Weed, License Plates and LSD: This Week in Drug News

As I prepare for my impending move to the drug-friendly state of Colorado, I feel compelled to share this week's news in drugs. Let's dig in, shall we?

 

The State of Colorado recently held an auction on marijuana-themed license plates. Proceeds benefited the Colorado Disability Funding Committee. The auction ended, of course, on April 20. The results were as comical as they were predictable. 

The top bid went to ISIT420, which went for $6,630. The next highest bid was TEGRIDY (Google it if your South Park knowledge is stale), which went for $4,930. Following this was BONG at $3,890, GREEN at $3,510 and STASH at $1,860. 

The next auction will be held on April 20, 2022. Crossing my fingers I can win the 420 247 or QP KB auctions and put some sweet new plates on my Dodge Stratus. 

In other news, Justin Zhu seems like a guy who could roll with many of us current (and former) party animals. Justin was a co-founder and CEO of a marketing startup company called Iterable. Never heard of it? Me neither. But a lot of people have, apparently. This private company has a current market value of $2 billion. Pretty sweet, right. And Justin likes acid. 

Apparently, Justin took acid before a company meeting in 2019. He said he was attempting to micro-dose to "improve his focus." Yeah, that's why I used to do it too. Listen, I get the theoretical concept of a micro-dose. I occasionally nibble on a bit of an indica edible before bed - maybe a third or a half of a 10 mg gummy. I sleep well and have odd dreams. Everybody wins. But Justin wasn't nibbling on a gummy. He was EATING ACID. AT WORK. This seems like all kinds of bad decision-making by the CEO. Clearly, he was either: i) so out of his gourd that folks figured out what happened, or ii) so cocky that he felt the need to share news of his drug adventures to his colleagues. Do your drugs, pull yourself together, and keep the deets to yourself, like any self-respecting degenerate.  

The full story is here. But before you have a pity party for Mr. Zhu, remember that he is a co-founder of a $2 billion company and probably owns a big slug of equity. It is likely he never needs to work again. But maybe he should double down on his psychedelic legacy and push for psilocybin legalization in Colorado. That would be good. Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.

Rob Lasso: Episode One

By popular demand (and common sense), we're changing the names of the characters for better readability. For reference, R is now Dutch (her real name is that of a former President's last name), E is Ellie, B is Breezy, A is Ash, K is Kenny, J is Jennie, and O is Ollie.)

“Little girls are mysterious. And silly and powerful. I gave up trying to figure them out years ago.” - Ted Lasso

When we left our squad in the prologue, we'd reached a tentative peace after a bit of intrasquad drama. And goodness gracious if these kids have been anything but supportive of one another. On their own, they:

• organized big/little sister pairings
• designed, collected money for, and had printed custom tie-dyed team t-shirts (Mac, another of our senior captains, spearheaded that effort)
• sorted out a clusterfuck of uniform distribution; trying to outfit 27 kids with uniforms enough for 22 is a test of coaching mettle and patience

With respect to the first of those, I was particularly interested to see that Dutch (our fiery senior captain) paired up with Roo, one of the freshmen who was almost certainly the target of her anger on the final day of tryouts.

On the field, even before our first game, injuries were beginning to cause issues. Most of our kids play travel at a reasonably high level, and those seasons started in March. Our high school season is compressed due to COVID, so we'll play 10 games in five weeks. We've had shin splints, thigh strains, knee knocks, back spasms, and a banged up toe. 

Jorge Campos, also a short, 
quirky keeper

In brighter news, we were forced to train on the school's secondary (grass field) while the football team advanced to the state semifinals. Our kids were sad (not sad) to see their classmates lose that game, 21-14, to a team from Rootsy's neck of the woods. That was a long day in the car for my kidlet who made the seven-hour round trip to cheer in the game. And now we get first dibs in the turf stadium field.

You've met Dutch, Breezy, and now Roo. I was really impressed last week with Ash, a senior defender, who went out of her way to be supportive of our backup keeper, Ollie. Both of our keepers don't do much to dispel the stereotypes that attach to their position. Ollie and our first-team keeper, Ellie are a bit, how shall we say...quirky. Ellie is a junior who I've coached before. She's on the small side for a keeper, but she's a good shot-stopper. She also strays way too far from her line, which drives the head coach bonkers. He's had two All-State keepers who went on to start as freshmen for Division I programs in the past six years, so he's been spoiled. I worry a little bit that the frustration he expresses to me will be visible to the kids in the net. I hope that's not foreshadowing.

Back to Ash and Ollie, then. The former is a pretty, popular senior, the latter a socially awkward sophomore. Ash went out of her way without prompting to have a word with Ollie and boost her spirits after she muffed a corner kick. Ash is okay by me.

