Sports, music, arts, pop culture writer

Spent a few days in Manny Pacquiao’s camp in Hollywood last week ahead of Saturday’s welterweight title fight against Juan Manuel Marquez. I wrote a feature on what it’s like to spar with the champ for SI.com. Kobe stopped by. Spirits were high.

After Wednesday’s training, the whole entourage traveled with Manny for his Jimmy Kimmel Live! appearance. While killing time in the green room on the pool table, he set up and drained this trick shot on the first try (I swear).

My report for Sports Illustrated on the world’s top racing circuit bringing a Grand Prix to the banks of the Hudson River starting in 2013. (I also wrote off the announcement for SI.com.)

What you might not realize about Tyler, The Creator from the YouTube clips that made him famous is he’s physically big — a rangy 6-foot-2 — and his stage presence is even bigger. That feral magnetism was apparent throughout Wednesday’s Odd Future gig at Terminal 5, the latest stop on the underage hip-hop collective’s 27-date Golf Wang Tour, but never more than when he deferred to the crowd on the first eight bars of breakout hit “Yonkers” before careening to the finish in that distinctive baritone growl. Not even Wu-Tang Clan — the seminal rap supergroup to whom Odd Future is inevitably and unfairly compared — can boast as obviously charismatic a frontman. (The RZA was “the head,” but often dwarfed lyrically by Ghost, Raekwon, Method Man or even Deck.) Clearly, Tyler is the senior among underclassmen. And when he sneaked up to the second-floor balcony and plunged 20 feet into the adoring crowd less than a half-hour into the 75-minute set, he ensured they’d love him forever.

Say what you want about OFWGKTA, the polarizing 10-man company from L.A. hell-bent on making 2011 their personal coming-out party, but they’ve certainly got people talking. Months before Tyler’s MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist, they were commanding the attention of ivory-tower music critics, 4chan lurkers and the hip-hop elite. (Weezy co-signed this week.) As the blogger-driven hype gives way to mainstream recognition, Odd Future remains shrewdly defiant of labels from hipster to horrorcore — and in genuine awe of their popularity. “Yo, this is a lot of fuckin’ people,” Tyler said by way of a salutation, craning his neck to meet the fans whose legs dangled from the second and third balconies, as if to say they’ve come a long way from Webster Hall’s 300-capacity Studio where they made their NYC debut less than a year ago. [Read more →]

My review of Thursday’s Radiohead show at Roseland Ballroom for the Village Voice.

Came home to the Palestra today to write off the Battle for I-95 exhbition with LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul for SI.com.

The two weeks of the U.S. Open always go by too quickly. This year I had a chance to write about the epic semifinal between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer, Sloane Stephens’ first win at a major tournament, promising newcomer Jack Sock and flamboyant veteran Bethanie Mattek-Sands, but there are always so many more stories to tell. Maybe next year.

Djokovic just beat Rafael Nadal for the men’s title and the stairway near the entrance to Ashe Stadium (right outside the media center) is now a wall of Serbian pride.

Enjoyed spending time with Balaram Stack (@hair_piece), who is the first surfer from New York to have a chance to make the pro tour in more than 30 years. The Long Beach, N.Y., native, who turned 20 on Monday, was granted a wild-card entry into this week’s Quiksilver Pro New York, which is the first-ever ASP World Tour event in the Northeast United States. SI.com’s Collin Orcutt (@collin_orcutt) produced the video.

I create my ideal tennis monster for The New Yorker. A fun exercise with humbling company.

My prediction on the Floyd Mayweather-Victor Ortiz fight for HBO.

My obit of the Blue Horizon in this week’s Sports Illustrated.