i sub to the rss feed but sorry to say have found it pretty mediocre. best stuff is when klosterman is writing about football imho, worst is when he's writing about anything else. also really disliking bissel's content there. i think simmons is pretty coasty (but that's always been his thing). idk, the series on betting has been pretty decent. mostly not so great. (plus i hate that 'manly pop culture aficionado' tone that leads to pieces like humblebrag roundup etc.)
― Mordy, Friday, 27 April 2012 15:26 (1 year ago) Permalink
basically what Mordy says. I think that Bill Barnwell and Jonah Keri are both good (I've been following Keri for a while) and they do have some surprisingly good stuff at random (the "Dinner with Aziz Asnari" was incredible, as was the Obama podcast), but otherwise the site tries really hard to cop Deadspin while appealing to a really broad audience which equals a lot of really bad jokes and piss-poor writing. I still like Simmons on the NBA but Klosterfuck can get hit by a bus for all I care
― you can expect punches, kicks and even worse (frogbs), Friday, 27 April 2012 15:31 (1 year ago) Permalink
yeah i mainly just read it for simmons and pruitti on NBA and jonah keri on baseball. i read mediocre middlebrow cultural criticism in plenty of other places
― dharunravir (k3vin k.), Friday, 27 April 2012 15:36 (1 year ago) Permalink
it's kinda fratboy slate
― Mordy, Friday, 27 April 2012 15:38 (1 year ago) Permalink
i would prob never read it except for so many sports sites being blocked by my work other than this
yes to jonah keri & usu molly lambert. almost everything else is p bad. i never even click on anything written by klosterman
plus i hate that 'manly pop culture aficionado' tone
^v otm
― johnny crunch, Friday, 27 April 2012 15:40 (1 year ago) Permalink
I read it fairly often during Oscar time. Mark Harris is terrific.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 27 April 2012 15:40 (1 year ago) Permalink
like Esquire and GQ?
ultimately I think the site would be a great idea with anyone *other* than Bill Simmons at the helm
― you can expect punches, kicks and even worse (frogbs), Friday, 27 April 2012 15:43 (1 year ago) Permalink
without question xp
― Mordy, Friday, 27 April 2012 15:43 (1 year ago) Permalink
what is the point of this website even
― lag∞n, Friday, 27 April 2012 15:44 (1 year ago) Permalink
i may be going out on a limb here but i'm going to guess its point is to make money?
― Mordy, Friday, 27 April 2012 15:46 (1 year ago) Permalink
it inspires ILM threads
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 27 April 2012 15:46 (1 year ago) Permalink
xp to alfred nah it's way different imo. 'manly' not in the sense of content but like 'i know the right bro references/confidently pay attn to the right stuff' and also try to rank them all in lists and categories
― johnny crunch, Friday, 27 April 2012 15:46 (1 year ago) Permalink
Esquire and GQ do it with clothes though!
"Here's the right pair of socks to worry about without being a fag about it (not that there's anything wrong with it j/k lol" is the GQ tone.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 27 April 2012 15:47 (1 year ago) Permalink
i think there are slight tone differences between GQ, Esquire and Grantland, but i think they're all coming from a similar place
― Mordy, Friday, 27 April 2012 15:48 (1 year ago) Permalink
This. Harris is my favorite Oscar blogger.
― jungleous butterflies strange birds (Eric H.), Friday, 27 April 2012 15:50 (1 year ago) Permalink
grantland doesnt seem to have any editorial mission other than lets make something cool which inevitably turns out not that cool
― lag∞n, Friday, 27 April 2012 15:51 (1 year ago) Permalink
I do love sabby pruti nerding out on basketball plays tho
its p funny how they just keep hiring everyone in the world(blogs)
― lag∞n, Friday, 27 April 2012 15:52 (1 year ago) Permalink
simmons is sometimes good on the nba sometimes incoherent always v schticky, i like molly lambert tho I havent read her that much at grantland idk why
― lag∞n, Friday, 27 April 2012 16:00 (1 year ago) Permalink
grantland is a dumb name and grantland rice was a horrible monster
― lag∞n, Friday, 27 April 2012 16:01 (1 year ago) Permalink
yeah my familiarity with this site is minimal but the whole look of it and the name and everything, it seems almost deliberately bland, kind of surprised it is seemingly fairly successful. i guess they just hire traffic-driving types like carles?
