The Twelve Days of Gheorghemas: Day Eleven

On the eleventh day of Gheorghemas, Big Gheorghe gave to me...

Eleven Months of Magic
Ten (give or take) inches of girth
Nine internet moments of levity
Eight Tribey moments
Seven books for reading
6.9 Non Sequiturs
Six All-Star Nods
Five podcasts for listening
Four posts zman meant to write but never did
Three French Hens
Two in-state rivalries
And a dork with a split personality

The Gheorghian calendar and the Gregorian calendar have never been particularly synced, at least after the first few years of Gheorghemas. Our festive season ended in March in 2014, so I feel pretty good about where we are now.

If we're being honest, 2015 was a fairly mediocre year for postcount, the standard that matters most to us. We dropped 266 posts, the least since 2007, and 29 of them were Dave promoting his podcast. I'd like to believe we made up in quality what we lacked in quality, but I pride myself on integrity, and I cannot tell a lie. It did make compiling this end of year post much (not much, honestly, as it's still a bitch, and would it kill you fuckers that thank me for the effort?, but somewhat) easier, though, and for that I thank you all for your lack of industry.

I lied about the quality thing. We wrote some pretty cool stuff this year. And where we flagged a bit in quantity, I'm honestly grateful for the fact that this remains a community. A small, silly, stupid and generally insignificant community, but - and I mean this sincerely - a real, meaningful (to me, anyway) community. And I love that. It truly does make me happy.

God Bless, Gheorghies. Take a look at what you wrought in 2015.

January

Fittingly, we began the year with a Wrenball post.

We mourned Red Klotz, and started a recurring feature that never again recurred. At least it hasn't yet. Shame, because What Would Gheorghe Do? is pretty genius.

Son of a Gheorghe.

I kicked off the Year of What the Fuck. And you know what? I feel pretty good about how well I lived up to my promise to myself.

We had a little wintertime run on Canadian fashion. Somehow, though, we managed to whiff on the Canadian Tuxedo.

Gheorghemas came to an end on January 25. (In retrospect

Zman doesn't always post things. But when he does, it's generally lengthy (girthy), evidentiary, and enlightening. And ironically (or perhaps tellingly), his first post of 2015, like his first post of 2016, had references to male scrota.

February

Speaking of zman, he owned the early part of the month with consecutive posts about the Jack Urbont/GFK legal contretemps, a 1991 BMW 850i, and the Bills' hiring of Rex Ryan.

Whitney, or possibly Clarence, gave us our first 'Saved by the Bell' reference of the year.



Squeaky checked in from Hoth, disguised as Boston. Hoth, that is. Squeaky was disguised as a banana.

There was a lot of Wrenball this month. And given the season our guys had, that's justifiable.

Jack Urbont still ain't nuthing ta fuck wit.

We did a book review. With an actual author. If you haven't yet picked up Eric Angevine's Hinkle Fieldhouse: Indiana's Basketball Cathedral, well, why not?

Marcus. The GOAT.

Whitney wanted to write about Spoon. So he wrote about Spoon.

March

We celebrated a Seussian character, and KQ, too. The first one featured the little known children's book, Abortion Hears a Who.

Manilow. Eleven years later.

Someone other than Z wrote about cars. I love that Morgan, man. That Morgan man, too. He's a good kid.

The CAA hoops tournament was awesome. Right up until it wasn't.

The Tribe's failure paled in comparison to this natural disaster, as chronicled by Marls.

We quoted John Calipari? We quoted John Calipari. Unironically.

The month ended in a blizzard of filler. Peeps, music clips, Kurtis Blow, ephemera. Bygones.

April

It took us until April 13 to post anything that couldn't be called filler. Before that time, a smattering of hastily scribbled beer posts (good filler, but filler nonetheless), some more music, a bunch of hoops, and Sim Bhullar.

That first real post was a good one, though, featuring the Bank of Dave. Loathe as we are to post anything that reinforces our Dave's already overfed self-image, this was too on point to pass up.

The Collider that shall remain nameless returned, dressed as Lemmy.

The new Wizards logo elicited some...reactions. And made Dave type concupiscence.

A short post about an immensely awesome musical item. As in Hasselhoffian.

What appeared to be the last of 13 Jack Urbont posts went up. Pour some out for the 'bont. Bonus: back to back posts with Tyrion Lannister photos.

Just a tiny glimpse into the world of a professional podcaster/middle manager.

The Griffin is coming for your wallet. Unless you're Mark. Or Danimal. Or the KQs.

Mayhugh's preview pretty much nailed Mayweather/Pacquiao.

May

Danimal opened the month by being savaged by a shark. Eww.

Without looking, I'm going to say we had more footie posts than posts about American football. weighed in with a post about the Champions League semifinals, featuring Franck Ribery's handsome mug.
We're next level hipsters. Nice work, everyone. Here, TR

We talked about the Hamburglar again, which gave Mark one more chance to tell us that his uncle invented that character.

Better Know Your Minor League Mascot returned, tournament-style. And America proved that it knows right from wrong, tapping the Richmond Flying Squirrels as the winner.

A William & Mary basketball player participated in the NBA Draft Combine. For reals.

G:TB said goodbye to Stephen Gerrard and David Letterman.

I said What the Fuck? And then I mostly did it.

