Everyone else here has kids that are good at cool things. I have little to brag about though, my kids have little talent. zson's lone God-given gift reared its head at a Cub Scout meeting about 5 years ago when they had to try to use flint and steel to make a fire. He went from kindling to roaring inferno in about two strikes of the metal and 15 seconds of puffing. None of the other kids, or their parents, could do it so he went around starting fires for everyone else. So he has a future in arsonry and insurance fraud.
And zdaughter's secret skill surfaced recently! She went to a laser tag birthday party, winning all five rounds with the most confirmed kills in each round. She was named MVP! Now she's convinced that she's a Mandalorian. So she has a future in warfare and bounty hunting. Here's an action photo from my basement.
2. I read a book
I read a book and you should read it too. FOGTB the DLC's wife wrote Grown Women and it's phenomenal. I can't believe I know anyone who can write so much so well. The novel spans a forty-some-odd year arc of time in the lives of a family of four generations of women and the dysfunction between them. Their relationships get hectic but the end made me smile. I'll let the Daves write a proper analysis after they read it.
3. zcats
zcats have a YouTube channel. There's a lot of snuggling and slapboxing involved but I foresee lots of ping pong ball content soon. I can't embed any of the videos because they're all "shorts," whatever the hell that means.
Today's entry in the catalog of things to take our minds off of all the things takes us to a place we already visit quite a bit. One could say we're experts in the subject, but I've never seen it studied quite so deeply.
You'll not be shocked to learn that nearly every Gheorghie lives in a high fuck region.
From a post at the swearing-focused blog (and you thought *we* were niche) Strong Language, here's a bit more detail.
Hell, damn and bitch are especially popular in the south and southeast. Douche is relatively common in northern states. Bastard is beloved in Maine and New Hampshire, and those states – together with a band across southern Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas – are the areas of particular motherfucker favour. Crap is more popular inland, fuck along the coasts. Fuckboy – a rising star* – is also mainly a coastal thing, so far.
The post has a bunch of maps showing the regional frequency of other terms, like damn, douche, asshole, and motherfucker. It's a really fucking nice way to distract yourself. Enjoy.
The next two weeks...hoo boy. It's gonna feel like two decades, and most of it ain't gonna be fun. So as a public service (and if you think about it, serving the public is what we're all about here - that, and the occasional invitation to a cool movie screening), we're here to provide a few things to take your mind off of the election and a couple election-related things that'll make you smile amidst the onslaught of things that make you nervous and wanting to slam your head against a bridge piling.
Let's start with the political, first with Coach Tim Walz going all Coach Tim Walz on Elon Musk:
If I still played Fantasy Football, Skipping Dipshits might make for a solid team name. Almost as good as Dorking Wanderers.
In other amusing politico tricks, check out the former guy busting out a little Eminem:
Moving on to distractions non-political, the first 30 seconds of the most recent episode of We Defy Augury offers an audioscape highlighted by sweat running down Dave's hairy ass. If that won't take your mind off of things, you're some kind of mutant. It does get better from there, but the theme of distraction stays present, as our man plumbs the horror novel genre for insight. It's a good one. Once you get through the first minute.
And finally, by the time this goes to print, we'll have a bit better idea of whether our guy Joel Dahmen is likely to keep his TOUR card for the 2025 season. On the one hand, he's raised his profile substantially in the wake of the Netflix Full Swing series, grabbing endorsements from The Finnish Long Drink, Bushmills, and MGM Resorts, among others. But that exposure came with a price. Dahmen's on-course play hasn't been very good for a while, and after a string of mid-table finishes, he entered this evening's second round play at the ZOZO Championship (this evening, because it's in Japan) outside the top 125 on the FedEx points list, the cut line for full TOUR membership the following season.
Dahmen finished the first round tied for 52nd at one over par. He's gonna need to move up 10-15 places over the rest of the tournament to guarantee another year on TOUR. Get it, Joel.
Rob mentioned it in a comment, but it's worth adding a little more flavor.
"fernandomania, finally at an end."
For those gheorghies too young to really remember the fireworks surrounding Fernando Valenzuela's rocket launch into cultural phenomenon-land in 1981, it was really something.
In an era where far more star pitchers looked like John Tudor than George Lopez, Fernando burst on the scene late in the 1980 season as a somewhat portly, unpolished 20-year-old reliever from Navojoa, Mexico. 17.1 innings of shutout ball later, he was someone to watch in '81. A Future Star, so Topps told us.
