The premise: a young, German sound engineer named Marten encountered a street musician who inspired him. He hooked the man up with some recording, and it kind of went from there.
Next up, he rolled around Europe in a van with recording equipment inside. He recorded street musicians of many nationalities, instruments, abilities, music styles, and states of homelessness or otherwise. The project is called Smells Like Van Spirit.
This is his story. It's now an album that probably should be supported by lots of folks. Later it will be a documentary. I love this kind of shit.
Check it out.
And this is one of the street bands he recorded. They're called Ramm Tamm Tilda. This song is called... "Ramm Tamm Tilda." Enjoy. I did.
Quakers released a new mix tape of mostly beats, so they called it a beat tape, and they also set to a music video. It's all good. Their summary of the tape's origin story goes thusly: “They returned to the planet to find humans reaping ecological havoc. From their arsenal of secret weapons comes Heavy Tremors: a sonic assault to help bring the world back into balance. This siege of beats targets the few who systematically pillage the planet and its resources for their own benefit. Play it loud.”
I'm pretty sure I've posted Quakers songs here before but if not here's a personal favorite. It features Guilty Simpson so I'm sure it's Teedge's fave too.
My creative reserves are running critically low at the moment. It's a multi-faceted diagnosis, in my mind. There's so much fuckery around us, from the jaw-dropping mendacity of our national leadership to the more locally-focused bullying incompetence of William & Mary athletic director Samantha Huge. I've got posts in my head on each of those topics and many others, but they arrive at my keyboard stillborn.
And yet, we've gone too long without new content, so I'm going to literally just share a thing that's been running around my brain the past few days that's given me pleasure. Friends, you can never have too much Oingo Boingo.
My marriage is old enough to drink. Turned 21 today. In honor of the day, and of my lovely bride, here's a video that will bring back memories for Whit and Dave, who were among my groomsmen. As our car pulled into the church before the wedding, this song came on the radio and we sung it out of tune at high volume. So random. So fun. Such a good memory.
We introduced our readership to the cringily raunchy and outrageously funny Big Mouth way back in January 2019. In that post, we mentioned several of the voice actors, but we probably underplayed the funniest and most uniquely conceived character and performance in the whole ensemble.
Maya Rudolph garnered Big Mouth's first Emmy this week for her portrayal of Connie the Hormone Monstress. I can't really describe Connie, so here's a video of her greatest hits.
Rudolph also won an Emmy for her work as Kamala Harris in this season of Saturday Night Live.
All of which had me thinking that she's criminally underrated. Her SNL work with Fred Armisen alone is probably worth a series of posts. She's almost too good at inhabiting roles for us to remember how funny she is. Salud, Maya Rudolph, and long live Connie.
What, and I cannot stress this enough, in the ever-loving fuck are these fits? This is like when Sandler let the kid dress himself in "Big Daddy". 0/10 do not recommend.
Welcoming the big fella to the club, as he turns a round 50 (comment on the number, not his physique, as far as he knows) this fine day. A selection from his faves, the only band that matters.
------------------------------------------
Thanks, Robbie. Appreciate the thought from you and from my alma mater, who sent me this, no bullshit. Apparently I'm celebrating my 103rd birthday, having matriculated in the 1940's.
I've heard some good rock songs as covered by funk bands lately. Enjoy this small smattering to get your toes tapping on a Monday morning.
Of note, this cat Sylvester deserves a slightly deeper dive, but his take on Neil Young's "Southern Man" is exquisite. And new to me as of last week. Enjoy.
It's been a week, friends. It's been a lot of weeks, really. Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death hit hard, even as she carried way too much of the burden of the hopes of the left. I'm proactively pissed the fuck off about the hypocrisy and naked power-primary efforts Mitch McConnell's about to unleash to seat whatever lib-owning rich-enriching conservative Justice the Federalist Society convinces our mouth-breathing "leader" to nominate to replace RBG. Timely guestie from our friend Mr. Fairbank about one of the things that's gonna get worse before it gets better. Enjoy(?).
