Where Left Is Right / The Old Site

I am not by nature much inclined to follow sports, except for a certain college football team. I never know who the hot new NBA players are, for example, until they start showing up in TV commercials. In the fall, I suddenly wake up and remember that professional baseball exists -- about the same time that Game 2 of the World Series is played. What? You say there was no NHL season this year? And so on.

But I've got a nephew -- and a good friend, he -- who follows sports. Like other family members and friends, he occasionally sends me a link worth following up on. But when he sent me a link this February to the ESPN site, I assumed it was a mistake.

It wasn't. It led me to one of Bill Simmons's "Sports Guy Mailbag" columns. And it was love at first sight.

Now, for those of you who do follow sports more than I, a disclaimer: I can't comment on his regular columns. They may in fact be accessible to someone like me, but the headlines and capsule descriptions are off-putting. For example:

• Motor City diary
  It was a must-win game for the Pistons, and Bill Simmons was more than willing to deliver all the action.
• Trade value, Part 1
  With so much NBA trade talk floating around, Bill Simmons ranks the top 40 players in market value.
• Winter of our Sox content
  Unlike past offseasons, Page 2's Bill Simmons can't wait to see what the Red Sox' braintrust comes up with next.
• 50 ways to love the NBA draft
  Page 2's Bill Simmons fondly reminisces about his top 50 favorite NBA draft moments from the past six years.

None of this sounds like it's going to make any sense to me. But on an occasional basis, he dips into his mailbag to answer readers' questions about, well, whatever they want to know about. For instance, here's a question and answer from the August 10th edition:

Q: What is the all-time best performance by a guest host in an SNL skit? ...

SG [for "Sports Guy"]: ...to come up with a list like this, only one rule applies: Nobody else would have been as good in the skit but that particular guest host. And there have been a bunch of memorable ones -- Justin Timberlake as Robin Gibb, Christina Aguilera as Kim Catrall, Gwyneth Paltrow as Sharon Stone, Baldwin as Robert DeNiro, Tom Hanks in the "Mr. Belvedere Club" sketch, Sarah Michelle Gellar in the "Dodge Stratus" sketch, Roseanne Barr in the "Misery" parody, etc. -- but only five stand out (in reverse order):

5. Joe Montana in the "Masturbate" sketch
I can't even describe what it was like, in the mid-80s, to watch a Super Bowl MVP (and somewhat of a dud by all accounts) rattle off the words "I'm going upstairs to masturbate" in a sketch. It was like seeing a UFO land. Even if his career ended the next season, he still would have gotten my Hall of Fame vote for that moment.

4. Richard Pryor in the "Racial Interview" sketch
This was like SNL's 10th show ever -- Pryor was hosting back when he was Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock rolled into one. So this was an event. And they have this sketch in which Chevy Chase is interviewing Pryor's character for a job, and they start playing word association, only Chase starts throwing out racial insults that get worse and worse, and Pryor's character gets angrier and angrier ... even when you watch it 30 years later, you can feel the tension. I can't imagine anyone but Prior [sic] selling that idea as well ... mainly because he probably really was getting ticked off. An electric moment.
[...]
1. Stevie Wonder in "The Stevie Wonder Experience"
This one happened in the early '80s, right as Eddie Murphy was peaking on SNL and seemed poised to become the biggest superstar on the planet (which ended up happening two years later when "Beverly Hills Cop" came out). Just the fact that Stevie hosted the show was interesting because Eddie was doing a wicked impression of him at the time. Who knew what would happen on the show? In this particular sketch, Joe Piscopo (playing an agent) brought Stevie (playing a celeb impersonator) to audition for Murphy (who was a music executive) ... with the catch being that Stevie's character bills himself as the Stevie Wonder Experience. Excellent setup.

So Stevie does his Stevie "impersonation," and it's terrible. Truly awful. Murphy ends up interjecting, "No, no, you're doing it all wrong," then proceeds to slip on a pair of sunglasses as the crowd goes crazy. And he does Stevie with Stevie standing right next to him.

