Bill Simmons with Chuck Klosterman (Links directly to an mp3 file). Klosterman is in Germany. It’s an hour-long, so I don’t expect anyone to listen to the entire thing that hasn’t already. There’s a fairly interesting discussion near the end (starting around 40:51) when Simmons asks Klosterman about Kobe Bryant. For quicker absorption, I transcribed that part the best I could:
Klosterman: It’s kind of paradoxical, but he’s the most successful tragic figure I could think of. He’s won all these championships, he’s won the MVP, he’s really been the best player in the NBA for the last five years. But he seems like a kind of confused person who sort of struggles with his own identity and I don’t think he gets any satisfaction from the success that he has. And there’s something about somebody who’s so good at something, you know, not just among the best, but the best at something.
Right now, on the face of the planet, he’s probably the best basketball player there is. And he’s not any more satisfied with his life than not just an average player, but a guy who installs air conditioners, or a guy who sells Fords, or a woman who works as a receptionist at a law office in Omaha. He just sort of epitomizes that happiness has nothing to do with the context of your life.
Simmons: See, I knew you’d come up with an interesting take. My theory on Kobe is that he’s just had a weird life. He lived in Italy with his dad as a professional basketball star there, and then he comes back, he’s in a Philadelphia high school, then he’s in the NBA. And that’s who became, is this guy who really had no foundation for anything, so like you said, I think really a lot of the times he’s playing the part in stuff. Like, you know, he does the Ashton Martin commercial not because it was his idea but because it sounded like something a cool person would do.
Klosterman: He would so love to be Gilbert Areas in a way. He would so love the idea that he could do something that people would perceive as likable. And I think he just can’t understand why. Even when he looks back at his legal problems, or he looks back at the way people perceive Shaq compared to him, I think it’s just confounding to him because his perspective is so skewed.
Speaking of Kobe commercials, here’s one with snakes and the Jackass crew.