Lindsey Horan, also a tall, smooth
attacking midfielder

We started four freshmen in our first game of the season this evening, and had two more play significant minutes. And none of the players had been in a high school game since May 2019. The nerves showed early on. Ellie almost gave away a silly goal by playing a goal kick before her outside back was ready for it. Kenny, our most talented player - a tall, smooth attacking midfielder - had a couple of balls bounce off her shins that she'd usually cushion and play the perfect pass from. Roo was manic, chasing everything and getting to nothing.

And then, all of sudden, Kenny got to a ball, and found Kenz, a slight freshman winger, who beat her defender with a nifty feint and delivered a sweet return pass that Kenny ripped...just wide of the keeper. We kept the pressure on, pinning the opposition back for a good five minutes, and our nerves abated.

Midway through the first half, Ellie made a spectacular save on a drive from 10 yards out, tipping the ball over the net. On the ensuing corner, our defenders left two opponents unmarked, and one of them toe-poked a ball into the net. 1-0, bad guys.

Just a few short minutes later, Breezy got turned around our opponents' striker - an exceptional player - who lashed a ball into the top of the goal to put us down 2-0 at the break.

We switched from a 4-4-2 to a 4-5-1 after halftime because our midfield was allowing too much space to our opponent, and we controlled the ball for much of the first portion of the last frame. Kenny stripped the ball in midfield, took one touch, and sprung Kenz, who took a sublime first touch and struck a low hard shot to the far post. The keeper got a hand to it, but deflected it directly into the path of Jennie, a diminutive and speedy winger. Jennie slotted it home, and we were within a goal.

Not three minutes later, the referee spotted a foul that I'm still looking for, and awarded a free kick about 30 yards out on the right wing. The kick found its way to the back post and none of our defenders attacked it, giving the other team an easy goal to make it 3-1. Five minutes later, their stud striker turned another defender and rifled a ball to the top corner of the net, and it was 4-1.

That's probably a fair result, all things considered. We emptied the bench in the final five minutes, and got all but 1 active player into the game. Our friend's niece got her first high school playing time, and acquitted herself well, sticking in on a tackle and making a nice pass.

I remain impressed with how much the kids support one another. Ab, our third senior captain, didn't start and didn't play very much, but she sat with a bunch of underclassmen and talked to them on the bench throughout the game. Several kids were pissed about losing, but none of them took it out on each other. We'll get another shot at this opponent next week. We've got some work to do, but I think it'll be a fun journey.

Sugar We're Going Down Swinging

Supporters of the so-called "Other 14" in English soccer watched with a combination of bemusement and horror last week as the "Big Six" joined with three Italian and three Spanish clubs to launch the European Super League. Turned out the ESL owners were flying with waxen wings, and the sun was shining brightly. Karma, as we know, is a bitch.

Rumors now abound regarding the possible penalties the six English clubs (Liverpool, Manchesters City and United, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, and Chelsea) might face as they return to the fold, tails between their legs. Some reasonably credible folks have suggested they face as much as a 30-point penalty in the standings. In reality, they wield too much power for the English Football Association (FA) to do much more than slap their greedy wrists. I'm guessing a transfer ban of some sort.

But if I'm wrong, and the FA's righteous fury becomes the worst case for the six traitors, well that's at least an interesting thought experiment. At the moment Man City is coasting to a third league title in four years, ten points clear of Manchester United with five matches to play. Here's what the current table looks like:

Imagine for a moment the seismic reshuffling that would result from a 30-point deduction. The top four would be:

1. Leicester (59 points)
2. West Ham (55)
3. Everton (52)
4. Manchester City (47)

(It's a measure of City's dominance that a 30-point deduction would still see them likely to qualify for the Champions League.)

Leeds United, Aston Villa, and Wolves would grab Europa League places in this scenario. What's perhaps more interesting is what the relegation battle would look like. The legendary Arsenal would be in dead last, seven points away from safety, one point behind Sheffield United. Tottenham Hotspur would occupy the 18th spot in the table, a point behind Liverpool. Chelsea would probably be safe on 28 points, but it wouldn't be guaranteed.

Oh, and, y'know, Fulham would suddenly be in 15th, four points clear of the relegation zone. Whaddya know about that?

Back here in the real world, Fulham are seven points from safety with five matches to play. They've managed to drop seven points from winning or tied positions in the final 15 minutes of each of their last three matches (in the final minute of two of those three). It does not look good for my guys. 

Unless something changes, Fulham will be relegated for the third time since I've been a supporter of the club. I'm starting to think those greedy dudes who wanted a guaranteed place in the ESL competition might've been on to something.

Come On You Whites! Let's make a miracle. Or let's listen to Bruce Springsteen sing our 2020/21 anthem.

