Around the Horn, and a Question About Dinner

Good afternoon, everybody. Here's some fresh gheorghasbord with A. Whitney Blogger.

Baseball season starts Thursday. And there was much rejoicing. Expect a “green fields of the mind” kind of baseball preview post coming up any minute now. We have top men working on it. Top. Men.

In the meantime, from the Nerd Herd: For the past couple of months, rob and Marls and I have participated in a Strat-o-matic baseball league managing players from the 1980's on middling clubs we assembled. Will Clark is really all I've got, though Cliff Johnson has hit 36 taters in 360 AB's (you do the math). My Tidewater Tides are 67-86 with three 3-game-series to be played over the next three nights. Marls' Queens Kings has the same miserable record, except that I have made 32 transactions since the season started and he hasn't touched his crap team. Kong has 33 dongs. And then there's rob, leading his garbage division at a 76-77 clip. Cecil Cooper's 44 dingers and Jimmy Key have led the way for him.  Will he make the playoffs? Will he do so with a winning record? Will Marls or I finish worst in the league (as we are now)? All this and more. Stay tuned!

Vinny Green Balls

The NFL Draft is a month away, but that doesn't prevent daily headlines about it. From the Who Gives a Shit? file cabinet, we announce Whitney's suggested pick for the Washington Football Team: Christian Darrisaw, LT from Virginia Tech. B'more guy who did some time at Fork Union Military Academy prior to becoming a Hokie. FUMA, known for Vinny Testaverde and Don Majkowski and Mike Quick and Plaxico and Anthony Castonzo and Morgan Moses and a whole mess o' Buckeyes like Eddie George. And Mel Turpin. And Jerry Richardson and Kevin Plank and The Big Lebowski. And Weenie Reynolds, our fraternity buddy. 

It's also known to me as the school in the Virginia Prep League we'd play every fall. My junior year we lost to them at home, 10-7, on a last-second FG. So sad, as it would have meant we registered two wins instead of one that special season. A year later we bused up to FUMA, focused on revenge. We trailed at the half, 53-0. It didn't get better from there. The kids working the chains (the best part of life at FUMA, I'd gauge) got into the game against us in the 4th quarter. So sad, as it would have meant we registered two wins instead of one that special season. 

Back to the original point... I hope the WFT takes him at #19. Speaking of that stupid acronym, team president Jason Wright says “Washington Football Team under consideration as permanent name, cites fan sentiment.” This isn't even in the Top 10 Idiotic Things Daniel Snyder's Team Ever Did, but it's up there. Morons.

Happy Birthday to Maimonides (whb 886), Jethro Tull (280), Francisco Goya (whb 275), Vincent Van Gogh (whb 168), Sean O'Casey (whb 141), Sonny Boy Williamson (whb 107), John Astin (91), Eric Clapton (76), Warren Beatty (84), Paul Reiser (65), Charlie Weis (65), MC Hammer (59), Tracy Chapman (57), Ian Ziering (57), Piers Morgan (56), Celine Dion (53), Secretariat (whb 51), Norah Jones (42), Sergio Ramos (35), Richard Sherman (33), Brooke Bush (21), and, I'm guessing, lots of other people. You're having cocktails and a fine feast of food at your house for an extended evening of conversation and post-meal activities of your choice (anything from Uno to leg wrestling); which four (4) of these people are you inviting to join you? If you like, you can pick the version of them from any age/era of their lives.

Norfolk brewery to host adult-only Easter egg hunt. Did anyone else's mind go to a dirtier place than the reality is? It's beer tickets in the eggs. And candy and toys, which aren't that adult. I expect there should at least be some cussing. Maybe some drunks. Probably not nudity. I guess they just hate kids. Fair enough.

All the news that's fit to print tells us that “the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned of 'impending doom' from a potential fourth surge of the pandemic.” Keep it wrapped until you're vaxxed. Godspeed, good people.

That said, whenever our annual summit resumes being in-person, we have the sign at the door, ready to roll. 

Anthem to a layoff / Appreciating 80's Clapton

As most of you have heard, I was laid off in mid-March. It was for the best, to be honest. I hated my 60 y/o boss and her 60 y/o boss, both of whom enjoyed screaming and yelling at subordinates in a toxic, bureaucratic, heavily political atmosphere.  It was a bad match, like when you realize you have a boyfriend/girlfriend who is totally crazypants and you need to get out, despite the reasonable paycheck/sex. I needed them to break up with me for a couple specific reasons, and it happened. Life is too short for that nonsense.

With that said, it has not been a great time to be an out-of-work Wall Streeter. The model is changing for my industry, and not for the better. I looked hard at other industries and other cities, and even went to a franchise convention. Hooters was there! Not sure the wifey would love that one.

While unemployed, I was able to get to the gym quite a bit, because no job. So I had that going for me. As a creature of habit, I set a nice routine. I job-seeked (job-sought?) in the morning, ate a keto lunch at 1130, hit the gym at 1 and scooped kids from school at 3, often seeing my pal Zman there.

I realized one day in May that I was playing the same song every day on my five-minute drive to the gym without intentionally realizing it. It was a song I stumbled onto the previous winter, an 80's Clapton tune that I first heard Deep Tracks play on Sirius. I have come to realize I am a bit of a sucker for 80's Clapton. I love Forever Man, and will admit that when I was a kid watching Spacecamp, I registered the scene where bad boy junior astronaut Tate Donovan rolls into camp in a Jeep cranking that song. I remember thinking that was very cool. I finally got a Jeep in 2001, but I'm not sure I ever cranked Clapton while peeling into space camp.

(If you want to see the scene that I remembered, go to the 4:09 part of this clip here. It does not really hold up. I was not cool at age 11 and did not realize that aspiring to be like Chris Knight from Real Genius was not a valid life goal.)

Anyhoo, the tune that became my unemployement anthem, the one I cranked on my way to the gym every day, is Ain't Going Down, from Clapton's 1983 album Money and Cigarettes. I can't tell you why it resonated with me like it did, but messages like we're all lucky to be alive, and I still got something left to say hit a mark.

That song reminded me to stay humble and focused in my search, as I sought to keep providing for myself and three other important people in my life. After a couple months of keto lunches, pec wailing and job searching, I linked up with a former boss and former colleague who did not know I was on the beach. There was some mutual courting, and things came together quickly and cleanly, allowing me a couple more weeks off and a quick family vacation.

So enjoy the song below. And do yourself a favor and be kind to the next decent person who tells you they are out of a job. You can take the measure of a man/woman by the way they respond to you when you tell them you are unemployed and want to have a chat with them.



I think I will play this song on my commute on Monday morning, but maybe not again for a while after that. Thanks Eric. And thank you, Spacecamp, even though you tried to pretend Lea Thompson and Kelly Preston were unattractive nerds.