Tag Archives: Cooking Show

I’ve got your back, Bill

Dear Bill Simmons:

I see it all the time on the Internet lately, people talking about you, about the Sports Guy, and it’s always some variation of the same argument: “Bill Simmons bit off a little more than he can chew,” like you’ve somehow overextended yourself, like you can’t handle the mounting responsibilities of a twenty-first century multimedia renaissance man. I personally don’t get where this is coming from, but you can’t deny that it’s out there, a rising tide of anti-Bill Simmons propaganda, almost like someone has it out for you.

mgcbllsmms

I just wanted to say that, Bill, I’ve still got your back. I don’t think you bit off more than you can chew. If anything, you should open your mouth even bigger, find some way to unhinge your jaw, like a snake, and see if you can forgo the biting and instead start swallowing whole everything you set your mind to.

Is this because of Magic Johnson? I don’t really know the specifics, and I hate to kind of just throw in my opinion to what so far has been a dated story from October of last year really that hasn’t been anything more than a flame war on the comments sections of Deadspin. But I’m kind of getting the feeling like this is all Magic’s fault. Just think about it, Magic turned his back on ESPN. If he wants to point the finger and blame it on you, go ahead and let him, he’s the one that walked away.

If there’s anything I’ve learned in life, it’s that if you walk away, it doesn’t matter if you’re right or you’re wrong, you just gave up, that’s a forfeit, you lose. It’s like, look at the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution. Were they necessarily in the right? Who knows? The Mensheviks left the table, and history didn’t look back. They got like a footnote in one of my history classes in college, and the rest was all Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, whatever, you get the point right? You walk away, you’re automatically the loser.

Also, and this is probably kind of a low blow here, but does anybody else remember The Magic Hour? Talk about biting off more than you can chew, Magic Johnson is the original overextender. A Magic Johnson cooking show probably would have been more successful than his failed attempt at a late-night talk show. Sure, this was way before the era when professional athletes could turn to reality TV as a viable second career, but just look at the history, if Magic hadn’t left ESPN by his own volition, it probably wouldn’t have been too much longer until his poor commentating landed him similarly off the air.

But yeah, Bill, I get it, this isn’t about Magic Johnson, it’s about you. And I can’t speak for anybody else, but I’ve got to say, where some people think you’re doing too much, I personally don’t think that you’re doing enough. Why limit yourself to columnist, podcast host, editor-in-chief, and on-air personality? There are so many more areas of popular culture that could use a side of Simmons.

Like music. Bill, you ever think about starting a band? I’d buy your album. I’d listen to it all the time. Do you sing? I’m sure you’ve got a great singing voice. I can just imagine what karaoke nights at the Grantland office must be like. Everybody hanging around waiting for Chuck Klosterman to finish butchering “Bohemian Rhapsody.” And then you take the mic, and it’s always like a total wildcard, like you pick “Heartbreaker,” by Pat Benetar, and you totally nail it.

Or a cooking show. I know I was just making fun of Magic Johson earlier, saying that even a cooking show would have been more popular than The Magic Hour, but I feel like you’d be able to make it work. It wouldn’t have to be a weekly thing, but right before big sporting events, like the Super Bowl, you could teach fans how to make great game-day snacks, like potato skins that look like little footballs, or white frosted cookies with red piping that resemble baseballs, you know, cool stuff like that.

Anyway, I’ve got your back Bill. Whatever you want to do in the future, I’m totally on board. Hopefully you’ll eventually let me write for Grantland, and my support will amount to more than me just shouting out kudos to you from my blog, but whatever, no rush. Just seriously, think about it, give me a call, I’ll be a total yes-man, like whatever you say sir, I’m behind you, one hundred percent. When everyone else on the Internet turns on you at the same time, you won’t have to defend yourself at all, because I’ll be doing all of your defending for you, getting in people’s faces, issuing nasty threats, all so you can maintain that professional distance, work on swallowing all of that work you’ve bitten off.

I believe in you Bill,

Rob G.

Somebody give me a TV show. I have so much to say.

