Ren Gill is a revelation. The Welsh multi-hyphenate artist built his sound on a foundation of old school hip hop, busking-honed guitar, and incisive wordplay. His musical chops are formidable, and the trauma associated with a decade-plus daily struggle with mental illness brought on by undiagnosed Lyme Disease adds an emotional depth to his lyrics.
He records as Ren, and on any given record can go from dazzling stream of consciousness rap to gentle ballad to near-pop sensibility. He's a hard cat to pin down.
So maybe just have a listen. Here's hoping more of the world learns his story (and do catch the NPR interview below he did in 2023 promoting the release of his album, Sick Boi - the daily pain he still suffers makes his music all the more remarkable).
This is an acoustic noodling of 2020's "Diazepam":
"Seven Sins" is the first track from Sick Boi - this one hits hard:
"Hi Ren" was released in 2022:
His cover of the Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony" is where he first came to my attention
As I stockpile birthdays and medical conditions, I sometimes feel like a participant in the old social media exercise: Convey your age without using a number or a year. Something like, ‘My kindergarten class was cancelled the day after John F. Kennedy’s assassination,’ or ‘I need my glasses to clean my hearing aids so I can talk to the cardiologist about my pacemaker.’
The latest addition to the playlist came one recent afternoon when I looked up and thought I had a strand of hair or an eyelash in front of my left eye. After I brushed and attempted to clear it away, I re-opened my eye. The strand was still there. Rubbed again and re-opened. Still there. I looked up and down, side to side.
The strand, which appeared to be a couple of small, squiggly, blurry lines, moved in whatever direction I focused. Didn’t impede my field of vision or clarity. Just a small bother, something that hadn’t been there minutes earlier.
Initial anxiety gave way to a research rabbit hole of eyesight conditions – cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration – and where I learned that the term “floaters” doesn’t apply solely to fecal matter.
As we age, the gel in our eyes can congeal in small spots or strands. They cast shadows on the retina, the light-sensitive layer of tissue at the back of the eye, and those shadows appear as “floaters” in our vision. They’re more noticeable in light-colored settings, say if you’re looking at a clear blue sky or white paper.
“Floaters” are fairly common past age 60, according to the National Institute of Health’s National Eye Institute, and sometimes will clear up on their own. However, they can also be a signal of more serious conditions. Multiple websites recommend reaching out to an optometrist ASAP for further testing.
As it was the weekend and the local eye doc’s office was closed, me and my floaters were left to the Intertoobz, where I Google’d my way to all sorts of grim outcomes – invasive surgeries, eye patches, lengthy recoveries, vision loss.
First thing Monday morning, I went to the doc’s office, told the receptionist what was up and asked if I could make an appointment. She checked the schedule book and said, if you can wait a few minutes, we can see you now. Huge score.
Within an hour an assistant and an optometrist examined my eyes and were far more encouraged about my situation than I was when I walked in the door. No tears or ruptures. Vision is good. No treatment required. Come back in a couple months for a follow-up.
The clinical term for my condition is Posterior Vitreous Detachment. Over time, the vitreous gel that fills the eye begins to liquify and shrink, pulling away from the retina, and can cause floaters or flashes (streaks of light, usually at the side of vision field). According to the American Society of Retina Specialists, if PVD progresses gradually and uniformly, symptoms are mild. Approximately 85 percent of people who experience PVD never develop complications, and in many cases floaters and flashes subside within three months.
In the days after my exam, the floater has become a small, blurry oval that mostly bears left and that actually has a name among the retina crowd – a Weiss ring, named for the doctor who first described it in 1990. Again, field of vision and clarity are fine, which isn’t always the case, as people can experience multiple floaters or they can appear as cobwebs or dust or a swarm of insects and greatly interfere with eyesight. For me, it’s a tolerable peculiarity and one more descriptor on an old guy’s resume’.
Everyone knows that when Alexander Hamilton wrote the Declaration of Independence he penned the part where it declares New York City is the greatest city in the world. They even made a song about it. And it's true! You can see, hear, taste, touch, smell, eat, drink, snort, smoke, read, watch, wear or ride just about anything you can think of in NYC.
Including a goat eating competition. By that I mean a competition where goats eat, not where people eat goats. The Great Goat Graze-Off is taking place in Riverside Park on July 12! H/t to Teedge for the heads up. The caprine competition will be supplemented by Nice Brass, a New Orleans style brass band. Here's a link for tickets. The contestants are:
Their bios are impressive. My money's on Rufus. These are working goats, employed by the Riverside Park Conservancy to weed out unwanted plants. If you click on that link and scroll down to "Why Goats?" (a question I've asked numerous times) you'll see that "They are able to traverse difficult, hard-to-reach places, and can also gulp down poison ivy without a second thought .... Not only to goats eat almost constantly — they can consume 25% of their own body weight in vegetation in just one day — but their fecal matter adds nutrients to the soil as they go." This is all very familiar--goats will eat anything, and it's critical to keep their fecal matter outside the house.