The coronavirus pandemic has spotlighted stresses throughout our society, none more than the gap between haves and have-nots. Millions are out of work and struggling to pay bills, while others work remotely and have financial cushions, and in some cases profit handsomely (looking at you, Jeff Bezos).
Coincidentally, or perhaps not, the RAND Corporation released a study this week on income inequality and the widening gap between the upper tier and the hoi polloi. Researchers found that between 1975 and 2018, income distribution cost the vast majority of American workers $47 trillion – that number topped $50 trillion earlier this year.
As the researchers explain, from the end of World War II until the mid-1970s, real income grew at approximately the rate of per capita economic growth across all income levels, creating an immense and prosperous middle class. Beginning in 1975, as policies, legislation and corporate practices changed, that model fizzled and income distribution pushed upward.
A few stats: if worker income had mirrored the increase in per capita economic growth since 1975, the median full-time worker would make about $42,000 more per year; adjusted for inflation, half of all full-time workers earn less than half of what they would have if income distribution were at previous levels; the top 1 percent’s share of total taxable income grew from nine percent in 1975 to 22 percent in 2018, while the bottom 90 percent of workers’ share of taxable income fell from 67 percent to 50 percent. There are a bunch of eye-opening findings, nicely summarized in several stories.
(Brief aside: This recent string of serious, “adult” posts is purely coincidental. I do not intend to disrupt the G:TB mission. As several of you know, and friends will attest, I’m often the least “adult” person in the room. These were topics about which I was passionate or had some understanding or found interesting.)
I stumbled on the RAND report through a tweet from a fellow named Dan Price. I was unfamiliar with him, which is mostly a tell on me and my range of knowledge. Price, 36, is something of a maverick and a rock star in business circles and who just happens to look a little like Dave Grohl. He is co-founder and CEO of a Seattle-based online credit card processing company, Gravity Payments, which he and his brother started while he was in college. He appears to be a business owner with a conscience, or at least a willingness to put his money where his principles are. He’s best known for goosing the minimum salary at his company to $70,000 annually and slashing his own salary from $1.1 million to the same $70k, back in 2015, after a conversation with a disgruntled employee.
The move got him pilloried by FoxNews, ridiculed by Rush Limbaugh and approached by Harvard Business School about his model and practices. He was a biz media darling and curiosity at the time. No one knew how the company’s wage transformation would play out, least of all him, but the company has grown gradually. According to one business site, the company does an estimated $38.2 million in revenue and employs approximately 200 people. They preach service to customers above bottom line, and their aim is to simplify credit card processing. The word “gibberish” is in their mission statement, as in: We don’t confuse our community business owners with credit card gibberish or hide anything in the fine print.
Before anyone canonizes Price, know that he was accused of domestic abuse by his ex-wife and was sued by his brother over fair market value and payments for the company. He was never charged with abuse, though his wife maintains her claim. He won the lawsuit by his brother.
Price’s Twitter account is worth a look, with insight into how he thinks and acts and questions about the corporate status quo. He sounds much like Seattle venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, another gent I stumbled upon while researching Price. Hanauer is a self-described “zillionaire” who also bangs away at income inequality. He routinely warns fellow rich folk that if inequality isn’t addressed that “the pitchforks will come for you.” He helped facilitate the RAND study, co-authored the piece about it on Time magazine’s website and hosts a podcast called “Pitchfork Economics.”
There’s much chatter these days about us being two Americas. Personally, I think that’s too narrow. We’re at least 20 or 25 Americas, depending on geography and means and interests and levels of engagement. Features of a free society. One factor that increasingly divides us, however, is the yawning chasm of financial inequality. Lotsa folks working their asses off and just treading water, while the swells benefit from a system that’s tilted toward them and go all Scrooge McDuck. And it’s all out in the open.
That has to change. People have to feel like they have a chance. Legislation can address it to a point, but not without stoking the divide in some ways. There are powerful and moneyed interests in maintaining the present structure. But when some people in the penthouse say that the system is flawed and needs to change for the good of society, people such as Price and Hanauer, and when there’s research that provides numbers and context, such as the RAND study, that’s immeasurably valuable in the discussion.
