Is this the kind of shit you’re going to get from me now that I’m officially unemployed? I don’t know. Maybe! I had the notes app thought dump early makings of a sort of depressing shut-up-carrie piece about, uh, the downside of building your life around one singular goal (surprise surprise it is not writing a book but actually working in corporate media lol) but instead of subjecting you to that brand of brain rot, I will be subjecting you to this brand of brain rot instead. I’m not dumping this during a big press day—yay Walz :’) the video of him signing free lunch into law makes me cry every time I see it—because I hope it will be buried if it’s weird but I’m not not.
Are you watching the Olympics? Stupid question, of course you are. I am, though mostly in the sense that I am falling asleep to them every night, and in each evening’s fleeting moment of consciousness, I think wistfully “I wish Bob Costas was there……remember when he had pink eye????” and then I giggle myself to sleep. I am not the only one longing for the Costas Coverage of yore:
With Bob—in blogging we are on a first name basis but I know if I actually met him IRL I have so much respect that I would absolutely call him Mr. Costas, the way I still refer to former high school teachers-turned-friends and acquaintances of my parents by their formal names even though they all urge me to be on a first name basis now that I’m a fellow adult and stop making it weird—top of mind lately, I began to think… Where is the online thirst for one of journalism’s greatest guys????? Watching Ken Burns’ Baseball for the umpteenth time last evening, I took to Instagram Stories to speak my truth:
I was met, I am sorry to say, with mostly confusion. Responses like “Carrie.” “Most of the time I can wrap my head around ‘Carrie’s Boys’ but this one is a headscratcher.” “What” and “girl what are you talking about” littered my inbox. One friend referred to his appearance as “giving Stephen Collins, Christian Pedo” and now I can’t unsee that and I’m so mad. I’m sure if I had sent any one of these terribly drafted tweets there would have been more:
The unexpected blowback left me shaken. Shaken, I say!!!!! What are YOU guys talking about!? Why are we not all on the same page about how smashable Bob Costas is!!?? Imagine if a man was a cross between Greg Kinnear (looks) and Charles Grodin (personality) who fangirls over Mary Tyler Moore and try to tell me that’s not a Made in A Lab for Carrie Man.
Look at him. Look at his face. Ignore that Stephen Collins comment above and go with me here.
Listen to his introductory soundbite in Ken Burns’ Baseball! If I heard this on a first date…it would be all over.
His opening speech about how special the Olympics are? Tears are in my eyes. Sports are so beautiful. Competition is healthy and a good thing. The human spirit and maybe even god can be found in training. Okay, I’m just spitting things out here, I don’t know what I’m saying; it all seems more eloquent coming from him.
He can also be so dryly savage! Are you kidding me?
Presented without comment:
The further down my crush rabbit hole I’ve fallen, the more perplexed I am that there is not a substantial amount of online thirst for this man. Mr. Costas is not only good looking and good at making sports seem like the most poetic and interesting, unifying, and important thing in the world. He’s been like “yo football is dangerous and the NFL is evil” (I am always saying this also and it makes me the black sheep at many a family gathering.) He thinks gun control is important! He likes women’s sports! Dick Cavett once called him “my illegitimate son” because his late night talk show was so good (so many episodes are on YouTube and I can confirm), and, honestly, we gotta talk at some point about how Dick Cavett was hot, too, though not today.
I’m choosing to ignore the part where he’s friends with Bill Mahar and said he doesn’t like “wokeism” because I think he, like many boomer liberals I know and love, would realize he’s actually much closer to progressive issues than centrist ones (and that, sorry, but we were so centrist for so long that we have to be progressive now in order to fix the fucking mess that made and/or, idk, survive climate change!) if I just sat down and had a long conversation with him. This may be the one and only occasion in which I become an “I can fix him” girl. But look, nobody’s perfect. Not even Bob Costas.
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