I wrote the following as the latter half of a post about my first day on the job at New York magazine. The next day I was told by my superior said she had received complaints from editors that I was giving away our story topics on my blog. So I had to take the post down. Anyway here's the part I was allowed to keep up. It's a moot topic because I never did get to do what I fantasize about below, but hey, maybe one day I will.


On Thursday, assuming I get press access, the real show starts. I'll be the only person from New York mag at the 2009 NBA Draft, and I plan not to let this rare opportunity juke me out. I'm reading Hunter S. Thompson's famous piece on the crazed depravity of the Kentucky Derby for inspiration.

Both spectacles have a certain tantalizing aspect to them. As Thompson observed in The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved, the crowd is replete with "thousands of raving, stumbling drunks, getting angrier and angrier as they lose more and more money." No matter how drunk you get you're still going home with empty pockets. And what's the best that can happen for a fan at the NBA Draft? Your team picks a player who might pan out in the NBA, and now you have to wait four months for the season to start. Or you might stand around bitching and moaning because your team picked the wrong guy.

I expect the Draft to be somewhat more sober than Thompson's Kentucky Derby. Even boring, maybe. But somehow or other, the same zest that carries basketball fan(atic)s from across the country to a ceremony which uses no ball or hoop -- there's something in there.