And he was! Opening Day shutout!
5 days later, another complete game, 1 ER, 10 K's! 4 days later, another shutout! 10 K's! And he had 2 hits! 4 days later, another shutout! 11 K's! 2 more hits! 0.25 ERA! 5 days later, another shutout! Only 7 K's, but 3 more hits! Hitting .438! ERA 0.20! 5 days later, 9 IP, 1 ER, win again. Hmmm... 5 days later, shutout! 11 K's! Phew! Back on track! 5 days later, Complete game win, 2 ER, 7 K's. WTF, Fernando? 4 days later, 7 IP, 4 ER, 6 K's, loss! Oh, no!!
I mean... gracious. Holy frijoles!
You can imagine the hullabaloo across baseball and sports media and the Angeleno crowd and Mexicans and Mexican-Americans everywhere. Holy wow.
Plus, he was just fun. He looked happy all the time. He didn't look like a baseball player. He didn't look like he knew how to pitch right. Nuke LaLoosh's heavenly gaze owes everything to Fernando:
"Now, I want you to breathe through your eyelids....Like the lava lizards of the Galpagos Islands. You see, there are some lizards have a parietal eye behind their heads so they can see backwards. Haven't you ever noticed how Fernando Valenzuela, he just doesn't even look when he pitches? He's a Mayan Indian. Or an Aztec. I forget which one. I get 'em confused." --Annie Savoy
Even I, who rooted fervently against the Dodgers, was in awe of this guy and couldn't help liking him.
And that was the story of baseball in 1981. Oh, wait. Wait.
Another thing you might either have missed or don't recall well. The 1981 baseball strike. Free agency had taken MLB by storm, and well, the owners hadn't packed their foul weather gear. They tried a number of measures to recoup some of the control and cash that the overdue dambusting had cost them, but there was no putting Humpty Corrumpty back together. Neither side would budge, so on June 12 they shut it down.
Reporters used Strat-O-Matic to simulate the delayed 1981 All-Star game inside Cleveland Stadium, with the scoreboard displaying the game's progress; the Strat-O-Matic set went to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Some newspapers used Strat-O-Matic to simulate other canceled games during the strike.
Anyway, 51 days later, play resumed, but the way in which it did so was a mess. They had "1st Half Standings" and "2nd Half Standings." The division winners played each other in the first-ever NLDS. One problem? Well, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Cincinnati Reds had the best overall records in their respective divisions, but neither had won the 1st or 2nd half. So they were excluded. Whoops.
The strike was a terrible time for baseball, obviously, and the fans were rightfully livid. I certainly was! I was just shy of 11 years old and couldn't fathom life without big league baseball.
So, who saved baseball in 1981? Fernando.
I mean, sure, MLB bats caught up to him -- a little. 8-0 became 13-7; his W-L record was, as they often are, a bit misleading. His preposterous ERA through mid-May escalated all the way to 2.48. He led the league with 180 strikeouts in 192.1 innings. He won the Rookie of the Year. He won the Cy Young. He finished 5th in MVP voting.
It was his year.
And he was 3-1 with a 2.21 in the postseason as his Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees 4 games to 2 in the World Series. Most impressive was Game 3 of that series, when -- with L.A. having lost the first 2 games of the series -- Fernando allowed 4 runs early to the Yanks but stayed in to throw a complete game as the Dodgers came back for a 5-4 win. His mates all say it was his gutty performance that turned the tide in that World Series.
Fernandomania was real. And a great time to be a fan. I mentioned George Lopez. There's a cool piece he wrote on Valenzuela 8 years ago that is worth reading, but here's a little bit of it:
But wait, Valenzuela: That's us. This guy looks like us. He could pitch, he could hit and when he ran, he looked like he was barely going to make it to first base -- just like us. Wait, there was somebody selling Fernando Valenzuela stuff at a factory in Van Nuys, California? That's how crazy Fernandomania was. I can't remember a time before or since that I wouldn't miss a game either on television, radio or in person.
Fernando Valenzuela was a 6-time All-Star, but he never again won the Cy Young. He did notch 173 wins and over 2000 strikeouts with a career ERA of 3.54. He was often very good to great, but he was never quite the sensation that swept the nation like in 1981.