― ✧✧✧✧✧✧@are.forever (some dude), Friday, 27 April 2012 16:03 (1 year ago) Permalink
well it's backed by ESPN and has a number of famous writers on it
― you can expect punches, kicks and even worse (frogbs), Friday, 27 April 2012 16:10 (1 year ago) Permalink
bill simmons is the most popular sports writer in the country is prob the main hook
― lag∞n, Friday, 27 April 2012 16:11 (1 year ago) Permalink
linked to all the time by espn prob doesnt hurt
― lag∞n, Friday, 27 April 2012 16:12 (1 year ago) Permalink
oh ok it's a sports thing
― ✧✧✧✧✧✧@are.forever (some dude), Friday, 27 April 2012 16:12 (1 year ago) Permalink
i thoguht it was just doing a worse job of being gawker-lite than the awl or something
― ✧✧✧✧✧✧@are.forever (some dude), Friday, 27 April 2012 16:13 (1 year ago) Permalink
its jarring to see ESPN.com have taglines like "Chuck Klostermann just came home from seeing Creed and Nickelback...on the same night!? *turntable scratch*
― you can expect punches, kicks and even worse (frogbs), Friday, 27 April 2012 16:13 (1 year ago) Permalink
yeah i imagine the pop culture stuff is a fractional part of their traffic
― lag∞n, Friday, 27 April 2012 16:14 (1 year ago) Permalink
lol the OP of this thread
― J0rdan S., Friday, 27 April 2012 16:15 (1 year ago) Permalink
grantland........ i still read simmons religiously and chris ryan's EPL stuff is great, and keri is pretty good tho i think he made more sense on fangraphs
the pop culture stuff, i'm not quite sure if they've really found their voice yet, tho i recognize that the target audience is still, like, two decades older than me
― J0rdan S., Friday, 27 April 2012 16:16 (1 year ago) Permalink
i feel like their target audience is *grasps blindly at straws, lights money on fire*
― lag∞n, Friday, 27 April 2012 16:18 (1 year ago) Permalink
also they seem at the backend of the news cycle on a lot of pop culture stuff, but i'm not sure how important that is -- also it sorta seems like aside from tv recaps they're aiming for "you're a 45 year old trying to retain coolness, here's all the stuff you missed today that other people have been flogging for the last six hours"
― J0rdan S., Friday, 27 April 2012 16:18 (1 year ago) Permalink
which i'm sure there's a market for... just not for me
there's a pretty cutting edge piece on their front page right now about how nicki minaj's "starships" is newsflash not a good song
― ✧✧✧✧✧✧@are.forever (some dude), Friday, 27 April 2012 16:19 (1 year ago) Permalink
also i think i've picked up a lot of purposeful non-investment in the tone of their music writing, which again is prob not "important" but kinda gets at me
― J0rdan S., Friday, 27 April 2012 16:20 (1 year ago) Permalink
long thread but important
bill simmons IS bill simmons IN the book of BASKETBALL
― am0n, Friday, 27 April 2012 16:25 (1 year ago) Permalink
also here's his sports version of "adele_plump_female_musicians_sex.php"
http://deadspin.com/5878436/tennis-players-bill-simmons-would-do-another-classic-from-the-secret-sports-guy-vault
― am0n, Friday, 27 April 2012 16:29 (1 year ago) Permalink
also also worst thread title ban NYCNative
― am0n, Friday, 27 April 2012 16:31 (1 year ago) Permalink
Charles P. Pierce's articles are good (because he's a good writer who hopefully is getting paid wheelbarrows of cash by ESPN to slum)Jonah Keri's 'The 30' weekly baseball round-up is also good
you could set the rest of the blog on fire, the wonder and amazement they have at the audacity of covering omg reality tv is fucking horrible
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Friday, 27 April 2012 18:03 (1 year ago) Permalink
oh also barnwell on football is solid
― J0rdan S., Friday, 27 April 2012 18:05 (1 year ago) Permalink
Simmons idolizing Malcolm Gladwell probably tells the uninitiated everything they need to know.
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Friday, 27 April 2012 18:08 (1 year ago) Permalink
pretty much agree with the general consensus on this thread that the pop culture stuff is mostly bad, but the sports writing has occasional gems. i really liked colson whitehead on the poker tournament, and i enjoy the wrestling pieces though admittedly i know nothing at all about wrestling.
