Fashion is Dumb: Worst. Clowns. Ever.

Now they're some sad things known to man
But ain't too much sadder than
The tears of a French clown when there's no one around...

[h/t TR]

You Don't Mess with the Rezhan

By the time you're reading this, I may be wheels up on my latest work adventure, a three-day trip to meet clients of my firm in Tel Aviv. My new employer has a big operation there, there is a lot of wealth there, and I was asked to make the trip. I feel good about the trip b/c my flight time is 420 PM. 

Unfortunately, the flight is long and the trip is short. And Sunday is a work day in Israel! The entirety of my downtime will be bleary-eyed, jet-lagged wandering through Tel Aviv on Saturday afternoon. So I'll need to be careful as I play tourist for a couple hours. Not b/c I'm a Polish Iranian whose beard is hitting peak swarthiness, but b/c I'm me. My decision-making when fully rested can be problematic. Add in sleep deprivation, excessive caffeine and scotch and you have a recipe for chaos.

I've been trying to learn up on Israeli culture, in addition to finding out where Gal Gadot lives. I turned to Adam Sandler for help. I think I'm in good hands.





Wish me luck. And let me know if you want a Maccabi Tel Aviv jersey or Jeremy Pargo's autograph.

Me and Doc

The Baseball Hall of Fame announced the Class of 2019 yesterday, and I have no particular quibbles. In Mariano Rivera, Mike Mussina, Edgar Martinez, and Roy Halladay, the Hall chose four guys who were the class of the league for long stretches. (And I'd be lying if it didn't amuse me to see Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling on the outside looking in, even as I think both will eventually be tabbed - just miss me with Schilling's acceptance speech.)

No quibbles, and no particular affinity. At least none based on my rooting interests. Rivera obviously tormented my favorite team for the entirety of his career, save two very pivotal postseason games in 2004. Mussina similarly shone against the Red Sox - I especially remember the no-hitter he took two outs into the ninth inning before Carl Everett broke it up. I honestly don't have many memories of Edgar Martinez, other than the times when his peers spoke reverentially of his stroke.

The late Roy Halladay, though, is a weirder story. I have two distinct and very different memories of the big right-hander.

We have to go way back to the mid-90s for the first one. Back then, I played fantasy baseball with a group of dudes. It was early in Halladay's career, and he'd bounced between the minors and the show because of his inability to control his sublime stuff. He demonstrated his potential in a game early in the season, dominating his opponent and leading my fantasy opponent to a victory (the details of both have been lost to time, though I believe I was playing against Whitney the week in question).

Frustrated at the loss, I noted to Whitney that he was the beneficiary of the best game Halladay would ever pitch. Further, I vowed that if the Blue Jays' hurler ever pitched another game as good, I'd buy a Jays cap and wear it during our softball games.

Two weeks later, Halladay matched his performance. And that, friends, is how I came to own one of these:

Several years later, in 2005, I took my Dad to Fenway Park for the first and only time in my life. We'd been plenty of times before, but this was the only time where I paid our way. We took the T in from Braintree (the whole family was vacationing on Cape Cod), and sat in the centerfield bleachers on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Roy Halladay pitched for Toronto against Bronson Arroyo. After both teams scored in the first inning, Halladay stoned the Sox for the next seven innings. The Jays won, 5-2, after the Sox scratched across a meaningless run in the 9th. Halladay went 8 innings, allowing a single run on five hits.

It was the last time my Dad and I were in Fenway together.

Thanks, Roy. Hope you're laughing about that with him somewhere.

Binge Watch Filler

The wind chill at the moment where I live is 8 degrees below zero. It's the perfect day to lie on the couch and do nothing much other than binge watch any one of the number of well-produced, beautifully shot, sublimely acted series on offer. May I recommend Amazon Prime's Man in the High Castle, for instance?

But if you're in the mood to watch something completely inappropriate, riotously funny, painfully nostalgic, and very, very not safe for work, I commend to your attention the Netflix animated series Bigmouth.

