It's been about three-and-a-half years (!) since our last edition of Know Your Minor League Mascot. The official mascot of the Richmond AA team is the Flying Squirrels, and it also serves as the unofficial mascot of Gheorghe: The Blog due to the squirrel enthusiast on staff. We may, however, have a new unofficial minor league mascot here: the Hartford Yard Goats.
We've been remiss in lauding the Yard Goats here previously. Last year was their first year with this mascot--they were the New Brittain Rock Cats previously. They have two (two!) goat mascots: a green goat named Chompers and a blue goat named Chew Chew. Everyone at G:TB loves goats and I could really use two goats of my own these days.
I learned of the Yard Goats on Sunday morning when the clowns on WFAN were discussing their four game stand in Richmond ... against the Flying Squirrels! Worlds colliding. I'm not sure who to root for, but the Squirrels took two of the first three games.
Yard Goat merch is strong to quite strong. This hat has a lot of character.
This tshirt imploring you to "Don't be a hero, be a goat" has a lot going for it as well.
Nothing, however, packs more bang for your buck (pun!) than this magnet.
For a mere $3 you can tell someone "You will always be a goat to me" without having to actually talk to them. Where were these magnets 25 years ago?
Even if the Yard Goats don't supplant the Flying Squirrels as your favorite minor league mascot, I hope you can find some room in your heart for this herd. Herd up, as they say.
I didn't just consume a bunch of western media on my trip to Japan, I consumed a lot of culture, albeit not as much as I wanted to. I missed my connecting flight from San Francisco to Osaka and had to spend the night in San Francisco. As a result, my jetlag acclimation/cultural exposure day was mostly consumed by my flight the next day. I never had a big block of free time to travel around the prefecture, so I mostly made brief field trips around my hotel. This limited my cultural exposure to shopping centers and train stations, but I think I developed a fair understanding of day-to-day life in the Kansei region based on what stores stock and thus what people buy. Here are my favorite mundane aspects of southern Japanese culture.
It's perfectly acceptable to carry, and use, a washcloth in public
Osaka is really fucking hot and humid in the summer. So much so that even people from India travel to Osaka and step outside from the airport into the Osaka air for the first time they say "Oh hell no, this shit is way too hot and humid." At least that's what my cabbie said.
It's so hot that everyone sweats their asses off constantly, even inside. Women carry fans and parasols. Men carry washcloths, sometimes even bar towels, everywhere including the office. It's remarkably common to be in a meeting with ten other sweaty dudes, all wiping their faces with small hunks of terrycloth. Aside from Jerry Tarkanian, John Thompson and Ford Prefect, you just don't see towels in the workplace.
After sitting in two days of meetings like this I went to the mall across from my hotel and got myself one of these washcloths. They're technically considered a handkerchief--one side of the washcloth has this gauzy cotton material called tenugui sewn onto it, but it's still a washcloth. Here's mine.
Yes, those are bears. Yes, one of those bears has "ZZZ" next to him indicating that he's asleep--I guess the bear doesn't speak Japanese because he doesn't snore in katakana symbols. And yes, another of those bears is wearing a small green fedora. All my other choices were more preposterous, this is what you get for ¥400.
Anyway, I can't say enough good things about these super-absorbant handkerchiefs and being in a place where it's socially acceptable to constantly mop your forehead with one.
Everything is connected by underground tunnels
Because it's so stupidly hot in Osaka in the summer, they built a series of tunnels to connect just about every important location. Sort of like how places like Montreal and Rochester have tunnels to avoid the winter wind and snow, Osaka has tunnels to avoid the summer humidity sun. Now, navigating these tunnels is no bargain. Here's an example.
The main tributaries mercifully have English signage and my iPhone worked everywhere (thank god for Google maps), so I was able to avoid the scorching sun without getting hideously lost. Unfortunately the tunnels are not air conditioned so I still had to constantly wipe my face with my bear washcloth. Nevertheless, being able to get around completely underground is a source of pride among Osakans, and when I told one of my friends that I traveled to a venue over a mile away and back using only the tunnels, he smiled and said he was proud of me. He then fed me some ridiculous food and drink, which I'll describe another time.
