Jones/ESPNMAG

Part 2 starts off with that hyperbole.

Yeah - nobody writes ledes like Jones. Anyone want to bet that that same sentiment is expressed in next year's "Year in Review" article? Why not just start with "It was the best of year's it was the worst of years"?

So Phelps hasn't been back to his breakfast place - then we learn that Phelps has been back and forth and then back and forth across the country. Maybe the two are related? Maybe Phelps hasn't been back to his breakfast place because of the hectic schedule? No it's hyperbole again about jilted lovers.

WTF was up with mentioning Pink and then all the folks who died in 2008? Does Jones have Pink in his dead pool?

It's sad but I think if Jones did spend the whole article talking about how he learned to swim then I could have had just a good a chance to learn something new about Michael Phelps or glean a new insight. Sorry but I don't think I can stomach the third part.

 

OK - I'm sorry but this is like a car wreck. I just can't look away.

Part 3 is about about Lance Armstrong and David Tyree and the key moment is something that happened at the White House with Bill Clinton and Armstrong in 1999 involving a magnolia tree? Was this written as a Mad-Lib?

Name two athletes, a place and a year and bingo you have part three. I'm guessing that it easily could have been about David Ortiz, Ricky Williams, Benjamin Franklin and the discovery of electricity and it would have made as much sense. Really - someone explain to me what Armstrong and Tyree have to do with each other besides being some bizarre Mad-Lib mashup.

Is this because Jones was told to keep it to 11 "things"? He had to mix in Armstrong and Tyree because he couldn't go to 12? Is that it? Really - I'm asking. Nothing seems to make sense here. Oh and what's with the "things" deal anyway? The Things We Lost in the Fire; The Things They Carried With Them and now The Things We Forgot? Is it some sort of homage or another cheap mail-it-in gimmick? Has anyone forgotten Lance Armstrong, Yankee Stadium or Michael Phelps? I don't think so. Maybe those same people have forgotten Peyton Manning, Lebron James and Alex Rodriguez. Hockeybeat is right - ESPN the Magazine has always been geared toward the ADHD crowd but this is ridiculous.

Oh and keep your political bias to yourself while you are at it. Bill Clinton has done "fuck all" for Africa compared to George Bush (just ask Bob Geldorf or Bono).

 

Classic - Jones does seem to have an obsession with "things" He better start paying Tim O'Brien a royalty.

 

Part 4

 

He should have blogged the fucker. Everything would have been peachy then.

 

Threads like these make me sorry I've wasted so much time here.

 

Seconded, although it does supply a cautionary tale about the human condition.

 

OK. I can't think of anything to post here that won't just be incendiary and vile. The Jones doesn't need my defense, nor does his work.

I'm just going to take this as my cue to stay away from the site.

 

Please reconsider, jgmacg.

 

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

The site!?! Don't you mean the thread?

 

Of all the "This place is ridiculous; why am I wasting my time here?" threads, this one rates about a 2 on a scale of 100.