot of people my age, my peak stretch of NBA fandom occurred in the 1990s, when Michael Jordan ruled the league. Every vital game back then was accompanied by “Roundball Rock” and presided over by peak Marv Albert and the Tsar of the Telestrator, Mike Fratello. A great majority of my most vivid NBA memories happened on NBC.
Then NBC’s deal with the league ended after the turn of the century, right as I was getting married and starting a family. When you have little kids, you have to perform a kind of cultural triage, prioritizing the shit you love watching the most and letting the rest drift away. The NFL was my priority at that time (still is), and it didn’t require as much of a time commitment as all of the other team sports. So I kept an eye on the NBA, but gradually watched fewer and fewer of its games until I couldn’t even be considered a casual fan. And without NBC doing the games, I lost a small emotional tether. ESPN taking over wasn’t a dealbreaker or anything, but it just wasn’t the same. I still enjoyed hoops, and I still knew the players and the game results, but there were years where I outright skipped watching the NBA Finals, especially if the Spurs were in them (that’s on me; not on Tim Duncan or Pop). I figured that estrangement would become permanent.
Then my kids got bigger and I was able to reclaim a good portion of my cultural diet. Suddenly I could watch movies again. People would tweet about water cooler shows and I’d know what they were referring to. Best of all, I discovered the tao of morning sports fandom. That got me back into the NBA, to the point where I’ve watched more playoff basketball this year than I have in decades. And it fucking ROCKS. Even when Draymond Green is on camera, I’m having a blast! Can’t believe this is my life.
Which brings us to the revived NBA on NBC, which has come along just as I’ve rediscovered my joy for the sport. The peacock is well aware that boomers like me are DYING for all of the '90s accoutrements, and they’re already obliging. They’re bringing back the “Roundball Rock” theme music, and they’re even using an AI Jim Fagan (the real one died) as the voiceover to tell you that the NBA on NBC is brought to you by The Prudential. If they use the original opening graphics, I might jump through the ceiling in excitement.
The problem, of course, is that it’s no longer the 1990s. Jordan is just a rich old guy now (NBC is using him as a contributor, I have no idea what that plan entails), and Marv Albert ran out of gas three scandals and six hairpieces ago. We're getting Mike Tirico—who has all the personality of a Mr. Coffee and may actually be a hologram and not a real person—as the lead announcer. So I’m gonna have to hope that second chair Noah Eagle, who’s got some real potential, eventually snatches the top job away from Tirico and/or secretly cuts the brakes on his Mercedes. Until lil’ Eagle does, I’m gonna watch every NBC game secretly hoping that the NBC is beta testing an AI Young Marv. Please don’t judge me.
Regardless, I’m still gonna watch the shit out of these games. The magic won’t quite be there, because the NBA rights are about to be scattered across three companies: NBC, Disney, and Amazon. NBC gets the nostalgia hound packaging, ESPN gets Inside the NBA (with TNT still producing it), and Amazon gets Kevin Harlan. I can deal with that. I still won’t watch a single second of NBA Countdown, which will still exist and will still feature Stephen A. making his resting fart face while Kendrick Perkins is picking crumbs from the seafood special out of his beard. Minus an imported Charles Barkley and his crew, nothing about ESPN’s coverage will feel fun. It’ll still feel like watching the game with a United Airlines gate agent. But there will still be kickass games to watch, and that’s all that I need as a reborn NBA fan.
Oh, and go Wolves.
Todd:
Is it "butt naked" or "buck naked?" I've always said "buck." But I was watching a show the other day and one of the characters said "butt." Please lead the world forward on this once and for all.
I use both, so let’s go to more reliable adjudicator for this debate: Ice-T. This man is married to Coco, so I consider him an authority on all things related to nakedness:
You heard the man. Let’s get butt naked and fuck.
Erik:
Back in the old times everyone carried their CD library in those giant books in their car. You'd get into any friend's car and flip through their collection, telling them which ones rocked and which ones sucked, and eventually chose one to jam to. Everyone had their own tastes, but there was almost always guaranteed to be one album that was in everyone's collection that no one actually ever listened to: REM's Monster. I remember it in basically every CD book I flipped through, and yet nobody actually liked it. REM as a band was lame, Michael Stipe was moody without the social cache to pull it off, and he had the voice of dying hyena. Tell me I'm wrong.
