We had a chance to catch up with the writer doing super topical NFL character monologues for Grantland. Welcome, fresh new voice! He’s really got his finger on the pulse of the NFL multiverse. His mockery beats per minute will astound you, profound you. So let the genius wash over you, like bukkake on an Asian face. Like the Gulf of Mexico on a Cajun place. Take it away!

Thanks, italicized preface from the editors!

Full disclosure: I’m in it for the lulz. All in. Ever since I stood in front of my kindergarten class and picked my nose to great shrilly/laughy acclaim, I knew it was my raison d’etre (my reason for being, for my non-writer bros) to bring comedy to the masses. From this act, I found purpose. But even early on I knew I was never clever enough to be the cerebral comedian. Worse still, I was not possessed with enough life experience to have interesting “takes” on contentious matters of the day. Or discomfiting admissions about my own troubling experiences. Basically, I don’t have a unique voice or anything significant to say. But I’ll be damned if I can’t make two-dimensional satirical personalities for sports celebrities, the very figures I spent (misspent?) all of my youth worshiping, and make them funny. Watching sports as a kid, I never knew my passion would take me this route, but I discovered quickly that I was good at it. You don’t question gifts, you know? Why would you? They’re gifts. So satire is what I did. It’s what I still do.

I know what you’re thinking: this is such a random thing that nobody does, this making fake literary caricatures of athletes. What can I say? I’m breaking new ground. In some ways, I wish I followed a field where I had established figures to draw inspiration from. But that would also destroy the thrill of the new. Which is intoxicating. Not in the same way that Twisted Tea is, but close.

I’ve been dabbling with writing out humorous monologues of famous players for a while now off-line. But I kept them all to myself. I wondered who would be interested in reading these things even if they were hilarious. Finally, I broke down and showed my best stuff to my uncle Sal. The one where I wrote Derek Jeter as a homo. The one where I wrote Kobe Bryant as a homo. The one where I wrote Peyton Manning as NOT a homo (flipped the script on that one). Sal loved them. Really ate them up. He’d read one and sit rolling for minutes before he’d even talk again. Immediately, he called up his buddy Bill, who works as a professional sportswriter, and said he should check out my stuff. Bill thought it was just as great.

So now I got a paid gig writing for Bill’s website, which is crazy. Never thought I’d get paid for doing this stuff. Bill said I had complete carte blanche (like a blank artist check) to do what I wanted. My first impulse was to go with what has been working. Brett Favre as a homo. People love it when you rip on old man Favre and I knew they’d f*cking lose it if I wrote this inner dialogue in his head where he talks about sucking all the dicks. Then I stopped myself. I have a chance to really do something big here. I can’t allow myself to fall back on what I’d been doing.

I thought about it long and hard (PAUSE!). Who in the NFL is really worthy of satire? Who can I make a memorable character out of? Todd Haley? DeSean Jackson? James Harrison? Those are all good, I guess. I’ll get to them in due time. But one name stuck out to me as I guy that really needed to be spoofed.

Brady Quinn.

Dude is such a douche. How has no one noticed this before? He’s a pretty boy who was hyped all through his college career. And he’s kind of gay already. Plus, he sucks. All the elements are there for maximum spoofage.

For research, I rewatched the entire run of Entourage. Look, I like the show, too, but let’s be honest – these guys are pretty douchey. I can admit it. There’s a lot to go with there. After working at the post for an entire hour, I finally got it. The dumb jock pretty boy Quinn voice. If i may say so, I really nailed it. Check this killer line:

All right I should go. My mom called me an hour ago saying she thought somebody was breaking into her house. I logged onto the Net to look up the police station’s phone number in the phonebook and kinda got sidetracked from there.

AHAHAHAHAHA. He’s so dumb, he doesn’t even know to call 911. I don’t even know how this stuff comes to me.

Bill loved it, of course. Told me if I did one for Tom Brady, he’d fire me, though.

Meanwhile, yesterday I saw Ricky Williams signed with the Ravens. The weed smoking guy! Gold mine. Perfect opportunity to run with that character. Think I’m gonna knock out a post where Ricky’s in The Wire (awesome show, btw) and talks about going down to Hamsterdam to buy weed between practices. Bill joked that Jason Whitlock might sue me. Go ahead, Jason! I’ll just get Maurice Levy to represent me!