esrosedotblog

It is hard to make yourself look good when you don't know fuck all about what you are doing.

But "looking good" doesn't seem to have bothered George Plimpton much.

He famously made a journalism project by becoming a rookie with the Detroit Lions football team and wrote a book about it. Paper Lion.

It was a great book. I read it almost immediately after it was published. And so did everyone else.

Then he went on to do all sorts of amateur things with hard bitten professionals. Even boxing.

This is all captured nicely in a film made to celebrate his spirit.

Plimpton: Starring George Plimpton as Himself

It is a pretty good film. Plimpton was a privileged rich boy who wasn't very good at sports but as part of the role was expected to play anyway. Participate, goddam it! Which he did.

His sense of humor served him well and this shows in his first and later books.

The film goes a fair way to demonstrate that he was an unusual participant in life. Gregarious. Willing to try things.

I enjoyed it.

It is easy to swallow. Nothing bad happens and, other than his own hurt pride, there is nothing to surmount either. Plimpton has a willing spirit which, when you think about it, is a life skill. He just was able to apply it in a number of spectacular ways. He was also rich enough, just from having money, that he could fool around.

I identified with this dilettantism. I tried a lot of stuff. I had to give a lot of stuff up. But I did the best I could and I got experience. Which they say is "the best teacher". "Them" again. "They" always have these sayings.

I wouldn't want to see this movie again but I enjoyed it a great deal and remember Mr. Plimpton fondly. He died at 71 in 2003. So he was a contemporary. Five years older than me.

Labels: sports, writers