Busy day on Wednesday.
Scooted over to the media center bright and early to do an interview with Jamie Mottram and the guys at AOL Sports Bloggers Live. Actually "scooted" is a horrible term to use there. More like "plodded". Since my hotel (er...hostel) is downtown and the media center is over at South Beach, I've been using the shuttle system to get place to place. The first few days were fine, but Wednesday's shuttle ride was an hour journey. To make things worse, there was a guy on the shuttle whose cell phone ring was Dr. Evil saying "Throw me a frickin' bone".
For some reason, he wasn't answering his calls, just letting it ring. So, imagine, being stuck in traffic for an hour, and just hearing Mike Meyers circa 1998 saying "Throw me a Frickin' Bone" over and over and over again.
Apparently, I was the only one peeved by this. I looked at the other media members on the shuttle, and they all were chuckling. Loving it!
I got to radio row just in time. Jamie's the man. And although I think he's only about 20 years old, he may be one of the only guys out there who has found a way to successfully incorporate the mysterious world of blogging into a mainstream media platform. I've been on his show several times before. One time, I followed Ron Artest. Another, J.E. Skeets. On Wednesday? Chad Johnson. I'll do his show anytime he asks. First, it's good radio. And second, the way I figure it, if I stay in the good graces of Mottram and his listeners, pictures of me getting wasted out on South Beach won't show up on deadspin.com or withleather.com this week. It's the equivalent of being on Perez Hilton's good side. You don't want those white marks drawn all over your face.
Bill Simmons sums up the essence of radio row pretty well in his column from Wednesday. It really is a bizarre scene. Here I am, sitting giving these guys an interview, talking about how excited I am to be invited to the Penthouse Party on Saturday night, and Lennox Lewis is literally sitting, giving an interview a foot away. As I'm doing the interview, I'm having trouble hearing Jamie, because Rich Eisen is speaking loudly right behind me. And of course, throughout the entire day, you can hear Adam Schein's booming pipes.
The interview goes well, and I'm scooped up by a station out in Denver. Andrew Siciliano - the King of Cleveland - sits down next to me, and we give one of those "Ah, we're all friends, why don't you interview both of us at the same time!" interviews that I'm assuming Matthew McConaughey and Lance Armstrong did at some point this summer. Siciliano's a great dude, too. And he swears - though I don't even recall the kick - that Rich Karlis's extra point in '87 versus the Browns was actually no good. He's adamant about this. Love that passion.
When that was over, I stood around like a weirdo waiting for another station to interview me...and none even tried.
Throw me a frickin bone!
Then it was back to my laptop in the media room. In the two minute walk around the convention center, I casually passed and said hello to Matt Hasselbeck, Zach Thomas, Larry Johnson, Tim Brando, and Boomer Esiason.
Yep, just another day at the office.