In typical Gheorghian fashion, we've waited until the final day of the Barclays Premier League season to bother writing about soccer. We'll make up for it with a mishmash of semi-related footie items.
In Paris yesterday, David Beckham played what will likely be the final match of his storied career, as Paris Saint Germain topped Brest, 3-1. While his international celebrity outpaced his on-pitch performance, Becks will go down as one of England's all-time greats. Very few in the history of the sport can match the accuracy of his service and his ability on set pieces. Check out arguably the most famous goal of his career, the 2002 strike against Greece that sent England to the World Cup and inspired the movie, 'Bend It Like Beckham':
If you're reading this before 11:00 you've still got time to turn on Fox Soccer Channel to catch Tottenham Hotspur taking on Sunderland in a final bid to overtake
Arsenal and snare the BPL's Champions League berth. The Gunners play at
Newcastle at the same time, needing a win to ensure the all-important
4th place finish.
Matheson's late goal gave Canada bronze at the 2012 Olympics
Closer to home, the Washington Spirit beat the Seattle Reign, 4-2, earlier in the week to capture the franchise's first-ever National Women's Soccer League win and improve to 1-2-3 on the season (combined with DC United, local professional soccer squads are a dismal 2-11-4 in league play this year). Canadian national team stalwart Diana Matheson scored the Spirit's first goal, her league-leading 4th of the season. Matheson also paces the NWSL with 10 points. More importantly, she's also my daughter's favorite player. We've attended two Spirit games this season, and the 5'1" Matheson was, by far, the smallest woman on the field. Nonetheless, she tallied goals in each of those games, inspiring my little one, who will be lucky if she makes it to 5'1". You can have 'Bend It Like Beckham' - we're Driven Like Diana up in here.
Finally, if you want an entertaining (and far more knowledgeable) take on all things footie, check out FOG:TB John Day's stylings over at Dangerman Futbol. Maybe next season, anyway.
You're undoubtedly aware, at this point, of the many ways that cancer (you motherfucker) has impacted Team G:TB. Today's guest post comes courtesy of Work Jerome von Dumbarton, a long-time FOG:TB and current Buffalonian (may not be a word). This post is actually reposted from Jerome's blog. It'll both impress you (at one woman's courage) and piss you off (at fucking cancer, again).
If somebody tells you that 36 hours from now Angelina Jolie is going to
temporarily flip your world upside down would you believe them? I
wouldn't but that's what happened to my family. Yesterday morning the
world awoke to find that Ms. Jolie underwent a double mastectomy. As sometimes happens the local media jumped to find ways of bringing a national story home.
Not everybody knows this but approximately six weeks ago my wife, Madeleine, underwent a double mastectomy at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute.
Somebody from Roswell got a hold of my wife's story and she spent the
better part of yesterday and this morning making the rounds on local
media. It's worth noting because women are making this same decision
every day. This is her story.
My wife broke the news to me in the summer of 2012 while we were still
living in Washington, DC. It was, in a word, stressful but her OB's
recommendation was clear. Double mastectomy and, for kicks, removal of
both ovaries. There was a lot going on at the time so we put off the
inevitable while contemplating the next phase of our life, which include
relocating to Western New York. It was a little abstract but it was
always there lurking in the shadows. I'm fairly certain it was attached
to the U-Haul trailer.
Jump ahead to February 2013. We're sitting at Roswell meeting with the
various surgeons. Shit just got real. I quickly learn how courageous my
wife is to go through this for her family. It's important to note that
if you have a strong family history you have options and you should
investigate them all. For the few, including my wife, with the BRCA1
mutation it means statistically the best option is a double mastectomy.
We (meaning my wife) reviewed all the research, considered all the
options and then we consulted with the surgeons; who confirmed what we
already knew. We made the decision to have the surgery primarily for the
twins. Kids need their mother. I think Madeleine explains it best to
the listeners of WBEN (here) and viewers of WIVB (here). What the hell - here too.
