The Hottest State

One week and three days ago I got a text message from one Sarah Brown. It read "At Bkln Museum, and am pretty sure am watching J. Safran Foer dance like an idiot." At first I thought Sarah was talking about Sasha Frere Jones, and after I read her message a second time and realized she hadn't typed Sasha Frere Jones, I was too busy trying to remember who Sasha Frere Jones was to try and figure out who J. Safran Foer was.

I saw a photo of Jonathan Safran Foer in a magazine today. He's wearing red pants. He's 28 years old. He's written a novel about September 11 from the perspective of a precocious nine-year-old. This is all I know about Jonathan Safran Foer. I fucking hate this guy.

There's this famous video clip of Allen Iverson blowing by Michael Jordan with a killer crossover. I cried when I saw it. I didn't start liking Tiger Woods until just recently, when he went three years without winning a major. In short, I don't like prodigies. I don't like overnight successes. I don't like usurpers. I can't even fucking bring myself to use the word wunderkind, which is one of those magazine-writer words that real people never use unless they're tremendous assholes who read a lot of magazines.

OK, I don't hate LeBron James, whose rookie stats are comparable to Michael Jordan's, and LeBron was only 19 during his rookie year -- four years younger than MJ. A player who's able to average 20 points, five rebounds and five assists per game in his first year in the NBA, however, comes once in a lifetime. Jonathan Safran Foer writes for a living. Any asshole can write. Ethan Hawk writes.

Or, I could have just said I'm motherfucking jealous.