Self-Mythology 101

Vol. 3, Issue 43

In high school, I got nabbed by the cops twice for underage drinking. The first time was down the shore after prom. A friend of mine “loaned” us his parents’ house for the after-party, even though he wasn’t there nor was anyone except, of course, the dozen or so 17-year-olds who had cases of Bush and a bottle of Malibu. A neighbor called the owners who then called the house to see if anyone was there. The landline rang and rang and rang and no one touched the phone. Until I did. I just picked it up like an idiot. So when the seashore cops came with their flashlights and their barking cop voices to break up the party everyone blamed me.

Five of us got arrested and put into a holding cell while our parents were contacted. My parents were out that evening and were unreachable until about 11 p.m. I was the last one to leave, just sitting there, passing the time as the on-duty officers came in and out to periodically check in on me and give me updates on the status of my release. When they finally got a hold of my dad, he wasn’t as mad as I thought he’d be.

Because this was Sea Isle City, N.J. on a weekend in late April, this “bust” was pretty much the only major police activity. So one of the cops offered to drop me off at another house where some of my friends went but, unfortunately, there was another after-prom party there, one with older kids I didn’t know very well. “Ya know, there might be some more drinking, uh…” The officer promised he’d just drop me off and move on. He knocked at the door and announced himself as a police officer and one drunk kid opened the door anyway and instinctively slammed it right back into our faces. The clamor of teenagers scattering ensued and, once again, I’d unwittingly broken up a party and it appeared was about to get a whole new group of kids arrested. But the cop kept his promise. He found someone at the party who was 18 and left me in their custody. “Get home safe, A.J.”

The next morning the older kid drove me home in his Jeep and he kept the top off even though it was about 50 degrees. I held on to the roll bar nice and tight, but, damn, life seemed different.

One Monday morning back at school, the story had taken off. I could sense the new energy around me as I walked through the hallway. In trigonometry class two of the more popular kids who sat in front of me throughout the whole year and never said a word to me turned around. “So what happened?” The version I shared came full of embellishments and much more bravery. I was invigorated by the way they studied me as I told the story and answered their questions. “Cool,” they said.

This was the attention I craved my whole entire life. I wanted to be interesting to people and to have a good story about me constantly floating in the air. My newly discovered formula: Do cool and interesting things or align yourself with cool and interesting people. That’s how I would be happy. The chase began. 

*****

In October of 2010, I began to have some increased public attention because I was the head of Deadspin and had garnered a reputation for breaking big stories with disreputable, asshole tactics, especially the Brett Favre sexual harassment story which had won me international attention even though I burned the source in order to get it.

Still: my methods were hugely appealing for outlets who wanted to do pieces about “controversial styles of journalism” as a way to hedge their way into reporting about Brett Favre’s penis. One time The Today Show sent a crew over way-too-early on a Saturday morning while I was very stoned but I didn’t turn them away because I wanted to tell anyone who asked that I did The Today Show after a bong hit.

Mark Cuban briefly became my internet friend, but not a real friend. I have no idea what his motivation was and I hate to speculate as to why he found me amusing but he did, particularly during that time when my persona had seemingly ballooned into a personal brand overnight. He texted me in the afternoon of October 19, 2010, to see if I wanted to join him for the Yankees vs. Texas Rangers ALCS game that night. I had plans but I broke them, just as you're’ supposed to do. Sorry to whomever I blew off. 

When I got picked up in a black SUV it didn’t feel that different from any other normal black SUV, except in this SUV you get in the backseat and Mark Cuban is there. He was nonchalantly scanning his phone. “Busy time for you these days” he said. I wanted to respond “Yes, sir!” like he was some high-ranking officer and I was a lowly private but I stayed cool. 

When we got to the stadium he said these tickets belonged to executives of a TV company he owned. “I’ve never used them, so I don’t know how good they are.” We walked up to a guy who looked like he worked at the stadium and Mark Cuban handed him the tickets to show us where to go. The man looked up and laughed at Mark Cuban and pointed to this other entrance. “Walk down those steps, Mr. Cuban” he said. 

