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August 26, 2003
A Nutty New Get-Famous-Quick Scheme
I'm just not sure about Bill Simmons any more. Fans will immediately recognize the name as belonging to ESPN.com Page 2's incomparable Sports Guy. I've been a big fan of his writing since he got the Page 2 gig a few years ago. I like his writing so much that I really wish he'd spend more time on it and less time writing for Kimmel's show.
But now this four beer thing comes along. If you haven't seen it, Simmons just wrote a review of ESPN's new football drama series Playmakers for Page 2. In it, he posits a very interesting new analogy for a problem that plagues many network TV and basic cable shows that are trying to cash in on the "edgy TV series" phenomenon pioneered by HBO and Showtime. The problem is that the shows are forced to strike an awkward balance between offering the sex, profanity and violence that draw viewers to shows like The Sopranos and Oz and keeping the corporate suits and image-conscious sponsors from freaking out and pulling the plug. It rarely works. Simmons likens the situation to going out with your buddies and having just enough to drink that you're too drunk to drive home and hung over the next day but not enough that you really cut loose and feel like you had a great time. I think the concept of a local minimum in the party cost-benefit curve is dead on. The problem is that he puts this minimum at four beers in an evening.
Now I'll be the first one to admit that I'm not as young or as hard as I used to be, but I still think of four beers during a night out at the bar as a start. And this has really led me to question whether Simmons and his crew could hang with me and my boys (not to mention a few of the girls I know...) when we're in all-out party mode. I'd love to determine the answer under real-world conditions. Can you imagine what it would be like to party with the Sports Guy and his buddies in Vegas until they pass out in some dingy casino mens room? That would be the apex of a lifetime of dedicated partying. You could take pictures of your nuts on the Sports Guy's forehead and die happily five minutes after they were posted on the Internet. It would be that cool!
Or maybe we could turn ourselves into an Internet phenomenon. We would be "those guys who party with celebrities until they pass out drunk and then take pictures with their nuts on the cebebrities' foreheads." We could have our own show on E! We could sign a deal with the Golden Palace internet casino to have their logo henna-tattooed onto our scrotums! We could....
OK, now I'm just being silly.
Posted by Dan at August 26, 2003 02:50 PM
Comments
Are we sure it's not "scroti?"
Posted by: mg at August 26, 2003 10:00 PM
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