[The King of Spain asked to take a G:TB guestie and who am I to say no? I assured him that this would be well received as the bar here is low.]
Longtime lurker, first time blogger…
Everyone should be celebrating Negroni Week. If you haven’t tried a negroni, it’s an excellent way to invest in yourself. Slightly sweet, somewhat bitter and plenty boozy, this cocktail’s profile is good advice on how to live your life. I had my first Negroni at a Babbo in Greenwich Village about 22 years ago, on the first fancy date with my wife Julie. They served it up in a martini glass, garnished with a flamed blood orange peel. It was the perfect prelude to an amazing braised lamb shank. From that point on it’s been my go-to cocktail order.
Most cocktail historians believe the drink was created in Florence by Count Camillo Negroni, who asked a bartender to substitute gin for soda water in his favorite drink, the Americano. Some say Camillo wasn’t a real count. If Camillo ran around Florence calling himself a count and invented this wonderful beverage, more power to him.
The classic Negroni is a perfect cocktail: equal parts gin, Compari, and sweet vermouth. Garnish it with an orange peel. I make mine with two parts gin, and I recommend you do too.
The Negroni format is flexible and forgiving, and has many respectable variations. The Boulevardier substitutes bourbon or rye for gin. An Old Pal subs rye for gin and dry for sweet vermouth. A bartender once told me, “it’s more crushable than a Negroni”, but I don’t recommend crushing too many.
I don’t know where I learned the following under-the-radar variation but it’s worth making. I couldn’t find it’s official name. Let’s call it the Carlito.
2 oz mezcal
1 oz Aperol
1 oz Punt y Mes
Pour over ice and stir ingredients. Strain into an ice-filled lowball glass. Garnish with a lemon peel.
I’ve been in self-quarantine the past two weeks since my daughter was part of the outbreak TR referenced in a previous post. I’ve been dry - trying to bolster my immunity and drop the 8 lbs I gained over the summer grilling and drinking beers. But it’s Friday, Negroni Week, the day after Free Queso Day, and I feel like celebrating.
It's September 17th, and we all know what that means!
According to Checkiday.com, the one-stop source for discovering what holiday(s) today is, it's Free Queso Day!! Yes!!
"Salsa and chips are always free at Moe's Southwest Grill, but queso—or "liquid white gold," as they call it—is also free today. Why? Because it's Free Queso Day! Each year on the day, Moe's gives out a free six-ounce cup of their queso as a way to thank their loyal customers." But, uh... after checking Moe's website... this may not be happening in 2020. No mention. Frickin' COVID.
Also, less popularly among Americans, it's Constitution Day and Citizenship Day. Today "commemorates the formation and signing on September 17, 1787, of the Constitution and recognize all who, by coming of age or by naturalization, have become citizens." Be a proud American. Harder than it should be nowadays, isn't it?
So use that freedom to eat... A French sandwich. The Croque-Monsieur, otherwise known as the Monte Cristo. Because it's National Monte Cristo Day!!
I do love a Monte Cristo, especially the one at The Dubliner draped in hollandaise. Good and good for you. It says this holiday was founded by Bennigan's in June 2015, and I'm thinking what you're thinking: Bennigan's was still around in 2015??
How does one top off a big French sandwich and some queso? Here's a hint: it's National Apple Dumpling Day!! Woo hoo!! "As the weather is starting to change, apples are ripening on trees, and people are starting to spend more time baking in their kitchens. This day brings both of those things together, and celebrates the apple dumpling." Alrighty then.
After eating all that, you will need it to be World Patient Safety Day -- and it is!! This was founded by the World Health Organization in May 2019. A year and a half later, they're a bit too busy to be making silly new holidays. They'll have to call you back.
Yeah, COVID's a mess. But you know what helps out a mess? National Professional House Cleaners Day!! All right! I'm serious when I say that my professional house cleaner (my cleaning lady Ashley) is at my house right now doing her thang... making a livable situation out of my messy place. Here's to her. Had I know, I'd have gotten her a card.