We walked down and through another level of security into this opulent underground lounge area. Leonardo DiCaprio was hanging out at a table all by himself with his Yankee hat pulled down but then he looked up from his phone to look at Mark Cuban. DiCaprio’s eyes were extremely blue, bluer than I’d ever seen and I wondered if he wore special contacts when he acted in movies to dim them. Just stunning. I gave him a head nod like seeing him was a totally normal occurrence that happened all the time but he didn’t nod back.

The seats were on the field right behind the Yankees dugout, close enough to hear the bats rattle in the on-deck circle.“These seats are pretty crappy!” I said, joking, obviously, and Mark Cuban laughed in this ha ha ha good one way. I couldn’t tell if it was a genuine laugh or a reflexive response he deployed during uncomfortable social situations. Didn’t matter.

This was such a disorienting section to watch a playoff baseball game, so many distractions. Martha Stewart was a few seats to the right of us. The cast of SNL (starring Emma Stone that week!) sat on the other side near the visitors dugout but was in our row. Giuliani stood front and center behind home plate like a damn goblin, but he was still royalty at that point. Keith Olbermann was three seats to the left and very loud. Right behind us was Lorraine Bracco. This wasn’t a section of baseball fans more like a Madame Tussauds exhibit.

Throughout the game, we were sent over shots of tequila. Mark Cuban was a guest star on Entourage that season, playing himself as a potential investor in Turtle’s startup tequila company. I think six shots were sent over to us. “This happens all the time now since the Entourage thing.” He said he wasn’t drinking that night. “All yours he said.” Hooray for me.

The drunker I got the more questions I asked him. “Like, your life is so weird, man, how do you handle it?” I wasn’t sure he grasped what I was talking about. “I’m used to it. Nothing really fazes me at this point,” he said. He stood up to stretch his legs and then the cameraman zoomed in on him and there he was, big as a building, on the giant HDTV screen at Yankee Stadium. The boos were loud but playful. He wore a blue fleece pullover with the Jumpman logo on it and he waved and hammed it up. I took another shot of tequila.

“See!” I said, excited that my point had been proven instantaneously. “That’s crazy!” Ha ha ha good one. He took out his phone to read all the texts from people who saw him at the game. “Well, this is kind of cool,” he said. It was a text from Michael Jordan: “Nice shirt!” was the message.

Around the fifth inning, Mark Cuban had to leave – he promised he’d make an appearance at the Dancing With the Stars reunion dinner – but he said I could stay and watch the game, enjoy the extra tequila shots. After he left it was clear how out of place I was: drunk and sloppy and awkward. I started to sway. I needed a cigarette. I got up to leave the next inning. I looked at Lorraine Bracco on the way out and gave her a nod – one that conveyed both my respect and also “‘’Until next time!” She also snubbed me. She actually looked offended that I’d nodded.

The video footage I took on my phone from that night was very short and extremely shaky, like I’d been hit over the head by a caveman club while filming. I maybe shot half of Mark Cuban’s chin. Some of Derek Jeter’s elbow. “Next time,” I thought.

I never got close to those Yankee seats ever again. 

*****

In December 2011 a couple of friends of mine had tickets to the Giants and Packers game at MetLife Stadium. Just like the Yankees game, these were absurdly excellent seats, practically on the field. Before that, we’d pre-gamed very hard. I had so much cocaine in me before the 1 p.m. kickoff time that my ears were clogged.

Another internet friend I’d made was Joe Buck, a Fox Sports broadcaster who was doing the game that week. I texted him from the field level just to say hey. He was excited I was there. “Great seats!” he said. Then he invited me up to the booth at halftime. “Just text and I’ll have security bring you up.”

Yes! I typed back. Probably more like YESSSSSShhh. I showed my friends the text. “That’s so cool!” they said. I could not believe how easy this was – I was now a cool enough person to be invited up to the booth during a nationally televised tackle football game. Well, I could believe it. This must be the place.

About the start of the second quarter, my phone died. I could no longer communicate with Joe Buck, but I was ganked up and determined to get in there. I brought one of my friends along with me. “We’re doing it!” I said.

Now, imagine you are a security guard paid $20 an hour on Sunday for the sole purpose of making sure only Authorized Personnel pass through and then having to come face-to-face with someone like me, all goony-eyed and stinky, looking like a drunk man who’d just been fished out of a creek. 

Do you have a pass?

No, sir, I do not have a pass. Joe Buck told me to text him at halftime and he’d come down and get me. 