He played 11 years in L.A. before hopping around for 6 or 7 years, trying to throw a few more pitches by people. In his last year in Los Angeles, Fernando left just one more indelible mark on Chavez Ravine and Dodger fans everywhere. The 30-year-old, bespectacled, lefty pulled off a final act of wizardry for the faithful.
Let's give Vin Scully the mic for the call:
“If you have a sombrero, throw it to the sky." That about says it all. RIP, Fernando -- but may Fernandomania live on forever.
Well, the amazing run of the 2024 New York Mets came to a grinding halt Sunday night. When such unlikely, would-be storybook seasons run their course without your team winning the last game of the season, there is solace in numbers. A strength in communal sadness. It's almost as if... misery loves company.
Yep, here we go again, but the '24 version of MLC had the Sox dribbling to mediocre conclusions and the Mets making us cue up some Whitney. As rob said in his parting shot, the Beantown boys went 16-24 after MLC Redux kicked in. The Mets, meanwhile, went a startling 25-14 to run out the regular season. They still needed some 11th hour heroics to make the playoffs, and boy did they get them:
The MLB playoffs are longer this year than ever, so for clubs that scratch their way into the lower tiers of the postseason, you have to knock off four teams for a title now. First came the division-winning Brewers:
Then the powerhouse Phillies:
Ultimately, the super-stacked team with the best player in baseball and the best record in baseball (those pesky L.A. Dodgers) proved more worthy of a trip to the Fall Classic. So the Mets won 7 out of their 13 playoff games, good enough for some national acclaim, some killer fun nights for the fans, and a slew of outstanding memories -- but not good enough to move on.
My takeaway: Not just at the well-documented 0-5 mark to start the season; not just at the oft-mentioned June 2 mark when the club was flailing away at 24-25; but even when my buddy and I agreed on August 18 to run MLC back at GTB for fun, when the Mets were hanging around at 64-59... if you had told me the Mets would play 13 playoff games in 2024, I'd have thought you were insane and taken that deal 100 times out of 100.
Folks have different reactions. My brother-in-law Pat lamented yesterday via text that "if you don't win the whole thing it doesn't really matter... you're just another loser if you don't win it all."
My young cousin chimed in at that and said, "You are allowed to enjoy things, Patrick."
Hear, hear. I cursed a whole lot over the last three weeks. Really nasty stuff directed at innocent human beings just trying to play a kid's game as a profession. I threw my hat down and across the room. I stomped and fumed, I gave up and got sucked in again. Not a ton of emotional intelligence on display.
But I reveled as well. Cheers and rooted and hoped and exulted and leapt and ran and high-fived and hugged. I communicated with Marls and rob a lot. I planned nights with friends around town or, as Sunday night's final moments, at my house. Grand slams and go-ahead homers and blown leads and comebacks and Grimace and OMG and LFGM and whatever the hell that arm gesture thing was.
I definitely "enjoyed things." And I still will.
Chatter amid Mets Township has immediately and predictably moved to thoughts of payroll, who stays and who goes, and what this team will look like in 2025. It will be different for sure. We have $190 million moving off the books just like that. Pete Alonso is the hot stove name du jour in Queens, but there are others. Sean Manaea, Jose Quintana, and Luis Severino, aka the majority of the starting rotation down the stretch and guys who threw the team on their backs at times during the late run. It will be interesting, and you can hope to build on the clubhouse culture that propelled this whole team to far, far exceed the sum of its parts, but turning over a lot of those guys will have its effect.
Maybe we'll do this again, rob and I. I loved it, for obvious reasons. It was less appealing for him, but he was a great sport. We move on now to Yankees vs. Dodgers in what should be an all-timer. Worth a look.
Thanks, Metsies. That was fun.
——————————————————
Marls here with a little addendum. At the risk of pissing off Rob (something something about post count) I’ll just add my brief thoughts to Whit’s much more eloquent musings.
It may sound like an overstatement but this team let me love baseball again. I texted Rob and Whit at one point that since October 9th 1988 I have been conditioned to expect the Mets to ultimately lose in the most excruciating way possible. It is hard to be a fan and enjoy games while constantly expecting the other shoe to drop. To be honest, it kind of makes you an asshole to be around (more so than normal) and impacts others ability to enjoy the games. But the improbable ways that this team won games, texting with good friends, and the ability to see it though the eyes of my six year old, who actually just expects them to win, was freeing. If they lost, so be it, the ride itself was turning out to be the real joy.