Some of our commenters will vehemently tell you that you’re wrong, Erik. But not me. I’ve hated REM since middle school, when Green broke them big and I had to listen to “Stand” 58 times a day. I hated Stipe’s voice, and I hated how un-rocking the rest of the band was. That distaste has never abated. I once saw someone post that “Losing My Religion” is the greatest rock song of all time and I wanted to get in my car and drive to that person’s house so that I could punch them in the face. I admire REM more than just about any other band out there, because they’re all cool guys who packed up their shit and retired when they didn’t want to do it anymore. And they do have one song I like, which ironically was on Monster (“What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?”). But otherwise, I hear Stipe’s singing voice and wish that I had gone deaf in both ears instead of one.
But Erik and I are mild outliers here. There are people my age who REALLY like REM. I know because they all went to my high school. Those people would have gladly yanked Monster out of a Caselogic sleeve and blasted it. Slander their favorite band at your own risk. They’ll strap you down to a chair and force you to listen to “Shiny Happy People” on an endless loop. Did you know that song is being ironic? DID YOU?!?!?!?! Shoot me in the balls.
Sam:
My oldest son is about to graduate from college with a degree in sports media. As best I can tell, his dream job would be writing for a newspaper in 1985, but that seems like a pretty big ask at this point. He’s done all the right things: sports editor and editor-in-chief of a paper with an actual paper edition, a semester working for a big-time professional franchise, writing and editing awards, etc. But this is a tough time to be getting into any kind of journalism. I know your path in sports journalism was not exactly typical, but I wonder if you have any tips for the lad.
You’d think I would, especially since both of my sons would like to become writers themselves. Just the other night, the 13-year-old came up to me and asked, “Dad, how do I get a job like the one you’ve got?” I was at a loss, because the two jobs that I currently hold here and over at SF GATE are in short supply. Complicating matters is the fact that my career path—from blog commenter, to Blogspot proprietor, to paid blogger, to paid magazine correspondent, and then back to paid blogger—doesn’t really exist in the age of social media. In fact, the landscape for writers is now shifting so frequently that I don’t even know what it looks like. I tried my best to explain these caveats to my son without discouraging him, and then I stammered out the following bits of advice, which I will now relay to you:
- If you want to write for a living, start writing now. Even if you write something bad, just keep writing more.
- Start getting feedback, too. Share your extracurricular writing with friends, and then step up to publishing your work online if you’ve got the stomach for it. If you notice that multiple people are giving you the same criticism—that they all see the same thing wrong in your copy—take that as a clear sign you need to fix it.
- Never fall in love with your own writing. Read your copy like someone else wrote it, and then revise it from there.
- Anytime you encounter great writing out in any format, think about what makes it good and then try to hold your own work to that same standard. Keep that standard even if you’ve been hired to write something you don’t want to write: tech brochure copy, a conference memo, or any other assignment that you makes you groan.
- Do your work on time.
- Always strive to do better work, even after you’ve written something universally lauded.
- Anytime you make contact with another journalist or writer, keep that relationship alive, even if only sporadically. I’ve never formally networked the way that most people have to, but I have maintained relationships with a lot of people I’ve worked with, even people who don’t write for a living. You never know what connection will lead to something.
- Don’t worry about job prospects, or competition, or any of that shit. Just focus the quality of your work above all else, and then the trajectory of your career will reveal itself. Even if you don’t end up with a cool writing job, you’ll still be happy with what you’ve produced, which is its own reward.
Above all else, never let anyone discourage you from pursuing this line of work. We need more artists and journalists, not less. Also, good jobs have always been hard to find. Ask anyone who tried to get a columnist byline at a newspaper 40 years ago. I never envisioned getting these jobs quite the way I did, which was its own blessing. Worry about the work and the rest will follow.
HALFTIME!
Leo:
I think it's totally acceptable to wear pajamas to the grocery store, ATM, etc. We've all done it and will continue to do so. I once had a date during Sunday brunch at a diner, and there were at least three people wearing PJs. I didn't mind at all! I was actually jealous; if there's one specific time to wear PJs to a sit-down restaurant, Brunch is IT. Would you wear your PJs to a casual brunch spot?
