Pat Jordan on Chasing Jose Canseco

Double Down · Apr 2, 2008

Deadspin asked a few writers this week to write about difficult interview subjects.

This is Pat Jordan on trying to write a magazine profile about Jose Canseco.

I'm not sure if words can do justice to how awesome and hilarious this is.

My pursuit of Jose began in January when I called him in California. His girlfriend, Heidi, answered the phone. I told her that I was writing a magazine story about Jose writing a book. "And a movie," she said. "Jose is writing a book and a movie about himself." I said, "You mean a screenplay?" She paused a beat, then said, "No, a movie." I said, "Of course."

I tried to picture Jose writing his book and his movie. Hunched over, his broad shoulders casting a shadow across his desk like a raptor's wings, his brow furrowed in concentration, his massively muscled body tensed in anticipation of that torrent of words about to flow out of him like urine for one of the many steroid tests he'd been forced to take during his baseball career. I wondered, just how does Jose write? Like Shakespeare, with a quill pen on parchment? Like Dickens, wearing a green eye shade while seated at a clerk's desk? Like Hemingway, standing at a lectern in Finca Vigia, with a stubby pencil and unlined paper? Like Thomas Wolfe, in his Victorian house in Ashville, pounding away on a tall, black, manual Underwood? Or maybe the words flow out of Jose in such a torrent, 10,000 an hour, that he can relieve himself adequately of his thoughts only by tap-tap-tapping on a lightning fast computer, like Stephen King?

Anyway, as Heidi said, Jose is writing a book, and a movie, about his life, which he will star in, as himself. Jose is also going to star in a Kung Fu martial arts movie. That's what Rob told me. "Jose is fielding offers," said Rob. Rob is Jose's lawyer and agent. He's a Cherokee Indian from North Carolina. In the four years that Rob has been Jose's agent, Jose has racked up about a half-a-million dollars in legal fees. Rob hasn't been paid anything yet, although he said that Jose did give him his five World Series rings, worth about $50,000, as a down payment.

Heidi, Rob told me, is Jose's girlfriend/publicist. She's a "cute, little, junior college graduate, who lives with Jose," said Rob. "She likes to let Jose think she's working hard for him when really all she is doing is fucking things up for him." Rob said Heidi lives with Jose without paying anything, which may be literally true, but not figuratively. The price women pay for living with Jose is actually quite high. All those boring days and nights during which Jose rarely speaks, except to say, "Where's the Iguana?" because of Jose's fervent belief that when "women talk only bad things can happen." All those needles and vials of performance enhancing drugs around the house which his woman of the moment must learn to differentiate, winstrol from deca-durabolin from HGH, and then draw the proper amount of fluid into each syringe and inject that needle and its fluid into Jose's buttocks. All those variations of his moods from steroid-fueled anger to steroid-withdrawal depression. All those startling changes in his genitalia, his penis swelling with steroid use at the same time his testicles are shrinking from steroid use. All those strange women's messages on Jose's cell phone. All those trips to the gynecologist to cure the STDs Jose brought back with him from one of his road trips. And, finally, most depressing of all, all those perfunctory sex acts with Jose, doggy style in front of a mirror so Jose can watch himself perform, his chest muscles and biceps twitching as he works. Which is why Jose's first two wives, Miss Miami, and Miss Fitness America, divorced him.
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Moderator1 · Apr 2, 2008

Re: Pat Jordan on Chasing Jose (For Deadspin)

Unreal.
If I could write like that ***

pallister · Apr 2, 2008

Re: Pat Jordan on Chasing Jose (For Deadspin)

that torrent of words about to flow out of him like urine for one of the many steroid tests
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Now THAT's a simile.

BYH · Apr 2, 2008

Re: Pat Jordan on Chasing Jose (For Deadspin)

Canseco has five World Series rings?

1988 (loss)
1989 (win)
1990 (loss)
2000 w/the Yankees (win)

Even if World Series runners up get rings, he only has four.

that was hilarious, BTW. Deadspin still blows though.

Jones · Apr 2, 2008

Re: Pat Jordan on Chasing Jose (For Deadspin)

It's definitely worth the time to read the rest of that story. Great stuff. So many withering lines -- a lesson in how to carve a turkey if there ever was one.

Shaggy · Apr 2, 2008

Re: Pat Jordan on Chasing Jose (For Deadspin)

That is a hilarious story I read about a week ago that I still think about randomly during the day.

So good. The blurb about his wife's daily routine had me rolling. And a super ending to boot.

broadway joe · Apr 2, 2008

Re: Pat Jordan on Chasing Jose (For Deadspin)

That was fabulous. I only wish it had gone on longer.

This being SportsJournalists.com, I'm sure someone will be along in a moment to tell us why it sucked.

GBNF · Apr 2, 2008

Re: Pat Jordan on Chasing Jose (For Deadspin)

What an awesome piece of writing.

I would love to read that kind of writing in a magazine.

hockeybeat · Apr 2, 2008

Re: Pat Jordan on Chasing Jose (For Deadspin)

That was a tremendous read.

awriter · Apr 2, 2008

Re: Pat Jordan on Chasing Jose (For Deadspin)

Awesome story. I think that's one of the best endings I've ever read.

At 10 a.m., L.A. time, Rob called to tell me the interview was off. Jose had changed his mind yet again. I was apoplectic. Rob tried to calm me down with these reassuring words, "Pat," he said, "why are you so upset? You and I both know Jose's a piece of shit."
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friend of a friend · Apr 3, 2008

broadway joe said:

That was fabulous. I only wish it had gone on longer.

This being SportsJournalists.com, I'm sure someone will be along in a moment to tell us why it sucked.
Click to expand...

It won't be me.

GB-Hack · Apr 3, 2008

Agree with everyone here. This is a terrific piece.

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