This Summer, Mrs. Marls and I saw Big Head Todd & The Monsters at Wolf Trap with Blues Traveler. Blues Traveler was not great mainly because John Popper is a shell of his former self both in terms of girth and ability to carry a show. However, BHT brought it and was much more enjoyable than I expected. A bit like this Met team, I went in with low expectations and left feeling lucky to have been witness to it. I also can’t help think of BHT’s biggest hit as it encapsulates the feeling that Whit expressed, Howie Rose noted, and that I felt on Sunday night after the last out. It is bittersweet, but more sweet than bitter. The Mets didn’t win it all, but it was a hell of a ride that I got to share with friends and family in person & via text.
I know this is age speaking, but in the end, the text threads with Whit, Rob, Mark, TJ and lots of others (especially one conducted at 35k feet over Wyoming as Pete Alonso homered against the Brewers) are worth more than an actual championship.
We are living in the strangest alternate reality possible. If your bingo card had a presidential candidate discussing a deceased golfer’s dick during a rally…you win.
My eldest kid and I have a shared language, a shorthand of silly words we use from time to time, usually to express bemusement or (often fake) chagrin. For example, if I ask them if they've done something that needed doing and they tell me they haven't, I'll respond via text with 'blerrrg' or 'flump' or some such.
The same kid has a wildly eclectic and expansive taste in music. Yesterday, the two threads crossed when they texted me to say they were listening to a song called "Flump", by a band called The Skull. As you likely know, The Skull is a Chicago-based doom metal band that's been around for about a decade. And doom metal, obviously, is "an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much "thicker" or "heavier" sound than other heavy metal genres."
The kid sent me a link to the tune, and to be honest, I had some apprehension. But upon a few listens, it's got its own sort of appeal. I don't think I'll be running out to buy The Skull concert tix, but I've heard worse.
On this day 55 years ago, something amazing happened. The hapless New York Mets did this:
Check out that chaos. No matter who wins anything this year, it will certainly lack the anarchy and mayhem of that scene.
Against a decent measure of odds, your Misery Loves Company Mets of 2024 are in the National League Championship Series, and it's tied at one game apiece as they continue the battle against Los Angeles for the right to face the AL Champs in the World Series. (Looking at lot like that'll be the Yankees.)
We're ranging far and wind in this latest clearing of the fertile fields of one mind. From the worst kind of asshole to our kind of assholes (or at least motherfuckers), we're shooting from the hip with no regard for propriety, consistency, or common sense. Hope you dig it.
If there's anything Gheorghies enjoy (beyond dumb fashion, Muppet Rap, Tribe Hoops, hand-selected automobiles, and dipshittery), it's an auction. Usually we focus on stuff that we'd enjoy having, whether for the sentimental value or the stylistic attractiveness. Today's auction is a horse of different color; it's an opportunity to hate-buy some shit we could co-opt for good.
Alex Jones is a piece of shit. My God-fearing Mom says I shouldn't talk like that, but she feels the same way, just not out loud. I expect she asks the Lord's forgiveness when she calls him a fuckstain under her breath. In my view, the Lord knows she's right and doesn't feel she needs to be forgiven. Anyone who profits from torturing families of slain kids for years upon years deserves to be called that and far, far worse.
G:TAT
As we're wont to point out, karma has a way of dealing with people like Jones. After he lost multiple court cases and was ordered to pay restitution to the families of the children murdered in Sandy Hook, the assets of Jones' production company are being sold to the highest bidder. In addition to all of Infowars' intellectual property (web domains, brand, social media accounts, trademarks, etc), the sale "may also include production equipment, office furniture, computers, gym equipment, a Terradyne Armored truck, a Winnebago Motorhome and more."
Dudes and dudettes, I know what you're thinking, and I'm right there with you. Gheorghe: The Armored Truck is within our grasp. We can park it at the compound and use it in parades where we fly giant FUCK ALEX JONES banners. It's a glorious vision.
Speaking of prominent right-wing fuckweasels and comeuppance, I was not expecting the people behind Cards Against Humanity to be agents of freewheeling fuckery and chaos (the good kind). And yet, here we are.
In 2017, Cards Against Humanity raised over $2m from small donors (at $15 a pop) to purchase land on the U.S./Mexico border in an effort to make it difficult for the Trump administration to Build The Wall. In an ironic twist of fate, SpaceX purchased an adjacent property and started work on a launch facility for its rockets.
