FJM has gone dark for the foreseeable future. Sorry folks. We may post once in a while, but it's pretty much over.
You can still e-mail dak,Ken Tremendous,Junior,Matthew Murbles, or Coach.
Next Up: A.O. Scott and David Denby Discuss the Surging Mets
Wanna fuck your brain up? Watch Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith channel their inner Pauline Kaels and break down The Dark Knight:
I watched it already, so my brain is fucked. And yet the video, paradoxically, gives you so many things to think about.
1. They're even worse at this than they are at talking about sports. This might be the biggest surprise of all, because they're both terrible at talking about sports. You would think you couldn't find another thing in the world for them to be worse at, and yet ESPN has managed to find that one thing.
2. The least surprising thing about the video is Skip Bayless' take -- people love The Dark Knight, so there's no way in hell he could say anything positive about it and show his face in the ex-Cold Pizza Show studio ever again. Watch how quickly he follows "It's a good movie, not a great one" with a very loud "I didn't like it that..." as if to wash away the memory that he even admitted it was good.
3. We now know the only opinion that can bring together Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith: hatred of Maggie [hard "g" sic] Gyllenhaal.
4. I never, ever, ever thought I would hear, in an oral review of The Dark Knight, the words "How about a Sanaa Lathan or a Gabrielle Union?"
5. I actually sort of liked it when Stephen A. talked about how Batman "touched on your soul."
6. The quality of the film criticism here is about on par with IMDb.com message board posters or YouTube commenters. "NOT ENOUGH BATMAN!!!" "JOKER WAS TOO STRONG!!!!" "Maggie Jizz-n-balls is UGGZZZZ!"
7. Skip Bayless' original draft: "Bottom line, the movie isn't that good, Heath Ledger is overrated as the Joker, and I still don't think Heath Ledger is dead. Show me the body or I'm going to assume he's still alive. That's just me. Show me the body. Back to you, Stephen A."
Stephen A. Smith has now capitalized all the words in the Rosa Parks quote. There is no reason all of the words should be capitalized, but at least they are all capitalized.
He has also posted some new things, which is good, even if they are inexplicably in different fonts, and with different line spacings.
And it no longer says "Welcome to The Official Stephen A. Smith My Blog."
So, good work all around.
(Except that it kind of says, "Welcome to the Official Stephen A. Smith Stephen A. Smith Blog." But at this point, we'll take it.)
According to an article linked through Deadspin, the Philly Inquirer officially fired FJM favorite Stephen A. Smith today, which: congratulations. This fact reminds us here at the World-Wide Leader in Sports [Journalism Attacking]™ that Stephen A. Smith has a blog. And further leads to three observations about that blog.
1. At the top it says: "Welcome to the Official Stephen A. Smith Online Blog." "Online Blog" is now the "ATM Machine" of web-based redundancies.
2. Also at the top, it says this, and exactly this:
"I Have Learned Over The Years That When One's Mind Is made up, This Diminishes Fear." -- Rosa Parks
The relevance of this inspirational quote to the chunks of nonsense that come out of Stephen A. Smith's mouth on a daily basis I will leave to the reader to determine. My question -- and no, I don't believe this is petty -- is: why capitalize every word of the quote except "made up?" He even capitalizes "The" and "That" and "This," and for some reason does not capitalize "Made Up." That is all kinds of nuts. That's like a note you find from a crazy old lady after she's found in her apartment being eaten by her cats.
3. Stephen A. has now posted exactly twice in like fifteen days. We post on this blog like 5-10 times a week, and we all have full-time jobs. What is the man doing?
I saw this on Deadspin, so you've already seen it, too, but oh my God is this the dumbest thing I have ever seen. Your Stalin-era commentator is Mr. Stephen A. Smith. The subject is the internet. The text is this:
And when you look at the internet business, what’s dangerous about it is that people who are clearly unqualified get to disseminate their piece to the masses.
I'm going to go ahead and ask Mr. Smith to defend the claim that he is in any way "qualified" to disseminate anything to "the masses."
I respect the journalism industry, and the fact of the matter is ...someone with no training should not be allowed to have any kind of format whatsoever to disseminate to the masses to the level which they can. They are not trained. Not experts.