And what you probably already knew was that today is National Table Shuffleboard Day!! Yeah, baby! And that's all I have to say about that.
Who was born on this day, you ask? Well, think triangles!! As in the Triangle Offense, the triangle in the Permian backfield, and the world's most famous sexily awkward triangular living situation! Yes, Phil Jackson, Kyle Chandler, and the late, super-great John Ritter were all born on September 17. What do Alex Ovechkin, Pope Paul V, and Ken Kesey have in common? Yep. And Patrick Mahomes, Warren Burger, Rasheed Wallace, Bentley from "The Jeffersons," Orlando Cepeda, Roddy McDowall, and a lot of people you don't know or know of.
What happened on this day in history, you ask? Don't ask. It's pretty bleak and horrible all around, according to the History Channel's page. When the nicest, most violence-and-controversy-free thing is that Oprah's Book Club was formed today in 1996, you move on.
Musically, you only need to know three names on September 17. And here they are. Happy Birthday, Hank, Doug, and Fee.
Also, on this date in 1991, Use Your Illusion I & II were released. One week before the greatest album release trifecta of our era. I'm kind of glad Axl didn't weasel his way into that day. But here's a back-story-filled bit about UYI.
And finally, there's one last holiday today. It's Time's Up Day!!!!
Huh?
Well, it says that "Time's Up Day is a day when people tell themselves that time is up when it comes to deciding if they should make up with someone who they've had a falling out with. Tomorrow someone may be gone and it will be too late. Time's up! The time for repairing relationships is today!"
Sounds good to me.
Dave, I'm sorry I said I was the true heart of Random Idiots and told you to sod off. If I was the heart, you were the brain, and neither could exist without the other. No hard feelings?
There was a time in my life when my morning routine included a stop at 7-11 for a 64 oz. Mountain Dew Big Gulp. My teeth are definitely worse the wear for that.
And I do love a good margarita, on the rocks, with salt. Los Tios here in my hometown makes a mean and very large version, and the pandemic loosened a lot of ABC laws, so we can get them to go. Which happens more frequently than I'd like to disclose.
Today, those two very disparate elements in my life's story combined in a way that I wish I could unknow.
Red Lobster, likely panicked in a climate where restaurant sales are way down and more and more people realize they can get better food at reasonable prices (note, my elitism may be showing), released this foul beast on the world recently:
Called the "Dew Garita" because Neon Barf was already taken, this concoction includes Mountain Dew, tequila, and "a few other special ingredients" (the tears of Dale DeGroff, desperation, and a whiff of lavender). It pairs well with Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits and jorts with sleeveless shirts. (Again, the elitism. Dammit.)
Sotheby's is hosting a hiphop auction. This is possibly the least hiphop thing ever but there's so much cool stuff I won't hate. For example, they have Slick Rick's eye patch:
I can afford none of that. There are a handful of things I could theoretically afford and that are dope to quite dope, like this Beastie Boys concert poster:
The ones of you that are connected to my wife on FB may have seen this already, but it is the best (and only, I think) dog trick video we have. It was late April and we were all getting punchy. Instead of doing school work, my oldest kid was teaching the dog to jump over him. He then decided to get the younger one involved and teach the dog to jump over both kids at once. They taught him the trick and we took a video of it.
It ain't Evel Knievel going over fourteen Greyhound busses, but it ain't bad for two kids with limited attention spans and one dog with limited athletic ability (but a lot of heart).
After we captured the mighty stunt, I wanted to enhance it. Unfortunately, I have less than zero skills with videos. But I did download iMovie and start fiddling around. The video below is the best I could do. Pardon the mess in the house, but it was April 2020 and we weren't hosting a lot.
Our local public pool hosted its annual season-ending dog swim this morning, and we took our pup for her first-ever trip to the mass canine pandemonium party. I spent an hour laughing and smiling at all the good dogs splashing around, chasing tennis balls and each other. It was good for the soul.
