He's a blowhard who churns out repetitive mad-lib style "columns." I wouldn't be surprised to find out that he's been dead for three years and his kids are making sure the TMQ Column Generating Machine gets an oil change every 30000 words.
He's a blowhard who churns out repetitive mad-lib style "columns." I wouldn't be surprised to find out that he's been dead for three years and his kids are making sure the TMQ Column Generating Machine gets an oil change every 30000 words. I couldn't agree more. Also, each of his columns, while not exactly error-ridden, typically has some error or misstatement of fact in it, usually so it can support a point he is trying to make or because the guy thinks he can be an intellectual jack-of-all-trades and opine on anything and everything under the sun and just gets it wrong. For instance, from the linked column: In this decade, people said they watched "The Sopranos" for the family-life scenes, when really they were watching for the murders and the strippers. This is a false dichotomy. I believe most critics and most individuals with whom I've spoken who enjoyed the Sopranos watched it for the character development generally. The juxtaposition of the family scenes with the mob scenes point to the internal conflict of the characters, moving the character development forward. Much great drama from the advent of written words to the present has succeeded, in part, by bringing us flawed characters who are also in someways sympathetic. HBO has made a killing from this formula -- from Tony and his crew, to the dirty cops and (sometimes) sympathetic criminals of The Wire, to the polygamists of Big Love. It's not some phony choice between boobs/guns on the one hand and tender family scenes or therapy scenes on the other. He also loves to point out the factual errors in other pieces and the failures of editors to pick up on such error (look at his segment on the New York Times misstatement of the honor conferred on Tony Blair in the linked piece), while his columns are no strangers to factual errors. For instance, he states in this column: "Apropos last week's item mocking the European Union for insisting that Cognac can only come from the Cognac region of France, and advocating other geographical restrictions on food product names, Michael Hahn of Cherry Hill, N.J., points out that the United States is no country to talk since we do this too. Bourbon, he notes, can only come from Kentucky; Jack Daniels is marketed as 'Tennessee whisky.'" This is wrong; bourbon is not a designation of origin but has to do with the corn mash content of the whiskey and certain other regulations (proof when aged, aging length, etc.). Jack Daniels is called Tennessee whisky because it does not meet certain of these regulations, not because it doesn't hail from Kentucky or Bourbon County. Some of his football insights are actually pretty decent, although he needs to retire some of his common themes. For example, if offensive linemen are underappreciated (a common Easterbrook position), why is left tackle the second-highest compensated position in football?
The strippers on The Sopranos were pretty gross, anyways.
I don't always agree with TMQ, but I sure a look forward to reading it every week during the NFL season. And if fat old guys like me can't ogle cheerleaders, then what are they there for? BOP's preseason Super Bowl pick: Chargers vs Saints (that was too easy).
