Volume 2, Issue 85: Box Full of Letters
"I got a lot of your records in a separate stack. Some things that I might like to hear, but I guess I'll give 'em back."
Our annual mailbag newsletter is coming in precisely one month. Send me questions! Ask me any question you want at williamfleitch@yahoo.com. The rule around this here newsletter is that I have to answer whatever you ask. So send ‘em over.
My parents are settling into their new house out here in Winterville, Georgia, and they’re finally unpacking the boxes containing 60-plus years of their compiled lives in Mattoon. They are discovering all sorts of goodies, from old family photos to long-thought-buried report cards to drawings my sister and I made in grade school. I’ve also discovered that my parents had been secretly collecting decades of newspaper clippings both written by and about me and my career, from an article in The New York Times about Deadspin all the way back to a letter to the editor of the Mattoon Journal-Gazette that I wrote about H. Ross Perot in high school. (I did not like him.)
But this might be my favorite discovery.
That is a resume I put together in May 1998, when I lived in Los Angeles and was working a one-year fellowship for U. The National College Magazine. That was the job I had straight out of college. The magazine hired three top student journalists to move out to Santa Monica, California, to live in the same house together on the beach and to make a monthly magazine together. My colleagues were Lynda, from Michigan State, and Marisa, from Florida State. We were total strangers who instantly became roommates and colleagues who were with each other essentially 24 hours a day. I went through a rather dramatic personal upheaval when I first moved out there, and Lynda and Marisa, two uncertain kids stumbling through the dark like the rest of us, got me through it. I’ll always be grateful to them. And they took a mean editors’ photo.
But the problem with a one-year fellowship is that it’s only one year, and when it’s over, you have to go find an actual grownup person job. One of my biggest regrets has always been that I entered the working world the every next week after I graduated from college. I should have traveled, or hiked, or bummed around, or something. I’ve had to pedal as fast as I can since May 1997. Once you’re in the rat race, that’s just your life from then on. I wish I had understood that better then.
So, that resume, my first ever resume, the first one created out of desperation. So much amusement in that resume. First off, the font, which seems to be some odd mix of Comic Sans and Wingdings. I list two awards I won from the Illinois College Press Association, under “Skills” for some reason, as if any potential employer would say, “Whoa, he wrote a film review that finished in second place in some random contest held by an organization I’ve never heard of. Sign this kid up.” My “skills” also included “tireless researcher and worker” and—and this is my favorite—“exhaustingly enthusiastic.” Please hire me: I will physically tire you. And there isn’t much that’s more “1998” than boasting that one is capable of using QuarkXPress.
I remember the specific job I was applying for with that resume. There was an opening for a film critic at the Contra Costa Times, now known as the East Bay Times, a newspaper in Northern California that needed a regular film critic based out of Los Angeles. I drove about 30 miles out of town to interview for the job, an earnest 22-year-old kid wearing a skinny tie and feathered hair, and I was passionate and dedicated and prepared with a detailed case for why that newspaper should take a chance on me. My fellowship would end in two weeks, which meant I wasn’t just losing my job, I was losing my apartment. I was desperate. I had to get that job.
A week later, the paper called. They thought I was a terrific candidate, but they decided to hire from within. I sat alone in a barren room full of boxes and wept. I had no idea what I was going to do.
I ended up moving out of Los Angeles a week later. In that week, I got offered a job with The Sporting News in St. Louis, and my cousin Denny flew out and we drove across the country together. I remember the day we left, May 28, 1998, because we turned on the radio and learned that the actor Phil Hartman had been killed by his wife. The first few hours of the drive were spent trying to process that. It would be several years until I would return. I don’t think I’ve seen Lynda or Marisa since. I just picked up and left.
When you are young, so much happens so quickly, but time elongates. I was only in Los Angeles for one year, but it seems like I was out there a whole lifetime. In the span of two weeks, I lost what I thought was a dream job, found another job halfway across the country, and scattered out of town, like that, like it was nothing. Today, the idea that my life would change so dramatically in two weeks is absolutely terrifying. But then I barely even noticed: I just sort of went with it. That’s the glory of being young and stupid. A one-year fellowship lasts forever; two weeks where you lose one job, gain another and then move 2,000 miles away is just normal, regular business.
