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Tim Keown on Adam LaRoche

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Moderator1, Apr 13, 2016.

  1. Earthman

    Earthman Well-Known Member

    If you just knew his work from Deadspin I can see how you could come to that conclusion but I bet if you have read his book "The Postmortal" you would feel differently. It's a real contradiction to his usual tripe. It actually is a thoughtful, philosophical, poignant novel about the perils of immortality. Unless someone else wrote the book the guy is more than "one note".
     
  2. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    It's garbage.
     
  3. Big Circus

    Big Circus Well-Known Member

    type can correct this if it's wrong, but it sounds like that's the book he helped put in the hands of the Hollywood types. So I imagine he was on board with that one.
     
  4. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    He may have talent.

    What makes it sad is that he's chosen to play just one note.

    Maybe he lacks confidence. Maybe he's lazy. Or, maybe he's just a dick.
     
  5. justgladtobehere

    justgladtobehere Well-Known Member

    He may be one note on Deadspin, but he does profiles for GQ or Esquire that are nothing like his Deadspin stuff.
     
  6. typefitter

    typefitter Well-Known Member

    I thought The Postmortal would make a good movie. Still do. It's not the great American novel. It's a yarn. There was another movie with a vaguely similar plot right around then—In Time, maybe?—and I think that killed it.

    I don't know why he keeps going back to the "I HATE THIS THING" well. I've heard that his raw longer stuff is rough as hell, and I'm guessing that's why GQ won't let him off the celebrity profile beat, but I don't know. You'd think if he can write a novel, he could write a real story, but maybe his book editor does a ton of heavy lifting. I suspect he does his usual thing because it's fast and easy and it gets enough clicks, but if there were a Deadspin for Deadspin, it would be ripping him for being that formerly innovative guy who now just mails it in. Hell, somebody should make a list of his articles that contain "Hate" or "Sucks" in the title. There would be hundreds.
     
  7. typefitter

    typefitter Well-Known Member

    A lot of this comes down to a difference in philosophy, by the way, and you could have a good debate about which is the correct one, or the more productive one, and both sides could be right. He's not precious about writing—it's just a job to him. He's a volume shooter and he doesn't care if he misses a bunch or whether every sentence is perfect. In a way, I kind of envy that approach. I've always been much more cramped about it, because I worry about things like writing stories "that matter" and have the vanity of thinking that I might write something that will last. Magary would say that's dumb, that nobody will be reading anything we write in 100 years, and you'll be dead so who cares even if they do, so you just write as much as you can for as much money as you can. I think you try to write a few things each year that are as close to perfect as you can make them. I'm honestly not sure which one of us will end up happier with our careers. That's not snark. I really don't know.
     
  8. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    I don't put Magary and happy in the same conversation in any context.

    The nihilist streak is the main job requirement for Gawker, I suppose.
     
  9. Earthman

    Earthman Well-Known Member

    I would bet that Magary views his Deadspin writing as temporary. Something that does not need to stand up to the test of time. In 30 years people would read the Mante Tao story and have no idea who he was. It seems different for writers of another generation like say Gay Talese who's work always holds up.
     
  10. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Look, I'm even willing to entertain (or even make) the argument that Jones, by responding on twitter and such, encourages folks like Magary to act the way they do.

    But, I have no idea why we excuse the behavior just because when he wants to, he can act like a grown up.

    He's a 39-year-old father of three, who's had career success, and still wants to act like edgy kid, throwing bombs at establishment phonies.

    And, he can go on about how having a sick child made him less cynical when he wants to promote his softer side.

    He's as big a phony as there is.
     
  11. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    There's a point at which you become decidedly fake by trying too hard to keep it real.
     
  12. 3_Octave_Fart

    3_Octave_Fart Well-Known Member

    The reality is it's much easier to write that everything and everyone sucks than it is to go the other way.
     
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