Nope. My wife would forbid it, and I’m too old for that shit anyway. If I ever left the house in my pajamas, I’d look like a Belichick in training. No thanks. You only get to do that if you’re a hungover 20-something, not a working man with three kids. I already dress sloppy enough as is, in shorts and a hoodie and all the other athleisure I wear as everyday garb. I can’t go one level down in formality from there. If you wanna wear pajamas out on the town, that’s your right. I’m not gonna say anything to you about it. I’m just gonna assume it’s, like, PajamaCon day in Hoboken or something.
I do think there’s a case to be made that Americans have taken casual dress too far, to the point that they prize comfort over propriety in ways that have a genuinely adverse effect on how we interact with one another, and even how we interact with ourselves. But I’m not George Will, and I’m writing this column while dressed like I’m on a sick day. So I don’t have the heart, or the credibility, to get on my soapbox about it.
Daniel:
Do you still bike? As an avid mountain biker, your old bike posts brought me so much joy! We need an update!
I didn’t realize that some people were in dire need of a biking update from me, but I’m willing to oblige Daniel here by saying that yeah, I still go biking. I’m not quite as gung ho about it as when I started a few years ago, but I definitely still getting out and hitting the path. I don’t bike on roads, and I don’t do any literal mountain biking because I don’t want to trip over a hidden tree root. I stick to the same path I’ve always ridden, which makes my hobby duller than that of all of the shitkickers out there who own a $6,000 Cannondale to bomb down the side of a fucking mountain. I’m a creature of the burbs, so I bike like one. The nice thing is that I always see dogs and babies out on the trail. That never gets old.
By the way, this is a good time to note that I’ve changed my answer to this Funbag question from two years ago. I said that you couldn’t complete a stage of the Tour de France using an e-bike. Well, given that an e-bike once blew past me on the path at like 30 mph, I’m pretty sure that’s one of the wrongest answers I’ve ever given. You’re basically riding a motorcycle, which tends to ease the physical strain.
(I also got passed on the trail once by a motorized dirt bike; please don’t go on bike trails with those fucking things.)
Bryan:
How'd you cope with various calamities—2008 housing crisis, COVID, the first Trump Years—while raising kids? And how do I not hate myself a little bit for bringing this life into what seems to be the last days of Rome?
Never hate yourself for having kids, and never pass on having kids because the world is just too evil or whatever. The world will do what it does, regardless. If you want children, and you’re committed to raising them and loving them as best you can, then that’s all the reason you need. Having a loving family provides you with shelter from the outside world; it doesn’t exacerbate what’s wrong with it. I worry about my kids living in this dumbfuck country, because of course I do. That’s part of the job. I’d worry about them regardless of whatever country or time we lived in. But when shit goes sideways out there, as it so often does, I think about my wife and kids and feel GLAD, not fearful. It always helps to bring more love into the world, and you shouldn’t ever hate yourself for doing so.
By the way, I’m not trying to make my own kids sound like perfect little angels right now. The other night they were all so fucking annoying at the dinner table that I had to take my plate onto the deck. That’s also part of the deal.
Sue:
I just read this article in the New York Times about people whose Substack subscriptions are out of control (one person spends $3,000 a year on newsletters). I thought that sounded like a crazy amount, but inspired me to do an audit of my own spending on online publications, and it's about $1000 a year (including my Pal-level Defector subscription). On the one hand, this seems like a lot of money. On the other, they're mostly writers I followed from dying or dead ad-supported publications that used to be free to read. Also, I have a decent job (for now) so I'm not having to cut back on necessities. Do you think this model is sustainable? Is there an alternative? I feel like these single-writer publications could ultimately lead to burnout. At least you and your colleagues can take vacations.
We can! Trust me, I’m quite grateful that we’re an exception to a lot of self-funded pubs in that regard, because I know plenty of writers who have burned out, even ones with a steady gig at a big outlet. That means that the self-funding model is only as sustainable as the people behind it are (and provided their paying customers stick around). That’s not a great answer, but it’s all I’ve got. And as for alternatives to that model … well, those of us still in the game are trying to figure that out in real time. Maybe there won’t be an alternative, but I’m willing to keep on blogging until I know the answer one way or another. This isn’t a nice world, but I’m still willing to let it surprise me.