All of which is fine and mostly legal ('cept, perhaps, for the somewhat shady local politics that went into the process). But SpaceX being SpaceX, and Elon Musk being Elon Musk (that is to say, completely lacking regard for anything that doesn't serve Elon Musk), the company used Cards Against Humanity's pristine land as a dumping ground and a construction staging area. See the before and after pictures below, and note that this land DOES NOT BELONG TO SPACEX, THOSE ARROGANT FUCKS:
Before Musk
After Musk
As a form of protest (and in addition to suing SpaceX for $15m), the wiseasses at Cards Against Humanity have started a campaign to drive blue voter turnout, and are funding it by selling an election-themed pack of game cards, featuring topics such as JD Vance's couch-fucking predilections and That Fucking Guy's demented harangues.
We can play it in G:TAT.
It wouldn't be a Gheorghasbord, or really, any G:TB post, if it didn't have a wild swing to an entirely different topic. This one's a peach.
The lads from Green Day have a penchant for doing weird and whimsical shit. They've chosen to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Dookie, their third studio album, and the one that rocketed them to stardom, in a very Green Day way.
Check out Dookie Demastered, which finds the boys re-recording the songs from the record in the most lo-fi and silly ways imaginable. We're talking "Basket Case" filtered through a Big Mouth Billie (sic) Bass. We've got "Welcome to Paradise" played via Gameboy cartridge, "When I Come Around" recorded on a wax cylinder, "Pulling Teeth" conducted through a...toothbrush. Shit is avant garde and dumb as hell and genius. Not to mention a great brain cleanser from the first to elements of this post.
We'll close today with a bit of long-delayed joy. Christen Press is, by talent, one of the elite goalscorers in women's soccer history. Unfortunately, she's also been one of the most snakebit athletes of her time, at least of late. She suffered an ACL injury in June 2022, and dealt with a series of setbacks that required a total of four surgeries before finally returning to NWSL play with Angel City FC in August.
Press is a well-loved member of the USWNT diaspora, her podcast with former teammate and partner Tobin Heath among the most-viewed in the soccer media game. She made her much-anticipated return to the game with a token minute against San Diego Wave FC on August 24, and has appeared in a total of seven games down the stretch. Saturday in Cary, NC, she entered a scoreless match against NC Courage in the 65th minute, took four shots (three on target), and seven minutes into extra time, did this:
The NWLSverse went bananas, as well it should. Very cool moment from a player who's gone through it for a long, long time. Press herself issued a neat statement, saying in part, "Since I got injured, people were counting the days that I didn't play soccer, and I was counting the days that I hadn't scored. My true love is scoring." That the goal was a certified banger was just icing on the cake.
Once again, primo Washington D.C., political snoop Bob Woodward pestered folks in his Rolodex in pursuit of a book. And once again, reasonable people might wonder: WTF?
CNN obtained an advance copy of Woodward’s forthcoming tree killer, War, a peek behind the curtains at our current leaders as they dealt with conflicts around the globe.
The book follows Woodward’s standard m.o. of remarkable access and scrupulous reporting from inside the rooms where discussions occurred and decisions made. He conducted hundreds of hours of interviews, and accounts come from aides and confidants and may come from the principals themselves, under cover of anonymity or confirmed in what’s referred to in the reporting biz as “on background.”
There are descriptions of salty, unvarnished language that President Joe Biden used in reference to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian president Vladimir Putin. That’s more salacious than substantial, as both men could prompt priests to spout off like dock workers.
More concerning is the revelation that former president Donald Trump quietly sent COVID testing machines to Putin for his personal use during the height of the pandemic, when such tests were difficult to come by, and has had multiple conversations with Vladdy since leaving the Oval Office.
Trump’s admiration of Putin is no secret, or at least his regard for a guy who calls all the shots, turfs opponents with impunity and isn’t bound by pesky details such as co-equal branches of government and laws.
Woodward is a legend and, at 81, remains nominally an associate editor at the Washington Post, where he made his bones fifty years ago with the Watergate scandal. But most of his efforts for the past forty years have been directed toward books about presidents and the D.C. political elite.
Again, it’s fair to ask where Woodward’s priorities lay, reporting news or book sales?