I Saw a Rainbow

People seemed to enjoy our last memory lane musical fillerama, and we need to change the post at the top of the page, so here's another killer 80s alternative tune from a British Isles-based band.

Rob Lasso: The Prologue

As most of the G:TB family knows, I was hired recently as the head coach of my local high school's junior varsity girls' soccer team. Our man in the OBX hit me up around that time and suggested that I chronicle the season for posterity. To which I thought, postcount! Also, that's a fun idea.

I've coached girls travel soccer for five years now, always as an assistant. I have a lot to learn about the tactical side of the game, but I think I'm pretty good at the cultural elements, and I like building relationships with the kids and watching them grow as players and people. So when I got the head coaching gig, I spent a good amount of time thinking about how I wanted the team to play, planning practices with the expectation that the team would have a mix of experienced players and kids with some athleticism but limited time in the game. 

As far as my philosophy goes, I want kids to have fun first and foremost, especially at the JV level. It's not worth putting in the effort five days a week if it isn't fun. And I subscribe to Chris Jones' philosophy, which the writer set forth in a Tweet, "I joke about being a great coach, but of this, I am certain: 90 percent of kids respond to praise. Maybe 10 percent want a fire lit. But the vast majority of kids rise to your encouragement. Correct bad play gently, validate good play wildly. Then watch them be stars."

Tryouts started a week ago Monday. And I realized pretty quickly that my plans weren't worth the paper they were written on. Of the 27 kids that came out, 25 were highly skilled, tactically astute, and far more physical than I expected. The other two...have work to do.

On the plus side, my plans are irrelevant, because 27 kids aren't enough to field Varsity and JV teams, so the head coach of the Varsity team quickly decided that all 27 would make the team, and that he'd like my help as a Varsity assistant. As he told the girls that after the last day of tryouts, he was honest about what that meant for playing time. We want all the kids to be part of the program, to get some much-needed socialization during a really strange time for student, and to grow as a group. 

We didn't get off to the best start. Several of the best players on the team are freshmen, and they weren't terribly deferential to their elders during tryouts. As the coach announced the plan to keep all 27 athletes, a senior - we'll call her R, and she's a smart, tough defender with a leader's mien - stepped forward and firmly said, "you may be a great player, but you don't get respect because you can play. You get respect because you give respect. So when we ask you to get a ball, or help out with cones, you do it, because we did it, and because we've earned it." 

We broke that night unsure of how many kids would come back for the first day of practice.

Twenty-seven girls came back the next day. And with the stress of tryouts gone, the team began bonding almost immediately. The awkwardness of the night before was gone, and 27 kids got after it.

You'll learn more about the kids on the team over the coming weeks, though I won't be using any real names because I'm a public school employee and I don't need someone Ghoogling the name of the school and stumbling on my stories about their kids in a blog about dipshittery, weed, and William & Mary basketball. R was named one of the captains, as voted by the team. The niece of an FOG:TB is one of our freshmen, and I've known her mother since she was a teenager. I've coached B, a junior defender, since she was 12, so I've got a friendly face to vouch for me with the other kids. And since I'm an assistant coach, I get to learn with no pressure, and I get to focus on building relationships and coaching individual kids rather than thinking about the entirety of the program.

In Episode Three of Season One of Ted Lasso, the title character says, "For me, success is not about the wins and losses. It’s about helping these young fellas be the best versions of themselves on and off the field." To which I say, amen. Just don't tell the girls I called 'em fellas.

Our first game is next Tuesday. Tune in here next Wednesday for the next episode, and in the meantime, do enjoy the trailer for the second season of Ted Lasso.

Listen Up to What's Down with GTB

Gheorghe: The Musical Forum is a great place to experience the latest and greatest in new music, deep cut diamonds in the rough from yesteryear, and music to which we have personal ties. 

To wit...

The new:

Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band... with washboard for Rootsy and a Tally Ho tour date coming up for Rob and Marls...

You heard about Wild Belle here 5 years ago. Check out Natalie Bergman solo...

Dusting off older tunes:

Love this REK tune... seems very pertinent these days...

Rewatched a bit of the Richard Pryor doc Omit the Logic recently, heard this song close it out... lovely...

Personal ties:

More from Les...

Finally, want to read something good? Read the Arcade Fire's Will Butler's honest reflection in The Atlantic on his hesitance to play live despite yearning to do so.

Gheorghasbord: From Wieners to Cocks

Hope your respective weekends were good. Just a few tidbits to keep the good gheorghies tuning in and the postcount up.

Tubesteaks have dominated the discussion here for a while. Frankfurters, I mean. Question(s)for you...

1. Do the meats in the video below count as hot dogs?
2. Any interest among the gheorghies?
3. Is there some shortage of wiener buns?