Related: I get a fuckload of Experian ads when I play games on my iPhone, and every ad is about people who spend too much on subscriptions (insulting to Defector!). At first, I found this to be an extremely niche brand proposition, even when you account for streaming apps. Then I did my taxes in the spring and HOO SHIT, turns out my subscription expenses also run into the four digits. And that’s not even counting the porn! I might need to revisit my spending habits there.
Shane:
What would be your own Ice Cube’s “Good Day”? Meaning what realistic events would have to occur in for you to feel it was a legendarily good day? The following events occur in Ice Cube’s “Good Day”: Cube eats breakfast his Mom made, plays basketball, watches Yo! MTV raps, wins money playing games, the Lakers beat the Supersonics, has sex, has no one bother him throughout the day, drunk drives and gets a Fatburger at 2 in the morning.
Mine’s not that different from Cube’s, minus the fucking around and getting a triple-double part (I can’t do that). A perfect day for me means I sleep well, I write something I really like, I hang out on the beach, I eat three meals that really hit the spot, I take a solid nap with the dog, I make my kids laugh, I watch the Vikings win a crucial game, I take a gummy that REALLY hits for some reason, and then I get laid. Always good to keep your standards for excellence grounded like that. Cube knew what time it was.
His son isn’t a very good actor.
Michelle:
I am currently stoned and playing Everybody's Golf, a pastime I know you're also fond of. Two and a half questions: do you dress up your little golf Drew in cool outfits, and if so what kind of looks do you gravitate toward? And what kind of stuff do you say out loud to yourself when you gotta psych yourself up for a big shot. For instance, I just turned to the cat and said, "These five foot par putts are the kind of thing you gotta sink consistently."
Michelle, did you know that a NEW Everybody’s Golf is coming out this year? I found out a few weeks ago and have been on tenterhooks ever since. I’m gonna play that game until my wife divorces me. It’s gonna be so awesome.
As for the original game, my little Drew is just a dorky blonde guy who I never change. I tried getting cute and turning him into this hulking mustachioed guy once, but his fat ass kept blocking my view of the fairway. Unacceptable. I’m happy with my little dork Drew. When I sink an albatross, I scream BOOSH so loud that everyone upstairs can hear. When a putt lips out, I scream BULLSHIT to the TV, because I don’t like being ripped off. Then, during any round, I offer commentary on my game that, like Michelle’s, is very clinical. “These were supposed to be normal wind conditions.” “Oh, this hole is a bear.” “My putting game is on fucking point tonight.” Stuff like that. Oh, and I blast music the whole round and sing along to it. Everyone loves it!
Email of the week!
Joe:
All this Pope talk reminds me of a story from when I was a kid. I'm 11 years old in class in the double-wide trailer that was our classroom for that semester. It's May & it's hot as fuck in there. Since it's May, we’re pretty much mentally done learning for the year. And it's French class, so we've got Monsieur Drolet who was this friendly little Acadian dude who in my memory is a dead-ringer for Danny DeVito. He'd give everyone a kiss right on the lips on the last day of school. A year later he was replaced with no reason given. Draw your own conclusions.
Anyway poor Drolet was having a hard time controlling the kids that day. Then the lunch lady, Mrs. Service, comes busting into the class. No knock. Now, Service was the antithesis of Drolet. Tall. Severe. Scary. I think she was retired from the Army and dressed like it. She never had any problems controlling the kids. Indeed, she ruled the lunch room like a Belichick. She burst thru the door so suddenly that I'm pretty sure Drolet made an "eek!" noise. She scoffed at that and stood there for a moment while the class got real quiet.
"Any Catholics in here?"
The class was about 50/50 Catholic vs. other denominations. So we're all looking nervously at each other before the Catholics slowly raise our hands. She nods.
"Your Pope got shot!"
Then, her work done, she just shrugged and walked out. Now we were looking at Drolet and he had got the same look on his face as Mike Myers when Kanye said George Bush hated black people. No teaching after that. One girl was crying, which I thought was strange because I didn't even remember her being Catholic. The protestant kids were now chanting, "The Pope got shot! The Pope got shot!" Pandemonium ensued.Anyway that's how my friends and I found out the Pope got shot.
Well this Miss Drolet is taking the Hell Express.
