The Last Game
Here’s something that I’m totally embarrassed by.
Years ago, I lived in Western Massachusetts in a town called Hadley. I had dropped out of school for the second time, was working as a cook in a Greek restaurant, and was trying to figure out what was next for me. One afternoon, I went to a movie with my friend. We saw “Shakespeare In Love,” the 1998 romantic comedy about Shakespeare falling in love with Gwyneth Paltrow.
I wanted to fall in love with Gwyneth Paltrow!
That evening, I locked myself in my room with a typewriter (I had a thing for hateful affectations that has not fully gone away) and a stack of paper. I had decided to write a play. I was going to be a playwright. Like Shakespeare. Reasonable, right?
Amazingly, that’s NOT the humiliating part. The humiliating part is what comes next: I failed at becoming Shakespeare, forgot about playwriting, and went on with my life UNTIL… I saw another romantic comedy called “Julie & Julia,” the 2009 film about a woman who cooks her way through a Julia Child cookbook. And blogs about it. Also: she’s married to Chris Messina.
I wanted to be married to Chris Messina!
That evening, I locked myself in my room with a bottle of artisanal bourbon (told you) and started a blog. I called it “Autonomika, Autonomika!” and on the blog, I recorded one cover every day for about 4 months. That blog is (thankfully) long gone.
But (extreme podcast voice) here’s the thing: A few years after the last Autonomika, Autonomika! post, a friend played me my very first podcast: This American Life.
Classic.
I smiled. I giggled. I felt superior. I breathlessly told everyone I knew about the episode I just heard. But I didn’t go and make my own podcast (yet). Instead, I did something I had never really done before: I learned a lot about the thing that I was suddenly interested in (it helped that I didn’t want to be in love with Ira Glass in anything other than a best friend sort of way).
I consumed everything I could get my hands on:
Radiolab, 99% Invisible, The Memory Palace, Serial, Mystery Show, and on and on.
Meanwhile I started working as a filmmaker and director. I edited film documentaries and wrote scripts for agencies. I told stories on stages. I worked and worked and listened and listened.
Scene on Radio, The Sporkful, Invisibilia, Ear Hustle, Other Men Need Help, Heavyweight.
Brilliant documentary-style storytelling that was immersive and transformative and introduced me to something I had never truly experienced before: the power of sound and audio storytelling to make me feel things I had never felt before.
But then I noticed something: no one was telling stories about sports. I mean, there was and is no shortage of podcasts about sports (there are about 10,000 chat casts featuring Bro #1 talking to Bro #2 about team x) but no one was looking at sports the way I did: as a lens on society — as a way of seeing something about ourselves that we often miss.
And so…I locked myself in my room with a vintage microphone (ugh, seriously?) and made my first episode of “First Time, Long Time,” a podcast about sports for people who may not like sports.
I’d tell stories about summer camp, baseball recreations, bicyclists who traversed continents. I made about 8 episodes, some of my favorite things I’ve ever created, and then I got tired. It’s a lot of work reporting, producing, writing, and editing a podcast all by yourself. So I stopped.
And then quarantine happened. And Josh, co-owner of Faculty and owner of multiple tiny scarves said, “hey what if we did your podcast but like with the help of the producers and makers at Faculty?”
And so… I locked myself in my room with a bottle of mustache wax (this one is a joke… but only this one, sadly) and recorded the very first episode of the new season of my favorite podcast.
This new season is about what we might learn about ourselves and about society from examining the last games played before quarantine. And we’re starting with basketball.
To help us tell the story of one of the craziest 48 minutes in sports history, we spoke to Sydney Myers, founder of Dallas Hoops Cast, and Mike Singer, beat reporter for the Denver Post.
We hope you like it.
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, and RadioPublic.
