From our friend Jones

[Huggy]

I sat next to Jones at the press conference the day before the 2016 World Cup of Hockey began here in Toronto. We were both working and he got lost in the crowd after before I could say hi.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

I'm saying it makes a great story.

 

[waterytart]

Some things sear themselves into your memory.

 

[SixToe]

Getting the screenshots isn't difficult if you have the evidence and time to do it.

My brother still has all of the screenshots of his ex's texts to her guypal (who she moved in with before the divorce was final).

 

[John]

Chris did an interview with fellow writing great Tommy Tomlinson, for Tommy's Substack. Some interesting stuff in there too: Pub Day: Chris Jones, LEGS HEARTS MINDS

 

[BTExpress]

Wish there was a screenshot of the jacket so wet from tears that it looked like the Shroud of Turin.

 

[FileNotFound]

Some things sear themselves into your memory.

I’m 16 years removed (this week, in fact) from having dealt with this. I still to this day remember the sumbitch’s phone number.

This looks like it’s going to be an incredible book, but I’m gonna need to be in a better mental place than I am right now to read it. The excerpt alone was hard enough.

My ex-wife and I are on decent terms now, but I will never forgive her for making me be the one to tell our kids.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Pierce was here?

(I didn’t know that was officially officially confirmed. We all had suspicions.)

Yes.

He showed up at an SEC game I was at back in 2014 or 15. He was pretty well being ignored by the SEC media types, so I walked up and said "Mr. Pierce, I'm Inky Wretch from SJ and I just wanted to say 'hello.'" Next thing I know, he and I are having sandwiches together an hour before kickoff and he hit me up on Facebook during the first quarter of the game.

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

Yes.

He showed up at an SEC game I was at back in 2014 or 15. He was pretty well being ignored by the SEC media types, so I walked up and said "Mr. Pierce, I'm Inky Wretch from SJ and I just wanted to say 'hello.'" Next thing I know, he and I are having sandwiches together an hour before kickoff and he hit me up on Facebook during the first quarter of the game.

I had a similar experience at a Jets game. Double Down introduced us...I don't think he dropped the SJ references while introducing us, but I'm like holy ****, I'm talking to Charles Pierce and eating hot dogs and chicken fingers before a football game. And sure enough, he hit me up on Facebook as well.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

I had a similar experience at a Jets game. Double Down introduced us...I don't think he dropped the SJ references while introducing us, but I'm like holy ****, I'm talking to Charles Pierce and eating hot dogs and chicken fingers before a football game. And sure enough, he hit me up on Facebook as well.

Yeah, I was in full fanboi looser mode there for a bit.

He asked me what I was doing after deadline, but in those days we flew a charter home (the advantage of a billionaire owning the paper) and filed from the air. I never saw him again after halftime.

 

[Huggy]

I had a similar experience at a Jets game. Double Down introduced us...I don't think he dropped the SJ references while introducing us, but I'm like holy ****, I'm talking to Charles Pierce and eating hot dogs and chicken fingers before a football game. And sure enough, he hit me up on Facebook as well.

Pretty sure JR and HC hit the town with him in Boston, might have even gone to a Bruins game.

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

Pretty sure JR and HC hit the town with him in Boston, might have even gone to a Bruins game.

And I've STILL talked in person to more of your former junior league players than you!!!

 

[wicked]

Pretty sure JR and HC hit the town with him in Boston, might have even gone to a Bruins game.

HC invited me to join them that night... without mentioning who she was with. I had to work and it was short notice so I passed and figured we'd catch up another time. Later I found out she was with him and I felt like the biggest looooooser ever.

 

[Huggy]

And I've STILL talked in person to more of your former junior league players than you!!!

Indeed you have! Most talented player I was ever around and a really good guy too!

 

[dixiehack]

Sammy made a noise, instantly, that I will never get out of my head, a kind of gasp, all his air coming out of him at once. Then he burst into tears.

When we told him, my son let out the most guttural wail I have ever heard a human produce and pray I will never hear again. There are moments in life where I’ve been fired or I slept in my car or I stared at the four walls of my room in a psych ward. Nothing, nothing has ever felt worse than that sound and that moment.

 

[MisterCreosote]

Pretty convenient that he logged into her computer right when she was texting her side piece AND that he remembered what the texts said 10 years later.

My ***** ex-wife called her side piece from the passenger seat of my car after I picked her drunk ass up from a “benefit” at some downtown hotel.

She must’ve also forgotten that she had logged into her work email account from our home computer, and after that was the first time I even thought about checking it. Sure enough, there were months of emails between them that I could probably still recite from heart almost 20 years later.

 

[Bubbler]

Per usual, an excellent and brutally honest piece from Jones.

And it’s not that I can’t imagine what it would feel like to make that discovery, I absolutely CAN imagine it. Being reduced to an unflattering emoji is a particularly modern version of human cruelty, but not surprising in the wake of a relationship gone sour.

I don’t care how much you love your significant other, familiarity will eventually breed contempt. So reading that is a but the grace of God go I moment and I’m sure I’m not alone feeling that.

It’s funny. I think on an intellectual level, we can all understand that we slip in and out of our own bull****. I think on an intellectual level we understand others do the same. But we often only barely tolerate it from our partners. It’s a strange phenomenon.

As for Jones’ open his veins style of writing? I’ve always had a lot of respect for it. I’ve always felt that if you’re not brutally honest with what you write, what’s the point? Lay it all out there. I’ve done it here and elsewhere … though nowhere near as artfully as Jones typically does. My grammar alone is laughable in comparison.

For all of the nostalgia I have for the so-called glory days of SJ, one thing I hated about this place at its peak or otherwise, was how the dickhead trolls would take the very honest and vulnerable missives of Jones, Double Down and others and ridicule them with it.

It takes balls to cut open a vein and open yourself up and lay it out there. Those who ridiculed Jones and the like were cowards of the highest order. They could never be so honest, never be so self-aware. It’s cruel to pick at someone when baring their soul … and that happened a lot.

I’d love for Jones to show up, but I get it if he doesn’t. I spent a long time away and it was needed. I hope he’s found some peace. (Burnley getting relegated aside.)

I respect the hell out of him … as I do for so many others who bare their souls without any discernible reward.

 

[wicked]

Those who ridiculed Jones and the like were cowards of the highest order. They could never be so honest, never be so self-aware.

I hate to trot out the old coffee machine repairman jibe, but that’s who was going after him — folks who couldn’t write their way out of an open paper bag. Maybe that shouldn’t matter in the grand scheme, but I think it does.

 

[dixiehack]

It’s like any other bar. Someone (relatively) famous walks in and they probably aren’t going to drink in peace. Some want to glom on to you; some want to make their bones by taking you down a peg. It’s rare that you get to be Tip O’Neil to somebody’s Norm.

 

[tapintoamerica]

That story was gutting. Damn. Hopeful he's still on the good track and moving forward.

WTF is it with spouses who cheat, text and don't think they'll get caught? Everything is connected. Texts show up in weird places - car screens, laptops, TVs. My brother's lying POS skank ex-wife did this and that's how he found out, because she left her Apple watch on the kitchen counter and he saw it buzzing at midnight or some weird time. Found months and months of texts.

One of my best friends found out about his cheating wife the same way.