I’m kidding.

About guest-bloggering, not about doing myself.

Not The Cavalier.

I don’t know anything about your argument with Cav, but boy are you smart!!!!

Point 1: DJM and Scoop did the same thing.
David Foster Wallace’s book – which regardless of what you think of all this is still an astonishingly good book – is a psycho-sexual exploration of the modern American male psyche. I’m making jokes about LeBron using “thou” instead of “you” and Chris Bosh looking like a dinosaur. Content-wise, the two are unrelated. As unrelated as apples and hexagonal storms on planet surfaces. As Jules Winfield said (if I may be allowed to quote (although I’m guessing that’s not allowed)): “It ain’t even the same {expletive deleted} sport.”

The Cavalier wrote first-person accounts as the basketball. Scoop Jackson wrote first-person accounts as the basketball. One of these things is exactly like the other.

Point 2: DJM is weak to have used this formatting device, because somebody else invented it.
Now I’ll grant you that you may be right. It seems part of a bigger discussion about the ownership of rhetorical devices, but we can do it in the abstract here. It may be weak to have used Mr. Wallace’s formatting device. However, there are only a few ways to write fictional interviews, right? They are these:

1) Write a fictional interview in which questions and answers are seen.
Many people do this. Many people that I read do this. This is now so common that it is no longer necessary to provide credit, although this was almost certainly at one point not true. Somebody invented this at one point, right?

2) Write a fictional interview in which neither questions nor answers are seen.
This is ludicrous, although maybe kind of cool and post-modern.

3) Write a fictional interview in which only answers are seen.
As far as I know, only one person ever has done this. It was, in my opinion, a very good idea, and one which could provide humorous results when applied to basketball players. Meaning that I could a) use this technique and not credit the person that I believe was responsible for it, which I probably would have gotten away with, or b) credit the person that I believe was responsible for it.

4) Don’t write fictional interviews.
Well, if I let y’all choose, certainly #4 would be your choice, yes? Since it was painfully unfunny worst. post. ever. and whatnot. #2 is basically ludicrous. #1 is over-saturated and probably pretty tired. #3 appears to have a niche, and one which is not encroaching on D.F. Wallace because his book has NOTHING TO DO WITH ANY OF THIS. None of these actually sound like David Foster Wallace. It sounds nothing like him. Nothing. Nothing at all. They sound nothing alike. However, as far as I am aware, he was the first guy to write interviews where the questions aren’t seen. But it is not an impression, at all. I understand that The Cavalier – and some of you – believe that this still doesn’t make it OK. But this is sort of like saying that the Orange Roundie is theft because e.g. Scooter, the Talking Baseball exists on the Fox Network. Talking sports equipment is not new, right? There are famous pieces of talking sports equipment out there. But nobody considers this theft. Including me. But by the logic applied here, shouldn’t YaySports have refrained from creating Orange Roundie because there was already a talking baseball? Doesn’t that make the Orange Roundie character “creatively bankrupt”? I don’t think it does, but I do think that’s the logical end of the argument.

Point 3: The Cavalier’s apology

Thank you, I accept. Because that’s what the dispute was about. Who’s the better writer. You’ve really hit the nail on the head, there.

And by the way, since when does Dan Shanoff own the Worst/Best.Blank.Blank format? Shit, that’s been around for years, Dan was way ahead of us on that one. Douche nozzle.

I mean, honestly, other than giving credit to DFW, what you did was exactly what Scoop did–you took someone else’s idea and used it to fill a space where you were supposed to be using your own ideas. That’s weak.