ON THE DL
AJ Daulerio on Michael Jackson, Steve McNair, Whitlock, Hero Worship & Why Everyone Hates Him
AJ Daulerio joins us for the first time in a while. And he’s not happy with how big my britches have become.
It turns out, my commenting privileges have been de-starred at Deadspin. What does that mean? Well, I’m not really sure, but I do know it’s making a very vocal subset of Deadspin readers quite upset.
We start with a little bloggy business. Gawker is a huge blog organization and recently the highest ups at Gawker decided to restructure their commenting sections, eliminating people who weren’t adding enough to the overall conversation on the site(s). Some commenters were banned. Others were ‘de-starred’ to lessen their impact on a story (starred commenters are moved to the front of the line). The whole thing is pretty ridiculous, but in a tight community like the Deadspin comments section, from which several blogs have spawned, people took this as an affront to their civil rights.
And now everyone hates Daulerio.

We all agree that the last 20 years of Jackson’s life was some what of a circus, so his funeral should be no different. That said, we do wonder how many of the people who performed on stage at Staples Center, and how many of those hired guns on TV talking about the social and cultural boundaries Jackson crossed, are hitching their wagons to his star to get in front of the entire world one last time. Had his father not tried to plug a new business venture during one of the first interviews, we might not have such a jaundiced opinion. But how much of that exhibition yesterday was tribute and how much of it was spectacle?


The notion of hero worship is an interesting concept and we transfer that concept to talk about Steve McNair. Because a man can sing and dance, or throw a football, does that make him a hero? Especially when news comes out that in their private lives, neither Jackson nor McNair were saints. Everyone has baggage, but is it fair to cast that baggage aside the moment someone dies and deify them?

And now the MSM has hopped on that bandwagon as well.


And maybe he’s right. But he does take McNair to task for not being with his kids enough on the same day it was reported that McNair spent the day fishing with two of his kids. Whitlock doesn’t judge McNair for stepping out on his wife. And he doesn’t judge that his ‘Becky’ was only 20 years old, claiming that “every man I know has a little Captain in him. We see a pretty young thang working her way through nursing or cosmetology school and it's just in our nature to pay a cellphone bill, a car note or get her nails done. It's what we do.”
Well, it’s not what we do, but good luck with that. Regardless of your thoughts on Captaining, it seems Whitlock’s only judgment was about the way he treated his kids.
If one man could write two things on the same day that are diametrically opposed, Whitlock managed to do it, penning a column about Serena Williams and how she could have been the greatest transcendent athlete of all time if she just stopped eating so much.

Yes. He wrote that too. I’ve never seen a stuffed onion and I’m certain I never want to see anything oozing out of a pumpkin. But how is Whitlock able to write this kind of stuff? We discuss how Whitlock is constantly able to get himself read. In a sea of thousands of voices, Whitlock is one of the only writers who can pull something like this off, and somehow come out the other side unscathed. It’s uncanny.


We make a hard left turn to talk about Roger Goodell. He and Jim Mora Jr, the new coach of the Seattle Seahawks, are starting a buddy comedy filmed at the base of Mount Rainier. That has to be why the duo are training to climb the mountain -- for the hilarity that will undoubtedly ensue.
Could you imagine Gary Bettman climbing a mountain? Or David Stern and Bud Selig base jumping? And we discuss if the trek up Mount Rainier is successful for Goodell, should he use the exercise as a team building experience for wayward NFLers. Should Plaxico Burress and Michael Vick be sent to climb a mountain, tethered together by ropes and pulleys? In all seriousness, it might be a fantastic idea.

We thank Daulerio for coming back on the show. Oh, and never ask him if he has anything else. I learned that lesson today.
Thanks for hanging with us another day.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009


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Buy the new On the DL merchandise for 2009! While supplies last (which means forever).
Listen to the last time Daulerio was on the show. More Whitlock talk!