Amendment 1:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; unless the people trying to write stuff are not trained experts, in which case, fuck 'em.
(Emphasis mine.)
More important are the level of ethics and integrity that comes along with the quote-unquote profession hasn’t been firmly established and entrenched in the minds of those who’ve been given that license.
I am with you here. People should be ethical. Somehow, though, I don't think ethics is really what you are objecting to. I think it's the large amounts of criticism your blowhardness has generated from the internet, which is very good at holding people accountable for their actions.
Therefore, there’s a total disregard, a level of wrecklessness that ends up being a domino effect. And the people who suffer are the common viewers out there and, more importantly, those in the industry who haven’t been fortunate to get a radio or television deal and only rely on the written word.
What about the people who suffer when you phone in your columns via Blackberry? Or suffer when you appear in Chris Rock movies and Soap Operas? (By the way, I don't think people like Stephen A. Smith should be allowed to act in movies or TV shows. He is not trained. He is not an expert.)
And now they’ve been sabotaged. Not because of me. Or like me. But because of the industry or the world has allowed the average joe to resemble a professional without any credentials whatsoever.
Welcome to America, friend. Where average Joes are allowed to say whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as they are not slanderous or put anyone's person in danger.
Why Would You Ask This Man A Question About Baseball?
Of course, no one should listen to sports talk radio. Clinical studies have definitively shown that even brief exposure to ESPN Radio causes memory loss and reduction of cognitive function in lab mice.
So I was just in my car listening to a man whose name I believe is Erik Kuselias (Wikipedia helpfully notes that this man "is a member of Mensa International, the society for people with high IQs"). I have very little to say about Erik, except to plaintively ask him, Why would you ask Stephen A. Smith questions about baseball?
I didn't transcribe any of this, but I believe in about a (loud) five-minute span, Mr. Smith said approximations of the following things: I'm not really a baseball guy
I'm a big Yankees fan
I'd like to see the Yankees get Gagne, or the Mets
(on whether the Red Sox need Jermaine Dye) David Ortiz gave me a hug
The Boston Red Sox KNOW HOW TO WIN
The Red Sox play WillieBall
The Yankees rely on home runs
The Red Sox steal bases, hit and run, and again, KNOW HOW TO WIN
He also once (loudly, confidently) referred to the Boston Red Sox as the Boston Celtics.
Just for the record:
Yankees SB: 80 Red Sox SB: 56
Yankees WillieBall Quotient: 9.36 Red Sox WillieBall Quotient: -3.42
Erik Kuselias, you are a member of Mensa International, the society for people with high IQs. Please, do not ask this man about baseball again.
Some weird stuff Sunday morning on ESPN. Stephen A. Smith was inexplicably like lurking around the studio for both Sportscenter and BBTN. It was so weird that at the end of SC he like didn't even have a chair, and had to awkwardly stand nearby the anchor desk. Then at the end of BBTN Steve Phillips said goodbye on behalf of himself and Krukie, leading Smith to give him a look like "What the hell?" and then eventually Phillips included him. Odd all the way around.
On SC they did that mentally challenged "Who's Now?" thing and it was Vince Young vs. Maria Sharapova. I felt bad for everyone involved, as they tried to figure out if Vince Young's 6 wins as a rookie were more "now" than Sharapova's $20m in endorsements. One of the most pointless arguments I have ever been exposed to.
America's Sweetheart files this report via email:
I have an idea for what to do after "Who's Now?" is over. It's called "what time is it?" A panel of ESPN experts would sit around and argue about what time it was. They would never agree because the time would always be changing. People could vote on-line and the it would all depend on when they voted.
At the end you would have some idea of what time it was.
Finally, on BBTN, Phillips and Kruk debate the "Worst Franchise in Sports." Phillips chooses the Phillies because their next loss will be their 10,000th. This is problematic for several reasons: first, because that says as much about the longevity of the franchise (starting in 1890) as anything else. Second, the team is only 4 games out this year and has a lot of good players. Third, the team has been in the WS as recently as 1993. The Phils aren't close to being the worst franchise in baseball, much less all of pro sports.
Not to be outdone, Kruk chose the New Orleans Saints.
