getting old

i have loved bill simmons ever since discovering him the summer before college, back when he was still the boston sports guy and not the hollywood half-sports-half-entertainment wannabe hack that he is now. what used to make him so fresh and sublime was his status as sportswriter for the fans. most great sports columnists are great because 1) of decades of experience or 2) of their unparalleled access to superstar athletes. back in 2000, simmons had neither--he was a 30-yr old boston native who lived and died by his boston teams. and what made him funny was that you could relate to him, his angst, his highs and lows. he'd witnessed bird and the celtics at their peak and the red sox at their choking worst. that gave him a different kind of credibility, and top of that he was outrageously funny in his observations of the absurdities of gen X culture, a la letterman and jon stewart. my favorite series he wrote was his story about meeting charles barkley at tnt. he sounded completely awestruck, just like any fan would be, and that was completely unlike any other sportswriter.

but now simmons is past his prime. gone are creative gems like the ewing theory and the vengeance scale. what started as hilarious riffs on the karate kid are now full-scale reviews of movies, and it's painfully apparent that he's overstretching his expertise as he tries to make himself into some kind of pop culture guru. plus he's married now with a kid--can he still write about tecmo football with any sort of legitimacy? it's time for him to retire, or at the very least stop trying so hard. he still puts out good stuff every so often, like his recent column on the wide receiver prima donna phenomenon. but he's finally getting old.

and speaking of old people, my negligent senior thesis advisor, professor charles rosenberg, always referred to the history of pernicious anemia as a classic story in the history of medicine. i never really knew what he was talking about. but now that we've learned about pernicious anemia in class, i still don't really know what he's talking about. i do know, however, that pernicious anemia is the most common cause of vitamin b12 deficiency in adults in temperate climates.