Jan 21, New York: Free at Last!
Howdy, friends. Well, I’m in the final stages of packing for my trip to Melbourne and the Australian Open—that means, of course, 30-plus SPF sunscreen, the faux Ray-Ban shades that I bought for 10 bucks from my friendly Senegalese street vendor here in New York, and those lightweight pants with zip-off legs (yeah, those dorky ones; they’re awesome).
This year I have an exciting new mission in the land the natives call “Oz.” Starting Monday, Jan. 24, I’ll be writing an online diary that will appear daily in this space, “Peter Bodo’s TennisWorld.”
At TennisWorld, I’ll be posting analysis and commentary on matches, backstage happenings, the controversies du jour, and the carnival of major and minor characters that make a Grand Slam so compelling. I’ll be keeping it real—or as real as you can expect from someone who practices the dark art of journalism.
But the big difference between me and most of the other underpaid, opinion-spewing, media-badge-wearing malcontents Down Under will be this: I won’t even have to pretend that I’m an unbiased observer. I’ll be free of the typical journo’s straitjacket of deadlines, space constraints, and all that dull, must-include information. I’ll also be free of having to watch what I write, lest Andre or Juan Carlos or Lindsay or Svetlana decide they’ll never throw me a quote again. I’ll be free to do and write exactly what I want, with one huge asterisk: I will not be free to bore you. If I do, I’ll probably get fired. I’d probably deserve it.
Drop in and visit TennisWorld anytime next week—stay as long as you like and come back as often as you want; I’ll be posting new entries of varying lengths at random times throughout the day and night. That’s the beauty of the Internet, right?
Also, feel free to send me any questions you may have; just click here. Try to keep them relevant to the topics at hand: the 2005 Australian Open and the Melbourne experience. Who knows? I might even give you the definitive answer to that question for the ages: Does the water really swirl down the drain counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere?
Chow,
Pete