Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Simmons Chat: Not Me!

I interrupt the non-stop T.O. coverage to briefly clarify a detail from Bill Simmons' chat today on ESPN.com (which I didn't know about until someone emailed me that my name came up).

Most important: I did NOT write in to the chat. It was an imposter. (And all my Morning Quickie chat participants already knew it wasn't me, I presume.) I can't stress this enough. That's not how I operate, and it's a little annoying that someone did that.

Here's the exchange in its entirety, submitted without further comment:

Luke (Nashville)
How many more years do you see yourself being the Sports Guy if you do leave the Disney family are you going to set up a blog similar to what Shanoff has done?

BILL SIMMONS
Who's Shanoff?

Shanoff (NY)
That. Hurts.

BILL SIMMONS
Just. Kidding. Although I wish you had worked as hard on the Quickie as you do on the blog.

Actually, some response from me is probably merited. But I'm going to take the high road. It's WAY too easy to play media critic. Trust me.

-- D.S.

34 comments:

tem said...

And that is your take. Intersting enough.

And yes, I think everyone knew that you did not really write in.

Christian Thoma said...

But I'm going to take the high road. It's WAY too easy to play media critic. Trust me.

Subtle. But of course, you're commenting, so you're contradicting yourself.

Anonymous said...

if you feel the need to comment, his comments probably hit a little too close to home.

TJ said...

I think everyone knew it wasn't you. People post like that all the time in chats, especially Simmons' chats, with posts like:

"Isiah Thomas (NY): I will punch you in teh face"

and the like. I'm pretty sure it was in fun--at least that's how I took it. (In fun from the posters' point of view, I mean; I obviously have no idea what's going on with all this inter-ESPN drama.)

Unknown said...

D.S. definately knew you didn't write in but if you check the other forum I was definately in your corner.

Really low blow IMO and I've been reading Simmons since his AOL Messege Board days - but I thought that was really out of line.

Especially after he criticised Whitlock earlier in the chat. Just another example of Simmons calling the kettle black.

Christian Thoma said...

Especially after he criticised Whitlock earlier in the chat. Just another example of Simmons calling the kettle black.

Whitlock isn't black?!?

j/k

Here were my other comments on this topic from the other threads:


While I'm not Simmons, my take on the Shanoff comments is that Bill has never been fond of the Instant History shtick; he prefers longer, more uniform thoughts (this is the guy who can write 900+ words on movies like Varsity Blues). So I think by 'working harder' he was looking for more drawn-out thoughts and less shotgun firing approaches to doing the DQ.

...

Well, to be honest, his followup on Shanoff wasn't really negative; he just likes the blog better than the DQ. I don't see an issue with that, as I feel the same way.

I think the reason he didn't want to leave it at 'Who's Shanoff' was because he didn't want people to accuse him of being an ESPN snob, i.e. if you're not on ESPN you're nobody.

Unknown said...

chuck - it's not his sense of humor that caused me to bring this up. It's his constant attacks on blogs (which he openly dislikes).

With that in mind the shot at Whitlock, the shot at Shanoff both seem like shots out the door moreso then fun little jabs.

mattie said...

Page2 is just a hot-bed of drama these days. ;) No Quickie, and no reason given why. No Whitlock, though everyone knows why (though if slamming Scoop Jackson/Mike Lupica is wrong, I wouldn't want to be right either). Simmons having a little joke at Shanoff's expense (though perhaps he shouldn't be talking about anyone else's work ethic/habits) and expressing disappointment in Whitlock. All we need is for Easterbrook to make a new round of potentially anti-Semitic comments and get wiped off the face of the site again, or for Tim Keown and DJ Gallo to start a blood feud or something.

That's the WWL for you!

Unknown said...

Mattie - before you said it I didnt even remember Tim Keown was still writing on Page 2.

I think once Easterbrook is found driving through Malibu at 3AM drunk he'll be joining DS in the blogdom.

Big Daddy Drew said...

Shanoff was classy about this, but someone else required no such restraint.

MoonshineMike said...

Drew, you have the restraint of Ewing at the Gold Club.

Marcus T said...

Isn't this just good natured jabbing? am I wrong here? My opinion of Simmons has been going down for a while now, but I don't see the big deal.

Mega said...

Bill Simmons? Just another Jay Mariotti wanna-be. Which doesn't bode well for his future popularity. Oh well, screw him!

LaziestMovieCriticofAllTime said...

I also took the "Who's Shanoff?" as a direct relationship to when Stephen A. Smith responded to Isiah Thomas with a "Who's Bill Simmons?" When Simmons was even scheduled to be on the show at one point.