The surgery was Tuesday, March 26th. We arrived at 9:00a. Madeleine went
under the knife shortly before 1:00p. I saw her next at 8:00p. Over the
next two weeks, including three days in the hospital, I really
understood Madeleine's strength. She took a short walk less than 24
hours after going under, was eating and sitting up shortly after, and
off her pain medicine less than a week after the surgery. Then it was
just clearing drains regularly, rebuilding strength, a few weeks of
physical therapy and visiting nurses and we are done...with Part I.
Then it was regular filling of the expanders (you can Google it). At the
end of July Madeleine begins the reconstruction process. The entire
show should be over by the end of the calendar year. The twins, at the
ripe old age of 3, have been remarkable through this process. The
support of friends and family is immeasurable.
I am telling this story to brag. Not about my connection to Angeline
Jolie or about Madeleine's 15 minutes. I am, however, bragging about my
wife - her strength, her courage, her love and sacrifice for others. We
are telling this story so others have a better understanding while
making this important decision. Hopefully many other women are telling
their stories as well. Also, F-You Cancer.
I don't usually post random pictures of hockey players as filler, but when I do, it's usually something sensational. As you all know by now, the Boston Bruins came back from a 4-1 third-period deficit last night, scoring two goals in the final 82 seconds with their netminder, Tuukka Rask, pulled for an extra attacker, to tie the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Then, 6:05 into the do-or-die Game 7 overtime, the B's Patrice Bergeron (below, center) - who scored the game-tying goal with less than a minute to play - tallied the game-winner to send Boston to the Eastern Conference Semifinals against fellow Original Sixer, the New York Rangers.
We've written about overtime playoff hockey before, but I can't imagine what the TD North Garden was like in the frantic last minute-plus last night. I just saw the video and I've got goosebumps.
Rachel Barton Pine won her first major international violin competition in 1992 at the age of 17, becoming the youngest person and first American to ever win the Johann Sebastian Bach International Competition in Leipzig. She's since toured with a number of the world's great orchestras, recorded with a baroque group called Trio Settecento, and performed at nearly ever major classical music festival.
She just released a new album, entitled Violin Lullabies, which reached number one on the Amazon Bestselling Classical list on the day of its release.
I'm quite certain a readership as refined and erudite as ours already knew all of this. I'm sure most of you already bought her new record. But I'd be willing to bet that very few of you were aware of Ms. Pine's alter-ego and the breadth of her musical interests.
The same woman who records as part of the Jupiter Chamber Players is also one of the keys to the sound of Earthen Grave, about whom no less an authority than HellrideMusic.com said, "If the doom gods are with us, this band will stay around and continue to
produce the kind of unique, powerful and thoughtful music contained on Dismal Times." I don't always listen to doom/thrash, but when I do, I prefer mine heavy on the metal violin, as in the recording below for Blood Drunk, the first single from the band's self-titled 2011 release. I didn't expect to like it as much as I did.
In a radio appearance on The Bob Edwards Show, Pine spoke at length about the similarities between doom/thrash and classical, and how her passion for the former informs and expands her ability to connect with audiences of the latter. I don't know a thing about either genre, but hers is a cool story. Rock/chamber on, Rachel Barton Pine.
Music festivals abound these days, and although not a single one seems to have popped up in my hometown yet (yet . . . business plan forthcoming), they seem to be weekly occurrences in most of the country, at least in the warmer months. A few hometown friends recently embarked upon the Allmans' Wanee Music Festival in Florida with great success, and I'm hearing about other such rocking gatherings all the time. So, I'm giving another music fest a little G:TB press . . . ho hum, right?
Well, this one seems to have several very Gheorghian elements to it. Although I think pigeonholing this event as a "music festival" is likely giving the weekend's other aspects short shrift, it's several days' worth of Appalachian folk/bluegrass/rock/whatever music on the edge of the Pisgah National Forest not far from the Smoky Mountains. Right up rootsy's alley, right?
