It was only a matter of time before Axios and Michael Wilbon joined forces. If you’re unfamiliar with the bulletpoint fetishists at Axios, they’re one of those those digital money pits like Puck and Semafor that’s designed to make you, the peasant, feel like you’re rubbing elbows with some of the most connected and vacuous people in what’s left of the news media. If you’re unfamiliar with Wilbon, he’s the co-host of Pardon The Interruption, a preening starfucker of the highest order, and a man who regards everyday sports fans with outright disdain. I’ve hated this man’s guts for decades, and I'm ready to hate Axios for just as long. So you understand how these two entities might have something in common.
And thank god for that, because on Monday Cuneyt Dil of Axios detailed Wilbon’s morning schedule, so that you can behold it with great awe and then feel much worse about your own station in life.
Why it matters: You probably wake up at 7 a.m. every morning like a normal drone and then commute to a job in the very city where you live in. How uninspired. How routine. Maybe you should be more of a disruptor, like Wilbon:
Michael Wilbon lives the anti-routine.
Yeah that’s right. You keep a calendar. Wilbon keeps an anti-calendar. No one has a busier month of UNKNOWN??? on deck than this man.
What he’s saying: “I have less routine than anyone you’re going to talk to.” And he’s not lying. Dil noted that Wilbon can be in three different cities a week, all so that he can go on TV at 5:30 p.m. sharp every weekday—as he has for 22-straight years—and tell you that anyone who has a problem with LeBron James wanting to win another title is just talking a bunch of junk. Can't go more against the grain than that.
What he’s watching: “First thing he does: Turn on the TV, from CNN to ESPN.” WHOA HOT DIGGITY FUCK. You don’t see your average business traveler watching those two networks in their hotel room.
What he’s eating: “Breakfast: Rice Krispie [sic] cereal.” If you’re over the age of 12, the only time you should be eating Rice Krispies or Corn Flakes is when they’re an ingredient in a dessert.
What he’s drinking: Dil wrote that Wilbon abstains from both coffee and “green juice,” the latter of which is not further specified. Presumably, it’s something that millennials drink with their $38 order of avocado toast. “You could not give me money to put some green juice through my throat,” Wilbon told Dil in his best Shams-ese. Because drinking green juice makes you a hippie of some sort, one imagines.
What he’s reading: Wilbon prefers, in his own words, “the actual goddamn newspaper.” Which ones?
He gets USA Today and Washington Post delivered.
You hear that, you loser punk kids? In Mike Wilbon’s house, they read a PHYSICAL copy of USA Today’s purple section. Oh wow, Monday's section said that “Jenna Ortega brought goth glam to the 2023 SAG Awards red carpet.” Read that on your iPod touch and tell me that you really know journalism the way this man does.
Where he’s traveling: Wilbon has lived in Maryland for many, many years now, even though his contempt for this area and the people here is widely known. That’s why he keeps extra homes in both his native Chicago and the epicenter of sophistication that is … Scottsdale, Arizona. How does Wilbon get away from all these green juice drinkers in Maryland to his preferred safe havens?
Washingtonians all have strong feelings about our airports, but Wilbon has pinned down Dulles as the fastest airport to reach at 5 a.m. He can’t stand “people in this area, with their bridge phobias,” the “‘I live in Maryland; I can’t go to Virginia,’ bulls--t — or vice versa.”
Ah yes, funny how crossing over the notoriously congested American Legion Memorial Bridge is less onerous when you’re doing it AT FIVE IN THE FUCKING MORNING. Almost as if you have absolutely no fucking idea what everyday life is like for your local readership.
The other side: Some people, contrary to this reporter, actually think that Wilbon is a “good dude.” As a matter of fact, two prominent people in the media tried to persuade me that ragging on this bald asshole was petty and unfair.
From Diana Moskovitz of Defector.com: “I'd feel bad if I didn't say that, by all accounts, he's a really good guy who always remembers people."
And from Dave McKenna, also from Defector.com: “In defense of Michael Wilbon: The guy has earned every $$$ he ever got. He worked hard as hell at the Wash Post even after he was famous ... Wilbon was nice to McKenna. Plus, Rice Krispies are boss.”
The other other side: Both Dave and Diana are being annoying. Let me hate this fucker as irrationally as I please.
- Stay smart: I’m not being irrational, and if you hate Wilbon neither are you.
The big picture: While it’s true that Wilbon appears to be a very nice person who works hard and travels a considerable amount, it’s also true that I can find him insufferably condescending in public forums. Both stances have their merits. But I’m the one writing this post, which means that I get to say fuck him, and fuck his Rice Krispies.
Between the lines: This actually might not be a story about Wilbon, but about the nature and utility of mornings. As Wilbon told Dil, “My days are never measured by morning. If you’ve really been a sportswriter your whole life, which is what I still consider myself, mornings don’t count. They’re just in the way.” What if mornings really don’t count? What if they really are in the way of superior parts of the day? Why have mornings when we could have anti-mornings instead? This is the real story to watch going forward. Also: Fuck Mike Wilbon.