Conceived by comedian Nick Kroll and his childhood friend Andrew Goldberg, and featuring the voice talent of comic stars like John Mulaney, Maya Rudolph, and Jordan Peele, the series chronicles the social and sexual coming of age of a group of seventh graders in some vague suburb of New York City. That's as anodyne a description as the series is raunchy and over the top.

Here's a clip reel from the first season. Do enjoy. And don't judge me for watching this with my kids.

Come Together

Yesterday in London, the Washington Wizards beat the New York Knicks, 101-100, in a regular season NBA contest. In somewhat Knicksian fashion, Washington's buzzer-beating winner came courtesy of a goaltending call, as Allonzo Trier swatted Thomas Bryant's layup away while it was descending into the cylinder.

That was neat, and all, but it paled in comparison to a most excellent collision of Gheorghie things that took place earlier that day. Including the most Gheorghie thing of all, Gheorghe.

Some enterprising Wizards staffer (a next-generation Shlara or KQ, if you will), thought it a good idea to recreate the image from The Beatles' iconic Abbey Road album cover, with Gheorghe, G:TB fave Elena Delle Donne, Bradley Beal, and Wizards mascot G-Wiz comprising an entirely new Fab Four.

I always did see Ghitsa as the Paul McCartney of the team. He's Maxwell's Silver (tongued) Hammer.

Here's a little bit of behind the scenes magic:

Happy Birthday to the Champ

Oh, you thought I meant Muhammad Ali?

Nah, man. Nah.

Eleven yearsish ago, I wrote this in a post about killer-cute rock babes:

And finally, the winner and still champion, the Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs. That tiny, vulnerable voice combined with just the right amount of dirty girl and those killer eyes? There’s no sense in fighting it. She’s topped my list since she walked like an Egyptian, and even though the competition’s getting fierce and she’ll be 50 next year, she’s still number one.

Susanna Hoffs turns 60 today. And she's still top of the charts.

What Car Should a Gheorghie Drive: Dave Edition

WCSAGD is back for 2019 and I’m starting the year off with the Gheorghie for whom the proper choice is perhaps the most obvious: Dave.

Dave is a practical guy. But weird too. He cares not one iota about aesthetics. He's smart and I admire aspects about him--this year I decided to read more and watch less so I've finished two books and started a third.

There are whispers in far-flung corners of the internet that Dave was cool at one point in time. That particular point in time was the mid- to late-eighties. It's been all downhill since then from a coolness perspective--remember when he got those Vibram Five Finger sneakers?

Despite reading lots of leftist and environmentalist literature and admonishing everyone around him to adopt simpler lives that make less of a harmful impact on the world around us, Dave has a lot of stuff and he likes to carry it around with him at all times. For example, he always has soccer balls, cones, pinnies, and enough additional athletic equipment to support a soccer team at the drop of a hat. He also likes to drive long distances without any regard to how much gasoline he's burning.

Dave can't have nice things because he doesn't take care of them. Remember the time he tied his dog to his bike and almost broke the dog, the bike, and his own neck? Or all the times he lost his lizard? Or how he breaks the zippers on all his coats? Or how he loses his aforementioned balls? Or the time he got his kids' kite stuck in a tree and walked away because he hates kites? Or the time he smacked his car into a guardrail while simultaneously getting dogshit all over the inside of his pocket?

Despite all of this Dave had great interpersonal success. He hangs out with us, for example, and he has a wonderful wife and family. So he needs a car that can fit us all.

Dave should drive a 2012 Toyota Sienna held together with $11 worth of autobody repair tape.

I considered one of those weird JDM minivans or minitrucks from Duncan Imports for Dave, but he wouldn't appreciate it. He likes what he likes and I'm not going to change his mind. Of course this means Dave has it all figured out (or is tremendously lucky). He has everything he wants.