Well, text him. 

Well, sir, you see my phone died… 

This annoying exchange went on for much longer than it should have and my friend I’d strong-armed to go with me began to slowly back up a safe distance from me before a SWAT team rappelled down from the rafters. 

One last desperate attempt: 

HERE, sir. HERE is my driver’s license. Bring my license up to Joe Buck!

I positively bullied this very patient security guard into taking my license up the broadcast booth. I still don’t know why he said yes, but he did, and off he went. “Wait here,” he said. It felt like we waited a long time, but it was probably more like 15 minutes, but 15 minutes on cocaine time feels like 26 hours.

“He’s not coming back,” my friend said. But then he did. The security guard handed me my license. “Alright, you’re in. Take that elevator up.” 

Halftime had ended, though, so we were in the booth in the middle of the third quarter. I was shocked at how small it was, not exactly a closet but also not the NASA control center I’d always figured it was. There's not a lot of room for very many people up there.

At the first commercial break, Joe Buck came over and gave me a big hug then rushed back to his standing position next to his co-host, former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman. Joe Buck was locked into the game but one of the Fox Sports producers knew what was up with me. “Water?” he offered, right eyebrow cocked.

YESSSSSSssh.

I could not stand still, excitement and cocaine pulsating through me. I imagined this is what bank robbers felt like racing across rickety bridges in the getaway car as old-timey police sirens reeeeeerneeed. I slugged the water and stood there vibrating like I’d been struck by lightning.“These guys are pros, huh!” My friend, who was overwhelmed and uncomfortable at how absurd this outcome was. “I’m gonna go back down to our seats now…”  he said. I crushed the plastic water bottle in my hand and grabbed another one out of the ice-filled bucket to the left of me. “Okay, cool. See ya down there!” 

Next commercial break Joe tried to bring me over to the booth. “Come say hi to Troy!” If I’d gotten that close to Troy Aikman I was afraid I’d fall out of the broadcast booth window and kill a row of Giants fans. I waved him off.

I had to get out of there, too, but first, I turned back to the producer: 

“Can I use your bathroom?” 

The bathroom wasn’t much bigger than one you’d find on your standard commercial airlines plane so I had trouble maneuvering especially in my lumpy black peacoat. The bathroom lighting was strange, too, like an evil fluorescence you’d find in a James Wan movie so while I pissed I expected a hand to shoot out of the toilet and pull me into whatever steaming underworld lay beneath the stadium. I washed my hands but then I had a terrible idea: Would there ever be an opportunity for me to take a key bump in the bathroom of a Fox NFL broadcast booth during a football game again?

I dug into my front pocket for the bag and my keys. I went to open it but my hands were slick from nerves, plus the bag was sticky so when I tore at it, it snapped and most of the coke landed on that damn black peacoat. I buried my face in most of the coat to try to snort as much off of it as I could which, although most of it had dusted the bathroom sink and floor, was still a substantial amount of cocaine to inhale. 

I caught myself in the mirror and in that spooky light I saw the day’s excess all over my face, exhaustion creeping in. Guilt, perhaps. Always guilt. I heard Joe Buck broadcasting the game as he always did (“Rodgers completes the pass to Jennings...”) with Troy Aikman commentating (“This is what Aaron Rodgers does so well…”) and the dull echo of the crowd noise. It sounded as if the game was on a TV in another faraway room but, no, the live game with the real-life broadcasters was just a few feet away. And here I was, inside this bathroom, one in which I’d just covered with cocaine.

I looked at my face again, the mirror now a crystal ball of too many drugs and empty heartedness and loserness staring back at me. I slammed open the bathroom door and said my goodbyes and hurried out back to my seats, but I forgot where they were and I had lost my ticket stub. 

The Packers won 38-35 on a last-second field goal by Mason Crosby. I didn’t see a minute of the game.

*****

I was so convinced that feeling like my life was cool or my job was cool or the proximity to fame would bring me that elusive at ease with myself. Never came. Most of the joy for me was not in any of these experiences, but in the retelling of them. Sucks. As I grow older and soberer I wince at this logic, but I understand it better. And one of the best parts of sobriety is that I no longer care about coolness as much, so I don’t tell these stories that much anymore. Only to you.