(Note: I remember being like 12 or 13 when this happened, and you can think I'm crazy, I don't care. But the most exciting TV moments of the early '80s were A) this sketch, B) Letterman taking his show to L.A. and having Carson as a guest, C) Michael Jackson singing "Billie Jean" and doing the moonwalk on the Motown 25 special, D) Reagan getting shot by Hinckley, E) Roddy Piper smashing the coconut into Jimmy Snuka's head. I'm telling you, this was the Mount Rushmore of Random/Exciting Non-Sports TV Moments in the Early '80s. I won't even accept any other arguments. Save your time.)

Anyway, Eddie brings the house down with his impression of Stevie singing "My Cherie Amour." Unbelievable. Stevie's standing right there. The crowd settles down and Stevie "tries it" again ... still terrible. Eddie does it again ... kills again. After the crowd settles down, the scene shifts back to Stevie's "character" for one last "attempt" at an impression. Only this time, Fake Stevie suddenly turns into Real Stevie and belts out an a cappella version of "My Cherie Amour" that was like ... I mean, I can't possibly describe how good this was. Nobody had a voice like Stevie in his prime. And when he nails the last note, the crowd erupts like someone just made a midcourt shot to win an NCAA Tournament game or something -- if you watch the tape, even Piscopo breaks character and lets out a yelp. That's how remarkable it was. I know he's a first-ballot Hall of Famer and a musical icon, but I can't imagine Stevie Wonder ever brought the house down quite like that.

Of course, Eddie never breaks character. He waits for the applause to die down, waits for an extra second and finally says, "No, man, it still sucks."

Perfect ending to one of the best SNL sketches ever. And it doesn't happen without Stevie Wonder.

This excerpt doesn't really show off Simmons's writing style, but it does demonstrate his willingness to take any question seriously -- and it doesn't hurt that he describes the SNL skits in a way that makes me myself laugh, even if I never saw the original.

Here's another sampling from the same issue:

Q: I laughed out loud when I saw that Alanis Morissette released an acoustic version of her 10-year old album, "Jagged Little Pill." Also, if you're looking to purchase the CD, it's available only at Starbucks. How hard up for money is she? What would be the sports equivalent to this? Brady Anderson reissuing an autographed set of his 1996 Topps Baseball card celebrating his 50-HR season?

SG: You know, I racked my brain for about 15 minutes trying to come up with the sports equivalent, and I think it would have to be some sort of Olympics-type parallel (because of the lightning-in-a-bottle factor). So it would be something like Nancy Kerrigan reenacting her silver medal winning skating routine from the 1994 Olympics, then selling the DVD at various Dunkin' Donuts around New England ... or Kerri Strug reenacting her one-legged vault on the set of "Gymkata 2," then selling DVDs of the vault at Subway. Poor Alanis. She should have just gone the whole way and changed the lyrics to "You Oughta Know" to Starbucks orders, so the chorus could have gone, "And I'm here ... to remind you ... about the nonfat soy chai latte ..."

To repeat: From my perspective, the sports references here might as well have been written in cuneiform. But the style here shows through -- and the punchline really did make me laugh.

A final example:

Q: Some time ago you answered the question of the best "holy crap, she is actually going to show her breasts" moment in cinema. What is the worst "holy crap, what a disappointment" moment in cinema?

SG: That's easy – the nude scene with Jaye Davidson in "The Crying Game." I remember people screaming in horror when it happened, like they had just seen a baby carriage getting run over at a busy intersection. In fact, that was such a disturbing moment, it actually got Davidson nominated for the "Best Supporting Oscar" that year – it was like the Academy was saying, "Here, we'll give you a nomination if you promise NEVER to do that again."

Unfortunately, ESPN follows a common practice in the copyright-protected-content world -- articles older than a certain age require site registration. It's not free, either -- you have to take a subscription to "ESPN The Magazine" (not to be confused with Jabba The Hutt). But it's worth returning to the Sports Guy index (linked in the heading, above) from time to time.

So why is this a guilty pleasure, at least for a lefty? Because Simmons (while apparently politically liberal) sometimes strays into areas of, umm, questionable taste. For instance, while I didn't read the "holy crap, she is actually going to show her breasts" column which the last questioner above referred to, it probably wasn't a column I'd want to share with my liberal mother. I bet it was funny as hell, though.

One final thing, a gripe: ESPN really needs to implement some kind of plain-old e-mail alert through which subscribers can learn of the contents of a new Simmons column. I'd visit a lot more often if I could get such a thing weekly, and my nephew could go back to just e-mailing me socially. (There is, though, an RSS feed available.)