How John Green Turned Celebrity into Obsessive Optimism
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What is the main theme of John Green's new book?
Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.
I'm on the back of the shorts, the liminal space between left thigh and buttock. That's my chosen area. Why be on the front of the shirt when you can be on the back of the shorts? Right after this ad.
You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. I love this book, by the way. Thank you. I read it. I always have to just like dangle all of the dog ears and the ink. It's burrowed into my head in a way that I want to get to. And by the way, thank you for being here. Oh, my God. This is so cool. I do feel obligated, though, because we are a technically sports show. Yeah, we got to talk about sports. I want to talk about how you are one of the most absurd characters in professional soccer.
Thank you. That's how I prefer to think of myself.
the whole idea of you and English soccer, and how do you tell that story for people who don't know the lore of John Green?
I fell in love with a fourth-tier English soccer team called AFC Wimbledon. They had their team taken away from them, like the Baltimore Colts were moved to Indianapolis. That had never happened before in English soccer.
On May the 28th, 2002, the FA approved a plan to move Wimbledon FC 60 miles north to Milton Keynes. Thousands of fans felt betrayed. This is the death of Wimbledon as far as I'm concerned. We did say originally that it wasn't going to be over until a ball was kicked in Milton Keynes or at Plough Lane, but it still doesn't feel quite over until today. It's a very sad day for English football, I think.
And so the fans had to restart the club. And they started out with literal tryouts in a public park. They started out in the ninth tier of English football. And because in England and European football, you can get promoted or relegated, you can move up and down the ladder. They moved up the ladder rung by rung until finally by 2011, they were one step away from being a full-time professional team again.
In front of the Wimbledon fans to give Luton the lead. Fast blood to Wimbledon courtesy of goalkeeper Seb Brown.
And they made it all the way to the playoff final in a penalty shootout with a 19-year-old kid who worked part-time at a rental car place.
He scored now. No! It's been denied by Seb. It looked as though that was going to cross the line. Brilliant save by the Wimbledon goalkeeper.
Saving the two penalties. Man. An incredible story. I think the greatest underdog story in the history of sports.
And Wimbledon are down to one penalty kick to take them into the football league. The fairy tale is complete.
And now they've been a professional team for, you know, about 15 years, and they're doing great. They're owned by their fans, so there's no rich guy to fund the team or anything. It's just a regular bunch of people, and everybody pitches in the way that they can pitch in, and one of the ways I can pitch in is financially.
And the source of the money John Green was pitching in is just another layer of the absurdity of this larger story we're about to tell you. Because John Green, in case you did not know, happens to be the same John Green who published his fifth novel in 2012, a YA love story called The Fault in Our Stars. You know, that book that spent 78 straight weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and also then became a blockbuster hit movie in 2014. And so we're going to get to John's new book, which is staggering and timely and nonfiction in just a second. But it is important for me to note that John Green wasn't using his book money, his fault in our stars money, when he was supporting AFC Wimbledon.
Sean was actually using the money he made from his other career, which started way back in 2007 on YouTube.
Good morning Hank, it's Tuesday. I recently found myself at an airport, as I often do, sitting at the gate waiting for my flight to board, and I couldn't stop thinking about how everyone in the airport would, within a century or so, be dead. Good morning Hank, it's Tuesday.
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