Here's a video of our dog JoJo not quite ready to get all the way in the water. She's the black lab mix that never quite makes it past her ankles.
And here's a bonus video of JoJo spinning out as she bolts from the water. Stupid little awesome doggo.
If two shithead parents in our town hadn't ruined the fun for everybody, my kids would be at a tackle football practice today. They would then play three baseball games total this afternoon/evening. But that's all out the window, even though we paid a lot of dough for equipment/cleats/uniforms/etc.
So how am I doing, you may ask? It's somewhere between this....
And this.
At least my Islanders nutted up and really took it to the Lightning last night. So I got that going for me.
There's powerful writing, as our Outer Banks Ombudsman can demonstrate, and then there's the sheer brute force of a 7-word text, one that spares all preparatory run-up or foreshadowing. And then there's the idiotic blurt of a reply.
My baby girl got the coronavirus.
She's 19. She's otherwise healthy. She should be just fine. And, spoiler alert, she's now through the woods and already out of quarantine. But it still jolted and jarred me to get that news and consider what it might mean.
In the world in which we live, there is an endless supply of Monday Morning Armchair Quarterbacks (most of whom are of the Ryan Leaf variety) who tell us what they would have done, or what we should do, or neither of those but simply tell us that people are doing it wrong... and how dare they? Where the pandemic is concerned, way, way too many people apparently have some or all of this mess all figured out. Totally pegged. And the more sure someone is about any element of COVID-19, the more quickly I dismiss them as a foolhardy gasbag.
But I'm here to say that the comfort level that the University of South Carolina, its administration, and its seemingly unflappable president amply provided me leading up to and during my daughter's illness reduced my 385-miles-away angst significantly. While UNC, ECU, JMU and other schools have punted (for their own reasons) and sent kids contaminated and otherwise back to their homes and hometowns, USC said in not so many words, "We have a plan. And we feel good about where we are with it."
To wit, and to an almost alarming degree, there is a USC COVID Dashboard that began at Alert Level: New Normal and has risen no higher than Alert Level 1: Low -- even as the active cases among the student/faculty/staff population topped 1,700. There have been fleeting moments where even I wondered if the USC Prez was Kevin Bacon in the Homecoming Parade.
And then two things happened. One, that number quickly dropped to 640 as hundreds of people are graduating from quarantine with clean bills of health. (We presume; what the virus does to the body can have horrible, lasting effects, but unless you want this father to freak the fuck out, let's move on.)
Second, my daughter got better. She was sick for several days (exhausted like never before, achy all over, mild fever), felt slightly better, waited for a scheduled COVID test while self-quarantining, tested positive, moved into the quarantine dorm (in this case, a hotel room), kept at her classes online all the while, waited for the 10-days-from-first-symptoms paroling -- which meant only three days in formal lockdown, and moved back into her dorm room yesterday. Where she rejoined her roommate and suitemates, who have now all had the virus.
She's back to being a college kid, still in a strange time, but with a mildly augmented sense of calm. She was a total trooper throughout, talking me off ledges here and there and going full Freaky Friday on me by being the composed teenager to the uneasy parent.
Are there potential holes in this university's plan? Almost definitely. Is its success somewhat contingent on the good sense of 34,000 people who are at the age of pre-frontal-lobe-full-development? As in the age when Dave ate a cicada on a dare, when Rob won the projectile vomit contest, and when I got an embarrassing and not quite right tattoo of a girl's name on my groin? Yes, yes, it is reliant on those kinds of people. Yikes. But I still like this plan better than a number of the alternatives I've seen.
That's the news for now, and I hope that's all the news of its ilk for a long, long while. Good luck to each of you and yours out there, and may your own run-ins with this beast of a virus be like mine. You know, like a ride on a timeworn, rickety roller coaster. It scares the crap out of you, makes you curse and swear and feel ill and you just can't wait for it to be over... but then it is, and you sigh, and you still think you might puke but you're so happy to be descending the stairs that you don't even consider the organs that may have gotten damaged along the way.
