Tag: Grantland
‘Dr. V’ Writer Caleb Hannan Speaks for the First Time About What Went Wrong
“It didn’t need to exist. And that was not something that occurred to me in the process of reporting.” Out of everyone who read an early draft of “Dr. V’s Magical Putter,” only Caleb Hannan’s wife asked him the most critical question of all: Did this story even need to exist? Hannan spoke publicly for […]
Why the Porn Industry Can’t Beat the Pirates
Keeping porn from getting ripped and posted is impossible. After having free pornography clips easily accessible for years, nobody expects that customers will ever buy DVDs in the numbers they once did. The porn industry’s sales figures are disputed; estimates range from a few billion to as high as $14 billion, a widely cited figure from a 1998 […]
The Mysteries of Phil Hartman’s Creative Genius
Part of the reason Hartman remains fuzzy in our memories was his own doing. When he joined SNL’s cast in 1986, it was customary for a newcomer to declare he would be the next John Belushi. Hartman had a different ambition. He told the Los Angeles Times he wanted to be the next Dan Aykroyd. […]
Cop Movies, Race, and Ferguson
Nonetheless, whenever I see masked and helmeted police in photographs and movies or on the street going after protesters, I wonder, as I did during a battle royal between peasants and cops in the summer’s class-war sleeper Snowpiercer: “Who are these hidden people?” It crosses my mind anytime I see a helmet swing a nightstick […]
Why Owning an NBA Team is Like Having a House on the Best Beach in the World
Last year the Milwaukee Bucks were purchased by two hedge-fund billionaires for $550 million. In a piece for Grantland, Bill Simmons tried to nail down what exactly drives the super rich to acquire NBA teams, a purchase that—at least by the numbers—is often a pretty lousy investment. Simmons concluded that for many owners, exclusivity and prestige outweigh straight number crunching: “You can’t […]
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An excerpt from Howe’s new book on how internal arguments, drugs, failed feminism, and the exploitation of minority characters in comic books and the freelance writers and artists who drew them, changed Marvel Comics during the late ’60s and early ’70s: ‘I was just as crazy as everybody else post-Watergate, post-Vietnam,’ said Starlin, whose hobbies […]
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A classic game is being undermined by technology, allowing players to come up with elaborate cheating schemes: In the 2006 World Open in Philadelphia, the most moneyed tournament in the land — this year’s event, which concluded in July, had a kitty of $250,000 — tournament director Mike Atkins got bad feelings about a competitor […]
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This fall, Mo Isom is trying out for LSU’s football team as a kicker, and would like to prove that her athletic ability outshines the fact that she is a woman. She has already proven to be resilient after overcoming personal struggles and experiencing tragedy: In Isom’s family, her mom and her sister were ‘brains.’ […]
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Neuropathologist Dr. Ann McKee, a Green Bay Packers fan, on her autopsies of former NFL players and research into chronic traumatic encephalopathy: Over the last four years, McKee has become the most visible member of a cohort of research scientists and family members — wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters of the dead, dying, and demented […]
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The actor reflects on his career choices, the films he passed on, and his early days working for Mister Rogers: Michael: What people don’t realize is what his crew looked like — they almost all had hair down to their lower backs, one guy just dripped with patchouli and marijuana smoke, worse than Tom Petty. […]
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An oral history of the first all-sports talk station, WFAN, which included Don Imus, Mike Francesca, and Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo: Jeff Smulyan (founder and CEO, Emmis Broadcasting): Imus was just getting out of rehab when we bought the station. His agent was a friend of mine; we laughed because we had a bad radio […]
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Jeremy Lin’s sudden stardom has also put the spotlight on how Asian Americans are viewed in the U.S.: Not since Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has there been so much national discussion about the appropriateness of discussing race. The 2008 election set the groundwork for an aggressive sort of colorblindness — as long as you voted […]
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A trip to John Madden’s man cave, and whether sports video games can ever be described as “art”: Clearly, the way sports games are played, and the way Madden in particular is played, is ripe for some massive paradigm shift. Why doesn’t the quarterback position feel as visceral and pinpointy as firing a rifle in […]
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What helmets can’t fix when it comes to concussions and high school football: Because of its national reputation — and extremely well-funded athletic department — Mater Dei has been on the leading edge of concussion prevention and treatment for high school football players. The coaches are vigilant; the equipment is top of the line; the […]
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Julia Ruth Stevens, his sole surviving daughter, calls him Daddy. Odd as it is to hear a nonagenarian refer to a man 60 years gone as Daddy, it is also a tender reminder of the limits of hyperbole, how grandiose honorifics obscure the messy, telling details of an interior life. To others he is a […]
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As I read, something quite unexpected occurred, an “aha” moment in the quiet of my kitchen, with the dog asleep on the floor and coffee cooling in a cup. I leaned against the cooktop. I realized I was writing the wrong story. Forty-one years ago, while an exchange student living at a convent school in […]
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