My Brain Hurts

Bill Simmons, in his blog dated March 27, wrote, "By the way, I made up the nickname "CHB" for Shaughnessy in 2001 -- happened right after Carl Everett derisively referred to him as the "Curly Haired Boyfriend." It remains one of my top 20 career achievements."

If you don't know the story, basically, Shaughnessy, who has a history of being confrontational toward certain players, was feuding with the volatile Carl Everrett. During an interview with another reporter Everett asked the reporter where his "Curly haired boyfriend" (Shaughnessy) was. Simmons then took Everett's quote and started referring to Shaughnessy as CHB. That is of the top 20 career achievements of Bill Simmons.

I hate to harp on this but here's another quote from Simmons, this time from his blog dated March 29:

"Like it or not, Mayo's style of game resonates with a certain demographic, with his final high school dunk symbolizing the divide between traditional fans and the budding generation that was weaned on Slam Magazine and me-first "superstars" like Stephon Marbury and Vince Carter (neither of whom has played on a 50-win NBA team, by the way). Head over to YouTube and you'll find an unedited clip of the dunk that makes Mayo look like an attention-seeking punk, as well as a heavily edited clip of the same dunk that lionizes it. Is it alarming that a 19-year-old kid throwing himself a halfcourt alley-oop in the final minute of a 40-point win, dunking it, tossing the ball into the stands and getting thrown out of his final high school game, then soaking in a standing ovation could be considered a beautiful moment by some people? Probably not. That's just our culture now."

I might be reading through the lines here, but I tend to think that Simmons falls on the side of OJ Mayo being an "attention-seeking punk." I'm postulating this based mostly on the fact that the title of the blog was, "Down with OJ Mayo." Then Simmons also posted that letter saying that Mayo needs pity becuase the controversial dunk was the highlight of his life. Now Simmons did not say that, but I don't think it's a ridiculous leap to contend that Simmons tacitly agrees.

So to recap, Simmons disparages an 18 year old kid for being attention-seeking, but praises himself for the fact that he contracted a nickname Carl Everret came up with about a Boston sportswriter into three letters. Absolutely nothing attention-seeking about that. Nothing

Loosely borrowing from a McSweeney's idea: If Bill Simmons' writing were a Greek myth it would be Jason and the Argh-onauts