As the site’s media grump, I’ve hoe’d this row before. In a previous book, Rage, he reported conversations with Trump in which the Prez admitted that he was informed of the potential seriousness of COVID in early 2020, but intentionally downplayed and dismissed the virus, hoping that it would dissipate by fall because he didn’t want it to tank the economy or hurt his re-election chances. As tens of thousands died that summer and many more were affected, Woodward sat on those conversations and left them in book galleys for later release, when releasing them might have affected policy and saved lives.
Four years later, credible reporting says that Trump extended a favor to an adversary who’d like nothing better than for America to chase its tail and leave him to his autocratic f*ckery. This isn’t historians Michael Beschloss or Douglas Brinkley digging through archives and personal correspondence to paint a picture years later. It’s not even Woodward protecting the identity of his famous Watergate source, Deep Throat, until after he died. It’s current, real-time actions by a man running for president for the third time, the standard bearer for the Republican Party.
Granted, sending virus tests to Moscow doesn’t rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors or even make the top 10 of the Orange Oaf’s acts and remarks that should be disqualifying. It is, however, part of the bigger picture, and I’d argue that the public has the right to know. What folks choose to do with that knowledge is their choice, but I’m generally in favor of more, not less, information.
One might argue that the book’s Oct. 15 release date means that Woodward’s reporting about Trump hits the public sphere before the election, so that voters may factor it into their choices. Or, that it isn’t important enough to change anyone’s mind.
But again, the nature of reporting includes elements of timing and immediacy. Woodward almost certainly learned of, or confirmed, Trump’s actions months ago.
Books such as his require lengthy fact checking, as well as the legal and liability car wash. Perhaps that would have been early enough to affect the conversation and nomination process. He has said of the potential conflict between daily journalism and book reporting, that if he unearthed significant news that “the paper comes first.” That metric suggests that he didn’t think Trump’s largesse toward Putin merited mention before the book dropped.
Woodward is painstakingly neutral in his books; he often explains that he prefers to describe events or quote people, and let readers make up their own minds. Deciding what and what not to publish, however, is a choice that reporters and editors make every day. Most of those choices don’t involve former presidents and presidential candidates. Most of those reporters aren’t Bob Freakin’ Woodward, who has the luxury of access as well as one of the nation’s most powerful daily platforms at his disposal. To not use it and instead to hoard information for books released at opportune times feeds into the mercenary lean of everyday life and feels less than helpful to the citizenry, something Watergate-era Bob Woodward might have had a few thoughts about.
Last weekend I went to see JDMcPherson and he kicked ass. You can tell he spends time with Dan Auerbach because he and the band sounded meticulously like their album versions ... except when they decided to jam out and did Bloodhound Rock into Wolf Teeth and blew the roof off the place. Apparently they've done this before.
They also covered Richie Valens, Iggy Pop, and The Velvet Underground. Here's the setlist, I'll embed a Spotify playlist here later. Suffice it to say it was good-old-fashioned, extremely accessible rock n roll and you should go see him if he's in your area.
But even more impressive was the opening act, Kate Clover. Her stuff on Spotify is crisply produced and she even has videos so I expected something pretty commercial. Instead I got an honest-to-god punk rock show. Here's an older set with decent recording quality.
And here's a set with her current, better guitar player (but you can't hear the vocals too well).
A few of young among the gheorgherati were old enough to watch "What's Happening!!" in its original incarnation. Rob, the Daves, Danimal, the KQs, and Shlara, most likely. Others caught it via syndication. You know, as a rerun.
Rerun! Fred Berry was the actor who played Freddy "Rerun" Stubbs for each of the three seasons that "What's Happening!!" ran. The ubiquitous red beret and suspenders he donned added to his portly frame and mischievous activity. He'd bellow, "What's happenin, Raj?" to his buddy Roger upon entering the scene, while, Dwayne would arrive with a "Hey HEY hey" that leave people onscreen and off hi-fiving. A fun watch that still amuses -- especially the quick barbs from Raj's sister Dee. Yacht Rock enthusiasts love the Doobies episode.
Fred Berry also played Rerun in the redux "What's Happening Now!!" from the mid-1980s. But didn't do a whole lot else. Easy to see how he fell into typecasting hell.
Fred Berry
Meanwhile, another blast from the past was on the radio the other day. If I said to you, "Aw, Mickey, you're so fine," I trust that you all would know how to finish it.
