Chicken Teriyaki

A while back my friend Sep forwarded me a link to Midtown Lunch, a blog promoting a new Midtown Manhattan teriyaki chicken restaurant with a contest that would award three winners a year supply of 'yaki. As a massive chicken teriyaki fan who lives in a city that lacks an affordable 'yaki bowl, this was my pretty much my only chance at happiness in life.

I entered the contest and patiently waited for the editors to contact me and tell me I won. Then the editors never contacted me, which was bullshit in my mind, so I wrote them to express my grievances. Midtown Lunch's editor agreed that my entry was the best, but said they selected winners randomly and as a consolation prize of sorts he offered me the chance to be a profiled Midtown Lunch'er.

I obliged and filled out his questionnaire in a voice that was equal parts: cockiness from just landing a new, cool job, euphoria from just landing a new job outside of Midtown, and hatred for Midtown Lunch for denying me a year's supply of 'yaki bowls.

This was the result.

I was extremely happy with it when I submitted it. Then when I read it online, I was slightly concerned at how I came off, but I think that had more to do with me lonely in British Columbia and slightly depressed from Vancouver's excessive rain. But that is a story for another post.

The comments are all pure genius as well, especially because it allowed for one of the few times in my life where I could've worn a "Hi Hater" t-shirt.

Ultimately it's a silly food blog profile, but it's more than that. Those motherfuckers wronged me and I got my retribution (I think) while showing the whole world how much I love teriyaki chicken and in the end isn't that what life is all about.

Pretending

Aside from strap-hangers who rap about McDonald's for change*, teachers are my favorite subway riders. I have an immense respect for anybody who edits a stack of papers on the subway and for some reason the sight of a teacher working on his commute brings me great joy.

A few weeks ago my friends at Gelf asked me to edit another writer's article. I printed it out, grabbed a red pen and went to work on the subway. I made sure I held the red pen in my mouth so everyone would think I was a teacher and respect me. I also exaggerated all my edits and smiled a lot hoping people would draw the connection that I was grading the paper of an inner-city kid who I had helped to overcome his unfathomably terrible background and learning disabilities to finally understand our class's lesson.

When in reality I was editing an interview of Matt Timms, who was promoting his World's Biggest Jerk Off (SFW) event, by a writer who is a Yale graduate.

Still I feverishly scribbled down all my edits and shook my head a lot so other strap-hangers could see what a hard-working teacher I am. As I approached my final stop, I scribbled an A+ atop the first page, which made about as much sense as writing a blog post full of grammar errors about editing.

*I never give money or attention to singing bums unless I'm high and there is an group harmonizing Lion King songs a Capella or The McDonald's rapper is in my presence. I have only seen the McDonald's rapper once, but he killed it. He boarded the train, politely told everyone he was gonna rap and then began the most passionate and sincere rap about McDonald's.

The hook was something along the lines of "Yeah I love Mickey D's!" which was good enough for a single and a single dollar in my book. But once he dropped a line about McFlurries (a line I was waiting for the entire song) I realized I needed to give him a few more, mainly because you can't buy a McFlurry for $1. His flow was amazing, he managed to hit every item on the menu and he rapped with a passion for McDonald's that was truly inspirational. After he finished I handed him a few singles and he gave me the most heart-felt smile I have ever received from a human not named Seth Janiga.

Forging Happiness

On the same day I posted a desperate attempt to help the St. Labre Indian School and make it look like I still write regularly on this blog, I received another letter at my work. This one was not quite as depressing as the parched Native Americans, as it was just an 8-year-old from Staten Island asking Dustin Pedroia for his autograph and some other trivial questions.

My immediate thoughts were to write him back an extremely bizarre letter. The kid asked Pedroia if he uses steroids, and I had already wrote the first two paragraphs of a letter from Pedroida graphically describing his steroid use in my head. Then I thought to myself, do I really want to write a letter to this kid that will surely baffle him and leave him hating his childhood hero? No, because I'd prefer waste the five minutes it would take to write the letter doing stuff even less productive. And also because it seemed like a mighty fucked up thing to do for a kid who already lives in Staten Island.

So I followed my protocol of handling letters from misguided fans and let it collect dust on my desk. Then I got a new job and I was feeling very good about life. As I cleaned up the clutter on my desk, I decided I should return the kid's letter. So I wrote him a quick letter thanking him and encouraging him to enjoy life and not play video games so much, which accompanied a freshly-forged autograph of Dustin Pedroia on the card he sent with his letter.

