💪Finkel's Fast Five 133 - August 14, 2020

Welcome to Finkel's Fast Five #133. Thanks for reading and subscribing!
ONE
HOOPS - You all remember Jason Williams, A.K.A., White Chocolate, right? He was the late 90s/early 2000s Sacramento Kings point guard who was part Pistol Pete and part And 1's Hot Sauce.

He recently sat down with Omar Raja at House of Highlights to go over his career via a video highlight reel and it was awesome. The dude was such a showman and the fact that he pulled off so many trick passes in actual NBA games holds up really well. We also get some crowd-pleasing bonus material from his high school days where he and NFL Hall of Famer Randy Moss ran wild on the court. You're really gonna like this.

TWO

PODCASTS - I think my favorite type of podcast is when two creators whose work I admire sit down for an extended period of time to talk about the work they admire about each other. Could be musicians, entertainers, athletes even... In this case, I'm referring to two authors: Bret Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk.

Ellis is the man behind American Psycho and Less Than Zero and the recent White and Palahniuk wrote Fight Club and Choke and several other books mostly hardcore fans of his read. Ellis had Palahniuk as a guest on his pod and opened with a story about the first time he read the galley of Fight Club...and I was hooked. This is a long listen and it's definitely author-nerdy and not for everyone, but I enjoyed the hell out of it. Listen here.

THREE

FITNESS - Covid has wreaked havoc on people's workout routines. Gyms were closed. Then they opened. Then they closed again. Then you tried to buy your own equipment but weights were sold out. Or you had no room for a proper set-up. It's been a mess for a lot of people. But one guy I've been pals with on Twitter took matters into his own hands and...

BUILT HIS OWN OUTDOOR GYM FROM SCRATCH. Yeah, I used caps because that's how awesome this thing is. It's one of the manliest, meathheadiest things I've seen in a while and lucky for us, he put the whole process into a photo diary, which you can see here.

FOUR

BOOKS - You've read Green Eggs & Ham. I've read Green Eggs & Ham. You've likely read it hundreds of times, like me. But did you know it was written on a $50 bet by Dr. Seuss? And did you know that the book is the result of an ongoing challenge/game that Seuss had with his publisher and a list of approved words he could use?

This is, without question, one of the coolest backstories I've ever read about a book. Adult. Fiction. Non-Fiction. Whatever. Dr. Seuss was a genius and this thread is a really fun read and shows the lengths to which he went to make reading actually enjoyable and entertaining for kids (and adults). If you read one thing today, read this.

FIVE

My personal favorite Dr. Seuss quote:

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.."

- Dr. Seuss

Check out my most popular tweet this week about Ken Griffey Jr. and his genius at wearing hats backwards here.

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