Rough enough for the Sports Putz that Tottenham were slaughtered earlier today ; ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons had the temerity to admit he’d previously found “The Wire”‘s charms elusive, and for his trouble, he’s been Straight Banged. As Joey explains,
When you’re like Simmons–white, from Boston, a graduate of Holy Cross–it probably is easier to partake in your urban escapism through the happy Hollywood lenses. That’s also probably why it’s fun to love Young Jeezy, or Juelz Santana, or even 50 Cent: their drug- and violence-fantasy versions of a bleak world come replete with cartoon renderings of reality and rags-to-riches stories. I mean, they wear gold chains and everything! And that isn’t nearly as daunting as the truth.
Much as I hate to cut Simmons any slack, he’s got slightly more street cred than that. Neither Joey or I have any idea what it is like to matriculate in a city whose most prominent local landmark is a statue of a Boy Fucking A Turtle. A lot of gritty, intense individuals have taken the long walk in Wormtown (Denis Leary, Bob Cousy, Sam Fuller, Jordan Knight) and who are the rest of us to say Worcester’s story is any less compelling than that of David Simon’s Baltimore?
It’s too easy an observation to put Simmons down for being a dumb white dude from New England who digs cartoonish hip-hop, not that I don’t despise anyone who fits that category (I wholeheartedly do). Anybody seen this bozo on the Colbert Report recently? He’s got this little girly voice and he can’t hold a conversation that doesn’t involve the 2004 Red Sox. Pathetic. But I expect so much from someone who’s taken unprovoked, bizarre swipes at Pete Carroll, who’s only one two National Championships at USC. Of course, none of that matters to a Bostonian who saw Carroll do a fair-to-good coaching job in the late 90’s of the Patriots because they ran him out of town anyway. Having lived through that really odd period in Boston, it made me wonder if these knuckleheads didn’t just have it in for Carroll just because he’s a West Coast dude who doesn’t mispronounce words like ‘park’ and ‘Billerica.’ Hate him because he doesn’t understand sports outside the context of Boston. Hate him because he insists on writing about shit teams like the Celtics instead of teams worth writing about.
When you’re like Simmons–white, from Boston, a graduate of Holy Cross–
please, he’s from connecticutt.
and rog, sorry but carroll did not do “fair-to-good coaching job” with the pats in the late 90s. he, at best, did a poor to fair job. he lost control of that team by the end of his first year and there’s nothing worse than watching a club who has quit on it’s coach. granted, he was saddled with some craptacular draft choices (chris canty, andy katzenmoyer, i’m looking at you) but he took a team that went to the superbowl and brought them to mediocrity in just two short years.
while they weren’t winning, at least the guys were “jacked and pumped.”
I’m glad you ended that sentence making an obvious reference to the endless, childish taunting by WEEI. If nothing more, it proves my point about how Boston sports fans are sheep and they’re being led down the path of pathetic cynicism by Glen Ordway and his moronic crew.