― congratulations (n/a), Friday, 27 April 2012 18:12 (1 year ago) Permalink
pretty much off topic except that it's sports writing, but i read this recently and it is pretty much the best piece of non-fiction i've ever read about poker:http://www.amazon.com/Positively-Fifth-Street-Murderers-Cheetahs/dp/0374236488
i highly recommend
― Mordy, Friday, 27 April 2012 18:20 (1 year ago) Permalink
yeah that's considered a classic. i think i have it at my parents house somewhere
― dharunravir (k3vin k.), Friday, 27 April 2012 18:22 (1 year ago) Permalink
also it sorta seems like aside from tv recaps they're aiming for "you're a 45 year old trying to retain coolness, here's all the stuff you missed today that other people have been flogging for the last six hours"
Somehow this description of it made me realize I am OK with being in Grantland's target demo. And realizing that me passive-aggressively saying I'm OK with that means I've been there for years already.
― jungleous butterflies strange birds (Eric H.), Friday, 27 April 2012 18:23 (1 year ago) Permalink
I guess I didn't really know this was Jonah Keri's outlet now.
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Friday, 27 April 2012 18:26 (1 year ago) Permalink
Grantland is brimming with NBA playoff excitement. You may have already noticed.
?????
― you can expect punches, kicks and even worse (frogbs), Friday, 27 April 2012 21:00 (1 year ago) Permalink
this is the only thing i've seen on grantland worth reading
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7789978/a-racetrack-killing-history-organized-crime-hot-springs-arkansas
― am0n, Friday, 27 April 2012 21:05 (1 year ago) Permalink
Grantland is great for me because it allows me to a) catch up with cable shows that I can't be bothered downloading but get bought up in polite conversation amongst hipster circles in my part of the world and b) sometimes read some non-retarded writing about North American sport.
― Clive "The Chip" Crinkly (King Boy Pato), Friday, 27 April 2012 23:05 (1 year ago) Permalink
all of their articles are too long
― polyphonic, Friday, 27 April 2012 23:25 (1 year ago) Permalink
this is one of the best non-specialist pieces abt stan lee i've ever read:
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7906504/the-surprisingly-complicated-legacy-marvel-comics-legend-stan-lee
― pat rice memorial barbecue (Ward Fowler), Friday, 11 May 2012 13:52 (1 year ago) Permalink
the Greg Oden piece is really good and IMO exactly the sort of thing this site *should* be doing
― frogbs, Friday, 11 May 2012 13:59 (1 year ago) Permalink
I like this site, even though I find Simmons really annoying, unless he is talking about any team in the NBA except the Celtics.
Charles Pierce is excellent.
― One Way Ticket on the 1277 Express (Bill Magill), Friday, 11 May 2012 14:14 (1 year ago) Permalink
imo the site has like a 40/60 hit/miss ratio which really isn't all that bad. i do think they've assembled a pretty good stable of writers. the pop culture stuff seems to be kinda bland but it's not offensive which is probably half the battle.
― call all destroyer, Friday, 11 May 2012 14:15 (1 year ago) Permalink
They are at least trying to be relatively intelligent. Most of ESPN content, on all of its platforms, is written/produced by morons, for morons, so to see at least an attempt at being smart is somewhat refreshing.
― One Way Ticket on the 1277 Express (Bill Magill), Friday, 11 May 2012 14:18 (1 year ago) Permalink
it's certainly better than it was! the character pieces are definitely good, especially the Amarillo Slim one
― frogbs, Friday, 11 May 2012 14:19 (1 year ago) Permalink
i really wish this wasn't the kind of thing molly lambert wrote for grantland:
http://www.grantland.com/blog/hollywood-prospectus/post/_/id/59116/tabloids
― Mordy, Thursday, 4 October 2012 21:15 (7 months ago) Permalink
What is an example of something she has written that isn't a complete waste of time.
― pun lovin criminal (polyphonic), Thursday, 4 October 2012 21:34 (7 months ago) Permalink
i like her stuff from thisrecording.com:
http://thisrecording.com/today/tag/molly-lambert
― Mordy, Thursday, 4 October 2012 21:53 (7 months ago) Permalink
would much rather read about sweet celeb gossip than some stupid bullshit about telephone poles
― turds (Hungry4Ass), Thursday, 4 October 2012 22:02 (7 months ago) Permalink
― turds (Hungry4Ass), Thursday, 4 October 2012 22:04 (7 months ago) Permalink
i find the celeb gossip stuff really boring and i don't even get that she's doing anything interesting w/ it? idk, celeb gossip is maybe a cultural blind spot for me and maybe there are grantland readers that are like, "thank god molly lambert is finally breaking down gossip in a compelling + vital way, this was much more important than when she was writing critical theory about gender identity." seems like a waste to me.