It takes place down in the Tar Heel State on Memorial Weekend -- in Transylvania County -- not the same Transylvania where Gheorghe: The Dude hails from, but an interesting coincidence.
In Brevard, North Carolina, to be precise, and Rob knows what comes next. Brevard is the newly opened east coast home of Dale's Pale Ale. Oskar Blues Brewery expanded east last year, opening a post in Brevard to serve the massive mid-Atlantic demand stemming from Leesburg and Norfolk, VA. And the brewery is one of the festival's platinum sponsors, natch.
Good music and voluminously hopped mutha of a pale ales in Big Gheorghe's homeland namesake? Need one more G:TB hook? Okay.
What's it called? The White Squirrel Festival, of course, celebrating certain inhabitants of Brevard trees and parks. Our very own white squirrel would be right at home.
There's a parade, 5k/10k White Squirrel races, a white squirrel photo contest, and something called the SquirrelBox Derby. (Different than the one from our undergrad days.) They even have Pisgah Pete, a white spokesquirrel who is reputed to be able to kick Punxsutawney Phil's ass.
So, until we get off our duffs and create our own brewery-sponsored music festival, this will have to do. Anyone looking for something rather Gheorghey to do over Memorial Day (other than hanging in DC with Abe Lincoln Whitney), head on down to western Cackalacky and take in the White Squirrel festival.
In the meantime, here's a highly compelling video of white squirrel Rob (not to be confused with White Power Bill) and his family. Gripping stuff. SFW. SFCP. (Safe for church picnics.)
South Carolina, you magnificent asshats*, you've done it again. Just when we were convinced we'd seen the limits of your bugfuck crazy political culture, you push beyond any rational barriers into whole new levels of inappropriate buffoonery.
* - The asshats in question do not include my mother, a resident South Carolinian. She just siredbirthed** an asshat.
** - EDITOR'S NOTE: As an eagle-eyed and grammatically inclined G:TB reader pointed out, my Mom didn't sire me. That was my Dad. He had asshat tendencies, too.
He looks like a...Harpootlian, doesn't he?
Earlier this week, former state Democratic Party chairman Dick Harpootlian (oh, come ON) made news when he suggested that voters should send GOP Governor Nikki Haley, "...back to wherever the hell she came from". Haley, the child of Indian immigrants, is no stranger to Harpootlian's 19th Century grasp of societal norms. Last year, he drew condemnation when he compared Haley with Eva Braun before backing away with grace and subtlety, saying he, "...wasn't trying to insinuate that Nikki was a Nazi. I was
saying that she was hanging out in an insular bunker in Charlotte when
she won't give access to the press here in South Carolina. So
she has some hurt feelings? I didn't know she had feelings."
As you might imagine, Harpootlian's class shone through in his apology for his most recent mouthfootery.
"I'm the grandson of immigrants. She's not from India," Harpootlian said
in an interview. "She's from Bamberg, South Carolina, where she was an
accountant in her parents' clothing store called Exotica. All I'm
suggesting is she needs to go back to being an accountant in a dress
store rather than being this fraud of a governor that we have."
Sanford, who left the Governor's mansion in disgrace after lying to citizens and staff members about his whereabouts while flying to Argentina to visit his mistress, defeated businesswoman Elizabeth Colbert Busch in a special election. (Yes, she's related to that Colbert.)
While we're generally supporters of a more European view of prominent citizens' personal lives (live and let live, none of our business, and all that), we find it ironic that a party so very interested in telling people who they should sleep with would conveniently turn amnesiac at a moment of convenience. Without question Sanford is a talented politician who worked his ass off to erase Ms. Busch's large, late lead. I'm sure he'll represent his constituents well in Congress, a place where he served three terms before ascending to the Governorship in 2002, and I don't begrudge the highly conservative citizens of SC01 their choice of a legislator who best fits their political worldview.
Just spare us the 'family values' bullshit going forward, mmmkay?
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