I wanna be a blogger, Baby

Gino Fornaro
Mar 31, 2020
5 min read

If you go back to my first post, you can see that this blog essentially is living breathing proof that I love to talk about sports. Basically if somewhere down the line I want to continue this hobby, and maybe turn it into a career one day, this is where all my work will be. So, I want to tell you about the time that I really saw that becoming a blogger was possible. It was through Barstool Sports and recognizing that the "common man" can put out great content that I could see myself becoming a writer about sports.

Through my high school career, I would consume large amounts of Barstool content. In the beginning, it was mostly reading a couple blog posts a day. As time went on, the more I began to consume. A daily reminder of "One Bite Everybody Knows the Rules," reading a few blog posts, then maybe listening to a podcast.

My junior year, I was overtaken by it. It was: wake up at 5am, and try to finish "Pardon My Take" before school started while I crushed a lift (subtle flex). Refresh Twitter consistently, and read a couple blog posts in class (because who cared about personal finance anyway? Who needs it? I'm gonna be a Big J one day, baby!) Listen to another podcast while doing homework, read another couple blog posts, go to the gym, knock out "The Rundown," go home and watch the daily pizza review. Day by day, this was my life: understand the sports world and the relevant news in it delivered directly to me by the "Common Man". Some of my friends were starting to refer to me as "The BIG Podcast Guy" or "Mr. Stoolie" and often times, they'd refuse to come into my car because they didn't care to listen to a podcast about Hockey (little did they know when they went to college they'd be drinking the Pink Vodka with the Barstool logo on it, Pink Whitney's... who's laughing now?) Well two years blow by of this routine of constant consumption of Barstool. The more I listened, the more I wanted to create my own content that people religiously enjoyed (This is my attempt at it now, 3 and a half years later).

Well for my Senior Trip I chose to go to New York, and many people are probably thinking "well that is a ridiculous choice" especially if you compare it to my sister's choice of touring the entire country of Italy. New York is where I wanted to go. We had family upstate that we could visit. We could take a cheap flight north of the border and see Niagara Falls. And obviously, the number one reason for someone from the Rocky Mountains to want to visit New York, Manhattan, baby, and the super slight chance I catch Dave Portnoy in the middle of a pizza review and to grab one of his slices and NOT give a rookie score.

We walked EVERYWHERE in the city, coming from suburbia, that isn't something you're used to. While we would walk around, especially around lunch time, I would look outside every pizzeria to see if El Pres was giving any scores.

I'm very good with directions, unfortunately I never had a God given talent on the mound, on the court, or in the field, but I for damn sure can tell you which way west is. With that being said, after looking up the address of Barstool HQ, I always knew how far away we were, and how long it would take me to get there right around five o'clock, to maybe catch a blogger or two that I would recognize.

Well, I did just that, one of the days it just so happened that we were very close and it was nearing five o'clock, so after a small argument with my family, I shrugged them off and head over to the old Barstool HQ. I was unbelievably confident that somehow I was going to shake hands with Dave Portnoy. I was that optimistic. I walked in the door to a security guard in front of the elevator. I pushed the button to go up, and the light didn't turn on. I pushed it again. Still no light. He asked me something, but I didn't hear him, so got scared a just said "Nope." He rolled his eyes, and like a Pledge at a Frat party, he literally said, "well, who do you know here?" BOOM, I thought I was in. I could name just about every blogger at the company, so I began: "Well, I know Dave P-" "everyone and their mother who walks into this building knows who Dave Portnoy. Do you have an appointment?" I said no, and he kicked me out.

I walked out of the building with less enthusiasm than I had before I walked in. My family essentially laughed at me and asked what I thought would happen. I wasn't going to leave. Surely there was some sort of back door that the employees would use, but then again, it was worth the shot at waiting. I waited for about 5 minutes before I was bothered to leave. I persevered, and told my family if they wanted to figure out how to walk home that they could navigate it without me (for the most part no one would've been able to get them home. My parents were useless in that confusing city with the maps app on their phones, and my sister still can't navigate from the house we grew up in to the grocery store... which is no less than 2 miles away).

After another short couple minutes, I saw a curly haired man with bear paws alongside a black haired man with chelsea boots. I thought for sure it was Feits and KFC as I always heard them together on the Radio talking about their "Thursday boots", but it was Feits and KMarko. I ran back to the front door, offered my hand and said "you're KFC and Feits, my name is Gino, I am a big fan of your show, KFC Radio, can we take a picture?" Some confidence I had. It was nice enough for them to take the picture and give me a few minutes on their way home, but if I was KMarko, I would've probably just kept walking because I some random Stoolie wanted a picture with Feits and KFC and this kid didn't even know my name. (KMarko, if you ever read this, and I know it's a long shot that you do, but I'm apologizing because I didn't realize my mistake until after you both had walked away and I called you KFC. I knew you weren't KFC, but I was lost in the moment that I didn't believe was happening). I stayed another couple minutes hoping I could meet Pres. But I got a smaller man with a similar sized and hilarious personality. Zah was new at the company at the time, but had you seen any Barstool content that was a video, you could point out Zah... he was a little different than most bloggers at Barstool. As he walked out of the door, I ran up to him and said something similar, "Hi Zah, I'm Gino, I'm a huge fan of Barstool and was wondering if we could take a picture?" Thankfully he was also kind enough to take a picture with me.

Yes, I was crazy, and ambitious. But I still am. With no live sports to write about, I thought I could give the readers more background info on how much I love "common man content," and why I wanted to start blogging!

If you are unfamiliar with KMarko, Feits, or Zah I have left their twitter's below, follow them for more common man content!

https://twitter.com/FeitsBarstool

https://twitter.com/Kmarkobarstool

https://twitter.com/DaMidgetZimbo