On a related note, 6 years ago this article muddied the waters on an ongoing debate of whether a hot dog is a sandwich: National Hot Dog and Sausage Council Announces Official Policy On ‘Hot Dog as Sandwich’ Controversy.  The long and short of it was that they claim that hot dogs are in their own category and therefore not lumped into the sandwich category. But check out the USDA Regulatory Definitions of a Sandwich in that link.  Thoughts?

30 years ago a few of our guys went through a parallel debate of whether a BLT is a sandwich, with the non-obvious argument throwing its eggs into the "bacon is a topping not a primary meat" basket. This one wasn't and isn't much of a debate, but I certainly enjoyed the ridiculous banter that it offered a while back.

* * * * * * *

It was once written, "Washington: First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League." New York is the epicenter of everywhere anywhere (just as a New Yorker; they'll tell ya). First in business, first in fashion, last in the American League. Meanwhile, rob's Red Sox are in first place, even as he sandbagged our annual case o' beer bet and has the Sox +10 wins versus the modestly Amazin' Mets. Conventional wisdom says those spots will be reversed by Memorial Day, but one never knows...

* * * * * * *

QB Alex Smith retired today. Much will be said about him, and hyperbole will abound, as is de rigueur, but what he did to come back from a gruesome injury and subsequent infections cannot be overstated. He faced amputation and played a couple years later in meaningful NFL contests. His acquisition set the WFT back a costly bit, as it turned out, but the team's fans are Alex Smith fans all the way.

* * * * * * *

Speaking of football, I have twice as much incentive to get to an SEC game this summer. My younger daughter came to the end of her miserable run during the college admission process. It's been a rough road for her and for her peers because of a few factors:

• Would-be rising sophomores from last year who took a gap year and are coming back. According to at least one admission office, one-quarter of their freshman slots were taken by this population, so this year's crop of kids were starting off short-handed.
• The SAT wasn't a requirement this year. My daughter did well (highest in the extended family), so this would have helped her. Instead, it saturated the candidate pool.
• With the effect the pandemic has had on the economy, large state schools (the relative bargains) have been flooded with applications. My girl applied nearly exclusively to large state schools.
• Among other things working against her, some recent grads from her high school were embroiled in a cheating scandal at UVa; that and a progressive push from colleges for DEI and a new era of wokeness did not help the students at this decidedly unwoke preparatory school. Sounds like there's a shake-up a-brewing at Norfolk Academy, though enough of the Board of Trustees all have MAGA stickers on their Bentleys and Range Rovers that it's not a given. I do know that when a high school is more expensive than a number of the colleges for which it offers tutelage and trajectory into, its numero uno metric is college acceptance, and when that ebbs mightily, look the fuck out.
• At least in these parts, it's just been a crappy year to try to get into colleges... and to be a senior. All the fun stuff and privileges have been cancelled, virtual learning sucked, in-person learning was definitely not the same, and now the process of moving forward has been disappointing at best. A friend who's a UPenn alum sits on interview panels for local applicants. He said that they usually have an acceptance rate of 9% to 14% of the kids they see. This year they interviewed 98 applicants. 1 got in. 

So... bad luck for my daughter and her peeps. All that said, she's going to college! That's more than many people across many years could say! She came to a decision late last week, and we're happy for her.

Maddie will be joining her sister in Columbia as a Gamecock for the University of South Carolina. 

I'm happy for a variety of reasons. She's done and moving on with the next chapter in her life. The first place she thought she might want to go when this process began was USC. She only had reservations because the cat left the bag and a lot of her schoolmates loudly announced how much they wanted to go there, when she wanted an element of getting away from much of what (and who) she'd known before for a new adventure. 

I'm especially happy because my two daughters really are great friends as much as sisters, and they want the experience of going to college together. I definitely don't take that for granted. Plus, now I can see them twice as often on my college visits. And it's a bargain.  Oh, and football.

As football comes back in earnest for attending fans, I am looking to join the fray. November is a fun month at Williams-Brice Stadium; Clemson finishes off the regular season there. Before that, Auburn comes in looking for revenge. And before that, the Gators hit town on Nov. 6. Already starting to make plans.

Go Cocks.

A New G:TB Fave

At 10:00 am EST this morning, Barnsley play Coventry in Matchweek 42 of the English League Championship, the second division of the island's professional soccer pyramid. The Tykes have spent but a single season in the Premier League, going up and down in 1997 and 1998. 

Now, though, they're in position to make the four-team playoff for the final Premier League promotion slot. And one of the major reasons comes from Edmond, OK.

Momentary interlude for cultural purposes: Barnsley is a town of 90,000 in South Yorkshire, bang in the middle of England. It's eight miles east of Penistone, if one is juvenile. So, really, all of the male Gheorghies. It's a textile town, historically, but it thrives today because of bakeries and the service economy, as I'm told.