I felt really good about myself especially because I am 100 percent certain this will spark the butterfly affect which will make this Staten-Island-Dustin-Pedroia fan help every underprivileged Native American in Montana and all will be right in the world.

For the People

In June of 2009 a letter was sent to my office addressed to Scottie Pippen. My company had never worked with Pippen and had zero affiliation with him, so naturally I figured I was the best-suited person to open the letter.

The letter ended up being extremely depressing as it was written in hopes that Scottie Pippen could fix a failing water well for a Native American school on an Indian reservation. Nobody at my work could do anything about it, mainly because I threw it in the corner of my desk before anybody else could see it. I then decided that instead of researching a method to get the letter to Mr. Pippen himself, my time would be better spent bullshitting with my friends on Gmail and reading Brandon Jennings' Twitter. And for that I am going to hell.

The letter sat in the corner of my desk collecting dusk. I would look at it often and be saddened by the poor Indians and their quickly depleting source of fresh water. More troubling was Sue Mueller's complete lack of direction in that she sent a hand-written letter to the completely wrong person.

Now in early January 2010 I have decided the best way to help Ms. Mueller and her gang of thirsty Indians is to post the letter on my blog.

Would a younger version of myself mocked Ms. Mueller for her terrible grammar and shot-in-the-dark attempt to get an African-American basketball player who lives in Chicago to help a bunch of Native Americans in Montana? Maybe.

But the older, wiser version of myself recalls the lessons I learned in college in my Native Americans in Film class (Wait didn't I drink before that class just to make it easier to fall asleep? Maybe.) I am well aware that my own writing is riddled with errors and its sole purpose is to entertain a friend or two who still reads this blog. I've also sent more than my fair share of shot-in-the-dark letters to random people in NYC hoping they might be able to get me a cooler job.

The last thing I should is hate on a woman who desperately cares about these Indians' well-being. I'll allow you to pause for a second to appreciate that gem of a "well" pun I just laid down.

So Scottie Pippen if you're out there enjoying your retirement reading blogs barely related to Paul McPherson, please help the students of St. Labre Indian School. Ms. Mueller if you stumble across this, explain yourself for having a return address in southern Illinois and trying to help a school in Montana. St. Labre Indian School, please explain how you don't have a running well but your website is better than my high school's.

Here is the letter in its entirety (click to enlarge).

Not Tucson Velo

I read TucsonVelo.com 10 times a day despite the fact that the site normally updates only 6 times a week. It remedies my homesickness for all things biking and Tucson.

It also makes me feel like an ass because it's creator, Mike McKisson has a few full time jobs, a wife, a little kid and more responsibilities than I can fathom and his website is still infinitely better and consistent than my joke of a site. Sidenote: Mike's weight loss via bike is a great, great story.

I really respect his blog because it is written with real journalism skills such as proper sourcing, submissions for information, actual analysis and other legit components my site never attempted. Even his "Rider of the week" feature is done very well.

Here is my bike of the week, which I can guarantee you will not be a recurring feature on WPM.

I was walking down the street when I saw a bike standing by itself playing Jadakiss loudly. I really enjoy biking and I really enjoy Jadakiss, so I took a picture of the bike.

Then the owner of the bike walked out of the neighboring bodega. I complimented his bike. He stopped for a second, walked over to his bike, pulled out a half-smoked cigarette from a pouch on his bike, lit it and told me it was his brother's, but he's in jail so the bike is his now.

"Good deal," I said.

"Well it's not a good deal that he's in jail, but it's a great bike," he replied.

I agreed and made some other small talk before he got distracted by a fat-assed woman who passed us by.

My people

One Friday night I thought I was going to an off-Broadway play rehearsal starring Brad Garrett. I’ve never had the desire to see a Broadway show and I hate Everybody Loves Raymond. But all three of my friends were going and I was told the tickets were free. So I went along with it.

The Robert Barone-led play reading ended up being a very elaborate hoax put on by my friends to trick me into attending a Kate Nash concert.

This was extremely awkward for several reasons:

1. I had no idea I would be attending a Kate Nash concert until I entered the concert venue.

2. I prefer to enjoy Kate Nash within the privacy of my Zune’s headphones.

3. In spite of No. 2 I constantly brag about listening to Kate Nash to show how “cool and different” I am in that I enjoy Raekwon, Gucci Mane and the Brit-pop sounds of Kate Nash.