They still have record stores
There was a Tower Records 50 feet from my hotel! And it sold actual records! And it had a whole section dedicated to A Tribe Called Quest!
It also had a very very deep selection of hiphop CDs. Here's just a snapshot from the K's:
KMD, Kool G Rap, Kool Keith, Kool Moe Dee and Kurtis Blow!?! I don't know if there's a record store in Brooklyn that has a CD in stock for all of these artists. I was impressed.
The 69 bus is everywhere
Or so it felt. I saw these bus stops all over the place.
The bathrooms are fantastic and the toilets are divine
Japan is spotless. No litter, no gum on the sidewalk, no dog shit on the curb. Immaculate. This includes all the bathrooms, including public bathrooms at the train station. I have suffered through circumstances requiring me to move my bowels at the old Yankee Stadium, an Amtrak Northeast Corridor train, and the worst gas station bathroom in Cape Cod (even Ryan Lochte wouldn't shit there--filthy, no light, the door had no knob mechanism so it wouldn't close, and no toilet paper (which I discovered after I had shat my emergency shit, so I had to wipe with the discarded Marlboro Reds box I found on the floor--had Marlin been there I would've used my underpants but it didn't occur to me at the time).
By contrast, defecating in Japan is a pleasure. Think of the nicest bathroom you've ever used. That's what they're all like. But better. The toilets all have features to make shitting better. They have a fan that sucks away shitty smells and a noisemaker that covers your shitty noises. They have heated seats. And most importantly, they have a washlet, a faucet that pops out of the seat and washes your bung with warm water. It's like taking a shower after every shit, and it's divine. The toilets also have fans to blow you dry after the washlet does its thing, but the fans are often too weak to really dry you so you still need some TP to finish up.
We're redoing zbathroom soon and I'm getting one of these toilets. That's how life-changing they are (and who knew we'd use the "toto asswash" label again?). Anyone who lives without a Toto toilet is a filthy animal.
They love the Simpsons
I don't know if that's true, but I saw these socks at a department store that carried stuff from Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, and all those other fancy brands you see at high-end US malls.
They love sneakers
This wasn't a surprise. Tons of cool kicks. Here's a small sampling.
I should've bought those Takumi Sen joints but I didn't.
They love tchotchkes
Not Chochkie's, tchotchkes. Many stores have these things that look like bubblegum machines, but instead of bubblegum they dispense tchotchkes. For example, are you into Minions? They have a tchotchke machine for that:
Note that Dave, Tom, Jerry, Tim and Stuart (well, Stewart) are also the names of several of our brothers.
Are cats in beanies or babushkas more your thing? Japan has you covered:
It's a great way to get rid of your pocket change before you leave the country.
The greatest regret of my trip, and perhaps the past 10 years of my life, is that I used my last ¥100 coins buying Minions for zson and pink raccoons for zdaughter (they love Minions and raccoons, respectively) only to turn the corner (they have rows and rows of these things at Yodobashi Camera, which is a batshit crazy store deserving of its own post) to find this:
Sorry rob. Next time I'll get you some fingertip-sized flying squirrel tchotchkes.
The internet is awash with obituaries, top 10 lists, tweets, hashtags, photoshopped photos and hosts of other social-media-centric things following Phife's death. I don't feel the need to add to this flotsam in the ether because I celebrate Phife's/ATCQ's music all the time. And instead of saying all of my goodbyes I'm going to continue to continue to do so.
I think society in general doesn't appreciate the great people doing great stuff all around us until they're gone. Not necessarily dead, but once they've stopped doing great stuff. For example, Stefan Edberg was the last true serve-and-volley player in tennis. After he retired I realized I would never get to watch his style ever again. Sure, Sampras and Rafter and Becker had serve-and-volley in their repertoire, but they didn't come to the net on every point. It felt like they took paradise and put up a parking lot, you know? So I promised myself that I would try to appreciate people and things more from then on.