There is a oblivious recklessness to youth that is idiotic and irrepressible and that I miss terribly. The less you know, the less you realize how much every second of all this matters. Sometimes all you have are your wits, some boxes full of resumes, your QuarkXPress skills and your exhausting enthusiasm. That’s more than you think, kid.
Here is a numerical breakdown of all the things I wrote this week, in order of what I believe to be their quality. You may disagree. It is your wont.
The Genius of Don Hertzfeldt, Vulture. Don Hertzfeldt is one of my heroes—I wrote a whole newsletter about him here—so that Grierson and I got to interview him is a legitimate career highlight. You can watch It’s Such a Beautiful Day, his masterwork, on Vimeo. I honestly believe it will change your life.
The Ugliness of Sports Efficiency, New York. My view on efficiency in sports has changed so much in the last few years that I feel like a different person entirely.
Mike Petriello and I Each Drafted a Team From the Free Agent Pool, MLB.com. I find it wise to attach myself to smart people so people think I’m smart too because they associate with me.
Matt Damon Movies, Ranked, Vulture. I have a soft spot for Matt Damon. He runs his career the way I would probably run mine, if I were a handsome talented actor. (I probably wouldn’t go to Patriots games with Bill Simmons, though.)
Data Decade: The Best Teams of the Decade, MLB.com. Speaking of grudgingly respecting the Red Sox …
Review: “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” Paste Magazine. It’s a little more prickly and rigorous than you might think.
Gerrit Cole Suitor Power Rankings, MLB.com. The Cardinals should be on this list, but they aren’t.
The Futures Issue, New York. I was honored to be a small part of this.
Woody Harrelson Movies, Ranked and Updated, Vulture. Sorry, this was in last week’s newsletter, but this is the right link.
Debate Club: Best Disney Sci-Fi Movies, SYFY Wire. Tron! TRONNNNNN!
The Thirty: Future MVPs From Each Team, MLB.com. This one was a little closer to last week’s than I meant it to be.
PODCASTS
Grierson & Leitch, “Doctor Sleep,” “Last Christmas” and “Midway.”
Waitin' Since Last Saturday, we reviewed the Missouri game, and previewed the Auburn game.
Seeing Red, no show this week.
GET THIS LUNATIC OUT OF HERE 2020 POWER RANKINGS
I’ll confess, I don’t understand the antipathy to Deval Patrick entering the race. The goal is to get Trump out of there, and another smart, qualified person getting into the race … doesn’t strike me as all that terrible? Either he contributes to the discourse and raises issues that need raising, or he doesn’t. Either he catches on, or everyone ignores him and stick with the candidates we have. We still have a long way to go. What’s the problem again?
That said: Hard to get too excited about a Bain Capital dude.
Also, Mark Sanford dropped out this week. I am not certain anyone noticed.
1. Elizabeth Warren
2. Joe Biden
3. Bernie Sanders
4. Amy Klobuchar
5. Pete Buttigieg
6. Kamala Harris
7. Cory Booker
8. Michael Bennet
9. Steve Bullock
10. Deval Patrick
11. Julian Castro
12. Andrew Yang
13. Tom Steyer
14. William Weld
15. John Delaney
16. Marianne Williamson
17. Tulsi Gabbard
18. Joe Walsh
ONGOING LETTER-WRITING PROJECT!
Man, I got a bunch of these this week. You all were very upset about Deadspin! Good to see. Keep ‘em coming.
Will Leitch
P.O. Box 48
Athens GA 30603
CURRENTLY LISTENING TO
“Oskee-Wow-Wow.” After that Michigan State win, it’s all Illini fight songs, all the time over here.
I have been waiting so long to get to watch an Illini video like that.
Meanwhile, my son is out here murdering mascots.
Have a great weekend, all.
Best,
Will