But we're here for the Edmond part. 

Barnsley's on the precipice of promotion for many reasons, but there's no question that American striker Daryl Dike has made a huge difference. Since he joined Barnsley on loan from Orlando City in the MLS, he's scored eight goals in 14 games. Dike's headed goals in, he's finished sublime buildups, and he's scored goals like this banger against Birmingham (start at the 1:35 mark):

Dike's story is a uniquely American one. His parents emigrated to Oklahoma from Nigeria in that time-tested pursuit of the American Dream. His older brother Bright played in the MLS and for the Nigerian national team. His sister Courtney also played internationally for the Super Eagles. Dike played two years at UVA (not holding it against him) before turning pro. He got his first two caps for the USMNT this year. 

And in addition to his athletic prowess, he's an impressive kid, as this interview with Roger Bennett shows:

I going on record here. Daryl Dike is gonna be a household name, at least amongst those who follow American soccer. He's the next Jozy Altidore, and not just because he's a big, strong, striker of African heritage. This generation of American soccer players is building to something promising, and Dike will take his place alongside Christian Pulisic, Gio Reyna, Sergino Dest, Tyler Adams, Zach Steffen, Weston McKennie, Josh Sargent and a bunch of other talents. The times, they are good.

The Decision

Hi guys and gals. I've been AWOL for a while. Life has come at me hard. I will try to keep this post to a reasonable length. It is a surprisingly fitting follow-up to The Teej's post yesterday on the arbitrary ranking of states (which makes me look smart in this post). 

Where to begin? We'll start with the pandemic. As some of you know, I left my last Wall Street job at the start of the pandemic (for non-pandemic reasons). I spent much of the last fourteen months being unenthusiastically underemployed as a fractional CFO for growth companies. I also spent a lot of that time looking for a new gig. I was done with a soulless existence on Wall Street. Better said, Wall Street was done with me. After escaping NJ with the family in May 2020 and riding out some of the pandemic in Hilton Head (three weeks) and the Outer Banks (one week), my wife and I realized we never wanted to go back to NJ. 

But we did return to NJ. That's where our all our stuff was! I began to focus on jobs out of the NYC area. In the middle of the pandemic, I decided to pursue a career pivot to another line of work in another city. Even my Polish grandmother would have shaken her head at the futility of that initiative. My list of acceptable cities was eclectic, but not random: Atlanta, Charlotte, Tampa, Austin or Denver. We wanted a better quality of life and/or lower cost of living. Warm weather was a nice kicker, but not a requirement. We began to gravitate to Charlotte. Lots of corporate gigs, lots of financial services gigs, two hours to Asheville, three hours to the beach, lots of pro sports options, cheap-as-hell housing, mild weather and a great state college system. We planned to head there in late March and start inculcating our kids into the prestige of UNC Chapel Hill.

But something else came together in March. I got back in touch with an old friend from my MBA days in February (Never underestimate the power of a good professional network, my friends).  I accepted a job offer via that friend in March. I started that job in April. I put my house on the market two weeks ago. I accepted an offer one week ago. I got out of attorney review yesterday. No turning back. 

I'm moving to the Denver in July. Come visit. It's tough to leave an area where my wife and I have so many friends, and Zman and Juan Carlos are each a world class mensch. But the opportunity to experience something new, while selling my house at an inflated price, is too good to pass up. As I told my wife, whose heart is set on retiring in Hilton Head, this will be the next chapter, but not the last chapter, in our lives, and we will be empty nesters in less than eight years. Go Nuggets. 

Folks, you know what to do*

This list, it is...incorrect. I know the Jersey guys will agree, and why the fuck is the meth lab of democracy ranked 7th? Bump Oregon and Vermont, and drop Texas waaaaaay down. Mississippi, you seem good right there, no no put your hand down, we're not listening.

And Hawaii we see you... nice.

Methodology: 1,211 US adults were asked to choose the better of two states from a list of the 50 US states and Washington, D.C. in a series of head to head match-ups. 

*bitch about this in the comments

Back to School II: The Quadruple Lindy

I've got a few weeks left in my modern version of the old classic, Back to School. (Yep, I'm Rodney, and by the way, that seemingly innocuous film is totally polarizing among people I know. Teej and I love it, many folks detest it. And don't know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut.)

Anyway, I'm slated to graduate next month. Just 25 years after my buddy rob did so with the same degree from the same school.