Our man in the OBX worried that we're growing weary of his narrowly-focused insider baseball news content. He needn't fret, especially when he offers a phrase like, "a cornerstone of newspapering is being able to humanize the day’s activities" and helps me consider yet one more thing I hadn't. Also, as I told him, the internet's leading forum for dipshittery absolutely needs a media critic. And so, on with the criticism.
Apologies for dragging this particular dead horse into the yard for another flogging, but I believe it bears mention and repeated attention. Today’s micro-outrage involves local newspapers and shops with which I’m familiar.
Chicago-based Tribune Publishing, my former employer, announced recently that it planned to close the offices of the Capital newspaper and Maryland Gazette in Annapolis, Md., also a former employer, along with several other papers, among them the New York Daily News and Orlando Sentinel. Those papers will still publish, but staff must work from home or make other arrangements.
Capital-Gazette staffers planned to meet at the offices on Labor Day to clean out desks and to bid farewell to the newsroom. Trib Publishing got wind of the plan and locked staff out of the building. Understandably hacked off, reporters and editors convened in the parking lot and then drove to the city dock for an impromptu rally.
Tribune executives couldn’t be reached for comment, according to one report, but a labor relations executive texted that the proposed Labor Day gathering “raises important Covid-related health concerns.” This would be laughable, were it not galling. We’re supposed to believe that a newsroom full of reporters and editors who have spent the past six months covering the pandemic wouldn’t follow safe practices for gathering and interaction. We’re also supposed to believe that a corporation that’s whacked staff and strip-mined newspapers across the chain suddenly is focused on worker safety and well-being.
You might remember that the Capital was where five staffers were shot dead in the newsroom in 2018 by a man who held a long-standing grudge about how he was portrayed in coverage. The paper won a Pulitzer Prize for its work in the aftermath of the killings, and security and materials were bolstered to make the offices safer. Temporarily, it turns out.
The decision to close the offices in Annapolis and elsewhere is a real estate and bottom line move, company officials say, exacerbated by the pandemic (funny how the pandemic became a convenient corporate excuse for everything from furloughs and layoffs, to mandatory attendance by “essential” workers). Not coincidentally, one of Tribune’s primary investors and influencers is an outfit called Alden Global Capital, a vulture capital firm that I’ve mentioned in this space. AGC has spent the past decade acquiring and wangling a seat at the tables of newspapers all over the country and siphoning off money through staff cuts and various meat cleaver practices. The Trib, and by extension Alden, pulled a similar move with the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. The Trib essentially merged the Newport News Daily Press, my old haunt, with the Pilot. They sold the Pilot’s longtime downtown Norfolk office building for $9.5 million to a real estate developer, and forced Pilot staffers to work from home and travel to Newport News in the event of office functions.
Shuttering newsrooms, sending everyone home and selling the space is one more way to wring every last nickel out of newspapers. The pandemic has shown that many companies are able to function without a central office culture. I’ve argued in the past that newspapers are different and cannot be run like traditional businesses. Newsroom culture is vital to the newsgathering process, especially at smaller papers. As others have said, a newsroom is often a community’s eyes and ears, and on good days, maybe its conscience. Reporters and editors lean on each other for feedback and ideas. There’s incredible value in being able to walk a few steps and have face-to-face contact with peers, given that a cornerstone of newspapering is being able to humanize the day’s activities. Without a newsroom, there’s still interaction, but when everyone’s separated, phone calls and emails and social media contacts are inadequate substitutes. Everyone benefits when it’s done well.
