Eric Nusbaum @ericnus - Tumblr Blog

In a decade, Owen Hanson went from playing football and volleyball at USC to being the subject of a major FBI investigation into drug-trafficking, money-laundering, and illegal gambling.

The longest and craziest thing I’ve ever published.

#features #sports

It was not in the long walks through jostling crowds at night that he was less alone, or in the training camp at Allentown, or in the day on the docks at Seattle, or in the empty reek of Washington City hot boyhood summer nights, or in the meal on Market Street, or in the swim off the red rocks at San Diego, or in the bed full of fleas in New Orleans, or in the cold razorwind off the lake, or in the gray faces trembling in the grind of gears in the street under Michigan Avenue, or in the smokers of limited express/rains, or walking across country, or riding up the dry mountain canyons, or the night without a sleepingbag among frozen beartracks in the Yellowstone, or canoeing Sundays on the Quinnipiac; but in his mother's words telling about longago, in his father's telling about when I was a boy, in the kidding stories of uncles, in the lies the kids told at school, the hired man's yarns, the tall tales the doughboys told after taps; it was speech that clung to the ears, the link that tingled in the blood; U. S. A. U. S. A. is the slice of a continent. U. S. A. is a group of holding companies, some aggregations of trade unions, a set of laws bound in calf, a radio network, a chain of moving picture theatres, a column of stockquotations rubbed out and written in by a Western Union boy on a blackboard, a public-library full of old newspapers and dogeared historybooks with protests scrawled on the margins in pencil. U. S. A. is the world's greatest rivervalley fringed with mountains and hills, U. S. A. is a set of bigmouthed officials with too many bankaccounts. U. S. A. is a lot of men buried in their uniforms in Arlington Cemetery. U. S. A. is the letters at the end of an address when you are away from home. But mostly U. S. A. is the speech of the people.

dospassos

Taishan Dong has journeyed from rural China to the precipice of boxing stardom in Los Angeles.

New piece at VICE Sports.

#live from indio

Hey, my short story The Umpire, was included in the Hobart Handbook on baseball, which was just published, and which you should check out. It’s full of awesome writers and awesome art.

flipflopflying

Drawing of an axolotl in the water of Lake Xochimilco, here in the south of Mexico City. Apparently it’s possibly extinct in the wild. Drawing done only using cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.

Bigger here: http://flipflopflyin.com/axolotl/index.html

I went to Vegas for Mayweather-Pacquiao and wrote this about the weirdos and hustlers and dollar signs everywhere. A couple people have said it reminded them of Nathanael West. I hope that’s true.

#excalibur

hazel-motes

The Sufi prophet Khizr Khan Khwaja ca. 1760, India.

ericnus

chill fish

Fray Tormenta's mariachi cd.

Padre Fray Tormenta has inspired films and wrestled all over the world, but he never sought out fame; all he wanted was to support the orphans of his parish.

I got to tell the story of Fray Tormenta, a real life lucha libre folk hero.

#longform #longreads #lucha libre #vice

I am standing in a gaggle of table tennis players in a dark bar in Grand Rapids, Mich., on the Fourth of July. Before us, another table tennis player named Donald Hayes is playing Millipede. Donald and the others are all competing in the U.S. Open, the biggest ping-pong tournament in America, but right now that is of little importance. Donald has held the world record for high score in Millipede, Pac-Man, Centipede, and a handful of other games.

I wrote this before I started at VICE. I hope you take some time to read it.

#sports #table tennis #ping-pong #longreads

Fiction Alert: A short story I wrote called Crossing the Delaware appeared in this, the Spring 2014 issue of Bluestem Magazine. The story features shady politics, Peruvian chicken, the demise of Shea Stadium, and the 7 train rolling through Queens. Go buy it. Go read it.

#literature #fiction

Autograph

#Baseball

The Angels have always been in the Dodgers' shadow, even when they have a better team.

I wrote about the Angels and Dodgers, their respective roles in the greater metropolis, the history of baseball in LA, and places with names that start with Rancho and Laguna .

#sports #dodgers #angels #los angeles #baseball

1. The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage. 2. He must never go back on his word, or a trust confided in him. 3. He must always tell the truth. 4. He must be gentle with children, the elderly, and animals. 5. He must not advocate or possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas. 6. He must help people in distress. 7. He must be a good worker. 8. He must keep himself clean in thought, speech, action, and personal habits. 9. He must respect women, parents, and his nation's laws. 10. The Cowboy is a patriot.

I was reading about Gene Autry for a story on the L.A. Angels of Anaheim, and came across his code for cowboy behavior in film and television -- or Ten Cowboy Commandments. I'm especially fond of numbers one and five.

#gene autry #cowboy

Autographed Floyd Patterson boxing glove on display at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, MI. From one champion to another!

#floydpatterson #president #sports

His manifesto for Little Leaguers is long on moralizing, short on fun.

theparisreview

“You stumble along, and often the truffle dog doesn’t get to eat the truffle … he just picks it up.”

John Dos Passos (via theparisreview)

Dos, still the best, even if he did turn into a cranky old fascist.

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