Grantland so far

Just listened to The Japandroids newest CD yesterday. It's great. Can't wait to read this. (I heard Beach Boys new one is really good as well.)

 

NPR gave Japandroids quite the pump the other day.

"Best rock album of the year so far," according to the reviewer.

 

Spectacular oral history of WFAN. Too many great parts to excerpt.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8016912/view/full/don-imus-mike-mad-dog-fall-rise-first-all-sports-talk-station-wfan

 

Just finished it. I have never listened to WFAN and only know many of the people mentioned because they have gone on to bigger and better things. But I thought it was great. The Grantland oral histories are tremendous.

 

I can't lie, I've enjoyed Grantland in spots, but Brian Phillips' coverage of Wimbledon was awful. Just awful. And I like Phillips. I've been a big fan of Run of Play. But man, talk about unreadable. His five part diatribes on Wimbledon over the fortnight read like a shitty journal.

I've come to realize through that piece alone that Grantland's problem, like Simmons', is laziness. It's so easy to just write every little thought that comes to mind and barely try to extrapolate those thoughts into some sort of theme. But there's no effort, or little effort, to separate the good thoughts from the bad, and any consistent thread is lost through the mish-mash.

There is never a shortage of storylines at Wimbledon, and I get that Grantland and Phillips weren't looking for those storylines, but were trying to convey the experience of Wimbledon. But it was just too much, and not enough. If you're not going to do actual work and report on what is happening to the athletes, at least try to connect what's happening to the athletes with what's happening to the writer. David Foster Wallace, whom every writer on Grantland wants to be, did that much, connecting his thoughts with the athlete's possible thoughts (or conveyed thoughts) to the reader. But Phillips just basically wrote 10,000 words on what he did at Wimbledon, with an occasional glance at the actual tennis itself. Fuck that.

 

Great article - thx for the link.

Proves once again that SJ is the perfect clearing
house to find the best Grantland articles. No reason
to go to Grantland direct.

 

I like that they devoted a lot of the piece to the Schmooz -- who can't properly be described in print.

 

Co-sign. I didn't read all five of his entries, but I read the last one, just because I was looking for articles about Federer's victory. I thought it represented the worst of this new form of journalism/blogging/ruminating that Simmons and Grantland seem to be the purveyors of. I'll take S.L. Price, whose columns for SI.com over the second week of the tournament brilliantly captured both the tennis and the experience of Wimbledon.

 

Are you only allowed to read S.L. Price? Is that a law I'm unaware of? I mean, I'm one of the biggest Price fans alive so I might co-sign a law like this, but cannot I not seek something from both?

 

As long as Jalen Rose's podcast still exists, nothing else can be considered to be the worst of Grantland.

 

I said "I thought" Phillips sucked, and that "I'll take" Price. You're free to read whatever the hell you want.

 

They could still use a sharp blue pencil over there.

Got as far as the word 'sargeant' in this week's Borgnine piece and threw in the towel.