signers hall

Please welcome our new full-time writer, Jim Adair, whom you might know as Quagmire. Jim used to be the Contributing Editor at Philebrity, which, if you’re not familiar, focuses on art, gossip, media, music, nightlife and politics in Philly. Their tone and update schedule is actually quite similar to ours, so Jim will feel right at home ripping the local media, making fun of things, and being plugged into the online echosphere (not a word) of complete and utter nonsense. He’s also from Delco, which means those jokes will remain OK around here.

I didn’t know how to introduce Jim (hell, I’m not even sure how to deduct his taxes yet), so I asked him to do a short Q & A. I’m in bold, because boss.

 

Tell everyone a little bit about yourself– where you went to school, what you did previously, why you’d want to work full-time for a sports blog whose claim to fame is nearly ruining the Eagles’ season and starting fights with beat writers.

Well, in reverse order, I spent the last three years or so as the Contributing Editor over at Philebrity. I got into that right out of college at Kutztown University, where I did college radio and some newspaper stuff because that was all there was to do. Going back even further I went to high school at the alma-mater of Joey Crawford and Tim Donaghy, Cardinal O’Hara, and before moving to Delco a year before high school I grew up in Port Richmond.

On a side note, when I was a kid I went on two different day trips to Chicago because I won a paper airplane flying contest. One trip was to Wrigley Field to see Phils/Cubs and the other was to the Air and Space Museum where I took a terrible picture with the Bulls’ Championship trophies. I have not thrown a paper airplane since.

Wait, wait… who takes a day trip to Chicago? Did you fly? Because it would be more than a little ironic if you drove to Chicago after winning a contest for designing an airplane.

We flew. It was a dozen winners (I think) and some police officers since it was a PAL (Police Athletic League) event. United Airlines sponsored it, and it was before I developed an irrational fear of flying, so it was pretty great.

Xanax, my friend. Xanax. 

The last time I flew was to Miami a few years ago with my Dad and brother to see the Eagles play the Dolphins. I stayed up all night and asked my Dad to pick up some Dramamine so I’d just get knocked right out on the plane. He got me non-drowsy Dramamine, which I’m pretty sure is nothing, and it was a nightmare.

I didn’t want to hire someone who was, or wanted to become, a sports writer. I wanted someone with a boarder focus and broader goals. What are you bringing to the table?

Well I’ve been a Philly sports fan my whole life, but I never really thought of writing about sports because other things seemed to take my writing focus a lot of the time. My focus in school was “Culture and Media Studies” which meant that I accidentally took all the classes needed for the focus without noticing it, but TV/film/music tended to be what I gravitated towards. With that said, I feel like I bring maybe a slightly different perspective than that of the average sports fan. I’m excited to see what is to come.

Your favorite local teams (and sports). Ranked.

Favorite sports and favorite teams are ordered the same:

Baseball/Phillies
Football/Eagles
Basketball/Sixers
Hockey/Flyers

Oh good, because I’m a hockey expert, to which the commenters can attest. Speaking of… how do you feel about commenters?

Coming from a place where comments weren’t entirely frequent (and being a steady reader of the CB comments section), I’m excited to welcome their feedback. So much of writing and sports fandom is about conversations and disagreements and analysis, and just because I get a byline here doesn’t mean my opinion is necessarily any more valid than those in the comments. I look forward to experiencing the very active comment community, and I look forward to them turning on me, likely by the end of the day.

Local athlete man crush– current and all-time.

As a music dork as well, it’s hard not to like what Connor Barwin does, and I would actively watch a reality show that followed he and Kelce around. But when it comes to all-time, as a suburban white dude, it’s hard to not say Chase Utley.

Favorite broadcaster.

I dig Franzke/L.A. for the overall not-giving-a-shit that is so much of their vibe, but on voice alone it’s Marc Zumoff. Jim Jackson also does a great job covering two sports and knowing his shit. Pretty much everyone else sucks.

Poor Merrill Reese.

I do love Merrill, but the only time I listen to the Eagles on the radio is if I am on my way to watch it on a TV and running late.

What’s wrong with sports media?

Same-ness? It’s probably not great to answer a question about what the media does wrong with a made-up word, but local sports media (as well as national) is just the same thing over and over and over again. They often give the same amount of coverage to major stories as the ones that are mountain-out-of-molehill, and treat them with the same amout of gravitas. People are too afraid or comfortable to upset the status quo and actually do or say something interesting.

Your blogging setup.

Laptop. Headphones. Kitchen table. Endless streams of coffee.

Pants?

Not until my second cup.

Philly papers and cord cutting are my non-sports things I talk about here. What might yours be, pending the expert editorial approval of a guy who posted a picture of a stink bug last week?

I feel I am qualified to answer this as a person who once posted about my brother’s friend’s Jim Gardner tattoo.

I’m strangely obsessed with TV and film stuff that is set here but not filmed here and filmed here but not set here, but no one else seems to care about that. When I’m not thinking about sports and getting sad about the Phillies I’m usually thinking or talking about something pop-culture related, and it tends to be on the nerdier side which might get me jumped in a certain comment section when I’m walking alone at night. Additionally, I’m into weird local history in a way that annoys people.

What do you want your title to be?

We kinda discussed this before, and neither of us seemed to really know what to say, so I think Associate Editor sounds nice. Or just “That Writer Guy With The Gross Beard.” I’d be into getting some business cards printed in the latter case.

I actually have business cards that I printed for myself. I guess I should provide you with your own. In the year or so that I’ve had them, I’ve handed out, maybe, one. I don’t leave the house much. Anyway, I’ll get you some cards. Eventually. 

If you’d like, we can make an exchange where you order up some business cards and I will give you the literally hundreds of old College Radio business cards that I was given, for some reason, and were only used to throw at people.

You really think I order them? I’m way too cheap for that. I bought $12 paper and printed them at home. The printer is now on the fritz and you can guess how long it will be until that’s fixed.

I have a wireless printer here but its technology is advanced beyond my understanding.

Anything else you can think of? 

Nothing that makes me look great, but I’m terrified of heights so much so that I could not stop sweating during a particularly poor Phillies playoff game because I could not stop watching the people walking on the roof at CBP — I assume — setting up the potential game-winning fireworks celebration. I never saw the fireworks.

 

Follow Jim on Twitter (@JimIsLame):