Here is my (glancing) 9/11 piece on Hakeem Olajuwon and moderate Islam, which I wrote for Tablet. We spent humid afternoons in our driveways imitating Hakeem the Dream’s signature move. Called the Dream Shake, the maneuver was famous for freezing...
Yao's Legacy
by Adam | Sunday 10 July 2011
With rumors of Yao Ming's retirement from the NBA, I am saddened by how little play the news has been getting. The oft-injured big man was not only a dominant force on the court, but instrumental in bringing HUNDREDS...
DFW
by Adam | Thursday 7 April 2011
Since much hay is being made about the release of David Foster Wallace's posthumous novel, I thought I might share with you a leetle piece of his work from a few years back. Fair warning: It's about tennis. And the...
Super Bowl Round-Up
by Adam | Wednesday 9 February 2011
The pundits at TFR have now chosen two straight AFC teams to win the Super Bowl and have been crushed by costly 4th-quarter bungles (last year was Peyton Manning's ill-thrown pick-six, this year it was Rashard Mendenhall's fumble). Listen, it's...
Super Bowl Prediction
by Adam | Sunday 6 February 2011
Allow me to dash off this quick Super Bowl prediction before I gouge myself on wings and soda pop. The Packers are a dynamic team with a young, steady (should I add morally well-regarded?) quarterback who has announced himself as...
Yao Ming
by Adam | Monday 20 December 2010
The Sad (capital S) career tumble of the injury-prone monolith Yao Ming (who may never play pro-basketball again) is something no one in Houston wants to talk about (and perhaps, something no one in his native China is allowed to...
Andre Johnson: A Man
by Adam | Friday 3 December 2010
I was fortunate enough to witness last week's Texans/Titans game in person and wrote this little piece about the non-suspension of Houston Texans receiver Andre Johnson following his beat down of Titans provocateur Cortland Finnegan. When helmets come off and...
Dream Shake
by Adam | Wednesday 15 September 2010
Editor's Note: I stumbled upon some older (circa 2006) navel-gazing and thought it deserved its moment. For the classic Dream Shake, see 0:03 & 0:40 of the below video. The one above is a hybrid. At that young age...
Omri at the Garden
by Adam | Tuesday 16 February 2010
Author's Note: I generally don't write straight journalism (or gay journalism for that matter), but I initially did this piece for the Israeli paper Haaretz. The subject was double booked, so what you're about to read is what no one...
TFR: Super Bowl Pick
by Adam | Sunday 7 February 2010
As some (actually none) of you have requested...following my brilliant prognostication viz. the Jets demise in the AFC Championship Game, I am offering the following predictions for Super Bowl XLIV: Prediction #1: I am going to eat too many buffalo...
Colts 30. Jets 17.
by Adam | Sunday 24 January 2010
Not trying to gloat or nothin' but...the Colts scored 24 unanswered points and won. Haiti won $100 from Justin and $54 from an anonymous reader (whom I've never met) who graciously pledged to send money to a charity that does...
Eating Crow?
by Adam | Sunday 24 January 2010
As I write this, the New York Jets are up 17-6 over the Indianapolis Colts. Do I fear? No. It's the second quarter. And I've been watching Peyton Manning destroy my semi-beloved Houston Texans two times a year for literally...
A $100 Bet for Haiti
by Adam | Saturday 23 January 2010
This Sunday: the culmination of a bet with my friend Justin over the AFC Championship Game between the Jets and Colts. Justin has bet me $100 that the Jets are going to beat the Colts. I have told him that...
Yao in the Tunnel
by Adam | Tuesday 5 May 2009
Before I alienate anyone whose appreciation for basketball falls somewhere along the line of my interests in professional fishing or a woman's right to choose, I want to give the following videos some context. In the first playoff game between...
Happy Thanksgiving from TFR
by Adam | Thursday 27 November 2008
1931 The New York Daily News offered a retrospective (if it can be called that) of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons. I liked it. The display of art as time is something that places us all in a continuum...although...
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After a Rain Delay You Can Meet Your Heroes
by Adam | Friday 15 August 2008
At the tail end of a weekend of music and debauchery, I made my pilgrimage to Chicago's Wrigley Field. For baseball dilettantes, Wrigley Field, as sports venues go, probably tops the list of the most iconic ballparks in the...
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"Fuck Father's Day"
by Adam | Monday 16 June 2008
I take an advanced boxing class at the gym on Sunday mornings when I have the wherewithal (read: gastrointestinal equilibrium) to make it there for the abuse. Picture fifteen gay men, four trophy wives, and me taking marching orders from...
Colon Cancer Challenge
by Adam | Friday 14 March 2008
What compels a man to run 15K (9.3 miles) in the 32-degree starkness of a March Sunday morning? Is it the search for self? The spirit of competition? Love for his colon and others (and their colons too)? Likely...
Eye of the Heidegger
by Adam | Wednesday 28 November 2007
6.2 miles in 57:41.9 Despite brisk autumnal weather, an early dying iPod, and the sufferings of a 6 A.M. wake-up call, I finished said Turkey Trot in under an hour. This placed me somewhere between old age pensioners, nascently...
Landscape of Manhood
by Adam | Thursday 22 November 2007
Me. Pre-Turkey Trot. 6:45 A.M. My mother (who fancies technology as adeptly as the U.S. Department of Defense) actually took this picture in landscape format. This, of course, is perfect because I am myself an entire landscape of manhood,...
Turkey Trot.
by Adam | Monday 5 November 2007
I don't even know what a "Turkey Trot" is, I am leery of things that are one species/synonym away from "Goose Step", but I will be embarking on a 10K journey in Houston, Texas on Thanksgiving morning in the...
Review of Sorts: Radiohead (In Rainbows)
by Adam | Thursday 1 November 2007
You must be in a very strange place when you listen to a new Radiohead new album. I mean a very strange place in the physical sense, a locality which is not common to you, not a foreign emotional...
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The Dream Game
by Adam | Sunday 1 July 2007
Baseball is not what it used to be. While dive bars and stadium stands are still (mostly) full of fans, stalking their teams with the requisite fanaticism, there is a lump in the collective throat of the baseball electorate...
More Evidence of Greatness
by Adam | Tuesday 3 April 2007
I am the Joakim Noah of NCAA Bracket Selectin' As if I needed any more empirical proof to show my ubiquitous mastery over all things contained within the ambit of humanity, I entered an NCAA Tournament Pool and not...
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Always in Jeopardy
by Adam | Wednesday 21 March 2007
My apologies for my perforce lack of updates; I would cite excuses like I’ve been out of town, hearing back from grad schools, and having my soul bled out by the corporate system, but yeah, okay, so there are...
The Chariot Castle
by Adam | Monday 22 January 2007
For a newcomer, the rook appears like the least formidable piece on the back row; there is the misconception that the order of pieces from center [king through queen through bishop through knight through rook and forward to pawn]...
The Jesus of Scrabble
by Adam | Tuesday 9 January 2007
I was forwarded the following article by a good friend of mine and I had forgotten about it until I was playing online scrabble at my new job and the person I was in battle with drew reference to...