Come Along Catch a Heffalump

If you've watched any television at all over the past several weeks, you've seen Apple's ad for the iPhone XR. It features a bouncy song and a flood of people doing parkour while wearing colorful jumpsuits. Here's an extended version:



I could swear that the first line of the song is 'Come along catch a heffalump'. Heffalumps, if you don't know, are imaginary elephanty creatures from Winnie the Pooh, objects of fear and anxiety for the denizens of the Hundred Acre Wood. Y'all know how I feel about Pooh.

So I went looking for the song. It's from the debut album by a British artist named Cosmo Sheldrake, a multi-instrumental musical talent. Here he is playing it live in studio:



I'll be damned. The first line really does feature a heffalump drop. Sheldrake also works in a couple of Jabberwocky references in the second stanza. Have a little fun today, Gheorghies.

Hugh Jackman, Meet Huge Asshat

Not much news came out of our President*'s recent boondoggle/clownshow trip to the Southern border. Couple of staged photo ops, some pointing at tunnels (which a wall won't do much to stop), a big pile of seized narcotics (which came into the U.S. via border crossings like most drugs, also something a wall won't stop). I normally wouldn't have paid any attention to it at all, until I came upon an image in a photograph of the circus.

At first, I just found this an amusing visual, and I tweeted something about the Wolverine remake looking terrible. But then my muse struck (also, Zman texted me - perhaps he is my muse). There's more to here than meets the eye.

Both Ted Cruz and Logan (Wolverine's real name) were born in Canada.

Neither Cruz nor Logan use their given first names. Logan's real name is James. Ted's real name is Rafael.

Logan has an adamantium skeleton. Ted has a spine made of tinfoil.

Logan is moody and misanthropic. Ted is creepy and people feel misanthropic when they are exposed to him.

Logan killed his birth father. Cruz's father killed John F. Kennedy.

Wolverine eviscerates bad guys with his retractable claws. Cruz elbowed his wife in the head. Twice.



Logan also killed his childhood friend, Rose. Cruz is widely believed to be the Zodiac Killer.

Wolverine is devoted to Professor Charles Xavier, a brilliant scientist. Cruz is devoted to our President*, a venal, bloated, corrupt embarrassment.

It all seems clear when you put all the pieces together, doesn't it. Ted Cruz really shouldn't wear a beard.

Gheorghe's 6-Pack: Little River Band

Hi, gheorghies! Who's hung over?

It got cold here all of a sudden, and snow may be falling on some of you.  You know where it's warm... and summer?  Australia!

You all know quite a bit about rock and roll. If I asked you to name some Australian bands, you'd hit me with AC/DC, INXS, Hoodoo Gurus, Midnight Oil, and Men at Work.  Deeper picks would include The Church or Nick Cave. Marls would say Air Supply. Rob would say Crowded House but he'd be mostly wrong, as the Finns are Kiwis. Only TR would likely get LRB.

Little River Band! They were atop the charts from 1977-1981 nonstop with their brand of light rock / soft rock / not rock / smooth music. People of our vintage have heard all their hit songs, they probably just couldn't name the band who played them.

So here's your 6-pack.  Drink it in. It's Australian for music.

In the interest of spreading the love of good music, we will throw out six suggested songs by certain bands you may or may not know much about. Not much of a time commitment, just a little something to get the flavor and get you going.

Gheorghe's 6-Pack: Little River Band (LRB)

Vitals
Where: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
When: 1975–present
Who: (now) Wayne Nelson, Chris Marion, Rich Herring, Ryan Ricks, Colin Whinnery...
The original members who write and sang the songs you know include Glenn Shorrock, Beeb Birtles (excellent name), Graeham Goble (ditto), and Derek Pellicci

Don't be thinking that I don't want a beer right now, 'cause lady, I do.  Enjoy.