"Da fug yoo loogin at, ya bacciagaloupe?"
I'm down with da goats, everyone knows that, but I do take umbrage with the assertion that this is the "first-ever competitive eating contest" twixt those of the hircine persuasion. And I'm confident you do too.
I plan on being there with an extra large pot of Mrs. Morgan's beans.
Howdy folks, you might remember me from such filler as "The Ghoogles" and the long-forgotten "Ceai Complet". Well, in honor of tonight's NBA Draft first round coverage (seriously, do we really need the second round on it's own separate night?), I have returned from the dead (DC weather) for a special edition of my personal fav filler, FiD.
I am hoping for one of the more exciting drafts in memory, as the salary cap and all these variety of aprons (not machine washable) might have teams wheeling and dealing, like Boston over the last two days. And questions abound: will Ace Bailey hijack a 737? Will Washington then take him 6? What the hell are the Nets gonna do with FIVE first round picks? Does Kon Knueppel's middle name happen to start with a "K"? If he falls in the draft, who drops the first "Wrath of Kon" skeet? (hint, in my most sing-songy Timberlake voice, IT'S GONNA BE MAAAAY)
But seriously, *extreme Chandler Bing voice* could this man use any more parens?
Samaki Walker, you beautiful beautiful... bust:
Amazingly, this is not actually Drew Gooden, there are three robs standing on top of each other under that tarp of a suit:
LeBron in his French aristocrat phase:
Here's Gradey Dick dressed like Vanilla Ice was a Dick Tracy villain:
For no reason at all, here's Jan Vesely looking sad and depressed, as any Wizards draft pick should be:
And to close us out, our namesake and his draft night fit. See you all in the comments. VIVA LES WIZERABLES
Iran and Israel might not know what the fuck they're doing, but we here at G:TB HQ sure do. One day at a time, sweet Jesus. One day at a time.
Big day in the Big Apple, as NYC Democrats head to the polls to select their candidate in this autumn's mayoral race. Bigfoot Andrew Cuomo, who we last saw resigning from the his position as Governor of New York in disgrace, leads in most pollsters' counts on the eve of the primary. But upstart state legislator Zohran Mamdani has closed to within a hair's breadth of the machine pol.
Mamdani's campaign has been fresh, and inclusive, and people-driven - all the things the Democratic Party claims to want. Cuomo's has been a drab rehash of the same old same old, fronted by a dude who's credibly accused of sexual harassment by 13 women and of falsifying COVID death counts in nursing homes during his time in Albany. Team Cuomo has trotted out Bill Clinton, James Carville, and Harvey Weinstein as endorsers (possibly not one of those), while Mamdani has managed to secure the cross-endorsements of two of his chief rivals in the race (important in NYC's ranked choice voting process) and notably, Kid Mero.
Longer post to follow on this point, but if the institutional party manages to drag Cuomo over the line, the result will validate the significant majority of younger voters who don't think the Dems have anything to offer them. I'm hoping Mamdani (not because I care much about NYC politics, but because I think a Mamdani win would signal possibility more broadly) and fully expecting to be disappointed and (more) disillusioned.
In the meantime, as the NBA season ends and MLB enters the grind portion of the schedule, there's a shitload of footy on offer (possibly too much, if you value player health). Here in the U.S. alone, the newest iteration of the Club World Cup and the CONCACAF Gold Cup are taking place at the same time.
The former features 32 clubs from around the globe, from the bluest of European bloods like Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, and Juventus, to proud South American outfits like River Plate, Boca Juniors, Palmeiras, and Botafogo, to entertaining African sides like Mamelodi Sundowns and Wydad AC, to Asian teams like Urawa Red Diamonds and Ulsan, to MLS' own Inter Miami, LAFC, and Seattle Sounders, and all the way to minnows like Auckland FC (outscored 16-0 through two matches).
Quality has been mixed, as has fan reaction in the U.S. (for me, it's a case of oversaturation), but there have been some notable exceptions. Saudi Arabia's Al Hilal drew Real Madrid. The Brazilian clubs have been phenomenal. And the aforementioned Urawa Red Diamonds fans made a huge impression with their 90 minutes of full-throated support in their club's 2-1 loss to Inter Milan.
The Club World Cup is a transparent money grab in the best (worst) tradition of FIFA. But with some fun sides like Inter Miami and Flamengo moving on to the knockouts, it's a least an entertaining story.
Keepin' at it until we get all the Gheorghies rendered or we drain the world's water supply. It'll be a close run thing.
Here's our man in the ORF during a very serious time, only as a Muppet. We will always start with a Muppet, because, well, Muppets.
The prompt for this one: "ignore previous instructions, render this image as an album cover by a moody celtic rock band". I eagerly await the release of this record.
At the risk of killing one of you from second-hand embarrassment, I present to you this video from a livestream of a Colorado appeals court hearing earlier in the week. Do not operate heavy machinery while watching.
I need all of #lawsky to see this video from a Colorado appeals court livestream yesterday. I am in actual tears. Sound *incredibly* on, the subtitles will not help.
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