4. None of my friends enjoy Kate Nash. Best illustrated by the quote of the night: “When you said you liked this shit I figured it had good production or something, but it’s just really fucking gay.”

5. Her audience was primarily lesbians, feminists and really fucking weird teenage girls

6. In between sets Kate Nash gave estrogen-charged diatribes. Many of which will be mocked back to me for the rest of my life. I really don’t believe I will live another week on earth without one of my friends texting me, “You’re not afraid of a woman with opinions, are you?”

Throughout the show as the weirdo fans yelled weirdo shit, Sep would try to yell over them, “These are J’s people!”

I just stood there uncomfortably. Happy to hear Kate Nash’s music. Wildly perplexed by her fan base. And still baffled that my nightly entertainment switched from Raymond’s brother to a Brit-pop feminist without me any the wiser.

A week after the Kate Nash concert/fiasco with the shouts of “These are J’s people!” still echoing in my ears I was I was actually surrounded by people I’d consider “my people.”

The feminist teenagers screaming “You rock Kate!” were replaced by hardcore hoops junkies all in attendance for a FreeDarko discussion based around their new book, The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History, moderated by Will Leitch.

After devouring a slice of Artichoke pizza and running to the event, I claimed a seat for myself and my Gmail acquaintance Andrew, who I see every few months yet talk to almost daily via g-chat to discuss the NBA.

I grabbed a book and went up the table of FreeDarko writers where I was pleasantly surprised with Lang Whitaker also being on the discussion panel. Lang contributed a chapter to the book breaking down the Dream Team II, the ‘94 World Championship squad that featured a very young Shaq, Kemp and LJ. The team is infamous for defining American sports douchery as they went out of their way to win every game by at least 60 points while grabbing their crotches after every dunk.

Lang is also my personal hero as I read his “Links” column every day from 7th grade to sophomore year of college until he more or less quit the column. He stills writes for Slam and a bunch of other stuff and he’s the reason I was a journalism major, yada, yada, yada, continued dick sucking, etc, etc.

Since living in the city, I’ve met him a few times and he gave me a “What’s up?” before I said, "What’s up?” to him, so in the eyes of high school Justin Adler I have made it in life.

Maybe I should jump to why I love FreeDarko. I rarely read their blog because their long, intelligent essays are not as digestible as dumbass Ball Don’t Lie or Gothamist posts and also because I am barely literate. However their first book is fucking awesome and unlike anything I have ever seen.

It’s a collection of insane stats, wild philosophies and more insane illustrations that compare NBA fourth quarters before the shot clock in 1952 to the English Countryside and its enclosure-induced agricultural revolution.

To quote people far smarter than myself: “Baseball has its numbers and football has its hard hits, but basketball, more than those sports, has style. And no one has done more to try to capture that than the collection of bloggers known as FreeDarko.”

Something I shamefully never knew was how legit the FreeDarko writers were. The illustrator has worked for the New Yorker, one writer, whose pen name is Dr. Lawyer Indianchief has a Ph.D. In psychology from the University of Chicago, another works for Harper’s, Silverbird 5000, their stat guy is getting his doctorate from Yale and is the “founder, editor, and sole proprietor of the only blog devoted exclusively to the English Revolution of 1640.”

The other dudes live in Seattle and San Francisco, an accomplishment in itself.

The discussion itself was cool. They spent a lot of time discussing the fight chart in their book, which shows every NBA player who has ever been in an on-court fight and who they fought.

They all articulated why they love the game and what makes the Timberwolves awesome.

Throughout the discussion I was flipping through the new book for the first time. I love it because even though I spend way too much time reading wildly unimportant shit about obscure NBA players, the book offers many more retarded facts that I did not know.

Example: Famed draft bust Leon Smith once beat the shit out his then-girlfriend Cappie Pondexter. Or that Kwame Brown did not know how to use a laundry machine or dry cleaning during his rookie season so he bought new clothes and suits.

There is also a list of the top 15 Bill Walton broadcasting quotes that had me laughing out loud. “Yesterday we celebrated Sir Isaac Newton's discovery of gravity. Today Francisco Oberto is defying it... If Eric Piatkowski continues playing at this level, he's going to replace Jerry West on the NBA logo."

