Join the Norman Einsteins!

In case you haven't heard, the Norman Einsteins are coming.

I know you're asking, "But what's a 'Norman Einstein,' Cian?"

Good question.

The Norman Einsteins is an online magazine. Published the first weekday of every month, the Norman Einsteins brings together talented contributors from all over the web for a Molotov cocktail of sports, culture, and ingenuity that you can't get anywhere else all in one place.

The Norman Einsteins spotlights in-depth and creative pieces, highly expressive and original work found solely in our magazine. Our first issue drops next Monday, June 1st.

Sure, you can update your Fuhbaw bookmark to http://normaneinsteins.com... but allow me a recommendation: join our list.

The list is a monthly email update alerting you when the latest issue of the Norman Einsteins is online. That's it - one email a month.

By now you're asking yourself, "But how do I get on this list?"

Well, that's simple. Just email:

join@normaneinsteins.com

It's that easy. You'll now receive an automatic update when the latest issue of the Norman Einsteins is published. All you have to do is sit back and enjoy.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to check out Fuhbaw, my labor of love for last two years. I urge you to check out the Norman Einsteins and join our list. It's should be a lot of fun.

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

This photo doesn't necessarily have anything to do with football besides the incidental fact that I'm wearing a Packers shirt and am very happy about it... which is usually how I feel when I wear that Packers shirt: unduly pleased. I wanted to post a photo of myself with more directly related football content but when I'm out on the scene I spend so much time behind the camera I rarely cross over to the other side of the lens. So this one will have to do.

Anyway, this photo was taken by my friend Stephanie, an excellent photographer, and I like it very much. I guess I just wanted to give you a shot of myself in that unlikely case you pass me on the street, maybe now you'll stop and say "hi" or perhaps more likely just do a double take and wonder if you recognize me from somewhere.

Later today, I'll post here one last time, a final imploration to join the Norman Einsteins mailing list, which will go something like this:

*Just email thelist-join@normaneinsteins.com then reply to the confirmation email.*

The Norman Einsteins is a new project bringing together talent from around the web to dish on sports and culture. I'm really excited to be getting this new project off the ground. Our first issue will be published online June 1st at normaneinsteins.com.

But right now I wanted to thank everyone who took the time to check out this blog in its lifespan.

June 27, 2007 to May 26, 2009. Exactly 700 days. Nearly two years. Thousands of hours of writing and research. Countless words crossed out, ideas scratched, lessons learned, and every so often the occasional completed piece advanced just how I hoped it would be.

This page will remain up but not updated after today. I have no intentions of pulling Fuhbaw down. Hasselbeck will remain forever in agony atop the banner. I still hope that people will stumble upon the Practice Theory or my best columns in the sidebar.

There were many stories that never happened, countless hours of leg work that never amounted to a single published word. An Ivy League game between the Columbia Lions and the Princeton Tigers comes to mind. An aborted interview attempt with Dick LeBeau after I ran into tons of interference from the Steelers.

Let me share with you one of these stories that never happened.

This year, I went to cover the NFL Draft on the scene. I attended the year before and thought I had the whole thing down pat. I expected to roll up to Radio City near daybreak and find a serpentine line of cracked-out football fans stretching blocks through the leviathans of midtown Manhattan.

And so I did, roll up to Radio City in the early morning hours. I emerged from the subway shortly after daybreak, light beginning to cling desperately to the city's forms still slowly shaking off the night's silence.

However, the street was desolate. No lines, no people. Just empty barricades stretching down the street. The entirety of my story had vanished. I planned to walk up and down and simply talk to people who waited all night. Why do you come? Why do you wait? What do you expect? What are you hoping for?

But the NFL had outmanuevered the tradition. And for good reason. The last several years, the long wait for the limited free seating at the draft had occasioned stampedes on the doors when it became clear there were more wrists than wristbands.

At the time, that knowledge didn’t comfort me. I was standing on the corner with no story and no clue what to do. I gathered what info I could from a bemused looking Browns fan then started to walk up and down the street, searching for any inspiration, any story whatsoever.

I met him on the corner of 51st Street and 6th Avenue. An overlarge Joe Horn Saints jersey was draped around his considerable frame. A phone jutting straight out from his ear so prominently that it wasn't immediately that I realized that he was talking to me.

But he was... in a stream-of-consciousness rant about just how the NFL screwed him over.