Like Ghostface Killah. I blog about all his crazy weed-infused activities all the time because he's a great lyricist who does greatly crazy stuff.
I also try and find the time to appreciate Snoop Dogg. He has a new video series called "Planet Snoop" in which he narrates nature videos. You can find it on his MerryJane.com website. The first video debuted yesterday and it turns out that Snoop is a fan of G:TB. I say this because he spends his time appreciating rob. Seriously, here's Snoop rooting hard for rob in a fight with what I hope is a non-venomous snake. The language is a little coarse so keep the volume down at work.
So I encourage you to be more like Snoop and me--take the time to appreciate the things around you that make you happy while they're still around you. If all you do is write rhymes eat drink shit and bone without taking the time to admire, for example, the ill C-cups, then with all these trials and tribulations, yo, you'll been affected. So inhale the people around you like a breath of fresh air. You'll be better for it.
Music festivals abound these days, and although not a single one seems to have popped up in my hometown yet (yet . . . business plan forthcoming), they seem to be weekly occurrences in most of the country, at least in the warmer months. A few hometown friends recently embarked upon the Allmans' Wanee Music Festival in Florida with great success, and I'm hearing about other such rocking gatherings all the time. So, I'm giving another music fest a little G:TB press . . . ho hum, right?
Well, this one seems to have several very Gheorghian elements to it. Although I think pigeonholing this event as a "music festival" is likely giving the weekend's other aspects short shrift, it's several days' worth of Appalachian folk/bluegrass/rock/whatever music on the edge of the Pisgah National Forest not far from the Smoky Mountains. Right up rootsy's alley, right?
It takes place down in the Tar Heel State on Memorial Weekend -- in Transylvania County -- not the same Transylvania where Gheorghe: The Dude hails from, but an interesting coincidence.
In Brevard, North Carolina, to be precise, and Rob knows what comes next. Brevard is the newly opened east coast home of Dale's Pale Ale. Oskar Blues Brewery expanded east last year, opening a post in Brevard to serve the massive mid-Atlantic demand stemming from Leesburg and Norfolk, VA. And the brewery is one of the festival's platinum sponsors, natch.
Good music and voluminously hopped mutha of a pale ales in Big Gheorghe's homeland namesake? Need one more G:TB hook? Okay.
What's it called? The White Squirrel Festival, of course, celebrating certain inhabitants of Brevard trees and parks. Our very own white squirrel would be right at home.
There's a parade, 5k/10k White Squirrel races, a white squirrel photo contest, and something called the SquirrelBox Derby. (Different than the one from our undergrad days.) They even have Pisgah Pete, a white spokesquirrel who is reputed to be able to kick Punxsutawney Phil's ass.
So, until we get off our duffs and create our own brewery-sponsored music festival, this will have to do. Anyone looking for something rather Gheorghey to do over Memorial Day (other than hanging in DC with Abe Lincoln Whitney), head on down to western Cackalacky and take in the White Squirrel festival.
In the meantime, here's a highly compelling video of white squirrel Rob (not to be confused with White Power Bill) and his family. Gripping stuff. SFW. SFCP. (Safe for church picnics.)
From across the Pteromyini world, squirrels of all shapes and sizes are coming together in London to root for a pair of our own in the 2012 Summer Olympics.
60kg American Greco-Roman wrestler
Ellis Coleman comes by his "Flying Squirrel" nickname on the strength of his signature takedown, seen here:
The Oak Park, IL native actually has a pet squirrel named Rocky (natch), and while he's unlikely to take home a medal, he's already at the top of the G:TB podium.
In what might pass for a bizarre coincidence if one didn't know of Scuridae's plans for world domination, the U.S. delegation in London boasts another Flying Squirrel. 16 year-old Virginia Beach native Gabby Douglas earned her moniker as a result of her inordinate bounce and athleticism. Unlike Coleman, Douglas is one of two Americans favored to contend for all-around gold, and is poised to lead the U.S. women to their first team gold since 1996.
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