Last week, we had yet another group assignment.  This is the first class I've taken in my 3+ years of this program that interspersed students from the full-time MBA program with our program -- a program that I simply call "night school." And calling it night school, of course, can only make me think of one show, one episode, and one glorious scene that will remain close to my conscious for all my days:

But anyway, our group project was based on one of the many Harvard Coursepack cases that we've studied throughout the program. This one is about a guy named Dave Carroll. The basic story is here, encapsulated as such:

"United Breaks Guitars" documents the incredible viral power of social media, analyzing the reach and impact of a clever customer complaint music video produced by Canadian musician Dave Carroll when his attempts to recoup the value of his guitar (broken in transit) are stonewalled for over a year by United Airlines. Posted on YouTube on July 6, 2009, the video was tweeted by Carroll's friends, posted on social news sites, shared with Facebook friends, and picked up by bloggers. From there it was a quick hop to the mainstream media; by the end of July, the video had been viewed 4.6 million times, with external references expanding that audience by many more millions.

The video in question for United Breaks Guitars:

We, Team 7 of the Customer Experience Management class, were assigned this case and took on the role of United after this thing went kablooey, tasked with a 45-minute virtual presentation to the class last Thursday. My four teammates from the full-time program, each of whom was born during the Clinton administration, set about creating a slide deck and talking points. I, meanwhile, with their blessing as the old guy, took on a tangential task of what I figured was the no-brainer inclusion for any presentation on this subject: our own music video.

And then I got some sort of bronchial infection about the same time my second COVID vaccine shot was being sunk into my upper arm. And lost my voice entirely. And was down for the count. Bad times, and my part of this project was certainly in jeopardy.

I was able to rally, write some related lyrics, set some chords to it, and spend some time on my third floor (Les Coole Studios) hastily laying down the track. Gravelly (at best) voice and all. And then winging my way through iMovie, creating some visual accompaniment. We presented it to the class to modest fanfare. Here it is, just for kicks.

The Mad Wiener Grab of 2021

Nearly 3 million people have been lost to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Global economies have been disrupted, many industries have been hammered, and the state of the world is, even as we crawl out of this morass with vaccinations, fraught with uneasiness and anxiety.

But we will be fine.

Except . . . wait, what??

A looming shortage of bacon and hot dogs could leave big cookout plans up in smoke for July Fourth when most Americans are vaccinated

"Hogs have been in short supply since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic more than a year ago. Now analysts are predicting higher prices and a short supply of pork for foods like hot dogs and bacon as restaurants re-open and summer barbecues resume as vaccinations in the US pick up pace."

Apparently America's "pent-up demand for meat" will have trouble being met due to "lower production last year and higher disease losses." In case you didn't know, "the number of market hogs, piglets, and future piglets, dropped 1.8%, 1.4% and 2.5%, respectively." Damn the future piglets, I always say.

What does it mean?

• higher prices on these meats
• fewer discounts
• more people stocking up
• people bargain hunting
• barbecuing being impacted
• people being sad
• people starting to be vegetarian
• no, not really

I have actually been dating a vegetarian for a couple of years, and while it's been eye-opening in lots of ways, I am still highly carnivorous (and hotdogivourous, as you recall) and dismayed by these news.

Also, I got my vaccination shots at/courtesy of Smithfield Foods. Coincidence?

A Quick Hot Take on COVID Vaccine Passports

Some people don't like the idea of COVID vaccine passports because it somehow infringes on liberty or human rights or something like that.  This includes Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida and an alumnus of Yale and Harvard Law School and a former JAG Corps officer at Guantanamo Bay (which is to say a smart guy who knows a thing or two about liberty and human rights).

I think this position is wildly overblown.

If you want to attend public schools you have to show proof of vaccination.  Yes, you can obtain a waiver in many states for religious or philosophical reasons, but either way your local school district knows whether your kids have or haven't been vaccinated for various things.

Many other countries require visitors to get vaccinated for Yellow Fever before they can enter.  So, for example, if you want to visit Angola or Benin you have to show proof of vaccination.  To make this easier, WHO even has an international certificate of vaccination or prophylaxis, or ICVP, to carry with you to these places.  A vaccine passport, if you will.  So when you go to these places their governments know you've been vaccinated for various things.

If you want to leave the US and go to another country, you need ... a passport!  I have one and you probably do too.  Getting it required a bunch of paperwork, a photo, a fee, and an inordinately long wait but now I can leave the country and get back in.  As a result, the government knows a bunch of things about me and so do the governments of the foreign places I visit.  That's just the cost of travel.

Sharing information about yourself with your government is the cost of citizenship.  We share health information all the time (see my school example above; see also anyone over 65 who uses Medicare).  This circumstance shouldn't be any different.

At the end of the day which is worse: a bunch of bureaucrats knowing that you got the COVID shot, or dealing with more masking/distancing/shutdown precautions?  So lighten up Ron.

Gheorghasbord: What the Kids are Doing

Odds and ends, as usual, inspired by a couple of things I heard from my kids this week.