Toni Basil! Her lone pop hit (I do not consider this piece of early 80's cheese shiz to be a hit, despite it charting), "Mickey" was actually a cover. A British glam-pop group named Racey released a song called "Kitty" in 1979. Toni and friends renamed it and added the cheerleader chant with which I opened this paragraph -- then put out a video with a whole cheerleader theme. Apparently the cheer uniform she wears is hers from back at Las Vegas High school, Class of '61. (She's 36 there.)
Toni Basil, some of you may know, had made an appearance much earlier in her career as one of Wyatt and Billy's Mardi Gras party pals. One who sheds all her clothes. When in Rome...
Toni Basil
Meanwhile, in another part of the galaxy, we were recently discussing fine films unavailable for streaming these days. One old classic that can't be watched via any streaming platform at the moment takes us back to 1984, one of those apex years in music history. This film captured a pop culture nugget from the era and feature-filmed the hell out of it -- not once, but twice! In the second film they boogied so hard, it was like a booga-loo. A rather electric one at that.
Breakin'! This cult classic featured an array of break and other kinds of dancers, but its main male character was Ozone. With Turbo and Kelly, he took the art to new levels on the streets of Venice Beach. Ozone was played by Adolfo Quiñones, a dancer who went professionally by Shabba Doo. He danced in Chaka Khan's "I Feel for You" (with Turbo), and he choreographed and danced in Lionel Richie's video for "All Night Long (also with Turbo)."
Supposedly, Quiñones appeared in the film Tango & Cash. but I have not yet confirmed that with the Teej.
Adolfo Quiñones / Shabba Doo
Welp, there you go. Three people with nothing in common.
Oh, wait.
Except...
Ah, yes. From 1973 until 1976, each of these people -- Fred Berry, Toni Basil, and Shabba Doo, were in a dance group called The Lockers!
The Lockers
Check it out! They called themselves that because another founding Locker, Don "Campbellock" Campbell, developed the art of locking. You know, like popping and locking?! Like the founding principles of breakdancing?!
The Lockers began as a collection of "Soul Train" dancers. They did their thing in the early 70's with some serious acrobatics, fluidity, and yep, locking. Major crowd-pleasers. This one from '76 is the best but it won't embed, so watch another below.
When Don Cornelius wouldn't pay them to stay on the show, they decided to do did their things on TV programs. Fred Berry went by "Mr. Penguin" for obvious reasons, and Toni Basil was the only female, the only Caucasian. They played on Carson, the Carol Burnett Show, and yes, even What's Happening!!
They even were featured on the 3rd-ever episode of SNL: Watch here.
And then came the commercials! If you watch just one, watch this Schlitz Malt Liquor ad. So good.
Apparently Mykelti Williamson (Bubba Blue from Forrest Gump) was an alternate member of The Lockers back then.
Most of them are gone now. Fred Berry passed first, in 2003. Greg "Campbellock Jr" Pope in 2010, Don "Campbellock" Campbell and Adolfo "Shabba Doo" Quiñones in 2020. Bill "Slim the Robot" Williams and Leo "Fluky Luke" Williamson are still around, as is Toni Basil, who's 81 now.
But once upon a time, they were somethin'. The Lockers.
Two basketball players entered the league after storied collegiate careers. They'd tangled in the NCAA Tournament, got a ton of publicity for their battles. One was a flashy playmaker who legitimately changed how the game was played in material ways. The other was a frontcourt player with a robust all-around game. One was a child of the small-town Midwest, the other came up in a tough city. Oh, and one was white, the other black. They didn't much like each other, at least at first, though they came to first respect and then admire the other's skill and competitive fire. Together, they helped catalyze rapid growth of the pro game.
Obviously, we could be talking about Magic and Bird, linked throughout their careers because of an accident of timing, a shared incandescence, and a number of obvious and fascinating contrasts.
We won't know for a while if we're also talking about Angel and Caitlin, at least in terms of long-term legacy, but the first impressions aren't unkind to the comparison. Reese and Clark don't seem to have a lot in common as people, one with a sophisticated personal style and fierce on-court persona, the other matching the on-court grit but rocking a very different fashion vibe. The media's made a thing of their alleged enmity, though both players have gone out of their way to offer respect, if not necessarily warmth, to the other. And with much due respect to A'ja Wilson, Napheesa Collier, Breanna Stewart, Alyssa Thomas, and Sabrina Ionescu, among many others, the pair are likely to be the brightest lights in the WNBA firmament for the next decade.