"Help Is On Its Way," Diamantina Cocktail, 1977


"Reminiscing," Sleeper Catcher, 1978


"Lady," Sleeper Catcher, 1978


"Lonseome Loser," First Under the Wire, 1979


"Cool Change," First Under the Wire, 1979


"Take It Easy On Me,"  Time Exposure, 1981

It's the Time of the Season

Three months ago yesterday, we filled you dedicated readers in on the latest batch of nominees for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  In addition to the roster of talent, I gave you my predictions as to who would get the nod this year:

And here are the results:

12 out of 15 nominees correct.  That's 80%, a C average.  We will take another crack at it next year and see how we measure up -- perhaps including all of GTB's Music Department staff. Which we said last year.

In the meantime, we present you the soon-to-be-inducted rockers:

• The Cure
• Def Leppard
• Janet Jackson
• Radiohead
• Roxy Music
• Stevie Nicks
• The Zombies

I was actually pretty enthused by the announcement, even as more and more people take aim at the RnRHoF as being a pointless, off-the-mark institution run by cheap, biased jackasses. Or, as Johnny Rotten put it, a piss-stain. Here's an amusing recent article chronicling 17 awkward, insulting, and off-putting moments from the induction ceremonies of the last 30 years. Guess who was mentioned first???  You know who it was.

Eh. It's fun.  And it's not like it's the goddamn Grammys.

So The Zombies got in! It was wishful thinking on my part to make that call, but I'm glad for them. I mean, there's every chance that ubiquitous Walking-Dead-and-the-like zombie-mania over the last few years led to a surge in popularity, or maybe someone even thought that's what they were voting for, but hey, they're in. They're great fun and were likely the first to sing "Who's your daddy?" on the radio.

And The Cure! I'm a big fan and yet didn't think they had the Hall voters swayed. Very glad for Robert Smith & Co. It's just like a dream.

Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me came out a couple of months before Hysteria, but they might as well have emanated from different planets. Their fans certainly did . . . though I can claim to have owned both albums. On cassette.

Back to the modern era... here's a Spotify playlist of tunes from those that got the call.  Enjoy.

Because Laughter Is the Best Medicine

Good people, the time is now. America and the world are changing the way we have traditionally thought about mind-altering substances and their value to society. It's time to stop arresting and prosecuting people for using simple, homegrown stuff to ease their pain and add some joy. Enough already. Legalize it.

Oh, and the health effects?  More and more, science shows us that what has ailed human for decades or centuries can be in some ways alleviated by using these currently "controlled substances." Come on.  Let's get into the modern age and make it legal!

Wait, did you think I meant weed?  Oh, no, no no.  Not marijuana.

Mushrooms!

Oh, yes.  According to the Psilocybin Service Initiative of Oregon and their PSI 2020 campaign,

there's a movement afoot that says that the use of recreational mushrooms -- with safety assistance, of course -- has inherently beneficial elements that can and will improve our mental health.  Seriously. It's worth a glimpse, no?

PSI 2020 is a "ballot initiative campaign aiming to legalize access to psilocybin assisted therapy, is now gathering petition signatures for the 2020 ballot."

According to PSI Chief Petitioners Tomand Sheri Eckert:

A growing body of evidence demonstrates that psilocybin assisted therapy is safe and uniquely effective. We think that this novel approach could help alleviate the mental health crisis here in Oregon by addressing costly epidemics like suicide, treatment-resistant depression and anxiety, PTSD, and addiction to drugs, alcohol, and nicotine. Additionally, the measure would open doors for new research, create access to services for those interested in personal development, and reduce penalties for common possession of psilocybin.

I know what caught your eye -- doing mushrooms can help with your addiction to drugs! The anti-gateway drug!

As someone who witnessed something called SpringFest in 1992, I can tell you that the effect definitely helped some people relax on an otherwise stressful spring day in Williamsburg, VA. Right up until some maniac tried to "smash himself" in the moving bookshelves in the library.

