By Adam Abramson
I'll say it again: Buzz Bissinger is lame.
I’m eight years younger than the mind behind deadspin.com, Will Leitch, and apparently eight years older than Buzz Bissinger’s son. I think that puts me near the beginning of this whole Internet boom and shouldn’t surprise anyone that I indeed blog.
I say he’s lame because it’s clear he’s stuck in the past. What was his point about the late W.C. Heinz? That Heinz is a better writer than Leitch, myself and every other blogger in the history of the world? OK, cool. And?
Bissinger came off as pretentious, which is found all-too-often in the words of major columnists today. I don’t need someone to imply they’re more intelligent than I am, when they’re not.
The best part of the 20-minute train wreck on Bob Costas’ show was Bissinger’s lack of a solid argument and Leitch taking the high road on several soft jabs flailed in his direction. While Bissinger may be eloquent with the pen, he came off looking like a buffoon in front of the camera.
What Bissinger sees as indecent is what I, a 24-year-old college educated sports nut, think makes Deadspin and its blogosphere peers work. The new media generation doesn’t want someone rehashing what we watched. We’re looking for the conversation we’ll have in the bar or at the water cooler.
While Heinz, Bissinger and their colleagues were, and are, great at capturing the moment with words, the camera operator on TV sufficed just fine. LeBron James’ stat line and critical jumper in the final minute mean little – I've already witnessed it and I know what it means. I’ve moved on to the Jay-Z diss and DeShawn Stevenson wearing a Michael Vick jersey. This is probably where Bissinger would look at the picture of me in the left rail and say “You’re dumbing down like the rest of your generation, you *(#&$*(&#$!!”
Sour grapes. Bissinger’s theme song is embedded.
And I won’t bother to dwell on the hypocrisy of his profanity-laden tirade on Deadspin’s indecencies.
Face it, Bissinger, the dream is over. Respected Newsday columnists Bob Glauber and Neil Best wake up every day and take to their computers to blog. And guess what? They’ve been trying to “perfect the craft” like you, for decades.
Shoot me a link when you decide to catch up and show us what blogging is all about.