All we ask as fans, other than good health for both players, is a remix of this gem:
And maybe someday, this one (h/t to Marls for the find):
As our brother blog Sentence of Dave is quick to point out, this is an absurdly fertile time in terms of scripted content. (Also in terms of radically insane right-wing batshittery, but that's an entirely different post altogether.) Here are just a few of the things we're currently watching.
"The Penguin" absolutely lives up to its billing. Colin Farrell might as well be a voiceover given the prosthetics required to make him Oswald Cobb, but he's in there - you can see it in the gestures and hear it in the timing and inflections. Even so, Oz isn't the most interesting character in the series. That honor goes to Cristin Milioti's Sophia Falcone. Equal parts psychopath and coquette, the daughter of a slain mob boss father and murdered brother burns with furious, all-consuming vengeance. The eyes, man. The eyes. Let's not sleep on Rhenzy Feliz, who plays Oz's dragooned sidekick. HBO Max is doling out episodes one per week, just like the olden days. Appointment viewing.
Different genre, closer to home, FOG:TB Barry Privett and Carbon Leaf just released their 15th studio album, "Time Is The Playground". The Leaf cognoscenti in your midst didn't love the first single, "Backmask 1983", deeming it a bit poppy for our taste. But we do dig a lot of the other tunes, including the title track.
And one more, much further afield. Somehow, I started following an Instagram account called Cheeky Golf Club. On a whim, three brothers from England set out on a quest to see how long it would take for one of them to play 18 holes of golf without making a bogey. When they started, 230ish days ago, Tim (the brother who plays the golf) was a 13 handicap. He's down to a 9.5, but he's only managed to make 8 straight pars or better to start a round. The boys are cheery and light, and they just surpassed 100,000 followers. Here's to 18 pars.
My admiration for Ta-Nehisi Coates is no secret to the assembled Gheorghiage and our assorted hangers-on. Love the hangers-on.
We wrote earlier in the week about T-NC's new book, which is on its way to me. Coates has been getting a lot of props as a thoughtful writer operating from a very different perspective than many public intellectuals, for whom selling books seems to be at least as important as advancing ideas and pushing for a deeper understanding of the forces influencing history.
Coates willingness to challenge dominant narratives seems to have raised some eyebrows. Case in point, a recent interview he conducted with CBS Mornings to promote The Message, his newest work.
These things are generally about as newsworthy as Dave's latest gaffe, but the topic of Israeli/Palestinian relations is a fraught one, as you'll see from the beginning of the segment:
GMA co-host Tony Dokoupil went in on Coates from the jump, accusing him of writing about Israel in a manner no different from an extremist. Coates' calm, thoughtful response is remarkable. If someone called me an extremist (read: terrorist) on national television, I'm quite sure I wouldn't have reacted so sensibly.
Coates may have known this going in, but it's worth noting that Dokoupil has two children and an ex-wife who currently live in Israel, and he converted to Judaism as an adult. It is an understatement to suggest that he's not an impartial interlocutor. It's a measure of Coates' commitment to seeking truth and fostering broader understanding that he didn't take the obvious bait.
The New Republic's Meredith Shiner offered an anguished argument about the media's failure to reckon with the damage that comes from reflexive defense of Israel and immediate rush to claim antisemitism any time that state is criticized. Which is precisely what happened to Coates, and which makes his distinctive voice and choice of topics all the more vital.
Yeah, that's right. It's time for Francisco Lindor, Pete Alonso, Ozone, Turbo, Kelly, Mr. Met, and Grimace to get it going for the stirring sequel to yesterday evening.
'Twas as insane a baseball game as I've witnessed in a while yesterday. For this half of the Misery Loves Company tandem bike, this was the (far more dramatic than needed) conclusion that we'd hope for when we resuscitated the baseball blogging.
Deep exhale now.
And now that exhale is over. Game 1 of the Wild Card series for the Mets begins today in Milwaukee at 5:30 ET.
But first, before that likely deflation of the Met balloon (Mr. Met's head?), let us please savor one day in NYM history that worked out like it was supposed to. Mind you, not by design. But the ultimate conclusion was more than a wee bit gratifying.
It's best captured via a text thread between Marls, rob (sorta), and myself.
Takeaways:
We emote a lot more vociferously at bad events than good. Where is our cheering?
We are convinced they will lose up until when they win. (Can you blame us??)
Rob needs to tune in sooner, even as a part-time new fan.
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