And as someone who knows someone who knew someone who's asking for a friend and once met someone who was related to a guy and you cannot pin this back on me/them but he read on the internet about a guy who once knew a guy and they created mushrooms out of perlite, vermiculite, rice, bell jars, terraria, and oh yeah syringes full of spores from Ecuador and Cambodia... let's not forget, Dude, that keeping wildlife, um... fungal spores, for... um, ya know domestic... within the city... that ain't legal, either.  YET.

This is all vastly intriguing to me.  And the way I came upon it is that a girl I knew from high school was touting this measure in earnest on Facebook this week. She's an awesome person and, when she references the highlighted quote above's laundry list of afflictions the psilocybin help, she says "every one of which I suffer or have suffered." She's collecting signatures. Just trying to make her world and others' better.

And trippier. Like way weirder.  I love it.



Popcorn for everyone!

This Week in Wrenball: Primer

Basketball was invented in Springfield, MA in 1891 by a Canadian physical education teacher named James Naismith. The game is played by teams of five, who endeavor to throw or otherwise place a round ball into a hoop that's 10 feet off the ground.

The College of William & Mary started playing basketball in the 1905-06 season. Famously, the Tribe is one of only four schools to have been a part of the NCAA's Division I since its inception to have never qualified for the season-ending tournament, colloquially known as March Madness. Since 64 teams qualify each year for this tournament, it's a statistical anomaly that W&M hasn't been able to make the event, especially since the team has reached the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) tournament final (the winner of which receives an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament) four times in the previous ten years.

Here at Gheorghe: The Blog, we've been writing about the Tribe (who we also call the Wrens, from time to time, in an homage to our friend Mike Litos, who coined the name after W&M's quixotic mascot hunt earlier this decade) for a decade or so. Our This Week in Wrenball is likely the most frequently recurring of all of our recurring bits, with the possible exception of Fashion is Dumb/Stupid. Yeah, we've probably done more Fashion is Dumb.



I offer all of this by way of background for Dave, who professed to be confused by our Wrenball posts. They're niche as hell, I'll grant. But they follow a familiar formula. W&M plays reasonably well, mixing in the occasional stinker, which confounds me as I try to figure out what to make of them. Then they do something late in the season that gives me/us hope that this just might be the year they shrug the monkey from their shoulders and make the NCAA Tournament, fulfilling the most earnest hopes of dozens. And finally, they fail to win the CAA Tournament, perhaps in crushing fashion, but usually not. The cycle repeats itself the following year.

Dave doesn't know from the Wrens? GTFOH.

This season, they had a predictably mediocre start, going 4-8 during a grueling out of conference schedule while trying to break in a new point guard and several freshman contributors. At one point, coach Tony Shaver started three freshman in a game. A year removed from being the best shooting team in America, they're only making 33% of their three-point shots and 64.1% of their free throws.

And yet, after a comprehensive 84-66 drubbing of Drexel in Philadelphia this afternoon, the Wrens/Tribe are now 7-9 on the season, their 3-1 CAA record good for second place behind the white-hot Hofstra Pride. They won today's game without junior wing Justin Pierce, who averages 15.5 points and a team-leading 9.2 rebounds per game while leading the team in assists. Leading scorer Nathan Knight dropped 24 on the Dragons, grabbing 12 rebounds for good measure. W&M outrebounded Drexel, 46-30, and held their opponent to 35.1% shooting.

Pay attention, Dave. This where the pattern repeats. I'll spell it out slowly. I. Have. No. Idea. What. To. Make. Of. This. Team.

We'll know a lot more in a week. Hofstra comes to Williamsburg on a ten-game winning streak, boasting the nation's leading mid-major scorer in Justin Wright-Foreman. Two days later, perennial CAA power Northeastern comes to town.

Ask me then, and I'll tell you how little I know.