I need to have my own cooking show. On my first episode, the cameras will turn to me, standing in some really expensive kitchen. I’ll be wearing an apron and holding a whisk. Or maybe a spatula. No, definitely a whisk. And I’ll welcome everyone to the show and call out a special guest, some celebrity chef that whatever network I’ll be working for ordered to make an appearance on my show to boost the ratings of my first episode. But as soon as the guest comes out, wearing his or her chef uniform, getting greeted by me, “Hey Chef! Welcome to the show!” I’ll start in with a really bizarre line of questioning. I’ll start asking for the chef’s opinions on post-9/11 foreign policy. I’ll get really angry, talking about government conspiracies. Every time I want to make a really dramatic point, I’ll swing and jab my whisk wildly in the air, causing my celebrity guest chef to take a few steps back, which will cause me to take a few steps closer. It will be really uncomfortable for everyone involved. I won’t even cook a single dish. It will be just crazy, wild talk.

And then when I show up for work the next day, I’ll be like, “Whoa. Where is everyone? Why aren’t there any camera people? What happened to the studio audience?” But the place will be totally deserted, empty, so my questions will just echo around the vacant studio, unanswered. And then my agent will call me up. “Change of plans Rob. The studio didn’t think you were a good fit for a cooking show.” I’ll be enraged, outraged, incensed, irate, prorated, deflated, no inflated, really overinflated. But just as I’m about to burst, to pop, to tell off my agent, tell him what I really think of him, him and his no-talent talent agency, him and his stupid Audi convertible – who are you trying to impress, huh? – he’ll tell me that the network was so impressed by my political commentary, inspired really, that they’ve decided to give me my own political commentary show, and it starts taping in twenty minutes.

So I won’t even have time to change out of my cooking show host outfit. It’s, like I said, really just an apron over my regular clothing, but I’ll seriously be so overwhelmed by the change in programming that I won’t have any time to reach around and untie it. Besides, I had to find somebody to help me tie it just right. Does anybody else have trouble making knots when the string isn’t right in front of your face? So I’ll show up with the apron on. And I’m still holding the whisk. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever let it go, not since I picked it up the day before. And I’m gripping it way too tightly. Like my hand hurts, like I’ve been clenching it for way too long. And it’s very shaky, the tremors going all the way up past my elbow, it’s not normal, it’s really weird.

But I’ll make it to the studio just in time. And someone’s like, “Rob, we’ve got to get you to makeup!” and I’ll just say, “No time!” and I’ll take my seat and start in on the commentary. But this time I’m not holding back, not like on the cooking show. You want action? You want political commentary? You want some zest? Well here it is. Unscripted. Uncensored. Unfiltered. Uninhibited. Unbeknownst. Undulating. Understated. Unipotent. Unisex. And it’ll be way too much. Even crazy political conspiracy aficionados won’t be able to make sense of whatever it is that I’m trying to say. I’ll keep bringing up 9/11 and 9/12 and 9/13 and the Ground Zero mosque and the Ground Zero Deli and the Ground Zero’s on all of the other alternate parallel Earths, planets where there was no 9/11, well, where there was a 9/11, but it wasn’t our 9/11, and what are they trying to hide over there on Earth-2, what exactly are they trying to hide on the ninth and eleventh floors of the new World Trade Center and, why haven’t I been able to personally see Joe Biden’s birth certificate or Hillary Clinton’s high school diploma? And my whisk is trembling. The sweat from the palm of my hand is making its way all the way down, so that every time I make a particularly violent point, drops of perspiration are flying from the utensil in every direction I jab.

But then I’ll stop, midsentence. This isn’t what I signed up for. This isn’t at all what I had in mind when I set out to become a host of my own cooking show. I won’t know how I’ve veered so wildly off course. The grip on my whisk will ease up, just a little bit, just a little bit of blood returning to my clenched fist. I’ll take out some eggs. I’ll start whisking them. I’ll have found myself. I’ll keep whisking faster and faster and whispering to myself, “I’m back!” But I won’t really be whispering. I’ll be shouting. I’ll be screaming. Spit flying from my mouth, mixing in with the eggs, but I’m whisking so intensely that nobody really notices, and there’s already a lot of egg foam at the top, from the whisking, that the spittle blends right in. And the camera men will turn off the cameras and they’ll just wheel me, they’ll wheel the whole desk back to my original cooking show studio and the lights will go on and the cameras will start running. “I’m back!” I’ll scream to a packed live studio audience. And everyone will be going crazy. It’ll be nuts. Absolutely, totally nuts.