Afterward I went up got my book signed and told writer Brown Recluse, Esq. that he does God’s work, normally a line I reserve for the dude who makes me a milkshake when I am high and I don’t know what else to say to express my gratitude.

I talked with Lang for a while about AI and Turkey. Then I did my token small talk with Leitch, Craggs and Rafe, all former Gelf speakers who kinda know me.

Then I kicked with Andrew and watched 15 minutes of League Pass before heading to the official FreeDarko after party at a nearby bar.

Andrew works for Viacom and that day their CEO gave his massive workforce a speech. Then the guys from The Burried Life (which I then learned is a douchey show on MTV about young, rich d-bags completing their bucket list) came to the presentation and starting granting employees’ bucket list wishes. Andrew told me the Viacom intranet required everyone to submit one bucket list wish a few weeks earlier.

The Buried Life cast awarded one employee with the chance to meet and sing with Barbara Streisand. Somebody else got an iPad. Another got a roundtrip flight anywhere in the world. The final person was Andrew.

The Viacom CEO then said, “Andrew you said you wanted 1,000 followers on Twitter, we’ll guess what, we are going to link your Twitter on The Buried Life’s Twitter and we are going to get you 1,000 followers!”

After Andrew told me this, I paused and then said, “You do realize that fucking sucks, right?”

“Of course it fucking sucks. I hate it. I feel like a moron and I’m embarrassed,” Andrew said. I then realized why he sat through the whole FreeDarko talk on his BlackBerry deleting e-mails alerting him of new followers.

I asked him if he Tweets a lot or is a big Twitter fan.

“I tweet my fucking lunch and that’s it,” he said. “Everyone else got crazy gifts worth hundreds of dollars and I got 1,000 fucking Twitter followers.”

Then I left Andrew and his Twitter army and went to the bar. I got my overpriced Bud Light bottle and shot the shit with Lang for a bit. Then at one point I spoke to Lang and Leitch (my internet heroes of high school and college, respectively) at one time which caused my head to slightly explode.

Then I went home ate cookies with milk, watched the Knicks post game show in complete and wondered how I would one day be tricked into see an Adele concert.

Gelf Articles Part 2

Here’s a small collection of Gelf Magazine articles I wrote during the most wherespmac recent hiatus. In an effort to stretch out these posts, and because I myself don’t read anything over 300 words, I’ve broke this collection into two posts. I owe my Gelf editors a huge thank you for forcing me to keep writing and allowing me to interview some awesome people.

Interview with Tommy Craggs
Deadspin.com senior editor

There was a period in my life when Deadspin was my favorite thing in life. I believe this followed my most delusional stage, when I proclaimed HBO’s Entourage to be my favorite thing in life.

Currently “Freaking out about life/my job” is my favorite thing in life* and in this bold, new era, I’m no longer that into Deadspin. I credit this to the site being a shell of its former self and my maturity level raising. While both are partially true, the Gawker network being blocked at my work is probably the biggest factor. Especially when the I consider the garbage blogs I read at work and my involvement in wildly immature e-mail chains on a daily basis.

The Gawker office was of course stupid cool. They have a cool location, cool building, cool roof deck, cool computers, cool shit on their desks and I presume most their employees are cool people. Craggs at least was cool and it fulfilled the 21-year-old version of me’s dream to be in the Deadspin office and watch Craggs post the DUAN.

I think the corresponding article came out pretty well too.

*That’s actually a lie. Planetariums are my current favorite thing in life.


Interview with Seth Wickersham
ESPN The Magazine senior writer

I wrote this article in late February and as I was rereading it I thought it was one of those interviews where I asked the subject a bunch of questions about helping my own career and completely fail to ask questions that could lead to decent article. When I wrote for the long-deceased goazcatsblog.com I once posted a Q&A with Channing Frye that solely consisted of questions on how he grew his blog.

Then I remembered that this article was more than a self-help article as most of the questions came from Wickersham’s friend and coworker, Grant Wahl, a crazy legit writer who would never use “crazy legit” to describe anything. Wahl is known for his long-form features which each involve more research and work than I have ever done in my whole life.

If you are into sports writing and the some of the behind-the-scenes elements, then read the interview. Or read it if you just want a “Where are they now?” with people who once guarded Trajan Langdon.