Volume 5, Issue 58: Stage 5

"At that point, I had to fully commit."

My upcoming novel, Lloyd McNeil’s Last Ride, will be released on May 20. I believe you will like it. I hope you will pre-order it. Send me your pre-order receipt and I’ll send you a book plate and enter you into a contest to, like, hang out with me. Details here.

There is never a good time to get the flu, but in the professional world that I inhabit, you couldn’t pick a worse week to get sick than Super Bowl Week. The best way to describe my current particular niche in the media universe would be “guy who writes about sports for non-sports audiences,” a spot I’m quite comfortable with occupying: Trying to persuade people who might not otherwise care about something that the thing that you care about should be important to them is one of the primary reasons to write anything. In practical terms, this basically means that when a sports story crosses over into “regular” news enough to get editors to notice it, I’m the person they call to explain whatever’s happening to normal people. This is more fun, I think, than writing for a solely sports-focused publication, which is inherently more transactional and information-based: You get a lot more freedom as a writer when you’re providing context than already assuming it.

But it also means that when an event like the Super Bowl comes around—the one annual sports event that gets people who don’t care at all about sports to snap to attention—the assignments come in fast and furious. As you’ll see below, I wrote Super Bowl scene setters for four different non-sports publications this week: New York magazine, The Washington Post, The Hollywood Reporter and NBC News, and that’s pretty typical. It is my honor and, truly, my delight, to have the opportunity to write for all those places, and I take my work seriously: Those editors trust me, and it’s my responsibility to reward their trust in me and give them what they want. But it also means that Super Bowl Week is inevitably one of my busiest weeks of the year. Which makes it a truly miserable time to have the flu.

The Super Bowl is in New Orleans this year, which is a city, considering how much more expensive Super Bowl flights are, that’s close enough to Athens (about eight hours) to justify driving rather than flying. It was all planned out perfectly: Do most of my non-Super Bowl work (MLB stuff, book business, movies catchup) on Monday and Tuesday, then drive to New Orleans on Wednesday to spend two days in the city absorbing the atmosphere, talking to visitors and locals, getting the feel of the place, doing some annual media obligations and writing up my various observations for all the publications kind enough to allow me to make them. It’s a solid plan that has worked for many years now—this will be, amazingly, the 12th Super Bowl I’ve attended in person—and even alloted time for what most people use the Super Bowl for, which is as an opportunity to visit with old friends and colleagues at what is essentially sports media’s one true annual convention.

And then on Monday night, I caught a little cough, and by Tuesday I was waylaid, one of those flus that immediately makes everyone in the house put themselves in quarantine and don their hazmat suits. (I didn’t even know thermometers went to 103.) I rarely get sick, once a year tops, which makes me a grouchy, impossible patient when I do. And you can always count on me, stupidly, to try to power through it. Thus, despite being in bed all day on Tuesday, I went ahead and got up and drove to New Orleans the next day anyway, and not only did I make it, I in fact remember at least 15-20 minutes of the drive. It should be said that this did not accelerate the healing process.

This is all to say that, while I did finish all that work, I will still be at the game tomorrow and even was able to see some people in this beautiful city, I am still far from back to speed: It’s one of those flus that keeps coming up with a new wrinkle to toss at you every day. (I’m not the only one going through this.) I find myself rousing to get work done and then collapsing on the couch of my Airbnb, exhausted, spent and faintly hallucinating. This is just my world now.

I will get over this flu soon, hopefully before I have to get back in that car and drive eight more hours on Monday. But this is something I should get more familiar with, and more accepting of. Because this of course what aging is: Your body slowly, and then suddenly, rebelling against you. Your body does not care that it is Super Bowl week, or that you have things to do. It just wants you to stop being so mean to it. And it will get more and more insistent about it as the years go along. I see it with my parents, who are still extremely active—my mom still runs races nearly every other weekend, and my dad just built, with his own hands, a third shed/storage unit in his backyard, at the age of 75—but have nonetheless ceded to their own slowing down. And they’ve done it the way, I realized this week, I will probably do it as I get older: By watching a lot of television. My mother has watched the entirety of Band of Brothers and Game of Thrones multiple times, and I think my dad can now recite all Ice-T’s dialogue on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit right along with him. When your body needs healing, as it will increasingly require as we age, comfort television is a soothing, reliable balm. It’s not so bad when you need breaks from the world imploding too.

So: This couch. My Airbnb has a Samsung PLAY television on the wall, and upon turning it on, I discovered something I’m embarrassed not to have known about. In December, Samsung launched “Letterman TV,” which is a 24-hour channel that features exclusively old clips from The Late Show with David Letterman. If you have a Samsung PLAY television—something I didn’t know existed until this week and now sort of feel obliged to purchase—you can turn on the “Letterman TV” channel and just watch Letterman clips. Forever.