I took the first thing to be a joke, and the second to be a compliment, though a bit back-handed, about the new blog.

Of course, I know nothing about anything.

Bobman said...

Jesus, some of you people are such babies. Even you, Dan. Actually, ESPECIALLY you. YOu're a little hurt that someone jokingly put your name into a chat? HURT? Grow up. I could see you being hurt by the diss, MAYBE, but being hurt by someone responding with TWO WORDS as you is just ridiculous.

thirdstringjd - you're just as bad. Really out of line? Did all guys in America get castrated and lose their sense of humor or WHAT? This is what guys do - bust each other's balls.

Christian Thoma said...

Two things:

One, the That. Hurts. comment was a takeoff on:

Bryan, Arnett OK: Sorry i was away for awhile i had to read Jenn Sterger's Mailbag

Bill Simmons: that hurts


from earlier in the chat. The second this is bigger:

The Shanoff(NY) comment of That. Hurts. and Bill's response has been removed from the chat wrap. Hmmmmm

john (east lansing, mi) said...

One thing that I imagine merits considering is the fact that this little exchange came about 3.25 hours into a session in which B.S. responded to probably, what, 150, 200, out of over 30,000 submitted posts.

If The Guy had said something really hurtful and offensive, this would be no excuse; however, since he came up with two tiny offhand remarks, one of which seems a little snooty, and the other of which seems to me as a regular reader to be just funny, I think the sheer volume and perhaps fatigue are good reasons to place a moratorium on the DS-BS Blood Feud that some dividers seem to be egging on.

"Who's Shanoff?" Does that really offend anybody? If we think about the aforementioned "Who's Bill Simmons?" episode (good job, jason), and the recent hurried and unexplained exodus of the Quickie, and possibly the fact that BS might not be entirely comfortable discussing his plans, I think "Who's Shanoff?" is a perfectly reasonable, Sports-Guy-ish, funny way to blow off that question. Again, maybe we can forgive Bill for not considering all the possible interpretations of these two words, given the circumstances of the conversation.

"That. Hurts." - I'm sure a majority of the audience was aware that this was spuriously attributed. I imagine we were mostly just jealous that we didn't come up with it. I mean, it's fairly clever. Yuh?

"Just. Kidding." - obviously a bow of appreciation. I mean, c'mon.

"I wish you had worked as hard on the Quickie as you do on the blog." - A little stickier, and the part that I won't entirely defend The Guy on. I mean, maybe he loves the daily Q-Style wrapup + 4 new and exciting posts per day aspect, and wishes the Q hadn't been static every day after 3 AM Hollywood time. Otherwise, I don't even know what he could mean. Really. What I'm left with is, he's either lazy and only checked out .com once a week when he was posting (zing?), and only saw one Quickie per week, or he's crazy and just doesn't remember the way things were.

So I'm not sure on this one. But unless BS knows something I sure don't know about the reason for the necessity of this blog, and was being snarky about it, it sounds to me like a pretty meaningless little stab.

That's all I've got.

Steve said...

Apparently TNT isn't the only cable station that knows drama.

pv845 said...

I think ESPN.com as a whole is on its way down. It has become so bloated with extra junk that people don't want to read. The stuff people actually want to read is for "insiders". The whole site is becoming a joke.
Kinda like ESPN in general. What happened to actually showing sports highlights on Sportscenter? Or actually showing sports?

The Rev said...

Take the high road?

Aw, come on Dan! The low road is much more fun to read.

iamunstoppable said...

do i really see some guy reposting his quotes from a previous thread, just to show shanoff that he's "in his corner"?

wow, thats more pathetic than the TO attention whoring story.

people always put fake names up in Simmons' chats.. dont be such a little girl with this whining.. anybody with half a brain realized that instantly.

Lew said...

Simmons is a smart guy. I doubt this is a jab at DS, but a jab at the readers and the impersonator. By asking "who's shanoff," it's almost like saying, "who are you," knowing that the commenter is not Shanoff

Unknown said...

I feel I need to clarify something since I do admit to sounding a bit touchy about this subject today.

Taken as a single quote the remark that Simmons made does not seem like a big deal. It's taken in the whole context of things he has been writing lately and how he handles the whole blog culture and when you factor that in that is where my anger comes in.

Simmons looks down his nose at blogs, going so far as to call them vindictive and evil - even though he himself became famous because of his vicious criticism of the Boston media in a blog like setting back in his old Digital City Boston days and on the AOL Messege Boards where I started reading him.