(A few words about anonymous sources, if I might, which have gotten a lot of play lately after a recent piece in The Atlantic about the president’s alleged remarks of disdain for war dead and ceremonial tributes: Newspapers and news organizations have done a piss-poor job through the years of explaining the how and why and value of anonymous or unidentified sources in breaking stories. Reporters and editors always prefer that sources go on the record and identify themselves. Sometimes, given the nature of information or someone’s position, that isn’t an option. They have jobs and mortgages and families to feed. Sometimes, identifying oneself can compromise their position or that of colleagues. Retaliation can be swift and brutal. Just ask Alexander Vindman. Though they are anonymous to the public, people in the reporting chain know who they are. Reporters, editors and, depending on the sensitivity of information, sometimes lawyers carefully weigh whether to run stories dependent on unnamed sources. Stories rarely run at legit news organizations if sources aren’t deemed credible. I’ve never written about national security or government shenanigans, but I’ve written stories where the unnamed source or sources were the subjects themselves. He or she had no comment for print, but confirmed details off the record or what reporters call “on background.” Then, you flesh out stories with other sources. People on social media gave me gas for linking to The Atlantic piece. “Anonymous.” “Not credible.” “Your bias against Trump is evident.” “You never would have run that story in your old newsroom.” “If somebody isn’t willing to ID themselves, you don’t run it. Journalism 101.” Yes, by all means, explain Journalism 101 to me.)
Getting locked out of an office that’s getting ready to close is a minor indignity in the assault against newspapers. But it also drives home that there’s no act too small or petty that those in charge will not use to reinforce their position. There was no reason not to permit staffers to take a last lap around the newsroom, a place where many have given their heart and soul and do work because it’s important to their community. Likely, they did so for the same reason that too many others in power act: Because they can.
Cecily Zander is a Ph. D. History candidate at Penn State University. She's written and researched extensively on the U.S. Civil War. And as of this weekend, she's become our new favorite academic. The photo essay she posted on Twitter serves as her dissertation, and the faculty of the Univhersity of Gheorghe are pleased to bestow an honorary Doctor of Gheorghology upon the distinguished professor.
Here are just a few examples of her work, which was entitled Civil War generals as Muppets a definitive thread:
Jerry West is legendarily the model for the image that makes up the NBA's iconic logo. The Laker hall of famer is dribbling with the ball in his left hand, and while time and athletic evolution render his pose perhaps a bit stiff, the logo's still striking. And The Logo, the moniker bestowed on West for his place in the league's artistic history, is a phenomenal nickname, even as the humble West thinks it calls too much attention to him.
(As an aside born of laziness and self-interest, I seem to remember a discussion here or via email some years back about turning this picture of Ghitsa posterizing Hakeem Olajuwon into an NBA-style logo for use in G:TB merch. What ever happened to that? Someone get on it.)
Last year, the WNBA updated its logo and branding guidelines, going from a dated font and replacing the player image that sure as hell looked like Sue Bird to a more streamlined overall effect. The league freed the logo image from the box it was in and added a vivid orange color as primary, which sets it apart from the general trend towards flag drapery in American sports. For comparison's sake, here are the three logos the league has used since its inception in 1995.
Since the introduction of the new logo, speculation has run rampant about the inspiration for the image. The league itself has stated publicly that the logo isn't meant to represent any single player, but c'mon man.
Bullets Forever editor Albert Lee (who I think is a fellow member of the W&M tribe - the Tribe tribe, if you will) argues fairly convincingly for our girl EDD in this piece posted last year. Notwithstanding Isaiah Thomas and Jordan McRae's misplaced argument for Sue Bird, who doesn't wear a bun on the court.
Here's my case for Delle Donne - compare this with the logo:
Yeah, the bun's not visible in this shot, but EDD does wear one on court. Everything else is close enough for me to vote for our fave.
And now you know.
Someone get on that Ghitsa logo thing. We got merch to move.
Les Coole & The Cukes have spent more time in the studio lately. I also have it on good authority that Greasetruck Studios has seen (heard) some action of late as well.
In late 1973, a pair of former co-writing sensations released songs of their own at the same time. John Lennon's "Mind Games" and Paul McCartney's (& Wings') "Band on the Run" hit the same airwaves. Different sounding material and yet a common thread. Both brilliant.
47 years later, another long lost songmaker duo followed suit. Random Idiots founders and farceurs Whitney & Dave (in their assumed personae) have issued a pair of solo singles at the same time. Different sounding material and yet a common thread. Both . . . are songs.
