Dear Mr. Prokhorov,
One of the funniest people on Twitter, in my opinion, is the fake version of you. Fake Prokhorov came to my attention before the season started, when the Nets (and the Rockets) were briefly accused of tampering for holding secret meetings with Dwight Howard. Chris Broussard posted a message that said, "Howard met with NJ owner Mikhail Prokhorov Thurs night in Miami, sources say," and the fake version of you responded by saying, "Who are sources? They pay ultimate price." Me and one of my buddies got a real kick out of that for a few days, "pay ultimate price." A few other great Fake Prokhorov moments, chosen at random: "This World Peace seem like very dangerous thing." "I very much like this Mitt Romney. I am also repulse by poor people." "In USA, Kevin Garnett is consider to be jerk that choke and annoy opponent. In Russia, he is man of respect." "I must admit new photo of Jay-Z baby is frighten me. I have never seen baby before." And more recently: "Baseball team price of two billion USA dollar is not impress. I have boat worth this much." I haven't even included any of Fake Prokhorov's comments about Chris Bosh, which may be the highlight of the whole enterprise, but which I've deemed too cruel to include here. Point is, you became a hilarious fictional character to me, and your decision to run for president of Russia only added to the fun. Then, about a month ago, a few weeks before you lost the election, the New Yorker published an article on you called "The Master and Mikhail." When I turned to the beginning of the article, I wasn't disappointed at all. Underneath your picture, the caption featured one of your quotes from the article: "I am a boa constrictor...Calm, good mood." You can't imagine how happy I was to see that quote. You, the real Prokhorov, were apparently just like the Fake Prokhorov, except even funnier. So I start reading the article and find out that your first business, an extremely profitable one, was "an operation for stonewashing jeans." I loved this, too, of course, and expected much more of the same. But instead, I came across another quote from you, and this one gave me pause, Mikhail.
Showing posts with label Horses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Horses. Show all posts
Monday, April 2, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
I'm Learning, Man. That's My Horse Tutor.
Dear Shaq,
When I first heard you'd signed with TNT, I was happy for you, happy you wouldn't end up in the purgatory that is ESPN's NBA coverage, and excited for the basketball-and-humor-loving public that you'd be joining the already glorious Inside the NBA crew. Then, over the holidays at my folks' house, my brother and I watched a few episodes of a show on NBA TV called Open Court, where a bunch of TNT-affiliated former NBA guys--you, Chuck, Kenny, Reggie, Kerr, Steve Smith, C-Webb—just sit in a room and tell stories. The show was great, but you were by far the least entertaining person in the room. Even though Reggie Miller was at one time my favorite non-Houston basketball player, I only find Reggie-the-analyst entertaining when he's announcing a game and uses the term "a long deuce." But even he was more interesting than you. Suddenly I worried that you might ruin Inside the NBA. Then the season started: I caught a few minutes here and there of you at halftime, and what I saw was pretty bad, Shaq. Your voice was often so low as to be nearly inaudible, you made too many sound effects, laughed at your own jokes without making your co-hosts laugh, and when called upon to talk about the games, you seemed stuck in athlete-trying-not-to-say-anything-interesting mode. Admittedly, I only had a small sample size of your performances, but people were hammering you on Twitter, too: Shaq is boring! Shaq makes Kevin McHale seem entertaining! Shaq just said Rudy Gay could be as good as Lebron and Wade! Shaq just called Ricky Rubio the Italian Pete Maravich! Suddenly I couldn't remember: Were you ever that interesting? Or was the pressure making you uninteresting? I hoped it was the latter. It was like someone had brought you to a great party and said, "Hey, everybody, listen up. This is my friend Shaq. He's really hilarious," and because of this introduction you froze up and every prosaic thing you said disappointed the attendees and the vibe of the party was ruined.
Being someone who has frozen under pressure in many different pursuits, I felt like I could explain the problem: You hadn't found your freedom. I don't know if you ever listen to NPR, Shaq, but here's Philip Roth from an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air a few years back, talking about his novel The Human Stain and its narrator:
When I first heard you'd signed with TNT, I was happy for you, happy you wouldn't end up in the purgatory that is ESPN's NBA coverage, and excited for the basketball-and-humor-loving public that you'd be joining the already glorious Inside the NBA crew. Then, over the holidays at my folks' house, my brother and I watched a few episodes of a show on NBA TV called Open Court, where a bunch of TNT-affiliated former NBA guys--you, Chuck, Kenny, Reggie, Kerr, Steve Smith, C-Webb—just sit in a room and tell stories. The show was great, but you were by far the least entertaining person in the room. Even though Reggie Miller was at one time my favorite non-Houston basketball player, I only find Reggie-the-analyst entertaining when he's announcing a game and uses the term "a long deuce." But even he was more interesting than you. Suddenly I worried that you might ruin Inside the NBA. Then the season started: I caught a few minutes here and there of you at halftime, and what I saw was pretty bad, Shaq. Your voice was often so low as to be nearly inaudible, you made too many sound effects, laughed at your own jokes without making your co-hosts laugh, and when called upon to talk about the games, you seemed stuck in athlete-trying-not-to-say-anything-interesting mode. Admittedly, I only had a small sample size of your performances, but people were hammering you on Twitter, too: Shaq is boring! Shaq makes Kevin McHale seem entertaining! Shaq just said Rudy Gay could be as good as Lebron and Wade! Shaq just called Ricky Rubio the Italian Pete Maravich! Suddenly I couldn't remember: Were you ever that interesting? Or was the pressure making you uninteresting? I hoped it was the latter. It was like someone had brought you to a great party and said, "Hey, everybody, listen up. This is my friend Shaq. He's really hilarious," and because of this introduction you froze up and every prosaic thing you said disappointed the attendees and the vibe of the party was ruined.
Being someone who has frozen under pressure in many different pursuits, I felt like I could explain the problem: You hadn't found your freedom. I don't know if you ever listen to NPR, Shaq, but here's Philip Roth from an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air a few years back, talking about his novel The Human Stain and its narrator:
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