Chris Jones has never read Gary Smith -- and why

Then you should have quoted him.

 

that was jr. He has custody of their sj handle on Sundays.

 

Read "Crime and Punishment," wrote blog about it, now going to resume being Fred Flintstone.

http://sonofboldventure.blogspot.com/2011/07/gary-smith-and-me-sequel.html

 

Someone once asked Steve Carell if he modeled his Michael Scott character in "The Office" after Ricky Gervais' David Brent in the British version. Carell said he had never watched the British version of The Office. He didn't want to be doing a ripoff of Gervais/Brent; he wanted to make his character his own.

This is not exactly the same, but I think the principle can still apply.

 

I would agree, if Jones were writing a profile of George O'Leary.

Steve Carell has, however, watched the most decorated comedians in the world act, right?

===

Jones, I thought your breakdown was intelligent. I'm glad you got a Gary Smith experience. I think your trepidation about his ledes are something that many people, even those who don't write and aren't involved in journalism, are thrown by, at first. Then you fit that lede into the context of the story and it all makes sense.

I love that you pointed to Smith never quite telling you what to think, rather providing you the details and the tone and the voice and letting you find your own way through it all. In the story you picked, "Crime and Punishment," Smith is nowhere near as ambiguous as he has been in other stories. His (most?) recent feature, on Rick and Dick Hoyt, brought a friend and I into a pretty loud argument on which side we each took and which side Smith seemed to be leaning toward.

His Tiger Woods profile drew some ire for glorifying Woods, even at that point, but I always viewed it as one of Smith's more cynical works. Two or three months later, Charlie Pierce came right out and professed his distress at the world's image of Tiger Woods. His essay seemed to almost snap at Smith's feature. But I believe Smith was reflecting The Culture of Tiger with his story, which was almost like The Tiger Woods Story, as seen through the eyes of Earl Woods.

Those two stories should accompany one another in any reader on Woods, golf or even sport. I wish Pierce's essay had been selected for Best Sports Writing of the Century alongside Smith's, or that Halberstam had simply selected another Smith work.

Regardless, I'm glad you took the time to read the most unique and most imitated sports writer around. I don't believe those are conflicting titles. Your own analysis seems to agree.

 

The last Smith piece I read was the Hoyts story. This happens to be a story with which I am somewhat familiar (there may not be a journalist in Boston, sports or otherwise, who hasn't written about the Hoyts at least once). Smith did an outstanding job of conveying the many complexities and pains behind what is usually presented as a mindless feel good story. Is his style mannered? Yes, occasionally. But it worked here. I admire writers who can make it plain how unplain human reality is. Anyone who missed this piece missed a fine piece of sportswriting.
To avoid reading anyone is foolish. If you don't like it, you can always stop in the middle.

 

The reason Jones doesn't read Smith is that he's afraid he'll imitate him?

That's the most ridiculous logic.

Have a little self-control.

In writing, copycatting is not a reflex. It's deliberate.

And just because someone's won a bunch of awards, doesn't mean he or she is flawless. Take Malcolm Gladwell for example. His writing is so utterly redundant. He makes the same point 25 times in one piece (and it's usually an obvious point). I can't figure out why editors don't rein him in more. I guess they're too blinded by his aura -- just like Jones when it comes to Smith. My advice: get real.

 

After reading a Dan Jenkins novel/column, I have found myself trying to write like Dan Jenkins. Usually lasts for about a paragraph, I block and delete and go back to the usual hackery.

Call me picky, but this caught my eye in Jones' blog:

Shouldn't that be GSA and GSI? Or is that some sort of brilliant writing schtick that I fail to comprehend?

 

I tried to be Dan Jenkins a few times when I was younger. The guy I mostly "favored" was Red Smith (vs., say, Jim Murray).

I'm sure I gave Royko a shot here and there as well.

 

Kudos to you.

Some have attempted to make that a career.

 

I've just made hackery a career.

 

Back in the '80s, for a Boston Phoenix summer preview issue, for which copy requirements were almost infinite (multi-hundreds of additional pages), I wrote a short story that was an attempt to mimic the P.G. Wodehouse golf stories. It was not a success (to be kind to myself) and way, way too much work. Imitation is the sincerest form of stylistic doom. Why Jones is worried he'd succumb to it baffles me.