We have a family friend who attends the College of William & Mary. She's a freshman this year, and she loves it in the Burg. She's a perfect fit: earnest, smart, dorky in a good way. Just a neat kid. My 17 year-old came to me a few days ago and asked, "What did you call the Sunken Garden when you were in college?"

Puzzled, I responded, "The Sunken Garden. Why?"

"Because Tiernan called it Sunky G's on Insta."

"Get the fuck out of here. Sunky G's?"

"Yep. Sunky G's."

And as it turns out, kids at W&M have been calling it that since at least 2015, according to a Google search. I weep for the youth. It's no Tinee Penis, that's for certain.

That same 17 year-old texted our family thread this morning at around 8:00. In and of itself, that's an amazing fact, as she is never awake before 8:30 when she's rousted into surly half-consciousness by whichever parent has girded their loins to face her. The text itself was a doozy:

"taylor swift killed prince phillip"

and we were off.

So I guess we've at least got to listen to the music.

Sunky G's, man. Shaking my damn head.

This Week in Wrenball: The Counterfactual

At the end of the 2018-19 college basketball season, 4th seeded William & Mary lost to 5th seeded Delaware in the first round of the CAA Basketball tournament. The Tribe finished that season with a 14-17 record, but there was reason for optimism despite the early end to the campaign. W&M was returning its top 5 scorers, freshman Chase Audige had shown substantial promise, sophomore Luke Loewe hadn't yet shown the offensive potential he'd later display, but had proven he could defend the league's best guards, and 7'0" transfer Andy Van Vliet (from Wisconsin) was scheduled to join the experienced roster for the 2019-20 season. Most neutral observers picked the Tribe as the preseason favorites to win the league in 2020.

Then, a week later, amidst vague and scummy noise about "a culture of losing", athletic director Samantha Huge fired the winningest coach in school history.

Four players transferred: Audige (to Northwestern), fellow frosh LJ Owens (UMBC), grad transfer Justin Pierce (UNC), and Matt Milon (UCF). Pierce was a solid contributor in the ACC for the Tar Heels, and Audige was Northwestern's leading scorer in this his first year of post-W&M eligibility, scoring 12.3 ppg in mostly Big Ten action. Loewe graduated from W&M this Spring and transferred to Minnesota. So if you're paying attention, you'll note that the 2019-20 team might've had three Big Ten-quality players, a solid ACC contributor, an NBA-level conference POY in Nathan Knight, a terrific shooter off the bench in Milon, a versatile guard in Owens, and a couple of promising youngsters.

New coach Dane Fischer did an admirable job with the remnants of Shaver's program and a bounty of incoming transfers, winning 21 games before losing to Elon in the first round of the 2020 CAA Tournament. Careful observers will note that the 2020 squad bowed out at exactly the same point in the season as the 2019 team, Huge's arglebargle about "setting the bar high" notwithstanding. 

So you've reached this point in this post, and you're thinking, "I've seen this movie before, and it ends with Rob pissing and moaning about something Wren-related". Not so fast my friends. This is not a post about how Samantha Huge fucked Tribe hoops (though she did). Instead, it's a question about what might have been and what other things compare.

Nerrrrrrds

Our sage colleague OBX Dave slid into my Twitter DMs and said that he believes that Shaver's 19-20 team would've won the CAA tournament title and earned a bid to the NCAA Tournament. Only to have the tournament cancelled. Kinda like what happened to Hofstra. That would've been one hell of an irony, and it got Dave to thinking, what other things in history would be equivalent - hope and opportunity aloft and then gutpunched to miserable coulda shoulda regret.

Pete Best's career comes to mind. Matthew Modine surely wishes he hadn't passed on the role of Maverickin Top Gun. Hillary Clinton wonders why she didn't campaign in Wisconsin (too fucking soon, man). IBM hired Bill Gates and his merry band of Microsoft engineers to build an operating system for $80,000, with the stipulation that MSFT retained the copyright. For what became DOS. Expensive mistake, that. 

We'll close this post (while you offer better examples in the comments) with Dave's entry. If only Deco wasn't such an immature dope and Jimmy would've stopped shagging all the girls in the band. As John Greenleaf Whittier wrote, "For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, 'It might have been'."

Stick Around Laugh a While

Desperate need for content plus the first few real days of Spring equals filler. And so, here's a song from the wayback that speaks of the smell of cut grass filling up my senses. There's a lot more loving left in this world.

Music Monday

This one's a little different. Got a text from my college-aged kidlet last night with a Spotify link to this song, with the description, "this song goes crazy". With some trepidation, I clicked the link. It's hard to describe. And a fun band name to boot. Dig on it.

Back in Purple

"Yip, yip yip yip" is amusing when it comes from the Martians of the Muppetverse. It's less fun when it describes a professional baseball pitcher who - inexplicably and suddenly - can't throw strikes.