I have watched a string of surrealist Amy Sedaris appearances, including her hilarious 4 a.m. tour of New York City. I have watched the cast of The Sopranos count down the “Top 10 Things Never Said on The Sopranos.” (“I just whacked myself!”) I have watched Dave talk to kids. There’s nothing better than when Dave talks to kids.

I just turned on the channel right now and there’s a “Stupid Pet Tricks” segment where a woman is trying to get a goldfish to jump out of its bowl, and now there’s another woman and she has a trick where she spits water out of her mouth and her dog catches it. I need to turn the channel off or I will never finish this newsletter. I think I would maybe like to get those Meta VR glasses and just walk around the world with this continuously streaming directly into my brain.

I do not need to wonder what my retirement will someday be, what growing old will feel like. It will be watching old Letterman clips, awash in nostalgia, surrealism and Midwestern wisenheimery. When there will be no energy for anything else, there will be this. This is what getting old, growing weaker, needing more rest, is about: Finding a place of comfort. Finding a place where you, at last, don’t have to move.

The body will break down, the mind will fade, all that we are will eventually grind into dust and return to the earth. Along the way, we take our solace, and our peace, where we can find it. Right now, Nobel Prize winner Robert Mundell is telling You Might Be a Redneck jokes. This is where I may go to heal. Quickly, I hope.

Here is a numerical breakdown of all the things I wrote this week, in order of what I believe to be their quality.

1. Tom Brady Was Doomed to Fail as a Broadcaster, The Hollywood Reporter. Why is Tom Brady a bad broadcaster? It was sort of set up for him.

2. The Scene at the Super Bowl in New Orleans, New York. What is has been like being here this week.

3. Leave Patrick Mahomes Alone!, The Washington Post. I personally think Mahomes hate is more Tom Brady phantom limb stuff.

4. I Filled In on the Cardinals Newsletter This Week, MLB.com. I theorized on the Cardinals Hall of Fame.

5. Will Ferrell Movies, Ranked, Vulture. Updated with You’re Cordially Invited.

6. The Patrick Mahomes Promise, NBC News. On the guy who could win three in a row.

7. MLB Season Preview: Best Must-Watch Players, MLB.com. It’s going to be an Elly de la Cruz, I think.

8. Takeaways From the Pete Alonso Signing, MLB.com. Yeah, he was never going anywhere.

PODCASTS

Grierson & Leitch, we discussed “Companion,” “Presence” and “Perfect Days.”

Morning Lineup, I did Friday’s show.

Seeing Red, back weekly in a couple of weeks.

HOW CAN I HELP?

As established last week, we’re compiling the stories of individual people who are trying to find ways to make the world a little bit better in whatever fashion they can, no matter how small. Send yours to howcanonepersonhelp@gmail.com. Today’s entry comes from Peter Knox, in Brooklyn, New York.

We have to save what we love, now more than ever. And to me, besides my friends and family, that’s books and businesses. Imagine the corner store, your barber, and the last great book you’ve read as your friends and family.

Take the time to look back in your Google Maps history and leave some reviews for the places around you that you love. Look at your Amazon history and actually go post some reviews for books and products you loved. Do a bunch at once, during a break at work, instead of looking at social media.

Let’s bring positivity and support each other online in the review section. Maybe it means that the store or author or creator gets a little boost to keep going, existing, making. Maybe it convinces someone else on the fence to join you in consumeristic support. We vote with our dollars, clicks, and feet - might as well be intentional about it just once.

We have gotten so many of these already. Please send me yours.

LONG STORY YOU SHOULD READ THIS MORNING … OF THE WEEK

“The spineless cowardice of the NCAA's anti-trans swerve,” Rodger Sherman, Read Rodge. This is exactly right.

ONGOING LETTER-WRITING PROJECT!

This is your reminder that if you write me a letter and put it in the mail, I will respond to it with a letter of my own, and send that letter right to you! It really happens! Hundreds of satisfied customers! (Got some more of these out this week, stand by.)

Write me at:

Will Leitch
P.O. Box 48
Athens GA 30603

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO

“Sprinter Brain,” Wild Pink. I saw this band open for MJ Lenderman at the 40 Watt last week, and they were terrific. I liked them so much I bought a hat from the lead singer afterward. I always love it when the opening band is running the merch stand after they play.

Remember to listen to The Official Will Leitch Newsletter Spotify Playlist, featuring every song ever mentioned in this section. Let this drive your listening, not the algorithm!

Also, there is an Official The Time Has Come Spotify Playlist.

I promise I will try to feel better next week.

Have a great weekend, all.

Best,
Will