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Here's a clip from YouTube from May when he spoke at The Schomburg Center for Study in Black Culture in Harlem, NYC promoting this book.
Youtube Video ->
Original Video
Zirin's tour dates aren't updated on his website, so he might be coming to a location near you sometime soon. If you've ever heard him on Chuck's show, you know he's always interesting, smart, and funny.
Here's a little tidbit from his interview on Democracy Now! this summer about his newest book.
QUOTE
AMY GOODMAN: Why did you call it Welcome to the Terrordome?
DAVID ZIRIN: Wow, I mean I called it Welcome to the Terrordome because I was sitting there with the rest of the country in 2005 seeing the most gruesome possible collision of sports and politics, seeing 20 to 30,000 of New Orleans' poorest residents herded into the Louisiana Superdome, in conditions that I thoughtJesse Jackson quite correctly likened to the hull of a slave ship, and seeing a New Orleans that did not have enough money for emergency shelter, that did not have enough money to even keep the levees upright, but did have enough money over the course of three decades to keep running the largest domed structure in the Western Hemisphere was something beyond compare. And when you consider that the folks herded into the Superdome never could have afforded a ticket, it just occurred to me that sports really is not sports anymore. It’s become an athletic industrial complex, that whether we love or hate sports, negatively impacts all of our lives.
...
AMY GOODMAN: You talk about how people in power exploit sports, exploit the games.
DAVID ZIRIN: Oh, absolutely. Because we talked early on in this segment about the way it’s exploited in terms of corporate greed, but it’s also exploited ideologically as well, to suit their own ends. We talked about probably the most gruesome aspect of that, which is the situation of Pat Tillman. But it also reaches almost comical heights. Like I read an article recently about how George Steinbrenner, the owner, the infamous owner of the New York Yankees, was having his stadium security string up chains in the lower bleachers during the seventh inning stretch, where the Yankees play a second national anthem, they play God Bless America, to actually prevent people from leaving their seats, from going to the bathroom, from even sitting down. In other words, during the seventh inning stretch, you’re not in fact allowed to stretch. You can only stand up and pay fealty to the flag. Steinbrenner is quite explicit about why he is doing this. He is doing this because he supports Operation Iraqi Freedom. He wants to support the troops in the field in Iraq. And at the end of the day though, it’s like, all right, so we're going to stand up and sing a song about freedom, yet you are putting up chains to prevent - to actually impel people and compel people to stand in place. I mean it is a bizarre head-scratcher that makes you wonder who in fact these games are serving.
DAVID ZIRIN: Wow, I mean I called it Welcome to the Terrordome because I was sitting there with the rest of the country in 2005 seeing the most gruesome possible collision of sports and politics, seeing 20 to 30,000 of New Orleans' poorest residents herded into the Louisiana Superdome, in conditions that I thoughtJesse Jackson quite correctly likened to the hull of a slave ship, and seeing a New Orleans that did not have enough money for emergency shelter, that did not have enough money to even keep the levees upright, but did have enough money over the course of three decades to keep running the largest domed structure in the Western Hemisphere was something beyond compare. And when you consider that the folks herded into the Superdome never could have afforded a ticket, it just occurred to me that sports really is not sports anymore. It’s become an athletic industrial complex, that whether we love or hate sports, negatively impacts all of our lives.
...
AMY GOODMAN: You talk about how people in power exploit sports, exploit the games.
DAVID ZIRIN: Oh, absolutely. Because we talked early on in this segment about the way it’s exploited in terms of corporate greed, but it’s also exploited ideologically as well, to suit their own ends. We talked about probably the most gruesome aspect of that, which is the situation of Pat Tillman. But it also reaches almost comical heights. Like I read an article recently about how George Steinbrenner, the owner, the infamous owner of the New York Yankees, was having his stadium security string up chains in the lower bleachers during the seventh inning stretch, where the Yankees play a second national anthem, they play God Bless America, to actually prevent people from leaving their seats, from going to the bathroom, from even sitting down. In other words, during the seventh inning stretch, you’re not in fact allowed to stretch. You can only stand up and pay fealty to the flag. Steinbrenner is quite explicit about why he is doing this. He is doing this because he supports Operation Iraqi Freedom. He wants to support the troops in the field in Iraq. And at the end of the day though, it’s like, all right, so we're going to stand up and sing a song about freedom, yet you are putting up chains to prevent - to actually impel people and compel people to stand in place. I mean it is a bizarre head-scratcher that makes you wonder who in fact these games are serving.