Hygge Not Drygges

As America yelled at itself today over whether we should be more outraged that a Congressional candidate referred to the President as a 'motherfucker' or the fact that he confessed to grabbing them by the pussy (among a list of grievances too long to chronicle in the time I've allotted myself today*), I found myself drawn to a Freakonomics podcast entitled How to Be Happy.

* At the risk of pulling back too much of the curtain and exposing long-standing secrets, I generally allot myself about 15 minutes to crank out a post. I don't edit much. Stream of conscious dipshittery is the best kind, I find.



The secret, it turns out, is hygge.

We'll let Meik Wiking explain. Wiking is the CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen. Denmark is routinely ranked at the very top of the world's countries in the United Nations' annual World Happiness Report. (Dude's name is pronounced Mike Viking. That'd make me happy, too.)

Wiking defines hygge (pronounced hoo-guh) thusly, "So I think the best explanation of what hygge is, is the art of creating a nice atmosphere. So it’s about togetherness. It’s about pleasure. It’s about warmth. It’s about relaxation. And that is a key cornerstone of Danish culture. To Danes, hygge is perhaps what freedom is to the Americans."

It also involves candles, apparently. Listen to the podcast. It's fascinating.

The podcast goes on the explain that Danes have a significantly higher opinion of governmental institutions and closer societal bonds than many other developed nations. There's an implicit social trust that many Danes attribute to the extremely generous economic safety net made possible by the country's very high (50% of income, on average) individual income tax rates. That same taxation policy tends to depress income inequality, which also contributes to everyday Danes' sense of shared community.

All of which got me thinking about a conversation I had with my daughter's boyfriend over the holidays. He's a very sharp kid, a high-achieving student in a challenging STEM program. He also professes to be a communist. More of the live-on-a-commune kind of communist than a hammer and sickle command economy communist, as it turns out, but a communist nonetheless.

So I had some questions. I offered that I found that capitalism, while flawed, is the best system ever created in terms of raising the average standard of living in a population. Sure, I allowed, there are winners and losers in capitalist societies, and society has an obligation to those less fortunate, but the aggregate benefit is worth it, the rising tide that lifts the boats. He sees it differently. He's 17, so Winston Churchill's adage about conservatism and age applies to some degree, but his position wasn't whimsical - he's thoughtful and well-read on the topic. (Churchill didn't actually say the quote in question, but nobody comes here for accuracy.) We agreed to disagree about the practicality of society-wide communism, in the end.

But after learning more about the Danes and the balance they've struck, and how it contributes to the general welfare, I wonder if I'm right.

My daughter's boyfriend is tall and blond. I think he'd make an excellent Dane. He's got huge hygge.

This Week in Procrastination, Wistfulness, and Redemption

Loathe as I am to turn the page on such a cathartic Gheorghemas, the calendar does read 2019, and these posts aren't gonna count themselves.

I was sitting down to write the first This Week in Wrenball of the new year, when I turned on the Gheorghetown/Butler contest and saw that W&M transfer Greg Malinowski got the start for the Hoyas due to injuries. I have no hard feelings towards the young man, though I often wonder what might have been with his solid all-around game and accurate long-range shot added to last year's deadeye offense (and more importantly, non-existent defense).

In any case, the Hoya senior opened up by making his first four shots (two from deep), adding two assists and a steal, and totaling 10 points in the first eight minutes of the game (he finished with a career-high 26 on 10-12 shooting (6-7 from beyond the arc) with six rebounds and 4 dimes). I got a little wistful on Twitter.

And because Twitter is where one goes to feel better about oneself, karma smiled upon me. FOGTB and CAA hoops blogfather Mike Litos immediately chimed in to let me know about a post William & Mary Sports Blog dropped today.

Here I was thinking I needed to spend less time on Twitter! Silly me.

I won't steal everything from that terrific post, but I will share this highlight from a game that ranks at the very top of my personal sports fan moments. We even wrote about it right here, way back in 2014.



That's a much better way to start a blogyear than we chose at the beginning of 2018.