In the blog interview that Whitlock did he talked about Simmons in the same sentence as Ralph Wiley and Hunter S. Thompson. Simmons himself has taken backhanded shots at Scoop Jackson but apparently when Whitlock - someone who complimented Simmons on his way out the door - said something valid about Scoop Simmons thought that was out of line?

The shot at Dan put me over the top - I really took it as Simmons saying that Dan cares more about this blog then he ever tried with the DQ but maybe I was just hypersensitive because of recent comments Bill has made.

Jokes and ribbing I can understand - but there is definately something to the "I'm Keith Hernandez" attitude that Simmons has now.

Ok I'll return to my corner now.

Christian Thoma said...

@ iamunstoppabizzle

I did it merely to centralize the discussion. Surely your little mind could understand that, da? And if you actually read the posts, you'd see they support Simmons more than Shanoff.

So thank you for your playing, don't forget your hat on the way out the door.

Unknown said...

Geez people.

Simmons didn't 'take a shot' at Whitlock. He said he was disappointed that Whitlock left and burned as many bridges as possible..which, cmon..is exactly what Whitlock did.
Not saying I disagree with Whitlock, Simmons obviously thinks that he should have taken a higher road, is all.
And Simmons has given props to Shanoff in a column before...so...meh.

I like DS. But the DQ did appear half-assed at times. It took me a long time to appreciate IH, though I don't always like it. hehe

RevScottDeMangeMD said...

Half assed? You've got to be kidding me! You try getting your ass up before the butt crack of dawn EVERY morning and write 1,000 words on the day before in sports. Simmons is a no-talent ass clown that still can't come down from the rim job he got from a tranny hooker in Vegas with "Sully" and "Bug." Shanoff rules...as does Leitch at Deadspin

Dan Shanoff said...

These comments were really, really interesting everyone -- and I appreciate both sides being staked out (hell, there were more than 2 sides here...so ALL sides).

I didn't mean to come across as defensive -- that's one of the reasons I wanted to clarify the chat post wasn't me... because it sounded like "I" was being defensive.

It's the old "you're defensive if you say you're not trying to be defensive" game.

Which beats the old "you're trying to kill yourself if you say you're not trying to kill yourself" game.

-- D.S.

marcomarco said...

If nothing else, Simmons gave your blog a cheap plug. As he said in a later post, he picks one from a dozen or so questions.

He picked yours twice in a row, but could've ignored them.

Joe Asheville said...

Simmons is a very talented writer when he has time to deliberate. When he is pressed, he is often clumsy or inconsistent (Colbert Report).

His Shanoff comments were just awkward responses that he likely would edit upon reflection.

jhawkjjm said...

Never take anything Simmons says as serious. To start a pissing contest over this is just stupid. The Whitlock comment wasn't an attack at Whitlock, and it wasn't an attack at people who read blogs either (as the kiss-me-suzy blog says.)

Now granted if I were the one the comment was made about I wouldn't be overly happy that someone said I should have put more effort into my work, but that's me.

Although I have to agree with the people who say that ESPN.com is going down the toilet. Page 2 isn't really worth looking at since the only things I read there were Whitlock, Simmons, and Shanoff. An I hate how the good in depth analysis stuff requires being an insider. I still haven't read the Rose Bowl MQ because of that!

Unknown said...

I hardly read Simmons anymore. I always skipped over his reviews of TV shows and movies. I don't know of any guy who watched Friends or 90210 or whatever that new show he watches is - and the Karate Kid was a kid's movie. He came up with some good lines regarding the NBA but lately his articles seem a waste of time.

I used to log in to page 2 for the daily quickie but now I just log in to this blog each morning to catch the latest sports news.

Dan, just curious, do you have a steady income now? I guess you write this blog as a way of keeping in contact with your fans - and I appreciate it - but what is going on in regard to a steady income?

iamunstoppable said...

ChrTh...

you copied and pasted your own opinions from previous threads to update Shanoff on what you had been saying..
youre just quoting yourself and pasting it here.

"here's what i thought yesterday incase you didnt read the other threads, or incase you missed my previous take on this situation.."

i didnt care to read your thoughts in the other threads, let alone read them twice after you post them again in this thread.

im so glad youre in simmons' corner.. or shanoffs corner.. ah who gives a shit.

Maher said...

Simmons....he's the guy that relies on stories about interacting with his wife to fill page space right?

Zach Brown said...

It was a chat session. That's it. Jokes were made. Let's not have everybody get all bent out of shape, because no one here was involved. Stop acting so hurt and/or offended by this, everyone.