And since goodbyes come in three, we enlisted FOG:TB Michael Litos to help us pen an appreciation of Dave Fairbank's career at the Daily Press.

June

I went to Awesome Con. Next year, in costume.

fatguyinaspeedo might've been our most prolific guest poster this year, contributing to our soccer-heavy lean. Here, he previewed the Women's World Cup.

Mark, zman, and Whitney stopped, collaborated and posted about sophomore efforts by rap collectives. I think we all learned something.

Phineas and Ferb finally got to the end of summer.

Japanese toilets. Everyone should have one.

I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane.

Danimal gave us excellent drinking advice.

Mark doesn't know much about fonts, but he can analyze an NBA Draft like a motherfucker.

Dave, Stacey, Cunningham and The Test entered our consciousness for the first time on June 30. Approximately one out of every three posts for the rest of the year were about this topic.

July

The Teej finally went Full Posehn.

Lower-alcohol beer turns out to make a drinker less intoxicated than higher-alcohol beer, on a per-ounce basis.

Marcus Thornton was drafted by the Boston Celtics. Of the NBA. Here was our first post with a picture of #27. As a bonus, it also includes Abby Wambach kissing her wife.

The Duality of Man. And Cars.

Generally speaking, our guesties are better (or at least more important) than our usual crap. Case in point, baconbaking's piece about her friend's NGO, doing great work in alleviating poverty in Guatemala.

Dave is a terrible hipster douchebag.

They voted for Pedro. We celebrated by plagiarizing ourselves.

The Indiana Pacers are trendsetters. Can't wait to see the Columbus Blue Jackets wear Charlestown Chiefs gear.

zman introduced us to teledildonics. It's what you think it is.

My favorite musical moment of the year was the 1,000 Italians that covered Foo Fighters' 'Learn to Fly'. Just brilliant.



August

Robbie Maddison surfed Teahupoo. On a motorbike.

TR might disagree with me on the year's musical moment. He weighed in on Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats here.

We were pretty geeked for the opening weekend of the Premier League season. More soccer!

Like most other serious observers of the political scene, we took our shot at explaining the rise of Donald Trump. Honestly, I feel like our take stands up pretty well.

Sneakerhead documentary.

Fitting, in this year of Caitlyn Jenner, at some point in 2015, Clarence became Whitney. But not before he gave us this exposition of the Ramones. 1-2-3-4!

In another political post, we chronicled the rise of Deez Nuts.

Clarence explained it all, ODU fraternity misogynist version. (And two Clarence posts in one week? The hell was happening in August?)

My kid made music. I bragged on her. It's my fucking blog, and I'll do whatever the hell I want. Okay, it's our blog. But I'll still do whatever the hell I want.

September

Whitney went to the inaugural Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Finally got around to writing about it.

In one of the nominees for Post of the Year, zman demolished the NFL's Deflategate case, with extreme prejudice. (I don't know what other posts are nominated. The idea just came to me at this point in the process. I'll try to remember this next year.)

I expressed my growing and essentially complete ambivalence about that same NFL. In what appears to be a theme of this post, I watched significantly more Premier League this year than I did professional American football. Didn't really miss it, to be honest. When Trump gets elected, I'm going to be one of the first ones in the reeducation camps, aren't I?

2CELLOS are really freaking incredible.

More politics. I liked this one, too. Pretty full of myself, if I'm being honest.

The aforementioned Dave Fairbank returned to writing as a GTB guest blogger. He's totally slumming here, but his Chronicles of an Aging Gheorghie might be the best thing we've published this year.

October

Danimal regaled the shit out of us with tales of his father's drinking buddies, Joe Montana, and the Fighting Irish.

zman channeled Niki Lauda. It was supremely cool.

Long lost FOG:TB Wheelhouse Jerry got married. Major upset.

Marls gave us more Jerry.

Fairbank got out of the gate fast. Coined the term 'Lindsay Graham Dance Party' in this one.

TR found the grassy knoll.

Dave finally (finally!) settled on a musical identity. Two, really. But still, it's better than it was.

The Teej routinely delivers amazing imagery, here and on Twitter. He's so good at it that I fear we take it for granted. I mean, check this out. Don't worry about clicking the link. I've replicated it below in all its glory.

November

I ranted about America. Word salad.

If that mass Foo Fighters cover wasn't the musical moment of the year, it was Justin Timberlake and Chris Singleton at the CMAs. That shit was outrageous.

God help us, but we like this William & Mary hoops team. Even more now than we did on the season's eve.

The Teej made a shitty world a little bit better.

In the last of our 2015 posts about the upcoming Presidential election, I feel like we finally nailed our thesis. Look for us on CNN soon. This post also featured the Comment of the Year, from yours truly: "if jon hamm were sleeping with tina fey, it'd be hamm on wry".

You guys really slowed down this month, if we're being honest. I wrote 11 of the last 15 posts of the year, and two of the ones I didn't write were just Dave promoting his podcast. Performance evaluation season may not go as well for some of you as you might be expecting.

December

I'm not going post by post in December, frankly. You've all read it. It's good. I will say that I'll put this year's Gheorgemas up against any. Nice work, lads. May the road rise to meet you over the rest of  2016, and may we all just get the fuck past this election with our sanity mainly intact.

You're the best, Gheorghies.