Bill Simmons blows minds

As the man himself might say, there are your everyday bad decisions, there are the moves Isiah has made with the Knicks, and then there's this:

ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons—who, to be clear, I read regularly and think is extremely talented and one of the funnier writers out there today, working in any medium—wrote a several thousand word running diary of yesterday afternoon's "Mike and the Maddog" show, a sports talk program on New York's WFAN.

Granted, the show is now simulcast on TV over the YES Network, which is available nationally via Direct TV (I think). And starting a few weeks ago, you can also listen to a web cast (you can find it here). Even so, what percentage of people outside of the New York area remotely give a shit? And even among New Yorkers like me, who tune in to "Mike and the Maddog" occasionally—did we need thousands of words to make fun of (and strangely, mostly flatter) this show?

And flatter Simmons does. Here's a couple of glaring excerpts:

• "...it's my favorite radio show ever. As I have mentioned many times in this space, I despise pretty much all forms of sports radio at this point, and it's mainly because Mike and the Dog are so entertaining."

• "I could listen to Mike read just about anything random -- Star Jones' autobiography, Michael Bolton lyrics, the Emergency Broadcast System's test message, an erectile dysfunction ad, you name it -- and be thoroughly entertained."

• "Dog struggles to say the word "Phillies." He's not strong with his L's and his R's. That's part of his charm."

• "Nobody has better jingles than this show. My favorite is the prolonged one at the start of the hour that goes, 'They're going at it as hard as they can! Mike and the Mad Dog, on the FAN. Nothing can get by 'em, turn it on and try 'em... Mike and the Mad Dog! W-F-A-N!!!!!'"

(Personally, I've always thought the fact that their jingle includes the line "They're going at it as hard as they can" is hilarious in a junior-high-school kind of way, and I'm absolutely stunned that Simmons bothered to mention the jingle and passed up on an opportunity to point that out.)

It's incredible that ESPN.com would run this, that Simmons would want to write this in the first place, and that he would write it and somehow it would wind up being even less interesting than anyone could have predicted. I mean, aside from the joke about John Flaherty ("Tonight at 11 on Yankeeography ... John Flaherty beats the odds to become the most mediocre backup catcher in Yankee history!"), there's very little here that's funny—even if you actually listen to the regional sports talk show he's writing about.

Unintentional comedy scale, anyone?