Oct
28th
2014
The challenge of ponifying John Idzik · 2:40pm Oct 28th, 2014
And the pain of knowing you will never purposefully write that well (or that badly).
Warning: do not seek out the original audio. (If you go for it anyway, it's at your own risk.) The last thing you will hear are the death screams of your brain cells.
It may be worth noting that those pre-question paragraphs? Opening monologue. I think he clocked in at about seventeen minutes. It was like watching a twenty-snail pileup.
On a related note, I just found a general manager for the Las Pegasus Land Swoopers!
Dear Trolls: like this. Thank you.
I can't spot any specific grammatical failures, and yet it looks like one big run on sentence and my eyes are bleeding!!
That's an impressive ramble, to be sure.
My new favorite phrase to describe a frustratingly dull slow-motion disaster.
Fun fact: according to a recent poll, no county in the United States has a majority of Jets fans.
That, or none of them wanted to admit it.
2560506
2560519
What I want to believe happened is that some naive junior executive came up to him just before the press conference started and said "Now, Mr. Idzik, we understand you're a little nervous about public speaking, so here's a list of things general managers typically say during such situations." And before he could provide the warning about how it was use one from Column A, three from Column B, then pause to let the journalists declare pu-pu platter or people die, our Dear John ran off to recite the entire list.
Have you ever had reason to repeat a word multiple times in quick succession? Rehearsal, language studies, working on an accent? After a few go-rounds, something odd begins to happen. The word starts to feel -- funny. The syllables slowly have their meaning slip away, losing definition with each repetition. Go on long enough and it feels like you've been tossing random letter combinations together. Pure babbling. The word no longer has any relationship to language: it's just noise.
It's the same with sports cliches. Major sports figures and politicians have this in common: when they speak, you seldom expect to hear anything real. (Or, with certain people in both professions, anything sane.) The typical dialogue, such as it is, goes "Talking point. Talking point, talking point, talking point. Talking point? Talking! Point!" And we all sigh while recognizing we knew this was coming when we got here. But for the speaker to succeed -- some degree of personality, however faked, must intrude. You can't present the appearance of being nothing but the Talking Points List. You have to let some small part of yourself, or what your publicist wants to pass off as same, out in public. Talking points have a hard enough time surviving on their own.
But that's what happened here. He came out -- and he read off the entire Football Team General Manager Interview cliche list. In order. And you can't do that. Within seconds, it became crystal-clear to all present that he
A. had nothing to say.
B. was going to keep right on saying it.
He let no personality through and gave off the impression that it was because he didn't have one. He just stood there hemorrhaging credibility, hitting cliche after cliche while the words lost meaning with every repetition. And the press started to drool upon realizing the fresh meat in front of them didn't even have fingernails to scratch back with, team gear all over the listening area spontaneously changed colors, players found a Not-The-Jets trade clause materializing in their contracts, channels switched themselves, and a hapless junior executive clapped hands over bleeding ears and screamed "HE'S GONE TO PLAID!"
John Idzik's football career effectively ended yesterday. He'll hang on in his current position for another year or two, I'm sure. But I can't see any other team hiring him. It's one thing to trot out an empty shell for your front man: it's another to have everyone know it.
Wow. Just... wow.
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Or in the short form, 'NBC lineup'.
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From what I was told, the network cameras caught a fan wearing a homemade Jets shirt, which read as follows:
Just
Endure
The
Suffering
It's kind of like being a Cubs fan, only without the perks.
Semantic Satiation. I've had the rare treat of being forced to listen to the occasional long-winded presentation where, by the middle of the talk, the entire English language no longer made any sense to me. Everything out of their mouths was a word salad. Now that takes talent!
2560642
I'm reminded of this comic from two years back.
Nurble nurble nurble team nurble.
I'm intrigued by the Las Pegasus Land Swoopers. It could be a straight Equestrian version of a certain Washington team, or, if by living in Las Pegasus all the team members are Pegasi, it could have fans that are entirely the winged versions of Mrs. Panderaghast. Not sure which version would be funnier.