(Did I just sneak a Muppets reference into a post where it had no business showing up? Yes. Yes, I did. It's the little things that make this place genius, friends.)

As I sit in my living room watching the Red Sox host the Orioles in the season's first game at Fenway Park, I'm as far removed from my rabid baseball fandom as I've been in years. But the game (and that place) still bring a smile. And the first week of the season still heralds spring and summer, which my toes - frozen from walking my dog in 25 degree temperatures this morning - desperately need.

One of the best stories from yesterday's MLB Opening Day happened in Denver, where the Colorado Rockies took on the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers. Colorado beat the Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers, 8-5. That's interesting, but the cool part of the story was the way the game ended. Daniel Bard struck out two and pitched a scoreless ninth inning to record the save for the Rockies.

Bard quietly pitched pretty well in 23 games with the Rockies during last year's bizarro season, posting a 3.65 ERA and striking out more than a batter per inning. Quietly for me, I guess (see above), since he did win the 2020 MLB Comeback Player of the Year award. Before that, you have to go back to 2013 to find evidence of Daniel Bard's baseball career. And therein lies the story.

The Red Sox drafted Bard out of UNC in 2006 after a stellar college career. He reached the majors in 2009, and played a key role as a setup man as the Sox won the World Series. Bard struck out 63 in 49.1 innings that season. He was even more effective in 2010 and 2011, appearing in more than 70 games each season with a sub-1.00 WHIP. Bard looked for all the world like the heir apparent to the mantle of next great closer.

Until he stopped being able to throw strikes. He lost his control, and the Sox spiraled themselves in 2012. Bard walked more men than he struck out that year. He pitched twice in Boston in 2013, and was out of the game - seemingly for good.

Anna Katherine Clemmons wrote a terrific feature on Bard's comeback yesterday for Charlotte Magazine. It tells the story of the time Bard spent away from the game. Or at least off the mound. While he battled mental challenges, he used his experience to mentor players in the Arizona Diamondbacks system. When the players he was coaching saw him throw, they wondered why he was coaching and not on the mound.

Finally, he decided to give it another shot. At the time, his wife Adair was nervous, “I knew it was a serious thought, which made me excited and terrified at the same time.”

The Rockies signed him, and Bard showed that the electric stuff of his youth was still there. And he showed that he could control it. I'll give Clemmons the final word, "However this season unfolds, Bard has his family, his comeback, and his shift in perspective. One key to control, it turns out, is letting go of it. It’s a game, he tells himself nowadays. Just go throw the ball. If you enjoy it, keep doing it. If not, do something else. “For a long time, I put a lot of pressure on myself that I had to live up to this expectation,” he says. “But life in general—baseball especially—only has as much meaning as you assign to it.”

(Okay, not exactly the last word. As I posted this, I noticed that we already had a 'daniel bard' label. I found that odd. So I searched it, and found this post from 2014. In it, I lament Bard's painful fall from grace, and hope that he finds a way back to the bigs. And so he did. Right on, Daniel Bard.)

Also, I did want an excuse to post this:

April Fool's Gold

It's been a cow's age since an April Fool's joke really hit home for me. Might have been as long ago as 1982, when Jimmy Damron showed up for pregame warmups for the Alabama state championship soccer game with a walking boot on his foot. Jimmy was one of our best players, and we were fucked without him. He took the boot off to much amusement. We lost in a shootout. Good one, though, Jimmy.

So we won't be trying to pull any of that nonsense on a crowd as discerning at this one. Instead, we'll celebrate some stuff about fools.

Like the Stone Roses song Fool's Gold. Classic late 80s/early 90s British Madchester alterna-dance. I won this CD from the campus radio station at W&M. It's not exactly a banger, but it's got a funky vibe and you can nod your head to it.

Richard Russo is my favorite author. And Nobody's Fool is the first book of his that was turned into a film. It starred Paul Newman as Donald "Sully" Sullivan, a charming idler/hustler living in an upstate New York town modeled after Russo's home of Ballston Spa. Bruce Willis is terrific in a supporting role as Sully's frequent antagonist, and Melanie Griffith is phenomenal as Willis' wife and Sully's mutual sorta-crush. And all's well that ends well - Sully walks out of the book's final pages flush with cash and with a new dog to boot. 

Heads up, this video has a brief NSFW moment towards the end that's universal in its depiction of a woman's ability to render the coolest fella a blushing dope:

In many ways, the movie's about the redemptive power of friendship and family ties, as this scene near the end with Sully and his pal Rub shows us. Don't need to know the whole movie to catch the emotional power here.

Is anybody out there? Fa-fa-fa foooolin':

Fool me once, friends. What've you got to add to the list?

Well, there's the premier episode of Yacht Rock, entitled "What a Fool Believes," if anyone still... still hasn't watched it.