Between The Lines: ESPN Columnist Blows Jeff Gordon Journalistically
We try not to read ESPN columns too often because it most often ends with someone having to restrain us so before we can bash our iBook against the wall. Don't get us wrong, we love Bill Simmons and all of that, but a recent column about Jeff Gordon's identity crisis represents both the worst in writing and the worst aspects of celebrity culture in racing (since no one hosts dogfights, apparently).
We could excerpt the whole article about how life was so tough for Jeff Gordon, how ordering food in a restaurant alone was a great victory and about all he had to through before he felt worthy of his supermodel wife. But we like you.
The lede is just a gem of unnecessary exposition:
In the cramped single-seater men's restroom at Café Luxembourg in Manhattan, on the wall behind the toilet, hangs a '40s-era black-and-white photograph of three women, naked, leaning on the bar, bare bottoms in all their cheeky glory right out there for the world to see.
In the photo, the ladies in the middle and on the right face forward, away from the camera. One stands left hand on hip, right elbow on the counter. The other holds a cigarette. Both lean easily to the right. Confident. Meanwhile, their counterpart on the left peers nonchalantly over her right shoulder and directly into the lens in a sassy, "What're you lookin' at?" sort of way.
The photo is striking, a testimony to perfect comfort in one's own skin.
It is the restaurant's mantra, it seems, so it is quite appropriate that Jeff Gordon loves the place.
That's right, a bunch of of naked women leaning on a bar are fully representative of Jeff Gordon. And then it goes onto to his courting his supermodel with the kind of skill reserved only for a junior high "Intro to Journalism" class:
She commanded attention, a striking beauty who visually smote him as she walked by and dove directly into the pool.
We don't mean to be too critical because we certainly understand how much work this journalism thing can be, we just hope that the writer really found the space between Jeff Gordon's butt cheeks as comfortable as he lets on in his column. [ESPN]