― Mordy, Thursday, 4 October 2012 22:14 (7 months ago) Permalink
mordy totally otm grantland wastes the great molly lambert :(
― horseshoe, Friday, 5 October 2012 01:59 (7 months ago) Permalink
i like gossip a lot but i don't get that feature
all the hyperlinks in her thisrecording pieces drive me up the wall, because im incapable of preventing myself from hovering each one and evaluating if its worth opening in a new tab. i hate it!!!
― turds (Hungry4Ass), Friday, 5 October 2012 02:13 (7 months ago) Permalink
haha. i still read grantland, i like that there's a writer powerful and popular enough that a mega corporation would give him an entire website and staff just to keep him happy. as far as simmons toys go it's no 30 for 30 but i do appreciate that it does have some interest in longform stuff, that it's clearly guided by someone who's interested in some idea of 'good writing' as opposed to standard seo stuff. nobody w/ any familiarity w/ simmons can be surprised by the gap between it's sports coverage vs it's pop culture coverage - model for sports coverage is the national and golden age si, model for pop coverage is vulture. he's a guy who's seen almost famous a million times (and will let you know) but has little to no interest in actually reading lester bangs. feel like stuff like the lambert tabloid thing is simmons pandering to some idea of what he imagines his wife wants to read or providing cover for his sorta odd interest in stuff like reality tv, celeb gossip, etc.
― balls, Friday, 5 October 2012 02:30 (7 months ago) Permalink
yeah that feels about right
― call all destroyer, Friday, 5 October 2012 02:31 (7 months ago) Permalink
grantland is a blackhole
― lag∞n, Friday, 5 October 2012 02:33 (7 months ago) Permalink
at the beginning of grantland she wrote more sustained celeb gossip type pieces, like a "normal" version of her stuff for thisrecording. i remember liking the one about jennifer aniston. i just don't get the almost-copying-pages-of-us-weekly-verbatim new-style lambert columns. they're unreadable!
― horseshoe, Friday, 5 October 2012 02:36 (7 months ago) Permalink
yah they're pretty useless
― call all destroyer, Friday, 5 October 2012 02:38 (7 months ago) Permalink
she doesnt tweet v much anymore either
― lag∞n, Friday, 5 October 2012 02:38 (7 months ago) Permalink
:(
i miss you, molly!
― horseshoe, Friday, 5 October 2012 02:40 (7 months ago) Permalink
maybe she's working on a book? i hope so!
― horseshoe, Friday, 5 October 2012 02:41 (7 months ago) Permalink
i would even read a whole book about goddamn mad men that she's so obsessed with.
― horseshoe, Friday, 5 October 2012 02:42 (7 months ago) Permalink
i would read that book
― call all destroyer, Friday, 5 October 2012 02:42 (7 months ago) Permalink
they have both a good baseball writer (Jonah Keri) and a good football one (Bill Barnwell), plus every once in a while there's a neat podcast (like the Obama one), it's not exactly a great website but I kinda dig it now
― frogbs, Friday, 5 October 2012 02:43 (7 months ago) Permalink
okay they got Norm MacDonald writing for them now, I'm officially a fan
We were trying to come up with New Year’s resolutions. Adam, sober now for over a year but nonetheless still somewhat interesting, said, “Hey, do New Year’s resolutions always have to be good for you?” The thought had never occurred to me. It’d be a helluva lot easier to stick with a New Year's resolution if your resolution was to become a big fat guy, right?
― frogbs, Tuesday, 8 January 2013 16:42 (4 months ago) Permalink
The physical Grantland books themselves are beautiful.
― sandwich shortage (Eazy), Tuesday, 8 January 2013 16:46 (4 months ago) Permalink
http://www.grantland.com/blog/hollywood-prospectus/post/_/id/66990/jenna-maroney-an-appreciation
― Mordy, Thursday, 31 January 2013 19:58 (3 months ago) Permalink