A plane lands at Los Angeles International Airport.
PETER KING: (voiceover): This is Peter King. I’ll be in Los Angeles until Tuesday. If you need to reach me, contact Dominic Bonvissuto at MMQB at Extension 112, or try the Culver City Starbucks. Have a nice day.
INT. NFL NETWORK STUDIOS – DAY
In a crowded office environment, SCOTT HANSON, carrying a stapled stack of papers, strides between a set of cubicles, gamely attempting to read the script for the evening’s highlight package as he walks. The office is filled with the hustle and bustle of a typical newsroom, with phones ringing, interns scrambling, etc. SCOTT moves with a nimble step and the grace of someone who was an athlete in his younger years, and is followed by an oafish caricature of a man, who nearly trips over a set of banker’s boxes as he drones on with a rambling tale of some minor grievance during his last trip to the Boston Garden.
PETER KING: …and then security said they couldn’t throw him out, because he hadn’t actually DONE anything. Can you believe it?
SCOTT HANSON: [with thinly veiled sarcasm] Yeah, that’s really a drag, Peter. Standing up during a power play, who does he think he is? What did he do next, start cheering too loudly?
PETER KING: [oblivious] He did! He was making such a racket I could barely hear my cellphone pinging! Almost missed a text from Russell Wilson!
SCOTT HANSON: [rolling his eyes as he flips a page] Close call.
PETER KING: Did three point five miles on the treadmill when I got here. Less than half an hour!
SCOTT HANSON: [cannot summon the energy to pretend to be impressed] That’s great, Peter. Really great. So why are you here, anyway?
PETER KING: Well, some guy who I haven’t heard from in months, says he’s my “editor” or something, calls me up and tells me there a hot story out here I’ve got to check out. And then a plane ticket showed up on my desk, and my assistant tells me there’s an Uber downstairs waiting – have you tried one of those things? So convenient! – at the curb, so I go downstairs and he says he’s supposed to take me to the airport, turns out the driver went to Colgate with my daughter Mary Beth, and…
SCOTT HANSON: [begins tapping foot impatiently]
PETER KING: …and then [EDITED TO REDUCE WORD COUNT] …and then an Uber picked me up at LAX – have you tried one of these things? So simple! And a great way for those millennial kids to find work without having to worry about health insurance or any of those pesky add-ons – and here I am.
SCOTT HANSON: [pauses for a moment to extract the meaningful content of PETER KING’s ramblings] Oh, is this about that incident in Inglewood?
PETER KING: I understand they’re up to no good? [chuckles to himself]
SCOTT HANSON: Wow, great joke, Peter! Very original!
PETER KING: So I guess the guy is here?
SCOTT HANSON: Yeah, he’s here. Not for long, though.
PETER KING: I guess I should probably talk to him.
SCOTT HANSON: Yeah…I don’t really know if he’s going to want to talk to you, Peter.
PETER KING: I work for NBC, you know.
SCOTT HANSON: Yes, I’m aware of that, Peter. He is too.
PETER KING: So why can’t I see him?
SCOTT HANSON: Peter, I told you, the Discipline Czar came down here last night ready to suspend even before they had a hearing, okay? Kent’s agent shows up, five minutes later the D.Z. comes out of the office looking like he had just served Greg Hardy a cold roast for dinner. They take a statement…and they cut him a deal.
PETER KING: Well did they charge him with anything?
SCOTT HANSON: Yeah. Personal conduct violation. A ten thousand dollar fine.
PETER KING: That’s it? This wasn’t some silly boys-will-be-boys shenanigans, like conspiring to deflate a bunch of footballs during a playoff game or dangling your genitals in some wage slave trainer’s face. This was serious! Like, refusing-to-provide-cordial-and-extensive-responses-to-reporters’-questions-during-a-postgame-press-conference serious.
SCOTT HANSON: [glances up and down the hallway] Listen, I give the D.Z. credit for even getting that much, you understand? This whole thing has turned political. The mayor of Inglewood was here last night, the chief, this morning the governor called. I’m telling you, this guy is protected from up on high by the Prince of Darkness.
PETER KING: Wait, Belichick is involved?
SCOTT HANSON: Sorry, figure of speech. My point is, this guy is untouchable.
PETER KING: Oh, you mean like the way Tom Brady expects defensive players to treat him the instant the football leaves his hand?
SCOTT HANSON: Just like that.
PETER KING: When does he skip town?
SCOTT HANSON: Maybe two hours, tops.
PETER KING: Well, if all those people called then he sounds important. I wanna see him.
SCOTT HANSON: No, Peter.
PETER KING: I gotta see him, Scott.
SCOTT HANSON: [trying to walk away] No, I cannot do this for you.
PETER KING: I came a long way for this. I had to fly COACH!
The two step into SCOTT HANSON’s office.
SCOTT HANSON: Peter, please. Even if I let you talk to him, he won’t talk to you. He doesn’t want to be interviewed.
PETER KING: This won’t be an interview. Just a friendly chat to kill some time.
SCOTT HANSON: He wants to keep a low profile, Peter.
PETER KING: I won’t ask him any probing questions.
SCOTT HANSON: Oh, nobody was worried about that.
PETER KING: It will all be off the record. I’ll only print what he tells me to print! And then if he changes his story later I’ll issue a retraction and say it was my mistake!
