Friday, December 13, 2013

Other People's Writing

Words!  Woo hoo!

* A team of Pitchfork writers chronicle the career of Outkast.  There have been rumours that Outkast might reunite at a festival next summer, to which I say….meh.  It's somewhat more poetic if they just stayed apart forever and let the memories of their prime last, but hey, money talks.  If even Hologram Tupac can make a festival appearance, then who can really say no?

* Dave Stubbs of the Montreal Gazette profiles Tim Thompson, the CBC video editor responsible for all of those epic intros on "Hockey Night In Canada."  It's great to be able to put a name to the man behind those incredible video packages, and with that out of the way, let's give Thompson the Order Of Canada.  (Only half-joking.)

* Speaking of Canadian pride, Now Toronto's John Semley compiles an oral history of the Kids In The Hall.  Quick, a round of Who's Aged Worst!  The winner is clearly Dave Foley, with McKinney a solid runner-up.  Kevin McDonald is third but he always looked like a weird middle-aged guy even as a young man.  Scott Thompson is fourth, aging normally but still with a glint in his eye.  Bruce McCulloch looks somehow exactly the same as he did in 1992.

* SB Nation's Jon Bois creates an all-Greg Schiano Buccaneers team in Madden to see if being a "Schiano Man" translates to the field.  Admittedly, this was a bit funnier when the Buccaneers were a winless, disease-ridden joke, rather than a team who is still 4-9 but at least have won four of their last five games.  Still, "a bit funnier" isn't "not funny," and mocking Schiano's humourless assholery is never not funny.  Also, recent hot streak aside, Tampa Bay needs to fire Schiano as soon as possible.  This team has way too much talent to be wasted on coaches like Schiano and Raheem Morris.

* This is one of those 'hidden corners of sports' stories that I love so much on Grantland, as Dave McKenna looks at the controversy surrounding a possibly-fixed horse race involving a 70-year-old jockey.  Without giving too much about the story away, I'll say that if it was a fix, it's about as clumsy a job as you could imagine.  Maybe the horses had their own bit of side action going, just agreeing to take it easy.

* Grantland's Neal Gabler looks at the three scariest letters in sports: ACL.  (Uh, they have to be in that order.  CAL isn't very scary, nor LCA, nor CLA, nor LAC, nor ALC.)  Did your knee suddenly start aching after reading this piece, or was it just me?  I'm such a wuss.

* NBC Sports' Joe Posnanski looks at the success of Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus, NASCAR's most successful driver/crew chief team.  Since Posnanski focuses mostly on Knaus, I'll focus on how Jimmie Johnson is a marketing genius.  He's unofficially known as "Mr. Six-Time" since he's won six NASCAR Cups, but that nickname has evolved as he's won more championships; he used to be Mr. Four-Time and Mr. Five-Time.  Ergo, his fans have to buy new up-to-date gear every time Johnson captures another Cup.  It's brilliant.  This, moreso than the actual six titles, might be Johnson's greatest achievement.

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