I just tried to keep up as he talked about the years he’s been coming to the draft. How he’s been heartbroken time and time again by the Saints. Which fans were worse, the Eagles or the Jets (his money, the Jets by a mile). What stadiums he still had yet to visit. Which free agent contracts were ridiculous. What draft prospects were overrated.

In the span of some three hours we wandered around trying to find a way into the draft and we talked football the entire time. I tried to turn this guy’s plight and a few other shutout fans milling about into my story. But in the end it just wasn’t compelling enough. Sure, the NFL changed the rules and didn’t tell anyone by giving out the wristbands for admittance the night before. But the decision froze out only a handful, a fair price to ensure the safety of the majority.

Instead of a story, however, I found a fast if brief friend. We eventually went our separate ways. But for those few hours the two of us shot back and forth about every topic imaginable concering this sport we love. It’s an experience I doubt I would’ve had if not for writing this blog for the past couple years.

And that’s special to me. I’m thankful that starting this blog has, contrary to the general depiction of bloggers as stuck in their parents’ basements, pushed me out into the world, whether the world of ideas or the bustling one of real people.

Most of all, though, I want to thank you who took the time to check in on this blog from time to time and allowed me the space to share knowledge, make mistakes, and organize my thoughts. Some of you have come and gone and come back again. Some of you have just come then gone. Some of you have diligently clicked that bookmark every day.

It's been fun. But now it's time to grow and change. Please join me in that growth and change... and allow me one last plug (no, not for the Norman Einsteins, that comes later today... and yes, you should join the list) but for Throwing Into Traffic where Zac will be dropping his always thoughtful, always entertaining NFL football knowledge.

Zac's been an indispensable brother-in-arms in the day-late, big-idea football analysis game. And no one’s even come close to what Zac does for the NFL beat. That's the nice thing about the internet, there's always something else out there to be discovered.

The Norman Einsteins Are Calling!

"Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein." -Joe Theismann

It's something I've hinted at in this space over the last month, but let me make it official: I'm launching a new project.

It's called - if you can't tell from the big image above - the Norman Einsteins. It's a monthly online magazine of sports and culture. Our first issue is dropping June 1st.

Let me make a recommendation, join our email list. It's a monthly email notifying you when the latest issue is published. To subscribe, send an email to:

thelist-join@normaneinsteins.com

Then reply to the confirmation email - simple as pie! Your email address will only be visible to the list admin (that's me) and the list is announcement-only (members cannot reply to it) so you can be assured your privacy won't be compromised.

The reasons for this new venture are manifold, but let me run down the main ones.

First, I believe there is phenomenal talent lurking in the sports blogosphere, but for the most part it's disconnected from each other. The Norman Einsteins magazine is about bringing that talent together every month for creative long form and freeform projects, giving it space to stretch out free from the daily publishing grind of blogging.

With the Norman Einsteins, I'm very lucky to have some truly great writers/bloggers signed on for the first issue.

Second, with the push to microblogging (Twitter and the like) there's a condensing and ultimately dearth of highly expressive content. Not just in sportswriting, by any means, but sportswriting has been duly effected. Mainstream Media blames the internet without realizing that the internet is merely a tool, something not unlike the paper dying print is inked upon. It seems to me that there is still great untapped potential in using the web as a canvas.

I've created what I hope to be a simple yet engaging and flexible site which will allow myself and my contributors to explore ways to ring the most out of the online medium in concert with great content.

And third, perhaps most importantly, the Norman Einsteins is a challenge not just to myself, but to the quality of work that can be created for you, the avid sports fan. I began Fuhbaw two years ago because I wanted to push myself, to grow and change.

The Norman Einsteins magazine is a continuation of that growth and change, but broadened in scope and goal.

I've learned a lot beyond just football in this space. Putting thoughts down, making sense of them, then hitting that "publish" button really teaches a person much about himself, how his mind works, then what rattling about in that mind is valuable for the reader out there. I wouldn't trade the two years of constant work on Fuhbaw for anything.

But, it's time to move on, it's time to grow and change. And I hope you join me. It should be a lot of fun.

So, yes, soon I won't be publishing here at Fuhbaw. Join the list - again, email thelist-join@normaneinsteins.com then simply reply to the confirmation email - and in exchange for receiving one email a month with one link to click, read some truly unique sports analysis, stories, and projects.