SCOTT HANSON: Yes, Peter, I’m well aware of your brand of “journalism”. But he will not go into one of the studios. He wants to stay off camera.
PETER KING: Someplace else, then.
SCOTT HANSON: Where?
PETER KING: [opens his hands, gestures to the office]
SCOTT HANSON: No, no, no, no, no, no. I’m busy! I have shit to do!
PETER KING: If this was a cap casualty, where’s the compensatory pick? If this was collusion, who stands to gain?
SCOTT HANSON: And I’m sure you have a host of wild theories to answer all these questions.
PETER KING: You know darned well what I think.
SCOTT HANSON: That’s crazy! And besides, it doesn’t even matter. The guy’s got total immunity. His story checks out. He doesn’t have the nuggets you’re looking for.
PETER KING: I don’t think he does – not exactly. But there’s a lot more to his story, believe me. Scott, look. I wanna know why thirty owners voted in favor of a 1.86 billion dollar stadium that the subcommittee voted against. I want to know why three professional football teams are trying to move to a city that wouldn’t even support one. And above all…I wanna be sure Jeff Fisher’s career is dead.
SCOTT HANSON: [shakes his head] He’s done. He’ll never coach in this league again.
PETER KING: [turning on the charm] Come on. Two hours, just until his flight takes off.
SCOTT HANSON: They’re all finished! I don’t care how clever, and noble, and handsome, and tough a guy you say this Fisher was, nobody at that stadium site could have come out alive.
PETER KING: I won’t ask him any probing questions.
SCOTT HANSON: Oh, nobody was worried about that.
And that, dear, is why we need a new lap top.
So I come back to work after a forced 4 day sequester with my family – goddamn snow and ice and Maryland acting like it was the apocalypse so why not give the kids off another day – and walk into a bucket of shit at work.
And now, NOW a PK story bubbles up and I read it and enjoy it?
I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, piss my pants, or snarf down a bottle of mescal.
Yes.
http://www.quickmeme.com/img/23/23cfc7150d6265056ee6c0b2e99452ef31233122d7c9eeef5aa6ff595fa6aae8.jpg
I also enjoyed this, however; I still get pissed even thinking about King getting a paycheck.
You know PK makes SI send a hard check every week too. And even though mail doesn’t come until 2:30p, he’s on the phone every Friday at 11:30a asking payroll if they forgot to mail his check.
[7,500 words on how wrong it is that people don’t appreciate putting on a coat and tie to head down to the bank, fill out a deposit slip, then meet with the branch manager and talk baseball while Marge deposits your funds and all the schlumps in the lobby wait for half an hour to address the bank’s fraudulent overdraft fees with some moron teller who buoys between insincere concern and passive aggressive dismal.]
/[Comes back Saturday and cuts in front of senor citizens for the free coffee and doughnuts. Leaves with powdered sugar caked around mouth while stepping on WWII veteran’s foot.]
Nervously eyes black security guard and then wonders if he would actually DO SOMETHING in the event of a crime, or just let it all happen, like Cam did at the end of the Super Bowl.
I was halfway through before I realized he wasn’t complaining about someone talking in the Acela Quiet Car.
That’s how he’s going to establish rapport with whoever he’s meeting in that room in the next episode.
“hey, I’m like you, man, I like my Acela Quiet Car quiet, and my pumpkin ales with sufficient nutmeg.”
I saw Sufficient Nutmeg open for Beck one time.
True story about Beck, unless my sister’s a goddamn liar. Which lets not rule out, but anyway:
She’s doing a semester abroad some years back and is in Paris. Naturally, because she’s studying so hard to get that degree in Art History that she used for two years, this takes place at a nightclub.
She’s with a bunch of her friends and they are somehow sitting next to an obviously and totally stoned Beck. One of her more bitchy/ballsy friends says, “You know, I think your music sucks” and Beck just gets that half-smile, glazed eye look that we all know and love, nods his head and just says “Cool.”
Cool story sis.
Good thing he didn’t take her to meet L.Ron.
This was excellent, and upheld suspension of disbelief until “EDITED TO REDUCE WORD COUNT,” something that would never, EVER, happen in the real world. Sort like seeing a talking duck or a cat that actually likes people.
My cat actually likes people, specifically me, and yes she did just bite me right on the face why do you ask?
PETER KING: You know darned well what I think.
http://i1149.photobucket.com/albums/o595/reeseatomic/homer-simpson-o.gif
Heh heh heh heh.
Ahem. What he *thinks* he thinks, a list in ten parts being made up of 412 sub-headings that meander somewhat arbitraily and meaninglessly until we reach a linguistic singularity.
Damnit, you just made me realize I left a good “you know what I think I think” joke on the table.
Among them:
MAYBE
“….dangling your genitals in some wage slave trainer’s face.”
Ahhhh, the old Roman Helmet.
PEYTON: [holding baseball cap against his chest] Dad, all the guys were making jokes about the trainer’s boobs, and I made one too, and now I feel really bad about it. What should I do?
ARCHIE: [removes pipe] I’ve found that with women, a simple gesture can erase a lot of bad feelings. How about you give her a nice fruit bowl?
PEYTON: [misunderstands grievously]
Now all I can picture is Eli giggling and asking Peyton if he put his straw in her juice box.
I see Archie as having some deep, dark fetishes that would make Genghis Khan blush.