Birthdays and Editors and Summer Sixteen: While We’re Waiting…

Well hello there, WFNYers. Fancy meeting you here. If we look a little different this morning its because we’re a year older than when we left you. What, isn’t that how birthdays work? I for one can’t wait for my 35th birthday to roll through in March and have everyone ask me how it “feels” to be 35 despite it being just a few days since they last glanced at this weathered frame. Nevertheless, on January 30, WFNY turned eight years old—an eternity when you apply the Internet Years Exchange Rate—without much in the way of any fanfare. We celebrated our fifth birthday in relative style, but haven’t said much since then. Much like humans, you reach a point where you just celebrate milestones, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how much growth and evolvement we’ve encountered over the last three years. We’ve lost a few authors to bigger and better things but have added some spectacular, creative and ambitious voices that have exemplified exactly what we set out to provide this city eight years ago.

The landscape is perpetually changing yet WFNY has been one constant which I truly feel has been here for our readers every single day since the site’s inception. Doing anything for eight years is insane—isn’t the average tenure of an employee in today’s work environment like three years? I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve published on these pages and look forward to what the future has in store. [Makes wish, blows out candles.]

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While we celebrate our eighth birthday, David Granger, the Editor-in-Chief of Esquire Magazine surprisingly stepped down after 19 years at said position. While most casual readers give little care toward the men and women behind the scenes, this news is incredibly important not only because of Esquire Magazine’s importance in the space, but for what it may mean for the future. As an avid reader of Esquire, I’m unfamiliar with any issue that didn’t have Granger’s opening note.

Sure, I have gone back and read pieces like Tom Junod’s incredible story on Mr. Rogers and Gay Talese’s “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” but who hasn’t? These are about as required readings as Lord of the Flies and The Grapes of Wrath. Point is, Granger’s Esquire is all I’ve known, and Granger’s Esquire is the literary magazine that you can read front to back and not thing anything of it. It’s in-depth, it’s important, it’s the best finger-on-pulse coverage of modern culture out there today and changing that in any capacity is a frightening undertaking.

And judging by the thoughts shared by his writers, I’m not alone.

Like Chad Millman at ESPN The Magazine or Jim Nelson at GQ, Editors-in-Chief can come across as the man or woman who simply rubber stamps the work put in by a crew of individuals below them. After all, writers are lucky if readers remember their stories let alone their byline. An editor is that much further removed from the purview. But the masthead is the masthead for a reason. It’s the vision, the long-term planning, the willingness and ability to tell one of his or her writers that an idea they felt was magnificent was anything but.

Ask any writer about the key to improving at the craft, and they’ll all say reading—reading quality work by quality writers. Granger, as Editor-in-Chief, read it all. He will leave Esquire in March and will have a host of awards on his resume. Not only have his stories taken home a slew of awards, but he was named AdWeek’s Editor of the Year in 2010. Jay Fielden, 13 years younger than Granger, will step in and attempt to take over a magazine with declining print numbers in an environment that’s not very conducive to growing such. Perhaps Granger got out at the right time, but if you push aside the business aspect of such a decision, it’s undoubtedly the end of an era.

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Leave those source-free pieces in January and officially usher in the month of #ActualSportswriting:

“Why sports fans risk life and limb for a rolled up t-shirt” by L. Jon Wertheim and Sam Sommers (NY Times): “We have zero interest in taking part in your telephone survey, but promise us free movie passes and we’ll stay on the line for half an hour answering tedious questions about how many times a week we use soap powder. We opt for ‘free’ credit cards with exorbitant interest rates over cards with a modest annual fee but much lower interest, even though we know we’re going to carry a balance each month. And how many of us go to Trader Joe’s or Costco with no interest in buying, say, jalapeño kale chips but gladly stand in line and have a bite when we can try them free?”¹

“Kristaps Porzingas is silencing doubters and taking over New York” by Lee Jenkins (Sports Illustrated): “Kristaps Porzingis sits in stages, folding his 7’3″ frame into a leather chair, collapsing his legs under a coffee table, squeezing his elbows inside an arm rest. It is an act of contortion almost as acrobatic as a lefthanded floater in a crowded lane. The NBA is populated by outsized humans, but there is something especially supernatural about the length of Porzingis, which can’t simply be characterized by wingspan measurements at predraft workouts.”²

“Fear of a Black Quarterback” by Tommy Craggs (Slate): “It would be hard to argue that the Tennessee mom captured the national mood. She came off more like a holdout in a culture war long since ended, an old soldier bustling out of a cave with fixed bayonet, blinking in a new day’s sun. So many people rushed to Newton’s defense that it became clear the whole second-act-of-Footloose argument over ecstatic celebration in sports had already been won, and that the scowling tight-asses had assumed the minority position.”³

“For the love of the game” by Zack Meisel (Cleveland.com): “The games often serve as a reprieve from the off-the-field struggles. Minor league teams often drive through the night to a small town for their next series. Players receive paltry salaries and still must come up with rent. When their per diem fails to cover their meals on the road, they must dip into their earnings. It’s commonplace for a player to hold a second or third job over the winter, though that carves into his training time.”⁴

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And finally…Late Saturday night, on Apple Music’s OVO Sound radio channel, Drake unveiled his newest track titled “Summer Sixteen,” which, as you may have guessed, alludes to an upcoming album to be released later this year. The release immediately made OVO one of the top trends worldwide as folks dissected every bar. Another 40 and Boi-1da track, “Summer Sixteen” is quintessential Drake wherein the beats change midway through, almost giving listeners two separate experiences. The multi-platinum Canadian artist takes a few jabs at Internet punching bag Meek Mill while name-dropping two of his favorite rappers in Jay Z and Kanye West.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-q8qg8C40w

While some folks loathe Kanye West due to his lack of self-awareness, there’s an intriguing level of such with Drake as he raps about not being all “gang gang gang gang” yet still making it—big—in a genre that once listed such as a prerequisite for credibility. View From The 6 is slated to drop this April, giving WAVES plenty of time to breathe as we roll through what’s shaping to be one hell of a successful culture-driving year for hip-hop, and this is before we hear a note of either album.

Have a quality Monday, you guys.

1. This piece is teriffic as it dives deep into one of sports’ greatest two mysteries. The other, you ask? Well, it’s why fans will dance at length to get on the Jumbotron and then immediately abandon said dance for frantic double-arm waving the second their image is displayed. Y’all crazy. [↩]
2. In most instances, I would be perturbed by a New York guy getting attention over, say, Karl-Anthony Towns, but having watched Porzingas live, the kid is the real deal. Factor in all of the anecdotal items—his use of Skype and Facetime for instance—and Kristaps is simply worthy of all the tales being told. It’s not just because he’s in the big city. [↩]
3. While there have been plenty of hot takes penned on Newton, the Tim Keown piece from last month, and this one from Tommy Craggs epitomize the absurdities spouted from the blowhards. The kicker in this piece is perfect, but I’ll let you read it for yourself. [↩]
4. An excellently written preview of an impending series on the life of minor league baseball players. Cleveland fans could do themselves a favor and read nearly everything Meisel writes as he’s been one of the most ambitious scribes in the city. [↩]