Engrossing dispatch or word dump?

That line shows you have some writing skill as well.

In Elliotte Friedman news, I live in the Deep South. Today I was lunching with the GF at a Mexican place. One of those places that claims to be "Authentic" and I had to laugh because in the corner, on the big screen TV, was Elliotte Friedman giving his take during a CBC hockey broadcast.

Nothing quite says "Authentic Mexican" restaurant like a Canadian talking up Canada's sport on Canada's television network on the big screen at said eating joint's bar.

 

Elliotte, hombre, I'm only coming back on to respond because I respect you and your work and I have no doubt that we'd get along famously. When you're on my TV, the tip of my cock puts down the pen and gets a weird tingle in it.

When it comes to my own stuff, I have a pretty thick skin. I think over the last couple of years, I've been mauled pretty vigorously on here (I can remember a big story I did for ESPN, a year in review piece, getting worked over in particular). I've never responded, because I really couldn't give a shit. I mean that. People who know me know that I think worse things about my stuff than anyone else could. And at the risk of sounding like an asshole for a second -- with that year-in-review piece, I comfort myself in knowing that it got into Best American Sports Writing, and I think that was the second-longest story in the history of that magazine, and ESPN gave me a $10,000 bonus for writing it, with which I bought a giant pillow stuffed with the skin of elves to soak up my tears. So it's easy for me to think, Fuck 'em.

But when it comes to my friends, I react. I shouldn't have here, but really, I couldn't much help it. I just thought what Alma did was shitty -- to not one but two of my better friends in the business -- and I felt compelled to say so. All I can say in my defense is that if and when we become friends, I think you'd like to have me in your corner. I like to think that my friends know that I'm there for them, even if it means getting a little bloody in the process.

As for my state-of-the-board proclamations, I really do believe the board isn't as good as it was or as good as it might have been, and I really do believe that's because of a few particularly terrible posters. Sometimes I feel like that's sad; sometimes I feel like I'm an idiot for caring about a message board. But I can't really help that, either. Like I wrote before, I care. It's how I am. Sometimes I wish I didn't; most of the time, I'm glad I do.

I know I sound like John Candy at the end of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, but that's me. I'm a fat man in a parka with a heart made out of cheeseburger and with a knack for making shower rings look like jewelry. What you see is what you get.

Unless what you see is the tip of my cock, in which case you're probably getting the rest of it, too.

One love, brothers and sisters. Write well.

 

My tip to myself is to gouge out my mind's eye with a fork right now.

 

Well said Type !

 

The tines, they are a-changing.

 

Nice...

 

Quality J.D.

 

Engaged? I thought he was already married.

 

Given that I been accused of being potshot artist in this thread, I guess I'm supposed to live up to it and present some extended case for the story being a "word dump." But my declaration of "consensus" was never meant to be my own specific opinion, and it's <b>my fault</b> for allowing that post to seem as such. A <b>mistake</b> of premature...something...true and through and I won't dodge the claim. It wasn't intended as a potshot, but intentions get lost in <b>poor</b> presentation.

Clear enough?

Now - Thompson appears to have had constraints of some kind as it pertained to talking to the team, because quotes from them are virtually non-existent (aside from the very end when he talks to Sachin, and does his best to wring great meaning out of a witty line). I'm presuming that if Sachin had wanted to sit down with Thompson for two hours, Thompson sure as heck wouldn't have turned it down. But so it goes. Tiger Woods, for a time, was doing the "I've got 19 seconds" thing himself.

So the story tries on another pair of clothes. The best section, by a significant margin, is the India v. England cricket match, which Thompson elevates significantly to great theater (he's assisted, of course, by the actual drama of the match). I liked that he included the chants, the bad rock music over the PA, the phone texts, the touches that let us know we're still rooted in a modern culture, as distasteful as that might be to some purist fans.

That said, the headline unwittingly betrays the story. It shouldn't be "Why You Should Care About Cricket," but "Why You Should Care About India." Thompson's story is really about India, or what he perceives India to be. Cricket is there what soccer is somewhere else or what SEC football - as Thompson clearly wants the reader to know - is in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Because so many of his stories are about connectivity or the communal soul or whatever you'd like to call it, I come away a bit underwhelmed by the sport of cricket and the World Cup in the midst of various asides and commentaries about celebrity culture, India-in-progress, the juxtaposition of seemingly wild, smelly animals and commercialism, etc. There's an excellent India-told-in-micro story buried within a larger, incomplete narrative about India-told-on-broad-canvas-and-how-they're-becoming-like-we-are.

The story stops - a lot - to smell the curry. It lacks momentum in spots and, for me, a certain kind of authority you get from momentum. There's nothing really wrong with a camera whose eye wanders around a bit, poking its eye down side streets for threads of meaningful Life that somehow weave into the larger fabric of Story to create an overarching Theme. I just feel as though those tendencies overwhelm the narrative here.

 

That didn't disappoint. Thoughtful post.

 

Well done Alma. I do disagree a bit with your analysis though. I thought the piece had a lot of "momentum" as you put it. Found myself fully engaged throughout. Thompson has me looking forward to cricket coming to ESPN and also wanting to visit India.